The real X led us through tunnels that shouldn't exist. Not old subway maintenance passages. Something older. Stone corridors carved decades before Chicago's modern infrastructure. Pre-dating the city itself.
"1943," the real X said through three mouths as we walked. "That's when it started. Not with quantum mechanics. Not with government programs. With a question that nobody wanted to answer."
"What question?" I asked, keeping pace while watching for escape routes. There were none.
"What happens to human consciousness after death? Not religiously. Not philosophically. Scientifically. Measurably. Provably." The three bodies moved through a junction without hesitation. "I was a physicist. Robert Oppenheimer's colleague. Working on the Manhattan Project. But while everyone else focused on
