The Pine Hollow Public Library had never been so crowded.
Maya counted the chairs for the third time—one hundred twenty-two, no, one hundred twenty-four—arranged in neat rows in front of the small improvised stage. People kept coming through the main door: families with children, college students home for the summer, elderly people with worn copies of old Wexler books clutched under their arms.
"One hundred twenty-four," she said out loud.
"You already said that." Jenna Martinez appeared at her side with a roll of duct tape and an amused expression. "Twice."
Jenna was one of those people who always seemed to be in motion—not restless, but energetic in a contagious way. As tall as Maya but with a stage presence that came from four years of theater, she had straight black hair cut in a precise bob that framed a face with strong features. Her dark eyes always shone with a subtle irony, as if constantly evaluating whether something deserved to be taken seriously or affectionately mocked. She wore a vintage Pixies t-shirt and ripped jeans—her "volunteer uniform" that Mrs. Patterson, the librarian, had given up commenting on years ago.
"I want to be sure."
"You're sure. Trust me." Jenna handed her the roll. "Actually, can you help me with the microphone cables? The sound tech says there's a problem with the connection, but I think he's just an idiot."
Maya followed her toward the stage, grateful to have something to do. Something that wasn't thinking about Nathan, the fight, the book she'd left him and that he probably would never open.
"Anyway," said Jenna as she fiddled with the cables, "it's like surreal that this is our last event here. End of an era."
"End of an era that only started to look good for college applications," Maya replied with a half smile.
They'd both chosen to volunteer at the public library to accumulate credits for college admission. They'd graduated the week before and technically didn't need to be there anymore—Stanford had already accepted them, the extracurricular credits had done their job. But when Mrs. Patterson had asked if they could help with the Wexler event, both had said yes without even thinking. Maybe out of habit. Maybe because the idea of spending the summer doing nothing seemed strange after four years of constant activity. Or maybe, simply, because they actually liked it.
"Hey, speak for yourself. I did it out of pure passion." Jenna laughed. "Okay no, I was lying. Totally for Stanford. But then I actually enjoyed it, so does it count?"
"It counts." Maya fixed a cable that had gotten tangled. "Even though we technically don't need it anymore. I mean, we're in. In three months we'll be in California complaining about assigned readings."
"You'll complain about assigned readings. I'll complain about the difficulty of convincing professors that my essay deserves more than a B+." Jenna paused. "I still can't believe we're going to the same university. Like, what are the odds?"
"Considering we both applied early admission and both got accepted to the Humanities faculty? I'd say the odds were in our favor."
"True. Though you'll have like a million other hyper-competitive aspiring journalists to compete with, while I'll be the only poor soul in Comparative Literature who still has to figure out how to explain it to my grandma."
Maya laughed—the first genuine laugh of the day. "At least we'll be confused together. And with a nice campus."
"Amen."
Jenna was one of the few people Maya could call a friend—they'd met freshman year when both had signed up for drama club, and since then had maintained that kind of light, unpretentious friendship that survives high school.
Jenna tapped her shoulder, then stopped, observing her. "Hey. Are you sure you're okay? With the whole Nathan thing, I mean."
Maya sighed. "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. Ask me in two months when I'm three thousand miles away and have to decide if it's still worth thinking about."
"For what it's worth," Jenna said quietly, "I think you did the right thing. Telling him the truth. Even if it hurts."
"Yeah. Too bad the truth doesn't seem to change anything."
"Okay, spill."
Maya stopped mid-action. "What?"
"You have the 'I fought with Nathan' face." Jenna turned around, arms crossed. "Which is different from the 'Nathan ignored me' face, which is different from the 'Nathan did that thing with the dead eyes' face. This is the real fight face."
"I don't have a face."
"Maya."
Silence. Maya felt something tremble behind her eyes—that annoying thing that happened every time someone asked how she was and she didn't have a ready answer.
"It was... a disaster," she admitted. "I said things to him. True things, but... not in the right way."
"Like?"
"Like I miss him. Like he's been gone for two years and I'm tired of pretending not to notice." Maya ran a hand through her hair. "Like he doesn't get to decide who bears his weight..."
Jenna whistled softly. "Heavy stuff..."
"Too heavy. I should have..." Maya shook her head. "I don't know. I should have been more patient. More understanding. More—"
"You've been patient for two years, Maya." Jenna moved closer, put a hand on her shoulder. "Two years watching him disappear piece by piece, smiling when he tells you he's fine, pretending to believe it. At some point you had to explode."
"But not like that. Not today." Maya looked toward the library door, as if expecting to see Nathan walk in. "I bought him the book. I wanted to get it signed by Wexler for him. I wanted..."
I wanted it to be like that night, she thought. The parking lot, the stars, the real Nathan.
"Will he come?"
Maya shook her head. "No. I left him the book and walked away."
"Good."
Maya looked at her, surprised. "Good?"
"Yes, good." Jenna shrugged. "Look, Maya, I love you. And I know you feel something deep for Nathan, even if you never say it out loud. But you can't spend your life waiting for someone to decide to let you in. At some point you have to..." she searched for the word, "...you have to live your life. With or without him."
The words hit Maya harder than expected.
"It's not that simple."
"I know." Jenna smiled—a kind smile, without judgment. "But tonight there's a Nobel Prize winner who'll talk about stars and the universe and all those nerdy things you like too, even if you pretend you don't. So maybe, just for tonight, you can try to enjoy the moment?"
Maya opened her mouth to respond, but in that moment the main door opened and a murmur went through the crowd.
Elias Wexler had arrived.
***
The first thing Maya noticed were the bodyguards.
Two men in dark jackets, earpieces, impassive expressions. They moved at Wexler's sides like shadows, eyes scanning the room methodically, professionally. Too professionally for a conference in a small-town library.
Strange, Maya thought. Her instinct—what journalism professors at Stanford would call a "nose for news"—activated immediately. He's a physicist, not a rockstar. Why does he need protection?
Wexler himself was exactly like in the photos—a man in his sixties, messy gray hair, round glasses that gave him a distracted professor air. He wore a wrinkled blazer over a light blue shirt, and under his arm he carried a copy of his book—the same book Maya had bought for Nathan.
But there was something in the way he moved. Maya had seen him often enough—interviews, documentaries, TED talks she'd watched to prepare for the event. In those videos, Wexler seemed relaxed, almost playful when talking about physics. Now instead...
Now he looked like a man expecting the worst.
His eyes moved too quickly, scanning the exits. His shoulders were tense. Every time someone got too close, one of the guards interposed themselves gently but firmly.
"Why does he have bodyguards?" Maya whispered to Jenna.
"I don't know. Maybe he's like... famous famous?" Jenna shrugged. "Or maybe all Nobel Prize winners have bodyguards and we didn't know."
Maya wasn't convinced. She'd seen documentaries about scientists, interviews, conferences. None of them had bodyguards. Not even Stephen Hawking, when he was alive.
And there was something else. The way one of the guards had positioned himself near the side door—the one that led to the parking lot. He wasn't watching the crowd. He was watching outside, through the glass, as if expecting someone.
But there was no time to think about it. The librarian—Mrs. Patterson, a petite woman with glasses on a chain—was already climbing onto the stage for the introductions.
"Welcome, welcome everyone!" Her voice crackled in the microphone. "It's an extraordinary honor to host this evening Professor Elias Wexler, Nobel Prize winner in physics and author of the bestseller Echoes from the Void..."
Maya positioned herself on the side of the room, near the table with the numbered tickets for the signing line. From there she could see everything—the attentive audience, Wexler smiling politely but with eyes that kept moving, the bodyguards motionless at the sides of the stage.
One of the guards—the one closest to the side door—kept a hand near his jacket. Not inside, but near. Ready.
For what?
"...so, without further ado, please welcome Professor Wexler!"
Applause. Wexler climbed onto the stage, adjusted the microphone, cleared his throat. For a moment, when he started speaking, the tension seemed to dissolve.
"Thank you, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here in..." he checked a note, "...Pine Hollow. What a fascinating name for a town. Makes me think of something hidden, secret." He smiled. "Appropriate, I'd say, for an evening when we'll talk about what the universe keeps hidden."
The crowd laughed. Maya relaxed slightly. Whatever was happening, Wexler was still capable of captivating an audience.
"My book," Wexler continued, holding up the copy he had in his hand, "is about echoes. Echoes from the void—which isn't empty at all, as we'll discover. The universe is full of whispers, signals, messages just waiting to be deciphered."
He talked about gravitational waves, black holes colliding billions of light-years away, how every particle in the universe "remembers" everything that happened to it through quantum entanglement.
"Two particles," he said, eyes shining behind his glasses, "separated by unimaginable distances, that remain connected instantaneously. Einstein called it 'spooky action at a distance'—and he didn't mean it as a compliment."
Laughter from the audience.
"But the point isn't whether we like it or not. The point is that it works. The universe doesn't ask our permission to be strange."
Maya found herself really listening. There was something in the way Wexler spoke—the same passion she'd seen in Nathan, that night in the parking lot. The same light in his eyes.
When you talk like that, she'd said to Nathan, it feels like everything makes sense.
Where was he now? Home, probably. Alone with his telescope and his ghosts.
I should have insisted he come. I should have—
No. She'd given him an opportunity. She'd bought him the book. She'd told him the truth. If he chose to stay closed in his shell, it wasn't her fault.
But it still hurt.
"...and this brings us to the fundamental question," Wexler was saying. "What would happen if we could create our own echo? If we could send a message through the fabric of spacetime itself?"
Another pause. This time longer. Wexler's eyes moved toward one of the bodyguards, then returned to the audience.
Maya thought again about Nathan. About quantum mechanics explained with a pebble on a car hood. About the wave function and the witch who forces reality to choose.
I miss you, she'd said to Nathan that afternoon.
And she still meant it.
"...so the question we must ask ourselves is—"
The lights went out.
Not gradually, not with a flicker of warning. One instant they were there, the next instant they weren't.
Total darkness.
And in the darkness, Maya heard something she shouldn't have heard: one of the bodyguards saying, in a low but clear voice:
"It's happening. Now."
***
A murmur went through the crowd—surprise, confusion, some nervous giggles. Maya felt Jenna grab her arm.
"What's happening?"
"I don't know. Maybe the power went out—"
"Everyone stay calm!" Mrs. Patterson's voice, from somewhere in the darkness. "It's just a blackout, nothing to—"
Maya pulled out her phone to use the flashlight.
The screen was black. Completely black.
She pressed the power button. Nothing.
"My phone's not working," Jenna said, her voice higher than normal. "Maya, my phone's not—"
"Mine either."
Around them, the same murmur was transforming into something else. Alarmed voices, chairs scraping on the floor, the sound of people getting up in the dark.
"The emergency lights aren't activating," someone said.
"Nothing works. Nothing!"
But Maya wasn't listening. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and what she saw made her freeze.
On the stage, the two bodyguards had already moved. Not like surprised people—like professionals executing a plan. One had grabbed Wexler by the arm, the other had pulled something from his jacket—a flashlight, maybe, or something else.
"Professor, we're going. Now."
"Yes." Wexler's voice was firm but tense. "Yes, I understand. The side exit?"
"The side exit. Quick."
There was no surprise in Wexler's voice. There was fear, yes. But also... acceptance. As if he knew this moment would come. As if he'd been preparing.
They knew, Maya realized. All three of them knew something would happen. They were waiting.
Her aspiring journalist instinct took over. Without thinking, she moved toward the stage. Toward that voice. Toward the story that her brain was already cataloging as "important, strange, dangerous."
"Maya!" Jenna's voice, from somewhere behind her. "Maya, where are you going?"
But Maya was already at the side door, the one leading to the parking lot. She slipped out into the warm evening air, her heart pounding hard.
Observe. Notice. Understand.
***
The parking lot was immersed in an unnatural darkness.
The streetlights were off. The car lights were off. Even the distant glow of Pine Hollow—the shops on Main Street, the streetlights of residential streets—had disappeared. As if someone had pulled a black blanket over the entire world.
Maya stopped at the threshold, her eyes trying to adjust to the darkness. She heard voices—the bodyguards, Wexler—but couldn't see them clearly.
Then the moon came out from behind a cloud, and the parking lot filled with a pale, spectral light.
The bodyguards were pushing Wexler toward a black SUV parked near the entrance. One of them was fumbling with the keys, then tried to open the door manually.
"Let's try to start it anyway."
The sound of the engine not starting. Click, click, nothing.
"The car's electronic control unit is dead."
"Then we have to move on foot."
"Toward where? If they've hit the whole area—" the guard gestured toward the total darkness around them, "—it means they're already here. Very close."
"Protocol says to get him away from the public event. Let's head toward—"
Maya crouched behind a hedge that bordered the edge of the parking lot. Her heart was beating so hard she was sure they could hear it.
Then she heard another sound. Different. Older.
A diesel engine. The characteristic rhythmic beat, that deep, irregular sound that modern cars didn't have anymore.
Headlights appeared at the end of the street. A van—faded gray, small, at least twenty years old if not older. The kind of vehicle no one noticed, that could be anywhere without raising suspicion.
But it was moving too fast. Too purposefully.
The bodyguards saw it at the same moment.
"Contact. Professor, stay behind me—"
But it was too late.
The van braked sharply. The side doors flew open—they weren't normal doors, Maya noticed, they'd been modified to open faster—and figures emerged.
Six. Maybe seven. Hard to count in the darkness.
They wore completely black tactical clothing—not jeans and jackets, but operational suits, tactical vests, combat boots. Balaclavas that completely covered their faces. Gloves. No exposed skin. No identifiable details.
And they had weapons.
Maya recognized the rifles by their silhouettes—short, stocky. Not hunting rifles. Something military.
"On the ground! Hands up! Everyone!"
The voice came from one of them—the tallest one, the one who moved like a leader. But the voice was... wrong. Metallic. Distorted. As if speaking through an electronic filter.
Voice modulator, Maya realized. They don't want anyone to recognize the voice.
The bodyguards reacted instantly—hands going to holsters, bodies interposing themselves between the attackers and Wexler.
"Back! We're armed and—"
Fsst.
A muffled sound, followed by a hiss. The first guard brought a hand to his neck, pulled away something—a dart, small, with a red tuft at the end—then slowly slumped against the SUV.
"Don't shoot!" shouted the second guard, hands rising. "We won't shoot. Let the professor go and—"
Fsst.
The other guard fell too. He bent forward, tried to stay on his feet, then collapsed to his knees and finally to the ground.
Tranquilizers, Maya thought. Fast. Professional.
Wexler remained alone, standing in the empty parking lot, surrounded by figures in black. His hands were trembling but his face was strangely calm. Resigned.
"I knew you'd come," he said. His voice was steady. "Sooner or later, you'd find me."
The tall man—the one with the voice modulator—stepped forward. He moved with military confidence, every step measured, controlled.
"Professor Wexler." The distorted voice resonated metallically in the night air. "Come with us. Don't resist."
"And if I refuse?"
"That's not an option."
Two of the figures approached the bodyguards on the ground. One pulled out plastic zip ties, the other checked both their pulses.
"Stable. They'll be out for at least two hours."
"Load them onto the vehicle. Both of them."
Maya felt a chill down her spine. They're not leaving them here. They're taking them away. They don't want witnesses. They don't want anyone to know what happened here.
"Wait a moment." Wexler took a step back. "They have nothing to do with this. They're just—"
"Witnesses, Professor. As you well know, we can't afford witnesses."
"But they didn't do anything! They're just—"
"Silence."
The word came out cold, metallic, final.
Two of the figures grabbed the bodyguards—lifted them with an ease that suggested training and strength—and dragged them toward the van. They loaded them inside with efficient, mechanical movements.
"Now it's your turn, Professor."
Wexler looked at the van, then at the figures surrounding him. Silence. Only the rhythmic beat of the diesel engine.
"Can I at least know where you're taking me?"
"You'll find out soon."
"And if I scream? If I call for help?"
The tall man made a gesture.
"We'd prefer you remain conscious, Professor. But it's not strictly necessary. Your choice."
Wexler closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Then nodded.
"I'm coming. Voluntarily."
"Wise choice."
But it wasn't enough. Two figures approached anyway. One pulled out a black hood—thick fabric, opaque—and put it over his head. The other tied his hands in front of his body with plastic zip ties.
"Wait— this is— there's no need—"
"Standard procedure, Professor. You must not know where we're going."
Wexler's voice was muffled by the hood, the words confused. The figures guided him—with an almost paradoxical gentleness—toward the van. They made him climb in, positioned themselves at his sides.
Maya saw everything. Every detail.
The way they moved—coordinated, synchronized, as if they'd rehearsed this operation a hundred times. The fact that they hadn't said one word more than necessary. The rifles that only fired tranquilizers. The completely anonymous clothing. The old anonymous diesel van. The bodyguards loaded together with Wexler.
This isn't a random kidnapping, Maya thought. It's a military operation. Planned to the minute. They know exactly what they're doing.
The last figure climbed into the van. The doors closed with a metallic thud.
The diesel engine revved up. The van backed up, turned, drove away down the road.
The headlights disappeared into the darkness, swallowed by the lightless night of Pine Hollow.
Silence.
The parking lot was empty. No bodyguards on the ground. No sign of struggle. Not even a shell casing, a dart, nothing.
They'd cleaned up everything. As if nothing had happened.
Maya remained crouched behind the hedge, motionless, her heart beating so hard it hurt her chest. Her hands were shaking. Her whole body was shaking.
From the library came confused voices, the sound of people trying to get out, to understand what was happening. Soon someone would arrive. Someone would ask where Wexler was.
And what would Maya say? I saw men dressed in black kidnap a Nobel Prize winner and his bodyguards with a diesel van?
Her brain was racing, cataloging, recording every single detail.
What did I just see?
And more important: What do I do now?
I should go back inside. I should tell someone everything. But say what? With what proof? The parking lot was empty. Clean. As if nothing had ever happened.
She was the only witness. The only person who had seen everything.
Document. Remember. Tell.
The basic principles of journalism she'd studied, that had made her fall in love with this path and that had pushed her to choose Stanford.
But who would believe her? An eighteen-year-old girl saying she'd seen a military operation in a Pennsylvania town?
The stars shone above her—the North Star must be there somewhere, fixed and motionless while everything else spun.
But Maya couldn't find it.
She couldn't find anything.
She remained there, behind the hedge, while the world around her continued to make no sense, and the voices from the library grew louder, and the empty parking lot testified only to silence.
And Maya didn't know what to do.
But she knew one thing: something terrible was happening. Something much bigger than Pine Hollow, than a blackout, than a library conference. And she was the only one who had seen it.