EOTU by D. R. SMITH (summer books .txt) 📕

“Yeah. Uh.. I've already seen this” he said while scrutinizing the columns and rows of numbers. His gaze moved from the monitor to her. “Uh I don't get it though. What's the problem? We were all very impressed with your work on that Angie. What are you accusing Mia or myself of having done?”

“That! I'm accusing you of having done THAT! I didn't do it” she said angrily while pointing at the screen. “I left Tuesday night with that problem unresolved and was really quite frustrated. I don't mind getting credit for something like that but honestly... I'd rather have REALLY done it!”

Nick stepped back around behind his desk while gently moving her out of his way. He collapsed into his overstuffed chair and turned the monitor back towards him. He tapped a few keys on the keyboard in order to bring up the username of the person to last edit the equation. There was no sign of anyone other than Angie having worked on it.

“I tried that myself” Angie confirmed now looking over his shoulder “It does appear that it was me that did it. But I guarantee you, it was not. I figured you had some override password to magically log me in when I'm not even here... or something like that.”

“No no. There's no override anything.” he stated in a 'don't even go there' attitude. He took a deep breath as if to denote reluctance in his next comment “Don't get mad when I ask this... but are you absolutely sure you didn't do this?”

She quickly folded her arms in front of her and titled her head to one side.

“I may have stayed up late that night, but I didn't stay up so late that I was in a daze or something” she replied with a touch of indignation. “I would know…” her arm snapped straight out with her finger jabbing up to the monitor “… if I figured all that out and especially if I did it that brilliantly. Besides, why....”

Nick suddenly held his hand up to silence her.

“Did you look at the time stamp on the final solution?” he asked turning his head to glance up to her from the screen.

“Well... actually no” she said with some reluctance while also leaning forward to see what he was noting.

“It was done in the wee hours of Wednesday morning... in other words Tuesday night. The night you last worked on it” Nick pointed out. “Do you remember what time you left? And do you remember locking the door to your office?”

Her face turned a slight shade of red. She did remember. It all came back to her quite clearly in fact.

“I left at exactly 2 am and the janitor was working on my office so I left with it unlocked” she lied. He actually was working outside her office, she thought. But as she had noted to herself that night, he has keys to everything anyway.

He looked over at her out of the corner of his eye. “It’s time stamped 0530 though” Nick pointed out.

“What?!?”Angie blurted out pushing herself closer over Nick. He could now smell her perfume and hair as it draped next to his face. ”Listen to me”, she said stepping to the desk side now facing Dr Walker. “I'm positive I was out of that building right at or even slightly before 2.” Her eyes emphasized her sincerity and he truly believed her. He regularly fought to keep his eyes and feelings in check, but her beautiful facial features were captivating. He knew that any revelation of his inner desire to share those feelings with her would create an uncomfortable situation considering the lengthy journey in a very small space they were soon to share.

“Soo... it wasn't you and we can pretty well rest assured that the janitor didn't finish the equation” he stated with an exhale” At this point we'll just consider it a gift from God and keep our eyes and ears open in hopes of finding the brilliant generous culprit.” The label he had given to the invader sounded as silly to him as it did to her. “They were either physically on site or hacked into our system. One or the other. And with the network security and firewalls we've got here, the latter is highly unlikely”

“Nick...” Angie said in a now softer questioning tone “...could Habib or Dr Patel or even Mia have done this just to insure the current launch date is met? I mean I admit I was struggling”

“Trust me Angie, if you were struggling with it, none of them could’ve done it either” Nick reassured her. “You are the best physicist we have.”

“You mean the best one you know of!” she said slightly laughing. “Well... I'm sorry to have bothered AND accused you. By the way, is that your nephew working the night shift in Section B?”

Nick paused a moment. He was trying to remember where Trey had been assigned.

“I don’t think so. Why?” he queried.

“Well I’ve never met Trey and have no idea what he looks like” Angie replied. “His hair is blonde-ish, right?” Nick gave a ‘where did you hear that’ from kind of smirk at her.

“Yeah…. No!” he laughed. “It’s dark brown” She rolled her eyes and gave a half smile.

“Ok. So it might’ve been him. This guy did have dark hair” she defensively shot back. “I’m just looking for clues at the scene of the crime, man”

“It's all good Ang” he said in an effort to calm her down while also genuinely trying to make some kind of in-road with her. “I really don't mind you stopping in” this time smiling and looking directly into her eyes. She smiled back and felt the intentional direct eye to eye contact.

Back in her office, Angie looked over her desk area carefully, searching for anything that might clue her in to what might've taken place Tuesday night... actually Wednesday morning. Before touching anything other than what she had moved when she first came in earlier and during the few moments she was in here yesterday, she scanned the keyboard, mouse, monitors, desk drawers, floor surrounding her desk, and the high back chair. Nothing. She paused a moment trying to remember if her door was locked yesterday midday, the first time she had entered after having left early Wednesday morning. She was sure it had been locked. The strangest thing about all of this was that the perpetrator had done something GOOD as opposed to having stolen something or vandalized the office.

It just didn't make sense. Who would break into a facility like this to complete a physics equation?? It made her think of the scene in “Back to The Future 3” when Doc and Marty are on an old time locomotive both wearing scarves over their faces and packing six shooters. They were trying something Doc had concocted to get the train up to the necessary speed to send the DeLorean, that was on the tracks being pushed by the locomotive, ‘Back to The Future'. The train engineer shouted at them over the noise of the engine, “Is this a train robbery?” Doc looks at Marty and then back at the conductor and yells, “No! It's a science experiment!”. Would this person have said the same thing?? I'm not breaking into your scientific facility... I'm advancing it!

Ridiculous. Just not possible.

“Hold it... it is totally ridiculous. Soo... what if...” she said in a whisper to herself. She finished the thought without verbalizing it. What if this genius intruder was in fact a spy. A spy from a foreign government or an unknown competing private business entity. She concluded that this 'spy' made a mistake by resolving the only hold up on the project, copying it all over to a portable backup drive of some type in order to literally cart it out of the MARCH facility, and then forgot to delete it from MARCH's system. That would be an awfully obvious error for a brilliant undercover physicist to make. The whole thought of that scenario was somewhat counter conducive. Why would someone smart enough to work out this stifling roadblock be so blind as to forget to cover their tracks? In fact, if they had been 'stealing' all this information anyway why would they come here to work on it? Why not work on it offsite? On the other hand, this person could be one of their employees. She ran through a list of those employees capable of this handicraft and what their motives might be. It was the only real answer. There would be no other way they could've broken into the facility early Wednesday morning, resolved and completed the weight issue, and then left without... someone seeing them. But who? she again queried.

Dr Sanjay Patel rocked backward at his desk with his fingers intertwined behind his head pondering what had just been discussed in his surprise visit from Nicholas Walker. Was Angie Hemmer losing it? Had she completed the weight analysis project and due to the late hours she had been keeping, experienced a memory lapse of the work she had done? Or was there a brilliant anti-criminal stalking the halls of MARCH anonymously helping the project forward? Certainly the former of those two theorem sounded much more credible. What about Habib or Mia? Could one of them have just gotten unnecessarily impatient with Dr Hemmer's lack of progress and stepped in to solve the puzzle? It didn't really sound like them. And besides, Habib was a computer hacker and wasn't really capable of such advanced physics. In reality, none of it sounded feasible.

Suddenly he sat up straight placing both hands palm down on the place mat on his desk. Of course! I believe I know who might've done this, he thought. Or at least PAID to have it done. The one person who would most benefit from this project moving forward. The one and only passenger whose purpose for taking a more than likely one way trip into eternity was to evade the long arm of the law... simply because he knows it's not THAT long of an arm, Sanjay conjectured. His hand jutted forward to pick up his iPhone but suddenly froze.

“Are you sure you want to make such an accusation?” Sanjay thoughtfully whispered. Kurt Lehman was not only wealthy but powerful as well. His political and business connections were broad and deep. Deeper than I can probably ever imagine, Dr Patel thought. One erroneous phone call and my career will nose dive overnight. Who could he bounce this hypothesis off of, he thought. I believe I can trust Habib enough to...

“Dr Sanjay Patel.... Dr Sanjay Patel”, the alluring digital female voice softly announced over the intercom. “You are needed in the Sagan Meeting Room on Level 1 immediately. Dr Sanjay Patel, you are needed in the Sagan Meeting Room on Level 1 immediately”

The very moment the announcement began, Sanjay's head and eyes snapped in the direction of the thermostat clock. 1435. “I totally forgot about that meeting!”, he scolded himself. “Holy crap! And Lehman is supposed to be there today” Before his complete name poured from the overhead speaker the third time, he had grabbed his briefcase, slipped smoothly out the door, and walked in a hurried pace down the hall with his white lab coat flowing behind him like a cape.

Inside the Sagan Meeting Room, Dr Nicholas Walker was impatiently glancing at his watch for the third time while drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. Kurt Lehman arrived early to accommodate his overloaded schedule for the evening. He too was growing impatient and Walker was beginning to feel the tension growing thick in the air. He gave Lehman a reassuring but nervous smile and then said in a pacifying voice, “I'm