“Stipulated,” Banner mutters in a scathing tone. “More like demanded.” He sends me a sideways glance. “Dr. Night wishes to work alone on his research. To have the entire research team relocated from the main observatory.”
I churn this information over, deciding how to use it to my advantage. “I assume that’s a daunting request.”
Banner grunts in confirmation.
“But it’s not entirely a bad one,” I say, earning a confused glare from him. “At least during the evaluation period, to ensure protocols are in place, that safety measures are being taken for the symposium. It would give me the chance to observe him, to work one-on-one, providing him the attention he needs.”
It would give me three months.
His sigh is heavy. “Yes, of course. I’ll see what can be arranged.” A hint of acceptance laces his voice. “Thank you, Dr. Holbrook. I can already tell you’re going to be a valuable asset to Stonehurst.”
I accept his praise with a demure smile. “My pleasure, Dr. Banner.”
Not only does thefemme fatalefirefly have to shine just as bright as her male counterpart, she has to make sure no other predators smother his light.
She has to protect her male, all the while mimicking his flash pattern to lure him closer.
For the first time, astronomers have captured an image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, known as Sagittarius A* — the beating heart of our Milky Way galaxy.
—MICHIO KAKU, ON THE 2022 RELEASE OF THE EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE IMAGE
4
Shadow
The umbra is the darkest, innermost part of a shadow in which all light is blocked, used especially about a shadow made during an eclipse.
—CAMBRIDGE
ORION
My Triumph roars loud enough to nearly drown out the storm. Rain needles my body, tires cutting across the slick asphalt. I throttle the engine, quieting the chaos inside my head as I push my bike faster down the winding road.
Ahead, the soaring spires of Stonehurst rise up through town. The domed structure near the top punches past mist like a dark beacon.
I grip the bars until my gloved knuckles ache, the rumble of the bike chasing the static clawing at my skull, daring me to push the machine harder.
I need the danger, the rush.
The noise has become a near-constant now. I blink hard against the dull throb behind my eyes, feeling the pressure build at my temples like waves battering a seawall.
It started as a shadow, a lurking silhouette at the edge of my awareness. Unseen, unfelt.
Untouched.
This void slowly grew, swallowing until the absence itself began to hum with a discordant resonance.
Down the incline, I pick up speed, savoring the rush of adrenaline until the road veers off. I downshift and swerve into the congested morning traffic, slipping in and out between cars. As I’m forced to slow, I swipe my visor clear, creeping closer to the high gates of the university.
Aspen trees bend against the wind, the sun blotted out by swollen clouds. I tilt my face skyward, finding the seam of light slicing through.
It’s become a compulsion to look up. After a lifetime spent searching the farthest reaches of the universe, fascinated by space and stars and planets, there’s nothing on this one I find captivating enough to steal my gaze from the sky.
Plagued by more setbacks than discoveries, it’s a fucking maddening endeavor. Those few rapturous moments that keep me obsessively searching, immersed in a field of quantum mechanics and observation, tirelessly working with the same four fundamental forces.
And yet, the sheer enormity of the cosmos asserts there must be something more that shapes our existence, some elusive agent hidden in the dark sector of the universe.
In astrophysics, anything dark is simply unknown.
