“Anything,” she says. “The world is on fire and the oceans are rising. You could invent plants that suck carbon from the atmosphere. Solar panels you can paint on a house. Antivirals that shape-shift to keep up with pandemics. A cure for cancer. I don’t know, you’re the genius. You were supposed to be building cities on the moon by now.”

He looks away, and takes a deep breath. Anger was the only emotion he was ever any good at. Good, Carrie thinks. He’s not a robot.

“You know I met Steve Jobs once? Before he died?” he says.

“That must have been a thrill.”

He either doesn’t pick up on her tone or doesn’t want to be thrown off track. “He was kind of a jerk, actually. We got to talking at a conference. He knew my dad. I told him what I had planned for SharpTech, and he gave me this smile that said he was so much smarter than me, than everyone else in the room.”

“Wow. How annoying.”

Again, nothing.

“He said — and I remember this exactly — ‘It’s not enough to see the future, Danny. It’s far more important to be able to sell it.’ So that’s what happened. I wanted flying cars and smart antibiotics and personal robot helpers and clean energy from fuel cells. They wanted apps. Everyone has a pocket computer now and all we do is use it to make each other miserable. I tried to build a better future. And nobody wanted it.”

She nods. “Yeah, well. That’s why saving the world is for kids, Danny. Maybe we all need to grow up now.”

“Has it occurred to you that this is what the Followers want?” he says. “They want us distracted and unfocused. They want us divided. So we can’t stop them.”

“Has it occurred to you,” she says, teeth clenched, “that maybe Eric was right? That we shouldn’t be here at all? Maybe this town deserves whatever it gets.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“You don’t get to tell me what I believe. You ran off and pouted for decades and now you’re telling me that I have to suck it up and get over it in less than twenty-four hours?”

“Yes,” he says. “Because you are better than I am. You always have been.”

That actually leaves her speechless. She does not know what to say to that.

“You have every right to be pissed at me,” he says. “I left. I know that. I killed Sharp Industries, and nearly killed the town. And you’re right. I was angry. And selfish. I just wanted to leave all this behind, and I didn’t care what happened to anyone else. And that included you. I’m sorry.”

She never thought she’d hear that. As it turns out, late is not better than never.

And as usual, he never knows when to shut up.