In seconds, a handsome, aging face appeared, topped by a thicket of silver hair. Lou was only a few lines into the man’s résumé, when he understood at least some of the demonstration. Delacourt, a professor of physics, was an international chess grandmaster, and the champion of his country seven times.

“Quite a pedigree,” Lou said.

“Seldom lose to him, or any of ten grandmasters I play.”

“You must be very good.”

“Correction,” Humphrey said. “I must be very smart. Need you believe just how smart before we can move to purpose of this little trip.”

“Well, that was quite a demonstration. I am genuinely interested in what this is all about if that’s what you mean.”

A genius … Not just smart, a frigging genius.

Lou had no trouble seeing how difficult it must have been throughout Humphrey’s life, being thought of first and foremost as broken and unappealing, especially with an intellect as remarkable as his obviously was. How difficult and frustrating over the years for the pharmacy tech to be unable, for whatever reasons, even to approach his potential.

“Okay, then,” Humphrey said. “Let’s travel.”

“Where are we going?”

“Down,” was the terse reply.

He spun his chair around and motored to the elevators, with Lou hurrying to keep up. The car at the far end was labeled as FREIGHT ONLY. With practiced skill, Humphrey took a custom-made rod created out of metal and plastic, and hanging off his tray table. A key card was fixed to one end. Then, with difficulty, he drew the card along a slot on the wall, and the elevator door glided open.

The padded car had only two buttons: SB 1 and SB 2. Humphrey, clumsily turning the extension wand around, used a rubber tip to press the bottom button. Lou found himself wondering if the repeatedly vanquished chess masters had any idea of the nature of the man who was drubbing them again and again.

The elevator came to a stop, the doors slid open, and in moments Lou was following Humphrey along the poorly lit corridor of Subbasement Two. On either side were closed metal doors, labeled in black-painted block letters with the equipment and supplies stored within. In the dense quiet, the soft hum of Humphrey’s wheelchair was the only sound. Lou’s eyes had adjusted to the dim light when they turned a corner and came to a stop facing a metal door labeled simply STOCK OVERFLOW.

“What is this place?” Lou asked.

“Where we’re going to save Cap’s life.”

There was a note of excited pride in his voice as he inserted the key card straight into a slot above the handle of the door. Instantly, a lock clicked, the door swung open, and they entered an extremely chilly room—in the fifties Fahrenheit, Lou guessed.

“Impressive,” Lou said.

“Choose friends carefully,” Humphrey responded. “One is hospital engineer. I ask, he makes.”

“Why so cold?”

“Muscles less spastic.”