Page 140 of The Atlas Maneuver

“Books are amazing,” Suzy said. “Words on a page that transport us. We can switch off from everything, never notice the time passing, and experience smells, sounds, sights, and emotions from all over time and place. It’s like chewing gum for the eyes.”

He’d always liked that phrase.

She was always clever with words. Yet for all that cleverness she’d also had an insatiable yearning for adventure.

Just like him.

“Bitcoin is like a religious experience,” Suzy said to him. “Like Christ himself.”

He smiled. “A bit blasphemous, but I’ll bite. How?”

“Both had a humble beginning. Christ in a manger, bitcoinappearing on the internet, each a gift to the world, both loved by everyone. Bitcoin, like Christ, plays no favorites and lives forever. The establishment hated Christ and today it also hates bitcoin since it, like Christ, flips the money changers’ tables. They are also both a central source of truth, selflessness, and morality, and they encourage the world to stay peaceful.”

“How do you figure that?”

“It takes money to fight a war. Money nations borrow. To borrow they just create more of their own money, devaluing their own currency. You can’t do that with bitcoin. It’s finite. So if everyone used bitcoin there’d be a limited amount of money to wage war. Countries literally could not afford to fight. And finally, both bitcoin and Christ work as a savior, starting revolutions.”

She’d been so excited to explain what she created. So proud. And deservingly so. He’d known from the beginning she was smart. A love of books had drawn them together. They’d first met in a Pensacola bookstore, she there buying a gift for a friend, he just browsing, avoiding having to go home to his wife. Her favorite stories had been ones about humanity coming through adversity and finding hope. How fitting that her own life became just such a story.

“You can’t change the world, Harold. But you can do the right thing. We all behave according to the world, as we live it.”

He stared down at the piles on the floor.

Yes. Books were important.

Suzy Baldwin / Kelly Austin had also been important.

More than the world would ever know.

He’d left Luxembourg yesterday and flown back to Denmark. Cassiopeia had headed for France, but she was due back here in a couple of days. She’d sensed that he needed some time alone and he appreciated the space. Suzy had come along at a crossroads in his life when two paths had opened. Over the years he’d come to realize that she’d indirectly pointed him toward the right road to take. But that choice had involved hurting her deeply. He’d seen it in her eyes that last day when he told her it was over.

Her pain changed him.

No question.

He’d noticed in her apartment little in the way of personalization. No family pictures. No travel experiences. No special person. Nothing at all. As if the past never existed. And perhaps it didn’t for Kelly Austin. Suzy Baldwin? That was someone altogether different. But the books. Those were there. Which seemed to explain her life. BesidesA Distant Mirror, one in particular on her shelves had caught his eye. A familiar colorful cover of a magician playing cards with the devil. The latter displaying four kings, the former proudly showing off four aces. At the time it was a relatively new book. Written by a man named Glen David Gold. His first novel.Carter Beats the Devil. He’d bought her that copy too, the inside inscribedFOR YOU, FROM ME.

Which she’d also curiously kept.

He’d loved the story.

It remained one of his personal favorites. It took place in the 1920s, the golden age for stage magic, and Charles Carter was a magician at the height of his fame. At the climax of his latest stage show Carter invited President Warren G. Harding on stage to take part in his act. In front of an amazed audience Carter chopped the president into pieces, cut off his head, and fed him to a lion before restoring him to perfect health. The show was a great success, but two hours later Harding was dead and Carter found himself at the center of some unwelcome attention from the Secret Service.

Apparently, President Harding passed a great secret on to Carter.

A young inventor named Philo Farnsworth had created a new device called television. And not everybody was happy about that. Both the radio industry and the military wanted it to go away, and they came after Carter to get it. The great magician had to draw on all his skills to escape kidnapping and death as he sought out the elusive inventor. Along the way Carter met a young blind woman with a mysterious past and encountered a deadly rival. At the end, in a magic show to end all magic shows, Carter had to beat the devil to save both Farnsworth and his magical new invention.

A gloriously fun tale.

Its major theme?

Making seemingly impossible escapes in order to change the world.

But the book also highlighted the way new and different things inspired fear, mistrust, and wonder. And how great things could be accomplished in secret. In the end Carter’s greatest trick was performed with the knowledge of only a few close people.

Just like with Suzy.

No one would ever know what she accomplished.