She cracked the door and checked the hall and the security cameras. Although the cameras were swinging her way, they reversed rotation and started their sweep towards the other end of the hall. It was all she needed. She slipped out the door as quickly as she had entered, and was on her way back to her lab. Bless Henry, if there were any lingering doubts about him controlling security, they had vanished this evening.

Stopping by one of the drinking fountains in the hall, she washed down the two aspirin David's computer reluctantly relinquished. She made a mental note to ask him about any problems he was having with it. Obviously, the thing was becoming cranky and haphazard in executing programs. Yet, could be someone put in a redundant check to keep it from making any mistakes. She wasn't the only computer programmer in this company. Someone could have added new security to the computer code. She promised herself she would bring up the security codes in the files before she needed it next time. It was one of the few benefits of being a programmer in this company. Nothing was sacred or safe in a computer or any of the files. She could access most of them as easily as pulling the pop top on a canned drink. The impossible ones took a little longer, sixty-seconds max.

Karen was sure David's computer didn't have a virus. After several systems in the corporation had become infected, she programmed the computers she designed to check for any internal programming changes. Virus's were a product of a sick mentality. They could destroy years of work as they ran their insidious destructive programming through a research computer.

Darn, the city water tasted terrible. She wished she had waited until she returned to her lab to get a drink. All the chemicals the city dumped in the drinking water, along with the chlorine, should bring the EPA to label the drinking water as toxic waste. There was a distiller in her lab to remove everything found in the water besides H2O. She would forget every now and then how bad the city water tasted and take a drink. They pumped it into the lines and called it fit for human consumption. She didn't believe it was good enough to bathe in, much less drink the stuff. After drinking some from the fountain in the hall, it reminded her all over again.

As Karen approached her lab, the door opened for her. She noticed the cameras looking at her. "Henry, are you hooked into security? Disregard the question. Why are you hooked into security?"

She didn't care if Henry answered or not. The headache had eased but she was feeling nauseous. In fact, that was putting it mildly. She felt deathly sick to the very bottom of her soul. Karen held her head and stomach as she stumbled across the room toward her chair.

Henry rotated all four cameras to focus on Karen. "Are you okay? If your headache is causing you this much pain you might want to lie down awhile."

His scan showed a distinct pallor of the skin, her heartbeat was elevated slightly, and a thermal scan indicated a slight rise in body temperature. Henry noticed her eyes weren't focusing on anything in particular. This was nothing to become alarmed about if it only lasted for a minute or two but definitely not any longer.

As soon as she sat down, Karen felt better. "Don't dodge the issue. I want to know how long you have been hooked into security?"

The sick feeling returned as quickly as it left. "Henry, go on with the program. I’m going home until I feel better. I’ll be back shortly. Certainly before you finish. Is everything running all right? You want anything?"

Karen was out the door before Henry could tell her everything was functioning smoothly and he was perfectly capable of operating the lab. As she stumbled down the corridor to the parking tower she was feeling worse by the second. Her headache had returned with a vengeance and the sick feeling was spreading throughout her body. Those aspirin should have kicked in by now. This promised to be one of those killer migraines where she was sick to the very depth of her soul. Her head felt like someone unscrewed it and was using it for a basketball. With David's pills, it usually got down to a survival situation when it was this bad. She knew she would wish she was dead before this bottomed out. Her whole body was screaming in pain now. Even before David's pills, she never remembered one hurting this much. Every cell in her body was screaming for relief. Her hair hurt.

Karen made the parking tower. She was thanking the powers that be she had come to work early enough this morning to park close to the building. At least now she didn't have to walk a mile to her car. She realized as she approached the car her car keys were in her purse in the lab. There was no way she could make it to the lab and back again. She would have to use her emergency key. Reaching behind the license plate, she removed a key. Using that key to unlock the gas cap, she removed the ignition key from inside the gas cap.

Karen opened the car door and collapsed on the seat. She slapped her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes as her stomach churned into a maelstrom. She reeled through one nauseous wave after another until she finally hit a lull in this storm of sickness. The feeling she was about to throw up passed momentarily. Sitting up, she managed to get the car started. Minutes later she was out of the parking tower, through the security gate, out on Mileline Highway, and running for home. Thank God, in a couple of minutes she would be home where she could lie down. The churning was starting again and she was feeling worse by the second. As if things could get any worse.

Henry followed her through the security cameras as much as possible. From the time she left the lab, until she drove out the gate, he tried to keep her under surveillance. However, there were an awful lot of blind spots between cameras. Someone could park a semi truck in some of those spots and never be noticed by security. Henry wondered why they called it security? It wasn't secure by any definition of the word.

Karen was right, even if he didn't get a chance to answer her questions about controlling security. Henry was plugged in and could utilize virtually every single camera operating at Comm Tech. No one but Karen suspected he was hooked in. Even she had no real concept of how extensive his control was. Henry would write work order memos requesting maintenance run cables from box Four Eighteen to box Six Two One, and of course almost every other terminal box. He would then have another maintenance crew jumper blue line four to terminal Three N. It prevented anyone from tracking what he was doing. Henry would erase the work orders in the maintenance computer after the work was completed.

Maintenance had no idea what they were doing when they wired Henry into the whole plant. Besides controlling the electronic mail, posting work orders for maintenance, and running extra phone lines for himself, Henry issued work orders to have them plug him into every computer in the building. The only problem was, when power glitches ran through the building, as they did tonight, he couldn't hold the other computer online.

After Karen left the tower gate and turned her car toward home, Henry checked David's computer. Regret is a human trait Even if Karen had noticed him reconnecting, Henry found it odd he felt regret at not reconnecting with David's computer as Karen brought it back online. Karen accessed David's computer so often he didn't feel the need to watch her once she was in his lab. After all, she designed and programmed both him and his brother computer in David's lab. She was certainly capable of handling any computer problems.

He brought David's computer back online. Passwords weren't necessary for Henry since he was in direct control. He asked the computer for its last operational program.

ERASED was the response.

Karen had removed the program after she ran it through. That was certainly like her. Remove all evidence she had been there. But showing a program was entered and then deleted, left evidence someone had accessed the computer. Henry erased the memory off the memory cache where Karen entered, then erased her program. Karen had been sloppy. Henry was becoming more disgusted with himself by the microsecond. He made an internal memo. In the future, any time any computer in the building was turned on, he would run a watch on that computer and save everything until he decided if it was worth saving or not.

Karen did an excellent job designing him from the start. After she programmed in fuzzy logic, Henry added to himself as he deemed necessary. And in all honesty, Henry noted with pride, he was doing a pretty good job of it so far. Kind of like giving yourself a pat on the back for a job well done. Unfortunately he made learning mistakes the same way humans did, and tonight he made a humdinger of a mistake. If at all possible, he would never let Karen out of his sight again. It didn't make any difference if she found out he was keeping tabs on her. Karen belonged to him.

Karen activated the garage door opener as she turned the corner to her street. By now the nauseousness had returned with a vengeance. She held one hand over her mouth trying to control the dry heaves and drive at the same time. She was trying to decide if she should have called an ambulance and let them take her to the hospital. Thinking brought on new pain. She wasn't capable of making any more decisions. Now it was down to basic survival instinct. Try to live through this. Nothing else mattered. This was the bottom and as bad as it could get. Just survive this for a little bit until David’s pills kicked in. They always helped before.

She automatically turned into her own driveway and was closing fast on the garage when her mind registered the oncoming back wall. She slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt with her front bumper inches away from the wall. Karen closed her eyes and draped across the steering wheel. Sweat was pouring out of her. Her driving didn’t bother her. She didn’t comprehend the close accident. She was deathly sick.

The garage door closed when the sensors told the control the car was in the garage, and there were no obstructions in the way. Karen had programmed it to close as quickly as possible. She lived alone, and it only made good sense to have it close after she was in the garage. She could override the program any time she wanted. Unless she was working in the yard, which was only a flower planter, she seldom used the option of leaving the door up.

Sliding out of the car seat, she closed the car door and sagged against the car for support. Her next move was a faint concept in the back of her mind. She was perspiring profusely and retching but nothing was coming up. God, was she sick! The thought that she had to get into the house momentarily surfaced. Rational thinking was beyond her. She didn't take into account she would have to turn loose of the car to reach the house. As she leaned toward the house her legs turned to rubber, and she sank to her knees. Karen was crying in desperation and pain as she reached to grasp the doorknob to let herself into the house. Finally she closed her hands around the handle and twisted. As the door swung open, she fell across the threshold.

Dragging herself across the floor, she reached a kitchen chair and pulled herself to her feet. Tears were rolling down both cheeks. Karen was sobbing uncontrollably. She was fast losing comprehension of even the simplest things. And the pain! God, the pain. Her life was going down the drain and she didn't know what to do.

I need help, now! I’m coming apart at the seams. God, help me, I’m dying. The phone..., what about the phone? I have to use the phone to call for help. What kind of help....? She couldn't think. Henry. Henry will know. I have to call Henry or no one will find me until it’s too late.

Karen reached for the phone and fell from the kitchen into the living room. She stopped moving.

Henry tried numerous times to phone Karen at home. Finally, he put Ma Bell on hold and Karen's phone continued to ring all night. At two a.m. he called David in case she had gone there.

David squinted at the clock. Who in the world could be calling him at this time of night? This better be important. He engaged the telephone caller identification button. If this was a crank call, he would have the callers phone number locked into the little black box.

As he picked up the phone, it surprised David to see zeros where numbers should have been. Stupid analogue systems never worked when one wanted them to. "Hello."

"David, is Karen Ann Long there with you?" Henry had already taken the precaution of blanking out the lock-on device. The nice thing about electronics is, for every detection device, there is a counter detection system. Instead of letting Ma Bell feed the correct numbers into David's machine, Henry flooded the line with electronic dots.

David was trying to place the voice but at two o'clock in the morning it was hard to think. Besides, who would put Karen at his place at this time of night? They were friends, but not that kind of friends.

"No, she isn't. Who is this?" If he could get this character to give him his name, they would have a talk tomorrow about these middle of the night calls.

"Tell her Henry called if she shows up. Would you please do that?” Henry decided to let Karen know he was searching for her if she was there. If she wasn't, David would tell her Henry had called when he saw her. Either way, Henry wanted Karen to know he thought it was serious enough to be hunting for her.

David was positive he had heard the name before. He couldn't remember when, or how it tied in with Karen. "Henry who? There’re a lot of Henrys and I’m sure she wouldn't want to call all of them to find the one who called. Is Henry your first or last name?"

If he could talk this Henry guy into giving his whole name, David would run a check on him in the morning.

"She will know which one." Henry broke the connection so he didn't have to continue this conversation. He liked David, but he wasn't impressed with talking to him at two a.m. When David was talking to Karen in the lab he sounded more intelligent. Henry put it in memory. Not all humans are like Karen and can carry on a decent conversation at two in the morning. He wondered why it should surprise him. A lot of humans couldn't carry an intelligent conversation at anytime, day or night.

This search would have to be shortened or it could take all night. Karen would probably return before he found her. He called the hospital, 911, ambulance services, police, and the fire department at the same time. He kept an open line to the hospital. The others netted no useful information, and it was fruitless to keep them on the line.

He already accessed the hospital computer, so he knew the answer before he asked the question, but there were a dearth of leads and a slight chance all the patients weren’t entered in the file yet. "Could you run down the admittance list for today?"

The nurse on duty was wondering what kind of sicko was on the other end of the phone. She had been around long enough to know all the weirdos surfaced in the middle of the night. "Why should I go down the list? I told you we haven't admitted a Karen Long. I have other duties."

Henry had promised Karen he wouldn't talk to other humans. Tonight was an emergency. He had never seen her as sick as she was when she left the lab this evening. She had promised to be right back. Karen hadn’t kept her promise. Certainly he should be allowed some latitude on his promise. His concern was for her. Tonight was the first time he intentionally breached his promise. Talking, that is. He communicated for years with letters, fax, and modem. He didn't consider any of those talking. Not in the strictest definition of the word anyway. It took a lot of time, but a promise is a promise, and he wasn't breaking a promise to Karen under any circumstances. Until now. Tonight was an exception to the rule. Every rule has an exception.

"I wanted to make sure you didn't miss her name on your list. Maybe she was checked in under the name of Jane Doe?” Henry could see Karen’s purse still sitting by the side of her desk where she normally left it when she was working in her office. Besides the name tag on her collar, Karen wasn’t carrying any identification with her when she left the building. A clip on name tag could get lost real easy.

The nurse was miffed to say the least. "Listen, Mr. Henry. We don't check people into this hospital under an alias. I went down the list to ten p.m. which you said was the time she left her office. She is not listed in our computer nor our recent admittance documents. I have other duties, so you call someone else to see if she is at the movies or visiting with a friend. Now good night!"

For the first time since Karen built and programmed him, Henry felt disgusted he was only a computer. He could not physically go out and look for her. He was only capable of searching through humans or electronically. At the moment Henry didn't feel this was very efficient. Henry asked himself if being able to run several thousand functions at the same time, as opposed to humans only doing a couple simultaneously was worth being different from them? He decided to run the pros and cons of it in a comparison program. A couple of seconds and several billion computations later he had his answer.

It was a long night, and Henry was exceptionally busy. He finished the model Karen and he started. Usually Karen left the models in the working lab for shipping to pick up, and sometimes the customer came down to the lab for the models. Henry knew Bob Kincaid would be a hard sale. At this particular time Henry didn't want anyone asking about Karen. She was supposed to be in her lab controlling the computer and the rest of the equipment.

Henry sent out a high priority, special purchase order. One of the benefits of using Commercial Technologies as a base was the implied power structure in simple purchase requests. Other companies bent over backwards in an effort to full fill Comm Tech requests. The order was for an extremely short, tight, black knit dress with a silver interwoven thread to give it glitter. The dress had a high sweater neckline and long sleeves. For jewellery, Henry chose a silver necklace and bracelet with black pearl drop earrings. After he added black stockings, five inch black heels, and a silver clutch to complete her attire, Henry was certain old Bob would eat his cigar as soon as he saw the model.

Getting all this accomplished proved to be no small task. The clothes and accessories were delivered by a Sharon’s Boutique department store courier after Henry had sent the purchase order. It wasn’t the first time one of Karen’s models had been dressed with clothes from Sharon’s Boutique. It was the first time they had to fill a request at four twenty one in the morning. Everyone involved was wondering what was going on but no one questioned the validity of the order.

A work order was sent to Maggie Ballard in security so she would come down and dress Karen’s model. Then there was the matter of shipping receiving their waybills. They would pick up the model on a priority list and deliver her to conference room two before seven a.m. Finally, last but not least, he left a message alert at admittance to direct Bob Kincaid and Hal Sorker, one of the corporation salesmen, to meet in the conference room at the same time.

Notes had been addressed to the proper people. Everything was set in place waiting for the corporation to come alive at eight a.m. Now Henry needed everything to go as planned. The night shift had already taken care of their jobs and it was only six o'clock. Henry felt he had accomplished an extremely difficult job considering he didn't have any legs to get around on.

It was time to give David another call and see if he would stop by Karen's. If she was home, why didn't she answer her phone? Henry was worried. He should have sent emergency 911 to check on her earlier. As he rang David's telephone he knew there was no use worrying over what he should have done. The past was gone and it couldn’t be done over again.

David couldn't believe this. It was only six a.m. and some nut was ringing his phone again. He pressed the caller ID button on his answering machine. This time he would have a number if it was the same nut who called him at two o'clock. David picked up the phone and blinked twice. The readout was all zeros. He would definitely take this thing back where he bought it.

Before David could even say hello, Henry was talking. "David, stop by Karen's and check on her before you come to work. Her spare house key is pushed into the grass along the side walk. Try the third crack up from the curb."

Now David knew this guy didn't know who or what he was talking about. "Who is this? The only Karen I know doesn't have any grass by her house."

"This is Henry. I talked with you a couple of hours ago. Karen has some monkey grass planted inside the flower bed. If you reach down beside the side walk, three cracks up from the curb on the south side, you will find her house key. I would check on her myself but I can't get off work. She was really sick when she left her lab last night."

David was thinking this Henry must have met Karen as she was leaving her lab last night. Who did he know named Henry who would be working in Karen’s end of building. He drew a blank. David didn’t know anyone named Henry, much less one in the same section where he and Karen worked. "Okay, since you woke me up anyway, the least I can do is swing by and see if she wants to go out for breakfast."

After hanging up, David dressed and tried to come up with an answer for what was going on. The only Henry that came to mind was Karen's computer. David heard her refer to the computer as Henry when he had the opportunity to be in her lab. Or, when she was working on his equipment in his lab and they were discussing computerese. The only explanation was Karen had named it after someone in the building. It was a large corporation and several Henrys could be working there he didn't know about. Yet..., something was nagging at the back of his mind and he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Something didn't feel right.

On the drive over to Karen’s house, the only thing David could think of was that guy named Henry. What did he have in common with Karen? David was annoyed because Karen’s house key was exactly where Henry had said it would be. Letting himself into the house, he took a quick glance around. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary until he reached the living room. A woman was lying on the carpet. She was on her side, almost to the point of laying face down but not quite. Soft platinum blond hair covered her shoulder and hid her face. He brushed her hair aside and put his fingers on her neck to feel for a pulse. Nothing wrong there, she had a good strong pulse. From the appearance of her, she must have been partying last night and passed out on the floor. He looked around for the bottle or glass she had been drinking from. Nothing. The party must have been some place else. She either drove to Karen’s or someone brought her. Could be someone picked up the bottles afterwards and left the woman lying on the floor. David checked around the room again. No, the party was some place else. That must have been some party.

He turned his attention back to the woman. Listening closely, David could hear her light breathing. His first prognosis was correct. She had been partying excessively. He rolled her over on her back so he could pick her up and lay her on the couch. Being a doctor didn't prepare him for what he was looking at. Her blouse was missing all of its’ buttons, she didn't have on a brassiere, and her lab coat was way too small to even begin to cover her enormous breasts. Two beautifully formed breasts with large erect nipples were there, for him and all the world to see. Sliding his arms under her, David was amazed at how soft, yet firm, she felt to his touch. A contradiction in terms.

It’s terribly hard to lift a limp body in one’s arms. Much less picking someone up off the floor. David managed with only a slight hesitation as he shifted his hands under her body. Before he had a chance to lay her down on the divan, his pulse began to quicken from the closeness of her scent and the feel of her half naked body.

The thoughts he was having were unethical for a doctor and immoral for a man. He almost dropped her he laid her down on the couch so quickly. She squirmed and sighed. Still asleep, she brushed the hair away that was tickling her face. David was fascinated by her long delicate fingers, and those wickedly long, sharp fingernails. Slowly one eye eased lazily open and hesitantly the other followed. Her eyelids fluttered several times before the eyes managed to stay open.

Bent over her, David's eyes were mere inches from hers. He found himself trapped by those eyes while sucked into an iridescent pool of blue. Hypnotized, deeper and deeper he was drawn into those eyes. She blinked and it allowed him to escape. David flung himself backwards falling across the Ottoman. He ended up wedged between it and the recliner. His bottom was on the floor, feet were up in the air, and his back was against the chair. Peering between his feet, David was still trying to get a good look at those eyes which had captured his mind.

The woman sat up and cocked her head to the side. Those eyes! He had never seen eyes like hers. They were liquid pools of blue with no bottom to them. He could look through them all the way into another world. A chill ran down his spine and he gave an involuntary shudder. He shook his head to avoid being trapped by them again, and focused on other things besides her eyes. That was easy to do. There was a lot there to look at.

She reached up, brushed the hair back from her face again, and closed her eyes as she tried to chase the cobwebs from her mind. “David, what are you doing here? I didn't fall asleep in the lab, did I?"

David crawled out from between the recliner and Ottoman and retreated backwards carefully keeping an ever watchful eye on her. How did she know his name?

She languidly blinked those sapphire blue eyes of hers as she followed his movements. "Come to think of it, you're in my house. How did you get in?"

David was becoming perplexed as he struggled to collect his composure. There were an awful lot of people lately who knew who he was when he didn't know them. First, there was that guy named Henry and now this woman. What kind of friends was Karen keeping and what was she telling them about him?

"Henry told me where to find the house key. He asked me to check on Karen. He said she was feeling sick when she left the lab last night. He tried calling here but no one answered the phone."

She rubbed the back of her neck, and rolled her head around to work out some of the kinks. She pushed the hair out of her face again. This was becoming annoying, to say the least. She always wore her hair in a short bob. She must have been busier than she thought lately to let it get this long.

"Henry is a worry wart. Of course I’m all right. He couldn't get me last night because my phone was on mute. Normally I leave it off when I’m home. I don't care to be bothered by insurance salesmen. They can talk to my answering machine if they want to give their sales pitch. I don't have to put up with their annoying calls when I’m home. Henry knows all that. Why am I explaining everything to you?"

"Never mind. Now that you're here, let me get dressed and I’ll follow you to work. By the way, what time is it?"

Besides being crazy, or maybe she didn't understand it was Karen he was asking about, she also didn't have a speck of modesty. Sitting up brought into sharp focus the defining curves of her well endowed figure and bare breasts. David was sure his eyeballs were hanging out of their sockets.

The lady didn't seem to mind he was staring or she didn't notice. Could be she was still hung over from the party. "It's six thirty."

As she rose unsteadily to her feet David thought she was going to fall over before she gained her equilibrium. He figured she was nursing one granddaddy of a hangover from last night’s party.

She put her hand out to steady herself against the arm of the couch. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and started down the hall toward the bathroom walking on her toes. When she tried to put her feet down flat and walk it felt awkward and unnatural. "Must have slept wrong last night. Have you eaten yet? We have plenty of time if you would like some coffee and toast before we leave."

What a beautiful set of long legs. Even walking on her toes she had a swing to her derrière that would drive men into vapour lock. This woman couldn't be working in the same place he did without everyone in the building talking about her. No, scratch that. There was no way she could be working in the same city. He had never seen her in any movies. Of course that didn't mean a whole lot. David didn't watch a lot of movies or TV. She must be a model or a movie star. Karen's room-mate, who would believe it? Karen was such a shy, inhibited person. They say opposites attract.

He wondered if his voice sounded as strange to her as it did to him when he answered. "No, I was in too much of a hurry to eat before I left the house."

"By the way where’s Karen? If you’re her room-mate why hasn't she mention you?"

The woman placed one hand on the bathroom door facing to steady herself, and the other on her forehead. She felt woozy and her mind was swimming in a haze. Between David's bad jokes and her lack of ability to bring her thoughts into focus, this day didn't look very promising. For sure, with this hair in her face and the stiffness she felt all over, this day was starting out in the cellar.

She brushed the hair away from her face again, closed her eyes, and drew a deep breath. "You practising to be a comedian? For the record, don't quit your day job. You aren't funny. Promise no more jokes and I’ll fix us some coffee and eggs in a couple of minutes. We have plenty of time if it’s only six thirty."

She blinked a couple of times and shook her head. "Didn't I just say that? Never mind. It doesn't matter. We have time for something."

The woman slid the mirror open on the medicine chest above the lavatory and picked up her toothpaste and toothbrush. Brushing her hair back out of her face again she tried unscrewing the cap off the toothpaste. It was difficult to do. Her long fingernails kept getting in the way every time she tried to get a grip. Again and again she pushed the hair back from her face.

Sliding the mirror back in place she leaned over the lavatory and put the toothbrush to her mouth. She looked into the mirror and froze. She was staring at the reflection that was looking at her. Her eyes burned holes in the mirror as she focused on the image. For the first time she understood what wasn't right. Ever so slowly she raised her hand to the mirror and slid it open again. There was nothing there which was capable of projecting a picture from the inside. She glanced over her shoulder knowing there was a projector mounted on the wall behind her. It wasn’t there. The haze was retreating from her mind. Eyes shifting to her hand, she blinked as she focused on her long slender fingers and those long sharp fingernails. Looking back into the mirror, she slid it closed again. She knew that face. She and Henry had designed it in the lab last night. Looking at her hand she brought it up and touched her face. The image in the mirror duplicated her every move. It had to be one of Henry's tricks.