Rewriting Destiny

by Meredith Taylor

  Chapter 16

  It was almost midnight when Kyle pulled up in front of Prof. Greer’s house, his tires screeching to a halt on the road in front of Prof. Greer’s lawn. Kyle rushed out of the car, slamming the door behind him, and sprinted across the lawn to the front door. Prof. Greer hadn’t been answering the multiple calls Kyle had made, and there was only one solution: Kyle had to talk to him in person, and try and figure out if Prof. Greer knew anything about what was happening to Paul. Why had the system suddenly shut down completely, and why was Kyle’s password no longer working? Something must have been going on. None of those features had been programed into Paul, and even if the power of the lab was shut off for a while, the generators should’ve kicked in immediately and would’ve provided enough power for hours. It was all too much to figure out on his own, and Kyle needed to hear from the supervisor who had been such an inspiration and a mentor to him. Kyle needed the reassuring, deep voice of Prof. Greer to tell him that it was all just a misunderstanding, that it could all be fixed.

  Kyle knocked on the door furiously, remembering that day, weeks before, when he had first come to Prof. Greer’s house, in the rain, to tell him that Paul was finally working and had predicted the results of the mayoral elections. That night, neither Kyle nor Prof. Greer could even believe the results of what Paul could do. But now, it seemed like the program they had been working on so hard together over the past many months, the program that Prof. Greer had dedicated most of his adult life to, was slipping away.

  After knocking three times and calling out for Prof. Greer, there was still no answer. Kyle felt his stomach contract into a ball of nerves. He walked to the window, adjusting the slightly sweaty shirt over his narrow shoulders and scratching at his dark brown hair. Where could Prof. Greer be at this hour? Maybe he had already been notified that Paul was malfunctioning, and he was on his way to the Academy. Kyle walked over to the window and peeked through, trying to see if there was any activity inside the house. He saw a low glimmer of light coming from a laptop in the living room. Reflected in the light of the laptop’s screen was Prof. Greer’s chiseled features, his green eyes and slightly grey beard. Kyle called out again: “Prof. Greer! Can you hear me? It’s me, Kyle! I’m at the front door. Why aren’t you opening the door, Prof?”

  Kyle saw Prof. Greer’s eyes turn to the window, and for a second he could swear that he saw malice flicker in the older man’s green eyes. Finally, Prof. Greer stood up from behind his laptop and walked towards the door, unlocking it and greeting Kyle with a stern: “Can I help you, Mr. Abrahams? I hope you have a good reason for waking me up at this late hour.”

  Kyle furrowed his brow and walked over towards the front door again: “But I saw you sitting at the laptop, Prof. Didn’t you get any of my messages? Something’s very wrong, and I need your help.”

  “Yes, well, whatever it is will have to wait until the morning. I’m afraid I’m very busy right now and can’t be disturbed.” Prof. Greer’s arms were crossed nose turned up. Kyle had never seen this side to him before. Prof. Greer had always been friendly and accommodating to Kyle, and Kyle had looked to him as a type of father figure. But now, there was only coldness in those eyes that had once been so captivating.

  “Prof, it’s about Paul. It’s pretty serious. My password isn’t working anymore. There was some kind of power outage and the generators didn’t kick in. I thought we might lose data and all of our hard work… Something’s not right, Prof. This isn’t the way that Paul is supposed to react to something like this. I think someone must’ve tampered with him. It might even be a hack; you know how valuable Paul is… Are you okay, Prof. Greer? You seem… different.” Kyle felt a sinking feeling in his chest, and the reality of what was happening began to dawn on him, but he couldn’t face it just yet.

  “Mr. Abrahams, you are my student. I generously allowed you to work on the project that I have been developing for over two decades. I allowed you to try your hand at something that you couldn’t possibly have developed on your own. Am I right?”

  Kyle stammered, “I… I guess so.” While Kyle knew that Prof. Greer was a genius, and the basic blueprint and concept for Paul were really advanced, Kyle had been the one to figure out the final algorithm to make Paul work. But he couldn’t say any of that in the moment. There was disapproval in Prof. Greer’s voice, even a bit of resentment, and Kyle couldn’t stoke those flames.

  Prof. Greer spoke again, this time slower, like a schoolteacher disciplining a naughty student: “You’ve grown too big for your own boots. You’ve tried to use my project to advance your own career. And you wouldn’t listen to me when I advised you to apply for grants overseas, to give you some perspective. You couldn’t really expect me to sit back and see you steal my work, could you?”

  “Steal? What are you talking about, Prof? Paul is our project. We’ve worked on him together.”

  Prof. Greer practically shouted his response: “He’s not yours! You haven’t been struggling with this for twenty years, spent sleepless nights trying to figure it out, only to have an upstart come in and claim to solve the algorithm in only a few months. Do you realize how insulting that is? Can you see how infuriating these past few months have been? Mr. Abrahams, you’re a gifted programmer, a brilliant engineer, but you need to know your boundaries. Paul was never your project. I’m just taking back what is rightfully mine. You’re dealing with things that you could never understand. The implications of what Paul can do… there’s a lot of power there, Kyle. You’re not ready to deal with any of it.”

  Kyle could suddenly feel a chill at the back of his neck. The full moon was glowing in the clear night sky, illuminating the scene in a yellow glow. Besides their back-and-forth, the night was completely still. “So you locked me out of Paul? You don’t want me working on him anymore? Why didn’t you just tell me that you felt this way? We could’ve talked about it.”

  Prof. Greer let out a dry, piercing laugh: “Don’t play dumb, Kyle. You know as well as I do that Paul can make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. His predictions could change the world. It could change the geopolitical landscape overnight. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about any of that yet. You must’ve been using Paul for your own benefit already, right?”

  Kyle thought back on how he had used Paul to make money from the stock market, and how he had predicted Marshall’s injury during the rugby finals. Prof. Greer was right. If Kyle was already using Paul for his own profit, who’s to say what he would do next? What would be the line that he wasn’t prepared to cross? But these thoughts made Kyle’s heart drop. He looked down at the ground, searching his thoughts. Finally, he looked up at Prof. Greer again. A sly smile had formed on Prof. Greer’s lips. Something sinister had taken hold of him. Kyle asked, in a small voice: “What are you planning on doing with Paul, Prof? Are you going to destroy him?”

  Again, Prof. Greer let out his piercing laugh, but this time it was louder than before, and unsettled something inside of Kyle. “Don’t be ridiculous, child! I would never destroy my life’s work. I’m going to finally claim the rewards of my hard work. In a few days, I’ll announce Paul to the world, and show them how the algorithm works. Then, I’ll be taking bids. I figure he’s worth at least a hundred billion, what do you say? And I can think of a few governments who wouldn’t mind paying for him.”

  Kyle responded feverishly, his brown eyes creased: “You can’t do that, Prof! It would be… there’s no telling what could happen! I thought you had some sense of ethics, some understanding that the work we’re doing can be dangerous! You were the one who was always warning me about the risks involved. Now you want to sell Paul to the highest bidder? I can’t let you do that!”

  Prof. Greer recoiled, a look of disgust coming over his face. He walked slowly towards Kyle. The charming man Kyle had once known was completely gone in that moment. In his place was someone wholly corrupt. He whispered to Kyle, slowly: “Don’t start something that you’re not prepared to see through, my boy. This
is what I’ve been working towards for my entire life. One day, you’ll have your own project. You’ll have your own moment to shine. Don’t pretend like you’re not exactly like me. I’ve seen it in you. We both have dedicated our lives to finding glory through innovation, to being the best at what we do and reaping the rewards of our hard work. It’s my time now. And if you try and stop me…” Prof. Greer let the threat hang in the air between them. He didn’t need to finish the sentence for Kyle to get the message. Prof. Greer was willing to stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

  Kyle walked away like a wounded animal, not even turning to look at Prof. Greer again as he made his way towards his car across the lawn. He started up the car feeling completely dumbfounded. There was no telling where Paul would end up. If Prof. Greer was only after money, he wouldn’t care if Paul ended up in the hands of terrorists… And it seemed like there was nothing Kyle could do to stop him. After all, Paul was Prof. Greer’s project; Kyle was only working on it. It was too much to think about. One thing Kyle knew, however, was that Paul’s predictions were reliable. And there was still one prediction that Kyle had to make sure never came true. If he couldn’t stop Prof. Greer, if he truly had lost the chance to work on Paul, Kyle at least had to make sure that he didn’t end up like Prof. Greer. He had to use his work to do something good, not just something selfish. Kyle had only one goal in mind at that moment, one thing he could control in all of the chaos of the past few hours: he had to save Marshall.

  Chapter 17

  Marshall heard the message tone on his phone sounding for the hundredth time that day. It was late afternoon and Marshall had decided to ignore everyone, every message that Reinhardt was sending asking Marshall what was going on, every phone call from Coach Barker trying to work on a plan to keep Marshall in top physical shape for the finals, even the looks of disapproval from his father whenever they passed each other in the hallway of their home. It was a tense afternoon, and Marshall knew that his father was angrier than he had been in a long time. He had hardly uttered a full sentence to Marshall since he had picked him up from the lodge where the rest of the team were training. The drive home from the lodge after Marshall’s suspension had been one of the most uncomfortable experiences of Marshall’s life, and he felt like a complete disappointment as his father let out a series of exasperated sighs and confused shakes of his head. Marshall knew what was going through Lionel’s mind: Marshall had made a mistake that could potentially cost him his career. Everything that both of them had worked for might have been lost in one moment of stupidity.

  As Marshall sat at his desk in his room surfing the internet, he heard his father shuffle around in the kitchen. Marshall felt his heart sink like lead. He saw the folded-up flyer on his bed, the ad for the open mic night at JJ’s bistro. The open mic would be held later that evening. Marshall wanted nothing more than to be there, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave at that moment. His mind was swirling with conflicting thoughts. For the first time in his life, Marshall had no idea what he was going to do. He felt free and scared at the same time. He had finally shown everyone that he wasn’t what they expected of him. He had finally done something that no one could ever predict. Granted, it was something terrible, and he definitely regretted hitting Quinton. But at the same time there was something liberating about going against the grain so drastically, and shocking everyone in the process.

  Still, Marshall felt like it was his responsibility to apologize to his father. His father had sacrificed so much to give Marshall the best opportunities in life, working as an electrician during the day and doing extra jobs at night and over weekends for as long as Marshall could remember, attending every single match that he could get time off work to attend, and doing everything he could to give Marshall the life Lionel thought was best for him. Even though Marshall wasn’t sure anymore what kind of life he really wanted, he knew that it was not his father’s fault. Lionel had only ever been loving and generous. Marshall had to try to explain everything to him.

  Marshall stepped out of his bedroom slowly, looking into the kitchen to see Lionel standing at the counter making a sandwich. His father still had the sad, confused look on his face from the day before, and a fresh pang of guilt hit Marshall. He stepped into the kitchen and said, in a low voice, “How are you doing, dad?”

  Lionel didn’t respond immediately, just standing in silence and avoiding eye contact with his son. Eventually, he said, “I’m just trying to understand all of this, my boy. I’m trying to make sense of what’s happening. Picking you up after you’ve been suspended for hitting another boy on the team… this isn’t something I thought I would ever have to deal with. I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  Marshall bit his lip, sitting down at the kitchen counter across from his father who was spreading thick globs of peanut butter on fresh white bread. “I’m sorry, dad. I know I’ve been acting strangely lately. I’m trying to figure things out myself. I’m trying to make sense of my life right now. And I really do regret hitting Quinton. I didn’t mean to do that. He was just pushing all of my buttons and I don’t even remember making the decision to hit him. It just… happened.”

  Lionel looked up from his sandwich, searching his son’s eyes. Marshall could see the lines around his father’s eyes, the heaviness that showed how tired he was. Lionel’s balding, grey head of hair and his worried expression made him look ancient for such a fit man. Lionel always used to tell Marshall that every time he worried about his son, he got a new grey hair. Suddenly, Marshall felt regret hit him heavily.

  “You can’t just resort to violence, Marshall. No matter what you’re going through. No matter what that boy said to you. That’s not how I raised you. Remember what I always used to tell you: people will always try and bring you down when you are rising to the top. You need to rise above, not let them get to you.”

  Marshall’s eyes sank and he twisted his face into a scowl. His eyes felt like they were burning, and he could feel tears developing in his eyes. “I know that. I feel like things have become more and more intense lately. Like I’m not in control anymore. I’ve spoken to you, to my friends and to Coach Barker. No one seems to understand me, and everyone is trying to get me to leave behind certain parts of who I am. No one wants to see that I can be more than what they think I am. Don’t you see how frustrating that can be?” As he said the final words, a tear fell down his cheek.

  “My boy, I can see that this is upsetting you, but you know why we are all doing this. We want the best for you. Coach Barker, your friends, and me, we just want to see you become everything that you were born to be. That’s why I make so many sacrifices every day. That’s why I work so hard. I want to see you succeed. I don’t want to see you struggle like I had to. I want you to be happy.”

  Marshall looked up at his father with red, tear-filled eyes. “But you can see that I’m not happy right now. I haven’t been happy for a while. I feel like I can’t be happy until I make my own decisions. Until I express the parts of me that everyone is trying to get me to hide.”

  Lionel looked deep into the eyes of his crying son, tears starting to form in his own eyes. He shook his head again. “I just don’t understand what you want. I can’t approve of you throwing away this life that we both worked so hard for. Does it make you happy to beat up your teammates? To miss out on practice? To chase away your friends and turn away from your father? I just don’t understand, Marshall.”

  Marshall stood up and hit his hands against the kitchen counter, frustration shooting up through his body. “You’re not trying to understand. I’ve told you so many times what I need, what I want, and every time I talk to you, you only make me feel guilty! Every time I feel like I’m failing you as a son just because I want to try something else, because I want to choose a different path. I can’t stand the way you’re looking at me right now!” Marshall’s grimaced, his breathing heavy. He felt like the world was closing in around him. All he could think of was escape. He had to get away from his father
at that moment. Without another thought he ran out of the front door, slamming the door behind him. In the hot afternoon air, Marshall felt warm tears running down his face. He walked towards campus, feeling overwhelmed. He had to be alone.

  ***

  A few minutes later, Marshall was back at his spot on top of the Academy. He looked out over the Ridgemont Valley, illuminated by the late afternoon sunlight. It had been one of the most confusing times of his life, and he felt like he was at a crossroads. He felt ready for something different and new, and he wanted to give himself the chance to go after his passion for singing even if it ended up being a big mistake. But he felt like he would lose so much if he chose to do so, and that everyone in his life might turn against him if he didn’t make rugby his number one priority. Marshall rubbed his puffy eyes, red and heavy after crying that afternoon. He felt his phone buzzing again in his pocket, and took it out to see the message. As he reached into his pocket, he felt the folded piece of paper that he had put there earlier in the afternoon: the flyer for the open mic night at JJ’s. He took out his phone and the flyer, unfolding the piece of paper to read the words again: Come and show the world your talent. It was now or never.

  Marshall looked at the message on his phone. He had just assumed that all of the messages that day had been from Reinhardt, but he saw that there were about a dozen from someone he had not expected to hear from: Kyle. The sight of Kyle’s name on his screen made Marshall’s heart jump. The memories of their shared moments on the rooftop of the Academy came flooding back. The image of Kyle at the dam when they were teenagers, reaching out to take Marshall’s hand…

  Marshall read the message: I’m so sorry about everything I said to you. But I need to see you. I need to make things right. So much has happened. Please give me a chance to explain everything to you. Kyle.