Page 75 of Lone Wolf

“No one stands a chance,” Allman said. “Not me. Certainly not you.”

Of all the people, Andre swam into Evan’s mind. His words on the tip of Evan’s tongue: People are unpredictable. You never know when they’ll surprise you. You can’t count ’em out.

And yet, against all this? The odds didn’t merely feel daunting. They felt insurmountable.

Through the muddle of his thoughts, Evan reached for the Seventh Commandment: One mission at a time.

He was here because of a little girl and her missing dog.

He was here because of Jayla Hill and her murdered father.

He was here because he had to stop an assassin and whoever was behind her.

At every turn, he’d searched for a detour to steer the discussion toward Benjamin Hill and at every turn he’d felt thwarted. He had no doubt that Allman would snag on any inorganic overture. He needed to figure out how to extend the conversation a bit longer.

Evan put the small of his back to the rail, looking through the smudged glass at the sad house interior. “Why then?” he asked. “Why do all this?” He waved a hand, indicating Allman, the estate, the entire Solventry enterprise with its countless divisions, subsidiaries, and artificial brainpower.

“Because I can. It’s better for me to control everything than someone else. Why should they? I figured out how. Wouldn’t you want to control everything?”

Evan considered. He looked inside at the tattered cushions, the dirty dishes set askew here and there. Past the pony wall, that heap of sneakers was visible. It was an arresting image, apocalyptic, reminiscent of chattel trains and smokestacks. “I would think I would. But if it ever happened, I believe I would realize that it was actually hell.”

“Hell?” Allman seemed genuinely puzzled. “Imagine an existence in which you had all the leverage. All the time.”

Orphan X thought, I do.

Evan Smoak thought, But it’s an illusion.

Professor Leigh remarked, “They say if you know too much, you go insane. But I’m not sure that’s true.” Evan looked into Allman’s reptilian eyes. “I think maybe you just go numb.”

Allman blinked twice rapidly. A touch of balance restored in their conversational dance.

“Well,” he said curtly. “You asked about the nature of genius. That’s what it is, what it does. Genius alters reality.”

Evan nodded. “Thank you for your time.”

“If you breach that confidentiality agreement,” Allman said, without malice, “I will devote my entire arsenal of computational power to destroying you.”

His turtle eyes snapped shut and opened once more and there was barely a difference.

This was a man who could predict anyone. Except Evan.

Living as the Nowhere Man insulated him, kept him outside the data flow of the contemporary universe. He was old-fashioned, analog, uncaptured.

“I understand,” Evan said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to continue prepping for my other interview subjects.”

Allman’s fingers shoved hastily at his eyeglasses frame, his squinty gaze averting. “Who else are you studying?”

There it was. A pinprick opening, the faintest show of curiosity, competitiveness betraying insecurity.

Evan pounced. “I have to respect confidentiality in all directions,” he said. “I assume you of all people would understand.”

Allman’s head jerked in a nod, his hair rasping the back of his collar.

“Except, I suppose, your employees’,” Evan added. “I’d imagine they’d be bound by NDAs to you.”

“My employees,” Allman spit. “If your report’s going to have any worth you should only be talking to visionaries. Which of my employees would you even want to interview?”

“Angela Cheng in artificial neural networking—”