Split by Stefan Petrucha

Author:Stefan Petrucha
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2010-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

He can’t be thinking about you half as much as I do…

We laugh. You just make him tense.

Fear isn’t love.

He’d trash the whole town for the sake of his paranoia.

You feel sorry for him? Is that it? Feeling sorry isn’t love.

Just think about it. Once. Just once.

I don’t see any answers. Of course not, Denby couldn’t have written back. Could she? Could this be why she hasn’t answered about our engagement? No, she wouldn’t keep it from me… unless he’s right and she feels sorry for me. Unless she was waiting until the project was over? Yesterday I wouldn’t have thought Finley was a liar. Last night I wouldn’t have thought Anthony could turn on me. Even so, until just now I wouldn’t have thought him capable of this.

Denby! I want to call and ask her, but Judith said no calls.

I can’t… I can’t… I can’t think about this right now. I have to press the button!

He’d trash the whole town for the sake of his paranoia.

Would I? Oh God, what if he’s right? What if the code is still wrong? I’ll… I’ll page through quickly, it’s fast on the flash drive. An extra minute, that’s all, just a minute to focus on something else and get all this doubt, all those e-mails out of my mind. What if…

Focus! I do, and something catches my eye immediately, something basic, something simple, something that couldn’t possibly have been missed, the equivalent of spelling “the” as “teh” in a newspaper headline. A huge, obvious mistake. Not in Anthony’s code, in mine. Mine! Is that the mistake he sort of remembered, but couldn’t?

He was right. He was right about me, too. I’m paranoid. Crazy. Worse than Judith Wilson. My God, I’m working with her now, aren’t I?

It is there, isn’t it? I’m not hallucinating, am I? No, I see it. It’s not a dream. It’s simple to fix, but my fingers shake too much. The pounding in my chest morphs into choking. My neck swells against the tight collar. I’m strangling. I loosen the tie, fumble with the top shirt button and wind up yanking it off in frustration. It rolls across the floor. Cooler air hits my neck, but only makes things worse.

He’d trash the whole town for the sake of his paranoia.

How can I be sure it’s my only mistake? How do I know there aren’t more?

Fear isn’t love.

My field of vision shrinks, gets hazy at the edges. I look at the active terminal, see little dots of color indicating the particles inside Prometheus. No light green. Not yet. Then why does it feel like the world is ending?

A harsh, sharp sound whines in my ears. Three loud blasts that repeat. An alarm. Could just be a fire drill, but it’s the last straw for my shattered nerves. I can’t do this without knowing for sure. I grab the flash drive and the plastic bag, pocket them, and run.

When I make it back to the white corridor I see my name and face plastered on the hanging LCD monitor and realize three horrible truths all at once:

1.

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