Page 25 of Code 6

“We do not control the sled driver. This is a serious problem. No one expects the people in this room to solve it. Idemand, however, that you live up to the challenge it presents:

“Our creativity and inventiveness can never be stifled by the unfortunate reality that, in the wrong hands, Buck can be a force for evil.Never.”

Kate knew all about Buck the reliable sled dog, and her father had been telling her all her life to find a passion and follow it. Never before, however, had she heard this “fly in the face of evil” spin. If the applause was genuine, the message seemed to resonate more with the others than with Kate.

The CEO spoke for only ten minutes, and the orientation was over by nine o’clock. Kate returned to her office, sat behind her desk, and pulled up the day’s calendar of events on her computer screen. Her door was open, and the soft voice of a visitor startled her.

“Knock, knock.”

Kate looked up, not immediately recognizing the handsome youngman standing in the doorway. His eyes, however, were unforgettable, those beautiful blue eyes that everyone said would lose their sparkle as he grew. The color never changed, and he still had that mop of blond hair that Kate used to call “Albert Einstein meets surfer boy.”

“Baby Patrick?”

“Not so much ‘baby’ anymore,” he said. “Except to my mom. Or if I decide to become a rapper.”

Kate had been Patrick’s babysitter when she was in high school. She went to him and gave him a huge hug. Then she took a step back.

“My goodness, let me look at you,” she said, and did take a good look. It was as if each side of her brain had grabbed the remote control and was switching back and forth between stations, one side channeling the cute kid in braces andStar WarsT-shirts, the other marveling at the man he had become.

“How long have you worked here?” she asked.

“Almost two years.”

“No way. Have you been out of college that long?”

“I graduated MIT early. Boring. You know me. I just wanted to build things.”

Babysitting Patrick had never been a simple matter of turning on the Disney Channel and counting the hours until his parents came home. Every Lego set known to the universe had been built, taken apart, and rebuilt at least once by Kate and Patrick, with Patrick of course the lead builder. He refused to go to bed until the last brick was in place. Kate wasn’t particularly a fan of his Minecraft phase, but she still cherished her time on Patrick’s virtual tours of his creations, from aircraft hangars to space stations.

“Sit for a second,” she said. He did, and Kate sat on the edge of her desk, facing him. “How the heck are you?”

“I’m great,” he said, then seemed to catch himself. “Well, a little sad, actually.”

Kate nodded in appreciation. “Thank you. We all are. My mother was crazy about you.”

He hesitated, seemingly puzzled. “Oh, right. Your mom. Well, that, too.” He removed his earbuds. “What I meant was that on the way over here I was just listening to the saddest song.”

“A song?”

“Yeah. This poor girl really liked a boy at school, but all her friends convinced her that he wasn’t good enough for her, so she refused to go out with him. Like two years later, she’s sitting at home with a baby of her own and turns on MTV, and there he is, slamming on his guitar, and—”

“Okay, very funny,” she said, laughing. He was referring to much-younger Kate, who used to listen incessantly to Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boi,” which was about as “sad” as “Video Killed the Radio Star.”

“It’s justso sad,” he said, wiping a nonexistent tear from a bone-dry eye. And then they both laughed. It pleased her to see that Patrick still had that quirky and irreverent sense of humor that could make her smile even when—in his own way—expressing his condolences for her mother’s passing.

“How’s your play doing?” asked Patrick.

“How did you know about my play?”

“Well, for starters, you’ve been writing plays since you were my babysitter.”

“That’s true.”

“And your mom used to pop by and say hello whenever she came to the office. Last time I saw her, she told me you were going to be presenting at Ford’s Theatre. She said she wanted to go, but she was afraid she’d make you nervous.”

Kate wasn’t sure what to make of that: afraid to make her daughter nervous, but not too afraid to throw herself off a building.

“I guess she thought I might want to watch,” said Patrick. “But it didn’t really interest me. No offense. I’m not much into live theater. But I did like the flying car inChittyChittyBangBang.”