Chapter 2

Ann knew it for a fact, now, as she stared out the tiny window at the clouds below. She did not like riding in airplanes. More than that, she hated having to spend an entire day sitting in airport waiting areas and cramped airplane seats. She especially did not want to be landing at a strange airport in a strange city, with no one to meet her. Worst of all, she dreaded landing late at night, and then having to drive nearly an hour to a strange hotel in another city she had never been to.

No, she thought, even that wasn't the worst. The worst was that sometime after midnight she would be crawling into bed alone in that hotel, while Tom would be in bed alone at home. And the really, really, worst part was that it would be nearly a week before she saw him again.

Damn, damn, Damn! Her life wasn't supposed to be like this. She had grown up in the South Bay, which they were calling Silicon Valley by the time she got to high school. She was seventeen when she became intrigued by computer programming, and she went on to San Jose State to get a BS in software engineering. She was in the perfect place at the perfect time.

She started dating Tom in her last semester at Fremont High, and kept going with him after she went to SJ State, only ten miles away. She and Tom were really very different from each other, but they clicked, somehow. Besides, the sex was fantastic. In the middle of her junior year she moved in with him, and they were married that June. Tom hadn't gone to college, instead going straight into construction after high school. They were able to rent a small place within a mile of the college for a reasonable rate -- well, reasonable for San Jose. They had agreed that they wouldn't start a family until later. It was the nineties, and she intended to dive into the dot-com ferment.

She had lots of interviews and quite a number of offers, but she took her time looking for the right one. When she interviewed at SoftClaims she knew she had found it. They were a small company with a dynamic CEO and a real product that the insurance companies were lapping up. The people were friendly and she felt at home immediately. Best of all, they were located in Silicon Valley's "Golden Triangle", not five miles from the place she and Tom called home.

So that was Ann's life, and she loved it. She loved Tom and their little home. She loved the challenges she found in her computer every day, and the people she was working with. She loved being able to switch between those two environments with a ten minute drive. Silicon Valley provided all of the enjoyment, all of the challenge, and all of the acceptance she needed. Ann felt no need to travel beyond her little world; the internet brought the rest of the world to her.

Then Frank knocked her lovely life apart. Frank was her manager, and she would never have said she loved him, though she did respect and admire him. Frank had the lofty title of "Vice President of Software Engineering", which was rather silly since he only had eight people working under him, but that's the way titles tend to go in very small companies. He also had the title of "Chief Architect", which he really did deserve, since he had dreamed up their flagship product.

OK, Ann admitted to herself, 'knocked my life apart' is overstating things a bit, but he sure did disrupt it for a while. Just last Thursday he had stopped by her office.

"Ann, we've got a Sev 2 situation at Geico, and we're going to have to send somebody there pronto. You're the best debugger we've got, so I need you to go. Can you be there by Monday morning?"

She had sputtered that she couldn't possibly ... that she'd never done anything like that. Her objections were overruled. Thinking back, she had to smile a bit. She hadn't even known where "there" was. Well, she certainly knew now. Or at least she hoped to God she did. Geico, it turned out, was in Chevy Chase, Maryland, which she thought sounded more like an actor's name than a city name when she heard it.

SoftClaims was too small to have a secretary, so she'd had to make the travel arrangements herself. Frank had apologized, but told her they couldn't afford to send her business class. He did warn her not to take a redeye, although that would have been even cheaper. She had nodded, pretending she knew what he was talking about, and figured it out once she started looking at schedules. To her surprise at least half the flights left the Bay Area at night and arrived in the DC area in the morning. Trying to sleep on the plane did not appeal to her, nor did trying to tackle Geico's problem Monday morning with little sleep and no shower. She had breathed a thank-you prayer for Frank's redeye comment.

So, instead, here she was, wasting the whole day Sunday sitting in cramped coach seats and waiting in airports. Damn, damn, Damn!

She had to wait three hours in Denver before she boarded her second plane of the day, but she decided three hours in an airport wasn't quite as bad as three hours in a plane.

Frank had given her a laptop to take along, and she had downloaded their program listings onto it to have as a reference when she got to Geico. She normally used a desktop machine in the office, and in fact used that mostly as a terminal emulator to tie into their mainframe. So she took advantage of the time in Denver to get more familiar with the laptop. She discovered immediately that she should have gotten a better text editor, but she was able to make do with NotePad and WordPad.

The battery ran out after about an hour and a half, and she looked around the new Denver concourse for some place to plug in. The plugs were easy to find, actually, because there were guys with laptops sitting next to them. But there were already two guys sitting next to each one, so she was out of luck.

Ann was exhausted when she finally landed in Baltimore, though she couldn't have said why. She hadn't hardly done a thing all day long. The clock in the baggage area said 10:55 when she finally dragged her suitcases over to the rental car shuttle. She tried to tell herself that it was only 7:55 in California, but that didn't seem to help much. Fifteen minutes later she steeled herself for the last tortuous leg of the journey, unfamiliar highways in an unfamiliar car. I-195, I-95, I-495, MD-185, Connecticut, Bradley, Wisconsin. Ah, at last! Holiday Inn.

When she was finally able to crawl into bed she didn't even think about Tom. She simply fell asleep, immediately. It was only in the morning, a morning that arrived hours too early, that she had the twin guilts of not having missed him, and not having called to tell him she had arrived. She couldn't call him now; it was only 4:30 in California.

It was nearly 9 o'clock when Ann finally walked into the reception area at Geico headquarters and announced herself. The receptionist told her she was expected, and that someone would be down soon to escort her.

"I've probably kept them waiting," Ann flushed. "I should have been here an hour ago."

The receptionist looked at her notes again. "Oh, you just arrived from the West Coast, didn't you? Don't worry, no one comes in that early the first day. Good Lord, it must feel like 6 AM to you right now."

"Yes, it sort of does," she admitted.

"Well, here's a badge for you. Just have a seat over there and rest a bit. I'm sorry, honey, but we don't have coffee out here. Someone will meet you soon, and they'll take care of y'all.

Ann was almost afraid to sit on the plush sofa she was pointed toward. What if she fell asleep? Thankfully there were magazines on a stand nearby.

"Ann Thomas?" she heard, while staring at the ads in a random magazine she had picked up.

She looked up to see a tall young man. -- Wow, what a hunk!

"Yes," she said, struggling out of the low sofa.

"Hi, I'm Bob Jeffreys. You can call me Bob. Can I call you Ann?"

"Yes, of course, Bob."

"Well, Ann, you have no idea how glad we are that you're here. We know you have a small operation out there, and we don't like to push you too hard, but R-Seize has been a real godsend for us, and our actuaries have come to totally depend on it. Then last week, it suddenly died. The guys are going crazy."

He suddenly stopped. "Wait! What am I going on about? First things first. Let's get you a place to set your things down, and something to drink. Coffee?"

"That would be great," Ann sighed as he led her out of the lobby.

"I hope you don't mind," Bob told her as he guided her through a maze of elevators and hallways, "but you'll be seeing a lot of me. I should have told you, I'm in IS, and my main job this week is seeing that you have everything you need."

'How, ' Ann thought, as she looked again at that hunky man striding beside her, 'did I get to be so lucky?' But she didn't say it out loud. Instead that thought was followed by a guilty pang. Tom! He would be up by now, and she needed to call him before he left for work. So when Bob set her down at a desk with a computer and a phone, the first request she had was not for coffee, after all.

"Uh, Bob, this is kind of embarrassing, but is there some way I could call out, and make a collect call home?"

"What? Well, yes ... and no. Yes, you can call out, but no, I won't let you make a collect call. Just dial 9 and your home number. Including 1 and the area code, of course," he grinned.

"But that would charge it to the company. This is a personal call."

Bob folded his arms and looked sternly at her. "I told you, my job is to be sure you have everything you need. Right now you need to make a personal call. I'll go get you some coffee while you take care of it. Cream and sugar?"

"Cream, no sugar," she said automatically. "Wow, thanks, Bob, it'll only be this once. The call, I mean."

She was still on the phone when she spotted Bob winding his way toward her through the maze of cubicles in the large room, a cup in each hand.

"Tom, honey, I know you have to get to work, and I've got to go. I love you!"

"I love you, too, Ann, and I miss you."

"Yes, I miss you, too. I'll call you tonight. 'Bye, honey."

Ann saw Bob peer over the partition to be sure she was off the phone before he entered.

"Let me guess," he said as he put her cup down on the desk. "I can see you're married from the ring you're wearing, and I'll bet you didn't even get a chance to talk to your husband when you got in last night."

"Yes, I am, and I didn't get in until after midnight. I should have called Tom anyway, but I ... well, I ... guess I was just too tired."

"Midnight! Get a life, girl. What're you doing up at this time of the morning?"

God, she loved that grin of his. He reminded her of someone, but she couldn't place who. Well, if he wanted to joke, then she could, too.

"I have no idea what I'm doing, since it's obviously," she looked at her watch, "not even 6:30 yet, but maybe I'll be able to figure it out once I get this coffee in me."

Bob shook his head. "Truly, Ann, you amaze me. Usually when guys come from California they stagger in about ten o'clock looking like hell, but you're bright, and beautiful, and just ... amazing."

'Oh, shit, slow down, heart, ' Ann thought as she took a big gulp of the searing hot liquid.

She managed to calm herself enough to say, "Yeah, well you'd better start worrying about if I've got any brains inside my body, rather than what the outside looks like, if we're going to get this mess straightened out."

Bob's face suddenly looked stricken. "Sorry, Ann, that was over the line. I've got this big mouth, and when I see a beautiful girl I can't seem to help blurting it out. I'll try to behave myself."

"Not," he added with a sideways look, "that it's going to be easy. But because of that wedding ring, and because of your Tom, I'll try."

"Maybe also because of your wife or girlfriend?" The words were out of Ann's mouth before she realized they were a horrible mistake.

"No, there's no problem there," he replied, his eyes boring into hers. "I'm free as a bird."

Ann suddenly realized she was falling deep into his eyes, and tore hers away from him. "OK, let's get to work. I'll need an ID on your mainframe."

"Sure, here it is, with the password." He pulled a slip of paper out of his shirt pocket. "Careful with that, you're APF authorized. I trust you're aware of the dangers."

"Yeah, that's the way we have to run most of our debugging back at SoftClaims. Of course," she grinned, "if I crash the system there I've only got about a dozen people screaming at me. Here it's probably hundreds."

"Yep, and some of them would scream much more loudly than you or I would want to hear. There would probably be some dollar signs involved, too, and I don't mean the kind you see in cartoons for swear words. Or, at least, that wouldn't be the only kind."

"I understand. I'll be careful. Now, can you give me a crash course in your SYS1.PARMLIB setup? I'll need to set some SLIP traps."

At that point their conversation degenerated into an arcane sequence of acronyms incomprehensible to the uninitiated. Suffice it to say that no sexual innuendoes were involved. It was more than two hours later, after much frantic keying of cryptic commands, and many frowns as they both stared at the monitor, that they finally started to speak something resembling English again.

"All right! That gives me three IPCS dumps to dig through, which should keep me busy for hours," Ann grinned. "Now you'll have a chance to get some of your own work done. I hate to admit it, but shooting dumps is the part of the job I like best."

Bob shook his head. "Anybody that likes staring at millions of hex numbers has got to be crazy. But you're wrong, I can't leave you alone now."

"You can't? ... Oh, no! It's this da- ... blasted authorized ID, isn't it? Of course! I understand. You have to watch me, or I could steal all your corporate secrets."

Bob laughed. "No that's not it at all. Your VP had to sign a nondisclosure agreement before you could even get into the building, and you'll have to sign one yourself a little later. No, the reason I can't leave you alone is because it's time for lunch, and you don't know where the cafeteria is."

'Damn that cute smirk of his, ' Ann thought. 'I could fall for this guy big time.'

"But it's only nine o'clock in the morning," she replied, batting her eyes, and immediately regretting having done that.

"Not for me, it isn't," he growled. "It's time we got your butt off that lazy time zone of yours."

He pounded the heel of his hand against his forehead. "Noo! I did it again. Oh, Ann, I'm so sorry."

"It's OK, Bob. I asked for it. I'm the one who should say I'm sorry."

The cafeteria was noisy, and crowded. They ended up having to sit at a table with some guys Bob knew. Ann decided that was a good idea, actually. Better their talk about the Redskins, who were apparently some local football team, than a more intimate conversation with Bob.

'No, ' Ann corrected her own thought, 'I didn't mean intimate.' But everybody was talking and laughing, and she couldn't seem to concentrate enough to figure out what she did mean.

After lunch Bob did leave her alone, and she dug into the first dump. She was soon chasing TCBs and RBs all over memory, stopping occasionally to puzzle her way through trace tables. Everything seemed to be working correctly, but then all the tasks would drop into a wait state. It was like everything was hung waiting for everything else. It didn't make sense.

After three hours of what felt like beating her head against a wall she switched IPCS from that dump to the second one. She started seeing the pattern more quickly this time. Something was locking the system up, and everybody else ended up waiting for it. But who was to blame? She couldn't seem to spot it.

"Earth to Ann. Anybody home?"

She jerked her head up. It was Bob, of course.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't hear you come in."

Can I ask a question?"

"Sure, what?"

"When was the last time you got up, to get a drink, or go potty?"

"I ... I don't remember. It's been a while, I guess."

"Oh, yeah," Bob challenged her, "so where are the rest rooms and the drink machines, anyway?"

Ann looked around hopelessly. "I guess they're ... I don't remember."

"In other words, you haven't been out of that seat since lunch, right?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

He pressed on. "And what time is it now?"

She glanced at her watch. "It's only three ... oh, wait, I haven't changed the time since I got here. You mean it's after six already?"

"Look around. How many people do you see here?"

"Oh, I guess they've all gone home. But I can't go! I still don't understand what's going on."

"I think you need a break. Let your subconscious work on it for a while. Come on, I'm taking you out to dinner."

"No, Bob, I'll be fine. Let me work a while longer on this, and then I can get something to eat back at the hotel."

"Nope, you can't do that."

Ann sighed. "All right, what's your excuse this time. I know they have a restaurant at the hotel, I saw it this morning."

"My excuse is that I'm getting hungry. And Geico won't let me leave until you do."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Bob! I didn't realize! OK, let me make a couple of notes and get out of this."

"For future reference," Bob said with a trace of a smile as they started to leave a bit later, "the closest rest rooms are right over there, and there are hot and cold drink machines down that hall and around the corner to the right."

"Don't worry about remembering this route," he assured her as he once again guided her through halls and down elevators. "Besides, this isn't the way we came in this morning."

"I kind of wondered. It didn't seem the same."

"I assume you parked in the visitor parking area. We're not going there right now."

'Oh, oh, ' Ann thought. 'This doesn't sound good.'

"So, where, may I ask, are we going?"

"We're going to one of the employee lots, where my car is."

"Don't I get any say about this?"

"Nope."

It seemed like this man was trying to take charge of her entire life. She realized she should resist, or even be insulted, but the truth was it felt kind of nice. Tom could bluster, and be macho, but Bob was smooth, a real gallant. When they got to his car he opened the door for her, and even shut it once she was seated ... Oh my.

After he slid into the driver's seat she decided to make one last try for independence. "Thank you for driving me around to my car."

He grinned at her. "I told you, I'm taking you out to dinner."

"You don't tell a married woman you are taking her out to dinner. You don't even ask her. Have you cleared this with my husband?"

"Of course not. He's not even here. If he were here, he would be taking you out, wouldn't he?"

"Well, yes."

"So, I'm doing him a favor. He can't take you out, so I'm doing it for him."

"But,..."

"No but. Look, if you're worried that I'm going to try to seduce you, I give you my word, I'm not going to. After dinner you are going to drive your car back to your hotel, alone. I'm not even going to kiss you good night, even though I know I will be greatly tempted to."

Ann was sure she was supposed to find his words reassuring, but she didn't. They just made her think about the things they weren't going to do. Maybe she should give him a good night kiss, just to spite him. No, that wouldn't be right. But maybe if it was just a quick kiss on the cheek...

"A penny for your thoughts."

Damn. Now what could she say. "Oh, nothing. I, uh, was just, uh, thinking about those dumps."

He concentrated on shifting lanes as the narrow street they were on merged into a wider one, then shot her a quizzical look. "If you say so."

She decided it was time to change the subject. "Where are we going?"

"Ah, that partly depends on you. I don't want to take you some place where you would hate the food. How do you feel about Indian?"

"Mmmm, sounds good. But," she teased, "if you're doing it for Tom then you shouldn't take me there. He claims that curry is awful."

"Hmm, good point. We certainly don't want to upset him. How does he feel about seafood?"

Ann laughed. "Actually, his idea of a romantic night out at an exclusive restaurant is to take me to Red Lobster."

"Well, I think we can do a bit better than that."

"Er," he added after a pause, "I mean, a bit more exclusive, not a bit more romantic."

'Damn!' she thought, 'I did it again.'

"No, please, Bob, nothing at all exclusive. I just want to go some place very casual."

"All right, then, I know the perfect place."

He made a left turn, and Ann caught the street sign. Van Ness, just like back in San Francisco, but this street was an alley by comparison to the San Francisco boulevard. After about a mile he turned right on Connecticut. She remembered that from her midnight drive last night.

"How far is this place, anyway?"

"Not far, only a couple of miles more."

They rode in silence for a bit, then he asked, "So where do you and Tom live? Somewhere close to 'Frisco?"

"Eewww!" she groaned. "Don't say that. I don't know why, but out there that's sort of like a swear word, or something. We either call it 'San Francisco' or 'The City'. As for your question, we're close enough that we can get up there in a little more than an hour, if the traffic isn't too bad. But we don't go very often. There's so much to do in the Valley."

"Oh, Silicon Valley, right? So how big is the valley, anyway?"

Bob hardly had to say a word after that as Ann babbled on about the little world she loved, the place that had been home for all her life. She was surprised when he announced, "Here we are."

He took her arm to lead her into the restaurant, which called itself simply "Pesce." The interior was lit dimly; she saw the tablecloths and elegant appointments, and pulled back.

"No, Bob, this is far too fancy. Please, somewhere else."

"Nonsense," he insisted, holding her arm firmly. "It's just a bistro cafe. The prices are modest, and besides, I'm buying, so it won't go on your expense account."

"This is all wrong, Bob. We mustn't do this."

"We've been through all this," he said calmly, still gripping her arm as they stood in the small entryway. "I'm just a stand-in for Tom, who would be taking you out to dinner tonight if he were here. Remember?"

She sighed in resignation, and soon they were seated at a small table for two in a corner. Ann was extremely nervous, or keyed up, or something. She wasn't at all sure of what she was feeling. She couldn't keep her mind on what Bob was saying, and kept stumbling and asking him to repeat whenever he looked at her, waiting for an answer. There was no way she was going to be able to decide what she wanted to eat, and she finally told him to pick something for her.

When the food arrived it appeared to be delicious, but she really couldn't taste anything, and she wouldn't have been able to say later what she had eaten. The whole event seemed to be some sort of a dream; not a nightmare, exactly, but nothing at all like reality. She breathed a sigh of relief when they finally walked back out into the night air.

Her relief was short-lived. Sitting beside him in the darkened car for the trip back to Geico was even worse than sitting together at their tiny table. She was shaking uncontrollably when he finally pulled up beside her car.

Bob looked over at her, and said, quietly, "Hang on, I'll get the door."

She tried to pull herself together as he walked around the car. He opened the door and reached in for her hand. She swung out, and stood, ending up in his arms.

"Remember," he whispered in her ear. "I'm not going to kiss you, I'm not going to go back to the hotel with you, I'm not going to do ... what I'm dying to do."

"Oh, Bob," she sobbed, and clutched at him, kissing his neck.

"There, there, you're just tired. You've had a very long day. Get a good night's sleep, and things will look much different tomorrow. You have your car key, right? There you go. Drive safely. Good night."

He shut the door and Ann suddenly felt totally alone. It was a loneliness that smothered her like a black fog. She forced herself to start the car, turn on the lights, and drive off. She forced herself to remember the route back to the hotel, and later to remember where her room was.

The whole time his words kept echoing in her brain. "I'm not going to kiss you, I'm not going to do ... what I'm dying to do."

She threw herself on the bed, and still she heard the echoes, though they were not his words, really.

"I'm not going to kiss you ... I'm not going to stroke your neck ... I'm not going to touch your chest ... I'm not going to squeeze your boobs ... I'm not going to unbutton your blouse ... I'm not going to kiss all over your chest ... I'm not going to stroke your thigh ... I'm not going to slip my hand inside your skirt ... I'm not going to slide it up between your legs ... I'm not going to touch your panties ... I'm not going to rub your sopping wet pussy through them ... I'm not going to take your panties off ... I'm not going to slip my fingers into your juicy cunt ... I'm not going to kiss your pussy lips or lick your clit ... I'm not going to do... DOO... DOOOO ... DOOOOOOOOO!!!

" ... what I'm dying to do."

Ann's brain came back into foggy focus and she realized that she was lying on her back with her blouse hanging open and her skirt pulled up to her waist. She had two fingers in her cunt and a thumb on her clit, and her panties were nowhere to be found. She was sooooo satisfied.

Sleep. That's what she needed now. Just to go to sleep. She was almost there, but something kept nagging at her. Finally she knew what it was -- she needed to pee. As she rolled out of bed she realized, 'Oh, and also take off my clothes.' But it wasn't until she had finished on the toilet that it really hit her. TOM!

Oh, My God! What had she just done! Not even two nights away from home and she'd already cheated on Tom. No way could she talk to him now ... No, but she had to. She had promised him ... She couldn't! He'd hear it in her voice. He'd know she had been unfaithful.

'Besides, ' she thought as she dragged herself back to bed, 'what time is it? Maybe it's too late to call.' She looked at the bedside clock. 10:13. That's only 7:13 in California; not too late at all ... Maybe he's not even home. Maybe he went out to eat dinner ... No, he'll be home. He's waiting for my call.

Ann paced for five minutes trying to make up her mind. She finally decided she had to make the call. She'd keep it short, claiming that she was dead tired. She'd think about how she was almost asleep a little earlier. She'd let him hear the sleepiness in her voice.

Tom answered on the second ring. He told her he loved her and missed her. He said he understood about her being tired and advised her to get a good night's sleep. He told her he wouldn't be home the next evening because Mark and Paula had invited him over for dinner.

When she hung up Ann wasn't sure what she had said to him, but whatever it was, she didn't think he sounded at all suspicious. She fell into bed and was asleep almost immediately.

Ann woke up thinking about two big problems: the dumps, and Bob. She came up with a couple of partial solutions to the Bob problem:

1. Concentrate on the job. In particular, the dumps.

2. Absolutely no more dinners, or any other time outside of Geico, with Bob.

Of course Bob met her in the lobby again and escorted her to her work area, but this time Ann paid particular attention to the route they followed, memorizing each turn. If nothing else, that kept her from obsessing on Bob himself. She chased him away as soon as they arrived at her cube, explaining that she was still working her way through the dumps. He nodded, and left a phone number for whenever she needed his help.

She brought up the third dump and spent some time on it, but it seemed to have the same symptoms as the first two. She was going to have to get a dump earlier, before everything was hung. She pulled out her laptop and started digging through the listings, trying to think where she could set a trap. She finally came up with what she hoped would be something useful, and was just checking her SLIP logic when Bob showed up.

"Lunch time," he announced.

"Already?" she asked, looking up. "Actually I was just about to call you. I want to set another trap, and thought you should keep an eye on me when I do it."

"Worried about those dollar signs, I take it," he grinned.

"You know it! Besides, once we have the trap in I'll need you to run your test suite, the way you did yesterday."

"You've got a deal, but first, lunch, OK?"