Page 15

Fourteen

They were just a few blocks away and Jude sped through those few blocks, heedless of his speed, watching only for living beings in his way. As he drove, Vicky put through a call, asking for immediate backup.

When they arrived, he barely jerked the car into Park before Vicky jumped out, Glock in her hand, ready for anything they might come across.

He moved like a bullet himself, but he had a feeling the danger they’d be facing wasn’t flesh and blood—not here, at any rate.

If I’m going to need to shoot anything , he thought dryly, it would need to be the appliances.

But as they burst into the yard, they discovered Aidan and Cary had gotten out of the house safely along with Clover. The dog was tense, making a sound that was half whine and half growl, ever wary of everything around him. He was there to protect his people.

Aidan also had his Glock out as he looked warily around their environment.

But it appeared nothing else had been disturbed or disrupted near them; streetlights had come on as the day had turned to dusk and they appeared to be burning just fine.

Aidan looked relieved to see them arrive.

“Well, I guess we shouldn’t be too shocked. Strange. Dogs do have some kind of instinct. Clover started that funny wary sound of his just seconds before the lights went out. I thought there might be someone out here—”

“Thank God you’re both all right!” Vicky cried, rushing to hug Cary and then Aidan.

By then, sirens filled the street. Local backup had come. Jude tried to explain the situation to the officers rushing out of the car. Listening to him with confusion, and frowning, they stared at the house, not sure what to do, and waiting for the senior officer in the group to take the lead.

“All right, the lights went out and the stove burst into flames? Forgive me. I don’t understand the emergency. Did you check the fuse box? Did you leave something on the stove? Do you believe that armed intruders are in the house?”

His officers were heading up to the door.

“No!” Vicky cried.

The man who appeared to be in charge stopped, looking at her as if she was either crazy—or someone who should be arrested for creating unnecessary problems for the police. He was an officer in his late forties or early fifties, tall and solid in his build, a formidable man.

“LaRue, Detective LaRue, and I’m sorry,” he said flatly, “but you called for help—”

Jude broke in then, saying, “Detective, I’ve been trying to explain to the officers. I didn’t know how much danger our coworkers might be in when we called for backup. I know you must have heard about the AI in a smart home going crazy and killing a woman. It was in all the papers and the news—and it’s been shared with police, FDLE, agents, and even the coast guard. We don’t think it was an accident, or that events with boats and cars have been accidents… No one can go in that house until we’re sure the systems are cleared of whatever the hacker set up.”

“What?” LaRue said. “Lights went out and a stove caught on fire. These were just electric lights—”

He stopped speaking and they were all silent. Because suddenly the lights on the street and in the nearby houses started blinking on and off. Darkness had come in full, and the flickering could have caused serious damage to someone with epilepsy or other health issues.

“Detective LaRue, we do need vigilant help now because we don’t know what is going on. I need to get to a computer with good power and we don’t know if ours were hacked into when all this happened,” Aidan said.

“Wait! I have my laptop in the car. It wasn’t here, and…it’s my personal computer, fairly new, so I doubt anyone has been into it. It’s charged and ready to go and I believe you’ll discover it’s up to getting this all straightened out,” Vicky told him.

“Let me have it!” Aidan said.

She hurried to the car with Aidan on her heels. Cary followed him, along with Jude and LaRue.

Detective LaRue still didn’t seem to understand at all. “This house is controlled by AI, too?”

“Someone has hacked the electrical server. No, the house isn’t controlled by AI, but the alarm system has probably been compromised and maybe the water systems—let them work on this and make sure the house itself isn’t going to attack the officers when they go in. Aidan and Cary are experts—they’ll fix this. The area will appreciate the electric being straightened out.”

“I’ll get Arnold to get whoever is in management at the electric company right now,” Vicky said.

Aidan went to work; Vicky made the connections.

Jude realized Clover had followed Cary every step she had taken, and he was glad once again that they’d brought the dog to the house.

Clover saw Cary as the one to protect. And that was great. She had s often been the one alone at the house. And dogs had something AI didn’t—the instinct of a living creature. It sounded as if Clover had known before anyone else that something was wrong.

It was probably safe to go in the house; they hadn’t been using an AI system to run the house, turn lights on and off, start any of their appliances. The stove catching fire might have been managed through the electric system. Tampering with the electricity and the alarm system—both attached to other systems—was about the extent of what could be done there.

But, of course, it didn’t matter. They’d need to leave their comfortable headquarters now.

Because someone knew where they were—information only available to law enforcement—which meant someone had hacked into FBI files.

He frowned, looking down the street. People were out of their houses, some alarmed and many angry. Some were hurrying toward them, anxious to speak with the police officers, to find out what was going on.

There was one person, though, who didn’t seem alarmed or angry.

Just curious. No, fascinated. And wearing a sweatshirt and a baseball cap pulled down low.

And Jude thought that he’d been looking at the house, watching them and not the spectacle of the lights.

“Vicky,” he murmured.

But she didn’t hear him; her concentration was on Aidan and her computer.

Just my imagination? Is the person watching the house just because the police cars drew up there, or is he waiting to see what happens…

Because the house locks did work with the alarm system. Were they hoping Aidan and Cary would be locked in the house, and it would be set ablaze and they would die in the smoke and flames?

He started across the street. The man saw him coming and turned, walking away at first, glancing back and realizing that Jude was crossing the street and coming after him.

He began to run, slamming into a woman who fell into the grass.

Jude shouted back that time, yelling for someone to help the fallen woman.

A car was moving quickly through the street; he barely managed to elude it, using a hand on the hood and a leap across the vehicle when the driver tried to stop.

Naturally he could hear the driver swearing as he tore on.

But the fellow he was trying to stop was pushing forward, heading toward Aviles.

By then Jude realized his shout had been heard. While the man he was pursuing was pushing others out of his way, officers were hurrying behind.

They reached a main crossroad and Jude drew his gun, shouting, “Federal agent! Stop!”

The fellow stopped.

He pulled out his own weapon and fired.

Jude saw it coming and leaped low, rolling across the pavement to take aim himself.

Not to kill.

We need the man alive.

He was a good shot. He caught the man in the lower left calf, probably breaking the fellow’s leg, but stopping him in a nonlethal manner.

And while the man let out a scream of agony and fell, he was still clutching his weapon. While screaming and grasping at his leg, he fired again, but the shot went wild, blowing apart a mailbox in the form of a dolphin.

He couldn’t fire again; Jude had reached him and stamped a foot down on the hand grasping the gun.

He let it go, shrieking hysterically.

“You don’t understand! They’ll kill my kids, they’ll kill my kids!”

Same old story—the perpetrator using AI, generating fake photographs to scare people into doing what they needed to be done.

Without risking themselves!

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” Jude said. “I do understand. Perfectly. I need to know where your kids are right now, and anyone else you fear may be in danger, and we’ll see that they’re protected.”

LaRue was behind him then, trying to comprehend the situation but more lost by it than Jude had ever been himself.

“I don’t understand,” he muttered, “this man was shooting at you—”

“Detective, we’ll make you understand,” Jude assured him. “I need an ambulance for this man. And I want to travel to the hospital with him. But this is all important.” He hunkered down by the sobbing man who was clutching his leg.

Again, the fellow chosen to scope out the situation was young, maybe thirty, tops. Somone easily caught off guard, shown pictures of a child being horribly tortured.

“Where’s your family, where are your kids?” Jude asked again. “The detective will get people right to them. They’ll be in protective custody.”

“Fast, please, fast!” the man said, giving them an address off Ponce de Leon Boulevard.

By then Vicky had run up behind LaRue. And as she did so, the lights came back on.

Strongly. They didn’t flicker. The neighborhood was softly aglow with the streetlights and those streaming from homes.

It seemed they were going to stay on.

“Vicky,” Jude began.

“I heard,” Vicky said. “Ambulance is on the way. Detective, we need to go. Now. This is no joke—this man’s family needs protection! And I will do my best to explain everything as we drive.”

She turned and LaRue nodded, hurrying to follow her.

“The pictures…you had to have seen the pictures. They knew my address—they knew where my daughter was in school, and her little brother was in day care. I was supposed to make sure that the house burned down. To watch and see if anyone got out.”

“Where’s your phone? Where are the pictures?” Jude asked.

“Dumpster by the hot dog place near my house,” the man told him, groaning with pain. There were tears in his eyes, perhaps from pain, perhaps from the situation, as he looked at Jude. “I was told to get rid of it before I came to see if the house burned. I was told to…to shoot you. Or myself. I didn’t want to kill you, man. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just didn’t want… The pictures of what they’d do to my kids…”

“I understand,” Jude assured him. “Right now, we’ve got to get you to the hospital, get you there safely and get you patched up.”

“My family!” he moaned. “I need to know—”

“My partner is heading to your house. She’s the best, and she’s with a hell of a senior detective. They will get to your family before anything can happen and they’ll be okay.”

“How can you be sure!” he moaned. “This…all this…the lights, gone! Whoever this is can do everything that they threaten they can do!”

“Not when we know,” Jude told him. “Not when we know. Trust me, I’d say that even before we get to the hospital, I’m going to get a call and it’s going to be my partner telling me everything is going to be okay. What’s your name?” he asked the man.

“Ted. Ted Lansing. My wife is Celeste, and my kids are Gordy and Eva.”

“Great,” Jude murmured.

All the officers who had first answered his backup call might not have ever gone in the house—but they were proving their worth now, keeping the crowds away from him and the fallen man, making way for the ambulance and the EMTs when they arrived. Despite the utter chaos that had come to the night, they saw to it that the EMTs could get a stretcher to Ted Lansing and he and Jude could get into the ambulance. Jude was careful to keep his distance, even in the confines of the ambulance, letting the EMTs take the necessary procedures to care for Lansing.

The ambulance’s siren ripped through the night. Despite the noise, he first called Vicky. She was just arriving at the address, and he could tell her Ted’s name and his wife’s and kids’ names, too. An easier intro when she tried to explain what was happening. Then he put through a call to Arnold, having him make sure that the garbage by the hot dog stand was searched.

Aidan and Cary were going to be busy, he knew, trying to trace the source of the hack.

Then he sat back, knowing he was going to be considered obnoxious at the hospital, but he couldn’t leave the man alone.

Not for a minute.

Houses, cars, boats, schools, government files. Whoever was doing this could hack just about anything, no matter the firewalls and encryptions that might be used.

That meant they could hack a hospital, too.

And the question remained…

Was it all about money? Or just what the hell was this person trying to prove?

* * *

LaRue wasn’t a bad guy, Vicky determined. He just had a difficult time understanding just how far artificial intelligence had come in the world.

They talked as they drove. His given name was Jeff, and he admitted that he’d thought it fun that he could talk to his watch—and that his watch would talk back.

“Years ago, when I was a kid, I saw a Dick Tracy movie. My friends and I all thought that Dick Tracy had the coolest gadgets ever. Now, I ask my watch about the weather, the time…all kinds of things. And it answers me. So far, it hasn’t lied. But, then again, Kyle Laker, one of the techs at my precinct, was talking about some kind of ‘chat box’ thing that came out with a statement saying that guns were safe for kids! Now that doesn’t seem all that intelligent to me!”

“The problem is that AI systems go off what they’re fed and create algorithms to create the answers or statements that are requested. If it was fed misinformation or confusing information, it can provide strange answers—such as the one your friend was talking about,” Vicky explained. “Oh, trust me, I’m not good enough to do anything like the things that have been done, but it’s like any tool. Any tool can be used for good—and for bad.”

“A gun is a dangerous tool that belongs only in the hands of someone sane and moral who knows when it’s necessary to use,” Jeff LaRue said firmly. “So!” He looked at her and grinned. “Do I need to be worried about being replaced by a robot cop?”

She laughed. “Well, some of our security systems are close!” she said.

“I admit to being confused. From what you’ve told me, the attack on the electric system was an attack on your tech and forensic folks in the house. But, then the electric grid started dancing across the entire neighborhood, so I don’t get it. What was the point?”

“Cary and Aidan aren’t the kind to panic. I wasn’t there, but I’m assuming that they got the fire under control quickly and got the hell out of the house, too. I believe that the plan might have been for them to be stuck in the house and with the electric system going haywire, a real blaze could have started up, killing them through smoke inhalation or burning them alive,” Vicky told him.

“Dear God!”

“And…we’re here!” Vicky said, noting the address.

It was just past dinnertime so she hoped that Celeste and the two children were home—and that they were going to believe her when they explained they had to be taken into protective custody.

Celeste Lansing wasn’t a fool. When they knocked at the door, she didn’t just open it.

“Who is it?” she asked politely after a moment.

LaRue glanced at Vicky, and she said, “Mrs. Lansing, my name is Victoria Tennant. I’m with the FBI and I’m here with Detective LaRue of the local police.”

The door had a peephole; the woman, Vicky knew, was looking at the two of them.

She produced her badge and LaRue did likewise.

The door opened. Celeste was a petite woman in her late twenties with sandy hair artfully cut around her face. She looked completely confused, and then horrified.

“Oh, no, oh, no…my husband, oh, my God, is he—”

“Wounded, Mrs. Lansing, not dead, and he’s going to be all right,” Vicky said with certainty. He was going to have a hell of a time walking for a while, but she believed the man would be fine.

Jude would see to that.

“Oh… I need to see him. I must get a sitter, but I need to see him right away! What happened? Was there an automobile accident?” she asked, bewildered.

“No, Mrs. Lansing,” Vicky told her. “I’m afraid that—in his desire to keep you and the children safe—your husband became embroiled in a serious crime. But—”

“What? No, never! He’s the most honest man in the world, a hard worker, a good husband, an even better dad. He’s a good man!” she protested, staring at them, her eyes darting from Vicky to LaRue and back again. “No, no, no!” she begged. “Then…an attorney! His doctor—”

“Mrs. Lansing, the most important thing at the moment is to get you and the children out of here and to safety,” Vicky told her.

“What?”

Vicky glanced at LaRue, wanting to make sure she used the right words.

But he took over.

And, to her surprise, he did so well.

“Mrs. Lansing, your husband didn’t intend to do anything illegal, but he was desperately worried about you and your children. He was threatened by someone who has proven their power to hurt others, and he wound up in a bad position because of it. Now, we swore to him that we’d get you and the kids to safety—that was his prime objective and remains his only desire. Special Agent Tennant and I will be here with you while you get yourself and the kids packed and we’ll be taking you to a safe house where you’ll be guarded until this mess is brought to closure.”

“How long will that be? I have work, there is school…”

How long would it be? Vicky wished to hell that she knew!

“Hopefully, not long,” LaRue said.

“Dozens of people are working the case,” Vicky assured her. “But, please, we need to get you to safety. You don’t want your husband to worry more than necessary,” she added softly.

“This is real?” Celeste Lansing whispered.

“I’m afraid so,” Vicky told her.

“All right, all right. But the kids just went to bed. It will take me a minute. My little girl can help but she’s just seven and my son is four! I’ll hurry. I’ll do my best!”

“Wait for one second,” Vicky said. “Do you have any kind of control of your house through your phone or any other gadget?”

Celeste looked at her blankly.

“It’s okay, go ahead,” Vicky said, offering her a smile.

But she remembered just how upset Lansing had been and she quickly dialed Jude.

“We’ve got Celeste and the kids,” she told him.

“Great. He’s about to go into surgery. I’m going to hand him the phone so he can have a quick word with his wife, so that they know they’re okay. Quick. Are you getting out of there?”

“ASAP!” Vicky assured him.

She handed the phone to Celeste. Tears filled the woman’s eyes as she begged her husband to tell her that he was okay, as she assured him that she was.

Vicky took the phone back.

“Okay, hurry, now. You’re okay. Let’s keep it that way. I’ll help you pack a few things, but, please, let’s move,” Vicky said.

They did.

Jeff LaRue kept guard in the parlor of the home, looking out the window—and occasionally checking the door.

The lock and bolt on the Lansing door were, thankfully, manual.

LaRue checked them now and then. He also went through to the kitchen to check the back door and walked around, assuring himself that the downstairs windows were closed and locked.

But Vicky realized she wasn’t worried about the house—she was, however, anxious to get the woman and her children out of it.

The person doing this believed when their blackmailed minions failed, they’d have the sense to do themselves in. And if they didn’t…

Unless another minion was in reserve, they were all right getting out of there.

And they were.

The children were adorable, so sleepy that they barely woke up to get out to LaRue’s car. They were confused, of course, but if their mother said they were going on vacation, then they were.

LaRue, without her suggestion, drove around for a while before heading into a small complex. He explained quietly that it belonged to FDLE, that they held the entire building and it was the location his captain had said they were to use.

Arrangements were being made, however, to share the man-hours—and the costs of 24/7 guards—with federal and state agencies.

The family was quickly ushered into the house; they met with the first two officers who would be on guard duty and then, at last, LaRue looked at Vicky and asked where he should take her.

“Your safe house isn’t so safe anymore,” he reminded her.

She nodded. “I think my partner is still at the hospital.”

“I will drop you there.”

Twenty minutes later she thanked him as she got out of the car, called Jude, and found out where he was.

Lansing was already through surgery; Jude was in the man’s room—on the same floor where Samuel Hutchins would remain just another day or so before he could be reunited with his own family.

It all made good use of the officers and agents on guard duty there.

“There’s a little waiting room—” Jude told her.

“I know where it is. I’m coming.”

“The wife and kids are good?”

“Define good!” Vicky said. “They’ve had their lives uprooted in the blink of an eye, and they’re confused and scared…but alive and well. See you soon!”

She hurried to the elevators and up to Jude.

He had coffee waiting for her. She smiled and accepted the cup.

“Where do we go from here?” she asked him, sitting wearily at his side.

“We’re setting up in the building you just left. Aidan and Cary are working with local folk to do whatever needs to be done to the security systems there to make sure that someone hasn’t been into them already.”

She laughed. “That’s good to know. We’ll need to grab our bags. I’ll only need a minute—I pretty much live out of my bag when I’m on assignment.”

“That’s taken care of—Arnold sent agents in. We’re out completely. When we leave here, we can just go and get some sleep.”

She nodded. “Good. But that’s not what I meant. In our sights, we had Celia Smith. She’s dead. Then we were starting to think that Barton Clay had to be involved, but so far, all we’ve discovered is that he was cheating on his wife. So, where do we go from here?”

He was quiet for a long minute.

Then he let out a sigh.

“I still don’t like Barton Clay.”

“Jude, we were there, or we had just left there, when all this started tonight. But here’s something I’ve been thinking. Our person doing this might be brilliant when it comes to artificial intelligence. But when it comes to the dirty work, they trick others into acting.”

“Oh, Lansing’s phone is with our cyber people now, too,” Jude told her. “They sent me the pictures on it. You want to see them?”

She shook her head. “I know what they’re going to look like. And I just saw those kids. No, I’ll take your word that they’re horrendous and gruesome, that they might make a man willing to do just about anything. I’m also willing to bet that they were sent from a burner phone.” She sighed. “One day, the entity doing this is going to pick on the wrong person, though. Someone who will head straight to the police.”

“Whoever it is, they’re picking on people who have children. A man—or woman—might be willing to take a spouse to the police, but when it comes to kids, I imagine that it is terrifying. Especially to the average Joe who isn’t a cop, a hunter, or someone familiar with self-defense. Also, the news is out there. Some people haven’t paid much attention—or believed it—but some of the stories about the events—the deaths—have talked about AI. People are scared. First off, they believe that there are people out there willing to chop them to pieces. But even so—how do you fight an enemy you can’t see?” Jude asked.

She shook her head.

“Aidan and Cary?” she asked.

He smiled. “At the new headquarters. Setting up. Our offices here, FDLE, the local police—everyone has helped to get the transition moving smoothly. Hey, finish your coffee. If all is well for the night—or as well as we can make it—I’ll introduce you to Lansing. He wants to thank you for making sure his wife and kids were all right.”

Vicky smiled and nodded, motioning to her coffee cup. “And this was good and needed!” she told him, swallowing the last of it.

“It’s horrible coffee out of that machine.”

“It’s still coffee and what is it now…” She glanced at her watch and groaned. “Midnight!”

“Yep. Another long day. But Aidan and Cary are fine. We’re fine. And Lansing and his family are fine. And tomorrow…”

“What? Are you about to channel Scarlett O’Hara? Tomorrow is another day?” Vicky asked.

“I was going to say that it was going to be another hell of a long day again,” Jude said dryly.

“We’ve a plan?” she asked. “They have someone else at the firm that they believe might be doing all this—or might, at the least, be involved?”

“We’re going to start with the lovely Nancy Cole who managed to get her job the day after Marci Warden was killed.”

“Right, but… Barton Clay got her the job and we had just left Barton and his wife when all this happened,” Vicky said. “Wait. We had just left. The whole investigating crew was gone. They were alone. And still…”

“I don’t care how thoroughly we all searched. One of them might have had something stashed somewhere that wasn’t found. Also, Aidan told me some of the things that happened could have been timed—like the whole thing hacking into the electrical grid. Why bother to make lights blink on and off when it isn’t dark? And, if you plunge a neighborhood into darkness, dozens of people will be out on the streets, making it easy for one to watch the events to report on them, and simply look like they were part of the crowd.”

“Hmm. I wonder…” Vicky murmured.

“What?”

“This was another failure,” she said.

He frowned. “Aidan and Cary—and Clover—are all fine. So, if they were meant to have gone up in flames, it didn’t happen. In the last situation, as far as anyone knows, Sam Hutchins is dead. But this time…”

“You think that they’ll try to reach Lansing?”

“I don’t know. But I think it’s time that I go talk to him, let him thank me. And see what he has to say about the way he was supposed to report back!” He nodded.

“What?” Vicky asked when he frowned.

“Barton Clay,” he told her.

“You just don’t like the man.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “What’s not to like? Guy cheats, might be guilty of murder or conspiracy to commit murder previously with clients who made a windfall when a loved one died, and might be behind all this.”

“He didn’t seem in the least disturbed that the warrants meant we could tear everything that he owns apart,” Vicky commented.

“Which is a way he might behave if he knows he has himself covered.”

“True, and still… Do we go to another funeral?” she asked.

“Not tomorrow. Tomorrow, we pay a visit to Nancy Cole, the darling, sweet receptionist who was alarmed when we wanted to talk with Celia Smith from the get-go. The lovely young thing who got her job the minute Marci Warden was dead. But for now…”

“What room is Mr. Lansing in?” she asked.

“Right down the hall.”

Jude led the way, nodding to the officers on guard duty and opening the door for Vicky.

Ted Lansing was awake. He was staring miserably at the ceiling. His leg was bandaged beneath the covers but not in any kind of sling or stabilizing apparatus.

“Hey, I’m a good shot,” Jude whispered to her. “He’ll be out of here in no time.”

Seeing Jude enter with Vicky, he sat up, wincing as he did so.

“I’m on some painkillers, but I don’t like extremes!” he said, as if in explanation for his discomfort. “You’re Special Agent Tennant. And you were with my wife and kids and you let me talk to her and… Thank you!”

“We’re all incredibly grateful that they’re fine and you’re going to be okay,” Vicky told him. “But, Mr. Lansing, I have a question for you.”

“If my wife and kids are safe, I will tell you anything. Do anything!”

“What exactly was your assignment?” Vicky asked.

“To make sure that the house burned down,” he said.

“But what if it didn’t? How were you supposed to convey the information if it didn’t—especially since it didn’t? Were you given a number to call—”

“No, no. I was told that I’d hear from the writer again—everything was in text messages. They found my phone, right?” he asked, looking at Jude.

Jude nodded. “They found it. I’ve seen the pictures. I know how terrified you were.”

“Read the messages. I received a few of the pictures first, then images of the things that have happened, then instructions on where to be when and… It’s all in the phone.”

Vicky looked at Jude. They’d gotten away from the scene that night without reporters being around.

It was possible that the perpetrator might not know that Ted Lansing had been shot and taken to a hospital—and that his family had been swept up.

That is…

If the threats could have really been carried out.

“Thank you,” Vicky told him.

“What’s going to happen when I don’t respond?” Lansing asked anxiously.

“Oh, you’re going to respond!” Jude assured him. “But don’t worry about that. Get well and we’ll get you to your wife and kids as soon as we can.”

“Good night,” Vicky told him.

“But wait! I mean, you’re going to arrest me, right? I have a permit for that gun, but I fired it in a crowd. He’ll kill me in jail, you know!”

“I’m not arresting you,” Jude told him. “Get better!”

He urged Vicky to the door and out.

“Let’s get something of a night’s sleep,” he told her. “We’ve got to get to the new place, get settled in…”

“And find out just how far away my place is from yours?” she asked lightly.

“Yeah, something like that,” he told her. “Tomorrow—”

“Is another hell of a long day!” she said. “It’s time we nail someone!”

“Vicky, this has just been intense. It hasn’t been that long—”

“In the world of artificial intelligence? Way too long!” she said. “But that’s tomorrow. Oh, wait, it is tomorrow. See, it’s already being a hell of a long day!”