He heard raised voices from the great room and opened the door. An older boy stood near the front door. He was three inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than Will, all of it solid muscle. He was tan, ruddy cheeked, with short black hair, and he wore trim gray khakis and a tight navy blue polo. He held Brooke’s left wrist in his right hand, twisting it slightly, pulling her closer.
“That’s not what you said. That’s not what we agreed on,” he said, just short of yelling.
“Lower your voice and let go of me—” she said.
“Hey there,” said Will. “What’s the good word?”
The older boy looked at Will, surprised. “Who’s this noob?” he asked Brooke.
“He just got here—”
Will walked over, grinning like a clueless goofball. “My name’s Will West. And I’m from out west, too. Isn’t that ironic? Really pleased to meet you. And you are?”
Will extended his hand, radiating nerd vibes. Some vestige of country club manners hit the front of the guy’s brain. He let go of Brooke and shook Will’s hand.
“Todd Hodak.”
Hodak opened his eyes really wide, simulating interest, and clamped down on Will’s hand as hard as he could. Will pretended it hurt a lot more than it did, bending over, trying to shake it off.
“Dang, that’s some grip, Todd. Look, I’ll never play the piano again.” He held up his hand, hanging limply, and chuckled. Todd stared at Will as if he had leprosy.
“You must be an athlete, right? What sport? I’m guessing most of ’em! I just got here and I already miss my dog. Do you have a dog? Mine’s named Oscar. He’s a long-haired dachshund. You know, like ‘Oscar Mayer,’ ’cause he’s a wiener dog—”
Todd turned to Brooke. “We’ll talk about this later.”
He slammed the door as he left. Brooke, flushed and upset, hurried to the kitchen. Will trailed her to the dining area. She came back out carrying a large plate, which she set down, noisily, on the table.
“Excuse me a moment,” she said.
Brooke hurried into bedroom 1 and closed the door. A moment later, Will heard her crying. Unsure what to do, he went back to the table, where there was a pitcher of lemonade and tall glasses with ice, small earthen tubs of three different dips, a selection of sliced vegetables, and a dish of spiced olives.
And all he could think was, She lives here. There is a God.
The front door flew open. An elfin black-haired kid bolted in, arms full of boxes overflowing with electronic components. He stopped, startled, when he saw Will. His skin was the color of caramel, his eyes big, brown, and shiny. The kid studied him intensely but didn’t change expression. Then he hurried to bedroom 3, transferring his load onto one skinny arm just long enough to unlock the door. He pushed it open with his butt, darted inside, and closed it behind him. Will heard multiple locks being thrown on the other side.
Brooke came out of her room. Eyes red, forcing a smile, determined to proceed as if nothing named Todd Hodak had jammed her frequencies. She sat at the table and grazed from the platter. Will sat across from her and dug in as well.
“We have a good group here, all things considered.” She waved a carrot toward door 3. “You’ll like Ajay. Everybody likes Ajay. He’s indispensable.”
She took a bite of carrot and pointed to door 2. “But Nick’s a ginormous pain in the watusi. Do you like sports or Chuck Norris?”
“I like sports.”
“Then who knows, you and Nick might be able to bond.”
Will couldn’t stop eating. The dips were all fresh and delicious: hummus, an artichoke mix, and something tart and gooey he couldn’t identify.
“What is this?” asked Will, pointing to the third dip. “It’s unbelievable.”
“Baba ghanoush.” The way she said it, with a slight lisp, sounded so adorable Will almost asked her to repeat it. Brooke waved her carrot stub at door 5, where Will had heard piano music earlier.
“Elise is in five. Elise is … well, you’ll see for yourself.” She popped the carrot into her mouth. “You may have something in common with her.”
“What?”
“You’re a big boy. I’ll let you make up your own mind.”
Will tried not to sound too interested. “So are all the pods co-ed?”
“Is that a problem for you?”
“No, no, not at all—” said Will.
“Because one of the halls is segregated by floors, if it is—”
“It’s not—”
“—but you’d have to tell Dr. Robbins—”
“It’s not a problem.”
She leaned back and smiled. “You might feel differently when you meet Elise.”
“I doubt that I’ll feel differently.”
She took a bite of red pepper. “You don’t have a dachshund named Oscar.”
“I don’t even have a dog.”
“So you were just messing with Todd.”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“No. Not even a little bit.”
“Yes,” said Will. “I was messing with Todd.”
Door 3 opened. Ajay stepped out and made sure his door was locked.
“Ajay, this is Will,” said Brooke. “He’s moving into number four.”
“So I see,” said Ajay with a small bow. “Welcome, sir. Misery is compounded by solitude, so it does, in fact and indeed, prefer company.”
He had a deep, dignified voice and a refined Southern accent. He looked about twelve and sounded like he was running for president.
“Oh, fudge,” said Brooke, glancing at the wall clock. “I’ve got to get to a lab. Ajay, could you take care of Will for a while? He needs clothes, groceries, books, and supplies—it’s all really kind of desperate. Back in a bit.”
Brooke hurried out the front door. Ajay helped himself to an olive.
“If that is indeed the case,” said Ajay, “then I am exactly the man you need to see: Ajay Janikowski, entirely at your service.”
Ajay reached behind his back, tossed the olive five feet in the air, and caught it in his mouth.
AJAY JANIKOWSKI
Ajay darted ahead of Will into the hallway and through a side door.
“We’ll take the stairs,” said Ajay. “The elevators date from the early days of the Harry S. Truman administration. They’d finish third in a race with a glacier and a deceased postal worker.”
Ajay bounded down the stairs ahead of him, brimming with energy he hardly seemed able to contain. Will struggled to keep up with him.
“How badly are you injured?” asked Ajay.
“Not seriously.”
“And you just arrived this morning. Where did you fly in from?”
“Southern California.”
“Are those the only clothes you brought with you?”
“More or less.”
Ajay stopped on a landing and assessed him. “You’re going to die almost immediately from hypothermia.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“How much money do you have?” asked Ajay.
“What comes below abject poverty?”
“Tell me you don’t already have a mad crush on Brooke.”
Will finally caught up, his head throbbing. “What makes you think that?”
Ajay shook his head in disappointment and continued down. “Good God, man, we have our work cut out for us.”
Ajay pushed through the ground floor door and set the same brisk pace outside toward campus. The temperature had warmed considerably, from crippling to just below disfiguring. Will zipped up his jacket and shivered.
“Why would you assume I have a crush on Brooke?” asked Will.
“Please, Will. Destiny clearly intends, by virtue of domestic proximity, some form of friendship for us, but you simply must acknowledge the danger of our situation.”
“What would that be?”
Ajay’s big eyes got even wider. “Why, the astonishing and nearly supernatural attractiveness of not just our two extraordinary roommates, but the
school’s entire female population.”
“You mean … they’re all like Brooke?”
“No, that’s just it,” said Ajay, gesturing expansively. “They’re all as different as snowflakes. Beautiful, interesting girls, each capable, in her own delicious way, of driving you to madness. Any red-blooded male would swim shark-infested waters with a Bantu spear through his leg to change places with us. But if you don’t control yourself, your nervous system will detonate like a string of firecrackers. A bomb-sniffing dog couldn’t save you.”
“How old are you?” asked Will.
“Fifteen. But chronological age is a most unreliable method of evaluation.”
“Okay, so I think Brooke is a flat-out slammin’ babe and will someday rule the world. That better?”
“Yes! We’ve established that you’re not a robot.”
Ajay slapped him on the back, laughed heartily, and led them into one of the larger buildings. A substantial sign read STUDENT UNION. It did nothing to prepare Will for what awaited inside.
The student union was the size of a shopping mall. A grocery store took up the southwestern corner. He saw a laundry and dry cleaners next door to a bank, a massive sporting goods store, and a store offering every art or academic supply imaginable. The school bookstore seemed to go on forever. It opened into a busy food court offering eight different cuisines, none of which looked fast, cheap, or unhealthy. Across from that was a duplex movie theater; one showed a film that was still in general release. Ajay explained the other theater ran only classics from the “Golden Age”—way back, before Star Wars—as part of a film studies course. The marquee read HITCHCOCK’S “REAR WINDOW.” Next door was the six-lane bowling alley and soda fountain that he’d seen in the school’s promotional materials.
Will followed Ajay into a clothing store as big as a football field, with row after row of every item you could imagine in variations of the school colors. Will felt overwhelmed and intensely aware he had only a hundred dollars left in his wallet.
“Start your engines,” said Ajay, handing Will a wheeled shopping cart. “I’ll be right back.”
Ajay hurried off. Will pushed the cart to the winter wear section. He didn’t see any price tags, but the piece he wanted most—a heavy blue fleece sweatshirt with a gray CIL embroidered on the chest—had to cost half of what he had to his name. Reluctantly he tossed it into the cart. He was trying to decide whether to spend the rest on a pair of khakis or a rugby shirt when Ajay returned.
“This was waiting for you at the counter,” said Ajay. “You didn’t tell me you were on full scholarship, man. That’s a horse of a different color.”
Ajay handed him a thick plastic credit card. It was blank, with the same deep blackness he’d seen in Robbins’s expanding tablet. Ajay ran a finger along its outer edge, activating a sensor. The school’s crest appeared, floating in its center. Below that was a sixteen-digit code number and the name WEST.
Will turned it over. A standard magnetized credit card strip ran along the back. His parents had explained how these strips worked, how banks and companies used them to store confidential information they’d gathered about you. He wondered how much information was already embedded here.
“Do they take cash?” asked Will.
“Cash? For heaven’s sake, man, you don’t need cash anymore. You have the Card now. You can use it everywhere.”
“Did they mention what my limit is?”
“If there is a limit, it will now be your job to find it,” said Ajay.
Living expenses, books and supplies, all included. Once again, Dr. Robbins had delivered what she’d promised.
“Let’s do it,” said Will.
Will dropped the pants and the rugby shirt into the cart. He’d never shopped anywhere without the pressure of a budget. The prospect made him giddy, but despite Ajay’s encouragement to break the bank, he still felt like he was taking advantage. Ajay kept tossing things into the cart and Will kept putting them back.
#81: NEVER TAKE MORE THAN YOU NEED.
Three pairs of pants. Five navy and gray shirts. A week’s worth of socks and underwear. A pair of heavy-soled winter boots. A navy watch cap. Fleece-lined gloves and a gray wool scarf. Two sets of long underwear. The only luxury he allowed himself was a dark blue winter parka with a fur-lined hood, but he easily convinced himself he needed that for survival.
A friendly cashier rang it up, asked for his card, and passed it over a scanner that made the card glow. Will didn’t have to sign anything. He never saw a total. No prices appeared on the receipt she gave him.
“How long have you been here?” asked Will.
“My second year. As a freshman, I was roughly the size of this slice of chicken.” Ajay laughed again, infectiously. Will found it impossible not to laugh with him, especially when he made jokes at his own expense.
They were seated in the food court, over teriyaki rice bowls and sunomono salads made to order, fresh and flavorful, and paid for with a single flash of Will’s magic card. A full stomach did wonders for his mood. So did the fleece sweatshirt.
“So what’s with the big noise about cells and laptops?” asked Will.
Ajay’s brow knit together and his look darkened. “So you’ve met Lyle.”
“Yes.”
Ajay leaned forward. “At first I assumed it was a rule they imposed to show they’re in charge and it would be more honored in the breach than the observance. That proved not to be the case. They take this very seriously indeed.”
“But for what reason?”
“They don’t want our faces buried in phones or our heads stuck up the Internet all the time. They really do want us to talk to each other.”
“Texting is a form of talking,” said Will. “And usually it’s a lot more efficient.”
“I wouldn’t argue, Will, but I don’t make the rules. And honestly, after a while you’ll find that face-to-face communication works entirely to your personal benefit.”
“How?”
“It forces you outside your comfort zone,” said Ajay. “Refines social skills, in a good way. Believe it or not, I used to be quite the introvert.”
“You’re making that up.”
“It’s true, I swear to you! And now look at me, a regular chatterbox. I’m completely out of my shell.”
Ajay took a small rectangular black box from the folder Brooke had given him and pushed it across the table.
“Clip that onto your belt. It’s a pager. If anyone tries to reach you on the internal phone system, this beeps. Pick up any phone on campus and the operator instantly connects the call.”
It was a bit bigger than a matchbox and had a metal clip on the back. On the right front corner was a small grill, and there was one small recessed button in the middle. Otherwise it was seamless and solid, with surprising weight. He couldn’t even find a slot for batteries.
“So I’ll have to deal with the texting thing,” said Will. “What about email?”
“You’ll get an email address with your tablet. It’s connected to the main servers for the school’s internal network.”
“Wait, you mean it only works on campus? What about Internet access?”
“Limited. No Wi-Fi or networks out here. You can sign on using ports in the libraries, for specific research, but outside websites are severely restricted.”
Will’s anger rose. “We can’t even get on the Net from our own rooms?”
“No surfing, no social networking, no console or online games—”
“What about TV?”
“There’s one in the student union, but I’ve never seen anyone watching—”
“But these are basic principles of free speech. The right to access useless information and mindless, mediocre entertainment—”
“The Center’s a private institution; they can set any rules they like.”
“This isn’t Communist China. They can’t just shut down the pipeline and cut us off from the rest of the world—”
“The
point is there’s hardly time for such things, Will. They work us like sled dogs, and in case you never noticed, sled dogs love the harness! You’ll see. Don’t underestimate the joy of being challenged or losing yourself in work. I’m talking one hundred percent immersion: classes, labs, homework, and field assignments. Add to that all the social activities: sports leagues, clubs, concerts, and dances—”
“Dances?”
Ajay lowered his voice so no one would overhear. “As part of the Fall Hayride festivities last month, I even attended a square dance.”
“Get out of town.”
“It was insanely fun! Call me crazy. The girls, man, the girls.” Ajay jumped up and demonstrated his square dance.
Will’s mind drifted to Brooke, and from her to Todd Hodak. He needed deep background on that situation, but for all he knew, Ajay blabbed like a talk-show host to everyone in their pod. He didn’t want word of his “crush” getting back to Brooke.
When they finished eating, Ajay led him to the soda fountain by the bowling alley for a chocolate milkshake, which was handcrafted by a server wearing a white peaked cap, like the soda jerk in a Norman Rockwell print. Frost formed on the silver goblet as Will poured his shake into a tall fountain glass. He devoured the sublime concoction, which was laced with buttery nuggets of ice cream. Agreeable pop music issued from a jukebox. The muted swell of pins crashing next door sounded as soothing as a waterfall. Life, for whatever reason, felt worth living again.
Proving Rule #84: WHEN NOTHING ELSE WORKS, TRY CHOCOLATE.
“Why a bowling alley?” asked Will.
Ajay mimed throwing a bowling ball. “Apparently the headmaster read a study that tied the decline of American happiness to the disappearance of organized bowling leagues. A few weeks later, voilà.”
“Are you on a team?”
“Yes. You’ll love it. You even get a shirt, with your name on the pocket. Although for aesthetic purposes, I insisted that mine read ‘Tony.’ ”
So far, everything about the Center looked and felt fine-tuned to perfection, as dreamlike as a movie set. Wherever Will turned, he saw nothing but content and happy faces, exactly as advertised.