Installment 10

As the moon rose above the pueblo ruins. I awoke, remembering the father's warning to me. Looking over, I saw two other shapes underneath blankets. The big form of Alphonse was quietly snoring. Doreen's blankets were curious. A little too still.

It was then I heard the rustle of dust and an engine turnover. I sprang to my feet and ran through the church ruins to the main door, but knew I was too late. The Land Rover was gone and Doreen with it.

Feeling for the amulet, I felt its presence - and was at peace for some reason. I just had a feeling everything would work out. A quiet smile crossed by face and I sat down in the moonlight to reflect on what I had just experienced.

- - - -

The Prefect was happy, satisfied with the progress so far. "We have him now, he's staying in the groove." This project was going to give him everything he wanted - fame, money, power, respect. Just don't blow it now, he thought to himself.

Sue and Roger looked up briefly at his words, then quickly returned to their tasks.

As the pace had accelerated, Sue had a minutia of detail to keep track of and a mass of recordings to monitor. She had already had to pull two backups out as some tests had failed, but the pace of code changes had only increased.

Roger also noted the increase of coding. Things weren't as stable as the prefect thought. These subroutines were becoming more and more tailored to this specific anomaly. The code which was resulting had little to do with the original math and any sort of homogenous set of algorithms which cold be applied to any case. What they were producing was a completely new code, which would at best require years, if not decades of testing before it could be considered stable. At worst, they only proved - well he didn't have time to chase that thought down.

The prefect was smiling. "Almost there, we've almost gotten him off the sauce. Ready, everyone? Here we go...."

Then suddenly, all the screens went blank as did the main stage.

All keyboards quieted as the mutual astonishment swept through the room. Some muttered oaths were heard, but they also died.

The only sounds were the background hum of power convertors and the swish of air through the A/C ducts.

- - - -

The white room was as quiet and peaceful as ever. Around the table this time sat both Factors and the Prefect.

"What are we doing here?" asked the Prefect out loud.

Sue and Roger sat across from each other, with the Prefect over to one side of them. At least this was familiar to them, they thought as they looked in each other's eyes. Then they both looked at the Prefect.

"That's a question you are going to have to answer for yourself," said Roger.

"Because it's a question we all have," added Sue. "So you might as well chill down a little bit - or not. Your choice. But we are all here, so if you want us to cooperate with you..."

Roger nodded in assent.

The prefect immediately bridled by this improper breach of etiquette. "What the...?" he started, but cut himself off as he did so. "You know where we are?"

Roger looked at Sue, and then back to the Prefect. "Not exactly, but we know it's something to do with the subject's dreams."

"We actually met him here, once." Sue spoke out. "And while he's a nice guy, he warned us about what we were doing."

"What did he threaten you with," snarled the prefect, "what kind of blackmail is this?"

Sue, letting her annoyance show, retorted, "It was no blackmail, he just pointed out that we have dreams, too. And what we did to others would happen to us. It was a statement of fact, not a threat."

"I won't stand for this, there are rules..." the prefect sputtered.

"And your rules are made-up crap." Roger was now a bit on edge himself. "All the months of working with you and 'your project' just so you could take all the credit - those days are over. We can see where this is heading. Quit kidding yourself."

The prefect seemed to cool, at least on the surface. "You know that if this project fails, so is your own career. Forget ever getting a plum research job in this university or any other. The Corporation isn't going to finance anything with your names on it - we are all going down together if that happens. At least I have tenure and benefits. You'll have nothing for the rest of your life."  He smiled an alligator grin.

"Sorry, 'boss', it isn't working that way." Sue was patiently explaining, as if to an unruly child.  "You see, while we've been working with this guy's dreams, they've been seeping into our subconscious. We know what he knows and we know what the Anomaly is and how it can be used."

Roger, in forcing himself to relax, was finding the shoe on the other foot a bit refreshing. "Don't worry, you'll get yours. You see, we are really here to help you. Because that same rule applies. Only as we help you will we get the help we want and need. Your success is our success."

The prefect relaxed a bit at this, thinking that he had them on his side again. "So we can simply get back to work."

"It's not that simple." Sue was smiling. "What you have been doing for a very long time has set you up for some rather nasty karma - some of which you already know. How many true friends do you have, for instance?"

Roger joined in. "We'll work with you, but its more likely that we will be delivering you to Lady Justice. There is no tipping the scales for personal gain, and that sword is double-edged - it cuts both ways. And maybe that's corny, but your time has come."

The prefect sat in silence taking in what they said. He still glowered.

Sue and Roger looked at each other and nodded.

- - - -

I woke up in my too-familiar hospital gown in that same room - or it seemed the same.

"Oh, there you are. Welcome back." said a voice at my side.

Turning to that side, I saw the pretty brunette I had met in the Garden earlier.

"How are you feeling?" she asked with that dimpled smile of hers.

"Well, I could be doing worse, but right now I'm feeling OK."

"Good. Because we have some work to do if you're up to it."

"Work?"

"Well, that's probably not the right word. It should be a lot of fun. But let's get you out of here first."

It was then I noticed that she was dressed in a tailored blouse and slacks instead of any gown and robe.

She continued, "I brought you a change, and they are all there in the bathroom. So let's get going. Time flies, as it were, and I can explain as we go."

Not needing further encouragement, I slid out of bed and padded over to the bathroom. I could see through the open door a stack of clothes. Looking back to my comely savior, I winked, then entered and closed the door.

A few minutes later, I returned and found my mystery woman checking her hair in the mirror as she waited.

"Ah, that looks better, I'm sure it feels better as well." Again she flashed that darling Helen-of-Troy smile. "I know you have tons of questions. Yes, you can call me Helen if it suits you. Let's go." She took my hand and led me out into the hall, being careful to look both ways.

She stopped at that point and looked up at me directly into my eyes. "You are going to have to relax, as if you were just going to the rec-room. The people we meet are going to expect nothing out of the ordinary. To them, this is a natural occurrence. Treat them as normal, friendly as you usually are. Don't overdo it. We are going to have to take the long route so we don't set off alarms. OK? Here we go."

We walked hand-in-hand down the halls, nodding to everyone we met, giving them a quiet smile. Waving to the nurses at their station, they smiled back, noticing our entwined hands and giving each other a knowing look before turning back to their duties.

Once we reached the elevator banks, she cautioned, "OK, here it can get tricky. Just follow my cues."

We waited in front of an elevator for it to open.

When it did, it was filled with white-coated doctors and interns.

Helen grabbed my face with both hands, and stood on tip-toes to kiss me.

I wrapped my arms around her and made it mutual.

Some tittering erupted, and low wolf-whistles as the interns filed out. When they were nearly past, she released me and rested her head on my chest, hugging me and smiling embarrassedly to the rest. I was, of course, smiling myself.

"OK, now we move..." She whispered and started us forward just as the doors began to close. Once in, she pushed an upper floor. "No, I said we had to take the long route. We have to take the unexpected course."

Slowly, the elevator monitor lights went up and up.

- - - -

"No, Dammit. No!" The prefect was incensed. Nothing they were doing was bringing the data stream back online. He used his cel to call someone. "What do you mean, he's missing?  Lock it down, everything. Just find him, OK?!?" With that, he slumped in his seat.

Sue checked her back-ups and caught Roger's eye. She nodded. With a few taps, he sat back, away from his keyboard and just waited.

- - - -

The canyon was it's usual scene, devoid of life except for the vines on the white-half of the figure. They bloomed in riotous color as always.

It was a scene the Prefect hadn't seen before. At the thunder, he looked up. The overcast skies were becoming thicker and lightning was flashing from peak to peak. They were painted orange, an unnatural hue which reflected into the canyon.

The prefect looked back at the odd figure and started to move toward it.

Suddenly, his path was blocked by a crouching witch-doctor, who rattled his gourds at him and started chanting in no known language or cadence. He punctuated these with infrequent screams and threatening gestures toward the prefect, who was finding himself backing up, away from this wild-acting native.

As he got to a certain distance, the witch-doctor then turned his attention to the figure, running forward and back, from side to side and keeping up the chanting and gourd-rattling. If the precept took a single step forward, the native returned and pushed him back. So the precept found a boulder on the ground and sat to watch.

- - - -

The white table was refreshingly peaceful after months of staring at monitors and keyboards. Sue and Roger sat opposite, as usual. Both broke out in relieved smiles this time.

"Did you get it all?" Roger asked.

"Every bit of it. All locked away and double-encrypted, where anyone who found it would consider it useless back-ups of old experiments from the mainframe days." Sue smiled even broader.

"And the report was emailed. His code gave us the data we needed. And now the prosecutor has all he needs." Joe made a small figure on the table with his finger. "Tangled web and all that."

Sue then went more solemn. "What next, then?" she asked. "I mean, we have our papers set now, real breakthrough research which disproves the whole theorem, and all the test cases have already been done, thanks to the Precept and his failed experiments."

"Well, we aren't out of the woods, yet." Roger frowned slightly. "I don't know how we are supposed to get back. Do you see a door? Anything?"

As they both looked around, they only saw each other, the table, and white everywhere else.

- - - -

Dog and Cat sat on both sides of their new visitors. Dog was wagging his tail expectantly, and Cat was licking a paw as she cleaned.

Soon Sue and Roger sat up. Sue had on a comfortably simple sundress with a large bow at her waist that matched another, smaller version in her hair. Roger was in bib overalls. Both outfits were outlined as cartoons.

When they looked at each other, they had to laugh.

"Welcome!" said Dog.

"Glad to have you here," said Cat.

Roger and Sue looked at their welcoming committee in this cartoon land and laughed again.

"Well, thanks. We're happy to be here," Sue answered. Roger nodded in smiling agreement. The last few months had been hell, so a break like this was more than welcome.

They found themselves relaxed.

As usual, the grass was soft, despite the hard-edged outlines. White clouds with silver linings moved slowly across the uniformly blue sky while the sun smiled down at them and winked.

Life was good all around.