"I don't know." She looked up at him. "Jonathan, I can't tell whether the guy is an eccentric maverick who's being persecuted by the establishment, or the frigging Antichrist!"
Jonathan had picked up a magazine through which he now absentmindedly thumbed. "I phoned a guy I met at last year's Chicago neuroscience thing. He had told me in Chicago that he'd been in an undergraduate philosophy class with Gray here years ago. Said Gray was a quiet kid."
Laura waited, but Jonathan just turned the pages. "That's your big news?"
"That's what he said back then. But I called him this afternoon and quizzed him up."
Again Laura waited, and Jonathan licked his index finger to turn a page. "Jesus, Jonathan?"
He tossed the magazine onto the end table. "His theory is that Gray might be losing it."
"Losing what?"
"Let's see. How can I say this politely about your prospective boss?" Jonathan looked thoughtful. "He thinks Gray might be going completely mad." Laura stared back at him, saying nothing.
"Extreme antisocial behavior. Borderline misanthrope. He thinks it's classic. As a prodigy, you see, he has a fairly bizarre childhood. He has nothing in common with his peers and turns into a loner. When he grows up, he's no longer the brilliant sideshow. Others' intellects begin to match and exceed his own. He withdraws. Begins to hate mankind. He buys islands in the South Pacific, for Christ's sake. Lets his fingernails and hair grow long. Obsessive-compulsive washing of his hands and fear of germs. Oxygen-rich tents to increase his longevity. Et cetera, et cetera."
Laura was nodding slowly. "This 'friend' of yours hasn't seen Gray since college, has he?" she asked. "He doesn't know a single goddamned thing about Gray."
"It was just a theory," Jonathan said. "He does know one thing, though."
Laura stifled another laugh. "Don't tell me Gray is gay."
"No, you'll be happy to learn. He's straight. I asked."
"So your friend knows two things."
Jonathan smirked, but then to Laura's surprise did not return a flippant riposte. "He lost his parents in a car accident when he was twelve. No brothers, no sisters, no aunts, uncles, cousins. His high school's English teacher took him in for the year before he came to Harvard on a scholarship. One night back in college, my acquaintance from Chicago was pulling an all-nighter cramming for an exam. When the library closed, he headed back to his dorm. Gray's light was on in his ground-floor room, like always. Gray apparently never slept, just read all night long. Only this time, he wasn't reading. So my friend walked over to Gray's window and looked in. Gray, it seems, was sitting there, at three o'clock in the morning, all by himself, just staring at the wall." Jonathan paused. "They'd had a cake for him at the department earlier that day. It was his sixteenth birthday."
7
The heavy, humid air of the South Pacific hit Laura as she stood in the door of the plane.
Parked on the tarmac were a few jets, prop planes, and helicopters, but there were no people to be seen anywhere. The lone flight attendant directed Laura to a small building that sat at the foothills of a lush green mountain, but then warned, "Don't get near the plane's fuselage. It's still hot."
The supersonic corporate jet had made the trip from Boston in just six hours.
Laura descended the steps to the concrete as the pilot powered the engines down.
A deep and distant roar like the tearing of a heavy cloth drowned out the dying whine of the jet's turbines. Over the verdant mountain that rose from the center of the island appeared a bright fire in the sky.
Holding her hand up to shield her eyes, Laura saw it was a brilliant tail of exhaust jetting from a squat, flat-sided rocket.
The craft had a blunt nose and landing gear that was retracting into its fuselage. Laura stopped to watch it rise through the thin layer of clouds as it arced through the heavens toward space. When it had disappeared from sight, she resumed her walk to the terminal.
"Welcome to the Gray Corporation's South Pacific Facilities," a large and hospitable sign over the building's entrance read. "Trespassers are subject to arrest," a smaller sign beneath it cautioned.
The Gray Corporation logo was the large sign's centerpiece. As Laura approached the building, her eyes remained fixed on the logo.
Its shape was roughly that of a human head. The corporate emblem — now recognizable the world round — was formed out of broad diagonal swaths of gray that ranged in tint from gunmetal to slate. The variations in tint gave the logo the basic contours of a human face. The design was decidedly high-tech, futuristic in its complexity of subtle tones and of form, although Laura couldn't quite decide why she thought that.
When you looked at it closely, the effect dissolved and it was simply a dozen or so diagonal lines of slightly varying shades.
Laura shook her head, realizing she was out of sorts because of the flight. She had slept most of the way, having woken only when the jet's wheels touched down. In her current groggy state, she knew, she would've found herself mesmerized by a simple traffic sign.
A man emerged from the building, and after a momentary spike of anticipation Laura felt a twinge of disappointment. He wasn't the one she'd expected.
"Hello, Dr. Aldridge," the young man said, grabbing her single bag. The door to the terminal slid open automatically. Inside, instead of counters and rows of seats there was simply a curbed white roadbed running through the center of the building. In the sunken bed stood a strange car — both doors on its near side lifted into the air like the wings of a great bird.
The man put her bag into the open rear door. The passenger compartment of the vehicle had four seats that were surrounded by clear Plexiglas.
Each of the seats was identical. There were no controls for a driver.
The man stood beside the open front door. After waiting a moment, he said, "This car will take you to Mr. Gray's house." Laura hesitated. "It's all right," he assured her. "It's automated. All you have to do is sit. It's about fifteen minutes from here up the mountain."
Laura got into the car and sat in the front passenger seat. She was surprised when the two doors shut automatically, a soft whoosh of air preceding the total quiet of the tightly sealed compartment.
The man waved from where he stood beside the road. A thin tone sounded, and a light on the dash in front shone "Please fasten your seatbelt" in red. As soon as Laura closed the belt's mechanism, the car started to move and the door at the end of the building began to rise.
She braced herself, grabbing the seat's armrests with both hands as the car accelerated smoothly. There were no rails on the road ahead or rubber boundaries lining its curbs. The car's four tires appeared unfettered by such mechanical constraints.
The hum of the electric engine rose steadily as the car left the building for the bright sunlight outside. Laura was surprised and alarmed that its acceleration continued unabated. She could feel it in her back and, as the car climbed the hill away from the airport, from the downward press into her seat. Her grip on the armrests grew tighter with the steadily increasing speed, and she locked herself in place — rigid with alarm.
The road ahead was banked and curved gently. Unlike normal roads, it had no intersections and lights — just forks. Although the road was wide enough for two cars to pass, the smooth pavement had no markings, and its invisible driver appeared to make no attempt to stay within any imaginary lanes. When the car whipped blindly around one particularly sharp fork, Laura's heart skipped a beat in anticipation of a rending head-on collision. Her ride up the mountain, however, proceeded uneventfully.