The Doomsday Equation by Matt Richtel

filial affection for this combination of father figure and an outdated, slightly crazed Santa Claus, a mythical figure that isn’t nearly as mythical as his legend would tell it. At least not to Jeremy.
    “I know,” Jeremy spills.
    “I doubt it. Or you wouldn’t make the same mistake over and over.”
    “I know, Harry. Cut the shit.”
    “So let’s hear it. Who is James the Seventh?”
    Jeremy looks around the splattered room, feels the knife clenched in his hand. He’s hit by a realization: the fact that Jeremy’s house was attacked suggests that he and his computer are being punked. This is about him, somehow. Not about a computer, or the apocalypse. Someone is definitely coming after Jeremy.
    “Battle of Auldearn,” Jeremy says. “Why, Harry? Why in the hell . . .”
    Harry interrupts. “That was 1645. Not bad. Almost the right decade. But I’m referring to the Battle of the Boyne, which took place fifty years later. James the Seventh, flush with cash and arms supplied by Louis the Fourteenth, aimed to regain his crown.”
    Jeremy laughs bitterly. Typical haughty Harry, condescendingly making his point through a conflict metaphor. Fine, old man, you want to play it that way. “He landed in Ireland where he had Catholic supporters.”
    “But not the element of surprise. King William of Orange sussed out his plan and met him with thirty thousand men. And sent James and his invaders packing.”
    Just like that, Jeremy’s found his opening, the admission. “You knew I was going to call you. I’m under surveillance. I know. I know, Harry. Do you really want to spend your last days teaching peace studies in prison?”
    “What? No, Jeremy. I’m just saying: in the end, preparation and superior know-how will win out against your ill-conceived venture-backed capital dreams and your supercomputer. So I accept.”
    Jeremy, fuming, still knows goddamn well better than to ask what Harry accepts, mostly because, despite how furious Jeremy is, he’s not so out of control as to miss Harry’s request for an apology. They’ve not talked since the picnic at the log cabin when Jeremy went nuclear after Harry had the audacity to say that the algorithm could “use a little tinkering.” Jeremy threatened to publicly expose Harry’s “academic fraud,” whatever that meant.
    In the silence in which Jeremy calculates a response, Harry says: “What the fuck do you want?”
    Both the tone and substance catch Jeremy off guard. He knows that Harry, as disheveled as his appearance tends to be, has a reputation for civility. A graceful lion. Jeremy can’t ever remember hearing him use a curse word. He feels himself being manhandled when he’s the one with the axe. And he’s in an odd spot to begin with; he’s called to confront Harry with circumstances he’s not fully prepared to explain, not yet, and he’s called a man Jeremy recently threatened to ruin with public disgrace.
    Is Harry taunting Jeremy? Did he hack into Jeremy’s computer and plant the idea that an attack is imminent, and is he now making vague references to it, baiting Jeremy, by mentioning his failed venture-capital backing?
    Is the old codger toying with Jeremy? Is he capable? Maybe not on his own? How?
    “I’m not closing up shop, Harry. You won’t shut me down.”
    “Oh, I thought this was the Missouri . I shouldn’t have bothered to iron my vest.” Sarcastic; of course Jeremy’s not shutting down; the USS Missouri, where the Japanese signed an unconditional surrender on September 2, 1945. “Jeremy, the market has spoken. First the marketplace of ideas, and then the actual marketplace. Besides, the government experiment didn’t work. Look at the bright side: without funding from France, James the Seventh wouldn’t have even been able to be in a position to get his ass kicked.”
    A clean shot, bare-knuckle, jaw, smack.
    “Yeah, that worked out beautifully for Ireland in the end.”
    Harry chuckles. Then a pause, and “Listen, I’ve