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“How did you figure out that I didn’t fix the original one? There’s almost no way you could have found the bug.”

“You see, we didn’t.”

“You didn’t?”

“Not until just now. When you told us so.”

I suddenly felt like an idiot. I had told them exactly that.

“So why are you going to believe me now?”

“That’s the sticky part,” he said. “We keep you and your friend here until it all plays out. If you’ve lied to us, again, then we’ll make sure that before the government comes down on us that you’re taken care of. If you know what I mean. It’s as simple as that. We have you both now. You and your Achilles Heel. If you won’t fix it for real for your own sake, then you’ll at least fix it for hers. And they’ll be no escaping this time. Your little tricks won’t work any more. You’re a deadly man, Francis. I’ll give you that. But no more. From now on we play for keeps. Got that!”

He almost yelled his final statement.

“Professor Francis?”

“Yes. Got that.”

“Then get to work. The rest of you do the same. Meeting over.” And they scattered.

I headed back across the hall to the lab and my apartment. I felt grimy somehow. Agreeing to his plan. I knew I had no choice in a way But nevertheless, I’d somehow given into to a stupid get rich scheme that would inevitably fail, no matter how perfect it might seem at the moment. And I’d be taken down as well as him.

The lab seemed just as I’d left it. Brightly lit from the ceiling and walls. And Cassie number two already back at her station lost in the screen of her monitor. She hadn’t found my secret installation. Maybe I could still find a way to make my little plan work. Sure. I could do that. Give the plot away and not put me and Cassie number one in jeopardy. If I somehow found a way to escape with her, the antivirus would never be released. Someone would surely solve the problem. But not before how many dire consequences had already occurred? Masters had it well figured out.

I decided to eat before working and headed for my apartment door. The place I’d spent so many hours so long ago it seemed. A room I hated. Nothing there for me but more boring hours spent doing nothing.

I opened the door. The room hadn’t changed a bit. Same old, same old. But something had been added. Cassie number one. Sitting on the bed with her head buried in her hands. Not looking up. If she’d heard me she no doubt expected the cook or another of the staff.

I walked to her side, bent down, and whispered, “I love you,” into her ear. Not expecting that, she looked up at me. Recognition suddenly growing in her eyes.

“Francis,” she yelled and she reached out and pulled me to her. A bear hug. And enough kisses to make me want to lean back on the bed and forget where we were. That I’d left the door open. That we were anywhere but back in our little college town in North Dakota. Her the town’s head librarian. Me the town’s resident crackpot and professor of computer science at the university there. But pretend as I might, and driven by her passionate embrace, I knew it wasn’t so.

“Cassie,” I said. “I’ve missed you so.” And she pulled back, looked at me, and gave me a kiss that made me blush. So many ways, I thought, when I could think again. I’ve missed you in so many ways.

How long we remained there I don’t know. It seemed like a second. Or a month. But as all good things do, it had to come to an end. And not the way I preferred.

“Where have you been?” she asked when she’d finally let me breathe.

“Some of the time here. Some of time I the woods after I escaped. Before I found out they’d brought you into this. I came back as soon as I could. They must have told you something.”

“Only that they’d brought you here for the purpose of creating an antivirus that would save the world’s computers. Or something like that. And you’d let them down and run away.”

“And my being a serial murderer?”

“They told me they didn’t know anything about that.”

“Like hell,” I said.

“What is that all about? Do you know?”

“Not sure,” I told her. “My wallet was stolen and they somehow planted everything, my prints and various documents fro my wallet, on the people they killed.”

“Why?”

“I understand,” she said.

So I told her the entire story. From the beginning. Leaving nothing out including how I rigged the antivirus twice, the second time a simple variation of the first. I ended by telling her about the Gordian knot they’d wrapped us in. No way out. Escaping wasn’t an option. I’d have to go through with it. And then, I added that even after they succeeded they could no longer trust me and that I had no idea what that meant for us. But it couldn’t be a good thing.

She listened and asked no questions. Gave nothing away about her feelings. Even when I mentioned Cassie number two and number three. Of course, I left small pieces of the narrative out for the sake of not having to explain some things I’d rather not have to go into.

When I finished, she lay back on the bed and heaved a deep sigh. I wasn’t at all sure what that meant, but by then had figured out that things were well beyond that stage now. She could think what she wanted. I’d done my bit. Told the whole truth. Much of it problematic, especially for Cassie number three. Only, of course, if she hadn’t been in on it from the beginning herself.

I stood up and looked into the kitchen. As predicted, there was a beautiful lunch for two laid out on the table there.

“Lunch anyone?” I asked.
35.
As we ate, I explained about the world-class chef that maintained the kitchen here. And, of course, about the unique way he had of entering and exiting the apartment. She found that quaint. I suppose she had a point. I’d never thought of it that way before. But she could see things in different lights than I. One of the many reasons I loved her.

“And you talked to Patton?” she asked.

“He actually sounded good. Worried about you, of course. But clearly out of danger,”

“Doing fine the last I saw him. He was staying at my place until he could go back to work. I took some time off from work to take care of him.”

I smiled at her.

“Did he yell at you for abducting me?”

“I don’t remember,” I lied. “We got interrupted by Masters.”

“Right,” she said.

I smiled again. For no reason except I loved having her here to love again. Long distance just didn’t cut it.

“What now?” she said.

“What now is that I fix the antivirus. What else can I do? It won’t take long. Then we sit back. They release it. Pull in the dough. And then we wait.”

“Until when?”

“Until he’s satisfied that I haven’t put some kind of time release virtual bomb in there that will give him and his crew here away.”

“When will that be?”

“That is the question, isn’t it? I don’t see that there is any when. He can never be sure that everyone will have trashed their version of the antivirus. Maybe he’d be satisfied when all of the major companies have changed to new operating systems and the antivirus won’t work any more.”

“When would that be?”

“No way to know. Given history. Maybe ten years.”

“Ten years?”

“Maybe not that long. Too many variables to know. But a long, long time, that’s for sure.”

“Trapped in here?”

“If we’re lucky.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, eventually they’re going to tire of us. Maybe they’ve already made plans to dispose of us in some way.”

“Dispose of us?”

I tried to smile. Wouldn’t work this time.

“Couldn’t we escape after he releases the antivirus? And the world’s computers return to normal.”

“My point exactly. Knowing my history, he’ll have to keep us caged in by a small army of folks. He wouldn’t worry about the expensive. They’ll make too much money to worry about that. But he’ll have to consider that we might be found.”

“Found?”

She studied my face for a sign that I’d given up. Finding none, she nodded.

Then I looked up at the ceiling, not knowing exactly in here where the recording devices were hidden, and said, “Of course, Christopher, if you have any other ideas, I’d appreciate hearing them.”

Carrie stared at me for a second and then burst out laughing. It was infectious. I joined her. A terrible time for laughter. But maybe the best time for it as well.

What to do? After all. If we were dead anyway, why not just leave it be. Change nothing but the creation date so he’d be happy thinking I’d finally kept my part of the bargain, and leave things go. We’d be dead. But at least I’d know he be taken down as well. Then again, there was that infinitesimal chance he’d keep his word. I couldn't see how. But it was the only way we’d survive. Except just escaping and letting the world figure out its own destiny. Maybe that was it. And, of course, I began again to go round and round in this little snake eating its tail melodrama with no chance to finding anything new in it.

After an hour of this and not saying a word to one another, she gave me that look. I appreciated the thought more than she’d ever know, but in response, I looked upward to the ceiling indicating, I hoped, that there were prying eyes here. Did she feel comfortable making whoopee in front of what would surely draw an audience of dirty old men. And she gave me the expected scowl, realizing she’d forgotten the unwritten laws that pervaded our existence here.

With nothing to watch or hear and nothing to read, we necked. In the kitchen. Neither of us wanted to risk the bed. Eventually the chef’s minions climbed up through the hole in the floor and took away the dishes and cleaned up after themselves and us. By then I’d had it. And Cassie and I finally did find the bed. Going to sleep though, instead of something else that would have been our preference.

Try as I might, I couldn’t sleep. Beyond tired. As far as I could remember I hadn’t slept in almost twenty-four hours. But no go. So I let my mind free associate. A little something that my work in artificial intelligence had taught me. I gave myself the current predicament as the problem. And then let the rules go. Nothing was out of bounds.

When I had finished, the only thing that surface was something that Cassie number three had said, or rather whispered, to me when I last saw her. ‘Get back in the game.’ What had she meant by that. Why had it stayed with me? Wasn’t I already back in the game?

I thought about it some more. No, actually, I was not back in the game. I had just returned. She meant become an active player in the game. Or at least that’s what I realized I wanted her to be saying. But what did it mean?

And, of course, as soon as I had something to legitimately think about. Maybe some kind of actual clue, I feel asleep. Deeply asleep. And not awakened for too many hours. When Cassie had finally rubbed my arm enough times to pull me out of a dream where Cassie number two was trying to get me to give her another hit of the meth I’d bought her, I was thankful to have been drawn out of it.

Breakfast and back to work. Same old drag. But I had remembered my thoughts before I’d fallen asleep. ‘Get back in the game.’ Maybe what I wanted her to be saying was ‘Get in the game.’ Somehow that excited me. Not sure why though.

Second, my plan involved stealing the antivirus on a thumb drive or just in my head, and disabling it so that no one but me could release it on the world. Put things right.

Third, the plan involved escaping. The hardest part. How would I do it given the increased security that Masters had no doubt put in placed since my last successful escape. Through the tunnel in the lost basement that night so long ago.

But I’d been forming a plan that might work. Cause as much confusion in the building as I could. I would do that by first unleashing the virus on the supercomputer itself. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? It had been immune, of course, because it had no link to the outside world. No access to the Internet, email, or any of the things that we now take for granted. With the local computer asleep, the building would begin to fall apart. I didn’t know that for sure, but my guess was that it would. In the turmoil that followed I’d once again become the focus of attention. Exactly as I wanted it. I needed to be in that room again with everyone involved around. Not to talk them out of their plan. Or of their love for their commander in chief. But to show them my Bokator skills. To create complete chaos much as my nonlinear mathematical formulas did. Unleashed, I could do plenty of damage. Not that I particularly wanted to hurt Masters’ harmless followers. All I needed to do was cause such a mess that his generals would then be called upon to fix it. That’s when I’d level the playing field.

Then I had the coup de grace. Plant a bomb. Tell them about it. Clear the building. Not a real bomb, of course. Just a bomb scare. Enough to do the trick. What the computer going haywire, me drawing fire for causing a mess, it should make it almost easy to disappear. Especially when no one would be expecting it. And, I could shave my beard. Make it harder for them to identify me. And I could dress Cassie number one like Cassie number two, just enough so that we couldn’t be identified. It had to work.

Suddenly I felt confident. I done what Cassie number three had suggested. More than she’d suggested actually. I’d made myself a player. An active participant. Of course, I had no idea what Cassie and I would do once we’d made our escape. It wouldn’t keep the cops off our back. Make me even more vulnerable since without the beard I now looked like the serial killer I’d been painted out to be in the newspapers. We’d still be in the cross hairs of the competition, though I had less interest in them since their apparent efforts at getting to me so far had proven so ridiculous. But you never know. Maybe they were keeping their real guns in the back room. Pull them out at the last minute and surprise me. And, of course, I couldn’t dismiss Masters and his team. He’d be mad as a hornet. But all in all still a good plan. If everything worked we’d be in a position of power, not of weakness.

Then, again, I worried about Cassie. She was, after all, a librarian. A good actress yes, but one who’d be comfortable on the run from almost everyone? I wouldn’t forgive myself for putting her in harm’s way. Yet I couldn’t leave her here either. I’d be right back where I’d started. And I’d have to fill her in on the details after I put my plan into effect rather than before. Obviously, telling her with the cameras running wouldn’t be a good thing to do. I could try the same code I’d used with Cassie number two, but I couldn’t be sure that she hadn’t given that up to Masters with everything else she’d given up to him. Getting my Cassie to follow the plan without knowing I even had a plan was something I was just going to have to chance. Worth it, I thought. I could at least give her a head’s up. No details. Just a simple suggestion to hang with me.
When I returned to the apartment for lunch, Cassie stared at me as if she knew. Probably just my imagination. But something in her eyes.

As we ate a wonderful meal of not tuna fish and peanut butter, I actually had no idea what it was except it was delicious, I reached out and grasped Cassie’s hand. I turned it around in mine and as I did, I crossed my fingers. As in everything I’ll now say is a lie. Had no idea whether she get it or not, but worth a try. She got it. She looked at me, smiled, and I saw it in her eyes.

“So,” I said, “there’s no way to escape. Even if there were a way, no reason to. He’s got us in a bottleneck. No antivirus, no way to stop the onslaught of chaos. Right?”

She nodded. Everything I’d said was wrong. She smiled again. I kept my fingers crossed in her hand and she squeezed it to verify. Maybe every Cassie’s smart? No way to know. But certainly the ones that I knew were.

“So were stuck here.”

She nodded again. Trying to keep the smile from being too obvious, else someone watching might figure out what I’d really said.

“You know,” I continued, “You look a lot like Cassie in the lab out there. Amazing coincidence, don’t you think?”

She nodded.

“To make sure I don’t confuse you, you’d better make sure that you don’t dress like her in any way. Don’t change your hair or do anything like that or I might begin to confuse you.”

She nodded.

“Oh, and my beard? I hope you like it, because I’ve decided this is my look. Never going to shave it off.”

She smiled. Hopefully my hints had gotten through to her.

“What are you doing this afternoon?” I asked her.

Now she wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. I could see her eyes looking off into the distance trying to determine what I wanted her to say.

“Thought I’d sit around here and maybe read those books you brought with you,” she finally answered. The two books I’d originally arrived with so long ago now. The books I’d read too many times and hadn’t even thought about most of the time I’d been here.

“Good idea,” I said. And then a thought occurred to me. “Read the one about Boolean Logic,” I added.

“Boolean Logic?”

“Yes. There’s a great story in there that’s really worth reading.”

“About?”

“About a person trying to reach a point at the end of a road and the road forks. Each of the now two roads has a man stationed there, and both say they only tell the truth. Each tells our traveler that theirs is the route to take. But, of course, one them is lying. How to tell which one is lying. It’s fun to think that one through even before you read the book that contains the answer. It’s an old riddle, but always fun to think about again.”

She looked at me carefully again. I smiled. Hoping that the riddle wouldn’t just confuse her after what I thought I’d just conveyed with my crossed fingers and constant lying.

“The most important thing you’ll find in that riddle is how to tell a lie from the truth. At least if two people are telling you the same thing but one has to be lying.”

Then she smiled and I knew we were on the same page.
After lunch I went back to my station and began to work in earnest. We had a plan. Might even work. If nothing else, it set the stage for me taking control of a situation that had been out of my control since I’d met those two thugs in front of my apartment building in North Dakota. A state that seemed a world and a lifetime away at the moment.

As I worked, I thought about Cassie number three. Most everything I’d encountered so far made sense. Not her. A waitress, a millionaire, a giver, a taker, a candlestick maker? Who did she work for? Anyone? Just a nutcase? The more I thought about her, the worse the conundrum became. I gave up.

I turned to the other unresolved problem. The smell in the basement. The mothballs. But nothing there. Except, of course, my escape route. First thing I’d do if we actually made our escape, would be look up mothballs on the Internet. Something about the government, the smell, Masters, and this whole business that didn’t sit right with me. And somehow, the smell seemed at the center of it.

37.
At three that afternoon I took an unexpected break from the routine, at least from the perspective of those watching, which I imagined included Masters at this point, and visited my apartment again. I could visualize his entire team switching the channel. Lab to apartment. What’s the bastard up to now? Unfortunately, while their attention was drawn to me, the action was actually taking place in the lab I’d just left. There, the plan I’d concocted had just begun. My ‘living’ virus had just received an act of genesis. The supercomputer was about to meet its match. Not only would it begin showing the random windows that would soon be visited upon the world, but I’d added a few attractions to the show. Like a window pronouncing that the building had a bomb in it somewhere. One that would soon go off, leveling the entire thirty-one stories into a pile of useless slag. Anyone caught unaware would soon be a part of the 9/11-type result.

The minute I entered the apartment I went over to Cassie, pulled her off the bed still reading my book on Boolean Logic, and gave her a great big hug. I was happy to see her. Especially since she had changed just a few things and now looked like Cassie number two. At least close enough. We were on our way.

“Hang on,” I whispered. “No more mister nice guy.”

And then things began going haywire. First, Cassie number two came running in behind me.

“Francis. Your doohickey has gone haywire. It’s gotten loose in the mainframe and is telling everyone that a bomb’s about to go off and blow us to bits.”

“What?” I said, in mock horror. And then, for my friends in the booth, “How could that happen? I’ve used every safeguard possible.” I stopped there before my limited acting abilities gave me away. She ran, obviously convinced of my sincerity. And I could hear running in the hallways.

Cassie dropped the book she was holding and stared at me.

“Whatever you do,” I said, “don’t run like those fools.” And, of course, smart as she was, she grabbed my hand, the very one I’d crossed my fingers with in her hand at lunch, and out the door we went.

Into the hall and toward the elevators. No go. The line was twelve deep with hellishly anxious people who’d panicked so fast as to make them leave their brains behind.

Cassie and I ran to the stairs and down we went. With part of the follow-the-leader bunch close behind. Thirteen floors. Easy going down.

I stopped us on the second floor, opened the stairwell door, and out we went. The group following joined us, but then saw the number indicating they were not in the lobby, and back they went. Lemmings on their way to the cliff to give themselves up to evolution’s answer to overpopulation.