The Captive

Chapter 6: The Message

I stood up and the door of my bedroom opened. It was an electric sliding door that opened only from the outside. I saw Gaby standing outside my doorway.

“Hi,” I said confused, “What are you doing here, Gaby?”

“I want to know what that was about.” She said demandingly.

“What was what about?” I asked trying to avoid the topic.

“You know what I am talking about, Herman.” She seemed a little pissed that I played dumb, so I decided to acknowledge the situation.

“I don’t know what it was, Gaby, I guess we can call it a moment of weakness and a mistake. Don’t worry it won’t happen again.”

“Good because you are only here to do your work with the algorithm and the decoding key.” She explained, “Good night.” She said as she pressed the button to close the door.

It felt kind of awkward, I did like her but it was wrong. So I just played along. I laid in my bed and fell asleep.

The next morning I woke up and went to work as usual. The whole week was uneventful, I wrote code trying to figure out the best way to create the recursive loop I needed for decryption and then had dinner with Gaby every day, explaining what I had worked on and only talking about work. Until one night after dinner she asked me a question.

“I know I shouldn’t asked you this, but I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“Have you thought about what happened between us last week?” Her face blushed and took a step towards me.

“I have. It is hard not to think about it. But you know it can’t happen, I don’t even get why we are talking about it. You are my enemy.” I said with an angry tone.

“I am not your enemy Herman,” She whispered as she took my arm and got even closer to me. “I don’t have a choice.”

“What do you mean you don’t have a choice?” I asked with frustration.

“They have my little sister,” Her eyes got watery as she said this, “She is all I have.”

“I’m sorry but I can’t be naïve now.” I turned my face to avoid looking at her eyes, I didn’t want to believe her. “Can I go now?”

“Nathan will take you to your room now, he is right outside.” She tried to control her voice but I could still notice desperation in her tone.

Nathan took me to my room like any other day. I didn’t want to think about Gaby and what she had told me but it was impossible. What if she was telling the truth and I could help her? And if she was telling the truth, what if she could help me? I was being forced to work for these guys, maybe they do that to other people too. In my room I kept analyzing the situation. I kept thinking of last week’s moment and what she had just told me today. Everything she said seemed possible and the moment we had felt so real. Maybe she is not bad after all. Maybe she doesn’t have a choice.

The next day I was working on the computer lab, and as I was coding a window popped up in the right monitor. It had a message, I turned around to make sure no one was behind me like Nathan the other time. The message said:

“Safe word: Balance. Code: HL060795. We have your localization Agent Wolf. We are preparing a rescue plan. We need you to find some information before we can execute the plan. What are they planning to do with your algorithm? Who are they working for? Send this information when you have it so we can execute the rescue. Click the window to eliminate any trace of this message.”

I clicked it. I had to find the information they wanted before being rescued. That wasn’t an easy task as it would require some serious deception and even hacking into their data bases without being detected. felt horrible because I really wanted to get out of here, but I am an agent and I have to fulfill any mission asked of me. I do miss being a desk agent though.

I could use Gaby to find out some of the information and this way I could see if I can trust her and if I am going to help her afterwards.

She entered the computer room. And just stared at the computer for a couple of minutes, then she said:

“It’s time for dinner, Herman, save your work and let’s go.” Her attitude was different, her voice had changed. She seemed a little distant this time, maybe she was pissed because I didn’t believe her, maybe something happened to her sister.

As we were walking to the dining room I decided to ask:

“What’s wrong Gaby? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine” She said with a flat tone, very serious.

“Are you sure?” I insisted, kind of worried that I had screwed my plan before even putting it into practice.

“I’m sure.”

We got into the dining room, she sat in her chair. I sat across her. “What did you work on today?” She asked demandingly.

I told her about a conditional loop I had being working on for the last couple of days, I set of instructions that repeats itself based on input and can take different connotations depending on the results. When we finished with dinner she said:

“You can go now, Nathan will escort you.”

I grabbed her gently by the arm and whispered, “I need to talk to you, come to my room later tonight.” And I left the room.

To be continued…

New chapter every Wednesday.