Creations by William Mitchell Page A

right now, without delay.
    The letter was open and unfolded in front of him before he even knew what he’d done, his hands having made the decision for him. The realisation of what it said — and the cold, dead feeling in his stomach — weren’t far behind.
    January–February 2040: Atelognathus Nitoi / Dromiciops Gliroides habitat survey, Valdivian forest Protected Zone
    February 15 2040: Colegio Gregorio Quinteo, Puerto Montt
    February–March 2040: Rhodopis Vesper population study, Azapa Valley
    April 10 2040: Colegio San Martin, Santiago
    April 18–May 4 2040: Myotis Atacamensis survey
    May 10 2040: Escuela Preparatoria Internacional, Antofagasta
    The list continued, a comprehensive account of every research trip, every study and field assignment he’d planned, worded the same way as his own equivalent lists and records, including the school visits and Darwinist lectures he’d be fitting in between them.
    There were pictures too though, of him and of Gillian, the ones of him taken in and around the campus, the ones of Gillian taken at her recent exhibition. The last of them even showed her standing next to one of her paintings, a crested caracara on a Baja California tree branch. The photographer in the crowd, the one who’d set off the detectors — they’d actually walked into the gallery and stood right next to her. They’d got that close.
    The final line of the note simply read:
Three times already we’ve got close enough to kill you both. Still feel safe?
    Max dropped the papers to the floor, and leant back against the doorframe for support. Who are these people? he thought, again and again. Who is doing this to us?
    Then his omni rang, the office number showing in its displaystrip. He answered, hands trembling.
    “Max, it’s Indira, you need to be aware: we’ve had another of those letters delivered.”
    She looked genuinely concerned, as she had been all the way through the ordeal.
    “I’ve had one too,” Max said. “It’s about the GRACE project.”
    “It sounds like the same one. Look, Max, I can’t send you to Chile now, not after this. It would be too much of a risk. I want you to take that ESOS position. I haven’t had your report on it yet but they’ve been in touch today to reiterate how much they want you. I can’t imagine you being unsuitable for the post.”
    Max hadn’t given her his report because he hadn’t written it yet. He simply couldn’t think of what to say, how to take the limited amount he could tell her and boil it down to the “yes” or “no” she wanted to hear. Or the “no” he wanted to give her.
    “Do I get a say?”
    “You do, of course, if there’s a burning reason not to go.”
    “Well, I’d be working away from home for a year, we’d have to rent the house out, I mean —”
    “We can help with that, Max, you know we can. You wouldn’t be the first person we’ve sent on external detachment. Why, are you thinking of turning this down? I need to give them a good reason if so.”
    Again he thought about the incentives they’d shown him, the medical package, and how much it would mean to Gillian and to him. It felt like bait though: bait that he was about to walk in and take with his eyes wide open. The decision was hard, but inevitable.
    “I’ll do it,” he said. “I’ll go.”
    He told Gillian as soon as Indira had rung off. Gillian’s yell of joy was still ringing in his ears minutes later as they stood in her workshop, her arms fast around him, holding him tight.

Chapter 3
    The pool building was large, a wide echoing structure of metal frames and sheets enclosing the ESOS marine test facility. It was hot too, the same punishing humidity as the rest of the island, but here, confined, amplified. Victor led the four of them in then took them over to one corner where the SRS-3 prototype was sitting high and dry on its support rig. There they stopped, Victor and Ross to one side of the machine, Max, Oliver and Safi to the other.
    In a way