Sara Reinke - Backwoods

Hunched over the entry key pad, he punched in his pass code, then frowned when the light remained red, the front doors locked.

“Shit,” he said. They’d locked him out of everything. After a moment’s consideration, he laughed. I know Moore’s code.

Feeling triumphantly smug, he punched in one-zero, one-zero .

Nothing happened.

“What the hell?” he said, typing in the numbers again, moving slowly, making sure he pressed each key on the pad firmly inward.

Still no luck. Either Moore had figured out that Andrew was clued in on his personal code, or he’d changed it after discovering that Alice knew it, too. With a groan, he stepped back, shoved his hand through his hair.

Now what? He weighed his options. Alice could crack the door code. She’d figured out her father’s easily enough. But if I get her, then she’s vulnerable again. If she’s with me, she could get caught.

He frowned, studying the key pad.

Daddy always chooses binary numbers, using only zeroes or ones, Alice had told him. He says they’re easier to remember.

She’d said that meant Moore had only eight possible four-digit code combinations to choose from. He’d already found out that the one she’d been using— one-zero, one-zero —no longer worked. Which means there are only seven choices left, Andrew realized.

Standing at the key pad again, he frowned. I can do this, he thought. I’ve got a Master’s degree, for Christ’s sake. I can guess seven goddamn numbers.

His finger hovered uncertainly over the zero, then he began to type. Okay, he told himself. The decimal system is a base-ten, meaning there are ten possible digits that can be combined, zero through nine. Binary’s a base-two system, meaning every single number can be expressed only with the numerals one or zero. When counting with decimals, when you get to nine, you move up to the next place value and start all over again at zero. In binary, you do the same, except it happens when you get to one.

How long ago had he learned this shit? Five years ago? Seven? Ten? He had no idea and struggled to recall. When you get to one, you add a place value in. So zero in decimal is zero in binary. One in decimal is one in binary. Two in decimal is one-zero in binary. Three in decimal is one-one in binary. Four is one-one-zero. Which means…

Which meant there weren’t any four-digit binary numbers until you counted to eight, which in base-two was one-zero, zero-zero.

Andrew punched this into the key pad. The light remained red.

Okay. No problem. Let’s try nine. Which would be… He paused, frowning, trying to remember. One-zero, zero-one.

He typed this in. The light stayed red. The door stayed locked.

“Shit,” he muttered. This is taking too long. Any minute now, someone’s going to walk through the foyer and see me.

Binary ten had been Moore’s previous code— one-zero, one-zero— so Andrew skipped it now and moved on to eleven: one-zero, one-one.

Still no luck.

“Shit!” It was cold outside and he was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and sweat pants. Goosebumps had raised all along his arms and he shivered, his breath huffing out in a thin, moist haze around his head.

Twelve, then, he thought. Let’s try twelve. If eleven is one-oh, one-one, that means you move up a value, so it’s…

He struggled to think, then jammed his finger into the key pad. One-one, zero-zero.

So convinced that this sequence, too, wouldn’t work, he didn’t even realize at first that it had, that the light had turned green and the snact! he heard was actually the door unlocking. After a moment of bewildered surprise, it sank in and with an incredulous laugh, he grabbed the door handle, swinging it open wide.

He didn’t get more than three steps past the threshold, however, before an alarm claxon began to sound. Shrill and pulsating, it ripped through the interior of the barracks and sent Andrew scrambling for cover, hands clapped to his ears. “Shit!”

He could hear the heavy patter of footsteps, combat boots rushing toward him and down the stairs from the second floor. Shit!

He thought of ducking back outside, then decided against it, running instead down the nearest corridor. The footsteps behind him drew closer now, and panicked, he skidded to a stop at the first door he happened upon. It was locked and he tugged frantically, futilely on the handle for a moment before remembering he’d cracked Moore’s access code.

Managing a bark of humorless laughter at his own stupidity, he hurriedly punched the four digits into the key pad, jerked the door open wide and darted inside. There was a small rectangular window near the top of the door, level with his view, and when a group of soldiers suddenly rushed past, responding to the alarm, Andrew shrank back. He hit something behind him, something heavy, solid and apparently on wheels, because he slapped it with his hand then felt it roll away, sending him staggering backwards, off-balance.

“Shit,” he yelped, then fell to the floor. With a loud thunk, the thing he’d stumbled into—which he now realized was some kind of wheeled storage cart—hit a nearby counter, coming to a listing, inching halt.

“You have activated the Head Start Heart Smart,” a tinny female voice suddenly chirped.

What the hell? Andrew’s gaze darted back to the window, his heart jackhammering. Scrambling to his feet, he rushed to the cart and found a machine, some kind of unfamiliar computer with a small display screen now aglow and alight.

“Please follow the voice prompts provided for correct application and use of this electronic device,” the machine said.

“Shit,” Andrew hissed. There weren’t many buttons to choose from, and he began pushing them all quickly, frantically, shooting alarmed looks over his shoulder toward the door, sure at any moment, a soldier would pop into view, alerted by the clamor.

“If you are near a telephone or have access to a cellular device, please call for emergency service now,” the mechanized woman’s voice said.

“Shut up.” Andrew smacked it, grabbing at some wires dangling from the side, hoping one might be a power cord he could unplug and disable. At the unattached end of each was a small, square-shaped pad, one with a bright red trim, the other bright yellow.

“You have removed the Head Start Heart Smart cartridges. Please review the on-screen diagram for appropriate placement and press the start button to begin the automatic assessment.”

“Shit, shit, shit.” Andrew picked the machine up, turned it this way and that, trying to find the on-off switch. As he looked behind him again, he froze in bright, frightened panic to see a shadow in the doorway, the outline of a head peering up into the window.

Shit!

He scrambled around the side of cart and sat on the floor, holding the machine in his lap. Now the voice was muffled against his stomach, but still audible.

“You have disengaged the automatic assessment function. Please select the joule level you would like to administer,” it mumbled into his shirt.

“Shut up,” Andrew whispered, thumbing buttons, turning the solitary knob, trying anything. On a small LED screen on top of the console, he watched numbers correspondingly fly up and down, from 25 to 10, then back to 50, then 110, then 200. “Shut the fuck up.”

A wild look toward to door revealed a soldier peering through the window, and Andrew could hear the door rattling as he tried vainly to open it. Miraculously, the machine fell silent and stayed that way, the vocal prompts muted. Hugging it against his chest again, just to be sure, Andrew risked another glance at the window. The soldier was gone.