Chapter 107. Why The Hell Did I Do This? (Still A Little Bit Worth To Try)

Tyler took it. He came up with the care of someone who had taken several hits and was performing a systems check while standing.

"I need you to know," Tyler said, "that my miscalculation tonight was seventeen minutes, not eleven."

"I know," Mike said.

Tyler nodded, a hint of relief washing over him. "It seems like a small difference, but it could have cost me everything."

"I had adjusted for the schedule change, but I had not accounted for the fact that they would also make adjustments."

"They adapted," Mike said. "And you know that calculation won’t save you again the next time you see them without me."

"Yes," Tyler said. "Which I should have modeled for."

Mike looked at him. Tyler’s face had the specific look of someone who had been in a physical confrontation for the first time in a while, which was that of someone who had not enjoyed the experience but was already moving toward processing it analytically rather than emotionally.

’This fucking nerd... why do I have to fucking save him?!’ Mike thought. ’But... I need one last check to see if he’s rich or not.’

’If yes, then... I need some good amount of money and maybe try to find someone important from him, like his mother probably.’

"You filmed the whole thing?" Tyler said.

"Yeah," Mike said. "It’s to have power over them, and I know that they won’t fuck me up again."

"Before you intervened."

"Yeah," Mike said. "I had to, so don’t repeat yourself."

Tyler was quiet for a moment.

"That’s cold," he said. It was an observation, not a condemnation.

"It’s useful," Mike said. "We established those useful matters."

"It does," Tyler said.

He was standing on his own now, though he was favoring his left side. "I need to get home."

"How far?" Mike said.

"District 4 technically, but I take the long way on the campus side," Tyler said. "Fifteen minutes on foot."

"I’ll walk with you," Mike said.

Mike had one task to complete first. He stepped toward the alley wall, distancing himself from Tyler, and crouched near a piece of broken pavement at the base. He picked up a fragment and scrutinized the edge. It was adequate.

He needed the injury to tell a coherent story.

He set the edge of the paving against his right cheekbone, just below, where a hit from a right hand would have landed, and drew it across with the controlled pressure of someone who had made a precise decision and was executing it precisely. Not deep. Not structural. Enough.

It hurt.

He had felt significantly worse. He stood up and looked at the paving fragment and set it down again.

Tyler was watching him from the alley entrance with an expression that had moved several steps beyond analytical.

"You just—" he started.

"The story for anyone who asks is that the three of them came at me," Mike said. "Which is true. This makes it look like they did more than they did."

"Which is why you—"

"Yes," Mike said.

Tyler looked at him for a long moment. "You are a very specific kind of person," he said.

"You said something like that earlier," Mike said.

"I’m revising upward," Tyler said.

’A pain in my fucking ass... my fists start hurting from all this holding back to give him another good beating from me,’ Mike thought while holding his right fist that starts shaking.

Mike touched the cut with the back of his hand, examining the result. It was fine—bleeding just enough for a cheekbone impact. He retrieved a folded, clean handkerchief from his jacket and pressed it against the wound.

They walked out of the alley and onto the service road, and Tyler set the direction without being asked, turning north along the campus boundary. He was limping slightly on the left, the kind of limp that comes from a rib rather than a leg, the body’s attempt to protect something that hurt when it moved fully.

Mike matched his pace.

They walked for about a minute before Tyler said anything, which was longer than most people would have lasted.

"I kept recalculating where the error was," Tyler said. "If I had added twenty-five minutes instead of seventeen, I would have missed the window entirely."

"Tyler," Mike said.

"The margin is frustrating because it was close... Twenty-five minutes was achievable. I was conservative."

"Tyler," Mike said again.

"Yes?"

"I’m going to say something, and I need you to hear it as it’s meant and not as a data point to file."

Tyler was quiet.

"You can’t schedule around this forever," Mike said. "At some point the calculation fails!"

"Tonight it failed by eight minutes."

"And the next time it might fail by two. Or it might not fail at all for six months, and then it fails by thirty, and by then you’ve convinced yourself the schedule is the answer."

"The schedule has worked for six weeks," Tyler said.

"The schedule has delayed the problem," Mike said. "That’s not the same as solving it."

"I’m aware of the distinction," Tyler said.

"Are you?" Mike said, not unkind but simply direct. "Because you spent six weeks building a seventeen-minute buffer instead of doing anything that might change the actual situation, and tonight that buffer failed and you were on the ground in an alley at two in the morning."

"So I’m asking whether you’re actually aware of the distinction or whether you’re comfortable framing avoidance as strategy."

Tyler was quiet for longer this time.

"I don’t know what else to do," he said, finally.

He said it without self-pity, which was the thing Mike respected about him—he stated things as facts rather than complaints. "I reported it at my previous institution."

"The process took eleven weeks and concluded with a recommendation for ’continued monitoring,’ which meant nothing happened and I was more visible to the people I’d reported."

"So you learned that formal channels don’t work," Mike said.

"I learned that formal channels work for the institution," Tyler said. "Not for the person inside it."

"That’s true in most places," Mike said. "The institution protects the institution."

"And you... have to protect yourself."

"I don’t know how to do that," Tyler said.

’What a fucking pussy...’

"I know," Mike said. "That’s the problem."

They walked another half block. A streetlight overhead cast the sidewalk in orange, and Tyler’s glasses were back on his face now, slightly bent at the left arm from where they’d been on the alley ground.

He was still favoring the left side. He walked like someone trying very hard not to show how much it hurt.

"You took a rib hit," Mike said.

"Yes," Tyler said.

"From the way you’re walking, it looks like it’s bruised, not broken. If it were broken, you wouldn’t be able to move like that."

"How do you know the difference?"

"Experience," Mike said. "Are you having trouble breathing?"

"It hurts to breathe fully," Tyler said.

"Bruised," Mike said. "Ice it tonight and avoid sleeping on that side."

Tyler nodded.

"Tyler," Mike said. "Look at me."

Tyler looked at him.

"You’re the smartest person in most rooms you walk into," Mike said. "That’s not a compliment in the way compliments are usually meant—it’s an observation."

"You built a six-week schedule map of three people’s movements."

"You have their class schedules, their athletic timetables, their scholarship records."

"You did that in six weeks while still being a full-time physics student."

"I work efficiently," Tyler said.

"You work exceptionally," Mike said. "And you used all of it to make a longer walk to class."

"That’s the part that bothers me."

Tyler opened his mouth to respond, but Mike continued speaking before he could say anything.

"You have the capacity to solve hard problems," Mike said. "Three business students who rely on their physical size to intimidate you do not represent a difficult problem."

"It’s a resource problem!"

"You don’t have the physical tools, so you’ve been treating it as a scheduling problem, which is the tool you have."

"But a scheduling problem and a physical problem require different answers, and running a seventeen-minute detour is not an answer; it’s a postponement."