He thanks me for the demonstration. Ailes and I head for the door.

Dr. Chisholm calls out after me. “Just a second, you didn’t tell us how you got the prediction into the key locked in his desk.”

I turn around. Ailes catches my arm and calls back, “I thought you had the mystery under control?” He gives me a wink.

Breyer has his arms crossed. “Noted.”

In the hallway I turn to Ailes, barely able to control my anger. “What was that all about?”

“I’m sorry. They’re a little resistant to a change in the status quo.”

“I didn’t ask to be reassigned full-time. I’m happy to still contribute to the online working group.” I feel like I just made a fool of myself in front of the assistant director. My little magic show was turned into a plea for a better position. It looked desperate and pathetic. They’re probably laughing at me now.

Ailes can see the hurt in my eyes. “Agent Blackwood, when you give up one thing to be taken seriously in another, you can’t expect it to come easy. It’s going to be hard. Just look at me. Do you know how many other black men got their PhD in computational mathematics the year I did?”

“Not many.”

“They didn’t know if they should treat me like a prodigy or a special case. All I wanted to be was a mathematician. They don’t know what to make of you. But you’re not going to conceal it by hiding what makes you special. Even if sometimes that means being a little pushy.”

“I don’t know if those men will ever take me seriously again.”

“They will. Trust me. Things are converging. It’s hard to explain. I don’t even understand it. But trust me,” he reassures me. “They’re about to realize how badly they need you.”

I give him a skeptical look.

“It’s in the numbers,” he replies.

13

BEFORE MY APARTMENT was broken into as I slept, I was dreaming about being forced onstage to perform a trick that went horribly wrong.

I look on in shock as Elsie is burned alive in one of my magic illusions. It’s an older Elsie who looks like Chloe. But the scars and the smile are the same. Fire and sparks spew from her mouth as she stares at me helplessly. Only I can’t do anything to help. I’m eight years old and made up to look like one of those poor girls in a Texas beauty pageant. I’m doing one of my first shows in a theater full of magicians at a magic convention. My dad is giving me stern directions from backstage while my grandfather, drunk, is sitting in the front row shaking his head in disapproval.

Elsie is in flames and nobody will help me.

The dream hurts because parts of it are true. I know my family has always loved me. I’ve never doubted that. But sometimes having three generations of ambition forced on you is too much.