He didn't sleep.
He tried. Midnight, one, two. Eyes open in the dark. The man in the gray suit in his head. The 97%. The photo with the 101%. And the girl with the empty eyes that he was starting to wonder if he'd really seen.
At two thirty he went to the kitchen.
He made coffee. Didn't really drink it. He searched for updates on the accident. The man at Lariboisière. Critical condition. Nothing more.
He put the phone down and looked at the wall for a while.
What he should have done. Follow the man. Talk to him. Find any excuse to stay close. Something. Anything.
He didn't know if it would have changed anything.
He went back to bed. Didn't sleep.
Alarm at seven. He turned it off.
Five minutes lying there for no reason. Then he got up.
Shower. Coffee. Clothes.
He opened his laptop. The American client report still there, unfinished, waiting for him like a quiet reproach. He worked two hours. Then the alerts started.
9:42. Earthquake in Australia. Magnitude 7.8. Sydney.
He saw it on his phone and kept working.
10:06. Japan. Magnitude 8.1. Tsunami warning.
10:22. South Korea. 7.4.
10:45. China. Sichuan. 8.3.
Four countries. Less than two hours.
Macon put his pen down and started reading. Geologists saying it was impossible. That tectonic plates don't work like that. That simultaneous earthquakes of this scale across zones this far apart, it didn't exist in any known data.
And then the Sydney photos came.
He didn't recognize immediately what he was looking at. Something on the horizon. Enormous. Vertical. With a geometry slightly wrong, not quite like a normal building. Like it had always been there and the rest of the city had just appeared around it.
A tower.
Appeared at the same time as the earthquake.
He searched Japan. Same. Korea. Same. China. Same.
Four earthquakes. Four towers. Four countries. Two hours.
His ten o'clock meeting started without him. He noticed at ten thirty when his manager sent a message. He joined twenty minutes late and heard nothing of what was being said.
At noon he went out.
Not to eat. Just to walk.
The street was different. People walking fast or stopping to look at phones. Café terraces full for a Monday noon. Everyone needed to be outside.
The numbers were higher than yesterday.
Everywhere. Where he saw 10%, 15% the day before, now he saw 35%, 42%, sometimes 51%. Like the collective anxiety had a direct translation in this system only him could see.
He walked to the Jardin du Luxembourg. Sat on a bench.
And he saw the man.
Sixties. Alone. A newspaper he wasn't really reading. He was watching children play in the sand with the look of someone thinking about something else completely.
79% above him.
Macon stared at him for thirty seconds. He thought about the gray suit man. What he had done yesterday. Which was nothing. He thought about the girl with the purple eyes and the words Death Sight and told himself that maybe this thing existed for a reason.
He got up and crossed the path.
"Excuse me."
The man looked up.
"Yes?"
Macon searched for something sensible to say. Found nothing. Said the first thing that came to him.
"You don't look like you're feeling well."
The man looked at him.
"I feel very good, thank you."
"I know it's strange but can you stay sitting there for twenty more minutes? Not move."
The man lowered his newspaper and looked at Macon like someone who isn't sure they heard correctly.
"Why?"
"I have the feeling you shouldn't be alone right now."
Silence.
"Are you a doctor?"
"No."
"Social worker?"
"No. I was just passing."
The man thought for two seconds. Then he folded his newspaper, put it under his arm and stood up.
"I'm going home," he said politely.
Macon stood too.
"Please wait-"
"Good day."
The man walked back up the main path. Macon followed two meters behind. He was looking for what to say, how to fix this, how to help without looking like someone the police should be called for.
79% still.
They left the garden. The man turned right on boulevard Saint-Michel. Macon crossed behind him. The man went a bit faster. Macon stopped.
He watched the man walk away.
82% now.
Then the man put his hand on his chest and stopped.
Macon ran.
He was there in four seconds. Man against a wall, hand still on chest, face white. People around starting to look.
"Call 15. Quick."
Someone took out a phone. Someone else took the man's arm to support him. Macon stayed there and watched the number come down slowly.
74%. 71%. 68%.
Ambulance arrived in six minutes.
Macon walked away before anyone could ask him questions.
He got home early afternoon.
He sat at his desk. Didn't turn on the computer. Just looked at the wall.
He thought about the man in the garden. He didn't know if what he did changed something or if the guy would have had the episode anyway. He didn't know if the final 68% meant he would be okay.
He really didn't know much.
His phone vibrated. Amine. Did you see the news? Pretty scary right?
He didn't reply.
He reopened the news. The towers still there in photos from Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai. Witnesses talking about people coming out of impact zones with abnormal physical abilities. Impossible reflexes. Strength that made no medical sense. Korea especially. United Nations in emergency session.
Macon opened the interface.
Death Sight. See the probability of imminent death in others.
Everything else gray and unreadable like from the start.
He closed the interface and looked out the window.
Paris calm. Too calm.
101%.
He didn't understand exactly what it meant yet.
But he was starting to understand that the life from two days ago, it was done.