Meltdown Read Free Page A

computer, Chris thought. He watched as his father typed “Hello, Einstein” and hit the enter key.
    Nothing happened.
    “Hit enter again,” she suggested.
    Duncan obeyed, but still nothing happened.
    The woman punched a series of buttons on the keyboard to no avail. Duncan drummed his fingers on his desk, fast losing his patience. “Miss Rollins, it appears your computer doesn’t want to talk with us.”
    “I don’t understand. This couldn’t happen. Unless …” She wasted no more time on words. In less than a minute she’d removed the back panel of the laptop and pulled out the circuitry, her slim fingers sorting through the wires as if they were strands of knitting wool. A moment later she pulled out a small, wafer-thin circuit board, and held it up to the light. “It’s the internal modem chip, the interface between the CPU and the phone line. It burned out once before, but I thought I’d fixed it.”
    “Well, it’s not fixed now,” Duncan commented dryly.
    “Mr. Sheffield, I think I can fix it. If you’ll just give me a minute—”
    “Young lady, I don’t mean to be rude, but I do have a business to run.” He picked up the computer case, snapped it shut, and delivered it into her arms. “I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
    “Leave? But—”
    “Miss Rollins, you’ve wasted quite enough of my time for one day,” Sheffield said, motioning toward the door. “Now, please go.”
    His father’s callous attitude irritated Chris. He might have to put up with his father’s temper—he’d lived on the wrong side of it most of his life—but he’d be damned if he was going to let him browbeat thiswoman, whose only transgression was failure. “Wait.”
    She looked at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. Those eyes. Once again their gazes locked, rocking him in that same profound, inexplicable way. He wanted to say something, needed to say something, but words eluded him. He reached out and gently touched her arm.
    He’d meant to offer her support. Instead, she jumped back as if he’d slapped her. The smoky eyes abruptly turned away from his, leaving him disoriented, as if someone had pulled the rug out from under him. Before he could react she’d gone, disappearing through the door in a single quicksilver motion.
    Chris turned back to his father, angrier than he had any right to be. “You could have given her a few more minutes.”
    “Shows just how much
you
know about business. That was a classic example of bait and switch. Get the customer interested in one thing, then sell him on something he doesn’t need. If I’d let her stay, she might have convinced us to invest in the thing, whether it worked or not.”
    “And what if it did work? What if she has invented an artificial intelligence? Did you ever consider that?”
    “Stick to golf, Chris. I seriously doubt a little lady like that could invent a sophisticated piece of machinery on her own. It’s preposterous.”
    Chris didn’t answer. His father’s mind was made up, and Chris knew better than to try to change it—not without facts, anyway. He let the matter drop, but inwardly he promised himself he’d find out more about Miss Rollins’s computer.
    And more about Miss Rollins too.

Two
    The day was sinking into soft September twilight as Melanie turned her car into the brick driveway of her bungalow. Ancient oaks surrounded her, the air between them heavy with the cloying scents of moss and dank, humid bark. Dark smells, she thought. They matched her mood.
    What was she going to say to him? How could she tell him she’d failed?
    She got out of the car, slamming the door behind her, the loud noise disturbing the dead quiet of the evening air. It startled a pair of squirrels, sending them skittering through the jungle of undergrowth which passed for her front yard. Their small panic reminded her of her own cowardice. When it came right down to it, she wasn’t any braver than they were. Not a bit.
    She’d run. She had taken