by Peter Clines
“You said you’d gone over all the lines of code looking for an error that could’ve caused Bob’s accident.”
She blinked. “What?”
“The code for the Door.” He gestured at the rings. “D’you remember saying that?”
“That’s what you want to talk about?”
“Was there something else?”
Her brow settled over her eyes. “I guess not.”
“So you’d gone over all the code at that point?”
“Yeah. That’s why I went to get a drink.”
“How?”
“I got in my car, drove to the bar—”
“How’d you go over two-million-plus lines of code in thirty-six hours?”
Jamie opened her mouth, then closed it and shook her head. “You must’ve heard me wrong,” she said.
“So you didn’t finish going over the code?”
“Of course I did.”
“When? Because I couldn’t’ve done it in that time, and I can pretty much guarantee my reading speed’s faster than anyone you know.”
She smirked. “Now you’re just trying to get me turned on.”
“Don’t dodge the question.”
“Seriously, all the things we talked about that night, and this is what sticks in your mind?”
“What are we supposed to talk about? Why you named your cat Spock when you were little?”
Jamie shook her head. “See, that’s how drunk I was. My cat’s name was Isis. My parents made fun of me because he was a boy cat and Isis was a girl’s name.”
“You’re still avoiding the question. Did you go through all the code or not?”
“You’re being a pain and you’re asking about things you’re not allowed to know about.”
“Technically, I’m just asking about your job performance.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re not being a pain.”
He put his hands up. “Just a guy trying to do his job.”
She leaned back in her chair and tapped her foot on the floor, swinging it side to side. “Okay,” she said. “What’s your deal?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why do you keep up this whole ‘just a normal guy’ thing? Between your memory and your IQ, you’re probably one of the most intelligent people on the planet.”
“Well, that’s up for debate.”
“See?” Jamie kicked at the floor and her chair rolled away from the workstation. She pointed at him. “That’s what I mean. You know you’re in the top point-zero-zero-one percent of humanity, but you laugh it off and try to ignore it. You’ve got more potential than anyone I’ve ever known, and you’re a small-town schoolteacher. Why haven’t you been working for Magnus all along? Hell, why aren’t you his boss or running NASA or JPL or something?”
He shrugged. “I’m not interested.”
“That’s not a real answer.”
“It’s real enough.”
She smirked. “Do you want real answers from me or answers that are real enough?”
Mike sighed. He turned away and made a point of studying the rings. The red lights on either side of the Door were still out of sync. He kept the monitor in his peripheral vision, but none of the numbers or readings even flickered.
“Okay,” she said. She tugged her chair back to the station and turned to her own terminal. “Just remember, I offered.”
“You ever met any high-IQ people, the ones with insanely high IQs? Or read interviews or articles about them?”
“My question first.”
“I’m trying to answer your question.”
She shrugged without looking up. “Counting you?”
“Sure.”
Jamie spun her chair toward him and swung one foot up onto her knee. “Four or five, I think. Olaf’s 165 or something like that.”
“What’s the one thing they all have in common?”
“Besides being really smart?”
Mike shook his head. “When I was thirteen,” he said, “when we got the results back from the IQ tests, I was excited as hell. It’s every kid’s dream, right? To find out you’re special? It’s Harry Potter and Spider-Man all wrapped up in one.”
“So what happened?”
“Everyone started treating me different. All the other kids already thought I was some kind of brainiac, and now they had proof I was strange. All my teachers were either second guessing themselves around me or giving me extra work and getting annoyed that it didn’t slow me down.”
He looked through the rings at Site B. The red light flashed by again, like a fast wave of blood washing in across the beach. He remembered what Sasha said about a wound.
“I did my own study,” he said. “I reached out and found other high-IQ people online. It was just basic stuff back then. Bulletin boards. CompuServe.”
“I remember.”
“But I was smart and I found people. Little proto-web online communities. The Mega Society. I talked to people, asked questions, basically studied every person I could find with an IQ over 150. And you know what I found out?”
She shrugged.
“Almost all of them have some kind of social problems. Relationship issues, emotional issues, superiority complexes. The more I looked, the worse it got. Most of them are isolated and lonely. The divorce rate looks good until you realize how few of them ever get married. Pound for pound, it’s one of the unhappiest subsets of people you can find.”
“Why?”
“Because they know they’re different. They know they’re smarter than everyone around them, everyone in the building, usually everyone in a thirty- or forty-mile radius. It’s like spending your whole life as a doctoral student stuck in a kindergarten class, forced to do single-digit addition and writing the alphabet every day.”
She sat back and digested the idea.
“I already knew my memory made me different. Now I had pretty solid evidence I was going to be miserable for the rest of my life, and I wasn’t even old enough to shave yet. So I decided to be normal.”
“How?”
“By not feeding it. Until then, I’d read everything I could get my hands on. I watched tons of shows about history and science. And at thirteen I stopped. I didn’t give my brain more to work with.
“That’s why I never had another IQ test. It’s why I didn’t study physics or astrophysics or biochemistry or anything like that in college. It’s why I didn’t want to work for Reggie. I don’t want to know how much smarter I am than everyone around me. I didn’t want to ‘expand my potential’ or use ‘the full scope of my phenomenal intellect.’ I wanted to teach high school English, help kids get into college, direct the fall musical, and live a normal, happy life like everyone else.”
Jamie’s lips curled into a smile. “So, basically, you’re telling me ignorance is bliss?”
“You have no idea.”
“There are just all kinds of levels to you, aren’t there?”
“Not by choice.”
“What’s the musical?”
“Little Mary Sunshine.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that a real thing or did you make it up?”
“It’s real and it’s cheap,” he said. “I wanted The King and I, but it’s crazy expensive.”
“I was in West Side Story when I was a sophomore. My mom thought it’d be good for me to try something new.”
“How’d that go over?”
“I hated it. I’m not good at pretending to be someone else.” She looked at him for a moment. “You’ve learned a lot here, haven’t you?”
He made a point of focusing on the rings again. “Yeah.”
“Lots of physics. Programming. Electronics.”
“Yep.”
Her smile dimmed. “You’re not going to be able to go back, are you? Back to being a teacher?”
Mike looked at the monitor. “I sent them my resignation two days ago. My contract was up for renewal anyway.”
“Just like th
at?”
“Feeding the ants is a one-way street. I can’t forget any of it, so I can’t stop myself from thinking about it. That’s why I kept turning Reggie down for years.”
“But you signed up for this.”
“He kind of tricked me into it, but how could I pass it up? Like you all said, it’s going to change the world.”
“So where do you go from here?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll try running NASA or JPL or something.”
The smile returned to her face. “I’m glad you came here.”
“Thanks. Have I answered your question?”
She straightened up in her chair. “I believe so,” she said.
“How did you go through all the code so fast?”
She studied his face for almost a minute. Once her eyes darted to the rings. Twice to the computer screen. She bit her lip, looked at the Door, and the lights flicked on in the control room. Her eyes widened, just for a moment, even as her shoulders relaxed. “I think that counts as another question you’re not supposed to ask,” she said.
Mike sighed.
“My turn,” she said a little louder. “Which one of us is paying for dinner?”
“What?”
“Dinner,” she said. “Someone has to pay. You or me?”
“Why don’t we just each pay for ourselves?”
Jamie shook her head. “You’re kind of missing the point,” she said. “If I don’t have to say ‘buy me dinner first,’ it’s your big chance to look like a gentleman.”
He stared at her for a minute.
“Okay, fine,” she said. She fished a quarter out of her jeans and flipped it into the air. “Call it.”
“Heads.”
Her fingers snatched the coin out of the air and slapped it onto the back of her palm. “It’s your lucky night,” she said. “You’re buying dinner.”
“Ahhh.” He looked away and bit his lip.
“Something wrong with that?”
Mike studied the rings. He watched the lights. He checked the readings on the screen. They still hadn’t changed.
“Well?”
“Did Arthur put you up to all this?”
“What?”
“You’ve become a lot more friendly toward me ever since I threatened him.” He ran through a list of potential words and phrases. “Some might say aggressively friendly.”
Jamie studied his face for a minute. “Are you politely asking if Arthur’s pimping me out to you in exchange for your cooperation?”
“I thought I’d done a fairly good job of not saying that.”
“Did it occur to you that this could just be a woman attracted to a coworker in a very normal part-admiration, part-lustful way?”
He shook his head. “I can honestly say it did not.”
“You weren’t kidding about the social problems and relationship issues, were you?”
“Apparently not.”
The control room light blinked out.
“No, Arthur did not put me up to this. I am asking you to take me to dinner all on my own.”
“Telling me to, really.”
“Well, clearly if I waited for you to ask, I’d starve to death.”
They both made a point of studying their monitors and checking the rings.
“Was there someplace you’d like to go?”
“Go?”
“For dinner.”
“Oh, gosh, I thought you’d never ask.”
THIRTY-ONE
Mike’s fingers wiggled on the steering wheel. “So, where am I going?”
“Is there anything you don’t like?”
He shrugged. “There’s a lot of stuff I haven’t tried.”
“Thai? Italian? Mexican?” Jamie paused and frowned. “You’re not one of those people who thinks Taco Bell is real Mexican food, are you?”
“I was able to figure that one out on my own.”
She stretched in the passenger seat and put her feet up on the dashboard. “So what do you want?”
“We’re in San Diego,” he said. “I’m guessing there’s good Mexican food?”
“Great food,” she said. “I know a little hole-in-the-wall place. You’ll love it.”
“Where am I going?”
“Freeway. Go left.”
Mike flicked the directional, changed lanes, and made the turn just as the light flipped to yellow. She waved him onto a southbound ramp. “How far are we going?”
“I’ll let you know.”
He nodded, and they drove in silence for a moment. “You want to talk some more about the code?”
“Not really,” she said.
A few dozen responses flitted through his mind. He could push her for more information about the Door. He could be subtle about it and see what she let slip.
Or he could try to let it slide for a night and just enjoy being out with her.
“Here.” Jamie gestured at another ramp. “Stay in the first lane.”
“Okay.”
“So what’s up with Mike?”
He glanced away from the road. “Sorry?”
“Your name’s Leland, right?”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
“I’m guessing one of your parents was drunk when picking baby names?”
“Family name. Grandfather and great-grandfather were both Leland. Mom insisted.”
“How do you get Mike from Leland?”
“You don’t.”
She pointed at a sign. “South again,” she said. “Where’d it come from?”
“Why are we talking so much about me?”
“Because I spilled my guts the other night at the bar and all you want to talk about is work. Where’d Mike come from?”
“Reggie gave it to me back in junior high, about a year after we met.”
“Mike? That’s the best nickname he could come up with for you?”
“It’s a nickname for a nickname.”
“Now this sounds kind of dirty,” Jamie said with a grin.
“It’s short for Mycroft. Mycroft Holmes.”
“Related to Sherlock?”
“His older brother. Mycroft was introduced in ‘The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter.’ We had to read six of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories for English class in tenth grade. Mr. Jones. Most boring teacher ever.”
“I’m still not getting it.”
“Mycroft was the superior Holmes. Smarter, more observant, better at deduction. But he never did anything with it. He didn’t study or sharpen his gifts, he just used them as a party trick now and then. He was the embarrassment who always frustrated Sherlock.”
“So Reggie called you Mycroft?”
“Everyone else called me Mycroft,” he said. “They’d all been in classes with me for years. Even after I decided I didn’t want to be special, I still couldn’t help blowing the bell curve. And they all knew I wasn’t trying at that point, which made it even worse. We read that story, and they all had me pegged. Hell, two of the teachers slipped and used it in class when they called on me.”
“Ahhh. No offense, but it sounds like a lot of your formative years sucked.”
He shrugged.
“Get off here,” she said, pointing at another sign. “East exit. The ramp’s almost going to go around in a full circle.”
Mike tugged the wheel and a car behind them honked. He glanced in his mirror and the other driver flashed lights. The car accelerated and pulled around them, roaring off down the freeway.
“So everyone called you Mycroft,” Jamie said.
“Yeah. It went on for about a week and then Reggie put a stop to it. He just started calling me Mike. And, well, he’s one of those guys who can get people to do what he wants, so three weeks later everyone was calling me Mike.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. It was kind of a double blessing. I didn’t have to deal with Mycroft or Leland.”
“Follow the road around the curve,” she said.
“Oka
y.”
“You’re going to turn left at the light up there.”
He glanced over his shoulder and tapped the directional again.
“I would’ve figured you as one of those guys who’d make a name like Leland work for you,” she said. “That you’d just own it and make it cool.”
“There is no way Leland would ever be a cool name. I say this as someone who grew up in the decade of Twin Peaks.”
“That’s what people thought about Hugo,” said Jamie. “And then Hugo Weaving came along and suddenly there’s a hundred kids named Hugo.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’d name a kid Hugo.”
The area looked more residential, but with lots of smaller businesses. They passed a coffee shop, a bookstore, and a small garage. “Where am I going now?”
“Go about two more blocks and then start looking for a space.”
“They don’t have parking?”
“I told you, it’s a hole-in-the-wall.”
The car came to rest at a stop light. There was another coffee shop, a corner store, and a Laundromat. He could see a few bars and restaurants ahead, past a street-spanning sign shaped like a trolley car. “Around here?”
She nodded. “It’s right up there on the left. If you see a space, grab it.”
He slowed a bit. Both sides of the street were packed. A few cars crowded driveways. “So why are we here?”
“Because I’m guessing you’ve never had good Mexican food.”
“No,” he said, “seriously. Why are we here?”
Jamie sighed. “Again?”
“Sorry,” he said. “This just doesn’t feel right.”
“How so?”
He turned right onto a side street. “I’ve been here a week, and now out of nowhere you want to know all these little details about me.”
“I’m old-fashioned,” she said. “I don’t like to sleep with strangers.”
“And that,” he said. “The over-friendliness. I just don’t buy it.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” she said. She undid her seatbelt and threw her leg across his waist. The car jerked to a halt as she rolled into his lap, wedging herself between his body and the steering wheel. “Stop talking.”
“Are you—”
Jamie leaned into his face and kissed him. Hard. The tip of her tongue darted out to tap his. She found his wrists, pulled his hands up, and pressed his palms against her breasts.