I was ecstatic when I walked up the stairs to my room. It’s the same feeling you get when you fly on a plane for the first time, look out the window and see the clouds all around you. It’s exhilarating.

I opened the door to my room, and immediately noticed something odd. There was a book on my desk that did not belong to me. Looking closer, I found out it was Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Did Helena leave this here? I took a photograph, and sent it to her.

Lucia:

Hey, you forgot something here.

Helena replied almost instantly.

Read it. I think you’ll find it interesting.

I chuckled. Of course I had already read this story before. I picked up the book, sat down on my bed, and opened it on the first chapter.

There was a note glued to the page. A message was scribbled on it in blue ink.

Find Jonathan Liam Porto.

Ask him about the white rose.

The lines were skewed upward, and half the words seemed to overflow the small sticky note, going beyond the edge of it and onto the book page itself. Did Helena write that with her eyes closed? She must have.

So, if this was something Cyan Four shouldn’t know that she was telling me, it must be about my father’s death, right? Helena did say she though my father had been killed, perhaps that and this were linked. Who was Jonathan Liam Porto, what was this white rose, and what did all of that have to do with my father, or with me?

The first question was easy to answer. After a quick search, I found that Jonathan Liam Porto was a retired scientist that worked in many different laboratories during his life. Monaco, Yvetech, Diamante, all tech companies involved with robotics and AI software. His last job before retirement was… oh, this is interesting. It was at Cyan Four Laboratory. And the date of his retirement too — April, 9th, year 66 —, that was less than a month after my father’s death. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

So, Helena wanted me to find this man. I don’t suppose it would be prudent to just, y’know, message him or something like that. If Cyan was cautious enough to put wiretaps in every one of their replicas, it’s not hard to imagine that they’d monitor all communication from and to their previous employees. Which meant that if I really wanted to talk to this man, it would have to be in person.

Getting someone’s address, in this day and age, isn’t a very easy task. A personal address is considered sensitive information, which by law must not be publicly available for online research. It doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to obtain: with a bit of clever thinking, the right tools, and some skill, anything can be discovered. But it really wasn’t something I’d be able to do alone.

I thought about calling Abigail, but realized this too wasn’t a clever move. Sure, communications like those used encrypted networks which were very difficult for the average user to tap into. But very difficult is not enough. So I had to wait.

I arrived at the campus on Monday morning to find Abby talking to her boyfriend by the gates.

“Excuse me,” I told him, before grabbing Abby’s arm and dragging her away from the boy.

“Luce?! What’s going on?”

I didn’t say anything until we were far from the gates and out of anyone’s hearing range.

“So?” she asked me, sounding annoyed.

“Do you still have access to that Ace data?”

“What?! Why?”

Abby had a puzzled expression on her face. Ace was one of the largest delivery services in the country, and less than a year ago Abigail had managed to slither her way into their database. Back then, she only did it because she wanted to find the address of some ex-boyfriend, she had some silly revenge scheme plans or whatever. But if she still had the data from that time, it would help me enormously now.

“Look, I need you to find an address for me. This is really important. Can you do it?”

She raised her eyebrows, and looked at me sideways, visibly concerned.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“There’s this man,” I said, “who was working with my father. His name is Jonathan Liam Porto. I need to find him.”

“Lucia, are you alright? Are you feeling well? Because you always said that—”

“I know what I said,” I told Abby. “But this is important and I really need to do this. Can you do this for me? Please?”

Abigail sighed.

“You know I’ll be risking my neck for you, right?”

“That’s why I love you, Abby!” I told her smiling. “I’ll owe you.”

“You damn well will,” she said.

And that was that. We did not speak about it for the rest of the week. Exams were coming up, and I should be studying, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Every night, at home, Helena and I talked over the phone. We mostly talked about inconsequential stuff, like the places we’ve been or the things we’ve done. She did not mention the note in her book, nor did I: we couldn’t, or Cyan would hear about it, of course.

On Friday, Abigail dragged me to a faraway corner on the campus, and told me the results from her research.

“He’s not on Ace,” she said. “Or Helios, or Delta,” those were all delivery services. I didn’t even know Abby had access to all of those. It wouldn’t be wrong to call her a sort of genius. “I couldn’t get any data off the other companies, but I don’t think he’ll be on those either.”

“It’s okay,” I told her, sounding mildly disappointed. “I mean, I understand—”

“Wait up, girl, let me finish. So, he’s not using conventional delivery services, which is odd, but that’s not the only way we can get someone’s address. His bank data would give us an address, but like hell I’m going to try and hack into those. I don’t want the cops knocking on my door anytime soon. But then I thought, ‘hey, this guy’s retired, he must be about seventy or more,’ so I searched major pharmacies and medical centers. Did you know he has leukemia? Well, according to his medical record, he’s been stable for three years, with medication, and has been visiting hospitals in the west coast on and off for the last two years.”

“West coast?!” I asked, surprised. Was the man that far away?

“Oh, don’t worry. He lives nearby.”

Abigail handed me a sliver of paper, with an address scribbled on it. I smiled.

“Shit. You really did it.”

“What, you thought I couldn’t do it? Honestly, Luce, don’t underestimate me. Now tell me, what’s so important about this guy?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I told her. “But I think I’m about to find out.”