Prodigy
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraphs
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Copyright
For my parents. The first—and finest—teachers I’ve ever had. And for the real Cooley and Goldsmith, wherever they may be.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I was born standing up and talking back. I knew everything there was to know about life by the age of thirteen. Luckily for me, there always happened to be those along the way who begged to differ, those who knew how wrong I was but were patient enough to believe in me anyway. They’re the people who made this book possible and to whom I am forever indebted with my thanks.…
To Kate Lee, my friend and agent who always just knew. Kate, from the very beginning the warrior inside you inspired me. To Sean Desmond, my editor, who took a chance, grabbed hold of a boy’s daydream, and turned it into a reality. To Josh Beane, the best friend who watches my back, pulls me up after those nasty tumbles, and always reminds me of what it is to be a man. To Thor Halvorssen, who taught me how to fight and, more important, how to be inspired. To Jonathan Kalstein, my brother, who has the kindness and conscience to which I aspire. To Mike Paris, Todd Bishop, Zachary Knight, Brooke Cucinella, Carlos Suarez, Anna Nordberg, Erin Fitzpatrick, Marc Kushner, Doree Shafrir, Ellen Killoran, Jennifer Rubell, Nora Zehetner, Ian Somerhalder, Cy Carter, Courtney Murphy, Katherine Cunningham-Eves, and Andrew Feltenstein: All friends who never whined about it being too early in the day for cocktails or doubted the dreams that spilled out over them—for this I will always love you.
And to all my teachers: The ones who embraced me, the ones who censored me, the ones who kicked me out, the ones who promised me that one day school would let out forever and I’d find myself finally, impossibly, grown up.… This one’s for you.
PRODIGY / 'prä-de-jē / noun:
Middle English, from Latin prodigium: a monster, an omen.
1. a: a portentous event. b: something inexplicable.
2. a: an extraordinary, marvelous, or unusual accomplishment, deed, or event. b: a highly talented child or youth.
—Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
(11th Edition, circa 2004)
In me school destroyed a great deal … All I learned there was Latin and lying.
—Hermann Hesse, Reflections, 257: “Education and Schools”
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
—Mark Twain, A Curious Dream: “The Facts Concerning the Recent Resignation”
PROLOGUE
Mr. Daniel Ford Smith.
There were so many things he hated about that school, but that—the way they stretched out each specimen’s name (first, middle, and last all lined up together as if it were not a name but an exotic, complex mathematics equation) and stuck a formal “Mr.” or “Miss” at the front—was not one of them. He liked it. Not that he’d ever have admitted this, but Mr. Daniel Ford Smith secretly loved hearing it uttered by the adults who ran the place, the professors who taught the progressions. Even the sound of his full name squeaked out by one of the many younger, smaller specimens he bullied over the years gave him satisfaction every time. He relished hearing it turned into a digitized phrase by the InterAct system in his old dorm room (Good morning, Mr. Daniel Ford Smith, the alarm intoned each day for twelve years at 6:30 A.M. and it gave him a small surge of pride, as if he’d seen his name in print).
It had been almost three years since he graduated at the bottom of the Stansbury School’s Class of 2033 and not a day passed without him thinking of the one place he swore—they all swore—he’d never think of again. Granted, the place had its way with you, but it sure made a kid feel regal while he was there; from the anointed (and cursed, in Smith’s opinion) valedictorians to the rank-and-file honors kids to the merely average ones headed to Ivy League schools (sans scholarships) all the way down to the unbalanced specimens like him. Mr. Daniel Ford Smith. Had a nice ring to it. A certain dignity.
A dignity that was motivating him to run for his life.
In midsprint, Smith scanned the streets of San Angeles. Shabby, vintage twentieth-century buildings seemed to morph into gleaming towers, peeling paint giving way to hundred-story stretches of titanium, glass, and steel. Like a brilliantly eccentric but unlicensed urban planner had become a plastic surgeon and performed an improvisational back-room procedure, grafting experimental, avant-garde implants to this old, faithful matron of a metropolis. The megacity’s blocks were packed tightly, filled with an amalgam of high- and low-value real estate bunched together like giant, gleaming haystacks. Above, gyromobiles ferried people through the maze of floating traffic signals on New Sunset Boulevard, which hung a couple of thousand feet in the air. Below the hazy airways, the occasional jalopy with an old-school gas engine chugged along, sputtering, as if unsure of what to do with all the empty space ahead of it on this neglected stretch of Old Sunset.
The rubber-Teflon blend in the soles of Smith’s work boots (soles guaranteed by Nike to last seventy-five years, although he would have been happy with the next seventy-five seconds) gripped the slick pavement as he pivoted into an alley off 3rd Street on Avenue R. He leaned against a crumbling, greasy brick wall, heaved panicked breaths in and out, and listened for their footsteps. The morning sky was white and wet. A selection of sounds: the hiss of a monorail’s doors as they slid closed on the tracks a few feet away in the street; crisply screeching whistles from the city wranglers guiding non-Stansbury-related citizens from one side of the street to another. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Nothing except that four other ex-specimens, alumni of the same school he hated and helplessly revered simultaneously, had been killed at the rate of one per month for the past four months. There were six of them when everything began, improbably, six months before that day. And then they were all gone except for him and his old accomplice. The delinquent duo. Mr. Daniel Ford Smith and Mr. Jonathan Clark Riley. Unlike the others, Misters Smith and Riley were pals back in school, so when they heard about them disappearing one by one, they kept in touch. They spoke just two weeks ago, knowing the whole time but never saying out loud that they were the only ones left and that hence, the next to go would be one of them. After hanging up the phone, Smith remembered hoping that Riley would go before him. Simple, basic, animalistic self-preservation. But now that he was running and the soft, inevitable roar of the footsteps behind him weren’t stopping, weren’t ever going to stop, Smith was thankful that it was his turn. Maybe Riley would hear the news and play it safe. Maybe he’d get out of town and disappear, forget about their impossible plans, and start a new life somewhere, anywhere.
Standing there
in the alley, drenched in the polluted, yellowing rain, he decided to keep running, because the least Smith could do was give his old buddy a few more minutes of a head start before the footsteps came after him.
The patter of the rain drummed a beat on his shoulders. Shoulders grown thick, riddled with pipes of tendons that trailed down into a network of shivering muscles in his arms. Muscles courtesy of Stansbury School. Unfortunately, the school’s famous med cycle didn’t work the same magic on his cerebral cortex: he barely graduated. His parents wouldn’t pay for community college; twelve years of Stansbury tapped them out. He wasn’t finding a job. As if the odds weren’t poor enough, given his lack of credentials, the release of the first wave of gyromobiles corresponded with his year of birth. The floating vehicles replaced conventional automobiles—virtually eliminating traffic accidents—and gave way to the Population Boom of 2015. Just in time for those babies to grow up and compete with him for minimum-wage labor. Sure, he was a Stansbury specimen and all, but competing in a job market with twelve billion other people was no cakewalk. Then one day the Stansbury Alumni Relations Board called Smith up out of the blue and offered him a job shifting units of packaged intravenous cafeteria foodstuffs around the school’s plant in the outskirts of San Angeles. He accepted graciously. The offer made him think the school wasn’t so bad, after all. They took care of their own. No one called him “Mister” at the plant though, just a spat-out “Smith,” like it was a four-letter word, but a job was a job, and he was determined to tough through it and make an honest living. His mom and dad were proud. Relatively speaking. Families that forked out the $500,000 Stansbury tuition each year tended to expect a bit more out of their children than rigorous manual labor six days a week, but their hopes for him dimmed long ago.
If only he could’ve stretched this thing out a bit longer, and lasted till the end. If Mom and Pops saw what he and Riley and the other alumni were going to pull off, they would’ve taken back everything. The plan formed six months ago, when Miss Stella No-Middle-Name Saltzman called him up and broke the news: the school only gave him the work to keep tabs on his whereabouts. Because he mattered. And then she told him everything else.
Smith leaned his head toward the street and listened: raindrops curled down his neck, a single set of leather soles scraped against the pavement, just a bit too cautious to be casual. An anomaly. At this hour, there wasn’t enough room to walk alone on the sidewalk; there should have been too many people packing the street, unless … He crouched down and waited. The anomalous set of feet approached, complete with a familiar head and eyes up top, looking for a shoulder-level target and not finding him anywhere. Still squatting, Smith threw out his rippled arms, grabbed the ankles and yanked the figure to the ground, dragging the squirming body into the alley like he wasn’t Mr. Daniel Ford Smith, Class of ’33, but like the crazed, scared misfit he had been told his whole life he was.
A quick glance at the face: meaty jowls, a lazy brown eye. Officer Jamison, Stansbury security detail, trying to fly under the radar in civilian’s clothing.
“Mr.… Mr. Smith … stop and…,” Jamison sputtered. Three years after graduation and Jamison still looked the same: a sneering grown-up drunk on authority and a title, just another bully who never matured. Smith slammed one of his huge, labor-deformed fists into Jamison’s face and smashed his head into the pavement with the other. Smith had wanted to do that the entire twelve years spanning first grade to senior year, but he never had the excuse or the balls. Jamison went limp. Smith stayed close to the ground and, much to his chagrin, started trembling.
Slow down and put it together: Stella told him to run, to meet Riley on Avenue R and hide out somewhere. She’d find them when it was time, she never said how. Ever since she reappeared in his life six months ago (the first time he’d seen her since commencement day back at the tower when she gave a speech he slept through) he always did what she told him because of this thing about her, this warm look in her eye that said she believed in him unconditionally. She didn’t treat him like just another burned-out, unbalanced specimen teetering on the verge of unemployment. Miss Stella No-Middle-Name Saltzman smiled and touched his cheek and still called him Mr. Daniel Ford Smith like that name actually meant something to her.
Standing over Jamison’s body, Smith made a promise to himself: He was going to run faster than them. Hit harder than them. He was going to make it out of this mess because he always loved the way that name sounded all stretched out and regal, but for the first time in his twenty-one years he wanted to know what it meant. He was betting good old Mr. Jonathan Clark Riley was feeling the same way. He’d find him. It would be like they were freshmen once more, but in … life. They’d watch out for each other and learn and maybe one day they’d graduate all over again. For real this time. Smith made one more promise. After he got himself out of this jam, he was going to find each kid he smacked around, every one of the runts he put the fear of God in, look them in the eyes, and apologize. Repent. Because he was Mr. Daniel Ford Smith and, although he was not sure what he was going to grow up to be one day, he was certain that he was a man.
“There!” Smith heard a man’s voice call out. On the opposite end of the alley, three figures in black approached him. He squinted, checking out their ordnance, and saw the standard gear: Hawkeye Tac IX utility vests weighed down by pouches holding flex cuffs, magazines of ammo, and flash/bang kits. Shock sticks swung from their belts, a mere button-flip away from humming to life. Black, fire-resistant Nomex balaclavas concealed their faces and protected their scalps and ears. Their eyes were hidden behind shatterproof silver ballistic polycarbonate goggle lenses. Standard-issue assault boots covered the distance between them and Smith with a cautious but efficient pace. The lead man reached a gloved hand into a holster on his Tac IX and came out with a Colt M-8 pistol.
And then, instantaneously, the sight of that metallic barrel aimed at him from fifty feet triggered something in Smith, an eerie but familiar sensation he hadn’t felt in years began coursing through his veins and immediately he placed it. His breathing automatically slowed from frantic gasps to a deliberate, measured pace. He felt his muscles loosen and relax, limbering up. It was the Normalcin from Stansbury’s med cycle. The chemical stayed in a specimen’s body permanently, kicking in when adrenaline flow reached fight-or-flight levels. Smith’s fingers and toes stopped shaking. Years of Stansbury Phys-D progressions flashed before his eyes. The barrel of the Colt M-8 was closer now. He watched the three men as they carefully followed the protocols of their training. He stifled a grin. The trio’s leader was ten feet away. Smith saw four ways of disarming him nonlethally.
“Hold steady,” murmured the leader to his men. He was now seven feet away. Smith saw eighteen ways of disarming him. All of that high-tech gear made the group seem as if they were approaching a wild, perhaps infectious animal. The other two circled around, surrounding him. “Specimens aren’t faster than bullets, now are they?” grinned the leader. He held Smith at gunpoint from three feet away. Smith saw twenty-nine ways. He chose number twelve and let his conditioning take over.
With impossible quickness, he swung up an open palm, easily batting away the Colt M-8 into a high airborne arc. The squad leader froze, his body language contorted into a hieroglyphic flash of shock and confusion. Smith brought his foot down on the man’s knee, feeling the patella shatter beneath his Nike sole, grabbed the shock stick from the man’s belt, activated it, and cracked him in the back of the head. Concluding that single, fluid motion, Smith hurled the humming, electric weapon directly at the guy to his left, catching him flush in the mouth. Smith glanced down at the two would-be assailants on the ground, their bodies clenched with the helplessness of severe pain. Smith heard the steel body of the M-8 hit a brick wall and clatter to the pavement. Technique number twelve had taken roughly three seconds. His eyes moved to the last man standing and knew his lips were trembling beneath the balaclava.
“Jesus Chr—,” he blurted, reaching for his
own pistol. Smith grabbed the collar of his Tac IX vest with both hands and yanked, head-butting him, driving his forehead into soft nose cartilage, feeling it rupture and explode. The man crumpled. Smith saw blood soak the inside of the balaclava and seep through the Nomex as the fallen foe writhed on the ground. Upon graduation, every specimen had to register themselves with the police department in their place of residence. Their training and physiques classified them as potentially lethal weapons in the eyes of the law. During their time at school, a daily dose of beta blockers in the med cycle made it virtually impossible for a specimen to get worked up enough to maim someone else in a pique of fury. By graduation, they all knew their skills were only meant to be used in self-defense, that their Stansbury education foisted a huge responsibility upon them, the kind of responsibility that comes with power. Well, that was the theory anyway, and no one could really begrudge law enforcement agencies from taking the proper precautions.
But my God, Smith thought, did it feel good to cut loose and raise some Hell.
He grabbed the stray Colt M-8 from the pavement and took off running, pulling his iPro Industries Tabula 5600 from his jacket, hitting speed dial as he headed for another alley. A weary old woman’s voice answered.
“Senator Bloom’s office,” she said.
“Stella. I need to talk to Stella right now … Christ, I—”
“Ready for code.”
“3328 dash Charlie dash 44. Come on, I’m—,” Smith heard a series of beeps before he could finish.
“Yes?” Stella’s voice was calming, easy, warm molasses rolling down a scoop of ice cream. The same way since they were little kids.
“I’m out. They just came after me. You tell the Senator that I’m out and—”
“Slow down. If they’ve come for you, it’s too late to stop now.” She paused and he somehow knew which question was coming next. “Did you kill them?” He glanced up at the airway above and swore he saw an unmarked gyro pull out of the flow of traffic and begin a descent toward him. He started moving faster. “Mr. Smith, did you—”