Appalled by his brother's complete lack of boundaries, Alan quickly marched across the room to physically wrangle Charlie, leaving Jake standing alone by the guestbook.
Jake headed toward the refreshment table in the corner. He reached for the crystal pitcher of ice water just as another hand reached for it at the same time.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Jake said, looking up to see a very attractive brunette. Given his recent growth spurt, they were standing exactly eye-to-eye, around 170 cm (5'7) given the 5 cm ('2) his shoes gave him.
"Oh, no, please," she said with a soft smile, gesturing toward the pitcher.
"Here, allow me," Jake offered smoothly. He grabbed the heavy pitcher and poured a glass for her, then one for himself.
"Thank you," she said, her smile widening a fraction.
"It's nothing," Jake replied, taking a sip. "Relative of the deceased?"
"Oh, no. I'm cousins with Olivia. The widow."
"Ah, I see. I'm Jake, by the way," he said, offering his free hand.
"Anna," she replied, shaking it.
"Sophomore, right?" Jake asked casually.
Anna blinked, looking confused. "I'm sorry?"
"I mean, sophomore year of college," Jake clarified.
"Yeah... I am," Anna said, her brow furrowing slightly. "How did you know that?"
Jake leaned in just a fraction, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "I can read auras," he whispered, glancing around as if afraid someone might overhear him.
Anna let out a surprised laugh. "Get out of here," she said, highly amused but clearly not believing him.
"Really, it's true! I swear," Jake insisted, raising his right hand as if taking an oath.
"Okay, then prove it," she challenged, crossing her arms playfully.
Jake pretended to study her face for a moment. "Well, let's see... Your aura tells me you study at Pepperdine University. And... you're a cheerleader. More specifically, a flyer. How did I do?"
Anna's jaw actually dropped. A brilliant, amazed smile spread across her face. "How do you know that?!"
Across the room, Alan had finally managed to grab Charlie by the elbow, yanking him away from the grieving blonde widow.
As he was lecturing his brother, Evelyn suddenly materialized beside the widow.
"Can we talk to you for one minute?" Alan separated her from the widow.
"What? I'm working here!" Evelyn whispered back annoyed at the interruption.
"Mom, that woman just lost her husband!" Alan reproached.
Evelyn scoffed. "Alan, please. The man was fifty years old when she was born. She had to see it coming."
"Even for you, that is really low," Charlie noted, actually sounding impressed.
"Oh, Mr. Graveside Nookie weighs in," Alan shot back sarcastically. "You were just over there trying to give the widow a sympathetic crotch to cry on!"
"Watch your mouth, Alan! This is a solemn event," Evelyn scolded sharply.
"Yeah, Alan. Show a little class," Charlie jumped in smoothly, adjusting his tie.
Alan looked between his mother and brother, utterly flabbergasted. "Me?! I am the only one here behaving appropriately! Hey, wait... where's Jake?"
Alan frantically scanned the room. It took him only a few seconds to spot his twelve-year-old son tucked away in the corner.
Jake was leaning casually against the refreshment table, deep in conversation with a gorgeous college girl who was laughing and subconsciously twirling a lock of hair around her finger.
"Nice," Charlie said, following Alan's gaze. A tear of genuine pride almost formed in his eye at the sight of his nephew's raw talent.
"Nice? Are you kidding me?" Alan hissed, his voice trembling with a reproachful tone. "Look at what you are teaching him! Picking up girls at funerals!"
"So what? It's better than teaching him how to beg for physical contact from a wife who would rather fake a coma than sleep with him."
Alan opened his mouth to deliver a retort, but realized with a sinking feeling that Charlie was technically right.
He let out a heavy, defeated sigh and marched over to break up the interaction.
"Anyway, my uncle actually owns a beautiful beach house in Malibu," Jake was saying smoothly. "You can come by whenever you—"
Ahem. Alan cleared his throat loudly, stepping between them.
"Oh, hey, Dad," Jake said, not missing a beat. "I was just talking to Anna here. She's Olivia's cousin. The widow."
"Hi, Anna. A pleasure," Alan said tightly, forcing a polite smile and a quick handshake. He immediately turned to his son. "Listen, I am going to the viewing room to say our final goodbyes to Harry. Do you want to accompany me?"
"Oh, yeah, sure," Jake said. He turned back to the brunette. "I'll see you later."
"Oh, wait!" Anna said quickly. She pulled a small notepad and a pen from her purse, scribbled something down, and slipped the folded paper into Jake's hand. "Call me whenever," she said with a distinctly flirtatious smile.
"Sure," Jake smiled back, tucking the number into his suit jacket.
Alan's eye twitched. As he grabbed Jake by the shoulder and steered him toward the viewing room, he finally spoke. "So... what exactly were you two talking about?"
"Oh, nothing. Just college stuff," Jake answered offhandedly.
"Oh, really?" Alan asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. "What is she studying?"
"Communications," Jake said.
"And what exactly do your majors have in common with that?" Alan asked, crossing his arms. Knowing full well that Jake's Caltech double-major was strictly in Biology and Physics.
Jake looked at his father blankly. "Uh... communicating?"
He let the word hang in the air before smoothly deflecting. "Anyway, was Uncle Charlie seriously flirting with the widow?"
Alan grimaced. "Oh, yeah. He was trying to invite her back to the beach house and everything."
"Picking up girls at a funeral and inviting them to his house? Shame. Just shameful," Jake said, shaking his head with a look of profound disappointment.
He looked up at Alan. "Luckily, you're the smart brother."
Alan stopped walking. "Don't try to change the sub— wait, do you really think I'm the smart one?"
"Oh, yeah, objectively," Jake nodded, launching into his trap. "Think about it, Dad. Uncle Charlie writes jingles about maple syrup. You are a licensed medical professional who owns his own private practice. You have a comprehensive understanding of human anatomy, complex biology, and spinal mechanics. If the economy crashes tomorrow, people are still going to need doctors. Nobody needs a guy who plays the piano in bowling shirts. Factoring in logic, education, and societal value... you are definitely the smarter brother."
Alan puffed out his chest, a slow, incredibly proud smile spreading across his face. "Huh. Well... I guess I am the smart one."
"Yes, you are the smart one," Jake repeated soothingly, with a smile.
The rest of the funeral went relatively smoothly, at least until the eulogies.
When it was Evelyn's turn to speak, she approached the podium, dabbing a completely dry eye and made the death of her ex-husband about her.
May eventually faded into the relentless heat of a California summer.
Jake spent the months from May to September buried in Caltech's prestigious SURF, the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship.
He wasn't a standalone super-genius, but he had something better: Argus. Sitting quietly in his rented lab space, Jake accessed his 2025 internet database, specifically targeting the future breakthroughs of neural network optimization and deep learning.
In 2005, artificial intelligence was stuck in an "AI winter," with most scientists dismissing multi-layered neural networks as impossible to train efficiently.
Jake targeted a revolutionary backpropagation algorithm that wouldn't actually be written in the real timeline until around 2006.
To keep his research perfectly tailored to his double major, he disguised the advanced machine learning framework as a bioinformatics tool, specifically applying the code to predict the complex folding of biological proteins.
He didn't need to build any outlandish future hardware. He simply ran the advanced mathematical models through Caltech's existing supercomputers, letting the university's mainframe legitimize his "discoveries."
When the final SURF symposium arrived in late August, Jake stood at the podium in front of a room packed with stunned faculty members. He calmly presented a flawless, theoretical framework for deep-layer pattern recognition that practically solved the processing bottlenecks of the era.
The computing and biology professors were completely spellbound. It was brilliant, mathematically bulletproof, and entirely plausible for a once-in-a-generation prodigy to code.
By the time the actual fall semester officially began in September, Jake had quietly cemented his reputation within Caltech as an academic "rockstar".