A burning log instantly appeared midair and fell to the ground. The flames burst out of it as it hit. I stared in disbelief. He’d translocated it on fire, and apparently without Curtis’ errors. For a moment, I thought of Greg Langston and his dream of a transporter. Not only could it be done, it had already been.
Molley clapped vigorously to which Rex gave a shrug. “That was easy. Let’s do something fun. Ever see a U.F.O., Kinzie?” He didn’t wait for an answer, waving me back from the burning log instead. His eyes glazed over and it disappeared, and the bonfire behind us crashed and sparked with its return. Rex’s brow creased with concentration and a new flame – a short log this time – suddenly hovered over my head. I jumped aside to avoid the falling embers. This time I couldn’t conceal my amazement as it began to stutter, rotating its position with little jumps, like an animation, until it became a blur. A glowing disk in midair. And then it moved, first slowly, then faster, then zigzagging about around us.
Molley cheered, Sasha clapped, and even Curtis gave a quiet hurrah, although he still lurked in the shadows. Rex swelled at the praise like a blowfish, but maybe it was deserved. Compared to what Curtis had done – heck, compared to anything I’d ever conceived of – this was incredible.
Rex exhaled hard, releasing his effort. But the stick didn’t fall. It didn’t even exist. The blur became just a mass of smoldering dust-like particles. A silvery goo that had no real substance. It was like nothing I’d ever seen, sinking slowly, dispersing as it drifted down, no longer matter as I understood it at all. When it touched the ground it seemed to … ooze, and then it was gone. The stick had vanished.
“What was that stuff?” I whispered, but Rex was rubbing his temples. “It didn’t seem … real.”
“Transposition residue,” came the voice of Curtis out of the darkness. “A low-energy quark-gluon plasma. The only other place it might exist is at the surface of a cold black hole, leaking into space through Hawking radiation.”
I looked up at him in amazement and saw the reflection of the firelight shining on his glasses. Curtis might be cowed but he was no idiot. And Lord Rex wasn’t quite as perfect as he liked to believe.
Chapter 9
Greg
“Lang-ston! Lang-ston! Lang-ston!” the Alpha Delts cheered from the sidelines as I approached the wooden two-by-four structure at the end of the practice field. Having designed the simple machine, I had the honor of releasing the weight on the contraption that read simply “AD-FAT” on the side. Murphy had painted the letters which I’d had to explain twice stood for our frat and the contraption – a floating-arm trebuchet.
The Pumpkin Toss was undoubtedly the stupidest event in the annual inter-fraternity competition. But it was also the most fun. The third Monday of each month at Hutchins brought one competition and at the end of the year, the fraternity with the most points received the Hellenic Crown. It meant nothing, but between the fraternities, it was everything.
Today’s competition wasn’t fierce. I glanced downrange at the orange blotches scattered across the sunlit grass. The closest was maybe forty yards. The TKE’s, a bunch of business major idiots, had used a simple sling shot. Bad move, but predictable. Every other fraternity entered a standard trebuchet to heave the squash, with varying results depending on the size and weight of their siege engine. The spread was from sixty-eight yards to just shy of one hundred. None of them had a chance.
Boomer, standing beside me, eyed my unconventional machine with uncertainty. “You sure this is going to work?” he asked quietly.
I returned a confident grin. “Know it,” I said and went to give the pumpkin its last rites.
I looked back at the assembled crowd as I knelt down. Pete was cheering with a group of our frat bothers while Jenna White waited impatiently beside him. She hadn’t come down to the frat house with the idea of me being dragged off to a muddy field and she made her annoyance obvious. Too bad. She’d just have to wait.
I scanned down the field, but my eyes caught on Kinzie Nicolosi, standing just out from the sideline. Sasha was with her – no surprise. And Brolie was behind the two of them. He lifted his eyes and stared straight into mine, challenging me somehow. He grinned and placed his hand on Kinzie’s shoulder. An ownership stance. Kinzie’s entire body tensed, and she flinched it off, leaning further into the field, but it didn’t faze the jerk. He dropped his hand and looked at both girls like possessions, then his eyes rose back to mine and his lips curled wider. God, I wanted to pound that fuck, just to wipe that look off his face.
I looked down at the pumpkin resting in the sling and pulled a Sharpie out of my pocket. Rather than writing “FAT Man” on it as I planned, I scrawled a crude face and grabbed two silver thumbtacks from the sign on the side and used them for the pupils – Brolie’s steel gray eyes. I stepped back to survey my handiwork and smiled.
“Who the hell’s that supposed to be?” Boomer asked.
“World’s biggest dork,” I muttered. Seizing the handle, I raised my other arm with more flourish than the situation warranted. When the Alpha Delts’ cheers had reached a fevered pitch, I yelled, “Fire in the hole!” and yanked the lever, dropping the weights straight-down the track, and whipping the floating arm of the trebuchet in a tight loop. Brolie’s bloated pumpkin head launched into the air. The roar from the Alpha Delts faded for an instant before erupting anew when the pumpkin disintegrated in an orange mist halfway up the goal post at the other end of the field, a hundred and twenty yards away leaving the entire goal post vibrating like some huge tuning fork.
My fraternity brothers rallied around and Jenna danced over and threw her arms around me. I guess this wasn’t boring anymore. I lobbed my arm around her shoulders and turned into the tide of students flowing onto the field to congratulate us. Amidst the cheers and slaps on the back, I saw Kinzie, frozen in place as the revelers surged past her. Her terror-filled eyes locked onto mine for a moment, as her mouth formed the word, “Help?” Even at this distance, I was sure no sound had come out.
“Hang on,” I told Jenna, dropping my arm from her shoulder. I took a step forward, but she grabbed at me.
“You said you’d spend the afternoon with me,” she whined.
“I will. Just give me a minute.”
Jenna’s eyes traveled over to where Kinzie remained immobilized, scanning her from the top to bottom. “You’d rather be with her?” Jenna asked with a sullen look. God, how much of me did this girl want? We’d spent the whole damn weekend together.
“What the hell,” I bit back in exasperation. “I’m just doing a paper with her. Give me a break.” But she obviously wasn’t going to. “Look, go back to my room. Pete can let you in. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” I stormed away. Damn girls and their possessive games. If that didn’t tell her who I wanted to be with this afternoon, I didn’t know what would.
By the time I reached her, Kinzie’s statue form had become unsteady, weaving slightly in the thinning crowd. Her chest heaved like she was gasping for air. “Are you okay?” I asked, grasping around her upper arm, pressing through the fabric of her sweatshirt, to steady her.
Her dark eyes locked onto me. “Just … just talk to me. Please?”
“Uh, sure,” I said, feeling at a loss for words. Asking her what was wrong seemed out of place – assuming she wanted me to distract her from whatever was bothering her rather than think about it more. And besides, that would be making her talk instead of me. “So … uh … have you seen any good movies?” I asked. “No, wait. That was a question. Let me think of something else to talk about. Uh …” My brain was failing me, but her eyes were still imploring. “Have I told you I’m from Boston?” I asked and she shook her head slightly. “Yeah. Well, Brookline. My dad and stepmom live there. I … uh … I don’t have any brothers or sisters, do you?” I was talking way too fast, and every thought that came into my head seemed to end in a question. But the edges of Kinzie’s mouth began to curl into a smile and her breathing slowed, so maybe that was okay
.
“No, I’m an only child too,” she answered, and I felt my body relax as she did. “Thanks for doing that,” she added. “I …” She paused, glancing around at the remaining stragglers from the competition.
“Don’t like crowds?”
“Terrified of them. I need to get over it,” she said as we turned to head off the field. She was trying to sound brave, but her eyes dropped at the end. “They scare me. I just … I can’t think or do anything,” she admitted, seeming embarrassed.
“So you really meant it at Gianni’s when you said it easier to be lonely.”
She shot me a quizzical look. “You remember that? Yeah. I’d take being alone over a bunch of people anytime. Kinda weird, isn’t it.”
“Meh. Don’t worry about it. Everybody’s afraid of something,” I offered to smooth it over. “Nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“What are you afraid of?” she asked bluntly.
“Me?” My heart hammered twice, and I had no answer, despite the twisting in my gut. “I … I don’t know. Nothing, I guess,” I answered, conceding her point.
She smiled with satisfaction and brushed her hair from her face. “That’s what I thought.”
I picked up a lock that fell forward again, holding it up for her to see. “What happened?” The chunk of hair was shorter than the rest, and not in a way that bore any resemblance to an intentional style.
“I was attacked by a marshmallow encrusted light saber.” She rewarded my laugh with a smile of her own as we began to climb the road up the hill. “So how far you’ve gotten on the materials?” she asked, but I knew her real question from the tone.
“You don’t think I’ve been working on it.”
She blushed slightly. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t deny it either. We should go over what both of us have done so far, and I expect you to have gotten through your share as well.”
“That sounds like a challenge,” she said with a gleam in her eyes. “But I was gone this weekend … Um… out of town. I haven’t gotten as far as I wanted. But I’ll catch up,” she added in her defense. I smiled to myself, knowing that she would – and probably read my sections as well to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
“God, I hate this hill,” Boomer’s voice came from behind us. “Will you build that transporter already, Langston?”
“I’m on it,” I called back, slowing down to let him catch up.
“Right. This guy’s nuts, Kinzie,” Boomer said to the girl beside me. “He thinks those things are real.”
Kinzie’s cheeks reddened, so I stepped in. “Not real, Boomer. Possible. Like you developing some class.”
Boomer frowned. “You’re a real comedian, Langston.”
“Transporters are possible,” Kinzie informed him in my defense. “I know they are.”
“The biggest problem with building one is resolution,” I explained to her eager face. “You sample a subject, send the information across a data link, and reassemble it on the other side with new raw materials. They’re already doing it with 3D stereolithography, but the technology …”
Kinzie jumped in. “And I’ve been wondering if there’s a way …” She hesitated, and gave me that look that saw straight through me, but I would have never expected the next words from her mouth. “Can I work on this with you? Transloca – I mean, the transporter? I want to understand it better.”
I nodded, knowing I was nowhere near ready to actually work on the project. I didn’t even understand it myself. After grad school, perhaps. But no one had ever taken me seriously on it. Still, Kinzie wasn’t exactly stupid, so I could bounce ideas around with her if nothing else. “Why don’t you come back with us?” I asked and felt a quick jab from Boomer’s elbow in my side.
“Ixnay on the oomray,” he muttered loudly enough for Kinzie to hear.
Crap. Jenna. I’d forgotten about her. “Right, I guess …”
“Ats-thay ine-fay,” Kinzie offered easily, letting me off the hook. The funny thing was, she said it with a smile – like she understood and was okay with it. She thanked me again, and Boomer and I turned down frat row.
“Kinzie? Of all the fucking girls at this school … Kinzie?” Boomer questioned, shaking his head. “She’s not your type, Langston.”
I gave him a shove. “No shit. I don’t like her. It’s just the paper.”
“That’s right,” Kinzie’s voice called to Boomer from behind us. I turned to realize she’d heard us. “And I don’t much care for him either.”
I gave a light laugh, but her words stabbed me because I’d been lying. The truth was, over the past few days I’d grow to like Kinzie – genuinely liked her. Even if I’d sounded like a babbling fool today, it was okay with her. I didn’t have to play the part of the cocky stud – a card I’d played so many times, I’d begun to think it was the only one I had – the ace of assholes. Kinzie let me dust off the rest of the deck. And I felt good when I was around her. But her opinion was right. I wasn’t a likeable guy.
Boomer was watching me, no doubt wondering what was going through my head. “Man, I’m witnessing the fall of the great Greg Langston.”
My glare shut him up. I was friends with Kinzie. Nothing more. And besides, Jenna was waiting.
Chapter 10
Kinzie
Sasha ushered the tittering girls out of our dorm room, herding them down the hallway to their rooms to inspect their dresses for the evening. No one had asked to see mine, and I hadn’t offered to show it. They probably thought I wasn’t going to the Gala. That would make sense – much more sense than what I was doing.
I sprawled across my rumpled blue comforter after closing the door. Why was I going to the Gala? Just the thought of the-end-of-semester formal – the entire student body in one place – made my heart pound. I didn’t care if my dorm’s Resident Advisor wanted me there. I could always tell her I’d gone, and pretend she just hadn’t seen me. Nobody would notice I wasn’t there.
This was Greg’s fault. He’d talked me into it, and he’d been pretty funny about the whole thing. First, prying out for the name of the one person who I thought would be okay to go with as a date, then, everyday for the next week, wanting to know if I’d asked Kip – or “the Terrier” as he called him, making fun of his name. I hadn’t, of course. But once, he thought my “no” meant that Kip had refused, and was ready to hunt the guy down for slighting me – like some overly protective big brother.
The image of Greg’s firm abs flashed through my head again, and I rolled over onto my stomach, burying my head in my pillow to make it go away. He wasn’t a big brother, and part of my brain refused to think of him that way. The fact was, sometimes I dreamt of Greg. Of running my fingers along the stubble of his jaw. Of kissing him. Of him folding me in his arms, gazing down on me with his face filled with affection and caring. He did care about me. I knew that. But only as a friend.
Yet, he wasn’t like any friend I’d ever had. We could talk about anything – he didn’t care what – although a lot of the time it focused on the principles of a transporter. I was pretty sure parts of adept translocation were the same – or at least one of the problems was the same. The transposition errors, from what I understood, were simply data mistakes – failing to keep track of and get everything in the exact same places relative to everything else. It was a big problem that increased geometrically with the size of the object. But theoretically, it was possible to get it correct, even if neither Curtis nor Rex had done so. Sometimes I felt awkward not telling Greg why I was so interested in transporter theory. It was strange to keep secrets from him, when we talked about everything under the sun.
I rolled off the bed and stripped, shaking my head at myself in the mirror. My legs were too long, and I definitely didn’t have Sasha’s curves. I looked more like a boy with a couple extra bumps. Why I was I doing this? I pulled the blue charmeuse dress from the closet – my prom dress last year that the neighbor lady at home had hemmed to party length –
and held it to me. It didn’t compare to Sasha’s sexy red dress hanging on the door of her closet. That’s the kind of thing people would be wearing tonight, not this. Mine was too sweet for a college function, and I would look ridiculous standing beside Greg Langston, but I didn’t have anything else to wear. I pulled the dress over my head.
Why had Greg insisted we go to the Gala together? He claimed Jenna White didn’t care, but I had a hard time believing that. Had I influenced him into doing this? Not that I could have on purpose. I couldn’t come close. The best I could do was influence a rat through a maze, and while I’d gotten pretty good at doing that on purpose, it was a long way from making a person do anything. In fact, I still couldn’t tell what I was reading in the quantum blur of the human form. So I couldn’t have made Greg do this, could I?
My heart jumped at the solid knock on the door. I caught my breath and opened the door only to be plunged into a deep space vacuum. Greg was … beautiful. His dark suit made his shoulders even broader – but not in that kid-wearing-his-dad’s-clothes kind of way that the boys had in high school. And the fitted cotton shirt perfectly complemented his deep blue eyes. He smiled at me, and the tension melted from my body. It wasn’t a date. And maybe it wasn’t so bad if I had influenced him into going to the Gala with me. We’d still have a good time.
Greg offered me his elbow to make our departure. “I need my shoes,” I pointed out, settling myself onto my desk chair to wrangle the strappy heels onto my feet.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, still smiling at me with a funny look on his face – probably the shock of seeing me in a dress.
“Not as much as you,” I informed him, pushing myself up from the chair. I wobbled on the unstable excuse for shoes, and Greg’s hands reached out to catch my elbows.
Foreseen (The Rothston Series) Page 11