Carrying a long, white box, Jon Graeme crossed through the parking lot and walked toward Building C. He hoped no one would ask him questions about the box. As with any office—large or small, high tech or low tech—gossip travelled at light speed and Jon didn’t want anyone butting into his business. He had gained enough notoriety through his friendship with Harry Sale.
As he walked into the lobby and moved down the hall to the stairway, he was shocked to see George Ludwig standing in front of the elevators. Ludwig looked at least ten years older than Jon remembered him. His hair, formerly salt and pepper, was now completely white. His suit hung in loose folds about his body and he had obviously lost at least twenty five pounds. His skin had a gray cast, and his glazed eyes were turned inward on some terrible landscape. Every movement and facial expression revealed with painful clarity just how tense and nervous the man was. Jon watched until Ludwig disappeared into an elevator. Much to his surprise, he actually felt sorry for him.
As Jon walked down the stairway to his office, he made a mental note to ask Lettie about Ludwig. Then he tried to push the haunting mental image of the wraithlike programmer from his mind, replacing it with a positive one of Lettie laughing. Even this made him feel sad, because the vivid recollection of her laughing face was more than a month old. There had been no laughter in recent memory.
Messages flooded his Inbox. He opened the message from Lettie first and was amazed at the content: “Jon, I missed seeing you yesterday. Sorry about the sudden cancellation. I look forward to our meeting today.”
Jon read the simple message at least ten times. Finally, a personal touch! he thought. He decided to take it as a portent of success. Perhaps he was about to do just the right thing to get back in Lettie’s good graces.
Jon plunged into his morning projects. He had always found that work was the best way to make time pass quickly.
Shortly after ten in the morning there was a knock on his door. “Come in!” he called out.
Benton Reeves entered his office. This time the smile on his face was genuine.
“And how are you today, my boy?” he said in a hearty voice.
“Very good, thank you.”
“You’ve done it again, Jon. You always seem to come through for us in a pinch. Did you have to drag Harry out of bed to finish the software?”
For a moment Jon was flustered. He had not expected this. “Just about, sir,” he finally said.
“I have a little something here just to show my appreciation of your efforts,” he said as he handed Jon an envelope. “Open it up, my boy.”
Jon opened it and saw a voucher for the only five star restaurant in the area, the Café La Fraise. The voucher was for two people. It specified no amount, only that the bill was to be put on Benton Reeves’ account.
“What a surprise! Thank you so much, Mr. Reeves.”
“Think nothing of it, my boy. If anyone deserves it, you do. And don’t stint yourself. Get a good bottle of champagne. You deserve it.” He paused and then smiled broadly. “Enjoy!” he said and turned to leave.
I can’t believe it! Jon said to himself as he leaned back in his chair. First there had been Lettie’s friendly note and now the voucher to one of the premier restaurants in the state. These had to be signs that his luck had turned.
At five minutes to eleven Jon picked up the long, white box from the floor behind his desk and headed for the elevator. The ascent to the sixth floor of Building C seemed interminable. A very real fear remained in the back of his mind that Lettie would take exception to his offering, leading to an awkward, uncomfortable scene.
He knocked on her office door. “Come on in, Jon,” she called out.
Jon held the long, white box behind his back and entered her office.
“What’s going on, Jon?” she asked, eying him suspiciously.
Jon placed the box across her desk. “I couldn’t help but notice that someone has been giving you a single rose. A single rose isn’t nearly enough for someone as wonderful as you, Lettie.”
For a moment she seemed stunned. Her hands trembled as she opened the box. Inside was a bouquet of a dozen roses. The roses were such a deep red they almost seemed purple in the artificial light.
Lettie’s eyes were wide and her cheeks were flushed. She opened her mouth to speak but not a word came out. She looked intently at Jon and then moved to his side of the desk and embraced him.
“You are such a sweet and wonderful man,” she finally said.
Jon could think of nothing to say in return so he just hugged her tighter.
“Wow, what a surprise,” she said, smelling the flowers.
A sudden inspiration came to him and he decided to risk everything.
“I’ve got another surprise for you, too. How would you like to go out to dinner tomorrow night at the Café La Fraise?”
She fumbled with the flowers, nearly losing her balance. Jon reached out to steady her but quickly withdrew his hand, not wishing to seem too forward.
“Jon, that’s too expensive,” she said. “I wouldn’t feel right. It’s just too extravagant. How about Miller’s instead?”
Jon pulled out the voucher Benton Reeves had given him and showed it to her.
“Jon, you are absolutely the most amazing man I’ve ever met.” She laughed and gave him another hug, kissed him on the cheek, and then pulled back. “Hold on,” she said. “I’ve got to sit down before I faint.”
Jon moved a chair next to hers, the way he usually did when they had a work session together, and sat down. Her face was radiant.
“Can I ask you a question, Jon?”
“Sure,” he said.
“When did you decide to get the roses for me?”
“Yesterday,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
“I saw you sitting out there near the pine forest. I never saw anyone so troubled in all my life.”
“But how could you see me? I was at least a quarter mile away.”
“Binoculars,” she said. “I have a pair in my desk. Sometimes deer graze out near the pine forest and I like to watch them. When I saw you crossing the field the other day, I was curious. And when I saw your face … you looked so distressed. My heart went out to you.” She stopped talking for a moment and gazed at him. “Why did you wait so long to bring the flowers?”
“You seemed so cool toward me. You were always so professional and businesslike.”
“I was just following your lead. I thought you hated me.”
“How could I ever hate you?”
“I thought it was because I was such a terrible bitch that day you moved into my office. I was just awful.”
“I never held that against you, really I didn’t. But then you called and said you needed space, so I gave it to you.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have given me so much,” she said. She leaned closer and gave him another hug.
When she drew back, Jon stared at her. He couldn’t believe how beautiful she was. She positively glowed. But the mood was broken when he caught sight of the single rose.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course you can.”
Jon pointed to the single rose on the corner of the desk. “What about that?”
“You mean the rose?” Lettie asked in amazement.
Jon nodded.
“Well, it’s nothing for you to worry about, that’s for sure. One of the guys from the Pentagon group is on my trail. I suppose it’s my own fault, in a way. A while back I ran into him at Miller’s. He seemed so friendly and was such a great listener at first. So I was friendly, too. To tell you the truth, I was really curious about what the Pentagon people were doing here and when he saw how interested I was in that, he just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. I guess he was trying to impress me. He started to stop by my office every day to chat. He always gives me the low-down, and he always gives me a rose and asks me out to dinner. I always refuse.”
“Eric Meyers, right?”
“How did you know?” Lettie asked.
“I saw you with him down at Miller’s. You seemed so … serious.”
“Oh God, no, I was just curious about what was going on. I heard some rumors about the PKD project and I was dying of curiosity.”
“He doesn’t seem like your type,” said Jon.
“Well, he wasn’t. He’s one of these Mr. Macho types. I bet he keeps a score card of the women he’s slept with. I’ve tried to hold him at arm’s length, but the next time he stops by I think I’ll tell him to get lost.”
“The guy’s a real bastard,” said Jon. “Did you know that he thinks Harry is gay?”
Lettie laughed. “I heard about that. Ted Blume told me all about it. I wish to God I could have been there when it happened! It was at a programming conference, just before I started here. Eric practically asked Harry straight out if he was gay. And do you know what Harry said?”
Jon shook his head.
“Harry says, ‘Why do you ask? Do you want some?’ Eric just about went into orbit! Ted Blume had to step between them to stop Eric from punching him.”
“But why on Earth would he think Harry was gay?”
“Who knows? It’s hard to figure out what sort of stuff fuels that kind of ignorance. To someone like Eric, anyone who isn’t your typical Mr. Macho type is suspect.”
“Well, I guess I’m suspect, too. He practically accused me of being gay the other day.”
“Really? That’s unbelievable.” She paused, as if trying to recall something. “You know, Jon, he told me something really weird the other day. He told me there was some kind of infestation in Harry’s office—bugs or something.”
“That’s crazy,” said Jon, “The guy is definitely a nutcase.”
Lettie leaned in closer. “Let’s not talk about him anymore. We’ve got more important stuff to take care of.”
Jon frowned. “You mean the documentation project?”
“No, silly, I mean this!” She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. He put his arms about her waist and pulled her closer. She sighed and moved so close that she was nearly in his lap.
They both started at the sound of a knock on the door. When Lettie drew back, he saw that her face was flushed with excitement. She straightened her skirt and ran her hand through her hair.
“Come in,” Lettie called out.
It was Tina Johnston. “I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time,” she said.
Neither Lettie nor Jon replied.
“How’re things going?” Tina asked.
Jon smiled and replied in a neutral tone, “We were making out.”
Lettie gave his foot a sharp kick.
“You need help with something?” Lettie asked.
Although clearly doubting their sanity, Tina chose to forge ahead with her request as if Jon hadn’t spoken. Or perhaps, Jon thought, “making out” was a foreign concept to her. “I’m afraid I’m having trouble reading the handwritten captions on the magnetometer diagram,” Tina said.
In minutes Lettie was able to decipher the captions for her. Tina thanked her, apologized again for the interruption, and hurriedly closed the door behind her.
Once Tina was gone, Lettie said, “I guess we better cool it. We might have some serious explaining to do if someone walked in without knocking.”
“It’s going to be a long wait for Saturday,” said Jon.
Lettie ruffled his hair. “You’ll survive,” she said, as she opened up her notebook on the documentation project they were working on.
They finished up at about twelve-thirty, after a full work session.
Lettie stood up and rummaged in her purse for a brush. As she brushed out her hair, she said, “I’d like to ask you to have lunch with me today, but I have other plans. Almost every day for the past couple of weeks, Eric has been lurking about the cafeteria, waiting for me. A couple of times I cleared out of there because I felt so uncomfortable. But this time I’m just going to tell him to fuck off.”
Jon pretended to be shocked. “Lettie, I didn’t know you used language like that!”
“You should have heard me when I was in college,” she said and laughed. “I have a feeling that in the near future you’re going to learn all about me, warts and all.”
“Oh, come on. You don’t have any warts. You’re perfect!”
“Hah!” she said and they both laughed.
Back in his own office, Jon realized that he hadn’t asked Lettie about George Ludwig. The guy had surely gone around the bend. Jon didn’t worry too much, though, because he had a strong sense that Lettie could take care of herself. He just wished he could be a fly on the wall when she told Eric Meyers where to get off.
Later in the afternoon Ted Blume stopped by Jon’s office.
“I just wanted to update you about what’s going on with the Pentagon group,” he said as he took a seat. “I just got out of a meeting with them and I thought you’d be interested.”
“Thanks,” said Jon, “I definitely am.”
“Basically, they’re ecstatic about Harry’s PKD software. Their testing has gone really well. But this Tom Delaney character seemed to be raining on the parade somewhat. He kept whispering stuff to the general during the more technical points in the discussion. I’ve got really good hearing. I managed to overhear a snippet, something about the I/O being screwed up. Do you have any idea what could cause that to be a problem?”
Jon remained pokerfaced. He knew immediately what Tom Delaney had run into. He must have been monitoring the Input/Output on Big Moe during their testing. Since all the serious number crunching was being done on the quantum computer, the Input/Output on Big Moe wouldn’t have been sufficient for such a heavy-duty process as Public Key Decryption. Naturally, this made Delaney suspicious.
“I’ll have to ask Harry about that one,” Jon said.
“Don’t worry too much. It’s not a game changer. They are really into this new software—hook, line, and sinker. In fact, they are starting to push us about the other types of decryption programs we promised. They want a status report ASAP. I think I can put them off until Harry gets back. Speak of the devil, have you heard when he’ll be back at the office?”
“Not exactly. My guess would be early next week.”
“That’ll work,” said Ted. “Let me know if you hear anything definite.”
“I’ll be sure to do that.”
Shortly before five, Jon called Lettie at her office to finalize the arrangements for their dinner date on Saturday. It was decided that he would swing by Lettie’s place at seven p.m. and they would take it from there. They bantered back and forth for a moment or two before Jon asked the question that had been on his mind.
“How was your lunch today? Did you have your run-in with Major Meyers?”
“Most definitely,” Lettie said and then began to giggle like a school girl.
“Well, what happened?”
“Oh, he sauntered up to my table, flexing his muscles like a Neanderthal and looking very pleased with himself. He said, ‘Can I sit down?’ I said, ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’ So naturally he sat down anyway. He said, ‘Did I do anything to offend you?’ And I said, ‘You got up out of bed this morning.’ He scratched his sloping forehead for a moment and then said, ‘What about the roses I’ve been giving you?’ I said, ‘What about them?’ He scratched his head some more and then said, ‘They’re not cheap, you know.’ I said, ‘Well, neither am I!’ Then he said, ‘There must be somebody else.’ ‘Oh, there most definitely is,’ I said, ‘and I’d rather he didn’t see you sitting at my table.’ ‘Is it anyone I would know?’ he asked. ‘It’s Jon Graeme,’ I said. And then he practically had a cow! ‘That Ivy League faggot?’ he shouted. I was really embarrassed. A whole bunch of people stared over at us. Then he jumped up from the chair like he had been burned and walked away really fast, dragging his knuckles on the floor.”
“Oh, wow, what a scene!” Jon said.
“Hopefully that’s the end of it. I tried to discourage him a few times before, but ‘polite’ does not work with that guy.”
“Well, if he ever implies that I’m gay again, I think I’ll recycle Harry’s line and see what happens.”
Lettie laughed. “I don’t think we’ll be hearing much more from that guy.”
The conversation turned back to their plans for Saturday night. After finalizing the arrangements and exchanging a few affectionate words, they rang off.
Almost as soon as he hung up, the phone rang again. He grabbed it quickly, thinking that Lettie must have forgotten something. To his amazement, it was Harry.
“Hi, Jon, what are you up to?”
“Just wrapping things up for the day,” said Jon.
“Have you got time to stop by my office?”
“I sure do.”
“Well, come on down!”
Jon shut down his PC and turned out the lights before walking over to Harry’s office. He opened the door without knocking and called out. “It’s me, Harry.”
He walked down the narrow foyer and past the steel bookshelves to Harry’s back office. When he rounded the corner and saw Harry seated at his desk, he stopped in amazement. Since the last time he had seen Harry there had been a transformation.
Harry rose to meet him, a big smile lighting up his face. Though a simple act, it reflected a sea change; he had never greeted Jon in so civilized a manner before. There was a calm about him, a physical and emotional equilibrium that was completely atypical. The stress and tension that had always been part and parcel of him had completely evaporated.
“Jon,” he said, “you’re not going to believe what I’ve discovered. In three days I’ve travelled a quarter of a million years into the future.”
Jon barely took in what Harry said. He was studying Harry’s face. It was no longer gaunt and troubled. The bags beneath his eyes were gone, as were the nervous ticks. Jon had never seen him looking so relaxed and in such robust good health.
Before Jon could reply he heard footsteps behind him. He turned just in time to see George Ludwig step around the corner. Ludwig looked almost ridiculous in a suit much too large for his gaunt frame. His eyes were wide and unblinking and the pupils were fully dilated, as though with Bella Donna. When he raised his right arm, they saw the gun in it. Shaking visibly, he pointed the gun at Harry.
“Between you and your father you’ve completely ruined my life!” Ludwig shouted. “Now it’s payback time!”
Without thinking of the consequences, Jon stepped into the line of fire, hoping to defuse the situation. The instant he stepped in front of Harry, Ludwig started firing. He fired five shots in quick succession, his hand shaking wildly. Two of the shots hit the wall behind Harry’s desk and the other three hit Jon.
“You bastard! You bastard!” Ludwig screamed. He waved the gun wildly and then turned and ran out of the office.
Jon staggered to his left and managed to support himself by leaning against Harry’s desk. Harry had ducked behind the desk, but Jon barely noticed him. He glanced down at his chest and saw that he had been shot through the heart. He watched as a roseate stain spread across the front of his white shirt, the blood almost purple in the artificial light. His eyes shut and darkness overwhelmed him as he fell to the floor.