this age. He’s been waiting years for this call—for the announcement that Dodger has done something out of proportion with her supposed grade level—but he never thought it would be something this momentous, or this fortuitous. If Peter hadn’t slipped and mentioned the pen pal . . .
No matter. The boy was mentioned. Because Professor Vernon doesn’t need a name to know who Dodger has been corresponding with, or that no letters have ever passed between them. The Doctrine will seek itself. That’s been true of every iteration, even the ones that failed and have been mercifully retired from the program. The Middleton boy and the Cheswich girl sought each other once before, and then, only the presence of a babysitter loyal to Reed had allowed them to intervene before it was too late.
The Congress is watching. The Congress is always watching. They know Reed’s program is in the wind, loose and wild and evolving: they’ll seize it for their own if given the chance. The children are too young to be entangling their lives in this way. They need to finish maturing. They need to learn how much they owe the man who made them.
The girl is committed, body and soul, to whatever course of action she chooses: she’s not the weak link. He must admit that he doesn’t want her to be. She has a remarkable mind. He wants to spend some time in the safe harbor of her good regard before Reed calls her back to the Impossible City to become a pet. He became an alchemist because he wanted power; he became a mathematician because of his love for the subject. The chance to study with the girl who will one day be the laws of mathematics is too tempting to be set aside. But the boy . . .
Anyone can learn to read the dictionary. At this stage, his half of the Doctrine is little more than an eidetic memory and a love for the written word. He can be leveraged. He can be used to stop this before it goes too far; before they come together on their own. Yes.
Professor Vernon is only protecting the Cheswich girl, really. Contact with the Middleton boy at this delicate stage of her development would only drag her down to his level. She needs the freedom to soar.
His course of action thus set and justified to himself, Professor Vernon tears his eyes away from the blackboard. It’s time to make a phone call.
TELEPHONE WIRE
Timeline: 13:51 CST, February 11, 1995 (immediately).
“I see,” says Reed. “Yes, your loyalty is noted; yes, I will consider allowing you to tutor the girl. Thank you for your dedication.”
He drops the phone back into the cradle without waiting for the man on the other end to finish babbling his gratitude and terror. Vernon had not expected Reed himself to answer the phone, had expected to deliver his terrible discovery to some apprentice, or better, to some technician. Moments like this are precisely why Reed makes it a point to be the one on the other end of the line whenever possible. Nothing terrifies an underling like being confronted with someone who can actually hurt them.
Rage pounds in his temples; fear, unwanted and unfamiliar, thunders in his chest. He grips the side of the desk, head bowed, waiting for the moment to pass.
There is a flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye. He looks up. A child stands there, older than his cuckoos, but not by much, no, not by much. One day, he’ll be able to pass her off as their peer.
She is dressed in a shapeless gown of flowered cotton, and her hair is strawberry blonde, a color that belongs in a bottle, not on a body. She watches him with solemn, frightened eyes. He terrifies the child: he knows that. That, alone, is enough to clear his panic away, at least partially. He terrifies her and yet here she is, looking at him, waiting.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Something’s broken,” she says, in a voice like a wounded animal, all hurt and dismay. “Something’s not right.”
Of course. The girl is from Leigh’s little project, a minor incarnation of a simple, controllable force. She’s not the first to carry that mantle. He doubts she’ll be the last. “What’s broken, child?” he asks.
She raises a trembling hand and points to the wall. He frowns—and then freezes as understanding strikes.