Page 17 of Mr. North
“It’s just colors at the moment. But we’re developing the technology fast. Soon it will be basic images. Within the next few years, we’re hoping we’ll be able to transmit exact read outs of a person’s surroundings through even smaller sensors that look identical to reading glasses.”
“So…” I can barely form coherent thoughts right now. “You’re saying that someone who’s been blind their whole lives…will finally be able to see what they look like? They’ll be able to see what their parents, their children, their wives and their husbands look like?”
Raphael nods.
I look at the glasses he’s holding in both of his hands, and then I look up at him. “You did this? You figured out how to do it?”
“The idea was mine. The basic science was mine. The project required more than basic science, though. A whole team of scientists and engineers have slaved on this over the past three years. They’re miracle workers.”
I don’t know what to say. I can’t think of a single thing that comes close to being enough . Instead, I reach out and I take the VR glasses from Raphael, turning it over, memorizing the lines and the shape of it.
“This…this is going to change so many lives,” I whisper.
Raphael’s smile evaporates. He turns away, clearing his throat as he shuts down a complex looking operating system on the computer screen. With his back still to me, he says, “I’m afraid I have a meeting now, Ms. Dreymon. It’s time for you to go.”
“Oh. Of course.”
His head is lowered when he spins back around, holding out his hand for the VR glasses. “Do you think you can find your own way out again?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Wednesday. I want to play again. Are you available?”
“I—I have a late class on Wednesday. I won’t be free until after six.”
“Then come at seven. You can eat here with me while we play. Agreed?”
Eat here? With him? Dinner? The suggestion leaves me a little surprised, but I can see from the void expression he’s wearing that he doesn’t mean dinner . He means the consumption of sustenance while we play our game and nothing more. “Yes, that should work.”
“Perfect. Goodbye, Ms. Dreymon.” He turns back to his computer screen, and that’s it. I’ve been summarily dismissed.
I make my way out of the room, down the stairs, through the lounge, down the hallway and back to the glass door, and for some reason I feel the need to run. To get away from the penthouse as quickly as I can. My heart is slamming in my chest, but I can’t seem to figure out why. I pull open the glass door, fully expecting Nate to be there waiting for me, but he’s not. Instead, a tall, fair haired guy wearing a pair of Ray Bans and a pale blue Ralph Lauren polo shirt stands in my way, his hand raised, his finger outstretched, by the looks of things a second away from ringing the doorbell. The guy reels back at the same time I do, hand on his chest. “Jesus fucking wept, you scared me. What the—who are you ?” He eyes my bare feet, eyebrow raised.
“I’m Beth. I’m…I’m sorry.” Beyond flustered, I sidle past the tall, handsome guy in the doorway, skirting along the wall in the anteroom. “Mr. North said I should see myself out.”
The amused look on the guy’s face transforms into something else. Something like intrigue. “Well, well. Raphael’s been keeping secrets. I’m Paxton Ross. Pax, if you and I are going to be friends. I went to boarding school with Mr. North back in the day. How, pray tell, do you know him?”
“I—” Well, shit. What am I supposed to say? Raphael doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy to ever let anything ruffle his feathers, but he probably doesn’t want a longstanding friend knowing he’s been responding to weird ads on the internet. “I met him through a mutual friend,” I say, scrambling.
“Oh? Which friend might that be?”
“Thalia. Thalia Johnson.”
Pax raises his chin, narrowing his eyes at me. He looks more than a little suspicious. The look fades, though. “Ah, yeah. Thalia. I know her father fairly well. How’s she doing at college? Columbia, right? She’s studying law?”
A jolt of electricity burns through me like lightning. I reeled off Thalia’s name without thinking, assuming he would accept my word at face value. I didn’t for a second think he would really know her. And if Pax knows her, then…does Raphael actually know her, too? “Yes. That’s how she and I met,” I explain. “I’m also studying law.”
Pax gives me a tight-lipped smile, and then looks over my shoulder into the penthouse beyond. “All right. Well, it was lovely to meet you, Beth. Hopefully we’ll run into each other again sooner rather than later.”
“Yes, I’d like that. Have a good meeting.”
In the elevator, I almost forget to open the hidden closest and retrieve my sneakers. On the ground floor, Nate is still nowhere to be seen. I order an Uber and I wait out in front of the building, on edge and uneasy. As soon as I get home, I call Thalia, the dial tone endlessly ringing out in my ear.
For once, she’s the one who doesn’t pick up.
