Chapter 3, "Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery" Summary

In "Luisa Rey" the reader meets Sixsmith again, the same man to whom Robert Forbischer corresponded in the previous chapter. Now, however, Rufus Sixsmith is at the end of his life and has had an illustrious career as a physicist. As the story begins, he is on a balcony having a mental duel with himself. He is obviously conflicted about something, but the reader doesn't yet know what about. He spies a young woman in an adjacent balcony. She, too, seems conflicted.

By chance, Sixsmith and the young woman, Luisa Rey, arrive at the elevator at the same time. A random meeting becomes more personal when the elevator is stopped for forty minutes due to a power outage. As they wait for the elevator to begin again, Luisa tells...