The Cipher Read Online Free PDF Page B

even closer to MIT than it was to Mass General. (Especially if you ignored a couple of one-way signs.) He had discovered the Pemberton entirely by chance, after getting thoroughly lost on the way back from the hospital during his dad’s first extended stay there. He’d pulled over in frustration and seen a FOR RENT sign in the office window. His presence was no longer requested at Kingsley by then, so Smiles had followed his impulse and signed a month-to-month lease for the one-bedroom—theoretically, a temporary base from which he could visit his dad every day. But when his dad had returned to their home in Weston that first time, Smiles had stayed on in the city. It had been almost six months since he’d moved in, and Smiles had spent every night of it at the Pemberton.
    â€œYou’re gonna be ready early tomorrow, right?” Ben said as he huffed up the stairwell to the second floor.
    They were going to Fox Creek for the weekend. It was a huge casino just two hours away in Connecticut, and Ben had some nerd-fest math conference there. In the last year, Smiles had lost $22,000 playing online poker, but the last $10,000 or so was just unlucky breaks—he was actually getting pretty crafty at it. He’d been secretly thrilled when Ben asked for a ride. A nice little winning streak at Fox Creek could make for a decent birthday celebration, after all.
    â€œYeah, definitely,” Smiles said.
    Ben was scurrying down the hall, all eager to get back to his formulas, but Smiles wasn’t ready to go back to his empty apartment. He semi-forced his way into Ben’s place and plunked down in the inflatable Budweiser Super Bowl chair.
    â€œSo you gotta do some gambling with me tomorrow,” Smiles said. “I mean, as long as you’re at Fox Creek, you should have some fun.”
    Ben made a beeline for his desk (shocker) and started dumping books out of his bag. “I’m going for the conference, not to goof around,” he said.
    Smiles slumped in the plastic chair, reminding himself that he wasn’t dealing with a normal person here.
    The apartment looked exactly as it had that first day, six months ago. Halfway through a game of
Call of Duty
, Smiles had heard a clunking sound outside his door and found a scrawny-ass dude trying to lug a desk up the stairs by himself. Smiles’s first instinct was to whip out his phone and get it on video; it would have gone viral in a second. Instead, he had introduced himself and helped out.
    This had turned out to be a brilliant move. Smiles was just doing a good deed, but then Ben had let it slip that he was only sixteen and going to MIT. Which meant: mad genius. A brain like that could pay off big someday, Smiles figured, and he’d decided right then and there to chum up to the crazy little guy.
    The only furniture Ben had was the desk, a bed, a folding chair, and a card table to eat his meals on. The one addition since he moved in was the inflatable chair, which Smiles had picked up at the liquor store so he’d have somewhere decent to sit when he came over.
    Ben had his nose buried in his notebook already. The guy was a monk. Always working away, staying focused, making himself better. Smiles watched him and wondered, as he often did, why he couldn’t be more like that.
    He had his doubts by now that Ben would ever become the next Robert Smylie Sr.—the questionable hygiene alone would be an impediment to that kind of success—but Smiles had to admit he enjoyed the kid’s company. Hanging out for hours at a time in Ben’s place helped fill his days, yes, but he also liked the feeling it gave him to steer Ben away from his more disastrous life choices (e.g., Dockers) and instruct him on the finer things in life (e.g., RRL Low Straight Carolina Wash jeans in gray, single cuff). The one time he saw Ben in the Rag & Bone Yokohama shirt he’d given him for Christmas, his downy cheeks shaved for once, Smiles