Chapter 8: Getting Acquainted
The Duncan House
"What the—"
Adam, jolted awake by the system notification in the early hours of the morning, was ready to be annoyed — until he actually read it. Intelligence up 0.005, putting him at 109.005. His irritation flipped immediately into satisfaction.
Any increase in intelligence was worth getting excited about.
Has to be Juno.
He stared at the panel in the dark, thinking it through. She was the only genuinely high-IQ person he'd spent real time with recently. Yesterday, their first real interaction had bumped his intelligence up by a full point. So what was this 0.005? Was it a daily thing? Did sustained contact with someone that sharp keep adding up over time?
He turned it over in his head. 0.005 was tiny compared to 1. But compounded daily, over months, over years — that could add up to something genuinely significant. It actually made sense. The first time you encounter someone who thinks completely differently from you, the impact is immediate and dramatic. But the deeper change, the kind that actually rewires how you think, that takes time and repeated exposure.
Adam lay there staring at the ceiling, too wound up to sleep, the image of a red hoodie floating around in his head.
If his theory was right, he'd take it. Even if Juno turned out to be every bit as complicated as he suspected, the intelligence boost alone made the friendship worth maintaining.
Besides, he wasn't doing anything wrong. What exactly was there to be scared of?
Right. And then there's Sheldon.
He rolled over onto his back.
Juno had given him one point on first contact, maybe 0.005 a day after that. So what would Sheldon do for his numbers? Because by any honest measure, Sheldon Cooper's intelligence was in a completely different category.
The kid had started high school at nine. The only reason he hadn't left for college sooner was that his mother couldn't bring herself to let him go — and even with that delay, he'd graduated with highest honors at fourteen. Exchange scholar at fifteen. First doctorate at sixteen. A second doctorate followed, along with a master's degree somewhere in between. By his early twenties he was a theoretical physicist at Caltech, driving his department head completely up the wall while the university board quietly protected him because they understood what he was worth. Before he hit forty, he'd win the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Juno was sharp. Genuinely sharp. But in raw IQ terms, Sheldon was operating on a different plane entirely. If proximity to Juno did this, what would proximity to Sheldon do?
I need to move on this sooner rather than later. Summer's almost here. If I can get to Sheldon before fall—
He stopped.
Wait.
He sat up slightly in the dark.
Why am I only thinking about Sheldon? Are there really so few geniuses around?
The answer was obviously no.
Early the next morning, Adam was on his bike before most of the neighborhood was awake, riding across town to a house he hadn't visited in a while.
Duke Marcus. They'd been classmates freshman year, back when Adam was still technically PJ and still on track to graduate alongside his nine-month-old sister at roughly the same time. Duke had moved ahead — his family had done well enough recently to send him to Wakefield Academy, one of the better private schools in the county. The jump in academic environment and the natural drift that came with it had basically ended their regular contact.
Adam knocked.
"PJ?" Duke stared at him like he'd appeared out of a time capsule. "What are you doing here?"
"It's Adam now, actually." Adam gave him an apologetic smile. "Sorry to show up like this. Can I come in? I need a favor."
Duke steadied himself. Old friends were old friends. He stepped back and held the door open. "Yeah, come on in."
"Duke, who's that?"
A woman leaned out from the kitchen doorway.
"It's PJ, Mom. From County High."
"PJ!" Duke's mother looked Adam over with an expression he recognized — warm, but with a particular quality to it that he'd learned to read over the past year. "Your dad's Bob, right? From the pest control company?"
"Yes ma'am, that's right."
He didn't bother correcting the name. He never did anymore. He understood the look perfectly well. He was a conventionally average-looking kid with a bald dad who ran a pest control business, and people found that faintly puzzling in ways they never quite said out loud.
"You want some breakfast? I've got eggs going."
"No thank you, Mrs. Marcus. I appreciate it."
He followed Duke down the hall to his room.
"Sit anywhere," Duke said, dropping into his desk chair and getting straight to it. "What's the favor?"
Adam looked around the room for a second. Books stacked high on the desk, organized but clearly well-used. No chaos, nothing embarrassing. He'd always respected that about Duke — the guy had real discipline.
He sat down. "Your school — Wakefield — they've got some genuinely gifted students over there, right?"
Duke raised an eyebrow but nodded. "Yeah, of course. That's kind of the whole point. Between the legacy admissions and the scholarship kids, you've got both ends of the spectrum, but the academic firepower is real. Why?"
Adam had thought about how to explain this on the ride over and decided simple was better. "I'm trying to turn things around, academically. I know I've got a reputation for being a disaster in class, but I'm serious about changing that. I figure the fastest way to actually get better is to spend time around people who are already where I want to be."
Duke looked at him for a long moment, recalibrating. "Okay."
"Is there anyone over there — genuinely exceptional, not just good-grades exceptional — that you could introduce me to?"
Duke leaned back. "Yeah, actually. There's a kid in my grade." He paused, as if still processing the memory. "I don't even know how to describe the gap. It's like being in a different sport entirely." He looked at Adam curiously. "Why do you want this?"
Adam met his eyes. "Because I'm done wasting time."
Duke studied him for another moment, then nodded slowly.
"Alright," he said. "Let me make a call."
End of Chapter 8
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