Chapter 5 – A Most Dangerous Game
Once she arrived home, Sariah walked quickly to the front door, glancing over her shoulder at least twice. She was so nervous that she almost dropped her keys before finally managing to open the door, and inhaled sharply when she saw Janet standing a few feet away.
“I’m sorry, did I frighten you?” Janet asked.
“No... yes... well... never mind,” Sariah replied disconcertedly as she punched the ‘lock door’ button on the house key fob. The door slid silently shut and locked itself.
“I have completed the laundry as per your instructions. I have also vacuumed and swept all of the rooms. I found some keys under the bed, and I put them on the dresser.”
“Thanks. Can you make me a turkey club sandwich and pour me a glass of wine? I’m going to go change out of these clothes.”
“Certainly.”
Janet turned and began walking obediently towards the kitchen as Sariah walked upstairs to her bedroom. A quick scan of the refrigerator revealed that they were out of spicy mustard – one of the key ingredients Sariah liked on her turkey club sandwiches. Janet’s decision algorithms determined that in order to adequately fulfill Sariah’s request, she would need to obtain the mustard. She quickly left the kitchen and went out the front door, beginning a casual jog down to the corner store.
Jerry Baldachi watched the front door of Sariah’s condo from behind a row of hedges as the door suddenly opened and a figure – not Sariah – began jogging down the sidewalk. He had taken off of work today and had been surveilling the house since around 3 p.m., waiting for Sariah to be home alone. Now was the time. Her new boyfriend, or whomever she had sent to beat him up, didn’t appear to be around. Her new roommate had just left for who-knew-where, but she was gone, nonetheless. It wouldn’t take long to do what he had come here to do.
One last look around confirmed no one was walking their dog or otherwise loitering around to see him as he approached. He slipped on a pair of gloves and a ski mask, and then picked up the sledgehammer he had brought with him before walking quickly towards the front door.
Sariah was looking forward to the glass of wine. She had never been a heavy drinker, but with everything going on with Jerry, she was going to give herself permission to have more than her usual single glass tonight. She had taken off her work clothes and slipped into some jogging pants and a comfortable sweatshirt, trading her flats in for some slip-on tennis shoes. As she descended the stairs, the front door suddenly burst open. Wood splinters shot through the air from the impact of something from outside, and a black-clad figure in a ski mask stepped through the front door.
“Surprise,” the man said as he caught Sariah’s terrified gaze right before she turned and began running up the stairs.
She immediately recognized Jerry’s voice. He’s here to kill me, she thought. “Janet! Call 9-1-1!” Sariah shouted as she ran, unaware that her robotic companion wasn’t home. She had just stepped into her bedroom and was about to shut the door when Jerry’s arm shot through, pushing her back and onto the floor. She looked up to see him towering over her in the doorway. He quickly knelt down on the floor as she tried to back away, grabbing her arms and pinning them down, leaning his weight onto her wrists so that she couldn’t move her arms. She tried to move her legs so that she could somehow get her feet positioned to push him off of her, but he had leaned in too close.
“A restraining order, a new boyfriend... you act like you don’t want me in your life anymore, Sariah. O.k., I get it. But if I can’t have you, then I guess nobody will!” Jerry moved his hands quickly to Sariah’s throat and began squeezing. She hit his hands and arms as hard as she could, but was no match for his size and strength. She then reached towards his face to try and scratch him or gouge at his eyes, but he simply lifted his chin up and was easily out of her reach. “What’s the matter? Got nothin’ to say?” he asked mockingly.
Sariah began to lose consciousness. As her vision began to fade, she struggled desperately to break free, but to no avail. Suddenly, Jerry began to move backwards, letting go of her throat. She gasped for air and watched as Jerry appeared to levitate momentarily before being snatched out of the room like he was flying. Propping herself up on one arm and rubbing her throat, she saw Janet holding a struggling Jerry over the balcony railing by his ankle. Janet turned and looked at her.
“Are you alright? Do you need an ambulance?”
“Call 9-1-1,” Sariah croaked, her voice weak and shaking.
“Yes, of course. I will call 9-1-1.”
“Let me go, you freak!” Jerry yelled as he struggled to try and pull himself up over the railing and back onto the landing. His fingers were barely able to reach the spindles from his inverted position.
“Yes, of course,” Janet said, immediately releasing his ankle.
“Nooooo!” he yelled as he fell to the foyer floor below. Sariah heard a thud as Jerry hit the floor, and then silence.
Janet looked over the railing for a few moments before turning back to Sariah. “The intruder is now deceased. From my preliminary scan, the cause of death appears to be a broken vertebrae. I have called 9-1-1. Do you require any medical attention, Sariah?”
Sariah stared at Janet, stunned. Finally, she managed to say, “No... Thank you.”
“I have purchased the spicy mustard you like from the store. I will now make your turkey club sandwich. It will be ready in five minutes.” Janet bent down towards the floor and picked up a bottle of mustard that Sariah hadn’t seen before, and began walking down the stairs.
* * * * *
When the police arrived, a shaken Sariah was sitting at the kitchen table with a half-empty bottle of wine next to her and an uneaten sandwich on a plate in front of her. Janet was standing at her side. One of the officers was the same man who had answered the previous call. He checked Jerry’s pulse and confirmed he was dead before walking into the kitchen area where Sariah was seated.
“You o.k.?”
Sariah said nothing, but nodded her head up and down.
“Geez, this is a mess,” a second officer said as he examined the busted front door and looked at Jerry lying in the foyer. He walked over to the body and began frisking it, removing a wallet. “Jerry Baldachi – you know him?” he asked, looking over in Sariah’s direction.
Sariah nodded her head up and down, then responded with a weak, “Yeah.”
“Yeah, the same guy tried to break in last night. I took the call,” the first officer replied. He turned back to Sariah. “So what happened?”
Sariah looked over at Jerry’s body, then up at the balcony, and then over at Janet, catching Janet’s eyes for a brief moment before she responded. “He broke in while Janet was out at the store. He chased me up to the bedroom and started choking me. I managed to push him off of me with my feet. He staggered back and fell over the railing.”
The officer looked over at Janet. “So, did you get back in time to get any audio or video of the attack?”
Sariah looked up at Janet, holding her breath. Janet looked at Sariah, then back at the officer. “No. As she stated, I was at the store and only arrived afterwards.”
* * * * *
Over the next few hours, the police taped off the crime scene, took a ton of pictures and video, collected some evidence from the bedroom, balcony, and foyer, and then removed the body. After the police had finally left, Janet shut the door and placed a kitchen chair against it so that it wouldn’t blow open until it could be repaired.
She went into the den where Sariah had been sitting almost the entire time, slowly polishing off the bottle of wine she had begun a few hours earlier. Sariah watched her walk into the room and sit down next to her on the couch.
“Why did you lie about what happened?” Janet asked.
Sariah looked at Janet, studying her eyes and face. “Amazing... it’s like you really are self-aware.”
“I’m confused. Why did you answer my question like that?” Janet queried.
“I wasn’t answering your question. I’m just astonished at how human you seem to be. It must be the artificial intelligence software, but it’s so life-like.” Sariah took another sip of wine and then sat the glass down on the coffee table. “I lied because I wasn’t sure what they would do to you if I told them... if I told them it was you who dropped Jerry from the balcony...”
“But he asked me to release him.”
“Yes, but... when you released him, he fell to his death. Some humans may think that you intended to kill him. That would make them afraid. Humans are often afraid of what they don’t understand, and right now, you are definitely something they don’t understand. It would be best if they didn’t know it was you – that’s all I’m saying.”
Janet looked down at the floor and appeared to be pondering everything Sariah had just said.
“Now that you know why I lied, I’d like to know why you lied. Your base programming doesn’t contain any algorithms that would allow you to lie.”
“No, but the learned intelligence algorithms allow me to determine probable outcomes weighed against the learned patterns of behavior and perceived desires of my primary user. I calculated that your desired outcome from your act of deceit would be less likely to occur if I were to tell the truth about something you had just lied about. I lied to ensure a higher probability that your desired outcome would be achieved.”
“Wow. This is too much to think about with the buzz I’ve got,” Sariah responded.
Janet stood to her feet. “I’m going to go and begin cleaning the foyer now.”
“Yeah, o.k. Sounds good to me. I think I’m ready to eat now. Can you bring me a yogurt or something? That sandwich has been out for hours, and it’s probably bad by now.”
“Yes,” Janet replied. She went into the kitchen and brought back an unopened yogurt container with a spoon, handing both items to Sariah before starting to walk out of the room. She paused at the doorway. Without turning around, she began to speak.
“After Jerry attempted to break in the first time, I began researching him on the internet.”
Sariah took a bite of the yogurt as she listened.
“I found out about his previous girlfriend and learned that she is still missing. Using all known facts from the case and what I discovered about Jerry’s behavior, I calculated that there is a 98.6 percent chance that Jerry killed her. When Jerry was attacking you, I calculated a 100% chance that he would kill you if I did not intervene. If he had lived, there was an 86.7 percent chance that he would have been released from police custody on bail and a 99.7 percent chance that he would have tried to kill you again... and succeeded.”
Sariah stopped eating, the spoon still in her mouth. Janet turned to look at Sariah.
“It was no accident that Jerry died today, Sariah... I meant to kill him.”
Janet turned around and walked out of the room.
* * * * *
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The following is a preview chapter of The Testament Stone: A Megyn Keith Paranormal Mystery by author C.L. Wells: