Factoring Humanity Read Online Free PDF Page A

And I didn’t do anything to Becky, either.”
    “Now who’s lying?” said Zack.
    “I’m not—” He paused, trying to get his voice under control. “Damn it, Zack. God fucking damn it. You are in this with her. The two of you are going to file a lawsuit, aren’t you?”
    “Becky doesn’t want your money,” Zack said. “She just wants peace; she just wants closure.”
    “Closure? What the fuck kind of word is that? Is that what her therapist told her this was all about? Fucking closure?”
    Zack stood up. “Mr. Graves, go home. And for God’s sake, get to a therapist yourself.”
    Kyle stormed out of the office, through the retail area, and out into the hellish heat of the summer day.

 
     
     
    4
     
     
    Kyle remembered the day he’d learned that Heather was pregnant with their first child, Mary.
    It had come as a complete shock. They’d been living together for about a year, sharing an apartment in St. Jamestown with a few hundred cockroaches. Kyle was in the second year of his master’s in computer science; Heather was just starting her master’s in psychology. They were in love—no doubt—and had talked about building a life together. But Kyle and Heather both knew they should each go somewhere other than U of T for their doctorates. Not that U of T wasn’t a fine place for grad school; indeed, if it really did have any claim to that “Harvard of the North” label, it was because of its graduate studies. But having all three degrees from the same institution would be an automatic red flag in future job interviews.
    Then, suddenly, Heather was pregnant.
    And they’d had tough decisions to make.
    They’d talked about abortion. Although they did eventually want children, this was without doubt an unplanned pregnancy.
    But . . .
    But, hell, when would be the right time?
    Not while they were finishing their masters’ degrees, of course.
    And certainly not while doing their doctorates.
    And, well, the starting salaries for associate professors were abysmal—Heather had already decided that an academic life was what she wanted, and Kyle, who didn’t enjoy stressful situations, was leaning toward that as well, rather than the high-pressure world of commercial computing.
    And then of course they wouldn’t really be secure until at least one of them had tenure.
    And by then—
    By then, more than a decade would have slipped by, and Heather would be into the high-risk age for pregnancy.
    Choices.
    Turning points.
    It could go one way or the other.
    At last they’d opted to have the child; countless student couples had done the same over the years. It would be difficult—a stretch financially, an additional demand on their already overtaxed time.
    But it would be worth it. Surely it would be worth it.
    Kyle remembered vividly the class he’d been in the day Heather had told him she was pregnant. It had seemed so appropriate, somehow.
    “Suppose,” Professor Papineau had said to the dozen students in the seminar that had seemed to start out a long way from computer science, “that you live just north of Queen’s Park and you work just south of it. Further suppose that you walk to work each day. You’re faced with a choice every morning. You can’t walk down the center line, since the Parliament Buildings get in the way. Of course, I’m sure there’ve been times when many of us have wanted to plow through the Legislature in a tank . . . but I digress.”
    Laughter from the students. Papineau had been a wonderful prof; Kyle had gone to his retirement dinner fifteen years later, but hadn’t seen him since.
    “No,” said Papineau, once the chuckling had stopped, “you have to go around the buildings—either to the east, or to the west. Each way is pretty much the same distance; you leave home at the same time and you arrive at work at the same time regardless of which route you choose. So, which route do you choose? You, there—Kyle. Which way would you go?”
    Kyle had his beard even back