The Witness

mother says that women cry when they’re happy because they’re so filled with the feeling they want to let it out, share it. And teardrops spread that happiness.”
    “It feels true. I hope the potatoes turn out well.”
    On a laugh, he dropped his brow to hers. “You’re thinking about the potatoes? Now?”
    “Because you asked me to marry you when I was creating the recipe. If it comes out well, it’ll be a very special one. We’ll pass the story to our children.”
    “If they suck, we can still pass the story on.”
    “But we won’t enjoy the potatoes.”
    “Jesus, I really love you.” He squeezed her until she gasped.
    “I never believed I would have this, any of this, and now I have so much. We’re going to make a life together, and create a family. We’re mates.” She stepped back, gripped his hands. “And more. We’re going to merge our lives. It’s amazing that people do. They remain individuals, with their own makeup, and still they become and function as a single unit. Yours, mine, but also, and most powerfully, ours.”
    “It’s a good word, ‘ours.’ Let’s use it a lot.”
    “I should go out and pick our lettuce for our salad so we can have our dinner.”
    “We’s another good word. We’ll go out.”
    “I like that better.” She started to turn for the door, went still as her thoughts aligned. “Mated. Merged.”
    “If you want to mate and merge again, better turn down those potatoes.”
    “Not piggybacked, not layered or attached. Integrated. Merged. Separate makeups—individual codes—but merged into one entity.”
    “I don’t think you’re talking about us anymore.”
    “It’s the answer. A blended threat, yes, I’d tried that, but it has tobe more—different than combining. It has to be
mated.
Why didn’t I think of it before? I can do this. I believe I can do this. I need to try something.”
    “Have at it. I can handle dinner. Except I don’t know when to take those potatoes out.”
    “Oh.” She looked at the clock, calculated. “Mix and turn them in another fifteen minutes. They should be done thirty minutes after that.”
    Within an hour she’d recalculated, rewritten codes, restructured the algorithm. She ran preliminary tests, noted the areas she’d need to adjust or enhance.
    When she pulled her mind out of the work, she had no idea where Brooks and Bert were, but saw Brooks had left the oven on warm.
    She found them both on the back porch, Brooks with a book, Bert with a rawhide.
    “I’ve made you wait for dinner.”
    “Just gotta throw the steaks on. How’d it go?”
    “It needs work, and it’s far from perfect. Even when I complete it, I’ll need to Romulanize it.”
    “Do what to it?”
    “Oh, it’s a term I use in my programming language. The Romulans are a fictional alien race. From
Star Trek.
I enjoy
Star Trek.
”
    “Every nerd does.”
    The way he used the word “nerd” struck like an endearment, and never failed to make her smile. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I do. The Romulans had a cloaking device, one that made their starship invisible.”
    “So you need to make your virus thing invisible. Romulanize it.”
    “Yes. Disguising it as benign—like a Trojan horse, for instance—is an option, but cloaked is better. And it’s the right way. It’s
going
to work.”
    “Then we have a lot to celebrate.”
    They had sunset, and what Abigail thought of as their engagement dinner.
    At moonrise, the phone in Brooks’s pocket rang. “That’s the captain.”
    Abigail put her hands in her lap, linked her fingers, squeezed them. She made herself breathe slowly as she listened to Brooks’s end of the conversation and interpreted what Anson told him.
    “He made contact,” she said, when Brooks ended the call.
    “He did. She was skeptical, suspicious. I’d think less of her if she hadn’t been. She checked his credentials, asked a lot of questions. Grilled him, basically. She knows your case. I expect every agent and marshal in Chicago does. He can’t swear she believed he didn’t know where you are, but there’s not a lot she can do about that, as there’s no connection or communication between you.”
    “But they’ll need me to come in. They’ll want to interview me, interview Elizabeth Fitch, in person.”
    “You’re in control of that.” His eyes on hers, he laid a hand over her tensed ones. “You go when you’re ready. They talked over two hours, and agreed to meet tomorrow. We’ll know more