Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
After a while, I started to recognize a formula that appeared repeatedly, each time with tiny changes, as if the scientist was refining it or closing in on something. I flipped ahead and found a page where a version of it was circled over and over again. Next to it, he’d written, “I’ve done it!” Okay, but what exactly had he done?
Anderson pulled me from my thoughts when he got up and said, “I’m ready to call it a night. I’d been planning to stay until nine, but I’ve run out of steam.”
I would have loved to keep reading. Something in my gut told me it was important, possibly even the type of thing I’d been hoping to find when I went to work for SPAM. This wasn’t a tidy, nonthreatening study about demographics, or the psychology of being a superhero, or some shit like that. And I was sure it had been sent to the wrong department. Even with just the flimsiest understanding of what it contained, I knew it probably should have gone someplace way above my pay grade.
Anderson was ready to leave though, so I got up and reluctantly brought the journal to his desk. There was a form at the top of his in-box, and I asked, “Did this come with it?” When he nodded, I stuck it between the journal’s pages, while quickly scanning it for information. I planned to dig into this scientist and his research as soon as I got home.
I plucked my denim jacket from the coat rack in a corner of the office, and as we made our way out of the archives, I asked, “Are you getting here at seven tomorrow?”
“That’s the plan.”
“I’ll shoot for that, too. I’ve never been much of a morning person, though. Making it here by eight every day is hard enough.”
“What did you do before this?”
“Most recently, I worked as a bouncer at a night club. That was a cool gig, all late nights, zero mornings. Before that, I worked as a bodyguard, and as a trainer at a gym.”
He asked, “What was the plan?”
“What do you mean?”
“What did you want to do when you were younger?”
“Oh. That plan. Well, when it became clear I wouldn’t be able to follow in my mom’s footsteps, my fallback was football. I went to college on an athletic scholarship, but then I ripped my shoulder to shreds my sophomore year. Since I was a quarterback, there was no coming back from that.”
“What were you studying?”
“I hadn’t chosen a major yet. And of course, the scholarship went away the minute I couldn’t play football anymore.”
“That must have been disappointing.”
“You could say that.” When we got outside, I asked, “Which way are you going?” He pointed to the left. “Me, too. Are you headed to the bus stop?”
“No. I’m on foot.”
“Mind if I walk with you?”
“Go right ahead.”
It was only about eight o’clock, but the Financial District was almost eerily still. All the offices were closed for the day, and we were the only people on the street. That changed, of course, as soon as we left the clusters of skyscrapers behind. The rest of the city was as vibrant and bustling as ever. It got to be a bit much sometimes, but after a full day in the stillness of the archives, I welcomed the noise.
After a few minutes, we entered Chinatown, and Anderson said, “We’re almost there. I live two blocks up.”
“I love this neighborhood. How long have you lived here?”
“All my life. I still live with my mom, because this city is crazy expensive. I’m actually the fourth generation on her side of the family to grow up here.”
“That’s cool. Do you have a lot of relatives nearby?”
“Not anymore. My grandparents used to live three blocks over, but they retired to Florida last year.”
“You must miss them.”
“No.” Anderson quickly added, “That sounds terrible, but I didn’t know them. The only reason I found out they moved is because a gossipy neighbor told me.”
“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you know them, when they lived so close?”
“Here’s all my family drama in a nutshell. My mom got pregnant when she was twenty, and she refused to marry my dad, since they’d already broken up by the time she found out I was on the way. This infuriated her parents. So did the fact that he was Korean.”
“What’s wrong with being Korean?”
“Nothing, unless you’re old and closed-minded. They’d had a nice Chinese boy all picked out for her, but getting knocked up wrecked their plans—not that she ever would have agreed to marry that other guy. Long story short, they ended up disowning her, and me, by default.”
“Damn, that’s harsh. What did she do?”
“Fortunately, her great aunt was willing to take her in. Even though she was from an even older generation, she was a lot more accepting than my grandparents.”