Chapter 2

He'd slept exactly three hours. The first two were on Mack's couch. The last one was in his car in the parking lot after he'd woken up and realized he'd forgotten to pack socks.

The ticket was waiting at the counter, just like the text said. First class, which made him check the boarding pass three times to make sure it wasn't a mistake. The woman at the counter just smiled and said, "Have a good flight, Mr. Sterling."

First class meant coffee that didn't taste like it had been brewed in a janitor's closet. It meant a seat that reclined more than his bed at home. It meant he spent the first hour of the flight staring out the window at the clouds, trying to remember the last time someone had spent money on him for a reason that didn't involve an intervention.

The plane landed at Logan at 8:47 AM. Alex stepped off the jet bridge into a terminal that moved at a pace Millbrook hadn't seen since the county fair brought in that mechanical bull in '04. People streamed past him with purpose, carrying briefcases and laptops and the kind of focused expressions that said they had places to be that actually mattered.

He found the baggage claim, retrieved his single duffel bag, and stood near the exit with his phone in his hand, waiting for instructions that hadn't come.

Five minutes passed. Then ten. He was about to call the number from the letter when a woman's voice cut through the terminal noise.

"Alex Sterling?"

He turned. Dr. Evelyn Reed was shorter than he'd imagined — maybe five-four, with dark hair pulled back in a practical ponytail and glasses that looked like they cost more than his car. She wore jeans and a gray MIT hoodie, which somehow made her look more like a professor than a lab coat ever could.

"That's me."

"Good. I was worried you'd changed your mind." She extended her hand. Her grip was firm, quick, professional. "I'm Evelyn. Thanks for coming."

"Thanks for the first-class ticket."

"I figured you deserved a comfortable ride after the letter took two months to find you." She smiled — just a flicker, but enough to soften the sharp edges of her face. "You hungry?"

"Starving."

"Good. I know a place."

She led him out of the terminal and into a parking garage, where a blue sedan that looked like it had seen a few thousand miles of road waited in a spot marked "Reserved — Reed Technologies." Alex tossed his bag in the back and climbed into the passenger seat.

The drive took twenty minutes. Evelyn talked about the weather — unseasonably warm for October — and asked about his flight. Small talk. The kind of conversation that filled space without revealing anything. Alex played along, but he watched her hands on the steering wheel, the way she checked the rearview mirror twice before changing lanes, the small tic of adjusting her glasses every time she hit a red light.

She pulled up in front of a diner called "The Cambridge Kitchen" — a narrow building wedged between a bookstore and a vintage clothing shop. The sign out front advertised "Breakfast All Day" in faded red letters.

"Best pancakes in the city," Evelyn said, killing the engine. "I hope you like maple syrup."

"I'm from Missouri. We consider maple syrup a major food group."

She laughed — a real one, not the polite chuckle people used when they didn't know what else to do. "I think we're going to get along fine."

Inside, the diner was warm and crowded, the air thick with the smell of bacon and coffee. Evelyn led him to a booth in the back, slid into the vinyl seat, and pulled a tablet out of her bag before the waitress had even brought water.

"I'll get straight to it," she said, tapping the screen. "My project — it's called 'OpenHand.' The goal is to build an AI platform that helps people navigate decentralized finance without needing a PhD in cryptography or a trust fund."

"That's ambitious."

"It's necessary. Right now, the people who could benefit most from this technology — unbanked populations, small business owners, people in rural areas — don't have access to it. The tools exist, but they're designed by and for people who already have capital and education." She turned the tablet toward him. "I want to change that."

Alex looked at the screen. It showed a diagram — a flowchart of data moving through nodes, with labels like "identity verification" and "smart contract execution" and "risk assessment." The architecture looked familiar, like something he'd sketched on napkins a decade ago.

"You're building this from scratch?" he asked.

"Mostly. We have a prototype, but it's clunky. It needs someone who understands the underlying systems — the math, the logic, the ways things can break." She met his eyes. "Someone who was thinking about this before anyone else was."

Alex leaned back. The booth creaked. "I appreciate the vote of confidence, but you don't know me. You found some old papers and a forwarding address. I could be a complete fraud."

"Could you?"

"I've been running a one-man computer repair shop in a town of four thousand people for the last eight years. Before that, I spent a lot of time doing things I'm not proud of. I'm not exactly the star recruit you're looking for."

Evelyn set down her tablet. The waitress arrived with two cups of coffee, which sat untouched between them.

"Let me tell you something, Alex. I've been doing this for fifteen years. I've worked with geniuses from MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon. I've seen people who could code circles around anyone in this room. And you know what most of them don't have? They don't know what happens when the system fails. They've never been on the outside looking in."

"That's a generous way of saying I've been a mess."

"It's a realistic way of saying you have perspective." She picked up her coffee. "I need someone who can see the holes in the plan because they've lived in them."

Alex took a sip of his own coffee. It was good. Strong. Real.

"What's the catch?" he asked.

"The catch is that we're moving fast. If you come on board, you're moving to Cambridge. Full-time. Starting salary is seventy-five thousand with benefits and equity. I need an answer by tomorrow."

Seventy-five thousand. That was more than he'd made in the last three years combined.

"And if I say no?"

"Then I find someone else." She said it without malice. "But I really hope you say yes."

Alex looked out the window. The street was alive with students and professionals and delivery trucks and the constant hum of a city that never stopped moving. Twenty years in Millbrook had taught him to appreciate stillness. But stillness wasn't the same as peace.

"I have a daughter," he said. "Sophia. She's in St. Louis. I don't see her much."

"You could see her more if you had a job that let you afford a train ticket."

That landed. He hadn't thought about it that way.

"I'll need a week to get my things in order."

"I can give you five days."

"Done."

Evelyn smiled again — wider this time, with something like relief behind it. "Welcome to the team, Alex."

She pulled an envelope from her bag and slid it across the table. "Your contract. Take it back to your hotel, read it, call me if you have questions. And Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't read it in the hotel bar. I know what first-class tickets and signing bonuses do to people who've been sober for eighteen months."

Alex stared at her. "How did you—"

"I did my homework." She stood, leaving a twenty on the table. "I'll see you in five days."

She was gone before he could respond.

He sat there for a long time, the envelope unopened in his hands. The coffee went cold. The waitress asked if he wanted anything else. He said no.

Outside, the city kept moving. Alex watched it through the window, feeling the weight of the contract in his hands.

Five days. Then everything changed.

His phone buzzed. A text from Sophia: "Heard you're leaving Missouri. Call me when you land."

He typed back: "I'll call tonight."

Then he stood, tucked the envelope into his jacket, and walked out into the Cambridge afternoon.