Chapter Four

Ryan

 

The doors to the many nearby halls opened all at once, and the deserted quad filled with students as they departed their early afternoon lectures. A promenade of undergraduates carrying backpacks and hefty textbooks walked across the path below the stairway. Ryan regarded Kristen Jordan amid the bustle.

“I’m getting the impression you’ve worked with many scientists?”

“You could say that.” Kristen smirked wearily and looked over the heads of the Columbia student body. “You hinted in there that researchers aren’t concerned about the repercussions of their technologies. What did you mean by that?”

“Well,” Ryan said. “The dangers of any new technology are self-evident aren’t they?”

Kristen shrugged. “I’m not sure if a technology’s potential danger is ever self-evident. Like any knowledge or tool, a technology is only as dangerous as the people that control it.”

“Well, sure, but technology is a form of power, and from what I’ve seen of the world, power is always a dangerous thing—the wrong minds are always drawn to it. By itself a technology might not be hazardous, but inevitably it will be manipulated by people with a hunger for power, whether that takes the form of money or who knows what else.”

“And the creators?” Kristen asked, her voice hesitant.

“Useful technologies have a nasty way of slipping from their creator’s grasp.” Ryan noticed the shadows under her earnest eyes. “I take it you are a researcher of some kind? Are you a research assistant or a graduate student?”

Ryan stepped aside for a group exiting the auditorium. A quiet moment passed between them.

“Sorry.” Kristen turned to face him, her expression distracted. “I’m a graduate researcher. Genetics.”

“You study genetics? At Columbia?”

Kristen nodded.

“Then,” Ryan paused, eyeing her in doubt. “Do you work with the Vatruvian cell?”

“Yep.”

“Ah, now I see,” Ryan said. Behind this girl’s pretty eyes and amiable disposition had to be genuine genius, a truly gifted mind. He had read somewhere recently that thousands and thousands of people apply each semester to the Vatruvian cell doctorate programs. This girl, Kristen Jordan, was one of the two or three that must have made the cut. Ryan pulled out his cell phone and checked to make sure there was time before his Cultural Anthropology class.

“Do you want to grab a coffee?” Ryan asked. “I have class soon, but an opportunity to talk with a Vatruvian cell scientist is too rare to pass up.”

Kristen smiled with a touch of grim humor. “Only on the condition that we don’t talk about the Vatruvian cell. Sorry, but I spend way too much time stewing over that damn microscopic thing these days.”

They descended the stone stairs together and joined the flow of young people heading to the south end of campus. Students in plaid shirts, hooded sweatshirts, sneakers, and blue jeans surrounded Ryan and Kristen. The season was on the cusp of change, and a pleasant bite of chill touched the air. A clean breeze rolled across Manhattan from the west, rustling through the turning leaves overhead and across the meticulously cut lawns.

“So I have to ask,” Ryan said as he sidestepped a brunette blathering into her cell. “Where did you go to undergrad?”

“MIT.”

“And you graduated . . . ?”

“Two years ago with a degree in biology. I’ve been in New York working with Professor Vatruvia since. What year are you?”

“Sophomore.”

Kristen looked up at him casually. “So you’re twenty?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. I’ve got you by a year.”

Ryan slowed his pace momentarily. “Shouldn’t you still be in undergrad?”

“Um.” Kristen gave a small courteous laugh. “Technically speaking, yeah. I skipped more than my fair share of grades back in the day.”

“Right. And you enjoyed being the youngest kid in your high school graduating class?”

“Oh yeah, graduated at sixteen. Nothing like it,” Kristen said, her voice laced with sarcasm. “Although I then burned through undergrad in two years, and that was mostly by my own choosing. So I don’t know. I guess on some level I’m hurrying to get somewhere in life.”

“Where?” Ryan asked, noticing the sharp honesty of her words.

Kristen nodded. “Good point.”

“Well, it has clearly worked out for you. Landing a spot researching the Vatruvian cell is a status few can claim.”

“Creating the Vatruvian cell—I was on the team before it even had a name. But we had an agreement.” Kristen held up a finger. “No talking about it.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Did you spend a lot of time preparing for that debate? I can’t imagine going against a lobbyist in front of that crowd was easy on the nerves.”

“I practically winged it, actually. You heard my position on the matter—it’s not like I needed a lot of data.”

“Mmm,” Kristen said. “Not much raw data behind naturalistic nostalgia.”

Ryan grinned at her as they turned into the walkway leading to one of the campus cafeterias. “The debate team rarely takes up much of my time, unless the subject is something that’s data intensive. For the past week I’ve been writing an essay for the class I’m heading to now. I was up pretty much all night last night putting the finishing touches on it.” Ryan patted his bag, where the twelve pages of the assignment were resting inside a spiral notebook.

“What time did you finish?”

“Too late.” Ryan said, “Only got a few hours of sleep.”

Kristen nodded. “I can certainly relate to that. My whole life is spent working past midnight. Do you think you’ll get a good grade on it?”

“Who knows,” Ryan said. Though he did know that in all likelihood, he would not be receiving a high mark. His Cultural Anthropology professor, the rather ornery Professor Hilton, had called him into his office after midterms. Professor Hilton expressed his disapproval toward what he, not so tactfully, referred to as Ryan’s “overly simplistic” perspectives. Realism and rationality, he had emphasized, were too often missing from Ryan’s main arguments. Ryan guessed the short stack of papers he had in his bag would not prove to be a trend breaker.

“I tend to adhere loosely to the guidelines of an assignment.”

“That must do wonders for your GPA,” Kristen said with a laugh. “In my little experience with humanities class requirements, I’ve found writing what the person grading your work wants to read makes both of your lives much easier.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ryan sighed. “But writing something I don’t really believe seems counterproductive to the purpose of a higher education. Besides, if the professor only gives high grades to people who write what he wants them to say, that makes him the stubborn one.”

“You’re the one that just out debated a lobbyist, I’m certainly not going to challenge you.”

Ryan glanced down at her and smiled discretely to himself. He noticed now she had a Vatruvian cell security badge clipped to her slender waist. Her awkwardly smiling photo on the badge looked humorously young. It seemed impossible to Ryan that someone with the obvious intellect and attractiveness of this young woman could be without the slightest hint of pretension. He found himself intrigued, perhaps even mesmerized by her lack of conceit. Stealing an extended look at the teenaged Kristen Jordan smiling clumsily up at him from the laminate, Ryan felt an odd connection to her. This unassuming girl was undeniably one of the most brilliant people in the entire university—in the nation. She was an actual Vatruvian cell researcher.