Long Division (6 page)

I was mildly surprised that I was even thinking such things. My thoughts towards James were so unlike me…I didn’t trust people. I didn’t—and a complete stranger such as him? And yet…for some reason, I found myself oddly enjoying it.

My phone
ping
ed! and I sleepily reached for it. It was from Ashley.

STILL PLANNING ON ATTENDING THAT SEMINAR TODAY?

I frowned at it in confusion.

SEMINAR?

YES. AT THE COLLEGE. YOU DO STILL WANT TO MEET JAMES NIGHTGOOD, DON’T YOU?

I sat ramrod straight. James’s seminar! How could I have forgotten? And I’d just been talking to him last night!

SHIT! I’D COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN!

I rolled out of bed and glanced at the time. Nine-thirty. I had slept late. Ashley sent me the time and place in a quick note, ending it with: I’M SORRY I WON’T BE ABLE TO COME ALONG. MATT AND I ARE GOING OUT.

Funnily enough, I was relieved by that. I didn’t really want her there to witness our meeting. Not that I was expecting anything spectacular, or that I’d even be able to work up the nerve to approach him, yet best not to let on how long we’d been in contact. One might find it…questionable.

I text Ashley back, telling her not to worry. Then I was in in a mad scramble to get ready since I only had an hour. I showered and grabbed the few clean articles of clothing I could find. I really needed to do laundry.

No texts from James this morning. I wrestled with myself about letting him know I was attending his talk. I decided at the last moment against it. What if he didn’t want me there? I didn’t want to chance it.

I snagged my coat off my battered chair and left the flat with a nervous spring in my step. My eyes automatically went across the street to see if those two mysterious watchers were there. They weren’t. But I did notice something different. The “To Let” sign on the flat across the street from mine no longer was out. Someone must have finally moved in.

It wasn’t really something that interested me at the moment and I hurried to the tube station. It was crowded, so much so that there wasn’t much space to move. To add to that, arriving at the college took longer than it should have done and I had to sprint across the campus till I reached the building Ashley had directed me to; my heart thudding in my ears.

I was late, unsurprisingly.

As I slipped quietly into the back of the lecture hall, I could hear a man’s monotone, deep voice already invested in the statement he was in the middle of addressing. It was a voice I immediately recognised and it sent a slight pang of excitement through me.

I took a seat on the back row, doing my best to not draw attention to myself, and sank into the shadows.

Down below me, pacing across the grey, carpeted floor in front of a large chalkboard, was the speaker. I was surprised by what I saw. I’d been expecting an older man, forties or fifties, perhaps, with glasses and a tweed jacket. That was not who this man was.

James Nightgood was younger than me—probably late twenties. Admittedly, I decided he was good-looking; tall and thin with dark reddish hair. As I settled back, I had a better look at him. There was an unkempt, absentminded air about him, as, I suppose, one would except from someone claiming to be a mathematical genius. He was dressed oddly, too, I noticed. Not that I was up to date with the latest fashions, but it was as if he didn’t exactly know
how
to dress. His clothing was mismatched, un-tucked and wrinkled.

I focused on his voice, not the words he was speaking because I didn’t understand them—he might as well have been talking in a different language—and yes, I was certain it was him. I grinned, surprised at myself. I’d found my mystery texter.

‘So,’ he barked, spinning back to the board, piece of chalk in hand, ‘if one has the proper formula, which I’ve just laid out for you, one can simply plug it in…’ He began writing furiously, letters and numbers and little symbols I didn’t understand.

I glanced round to the others students below me. Some were attempting to copy down what Nightgood was scrawling, hastily glancing up to the board, cursing and erasing as they fell behind the frantic writings. Others, the majority, were simply staring at him, mouths slightly slack; lost, dazed expressions on their faces. At least they perhaps knew
what
he was talking about. I had not a clue.

Nightgood fell away from the board, gave the smeared chalk and tight equations a quick glance, then turned back to us: his stunned, confused audience. ‘All quite simple, really.’ He didn’t meet the students’ eyes when he spoke, but gazed past them. ‘With my formula applied, the original last ten steps of the problem become obsolete. I have cut the steps to the answer in half. Now, you might be saying that this is probably just a fluke, how could it possibly work for all problems of this nature? Well, let me prove it to you.’

He erased the entire board with a few wild swipes of his hand and then went off again, scribbling away. Once he’d finished, he underlined his answer boldly three times, then started again. He worked out the problem in a different way, I think. Longer, if that were even possible. I watched as he scrawled the same answer as before across the only bit left on the board.

Nightgood whirled back to his audience, breathless. ‘So,’ he addressed us, ‘what does that mean?’ His eyes darted over the students’ heads again, not focusing on anyone. They locked with mine ever-so-briefly, unrecognising, before darting away to focus on some other fixed invisible point.

Dead silence met his question. Damned if I knew. His whole lecture—or the bit I’d heard—had completely flown over my head. I’d never been good at maths and this… I didn’t even know what he was solving for!

‘No one?’ he asked, disappointment colouring his voice. He didn’t look surprised. ‘Well,’ he spun back to the board. ‘It means that everything you’ve been taught up to this point in your lives has been completely wasted rubbish.’

There were a few confused mutters around me. Some expressions seemed to finally be dawning with comprehension, over what, I couldn’t say. I was more concerned with watching James. The way his head didn’t seem to rest, how it seemed to swivel constantly round his audience, never stopping on one person. I didn’t know why a small part of me hoped he’d look my way. Why I hoped his eyes would eventually rest my way and maybe have some recognition. Perhaps, unlike me, James had bothered searching the identity of his late night texter.

He clapped his hands together. ‘Right, well then—’

The doors to his left swung open and I watched a man and a women walk in. James turned to them in surprise, his expression shifting from one of business to one of almost sheepish nerves. The woman said something to him, pulling his lanky form down close to speak into his ear. James was scowling now. He shoved his hands into his pockets and said something I couldn’t catch, I was much too far away. Then he snapped his computer closed and looked up to us.

‘I’m sorry; I must end the lecture here, thank you for attending.’

And with that he was ushered away.

No, no, no. I abandoned my resolve to stay away immediately and fought through the crowd as they fought the opposite way, towards the exit. Students shouldered past me as I tripped down the stairs, desperate to reach James before he was gone. I stammered my apologies and was finally deposited at the ground floor—just as James was pushed out the far door.

The doors thumping shut in front of me stopped me dead. Damn! I stared at the
No Admittance
for a minute, dumbfounded. Of all my luck! The one chance I had to meet James Nightgood and he was shepherded away from me before I had a chance for so much as a ‘Hello!’.

I spun on my heel, feeling like a fool and my foot sent something skidding across the carpet. A thumb drive. I frowned, hardly caring, before seeing the name written across it:
James Nightgood.
My stomach fluttered excitedly; I might as well have found buried treasure.

I swiped up the USB from where it rested and looked down at it. He must have dropped it in his hurry to leave. I glanced back to the closed doors. Too late to catch him now? I had no way of knowing which way he’d gone.

I closed my fingers round the tiny device and the stuffed it into my pocket. Then, somewhat defeated, but still a bit hopeful, I turned myself for home.

When I was back, I found myself staring questioningly at the far wall. The USB sat on the table before me. Right next to my phone.

I still hadn’t decided exactly what to say. And I was feeling bloody ridiculous. Ridiculous that I was still trying to piece together an explanation. Ridiculous that I was nervous about it.

I laughed out loud at my foolishness.

I still didn’t write out a message.

To be honest, I did feel slightly intimidated. James was younger than I’d thought—I was thirty-four, he couldn’t have been older than twenty-six. For another, he was a genius and I was…not.

And it was that second fact that felt like the insurmountable wall between us.

I sat back frustrated, huffing my breath out. Why was I doing this to myself? I turned away from the phone and thumb drive, unable to face it at the moment and flipped the telly on in desperation for a distraction.

What I saw certainly wasn’t a distraction.

I stared at the screen in surprise.

It was him.

James Nightgood.

He was on a
chat show.

He sat perched on the edge of his seat, hands in his lap, reminding me of a small child; still wearing his rumpled suit from his lecture, but it looked like he—or someone else—had tried to straighten him up a bit.

A blonde woman was leaning towards him, smiling charmingly, in a skirt that might have been a little too short and high heels. She was midsentence as I focused in.

‘…And what most people may not know about you, you are one of the youngest in your field to have achieved so much. Creating a new mathematical theory at your age is quite remarkable.’

James tilted his head slightly to look at her, almost hopeful. ‘Do you actually understand my theory?’

The woman flushed a little. ‘Well, I’ll admit I’m not an expert in maths, not like you!’

James’s expression suddenly became incredibly bored. He gazed past her, as if something more interesting had appeared over her shoulder. ‘No, clearly you are not. So any attempt to explain something as complicated as my Universal Theorem would be completely useless, would it not?’

An awkward silence for two ticks. The woman let out an uncomfortable little laugh she tried to disguise as charming. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘tell us. Since you have proven to the world your understanding on the subject, I was hoping we could end up where we started this discussion. What do you think of InVizion’s upcoming product? What sort of benefits for society should we be expecting? From the demos we’ve seen, we’re all very impressed!’

James returned his attention to her once again; an odd, almost nasty curve came to his lips. ‘Oh,’ he purred in a voice that could, quite frankly, melt butter, ‘all of you people are so interested in that.’

The woman shifted in her seat.
‘You people?’
The nervous giggle had returned.

‘Yes,’ James said, ‘the truth of the matter is, with technology of this magnitude it is impossible to predict exactly what affect it will have on society. This technology in uncontrollable and will continue to grow on itself, more than likely at an exponential rate and at an unstoppable pace. It is inevitable. The singularity has already arrived and no one saw it coming. What it starts out as is not what it will end up as, in a few years; you will not be able to even recognise it.’

He leant in closer.

‘Does that answer your question satisfactorily?’

My mouth went dry at his words. It sent a wave of unease rolling through me. He’d named everything I hadn’t been able to.

The woman sucked in a noisy breath through her surgically altered nose. ‘My, isn’t that ominous.’ She turned back to the camera once she realised James had seemed to drop out of the conversation completely. ‘Well, I would like to thank you all for joining us for this fascinating discussion. And thank you, Mr Nightgood for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us and make us all a bit smarter.’

He smiled drily.

Her eyes went back to the camera. ‘And keep tuned into this station for more information in the upcoming months about InVizion and what this will mean to society.’

The programme ended. Went to news. Once I realised I would not be seeing any more of my mysterious friend I turned it off and sat in silence. My brain ran on and on with questions. If James was going to appear on a television programme today, why had he been teaching a lecture at the college? Had he completely forgotten about it? And who were those two people who had been so quick as to usher him out? His handlers? Was that they type of person James was? Someone so important as to have handlers?

I hadn’t thought so. Then again, I hadn’t thought James to be the type who’d be on television.

I turned my eyes back to the thumb drive on the table next to me, and then swore. I couldn’t take this curiosity. It was nothing, surely, just lecture notes, but I had to know.