A/N Moving along. Thanks for reading and responding!

Thanks to michaelfmx for his beta help.

Don't own Chuck. No money made. Hearing from you is the only reward, other than the intrinsic rewards of writing.

Miss Trust?

Late Friday Night Sept. 1, 2017 (Labor Day Weekend)

Boca Raton, Florida

Outside Sarah's house

CHAPTER 4 Door Opener

Chuck watched Sarah stare at her seatbelt for a second, then she lifted her eyes to him. She seemed to be inwardly shaking her head. She took out her cell, turned it on and asked Chuck for Casey's number.

Because of lab security, Chuck knew Casey's cell number—and like most numbers in his life—he had it memorized. He told Sarah and she called Casey.

"Casey, it's Walker. Unsecure. I've got…Tron…and need to stop by your place. There was more trouble on campus after you left. Yes, yes…fine. You may want to call your nightshift guy and warn him about black SUVs on campus. If he sees any, make sure he calls the city police. He shouldn't try anything. I have a feeling that whoever is behind those darkened windows isn't to be trifled with. Your address? Right, see you in a few." She ended the call and disabled her phone. She answered Chuck's unasked question about the call. "Calculated risk. I really don't think they know you are with me."

"Why are we going to Casey's?"

"Three reasons: First, I want his opinion about what's going on. He was a Marine, and not just a Marine, he was a serious sort of Marine, the sort chosen for black ops missions run by people…well, people like me. I need to know if he sees an angle here that I am missing.

"Second, you and I need another car. Undoubtedly, they know yours. Now they know this one by description. I don't think they got my plates or they haven't successfully run them yet, but we'd be better off in a car they haven't seen and whose plates we're sure they don't know. I'm hoping he can make a suggestion about that.

"Third, I want someone to anchor what we're doing, someone who can keep track of things here or find out things if we need to know them. We may not need him, but I'd like to know he's available. I have a feeling that whoever is after you is also after something else, some other piece of hardware, maybe. Are you sure you don't have anything about the project written down, voice-recorded, or that you don't have some crucial piece of hardware they could find?"

"No, nothing…Oh, shit. Again. There is something. I just never thought about it because it is—to me—ancient history. I don't forget numbers—but other things, especially things I've worked on, can be dicey. I think about the next project, not the last project, about what I will build, not what I have built. Well, in academic matters. Maybe not so much in personal ones. There I can get stuck in the past," he flicked his eyes toward Sarah, "but I'm getting better."

"Anyway, I built a prototype, a simpler version of the heart of the project, back when I was a first-year grad student. I called it The Vortex. Don't look at me like that. Gadgets need names. It's a draft, you might say, of the main encrypting/decrypting engine. On its own, it doesn't seem much more interesting than a basic encryption/decryption device, of the sort you have no doubt seen, but it's more powerful. Or at least, it would be if I make a few changes.

"But the real problem is that the right person—and there are three or four of them around—could take the thing apart and see how to move forward—forward as opposed to reverse engineering, as it were—to the project as it will be. It'd take time and effort and research money to get there, but it'd be like giving someone the seed from which the current project grew." Chuck was shaking his head. "Like Jack's beanstalk beans. No golden-egg-laying goose right away, but maybe down—or up—the road."

"Okay. So, Chuck, where is this Vortex thingy?"

Chuck became sheepish, embarrassed.

"Chuck?"

"It's in South Dakota."

Sarah's eyes were big as she peeked from the road to look at him. "South Dakota?"

"Yeeeeaaah. Kind of a…long story. My only other serious girlfriend—um, I mean other than Janet—was from South Dakota. I went home with her one summer and worked on her father's farm, which is when I built the Vortex. I also left it there…in the…barn. Sort of."

"So, you left a potentially disastrous piece of cutting-edge electronics in a barn. In South Dakota. Because you were dating the farmer's daughter and because…why? And why do I feel like we've fallen into a vaudeville routine?"

Chuck grinned a chagrinned grin. And shrugged. "Because I didn't really need the Vortex. I mean, once I built it I knew how it worked. So, I left it with them. With Sally and her father."

"You left it with Sally and her father because they needed a cutting-edge encryption/decryption device? Really?"

"No, I left it with them because no one there needed an encryption/decryption device or cared a hill of beans about one, but they needed a remote to open the barn door, so I repurposed the Vortex to do that job. Just a couple of small changes, really.

"I assume they're still using it. I gave it to them a long time ago, but I built the thing like a little tank and Sally actually sent me a photo of it a few years ago, joking that they still depended on it. She said it was the only piece of white man's electronics that ever lasted."

"Wait," Sarah said, as she pulled into the driveway of what Chuck took to be Casey's house,. "White man's…?"

"Sally is Sioux; she always got a kick out of telling me I was the whitest white man on earth. Her dad thought I was a…riot." Chuck's face told a story of amused frustration.

"Would Janet have ever known about the Vortex?"

"No. Maybe? Yes. I showed her the picture when Sally sent it to me. It was just before things…ended. I thought the picture was funny. I never explained what the device was, I just commented that it was the most complicated door opener known on the planet. I never thought that she might have caught on to, or cared about, my double meaning. But then again, she was a word person. She heard things other people might not. She did know my tendency toward punny. She might have connected that to my talk about the project—but those conversations were a long time apart. If she connected them, then she must have been paying attention specifically to comments about…my work."

Sarah's gaze fixed on the windshield for a minute, as if she was trying to decide whether or not to say something, and then she clicked her seatbelt and opened her door. Chuck was deep in thought, frowning.

"Chuck, we need to go in. Casey is glaring at us. He'll come out with guns blazing if we don't go in." She waited.

Chuck nodded and got out of the car. Sarah did too. Together, they went inside.

}o{

Casey's home was not what Chuck expected. His wife was a tall, striking woman with short black hair, evidently a handful of years younger than him. Gertrude was her name. She was silent and watchful. She clearly doted on her husband. They had a daughter, fourteen, who looked like both her father and her mother. Tina. The parts of the house Chuck saw were warm and inviting—genuinely homey. The happiness of the family that lived in it seemed to live there too, present and relaxed and abundant in every nook and cranny of the house.

Casey gave Gertrude a kiss and a hug and did the same with Tina. He asked them to give him a minute. They left the kitchen and went to another part the house. Casey sat down at the table and motioned for Chuck and Sarah to sit too.

Chuck listened as Sarah gave Casey a quick, efficient sitrep, telling him what had happened (minus any mention of some handholding and a kiss) and all that Chuck had told her. Casey punctuated her update with grunts and nods, although when she got to Chuck's story about Janet, Sally, and the Vortex, the grunts became groans and the nods became disbelieving headshakes. Chuck felt stupid and contemplated the kitchen tile—it seemed at about his level.

Chuck felt something under the table and realized that Sarah had rested her foot gently on his. Her face had not changed. She continued her update with no sign on her face or in her voice to suggest the contact between them. It felt intimate to Chuck at first, but then he began to lose his confidence, thinking that he had misunderstood the situation.

"So, my best guess," Sarah continued, "is that Janet was playing Chuck. I don't know why. I don't know whose interests she was pursuing." He felt her exert a bit of pressure on his foot. "But it was a remarkable play. She invested years in it, invested her…body in it. Janet had skin in the game." Sarah winced slightly as she heard her own phrasing on playback in the silence that swallowed the kitchen.

It finally hit Chuck what Sarah was saying, had been suggesting all along. He knew why she had her foot on his.

He had thought the point of all this was that Janet was interested in his work and had perhaps put together that the project and the Vortex were related. Maybe she had mentioned it to someone. But Sarah thought that Janet's whole reason for being with Chuck was to glean, to steal, information about his work.

Wait. That couldn't be right, could it? He and Janet had two wonderful years—companions, friends, lovers. She had loved him. That's what had made everything that happened so awful. She had loved him. Hadn't she? Chuck realized that Sarah was hoping her touch would steady him. She knew he had not yet understood fully what she suspected and was only now putting it together.

Chuck felt his stomach lurch. He felt his understanding of his own life starting to crumble and topple. Bile rose but he choked it back. He had been so happy with Janet. He had been so miserable without her. The ending was so horrible. Was it all illusory? Was there nothing to have been happy about and so nothing to have been miserable about? Were those green eyes a glittering deception? Were all those spiraling looks into them looks into an abyss of falsehood, not into the deeps of a true heart? Yes, she left him—but she had a reason. Wasn't he to blame? He had blamed himself so much for so long.

Casey listened closely to Sarah. His reaction was slow and measured. There seemed to be a bit of a hitch in Casey's reaction—at least it seemed so to Chuck. When she finished, Casey glanced at Chuck. Chuck knew that Casey could see he was really only now beginning to contend with Sarah's suspicion about Janet. He felt lost, adrift in a past abruptly empty of substance and full of shadows. Sarah reached over and touched his hand for a second. Chuck glanced at her hand and noticed Casey do so too.

"It could be. That kind of long-term seduction happens, I suppose, but it's rare—mostly because it rarely works. Pretending that much for that long: if it doesn't work, you get caught." Chuck noted a shadow cross Sarah's face. "Or it just becomes real. I don't know what to say, Walker. But if Chuck is right and the lines cross only on Janet, then she must somehow be the source of all this, whatever her motivations might have been."

"Well, I have a feeling I'm right," Sarah offered, her words gentle but certain. She stole a glance at Chuck.

Chuck felt his heart clench. Janet. Playing him. Janet playing him: he didn't want to wrestle that dark angel.

Sarah, Chuck realized, was studying his face. He shoved it into a neutral expression—but he was unsure what his expression showed before he realized she was studying him. She kept her foot on his but with added pressure, just enough for the change to register. She touched his hand again.

"Do you know where I can stow my car, Casey, and where we might be able to…borrow another? I want to hide Chuck and they've seen mine and might have the plates."

"I can help you with that." Casey got up and beckoned for them to follow him. There was a large low garage behind the house. When they got inside, Casey clicked on the light. There was an old, well-maintained Land Rover parked beside another in a state of partial assembly. "I rebuild these in my spare time. This one is mine, the one I keep to drive around from time to time. It had a problem with the transmission that it took me forever to fix. It hasn't been out of the garage in a couple of years. I just got it fixed and back together. Runs perfectly. You two take it. Bring your car in here."

Sarah went out and brought her car around while Casey backed the Land Rover out of the garage. Sarah parked the Mazda inside.

Casey traded keys with Sarah. Sarah asked where the bathroom was and Casey told her. She went into the house. Casey put his hand on Chuck's shoulder, forcing Chuck to look at him.

"Look, I know this is overwhelming. I hope we can figure it out quickly and get you back in your lab doing whatever it is you do. But until then, you've thrown your lot in with Walker there.

Let me explain a couple of things to you: If she decides her mission is to protect you—and she clearly has—then you could hardly have done better if you'd asked for a squadron of Seals. Since I got home, I've been talking to some buddies of mine, other black ops guys. We think she's a CIA agent once known as the Ice Queen. When a spy gets a name like that, it means something, Chuck. Do you understand that?" Chuck nodded.

"I don't know why she's here and not still an agent. I don't know what she's running from, what brought her here, but I know her type. I do. I admit I like her, but in general, I am no fan of spooks. So, remember: there are things in her past that she's carrying with her, and if she starts acting like an agent again, those things may resurface in the present. So be careful. Only trust her so far.

"As the wisest man of our time liked to say, 'Trust but verify." Casey pulled out a cigar and lit it.

"Now, let me ask you something. I take it her flight from you at the Union the other day meant she had not encouraged your obvious interest in her?" Again, Chuck nodded. "Ok. Has that changed since all of this started? Has she…encouraged you?" Chuck really wasn't the kiss-and-tell type; he wasn't a fan of PDA and he didn't even want to describe displays of affection publicly. Chuck had always been fiercely private about his love life. Intimacy was supposed to be…well, intimate. But this was a bizarre situation—and he was by now thoroughly confused about Sarah and by Sarah.

"Well, she held my hand a couple of times. She kissed me. I mean she really kissed me." Chuck could feel his eyes start to glaze over with the memory, but he made himself stop. Not before Casey saw it, however.

"Look, I don't want to piss on your parade, Chuck, but you need to be careful here. I believe she's doing this because she has feelings for you. But I can't read her clearly. She's too good." Casey nodded with grudging respect toward the door Sarah had used.

"There's an old technique spies use—it's a kind of variant of Good Cop/Bad Cop used in interrogations. You run hot and cold. You get the asset to respond to you, encourage the response, then you suddenly discourage the response, usually by finding a way to blame your reaction on the asset. Then, when the asset is upset and does not expect it, you do something to encourage him again. It's basically a way of making and keeping the asset lovesick. Lovesick people are easy to control if you are the one who has 'sickened' them, so to speak."

Chuck opened his mouth to speak but Casey went on. "I am not accusing Walker of doing this. Like I said, I don't believe that's what's going on. But it would be wrong of me not to warn you. I don't know if Janet played you or not, but I don't want Walker to play you."

"Why would she? What's in this for her…if not me? Not that I'm much…" Chuck's voice sank as he finished that question. He hadn't fully realized how much he wanted it to be true that she was in this for him until he said the words. That was part of the reason all the talk about Janet was bothering him so much. He had moved on, at last, but it now appeared he had moved on from a woman who was a complete fraud to one who was a complete mystery to him.

"You may not fully have comprehended this, but assuming that what Walker thinks is true, then you and your project are the intelligence community's holy grail. Everyone is going to want you—in a bad way, mostly. I don't know why Walker left the Agency, but if she did it under a cloud, then getting you and this Vortex thing back to the Agency would not only dispel the cloud, it'd vault her star into the firmament. Or, if she were less idealistic or careerist, she could just sell you and the Vortex to the highest bidder, jet away from this overheated terrarium, and live in luxury on a beach, being fanned while sipping icy umbrella drinks."

"How am I supposed to know what she's doing, Casey? How can I know what her motivations are?"

"Listen. Watch. Pay attention. No one can make every word or action false. We give ourselves away every minute if people know when and where to look. Our ability to fool others is rooted in their inattention and their desire to be fooled." Chuck shook his head at himself as Casey said this.

Casey squeezed Chuck's shoulder quickly but sympathetically.

"I have a feeling you're not going to find paying attention to Walker a hardship. So do it. But don't let yourself do it in a moony way. Pay attention. You're smart, Chuck. Trust yourself. " Casey missed Chuck's grimace at the final instruction. Casey had looked back toward the door, to see if Sarah had returned.

"One last warning: given that woman and the way you look at her, keep in mind that if you climb into her bed, and she is playing you, you will climb out of it as her asset. I'm not saying you're weak-willed, Chuck, just that you are pretty far gone—and she is, well…you know, you were chasing her on campus."

}o{

Sarah came back out of the house and handed Casey a slip of paper. "I have a burner phone stowed. I'll pick it up soon. That's the number. Memorize it and then destroy the paper."

Casey looked hurt. "I know the drill, Walker."

Chuck smiled despite the craziness of the last few hours. "I never thought I would actually hear real people say things like that to each other. It's like I'm a character in a Robert Ludlum novel."

When Chuck considered his own words, his smile slowly vanished. Sarah shot him a look and he slumped a bit and went and got in the car.

}o{

Sarah had gone into the bathroom to catch her breath. She washed her face and toweled it dry. Although she had controlled herself in the conversation with Casey, it had been a fight. The echoes of that kiss were still bouncing around inside her. She couldn't stabilize herself.

She was also upset about dumping her suspicions about Janet on Chuck without preparing him. She knew that he didn't fully understand her suspicions when she mentioned them in the car. That was one reason she'd put her foot on his under the table, to try to cushion the blow once he did. The other reason was that now that they had touched—and kissed—not being in physical contact with him was proving unbearable for her. That was a very bad thing. She had to regulate herself.

They needed to get out of town and find a place to spend the night. They needed to decide the next step. Maybe all they needed to do was to leave town for a few days, but her instincts told her it would not be that simple. No one who had gone to the trouble of sending those SUVs was just going to give up after a few days. What should they do? How could she handle the way she was feeling if she had to be with him, with him all the time, maybe for days?

She had made choices, made promises to herself. She had made them for what had seemed utterly compelling reasons. Could she just abandon the choices and promises after a few caresses and one spine-melting kiss, one that left her panting, inside anyway, and a little outside too, panting for more? Was she that irresolute? Could the soft warmth of one tall man's lips unravel all her self-imposed bonds?

Her reflection looked poised for a moment to answer that question affirmatively, but then it just looked like she felt: edgy, anxious, flustered and deeply unsure of the woman reflected.

Sarah gathered herself and headed to the door, to rejoin Chuck and get on the road. She saw Casey talking to Chuck. His voice was low; she couldn't hear it through the door. She stopped there for a moment. She was the subject of the conversation—she knew it. Chuck looked increasingly agitated.

What was Casey doing? She knew the answer as soon as she asked herself the question: he's warning Chuck about me. Why, why would he do that? Casey is unsure of me, that's why. Not so unsure that he would counsel Chuck to run from her, but still unsure. She realized she could hardly blame Casey for what he felt. She was unsure of herself too.

She deliberately made noise coming out of the door to ensure that she did not hear anything or appear to be trying to hear anything. Casey stepped back and offered Chuck his hand. They shook.

Casey then turned to her and offered his hand. She shook it. He looked directly into her eyes, fastening his gaze to hers. "Take care of him. He's yours, now." Sarah took Casey's full meaning. She tried to return his direct gaze but fell short. She muttered: "I know. I kind of asked for him."

That struck Casey. He hadn't expected it. "Well, good, when it matters, be sure that you remember it."

}o{

They got on the road. Sarah seemed to have a plan, so Chuck let her act on it. Just before they left town, they stopped at a gym. Sarah told Chuck she would be right back and then went in. Chuck waited, playing drums against the dash to a song in his head: Nico Stai's "Miss Friday".

Sarah came back out a few minutes later, carrying a plain, inexpensive gym bag. Chuck chuckled, "Quick workout?"

Sarah smirked. "No, if I wanted one of those, we'd have had it together back at my place."

She turned away from him as she said that, so he lost track of her eyes. Her tone was teasing, but flat enough that Chuck couldn't tell if it was empty banter or the joking registration of an actual desire.

"I rent two lockers there, one under my name the other under…another." Sarah unzipped the bag and fished out a phone. "This is the phone whose number I gave Casey. Here, keep it for me." Chuck couldn't see what else was in the bag. She zipped it closed and pushed it behind the driver's seat. They started back up the road, heading north.

After an hour or so of driving, Sarah pulled the Land Rover into a local motel in Okeechobee, the Blushing Pelican. The headlights of their car showed that the hotel was entirely painted in shades of pink. Its better days were irretrievably in the past. It looked sketchy enough to fit into the strange spy drama that Chuck now inhabited. Sarah reached into her bag and pulled out a few bills. She handed them to Chuck. "Just in case. Pay cash if you buy anything. Do not use a card of your own no matter what you do. Keep your phone disabled. I'll get us rooms."

}o{

The 's', the plural, stuck in Chuck's ear. He knew he shouldn't expect—probably shouldn't want—anything else. But the disappointment was a body blow. He didn't necessarily want anything to happen—although he wasn't sure he could refuse—he just wanted to be near her, to be able to see her.

It took her a little while and Chuck was beginning to sweat in the nighttime humidity. When Sarah got to the car, she handed him a room key. She had one in her hand too.

"They had a pair of adjoining rooms. I got them. That way we can get to one another without having to go outside, without having to make ourselves visible."

She got out of the car and grabbed her bags—and walked to her room. Chuck walked to his room next door. He opened it up and went inside. She did the same.

}o{

Sarah closed the door. She hadn't been sure she could make it to her door without detouring to his. She was breathing hard. She still had the adjoining door to face, but at least she had gotten over one hurdle. She could only jump one at a time.

She put her bags on the bed. She realized then that she had forgotten to grab clothes at her house. God, how he affects me.

She unzipped the bag from the gym. In it were some clean clothes, a couple of blouses, a couple of pairs of jeans, a t-shirt, shorts, underwear and a toiletry case. Hidden in the bottom was a stash of knives and a sheath for her lower leg into which all would go. She left it there for now. She took out the t-shirt and shorts (bypassing the jeans) and put them on the bed. She zipped the bag closed and set it on the floor.

She took a shower, then she dried off and got dressed. The t-shirt was badly faded crimson with 'Harvard' across it in white letters. The shorts were white, and they had lace around the legs. They were quite short.

She had forgotten that she had put the shorts in the bag. She had never planned to wear the shorts with…company. She had never really expected to wear them again at all. She never imagined needing the bag, but her habit made her buy the extra locker and stow it. Since she never imagined needing the bag, she had thought of what she put in it as practically thrown away. Now, she was dressed in this old t-shirt and these shorts, and she needed to talk to Chuck.

Chuck knocked on the adjoining door and Sarah told Chuck to come in. The door opened, and Chuck stood there. Like her, he had showered. He had nothing to change into, however, so he had put his clothes back on. He looked at her, noticing her hair still slightly damp from the shower. The t-shirt she knew had shrunk over the years from frequent washing. It was snug. The shorts left her legs completely on display. She was barefoot. She felt as much as saw him see her—all of her. Her breathing sped up. She recognized that she had put the shorts on for this moment. Damn.

Chuck walked in and pulled out one of the two chairs in her room, both of which had been stowed under a small table. He sat down, careful to keep his eyes on her face as she looked at him. She joined him, pulling out the other chair. She sat down and found she was unable to discover a seated posture that did not put her legs on display. She fidgeted and repositioned herself a few times. Finally, she just scooted her chair under the table as far as she could.

Chuck watched her, unclear at first about what was happening. But then he figured it out. It was his turn to smirk at her. "Thanks for those shorts; they were a kindness—in a way. If it can be called a kindness to make things…harder."

He looked down when he said this, keeping his eyes from her. He matched her earlier flat tone. Whatever exactly he intended for her to take from those comments, she knew one thing for certain: she wanted to take off those shorts—and she wanted to share taking them off with Chuck. She crossed her legs. She uncrossed them. She crossed them.

Chuck looked back up. "Ok. What now?"

She inhaled sharply enough for Chuck to hear it, although she did it unintentionally. She ignored what she had done. She knew what he meant, didn't she?

"We need to figure out our next move. We're safe here for tonight. But we need to decide how to respond to what has happened beyond hiding. I can't get a feel for who is behind this. Right now, it doesn't matter much, I guess. We just need to know what their next move is. The whole thing feels off. Anyway, if they can't get to you, what can they do?

"It seems like the answer may be: go after the Vortex. If they haven't done that yet, then maybe they have some sense of what you told me, that getting the Vortex is not going to simply give them the secrets of the project. But if they can't have you, then maybe they'll decide that it would be better to have the Vortex than to have nothing?"

"But, Sarah, how would they know anything about the capacities of the Vortex? Even if Janet was…playing…me, I never told her anything definite about what it would or wouldn't do."

"You said Sally sent you a picture of the Vortex? Is it possible that Janet could have gotten a copy of that picture?"

"Well, I guess. Sally sent the picture to me by email. I never gave Janet my email password, but I also rarely worried about logging out around the house. She could have gotten on my account and printed a picture or downloaded it and made a copy, then deleted the download. I wouldn't have known. I wouldn't have suspected. I never suspected her of anything, Sarah. How could I, given what happened?"

Sarah didn't follow that thread, although she was curious where it led. What had happened between them? His 'How could I?' was an odd question—aimed at himself, she knew, not at her.

"We can talk about that later. But, look, could one of these people you mentioned, people who could work toward the secrets of the project from the Vortex, could they tell anything about it from Sally's picture?"

Chuck fell into serious thought. After a long silence, he looked up. "Maybe someone could guess that the Vortex wasn't capable of much by studying the picture. I mean, I never actually set it up to interface directly with anything else. Well, anything but the barn door, but it did that remotely. I just built something I knew could do the kind of thing I was imagining, I didn't ever plan to use it to do it. I never did use it. I was just keeping myself busy during those long nights in the barn."

"Wait. You mean you slept in the barn?"

"Sally's dad wouldn't allow me in the house between sundown and sunup." Chuck's countenance fell. Sarah began to chuckle, then to laugh. Chuck began to laugh too. "That man scared me. He still scares me."

"Didn't you win the Gödel Prize that fall?" Sarah was still laughing, even as she became incredulous.

"Yes. Yeah, I did."

"So Farmer…?"

"Hinto."

Sarah smiled. "So Farmer Hinto banished the Gödel Prize winner-to-be to the barn for a summer. And you agreed to this?"

"Sure. I liked Sally—a lot. She was a handsome girl, quick and funny and very opinionated. She was the best judge of character I've ever known. I liked her dad. I think he even liked me. I reckon he found me staying in the barn funny. He may even have expected me to fight him. Maybe Sally did too. She was less amused than her father, less amused even than me. We had expected to be…together more that summer."

Sarah started laughing again. She could imagine Sally's frustration with the situation. Having what she wanted so near and yet not to be able to have it. Yes, she could imagine that frustration. She uncrossed then re-crossed her legs.

"How is it that you knew I won the Gödel Prize?" Chuck narrowed his eyes as he smiled a little.

"I hear things. So, you take it that the right person could have figured that the Vortex would be of limited value from the photograph?"

"I guess so. And you think that now that they've lost me, they may decide to get the Vortex after all, even though it isn't itself going to do much for them?"

"I do. Can you call Sally? Do you know her number?"

"No."

"Can we look it up?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Farmer Hinto doesn't believe in phones."

"So you could email her? She emailed you."

"Yeah, but it may be a few days before Sally sees the email."

"Why?"

"The computer she uses belongs to her father's sister, and Sally only visits there on the weekends."

"Didn't you say she was a graduate student too?"

"Yes, but not in computer science. She was a grad student in history. She now teaches high school in Bozeman, Montana. She spends the summers working the farm and reading and writing."

"Is your email secure, do you think? It sounds like security has not been a huge concern for you in the past."

"It hasn't been. Not in my home, anyway, and especially not around people who I think love me…"

"So, your email?"

"I have a highly encrypted account I can use. No one will know. I set one up for Sally too, years ago. I put it together to show her how such things can be done. She kept it because she works during the year with at-risk kids and she wanted to be sure her email would not be tampered with."

Chuck pulled his computer out of his bag. He clicked away at the keys. He sat back, flabbergasted. "Huh!"

"What is it, Chuck?"

"I haven't checked this account in the last few days—with the term starting up…and so on," he glanced at Sarah: she knew she was the 'and so on', "and there's an email here from Sally." He reported on it aloud as he read.

"She's on her way here…with the Vortex. She says that a couple of men in dark suits came around last week, asking about me. She could tell they were looking for something…but not really looking for me. She knew it had to be the Vortex. At one point, they…sort of threatened her dad. He left the farm. He went to other friends…deep in the Badlands. He's safe. It's a slow time on the farm, and she doesn't start school in Bozeman for a while, so she's flying down to visit me and return the Vortex to me. Ah…um...she is, uh, looking forward to seeing me….Um, she gets into Boca tomorrow."

Sarah felt tense all over. Sally was coming to Boca—and looking forward to seeing Chuck. Why did Sarah think that was not exactly what Sally had said? Maybe it was the gist of it, but she was sure Chuck had tamed Sally's phrasing. Sally wanted Chuck. She could not have Chuck. Sarah wasn't tense, not really, and she might as well just admit it to herself—she was jealous.