She nodded again.
“Okay, baby. I gotta get in the shower, I have to see the dean.”
Zach turned back to see Lindsey’s anxious face before he entered the bathroom. “Don’t worry,” he called as he turned the taps, “it’s just a check-in. I should be back this afternoon.” As he stepped into the rush of hot water, her name played on his lips. Lindsey, Lindsey, Lindsey. He dried quickly and popped back into the bedroom to kiss her goodbye, but he found only an empty swirl of crumpled sheets. He listened to the apartment above, but didn’t hear anything. She must have gone to the lab.
Zach dressed and jogged down the stairs to his waiting car. Moments later, he was rushing into the dean’s office, ten minutes late.
“I hope that ridiculous grin means you have good news for us, Professor,” he heard the dean say as he opened her door.
Zach stopped abruptly as President Sanders swiveled in a chair to give him a nod.
“Hello,” Zach stopped. “I didn’t know the president would be joining us.”
“I’m afraid he must,” Dean Cruz said, her hands pressed into her desk, “to witness the conversation.”
Zach’s head turned from the dean to the president as he let the door close with a thud behind him. “Alright,” he said carefully.
“Please, Professor, sit down,” the president said amiably, pointing at the empty chair by his side. “Not to worry.”
Zach nodded, but knew better.
The dean flipped open a paper file and scanned it before clutching together her glossy fingernails and scowling. “We need to discuss some…unorthodox behavior coming from your team.”
“Unorthodox? How?”
“I’ve interviewed some of your students. I understand there are parties in the lab. Alcohol. Fraternization that is, no doubt, delaying results.”
Zach fell back into the chair. “You can’t be serious. You have pretty much just laid out the definition of college.”
She smirked. “Perhaps, but other college programs don’t have as much on the line as yours. This is not a vanity project. I have made it clear, in order to keep your funding going, we must see results, and you have allowed behavior that has hindered those results.”
Zach began to grind his jaw. “We have gotten results. We just need—”
“What? What do you need from me, more time? Again?” Zach watched as a bright pink rash bloomed across the dean’s chest and throat. Her hand flew up to her jewel encrusted necklace, which she rubbed as if for solace. “Or do you need new servers? Because we gave you that. Or do you need another stray cat to come in at the eleventh hour?”
The muscles in Zach’s legs tensed as if they would force him up and out of his chair. “Are you referring to Lindsey Monahan? Are you calling her a stray cat?”
“The other students don’t like her, and she hasn’t produced anything of value. If I had my way, I would remove her immediately.”
Zach’s eyes flitted to the president, whose eyes were watery and downcast. Apparently, he wasn’t here to help. Zach turned back and stared straight at the dean. “How would you know?”
“Know what?”
“That Lindsey hasn’t produced anything.”
The dean dabbed her tongue into the corners of her mouth. “Because you haven’t shown us anything. Are you saying she has?”
“Yes!” he said, then revised his tone. “Yes. Amazing results. Results that will lead us to success. I have no doubt.”
A smile stretched across the dean’s face, which pulled her temples strangely into the corners of her hair. She leaned back and clucked. “Well, alright then. We will extend your program for one more month, until the end of this semester.”
“A month?” Zach blurted. “That’s not enough—”
“No more excuses,” the dean said. “We weren’t planning to give you even that. Moreover, I expect a weekly update with a copy of your work in progress.”
“What good would that do? Do you even read code?”
“If we don’t see results, your program will end. Am I clear?”
Zach’s head whipped toward President Sanders. “Do you agree with this?”
The old man coughed and leaned on the arm of his chair. “I suppose.” he said. “Time has flown by, Professor. I suppose we just…we need to be more in the loop. That would assuage concerns. A month seems fair.”
“One month?” Zach repeated, trying to organize all his thoughts.
“Yes,” said the dean. “Now we understand each other.”
Zach closed his eyes for a moment, remembering Lindsey standing in the evening snow, her head tilted back as flakes fell softly on her face, a quiet hopeful smile on her lips. He was so struck by her beauty and vulnerability he could barely catch his breath. He imagined how she would look if she was told the project had failed and her dream was crushed. He wouldn’t let that happen.
Zach took a breath and slowed his heart rate before standing. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”
Without looking back, Zach rushed out the door and across the quad.
Chapter 21: Lindsey
“I can’t do it,” Lindsey said, clutching Cedric’s arm. “I can’t.” As she stared down the hallway, black spots began to rise up against the pale linoleum.
“You’re hurting me,” Cedric said evenly, pulling away.
“Oh!” Lindsey sputtered. “Sorry. I’m just—”
“Center yourself.” Cedric said, his calm eyes gazing down at her. “He has to know.”
Lindsey’s lungs contracted so tightly she couldn’t get a breath. “I can’t. I don’t want to hurt him.”
Cedric put two calming hands around her shoulders. “It will all work out. Believe that. Strive on with diligence, girl.”
Lindsey shook out her fingers and took the deepest breath she could. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do it quick before I lose my nerve.”
A muffled beat grew as they walked toward the lab. As she pushed the door open, music washed over them like a rush of air. The lab was dark except the lights cast from Zach’s office, the walls of which were lightly shaking with the thump of old school hip-hop.
Lindsey stepped forward. “Zach?”
Zach’s head popped up from behind his bank of monitors. His hair was standing up in all directions, and his face was covered with more than a two-day stubble. At the sight of her, his hands shot up in the air. “Lindsey! Fantastic timing!” he said, rushing out his office door. Lindsey’s hands dropped to her sides as Zach jogged up to her. His hands grabbed both sides of her face, he smiled, and then his lips pressed onto hers. “You’re here.” He grinned.
“I’m here too,” said Cedric. “Where’s my kiss?”
Zach turned. “Sorry, buddy,” he said, giving Cedric a bear hug then grabbing him by the shoulders. “I did it,” he said, then turned again to Lindsey. “I did it.”
Lindsey frowned when she saw his eyes were hooded and red. “Did what, baby?”
“I cracked it,” he said grabbing her again, his arms wrapping around her. “I cracked the code.”
“Oh,” Lindsey said, “that’s—”
Zach kissed her again, happiness radiating through his skin. “No,” she said, pulling back. “Don’t kiss me.”
“What?” Zach asked, bewildered. “What do you mean, don’t kiss you?”
Lindsey took a breath before continuing, a frown creasing her forehead. “You can’t,” she said. “You won’t want to.”
“What,” Zach asked, stepping forward. “What are you talking about, of course—”
“No.” Lindsey stomped her foot. “I have to tell you something.” She watched his eyes widen as he stepped back. “If you don’t ever want to see me again, I’ll understand…”
Zach looked from Lindsey to Cedric. “What? What’s going on?”
Lindsey blinked, trying to stop tears from pooling. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Her eyes darted toward Cedric then back to Zach.
Cedric stepped f
orward. “What she’s trying to say is…you in danger, Professor.”
Zach dragged his hand through his hair, then crossed his arms and widened his stance. “What?”
Lindsey met his eyes. “I…the bleaching wasn’t me, it wasn’t. Someone else bleached those files. But even after you told me not to dig…I did. I couldn’t help myself.”
“Go on,” Zach said as a vein appeared on his temple.
Lindsey’s words tumbled out. “I put a bad USB in all the lab computers to override the firewalls and get reports on everything. Everything going in and everything going out.”
Zach’s mouth dropped open. “Mine too?”
She sniffed. “Sorry.”
Zach shook his head as if a sudden pain had run through his torso. “You did not.”
“Sorry,” she said again, unable to keep the tears from falling.
Cedric stepped forward. “Keep going, girl.”
Lindsey nodded. “Well, it turns out, the files weren’t being bleached, they were being siphoned. Someone was just picking at the edges so we wouldn’t notice, taking pieces of our code piece by piece. Problem is, there was an error in their program that corrupted the file on the way out. And they left a signature.”
“Yeah,” Cedric said. “Like a stupid criminal who drops his driver’s license at the crime scene. And I’ll give you one guess who.” Before there was time for Zach to answer, Cedric went on. “James, you right.”
Zach dropped his head into his hands and groaned. “So, James has stolen pieces of our code?”
“Looks that way,” Lindsey said.
Zach shook his head once before his jaw tensed. His shoulders and arms strained the fabric of his shirt as he began to pace slowly from one side of the lab to the other. He stopped, gripped his hands into fists and began to pace faster. Suddenly, his hands dropped and his body turned toward Lindsey. He rushed toward her.
“Thank God for you, Lindsey,” he said, embracing her. “Thank God.” He kissed her roughly, then took her face in his hands. “I was just about to upload the new code to my computer.” He shook his head. “If you hadn’t come in, he would have it all.”
Lindsey blinked. “So you don’t hate me?”
“No,” Zach said, pulling her close. “I love you.”
“You do?” Lindsey asked, her tears drying on her cheeks. “Yay! I love you!”
“I guess I’ll just sit over here, all quiet and alone and stuff,” Cedric mumbled.
Zach pulled Lindsey in, his breath humming against her neck. “You have perfect timing,” he said. “I won’t upload the master program. I’ll just send it directly to the dean, then you can stay and we will just move forward.” He beamed. “Together.”
Lindsey leaned back. “What do you mean I can stay?”
Zach laughed. “Well, Dean Cruz threatened to pull our funding and your spot if we didn’t get the code to her this month. Why do you think I’ve been in here, working for days?” he asked, grazing a finger across her cheek. “You have to graduate.”
Cedric leaned against a terminal. “Like the dean can even read code,” he said.
“Yeah,” Zach nodded. “That’s what I said. I guess James could try, but what he has he couldn’t sell, it’s incomplete.”
“James won’t have to sell it,” Lindsey said. “Brenda True will.”
Zach pulled away and looked down at her. “What? Who the hell is Brenda True?”
Lindsey threw a glance at Cedric. “Your turn,” she said.
Cedric moved forward, then rested all his weight against one hip. “So, here’s the thing, Professor, there’s more…I hope you’ll still love me, too.”
“Oh, God,” Zach said.
“Yeah, so, I put a spy cam on the dean.”
“Shit.”
Cedric shrugged. “She’s just such a freaky bitch, you know. I wanted to see inside the crypt, watch her bake children into pies or whatever she does at night. Anyway,” he continued, “she is into some freaky shit, a discussion for another time, I think, but she is definitely in cahoots with James and some chick named Brenda True. My guess is Dean Freaky is selling the algorithm to Brenda T and taking a cut.”
Zach’s arms fell loosely to his side. He blinked rapidly, then rushed to his office. Lindsey and Cedric ran behind him, watching his fingers fly across his keyboard. Within seconds, search engines and websites illuminated his screens.
“What?” Lindsey asked rushing in behind him. “What is it?”
“I know that name,” Zach said, his hand swiping his mouse across the desk. In a moment, Brenda True came up. “See?” he asked, pointing. “She’s on the new donor list.”
“That must be how Dean Cruz knows her,” Lindsey said.
“Follow the money,” Zach blurted, his fingers racing.
“What?”
“It’s what my brother always says. Follow the money.” He swiveled around. “Where did Brenda True get her money?”
Lindsey blinked. “A trust. My friend, Kate— you remember Kate, the PR guru? Kate found ties to a trust. I guess that’s how she’s able to spend all her time on a beach in Aruba.”
“And your friend Kate didn’t wonder why a woman of leisure, who spends her time on a beach, would want to get her hands on James’ algorithm?”
“I didn’t think to ask her that.” Lindsey said, pulling her lips tight. “Scoot over.”
Lindsey took control of Zach’s keyboard and began typing. Across the screen flew public filings for the States and the Caribbean. Documents filled the screen, each overlapping the last, until Lindsey stopped the flow with a click of her mouse. She stood and looked at the screen. “Here. Here it is,” she said. “The trust is paid through a company called Blackburton. Zach? What’s the matter?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
Zach fell against the wall, blood draining from his face. “No,” was all he said.
Cedric wrung his hands. “Now you’re even freaking me out, Professor. Spill.”
“Blackburton is a defense contractor,” he said quietly. “Known for their work in Global Instability Modeling.”
“What would they want with a shopping algorithm?” Lindsey asked.
“That’s not it,” said Cedric quietly, “is it? They weren’t trying to buy James’ algorithm…they were trying to buy our code.”
“No,” Zach said, his eyes glistening. “I think they want it all.”
“All of what?” Lindsey asked, her voice rising. “I don’t get it.”
Zach turned his beautiful eyes on her. “Our code, plus James’ algorithm, could be very, very dangerous.”
Lindsey swallowed. “How?”
“Our code makes it easier to learn all about people and their needs and thoughts in real time. If you add in some psycho-graphics, and an algorithm that quantifies exactly how far people can be pushed…”
“Oh, my God,” whispered Cedric.
“Right,” Zach said. “They can tailor make internet Bots designed to sway public opinion, disrupt dissent, and turn people against each other. They can weaponize the data and use it to control the masses. Devour power.”
“Holy crap,” Lindsey said. “That must be Elysian Fields.”
“What?” asked Zach.
“Elysian Fields. That’s what Brenda T is trying to get from the dean. And there’s a countdown clock.”
“Oh, my God,” Zach said.
Lindsey laughed nervously. “Well, crisis averted, right?” she said, turning from Zach to Cedric. “They didn’t get it.”
Zach grimaced. “The dean won’t stop. If we don’t deliver, she’ll get rid of us and put in a team that will.”
Lindsey stood beside him, bewildered. “But, we can’t give it to her. We won’t, right?”
“No,” Zach said, squeezing her hand. “But we have work to do. We have to create a ghost code.”
Chapter 22: Zach
Zach felt Lindsey slip out of bed and tip-toe to the bathroom. In the dim light of the morning, he saw the shadow of her tiny
footsteps on the linoleum within. With the whine of a pipe, his shower rumbled to life and began to let steam out through the crack in the open door.
He gripped the edge of the bed and stretched his long limbs to the very corners of the mattress. His head and eyes ached from all their work the night before, but his heart felt warm. In the last dark hours of the morning, he and Lindsey had walked hand in hand up the staircase to his apartment, falling into bed without a word. The code was done, only time would tell if their plan would work.
As he listened to the droplets of water fall, he thought of Lindsey in the lab. He had never seen anyone so fluid, so in control of the code. He and Cedric stood and watched as she conducted the system like a maestro, the zeros and ones flying across the screen, creating her own personal symphony. Watching her made his heart swell, and then wrench tight with fear. After she graduated, the opportunities would come pouring in. As much as he wanted to hold on to her and keep her safe in his arms, he knew that would be selfish. She was an anomaly, the kind of mind that came along once in a generation, and she must be free to see where her talent would take her. His program was just the beginning.
Zach slid his feet to the floor and stood. As he did, all the blood in his body seemed to rush to his penis. He made his way across the floor and opened the bathroom door, feeling the warm, humid air rush around him. Lindsey’s limbs and torso glowed from inside the glass shower stall, her body turning as she heard him enter. He gripped the side of the shower door and slid it open, his eyes cascading over her shining, long limbs.
Lindsey ran her hands over her wet hair and reached out to him with a smile. He took her hand, stepped into the hot, racing flow of the water and wrapped his arms fully around her. As he did, she stretched up toward him, wrapping her delicate fingers around the back of his neck, pulling his mouth down to hers.
Her lips were like rose petals beneath him, soft and red, stroking his mouth with her own. He heard himself let out a tiny sigh against her mouth, as she hooked one leg around him, sliding the very tip of him inside of her.
He felt a sudden need, the raw, pounding need he felt every time he entered her, creating a desperate thirst only her body could quench. He grabbed her beneath each buttock, raising her hips up to his, then buried himself within her. Her ankles curled around his back, the muscles in her thighs clutching at him, swirling, thrusting onto him. He pushed her against the wall and felt the slick velvet shroud of her flesh envelope him fully.
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