A week earlier, when Nichols had offered it to me, I was ready to do the transplant. If anything, the case for it was now greater. We needed the transplant to access Damien Cleary’s memory stream. I needed it to have any hope of continuing my career. And not simply to continue it—to become the preeminent historian of my generation. Of any generation.

Why, then, was I so torn? Was it this woman lying beside me?Would I really lose her? Did I love her? Did I even know what real love was?

It’s not like I hadn’t had my share of relationships. But the longest relationship I had ever had was in Barcelona during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college. Since then, I had never met anyone I was drawn to on more than a hormonal level. Until now. Could I abandon that—even for a potentially greater good?

To my shock, a final consideration weighed even more heavily: God. Two months before I would have considered the issue irrelevant. Questions about God were the mental gymnastics of intellectual primitives. God was a fairy tale invented millennia ago by people who believed that the sun revolved around the earth and that fire was a basic element.

I had done the research, however. As a historian, I could no longer dismiss the possibility that Jesus Christ was the appearance of a supreme being in human form, that he rose from the dead, and that he offered true life to those willing to join themselves to his Spirit in faith. The experience of several transplant patients corresponded to that paradigm. Ray Caldwell was certainly no neanderthal. Quite the opposite.

If connection with God was a reality, could I choose to forfeit it—forever? Who could make such a choice if that was the reason for our existence? Didn’t self-sacrifice have a natural limit?

The minutes passed. No answer came. No answer would come, I knew. I would have to choose.

40

The restaurant, 120 stories up, rotated 360 degrees every hour, giving diners a constant, awe-inspiring view of the Hong Kong skyline and, to the north, mainland China. Despite my distaste for VR restaurants, I could have happily visited this one regularly.

The maître d’ led me to an empty table by a window. Two minutes later Bryson Nichols arrived. He sat in a chair across from me.

“How do you like the view, Professor?”

“Magnificent. I’ve never heard of this VR restaurant.”

Nichols smiled. “No one has. It’s my own creation. All my VR spots are my own creations.” He looked across the room and nodded. A waiter appeared.

“Care for some wine?” Nichols asked.

“Yes, please.”

He glanced at the waiter. “Geoffrey, a bottle of Pinot Gris.”