In the dream, it’s not a squirrel that’s in my way, it’s Anthony. The Frankenstein mobsters order him to deliver a toy car for them. The car is so cool, covered in diamonds, like little atomic particles, I have to play with it. Vroom, vroom, like a two-year-old. Vroom, vroom, who cares about Frankenstein mobsters? Vroom—I break it. Just like Anthony may have broken the only way to save the world. Ha. Wish I could break Prometheus like that, just snap the thing in two, instead of always trying to do the damn right thing, like shaking myself back into the world, turning to Anthony, and saying…
“We have to tell Finley.”
“Are you crazy?” Anthony howls. “Are you out of your freaking mind? No, no, no, no, no!”
I’m still a little dizzy and he’s bouncing in his seat so much it’s hard to keep my eyes on the road.
“Look. Maybe there’s nothing wrong. Or maybe it’s a little thing we can fix in two seconds, but we have to find out.”
“You heard him,” he says. “They want us to be wrong. They won’t let us run our sim again. We’ll lose everything! The scholarship… the strawberries…”
We’re alongside a big park and playground near Riven-dale Elementary. There’s a stop sign ahead and no one behind me, so I slow to a crawl and look at him steadily. “It’s not just about us, Anthony, it’s about—”
“Oh, shut up! Just shut up about the freaking world, already, will you?”
He shakes like a particle about to explode, slips off the belt, opens the door, and leaps out.
“Screw you and the world, Wade,” he says as he stumbles. He rights himself and runs off into the field toward the playground, a big four-year-old.
Now I’m hyperventilating. Great. Perfect.
I stop, turn on the hazards, shut his door, and hop out after him. On top of everything else, I shiver at the thought of leaving my car in the road, but no one’s in sight. I run after Anthony, glancing back at the car so often I nearly trip.
“Wait! Will you wait a minute?”
My car gets farther and farther away, but Anthony storms along, antlers wagging, until he reaches the playground. Two kids rock on the seesaw. When they see him, all crazed and fuming, they take off screaming, “Ahhhh!”
He ignores them, just circles the seesaw, grabbing his head, holding his antlers down.
A garbage truck pulls up in the lane opposite my car, blocking the street. Of course another car pulls up behind mine and can’t get around. Wonderful.
I catch up with him, trying to control my breathing. “If there is a mistake, won’t it be worse for us when they find it?”
He moans, then sits on the seesaw. “What if they don’t?”
Glancing back at the blocked car, wondering when it will start honking, I shake my head. “It’s like you said yourself, Anthony. They’ll go through our code with a fine-tooth comb, looking for mistakes. If there’s a problem, they’ll find it.”
“You don’t know that. They didn’t even realize there was a problem to begin with, did they? And… and… there may be nothing wrong with our code! That’s two possibilities, Wade,” he says. He holds up two stubby fingers. “Two possibilities to your one! The odds are in my favor.”
Honk!
There it is. The honking. Another car pulls in behind the first. Damn. Why doesn’t the garbage truck move?
Pulse quickening, I sit on the opposite side of the seesaw. “How’s this? We go back and just ask to look at the laptop for a minute. Tell him it has dirty pictures of Denby you stole or something, and you have to delete them. We’ll boot the sim and check it. No mistake, we can leave. Okay?”
When I mention Denby, his face shivers. I don’t know why. Random anxiety? He thinks a minute, then looks up at me. “What if there is a problem?”
Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!
There are four cars behind mine now. All honking.
Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!
I can’t take it anymore. I turn to the street and scream, “Will you shut up?”
But they don’t.
Anthony eyes me. My face feels flushed. I wobble, but I don’t fall down. I can only imagine what I look like.
Anthony’s head twists sideways, sending his antlers down along one cheek. “Geez, you look like you’re going into a coma. Fine. We’ll try it your way.”
As we trot back, I’m apologizing long before the waiting cars can hear me. “Sorry! Sorry!”
A mother with a saucer-eyed toddler in a safety seat behind her gives me the finger. Even the sanitation workers on the truck give us a dirty look.
“Don’t blame me,” Anthony tells them. “I’m not driving.”
I pull out. The electric motor hums as we move along.
Anthony’s all glum again. “Sorry I freaked. This is your call.”
“Do you have your meds?”
“Yeah.”
“Take one.”
“Then I won’t have enough for Schapiro’s exam tomorrow.”
“Take one. I don’t want any more butt jokes when we go back in there.”
He does.
“Do you… really want me to say I’ve got nudes of Denby on there?”
“No. Do you?” I kid.
“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s silly. Of course not. No way.”
He’s babbling, so I ignore him. I go back through the meeting in my mind, parsing the details as I drive. It’s like doing a crossword puzzle. Kind of calms me down. Redhead at the desk, conference room, strawberries, we have to be patient…
As we reach the Marriott, I have a new idea. “Finley’s got a conference call, right? We watch him from the window. Once he’s on the phone, we go in and say we forgot something. Car keys. Wallet. Maybe he’ll be distracted enough for one of us to grab your laptop. Maybe he’ll even leave to keep the call private. We’ll check the code and sneak it back later. Okay?”
“I guess.”
He’s so freaking glum, it’s killing me. As we pass the valet parking, I nod toward it and look at Anthony, thinking it might cheer him up.
He just shakes his head. “We may have to make a fast getaway.”
I force a laugh, thinking he’s joking. I have to think that or else I’ll get nervous again. Have to keep moving, power my way through this. I drive along past the windows facing the lot: the conference room was six doors past a gym. A row of treadmills, visible even through the tinted glass, makes the gym easy to spot. Two windows per room would put our conference room at twelve windows past the gym.
Well, I was close. Twelve and thirteen are dark, but at window fourteen, the lights are on and somebody’s home. A silhouette wanders by, talking to the air. Could be Finley, probably on a Bluetooth, having his conference call. Yeah, that’s him.
There’s a shortage of spaces, so I park on the far side of the building.
Anthony shakes his head. “Bad for the getaway.”
Maybe he wasn’t kidding. Or he’s putting on a good show, trying to make up for dissolving into an embarrassing puddle of selfishness. If so, he’s doing a good job. Once we’re in the lobby, while I’m fumbling with the right phrasing to use on the redheaded clerk, he trots right up to her, cool as a cucumber. He even shakes his head to dangle his antlers, something he does when he’s trying to look cute.
“Forgot my wallet in there,” he says. “Okay if we head back for a second?”
She hesitates. “Are you guys with Prometheus?”
“We will be. Maybe I can get you a tour.”
Ha. The meds must be kicking in.
She smiles. “Mr. Finley did say to put you guys through immediately…”
We take that as a yes and book down the hall. So far, so good, but when we reach the big wooden doors leading to the conference room, I stop.
“Do we knock or just walk in? Walking in, rude. Knocking, he might meet us at the door and not let us in,” I say.
Anthony shakes his head. “We’re in big trouble if I’m the calm one.”
He knocks and opens the door at the same time.
“Better this way. We owe them, they owe us…” Finley is saying as we enter. He eyes us, points to his ear, mouths “board,” and waves us back out. “Uh-huh, yeah.”
I’m about to go, but Anthony holds his ground. Finley’s brow furrows and he mouths, “What’s up?”
Anthony pulls my wallet from my back pocket. He points to it, points to himself, motions toward the room, and shrugs.
Finley nods, mouths “private,” then strides out the door and down the hall.
We’re alone. Anthony’s laptop is on the table.
“I can’t believe we’re getting away with this,” I say. I look at Anthony, who’s already turning on his laptop. “How can you be so calm?”
“I’m pretending it’s a game.”
“But it’s not.”
“Shut up. I’m pretending. You should pretend, too,” Anthony says. His eyes dance across the screen.
“Shouldn’t I do that?” I say, nodding toward his laptop.
“I can handle it,” he says.
I have to be sure. I take a few steps closer. “Different set of eyes? You did make the mistake in the first place.”
“I can handle it!” he growls. He looks at me. “Maybe you should head into the hall and keep an eye on him. Give me a signal if you see him coming.”
“You mean hoot like an owl? I really think I should—”
“Trust me, Wade! Please, for once, just trust me!”
He gets up and starts pushing me toward the door.
“Look, if there’s something on your laptop you don’t want me to see, I swear the only thing I’ll look at is the program.”
“Go!”
He practically shoves me out, and then closes the door behind me. All of a sudden, he’s in there with the most important program in my life, maybe in the world, and I’m stuck out here. Not good. I wish I could call Denby, but I don’t want to make any noise. Besides which, she’d just tell me to trust him, too. At least I’d like it more when she said it. But I do trust Anthony. Can’t trust your best friend, who can you trust?
I hear footsteps. Just someone coming out of the gym. My palms feel wet and sticky. Gotta focus. Details. Where’d Finley go, anyway? Can’t keep an eye on him if I don’t know where he is. Someplace private, someplace close. Stairwell?
There’s one nearby. I creep over to the door and peer through the little window to see if anyone’s on the other side. All I can see are stairs. Quietly, I turn the handle and push. Finley’s voice comes wafting through the crack.
“Kid’s a nervous wreck thinking the world’s going to vanish any second, you know? I can’t tell him you’re not planning to remove the shielding until some maintenance procedures scheduled for seven years from now. He’ll run off to the press screaming the sky is falling, and we’ll be screwed all over again.”
Seven years? I’m ready to call the press now. I tell myself to calm down, that they’re just talking. Finley understands the danger. He’ll talk them into it.
“That’s why you have to listen to me…”
There. See? He’s a good guy. He’ll tell them to…
“And just lie to these kids.”
Wait. What?
“They’re already willing to keep quiet for the sake of the town. Give them the scholarships, pat them on the back, then privately assure them the work’s being done now. We’re not talking about a couple of young Stephen Hawkings. One makes butt jokes and can’t even keep track of his wallet. I’ll make sure their code’s buried. I’ve got their laptop and the only other copy’s on the school mainframe, which we happen to own. Even if there’s another backup, the code proves nothing without the run-through results. Do it my way, the problem’s eventually fixed and everyone’s happy.”
Not everyone. I’m vibrating so fast now I have to let it out. Unfortunately, after the long night, the fight with Anthony, and now this, I pick the wrong way: screaming.
“Eventually? Eventually?”
My voice echoes through the stairwell.
There’s silence for a second. Then, “Bob? Can I call you back?”
Shadows shift on the stairs above. I push the door closed and bolt back into the conference room.
Anthony looks up as I come in. “What?”
I nearly throw myself across the table, grab his laptop, and get one word out: “Run!”
He doesn’t ask why, he just follows me out into the hallway. Laptop in hand, I pump my feet as fast as I can. Anthony’s behind me, but not too far. If I wasn’t hyperventilating before, I am now. I feel like my chest is going to burst. Things spin around me like the inside of a particle collider, but I manage to keep heading forward.
“Stop them! They’ve stolen my laptop!” Finley shouts.
Stolen. The word almost knocks me down. Being a lame-ass guitar player with a friend in debt to the mob doesn’t seem so bad all of a sudden.
A wide intersection looms ahead of me. The entrance will be to the right. Ahead, down another long hall, is an emergency exit. Which way? Where did I park? Rather than slow to make the turn, I pick up speed, planning to try for the emergency exit. As I reach the intersection, I see two blurs of gray to my right.
“Hey!” one blur shouts.
Commanding tone. Uniform. Security. After me.
“Stop!”
Oh, I do want to stop. I do want to obey the rules. I keep going, more from momentum than will. I don’t hear Anthony anymore, so I risk a look. Crap. The guards have him. His antlers wave up over his head as they pull him back. Finley’s rushing up behind them.
My arm around the laptop, my legs continue moving until my body meets up with the emergency exit—hard. My head snaps back, but my elbow finds the bar and opens the door. I stumble into the lot, and make it to my car. I get in, slouch down, and wait.
Security guards come out soon after, but not Finley. Far off down the lot, the white taillights of a Volkswagen glow as it backs out of its space. The guards run toward it. They must think it’s me.
I start my hybrid, grateful for the quiet electric motor. Shivering like it’s the dead of winter, I pull out, and make my way to a rear exit. I drive down the main drag, staying exactly at the speed limit for about ten miles.
Made it. I’m not sure where I am, but I’m free, at least for now. Not Anthony, though. He’s back there with Finley, probably telling him all about the mistake, how there was nothing wrong with Prometheus to begin with. But there is, I know there is. I’ll need proof, one way or the other, fast. If I’m wrong, I can stop, turn myself in. If I’m right, then what? Tell the press? The Wilson Group will find out and try to shut down the collider permanently, and it’s so long, Rivendale.
What a piece of work I am. What would my father think of all his sacrifices if he could see me now? Or Denby? Or Mom?