透支 英文名著｜第1章

My name is Lexi Carmichael and I hate the beach.

Okay, maybe hate is too strong a word. I don’t really hate the beach. It’s just the sun is too bright, sand is everywhere and seaweed gets stuck in my toes. Don’t even get me started on how much I dislike bathing suits. It’s not pretty.

I don’t like people being crammed together in a mathematically disproportionate way in a very small area. Especially when they’re half-dressed and strutting around like peacocks. It’s too hot, too loud and smells too much of coconut suntan lotion. Beam me out of here, Scotty. Please.

Yet here I am, spending my precious vacation days at Ocean City, Maryland, on a beach without my beloved laptop, forced into this so-called “time away from technology” with my best friend and former roommate, Basia Kowalski. Somehow, I let myself get talked into it. Usually I can resist her crazy ideas. After all, I have a pretty high IQ and recently graduated from Georgetown University with a double major in mathematics and computer science. But sometimes she talks so fast and runs me in circles that I often will acquiesce just to quit trying to figure out what she’s saying. Unfortunately, at that point it’s already too late. I’m stuck, having agreed to God-knows-what just to end the conversation.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore Basia. She’s everything I’m not—pretty, social, fashionable and outgoing. She’s also witty and has a remarkable flair for languages. She speaks about twenty of them fluently and has her own business as a freelance translator while working part-time for Berlitz, those folks who put out the small phrase books in dozens of different languages. She’s brought me out of my shell more than any other person I’ve ever known, even if it does make me nervous and cranky most of the time.

She’s always telling me, “Lexi Carmichael, it’s time to log off and get a life.”

She’s usually right.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the easiest person to be around. I’m neither a girly-girl nor a tomboy. I’m skinny in an awkward way, have no fashion sense and I don’t date much (or at all), which is not surprising since my social skills suck.

I’m a geek.

That means my happy place is online. Computers, code, gaming. I’m also an ace hacker. Or at least I used to be. Then I sort of got busted. It wasn’t a malicious hack, that’s not my style, but it was still illegal. Lucky for me, my dad is a high-priced lawyer for a swanky firm in Georgetown so no one could prove anything. However, it scared the beejeebies out of me. It scared Dad too. Although I’m technically an adult, he threatened to take away all my computer equipment if I ever hacked like that again.

Now that I’m working for the National Security Agency, better known as the NSA, I’ve completely sworn off hacking, although what I do in my imagination is between me, myself and I. Secretly, I have a desire to fit in to the real world, at least sometimes, which is why I suspect I let Basia talk me into most of the things she does.

“Do you think this is a good spot?” Basia paused, setting the cooler down in the sand. She pointed at a very small spot sandwiched between an older couple sitting in a couple of lawn chairs beneath an umbrella and a greasy muscled guy asleep on his stomach on a black towel.

I shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Great.” She rolled out the colorful yellow Mexican blanket and I dropped the other bags at my feet.

“You can set up the umbrella here.” She pointed at a spot near the head of the blanket. “We can adjust as the sun rises.”

Sighing, I shoved the umbrella deep into the sand, angling it for maximum protection. No way would I spend more than a few minutes in the sun, if any at all. Roasting in the rays was not my cup of tea.

After a few minutes of unpacking, Basia shimmied out of a cute white beach dress, unveiling a teeny-tiny green bikini. She handed me the suntan lotion.

“Can you do my back?”

I smeared a considerable amount on her back and shoulders. She did the rest of her body and then faced me. “Your turn.”

My cheeks heated. “Ah, I’m thinking of just staying here under the umbrella.”

She gave me a look that meant I’d just said something really wrong. My mom had that exact look.

Basia planted her hands on her hips. “Take off your clothes. Now.”

“But—”

“No buts. Undress.”

Resigned, I took off my shirt.

“Good. Now drop the pants.”

I slid the pants down my legs and handed them over.

She stared at me. “Where did you get that bathing suit?”

“Can you believe it? It was ninety percent off at Macy’s.”

“You mean you actually paid money for that?”

“Do you like it?”

“It looks like something my great-grandmother would wear.”

I frowned. “It covers all the essentials.”

“It covers a lot more than that. Okay, the first order of business after the beach is to buy you a new bathing suit.”

“I like this one.”

“It’s beyond awful. Those panties reach your knees.”

“I believe they’re referred to as pantaloons.”

“Please, don’t start me laughing. I swear I’ll never stop. For now, just get out from under the umbrella so I can slather you up.”

I stepped out from beneath the umbrella and Basia shielded her eyes. “My God. You’re white to the point of being clear. When was the last time you sat out in the sun?”

“In a bathing suit? I think I was twelve.”

“Why is it my work is never done with you? Okay, I think an extra layer of lotion will be necessary.” She wound my brown hair up into a ponytail, securing it with one of her scrunchies, and then smeared me with a ton of lotion. “You are skin and bones, girl. Do you ever eat?”

“If I don’t have to cook it.”

She swatted me on the arm and then rubbed the lotion residue on her leg. I thanked her and started to head back to the safety of the umbrella.

“Oh, no you don’t.” She grabbed my arm. “We’re going into the ocean.”

“Why? It’s salty in there.”

“That’s the idea. Sun, fresh air, salty water. We’re at the beach, remember?”

“I can get fresh air from here.” The crankiness reared its ugly head and I felt oily and exposed.

“Lexi.”

I figured she’d probably try and drag me, which technically I didn’t think she could, seeing as how I had about five inches and fifteen pounds on her. But she’d try, which would attract more attention, which was even more loathsome to me than sticking my toes in salty water.

“All right.” I supposed a little water couldn’t hurt anything.

We had to make our way past the dozens of oiled people camped out on the beach until we made it to the water’s edge. The sun felt hot on my shoulders and nose, but a nice wind softened the heat, and the water felt cool on my toes.

Basia took my hand. “Let’s go in deeper.”

I hesitated. “I can’t swim.”

“We won’t go far.”

The water lapped against my knees and then my thighs. As we went deeper, my nerves surfaced. “I think this is far enough.”

“Just a couple of steps more.” Basia laughed, let go of my hand and dived under the surface.

“Basia?” I yelped as the waves crashed into me, causing me to take a step back. “Where are you?”

She popped up behind me, nearly giving me a heart attack. With her dark hair slicked back and the green bikini, she looked like a mermaid.

“The water is great. You should try going under.”

“Oh, no.” The waves kept slamming me, keeping me off balance. “I think I’ve had enough.”

Her pretty mouth turned into a pout. “But we just got here. Let’s wave hop first.” She took my hand again, pulling me deeper a few steps. “Like this.”

A wave swelled in front of us and, as it reached its crescendo, she pulled me up and we rode the wave. It scared me at first, but after a few times, I realized I liked the exhilaration of riding the crest.

“Hey, this is pretty fun.”

“The more you listen to me, the more you will say that.”

After a few times, I started to get the hang of it. I didn’t even get bothered too much when the water splashed my hair and face.

Basia giggled. “Look out, here comes a big one.”

It didn’t seem that big until it was pretty much upon us. By then it was too late. My hand ripped from Basia’s as the momentum of the wave pushed me forward with alarming speed. I saw the blurry shape of a figure in front of me, and my brain instantly calculated that a crash with it was imminent. I opened my mouth to scream a warning, but water rushed inside. I slammed into the shape with the force of a speeding bullet, and we rolled over and over in a ball of tangled limbs, water and seaweed.

I pushed up to my knees on the beach, doggie-style, sputtering and coughing. My hair dripped heavily on either side of me while I’m pretty sure I hacked up half the ocean with some seaweed to boot. I lifted my head up long enough to see the fuzzy shape next to me stagger sideways.

“Oh. My. God.” I coughed up some more water. “I am so sorry.”

“Are you okay?” He held out a hand to help me up.

I blinked, my vision hazy. Staggering to a half crouch, I reached out for his hand. Still unsteady, I missed and fell forward onto him, my hand still outstretched. My fingers got tangled in the waistband of his swimsuit. As I fell face-first into the sand, I took his swimsuit down around his ankles with me.

I looked up in horror. There he stood, a guy I’d never met, staring at me with an expression of shock and disbelief on his face while his privates were on display for me, and the entire beach, to see. Then he swore, reached down and yanked up his suit, while I let my face fall back to the wet sand in mortification.

“Hey.”

Strong hands lifted me from behind. I stood, shaky on my feet, and rubbed my eyes. Two figures shimmied and swayed in front of me.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

I coughed, blinked a couple of times and tried to steady my shaking knees. “I’m not sure. I see two of you.”

One of the figures put his arm around my shoulders. “Come on, let’s go sit down on my blanket.”

The figure led me to a blanket beneath an umbrella. He handed me a towel and I wiped my eyes with it. I set the towel on my lap as Basia came running up, kneeling on a corner of the blanket.

“Lexi, are you okay?”

“No, I think I’m going to have to move to another country. I nearly drowned, but not before exposing my rescuer.”

“Ah, so that’s what happened.”

One of the figures nodded. “She confirmed my gender as male.”

Basia snorted with laughter. “Well, leave it to Lexi to dispense with all social niceties and get right to the heart...or pants...of the matter. Most people go on dates first, you know.”

“Jeez, Basia.” I dared a look up and saw two skinny white guys with brown hair and piercing blue eyes wearing matching swimsuits. Both were staring at me.

I blinked three times. “Either I hit my head really hard or there are two of you.”

“There are two of us.”

I looked back and forth between them. “Twins. Identical twins.”

One of them held out a hand. “I’m Elvis. The one you exposed.”

Instead of taking his hand, I picked up the towel and hid my face in it. “I’m so sorry. I’m never coming to the beach again.”

To my surprise, he laughed. “I’ll admit it surprised me. Never figured that’s how I’d meet a girl at the beach.”

I lowered the towel. “Wait a minute. Did you say Elvis?” I glanced over at the other guy, who watched me with an amused expression on his face. “Your name wouldn’t happen to be Xavier, would it?”

Both guys looked startled. Elvis leaned forward. “How did you know?”

“Mathematical deduction. If you take the current population of the U.S., which is about 300 million people, then make a reasonable assumption that a relatively small number of those people, say 1.6 percent, are both male and named Elvis, which is not a popular name, that puts us at about 2.4 million people. Only 0.4 percent of those are identical twins and half of that are male. Divide that by the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the number roughly equals 188 persons who are identical twins here in Maryland. Given this location, which happens to be a popular vacation destination for employees of the NSA, the odds that you are Elvis Zimmerman and he is Xavier are about 90 to 1 with an error percentage of 5 percent. By the way, I happen to work at the NSA too. I just joined the InfoSec division. My name is Lexi Carmichael.”

“Optimum,” Elvis breathed.

I blushed. “You guys are legendary, brilliant. Everyone in the know has heard of you.”

Then realizing I sounded like a lame fan girl, I hid my face again. “Oh, jeez, this just keeps getting worse. I depantsed a legend.”

“Hey, there could be more boring ways to meet, I guess.” Elvis tugged at the towel, pulling it away from my face. “Don’t worry about it. The ways of the universe are irregular.”

Reluctantly, I let him take the towel. “I guess that’s true. Perhaps this one act of randomness was just part of the predisposed nature of the universe.”

He shrugged. “Stranger things could happen. Although, given this particular case, maybe not so much.”

Xavier stared at Basia, his mouth agape. “And who are you?”

Jeez, I guess their social skills were about par with mine.

Basia shook her wet hair back, water droplets sliding down her body and making her look like a sexy girl from a Bond movie. “I’m Basia Kowalski, Lexi’s best friend. Nice to meet you.”

She held out a hand to Xavier and his eyes widened as he took it. “I’m...ah...ah...”

“Xavier. We know.”

“Uh, yeah. Xavier.” He shook Basia’s hand vigorously for several seconds until she pulled it away.

Basia looked back and forth between the twins. “Well, if you two ever change places, I’m not going to know who is who. Identical twins down to the last detail.”

I shook my head. “Not true. Xavier has a scar over his right eyebrow.”

Basia leaned forward and peered at his face. “God, you’re right.”

Xavier blushed at her closeness but didn’t seem to mind. “Good catch, Lexi. Elvis clocked me with a keyboard when we were arguing over the answer to a monoalphabetic code.”

Elvis shrugged. “I needed to get your attention. I was right and you weren’t listening.”

“I was too listening. You weren’t right.”

“I most certainly was.”

Basia held up a hand. “Peace. How long ago was this?”

Elvis thought for a moment. “We were four at the time.”

Basia’s eyes widened and then she gave me a pointed look. “Well, if you’re feeling okay, Lexi...”

Clearly it was time to make an exit while I still had a modicum of dignity left. “Right. Well, I’ve got to go.”

I jumped up and smashed into the umbrella. The entire thing came down on us.

After we’d all extracted ourselves and crawled out, I stood, brushing the sand off my knees. I plastered a big, fake smile on my face to hide my embarrassment. Better to pretend that all was well and I wasn’t the biggest idiot in the universe, the randomness of it be damned.

“Um, well, Elvis. Yes. It was cool to meet you guys. Ah, maybe I’ll run into you at work.”

I gave myself a mental head slap. What the heck was I thinking? I’d never run into them at work since they worked in the secret-most part of the NSA as lead architects of the president’s network security. You had to provide like twenty-three palm prints, six retinal scans, and pass a colon examination to even get close to that section.

“Ah, sure, Lexi. If I’m ever in the InfoSec section, I’ll look you up.”

My cheeks heated. I was such a dork. “Okay, great.”

It didn’t escape my notice that Elvis kept one hand on his hip, his fingers holding the waistband of his pants. Just in case I fell again, I suppose. I think my face turned a darker shade of red.

Elvis shifted on his feet. “Well, maybe Xavier and I will see you around the beach again. We’re here for the week, staying at the Hilton.” He pointed to the looming hi-rise hotel behind us.

“Nice. We’re over at the Crazy Parrot Hotel. Not nearly as nice, but it has a nifty beach bar.”

“Cool. Well, see you around then.”

“See you around.” I turned to go when he spoke again.

“Ah, Lexi?”

“Yes?”

“Do you by any chance play Quake?”

“Quake? Absolutely. Expert level.”

He smiled. “Ace. You, ah, want to play sometime? I’m also at the expert level.”

“Here?”

“Well, not exactly in this spot on the beach, but while we’re in Ocean City, yeah.”

“I’d kill for it. But I don’t have my laptop.” I glanced over my shoulder where Xavier had pulled Basia aside and was speaking animatedly to her. “I’m on the wagon. Tech-free holiday per orders of said best friend.”

“That’s tough. But what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. I’ve got a couple of extras with me.”

My heart leaped at just the thought of touching a keyboard. “Really? You mean it?”

“Meet me at seven o’clock tonight in the bar at the Hilton. Quake is on the agenda.”

“Deal.” Giddy, I turned to see Basia saying goodbye to Xavier and waving me toward her. I caught up and she linked arms with me.

“Well, that was exciting.”

“Way too much excitement for me.”

“At least you met a man. Next time can you rip the pants off a guy who is a little less skinny?”

“Hey, he’s a legend at the NSA. Do you have any idea who the Zimmerman twins are?”

“Geeks, first-class?”

“Hey, I resemble that statement.” I rolled my eyes. “No, Basia, they are not just geeks. They are the Kings of Geeks. Worthy of our admiration and respect.”

“Is there some kind of geek magnet thingy I should know about? Because somehow you guys seem to gravitate toward each other.”

“I’m telling you, they are amazing. Brilliant beyond words.”

“Given my observation, they are as white as you. And that doesn’t even count Elvis’s backside, which is on a totally different level of whiteness.”

I winced. “Do you have to keep reminding me of that? Besides, in the grand scheme of the universe, appearance is relative.”

“Wrong. Appearance is important when you look like Casper the Ghost. Your body requires occasional fresh air and sunshine to survive. Remember, life is real, not virtual.”

“Virtual is a lot safer and doesn’t involve drowning, seaweed or guys with no pants.”

“I think I’ve made my point.”

We reached our blanket and Basia plopped down, opening the cooler and taking out a bottle of water. “They were kind of cute, though, in a nerdy, harmless kind of way.”

I snatched my own bottle of water. “I’m not going to be offended by that.”

“Of course you aren’t. So when are you meeting with Elvis?”

I choked on my water. “What?”

She sighed. “He said something to you and your face lit up like a Christmas tree. There is only one thing that makes you go all gooey like that. My guess is he invited you to come over and look at his laptop. In the old days, it used to be etchings.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. The point is that I know you’re planning to see him.”

“I can hide nothing from you.”

She smiled and took a sip of her water. “Remember that.”

“So it’s okay with you?”

“Only because at the bare minimum you are actually in the presence of a guy in sort of a social situation.”

“You’re a good friend.”

She stretched back on the blanket and closed her eyes. “I’m your only friend. But someday I’m going to remind you that you said it.”