The Same Ghost

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"The Same Ghost" is the twenty-ninth chapter of Into the Forest. It is the fourth and final chapter to be narrated by Anwar Ibrahim.

## Chapter Quote

"He's also proved that he can speak with something over many years." - Peter Sarnak on Yitang Zhang

## Summary

The chapter opens up on Sunday, June 8, 2014 at 01:11:11 in Los Angeles, California. Anwar is bowling with Glasgow, Talbot, and Ehtisham. He is winning, with Glasgow closely behind. Bowling was supposed to end around 11pm but they are still at it. The whole get-together was Ehtisham's idea. After they finish bowling, they start getting drunk and talking about the recent events. Anwar is still sad over not working at their old company anymore. He also tells Ehtisham that he was able to fix Cataplyst-1 by following his advice. He also mentions that he has signed on for more work from Enzio.

When the group leaves the bowling alley and go out into the parking lot, they notice four men looking into all of the parked cars. Talbot tries calling his young girlfriend, whom he refers to as Winchester, to come pick him up. She does not answer the phone so Talbot leaves a message. Glasgow, drunk, says hello to the four suspicious men. They approach him and the others. Anwar suspects that the four men are going to try to rob them but nothing happens. The men move on.

When Ehtisham unlocks his car, the four men return and draw their guns. They tell the group to surrender their car keys and their wallets. Glasgow tosses over his wallet and drops his keys to the ground. He then tells the robbers that he is going to walk away now, and then he does proceed to walk away from them. Anwar and Talbot also hand over their wallets. Anwar looks around and realizes that Ehtisham has disappeared. Anwar wonders what Dov would have done if he were in this situation. He is sure that Dov would have drawn a gun himself and would have defended himself. A group of women then run over to the robbers. They seem to be the girlfriends of the men, as they are able to make the men walk away with them. Anwar, Talbot, and Glasgow all pick their wallets up off of the ground. Only Glasgow's car keys have been stolen.

Impulsively, Glasgow begins running in the direction of the women. Anwar decides to chase after him. The women stop short but Glasgow runs past them. Anwar, confused, continues following him. Glasgow stops when he runs into another woman - one who saw him and the others bowling earlier. Her name is Raven and the two of them start talking. Anwar finds some nearby police and reports the events that occurred. They are able to view what happened due to the footage of a surveillance camera. The robbers' faces were all covered but one of the police can tell by the Clippers jacket worn by one of them that they are members of the Bloods.

Raven has a few of her friends help her search around and eventually they are able to find Glasgow's keys. The four robbers and the women they were with are all gone, however. Winchester arrives to pick up Talbot. Anwar and the others all say goodbye to each other and they all return to their homes. When Anwar returns home, he finds Astair asleep on the living room sofa. He decides he will tell her about the whole ordeal in the morning. He goes upstairs and finds Shasti and Freya still awake in their beds. He kisses them on the cheeks and checks to see if Xanther is also still awake. She is. He kisses her on the forehead and looks around, noticing that the cat is not in sight. He assumes it is sleeping beneath one of her blankets and he exits the room.

Anwar erases all of the old text messages on his phone. He discovers a new voice mail, left by an old friend named Myla Mint. He decides to call her back. He discovers that Myla now lives in New York City. He tells her about all of the events that have occurred ever since Xanther first found the cat. Myla talks about a project she is working on that is opening in September. She invites Anwar to come visit when it is ready, and she insists he bring Xanther along.

Once Anwar and Myla finish talking, Anwar returns to his office. He gets on his computer. He wants to continue working on Paradise Open, but instead he looks at his new assignment from Enzio: "Cataplyst-2." It is the newest build for the Cataplyst software. He spends the next few hours testing and sorting through the code and the results are similar to those of Cataplyst-1. When he is unable to figure it out, he tries the music trick again. The errors he discovers this time are not nearly as complicated or tedious as the first one. As with the first one, Cataplyst-2 keeps activating ports that try to connect to invalid IP addresses. Anwar still has no idea what the true nature of this software is meant for but he manages to get it running. After only a few more hours of work, he fixes Cataplyst-2 and uploads the results to Enzio's servers. He is now expecting them to pay him another $9,000.

When Anwar returns downstairs, he feels a sudden jolt of adrenaline. He becomes furious when he thinks about nearly being robbed. He attempts to calm himself down by making tea. Suddenly, he starts hearing tiny footsteps. He assumes it is Xanther's cat entering the room. He searches the room and around the entire floor but he does not see the cat. He remembers something Ehtisham said to him last night just before dropping him off at home. Ehtisham had remembered something about Enzio. Anwar asked what it was, and Ehtisham told him that Mefisto worked for them.

The chapter ends on Sunday, June 8, 2014 at 08:09:10.