The Trap and the Little Black Book

Inhale…exhale… Audrey tried to calm the tremors. Her fingers were quivering, frail stems as she wrote yet another draft of the letter. She had shredded the others. A wall of textbooks, empty energy drinks, and unpaid bills surrounded her desk. An eviction notice on top of the pile of bills glowered at her. Her debts gnawed at her peripheral vision as she continued to write:

Xander,

I can’t deny that I miss talking to you, even after everything… You remain at the top of my resentment list. I wanted to believe that your heart beat the same as mine. But you turned my dream into a nightmare. Still, there’s a part of me that is capable of forgiveness, for the sake of what we had. I don’t know if you’ll ever read this, but you must know—

She stopped. As oxygen replenished her lungs, she caressed her cryptic journal of revolutionary inventions: her little black book. It was her dearest companion. Even if Xander managed to get his hands on the book, only Audrey could decipher its contents.

100 long days had passed since she had heard from Xander. Every attempt to move on was too high a mountain to climb. A year before his disappearance, she formulated an idea that she believed would be a positive turning point in human history. But, as history proved time and time again, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

She left her desk and paced the confines of her dim apartment. Of course, pursuing higher education was far more expensive than she anticipated. Her embarrassing lack of credentials made her kick herself repeatedly. She had faith in her abilities, but potential employers didn’t share that faith. And even if someone was truly willing to invest in her ideas, how could she trust those investors after what happened? As questions festered in her tangled mind, a notification pinged on her phone. Audrey jumped out of her spiral.

On the screen was a video file titled: AMENDS

Bile lapped at the back of her throat as she pressed the play button. It was him, but he had altered his appearance. She remembered his unruly, brown hair that she used to run her fingers through; it was replaced by a platinum blond fade. Silvery blue lenses covered his hazel irises. His jawline was bare and more defined—she never thought he would part with his beard.

“Hello, my muse…” Xander began.

“HA!” Audrey laughed humorlessly, her eyes glued to the video.

“As you may have noticed, I had all of my records and social media accounts wiped. So if you tried to reach out to me before, I apologize. Xander Weiss has been permanently deleted. How I wish that we could start over—together! My merits and connections are nothing without your unbridled imagination. Please, meet me at the Penthouse on First Street in 1 hour. Let’s sit and talk the way we used to. I’ll be waiting for you with $20,000 for your troubles. But you must bring your black book. I assure you, I’ve taken every precaution to keep you safe. This video is encrypted and will automatically delete itself. I’ll see you soon.”

How can I possibly trust him? Audrey thought, stunned by the message. She grabbed her beloved book—it was an infant in her arms. The eviction notice fluttered to the floor by her feet. Then again, do I really have a choice?

Audrey’s heart was a deafening metronome as she approached First Street in her Tungsten Toyota. Why am I doing this? she thought as she parked. Adjusting her makeup, she tried to ignore the cyclone in her stomach.

She scurried from the parking lot to the atrium of the 20-story tower. It loomed in ominous glory, like a gilded promise. Ravel’s “Bolero” played eerily in the elevator on her way up to the top floor. Her little black book was locked between her arm and her ribcage. With each step towards the penthouse, her throat tightened more and more. When she reached his door, she relaxed her shoulders to the best of her ability and cleared her throat.

Before she could even knock, Xander swiftly opened the door and greeted her with blinding eyes and a grin to match. “My darling!” he exclaimed.

“H-hello,” Audrey replied, even more bewildered by his appearance than before. “You look…”

“Like a high-maintenance art critic? Yes, I know,” he laughed. His smile resembled a wolf baring its teeth as he lunged for an embrace.

“No hugs!” Averting her eyes, she slid past him.

Xander sighed melodically. “As you wish, Ice Queen.”

She dismissed his jest. “So, what’s your new identity?”

“Oliver Grayson: a successful investor in crypto-currency,” he answered as he led her to the sitting room, illuminated by a crystal chandelier and a crackling fireplace.

“Would you like coffee?” he offered.

“No, thank you,” Audrey responded, gawking at his opulent, chic residence. “How…how can you afford all this?”

He topped off his own coffee as he explained. “Well, before I scrubbed all evidence of my existence, a generous investor reached out to me to start a confidential project. He paid for my new life, my new place, even my contact-lenses.”

With a skeptical stare, Audrey pried. “In exchange for what, exactly?”

He chuckled as he strode towards the two burgundy, leather chairs by the fire. “In exchange for further experimentation using the technology we developed.”

“Who’s the investor?”

He smirked. “Perhaps if we reunite as partners, then I’ll tell you…”

Audrey flinched. “Don’t mistake my concern for rudeness, but what makes you think I would work with you again?”

“Could you imagine? With your brains and my network, people will hail us as GODS!”

“And do gods kill?”

Xander chuckled as he settled into the chair across from her. “Plenty of them do! Just read the Old Testament.”

“Benevolent gods don’t kill.” Clutching her notebook to her heart, Audrey’s words became claws. “You turned my creation into a weapon!”

“I did it to protect us,” he said matter-of-factly.

The concept was simple, but the execution was far more complex than either of them had expected…

Audrey contrived a microscopic device that could be directly controlled by a smartphone. After a quick and painless implantation, the device was coded to monitor and modify brain activity. Using an app, the device could record vivid depictions of thoughts, impulses, and memories. The app would then send signals to the device to stimulate certain parts of the brain for a desired result. Audrey’s goal was to use the technology to replace pharmaceutical drugs. Xander wanted to commercialize it for data mining and mind control. That’s when their lover’s quarrels turned into irreparable disagreements. Audrey knew that, in the wrong hands, the device could be used to manipulate a subject to do absolutely anything.

“Audrey…” Xander started in a sickeningly smooth tone. “When I learned that the CEO of Swinder Pharmaceuticals was making moves to have our experiment shut down...” He bit his lip. “That man drank like a fish—he wasn’t even aware that I had implanted the device after the shareholder meeting. He was a mentally unstable man, to begin with, so I thought suicide wouldn’t be too shocking. Oh, he was so malleable…”

Shuddering through a wave of disgust, Audrey persisted, “A civil negotiation didn’t even cross your mind— You went straight to murder.”

“He had a reputation for being cut-throat, so I had to be even more vicious.”

“Stop!” Audrey’s burbling gut was about to boil over. “Please…”

Raising his brow, he murmured, “Right. You came here for an amends.” He folded his hands and lowered his head. “I’m sorry for defending the future of our experiment so…passionately.” She detected no trace of remorse in his words. “Now!” he declared, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s get down to brass tacks.”

Audrey quickly refocused. “You mentioned $20,000—”

He snapped his fingers. “When you check your phone, you’ll see a deposit of that amount in Bitcoin.”

She stiffened. “And what about my book?”

Elevating his posture, Xander commanded, “Let’s see it.”

Hesitantly, Audrey revealed her little black notebook and flashed the pages. They were full of nearly illegible columns of numbers and symbols—an elaborate code. “I highly doubt this will help you continue the experiment.”

Throwing his head back, Xander laughed heartily. “Audrey! You secretive, little minx!” After catching his breath, his tone grew firm as iron. “If you decipher it for me, you can take the money, go on your merry way, and live a mediocre life. I’ll use the book to resume the project myself, and you’ll remain a prisoner of your student loans and weak qualifications. You will continue to struggle in the knowledge that your ideas are materializing elsewhere without your guidance.”

His honesty was a glacial knife in her spine. “Will I be safe?” she asked, white-knuckling her book.

“Let me make something very clear to you. If I wanted you dead, I would’ve made it happen a long time ago,” Xander answered sternly. “So, the fact that you don’t trust me is insulting.” Leaning back in the chair, he sipped his coffee patiently.

Audrey gulped as she mulled over a terrifying truth, rising like a blood moon. He only needs me to decipher the book. Once I do that, I’m no longer of any use to him. If anything, I would be a threat to his work as long as I’m alive. Nodding slowly, she processed the situation: the suffocating silence, his hungry stare, the flickering flames dancing in the fireplace. There’s only one way to protect myself.

Abruptly, Audrey sprang from her chair and darted toward the fireplace, book in hand. “What are you doing?” Xander asked, his timbre twisting in surprise.

With eyes like shards of amber glass, Audrey glared at him. With a deep breath, she forcefully tossed her notebook onto the blazing logs. The pages curled into charcoal ribbons in seconds. She didn’t break eye contact as the flames hissed ravenously. “Now you need me,” she proclaimed. “And let me make something clear: I’m leading this project this time. My terms, not yours.”

At first, Xander appeared mesmerized. “That was…impressive,” he crooned. His demeanor melted into an enticing leer. “You are an absolute TREAT!” Then, he applauded… “Bra-VO!”

Grimacing at his celebratory reaction, Audrey interrupted. “Just tell me about this damn investor!”

He guffawed and licked his lips. “Oh, you’re going to ADORE this…” Giddy as a fox cornering a hen, he whipped out his phone. “This is the best decision you’ve ever made,” he reassured her as he scrolled through a vault of contact info. “You’ll want for nothing.” He found the contact he was searching for. “You can kiss your cramped apartment goodbye. We’ll have multiple homes! How about Barcelona? Or Paris?” With feverish fingers, he entered a code to activate the number. Curiosity ignited every nerve in Audrey’s body. Ecstatically, Xander put the phone on speaker as it rang.

A hollow, emotionless voice answered. “Mr. Grayson…”

“Leonid! Tell the ambassador that we’re ready to commence Project Mozg. Inform the developers immediately.”

“Very good,” Leonid responded, and he hung up.

Leaping from his seat, Xander howled victoriously. “Yes, yes, YES!” Audrey observed his merriment in despair. “Where should the prelaunch meeting be? Why don’t we go someplace tropical?”

“Wait, wait… Who was that?” she inquired, pale as a pearl.

“Oh, Leonid? He’s a covert representative of the SVR,” he replied while waltzing circles around her.

“The SVR?” Audrey squeaked.

“The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service,” he clarified. Carrying on with his dance, he hummed “Bolero.”

Audrey was a statue in the middle of Xander’s sitting room—as if she had laid eyes on Medusa. Out of the frying pan and into the fire…