Page 39 of Middlegame

“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 way they seem to care about her, but no one gets everything in this world. As long as she can feign connection believably enough that people will answer it in kind, that will be enough. That has to be enough.

Dave and Smita could be friends, if she takes the time to cultivate them. She thinks she will. Friends are useful things, and she gives as good as she gets, following the established rules of friendship. If she brings people soup when they’re sick because the rules say she should and not out of empathy, what does that matter? They still get the soup. She still gets the contact. The math is good. Lauren is an unknown quantity. Snake would probably like to be friends, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off her breasts in almost five minutes, and Dodger has moved out of the phase of her life where that would seem like a good thing. It was nice to have the boys noticing her for a little while, when she was trying to work out social interaction; boobs were like a cheat code for getting along. As her grasp of the math improved, she stopped wanting to cheat.

Jessica is going to be a problem. That’s all right. She likes problems.

“Where did you do your undergrad?” asks Smita.

“Stanford,” says Dodger. This is the most common question in her world right now, and she volleys it back without pause: “You?”

“Brown.”

The others offer their own answers as the minutes move, until Dodger’s late arrival is completely overshadowed by their tour guide, who is going for the record.

“If this guy weren’t showing us around campus, I’d suggest ditching him,” says Snake. Everyone murmurs agreement, even Dodger and Jessica, who might never agree on anything again. (Not that this is a bad thing. Rivalry inspires good work. Not peaceful work, but since when does peace have anything to do with the march of scientific progress?)

“Maybe we should ditch him anyway?” Lauren ducks her head like she’s ashamed of her own question. “We could all get lost together? It might be fun?”

The way the girl sounds as if she’s constantly questioning things is going to get old soon. But they’re not in the same discipline, so it’s not like they’re going to share advisors, and besides, this is Amiable Dodger time, Friendly Dodger time, Dodger - who - gives - a - damn time. Dodger slaps a smile on her face and says, “I think I saw a Starbucks just off campus.”

“I know I did!” says a new voice. The group turns to see a tall, rail-thin man walking toward them. His brown hair is long enough to be pulled into a ponytail; his glasses are wire-framed and as stylish as mud. The cup in his hand bears the familiar green mermaid, complementing his blue-and-gold UC Berkeley sweatshirt. He looks like a campus tour guide out of a student handbook, and he puts Dodger’s teeth instantly on edge. Something about him is familiar enough to hurt. She’s learned, over time, to fear the overly familiar.

“Are you our guide?” asks Smita. “Because you’re late. There was almost a mutiny.”

“Wouldn’t be my first,” says the man. “Something about my face inspires people to rebel against me. Even when my face isn’t there, they rebel against me. I’m Roger Middleton, and I’m going to be your gateway to the wonders of the UC Berkeley campus. Please watch your step, forgive my tardiness, and don’t feed the squirrels, as they have been known to mug people for their—Miss? Where are you going?”