Cliff Ryder - Out of Time

The claims made in the report on her laptop were pretty outrageous, but the research seemed solid. It hadn’t been slapped together or hurried, and somehow they’d managed to keep it under wraps. That alone was amazing, because just the possible discovery of something this big—something this overpoweringly wonderful—would have sent waves of reaction through several scientific communities.

She turned off the coffeemaker, checked the equipment and shut off the lights, slipping out into the hall. The building was down to a skeleton staff—she was nearly half an hour beyond her normally scheduled departure time. It wasn’t like her to forget time, even less like her to risk being late picking up Savannah. She had just enough time if she pushed the speed limit on the way.

A FEW HOURS LATER, Brin sat on the sofa, chewing her thumbnail and forcing herself to watch television. She wasn’t even sure what program was on.

She’d reached Dr. Britton’s call service and left a message, as well as a numeric page. There had been no return call, despite her use of the word

“emergency.”

Now her eyes flitted between the TV screen and Alex’s computer. It sat idle on the desk in the corner, mocking her—tempting her. There might be something in one of the files that would clue her in as to what was happening with him. As much as she needed to know the truth, she also hated violating his privacy. He’d never forbidden her access to the machine, but he’d mentioned it was work—

and that there were security issues. She’d always felt that was enough reason to leave it alone.

“Screw it!” she growled at last, slamming one fist on the sofa as she rose, stalking to the computer as though it might run away from her at any moment.

She hit the power button and watched the machine hum to life. She knew he had the system password protected. She was also pretty sure she knew what the password was, or at least a varia-tion of it. The security login screen opened and she stared at it, frowning.

Savannah. She typed it in with the caps at first.

When it didn’t take, she dropped the caps. Met with that failed attempt, the furrow on her brow deepened and she sighed as she sank back in the chair and folded her arms around herself. Then she sat up, and she smiled. She reached for the keyboard and typed.

“Savannah02242006.”

The computer screen went blue, and then the desktop popped into view, icons all in their neat rows along the left side.

“Bingo!”

Brin started sifting through files in the documents section. Chances were the document she was looking for would be a word processor or database document. She tried e-mail briefly, but the password was different and she couldn’t manage to break it. She even tried Alex’s old standby from their early days, but it was a no-go.

Then she found a document titled “Resignation.” Her finger paused over the mouse button for a second, and then dropped on it with some urgency.

It was a letter of resignation to someone named Denny, dated just two days before Alex’s departure. She had just begun to read it when an odd thing happened. A chat window popped open in front of her, obscuring the letter and flashing an annoying orange bar.

“Hello, Mrs. Tempest.”

Brin gasped and yanked back her hands. The top of the window said “Room 59” but she had no idea what that was. That aside, how had the person on the other end known she was on Alex’s computer?

“Who are you?” she typed in, and then minimized the window and popped open the search bar.

She searched for Room 59, but received no results.

She closed the search and maximized the chat window.

“My name is Denny. I think we need to talk about your husband, don’t you?”

“I’ve got a better idea. You talk, I’ll listen. How do you know my husband, and what is it you think we need to talk about? Is he in trouble? Is he hurt?”

“Alex and I work together, and as far as I know, he’s fine. But we can’t chat here. Follow this link and it will lead to a secure chat location. At the bottom of the screen is a small Easter egg—a hot spot on the screen that only activates when you mouse over it. You’ll have to search around the bottom left corner until you find it.”

Brin hesitated for a minute, but then searched and found the login. A voice suddenly began speaking through the computer’s speaker. It recited a password. When it repeated, she typed. It took her a moment to realize what it was.

“I’m in,” she typed in the window that opened.

The password had been a shared secret. Alex had once shown her a code called Caesar’s Cipher.

They’d played with it, encoding first his name, then hers and finally Savannah’s. She hadn’t realized it at the time, but he’d been leaving her an emergency message. She noticed that when the new chat window opened, nothing else on the computer reacted. She couldn’t close the window or open any others.

“This chat program isn’t just secure, it’s paranoid,” she whispered to herself, as though someone else could actually hear her.

“Now,” she typed in carefully, “why don’t you tell me just who the hell you are, and what you know about Alex?”

“To start with, I know what’s wrong with him.

I assume that you do, too. This morning, I received a report claiming that Alex has multiple sclerosis.

Can you confirm this?”

Brin stared at the screen. She read over the words several times, trying to find a way that they could mean something else. How could Alex have MS?

“No,” she typed at last. “I can’t confirm it. He hasn’t told me a thing. I knew he was, well, I didn’t think he… Alex said he was fine, but…”

“How did you know? Did he say something?”

“No, he didn’t say a thing. I got a call from the pharmacy this morning about a prescription that had been called in for him. He didn’t pick it up before he left. I’ve been trying all day to figure out why he’d be taking this particular medication, and now it makes sense—it’s an antiseizure medication.”

“Does Alex ever check in with you when he’s away?” Denny typed. “Is there any chance you could deliver a message to him?”

“He works with you and you can’t get hold of him?” It made her suspicious. She didn’t want to give anything away to this anonymous person.

Hell, she couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t someone who might hurt Alex. The secrecy of the chat room was starting to make her feel the paranoia she’d assigned to the room only moments before.

“Our field agents are often in places where communication is difficult, if not impossible. Do you have any idea how sick he was when he left?

The information that we have indicates that he has primary progressive MS. It could take him fast and hard.”

Brin shuddered and forced back tears as though she were face-to-face with Denny and needed to conceal her feelings from him. “There were a few tremors. Mostly in his hands. I don’t think it’s gone very far, actually, but I don’t know for sure.

He was hiding it from me, though. I don’t know how much you know about me, but I understand this disease. There is a very real risk that it will escalate and I have no idea whether he’s begun taking the meds or not. He didn’t pick up the prescription he was given before he left.”

“We have to get in touch with him if it is at all possible. Given his location, he isn’t likely to contact you—no more than he would contact us—

but, please, if he checks in, can you give him a message from me?”

“Sure,” Brin typed, not feeling sure at all.

“Just tell him, ‘Personal Option Mission Recall.’”

She paused, held her breath and blinked. “If he checks in, I’ll give him the message. But you still haven’t really told me who you are or what this is about. I still don’t understand why you can’t reach him.”