The Fold: A Novel Part 29

"For now, we should keep it under direct observation, even when we're not testing it. We can work in, say, six-hour s.h.i.+fts. Mike, if you're still willing to pitch in that would help."

Mike nodded. "Of course. Someone on each side?"

"While the Door's open, it's effectively one room. We can probably make do with just one side. And Sasha?"

"Yes?"

"You're closest to a hard line. See if Anne can order us a late lunch. I don't know about the rest of you, but I haven't eaten in about seven or eight hours at this point."

Neil's shoulders relaxed in the background. "Probably dinner, too. It'll be a long night."

Arthur turned his back to Mike and walked down the ramp, away from the rings.

TWENTY-NINE.

The morning pastries were still sealed in their box. Neil used his finger to break the tape and freed his banana-nut m.u.f.fin. Mike glanced at the box. "Is it too soon for me to take Bob's donut?"

"Probably," said Neil, "but it's not here anyway. I think Anne might've canceled it. She's good about stuff like that."

Mike bit back a sigh and nodded. "I thought Arthur didn't have you on watch duty until tonight."

"He doesn't, but I still need to do my job. You taking a s.h.i.+ft?"

"He paired me up with Jamie. Half because I don't know enough about the project to be left alone, half so she can a.s.sure me she's fine."

"You don't want the jelly donut?"

"Not really, no."

"What about this chocolate thing?"

"What?"

Neil pulled on the back flap and tilted the box up.

Mike took two steps to the box and eyed the mixture of dark chocolate and flaky pastry. "I love chocolate croissants," he said. "Does it belong to someone?"

"New to me," said Neil. "I think it's yours. I'll back you up if anyone complains." He sliced the top off his m.u.f.fin and scooped up a blob of b.u.t.ter with the knife.

Anne walked in and headed for the coffee. "You," said Mike, "are my new favorite person."

"Thanks," she said with a smile. "Why?"

He held up the croissant. "How'd you know I liked these?"

Anne shook her head. "Wasn't me."

"No?"

She shook her head again and filled her mug.

Neil let his knife clatter in the sink. "Could be a thank-you from Arthur for not saying anything to DARPA."

"It's not much of a thank-you. Plus, he and I talked to Reggie yesterday afternoon."

"How'd that go?"

"He was right," said Mike. "Not even a slap on the wrist for letting Jamie crosswalk."

"Stop taking my name in vain," said Jamie. She swung past them and around Anne to land in front of the coffee. Neil leaned out of the way as she reached back to grab her cruller and s.n.a.t.c.h up her oversized mug.

"Do you know anything about the croissant?" he asked.

"Chocolate croissant." She glanced back in the box. "Yeah, it's Mike's. I added it to the order."

"You did?"

"Told you it wasn't me," said Anne as she walked out the door.

Mike looked from the pastry to Jamie. "How did you know?"

She shrugged. "Magnus called about a report the other day and I asked him. He said it was all you ate for breakfast in college."

"It was."

"You added it to the order," repeated Neil.

She nodded and ducked back out the door. Mike stared after her. "Is it just me," he said, "or is she a lot more pleasant since her visit to the doctor?"

The engineer took in a slow breath. "Maybe they gave her a bunch of great painkillers."

"For what? She didn't have anything wrong with her."

"You have a better idea?"

"Maybe she's starting to like me."

Neil bit back most of his laugh and pulled a cup out of the cabinet.

"It sounded better than suggesting brain damage."

"Arthur said her CT scan was normal."

"It was normal in the general, quick check sense," said Mike. "The brain's a very sensitive thing. One little tweak here or there, a few pathways realigned, and you get a different person."

Neil reached for the coffee. "That's not what the Door does, though."

"Isn't it?"

The other man glanced away from the coffee and furrowed his brow.

"No s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around," said Mike. "What are you all hiding? Did you all make a deal with the devil, and it runs on the blood of orphans or something like that?"

Neil laughed. "No," he said. "No, of course not."

"That wasn't a very sincere laugh."

"Well, I'm the one who has to kill all the orphans. It's not a funny business." He poured a quick shot of milk into his coffee. "Look," he said, "have you ever kept a secret?"

"Yeah, of course."

The engineer waved his free hand in front of him, trying to sweep the right words out of the air. "You know how, after a while, it just hits the point that you have to keep the secret? That you've been hiding it for so long the reason you were hiding it doesn't matter anymore?"

The ants lunged at one another. It was a furious war of red versus black, thought and memory. The roar of noise in his head almost made him wince.

And when they were done, he was left with the image of a mousy, flat-chested girl with wire-rimmed gla.s.ses.

Cheryl Woodley. Cla.s.s of 2012. Just a hair off being salutatorian. Mike had her in his cla.s.s from 2010 to 2011, when college applications went out and came back. She'd been accepted to every school she tried for and offered enough financial aid to afford most of them. The PTA had her earmarked for their annual scholars.h.i.+p, too.

But as graduation came closer and closer, she'd become more and more skittish. In the teacher's lounge there was talk of drugs or a bad home life. Possibly an abusive boyfriend. It was more common in high school than most people liked to think.

The Friday before Easter weekend, she'd come to Mike after school, close to a breakdown, and confessed. She'd screwed up. She was going to lose everything. Someone would trace her achievements back to a paper she'd written in soph.o.m.ore year.

At least, one she said she'd written.

"Is this your work?" asked Mike.

"The coffee?"

"The Albuquerque Door. Did you...Did Arthur get this from someone else?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Am I? Being ridiculous?"

"Have you heard of anyone else ever working on a project like this?"

"No, but no one's heard of this project, either."

"It's Arthur's idea," said Neil. "Arthur and Olaf."

Mike studied the other man's face. The ants were seething. "You said 'ever.' So it's not something current."

Neil shook his head. He made a point of staring into his mug while he stirred his coffee.

"Are you building off n.a.z.i science or something? Something no one's supposed to use?" The ants rushed past his eyes with memories of Arthur's bookshelf, Jamie's old electronics book, Olaf and Physics in the Nineteenth Century. "Is it something Arthur discovered for his book, something that no one uses anymore?"

Neil's coffee spoon clattered in the sink. "Sorry," he said. He didn't look Mike in the eye. "You're starting to sound like one of those conspiracy theorists."

He walked out and Mike was left alone with his ants.

THIRTY.

Mike leaned forward in his chair. "I had an interesting talk with Neil."

"Yeah," Jamie said, "I know."

"You do?"

"Neil went right to Arthur. He was worried your nonsense about n.a.z.is and Arthur's book was some clever ruse, that you'd tricked him into saying something important."

"I think I did."

"So we're all secretly n.a.z.is?"

"I never said that."

"Hail Hydra."

"You seem pretty eager to turn it into a joke."

"Or," she said, "it is a joke and you're the biggest part of it." She flexed her fingers. The ones on her left hand crackled and popped.

"Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

"I swear to G.o.d, if you ask me that one more time, I'm going to slap you."

Mike shrugged and settled back in his chair. "I just want to be sure you-"

"I might slap you anyway, just as a preventive measure." She stepped over the bundle of power cables and walked past his station to check the liquid nitrogen tanks. She'd checked them twice already, and they'd been checked yesterday.

He looked down at his tablet and flipped through the next ten pages of The History of What We Know. It walked the tightrope between informative and entertaining, and made that walk look easy. He was halfway through the book and hadn't seen a single thing that looked potentially Door-inspiring. It was doubtful Arthur would be so blatant about something he'd copied, but sometimes people did dumb things.