“Fuck. The years hit me hard.”
Nolan bursts out laughing.
“Good to see you too, kid.”
His twenty-two-year-old self leans towards him and narrows his eyes.
“Wait. You said we've aged fifteen years?”
“Fifteen.”
“Only?”
“You're really hard on yourself.”
“The beard works. Shoulders too. Still got the hair… yeah, I'll take it.”
The younger man points at Nolan's temple.
“And that?”
Nolan runs two fingers over his scar.
“That survived too. But wait… You still have that monstrosity!”
“My shirt?”
“Mum was right. You look like you're wearing a tablecloth.”
“Traitor. She said the same thing again this morning.”
“Sounds like her.”
“And she's still wrong.”
“Sounds like you…”
Silence.
“What?”
“I'd forgotten. Your face. Our face… You're handsome.”
One eyebrow rises.
“Have we become a narcissist?”
“We've learnt to be a little kinder to ourselves. And there's something about the way you carry yourself…”
“What?”
“Like the next fifteen years had better live up to your expectations.”
The younger man bursts out laughing.
“Do they?”
Nolan smiles.
“They look nothing like what you're imagining.”
“Good. I'll check.”
He counts on his fingers.
“Degree?”
“Yes.”
“Top of the class?”
Nolan grimaces.
“Graduating was already pretty good. I know what you're thinking, but there were mitigating circumstances.”
“Such as?”
“A global pandemic.”
The young man's mouth hangs open.
“You're kidding.”
“No. Like in the films we love. Lockdowns, closed borders, masks. The whole mess.”
“And we still graduate!”
That satisfied smile immediately returns.
“That. Right there. Keep that.”
“What?”
“That smile.”
“You're starting to sound like an old man again.”
“Next question.”
“Dad's car…”
“No. We didn't get it as a graduation present.”
“Cheapskate!”
“Be nice to him.”
The younger Nolan has already moved on.
“Anyway! Bali?”
“Oh, shit. I'd forgotten about Bali.”
“How can you forget Bali? After graduation: two months, surfing, beach, no responsibilities.”
“You can't surf.”
“That's precisely why we're going.”
“Well, we didn't.”
The younger man clutches his chest.
“Now you're really hurting me. This is a disaster! Not top of the class, no car, no Bali. We're losers! Why the hell didn't we go to Bali?”
“First the pandemic. Then the world became… complicated.”
“What does that mean? Stop talking in riddles.”
“The tensions you're already hearing about didn't go away. Some got worse. Others were added to them. For a long time, everyone thought it would stay contained.”
“Well, yeah. There have always been wars… You don't stop living because of everything that makes the news.”
“This time, it doesn't stay contained.”
The younger man's smile disappears.
“You're kidding. Humanity does it again? A world war?”
Nolan nods.
“Worldwide.”
The young man breathes out slowly.
“Fuck. Who wins?”
“No one.”
Silence.
Then the younger man frowns at something behind Nolan.
“Wait. Where are you? Where am I, fifteen years from now?”
“You've just found out there's going to be a world war, and that's your question?”
“I'm trying to work out what state it left us in.”
Nolan smiles.
“Well, first observation: we survived it. What are those pipes?”
“Ventilation, water, a few utility lines.”
The younger man's face brightens.
“You're in a lab? Looks like we did all right after all.”
“I admire your optimism.”
“Where is it?”
“At the CRAOM.”
“Never heard of it.”
“That's normal. It doesn't exist yet for you. CRAOM: Centre de recherche et d'observation de Mahavel — the Mahavel Research and Observation Centre. A facility built on Réunion Island, partly underground.”
“And we work there?”
“We live there.”
The younger man smiles again.
“So, staff accommodation.”
“Not exactly.”
The smile lingers for a few seconds. Then it disappears.
“You live underground?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Several years.”
The younger man looks at the pipes, the bare walls, the light above Nolan.
“The war? On Réunion?”
“It didn't spare our island. And then there was the Wave.”
“The Wave?”
“The CRAOM held. It's our refuge.”
The younger man's eyes return to Nolan.
“And outside?”
Nolan doesn't answer.
The younger man opens his mouth, then stops.
His expression changes.
“Mum and Dad? Where are they?”
Silence. His fingers tighten over his knees.
“Nolan. Tell me. Where are they?”
Nolan lowers his eyes.
“No. What about Ulrich? ?”
He shakes his head.
“No. No, no. Wait. Dad called me this morning.”
Nolan closes his eyes.
“Dad called me this morning.”
“I know.”
“He wanted to know if I was coming for Sunday lunch. Mum sent me another message about this fucking shirt.”
Nolan says nothing.
“And Ulrich sent me his new business plan yesterday. He still thinks he's going to start his own company before he's thirty.”
His eyes search Nolan's.
“Tell me he did it.”
Nolan presses his lips together.
“Say it.”
Nothing.
The younger man covers his face with both hands.
“Fuck.”
He stays like that. Nolan waits.
“All of them?”
His voice is muffled behind his hands. They fall away. His eyes are red.
“When?”
“Nolan…”
“When?”
“It won't change anything.”
“Give me the date.”
“No.”
“Give it to me!”
“What for?”
“To get them out!”
He gets to his feet.
“I take Dad, Mum, Ulrich and we get the hell out. France, Madagascar, I don't care. We leave before it happens.”
“There's a world war.”
“Then before the war!”
“You don't know when it starts.”
“You do!”
“No.”
The younger man stares at him.
“What do you mean, no?”
“Because a world war doesn't start at nine o'clock on a Tuesday. There's no alarm telling you it started yesterday and you should have left.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
Nolan leans forward.
“I tried. I tried exactly what you're trying to do. I spent nights replaying those years. If I'd understood sooner. If I'd convinced Dad. If Mum had agreed to leave. If I'd found the words to make Ulrich walk away from everything he was building.”
Nolan rubs his scar with the tip of his thumb.
“I changed the dates, the routes, the decisions. Again and again.”
“And?”
“I never found the right version.”
“That doesn't mean there isn't one.”
“No.”
Nolan looks up.
“But I can't live in it anymore.”
The younger man turns his face away. For a long time, neither of them speaks.
Then Nolan continues:
“I look at you and realise how much I'd forgotten.”
“Like my shirt?”
“Like your shitty shirt.”
The corner of the younger man's mouth twitches despite himself.
“But mostly what you're like.”
“And what am I like?”
“Arrogant.”
“Thanks.”
“Impatient. A bit of a loudmouth.”
“Your compliments are incredible.”
“Let me finish. You're also a lot braver than you think. You help before you stop to ask whether it's your problem. You want to understand how everything works. And when you decide something has to hold…”
Nolan shakes his head.
“Fuck, I really do become unbearable when I'm older!”
The younger man sniffs.
“Mum says that.”
“She was right again.”
The silence returns, gentler this time.
“Is any of that going to be useful?”
“More useful than our final ranking at university.”
“Bastard.”
Nolan laughs softly.
“At first, I couldn't do anything here. Nothing useful, anyway. So I learnt.”
“What?”
“Whatever I needed to.”
“Very specific.”
“Pumps. Ventilation. Structures. Organising teams. And most importantly, asking for help before doing something stupid.”
“So we really do change.”
“Radically.”
“And now?”
“I supervise part of the stabilisation work on a new cavern.”
The younger man looks up.
“You?”
“Me.”
“Why you?”
Nolan smiles.
“Because I know how to do it.”
The younger man studies him for a few seconds.
“Not bad.”
“Do you live alone?”
“No.”
Nolan's expression changes before he's even answered, and his younger self notices.
“Oh.”
“What do you mean, ‘oh’?”
“That face.”
“What face?”
“I don't know. That one.”
Nolan looks down, unable to stop himself from smiling.
“Her name's Éléna.”
“She's at the CRAOM?”
“Yes.”
“You met her there… well, here, for you?”
“Yes. Under fairly unusual circumstances.”
“World war, tsunami, living underground. I'm starting to understand what you mean by ‘unusual’.”
Nolan smiles.
“What's she like?”
“She's…”
He stops.
“What?”
“I'm trying to think of something that won't sound stupid.”
“Bad sign.”
“She's brilliant. Stubborn. She makes me laugh when I have absolutely no desire to. She puts me in my place on a regular basis.”
“I already like her.”
“So do I.”
The younger man nods.
“Is she beautiful?”
“Gorgeous.”
“Good.”
“‘Good’?”
“Just checking we've kept our standards.”
“Dickhead.”
A smile appears on the younger man's face.
“And she loves you?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
“So it's serious.”
Nolan smiles.
“We have a child.”
The younger man's face goes completely still. Then:
“We do?”
“We do.”
“On purpose?”
Nolan bursts out laughing.
“God, I really was insufferable when I was younger!”
The younger man laughs too, his laughter still wet with tears.
“Wait. We're a dad?”
“Yes.”
“That's insane… How old?”
“A few months.”
“Boy or girl?”
Nolan tells him.
The younger man repeats the name quietly.
“Does he look like us?”
“When he's asleep, mostly like Éléna.”
“And when he's awake?”
“Like someone who considers sleep an infringement of his fundamental freedoms.”
“So, us.”
“Exactly.”
“And you? What are you like with him?”
Nolan holds out an index finger.
“He grabs my finger and sometimes falls asleep without letting go.”
“And?”
“I wait.”
“How long?”
“Sometimes twenty minutes.”
The younger man stares at him.
“You?”
“Me.”
A smile appears.
“Fuck. We're really a dad.”
Nolan smiles.
“Yes.”
The younger man looks at the windowless walls.
“And happy.”
Nolan nods.
“Yes.”
Silence.
“Show me.”
“What?”
“What you do here.”
Nolan smiles.
“The new cavern?”
“Yes.”
“It's enormous. Right now we're reinforcing the walls. After that, we'll install the utilities, living quarters, communal spaces.”
“Even more people underground.”
“A lot more.”
“Charming.”
“And gardens.”
The younger man turns his head.
“You have gardens?”
“Yes.”
This time, Nolan speaks without waiting to be asked.
He tells him about the first growing beds. The failed trials. The leaves some people come to check every morning before they even start their shifts. Harvests still so small they're weighed to the nearest gram. Soil they conserve. Water they recover. Lamps whose every hour of use is calculated.
“Everything that grows has to feed someone.”
“Even your plants have jobs.”
“For now.”
The younger man looks up.
“For now?”
Nolan smiles.
“Éléna wants flowers.”
“Flowers?”
“In the new cavern.”
“Can you eat them?”
“No.”
“Are they for anything?”
“To be flowers.”
The younger man snorts.
“Solid argument.”
“We argued about it.”
“Seriously?”
“Good soil, water, electricity for something we can't eat… I thought it was absurd.”
“For once, I'm with you.”
“I know.”
“And now?”
Nolan looks behind him.
“Now I hope she's right.”
“Why?”
“Because the day we can afford to grow something without asking it to keep us alive…”
The younger man waits.
“…maybe that's the day we've finally started living again.”
The younger man's gaze drops briefly to Nolan's index finger.
Then he smiles.
A woman's voice comes from behind the door.
“Nolan? Are you coming?”
“Yes, coming.”
The younger man looks up.
“Éléna?”
Nolan smiles.
“Yes.”
“And the baby?”
“With her.”
The younger man watches him get to his feet.
“Wait.”
Nolan turns around.
“What?”
The younger man takes a breath.
“Are we going to be okay?”
Nolan thinks.
“Not always.”
The younger man lowers his eyes slightly. Nolan continues:
“There'll be days when you think we're not.”
Nolan touches his scar.
“You'll even have very good reasons to think so.”
The younger man looks at him.
“But?”
“But look at me. We're here.”
The younger man wipes his cheeks one last time.
“I should go too. Sunday lunch, remember…”
Nolan nods.
He knows what is waiting for him on the other side: his mother and the shirt she hates, his father, Ulrich and his impossible plans. An ordinary meal. An ordinary evening he doesn't yet know he would one day give anything to live through again.
Nolan manages a smile.
“Go be with our family, kid.”
The younger man remains still for a second.
Then he smiles.
“You too. Go be with our family.”