she’d have to question her life choices. It’s not like she needs the degree. She doesn’t want to teach—can’t imagine shutting herself in a classroom for her entire life like her father has—and with the prizes she’s already won, the things she’s already accomplished, she could have a comfortable career without further schooling. But she wants to learn. Knowledge is more addictive than anything she could put into her body, and she should know—she’s tried everything there is and a few things there aren’t, thanks to innovative chemistry majors. None of it has held a candle to learning.
(That’s not true. She’s never smoked. The smell makes her think of Cambridge, and thoughts of Cambridge are thoughts of something that was never real, something that almost got her killed when she was too young to know how to keep herself on an even keel. So she avoids cigarettes and things that might remind her of them. Besides, it’s not like nicotine is an effective neural stimulant. It’s the ritual that stimulates, and rituals she has in plenty.)
Jessica has looked up from her phone again and is studying Dodger with narrow-eyed suspicion. “Dodger,” she says.
“Yes,” says Dodger.
“Dodger Cheswich.”
“Yes.”
“You solved the Monroe equation when you were what? Nine?”
“Something like that,” says Dodger.
“I’ve never believed that,” says Jessica. “Who helped you?”
“No one,” says Dodger. “Let me guess: math?”
Jessica nods. “Applied, but definitely something computational. You?”
“Still in flux between dynamical systems and probability, but I may stick around for an extra year and do both instead of blowing this Popsicle stand in four. What I really want to do is chaos and game theory, at least right now. I don’t know where I’ll actually land.” Dodger shrugs broadly. “That’s sort of the point of being here. There’s time to figure out what I want.”
“Chaos theory, like the dude in Jurassic Park?” asks Snake.
“Sort of,” says Dodger, and is privately grateful she didn’t wear her movie logo shirt. She’s replaced it over and over throughout her lifetime; thank God for Hot Topic, which is more than happy to cater to nostalgia. Other kids got Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. She got Ian Malcolm and a world where mathematicians could be rock stars.
“I still don’t believe you did it,” says Jessica.
Dodger shrugs again. “Suit yourself.” She’s used to this reaction: it’s lost most of its sting. There’s a lot of rivalry within the mathematical community, a lot of racing to be the first to solve a puzzle that’s broken scholars for years. She’s solved eight of those puzzles, and published the solutions to six. Some people think she’s a liar, others think she’s a hoax, and one particularly verbal group thinks she’s an actress hired as a front for a revolutionary AI. She’s not sure what that would accomplish, but it’s a charming thought, in its way.
“So where’s our latecomer, anyway?” asks Dave. “I’m happy to do campus tours and ‘build connections within my incoming peer group,’ but not if it means I’m going to be late for everything else I have going on. There’s being social and then there’s being stupid.”
“I think we’re going to be friends,” Dodger informs him.
Dave grins.
The social patterns are beginning to emerge: who wants to be here, who’s been pressured into agreeing. Who feels like they’re scoping out the competition, and who genuinely wants someone to talk to on an unfamiliar campus. Dodger has gotten better about reading the underlying logic of moments like this one, mapping them like equations. It’ll never be a perfect predictive tool—annoyingly, people are not numbers—but she can run the probabilities. It’s all part of being a better liar. She’d finished high school in long-sleeved shirts, listening to people whisper about her “mystery attacker” when they thought she couldn’t hear them, and she’ll always be aware of how narrowly she avoided them whispering about the crazy genius girl who tried to kill herself because she couldn’t handle the pressure. Social isolation wasn’t working anymore.
She’d started college a new woman. Smiling, laughing, engaging with the people around her, all while keeping copious notes on how and why they reacted the way they did. She’d approached the issue of social interaction like it was another puzzle to be solved, another prize to be won. She has friends now, people who swore they’d keep in touch via the Internet, since they aren’t at the same school anymore. She has people who would notice if she disappeared.
She wishes that meant more, or that she actually cared about them the