while I finished reading Thom’s latest e-mail. My heart sank when I reached our exchanges. It was an indescribable feeling—an elusive mix of pain, guilt, and nostalgia—to read myself telling him that all the servers had crashed during the night, but surely it wasn’t anything huge, maybe a memory leak, and I’d be there soon. Next to me, Alex was swimming with a look of mild exasperation in the capharnaum covering Thom’s desk.
He abandoned his inspection of a pile of résumés to rub the bridge of his nose with a long sigh. “Nothing, right?”
I looked up from the screen, shaking my head. “Not really. Seems like he kept saving his work on those fake image files we found, and even the code he was working on last night has been wiped from the logs. Looking at his Mac, you’d believe he barely worked at all. All I got are his e-mails—everyday stuff, nothing out of the ordinary. Not that he’d have been stupid enough to use his EMT mail address to contact whoever made him do this.”
Alex walked around the desk to stand behind me and take a look. I pointed at a particular list of folders. “We also got some files related to the department’s administrative supervision. But there’s no code here either. Not a single line.”
I heard him scratch his stubble as he always did when thinking. The only time I had ever seen Alex with a close shave he had looked eighteen, and I could tell he’d missed his precious whiskers, because he kept stroking his chin unconsciously, looking for them in vain. “I see. Those chicken files . . . What was the exact date they were created?”
I checked again. “They were first saved on March 14, basically right after Thom got back from—”
“Zürich?”
Alex had reached across the desk to grab Thom’s beloved quantum physics cat memes calendar. On March’s page, under the picture of a kitten playing with strings, several days had been circled with a red pen.
“Yeah, he was at Mach-T.”
“Mach-T? What is that?”
“Machina Tomorrow,” I explained, getting up and setting the laptop aside to fish for a colorful brochure on the glass desk. I showed it to him. “It’s the biggest machine learning conference. They do it every year in a different country, and EMT Switzerland was the principal sponsor this year, so they organized it in Zürich. I was supposed to go too—I went last year—but this year Thom said he needed me here to finish our beta.”
Alex’s eyes lit up. “So he went alone, and right after he came back, he started tweaking with Ruby’s code in secret. Looks like we’re finally going somewhere.”
“To Switzerland?”
“Yep. And you’ll be coming too.”
My jaw dropped. “You mean . . . with you . . . there?”
“Is that gonna be a problem?”
All I could do was shake my head lamely.
“Not really where I planned on taking you for a surprise getaway, but I guess the cheese wheels will have to do,” he concluded with a sheepish wink.
“A surprise getaway?”
“Well, before all this”—he made an all-encompassing gesture at Thom’s desk—“I’d been thinking of taking you to Ferris Lake. Ever been there?”
“No . . . where is it?”
“North, in the Adirondacks. One of my friends has a cabin there, in the woods—not too far from the road,” he added quickly as he took in my expression of doubt.
I wasn’t much of an outdoor enthusiast, more like that annoying friend who falls into every possible hole, gets mysterious rashes and giant blisters, and keeps checking her phone for 4G coverage and bear sightings. If I was being honest with myself, though, the slim chance of getting chased and killed by Confession Bear over a tuna sandwich was not the real issue here . . .
I found myself staring once again at the pieces of a puzzle scattered in front of me, and whatever image slowly emerged was neither just “Alex,” nor Agent Alexander Morgan. So he had meant to take me on a surprise romantic getaway—or a
He abandoned his inspection of a pile of résumés to rub the bridge of his nose with a long sigh. “Nothing, right?”
I looked up from the screen, shaking my head. “Not really. Seems like he kept saving his work on those fake image files we found, and even the code he was working on last night has been wiped from the logs. Looking at his Mac, you’d believe he barely worked at all. All I got are his e-mails—everyday stuff, nothing out of the ordinary. Not that he’d have been stupid enough to use his EMT mail address to contact whoever made him do this.”
Alex walked around the desk to stand behind me and take a look. I pointed at a particular list of folders. “We also got some files related to the department’s administrative supervision. But there’s no code here either. Not a single line.”
I heard him scratch his stubble as he always did when thinking. The only time I had ever seen Alex with a close shave he had looked eighteen, and I could tell he’d missed his precious whiskers, because he kept stroking his chin unconsciously, looking for them in vain. “I see. Those chicken files . . . What was the exact date they were created?”
I checked again. “They were first saved on March 14, basically right after Thom got back from—”
“Zürich?”
Alex had reached across the desk to grab Thom’s beloved quantum physics cat memes calendar. On March’s page, under the picture of a kitten playing with strings, several days had been circled with a red pen.
“Yeah, he was at Mach-T.”
“Mach-T? What is that?”
“Machina Tomorrow,” I explained, getting up and setting the laptop aside to fish for a colorful brochure on the glass desk. I showed it to him. “It’s the biggest machine learning conference. They do it every year in a different country, and EMT Switzerland was the principal sponsor this year, so they organized it in Zürich. I was supposed to go too—I went last year—but this year Thom said he needed me here to finish our beta.”
Alex’s eyes lit up. “So he went alone, and right after he came back, he started tweaking with Ruby’s code in secret. Looks like we’re finally going somewhere.”
“To Switzerland?”
“Yep. And you’ll be coming too.”
My jaw dropped. “You mean . . . with you . . . there?”
“Is that gonna be a problem?”
All I could do was shake my head lamely.
“Not really where I planned on taking you for a surprise getaway, but I guess the cheese wheels will have to do,” he concluded with a sheepish wink.
“A surprise getaway?”
“Well, before all this”—he made an all-encompassing gesture at Thom’s desk—“I’d been thinking of taking you to Ferris Lake. Ever been there?”
“No . . . where is it?”
“North, in the Adirondacks. One of my friends has a cabin there, in the woods—not too far from the road,” he added quickly as he took in my expression of doubt.
I wasn’t much of an outdoor enthusiast, more like that annoying friend who falls into every possible hole, gets mysterious rashes and giant blisters, and keeps checking her phone for 4G coverage and bear sightings. If I was being honest with myself, though, the slim chance of getting chased and killed by Confession Bear over a tuna sandwich was not the real issue here . . .
I found myself staring once again at the pieces of a puzzle scattered in front of me, and whatever image slowly emerged was neither just “Alex,” nor Agent Alexander Morgan. So he had meant to take me on a surprise romantic getaway—or a
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