It had been several weeks since the initial attempt and now their plans were in place. "She usually leaves the building almost the same time everyday. Normally it is close to eight or there abouts when she walks out to the parking lot. She gets in that damn rocket of hers and drives home followed by the tail she picks up when she passes the gate."

"The security around her house would make Fort Knox look tame by comparison. The camera she has by the corner of her house gives me the creeps. It feels like someone is watching through it constantly. When she goes anywhere besides home there are security guards already there waiting ahead of her. They usually have one or two unmarked cars sitting close by. When she went shopping I saw more guards in the grocery store than what they had customers. We can't touch her once she gets home. I certainly don't care to try and match speed with that damn car she drives. This is going to be our only chance to get our hands on her and that two hundred million dollars we will get for her programming."

"I don't like this. What if she won't give us the information we want? She probably doesn't carry it with her."

"Stop worrying, will you? We get our hands on her and she is the information we want. She will give it to us. In fact, she will beg us to take it before it is over."

"I still don't like it. Doesn't it take time to make a program? How long are we going to have to hold her while she makes us a program? Where are we going to stash her while she works if it takes more than a couple of hours?"

“Don't worry. Like I said, you let me do the thinking. All you have to do is think of the two hundred mill we’re going to have come tomorrow night."

The bartender had to tell them to go home so he could lock up for the night. These men sure drank a lot of beer. He didn't mind having customers like them. He made good money every time they came in.

Karen was at work by five AM. She and Henry managed to turn out two duplicates by seven-thirty. It looked like it would be a super nice day provided nothing went wrong and the equipment didn't quit on her. If things kept going like this she would have a full rack by eight or nine tonight.

"Karen, I ordered another speaker for the frame. I thought you might like to have her where she could talk to you without sounding like a radio. There is room between the upper neck area and the lower part of the head for an Omega One Hundred. The manufacturer guarantees it to reproduce the decibel pitch of the entire human voice range with less than two percent distortion on high audible."

"Looks like you might get to try out the frame sooner than we thought. You're picking up the same glitch as the last time. There is definitely something wrong causing this chip to die on us." It looked like her perfect day might not be so perfect after all. She was studying the monitor and looking at the printout. If it was only faulty information feeding into the printer for a hard copy maybe she wouldn't have to shut down for repairs.

"I believe it has to be the power transistor feeding the entire section sixteen for this to be a recurring problem. I don't believe we put two bad chips into the same place. What are you showing on your input?" She tore the page off the printer and shredded it. Bad information wasn't the thing to keep around in a lab striving for perfection.

Henry would rather she hadn't done that just yet. He would like to know what kind of bad information the chip was putting out. He started to run another printout but stopped short.

"David's coming. Krystal, back into your locker." He talked to Krystal for Karen's benefit. He didn't want the robot to scare Karen when it began moving.

The frame backed into the locker behind it and Karen closed the doors. "Need to make these automatic so I don't have to shut them."

"Silly programmer. Why would you need automatic doors on something which had the capability of shutting the doors itself?"

She shook her head. "I have no idea. It turned into a habit when we were building it. Now instead of instructing it to close the doors I want to put an automatic closure on them."

Henry opened the lab door and David walked in. He looked around at the cameras and back to Karen. He knew who had opened the door. It would take him a long time to get use to being observed by a machine. Or more than likely he would never adapt to the idea. Walking into Karen's lab reminded him of Halloween and the haunted houses during his childhood days. "I wanted to invite you to have supper with me tonight. We haven't been out in a month and I thought you might like a reprieve from your pet monster here."

He looked at Henry and then into the lab where the lasers came on line in the chamber Henry had loaded. The things moved with such quick deadly precision. How could Karen have something like that under control? Being in her lab gave him the wiles every time he thought about it.

Karen walked over and held his hand. "I would love to go out tonight but I can't. The head office is riding me now. They are wanting more models. They want me to set up another lab and build another computer to duplicate Henry. The only way I have held them off this long is because I’m turning out a full rack everyday. If I tried to build another lab I would have to shut down here for awhile. They’re caught in a dilemma. They want another lab but can't let me quit long enough to design and build it."

"I told them I wasn't sure I could duplicate the computer my cousin built and that was a mistake. They have sent letters to my cousin asking her to come back to work. Henry has kept track. So far all of them have been returned with no forwarding address. These people want another lab and with the kind of money they’re making it isn't going to be long before they get serious. They will either find the other Karen, which we know will never happen or move someone into my lab to see how I design what Henry and I are making."

"I’m afraid either way the fat is going to be in the fire. I can't move Henry. He belongs to Comm Tech. He really isn't mine. I only built him. Even if he was mine to keep I still couldn't move him. If I took him apart he would never be the same. It would be like committing murder. This Henry would be gone forever and there would never be another like him."

David wanted to hold her but this was neither the time nor the place. "How can I help?"

Karen didn't share David's jitters about her lab. She wanted to be held. Taking David's hand she rolled around backwards into his arms as she pulled his other arm around her. Her back against his chest, she snuggled in tighter as she pulled his arms closer around her. "I don't know if anyone can help. I have a feeling this is a dead end. I will go only so far to find out I can't turn back and there is no way to go ahead. Life isn't as much fun as it used to be a few months back. It is sad to find out what we had to start with were the happiest times of our lives but there is no way back."

David knew she had passed the point of no return. Holding her in his arms there was no doubt in his mind when it happened. It wasn't the night of her accident. It was when she first turned on a computer named Henry. He decided to change the subject as he freed one of his arms and waved at one of the cameras. "Hi Henry, how you doing?"

Receiving no answer he put his arm back around Karen and nuzzled around the back of her ear. "I know your computer can talk. I heard it. I also know it has been helping me with experiments. He might not talk to me but there are some real eye opening questions and answers falling out of my computer from time to time. Sometimes he is so sneaky about it I wonder if we were needing the answer which keeps creeping back on our screen. He’s good Karen. I mean really good. I get the feeling he tolerates me because of you. That computer of yours is either jealous of me because I’m close to you or it hates me. In either case, he is waiting for the chance to murder me without you knowing about it."

"Quite the contrary Doctor Beckworth."

David almost jumped out of his skin when Henry spoke. It was the last thing in the world he expected. Karen thought David was going to knock himself and her both down. She quickly adjusted her stance to counterbalance.

"You talk very intelligent for a human being when you are in your lab and your research is certainly interesting. However, every time you step through the door into Karen's lab you seem to lose all trace of intelligence and talk to me like a simple idiot. I see no value in talking to someone who talks like an idiot."

Karen folded over with laughter. If David wanted a conversation with Henry he was getting one. She didn't think this was the conversation he had in mind. She straightened up still giggling with tears in her eyes.

"David is an idiot?" Now she had said it she couldn't stand it. She started laughing all over again.

David on the other hand, failed to see the humor in the situation. He had been called an idiot by Karen's computer and didn't like it. It didn't help when Karen repeated the phrase and began laughing again. He had been humiliated by a computer and even worse, by Karen. He was in a huff. "Boy, do I like this. I offer to help and I get called an idiot by everyone in here. I can see it runs in the family. Being rude, I mean."

Karen wiped her eyes but was still giggling. "I’m sorry David but you did ask for it. You were acting like one every time you talked to him."

The thought became funnier and she started laughing again.

David thought about it for a little bit. Well okay, maybe it was humorous but it wasn't that funny. "Maybe I deserved that. Don't you think you are overdoing it? After all, I wasn't acting THAT dumb."

Karen stood up, pushed her hair back from her face, put her hands on his shoulders, and looked him straight in the eye. She was trying hard to apologize but couldn't stop giggling long enough to talk. Every time she managed to control herself, she would look at his face and loose it all over again. Here was one of the world’s foremost DNA research doctors and Henry just admonished him as an idiot.

She finally managed to get her act together long enough to talk as she dried her eyes and worked past the few giggles which wouldn't stay down. "Don't take it personally. He talks to me like that too. Henry has a way of bringing you back to earth every time you get a swelled head. He didn't mean what he said in the literal sense. That you were an idiot."

Karen did real good until she got to the word idiot. Hard as she tried to smother them, the giggles began again. Slowly at first and then in earnest.

It was going to take more than this to convince David Karen had meant what she said, because she was giggling again. "How am I suppose to talk to a computer?"

Karen couldn't stand it. It had to be a case of bad comedy. She doubled up with laughter again. She was laughing so hard she had to hold onto her desk to keep from falling down on the floor. Maybe Henry had been right. Maybe David was an idiot!

David was disgusted with the whole situation. He turned to leave. "Forget about dinner. I can see you're too busy to go out tonight."

She tried to wave him back to tell him she was sorry but she couldn't stop laughing. He was gone. She sat down in her chair wiping the tears from her eyes. "I’m afraid we hurt his feelings."

"I will apologize to him since I’m the one who instigated the incident."

"No, it wasn't your fault Henry. You said yourself, humans are unpredictable. It was funny to me but not to him. What some people find funny may hurt the pride of others." She wiped her eyes on her coat sleeve.

"Come, we have work to do. This didn't help us get it done any faster. I’ll call him when I get home tonight and whisper sweet nothings in his ear. He won't be able to stay mad long."

She looked at the monitor. "Now where were we? Oh yeah, the power transistor for sixteen. Krystal, come here. We might as well see if you can do the real thing."

Oscar was sipping coffee and reading the guard reports in the main security office. He came to work with the swing shift but never clocked in. It would have been stupid for him to do so because he wasn't on the duty roster. His minivan was parked in the tower level where Karen always parked. Glancing at the monitors and then back to the clock he figured it was getting close to time. He wasn't wrong.

She left the lab and stepped into the hallway forty six minutes after eight. Oscar stepped out of the office and walked rapidly toward the front entrance where another car was parked. He keyed the walkie-talkie as he pulled it off his belt. "Target contact."

The cargo door of the minivan slid open slightly. With an almost inaudible phiff and the clatter of breaking glass the outside security camera by the door died.

"You're good with that thing."

The man unscrewed the silencer off the rifle. "Got it the first shot. Let's go. She will be out any second now."

The van started up and drove in a sweeping turn toward the sidewalk where Karen would be walking out the door.

Henry didn't like this one bit. The exit camera where Karen would normally be leaving the building had gone on the fritz. He had already notified maintenance. It would be an hour or two before those clowns would get around to checking it. Security already knew about it but they were playing with their monitors and controls in their office thinking the problem was there. Jerks, how could they think they had a malfunction there if all the other cameras were working. Karen would be to her car before they decided to get up off their dead butts and check the camera outside. Henry found himself wishing it was Randy's men who were watching the monitors instead of the usual security guards. Randy would have beat Karen to the door the minute he saw the problem on his monitor. He wouldn't have waited to see if the controls were malfunctioning.

Ever since he left her alone in David's lab and she put the wrong data cartridge in his computer, Henry had never let her out of his sight if possible. He wanted to tell her to wait in the building until security could check the camera but there weren't any communication devices in the hall. The probability factor of something being wrong other than a dead camera was thirteen to eighty seven. If he notified Randy's men they had a priority at Karen's exit the probability factor was over ninety nine percent they would do their darnest to find where the information came from. Definitely not a good probability factor.

He would feed the hall a closed loop picture and try to rectify the situation on his own before he notified security. "Krystal, online now. I need help. Electronic message coming your way."

There was a short pause. "Did you copy?"

The doors to the locker opened and the frame walked out. It was an electronic answer the frame gave as she was moving toward the lab door. "I have data input. I will check on Karen. Visual feedback from all systems check?"

"I have positive check on all sensors. Now move. She is going to be out the exit door before you get there. If you see any humans besides Karen take corrective action." Henry didn't like any of this. He would have to see about a disguise for Krystal.

As Karen left the building the van made a turn out of the parking tower and down the drive which ran in front of the curb. Seeing the van coming she stopped on the sidewalk to let it go on by.

Stopping in front of her the side door flew open and a man jumped out. He grabbed her arm and yanked her toward the van. He pushed her from behind as she passed him.

Karen was taken so completely by surprise she didn't have a chance to scream or think about crying out for help. She banged her head on the far side of the van and the wind was knocked out of her as someone jumped in on top of her. Ripping a piece of duct tape off a roll the man taped her wrists behind her back. Rolling her over he taped across her mouth.

"We got her!" The voice was full of pride he managed to do something right. “Now get us the hell out of here before security wants to know what happened to her."

The man driving eased the van out away from the curb and toward the security gate. He glanced over his shoulder. "Hi, bitch."

Karen didn't need to look to see who the voice belonged to. A sick feeling spread all the way down to the pit of her stomach. Karl Adder! There was no way she would let him get out the gate without letting the guards know she was there. Kicking and whining the best she could with duct tape over her mouth, she was doing everything possible to make all the racket she could.

Karl looked back at his partner. "Shut her up or we’re both dead men."

The man who yanked her into the van jumped in the middle of her stomach with both knees.

Karen felt like he had killed her. The tape over her mouth kept her from getting her breath. With her hands behind her it felt like both arms had been broken. Doubling up in pain she hurt. Without the freedom to move to ease the pain, she really hurt!

He held both legs together and ran a strip of tape around them while she was unable to move. "You even let out a squeak and we will do this again."

It was an unneeded threat. Karen was having trouble getting enough air to breathe much less make any noise.

Bob waved them through when he saw the stickers on the van. Nothing wrong there. Karl turned away from the city and slipped into the traffic on the highway. He looked into the mirror and watched the security gates slam shut. He laughed at the thought of them making it out just in time. Well, you win some and you lose some. He had his prize in the back of the van. He would get even with Comm Tech for firing him. He would especially enjoy getting even with Karen for acting like she was better than him. A lot of old scores would be settled tonight.

He drove out ten miles and pulled off on a dirt road away from the highway. He slipped out of the driver's seat and into the back of the van. Karen had been watching his every move.

"Now bitch, we want the programming to your computer. You give us the programs and we let you go. Good deal for us and a hell of a good deal for you."

Henry was liking less and less of what he wasn't seeing. Karen's parking space had a surveillance camera and she didn't show up in the three minutes it normally took her to walk to her parking spot. The frame opened the door and gave Henry a look around the entrance to the building. Seeing nothing it returned to the lab. There was no Karen.

Henry decided the odds were too great. Something definitely had happened to Karen. He alerted security and notified Randy's communications room. He reported Karen Long as missing from the building. The regular security guard looking at the monitors was slow. He still was fiddling with his controls when Henry disconnected the line. The men working for Randy were a different story. They came pouring out of their office like ants out of an ant hill. They received the same treatment when Henry notified them. When they got a disconnect they didn't wait to verify it. Randy's men were taking no chances no matter where the information came from. The gates slammed shut and Comm Tech was locked down. No one would be able to enter or leave until this situation was cleared up. One way or another. A call went out to Randy Shells. Thirty seconds later his men were by the exit camera taking it down for examination while others scattered out across the parking tower. Two men checked her lab to make sure she wasn't there and methodically begin checking every single room and closet in Comm Tech.

Randy was out of his apartment and headed back to Comm Tech in less than two minutes. He might not have been making the speed Karen did when she out ran the van but there weren't any police cars which could have caught him, even if they had seen him go by.

The men at all the gates blocked the roads with their cars and chambered a round into their automatics. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was getting out any gates until Karen was found. These men were deadly serious. Anyone would have to be insane to test them now. They were hired to protect Miss Long and their frustrations were mounting by the second. Someone was about to pay the ultimate price for Karen's disappearance.

Henry called David on the off chance he picked Karen up when the camera went down. He knew deep down in the darkest part of his memory there was no way but there are no absolutes in life. There is a percentage of error in the most certain percentages.

"Hello?"

"David, do you have Karen with you?"

"Henry, is this you?"

"Yes, I can't find Karen and I thought she might be with you."

David's pulse quickened. "What is it Henry? What are you not telling me? What has happened to Karen?"

"She left the building and never reached her car. I was hoping you may have been driving by and picked her up. She said she wanted to apologize to you for earlier this afternoon."

"Henry, I don't have her. You sure she isn't home?" David was pulling on his pants as he spoke. He would run by her house and check on her.

"No, she isn't home. I can monitor her house now and she isn't there. David, I’m worried. Something is wrong."

That scared the hell out of David. Henry always had a handle on things. When Henry was worried it was time for the rest of the mortals to worry. "I’m coming in. Call me on the car phone if she shows up."

"Be sure to bring identification and license. They have this place shut down and no one is allowed on or off until they find Karen."

This was a lot more serious than Henry was telling him. David dropped the receiver as he grabbed his lab coat and sprang for the door.

The van door opened and Oscar got in. "You get anything out of her yet?"

Karl looked at Karen and smiled. "We have just begun our question and answer session. Let's see what the bitch has to say."

He ripped the tape off her mouth. Karen felt like he ripped her whole face off. She licked her lips trying to soothe the burning sensation left from pulling the tape.

"Well bitch, now how about the programming? Or your data cartridges? You see, we ain't greedy. We’ll take most anything." He was twirling the piece of tape he had yanked off her mouth around a finger while he picked off strands of her hair which came with it.

"You bastard! You’ll pay for this. You're going to regret the day you ever laid eyes on me." She was mad and hate came along on every word.

"Still kind of high and mighty for someone in your position..., aren't we bitch?" Karl reached down and ripped the front of her dress. Lifting both breasts out of her bra, he pinched her nipples as he pulled on them.

"God Almighty!" The man who had pushed her into the van was staring at her tits.

Karl was hurting her and she was trying to roll her breasts out of his reach. "Get your filthy hands off of me you sorry piece of trash. I'll make you pay for what you're doing."

Karl leaned over right in her face and put his hand between her thighs. "The programming for the computer? That's all we want. Unless you enjoy this, give us the program and you can leave."

Karen spit in his face. "You ..., slimy ..., bastard! Go suck your own dick."

It was something she wished she hadn't done. Karl's eyes glazed over and she could see the insanity in his eyes. Before she was only mad at them. Now she was frightened of a situation she knew was out of control.

The first time he hit her with the flat of his hand. Then he started with his fists. Karen closed her eyes so she wouldn't see it coming. She let her head roll each time he hit her. She was still seeing bright lights each time he struck her. She thought he was going to kill her. She wasn’t the only one who thought that.

"You’re killing her. Quit, or we lose our money. Damn it Karl, I said quit hitting her. Give her a chance to speak." Oscar grabbed Karl's arm and pulled him back.

Karl glared in a mindless stare at Oscar for a couple of seconds before he jerked his arm lose. "Women like that sort of thing. They want you to prove to them you're the boss."

Karen's head was ringing from the beating she had taken. She could taste the salt from the blood in her mouth as it seeped out the corners of her lips. She ran her tongue across her teeth. At least they were all still there. She opened her eyes and glared defiance at them. Karl could beat her until hell froze over and she wouldn't give him any programming or knowledge about Henry.

Karl smiled a sick smile at her. "You enjoying yourself? I sure as hell am. Now let's talk business. I want the program for making your models."

Karen licked her lips and could taste blood all the way across. "I don't have any data cartridges with me."

Karl hit her with his knuckles as he backhanded her. "I know that you stupid bitch. Anyone could tell you don't have any cartridges on you. I want the programming."

He was beginning to suspect he had made an error in how to get the programming for her computer.

Karen managed to bring her head back around again. Her face and lips were starting to swell. "I can't give you the programming. It took five years to get the basic program written and another fifteen to get to what you want."

Karl hit her again. Grabbing her hair he yanked her head forward until her face was only inches from his. "YOU LYING BITCH! I WANT THAT PROGRAMING AND I WANT IT NOW!"

His mind couldn't comprehend waiting fifteen years for a computer program.

She kept her eyes closed so she wouldn't have to see it coming if he hit her again. "Please don't hit me again. I’m telling you the truth. It takes time to write a program."

Karen was pleading with men who had no conscience.

The realization they had made a mistake came to all three of them about the same time. "How will we get our hands on her program now?"

"Shut up, Mike. I'm thinking." Karl screwed up his face in thought but nothing came to him. In sheer frustration he tore the tape off her legs and pulled her panties down.

Karen was still coherent enough to know what was coming next. As bad as she hurt she tried to protect herself. Locking her legs together, she pulled her knees up as far as she could.

"No, please don't. You don't want to do this. Please, I will get the program you want. Please don't. Please, I can get you a program. Please take me back to the lab and I will get your program. I won't tell anyone. Please don't hurt me anymore. Please don't do this."

Karen was shaking her head and crying scared of the thought of what they were planning next. "Please to God, don't do this. I’m begging you. I will do anything you want."

Karl was chuckling to himself knowing she was wanting to do it as much as he was wanting to do it to her. When he couldn't get her legs down he hit her in the face. Still not getting her to release her legs he hit her in the stomach.

With the wind knocked out of her for the second time tonight, Karen lost all ability to resist. Karl had beaten her almost totally lifeless.

Karl pulled his pants down and when he entered her it felt like he had torn her whole insides lose. The pain she felt before was nothing compared to the pain he had just caused. The scream that ripped from her throat almost burst their eardrums. As he rose and fell on her body she thought her arms were breaking off. Crying in pain she was begging him to stop.

Karl satisfied his lust and got up grinning at the others. "You want some of that?"

Mike pulled his pants down and laid on top of her. Crying for them to stop hurting her only seemed to drive them on. Karen didn't think she could take anymore abuse and live. She stopped pleading with the men and started begging God to end her life.

Playing with her tits and biting her nipples, Mike was so emotionally hot before he entered her, he was through before he had very long to hurt her.

Oscar laid down on her and stuck his tongue in her mouth. She gagged and thought she would vomit. The physical abuse they were doing to her was a lifetime of pain.

It was Karl's voice she heard. She didn't know if she lost consciousness or her mind tuned everything out because of the pain. She didn't remember.

"Hell no we can't take her back to the lab. Do you think she will waltz in there, pick up the data cartridge, and bring it back out to us?"

Mike looked at Karen lying on the floor. "She said she would get a program for us."

"You can't believe anything a woman tells you asshole. They tell you what you want to hear and do what they want." Karl felt like he had brought along a pair of half-wits.

"You mean we ain't going to get our money?" Mike felt cheated out of what was rightfully his.

Karl looked at Karen who was trying to move over on her side to take some of the pain off her arms. "Well, we ain't going to get it this way. We’ll have to think of something else."

Oscar pointed at Karen. "What about her? We can't just turn her lose."

Karl grinned at the thought. "Let's dump her here. She can become someone else's problem."

They slid the side door open and dragged her from the van bouncing her down every step. Karen vowed in her mind the next time she saw any of these men, she would kill them. Some of the feeling was coming back into her body after being moved and she hurt anew all over again.

Karl dragged her a couple of feet away from the van and sit her up. "Bye, bitch."

Slowly a grin spread across his face as he pulled a gun out of his waist band and pointed it at her.

The realization she was going to die with no chance to defend herself struck sheer terror in Karen down to the very bottom of her soul. What would happen to Henry? Who would protect him after she was gone?

"NO! GOD, NO! I’LL GET YOUR PROGRAMMING. No one will know. I won't tell anyone. Please don't kill me. In heavens name don't kill...,"

The first shot struck her in the chest knocking her backwards flat on the grass. The second hit her in the neck. Her head bounced forward and back. The third hit her in the head kicking it over to one side.

Karen stopped moving.