Chapter 3: Ghosts and Memories

Over the next three years I buried myself in everything Gadgeteer. My growing familiarity with his writings, drawings, diagrams and computer systems brought great changes in my work habits and broadened my ‘range’ of creativity. I also discovered that writing things down as he had, to the depth and in the manner he had, helped to keep my mad genius in the box. That alone was worth the price of admission! There was going to be a price at some point down the road, I could feel it in my bones.

Those same three years saw me through to my Senior year of high school, where I had managed to ace every class so far. I also grew 4 inches over Freshman and Sophomore year, and as a Junior I now stood 6’ 3” inches tall. I was quick enough, and had good eyes and legs, so I had joined the basketball team Sophomore year and was in danger of being made a starter this year. Riverside High was a very small school and obviously they had a small talent pool to draw from. Mike Melville was on the team as well, having grown as well. His 6’ 6” muscular frame meant he was the Rangers’ starting center, but it was the football field where he shone the greatest.

As Juniors, recruiters were now able to talk to us – well, to Mike anyway. I began getting recruited as well, but academic recruitment has very little in common with athletic recruiting. Mike was going to get recruited by division II and III schools, he was sure. None of the Division I schools were going to take a chance on a small school standout, not even the state schools, both of which had decent division one programs.

Mike had then decided he was going to see if he could get any of the Ivy League teams interested, so after football season ended he applied for early admission to all the Ivy League schools, making sure to highlight football as well as his quite good academic scores and his school and community activities. He had been president of this, that and the other during these three years and was an Eagle Scout. His Eagle project was organizing and leading a school-wide ‘Riverside River-Wide Cleanup’ drive that had kids in elementary school picking up litter, middle school kids cleaning graffiti off walls and buildings and us Riverside High ‘young men and women’ scouring the docks above and below clearing the trash and heavier industrial refuse. Doing as much recycling and reclamation as possible. His parents were bursting with pride over that. Hell, I was proud of him!

By the end of Junior year, Mike knew he was going to Harvard. He would be offered a full athletic scholarship as soon as he was eligible to receive one, and he had also broken up with his fourth girlfriend, a cheerleader, as all his girlfriends had been.

I had received a full academic scholarship to MIT and had been dumped by my second girlfriend, neither of which was a cheerleader. Both complained of the same thing: I would frequently ‘zone out’ on them and sit staring into space, which was creepy and weird. It was the mad genius poking a nose out of the box, so to speak. I guess it was kind of weird.

This new lack of girls was why the two of us were sitting in the control room being broody and morose on a Friday night the day after the last day of school in addition to being sweaty and tired from a perhaps excessive session in the workout room.

I was paging idly through some of the system menus, more as an excuse to not have to talk than because I was looking for anything in particular, when the console dinged loudly and the screen changed to show the Blue Blur’s icon and a prompt: “Incoming call” With Answer and Decline buttons beneath the icon. I looked at Mike. He stared back for a moment before shrugging, so I clicked on “Answer”.

The screen cleared and suddenly instead of listening to a voice through the speakers in the room, we were staring at a girl. A cute girl who appeared to be about our age. I was expecting a call, not a video call, so I sort of went blank for a second. I’ll never figure out where it came from, but I then spit out “Gadgeteer reception desk, how may I direct your call?”

Mike’s jaw dropped and the girl’s face went pink.

You’re not The Gadgeteer!” she accused.

“Well you’re not The Blue Blur.” I counter-accused.

“He was my grandfather!” Mike and the girl said simultaneously.

A moment of dead quiet followed before I started to laugh. We were all laughing a second later. The laughter didn’t last even a minute, but it did ease the tension. “I’m sorry,” I told the girl. “That was the first call we ever received here, so we weren’t expecting it to be video. I was totally lost there for a second and I don’t have a clue where I got that phrase from.”

“It’s a good thing we decided to cool down from our workouts before we showered or you might have caught us in just our towels,” Mike offered. The girl snorted.

“You say that like it would be a bad thing!” she waggled her eyebrows. “It’s a good thing Grandpa’s basement is so cold or you might have seen me in my nightgown. I didn’t know it would be a video call either.”

“Okay, so your grandfather was Steven Price?” I asked. “Is he still alive?”

“No, he passed away five years ago. How did you know his real name. I thought all the super types kept them hidden?”

“That may be true,” Mike answered, “But our grandparents went to college together. Steven Price was the Gadgeteer’s first customer before he was even the Gadgeteer.”