Smarter (an Ell Donsaii story #2) Read Online Free PDF

he also tried to reach Ell. In view of the enemies Ell had made in the Arab terrorist group the summer before, Phil was also worried that Allan’s absence from the net might indicate a serious problem. He contacted Ell’s friend, Chief Bowers of the Dallas Police.
    Bowers actually agreed with the local police, but in view of Ell’s “special nature” used his police connections to obtain a warrant and downloaded the last hour of the audio-video record from Ell’s AI cameras and microphones. That video was pretty damning, especially the drunken camera angles as Ell was maneuvered down the hall and onto the elevator. Ell’s captors had unjacked her AI and turned it off as they entered the parking garage under Ell’s hotel, so the record ended there. Chief Bowers contacted the Cambridge-Boston police and forwarded the record to them. Then he reluctantly called to let Ell’s mom know that it appeared that someone had indeed abducted Ell. A sobbing Kristen contacted Phil to let him know also.
     
    Chief Bowers and the local police worked on finding Ell for the next several hours. Ell’s captors had been smart enough to turn their own AIs off before they met her in the bar to abduct her, so the police hadn’t been able to pick her captors’ AIs’ net addresses off their co-location in the bar where they had drugged Ell. Facial recognition software had not been able to match the two men recorded by Ell’s AI’s cameras in the hotel bar to any passports used to enter the country in the past five years. Nor had a search of rental car records turned them up. Bowers suspected that they wore facial disguises, either when they entered the country and rented cars, or more likely just last night. Or they might be US citizens? The police had started a search of driver’s license photos but they weren’t having much luck there either.
     
    Ell woke with a tremendous need to urinate. Her head pounded and her eyes were full of crud. When she reached up to wipe her eyes she realized her wrists were cuffed together. When she tried to get up she found her ankles were cuffed together too. She was on a bed in a dingy room and the young Asian man from the bar was sleeping in a chair at the desk with his head down on his arms. “Hey,” she croaked, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”
    The guy lifted his head, “So? Go.” He dropped his head back down on the desk.
    “But you’ve got me cuffed.”
    Muffled by speaking into his arms, he said, “You can still get up and shuffle to the bathroom.”
    Ell did so. Her cuffs were merely plastic cable ties. One around each wrist and ankle, then another loop joined the two loops on her wrists. Three loops joined the two on her ankles. The three loops made a chain between her ankles that was about ten inches long making it possible to shuffle, but certainly not to walk quickly. The hotel room layout was pretty standard with the bathroom next to the door to the hallway. She was still wearing her suit from the interviews, now badly rumpled. Getting her pants down was a challenge but fortunately the zipper was on the side and not in the back. She washed her hands and splashed water in her eyes. She looked in the mirror, her matted hair and bloodshot eyes looked nearly as bad as she felt. Her AI headband was gone of course, as was the belt pack with the AI itself.
    Ell looked in the medicine cabinet. Empty.
    Drawers beneath the sink. Empty but for an old hand held hair dryer that looked like a fire hazard.
    No window in the bathroom. Vinyl floor, tile walls. The bathtub shower combo had a slightly moldy curtain over it but otherwise nothing in it. Ell lifted the top off the tank of the toilet, nothing but a standard flapper and float valve setup. She stepped to the bathroom door, unlocked and opened it, looking out, “Hey, I need a toothbrush!”
    Without lifting his head he said, “It’s the middle of the freaking night! Go back to sleep!”
    Ell figured that they had drugged her at