Page 60 of Time Stops With You

Since I’ve known him, Cullen has made it clear that he’s dying. I thought it was a foregone conclusion, that perhaps he had a diagnosis of a terminal illness.

But if Cullen is avoiding the hospital…

That means he doesn’t know for sure.

And that means, maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t have to die.

Seven

CULLEN

Sara’s words play on a loop in my ears.Cullen, someone stole the interface and copied every line of our mainframe.

My heart tightens and a cold panic wraps itself around my spine. This is my fault. All my fault.

I have to fix it.

A few minutes later, I hurry inside the office.

To my surprise, the hallway’s been transformed. Gone are the exposed panels in the wall, and the plastic sheets dangling from the ceiling like a butcher shop in a horror movie.

The crew worked fast and now the east side of the building is complete. All the walls are painted, the floors swept, and the lights installed. An air purifier puffs a sweet scent through the space.

I’d be ecstatic about this if my mind wasn’t so burdened.

Drawn by the clamor of voices, I enter a room on the right. The scent of paint stains the air. Directly in front of me sits a long desk that seats ten, a projector screen, and a coffee bar.

“Finally, you’re here!” Sara throws her arms up in relief.

Asad and Dr. Young crowd around me, their eyes panicked and expectant.

I can’t do this.

A headache jackhammers into my skull.

I step back, needing the space. “I called our lawyers and programmed an extra firewall for security.”

“The firewall is useless. They didn’t hack in,” Asad whines. “They reverse-engineered the code we released for the competition.”

Dr. Young wrings his hands. “What are we going to do if they put out a successful PLP simulation before us?”

“They won’t,” I answer shakily.

Sara massages her temples. “I can’t believe they were able to replicate so much of our programming.”

Dr. Young mumbles gruffly. “I was looking at Russia all this time, when I should have been watching Asia.”

“What are we going to do now?” Asad looks to me. The others turn to me too, waiting for a magical solution that will make everything better.

But I don’t have one.

A copycat PLP program was an expected side-effect of our competition. I was prepared for that. But the company who copied our code is a giant in the industry. Armed with our research and their own expansive network of scientists and programmers, they could deliver a crushing blow.

And it’s all because I made an impulsive move. Had I not blasted the competition everywhere in order to find Josiah, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

Sounds from the construction crew on the opposite end of the building fill the silence. The faint thud of hammers, saws slicing through metal, and loud, boisterous laughter makes my headache even worse.

I lumber across the room to the table and set my hand flat against it. There’s still a faint sheen of something wet, probably furniture polish, on the surface.

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