“Dare I ask what you think about all that business? The Backwash and all?” Erica asked.
“Three generals came to West Point just to tell us not to think about the Backwash.”
“So why do you?”
“Contrary to popular opinion,” Maddy said with a smirk, “cadets, and even we pissant fledgling officers, do have minds of our own. I just wish I could have seen the Backwash with my own eyes before it dried up.”
“Not me,” Erica said. “I have a problem with miracles.”
There was no use pressing this with Erica—she had never been plagued by images of the Big Picture. Fact: Dillon Cole had shattered the law of entropy before he died in the Backwash. But how? Even now, in the places Dillon Cole had trodden, order still flowed from disorder, defying the most basic law of physics. With the law of entropy suddenly removed from the foundation, what, at the end of the day, would be left standing?
You think too much, Erica was fond of reminding Maddy. “You know what I did the day the dam broke?” said Erica. “I had a Backwash party. We poured Vodka into Kahlua until we couldn’t tell which way was up, so it didn’t matter where the hell the water was going.”
“That’s what I love about you, Erica. The only proof you need is 180.”
A team of junior executives hurried past. One of them caught Maddy’s eye. He was no older than herself, twenty-two or so, tops. He noticed her gaze, and held eye contact just long enough to acknowledge it before vanishing into the crowd.
“Roll in that tongue, Madeline,” Erica said with a smirk. “What would Mom say?”
“She’d say to bring one home for her.”
Maddy thought back to her tally of distracting, if not quite fulfilling, relationships at the academy, and wondered what opportunities her new assignment might provide. She shouldered her carry-on. “I’d better go or I’ll miss my flight.”