Exponential

by JM Addison

  Chapter 13

  The night was not going well. She stumbled through the darkening woods. The inky sky started to produce a cold, fine November drizzle. Mara’s bruised and bloodied body quickly became soaked. Her coat was no match for long term exposure to rain and cold. She needed someplace to shelter.

  Her shivering only made her have to go to the bathroom even more. She could not imagine sticking her cold bottom out in the elements deep in the woods in the dark someplace, but eventually she had no choice.

  The terrain would probably have been considered delightfully scenic under better circumstances. Now it was downright treacherous. Numerous hills and gullies throughout the woods clawed at any real headway. Her battered purse and soaked jacket caught on brambles to impede her progress. She eventually came to a clearing which turned out to be another farm. This farm seemed like it was still in operation. She could see the looming shape of the barn in the darkness. She found her way inside and from the exceptionally foul smell of animal waste knew that this farm was definitely in use. She would normally be afraid of large animals in the dark, but once you are pursued by human animals, your perspective changes a little. These kind animals weren’t so bad after all.

  There was a dim glow coming from a single bulb located within the barn someplace. She managed to find an old set of ladder steps built into the wall that led to an upper loft. Her aches were incredible. Even though she had eaten only a couple of hours ago, the cold seemed to gnaw at her appetite itself so that she felt starved. She dragged herself up the rungs to the upper loft, found some loose hay and buried herself for warmth. The fine dust from the hay made her sneeze a couple of times.

  She desperately needed sleep and she also needed medical attention. Her face was stained with blood from the cut in her head. The blood smeared from the drizzle had blemished quite a lot of her clothing. Some of the glass in her back had worked its’ way out, but there were a couple of spots on her right side where the bits of glass seemed to penetrate deeper.

  She lay there trying to relax so she could drift off to sleep. However, she was continually haunted by questions. Her foremost worry was, would they find her here? She also was concerned for her mother. What had happened to her? Was she just out somewhere? She did spend a lot of time visiting with some of the local seniors. Perhaps she was just not at home. A bigger problem that plagued her was how the heck did they know she was going to be there? The guy with the injured hand said they were expecting her. Then later, when she overheard their conversation at the stone wall, he said that they knew where she would be and when she would be there. Did they have her phone tapped? How could they have known? Who did she tell? She didn’t even call her mother to say that she was coming up for a visit, it would be a surprise. ‘Remember?’ she told herself, ‘you didn’t want to get her worried’. So a phone tap would not have revealed her plans to come here.

  In fact, the only people she did tell was that police guy, Dell and Will at the office as she was on her way out of the building. Could one of them somehow be mixed up in all this? It would be an impossibly odd coincidence if the detective she talked to was involved, and Viiradium was somehow at the bottom of all this when you considered the frantic message she received from Chris. Will was upper management at Viiradium. He must be involved or at least have some knowledge of the unfolding story. Slowly, the reality began to dawn. It seemed that all along what she thought was concern and assistance in helping her determine what had happened to Chris really turned out to be information she’s been feeding Will to be used against her!

  She thought back to Chris’s e-mail message and struggled with an explanation. She had no idea what to make of it. She did not even know where to begin. What sort of ‘clue’ was he trying to send her. She tried to boil it down. He was a computer science graduate from one of the top schools in the country. He had strong math skills. He worked at a prestigious company. He was involved in the internal design and development of very complicated computer security and information protection systems which depended greatly on mathematics. That company apparently was involved in his disappearance. Was the ‘tomb’ he mentioned, being discovered at Viiradium, discovered by him? Or had Viiradium made a discovery and Chris found out about it? It had to be something to do with their line of business. That business was data protection based on computers and mathematics. She needed to understand more about exactly what Viiradium’s products were and how they worked . They were popular, in fact their products led the industry. That was it! There was an industry of competitors. That meant that other companies produced similar products based on the same computer and math techniques.

  She would check into these ‘techniques’ and see if she could determine the meaning of Chris’ message. But how? Her car was smashed both front and back and lying in a field leaking gas somewhere. Killers were in pursuit. It sounded like they were frantic to find her. But why? She did not do anything. Of course! They wanted to know what she knew. Chris got a message to her under their noses and they want to know the damage. That’s likely why they didn’t simply shoot her in the head. They needed to know who else knew. Did she tell the police? Others at Viiradium? They were trying to control the damage. Apparently, whatever Chris discovered about them had enough impact to lead to desperate actions on their part.

  Now that she had gone to the police, they would likely want to simply kill her to shut her up and prevent more damage. In fact, they practically did! The only problem was, she didn’t really understand the information from Chris. She didn’t really know anything other than it must be critically important. But the real problem was, they didn’t know that she didn’t know.

  She still had anxious concern for her mother. Mara wanted to keep her out of all this, but somehow, she failed. If she could get to her mother’s car. She could get transportation out of here. What if her mother and her car were missing? What if they were keeping watch on her mother’s house in case Mara returned? She needed help but did not know where to turn. The police detective in Bedford, Dell, might be a good possibility, but could she trust him? Would he help her? So far, they hadn’t been able to do much and she wondered how seriously they were taking this case.