The last time Foster sat on a couch this long was the day he delivered his report on the original event. He had spent almost four hours arguing with Edgar about the signal. In the end, his friend had promised to keep everything between them. That miscalculation of trust cost him a quarter of his life.
Sitting here alone, he couldn’t help but wonder if anything had changed.
Down the hallway, a bank of elevator doors methodically slid open for what must have been the thirtieth time since his arrival. Having no clear line of sight, Foster had to lean over the back the couch to see who was inside. And like the previous twenty-nine times before, any hope that Fitz Hume might finally appear was dashed.
However, in his place stood an exasperated Agent Rushing.
Foster reached into his pocket and tapped on the phone’s worn-down speaker button. An unnecessary action, since Hoover had been listening in the whole time. “What’s up?”
A few feet away, Fitz Hume’s secretary sat behind a sturdy metal desk trying very hard to look busy. Not sure of how closely he was being watched, Foster kept his voice low as not to arouse her suspicion. “Agent Rushing has just shown up here in running clothes. Do you have any idea why?”
Hoover jumped into action. “Now you want to know something about her. What do you want… a reason that would explain why she wasn’t there to pick you up this morning? Why she forgot about you? Why you and Saunders drank your coffee alone?” He twisted the knife one more time. “Did you miss her, Foster?”
The answer fell squarely within the maybe category, but that wasn’t something he wanted to discuss.
“Could you hurry up?” He cupped a hand over his mouth like he was about to corral a sneeze. “She’ll be here any second.”
“Checking,” In an instant, Hoover scoured the internet for clues. “The only thing near her apartment that would explain her delay was a shooting at a Starbucks.” The A.I. quickly scanned sensitive police department files for anything pertinent. “Her name wasn’t mentioned in the initial reports. But two of the assailants were killed, and another was reported as wounded. From what I have seen of her history, she could have been involved. Though leaving one of them alive doesn’t seem like her style.”
“Are you sure?” Foster didn’t want to be wrong.
“No. But statistically…it makes sense.”
Justine pulled up a few feet short of where Foster was sitting on the couch. Given this morning’s events, her first instinct was to draw her gun and slap on the cuffs. After all, hadn’t she just picked this guy up from a nuthouse less than 24 hours ago?
Curious, she looked over to the Fitz Hume’s secretary for answers. Peggy, guilt-ridden from having heard about what happened the night before with her blind date, chose to ignore her friend’s glances and bury herself with paperwork. No answers coming, Justine looked back to the couch suspiciously.
“So,” she eased closer to him. “You look comfortable.”
“Not really.” Foster could see the hesitation on her face, so he attempted to break the ice. “I’m not going to hurt you, Agent Rushing.” He showed her his hands and wrists. “See, no weapons.” She didn’t respond, so he continued. “Why are you dressed for a marathon?”
The question was a normal one, which slightly eased her apprehensiveness. “So, you can talk. After the car ride last night, I was under the impression you were mute.” Justine sat down on the opposite end of the couch. “I was running late this morning. I didn’t have time to change.”
“Literally or literally,” he asked facetiously.
“Both,” She replied with a chuckle.
For a second, neither of them spoke. Hoover took the opportunity to provide some timely commentary.
“You know she’s crazy. If we’re right about the Starbucks, that means she’s been in twelve shootings during the last three years. She’s basically a loaded weapon with a loaded weapon.”
Foster was having trouble seeing how someone so, for lack of a better term, cute could be so dangerous. “So how come you’re waiting here with the felon. Are you in trouble?”
Justine tugged at her ponytail like she always did when she was deep in thought. The shooting had been replaying in her mind repeatedly like a bad movie. Every move she had made, including kissing that dipshit bodyguard, weighed oppressively on her thoughts.
“No, I just stopped by for coffee on the way in and lost track of time.”
“I knew it,” Hoover said smugly, his suspicions confirmed. “She’s a stone-cold killer.”
“No, she’s not.” Foster tried to keep his voice low, but the ever astute Justine heard him anyway.
“Who are you talking to?”
Foster stared at her. Eight years of pretending to be crazy had made him very adept at deceiving people. He always had a lie ready to go, but something was off. Agent Rushing wasn’t looking at him like he was crazy. Her gaze was a mixture of thoughtful and curious. A combination Foster found strange. Because, for the past 2600 days, most people looked at him like he was deranged.
Caught off guard, an unexpected series of truthful words escaped his well-trained lips.
“I’m talking to an artificial intelligence I created eight years ago.” The words were free before he had a chance to ponder their ramifications. Trying to sound less crazy, Foster smiled slightly and held out his phone. “See…”
At first, she didn’t quite know how to respond, but she recovered quickly. “You mean like Hal 9000?”
Foster just stared blankly, while Hoover squawked excitedly. “She knows too much. Run!”
“Are you sure I shouldn’t be worried about you?” Justine let her hand brush up against the weapon tucked neatly into the band of her sweatpants. “You’re not going to go crazy on me, are you?”
“No.” Foster’s brain returned to its normal state, and he smiled. “I just thought it was interesting that there was a shooting earlier this morning at a Starbucks. You did say you stopped by a Starbucks. Right?”
“How do you know that? I didn’t say anything about a Starbucks.”
“A little birdie told me.” Foster tapped the phone and smiled.
Before Justine could respond, he spotted Edgar standing next to his secretary’s desk, sorting through piles of correspondence. “Though under the circumstances,” he said through slightly gritted teeth. “You should be more worried about the director over there.”
Without having to look over her shoulder, Justine’s body instinctively went rigid, and the look on her face was priceless. So priceless, that Foster couldn’t help but forget about his anger. “By the way, why did you leave one guy alive? My A.I. really wants to know.”
“What… how… who told you about that?”
Foster just grinned and shook his Blackberry. “Everything’s in a computer these days, Agent Rushing… everything.”
Tired of pretending to sort through his mail, Fitz Hume dropped the rest of his letters back on Peggy’s desk. He whispered some instructions, and she nodded curtly before making the requested phone calls. The director lingered for a moment, but they were on the clock.
“Foster,” his words, though professional, betrayed an underlying feeling of unease. “Good to see you again.”
“Edgar,” Foster returned the greeting. “It’s been a long time.”
“Yes, it has.” He took two tentative steps toward the couch before stopping to stare judgmentally down at Justine. “I will be with you shortly. But right now, there’s the small matter of one of my agents being involved in a shooting.”
Fitz Hume motioned for Justine to go inside his office. Silently, she relented to his request by trudging dutifully past Peggy’s desk and heading for his office door.
“Don’t forget about what I asked,” Foster blurted out before she could make it inside the confines of her tribunal. “Why did you leave that one guy alive?”
Instead of replying to his blatant dig, Justine merely scowled, then ducked inside the director’s office. Foster waited for the door to completely shut before addressing Edgar again. “We need to get moving on this. I’ve been sitting here for over two hours.”
“I know. I had some car trouble. Give me ten minutes to handle this,” he straightened his jacket and tie. “Then, we’ll talk.”
“Go easy on her,” Foster said in a jovial, lauding tone.
Fitz Hume didn’t respond to the strange request. Instead, he shrugged off the man he betrayed eight years ago in favor of his office and the awaiting Agent Rushing.
“Hoover…” The anger he’d felt earlier, flared up once again. Only this time, it wouldn’t leave.
“Yes,” his program tried to act innocent, but Foster wasn’t buying it.
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“What did you do?”
“Hacked his lease company, made it look like he was six months past due. They towed his car.”
“Do you do that very often?”
“Every chance I get.” Hoover laughed mirthlessly. “The asshole had it coming.”
Ten minutes later, Justine blew past the couch with a look of anger plastered on her face that almost made him piss himself. He contemplated saying something consoling, but his need for self-preservation won out. After all, one near-death experience this week was enough.
As soon as her Georgetown sweatshirt disappeared around the corner, the phone on Peggy’s desk rang. A second later, she said, “The director will see you now, Mr. Evers.”
Peggy motioned for him to go inside.
“Thank you,” Foster replied, walking in front of the secretary’s desk, smiling as he passed. Just a week ago, this same gesture would have elicited a look of unease from Dr. Armstrong’s assistant Gillian. Now, with a change of clothes and a shave, she smiled back.
Amazing. The mental institution was obviously cramping his style.
Foster wrenched on the plain wooden door and poked his head inside to see if the coast was clear. On the far end of a protracted room, Fitz Hume sat behind a desk conversing with someone on the phone. Upon seeing him enter, the director signaled for a few more minutes of patience.
Not wanting to fight yet, Foster wandered around the office, soaking in what he could.
Surrounded by shades of the dullest gray, nothing in the room stood out. Knowing Edgar’s proclivity for focus, this color scheme didn’t surprise him. To his right, a pair of industrial length windows afforded an expansive view of the street. While on his left, a couple of muted watercolor paintings hung limply on the wall.
Spectacularly unspectacular, the artists did seem to possess a modicum of talent. But those drab, lifeless paintings also encapsulated why Foster had been locked for the past eight years. Edgar’s profound inability to appreciate anything genuinely remarkable.
Directly before him sat three wooden chairs. Intended for the director’s unlucky guests, Foster sat down in the middle one and waited patiently for his old friend to finish his phone call. On the desk sat a handcrafted ceramic bowl full of mints. On the side of the container, the word Daddy was hand drawn in blue paint.
Foster grabbed a handful without asking.
“I understand sir, 48 hours.” It was heartening to know that even Edgar had a boss.
A collection of tasteful photographs rested neatly on top of an antique wooden cabinet just behind the director. The pictures consisted of Angela and Robbie in various locations and activities. Years had altered his features a great deal as time always seemed to do. So, Foster didn’t recognize the boy right away.
On the other hand, Edgar’s wife Angela had aged very well during the ensuing years. All her frequent trips to the spa were paying off.
“I’ll keep you updated, sir.” Edgar hung up the phone.
Since neither seemed ready to revisit the past, the two men took a moment to size each other up. Foster bit into a mint, and the sound echoed throughout the entire office. Finally, after what seemed like an hour of silence, the Director spoke out of desperation.
“Foster...” he wasn’t sure where to begin. “It’s been a long time.”
“We covered that already.” Foster took in the room one more time before a strange thought occurred to him. “I’m surprised we’re sitting in your office all alone. Why aren’t there any guards to watch over me?”
“I never thought you were dangerous Foster, only delusional.”
A veiled attempt to bait the scientist into doing something rash, the director searched in vain for a flicker of anger in Foster’s eyes, but the only thing there was peaceful serenity.
“Delusional?” Foster asked, sincerely. “And yet, here I sit in your office, at your request.”
“I concede that in retrospect you may have been treated unfairly. I just wanted to say…”
Foster cut him off before his own personal Judas could finish the apology.
“I know.” The words tasted like sand in his mouth. “You thought it was the right thing to do. Although, seven and a half years ago, I would have come across this desk like one of those animals you locked me away with. And to be completely honest, I would have found a way to make it last and make it memorable.”
Foster let his anger slide over him like a warm bath until a wide grin broke out across his face. “And the way the papers would have described it. Your family would have been swallowed by grief, just like I was my first three weeks in solitary confinement.”
All these years, his one constant had been the realization of this moment. Initially, he imagined a great war of words. But recently, Foster envisioned scenarios with punches thrown in anger. And for the last two hours, those visions had secretly been allowed to fester and grow.
Though now, sitting in the uninspired office of a man too prideful to be contrite, he couldn’t help but feel that anger subside.
“But, as I said, that was a long time ago. It’s like Dr. Armstrong always told us: If you want to forget all the shitty things that have happened in your life, take the yellow pills.”
“Still,” Edgar’s composure remained steady in the face of that blatant threat. Deep down, he knew he may have even deserved it a little. “We didn’t have the full facts back then. Now we’re ready to open up to the possibility that…”
“That I may have been right.” He snapped with a fresh touch of anger.
“No,” the strain required to get through this was causing a vein in Fitz Hume’s temple to do the Macarena. “That we might have been mistaken about the cause.”
Foster allowed him to stew in his seat for a second as waves of euphoria washed over his being. Watching Edgar’s reaction was better than he ever thought it could be, but this wish fulfillment would have to wait until a day when a pressing problem didn’t need solving.
“Let’s move past that for the time being. Right now, I need three things from you. One: I want to be left alone. Eight years ago, I was the best you had, and I’m confident that’s still true.” Foster crunched on another handful of mints. “Two: There’s a package for me down in your lab. I’m sure at this moment one of your techs is trying to figure out how to open it, but they won’t. So just let me have it, no questions asked.”
Edgar’s blood pressure dangerously rose with every word escaping from Foster’s condescending mouth. “And three: I need a ride.”
The director pressed his fingers against his pulsating temples and began to massage them vigorously. No amount of guilt in the world was going to afford him a free pass just to make demands of him… no amount. “Is that it? Is that your list of demands?”
Foster smiled and nodded that it was.
“Well, then allow me to respond. One: I’m not going to let you anywhere near this event without a team of people backing you up and more importantly, keeping an eye on you.” He forced a silent pause. “Two: How in the hell did you have a package delivered here anyway? This facility wasn’t even in operation eight years ago. When did you send it?”
“Eight years, Edgar.” Foster coyly shrugged. “You didn’t think I was spending all that time drooling in a padded cell, did you? Besides, it’s just a little something I had the boys at Meade whip up for me. It’s nothing dangerous, but I need it.”
Edgar struggled against his better instincts to respond with a resounding ‘hell’ no. “Three: I’ve already got your ride covered. The NSA maintains a mobile surveillance lab onsite for deployment under certain circumstances. Under these circumstances, I’m prepared to make it available to you and your team.”
“Team?” Foster pretended like Hoover hadn’t been monitoring the director’s every move. “What do you mean team?”
“Team…” Fitz Hume couldn’t believe Foster still thought he was going to go traipsing around the countryside all by himself. “I’m assigning two agents and two technical support staff to accompany you on this little exercise. That’s not negotiable Foster, its bedrock. And you will stay in constant contact with this office. Do you understand?”
Without agreeing to the director’s terms, he asked. “So… who’s tagging along with me on this little adventure?”
“You’ve already met one of them. Jeffrey Saunders is a competent agent and he’ll do what needs to be done. But don’t piss him off. Then, there’s Dr. Samuel Mosley. He’ll be heading up the technical side of your back up. Though, I hate to refer to him as anyone’s backup. The man’s got more degrees than a thermometer. Actually,” Edgar hesitated, “he reminds me a lot of you back then.”
“But…” Foster was curious about the distinction being drawn.
“He dates more.”
“That hurts, Edgar.” His previous solemnity turned light and jokey. “I had a lot of great offers while I was at Wilson, I’ll have you know. I would have accepted some of them too, but I was saving myself.”
“Saving yourself for what?”
“Someone without testicles.” Caught off guard, Fitz Hume couldn’t help but laugh at the brief moment of respite from the tension that palpably surrounded them.
“You mentioned two agents. Who’s my other babysitter?”
For the first time since walking into Fitz Hume’s office, Foster shifted nervously in his chair as he wondered what the Starbucks incident would do to Agent Rushing’s status. After all, she was the unknown figure that he had already accounted for. With his next sentence though, Fitz Hume dashed those hopes.
“I’m still working on that. I had hoped to assign a certain agent, but she has proven herself an unstable quantity.”
“Why?” Foster sounded almost indignant. He was completely aware of Edgar’s distaste for anything unstable in his life, but this quality was exactly why he wanted Agent Rushing on the team. “Because she stopped a couple of guys from robbing a Starbucks? Sounds like she was doing her job.”
“No, that’s not why. Wait a minute. How do you even know about that?”
Foster smiled serenely and repeated, “Eight years.”
Fitz Hume’s paranoia began to wonder how in the hell Foster was getting his information. From his intel to the mysterious package, it was becoming painfully clear that he had sorely underestimated him.
“She’s been suspended from active duty. She endangered the lives of a French diplomat and his wife. For the last hour, I’ve been on the phone with the state department trying to clean up her mess.”
“If there must be a team, I want her on it.”
“What makes you believe you have the power to demand any more of me than I am already willing to give? My guilt will only take you so far, Foster.”
“Eight years,” he offered in response again. “My life has been on hold for eight years.”
Edgar leaned back in his chair. This whole situation crept toward an outcome that was making him feel uncomfortable. Especially when viewed through a prism of control. He hadn’t done the wrong thing back then… he hadn’t. “You’ve got nothing left to hold over me.”
Foster swiveled the candy dish around so Fitz Hume could read his son’s name. Meant as a not so subtle reminder of how Edgar’s life had gone on unabated, the director didn’t so much as bat an eyelash. He had reached the limit of what he was willing to do. “Well, if you won’t do it out of a sense of guilt, maybe there’s something I could bribe you with.”
Edgar threw up his hands dismissively. “With what? Whatever little money you had was seized the day you went away. There’s nothing left. I’m going to have to arrange an agency loan just so you can eat. You’re broke.”
“Not intellectually.” He bit into another mint. “I am willing to return my code-breaking program.”
Edgar stifled a snort under a fake cough. “That program is eight years old, Foster. Do you even know how much farther things have advanced since then? What makes you think it would even work on the codes we develop now?”
For the first time today, the director was accurate about one thing. The state of quantum encryption moved at the speed of light. What could an out of the loop genius like Foster offer? But there was the package? Somehow, he had been able to influence people and events outside the confines of Wilson. Then, have it delivered here, essentially bypassing some of the most stringent security protocols on the planet.
Edgar allowed his mind to dream of Foster’s program being back online.
“That’s not how I designed the system, Edgar.” Foster quickly answered. “The crux of my program wasn’t to break existing codes. It was designed to break any code. I don’t care how powerful encryption levels are today. My program will work.”
This offer was a tempting one, indeed. Edgar had risen through the ranks of the agency despite having lost Foster’s program. But in losing it, he had slowed or worse, shortened his ladder of promotion considerably. If he could get that program back, no rung would be out of reach. Eight years ago, Foster had been the talk of a very secretive town.
Could he be again?
“Alright, you get it running again, and you can have Rushing. But with a small caveat.” For the first time in 48 hours, Edgar Fitz Hume felt like smiling. “After that little stunt this morning with the French diplomats, her gun stays with me.”
Foster could live with those conditions, though he wondered if Justine would be as amenable.
“And one more thing, Foster,” Edgar couldn’t stress this point enough. “I don’t want to hear anything about aliens again. Nothing, nada, zip. If I do hear anything resembling that, your little expedition will be cut very short.”
“Ruling out possibilities before you begin is not usually how a scientific investigation works.” Foster grabbed one more handful of candy for the road. “So, how soon can you get me to Elmira, NY?"
