The Captive

Chapter 4: Mirela

Her smile was different than any other smile. She had thin lips, it was cute how her lower lip was a bit thicker but still super thin. Her eyes were light brown and her hair dark, long and wavy; not curly, just wavy. Her beauty lied in her imperfections; her nose was round, small and just a little bit crooked. Her eyebrows were hefty but they were not symmetric. She was beautiful. It is beautiful to see the flaws of someone because that is what makes them human and defines them. She was my best friend, Mirela. I heard her voice saying “you idiot.” Every time she said this it made me smile, and she usually smiled too; her smile was captivating. We laughed so much together and we told each other everything; she was fun.

I woke up in my small white room. I was dreaming of her, reminiscing. God, I miss her. Don’t get me wrong we’re just friends, but you cannot deny someone’s beautiful when they are. The door opened and Nathan came in.

“Come with me, Herman” He said with his Eastern European accent.

I followed him through the same corridors I walked with him and Bernard the day before. I started to get familiar with the corridors and where they went, it was not a big building. We stopped at the computer room and he opened the door, Bernard was there.

“Good morning, Herman.”

“Bernard” I greeted him with a serious tone.

“I’m going to be brief,” he explained quickly, “I need you to turn the algorithm into a decryption key.”

“For what?” I asked demandingly.

“You don’t need to know. You developed that algorithm in a way that it can evolve to encrypt; it learns and codes itself when there is an attempt to breach it, the same way it can decrypt anything when given the right input. You basically have a piece of Artificial Intelligence in this algorithm. And you will do this job for me unless you want me to pay a little visit to your family.”

“I know my family is safe, Bernard. They are obviously protected by the US government already.”

“I can see you are not stupid,” his tone of voice became calmer, but at the same time menacing, “But you know by now that I am not stupid either. So you’ll work. You care about other people that are not your family and they cannot be all protected.”

I couldn’t help thinking of Mirela, what if they did something to her. I had friends, cousins, and many people that I cared about, I couldn’t risk someone getting hurt because of me.

“I’ll do it. But it may take me a while you know.”

“Get started.” He said as he left.

I really think he underestimates my skills. I looked at the computers. There were 3 monitors, one keyboard, a lot of cables and one big CPU. I fully understand the capabilities of my algorithm and how it evolves. I didn’t want him to know this so I could play dumb a little bit. I may have underestimated some of the practical uses that it has, but I know that it is a form of Artificial Intelligence and I know how to use it to decrypt some systems. It will take me a couple of days to adjust it to decryption but it is a different story to turn it into a key; that would take weeks. I could decrypt their system and send a distress signal without them knowing anything.

When I was contacted by the Army, they gave me a way of contacting them in case I needed anything. I think this would apply as “needing something”. I opened the console with my algorithm. My life’s work, and these people wanted to use it for something evil; I am assuming of course because they didn’t tell me why they want it. This motherfucker doesn’t know who he is messing with. I started coding the decryption element on the left monitor, while I was watching my algorithm on the center monitor and putting the final combination on the right monitor. When I get in my zone while coding I fade away from the world. After some time coding I saw the clock, eight hours had passed.

I took a deep breath, “Wow that was awesome.” I said to myself.

“What was awesome?” Nathan said from behind me.

I jumped and screamed, “What the fuck man!” I got really startled, “You scared the shit out of me.” I started calming down and slowing my breathing. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Quite a while actually,” he explained, “around 10 minutes. It is really interesting to see you work.”

“Thank you.” I said confused, “I guess.”

“It’s time for dinner, Herman”

He walked me to my room, but we didn’t stop there.

“Where are we going?” I asked intrigued.

He continued walking without uttering a word and around 15 steps from the door to my room he stopped.

“This is the dining room” He said showing no emotion, he almost looked bored.

We entered the room. It was also white, I was getting bored of all the whiteness. There were no windows, it was a big room with two doors besides the one we used. There was a big rectangular white table in the center of the room with 6 chairs. Only 3 places were set at the table.

“Wait here” Nathan said as he left the room.

I made myself comfortable in one of the chairs. I waited for 10 minutes when the door opened. Bernard came in, and behind him a woman. A beautiful woman. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. Her skin was pale white and she was tall. She was wearing a black dress and high heels.

Bernard looked at me and said, “This is Gaby and she will supervise your work. Every day you will have dinner with her and afterwards you will show her your progress. Do you understand?”

I was nervous by the presence of the lady so my throat was blocked when I tried to speak, “Ye…” I uttered, and cleared my throat “Yes I understand”

“Don’t be nervous,” She said with a soft and sweet voice, “I don’t bite.”

To be continued…

New chapter every Wednesday.