CASANDRA, by Julio Lozano Estrella rush out into the hallway looking for a way out, she was

disoriented but finally she found the stairs, and ran down as fast as she could, without looking back. There was no one downstairs, her car was in the parking lot, but she had left her keys in the office. She stop for a second and thought about what to do, her hand was bleeding, she ran across the road, towards the bar that was a few miles away. The day before, in the same place, Casandra Control Center, an experimental system to predict the future. So here we have the last mutation of the virus Estrella connected her cell phone to hands free, she had to go to an old building far from the city, but Sofa stayed behind in the central office, so that she could help her from there. Dont know why it was me that had to come here, there is nobody here, the doorman had to come open the door for me. You were the one who wrote this antidote. Can you stop the infection? I think so, the antidote is working, it will take a little while to finish. Ok, so, what type of stuff can this system, Casandra, predict? I really dont think theres any program than can predict the future seriously. I think its use to predict erosion, the weather, in anycase, Casandra will answer any question that you ask her. Have you tried to use her? Sure, try to if you want. Ok, Im gonna ask her if we will be able to eliminate the virus.

Estrella wrote the question on her console, a message appeared on the screen. The virus will achieve its goal and the system will shortly shut down - I dont believe that Sofia said. Try something else, something more difficult. Estrella wrote in the console: What will do Sofa tomorrow? - How is she gonna predict that? Its imposible Sofia will call the police All of the sudden the screen turned off. - What happened Estrella? Ive lost the connection.

- Casandra is down. - Maybe Casandra was right, afterall, the virus shut down the system. Casandra warned them that the virus will achieve its objective, but neither Estrella nor Sofia seriously believe the prediction. There was nothing else to do there, Estrella backed-up the system with the security tapes, she didnt know how long the process would take, she was going to let it run all day and night. The next morning, Estrella returned to the building, connected her laptop to the system and called Sofias cellphone. Hi Estrella, how did the back-up go? Lets see Casandra is working theres no trace of the virus, wait a minute, something is not right, it didnt back-up the system, the tapes are empty What? but if it didnt back-up the tapes, how could Casandra be working? Thats a good question, lets see what Casandra says.

Estrella typed on Who backed-up the system?, she read the answer outloud, The system has not been backed-up Im tyred of this Sofa said. Ask her about what happened between yesterday and today.

Estrella typed in the question, within a few seconds, many paragraphs appeared on the screen. Estrella began reading them quickly as Casandra described all the successes that happen yesterday, and suddenly she stop reading, and turn around just as someone was about to attack her with a knife, instinctively she raise her arms to protect herself, the knife hurt her hand. Estrella shouted with pain, stood up and use both hands to push her attacker, he was caught off guard, lost his balance and felt down.

In the bar, she told the bartender that she had fallen and she had cut her hand with a piece of glass, she didnt want to explain, she just wanted to calm down. The bartender got a bottle of alcohol to clean her wound, it didnt seem that deep, he put a bandage around her hand, and give her a cup of coffe. Estrella picked up the phone that was at the end of the counter and called Sofa, she was probably worried because she would have heard the fight over the cellphone. Sofa Im Ok, I hurt my hand, but it doesnt look bad. Ok, calm down, Im on my way, Ive called the police. All right, we will go get my stuff later. One thing, did you read on the screen who backed-up the system? Yes, nobody backed-up the system. Casandra knew that the virus spread, so she made a copy of herself in the servers at our office. Right now, Casandra is working from our office. Sofia, who would want to hurt you?

Maybe the same people who attack Casandra with th virus. You were lucky that you noticed him in time.

Estrella thought for a moment, she couldnt even believe it herself, it wasnt luck that she realised that someone was about to attack her, Casandra predicted it, Casandra had warned Estrella about the attack at the right moment in order to save her life. Estrella thought about everything Casandra had done by herself, as she thought she read on the screen: Were even!

THE END