“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?”

JOB 38:1–7 (NIV)

WE ARE THE...

WE ARE THE LAST OF OUR KIND, A COLONY OF HUMAN BEINGS FROM THE EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. WE LIVE IN THE MOUNTAINS OF WHAT WAS ONCE IDAHO, IN A TOWN CALLED WAYWARD PINES. OUR COORDINATES ARE 44 DEGREES, 13 MINUTES, 0 SECONDS NORTH, AND 114 DEGREES, 56 MINUTES, 16 SECONDS WEST. IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?

—Portion of a voice and Morse code radio transmission broadcast across all shortwave bands out of Wayward Pines superstructure on a continuous loop for the last eleven years

PRELUDE

PRELUDE

DAVID PILCHER

DAVID PILCHER

SUPERSTRUCTURE
WAYWARD PINES
FOURTEEN YEARS AGO

He opens his eyes.

Frigid.

Shivering.

Head throbbing.

Someone stands over him wearing a surgical mask, face a blur.

He doesn’t know where he is or, for that matter, who he is.

A clear mask is lowered to his mouth.

The voice—a woman’s—urges him, “Take a long, deep breath, and keep breathing in.”

The gas he inhales is warm, concentrated oxygen. It flows down his windpipe and hits his lungs with a welcome burst of heat. Though her mouth is covered, the woman leaning over him is smiling at him with her eyes.

“Better?” she asks.

He nods. Her face grows sharper. And her voice . . . Something familiar there. Not the timbre itself, but the way he feels toward it. Protective. Almost paternal.

“Does your head hurt?” she asks.

He nods.

“That’ll pass soon. I know you’re feeling a lot of disorientation.”

Nod.

“That’s completely normal. Do you know where you are?”

Headshake.

“Do you know who you are?”

Headshake.

“That’s okay too. You’ve only had blood in your veins for thirty-five minutes. It usually takes a couple of hours to find your bearings.”

He stares up at the lights overhead: long fluorescents, far too bright.

He opens his mouth.

“Don’t try to talk yet. Would you like me to explain what’s happening?”

Nod.

“Your name is David Pilcher.”

He thinks that piece of information sounds right. The name feels like his own on a level he can’t quite grasp—at the very least, like a star that belongs in his sky.

“You’re not in a hospital. You haven’t been in a car accident or suffered a heart attack. Nothing like that.”

He wants to say that he can’t move. That he feels as cold as death and afraid.