Chapter 9

Finch rolls down the privacy barrier as they reach their destination, ready for his defense as soon as Reese notices.

"The Pierre, really, Harold?"

"I know your preference is for run-down old holes where you think you can hide better, John, but I might note that the staff at a luxury hotel is actually better at looking the other way when they see something out of the norm. Say, a doctor walking in wearing a pair of hospital slippers. I've taken the liberty of booking you for a week. Dr. and Mr. Johnson."

Finch passes a keycard into Reese's hand — he's also taken the liberty of hacking the hotel's system and checking them in already. Reese doesn't protest, but Finch also suspects that he'll move them well before the week is up. Finch shifts his focus in the rear view mirror to what he's been curious about the whole drive, Jessica Arndt.

The number Nathan managed to save. Finch had forgotten her number had been up on the screen when Nathan confronted him about the irrelevant list. He suspects she was the first person Nathan saved, but was she the last? Was Nathan trying to save numbers in those years before his death?

After Nathan had confronted Finch, he'd become more distant, checking in only every few days, sometimes once a week. Finch had assumed it was his anger over the irrelevant list, but what if Nathan had been out trying to save the numbers during that time?

And what if one of the numbers Nathan tried to save had ultimately been what got him killed? Finch was certain it was the machine, somehow finding a way to defend itself from what it perceived to be a threat, somehow routing death Nathan's way. Finch will never forget the sight of the driverless truck looming in the window, approaching Nathan in the driver's seat, that moment of horror before disaster and death.

It's a small comfort, as he pulls the car in front of the hotel entrance, to think that such a moment may not have come from the machine he'd created, at least in as direct a way as he'd thought. If Nathan was doing what he is doing now, trying to save the numbers, then Nathan may well have died in the same way Finch assumes he will, someday, by intervening with the wrong number.

He considers these things as he watches them enter the hotel, and he can't help but watch Jessica in her ill-fitting blue scrubs until she is out of sight. Any other numbers out there are speculation, but she has been saved by Nathan. Part of Finch has been steeped in years of computer science, years of statistics and probabilities, all of the skills he needed to build the machine, and that part bristles at the circumstances. But the part of Finch that reads voraciously and collects first editions of classic literature tells himself that perhaps, somehow, this was meant to be, and for now, that part of him is winning.

Finch pulls the car out into traffic and works his way down to Saks, where he valets the car, and walks into the store, relieved to be done with driving for awhile. He hates driving, especially in the city — there's a reason why he has a driver on call, all the time — but more and more of what they do require a level of discretion he doesn't trust any of his drivers to have.

This part, at least, is simple. He pulls aside a personal shopper, a slim brunette woman with a "Leslie" name tag he gauges to be near Jessica's age, and tells her the airline has lost his clients' luggage and they need things to get them through the next few days: clothes, shoes, new suitcases. It takes her an hour to gather up everything he's asked for; he thanks her and tips her very well.

There are more things Finch needs to do immediately for them — a stop at a pharmacy with the small bag he'd asked Leslie to leave empty, and then back to the hotel to drop off the luggage. But Finch's mind is already turning to the longer-term problem they have: Snow is not going to leave things like this. If Finch can't find a way to divert him, he'll continue to be a problem for Reese, Jessica, Carter, all of them.

Reese likes to joke that there is no machine, only Harold, but there is some truth to this. Finch is the one who built it up from nothing over the years, who created what may be the most complex artificial intelligence in the world, who then trained it, painstakingly, to think the same way Finch would, but with the ability to process several trillion times the input a normal human can.

The machine would be able to find something on Mark Snow, Finch is certain, if it was still an open system and he gave it the right instructions. Given enough time and patience, Finch will be able to do the same, and he wants nothing more than to be done with these errands so he can get back to the library and begin.