Incomplete Data Set

His sleep is dreamless.

At five-thirty AM, there's a single beep at the other side of the bed. John's still got his back turned, his legs tucked up against his chest, so he feels, rather than sees, the sudden shift in the mattress as the bedspread is kicked off and then gently folded back. A figure tiptoes across the room, stops to scoop clothes from the floor, and slips out the door.

Scott, John thinks.

Going running, I guess.

I should go too.

He sleeps.

A while later, his own alarm buzzes. He reaches out for his phone. It takes more effort than he's used to to do even that. There's a pounding bass rattling his ears. For a moment, he figures it's Scott's damn dubstep. Then he realises it's just his own heartbeat reverberating against his pillow.

He switches off the alarm altogether and shuts his eyes.

He sleeps.

When he wakes again, it's because Scott's crouching by his bed, shaking him awake.

"John, wake up," he says and lets go of his forearm when he sees John's gaze drift down to where he's touching him. He tucks his hand behind his back. "Sorry."

John's eyes are stuck down with sleep. He paws at them. "What?"

"Juice," Scott says and plants a glass of fresh-squeezed OJ on the nightstand by John's bed. "Or there's coffee."

"Okay," mumbles John and closes his eyes again.

"John," Scott shakes him again. "John, it's ten-thirty, man."

"So?" John's tongue unsticks from the roof of his mouth with a wet smack. "It's Sunday morning. People sleep in on Sunday mornings."

"But you don't."

"How do you know what I do?" There's more rancour in it than he intended, but his head is pounding like he went four bottles deep on Dad's best bourbon. He drops back onto the pillow.

Scott's brows come together tight and that little furrow appears above the bridge of his nose. Annoyed or puzzled, John can't tell. John's not, he supposes, doing a great job of keeping the mask on, but right now, he's too tired to care.

"Brains called," says Scott. Somehow this nettles John, because when had it stopped being Dr Hackenbacker? It had taken two weeks for John to manage to call Brains anything at all. Why can Scott do it when he's known the man for twenty-four hours?

But he checks himself, knows in his heart that this is being unfair. Scott had been on his best behaviour last night, had been polite and uncomplaining as he completed Brains' endless rounds of distracted errands, parked his usual impatience at the door.

By the looks of it, that impatience is back with a vengeance this morning. "He says that the problems with PIO in extended pitch are secondary. He says what he really needs to work on right now is armament in the nose cone. He says he has my email address if we need to talk more." He scratches his head. "I mean, what the hell?"

John wants to say that this is normal. He wants to explain that this is a side effect of Brains' giant, polynomial brain. That to Brains, every element is equally important and that he's thinking about them all, all the time. He wants to explain that Brains will come back to the PIO problem when he's ready, when the ideas have been left to percolate for a while, and that when he does, Scott's likely to get a hundred-question email.

Instead he says, "Okay," and rolls over in the bed, buries his face in the pillow.

"Are you just going to stay in bed all day?" He can hear that ring of disapproval.

"Maybe," he murmurs.

Scott shifts, and even though John can't see him, he knows he's no longer crouched at his level, that he's towering over him again. "Fine," he says. "Fine, whatever."

John grunts, and a moment later, he senses Scott leave. But rather than pull the door closed behind him, he leaves it hanging ajar, lets a shaft of mid-morning sun into the room, wriggling into John's blessed darkness like a splinter.

He's pretty sure someone's trying to drill a hole in his head. Right there, just above his right orbit.

He's trying to get back to sleep when his phone trills right next to his ear.

Gordon day? Virgil day? Gordon day? Virgil day? He can't remember.

Gordon day.

He grabs for the phone and shoves it against his ear. "Hullo?" His voice is as raw as the rest of him.

No, wait. It's a Virgil day. And that means it's too early for Virgil to call. Who's calling him? Who – ?

"It's me."

There's a soft burr to Dad's voice. He sounds tired.

"Hey." He looks at his watch, does some arithmetic. "It must be late there."

"It is. I just thought I'd call. See how you're doing."

"Oh."

There's a long pause on the end of the line and then Dad says, "John, how're you doing?"

John's tired of lying, but he's not sure what the truth is. "My head hurts."

"That's okay."

"And I'm tired."

"That's normal too."

He imagines Dad on the computer, late at night, researching the ins and outs of amphetamine addiction, learning the signs, studying the complications. Jeff Tracy likes to be informed. "Argue from a position of strength." He had always said that to them. "You can't argue anything if you don't know what you're talking about."

"Gordon says your mile is getting faster."

Gordon talks to Dad about him. Gordon talks to Dad. The thought seems bizarre. He wonders what they talk about. Him, he supposes.

He remembers that it's his turn to talk. "Yes," he says.

"That means you're getting stronger."

He wants to contradict him, doesn't know how. Doesn't know how to put into words that this is somehow wrong. That he is getting weaker by the day.

There's a little v-shaped chink in the blackout curtain where the two separate curtains meet. John can't help but stare at it. "How's your dispute going?" he asks, just to change the subject. "Settled yet?"

"Not yet, but close now. I think we'll have it tied down by tomorrow. How's your weekend going? What did you do?"

"Just the usual stuff. Went for a run. And I showed Scott around the office."

The pause is so short that John can't figure out if it's calculated or not. "Scott's there with you?"

"Yes."

There's a knot in his voice. "That's good. You two don't spend enough time together anymore."

"You didn't send him? I thought he was my babysitter."

There's an abrupt, rumbling laugh at the other end of the phone, and it stings until Dad says, "Son, if I thought you needed babysitting, I think you would give me more credit than to send your brother. This is Scott we're talking about. I can think of fifteen people off the top of my head that are more suited to the job."

"Oh yeah?" says John, caught between half believing him and half not.

"You want a list. Virgil, Gordon, Kayo, Kyrano, my mother, Lee, your Uncle Ted, Catherine Casey, Annette, Dr Price, Alan."

"That's only eleven people."

"Let me pull up my contact list."

"And I'm not counting Alan."

"John, Alan is your ideal babysitter. If I were an even greater piece of work than I am, he'd be camped out in the living room right now, doing his geography homework."

For a moment, John's in freefall. His throat locks up. His fingernails catch in the sheets, and to his shame, Dad must hear it because he says, "Aw, John. No, I'm sorry. That wasn't a threat. I was just… damn… thinking aloud. Or not thinking. John, breathe."

Breathe in blue. Breathe out red.

He doesn't know how long it takes for his breathing to slow right back down, only knows that when he's finally calm enough, his phone is still blinking, the international call is still connected, and he can still hear his dad's breathing down the line, working in tandem with John's.

"I'm sorry," says John.

"Not your fault." Dad's voice is gruff. "That was stupid. I know how much he means to you." There's a long silence on the end of the line and then, "It's not the worst instinct in the world, you know. To want someone to look up to you. To want to be someone's hero."

The bark of hurt laughter escapes him before he can stop himself. "Sorry."

"It's okay."

"Dad?"

"I'm listening."

"I haven't told him." He knows that his father will understand which him he means. "I know you wanted me to. I'm sorry."

"Johnny…" The use of the nickname catches him off guard. He can't remember the last time Dad called him Johnny. "Johnny, you can't disappoint me."

John emits a watery laugh. "Rock bottom, huh?"

"Johnny," he says again, in the same steady voice that must make Hong Kong negotiators quake. "You can't disappoint me."

That's an up-is-down thought, a right-is-left thought, a sky-is-falling thought. It makes him feel queasy, and he's much too tired to think about it, about what it means, right now. Instead he says, "I can disappoint Scott."

There's silence down the line. "Don't make assumptions without knowing all the variables."

John sighs. "No one can know all the variables."

"But you have an incomplete data set."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

He waits for something more, some extra nugget of information, some explanation that will make telling Scott seem okay, seem easy.

But Dad doesn't give you the answers, that's not how Dad operates. Dad just points you to the puzzle and tells you to go work it out for yourself.

"I should go," he says. "It's late."

"Okay."

"Tell your brother I said 'hello'."

"I will."

"See you soon, John."

"See you, Dad."

The line goes dead.

A little while later, John gets up.