"Okay."

She shrugged. "We were testing a timed operation. It didn't work."

"Timed how?"

"On a timer. It was a dry run on automatic to see how stable the system was."

"Dry run?"

She sighed. "We'd just open the Door. Nothing was going to go through."

"Okay."

"Anyway, whenever we tried to use the timer, we couldn't get the Door to open."

"Hardware or software issue?"

"Hardware."

"What was it? Causing the problem."

She shrugged. "We'd pulled the automatic tests forward. We had enough other work to do, so we just shelved the whole thing to deal with later. Never looked at it. Haven't even thought about it in close to a year."

"So it might be a software issue."

"Noooo," said the programmer, "it couldn't."

"But if no one looked at it-"

"You think I screwed up coding a timer?" Her chin went down.

"No, no, of course not," said Mike. He took a half step back and b.u.mped his new table. "But, no offense, if the Door worked the rest of the time, isn't the timer program kind of the obvious place to start looking?"

Jamie glared at him. Then she turned and stalked out of his trailer. He waited for a moment and then followed. He stepped outside just in time to see her vanish into her own. She left the door hanging open.

A moment later she emerged holding a sheaf of papers. She slapped it against his chest, and one page flipped away and floated to the ground. "There," she said. "Try to find a mistake."

"I didn't mean to-"

Jamie stalked back to her door. "Don't call me after office hours again," she growled over her shoulder as she stepped up into her trailer. "And if you want to play scientist while you're here, at least write your G.o.dd.a.m.ned work down to show people."

Her door slammed behind her.

He heard a creak to his left and saw Neil peering out. Their eyes met. "Sorry," said Mike.

The engineer nodded. "She's going easy on you. It's a good sign." He waved. "G'night."

His door clicked shut and Mike stood alone on the plastic gra.s.s.

EIGHTEEN.

"So it was a dead end?" Reggie asked.

"Pretty much," said Mike. He tossed his towel over a chair and pulled on his shirt. "She was right. It should've worked."

"You sure?"

"It's a fifteen-page program. A little overcomplicated, really, for what it does. I'd think with her experience she could've pared it down to four or five with no problem."

"Yeah?"

Mike nodded. "It's all C++. And it's a simple program."

"You understand C++?"

"I learned it last night. It's just another language. I found the basics on a few websites, figured out the syntax, grammar, vocabulary." He shrugged.

On the tablet screen, Reggie shook his head and smiled. "Well, I haven't seen any complaints, so I guess you weren't too rough on her. Still wish I'd seen it."

"I thought I was kind of gentle, all things considered."

"So what do you think?"

"About her?"

"About all of it."

Mike b.u.t.toned up his shirt. "How much of this have your people gone over? The basic ideas behind the Albuquerque Door?"

"None of it," said Reggie. "There's nothing to go over until Arthur releases it."

"But he and Olaf and the others...They've talked about it in meetings and phone calls, right?"

"Yes, of course."

"Have you gone over the transcripts?"

"We've had people diagram the sentences, just to see if we could squeeze a little extra out of their word choice. Nothing."

"Doesn't that strike you as odd?"

"They don't want to tell us anything. They haven't."

"Yeah, but to be able to have numerous conversations and let absolutely nothing slip. Doesn't that seem unusual to you?"

Reggie rubbed his chin. "Maybe."

"If you and I were talking with someone, how long do you think we could hide the fact that we knew each other?"

"How smart's the other person?"

"As smart as you."

"Not too long. I'd pick up on something."

"Right. But you've been talking to these people for years now and you haven't picked up any details about what they're doing. This project is everything, and they've never let a single thing slip that you've been able to catch."

On the tablet screen, Reggie's face grew still. "Are you going somewhere with this?"

"I'm no expert," said Mike, "but it feels like they're playing fast and loose with a lot of their terminology. That might be why you can't get anything from them."

"How so?"

"A lot of the terms they're throwing around-dimensions, quantum states, realities-they use them like they're interchangeable, but I don't think they are, scientifically speaking." He shrugged. "Again, not my field of expertise. That's why I was wondering if any of your people had seen any connections. Or lack of connections, I guess."

Reggie nodded. "I'll have my people check again. Anything else seem odd?"

Mike rolled his neck. "I don't know. Everyone feels a little...rehea.r.s.ed."

"How so?"

"It's like a kid who hasn't done his homework, and he's spent the whole school day planning out what he's going to say as an excuse."

"Canned responses are pretty normal," said Reggie. "I get that a lot."

"It's more than that, though," said Mike. "I had a professor in college who taught a course on the Brontes. He was talking one day about Villette and-"

"Villette?"

"It's a novel by Charlotte Bronte. I'm making another a.n.a.logy. Be patient for a minute."

"Charlotte Bronte," muttered Reggie.

"One of the characters in the book spends all her time saying 'I'm fine, I'm just fine, I'm really fine, I'm fine.' And the professor pointed out that anyone who says they're fine that many times is probably really not fine."

"Okay."

"Everyone out here keeps telling me they're not hiding anything," said Mike. "All of them. The only person who didn't try to tell me they're not hiding anything was Anne."

"Anne?"

"The receptionist."

"Ahhhhh," said Reggie. "Okay."

"I think Bob was going to tell me something the other night at dinner, but he closed up when we ran into Olaf."

"Any idea what he was going to say?"

"He asked if Arthur had talked to you about him."

"To me?"

"Yeah."

"No more than anyone else. Did he give you any sort of context?"

"It probably ties to something they were talking about a few weeks ago."

"They meaning Bob and Arthur or meaning the whole staff?"

Mike replayed the conversation in his head. "I'm not sure," he admitted.

Reggie shook his head. "Could be anything, then. Did it match anything in the records?"

"Nothing I've seen, but I haven't gone through the maintenance logs yet."

"Let me know what you find."

"Yeah, of course. Question."

"Shoot."

"Why'd you pick me for this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why am I here instead of someone else?" asked Mike. "I'm not a physicist or a rocket scientist."

"Says the man who taught himself C++ in a few hours."

"You've got at least eleven people on your staff who are security-cleared and fully qualified to be here. Why me and not one of them?"

Reggie's face shifted. He leaned back in his chair. "Where'd you get that number from?"

"The reports you gave me have already been approved on your end. They've all been signed and half of them have e-mail addresses tagged onto them. Eleven distinct people. They wouldn't get the reports if they didn't have clearance and they wouldn't be reviewing them if they didn't have the background."

"I thought we agreed you'd only use your powers for good?"

"You know the rules," said Mike. "If you don't want me to know something, don't show it to me."