Читать книгу The Dazzling Heights - Катарина Макги, Katharine McGee - Страница 11

WATZAHN BAKRADI LEANED back in the stiff auditorium chair, studying the chessboard currently displayed over his field of vision. Move rook three spaces on the left diagonal. The chessboard, projected in ghostly white and black onto the high-res contacts he constantly wore, changed accordingly.

That wasn’t a wise move, pointed out Nadia, the quantum computer embedded in Watt’s brain. Her knight immediately swooped forward to capture his king.

Watt stifled a groan, eliciting a few strange looks from the friends and classmates seated around him. He quickly fell silent and focused his gaze forward, to where a man in a crimson blazer stood at a podium, explaining the liberal arts offerings at Stringer West University. Watt tuned him out, just like he’d done all the other speakers at this mandatory assembly for the junior class. As if Watt had any intention of taking a history or English class again after high school was over.

You’ve been losing to me on average eleven minutes more quickly than normal. I believe it’s a sign of distraction, Nadia added, flashing the words over his contacts like an incoming flicker.

You think? Watt thought testily. Watt had good reason to be distracted lately. He’d taken what seemed like an easy hacking job for a highlier girl named Leda, only to fall for her best friend, Avery. Until he’d learned that Avery was actually in love with Atlas, the very same person Leda had hired him to spy on. Then he’d accidentally delivered that secret straight to Leda, who was vicious and high and out for revenge. An innocent girl had ended up dying because of it. And Watt had just stood there and let it happen, let Leda walk away scot-free—because Leda knew about Nadia.

Watt wasn’t sure how she’d figured it out, but somehow, she’d learned Watt’s most dangerous secret. Anytime she wanted, Leda could turn Watt in for possession of an illegal quantum computer. Nadia, of course, would be destroyed forever. As for Watt, he’d go to jail for life. If he was lucky.

“Watt!” Nadia hissed, sending a zap of electric shock down his system. The Stringer representative was stepping down from the podium, replaced by a woman with shoulder-length chestnut hair and a serious expression. Vivian Marsh, the head of admissions at MIT.

“Few of you will apply to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Even fewer of you have the grades to get in,” she said without preamble. “But for those of you who do, you’ll find that our program rests upon three tenets: explore, experience, evolve.”

Watt heard a soft pattering of fingers on tablets. He glanced around; some of the kids from his advanced math classes were typing furiously, hanging on Vivian’s every word. His friend Cynthia—a pretty Japanese American girl who’d been in Watt’s classes since practically kindergarten—was on the edge of her seat, her eyes lit up. Watt hadn’t even known Cynthia was interested in MIT. Would he have to compete against her for the limited spots?

Watt hadn’t really considered what he would do if he didn’t get into MIT. For years he had dreamed of attending their extremely competitive microsystems engineering program. It was the research team in that very department that had invented the millichip, and entanglement software, and the room-temperature supermagnets that prevented quantum decoherence.

Watt had always assumed he would get in. Hell, he’d invented a quantum computer on his own at age fourteen; how could they not take him?

Except that he couldn’t exactly talk about Nadia on his application. And as he looked around at the other students, Watt was forced to confront the very real possibility that he might not get in after all.

Should I ask a question? he thought anxiously to Nadia. Something, anything to get Vivian to notice him.

“This isn’t a Q and A, Watt,” Nadia observed.

Suddenly, far too quickly, the Stanford rep was stepping up and clearing his throat.

Without thinking, Watt shot to his feet, cursing as he stumbled down the row of seats. Seriously? Cynthia mouthed as he climbed over her, but Watt didn’t care; he needed to talk to Vivian, and anyway, Stanford was at best his safety school.

He burst out the double doors at the back of the auditorium, ignoring the eyes that turned accusatorily toward him as he did, and began sprinting around the corner to the school exit.

“Ms. Marsh! Wait!”

She paused, one hand on the door, an eyebrow raised. Well, at the very least he would be memorable.

“I have to say, it’s rare that I’m chased out of a school auditorium. I’m not a celebrity, you know.” Watt thought he heard an edge of wry amusement behind her tone, but couldn’t be sure.

“I’ve been dreaming of going to MIT ever since I can remember, and I just … I really wanted to speak with you.” Your name! Nadia prompted. “Watzahn Bakradi,” he said quickly, holding out a hand. After a moment, Vivian shook it.

“Watzahn Bakradi,” she repeated, her gaze turned inward, and Watt realized she was doing some kind of search of him, through her contacts. She blinked and focused on him again. “I see that you participated in our Young Engineers’ Summer Program, on scholarship. And you weren’t invited back.”

Watt flinched. He knew exactly why he hadn’t been asked to return—because one of his professors had caught him building an illegal quantum computer. She’d promised not to alert the police, but still, the mistake had cost him.

Nadia had pulled Vivian’s CV onto his contacts, but it wasn’t helpful; all it told Watt was that she’d grown up in Ohio and had studied psychology as an undergraduate.

He realized that he needed to answer her. “That program was four years ago. I’ve learned a lot since then, and I’d like the chance to prove it to you.”

Vivian tilted her head, accepting a ping. “I’m speaking with a student,” she said to whoever it was, probably an assistant. “I know, I know. Just one moment.” As she tucked a strand of hair behind one ear, Watt caught a glimpse of an expensive platinum wrist computer. He wondered, suddenly, what she really thought of coming down to speak on the 240th floor, even if it was at a magnet school. No wonder she was in a hurry to leave.

“Mr. Bakradi, why is MIT your top choice?”

Nadia had pulled up the MIT guidelines and mission statement, but Watt didn’t want to give a safe, canned answer. “Microsystems engineering. I want to work with quants,” he said boldly.

“Really.” She looked him up and down, and Watt could tell her interest was piqued. “You know that program receives thousands of applications, but only selects two students per year.”

“I know. It’s still my top choice.” It’s my only choice, Watt thought, giving his best smile, the one he always used on girls when he and Derrick went out. He felt her softening toward him.

“Have you ever seen a quant? Do you know how unbelievably powerful they are?”

An untruth would be optimal here, Nadia told him, but Watt knew he could dance around the question.

“I know there are only a few left,” he said instead. There were quants at NASA, of course, and the Pentagon; though Watt had a feeling there were far more illegal and unregistered quants—like Nadia—than the government would care to admit. “However, I think there should be more. There are so many places we need quantum computers.”

Like in your brain? Watt, be sensible, Nadia urged, but he wasn’t listening. “We need them now more than ever. We could revolutionize global farming to eradicate poverty, we could eliminate fatal accidents, we could terraform Mars—”

Watt’s voice rang overly loud in his ears. He realized that Vivian was looking at him, her eyebrows raised, and he fell silent.

“You sound eerily like the science-fiction writers of the last century. I’m afraid that your opinion is no longer popular these days, Mr. Bakradi,” she said at last.

Watt swallowed. “I just think the AI Incident of 2093 could have been avoided. The quant in question wasn’t responsible. The security hadn’t been properly set, there was an issue with his core programming …”

Back when quants were still legal, they’d all been given the same piece of fundamental core programming: that the quant could take no action to harm a human being, no matter what later commands were given to it.

“His?” Vivian repeated, and Watt realized belatedly that he’d used a gendered pronoun to describe a computer. He said nothing. After a moment, she sighed. “Well, I have to say, I look forward to personally reviewing your application.”

She stepped through the door and into a waiting hover.

Nadia, what on earth do we do now? he thought, hoping she might have a brilliant solution. She usually picked up on situational details that he had missed.

There’s only one thing you can do, Nadia replied, and that is to write the best damn essay Vivian Marsh has ever seen.

“There you are,” Cynthia breathed, when Watt finally made his way to their locker. Technically, it was Cynthia’s locker: Watt had been assigned one, but it was at the end of the arts hallway, and since he never went that direction, and never carried much stuff anyway, he’d gotten in the habit of using Cynthia’s instead. Derrick, Watt’s best friend, stood there too, worry creasing his forehead.

“Yeah, what happened? Cynthia says you skipped out early?”

“I went to try to talk to the MIT admissions officer, before she left.”

“What did you tell her?” Cynthia asked, while Derrick shook his head, muttering something that sounded like “Should’ve thought of that.”

Watt sighed. “I’m not sure it went well.”

Cynthia glanced at Watt in sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, at least if I tank, it’ll increase your chances of getting in,” Watt replied, a little too flippant; but sarcasm had always been his defense mechanism.

Cynthia seemed hurt. “I would never think like that. Honestly, I was hoping that we would both end up at MIT. It could be nice, having a friendly face so far from home …”

“And then I’ll come visit you both, and pester you constantly!” Derrick said, throwing his arms jovially around both their shoulders.

“That would be fun,” Watt said cautiously, with a glance at Cynthia. He hadn’t realized that they shared the same dream. She was right: it would be nice—walking across the leaf-strewn campus together on their way to class, working together in the engineering lab late at night, getting lunch in that enormous arched dining hall Watt had seen on the i-Net.

Then again, what would he and Cynthia do if only one of them got in?

It’ll be fine, he told himself, but he couldn’t help thinking that this was just one more thing in his life that could end in disaster.

He seemed to be collecting a lot of those lately.