EXODUS
In the day ye eate thereof the tree of life,
then your eyes shal bee opened:
and yee shall bee as Gods, knowing good and euill.
Eve tooke of the fruit thereof,
and did eate,
and gaue also vnto her husband with her.
And the eyes of them both were opened,
and they knew that they were naked.
—GENESIS 3:5–7 (KJV, 1611 ABRIDGED)
One year later
Kennedy Center of Performing Arts
Washington, DC
23 feet above sea level
Milo Luttrell leaned back in the plush third-row seat, adjusting the jacket of his English-cut suit. He patted the ticket pocket, feeling the two VIP entrance passes within the soft gray fabric. Bridget sat to his left, absentmindedly touching the string of pearls around her neck as she watched the screen onstage, across which splashed a beautiful montage of Tanzanian savanna and oasis. She wore a shimmering yellow dress of a golden hue not unlike the glow they’d discovered deep within the earth.
The crowd murmured, beginning to clap as the conference keynote speaker entered from the wings. The lights dipped as the music swelled, a single spotlight drawing Charlie Garza to the center of the stage. He wore a tight athletic turtleneck that showed his broad shoulders and muscled arms. Behind him, the slide flicked over to a scene of ruin: a single rusty bulldozer idling before the collapsed entrance of the cave. It next showed the destroyed surface camp, the still-smoldering tents, trailers, and cremated bodies scattered across the grasslands. Charlie’s profile stood tall in the foreground, arms crossed, a look of steely determination in his eyes—a hero.
“This is a story of courage,” began Charlie, voice booming from hidden speakers as he scanned across the two thousand seats, every one of them filled. “This is a story of perseverance. Of sacrifice. When disaster struck my expedition into an uncharted Tanzanian supercave, my team of eight men and women were stranded nearly three thousand feet below the surface of the earth, with no hope of rescue. We soon learned the caverns had already claimed other explorers—in 1901, Lord Riley DeWar and nearly twenty men entered what is now known as Brunsfield’s Cave, never to return. In following their footsteps, our lives nearly ended in the same dark tunnels.”
The crowd murmured as Charlie paused for effect.
“But what I learned in those depths enabled me to save myself and three of my comrades,” he continued. “These lessons in leadership and the capacity of the human spirit changed my life—and it can change yours as well.”
Milo shot Bridget his best well-what-did-you-expect look. She just scowled, already irritated and ready to leave. Charlie continued the self-serving speech, but Milo had stopped listening.
He and Bridget had been hounded by the press for months since their emergence from the earth, journalists of all stripes demanding answers to the disappearance of a renowned Wall Street pharma magnate, the brief flare-up of an ancient virus, and the illegal nature of the expedition itself. Charlie soon appointed himself the survivors’ spokesman and adopted the mantle with great gusto, to the profound relief of the other three. He got his television deal—and a book deal—and a long-term outdoor apparel deal, meaning the rest were more or less left alone.
Bridget quit her job not long after her homecoming; concentrating her efforts instead into NeuroGenysis, her burgeoning Maryland-based biotech startup. Just months in, the industry was already buzzing about her cognitive mapping initiative, a project equal in scope and ambition to the first sequencing of the human genome. The potential medical implications were groundbreaking, to say nothing of the expected benefit to artificial intelligence research and the science of human potential.
It took Georgetown a little longer to fire Milo, by failing to renew his contract under the auspices of “moving the department in a new direction.” By the time they let him go, Bridget was ready to take him on as her corporate Chief Operating Officer, her fourth hire as President and CEO of NeuroGenysis. Any jitters felt by founding investors at his unconventional background and relative lack of corporate experience soon evaporated once exposed to his singularly uncommon intellect and powers of deduction. Milo’s photographic memory never failed to impress, whether he was memorizing the names and faces of a thousand conference attendees within seconds or reciting textbook-precise explanations of NeuroGenysis technologies. Combining his abilities with an unblinking devotion to Bridget’s vision, Milo had already become quite a force for the nascent company.
The phone in Milo’s pocket buzzed, ringer set to silent. Milo surreptitiously snuck a peek at the screen.
“It’s Joanne,” Milo whispered to Bridget. “Probably for you—do you want to take it?”
Bridget thought for a moment before answering. “This could be about the offer. Yes—I ought to talk to her.”
Phone still vibrating within his pocket, Milo took Bridget by the hand and led her past rows of knees and to the aisle, darkness and soft carpeting masking their escape from the speech.
“Where is Joanne these days?” asked Bridget.
“Thailand with friends, last time I heard,” answered Milo. It was only the latest in the barrister’s far-flung travels, her response to the suffocating persistence of British press photographers. As much as her social circle loved joining Joanne on her lengthy vacations, they were not yet used to her disconcerting habit of disappearing into deep, dark places without so much as a battery-powered penlight.
Charlie continued with the overproduced, pompous speech as Bridget and Milo exited the rear doors of the opera house, stepping into the long, high-ceilinged corridor. They hadn’t made it in time—the phone had stopped buzzing.
“You’ll have to keep it short with Joanne when you call her back,” said Milo. “Don’t forget—you have the phone interview with Lillian at Forbes in twenty minutes.”
Bridget grabbed Milo by his elbow, pulling him toward her so she could give him a peck on the cheek. “Thanks,” she said. “I like a man who is cognitively incapable of forgetting appointments and anniversaries.”
The pair stepped out of the Kennedy Center and onto the grand, airy balcony that looked over the Potomac River. They stood at the railing, Bridget closing her eyes as she took in the soft summer breeze. Milo wrapped his hands around her waist from behind.
“Should I call Joanne back?”
“In a minute. Let’s enjoy the sun for a moment longer.”
THE END