I may be calm, but my body worries without me, giving off anxious waves, clingy stress-relics that say, “Remember me? I’m not letting you off that easy!” Each wave carries a piece of dream, a flash of my imagined life, where everything’s sloppy and wretched and all out of place. I dance, up on a wall, in a filthy alley, wearing filthy clothes while Anthony’s chased by Frankenstein mobsters. They drag him off screaming, and I’m scared. I can’t help him, can’t help anyone. It’s ridiculous, out of whack, out of place because in the real world I may have just saved everyone, in the real world…
No dream gets better than this.
I did it! We run to my car and leap in. Anthony tries to toss his victory music up on the sound system, but he’s too giddy, too busy pounding his feet and slapping the dashboard. When he finally gets it going, he bounces his head to the beat so fast it looks like his antlers will fly off. I’m smiling, trying to show how pleased I am, but it’s not enough for him.
“Scream, man! Scream! Don’t you ever scream?” he asks.
“Not usually.”
“Just this once? Denby’d want you to.”
He’s right. She would. So I do. “Yeahhhhhh!”
We both scream as I drive along, nearly drowning out the thudding bass and drums that rattle our feet.
“Faster! Faster!” Anthony howls. “I want strawberries! I want them now!”
“I’m five above the limit,” I say.
“Oooo! Five above the limit! Go, Speed Racer, go!” He grabs at the wheel, just enough to scare me.
“Anthony!”
He sighs, slumps back, then screams some more. He’s so scattered from excitement he reminds me of what he was like when I met him—hyper, with an attention span equivalent to the nanosecond life of a strangelet.
“See how it pays to worry?” I say.
“What?” he says, too into the music.
I want some credit for my fear. I want him to know this is all a testimony to fretting details, even how I managed to get in touch with Finley in the first place. I had tried to call but couldn’t get past the switchboard. After twenty tries, I’d guessed the right format for his e-mail. Boom—he wrote back, eventually offering me an hour on their simulator. I brought in Anthony to help with the coding and Denby volunteered to key in corrections. The rest may be history, if I don’t pass out.
Near the strip mall at the outskirts of Rivendale, the Marriott Conference Center rises, a big glass square, reflecting morning light like a second sun. Why didn’t Finley just invite us to Prometheus? It’s only another ten minutes. Ah, now I think I am looking for things to worry about.
Ignoring Anthony’s continued pleas for speed, I cruise into the lot at five miles per hour.
“A valet! A valet! Use the valet!” he begs. “I’ll pay. Come on, you know we’re going to be famous and rich. Spend some of it!”
“Neither’s happened yet. And it’s not about the fame, right?”
“Right, right. We’re saving the world, yada yada yada, Captain Ahab.”
“Have you ever even read Moby-Dick?”
“What? Sure. They kill some fat white guy, right?”
“A whale.”
“That’s pretty insulting, to call a fat guy a whale.”
“A real whale. And they don’t kill it. That’s the point.”
Did he skip his Ritalin? He does seem off his meds. I hope he doesn’t act strange during the meeting. I’ll have a hard enough time keeping myself under control.
I find a spot. We walk through some glass sliding doors into a posh art-deco lobby and introduce ourselves at the desk. The clerks whisper to one another, ogling us like we’re Bill Gates. A cute redhead among them gives Anthony a wicked smile that seems to put him into shock.
She leads us down a long hall, past a gym, to a huge conference room. With another wicked smile, she opens the double doors and reveals a huge table with a really nice spread—fresh strawberries and cream, other fruits, croissants, even a cappuccino machine with a barista standing by. The place is so grand, I barely see Finley sitting at the head of the table. I’m almost sorry I didn’t use the valet.
Finley, looking exactly as he did on the webcam, only with better resolution, sips some tea. I’m thinking he should be at least a little worried that the particle collider isn’t as safe as everyone thought, but he doesn’t seem to be. He smiles warmly as we walk in.
“Wade! Anthony! Grab some grub, pull up a chair.”
Anthony laughs as he fills his plate with gusto. Four croissants and a ton of strawberries, drowning in cream. He’s already embarrassing me, but what the hell, I don’t think we’ll get points off for sloppy manners.
“I love it!” Finley says. “Couple of bright high school guys find what all the big dogs missed. It’s like Dell computers coming out of a garage.”
“Wade did most of the work,” Anthony offers between gulps. I appreciate the humility, but then he spills some coffee on the table. Before he can wipe it, the barista steps over with a cloth.
“So, will you be shutting down Prometheus soon, Dr. Finley?” I ask.
The smile fades a bit. “That’s a little premature. This was just a short simulation. The board will want to check your code, run it over a few times, vary the conditions, and so on, before they decide what to do and when. Some of them are on vacation right now. It’ll probably be a week or so before any decisions like that get made.”
I tense up. “A week or more? But what if in that time…”
He gives me that warm smile again. “A strangelet devours the world?”
“Well… yes. Isn’t that the point?”
He nods. He pats his hands together. He taps his fingertips against his lower lip. “I’ll give it to you straight. What you’ve done is amazing. We owe you our thanks, and under the right circumstances, you’ll receive those thanks.”
“But?”
Anthony, still chewing, nudges me and whispers, “Heh-heh… you said ‘butt.’”
Christ. Thank God Finley didn’t seem to hear him.
“Computer simulations aren’t reality. Prometheus has been operating for years without incident. And I’m sure you know the Earth has been bombarded with colliding particles from space for thousands of—”
“But—”
“Ha! You said ‘butt’ again!”
Starbuck’s definitely off his meds, and that time Finley did hear him. He chuckles good-naturedly as I shoot Anthony a glare.
I clear my throat and hope I don’t sound whiny. “Dr. Finley, natural conditions aren’t the same as the Prometheus environment. And there was a strangelet produced, on the first day.”
“Stop there. You’re right. Absolutely right. The shielding has to be taken out. Never should’ve been there. You know the story. We had to do it to get the entire town moving again. I am taking this seriously. I’ve scheduled a call with some board members in about an hour, but…”
We both look at Anthony. He says nothing, though he does stifle a giggle.
“Because of that lawsuit, they’re going to resist. They’ll be terrified the Wilson Group will sue again, and this time destroy our funding. They’ll test it every which way, try to poke holes in it any way they can. And then and only then, if your parameters prove absolutely correct, they’ll want to fix it quietly. You don’t want the collider shut permanently, do you?”
“No…,” I say. I’m afraid to add the “but” with good old Starbuck at my side.
“If you’ll be a little patient, do it my way, the board will be extremely grateful. I’m not exaggerating when I say your work easily qualifies you for the scholarship program—”
“Yes!” Anthony hoots. He clenches his fist and brings it down to his chest.
But Finley ignores him. His eyes are on me. “We want the same things.”
I sigh. “Every minute Prometheus operates with the shielding in place is another minute the dice roll on the end of the world. Doesn’t that make you nervous?”
He shakes his head. “Honestly? No. Those dice have been rolling for years and nothing has happened. I’m only talking a few more months. At ten thousand to one, the odds are in my favor. Let me talk to the board. Can you and I at least agree to discuss this further tomorrow?”
What are my choices? Go to the press? I could wind up making the entire town jobless. What’s a month or two? Sounds okay when he says it.
“Fine.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your faith. I really do. So let me get started on living up to it. Gentlemen?”
He rises. So do we. Then he snaps his fingers as if remembering something.
“Aside from the school mainframe, are there any other copies of your code?”
“Just on Anthony’s rig,” I say.
“I have an unusual question. Can I have it?”
Anthony practically leaps out of his seat. A piece of strawberry flies from his mouth and rolls across the table. “No! Why?”
“Please, relax. I only want to be able to reassure the board you’ve abided by our agreement and that all the data involving your project is secure. It will help immeasurably.”
He holds his hand out, calmly, like he’s trying to feed a squirrel.
“But there’s… personal stuff on it!”
I shrug at Finley sheepishly. “He’s a little tense today.”
Finley nods. “I won’t look. Promise. I’ll have you a brand-new laptop by morning. E-mail me your specs for a dream machine, and let’s see how close I can get. Meanwhile, call me John.”
“Let him have it, Anthony. It’s okay. You want the scholarship, right?”
“Yeah…”
“And you liked the strawberries?”
“Yes…”
I reach over and gently tug the laptop from his hands. He lets go. Then we leave, quickly.
I manage not to shake until we reach the parking lot. That couldn’t have been more frightening and embarrassing than if I’d planned it that way. Can I trust Finley? Did I get this far just to hand the whole thing over to the wrong guy? And what’s up with Anthony? By the time I pull out of the parking lot, he’s still stone silent, and I realize I need someone to talk me down.
“Of course you did the right thing,” Denby says on my cell after I explain. “You keep saying Finley is one of the good guys.”
“I know, I just—”
“Need something else to worry about?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, Wade, forget it for an hour! You did it! I am so proud of you! I bet Anthony’s thrilled.”
I glance over at him in the passenger seat.
“No. His antlers are drooping. Still upset about his laptop.”
“Geez, guys! Maybe I can at least cheer him up. Once they heard the news my friends started fighting over who gets first crack at him. I can get him a hot date and we’ll all go out to dinner. Let me talk to him.”
I hold the phone toward him. “She wants to get you a girl.”
He waves it away. “No. I don’t want to date one of her friends.”
“What’s wrong with you?” I mouth at him.
“Wade, hang up. Just hang up.”
“Talk to her.”
“No. Hang up!”
I pull the phone back. “Apparently my anxiety is contagious. Call you back.”
I flip the cell shut and look at my increasingly morose pal. “What’d you have on that laptop, Starbuck? Naked pictures of yourself and SpongeBob SquarePants?”
“It’s not just the laptop. It’s…”
“The butt jokes? You were nervous. Believe me, I can empathize.”
“No. I mean yes, yes I feel stupid… but not because of that.”
“Look, the sim worked. We’ll get the scholarships, and you were never worried about the rest anyway. Apparently I’m the only one worried about that.”
His face gets even darker. Without Denby’s calming influence, my mind tenses, rattling off anything there might be to worry about, trying to synch up with Anthony. In a few seconds, I’ve got it.
“You didn’t find a mistake in the code, did you? And then not tell me?”
I can tell I’m right from the way he shivers. “Yeah. I seem to sort of remember something a little… wrong. A small mistake, you know?”
“What? Why didn’t you say something?”
“There was no time. And it’s probably nothing. I took an extra pill yesterday to keep up, and today I’m running on empty, so I’m probably misremembering…”
“Misremembering what?”
Antlers in front of his eyes, he rattles off a few lines of code in a voice so low you’d have to know him and programming to understand. Unfortunately, to me he makes sense and he could be right. If he is, the whole sim could be off.
I’m sorry I never told anyone about the dizzy spells, because they’re getting serious. My head spins. It’s like a squirrel has run in front of my car again. In front of my life. A really big squirrel.
Finley’s words echo in my head: “Then, and only then, if your parameters prove absolutely correct, they’ll want to fix it…”