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Laurence stood still for a moment, questioning himself.

Before he had arrived at the philosophy department on the edge of the university campus, he had been expecting something else entirely. Philosophy conjured images of quiet contemplation. Laurence recalled kneeling by the hearth in their small house while his father sat reading in an armchair. Dust in the air; warmth on his face; a safe silence undisturbed beyond the gentle crackle of the fire and the quiet turning of pages. And yet the building before him now—a newly built block of polished black marble, sandstone, and glass—looked like a place more suited to laboratory experiments than those carried out within minds.

The doors slid apart as he stepped forward.

He was expected, and one of the secretaries in the main office pointed him in the right direction. He wandered down a corridor that wouldn’t have been out of place in a modern office block—clean carpets; pine-scented air freshener; anonymous modern art prints hanging between the wooden doors—and finally reached the office of Professor Robin Nelson. It had been left slightly ajar in anticipation of his arrival, but he rapped gently with his knuckles anyway.

“Come in.”

He pushed the door wider. The room contained an oak desk, with papersand used mugs strewn around the computer there. The shelves lining the walls were crammed tightly with books and even more sheafs of paperwork, some of it occluded by randomly placed trinkets and photographs. A tattered rug had been spread out near the door.Thiswas more like it, Laurence thought happily. The office felt lived in, as though the occupant, upon being granted a sterile new office, had made a concerted effort to transport every last crumb of dust across from their old one.

Nelson stood up and walked around the desk, extending a hand. Laurence shook it. The professor had a slightly foppish swathe of brown hair and was wearing a red velvet jacket over a checked shirt. He was only in his thirties, Laurence guessed, which seemed young to be a professor, never mind head of the department.

Nelson seemed aware of that himself, and even slightly embarrassed by it.

“It’s more an administrative position than anything else,” he explained as he cleared a seat for Laurence. “Or a prison sentence. All it really means is lots of extra work and headaches. The role changes hands every five years, and the smarter ones find a way of avoiding it.”

Laurence glanced at the wall of books. He figured Nelson was pretty smart.

“How long do you have left to serve?” he said.

“Three years, ten months, two weeks, and two days.”

Laurence laughed as he sat down.

“I’ll try not to take up too much of it,” he said. “Especially given why I’m here. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” Nelson looked slightly pained as he returned to his own seat. “I can’t really take that though. I didn’t know Professor Hobbes well at all. He actually retired before I started here—although he did return for guest lectures on occasion, so we met in passing. But I can tell you that he wasverywell liked for the most part. Everyone here is shocked.”

Laurence frowned.

“Well likedfor the most part?”

“Oh—just a turn of phrase, really. As a person, is what I meant. Hewas a good guy—and a brilliant teacher too, by all accounts, which is what matters most.Devotedto teaching. Generally speaking, his students loved him. But one particular subject he taught—the one he specialized in—can be difficult for some people to process. It can upset people.”

“Determinism?”

“Yes.”

Laurence had spent a little time reading up about it last night and understood the basics of the arguments well enough. But there was often no harm in appearing to know less than you did.

“Can you run me through it?”

Nelson looked delighted.

“Yes, of course! Well, I can try—it’s not my area. But the basic idea is a very simple one. Here.”

He searched for something in the mess on his desk. He found a pen, held it up for a moment, and then dropped it on the desk. Laurence watched as it clattered against the wood.

“Now,” Nelson said. “Why did the pen fall?”

“Gravity.”

“Exactly. The laws of physics—everything in the universe obeys them. Every effect has a cause.” Nelson touched the side of his head. “But thehuman brainis part of the universe. It’s made up of the same basic matter, and so it follows the exact same physical laws. Which means that every action you take, every decision you make, is caused by the state of your brain immediately before it. And that state is caused by the one before that. And so on, meaning that all your decisions are predetermined. There’s a famous thought experiment called Laplace’s demon…?”

Laurence had heard of it. But he waited.

“Okay,” Nelson said. “So. Imagine a creature—a demon—that understands all the physical laws in the universe. It also knows the exact state of every atom at a single moment in time, all the way down to the smallest part. It follows that demon would be able to work outeverythingthat hadever happened or ever would. All of it would be inevitable, from the first moment of the universe to the very last.”