Catalyst

by Kincaid,S. J.

  Now he knew he’d miscalculated. If there’d been any chance of a romantic mood at all before the Holocaust Museum, it was pretty much gone.

  Preoccupied and silent, they walked around outside for a bit, the wind rippling their hair. Their steps brought them to the reflection pool, which was cool enough that Tom hoped she’d cheer up—and then they reached the end of the pool and mounted the steps to the Lincoln Memorial. There, they found themselves gazing up at the statue of Abraham Lincoln in his chair.

  A very grim, solemn-looking Abraham Lincoln.

  “He looks sad,” Iman noted, looking very sad herself.

  “He got to be president,” Tom tried. “He won a war. And he got to wear top hats and stuff. That’s kind of cool.”

  “He was assassinated, Tom.”

  “Yeah, I guess that part wasn’t so great,” Tom admitted. He spiraled inward, thinking of other people who’d been assassinated, feeling antsy again, distracted. This wasn’t working. He couldn’t stop thinking about the other ghost in the machine, worrying about that.

  In desperation, Tom called up the thing Vik had net-sent him. A program. Vik had given him a crafty smile before he left for the night, and told him, “This is for emergency use only if you’re nervous or awkward, okay, Doctor? Use it once, see if it helps. If not, you can use it twice more as long as it’s at least twenty minutes apart—and that is it. Godspeed, my friend!”

  Tom considered the enigmatic program sitting in his processor, ready to be unzipped. He was burning with curiosity but very dubious. Vik’s suggestions were usually either profoundly helpful or profoundly disastrous, never anything in between.

  It wasn’t like this date could get worse.

  “You know my friend Vik?” Tom said to her suddenly. At her nod, he forged on: “He knew we were going out for the first time, so he sent this program. He won’t say what it is, but he said to use it if something’s going wrong or if it sucks.”

  Her brows drew together. “If you hate being with me so much, feel free to—”

  “No! That’s not what I mean. I just . . . I’m not good at talking to girls. I keep saying the wrong stuff. I get that. Um, but I don’t wanna call it a night. It could be interesting.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “What program?”

  “I don’t know,” Tom said. “Honestly, it’s probably something terrible and embarrassing.”

  “Send me a copy. Let’s see.”

  Tom activated his net-send with a thought, and forwarded the program to her. They settled by the reflection pool, examining the code together.

  “I’m so bad at programming,” Iman confessed to him. “I have no idea what I’m looking at.”

  “Yeah, me, too. Seriously, I write code, and suddenly I’ve got an infinite loop going on.”

  “Oh, and don’t you hate writing the whole code and then suddenly you get a null because of some tiny, missing period somewhere?”

  “Yeah, and then Blackburn says, ‘You’d get this if you actually tried, Raines. You don’t study.’ No, I’d get that if I had Wyatt Enslow’s brain, then I’d get it.”

  “Do you study?” she asked.

  Tom laughed. “Nope. Not ever. Do you?”

  “Not really. But I did learn how to do one thing. Drop your firewall.”

  Tom did so, intrigued.

  There was a playful sparkle in her eyes. She must’ve activated a thought interface, because suddenly, words flashed before his vision center: Datastream received: program Shockingly Charming initiated.

  “Hey, not Vik’s program!” Tom said, as she laughed. He tried to activate his own thought interface to give the virus back to her, but Iman tickled him, which didn’t help matters at all. Finally, he managed to retaliate and deploy Shockingly Charming on her, and then they waited to see what the program would do, laughing nervously.

  And waited.

  “So I don’t think I’m being shockingly charming yet,” Tom said. “Am I?”

  Iman giggled and shook her head. “Am I?”

  “Yeah,” Tom said with a smile, brushing her hair off her cheek.

  Iman hit his arm. “Liar. I think you have to break it to Vik that his program is a dud.” She hopped to her feet and tugged on his hand. Surprised, Tom let her lead the way, the wind making her hair dance. “Still hungry? Let’s get food somewhere.”

  “I thought you weren’t in the mood.”

  “I can eat dinner somewhere for your sake. You’re paying, aren’t you?”

  He laughed. “That’s noble and self-sacrificing of you. Thanks, Iman.”

  Her grin flashed at him, which pleased Tom immensely like he actually had said something shockingly charming. It wasn’t until they were sitting across from each other in a diner that he realized she was finding most everything he said amusing.

  Maybe he had become shockingly charming somehow. He didn’t sound any different to himself, but she seemed like she was a lot more comfortable all of a sudden. Iman told him the program made her feel giggly and then pouted because he wasn’t feeling at all giggly himself.

  “I’m a man. Men don’t giggle,” Tom informed her. “We laugh. And chortle.”

  “Try the program again.”

  “Okay, but if I end up giggling or whatever, you better not tell anyone.” Tom used the program on himself again. They waited for the burgers to come, and he still wasn’t noticing anything. He used it a third time. The fourth time, it kicked in.

  A strange giddiness overtook him, too. The moment seemed to grow profound as their food arrived, and Tom watched, fascinated, as she sipped at her soda. He didn’t feel giggly. Instead, he felt engaged in a way he couldn’t remember ever feeling before. And Iman seemed so . . . very . . . fascinating to him. He couldn’t look away from her.

  “You have amazing eyes,” Tom told her. “You’re like Cleopatra.”

  “I really overdid my makeup, then.”

  She took a huge, voracious bite of her burger. Tom liked that.

  They wolfed down their food, then he carelessly slung his bills on the table for the food that was far too expensive, then looped his arm around her waist. She didn’t pull away as they headed out onto the street. The languid ease filled him to the brim, the world different somehow. It was like a warm glow lent everything a sense of meaning, a sense of profoundness, and it all felt so right. Tom looked up at the trees, at the streetlights, down at the girl in his arms, wishing he could capture this feeling and learn how to replicate it anytime he wanted—because this was how the world was supposed to feel. He wanted to feel this way all the time.

  He was not worried about anything now, anything at all. He didn’t care about the other ghost in the machine or Vengerov or dead Coalition executives or anything.

  To make sure the sensation never waned, Tom used the program on himself two more times. Iman used it a second time. Tom got an idea when they saw the reflection pool again. “We should wade in. You and me.”

  “What if we get arrested?”

  He laughed. “Pretend I was chasing you and you ran into the water to save yourself because I can’t swim.”

  “The water’s not deep at all.”

  “I know. Tell the cop that’s where the flaw in your escape plan came in.”

  “Aw, you’d get arrested so I wouldn’t? You’re so noble.”

  “I try to tell people that, but no one believes me,” Tom agreed. They kicked off their shoes and waded into the pool, their reflections dancing across the surface along with the glowing streetlights. Emboldened, he cupped the hot skin on the back of her neck and drew her lips to his, the reflected marble columns of the Lincoln Memorial shimmering in the water about their feet. Then a security guard yelled at them, so they leaped out, swiped up their shoes, and ran away barefoot and laughing.

  By the time they were on the Metro together, her cheeks were pink, her eyes glowing, and Tom had this strange, buoying sense of confidence like he really had become shockingly charming. He drew her to his side, the curve of her hip aga
inst his, and kept his arm tucked around her, a sense of warm possessiveness throughout him.

  Everything had been so complicated with Medusa. But this wasn’t. It was simple, easy, and Iman wasn’t on the other side of the world—she was right here. Right here. He kissed her again, and neither of them cared that they were in the middle of a crowded train car.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  VIK WASN’T IN his bunk, so Tom stumbled into Wyatt’s later, and slumped down at the foot of her bed as she looked at him over her book, confused.

  “The alluring eyebrow maneuver?” Tom slurred. “It works.” He held up his fingers in two victory signs. “I did it, and I got up to Iman’s bunk. That’s where I’ve been for the last couple hours.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Wyatt asked.

  “I’m shockingly charming.”

  “You really aren’t. And you look like you’ve had a stroke.”

  Confused, Tom touched his face. Both sides were moving. Maybe she just said that because she was still mad at him. Speaking of . . . “Why are you so mad at me?”

  “I’m not,” she said.

  Her eyes doubled, became four eyes. Tom wondered why he was letting his eyes blur like this. He forced her back to two eyes.

  “You said I just use you for programs,” Tom pointed out. “That’s not true. You know that’s not true. You didn’t talk to me for three months, and you definitely weren’t writing me any programs, but I stayed around ’cause we’re friends. That’s what friends do. Therefore, I? Am friend.”

  “I only understood about half those words. Why are you slurring everything you say?”

  “Program. Greatest ever.”

  “What program?”

  Tom fumbled for his forearm keyboard, then remembered he didn’t have it. He couldn’t remember right now how to use the net-send thought interface to forward it, so he threw up his arms helplessly. “Vik’s.”

  “Oh no.” Wyatt whipped out something from the drawer beneath her bed. “I’ll scan your processor to see what’s going on.”

  “I’m trying to talk here,” Tom told her, reaching for her so she’d sit down, too.

  She shoved his hands away. “Talk while I scan.” She grabbed his hair and pulled his head forward, then jabbed a neural wire into his access port.

  “Ow,” Tom said, belatedly registering that she’d tugged on his hair. He couldn’t remember what he’d wanted to say to her now. He looked at her, where her eyes had turned to four again, and saw the intense look of concentration puckering he face. It made something inside him sink into a dark pit. He didn’t like Wyatt being mad at him. It made him feel very lonely and sad.

  She read something on a screen she’d attached to the other end of the neural wire, her fingers moving over her forearm keyboard. “‘Shockingly Charming’ . . . Is that the name of the program?”

  “I really am sorry I kissed you,” Tom said. He realized how he should phrase it. “I sexually harassed you.”

  “Of course Shockingly Charming is the name of the program. It’s such a Vik name. He’d better come in here and carry you back to your bunk.” She regarded him solemnly over her forearm keyboard, her brow knit. “Tom, you can’t operate heavy machinery in this state.”

  He gave a sloppy laugh. “Yeah, I will go put away my heavy machinery, then. All my tractors and pulleys.”

  Wyatt considered him. “You probably won’t even remember any of this tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know about—”

  And then Wyatt took him by the shoulders, and crashed her lips into his. Tom’s brain was slow to process the fact that she was kissing him, and by the time he lifted his clumsy arms to take hold of her, she’d already pulled back, her eyes moving over his face.

  “It’s not the same,” she whispered. “I don’t feel it this time.”

  “What just happened here?” Tom wondered, feeling like he’d missed something.

  “I’m so sorry, Tom.” Wyatt looked down at the carpet. “I took advantage of you. That was wrong, and I won’t do it again.”

  “I’m confused,” Tom admitted.

  “It’s just that . . .” She drew a deep breath, like she was steeling herself for some difficult task, then gazed intently into his eyes. “I used to think about you a lot, Tom. When we were plebes, mostly. But sometimes last year. I knew you didn’t see me that way, though. You never did. And I already knew the first time I heard about Medusa that there was no chance, really.”

  Tom scrubbed his palm over his face. “Wyatt? What?”

  “I’m finally at a point with Yuri where I know how great things are,” she said. “I’m finally comfortable and I’m not worried about everything now. I never felt like I was good enough for him. In some ways it was so much easier being around you because we’re both . . . we’re both so imperfect. You see me the way I am, but it doesn’t matter to you. I felt like Yuri saw me as someone better than I am, and I’d never live up to that. And one day he’d see the real me and feel disappointed.”

  Tom was so perplexed. She was talking way too fast for him to follow. “Huh?”

  “Even after all this time,” Wyatt said, “there was this part of me that wondered sometimes if it would’ve been better if I’d said something to you, just once . . . like that day outside the Smithsonian. I always had this what-if scenario in the back of my mind, but I stopped wondering after a while. I hadn’t thought about it until you kissed me and then it’s like all those doubts came back.” She looked away from him, her voice full of wonder. “But I’m over that now. I know what I want. I want Yuri.”

  Tom was so confused. “Is that good?”

  “It’s so, so good. It’s great.” She flung her arms around Tom suddenly. “Thank you, Tom. Thank you so much.”

  He stared, bemused, down at the cheek pressed to his chest, sensing he’d done something right here, even if he didn’t quite get what. He patted her back. “Great, Wyatt. Great.”

  Wyatt pulled back and touched his cheek. “Oh, you are so completely inebriated, Tom. That’s what Vik’s program did to you. I’ll get him here to help you. We’ll get your brain back to homeostasis in no time.”

  “Homo what?” Utterly baffled, Tom sat there under her bed while Wyatt began to reverse the program. He wasn’t quite able to grasp what had happened, but he had a feeling they’d just made up. “We’re friends again?”

  She beamed at him. “We’re best friends.”

  Bewildered, but happy, he gave a thumbs-up. Then he passed out.

  HE WAS ONLY vaguely aware of voices swelling as Vik came into the room, and Wyatt came with him saying, “. . . your stupid program!”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll smuggle him back to our division.” It was Vik’s voice. Boots thudded close to Tom’s head. “Oh man, you weren’t kidding. He’s out.”

  “I can’t wake him up now.”

  “I’ll turn him on his side in case he gets sick. Uh, think he’d feel better if we made him puke? Or maybe gave him water?”

  “He didn’t drink anything. He can’t just throw up and get it out of his system. He’s not going to dehydrate, so water isn’t what he needs, either. I’m reversing the program, but it’s going to take a while for his brain to return to its normal GABA and dopamine levels. Great job.”

  “Hey, I told him to use it once, maybe a couple times. Not this.”

  A hand, nudging Tom’s face. Insistent enough to be annoying. Tom batted it away.

  “Okay, so he’s kind of there,” Vik said, his voice strained. “Aw, don’t look at me like that. Give me a break, Evil Wench! It’s not like I pinned him down and used it on him over and over again. Tom obviously overestimated himself. In case you haven’t noticed, he does that. A lot.”

  Words flashed behind Tom’s closed lids. He grumbled words that didn’t escape his closed lips, irate at the fla
sh of code cutting through his foggy brain.

  Vik sighed. “Well, on the bright side, Tom must’ve liked my program a lot.”

  Sarcasm dripped from her voice. “You’re such a good friend to him.”

  “I am. I’m a great friend. Keyword here: ‘friend,’ not ‘dad.’ Tom is a big boy who can make his own decisions. He does that a lot, too. Case in point: single-handedly ending the ethics sim.”

  Silence. Then, “Tiny spicy Vikram.”

  “That’s uncalled for, Evil Wench!”

  “I was disabling the surveillance. Listen, don’t you think it’s kind of weird, how he acted during that test?”

  “What, going rogue like that? Tom always does that in sims.”

  “No, I mean . . .” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He shot all those people. Tom wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t just kill people like that. He had to know it was a sim.”

  “It’s weird, but we asked him already. He says he didn’t know. He’d tell us if he knew.”

  “No, he wouldn’t.”

  Vik laughed. “This is Tom. He would’ve rubbed it in my face if he figured it out and I didn’t. Just like I’d have rubbed it in his. We’re face rubbers.”

  “You’re acting like he’s never kept secrets from us before. Remember Medusa?”

  “Okay, so Tom had a secret thing with her. Twice. But that doesn’t mean—”

  “Three times. He was talking to her again. Recently.”

  “What? I told him—”

  “To stay away?”

  Anger touched Vik’s voice. “He said he would.”

  “He lied, Vik. He lies a lot. You haven’t noticed, obviously. You know how whenever you ask about those casinos and stuff, he talks about how great it was when he was a kid and how—” She broke off. “I just realized something. I know him better than you do.”

  Vik barked a laugh. “No, you don’t. Are you kidding?”

  “I do. I know him better.”

  “I know everything about Tom. Come on, the casino stuff is not made up. He taught me how to count cards. He knows about every variation of poker there is. Plus, I called him over break at—”