Chapter 2

I glanced at the contract. It paid 50 thousand dollars a month, covered airfare, housing, and tuition, and ran for three years.

My brain did the math in 0.3 seconds. Fifty thousand a month for 12 months over three years came to 1.8 million dollars.

"I'm in," I said without a second of hesitation.

Richard had probably never seen anyone say yes that fast. He frowned. "You don't want to think it over?"

"Think about what?" I said. "I get a three-year trip to Valdria on your dime, plus 1.8 million dollars. What's there to think about?"

He was quiet for a moment. "Do you speak Valdrian?"

"No," I said.

"Have you ever studied engineering mechanics?"

"No."

"Do you know the washout rate at the Institute of Technology?"

"No."

"Then what's going on in that head of yours?"

"Whether I can get my first month's pay up front tonight," I said. "My rent's due."

Richard stared at me for five seconds. Then he turned to his assistant. "Alex, get his paperwork started."

Alex pushed up his glasses and asked in a low voice, "Mr. Stone, are you sure?"

Richard didn't answer.

I could tell what Alex really meant. He wanted to know if Richard was seriously about to drop 1.8 million dollars on a guy who didn't look all that bright.

But the money had already hit my bank account.

Three days later, I was standing in Muni International Airport with a suitcase in tow. The November cold in Muni made me want to swear out loud.

I was bundled up in a bargain-bin puffer jacket, staring at the Valdrian street names on my GPS, when a problem hit me. I didn't know the first thing about getting to campus.

All Richard had given me was an enrollment packet. It listed my major, mechanical engineering, along with the name of the woman he'd never gotten over: Julia Summers.

At the bottom was a note: [She's been there two years and failed seven classes.]

Seven failed classes made me wonder what Julia had actually gone to Valdria for. Had she been over there on vacation?

Once I got to campus, I found out that mechanical engineering at the Institute of Technology ranked in the top three in all of Valdria, and 40 percent of the students washed out every semester.

Julia had lasted two years before she bailed, which took real grit.

For my whole first week, I didn't understand a word. Every lecture was in Valdrian, and the few familiar words that popped up on the slides were the only lifeline I had.

My roommate, Lucas Hartmann, was half Valdrian. He'd been at the school for three years and spoke the language like a native.

He watched me struggle through class and finally said something. "Dude, in the last 10 years, exactly four international students have made it through this major."

"I don't need to graduate," I said. "I'm here to scout things out for somebody."

"Scout things out?" Lucas asked.

"Yeah. I figure out what's on the exams, get a feel for the professors, then put the notes together and send them back home. That's all."

Lucas was quiet for a second. "How are you gonna put notes together when you can't understand the lectures?"

I froze, because he was right. If I couldn't follow a single lecture, I couldn't put together shit.

That night, I texted Richard: [I might need to learn Valdrian first.]

He wrote back two words: [Hurry up.]

So I started learning Valdrian. I got up at six every morning to drill vocabulary. During the day, I recorded every lecture I couldn't understand, and at night, I went through the recordings line by line, looking everything up.

Lucas thought I'd lost my mind. "You're only here to scout. Is all this really necessary?"

"I'm getting paid 50 thousand dollars a month," I told him. "I've gotta earn it."

That was true. But I kept one thing to myself. By my second week of Valdrian, I'd noticed that the formulas that had looked like hieroglyphics were starting to get interesting.

In fluid mechanics, the professor worked through the Navier-Stokes equations on the board, and for the first time, I followed every step of the derivation.

My heart sped up, a tingle ran down my spine, and it was like someone had flipped on a light in my head. Everything made sense.

The feeling was hard to put into words. For the first time in 26 years, my brain felt like it was good for something.

Back in the dorm, I opened my textbook to page one and read until three in the morning.

My desk lamp woke Lucas up, and he groggily asked what I was doing.

"Studying," I said.

"Are you serious?" Lucas mumbled.

"Yep."

Lucas rolled over and muttered something that sounded like a Valdrian curse word.