It was obvious after landing that, whatever the problem was, it had nothing to do with the plane. The passengers had been told to stay seated and leave their seatbelts on. The flight attendants were able to maintain order for a while, but people began to complain after about ten minutes. Turing got the attention of his stewardess when some of those in coach started milling about.

He intended to ask a few questions, but stopped short when he saw a portable staircase being wheeled toward the forward door of the plane. A man in officer's military dress climbed up the stairs and entered, standing not five feet away. He stared down in silence at the Professor.

"May I help you?" Turing asked, after he felt he'd been stared at long enough.

The man moved in close and stood straight. "Sir. You need to come with me."

Turing moved not an inch. "What's this all about?"

The man insisted. "Sir. Please come with me."

Turing looked past the man, and at his fellow First Class passengers. One of them boldly spoke up.

"Now see here," he said. "We demand to know the reason for this delay. You can't keep us here. What's going on?"

A soldier of lesser rank than the officer entered the cabin from the stairs and stood just inside the door. Unlike the first, he was wearing battle dress. Also unlike the first, he carried a rifle. Upon taking note of the fact that the officer's right hand lay near a sidearm in a holster, the passenger who'd been complaining shut up and sat down.

The officer repeated his command to Professor Turing. "Please come with me. Everything will be explained."

Turing unbuckled his seat belt and sat on the edge of his seat. He glanced at the luggage crate carrying the C.A.R.O.L.I.N. prototype, and then at the steel briefcase in his lap. "I'm not going anywhere without taking this," he said of both the items.

The officer took his eyes off Turing for a moment, to assess the size and weight of the crate. He then sharply turned and moved towards the door. The man with the rifle stepped into the plane and stood to the side, allowing the officer to pass. "Don't expect help carrying it," the officer said before exiting.

"There are some protocols we need to follow before we can let you go," the officer said to Turing, once he'd gotten his luggage down to the tarmac.

He puffed on his breath from exertion. "What?" he managed to grunt as he wheeled the crate along.

A phalanx of armed men lined the path between the airplane and a nearby administration building. Once inside, the man with the rifle who'd been on the plane stopped walking and stood guard by the door.

Professor Turing and the officer continued on. "There's been an incident," the officer said.

They stopped walking when a woman in a black business suit and knee length skirt approached to stand in their path. With her curly black hair coifed tight to her head, she looked like a federal agent, head to toe.

"Are you Professor Eugene Turing?" she asked, more out of formality than anything else.

With one hand clutching his briefcase, Turing kept the other one firm on his crate. "I am," he replied.

The woman turned about and assumed the lead. With the officer now taking the rear, she lead them to a nondescript windowless room, with four chairs and a table.

An interogation room.

"Have a seat," the agent said, offering one that put the table between Eugene and the door.

He chose to stand. "What's this all about?" he asked.

"There's been an incident."

"So I've heard. What about?"

She continued to offer the chair. "Please, Mr. Turing—"

"Professor," Turing informed.

She smiled. It wasn't pleasant. "Please. If you'll give us a moment, everything will be explained."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The officer and the agent left Turing alone in the room. He tried the latch to the door a few minutes after they'd gone and found it to be locked. After returning to his chair, he drummed his fingers on his briefcase, wondering what sort of incident required the commandeering of a plane with over two hundred people on board.

After twenty minutes of pondering, a more apparent incident occurred. Someone tried the latch to the door from out in the hall and, after finding it to be locked on that side as well, spent the next few seconds jimmying it open.

A breathless man entered the room. "They're not going to let us go," he said. "If you want to see daylight again, you must follow me."

Turing hesitated. "You were on the plane," he said, recognizing the man.

"Yes."

"In Seat 4A, watching Westworld."

"Yeah. And you're the creator of C.A.R.O.L.I.N.. The AI that's going to give a TED talk in New York."

Turing sat transfixed. "How do you know about C.A.R.O.L.I.N.?"

"These people don't want that thing put on display. They're going to Black Box it."

"Black Box? What the heck is that?"

The man became exasperated. "You know. Super secret spy stuff. Your AI, and everything about it, is going to quietly disappear down a black hole that you, my friend, will never come out of."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

A commotion down the hall caught the stranger's eye. Voices could be heard.

"Listen," he said, growing stern. "In ten seconds I'm going to knock you out and take your precious AI away, to keep it from the goons who are holding us hostage here."

"It's not really the C.A.R.O.L.I.N. Project," Turing explained. "It's just a prototype."

"Okay," the man said, neither listening nor caring. He approached with menace. "Time's up."

Turing chose to remain conscious. He wheeled the crate along with the briefcase resting atop it, as the man routed a quick escape. "Where's the real C.A.R.O.L.I.N.?" he asked.

"In New Hampshire, where it belongs."

"I seriously doubt that's the case anymore."

"You mean you think they took it?"

"They have it, they want the prototype, and now they want you."

The man approached a waiting sedan, with the engine running and a driver on board. Turing paused before getting in. "There's no way they could have taken the Project from my lab. The thing weighs a ton. It's bolted to the floor and connected to a supercomputer."

"Listen," the man said gruffly. "I'm trying to save your life. The offer to knock you out still stands." He placed the crate in the center of the back seat. "All they need is the operating system. They could download that onto a laptop."

Turing clutched the steel briefcase tightly with both hands. "Get in," the man said, holding the door open.

With the prototype already in the car, Turing felt compelled to follow. The man ran around to the other side of the car, opening the rear passenger door on that side and then getting in, with the crate between him and Turing.

He signalled to the driver and they sped off. "Where are we going?" Turing asked.

"Four-five-nine Castro Street," he said to both Turing and the driver. "It's a safehouse."

The man pulled out a cell phone and made a call. He continued speaking to Turing while waiting for someone to answer.

"Professor Turing, I want to thank you for trusting me. I work at the Y12 National Security Complex, under contract with the Department of Energy. Our job is the stockpiling and stewardship of nuclear fissible materials."

Turing's unease somewhat lessened. "Oh. I've heard of you. I think."

"Da," the man said into his phone after someone had answered. "I have him, and the parcel. We'll be there in fifteen minutes."

He ended the call and returned to talking with Turing. "Your C.A.R.O.L.I.N. could provide immeasurable assistance in the processing, testing and storage of these highly classfied, and extremely dangerous, assets."

"I agree. I've had conversations about this very topic."

The man seemed surprised. "You have?"

"Oh yes. Many times, with benefactors and the board of directors."

He smiled. "Well! Then I guess we're on the same page."

Turing glowered. "Not really. Why are you kidnapping me?"

The man became serious. "Professor Turing, at Y12, we supply all the parts and mechanisms for every nuclear weapon in The United States arsenal. We also supply them for most of our allies, and stockpile these sorts of things for countries who may not always have a friendly eye towards us, but nonetheless have given us stewardship over these extraordinarily deadly devices."

"Uh huh. So again. Why the kidnapping?"

The man seemed chagrined. "Proessor Turing. Please. We are rescuing you. There sometimes is a bit of a battle between the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense."

"Which is DARPA," Turing added.

"That's right. So as you know, they want to use your C.A.R.O.L.I.N. to fight wars. They want it to be a super soldier, and they got to you first."

Turing disagreed. "I beg your pardon? Nobody's gotten to me. You guys got to me. You have me in this car."

The man gave a weak laugh. "Yes. Poor choice of words. What I mean to say is, we wanted to fund your C.A.R.O.L.I.N. Project. We want to use it for a peaceful purpose, to find ways to not promote war and proliferate weapons. Nuclear weapons, specifically. We want it to help us remove these terrible things from the arsenals of the world."

The conversation paused while Turing blinked. "So," he said. "Back to the kidnapping part."

"Okay. Let's get one thing straight, comrade. They were kidnapping you. They had you locked up on an Air Force base, with no way out and for no reason. They diverted an entire plane full of innocent people, just to get to you. They kidnapped our airplane!"

"And why were you on board?"

The man smiled out the side of his mouth. "Well. You know. We were lucky. A TED Talk by a robot in New York City. Sounds like a good place to be."

Turing threw himself back in exasperation. "How come everyone but me knows everything about this fool TED Talk I've been roped into?"

"You don't know about C.A.R.O.L.I.N.'s TED Talk?"

"No. I found out only last night. And it's a computer program. Not a robot." He leaned forward to talk to the driver. "And what about you? What's your story? I didn't see you on the plane."

The driver tensed. "No. I was not on plane."

"Not on plane, eh? What a pity. Me and your friend here—" Turing turned back to the man sitting with him. "What did you say your name was?"

The man stuck out his hand. "I'm sorry. In the rush of things, I didn't say. My name is Alex Pitkin."

"Hi Alex. You wouldn't happen to have any credentials with you that have Alex Pitkin written on them?" He turned back to driver. "And what's your name?"

"Bill."

"Hi Bill. Bill who?"

"Smith. Bill Smith."

"Hey Bill! Can I call you Will? You know, like the actor?"

The driver only grunted.

"I bet you get that a lot—people calling you Will Smith. You got a favorite movie by him?"

"No."

The man next to Turing spoke up. "Here are the credentials you asked for."

Turing waved him off. "Okay. But not now. I'm getting to know Mr. Smith. Maybe you've seen him on TV. He sings too, you know. Put out a couple records. Do you have a favorite of those?"

"Professor. Please," the man in the back said. "He's driving. Leave him alone."

Turing leaned back fully in his seat. "Yeah. He doesn't talk much, does he?"

"Well, he is concentrating on the road."

Turing looked out the window. "I dunno. Traffic seems kinda light. Comrade."

The men with Turing visibly tensed. "So we're going to a safehouse," he said, bright and breezy. "Right?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah," Turing mimicked. "Or maybe, da. On Castro Street. Why there?"

"We'll talk about it more when we get there."

"Yeah. To Headquarters, eh?"

The man scowled. "I suppose. Yeah. That's right."

"You sound like a spook to me. Like a spy, not a federal agent." He laughed. "That woman at the airport? Now she looked like an agent!"

The man became angry in an instant. "You're coming with me until we get that thing somewhere safe, and can figure out what to do!"

"That thing is my baby. My C.A.R.O.L.I.N. I made her."

"You said it's only a prototype."

"Which you have an extremely unhealthy interest in."

Turing quietly slipped off his seatbelt while the car idled at a red light. He tried opening his door. It was locked.

"Unlock my door," he said to the driver. "I'll take my chances with somebody else."

The driver sped away in an instant, running the red light while the other man grabbed at the briefcase. "That thing stays with me!"

Turing fought off the man, pushing him back into his seat, where his seatbelt locked up and held him tight due to the car's acceleration. Then taking careful aim, Turing cracked the driver in the side of the head with the steel briefcase. With him now visibly stunned, Turing leaned further into the front and grabbed the steering wheel, cranking it to the right. Moving fast, the car veered out of control, smashing into two parked cars and a streetlight before coming to a sudden stop with the driver's side pinned tight against a concrete abutment.

Well bloodied, the driver groaned. Turing let him have it again with the briefcase, this time full in the face. He then used it on the armrest controls that worked the locks, banging on them until his door unlocked.

The man in the back got out of his seatbelt, having bloodied himself a bit from bashing his head against his window. Turing leaned into the luggage crate that sat between them with full force, pinning the man against his side of the car. Upon hearing a satisfactory yelp of pain, Turing shouldered the crate into him again, before opening the door and getting out.

He ran up to the nearest car being driven by someone else—one of several that had stopped due to the accident. The passenger side front door was unlocked, and Turing, with his briefcase in hand, got in.

"Those guys kidnapped me," he gasped. "Get me out of here. Please."

The driver of this car merely gaped. He looked over his shoulder as the man who was in the back seat of the other car came out Turing's door and started giving chase.

"Please," Turing begged. "He's got a gun. Just drive a ways and drop me off. He'll shoot us if you don't."

The driver looked at Turing, then back at the man, watching the man reach into his coat.

"He's got a gun!" Turing yelled. "Let's go!"

"What the hell?" the driver said to no one, before speeding away.