Crow Flight Read online

  He walked to Ms. Sandlin’s desk, said something indecipherable from where Gin was sitting, and left.

  The rest of the class clamored about their brainstorming. And Gin sat at her table, staring at the notes for her first project in her most important class of the year, wondering why her group had stood up and left.

  Maybe it was for the best. Because now she could classify Felix for what he really was: an immense, self-centered jerk.

  The only thing left to do was to write the best model that could possibly be written. Better than whatever he could pull together.

  // Five

  On the Metro ride to her internship, Gin found a forward-facing seat by a window with only mildly stained fabric. The train shook, flying above ground into the bright afternoon, then diving back underground into the dark. Gin’s phone buzzed—her mom had texted before her shift at the hospital.

  Ginny, I hope work goes well. Noodles for dinner? I’ll call in the order. Love you—Mom.

  Gin texted back that noodles sounded great—anything besides pizza sounded great—and opened her laptop to start working on her cat-mouse model. She had a full forty minutes before reaching her stop. Plenty of time to get a basic framework finished.

  Gin’s desk at work looked out a window, straight into another brick building across the busy street. If she craned her head to the right and leaned way forward, she could almost catch a glimpse of the Washington Monument.

  Gin had worked there since the summer, one of fifty interns helping the Belton Institute model economic impacts of legislation. The think tank modeled a range of scenarios for each new law, predicting things like how many jobs would be created, how many people would move into an area, how many dollars would be spent. Gin didn’t write the models, but she did help check them. There were thousands and thousands of lines of code, all of which could introduce errors or inconsistencies, so she was one of a team of 100-plus that reviewed it all. If x, then y, over and over and over again.

  Most of the interns left at the end of the summer, but the think tank had kept two: Gin and Lucas, a senior at a private school in the city. His dad was a government analyst, his mom was a school teacher. And he was an “It’s Academic” champion and a gamer.

  “You’ll like what we’re working on tonight,” Lucas said when Gin slipped into her chair. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and shot her a big grin. His lips were plump and slightly parted—not at all like Felix’s. “It’s another employment scenario. But with these weird twists. It’s making me think knights in battle. Or maybe Ultimate Gladiators. Except with suits.”

  “Sounds cool. How’s Thronesville?”

  Lucas looked around and scooted closer.

  “I figured out a side door. In the castle land.” He said it quietly and looked around again as if he were giving her top-secret information. Someone, somewhere would be very interested in what Lucas was about to say. Gin, however, did not fall into that category. “So I was exploring this hidden alleyway, and something seemed off. Maybe the way my shadow hit it. Or the pattern of moss growing. Moss, you know, has specific growth patterns depending on things like moisture and the angle of the sun and—”

  “So you went in?”

  He rubbed his hands together. “Yeah. I went in. And it turned into this series of tunnels. No one else was in there. It’s incredible.” His eyes widened and he shook his head, still in disbelief of his discovery. “I’ll show you any time you want. My parents made this whole gaming room in the basement, with super comfy chairs and a drink fridge.”

  If Gin wanted a boyfriend just to have one, Lucas would probably be up for it. But that was a terrible thing to think. Anyway, finding the right boyfriend at the right time was the whole purpose of Love Fractal.

  The idea for the model had come to her last fall when Hannah had sworn she’d never go on another date unless she knew the guy was right for her (that was pre-Pete). And Gin had had this flash of insight that love should be predictable.

  First, people have certain characteristics they look for in dates—in high school, that might be class load and extracurriculars and social life. In other words, how much you party and whether you study and if you smoke pot after school or play football or do both.

  Lots of dating software accounted for characteristics like that. But Gin’s had another layer. Because she thought it was important to account for the gut-level, split-second feeling a person might have for a potential interest. And she thought that feeling could be approximated through an analysis of someone’s reactions to photos of different faces.

  A photo could say a lot. Not just whether the person looked more like Zac Efron or Jesse Eisenberg. Tiny signals—from the intensity of a person’s smile, to the focus of their eyes, to the lift of their chin—all contained information on who the person was. And someone looking at the photograph would automatically pick up on those details, whether they knew it or not. Those crazy stories of a girl meeting a guy for the first time and saying, “I’m going to marry him,” and going on to do just that, weren’t all that surprising.

  If John Gottman et al. could predict success probabilities of marriage, then maybe Gin could find ways to successfully match up high school students. All it would take was some good equations and the right data.

  “Thanks, Lucas—that’d be fun. But this weekend isn’t good, with school starting and everything.”

  He pushed his glasses up and rolled back to his desk. “Just let me know. By the way, I got M&M’s earlier—three reds, five blues, two greens, and four browns.”

  “No yellows or oranges—interesting.” Gin logged the data on her chart of probable M&M’s combinations and got to work.

  // Six

  “He told you to do what? Do the project on your own?” Hannah dropped her mouth and shook her head, her hair bright blonde in the glow from Gin’s desk lamp.

  It was Saturday night, a good opportunity to be social according to TimeKeeper. Thankfully, Hannah had agreed.

  Gin was sprawled out on her bed, laptop open and piles of coding notes to the side. “Maybe he had a point. It is more efficient to work separately.”

  Hannah threw a pillow, hitting Gin on the side of the head. “Uh-uh, don’t try to defend him.”

  “It doesn’t bug me. It’s not like I care what he thinks.”

  “You shouldn’t. Anyway, he’s strange. I mean, sure, he’s smart and athletic and rich . . . but how many guys actually talk to crows, right? Look, the best thing to do is to make your model really, really good.”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing?”

  “Not the cat thing. No offense, Einstein, but that’s not that thrilling.” Hannah rubbed Einstein’s head, and Einstein purred without bothering to open an eye. “I’m talking about the Love model.” Hannah drew out the word “love,” which made the whole thing seem silly.

  And maybe it was silly. Gin wouldn’t know until she finally did some testing, which she was almost ready for. She already had data on Monroe High students, everything she could access through the school’s intranet, from yearbook photos and class lists, to team and club rosters. But she needed Lucas’s help to get similar data for students at other area schools—otherwise, there wouldn’t be a large enough pool to make decent recommendations.

  “You know, it would help me a lot to try it out. Getting over Pete and everything.” Hannah was lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, feet kicked up on Gin’s bed.

  “It’s not ready. And it would only have results from our school—I don’t have the whole data pool yet.”

  “Whatever. Your ‘not ready’ is like everyone else’s ‘perfect.’ Who knows, I could find my true love.”

  Gin considered it for a second. Maybe it’d be a good distraction. Maybe she needed one last push so she could actually finish the model. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to try.

  “Okay.” The word just came out. Gin felt her stomach sink, already second-guessing her decision.


  “Okay? Really?” Hannah jumped up. “True love, here I come.”

  Before Gin could change her mind, she opened the program. It began with a series of rapid-fire photos, which Hannah had to classify as ‘Pleasing,’ ‘Unpleasing,’ or ‘Neutral.’ The first image showed a boy with thick eyebrows, an ample nose, and a friendly smile. Hannah scrunched her nose and clicked “Unpleasing,” and the next photo appeared.

  When the photo analysis was done, Hannah filled out a questionnaire. And that was it. Hannah’s test was complete.

  “You ready?” Gin was suddenly nervous.

  “Ready as ever,” Hannah said.

  Gin held her breath and pressed enter. Photos of three guys popped up and she stared at them for a full second. When she registered who they were, she groaned.

  Hannah, on the other hand, burst out laughing. “I guess you do need to work out the kinks.”

  As anticipated, all three boys went to Monroe. But not a single one was Hannah’s type.

  There was Aidan, a player of football and of girls. Marco, a grungy computer guy who was always glued to his laptop. And Noah, who was clean cut and nice—which meant there was a 0.2 percent chance that Hannah would like him.

  “Maybe I put too much emphasis on the photos. Or maybe it’s the small population size.” Gin paged through the guts of the model, ticking through the lines of logic, hoping some obvious issue would stand out.

  Hannah was laughing so hard she started hiccupping. “No, don’t feel bad. I mean, Marco might be someone you have to get to know to appreciate. And maybe Aidan has a thoughtful side that isn’t meant just to get you in bed. As for Noah, nice is the new hot, isn’t it? Anyway, your model could be right. That’s why I need to help test it. Can’t knock it ‘til you try it.”

  Lines of logic and rows of equations flashed along Gin’s screen. It could take months to figure out what had gone wrong.

  “Well look at that.” Hannah held up her phone. “According to my sources, Marco’s at a gamer meetup. At that bar in Arlington. Want to go?”

  “Are you serious? You can’t be. There’s no way—”

  “It’ll take us fifteen minutes to get there. Not bad. And at least we can drink.”

  Hannah passed Gin her phone, which displayed the homepage for a group called “Geekdom,” open only to serious gamers. “This is so not you.”

  “What’s not me? I like new adventures. I like bars. I know nothing about gaming. And Marco is on my list.”

  Gin opened Decider and started typing. “Let me check.”

  Before she had finished the inputs, Hannah pulled away the keyboard. “No way.”

  Gin’s fingers flinched. “Not even TimeKeeper?”

  Hannah shook her head. “Nope. It could be fate, and I’m not letting any crazy logic disrupt that.”

  Gin considered the options. If they left now, they could be back before eleven—which might be worth it if it meant Hannah would drop the Marco lead. “One hour,” Gin said, jingling her keys. “And I’m not drinking. I’m driving.”

  “Obviously.”

  The Green Leaf was a few blocks off Wilson Street in the west side of Arlington, Virginia. Unassuming and plain, it sat between a Mexican restaurant and a Laundromat. It was hard to park: every side street was lined with cars.

  The bar was on the second story, and as Gin and Hannah walked up, they heard the thump of a bass. Inside, the darkened room was packed—a few hundred people, plus tables filled with laptops. The table nearest the door had dozens of little metal rectangles and an open laptop that read, “Please sign in.”

  Hannah typed in their names, and two rectangles started to glow.

  “A perk already—fancy nametags.” Hannah placed hers at the edge of her sweater’s V-neck, an ideal location for showing off her name and her cleavage. “Now, to find Marco.”

  Hannah wove through the crowd, and Gin tried to stay close, but soon they were separated. So instead, Gin passed the time by reading the glowing nametags and trying to estimate the most popular gamer name for the greater-DC area.

  “Well, we didn’t really expect that one to work out, so now we know.” Hannah had her feet up on the car’s dash, the seat leaned back.

  Marco had been a bust, but Hannah had gotten two drinks and a phone number from a cute, blonde gamer named Clay. All in all, Hannah seemed to think it was forty minutes well spent.

  “So who’s next, Aidan or Noah?” Hannah drummed her fingers together.

  Gin sighed. As the night had worn on, reality had settled in. Her big project was far from being complete. There was a chance—maybe a good chance—it’d never work. “It’s nice of you to do this, but you don’t have to.”

  Hannah opened her eyes wide. “But this is everything. You’ve been toiling away on this model for a year. I haven’t done anything for a year. It’s like, one-seventeenth of your whole life.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’ll work.”

  A stoplight flashed yellow then red, and Gin slowed to a stop. They were back in the suburbs, surrounded by acres of shopping centers and neighborhoods. The car windows were down, and the night air smelled sweet, like flowers.

  “But it could be. We’ve got to give it a chance. And you need history, right? Well here’s some history.”

  The light changed to green. And suddenly, an idea tumbled through Gin’s brain.

  “That’s right,” she said. “It’s a real data point. Maybe I just need more.”

  Hannah held up a hand. “Wait a minute—that could take months. I can’t try out hundreds of guys in a week. It’d be like spending all day at a huge buffet. And though I love food, I hate buffets.”

  Gin was tapping the steering wheel faster now. “No, not you. But history on high school relationships. Actual couples. It’s all already out there.” Maybe it was possible to make the model much better, without a lot more effort. “How many social media connections do you have?”

  “A few thousand?”

  Gin smiled. “Perfect.”

  When Gin got home, she knew sleep would be impossible. So she brewed a pot of coffee, changed into flannel pajama pants and her “There’s no place like 127.0.0.1” t-shirt, then connected to Hannah’s social media accounts and started coding.

  She barely stopped for a break until five in the morning, when she took a final sip of coffee and stretched her arms overhead. Einstein was curled up tightly on one corner of her bed, but once Gin stood, he looked up and stretched too.

  “Ready to see if this works?” Gin ran the program and within seconds, was looking at a spreadsheet of data—more than two thousand rows and twenty columns, all containing information that would make her model better.

  “Yes!” She picked up Einstein and squeezed him, already thinking through her next steps.

  That’s when there was a knock at her bedroom door. Gin’s mom—still wearing scrubs, her hair pulled back in a low ponytail—peeked in.

  “Tell me you haven’t been up all night.” Gin’s mom gave a slight grimace, as though she knew what the answer would be.

  “Not really.” Gin pushed her coffee mug behind her computer. “I mean, sort of. I had this idea, and I got started and time kind of flew.”

  “You know you have to sleep. It’s important for your body and your brain. It’s not good to be up all night. I can show you dozens of studies from medical journals that say exactly that.”

  Frustration crawled through Gin. After all, her mom had barely been around, much less been aware of what was going on in Gin’s life. “I know, Mom. I rarely do it. Anyway, you’re the one with the crazy schedule. Maybe I wanted to finally see you.”

  Her mom winced. She pulled out her ponytail and yawned. “Sweetie, I know I’m not here a lot right now, but I also know that you’re responsible. That you can manage your time well.”

  “Which is exactly what I was doing.” If there was one thing Gin knew about, it was time management. “Sometimes it’s more efficient
to go with the flow, instead of starting and stopping and starting again. At least I wasn’t out partying or something.”

  Gin’s mom’s expression softened. Her eyes crinkled at the edges, making her look extra tired. Then she stood at Gin’s side and put an arm around her shoulders in a quick half-hug.

  “This is it—one of your models?”

  Gin looked again at the white spreadsheet, the nuggets of information all neatly organized. “Kind of. It’s data that feeds a model.”

  “Does the model do anything interesting?”

  Gin leaned against her mom, suddenly feeling tired. “We’ll see. I hope so.”

  “Try to get a little rest, okay? I’m going to sleep now—maybe if you do, too, we could wake up and hang out. Maybe watch a movie or go out for lunch.”

  It was a nice idea, but chances were Gin’s mom would end up stretched out on the couch, studying. “Sure.”

  Her mom left, and Gin yawned. The model felt far away, less real than the cool sheets on her bed or the firm mattress beneath her, and before she knew it, she was sleeping.

  // Seven

  Two days before the cat-mouse model was due, Gin and Felix were finally meeting in the library over lunch.

  The library, as usual, was freezing and Gin shivered as she walked in. The fake-wood tables were empty, the computers all on screen saver mode. She sat down near the back with stacks of books around her, making sure she still had a good view of the door. The air conditioner hummed, and the librarian swished around her desk. Felix should have been there ten minutes earlier.

  Her stomach growled, too loud in the quiet room. When she was sure the librarian wasn’t looking, she leaned over her bag and snuck a bite of her granola bar.

  That’s when she felt him there.

  She looked up, surprised. So much for appearing in control and slightly annoyed.