FRIDAY 2:06PM
Jerry trudged into his dorm room, dumped his spare change in the giant Budweiser bottle bank sitting in the corner, and plopped himself on the sofa. The coins filled about a quarter of the bottle. The plan was to finance a blowout party at the end of the semester, which seemed like an eternity away.
“Hey, man.” Mike emerged from his bedroom. He wore a blue T-shirt with an Adidas logo and jeans. “I thought I heard you come in.” He crossed the room and grabbed a can of Coke from the refrigerator. “You want one?”
Jerry grunted.
Mike took a seat at the far end of the sofa. “How are you doing?”
“Still kind of in shock. I was there when Noah got hit by lightning. Tried to save him, but...” Jerry’s voice trailed off. He wanted to change the subject. “Where were you last night? You weren’t here when I came in or when I woke up.”
Mike beamed. “I was with the twins.”
“Oh?”
Mike raised his hands. “Not like that.”
Jerry arched an eyebrow. “Not like what?”
“It was all business. Well, maybe not all business.”
“Business? Is that what you kids are calling it these days?”
“Jerry Williams, get your mind out of the gutter! Talia and Veronica’s dad is a venture capitalist.”
“So?”
“So, Talia is going to introduce me to him when he visits for homecoming.”
“I’m not following. Introduction for what? You’re not thinking about getting married, are you? You met her yesterday.”
Mike sipped his Coke. “An introduction so we can show off the jammer. Talia’s also an EE major, and she’s going to help me spiff it up. Her dad invests in all sorts of emerging technologies. The idea is to get him to finance a larger prototype and when our demo wows him, we’ll go into production.”
“Is dating one of his daughters part of the plan?”
“It’s part of my plan.” Mike took another swig of his soda. “Once I’m in the family, it’s a done deal. I can hold back a small percentage if you want in, but you’ll need to let me know soon.”
“I’m going to pass.”
“Suit yourself.” Mike shrugged. “What’s going on with you? With classes cancelled, I’d expect you to be at the paper.”
Jerry’s shoulders slumped. “Vanessa gave me the week off.”
“Why?”
“She had me doing research on previous tragedies that struck the campus, and I found something interesting.” Jerry recounted the entire story in the basement with the archives and the confrontation with Vanessa. “What do you think?”
“Dude, you’ve got a date with Darla!” He made the high-five motion. But Jerry didn’t respond, and Mike’s hand hung awkwardly in the air.
Jerry huffed. “One: that is not the point of what I told you. And two: it’s not a date. We’re, uh, just going to dinner, because she helped me see the patterns in the story.”
“Did you tell Busby you’re going to dinner with Darla?”
Jerry hesitated. “The subject didn’t come up. I told Buzz I wanted some time to think.”
“Time off to think about Darla?” Mike waggled his eyes.
“No!” Jerry saw the reaction on Mike’s face and realized he’d spoken too harshly. “Sorry, dude. Things have been rocky with Buzz for the last month. And she actually said we were through last night, but she tried to take it back this morning. But can we get back to the part about the bad luck? What do you think?”
Mike furrowed his brow. “I guess I don’t understand how it works.”
“Understand how what works?”
“All of it. For example, what does ‘split the group’ mean? I’ve never heard the expression.”
“It’s some sort of cheerleader tradition or superstition. I’m sure Talia can fill you in.”
“But that’s what I don’t understand. Does it apply only to cheerleaders, or people who know about this? Or is anyone anywhere on campus who’s in a group and then splits off in danger?”
“I’m not following you.”
Mike pressed his lips together. “Ok, here’s an example: What’s the unluckiest number you know?”
“Thirteen.”
Mike finished his Coke and tossed the can into the recycling. “Right. In Western Culture. Hmm. Maybe not the entire west, but certainly in the United States. But in China, four is considered unlucky. In fact, when my parents bought our house, it was a big to-do. My mom loved the place, but the street number was 424. My dad wanted no part of it, but my mom was insistent.”
“What happened?”
“We bought the house, and my dad made a generous campaign contribution to the guy running for town council from our district.” Mike made the money gesture. “Once he was elected, our address was legally changed to 559. Wrong block, opposite side of the street, totally out of order. Drove the Domino’s Pizza drivers nuts.”
“That’s fascinating. But what’s the point of your little anecdote?”
“My point, or rather my question, is: Is everyone on campus who somehow has any interaction with the number four at risk, or only those of Chinese descent or who are aware of the number’s implications?”
“I’m not saying anyone’s at risk. I observed the connection between bad luck and tragedy, then attempted to report on it.”
“What you really need is some tests with control groups to see if you can replicate.”
Jerry laughed. “Spoken like a true engineer. You realize people are dying from this, don’t you?”
“It’s all a coincidence. It has to be. There’s no way it can be real. If you—”
A pounding on the door interrupted Mike.
Jerry looked at Mike. “Are you expecting anyone? Talia, maybe?”
Mike checked his watch. “Not yet. She’s coming by later.”
Jerry rose and opened the door to reveal Sam.
She pointed at Jerry. “We need to talk.”
* * *
Miranda gulped her Diet Sprite as she sat in the far corner of the student center cafeteria. With the library closed for the day, she commandeered a table, which was now covered with books and notes. She lucked out that the cafeteria was mostly deserted and much quieter than the library normally was.
She squinted at her laptop, reran the spellcheck, took two sentences and combined them with a semicolon, then jazzed up a metaphor about eighteenth-century English workhouses.
Satisfied with the result, she emailed the file to the school’s second-string quarterback with the note: This will cost you one-fifty. Two hundred if it gets an “A”.
She clicked send, and her phone buzzed.
Miranda put down her phone and checked her email. A new request had arrived from the team’s place kicker. He needed a six-thousand-word paper on Mary Shelley for next Wednesday. She smiled to herself. In her senior year at Coral Gables High, Miranda had written such a paper. Rework a few sentences and swap out fifteen or twenty words with synonyms, then run it through a plagiarism checker. Her older brother was a TA at Florida Atlantic University, and she’d used his credentials in the past. If it didn’t throw up any flags, she’d have a quick two hundred dollars for fifteen minutes of effort. She opened up Google Drive, found the appropriate file, and went to work.
* * *
“Who is it?” Mike poked his head around the door.
Jerry pulled the door all the way open so Mike could see.
Sam wore the same navy-blue beret as the other day, plus ripped jeans and work boots. This time her T-shirt was green with an image of Hermione waving her wand.
“Oh, it’s you.” Mike frowned.
“Hi, Mike.” Sam stepped into the room.
“At least you got my name right this time.”
Sam looked at Jerry. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“No need, I’m out of here.” Mike grabbed his jacket. As he stepped past, he bumped deliberately into Sam.
“See you later, Mike.”
Jerry closed the door. “Why are you trying to antagonize him?”
“Hey, I apologized. Sincerely. And I already told you that’s something I rarely do. Your friend needs to get over it.”
“You want a Coke or a beer?”
Sam shook her head. They took seats on the sofa.
“What’s up? I’m sure you didn’t stop by to talk about Mike.”
“I’m here because I was concerned about you. How are you doing?”
“As well as expected.” Jerry blew out his breath. “It’s not every day that three people you know end up dying.”
“And getting suspended from the paper can’t be much fun.”
“Suspended? Where’d you hear that?”
Sam chuckled. “I told you there are no more secrets.”
“That’s not what happened. Vanessa asked me to take some time off.”
“Do you want to take time off?”
“No, not really,” Jerry grumbled.
“Vanessa’s making you take time off that you don’t want to take? Sounds like a suspension to me.” Sam nodded solemnly.
“I guess.”
“What did she say to you about the story?”
“Which story?”
“Which story do you think?” Sam rolled her eyes. “The one that got you suspended. The one about the bad luck.”
Jerry was wide-eyed. “How can you even know about that?”
She reached out and rapped her knuckles on his skull. “Hello, McFly? No more secrets.”
Jerry smiled smugly. “If there are no more secrets, then why don’t you know what she said to me?”
“Jerry, I’m trying to help you here.”
He blew his breath. “Vanessa had no interest in my work at all, except for the historical sidebar stuff. Said it didn’t meet her standards. Compared my work to clickbait. She demanded a rewrite, and I said no. She gave the story to Brandon, and here I am.”
“Which leads to why I am here. Thought anymore about writing for The Underground?”
“How much do you know about my story?”
“I’ve read the whole thing.”
Jerry opened his mouth to ask how that was possible and caught himself. “You don’t think it’s insane or beneath the standards of your publication?”
“You’ve assembled the facts. You’re not making any assertions. Let the readers draw their own conclusions.”
“Yes!” Jerry pumped his fist. “Finally, somebody understands.”
“So you’re joining us?”
“Does that mean leaving The Chronicle?”
“Probably.” Sam shrugged. “I mean, if we publish your story, Vanessa will recognize it. Doubt she’s going to want you on staff after that.”
The corners of Jerry’s lips curled downward. “You’re right.”
“But it’s not like you’re getting to write for them now. Even after your suspension, she’ll have you on a tight leash.”
“What kind of stories could I write for The Underground?”
“Write anything you want.” Sam pointed at Jerry. “You’re a solid reporter. We don’t give out assignments. Occasionally, we might get wind of something and ask if you want to look into it, but you can say no.”
“And if I wanted to write a profile on one of the cheerleaders, could I do that?”
Sam squinted at Jerry. “Profiling a cheerleader? Yesterday you said writing about them was a way for Vanessa to punish you.”
Jerry's face burned red. “I have a different perspective now.”
“Sure. Cheerleaders are fine. Like I said, write whatever you want.”
“And photos?”
“Photos are fine too.”
Jerry was silent for a moment. “I don’t suppose The Underground has a travel budget?”
“Travel to where?”
“Dallas. There’s a national cheerleading championship that Van Buren will be competing in.”
Sam laughed. “I don’t know why you’ve got cheerleaders on the brain all of a sudden, but no, I’m not paying your way to Texas.”
“Worth a shot.”
“Back to business.” Sam handed him a USB stick. “This has all the instructions you need, plus a kick-ass cryptography program. It will allow you to securely upload your articles to our server. And it will even fake your MAC address, but nothing is one hundred percent. The NSA could crack it if they were inclined. You can connect using the U network, and you’re probably fine. If you’re super paranoid, walk to the McDonald’s off campus and use their Wi-Fi.”
Jerry stared at the thumb drive. “Anything else?”
“Please spell-check and self-edit. I do my best, but we’re a shoestring operation compared to The Chronicle.”
“Got it.” Jerry shoved the drive into his pocket.
“Don’t tell anyone you’re writing for The Underground. And you don’t know me.”
“But I don’t know you. At least I don’t know your real name.”
“That’s the way I like it. And remember if anybody, Vanessa or whoever, asks if you are writing for us: deny, deny, deny. They can suspect but can’t prove a thing.” Sam stuck out her hand and shook Jerry’s. “Welcome to The Underground.”