The Apocalypse Seven

Contents

Title Page

Contents

Copyright

Part One: Whateverpocalypse

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Part Two: We Have Seen the Enemy

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Part Three: Dungeon Master

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Connect with HMH

Copyright © 2021 by Gene Doucette

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

hmhbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Doucette, Gene, 1968– author.

Title: The apocalypse seven / Gene Doucette.

Description: Boston : Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021. | A John Joseph Adams Book.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020023911 (print) | LCCN 2020023912 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358418948 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780358450290 | ISBN 9780358450481 | ISBN 9780358419471 (ebook)

Classification: LCC PS3604.O89446 A86 2021 (print) | LCC PS3604.O89446 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020023911

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020023912

Cover illustration and design © David Curtis

Author photograph © Leanne’s Studio of Photography

v1.0521

Part one

Whateverpocalypse

One

Robbie

1

Robbie wasn’t sure how he ended up back in his own bed.

Not that this was an unwelcome discovery. He’d gone to his first bona fide collegiate keg party the night before—​a staggeringly bad idea given it fell just before his first full day of classes—​and drank . . . well, a lot. He wasn’t sure how much; potentially enough to warrant measurements in gallons, but not enough to convince him he liked beer.

The party was in an off-campus apartment roughly six blocks from the dorm, so his being able to drunkenly stagger back to the room and then pass out on his own bed made plenty of sense. He just didn’t remember doing it.

He rolled onto his back and noted that he was still fully clothed. His shoes were still on. He still had his wallet. All good things.

Then he took a look at the alarm clock. It had no display.

Hey, what time is it? he said—​to nobody, apparently, as he was alone in the dorm room.

He had two roommates. He barely knew them, because everyone was a freshman, and it had only been four days since they had come together for orientation.

There was Nguyen, about whom Robbie knew only two facts: He was Vietnamese, and he groomed his own eyebrows with tweezers every morning, for no good reason. The other roommate was Taylor, who folded his underwear.

That was the extent of what he knew about them, up until he discovered there’d been some kind of power failure during the night. Now he could add won’t wake up their roommate even though he has an early class the next day to the list.

He dug his cell phone out.

It was dead.

Aw, come on.

He got out of bed, ignored the rush of blood that made him a little dizzy, and pulled open the dorm room door.

The hallway had no lights. It was daytime, clearly, but the only windows in the hall were at the ends, which didn’t do much to help illuminate the middle.

Hey, does anyone know what time it is? he shouted.

No answer. He stepped back into the room.

Well, this is crazy, he said.

It was a weird moral quandary. The sun was up, so it was evidently morning. Probably early morning, but maybe not. Could be, he’d missed his first Intro to Macroeconomics class already and was now well on his way to missing Freshman English. He should be grabbing his bookbag—​which he’d packed the night before, after memorizing the locations and optimal paths for all his classes—​and running out.

Brushing his teeth and getting a proper shower would have to wait, and he probably smelled a little funky in the same clothes as the night before, so when he got to class, he’d have to hide in the back or avoid talking to women until that situation was rectified, but it was all manageable; he just had to leave right away. The quandary was, he should probably be knocking on doors and letting everyone know the dorm had lost power.

Unless they had all gotten up and left already, in which case they didn’t do for him what he was thinking he should do for them, and anyway, why was it his problem?

He walked around the side of the bed to grab his bag.

It was gone.

Great.

Maybe the problem is that I’m in the wrong room, he thought.

The beds all had the same bedsheets, which not incidentally smelled like mildew. He didn’t notice that the first few nights, but thanks to all the alcohol, his nose was going out of its way to call to his attention every smell that would trigger bad behavior from his digestive system. Likewise, the dressers were all basically the same, and the layout was a standard arrangement. This could be any room in the building; it didn’t have to be his.

He opened a drawer, and no, those weren’t his clothes.

"All right, Robbie, buddy, when you tell this story tonight it’s going to be hilarious. Get it together."

He pulled open the door and checked the number: 315. Unless he was remembering it wrong—​and he liked to think he had a very good memory—​his room number had been 315 all week.

Right room number, wrong building?

He was in a section of Harvard called the Radcliffe Quadrangle. Robbie had only been inside one of the buildings—​his own—​but he could imagine a scenario where (1) all of the room designs in the quad had the same square footage and initial state, (2) he walked into the wrong building the night before but went to the right room, and (3) somehow gained admittance to that room and passed out on someone else’s bed.

He decided what would make this really funny was if the owner of the bed he’d crashed on had also gone to the same party and later made the exact same mistake Robbie did and was now waking up in Robbie’s bed, wondering where all his stuff was.

Yes, that would be funny, but this was not the time for funny.

There were few things in his life Robbie dreaded more than being late. This was likely due to some deep-seated anxiety going back to childhood, although he couldn’t point to any trauma in particular. One of his first memories was being upset that he’d missed a television show in which he was deeply invested, because he and his mother were traveling and they didn’t make it home until halfway through the show. He couldn’t remember the name of the show, and he couldn’t remember why they were traveling, so he always took that memory as evidence that he’d spent his entire existence fretting over being late and missing something.

Sleeping through his first class, then, pushed all the wrong buttons.

Maybe it’s a closed building, he said. He was talking to himself out of an instinctive need to fill up what was becoming an eerie silence. That’s it, they haven’t put anyone in this dorm yet, because freshmen check in early. You’ve solved it, hero. Now let’s get to class.

Except someone else’s clothes were in the drawer. It couldn’t be a closed building where someone also lived.

As preoccupied as he was with the death of the closed building theory, it didn’t register right away that the place was no longer silent.

Someone was shouting. No, not shouting: screaming.

It was a woman, and she was screaming HELLO?? over and over.

It didn’t sound like they were on the same floor, but probably they were in the same building. Even then, he wouldn’t have heard it at all if the place wasn’t so quiet already.

Then he realized it wasn’t just the noise in the building he wasn’t hearing. There was no traffic outside, either.

Robbie grew up in rural Connecticut, surrounded by farms, a lot of open sky, and a surplus of quiet. He hated it. His joke when giving people directions there was We live ten miles past the point where you’re sure you’ll never see civilization again. When he got into Harvard, he was just as excited for a chance to live in a city as he was to go to the school in the first place.

Cambridge wasn’t even that loud normally, but the sound of traffic going past his window was more exciting for him than it should have been.

Now that sound was entirely absent. So was all the other ambient noise the neighborhood was supposed to be making.

All except the woman.

Screaming.

He stepped all the way into the hallway, cupped his hands around his mouth, and answered back.

HELLO?

The screaming stopped.

Then: Hello? Someone? Is someone there?

Yes, he said. I’m here.

He had to shout, but a full-throated roar wasn’t necessary. She must be on the first or second floor, he thought, just below him.

Have you seen my dog? she asked.

This question was just strange enough for Robbie to wonder if she was speaking in code.

No?

You don’t see a dog?

No, I don’t see a dog.

I’m missing my dog, she said.

I’m getting that. My name is Robbie.

Introducing himself made little sense in the context of canine retrieval, but he felt it was time to move ahead, because he had stuff to do.

And I’m late for class, he added. Do you need, um, do you need help?

Yes, she said. If you are not just a voice in my head, or a ghost, then I need your help.

The notion that he might be a ghost haunting a dormitory at Harvard University suddenly struck him as theoretically feasible.

I’m not a ghost. Why would you even say that?

I’m sorry. I’m very worried about my dog, that’s all. My name is Carol. Please come find me and we’ll go to class together. I think I’m on the second floor.

He headed for the stairwell at the end of the corridor, wondering as he went how Carol could not know what floor she was on. He thought about suggesting she just look at one of the doors and tell him what room number to go toward, but it was only one flight.

By the time he reached the door’s crash bar, he was convinced they were in an unused building. It had a certain not-lived-in feel to it, and there was a lot more dust than there probably should have been. Yes, there were clothes in the dresser drawer, but he was willing to excuse that if all the other available evidence supported his theory.

Maybe it was shipped with clothing in it, he thought. Like the fake televisions in furniture stores.

The second floor was no more notable than the third. The walls were brick, the doors were wood, the lights were out, and the hallway was empty.

Carol? he shouted. You’re not on the second floor.

I’m not? Okay. Do you see a dog?

No dogs.

Maybe the first floor, then.

Is this some kind of joke, Carol? Because I already told you I’m late for class.

No, it is not a joke. I must be on the first floor.

Can’t you just look at a door?

No, I can’t.

Are you trapped under something?

Your voice is getting louder, you must be getting closer.

He sighed, and went back to the stairwell, and down one more flight.

Carol was standing in the middle of the hallway. She was a short, thin Asian woman, with dark glasses and a cane.

Hello? she said when she heard the door open.

It’s me, he said. Robbie, I mean. It’s Robbie.

Sorry, I didn’t know you were blind, he nearly said. He didn’t say that, because somehow that seemed more awkward than any of the awkwardness that had preceded this moment.

Nice to meet you, Robbie. I’ve been shouting for an hour and you’re the only one who’s come.

You have a dog? he asked. Still awkward.

Yes, his name is Burton, and I don’t know where he is. He should have been with me when I woke up. I’m worried something bad happened. Not just to him. Maybe we should go outside so you can tell me what I’m not seeing.

2

Robbie took her by the arm and walked her out of the dorm and into the quad.

Everything outside looked wrong. The grass was suddenly too tall, and it wasn’t exactly grass. Rather, it wasn’t entirely grass: There was crabgrass, moss, dandelions, and some other growths he couldn’t readily identify. All of it had become so overgrown, the walkways were essentially gone. Then there were the trees. The ones that were still alive seemed taller somehow, although he’d only been in the quad a couple of times and couldn’t speak with authority as to how much taller. Two dead trees also took up space on the lawn. One was upright, but clearly dead, as moss had overtaken it completely. The other looked like it had collapsed very recently.

Other than the strange overgrowth, it was a warm, sunny, breezy-but-pleasant September day, with exactly no human beings.

So? Carol asked. What’s happened? Where is everyone?

I don’t know. Not here. Beyond that, I’m not sure. And it looks like whoever does landscaping for the university is on strike.

What do you mean, ‘not here’?

I mean, the entire quad has nobody in it except for you and me.

Oh. Well. That’s good, I guess. I think if they were here, they would all be dead, because they aren’t making any noise.

She sniffed the air.

It smells different, she said. Not corpse-like.

Honestly, I would tell you if there was a pile of bodies here. It’d be the first thing.

"Earthy I think is the word. Like a garden. Did the quadrangle become a garden overnight?"

Yeah, I think it must have rained, he said. It’s like all the plants went nuts.

He turned around to get a better look at the dormitory they just exited, and realized, first, it was the right building, which meant . . . well, he didn’t know what that meant yet; second, the ivy on the outside wall had an overnight growth spurt, just like the rest of the plants. It covered the entire wall now, and half of the windows.

Hey, did you wake up in your own room? he asked.

What an odd question. Did you?

I don’t know anymore. The building’s the right one, but the clothes in the drawer weren’t mine and my stuff was gone. I have no idea what to make of that.

That’s interesting. You were at a party last night, I take it?

I, um . . .

Your clothes.

All at once, everything that was wrong with the morning disappeared from Robbie’s brain, replaced by the embarrassing prospect that his body odor was intolerably bad.

I’m sorry, he said. I fell asleep in them, and I didn’t have a chance to take a shower.

It’s all right. The truth is, I don’t know if I woke up in the correct room. I do know I went to bed in the correct room. When I got up, Burton was missing, my electronics were dead, and my roommate was gone; I didn’t stop to check the clothing in my drawers. But we can go back and find out, if you think it’s important.

No, it’s probably not. Let’s . . . let’s sit down and see if we can work this out.

He led her to a bench in the middle of the quad. Two rabbits ran past them on the way, and a large squirrel on a tree nearby decided to chirp angrily.

They sat on the bench in silence. Robbie tried to come up with a simple explanation. When that didn’t work, he tried a complicated one.

I’ve got nothing, he admitted. "This doesn’t make any sense at all. Maybe they all . . . went somewhere. I mean, they had to, right? They’re not here."

All at once? With my dog?

I’m not saying it’s reasonable, that everyone left at the same time, with your dog, he said. I’m saying that’s the only conclusion we have to go with right now.

Carol turned her head and listened.

I want you to be honest with me, Robbie, she said. You asked earlier if I was a part of some sort of joke, or prank, and now I have to ask you the same question.

No, of course it isn’t.

"It’s only that . . . your perspective on this scenario is profoundly different from mine. You understand? Someone took my dog, and now you tell me there’s nobody here aside from you. I don’t think you were a party to the circumstances that took Burton from me, because that is a truly awful thing to do and you don’t seem like an awful person. But just the same, the logical conclusion for me is that there are other people here, hiding, out of earshot. This is irrational, because I can’t imagine a single situation in which it would be . . . funny for an entire campus to orchestrate a practical joke on a blind person. I choose to believe people are not this terrible. The second option is that they are all dead. But again, I don’t smell death out here."

That would be terrible, he agreed. I don’t even know how anybody would pull that off. There are no cars, either, right? It’s not just the campus; this whole part of town is completely deserted.

You’re right; I haven’t heard a car all morning.

Well, the answer is, I swear, I’m just as in the dark about this as you are.

She smiled.

In the dark, she said.

Sorry, no pun intended.

It’s all right.

They fell silent again, waiting, perhaps, for someone to run up and explain it all so that they could get on with their day.

Robbie was stuck between the usual niceties one went through when meeting someone new—​where are you from, what’s your major, and so on—​and the patent absurdity of their circumstance. He didn’t entirely know how to proceed.

He pulled his phone out again, just in case it had recovered since the last time he checked. It had not.

You don’t have the time, do you? he asked.

She laughed.

Because you’re late for class? It’s only seven-thirty; you aren’t late.

She held up her free arm to show off the featureless disk on her wrist.

It’s blank, he said.

It’s in Braille.

But it says it’s seven-thirty?

I checked it when you said you were late, so I could tell you when you arrived that you were not. And then I forgot to do that. But it was seven-fifteen then, so now it’s about . . .

She ran her finger across the surface of the disk.

Oh, she said, never mind.

What do you mean, ‘never mind’?

It still says seven-fifteen. My watch has stopped.

"I could be late, then."

Yes, I’m sorry. But I don’t think you’re late.

Robbie could feel a vein pulsing in his forehead.

You have no way of knowing, he said.

You can’t be late if the class is not happening. It appears we’re the only people here, and I promise, I am not your professor. Ergo, you are not late.

Hey, hey, wait: What if we’re in a quarantine zone?

She raised an eyebrow.

What is your major, Robbie?

Economics. Not sure what kind yet. I was thinking of . . . Anyway, economics. You?

Bio. This is not how quarantines work.

Wrong word, then. Some kind of . . . emergency, where they evacuated this whole area and they forgot us. Or maybe we’re radioactive right now.

What about Burton? They evacuated my dog, but not me?

I’m not saying it explains everything. It doesn’t explain how someone else’s clothes were in my dresser either. Hey, did you wake up dressed too?

Yes. I did.

Do you remember going to sleep that way?

She thought about it.

I don’t recall. It isn’t something I ever do, yet . . . yes, I was already clothed. I didn’t even think about it once . . . She sighed. I miss my dog, Robbie. I want to find him.

I’m sure Burton’s out here somewhere, he said.

Just then, he saw movement at the other end of the quad and wondered if he’d just managed to conjure Carol’s dog into existence by uttering his name.

But it wasn’t a dog.

What is it? Carol asked. You stopped breathing. What do you see?

There was a deer walking through the open field. It looked nervous, as deer tended to, but this was not the behavior of a wild animal who’d wandered into a metropolis by mistake.

"Carol, we have got to figure out what’s happening," he said.

3

The walk from the quadrangle to the middle of Harvard Yard was barely a mile, which Robbie had already worked out. The way in could either avoid Harvard Square entirely—​by cutting through Cambridge Common—​or it could skip across the side of the Square, which required taking Garden Street straight down. Both routes involved concerning oneself with some measure of auto traffic, bike traffic, and foot traffic, which grew increasingly heavy and complex the closer one got to the center of the Square.

He’d expected cars, and knew to look for them. Conversely, he’d nearly been killed by a bike at least twice so far. They occupied the boundary space between pedestrian traffic and car traffic, they were silent, and they moved entirely too fast. After the second close call, he learned to check, even when he didn’t hear or see any cars around.

He was still doing that as they headed toward Harvard Square, even though there was no evidence of human life in any direction. There were parked cars here and there, but they all looked abandoned: Even with the keys, he was pretty sure none of them was going to start.

Given all the traffic lights were out, that was probably not the worst thing.

Three blocks away from the quadrangle, they still hadn’t encountered a single person, or heard an anthropogenic noise. But there were plenty of birds, and the deer he saw was evidently one of many.

Carol was walking in silence, with one hand under the crook of his elbow and the other holding her cane. It was odd enough for him, actually seeing all of this; he couldn’t imagine what it was like for her.

Maybe all the people were turned into animals, he said, as three squirrels ran past.

You suppose Cambridge is under a witch’s curse? she asked. "If it works both ways, this could mean you are Burton."

He laughed.

I should be terrified that this isn’t the craziest idea we’ve come up with, he said.

That’s definitely the craziest idea. The quarantine sounded reasonable.

I didn’t mean that. I meant the one where you asked if I was a ghost.

Oh. I thought that was also reasonable, because we had not yet met. Now that I can confirm your corporeality, it seems much more absurd, but context is everything.

"Unless we’re both ghosts."

Yes, that’s still on the table.

He didn’t think it was really still on the table, but decided that was largely because he didn’t think he believed in ghosts. It wasn’t something he spent a lot of time considering, notwithstanding when he was eight years old. Back then, ghosts were a major feature of his existence, and so were UFOs, dragons, and Egyptian mummy curses.

Well then, Carol said, let’s find some people to haunt, shall we?

4

There was a hotel a couple of blocks from the center of Harvard Square. It was situated across from the leading edge of the Cambridge Common, and was where Robbie and his parents had stayed when visiting the school during the application process. The stay wasn’t necessary—​the drive from their Connecticut home was under three hours—​but his mom wanted to go sightseeing and his dad had a powerful aversion to night driving. Also, they could afford it.

It was a nice hotel; Robbie had thought it an interesting combination of quaintly old-fashioned and situationally modernized: oak desks and WiFi, rotary phones and giant flatscreens, tin ceilings and in-room coffee machines. He enjoyed the experience of the place, and thought about popping in again on the three or four times he’d gone past it during orientation. Remember me? he’d say, I was in room 454 last summer. Just wanted to say hi.

It looked completely empty now. The front doors were locked, and the awning leading to the street looked frayed. The restaurant attached to it was also empty, and likewise locked up. Both places looked abandoned, as if everyone decided to get out of town all at once, but in an orderly fashion. The chairs in the restaurant were still up on the tables, waiting for the morning shift to arrive.

There was a church next to the hotel. A placard out front listed the upcoming homily subjects. It hadn’t been changed for a while—​the dates were off—​which seemed more like a lazy-pastor problem. Or they lost the key to the lock on the underside of the sign or something.

The place looked just as closed as the hotel, anyway, which was sort of a shame. The upcoming homily was called Feeling Alone in the Modern World.

Where are we? Carol asked.

In front of the church.

The church. Which church? It’s so quiet, I can’t tell.

Robbie was suffering from a failure of imagination, descriptively.

We’re not in the Square yet, but . . . I dunno. The church. The church next to the hotel.

There are three churches!

Are there?

Yes.

Carol let go of Robbie’s arm and put her hand on the railing that defined the church lawn. She was getting upset, and he couldn’t tell why.

Okay, he said. If there are three churches, we’re in front of one of them. It’s across from the common. Um. I don’t know what to give you, for landmarks. Name one and . . .

Carol started crying, so he decided to shut up. It was only a little gasp at first, but then it came on hard, in body-shaking convulsions that dropped her to her knees.

Hey, he said, quietly. Maybe too quietly for her to hear. Hey, it’ll be okay.

She let go of her cane and rolled over until she was sitting on the pavement, clutching her knees.

Robbie was torn, because when someone you know is falling apart in front of you, you’re supposed to hold them until they feel better. But he’d met Carol maybe a half an hour earlier, under perhaps the most ridiculous set of circumstances in history. It was not the best situation in which to gauge whether they had, in their brief time together, developed that kind of friendship.

He did not, in short, want to make it any worse in a misguided effort to make it better. Also, misreading signals from women was basically his major in high school.

He decided that sitting down next to her and waiting—​for her to stop crying, or to run out of water, depending—​was the best recourse.

Briefly, he considered whether he should be crying as well, and if not, whether there was something wrong with him. But the situation was so absurd, he couldn’t fathom any resolution beyond it’s all a big misunderstanding. He was sure his parents were just fine because the house was three hours away and therefore well outside of the sphere of influence that resulted in whatever this was. If anything, they were probably worried about him. Likewise, Gertie, his younger sister, would be enjoying her first week at prep school in Groton. That was much less than three hours away.

The situation didn’t seem hopeless; it just seemed ridiculous.

I’m sorry, Carol said, quietly. She’d taken off her dark glasses to wipe her eyes and was now staring at the space just to his right. I need you to understand how hard this is for me.

I do understand, he said.

"No, I don’t think you do. I thrive on sound. I need to hear the cars going by, and the chirps of the walk signals, and the chatter of other people. Today was my first day of classes. Burton and I were supposed to be paired with a sophomore volunteer, for long enough until I could count the steps to my classes and Burton could learn the route. The volunteer’s name was Derek; I first met him two days ago. Derek didn’t show up this morning, and Burton is missing, and now I’m in an auditory bubble. All I hear is birds, and whatever’s making that sound in the trees. I can’t navigate using birds. I feel . . . really blind now. And I miss my dog."

It’s a squirrel. In the trees.

That’s what a squirrel sounds like?

I guess. Look, we just have to keep going, Robbie said, standing. This isn’t a big deal; we’ll work it out. Meanwhile, I don’t think you have to worry about not hearing things.

He took three steps into the street. Pointing out to a worried blind woman that on the bright side she wasn’t going to get run over by a car probably wasn’t the best approach, but he had no better ideas.

It’s too quiet, he continued. I get it, but at least if there isn’t anyone around, there’s less to worry about, right? We can stand in the street if we want.

Robbie . . .

You can try it too. We don’t have to stick to the sidewalks and you don’t need walk signals to let you know it’s safe. Let’s just walk right down the middle.

No, be quiet—​I hear something now.

Not birds?

Not just birds, and not the loud squirrel. Something from that direction.

She pointed toward the corner, where Garden Street met Mason Street. Robbie turned in that direction, just in time to see the bike before it ran him down. He and the guy riding it both adjusted, thankfully in opposite directions.

Whoa! the cyclist said, nearly losing control before circling around to a stop a few yards away.

He did not look like the sort of person one might expect to see on a racing bike. He had on cargo shorts and sneakers with no socks, and a large black T-shirt that read MY IMAGINARY FRIEND SAYS HI. He looked like he’d be more at home with a game controller in his hand.

Hey, guys! he said, genially. Did you sleep through the apocalypse too?

Touré

1

Touré screwed up huge this time around: He’d promised delivery on code that was gonna take a solid thirty-six hours to hammer down . . . and then he left himself only eighteen hours to do it.

It was his own fault. It was always his own fault, but this particular assignment of blame underscored a larger character flaw, to wit: Whenever he saw all the steps needed to get from point A to point B, he got the time commitment wrong. He was great when asked to do something impossible, because then he came in early—​usually earlier than everyone else—​but the stuff that was right there in front of him? Not so much.

As his second-to-last ex-girlfriend once said, if you asked him how long it would take to cook a three-minute egg, he’d say, About a minute.

The screwup here was on a big job, with a firm deadline. It was super easy, and it paid well: the best of all possible combinations not involving a winning lottery ticket.

But because it was super easy, around when he should have been coding, he was down the road at the Science Fiction Interdiction, a bookstore with a too-clever name and a gaming dungeon. The dungeon was a gamer Xanadu, packed on most nights to a fire-code-threatening headcount, with a you-name-it collection of role-playing games.

It was fair to say his real screwup was going to the dungeon in the first place.

He didn’t escape the Science Fiction Interdiction due to superior willpower and natural charisma, much as he wanted to believe that; in truth, he only left because they had to close the place down for the night. Then he raced home and got to work on the project he was supposed to have been halfway through already.

And yet, all of that was just the penultimate screwup.

He was about six hours into some fine work when he realized he was entirely out of stimulants. There was no coffee, soda, caffeine tabs, or energy drinks to be found in the place.

He tried to push through using sugar packets and toothpaste, but that really didn’t give him the necessary boost, so after the third time he caught himself falling asleep at the keyboard, he bolted for the all-night spot on the corner.

That was the last thing he remembered doing before he woke up on the couch in his building’s lobby.

Clearly, he significantly underestimated how tired he was.

2

Even without checking his watch, as soon as the sunlight hit him in the face, he knew he’d really stepped in it this time.

Seriously, nobody could’ve woken me up? he said loudly, for anyone in earshot. There wasn’t anyone obviously around, but he liked to think they heard him from behind their doors, at least on the first floor.

He started working out stories that could justify how late his code was going to be as he took the stairs. The excuse he’d come up with was good enough—​by the time he made it to his door—​to buy him at least another day, and probably get him a sympathy card.

He just had to get back into his apartment . . . which he couldn’t do, because the door was locked.

That should have been fine. When he ran out in the middle of the night, he sometimes relied on the door to the street to protect his belongings, thinking his neighbors—​a harmless combination of grad students and retirees—​wouldn’t be awake, or if awake, not inclined to steal anything. But this time he’d locked it, which was cool; he had the key.

Except the key wasn’t working. He tried it every way he knew how, including shouting at it and banging on the door. Briefly, he wondered if he was capable of knocking the door down entirely, but decided even if he was, it should be