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  Back downstairs, Bill was gazing out the picture window while finishing off the beer. “This place is a mansion.” He glanced over his shoulder at Vin. The waters of Puget Sound were beginning to purple. “With this view, you’re actually obligated to party. Regularly. It’s almost as if you really made a bunch of money with your company.” He laughed at his own joke, the “heh heh” laugh. “It’s like you bought yourself a dream home. Oh, sorry man.”

  “Yeah. I’m house-sitting. I’m a house sitter.”

  “You said they didn’t know when she was coming back, right?”

  “No. I don’t think they even know where she is.”

  “See. You could lose all this anytime, maybe next week if you’re really unlucky. And you have been. So you’ve got to get started.”

  Bill thumped up the staircase. Vin sat in one of the folding chairs beside the card table. Sitting made the huge room feel even bigger.

  “I thought she was supposed to be a genius,” Bill called down the staircase awhile later, as final light bled up from behind the mountains and the sparks of the city wavered on cooling charcoal water.

  “She is,” Vin yelled.

  “Well, why aren’t there any computers, anywhere?” Bill shouted.

  And that was kind of interesting. No electronics other than the cluster of devices around the TV that Joaquin Brooks had said was supposed to stay on all the time. There were a handful of cups, bowls, and plates in the kitchen, a cheap set of flatware in one of the drawers. For a house she meant to come back to, this “Nerdean” sure had cleaned the place out.

  The electronics that were supposed to remain powered made the master bedroom feel inhabited. Rather than sleep there, Vin put an air mattress in a bedroom on the second floor.

  After his second night in the house, the puzzling birdcall of the doorbell rang in the early morning. Vin, in khaki shorts and his brown “Faux Museum” T-shirt, found Joaquin Brooks standing on the white cement porch, a thick leather portfolio tucked under one arm.

  “Good morning, Vin.” Joaquin was a heavy-set, middle-aged man about Vin’s height, with darker skin and short brown hair. He was wearing a tan, impeccably tailored suit and black leather loafers with small tassels that looked soft despite their high shine. He smelled good. “May I come in?”

  When they’d met, Vin hadn’t talked much because he’d wanted to listen to Joaquin, who’d clearly spent a lot of time honing his speech. His lack of an accent was so pronounced it was almost a kind of accent, maybe a variant of Network English, which Vin had read about. Joaquin had the glowing bass of a news anchor and his unhurried, melodic cadences coaxed syllables apart in surprising ways. His diction should have sounded affected, primarily because he avoided contractions and used unusual constructions and “whom” rather than “who” for the objective case. It shouldn’t have worked, but combined with his unusual inflections it did, and produced a calming, almost hypnotic effect.

  Vin stepped aside and Joaquin nodded as he passed. They sat on the flimsy plastic chairs at the card table.

  “So, how are you finding the place, now that you have had a little time to settle in?” Joaquin asked.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “And, do you believe you will be willing to stay?”

  “I like it.” Vin nodded.

  “Oh, I am very pleased. Of course, as I once mentioned, you can bring in a few pieces of your own furniture. Or purchase one or two new pieces. Nothing too elaborate, but I can provide a small expense account. I will appreciate your consideration of reasonable limits.”

  “Thanks. I’m okay right now though. I kind of like the openness.”

  “I see.”

  “And that great view is like furniture too, in a way, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?”

  “And we’re not sure when she’s coming back, right? Maybe she should find it the way she left it.”

  “I see. I appreciate that, Vin, but Nerdean has given no indication that she will return at any specific time. Frankly, I consider it a possibility that she may not ever be back. I believe that if she does return, it will not be for a long while. At least a few more months.”

  “Yeah. This place has so many curious things like that attached to it. When will she come back? Where has she gone? I like that.”

  Joaquin’s smile was almost condescending. Vin said, “You said that she didn’t want you to install an alarm system?”

  “No. That is correct. Of course, that was why I felt that it would be very important to find a house sitter, after the break-in that occurred next door.” Joaquin was a rendering of the human male as a shiny object, whole and separate from his environment, with no intimation of what might be happening in the spaces within. Vin almost felt sorry for what he was about to do, for touching Joaquin’s smooth surface and causing ripples.

  “Well, I think I may know something about that.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think she didn’t want a house sitter because she didn’t want anyone looking at the electrical system. That might also be why she didn’t want you to install an alarm.”

  “Really? Why do you imagine that she would be concerned about the electrical system?”

  “You’ve been upstairs, right? And you’ve seen all those devices connected to the television?”

  “Yes, of course. Though she left clear instructions that I should not stay in the house, I have walked through it regularly. She contracted for an ongoing measure of my attention. It will be a relief to have you here. I will not need to be quite as diligent about my visits. But yes, the television is—”

  “Elaborate?”

  “Yes.” A brief and pinched smile of annoyance at the interruption. “Precisely, thank you. And she did not impress me as a person with an interest in movies and other such things. She seemed very focused, very active. I have not met her in person. I assume she is a bit awkward, a bit unusual.”

  “I think you’re right, that she’s not interested in any of those things. None of those devices are actually doing anything. They’re all modified, controlled by a system that just blinks their LEDs.”

  “Oh?” Joaquin set his portfolio flat on the table and folded his hands on top of it. “Well, I am surprised.”

  “I don’t think you are. You don’t really seem surprised.”

  Joaquin’s gaze intensified for a moment but he relaxed quickly. “I am. Why do you believe she might leave things in that state?”

  “For the electricity, obviously. You pay the bills, right? I found the meter and it’s running pretty fast. She wanted to give you an easy explanation for the high bills.” Joaquin examined and refolded his hands as he patiently listened to what Vin was saying. “I don’t think she expected you to figure it out. I mean, even if all those things were on all the time they wouldn’t use all that much electricity, so she was just betting you wouldn’t look into it.”

  “No. I see. And I suppose she was right. I did not figure it out.”

  “I think you did.”

  Joaquin flattened his hands on his leather portfolio.

  “And that’s really why you wanted a house sitter. Because there was no break-in next door.”

  A pause, then, “You checked.”

  “Of course.”

  “And you found nothing, which does not greatly surprise me. There was no police report. Many crimes go unreported to protect property values, and the neighbor in question has plans to move soon.”

  “Well, I also talked with the neighbor.”

  Again, Joaquin offered Vin the annoyed half smile, this time followed by a curt nod. “I see. That is interesting because I was told there had been a break-in. You are very industrious for a house sitter.”

  “I’m an entrepreneur.”

  Joaquin inclined his head slightly.

  Vin decided to ignore Joaquin’s insistence on the now discredited break-in. “I think Nerdean actually chose this house because the neighborhood is safe. There’s no real crime to speak of. There aren
’t break-ins. Every house is alarmed except this one. You chose me for an entirely different reason. You talked to my dad. You expected me to be industrious. You wanted me to look at that rigged pile of junk and get curious about why it was there.”

  “But, of course, I did not choose you. It was serendipity. Your father mentioned your situation to me. I thought we might be able to help each other.”

  “Well, you hired me.”

  From down the long slope of Queen Anne Hill, the deep, prolonged groan of a marine horn sounded. Joaquin waited for it to end.

  “A gut decision. I always trust my gut.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me what was going on?”

  “It is in my nature to be circumspect, a characteristic that has often proven valuable. And, the terms of my employment also specifically state that if certain subjects arise, I must forbid any investigation of the systems in the home, including the electrical wiring. I can only discuss the conditions of my employment if I judge that avoiding the subject might create suspicion.”

  “I’ve never heard of a contract like that.”

  “Yes. My employment agreement is very unusual.”

  “You still want me to stay?”

  “Oh, yes. Oh, yes.”

  ONE BY ONE, VIN’S DAYS in the house were flattened and lost. He bought his own wireless access point so he could get online without touching the other electronics. He bought a blender and established a diet of smoothies, until he got tired of them, followed by pizza, until he tired of it, followed by smoothies, then pizza, etc. He spent time walking about the neighborhood struggling with an aimless, incurious lassitude.

  Activities meant to kill time—video games, porn, aimless Internet browsing, Twitter wars, 4Chan, whatever—were fundamentally irrelevant and therefore intensely boring. He joined in a few pranks to experience the “lulz,” but there was no satisfaction in it—torturing clueless bunnies who metaphorically stuck electrodes to their lubed craniums without any notion of the potential risks. It made him feel bent. It wasn’t a worthy use of his limited time in the universe.

  Nerdean had obviously gone to a lot of trouble to keep her secrets hidden and, after encountering what he believed was an inflamed avarice beneath Joaquin’s brightly glazed crust, Vin thought he could understand why. At Kerry Park, a small overlook with an expansive prospect that included the Space Needle, the downtown skyline, Mount Rainier and Puget Sound, he watched as wedding parties, teenagers, families and cliques of friends took in the breadth and reassuring stability of the view. He dozed in the soporific warmth of the mid-afternoon sun.

  He sometimes tried to battle the sameness of the passing hours, but if he tried too hard he found himself thinking about his final months at Sigmoto, and all the mistakes that other people had made. His schedule began to shift as he woke in the wee hours and stayed awake later, poking around online or starting miscellaneous courses from the Internet schools that kept sprouting up like daisies. Bill asked about parties at the house, but Vin didn’t want any encumbrance on his time. He didn’t want to be involved in plans.

  When this dreamlike waking life was punctuated by rare calls from family, he told them about the courses he had started. Whenever he began to relate what had gone wrong with the company, he could sense their attention wavering, at least until they could talk about themselves again. They didn’t understand what he was going through. He sometimes yelled at them for their complete lack of sound structural thinking, and their incomprehension of what actually happened at Sigmoto. He didn’t want to cut them off completely, but decided he had nothing meaningful to say to them. He finally accepted their diagnosis that he was depressed, but didn’t feel like doing anything about it.

  The puzzle of the house encroached with creeping inevitability on the regions of his boredom. While wanting to respect Nerdean’s wish to remain hidden, he also began to do just a little bit of research online and, as finding information about her proved difficult, it started to feel like a game.

  Nerdean had been an orphan and ward of the state. When she was sixteen she’d chosen her own name. She only had the one name, as if she imagined herself a pop icon, or she wanted a break from her past. She had earned a master’s degree in physics and then a dual PhD in neurosciences and molecular and cellular physiology, all in her early twenties. She apparently didn’t like photographs; he couldn’t find a single one. The most substantial single document he came across was a short profile on the blog of an intellectual property lawyer. By the time she turned twenty, Nerdean had made several million dollars by selling a handful of software patents to a licensing company that the blogger indignantly described as a patent troll.

  She was also listed for a time as a staff member at a lab run by a large cancer research hospital. In the few years she worked there, the lab earned some press for research on suspended animation. But after generating a lot of excitement and securing significant funding, the lab went silent. The project leader, who had done a well-received TedX, stopped giving interviews. Descriptions of the work on suspended animation were removed from the lab’s web pages.

  In a more recent article about digital brain interfaces, a researcher at the University of Washington was quoted saying, “We had a short but fruitful consultation on the structural subtleties of the proisocortex with the ever elusive Nerdean.”

  And that was it, pretty much everything he could find despite many hours of searching. As days passed and he idly pondered those few morsels, Vin created his own portrait of who Nerdean was, a model with no image.

  WHEN THE DOORBELL RANG, VIN finished what he was doing, running his palm over the final feet of dark low pile carpet in the basement, then tracing his index finger over the carpet’s edge. He rocked back on his heels and picked up the needle-nose pliers. It had taken him a long time to identify the sound, a recording of the Black-capped Chickadee’s “Hey Sweetie” call, a single high note followed quickly by a lower note that fell off like a trailing syllable. The electronic Chickadee called again.

  “What’s going on, man?” When he opened the door, Bill was waving a small bag of bud. “Why’d you take so long?”

  “I’m busy,” Vin said. It was a warm evening and he was sweating. He pulled at his black T-shirt to unstick it from his chest.

  “This place has to have AC,” Bill said.

  “She’s here,” Vin said.

  “You’ve got a guest? Beth?”

  “No, Nerdean. She’s in this house, probably under it.”

  “Okaaay. She’s under the house. Did you kill her?” Bill wiped at the hair flattened against his own forehead. He looked refreshed but his dark brown eyes were slightly glassy and maybe his pupils were a little dilated.

  “No, I didn’t kill her. What kind of person do you think I am?”

  “Nice. We’ve known each other for forever but you still surprise me with the different ways you find to be offended. That was a joke. You were the one who said she was under the house.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “How? How could I know what that means?” Bill was pushing into the foyer. “Jesus.”

  “This isn’t a good time.”

  “Well, this is the time I’m here. Look at you. You’re playing detective, obsessed with the missing girl.”

  “I’m not obsessed. You know how I get. I just started wondering why she left the house like this.”

  “Nerdean is a fake name, don’t you think? A pseudonym? Maybe she’s not a genius. She’s probably a rich housewife, married and living in Magnolia or Madison Park or somewhere, with three kids. This house was just a project she got bored with.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t. But it’s still a lot more likely than that she’s under the house.”

  Vin glanced outside as a brindle cat slipped from a low cluster of Achlys Triphylla, whose common name is “sweet after death” because when you crush the leaves they smell like vanilla. The cat fell on its side in the middle of the
front walk and stared at him brassily. He shut the door, wanting to close off the cat. The door’s spring-loaded weights caught and guided it firmly and slowly into place.

  He said, “Talking with you is like carrying air.”

  “Okay. I don’t know what that means either. So, what are you doing?”

  Before Bill had shown up at a random time with his pointless agenda, Vin had known exactly what he was going to do. As Bill waited for an answer, Vin looked at the sharp tips of the pliers he was holding and then looked at Bill’s face, Bill’s eyes. It wasn’t something he would ever think about, but the connections just lined up in front of him: his frustration, the tips of the pliers, Bill’s eyes.

  Bill said, “Have you gotten any sleep in the last twenty-four hours?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “My friend, you’re lucky I got tired of hanging out alone. By the way, you need to shave. You’re doing that obsessive thing. Okay, maybe it’s almost normal, and I get it, you found something interesting. But it just kind of looks like you might be losing it a little.”

  “I’m fine. I’ve been looking for her.”

  “She’s a grown rich woman. She can take care of herself. And you stink, too, man. Did you know that? Let’s smoke some of this. You can smoke a lot and then go to bed. You look like you need it. Then, when you wake up you can take a shower and shave and it’ll be a new day.”

  Vin felt his head twitch involuntarily. The hand clutching the pliers was very tired. Maybe Bill was right. He walked past Bill and up the stairs to the kitchen, to the drawer where he kept a lighter.

  Bill fell into one of the folding chairs. He lifted the little bag of pot and tapped a finger against it. “You have that same look you had sophomore year when you were crushing on Leana Rono and you didn’t want to talk about it.”