Elixir Read Free Page B

appetite. The more he thinks about this all, the more it bothers him. He contemplates how he’d deal with the guilt if an evil person obtained his work and did something terrible with it. He’s not sure he could.
    In a bit they begin crawling from the gate. “Why the hell did you tell them about it in the first place?” he asks.
    “I’m aware this is a bit vexing. And I do apologize for that. But I had no choice. If they found out someone in my position didn’t report this after his own student created it, it would look awfully suspicious. They’d have me barred from teaching computer science in every American university.”
    “What do they even want from me when we get there?”
    He tucks his copy of MIT Technology Review between his armrest and potbelly and says, “I of course already explained to them you didn’t foresee the impact this would have. But they need you to sign some things...affirming you’ll never share the file. Ever.”
    “They can force me to do that?”
    “It is the truth of course. You won’t be speaking of this...or using it.” A pause. “Right Sean?”
    “Yes. Jesus. I don’t want to steal people’s credit card numbers or whatever. I just want this to be over with.”
    “Then sign the papers and it’ll be done. Easy. If you don’t, then well...they’ll hawk over your every move. Whether they admit it or not. This is the NSA we’re dealing with.” He leans in, so close Sean can smell a hint of the Werther’s Original caramel candy he had two hours ago in the car. “They don’t like operating with any shred of doubt. None.”
    “I got it, okay?” Sean’s brain pulls up all the information it’s ever absorbed about the agency. Involvement in wars. Meddling with popular consumer web companies. Spying on US citizens. He doesn’t like how his life is now crossed with it. He has a bad feeling a simple signature on a page won’t be the end of this new relationship.
    The engines roar. He yanks his seatbelt tight. His pulse throbs against the side of his throat. The plane bullets down the runway and ascends into the stormy sky.

Hearing Things
    A taxi buzzes along a service road, Sean and the professor inside viewing the dreary morning in Fort Meade, Maryland, bags under their eyes, neither getting much sleep between last night’s flight and today’s early alarm.
    They approach two large block-shaped buildings, no signs or writing on either. The cab stops in the eighteen-thousand-spot NSA parking lot, the professor sliding his wallet from his pocket. As he pays, Sean gets out, fixating on the black reflective windows, staring back at himself on the surface.
    The professor steps on the curb, wraps his trench coat snug around his chest, and nods at the main facility. They wander toward it, Sean eyeing the faces of NSA employees as they walk by, emotionless expressions, whispered conversations.
    They enter the lobby. Sean peeks through the one-way glass at the sea of cars outside. “We’re meeting by the memorial,” his teacher says, veering toward a hall. “This way.”
    In a short while they’re at the end of a corridor. Hands in his pockets, Sean inspects an eight-foot-tall triangular memorial dedicated to fallen American codebreakers, “They Served in Silence” engraved above one hundred seventy-one names.
    A fit woman in a dark business suit approaches, click of her high heels echoing. “Welcome gentlemen,” she says with her palms up. “I’ll show you to Mr. Goya’s office.”
    In a bit she’s escorting them across an upper floor lined with wide black-rimmed monitors, interactive graphs and charts on each. They thread through a couple dozen bustling workers, stopping at a door labeled “P. Goya – Technical Director.” She cracks it and says, “He should be just a few minutes. You can wait on the couch until he’s back.”
    “Thank you,” the professor says as they slip inside the corner office. Sean soaks in the personal touches, on the wall an encased