Due Diligence

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"Due Diligence" is the fourteenth chapter of Into the Forest. It is the second chapter to be narrated by Anwar Ibrahim.

### Chapter Quote

"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!" - Edger W. Dijkstra

### Summary

The chapter opens up on May 17, 2014 at 02:43:42 in Los Angeles, California. Anwar is in his office in the Ibrahim household. Everybody else is sleeping but he is trying to deal with the assignment Enzio gave him, as he is running out of time. He gets onto his computer and opens the source code for Cataplyst-1. He then begins trying to follow Ehtisham's advice by instrumenting the code with music notes. It takes a while to set up, but throughout the next hour he continuously runs the game and listens to the corresponding sounds. Still, Anwar is unable to locate the bugs.

Anwar begins thinking about Mefisto again when he fails to locate the problem. He thinks about some old memories of when Mefisto was still around. It seems that Mefisto's recent prank is starting to die down to some degree, though Anwar and the others are still being called and messaged a lot. After attempting the music trick for a while longer, Anwar is able to determine where the problem in the coding lies. The music note for the code is "G." Anwar attempts to test this to make sure it is correct, and when he runs it again he does get results, but on a different music note. The note is "A" on the second test. It is "F" on the third test. Anwar is happy that he has been able to narrow down his search so well, but is left puzzled over the changing music notes. He begins wondering what exactly Cataplyst-1 even is. Enzio told him that it was just a game, and the coding looks like it could be for a game, but Anwar is beginning to suspect that there is an alternate functionality hidden within the code. A fourth music note test has the problem land on the "F" note again. It lands on "C" on the fifth test.

Anwar decides to quit working on Cataplyst-1 for the night. He returns to his bedroom and goes to sleep. A few hours later, Anwar has breakfast with Xanther and the twins. Astair joins them after making coffee. The cat is resting on Xanther's shoulder. Anwar begins talking to Xanther about the cat. He wants to know if the cat is really a kitten or if it is older. Xanther tells him everything she was told at the vet before. She also brings up the numbers that came up on the tracker: "078\*371\*636." Both Anwar and Astair are surprised she was able to remember that. Xanther is able to figure out what Anwar is trying to talk to her about before he can say it. She realizes that since the cat is so old and it has a chip implanted in it, someone else must already own it and they must be looking for it. Shasti and Freya reason that the cat belongs to Xanther now since she found it, but Xanther feels bad about possibly taking it away from somebody else. She wants to search around the area to see if someone else owns the cat, and Anwar agrees to help her.

Xanther creates and prints out posters containing a picture of the cat as well as their home phone number. They staple these posters to telephone poles around the city. They start in Venice, around the area where Xanther first found the cat. They see many other "lost pet" posters and flyers hung up around the same areas. Anwar even spots a sign decorated with wreaths and candles, not for lost animals, but for dead people. Baskets filled with fruits and nuts have also been left. There are photos and descriptions. The driver and the passenger of a small sedan were killed when part of a tall nearby tree broke away and crashed through the roof and windshield. Anwar sees that the accident occurred right around when Xanther ran out of the car last week. He thinks that if she hadn't done that, maybe the two of them would be dead as well. Xanther does not notice this memorial.

Once they post their final poster, Anwar takes Xanther to get ice cream. Xanther's diet forbids sugar and she hasn't had anything sweet since her seizure at Dov's funeral, but Anwar can see how depressed she is. Anwar is proud of Xanther and the level of maturity and responsibility she is showing. As they eat their ice cream and talk, Anwar realizes too lately that his ice cream contains caffeine. He has been trying to give up caffeine. Along their way home, Xanther pulls out another stack of posters from beneath the seat. These ones were made by Astair. Xanther suggests they visit some of the local shelters and stick more posters around those locations too. Anwar tells Xanther that he is proud of her.

The chapter ends on May 17, 2014 at 12:24:18.