“Lorelei… Can you please hurry the fuck up?” The question slashes at the air, breaking the contemplative silence of the prairie. I don’t take my eyes from the screen. Blinking itself is a waste of the time we don’t have. In fact, I focus even more on the row upon row of functions, stacking over each other, constructing the skeleton, muscles and nerves of the virtual Frankenstein’s creature I’m trying to bring to life. “Lorelei.” My name cracks like lightning and I wince as he yanks me back to the real world.
The one where I’m sitting on the grass in the middle of nowhere, back to a literal wooden fence and the metaphorical wall; fingers sticky with the blood of the computer’s previous owner, aches and bruises all over my body. “What?” I ask, resolving the last two compiling errors before sending the machine for another spin. “Is it done?”
The screen blinks an angry red, mirroring without succeeding entirely the fury on my accidental partner’s face. “Does it look like it’s done? I told you that this program would be a pain in the ass to fix without Doc…” “Get in,” he says, cutting my rant short. “They’ve found us.”
To our left, the rumble of cars rises in the warm summer air.
We jump back in the truck. Bruised. Beaten. Tired. At the end of our rope. And still, Sterling guns it. Full speed ahead on the dirt road. The armored vehicle roars to life as the first bullets clatters against its hull. I fail to pretend these are the sound of my fingers on the keyboard. A sharp turn and my shoulder bumps against the door, blurring the colorful lines of codes for an instant. No matter. I’m getting the hang of it.
And as Sterling drives the car through the wooden fence, sending boards and nails flying in our path, I find it. The Queen Mother of all errors. The one I was hunting for. Nestled in a secondary routine. Unassuming. Deadly. Looping over and over until the crash.
The first jeep is becoming bigger and bigger in the rearview mirror when the compilation process succeeds. Seeing the screen displays a beautiful leafy green, I yell. “Done!” Sterling turns a bewildered expression in my direction before swerving away from a nasty-looking rock. “What are you waiting for? Upload it.” And the car jolts forward. The metal crushed by the shock groans but holds when they try to push into a tree a second time. “Come on, come on.” I plead as the loading bar progresses at a snail’s pace. Then an explosion near the wheels shakes the whole vehicle, kicking the computer off its perch and on the floor.
The air deserts the cabin. We exchange a glance and the spy whispers. “If it’s broken, we’re done for.” I unclasp my safety belt, slide to the ground and look at the screen. On it, two words come as a sigh of relief. Download complete.
On the fence by Alizé Gabaude is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Alizé Gabaude 