Syndrome Du Savant Autisme — Better

He looked down. She was right. SOS. Dah-dah-dah. His thumb was a traitor.

“The implication,” he tried again, forcing each word through a throat that felt stuffed with gravel, “is that… people… use pretty math… to hide ugly history.” syndrome du savant autisme

The girl with the headphones lingered. Her name was Chloe. He knew because she had a single key on a lanyard with “CHLOE’S APT” stamped on it. He had memorized it the first day. He looked down

His mind didn’t think the answer. It saw it. A lattice of numbers, a ghost of a blueprint, superimposed over Dr. Vance’s face. He saw the golden ratio spiraling into the pediment, the architect Iktinos’s stubborn refusal to use pure symmetry because of an optical illusion involving the sky’s luminance. He saw the Periclean propaganda, the illusion of democratic harmony masking the brutal arithmetic of slave labor. Dah-dah-dah

She shrugged, a small, bird-like motion. “Because I just defended a thesis on non-verbal spatial reasoning in autistic savants. And because I think you’re about to have a meltdown. Your left thumb is tapping a Morse code for ‘distress.’ You don’t realize you’re doing it.”

Dr. Vance nodded, unfazed. “Brilliant, as always. But the question was about socio-political implication, not architectural correction.”