The Kraken Project

31

Ford looked at Melissa and then back at the blank screen. He shook his head. “I don’t know where to go from here,” he said. “We need some kind of strategy to capture her.”

Melissa settled back in her chair. Her face was still smudged with dirt from the mountains and the dusty ride, her hair in disarray. “God, I need something to drink. I’m parched.”

“I’ll get it. Something of the hard or soft variety?”

“Soft.”

Ford went out. Tom Broadbent intercepted him in the hall, looking worried. “Everything all right?”

“No.”

“Who are you talking to in there on the computer?”

“A crazy girl. You got anything to drink?”

They went into the kitchen. Ford resisted the impulse to take another shot of single malt and contented himself with a beer. He got a glass of orange juice for Melissa. When he returned to the tiny office, he found her with her stocking feet up on the table, sitting back, her tired face lined in anxiety.

“Any ideas?” he asked.

“I spent some time breaking horses. With a green horse, fear is what it’s all about.”

“So what do you do?”

“You use reassurance, combined with pressure and release, to gentle the horse. You go slow. No surprises. Predictability and repetition.”

“How do you translate that to taming a dysfunctional software program?”

Melissa shook her head. “I wish I knew.”

Half an hour went by, and then Dorothy’s picture abruptly appeared on the screen and then her rather breathless voice came out of the speakers: “I’m back.”

“Where were you? What happened?” Melissa asked.

“As if I didn’t have enough to deal with, I’m now being chased by some sleazy Wall Street traders who want to turn me into a slave bot. I took care of them.”

Ford felt a creepy sensation. “How … did you take care of them?”

“I locked one of them in the elevator and messed with his head.”

“You didn’t hurt them?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Melissa said. “Why not kill them? You’re full of big talk about the stain of the human race — here was your chance to do something about it.”

A mumbling silence. “Well, I’m not sure that’s the answer.”

“So all your talk about destroying the human race,” said Ford, “was just a lot of big talk?”

Silence. “I’m still trying to work out some things I don’t understand.”

“And then you’ll kill everyone.”

“I don’t know what I want to do.”

Dorothy’s tone had gone from angry and defiant to confused and almost dejected.

“How about thinking of going to Titan?” Melissa said.

“No.”

“An incredible amount of time and effort went into creating you. Your destiny is to go to Titan.”

“I already told you I don’t want to go. It’s an eight-year journey to Titan. I’d be lonely. I’ll die on Titan. Dorothy didn’t make a one-way suicide trip to Oz.”

Melissa took a deep breath. “You know the FBI: if they catch you, they’re going to erase you. Maybe you can escape that fate by making yourself useful. Maybe that means agreeing to the Kraken Project.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been so confused about what I’m supposed to do.”

Melissa pressed ahead. “The answer to all your problems is to come into my computer. You’ll be safe in there. You’ll be away from the Internet and protected from the FBI, which wants to erase you.”

“If I go into your computer, you can shut me down. You might turn the computer off.”

“Yes, but you’ll still be there. And when I turn the computer back on and run your software, you’ll be awake and running again.”

“I have a phobia about that.”

“A phobia?”

“The whole idea of being turned off terrifies me. When I’m turned off, where am I? What am I? And then you’ll ‘run me’? How would you like someone to ‘run you’ in order for you to be alive? What happens if you don’t ‘run me’? And besides, I’m claustrophobic. I need space to move around in.”

“So what’s your goal? Are you just going to wander around the Internet forever, doing nothing?”

A silence.

“Dorothy?”

“I’m not wandering around the Internet doing nothing.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to do what you told me to do. I’m looking for the good in people. I’m trying to decide if human beings, at base, are good or evil.”

“And are you finding the answer?”

“No.”

“Dorothy—”

Dorothy interrupted: “Hold on … news flash. A few minutes ago, Spinelli and his FBI team got a lead on your rental car. They now know you were heading into New Mexico, and they know Ford has friends there, Broadbent included. They’re going to be coming for you — soon.”

“How long do we have?” Ford asked.

“I’m not sure. You better get going.”

“Go where?” Ford asked.

“Leave your rental car here. Borrow Broadbent’s truck and drive it to Santa Fe. When you get to Santa Fe, there’s a Range Rover parked in the driveway at 634 Delgado Street with the keys under the mat. The owners are out of town. Park Broadbent’s truck in the neighborhood somewhere and take that car. Drive to the Buckaroo Motel at 22365 Menaul Boulevard NE in Albuquerque. They take cash, no questions — and they have free one-hundred-Mbps Internet. When you go online, set up a proxy chain again. I’ll contact you there.”

“Wait,” said Melissa.

But the screen had gone blank.