git commit murder

Chapter 2

2

Dale’s brain ran like a jet engine: wonderful if you wanted to cross the country, but useless for day-to-day life.

Attention deficit disorder didn’t disable him. He could concentrate for hours, or even days, so long as nobody interrupted him. He could understand complicated computer code, reading it all into his own brain and silently following forking data paths further than most anyone.

People, though, left him flummoxed and confused.

And it’s not like he could explain what was happening in his head. He’d tried, more than once, but by the time he reached high school he’d learned better. People didn’t understand. They told him he was wrong, and if he insisted, they pushed him away. Even if they said they wouldn’t, they did.

Sometimes he wondered if they rejected him from inability or unwillingness, but it didn’t really matter.

So long as he focused his energy on the people around him, he could fake normality. At least until he’d heard too many words, and couldn’t make sense of them anymore.

That’s why he always watched for the exits. Excusing himself always worked.

Computers were easier. An Internet Relay Chat session had more leeway. If he really screwed up there, he could go to another channel or change his handle.

Dale wished he could change his channel right now, but that wasn’t an option for meatspace. He headed for the elevator, Lash at his back.

We’re suitemates, going to the same place. It’s not like he’s stalking me or something. But Dale still had that familiar, uncomfortable itch between his shoulder blades. People talked all the time. What should he be saying? No, Lash was trailing behind, not beside him. He didn’t have to say anything.

So long as he acted as if he was on a mission, at least.

It worked until the battered elevator doors slid shut and Lash asked, “How was your trip?”

Dale’s stomach twitched again. Who talked in an elevator? “Okay, I guess.” He swallowed. “Bit rough.” Was the elevator wobbling?

“Oh? I came through Toronto, I must have missed that.”

The elevator wobbled to a halt, the doors dinging open. No convenient placard declared which way to which rooms, but a door on the opposite wall had a little flag-like sign sticking out above it, declaring itself number 1401. Room 1402 was just behind it.

“This way,” Dale said with relief as Lash’s suitcase rattled across the elevator gap.

1403, 1404, all on the left wall. The corridor turned. 1405, 1406, and turned again.

The floor was smaller than Dale had thought.

The corridor was a ring.

Three-quarters of the way around the floor, Dale stopped in front of 1408, hoping his face wasn’t burning as much as he thought. “Other way would have been quicker,” he made himself say.

“No worries,” Lash said. “We all do that,” noise “year.”

Dale’s gut clenched harder.

He was already dropping words.

It’s just stress, Dale thought. The guy was being reassuring. You don’t have to answer. Go sit down, it’ll pass.

Hoping Lash hadn’t noticed the delay, Dale fumbled his swipe card through the reader below the door handle. An LED flashed green.

The right model of swipe card. I own this building.

Dale shoved the idea away more firmly than he shoved the door handle, and stepped into a disaster.