Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller) (41 page)

Agony.

After another minute he began walking carefully back to his bedroom. Every step was painful, but he was pleased to be able to walk at all. Because if he could walk, then he could
take
a walk.

And that would be good enough for now.

Unplayable

It took Kevin nearly two hours to get around the loop at his extra-slow, injury-limited speed, and he worried that Andrew might be upset with him by the time he returned home.
But his assistant’s mood seemed to have improved, and after a quick dinner the two of them set about making a new set of book stacks for the night.

“You’re getting there,” Andrew said.

“What? Getting where?”

Andrew glanced up at the bookcase. “There’s only three or four shelves left,” he said. “Maybe you want to slow down, start actually
reading
them from now on.”

Kevin looked at the section of un-read books Andrew had created, and he was satisfied
to see that the man was right.
As to slowing down, there was no point in trying to explain the situation to Andrew. Especially since he still didn’t understand it himself.

You should talk to Dr. Petak
, he thought.
He’s very reassuring, even if the stuff he says doesn’t make much sense.

“There’s another case in my bedroom,” Kevin said. “And I’m only going to be doing this reading business until next weekend.”

But
then
again, that’s according to Petak. So no promises.

“As you like,” Andrew said.

Kevin settled himself down onto the couch, and he was pleased to discover that the paranoid voice had already quieted itself. Maybe because Andrew had declared him to be “almost there,” a phrase Kevin found uniquely calming.

After all, it sounded very close to “almost ready.”

Kevin Brooks felt a hand on his shoulder, and he took in a slow, cautious breath.

Better
.

The pain was still there – he was still aching, still bruised and battered – but now it was livable. Now he felt as though he had put himself through an especially hard lifting workout the day before. He wouldn’t be winning any races for the next few days, but at least he
didn’t
feel crippled.

“What time is it?”

“Ten o’clock, Sunday morning.”

Kevin put the book he had been reading,
Antimicrobial Therapy
, on the floor beside the couch, and he swung himself around and up onto his feet.

“Feeling more spry this morning I see,” Andrew said.

Kevin grunted half-heartedly. “Almost.”

After breakfast
,
he went to the study.
Something was different this morning
,
s
omething in his head. He had reached some critical point, some key level of information gathering, and all at once he felt as
if
his mind were bubbling over. There were so many books in him now, so many instruction manuals and science textbooks and practical guides to everything from building a wooden shelter to applying advanced game theory, that he was suddenly aware of a need to
do
, to actually try some of the things he had been absorbing over the last few nights. Fixing freezers and talking about handguns had whetted some of that appetite the day before, but now the need was much stronger.

He sat down in the stud
y and took out a piece of paper
. Without waiting or even thinking very hard, he grabbed a pen from the cup on the corner of the desk and began to write. It was almost like watching someone else work. In a few minutes – it
felt
like a few minutes, but he had stopped worrying about time – the page was covered with a detailed overhead view of what looked like a city apartment. Kevin sat back and took a moment to look at it, and then he put the page to the side.

Next
.

A clean sheet of paper, and he let his arm go again. This time he was drawing a piece of equipment, something smooth and metal and small. He kept drawing; now making little tick marks on the side of the page to indicate scale, now adding shading to the metal piece to give it depth. To make it shine.

“What is that?”

Kevin glanced behind him to find Andrew standing there, peering down at the drawing with evident interest. “Is it a carabineer?”

Kevin took a second to look at the picture he had drawn. And to think. “No, its – ” He paused. “Well, yes. For climbing. But it doesn’t exist. Not yet.”

“What’s this bend here? That doesn’t look familiar.”

“Right, that’s the difference. That transfers the load away from the main joint. Distributes it better throughout the piece.”

Andrew peered at the picture uncertainly for another moment, and then he seemed to remember why he had come into the room. “Anything to eat?”

“How long have I been in here?”

“Hour and a half.”

“
Good
. No, I’m okay.”

Andrew nodded and left him alone. Kevin brought out a fresh sheet of paper. He was picking up speed now. He wrote out an algorithm for winning at blackjack. Then a chemical formula for an artificial sweetener. Next he designed a small wing attachment for an airliner, the purpose for which he briefly lost sight of until he imagined the laminar flow pattern over a standard airfoil, realizing as he did so that this attachment would reduce the likelihood of stall at low speeds. In another minute he found himself making five straight lines across the page, then another five just below them. Then again and again, until he had a page completely covered by five-and-five groups of horizontal lines. He was utterly lost until he went to the top and began filling in notes.

For a moment he was delighted with himself. But when he was done making quarter notes and sixteenth notes and dotted halves, he realized he still didn’t know what he had made.

“Andrew!”

The assistant appeared a moment later. “Sir?”

“Can you play the piano?”

“Of course.”

Kevin smiled. He wanted to give the man a hug and ask him what he
couldn’t
do, but instead he handed over his latest sheet of paper. “Is this a piece you’ve seen?”

Andrew frowned with concentration, and he began moving his head in time to an unheard rhythm. “No,” he said at last. “It’s interesting.” He waited a beat, then shrugged. “But of course it’s unplayable.”

“What? No, why can’t you – ”

“Because I don’t have thirteen fingers,” Andrew said, pointing to an especially crowded section of the piece. “You’re aware of that limitation, I assume?” He handed the paper back to Kevin, who stared at it as though it had betrayed him.

“Maybe it’s a duet,” Kevin suggested.

“Not unless you’re planning on the two players strangling each other. There’s no room to maneuver here.”

“Well, but they could just – ”

“Do
you
play the piano?”

“No.”

“It’s unplayable.”

“Okay.”

Andrew walked righteously from the room, his head held high.

Kevin sighed and returned to his work. Clearly there were certain things – street fighting and musical composition, for example – that required experience to master. But other things required only knowledge. Raw, unfiltered knowledge. And Kevin had good command of a few such things.

Quite a few.

He Was Trailing Me

After three hours of writing and designing and creating, Kevin felt some of the urgency begin to drain out of him. He took a breath and looked at the edge of the desk, which was now stacked with dozens of pages of work.

Pretty good for a Sunday.

Today he was doing it right. For probably the first time since this whole business had started. He had rested enough, eaten enough, and worked enough. He thought Dr. Petak would be pleased with him. And now it was time for exercise again.

A schedule. Check it out. Just like a normal person.

He changed and left without Andrew giving him any grief, for which he was
thankful
. And when he reached the park loop he found that he could jog without serious pain. He was still too slow, and there were still too many places on him that felt sore, but his condition had definitely improved. After a few miles he wanted to go still faster, but there were parts of his legs that seemed reluctant. Drawing on an old technique from college, he tried turning around and running backward for a few steps, hoping this might loosen up a few more muscles. The world spun briefly around as he turned, and now he was looking at the people running behind him.

He saw a face he recognized.

The doorman.

It was that chiseled, athletic-looking man from three nights ago. He was trailing Kevin by no more than twenty yards, and staring right at him. Kevin stopped in his tracks, and the man froze.

“Wait!” Kevin yelled.

But the man spun around and was off, running like a frightened deer. Kevin swore and gave chase, but the man was simply too quick. He was off the loop and headed for the street in no time, and though Kevin ran as fast as he could, ran and forced himself to ignore the popping twinges coming from his hamstrings, he could not keep up for more than a few seconds. The man leapt over the short wall between the park’s edge and Fifth Avenue as though it were nothing but a high hurdle, and in another moment he was sprinting uptown and away.

Kevin stood and watched him disappear into the distance, and then he became aware of several spots of pain coming from his legs.

Several
new
spots.

“Oh, come on,” he said, looking down at himself with disgust. He slapped at his legs as though they were a pair of dogs who had misbehaved. “It was only for a
second
,” he protested.

He hobbled slowly back home, trying to
stretch his legs as he walked.
It was a feeling he was familiar with – coming back too soon after an injury – but now that feeling was mixed with
a renewed sense of uneasiness.