“What if I don’t come back?”

“Something is telling me you will. But this is going to be hard. Probably much harder than you think.”

It seemed like she suddenly wasn’t just supporting a decision she didn’t necessarily agree with, she was actually encouraging me. That was making all of this feel much more real.

“I don’t know that I’ve even really made up my mind yet.”

“Oh, you have. You just don’t quite know what a made-up mind looks like.”

I didn’t understand what she meant, but I left it alone and said, “I won’t be allowed to tell you what I’m working on. But would it be OK if I did that anyway?”

“That would be a serious crime, and honestly, yes, I want you to do that.”

“What? Even if they aren’t doing anything iffy?”

“Miranda,” she said, leaning toward me, “these people are dangerous and they’re moving too fast. I’m terrified that they’re doing human tests without proper clinical trials. I think they’ve figured out something powerful and dangerous. If I could find someone I want to put that level of faith in, it would be someone like you, not someone like Peter Petrawicki. You have the perfect background. They need people who have worked on neuro-control interfaces and there aren’t that many of you in the world. I think we’re the only ones who can do this.”

“That could end our careers, though. You were the one just telling me how dangerous this is. We could go to prison.”

“I’m ready for the risks. I just wanted to make sure you knew what they were.”

I had known Dr. Constance Lundgren for almost six years now, and this was not behavior I had come to expect from her.

“Is everything OK with you?”

“You think I’m acting strange. Maybe I am. Maybe I’ve been playing it too safe. Remarkable things don’t get done by people waiting for the status quo to crawl along.”

“But we’re not doing a remarkable thing, we’re trying to slow them down from doing something remarkable too fast.”

Her eyes got big, and she literally reached out and grabbed my arm.

“That!” she said too loudly for the conversation, leaning close to my face. “That right there, that is it. You found it in your own mind. That voice that tells you that the only way to do something amazing is if it’s big and flashy and all yours. Turn it off.” She was honestly scaring me a little. Her voice got quiet again, but the urgency remained. “That obsession with impact is an infection and it’s getting worse. Altus wants to make it worse. You’re going to Puerto Rico so that you can protect us from ourselves. Do you know what I think the most amazing thing the human race has ever done is? It isn’t the weapons we’ve built, and it certainly isn’t the weapons we’ve used, it’s the weapons we haven’t used. Idiots like Peter Petrawicki talk all the time about self-control, about how they carry the burden of changing the world on their shoulders. But they do that with an ambition turned in on themselves. They want to be the voice and the face and the mind behind the change. In truth, they have no self-control at all. They are slaves to their ambitions and to their need to feel admired. The truest strength is shouldering the burden of care.”

“Is that a quote?” It sounded like a quote.

“Do you get what I mean?”

“I think I do.”

“What I want to say is that, often, restraint is far more remarkable than action. So don’t let it not amaze you because, Miranda, you amaze me. Start wrapping up your work. You’re going to get that job.”

While I was waiting to see if that was true, I was lucky to have a new side project. A package had arrived from Maya.

Miranda, the day I texted you about that dress (which I bought, btw) I found something weird. Here is one of them. I don’t even know what to call it exactly, maybe it’s just some plastic costume thing, but I have reason to believe that it’s important. I kept three others here. If there’s anything you can tell me, text me as soon as you know absolutely anything about them, even if it’s just that they’re weird. Anyway, I hope things are going well in California!

Maya

Out of the padded plastic envelope fell a gorgeous hunk of something with a low density and high thermal conductivity. That was strange enough, but there was something different about it that most people would just say was “weird” but that I didn’t have too much trouble putting my finger on: This stuff was hard.

With a few quick tests, I had a range I could place it in. It was less hard than a diamond (which was good, because otherwise I would have had to drop everything and start a lab just to study it) but significantly harder than steel. It was more like high-performance ceramics, except it was definitely not ceramic. After only a half hour of poking and prodding I had plenty of information to text Maya, but I kept poking. Another half hour after that, I realized I was putting texting her off.

I never really got to figure out what that night between me and April meant. It was a onetime thing, but I didn’t know if it was going to stay that way. It was … uuggghhh … This is all very personal, and I feel weird about talking about it in a story that is about, like, saving human civilization, but it was my first time with a woman. It was a really big deal for me because of that, and also because it was April May. I had never completely gotten over her celebrity. I got the feeling that our night together was not a big deal for April. But I felt like Maya and I should talk it through, maybe? The way she didn’t ever seem open to that made me feel like it was because she had written off any possible real friendship with me.

Anyway, I thought through all our history and then I just swallowed it and texted Maya.

That stuff is weird, too weird. Nothing has been that weird since Carl.

I’m going to keep investigating.

But only because it’s interesting, not because I think I’m going to find out anything that will be helpful to you.

She wrote back a few minutes later.

Thanks. I’m going to try to track down where it came from.

I stared at the text, trying to glean meaning from it. The more time I took, the more it seemed like the kind of text I would write to my worst enemy. After an eternity of staring, I mustered up the courage to text her back.

OK, I’m trying to get a job at Peter Petrawicki’s lab, so if I disappear, it’s probably because I’m in Puerto Rico.

My phone rang immediately—it was Maya. My heart started pounding. This was scarier than interviewing with Altus.

“Hello?” I asked tentatively.

“Explain yourself.”

I did my best to do that. I think I was complete, though I wouldn’t say I was articulate.

“And you think this is the kind of thing that Miranda Beckwith would do?” she demanded. “Or is it the kind of thing April May would do?”

Goddamn, no one had put their finger on that part of it yet.

“I think it’s the kind of thing I’d do?”

“It’s not.”

“But it’s science?” Everything I said was coming out as a question.

“This is about April and that’s fine, but I need you to say that to me.”

“It’s about the science and about April. It’s about figuring out what this fucker is doing and taking him down if I can. And it’s about figuring out who I am and what the world is without her.”