Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller)

by M. C. Soutter

  Jacob returned to his computer. He felt good.

  They were back on track.

  A Typical Percussion Grenade

  It was so easy to walk to school, so easy to cover the seven short blocks from his apartment to 74th street, that Kevin Brooks had to keep himself from breaking into a trot. He felt like skipping. But Dr. Petak had warned him to keep his schedule regimented, to keep everything in its proper time and place, and that included exercise. So he would wait until later in the day to run. He would act like a normal person, exactly as the doctor had prescribed. One foot in front of the other. Just another guy heading for the office. Or the classroom. Work, eat, socialize, exercise, rest. And before he knew it he’d be at the end of next week, when everything would go back to normal. Petak’s advice was working wonders so far, and Kevin was not going to take any chances.

  He turned the corner at 74th, and there was Danny, already at his customary post in the entryway. Kevin walked up with a grin and clapped him on the shoulder. “Morning.”

  Danny turned, gave him a once-over, and then nodded with approval. “Much better.”

  “I got sleep.”

  It wasn’t strictly true, but Kevin didn’t know the term for what he had been doing for the last fourteen hours. He wasn’t sure there was a term.

  Great night of ultra-focused trance reading. Totally refreshed.

  “Good,” Danny said, still nodding. “I was a little worried.”

  They stood together at the doorway, two large and smiling men greeting students as they arrived at school. Waves and handshakes, and the atmosphere seemed especially jovial. Kevin realized it was not just that he felt rested; it was Friday. Even the painters down the block, who had three white vans with them today instead of the usual two, seemed primed for the weekend. They were sitting on the curb, taking a break, and waving good-naturedly to many of the students as they passed. The students, eager as Labrador puppies and just as social, waved back as though greeting old friends. Painter guys.

  You don’t know the painter guys?

  They’re always here.

  They’re cool. I know them.

  Right, they’re here every morning.

  Hi, painter guys. Hi.

  The relief of Friday buoyed them all up together, and Kevin and Danny began to feel as though they were welcoming the students to a private party, rather than ushering them toward study and toil. Kevin saw Anselm Billaud walking up the block, his small frame bent by the loaded backpack strapped to his shoulders. He reached the door and stopped, pausing to assess Kevin much as Danny had a few minutes earlier. After a moment he favored Kevin with a broad, happy smile. His teeth were blinding; surely they were too big for his mouth.

  “Mr. Brooks, you look much better,” the boy said.

  “Thank you Anselm. See you in class.”

  The fifth grader nodded and staggered inside, his backpack forcing him to take great heaving steps up the stairs.

  “That’s the kid?” Danny asked.

  Kevin nodded. “Good kid. Smart.”

  “And loaded, right?”

  Kevin lowered his voice. “I guess. But what kid at this school isn’t loaded?”

  “Right, but really loaded.”

  “I don’t know. If his dad gets a computer to solve an NP problem, then he’ll be loaded. For sure.”

  “He can make a computer do anything he wants after that, right? Print his own money.”

  Kevin shrugged. “Got me there. That’s the whole point of the singularity: nobody can predict what comes afterward. Solve an NP problem, and within the next year money might not even matter anymore. A computer could come up with a way to make it obsolete.”

  “That doesn’t seem likely.”

  “There’s no ‘likely’ or ‘unlikely’ after the singularity. Everything’s fair game. We can’t anticipate the technological shifts after that day any better than you can anticipate where a particular snowflake would fall, or where a specific fragment of an exploded grenade will land. You can say it will snow in the city sometime this year, and you can say a grenade will probably detonate when thrown, but what use is that? It’s like saying there will be people on the earth six months from now.” Kevin shook his head and smiled. Suddenly he was transfixed by the topic, and he could feel himself picking up speed. He was barely aware of the words coming out of his own mouth.

  “Consider this,” he said. “A typical percussion grenade has a kill zone of what? Five meters? Fine, but that’s assuming a standard filler of Semtex or C-4, and obviously there are more exotic fragmentation agents available. Then you factor in the density and the type of plasticizer, and you have to adjust your estimates all over again. Not to mention the reliability of the fuse, whether we’re talking about a timed mechanism or a striker with a percussion cap. Either way, you’ve got yet another set of variables in the mix, and suddenly our cozy little five meter kill zone isn’t looking so sure anymore. So then if you step back and try to talk about where a specific part of the casing might land, you’ve really got no chance in hell. See what I mean?”

  Danny stared back at him silently. Several students had paused on their way into the building; they were circled up around the doorway now as though anticipating an announcement of free candy during first period. They weren’t sure what Mr. Brooks was talking about, but their internal boy-radar, that innate mechanism that kept them on the alert for talk of movies, girls, and weapons, had begun pinging loudly. Something cool was being discussed here, they could tell. Maybe if they leaned in closer they would be able to understand.

  Danny cleared his throat. “Mr. Brooks,” he said in a careful, pointed tone. “I probably misheard you. I’m sure you said ‘no chance in heck,’ yes?”

  Kevin looked around as if in a daze. He seemed to notice the students for the first time. “Right,” he said uncertainly. “What was I – ?” He shook his head. “Sorry.”

  “Upstairs,” Danny commanded, and he shooed the boys past the door and into the building. “Class starts in three minutes, you’re all going to be late.” He turned and waved to the few straggling students still coming up the block, beckoning them to hurry. When they were all inside he checked the sidewalk once more, stepped back, and then he and Kevin let the door close behind them. They could still hear the sound of students climbing the stairs above them. Danny gave Kevin a look.

  “What was that?”

  “Sorry again. I was just – ”

  Just what? Just reading an encyclopedia on military weaponry from WWII to the present day? Yes, I was. Cover to cover, as it turns out. Want to hear some things about self-propelled artillery, post Cold-War? It’s juicy stuff.

  “I used to be really into military things,” he said finally. “Teenaged-boy stuff, you know?”

  Danny squinted at him. “Okay. But you might want to keep that kind of talk to a minimum around here. A kid comes home and repeats any of the things you just said, and we’ll hear it from the parents. You’ll hear it. From the principal, too.”

  “I’ll watch it.”

  “Let’s get to class, we’ll be late.”

  There Were Tears

  The first two periods were a relief. Kevin could stand without needing to take a rest, and he could tell that his students were glad to see him back in working order. He made a special effort not to quote long passages from the Algebra book, as this behavior seemed to unsettle them. Instead he kept the text open in front of him, and he made a show of turning to a particular page before describing the examples there.

  Sometimes he wasn’t actually reading, but they had no way of knowing this. The text in his head was identical to the one in the book, after all.

  He found himself looking forward to computer class. There had been distractions for the last two days, but now he was finally ready with a few special challenges for Anselm. He had several puzzles in mind, ranging from mildly weird to college-level bizarre.

  He was eager to see what the son of Pascal Billaud could do.

 
But when the bell for third period rang, Anselm was not in the lab. Kevin scanned the rows of computers again, in case he had somehow missed him. But the boy was not there. The seat he usually took, way in the back corner, was empty.

  “Has anyone seen – ”

  “I’m here,” came a quiet voice from behind him.

  Kevin turned and almost ran into Anselm, who skirted around him quickly, his head down as if in shame for his lateness. “It’s okay,” Kevin said. “You only missed it by thirty seconds.”

  Anselm held up a hand in acknowledgement, but he did not turn around. He kept his head down and went straight to his seat.

  Kevin started the class, explaining one new concept before directing the boys to a web-link that would give them their next challenge. Within ten minutes they were all off and running, immersed in the structural logic of creating a new program. Kevin strolled down the rows of computers, looking over shoulders and offering little pieces of guidance. The period was halfway gone by the time he got to Anselm’s station, and he assumed the boy would already be done with the day’s work.

  “I’ve got something difficult for you to try,” Kevin said when he arrived at Anselm’s chair. Anselm did not pause in his typing. Or look up.

  “Anselm?”

  The boy whispered something, too low to be heard.

  “What?”

  “Please go away,” he whispered, just loud enough for Kevin to make out. The student sitting directly next to Anselm heard as well, but he was too fixated on his own coding problems to care.

  Stunned, Kevin stood up straight. He peered down at the blond mane of hair covering Anselm’s head, the small head of this small boy in a class full of students two and three years his senior. He thought carefully.

  Kevin walked to the other side of Anselm’s chair, positioning himself between the wall and the boy’s station. Then he crouched down to the level of the computer. If Anselm whispered to him now, no one else would hear. Or see.

  “What’s the problem?” Kevin said softly.

  At first he thought Anselm might not have heard him. The boy’s head did not move, and his typing did not pause; he seemed in the middle of writing something either very long or very complicated. But as Kevin was about to speak up again, Anselm suddenly turned toward him.

  Shit, Kevin thought. Look at that.

  There were tears, of course, streaked and dried on the boy’s face. But Kevin hardly noticed. What he did notice was Anselm’s hugely swollen cheek, the obvious sideways break in Anselm’s narrow, patrician nose, the great smear of blood underneath, smudged and matted on Anselm’s lower lip, that he had tried unsuccessfully to wipe away. His jaws were clamped together, and he stared at Kevin for a hard five seconds, letting him see and understand, before turning back to his work.

  “Who did this?”

  Anselm looked at him again, quickly this time, and he gave his head a careful little shake. The calculus in the boy’s eyes was clear. Telling a teacher who had beaten you up was more than just stupid. It was dangerous. Anselm made a little huffing sound as he returned to his typing.

  You underestimate me, Mr. Brooks, that huff said. I wouldn’t tell you who did it even if I thought the telling would do me any good. This is my problem, not yours. Now run along.

  “I have to take you to the nurse,” Kevin said.

  “No you don’t,” Anselm hissed, still staring at his computer. “I’ll go during lunch. No escort.”

  Kevin took a breath, and he let his head drop for a moment. Even with all of his new-found memory skills, he still had no recollection of going through any teacher training courses. He could have taken one over the summer, but who was to say? Maybe the government people that Dr. Petak had told him about didn’t know a thing about teaching. Maybe they had just thrown him here as a consolation prize when they decided he shouldn’t be picked for… whatever he hadn’t been picked for. So now he was just a former hedge fund techie pretending to be a teacher. With plenty of real-world knowledge, certainly. Not with any teaching experience, though. And not with any training.

  Trained or not, he still knew he wasn’t supposed to let a kid tell him how to handle a bullying situation. Especially not when the kid in question was clearly in need of medical attention.

  Kevin picked his head up. All of that was true, all of that was right, but he realized he was going to listen to Anselm anyway. Because Anselm had been kind to him yesterday, had told him to go to the doctor when every other student had been afraid even to speak with him. It mattered. It touched him.

  He felt as though he owed Anselm something.

  Also, he had to admit to himself that he liked the boy’s attitude. He could not remember having ever been as small as Anselm was now – little Kevin Brooks had never really been very little, especially when compared to the other children in his grade – and he was impressed by Anselm’s fortitude. By his decision to set his own terms in the small battlefield of his daily life.

  Okay, kid, Kevin thought. Up to you.

  He stood slowly and resumed his rounds, pacing up and down the rows of computers. The other students had not noticed anything amiss; they were all still hard at work. Kevin made a point of giving Anselm’s area of the lab some extra breathing room, though he looked in that direction several times during the remaining class time.

  He also tried to catch a glance of Connor Feeney’s knuckles each time he went past that boy’s station, in case there might be telltale signs of impact there. Feeney seemed as good a suspect as any, but Kevin was careful not to attract any attention.

  There was a strong impulse to simply haul Connor up by his collar and drag him out of the room. Right or wrong, it would have felt good. But Kevin fought that impulse off, buried it somewhere deep in his stomach.

  For Anselm’s sake.

  The New Meat

  Anselm hurried out of class when the bell rang, and no one seemed to notice anything. Kevin watched him go, trying not to be obvious. He wondered if Anselm would be able to make it all the way to the nurse without anyone else noticing his injuries.

  He’ll be fine. He’s probably smarter than most of the teachers at this school.

  That thought calmed him somewhat. He knew it was true.

  In the cafeteria Kevin felt another surge of anticipation, this time simply because he was hoping to have a normal lunch. Hoping to reassert himself as a lucid, laid-back, decidedly un-smelly person.

  He collected what he thought Dr. Petak would consider a healthy, balanced meal on his tray, meat-starch-vegetable-fruit-dessert, and then he stood at the far end of the cafeteria, searching the room. Not caring that he seemed to be looking for someone in particular.

  He was looking, after all.

  He wanted to sit down next to her and have her smile at him, smile the way she did with her students, with Elias Worth. It would be so easy. She would smile and then he would start talking, he would say we haven’t had a chance to talk at all, where are you from originally, and then she would say whatever she wanted, and it didn’t matter because at least he wouldn’t be smelly, at least he’d be able to concentrate and look at her and just speak to her. If he was boring or clichéd or everyday-ordinary that was fine, that was perfect, he could be charming and funny and Mr. Athletic Guy later; all he needed now was to re-establish a baseline, a vanilla foundation of regular that he could slowly build upon over the course of the year. She was going to have to come to this cafeteria every day, wasn’t she? It was required, it was part of the job. He would have nine full months to be creative and inspiring and whatever else was necessary, and once he made it to the end of next week he would be able to focus on being all of those things full-time.

  It was a fine goal, he decided. Emily Beck.

  “Find her?”

  Kevin turned to discover Jean Lengard standing beside him, a little smile pulling on the corners of his mouth. Kevin didn’t bother trying to act confused. If there was anyone who deserved honesty about such things, surely it was Jean. “Not
yet. How do I smell?”

  Jean leaned surreptitiously closer, as though trying to sneak a better look at the contents of Kevin’s food tray. “Just right. Touch of man-sweat, but that’s what we’re after, isn’t it?”

  Kevin turned to him with a questioning glance.

  “No worries,” Jean said quickly. “You’re all set. And looking a lot better today, if I may say so.”

  “Thanks. Sorry about yesterday.”

  Jean waved him off. Now he was scanning the cafeteria, too. “Where is that beautiful girl?”

  “No idea. At this point I’d settle for just sitting at the same table with her.”