Project Armageddon

by Michael Stephens

“Good point.” Abbie agreed. She backed her car into a parking spot in the back lot that had a line of trees and shrubs to obscure the missing rear window.

  Abbie grabbed her purse and met Josh at the hood of the car.

  “Where to?” He asked.

  “Dad’s office.” Abbie led the way. She crossed two parking lots, covered the length of an extended covered sidewalk, and through two sets of double doors. After a few long straightaways and several quick turns, she arrived at her father’s office with Josh right behind.

  She unlocked the door to her father’s office with the key her father gave her as a backup so many years ago. She urged Josh forward. He complied, and she followed him. She peeked her head back to ensure no one saw them enter her dad’s office and closed the door behind her.

  Dr. Anthony Talbot’s office was beautiful. Dr. Talbot had taught at the University for over a decade. He sat atop many different groups and boards at the University. He was a well-respected, long-time member of the faculty. His position afforded him one of the precious offices that had windows.

  Sunny, natural light shined through the windows of Dr. Talbot’s office. They provided a beautiful view of the University grounds as students and faculty worked their way through the covered walkways and crossings like ants in an ant farm.

  University movers had started the process of packing up Dr. Talbot’s office. One side of the office was impeccably neat, while its opposite was stacked with full and empty moving boxes and packing supplies.

  Abbie began looking through the organized half of her father’s office. The half that contained his desk, bureau, and bookshelves. She started with his desk drawers. She opened the first drawer with care and caution.

  Josh watched.

  She took everything out one-by-one and carefully placed it on the desk. She cleaned the entire drawer out. She reviewed the front and back of each piece of paper. If it was folded, she unfolded it completely. She examined every page of the few pamphlets and books that came from the drawer.

  Josh leaned against the wall, astonished, as he continued to watch Abbie as if she was the best episode of Game of Thrones. Her OCD is annoying yet thrilling to watch.

  When Abbie completed her inspection of the drawer, she returned every item to its precise place, including several minor adjustments to ensure placement accuracy. Abbie felt Josh’s eyes turn creepy on her. She glanced up. “What are you doing?”

  Her question knocked Josh from his trance. “Nothing.” He said quickly.

  “Don’t stand there. Start looking”

  “For what?”

  “My father’s laptop. What else?”

  Josh simply held his face in a confused stare at Abbie.

  Abbie’s eyes rolled to the side then up as she quickly scanned her memory for when she told Josh. Not a single thought came to mind.

  “Didn’t I tell you?”

  Josh shook his confused look from side-to-side. “No.”

  Abbie smiled. “Oh. Well, now you know,” and she continued searching her dad’s desk.

  Cute, but scary smart, he thought. Josh approached the stacked boxes. “What kind of laptop?”

  Frustrated, Abbie said, “What do you mean, what kind of laptop? It’s a laptop.”

  Josh shook his head. “Mac or PC?”

  His question provoked thought in Abbie. Oh, shit, there’s a difference, she asked herself. “PC.” She continued to delicately search the desk drawer.

  Josh ripped open the seam of the box and pulled back the flap. “What color?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s silver.”

  Josh started to lift a few things from side-to-side in the box while glancing into it from different directions. His eyes focused keenly on a newly found discovery in the box. “How many inches?”

  Abbie’s head snapped up as if he called her name. His question made her think back to the time in college when she tried to live in the sorority house. The loud annoying voice of one her sorority sisters yelling out “How many inches,” when a fellow sister announced to the occupants of the living room that she lost her battery-operated-boyfriend.

  Embarrassed, Abbie asked. “What?” Did he really just ask that?

  “How many inches?” She heard again.

  No. He isn’t. He can’t… why would he? She quickly glanced in Josh’s direction. He looks like a jock. He legitimately could be asking me.

  Abbie was not going to play into this. Her mind was being abnormally perverse. Abbie was not innocent by any stretch. This was not the time.

  “I don’t know.” She replied.

  Frustrated, Josh asked. “Is it big, or is it small?”

  Oh, my God. He really is asking me. She convinced herself. “How should I know?” she abruptly responded.

  Abbie’s answer alone frustrated Josh. However, the snippy tone in which she responded was unwarranted.

  “Well, I imagined you’ve seen it,” Josh replied as he reached in the bottom of the box.

  Abbie immediately stopped what she was doing. “And exactly how would I have seen it?” Abbie asked.

  More snippiness. What? He thought.

  Josh stopped rummaging through the box. He made eye contact with Abbie, who looked at him sternly.

  “What are we talking about?” He asked.

  “What were you talking about?”

  “Your pop’s laptop. What were you talking about?”

  Abbie paused. She did not dare answer honestly. “Um.” This was not how she expected this conversation to go.

  “What you were saying. You know. The size of the… um, how many inches it is… laptop. Yeah, um, the size of the, um, laptop.”

  That last sentence, if it was a sentence, had more ums than me defending my master’s thesis. I sound like a babbling college girl… which, technically… I am.

  Abbie tried to start the conversation over. “What’d you ask again?”

  Josh was done with trying to interpret Abbie’s rumbling. He pulled a silver laptop from the packing box. “Is this your dad’s laptop?”

  Abbie answered. “Yes.” She rushed to the packing box.

  Chapter 32

  Josh held the laptop out, inviting her to take it from him.

  She did.

  He held the box flaps back as he dug through it more. “I don’t see a power cable.”

  “Hopefully, we don’t need one,” answered Abbie.

  She placed the laptop on the windowsill and opened it. The LED screen flickered on. The logo on the back of the laptop brightened with a soft fluorescent blue.

  Abbie watched the operating system’s splash screen light up the laptop display. She impatiently waited for the sign-in screen. Josh paid close attention to the operating system starting and the animation cycles in the splash screen. It looked as if he was counting them.

  Abbie attacked the laptop’s keyboard the exact second the sign-in screen showed itself. She read her father’s sign-in on the screen. She typed the last password her father gave her about six months ago. The laptop responded with a message that read “Bad Username or password.” Abbie tried again with a different password. The same result.

  “Shit, I can’t remember his password.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Abbie fired back. “No.” She tried another password, and then another.

  She typed another password when Josh called out. “Don’t!”

  Abbie’s pinky unconsciously pressed the ‘Enter’ key. It was a reflex from so many papers and reports over her academic career.

  The laptop’s hard drive LED blinked bright a few times and then flickered with varying intensity. The screen displayed “Bad Username or password.”

  Josh’s upper body drooped with rejection. “You just locked out the account for thirty minutes.”

  “I did what?” Abbie asked.

  “Your dad’s account. It’s locked out.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You typed in five bad attempts within two minutes. It locks
out the account for thirty minutes.” His attention shifted past Abbie and out the window.

  “How long? Thirty minutes?” Abbie looked at her watch.

  Josh’s answered her slowly and automatically, like all the synapses in his brain were redirected to process the information from his eyes, and his mouth was on temporary energy.

  “Yes.”

  Abbie accepted his answer. She scooched her butt onto the windowsill. With her back to the window, she got comfy. “Twenty-eight minutes to go.” She said positively and enthusiastically.

  “Probably not,” Josh said emphatically. Not knowing his own strength, Josh grabbed Abbie's shoulder and pulled her across the windowsill and to her feet.

  When Abbie caught her balance, she saw Josh’s finger-pointing at something out the window.

  His finger slowly tracked something that moved.

  Abbie looked at the target of Josh’s finger. Across the large dark green lawn, his finger followed Dimitri Petrov and a few of his men walking the covered walkway.

  “That walkway leads to hallway A, that leads to…”

  “Here,” said Abbie.

  Josh asked quickly. “What?”

  “That hallway,” her finger nearly pointed to the same location as his. “They take a right and another right, they’re headed straight here.”

  “Maybe now is a good time to leave.”

  “Agreed,” said Abbie.

  Josh slammed the laptop lid shut and scooped it under one arm. He firmly but gently caught Abbie by the bicep and was helping toward the office door. “Shit. Do you remember how much battery was left?” He asked.

  “What?”

  He helped her around some packing material. “Hello?” Josh said with frustration. “Can you hear me now,” blurted Josh in a terrible impression of that cellular phone commercial guy.

  “I can hear that you’re being an asshole,” said Abbie as he helped her toward the door.

  He grabbed the knob. “How much power was left on the laptop?”

  “What idiot pays attention to their laptop’s power?”

  Abbie grasped the doorknob over his hand and turned. She yanked open the door, ducked under his arm, and left her dad’s office.

  “An idiot without a power cord,” said Josh as he followed her.

  The two of them ran down the hall in the opposite direction of their Russian acquaintances. A few turns later, they reached a fork in the path.

  Abbie grabbed Josh’s shirt as she caught up to him. She tugged it forward

  “This way.”

  He followed her for a reasonable distance when they stopped near the end of the long hallway. Abbie saw Sayid and a hand-full of his men heading their direction. What mattered more was Sayid saw Abbie.

  He and his men launched into a run towards the entrance where Josh and Abbie had just arrived.

  Abbie slowed and reversed her direction. Josh was an arm’s length behind her after he caught his balance when his well-built body changed course so quickly.

  Abbie returned to the intersection she initially passed.

  Go left, she thought. Her body did as she thought. Josh was immediately behind her. From a distance, she heard, “Get her!” in a thick Ukrainian accent.

  “You gotta be shitting me,” said Abbie.

  They sprinted down the hall to another two-way intersection.

  Abbie scanned the signs.

  “The library. Lots of tables. Lots of shelves. Lots of room. And, lots of people,” said Abbie.

  Josh said nothing. He collected her by the arm and nearly carried her in the direction of the library—her in one arm and the laptop in the other.

  Chapter 33

  Abbie led Josh through the rows of tables and shelves as they sought refuge in the library. They reached the back wall of the library that had windows. But both Abbie and Josh lost their bearings. Neither of them could figure out from which direction Petrov’s or Sayid’s men would come. Abbie only knew that she would see them enter from the front before they could locate her in the crowded library with lots of obstacles to slow a chase.

  They parked themselves at a table in the corner opposite to the enormous University Library’s entrance. Abbie opened the laptop lid and slouched behind it. That was not going to work for Josh. His large stature made him stick out like a fly in milk.

  “Get on your knees,” whispered Abbie.

  “What did you say?”

  “Not like that,” yelled Abbie, “You’re too big.” Geez, that didn’t sound right, either. Embarrassment disguised as a bright rouge dusted the tops of Abbie’s cheeks.

  Abbie dragged Josh off the chair to the floor. “I mean…people will see you.”

  Josh acted offended by Abbie’s remark. He spoke in a terrible imitation of a feminine voice, “What? You’re embarrassed to be seen with me?”

  “Will you be serious,” corrected Abbie.

  “Lady—”

  “Abbie,” she corrected.

  He emphasized. “Abbie.” He continued as he laughed. “I’m honestly amazed we’re still alive. So, everything else is like extended play on a video game. Chill out and try to sign in again.” Josh pointed at the laptop’s screen showing her dad’s sign-in.

  Her dad’s laptop yanked Abbie away from deliberately deciding the colorful metaphors she was going to use in her response. She typed a password. The laptop rejected it.

  “Four left.”

  She tried another with the same result.

  “Three,” announced Josh.

  Abbie was already on edge and frustrated. Josh’s verbal countdown was not helping any. “Is counting down from five so difficult for you that you need to do it aloud.”

  Josh shrugged. “Try your mother’s name.”

  “That’s a good one…” said Abbie, “that I already tried.”

  “Did you capitalize the first letter?”

  “Yes,” said Abbie. “It’s a proper noun.”

  “Try it all lower case,” he returned.

  Abbie placated Josh’s request. The attempted was the same, “Bad username or password.”

  You should mess with her, thought Josh. He whispered under his breath loud enough for Abbie to hear. “Two.”

  Abbie slightly turned her head toward him and rolled her eyes toward the whisper. She returned her attention to the laptop.

  “Think of any other words or phrases your dad used. Symbols… anything.” Josh suggested.

  Abbie took a few seconds to ponder as she stared out the window. Then, her posture popped upright. “I think I got one.” Abbie’s fingers tapped at the keyboard. She glanced at Josh as she held up crossed fingers. She pressed enter. The sign-in failed again.

  Josh scrutinized the screen. He pointed, “Look.”

  Abbie looked at the message on the screen. Below “Bad username or password” read:

  HINT: Then they gathered the kings to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon (73-72)162.

  Chapter 34

  “You didn’t mention this before,” Josh said.

  “Didn’t see it… well, I’ve seen it before, just not there.”

  “Huh?”

  “The phrase is new, but the math problem…I’ve seen it before. When they gave me Dad’s briefcase. Here.” Abbie took the card Mr. Bailey gave her from her purse and handed it to Josh.

  “You had that all along,” he said a bit exasperated. “It's 2-5-6.”

  Abbie shook her head, frustrated. “I should slap you.”

  “What?”

  “I know the problem equals two fifty-six. I tried two fifty-six… and there is no lowercase. The puzzle is hidden in the math problem.”

  “Okay. Do you know what the phrase means?” He asked.

  “Not really,” said Abbie. She reread the message on the screen. “Armageddon—the end of the world?”

  “In what context? Some consider our current president as the end of the world.

  “More like hell freezing over,” added Abbie.

  �
��Is there a difference?”

  They both shrugged.

  Josh read the sentence aloud. “The phrase sounds biblical.”

  “You don’t strike me as a choir boy.”

  Josh answered quickly. “Looks can be deceiving. Anyway, that was a long time ago… before…”

  “Before what?” Abbie asked encouragingly.

  “Before she got sick.” His answer erupted a small fit of anger. “Can we focus on the password?” He insisted.

  Abbie recognized the topic hit a nerve. She did not want to appear insensitive. She followed his suggestion.

  Abbie saw the pods of library computers in the corner. A station opened up that would continue to hide them but give them a good view of the entrance. Also, it backed up against the large windows. They still had a visual of the busy campus.

  Abbie grabbed her purse and pulled Josh from the floor to his feet to follow her. Within seconds, she and Josh were in a computer pod, and Abbie was seeking the Internet for help.

  She Googled the word Armageddon. She skipped over the references to the 1998 film, featuring Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck, and read the summary of the first real result, which was from Wikipedia. She read.

  “According to the Book of Revelation, Armageddon will be the prophesied location of a gathering of armies for a battle during the end times, variously interpreted as either a literal or a symbolic location. The term is also used in a generic sense to refer to any end-of-the-world scenario.

  Josh read silently as she read aloud. “Book of Revelation.” He said. “Click that.”

  The screen quickly refreshed. Abbie and Josh now looked at the Wikipedia entry for the Book of Revelation. Abbie read.

  “The Book of Revelation, often called the Revelation to John, the Apocalypse of John, The Revelation, or simply Revelation or Apocalypse is the last book of the New Testament that occupies a central place in Christian eschatology.”

  Josh perked up. “Last?”

  “That’s what it says.”

  Josh turned over Abbie’s card again and examined the math problem. “How many books are in the bible?”

  “I’m a researcher, not a theologian,” snapped Abbie.

  “Then, research.” Josh directed Abbie’s attention toward the library computer. “There.” He pointed to the screen.