Chapter 12

Addison walked up to Sarah's desk with her purse over her shoulder. She was wearing the dress that Sarah had picked out the day before. It hugged her slender body, and the neckline made sure the collar was visible. Addison's long brown hair was pulled up in a high ponytail. "Ok," She said, sitting her purse on the desk. She pulled out the lock box for the collar, which Sarah had closed the night before, as well as an open lock box, Next she pulled the wrist cuffs out as well as a baggie that contained the Allen wrench for them. "This is everything you put in my purse last night, which I'm afraid I will leave somewhere... I'm not used to not having pockets." Sarah looked at the stuff on the desk and then up at Addison.

"Get used to it..." Sarah said, her voice sounding dominant. "You can work with the cuffs on, right?" If Addison could work with the cuffs on, then they would stay on for a while, just like the collar.

"Yes, Ma'am." Addison said, smiling. "I've worn them for a week before." Sarah nodded, remembering. "The keys were all locked up for that length of time. Somewhere I have a spread sheet of longest times for each item..."

Sarah chuckled. "Of course you do..." Addison smiled, her grey eyes sparkling. "Let's go in and see Cassie. We should probably tell her about us. We don't want it ending up being office gossip..." Sarah stashed Addison's purse under her desk. She wouldn't need it for a few hours. They walked up to the door and Sarah knocked. Addison was holding everything.

"Come in!" Cassie said loud enough for them to hear her. Sarah opened the door and the pair walked into the large office.

"We want to tell you something and also show you something." Sarah said, as Addison gently placed the pile of things in her arms on the large table. Addison walked over and slid her hand inside of Sarah's hand. Sarah squeezed Addison's hand as if to say that everything was going to be ok. They had been working together for several years and had never had any issues and they weren't about to start now. Sarah did all the talking. "So we have a possible solution to the key storage issue..." Sarah said, causing Cassie to look up. She made a mental note that Addison looked nervous she had a new piece of jewelry on, she'd worn it before but it had been several months since she had worn that particular item. "But, first, I'd like to introduce Addison Walton as my girlfriend." Cassie watched as Addison blushed and looked like the floor would swallow her up. "And," Sarah gestured to the small pile of stuff that Addison had sat on the table, "Now for our potential key solution." Sarah looked at Addison and nodded. Addison smiled and then went over to the table, Cassie and Sarah followed. This was where Addison took over.

"So last night I was showing Sarah this app I use," Addison said, picking up her phone. The screen showed the 1 real and 3 fake locks for the collar. "So what you see here are the timers for collar that I'm wearing." Addison blushed as she said that out loud and watched as Cassie raised an eyebrow. "Sarah set the app up before she left last night, so in the app's terminology, she's the key holder, and I'm the lockee." Addison picked up one of the cuffs and closed it around her slender wrist. The cuffs were custom made because the smallest the company offered was still too big for Addison's wrists. Sarah picked up the Allen wrench and tightened the screw down; the pair quickly repeated this process with the remaining three cuffs. A few moments later, Addison sported metal bands on all of her extremities. "OK, now that that's done, Sarah will set up the lock, and since last night she said that I don't get to see the combinations any more I'm going to go over to the corner and wait." Sarah and Cassie watched Addison go over and stick her nose in the corner, much like a naughty child would. Sarah hadn't said that was required, but went with it.

"So I set up this lock after I got home last night," Sarah said, showing Cassie her phone. "Addison's not seen it and doesn't know how long it is set for." Cassie glanced at the display of the phone, it showed a fixed lock of fourteen days.

"Will she be able to function with those on for that long?" Cassie asked.

"Yeah, the longest she's actually worn those is a lot longer than this..." Sarah said, tapping the screen. The screen changed to show a QR code. "So I can send this to her if she's setting her own box, or I can do it all myself. Since I've already decided that she's not allowed to do this herself, I take her phone and open the app, and as you can see here, this is the lock for her collar, she can't see how long is left on the timer, and I can control it as well as add or subtract time. She can always take the risk and add time herself, but, she can't undo the adding of time." Sarah tapped on the screen of Addison's phone. She had to wait a few moments as the phone was older and was starting to get sluggish. After the screen came up to load a lock, Sarah tapped the button to scan a QR code. A few seconds later the camera opened. "Addison, We're buying you a new phone..." Sarah said, the tone of voice unmistakeable.

A very quiet "Yes, Miss." came from the corner.

"OK, now that I can scan the code," Sarah said, lining the two phones up. The screen changed to show the details about the lock that had been loaded. Since the last lock that had been loaded was set for a 4 digit combo, the app assumed that the lock box was going to use the same number of digits. Since Sarah had indicated that the lock was supposed to have fake locks, there was an option for how many. The minimum was set to one and the max to five, she selected 5 and hit next and then hit OK on the little dialog that popped up without reading it. The next screen showed a 4 digit combination. Sarah picked the lock box up and moved the lever to change the combination. "Now we set the lock box to the displayed combination," Sarah spun the dials to match the number displayed on the app. She slid the setting bar back into the normal position and made sure the box functioned normally before placing the Allen wrenches inside. After closing the box, she tapped next on the screen and Cassie watched as the screen filled with numbers. "OK, Addie, you can come back over." Sarah had watched Addison as she had closed the box and spun the dials back to all zeros. Sarah's phone was in her hand and she was showing Cassie the screens for the key holder.

"Every 12 hours?" Addison said, letting out a groan. The deck was hidden too... Only Sarah knew how many cards were in the deck. Sarah tapped on her screen a few times. "Frozen?" Addison said, shocked and then looked at Sarah, smiling.

"What does freezing the lock do?" Cassie asked.

"Makes it so that she can't pick cards to try to work her way out of her lock." Sarah said, winking at Addison. "I could leave her frozen for a week and she would still have the same number of cards to get through. Now, How does this relate to the key problem? The app allows for up to an eight digit numeric combination, and we priced out safes that would take an eight digit combination, about thirty dollars for one. Once our belts get here, we will each buy one and that is how we will store our keys."

"If you're holding Addison's keys, who holds yours?" Cassie asked, looking at Sarah. Sarah bit her bottom lip. She was hoping to hold on to her own keys for as long as possible. Before Sarah could answer, the phone on the conference table rang. Sarah picked it up.

"Director Robertson's office, Sarah speaking." Sarah said into the phone, She looked at Cassie. "Ok, we'll be here, Dr." Sarah hung the phone up. "That was Dr. Gaffin, said he had some info about the alert from the WHO, I'm not sure what he's talking about, I never saw an alert."

"I got one last night, something about a possible SARS outbreak in China." Addison said.

"I got it too," Cassie said, looking puzzled. "Sarah's on the list for the notifications. Wonder why she didn't get it."

"I didn't say anything because it's only five or six cases at the moment, all in a city called Wuhan" Addison said. "I didn't realize you'd not received it, otherwise I'd have said something." There was a knock on the door, and Sarah looked at Addison.

"Go open it," She said. "I have a feeling that we're going to end up down on 5..." Addison walked over and admitted Doctor Gaffin into the large office.

"Director," Dr. Gaffin said, curiously eyeing Addison; Sarah being in on meetings was normal. "I would like to call an all department heads meeting in the conference room on five as soon as possible." He glanced at Sarah, whose hand was poised above the phone to set everything in motion. She was watching Cassie who nodded.

"Fifteen minutes..." Cassie said. Sarah nodded and dialed, Addison left the room to start spreading the word.

"I just got an update from the WHO..." Dr. Gaffin said, sounding grim. "This is going to be bad..."

"Wanda, Set the conference room on five up, all staff in fifteen minutes, thank you." Sarah said into the phone. A second later she looked at Dr. Gaffin.

"Are you going to need media, Doctor?" Dr. Gaffin nodded. Sarah dialed another number.

"Kyle, it's Sarah from the Director's office. We need the conference room on five staffed in fifteen minutes..." Sarah listened for a second. "Thank you." Sarah's cell phone beeped. It was a text from Addison saying that she had been around to all the departments and notified the staff and was heading to the fifth floor. "Addison has been to the department heads and informed them. I'm heading down to five..."

Sarah walked into the conference room and saw that Addison was already there with Dr. Jones. The screens were down and projectors lit, and there was coffee on the table in the corner, Addison went over and poured a cup for Sarah, executed a curtsy, and then went back over and sat in the chair behind Dr. Jones. Sarah took a drink of the coffee. Addison must have been paying attention to how Sarah liked her coffee for some time. Doctor Robertson and Doctor Gaffin walked into the room, Cassie sitting at the far end of the table and Doctor Gaffin taking his place at the podium. The rest of the senior staff and their assistants all wandered in. Everyone was in the room ten minutes after the word was spread. Dr. Gaffin cleared his throat and the room became silent.

"As some of you are aware, last night, the WHO sent out an alert about a possible SARS like virus in the area of the city of Wuhan in central China." Dr. Gaffin said, and tapped a button on his laptop. The screen showed the alert sent out by the WHO at nine pm local time the night before. "I don't know who all is actually on the distribution list, but about thirty minutes ago I got an update to the initial alert." He tapped a key and the screen changed to show the update beside the nine pm update. "As you can see the situation worsened in about twelve hours. As of nine PM, there were twenty cases in the city of Wuhan. As of half an hour ago, there were two hundred." There were glances around the table, everyone trying to grasp what it meant. "Yes, that is a ten fold increase in about twelve hours. So far all cases have been in the city of Wuhan. I mainly wanted to bring this up on everyone's radar."

"Bob," Cassie said, "You said SARS like. Do we not have a classification on this yet?"

"We don't have one yet, Director." Dr. Gaffin said, his face showing no emotion. "I'm talking to my counterparts at the WHO as well as in China. As soon as they can get us a classification, I'll update you."

"Thank you." Director Robertson said. "Alright, we're in a monitoring pattern on this until we either have cases here or the WHO declares a pandemic..." Everyone glanced around the room. Pandemic was not a word tossed around lightly in the halls of the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. "Bob, get me a briefing ready so I can brief Senator Gordon and the President."

"Will do, Ma'am" he said.

"That's it, lets get back to work." Cassie said, turning to Sarah. "Find out if any one has a GIS dash board running, if not lets get one going."

"Yes, Ma'am." Sarah said, already thinking of where to go look for a dashboard. "Would you like a display set up in your office if there is one?"

"Depends on how good the data is on the dashboard; but keep the thought open." Cassie said, before heading back to her office. Sarah looked at Addison, who was still in the room. The younger girl walked over and smiled.

"You know my phone is still in the Directors office, right?" Sarah showed Addison an impish smile.

"And?" Sarah said. "It's non-cumulative, and they both are frozen... Enjoy the loss of control; I'll keep your phone, purse, and the boxes safe."

Addison looked at the floor, seeing her reflection in the low heeled shoes that she wore. "Yes. Ma'am" she said quietly. Sarah squeezed Addison's hand and left the conference room.

Sarah had just sat down at her desk after collecting the lock boxes and Addison's phone. She put the lock boxes in Addison's purse and the phone in the desk drawer. The phone on the desk rang and Sarah picked it up.

"Director Robertson's office," Sarah said into the phone. She listened for a few seconds and the spoke. "Ok, I'll send Addison down to bring her up." Sarah pressed the button for the intercom on the and dialed an extension. "Addison, It's Sarah; Mira Gordon is down stairs, can you go get her and bring her up to the south conference room on the eighth floor, please?" Sarah hung up the phone and stood. Walking up to the door to Cassie's office, she knocked on the closed door.

“Come in!” She heard Cassie say loudly.

Sarah opened the door and walked in. “I just wanted to let you know that Miranda Gordon just arrived, and Addison and I will be down in the eight south conference room.”

“Miranda Gordon, as in Senator Gordon’s daughter?” Cassie asked.

“Yes, Ma’am” Sarah responded.

“Ok, if I need you I’ll call down there.” Cassie said. “If she’s not going back to DC tonight, See if she wants to come to the house for dinner, either way, invite Addison.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Sarah said. With that, she turned and left the room, swinging by her desk and grabbing both her phone and Addison’s phone and made her way to the conference room on the eighth floor.