“Even though we’re academic competitors, when I learned, I had to let you know. It was the right thing to do.”
I agreed. The following Wednesday, she came to class barely able to keep her eyes open. She raised her hand to answer three questions and missed all of them, and I became worried that something was wrong with her. After class, I caught up to Jillian in the hallway and asked if she was okay. On the verge of tears, she offloaded about how her roommate enjoyed sleeping with the television up loud and how the person on the other side of the wall next to her bed liked to have sex almost every night of the week until the wee hours of the morning.
“Loud, wall-banging sex. So basically, I live in hell,” she said.
And that was when I invited her to move in with me and Eden. When Eden decided to focus more on her studies, she meant it. With the three of us in one suite, on any given day, you could hear a pin drop. Together, we operated like a well-oiled machine. Even though Eden no longer worked at the restaurant, she still had a lot of friends there. Almost every day, she brought home hot and tasty dinners. Jillian would do all the shopping for groceries as well as home and feminine products. And since I was dogmatic about living in a clean suite, I handled the cleaning. Since I was working with GIT on developing the TRANSPORT app, and putting equal or more time into that project than my classwork, Max paid for maid services for our suite. Basically, Eden and Jillian had become the sisters I never had. We were more than best friends—we’d become family.
After graduation, I started full-time at GIT, and I haven’t seen them since then. But Jillian has started her own technology publication and often finds herself to be a thorn in Max’s side. When Eden and I last spoke, she invited me to her Harvard Law School graduation. That was two years ago. I never showed up because Max convinced me it wouldn’t be prudent. My team working on TRANSPORT was a top-secret and select group. We communicated through a secure network, and I never laid eyes on the scientists and other programmers involved. Max and I agreed that I would keep a low profile and be the Grove people rarely saw until the first phase of TRANSPORT was complete. And that’s why I didn’t go to Eden’s graduation.
In December of last year, we had our first breakthrough. For seven days, I kept repeating one of Grandfather’s mantras, “Your language, your rules.” Gregory Grove wasn’t a programmer, but he’d assembled a top-secret team from all around the world to create opcode and operands that could only be processed with his own translator. Since his death, no one has been able to find the translator or any of the programmers who wrote the code. I spent hours upon hours trying to write compilers to figure out the code. But on December 23 of last year at 11:41 a.m., after neglecting sleep for four straight days and nights, I did it. I was able to make a three-dimensional real-life image of myself, composed completely of unharmful negative-zero non-nomenclature light. But it wasn’t contained in the computer. It was a light image sitting next to me and mirroring every action my camera was capturing. I was victorious, but I lost my two best friends along with a social life that made me happy in the process.
“I’ll be right back.” Max rises from the red leather chair.
I sniff and try to wipe as much of the wetness off my cheeks as I can. I want my life back. I want my friends back.
Max is back in the library, and he hands me a number of tissues. I blow into some of them and use others to finish drying my face. I inhale and exhale deeply through my nose. I’m all cleared out.
“Sorry for the waterworks,” I say, smiling.
The serious look on Max’s face worries me. I know that expression. He’s about to ask me to do something else. And at this very moment, I feel something I’ve never felt: release.
“I was thinking,” I say, deciding to beat him to the punch. “I think TRANSPORT is fine the way it is. It’s popular and unrivaled.”
With a straight face and sitting tall, Max says, “Grandfather had asked Mom to code him a security signal, one that would ping GIT if the missing code is ever uploaded into a processor that goes online. Last Thursday, we were pinged.”
I’m frowning so hard that my temples ache. “I don’t get it.”
“Mom’s signal is able to verify the ten symbols that come before and after it.”
“And let me guess. It’s a physics equation for density?”
“Yes.” Max sets his jaw.
I close my eyes as I pinch the bridge of my nose and massage it. “Who has it?” I already know the answer, but I figure I’ll ask anyway.
“VTI.”
I feel like I’m standing in a free-falling elevator. “And now what?”
“VTI has a job opening. I want you to apply for it.”
I shake my head. “You want me to work at Valentine Tech Innovations?”
“The code is sitting in VTI’s brain server. Not only do you have to be in the corporate building to access the system, but you also have to have stage-five security clearance. We’ve poached their top programmer, so they’re recruiting to fill his position. I’ll need you to set up an identity simulation for yourself before your date of hire.”
My head throbs so badly when I frown that I can barely keep my eyes open. “How do you know I’m going to get the job?”
“Because you’ll be the most qualified candidate.”
I shake my head again. “But Hercules knows me. And I heard he’s one of the company’s CEOs along with his brother Orion. What if I run into him while I’m there?”
Max looks away and then back at my face.Fuck.I know what that gesture means. He knows something about me that I thought was a secret.
“What is it?” I snap. Fuck all the niceties. He’s already made it perfectly clear that I’m not free.
“You’ve encountered him before. He didn’t recognize you then.”
Oh God.I feel like I’m going to pass out. “When?”
