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know how to react.
    “I said take it,” Hayden said, and shoved the card toward him. Simon accepted it, his fingers almost numb from shock.
    Hayden turned away. He walked past the robot he loved so much and kicked the stool away from the staircase. The path was clear.
    “Get out,” he said.
    “Hayden. I—”
    “Get out. I don’t want to see you again, Simon. Not until you can put this behind you and move on. You understand me? Get going.”
    Simon stared at him for a long moment, the memory card still clutched in his hand. The fury on the older man’s face, his belligerent stance, his trembling hand as he gestured toward the staircase that led up and out—it all conveyed a single, tragic message.
    Simon gave up. “All right,” he said. He shot a glance at the younger student and wondered for an instant what he must be thinking.
    Andrew looked both shame-faced and confused. “Sorry,” he said softly, then looked away.
    Never mind, Simon told himself. He turned and walked out of the lab, up the stairs and through the disheveled house without breaking stride. His years of martial arts training had given him superb discipline, and he needed every ounce of it that moment. What he really wanted to do was tear the lab to pieces.
    He didn’t. Instead, he didn’t stop moving at all, until he was free of the cottage and halfway across the courtyard.
    He couldn’t recall being so bitterly disappointed in years.
    The cold wind tugged at his jacket as he stood on the green, head down, shoulders hunched. Simon had no idea what to do next—who to turn to, what to say. He stared blindly at the black memory card still gripped in his fist—his only connection with his lost father—and for the first time he saw the scrap of paper that Hayden had passed to him along with the card.
    He stared at it for a moment, his mind whirling. He remembered the scientist had jotted something down right after he’d seen Oliver’s message; Simon had assumed it was something about the chess game—Hayden made it seem as if it was—but then he had passed it to him as if he was passing a secret note, trying to avoid detection. But detection from whom? What? Hidden cameras? Security?
    Teah?
    She had re-entered the room just moments before Hayden had blown up. She hadn’t seen the message or the book, but Simon had been about to talk about them both when she’d arrived with the tea.
    Why had Hayden stopped him? Why the scene?
    He opened his fingers and plucked out the crumpled note. He smoothed it out and saw there was, indeed, writing on it—a single word, big and bold, scrawled in Hayden Bartholomew’s inimitable hand:

    YES.

OXFORD, ENGLAND
Simon's Apartment

    Simon sat in his favorite wingback chair in front of a fragrant and crackling fire and stared at the note Hayden had slipped him. He had been staring at it for half an hour.

    YES.

    His father’s friend had believed him after all. Something was wrong. And whatever it was, Hayden didn’t dare speak about it—not in that room, not in front of that AI…maybe not at all.
    During his time in that chair, looking into that fire, he had thought of many things—many reactions, many explanations, many things to do next. But he kept coming back to one thought—one ridiculous, extraordinary, insane idea that called to him like the relentless, seductive song of a siren.
    One idea.
    Go get him.
    “Simon,” Fae said gently, right at his ear as always. “You need to have something to eat.”
    “Not quite yet, Fae,” he said. “Soon, I promise.”
    He put the note aside and picked up a pad of paper, smiling briefly at the recent memory of how hard it had been to find such simple tools: a pad, a pencil, a gum eraser. People didn’t need such things anymore. They had virtual keyboards, holograms, airborne AIs and many other gadgets.
    No, Simon decided in that moment. Rule number one for this project: nothing on the net, nothing on a hard drive, nothing recorded. Everything face to