by Frank Perry
store and Swensen’s. He sat thinking about what he would say. No matter how he framed it in his mind, it never seemed to come out right. After a quarter hour, the cold had saturated his clothes, and he shivered. He stood to head back to the Swensen home when his phone began buzzing. The display said “Kelly.” He answered apprehensively, “Hello.”
There was a brief pause before she spoke. “Hi, I saw on my phone that you called. I’ve got a lot of new work and was still finishing some entries when you called.” There was no warmth in her tone … not that he expected or deserved it.
“Ah, can you talk?”
“I just walked out to my car, heading home. So, what do you want?”
He rubbed his head, thinking fast. The cold wasn’t affecting him any longer. “I just … I just wanted to talk to you and maybe explain some things.”
“You mean why you disappeared without any word? You mean why you left me alone for two days, pondering what I did wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Yeah, I know.” Her voice was louder and tense. “I need to go now, goodbye.”
“WAIT! Please, just give me a chance to explain.”
She didn’t answer immediately. He stood, unsure of what to do or say next. She’d only known John for three months and thought their foundation was established, and then he disappeared! How can he treat me like this? Then her analytically-trained mind took over. “Okay, let me hear your story, but let me warn you that I’m not in a good mood right now. You’re alive, obviously, so there isn’t much of an excuse that will make me understand.”
“Kell, I know how this looks, and how you must feel. I feel the same way. I’ve been in a tailspin and don’t have a parachute. I reacted irrationally and … well, I know that now. I just want to let you know what went on.”
“So, why did you disappear?”
“I don’t think I really know.”
She exploded. “You don’t know? How could you not know? My God, John, you’re not ignorant. You’re a veteran. You saw men killed in combat, and, for all I know, you killed a few yourself. What? Are you suddenly a mental case?”
He didn’t feel very self-assured. “No, none of that.”
“Okay, let’s hear it.” He heard her car engine start and the phone switched to Bluetooth operation.
“I’ve got to tell you the whole story.”
“Go ahead. I’m driving alone toward home, and you have my undivided attention.”
“Okay, but I hope this makes sense.” He went on to describe a normal day in BSL-4B. “I finished entering data and did some checks, but it’s all gotten routine, so I wanted to go further into the database, into things that I wasn’t supposed to be seeing. Lorne was gone overseas, and Jules is spending most of his time on the road in hush-hush business meetings, so I decided to play a little. You know, ‘inquisitive minds.’ Anyway, the files were password protected, so I did some exploring were I shouldn’t have. Lorne’s a pretty straightforward guy so I did some simple experimenting; you know, dog names, kid names, wife, birthdays, etc. Actually, I’ve tried several things on and off over the months, as kind of a game. I couldn’t understand why some of the lab files were concealed.”
She interrupted, “Wait, you hacked your own boss?”
“Yeah, yes, I did.” He wasn’t proud of it, which showed in his voice. He stood and walked along the edge of the harbor, continuing to talk. “Anyway, I thought about that boat he loved: Bugkill’r. I tried it along with a couple numbers, a couple dates. All of a sudden, I was in!”
“Are you sure you want to tell me this? It sounds like a breach of security, or at least a breach of protocol. I’ve still got a job here.”
He got the implication in her words. He’d done everything wrong, departing the way he did with no notice to the Institute. “No one needs to know this part.” Before she could respond, he continued. “So, anyway, some large files jumped out, lots of them, all coded from what I could see. Honestly, Kelly, I don’t know what any of them said, except they were way different than the normal lab format.”
“I hate to ask; but, what was in them?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know. I played around trying to break the codes. I knew both Lorne and Jules were gone, so I had the time to play without any fear.”
“Look, John, I’m almost home. Is there a point to this? What’s the bottom line? Why did you abandon me, your job, everything?”
“Kelly, here’s the mystery: I don’t know.” He could hear her gasp in exasperation, “That’s not the point. I was experimenting with the data files when I got a priority IM telling me to stop immediately! Lorne; he was half way around the world and working remotely in the data at the same time. He could see my login information.”
She parked outside her apartment, “So, you got caught and decided to run.”
“No! That’s the point. Lorne has been my closest friend, my mentor at GHI. He treats me like a son. His message was short, ‘Shut down, get out – fast! Explanation to follow.’ You’d have to know Lorne to understand the urgent undertones. Anyway, I did just that and left the building. Shortly after that, he sent me a text message. It just said, ‘get lost, kid, get really lost, more to follow.’ Later, when I was at my apartment, thinking about calling you at work, I got another message: ‘Go somewhere that no one can find you, tell no one; don’t tell Kelly.’ I was going to call you anyway when he sent me a last message: ‘life or death issues; it’s not all what it seems. Get lost and I’ll give more in a day or so.’ I didn’t hear from him yet, so I’m in the dark, Kelly. I probably shouldn’t even be calling you, but I couldn’t go any longer without letting you know what happened.”
Her demeanor had shifted. “You’re scaring me, John. Do you think you’re in danger? What could have been in Lorne’s data files?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything until he contacts me again.”
She was silent for several moments. “Lorne’s dead.”
Lab Indoctrination
That night, in her apartment, she stayed awake for hours trying to piece together what John was saying. It seemed so simple, yet it didn’t make any sense. How could some encrypted files be so important that John had to fear for his life? Is that what Lorne was telling him? Life or death could mean anything. There were questions but no answers. In the meantime, John was hiding out. He certainly took Lorne’s warning seriously. She didn’t know Lorne, or Jules, the way that John did. He’d been Lorne’s right hand for a year, working alone together in the lab most of the time. Jules rarely appeared any more, certainly not since she’d started at the lab. John and Lorne had a special bond, and John was able to interpret Lorne’s messages. He was definitely scared.
She went to work early the next morning after a sleepless night. John didn’t tell her where he was located, so she didn’t have to lie if anyone asked. She was basically to act as though they barely knew each other. Lorne may have known that they’d dated, but it wasn’t general knowledge at the Institute. Her head was still swimming. So much had changed in a short time. John disappeared, Lorne died, she got moved to another lab, and now a rumor was circulating that another VHF breakout was possible. She sat at her BSL-4A outer desk doing nothing and thinking about priorities. John’s situation confounded her. Everything else was linked together, but not John. She was getting madder by the minute thinking about it. She should have been thinking about managing two level 4 bio-safety labs. The stuff inside could kill her and others. John was personal.
Kelly was socially awkward. From the time she was a little girl she’d excelled in sciences. This intimidated the boys. As she moved through high school and college, her laboratory work became her main focus. While other girls were concerned about attracting boys, and, vice versa, Kelly didn’t pay too much attention. She was aware when prom dances and campus parties were happening but she wasn’t interested; she didn’t care
-- she really didn’t care.
Her parents had both been engineering professors, consulting at Ft. Meade for the NSA and always encouraged her to use her mind. They also told her she was pretty and would someday meet a smart man who would respect her, support her career, and be a true partner in life. Children were optional and neither of her parents showed any interest in having grandchildren. She’d grown up under the presumption that she was heterosexual which was accurate, and her parents just believed that some great guy would materialize in her life.
After meeting John, something happened to her. Repressed adolescent cravings began to affect her; maybe even some maternal instinct. She wasn’t sure how it all felt, but she enjoyed it. She never remembered her parents holding hands or kissing each other. They never kissed her either. But with John, she felt emotions that were foreign to her, things she wasn’t prepared for. Whatever it was, she had liked it.
Right now, she was waiting for Jules to escort her into BSL-4B and start showing her around. She knew this was more than doubling her workload with Lorne gone. Jules was
