Patton stared in awe. She had seen a video of this Bombe working, but to be in the room, to feel the noise of the machine and smell the lubricating oil, to be able to reach out and touch those drums and feel them rotating under her fingertips as they searched for some combination that would decipher the message—it gave her chills. This beautiful combination of wires and screws, of brilliant concept and superb engineering, had probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives. By some estimates the work at Bletchley shortened the war in Europe by two years and allowed for the success of the D-Day invasions. Over two hundred Bombes had been manufactured, but after the war, they had all been dismantled. The British didn’t want the Soviets to know they had broken Enigma. Patton had read all this in a book about Alan Turing and had assumed that had been the end of the story—until she met Ruthie.

As they lay in bed one night talking about Bletchley, Ruthie said, “You know the Bletchley Park Trust has assembled a team that’s reconstructing a Bombe.”

“You’re kidding,” said Patton.

“It’s been going on for about a decade and they think they’ll be done in another couple of years. They’re engineers and machinists and amateur tinkerers. They went back to the original designs and they’ve had to custom make just about every part—even a bunch of things you could buy at your corner hardware store in the 1940s.”

“Do they think it will work?” said Patton

“Oh, it’ll work. They’re going to install it at Bletchley.” Ruthie rolled onto her side and lay her head on Patton’s chest. “And I’m going to learn how to run it.”

And she had. Patton had read an article a few years ago about the reconstructed Bombe and about how a volunteer at the museum named Ruthie Drinkwater had used it to decode old Enigma messages. She had guessed Ruthie would still have access to the Bombe. She had been right.

They had named the machine Phoenix and, as Ruthie, Patton, and Nemo watched, it clicked and rumbled its way through the task for which Alan Turing intended it.

Patton stepped closer to Phoenix and slipped her arm around Ruthie’s waist, no longer trying to arouse some dormant passion in order to manipulate Ruthie. Now her genuine excitement at watching this hero of the war brought back to life made her want to reach out to Ruthie, to say, with her touch, not only that she was happy to share this moment with someone who truly appreciated its importance but how proud she was that Ruthie knew exactly how to ride this old warhorse. Ruthie leaned into Patton’s embrace but did not take her eyes off Phoenix.

“How long did you say this is going to take?” said Nemo.