Flicking

that moment, instinct took over. Andrea’s foot jammed the accelerator, kicking the big six cylinder engine into action. The car leapt forward. The man, half-way out of his car, leapt back in, and seconds later, his car pulled out of his parking spot, squealing a U-turn. Within moments he was following her closely. She turned sharply onto a side street, and his car followed. She drove straight for three blocks, ignoring the four-way stop signs, glad there was little mid-afternoon traffic. The grey remained in her rear-view mirror. She followed back along one of the escape paths she’d planned earlier. She’d only get one chance at this. The second time he’d know what she was doing. Timing carefully, she took a left at an intersection just as the light changed, able to trap the other car behind cross traffic. That would give her a few seconds. She could hear horns. She looked back quickly. Fuck, he wasn’t waiting. She turned left into a narrow alley, racing between high apartment walls. Hopefully he didn’t know about this. At the end, she turned left, then right, now heading back in the direction she’d come earlier. She looked in her mirror. All clear. She turned right, approaching the hidden entry onto the 10. If he’d followed her onto the freeway, she was finished. He’d almost certainly be willing to drive more crazy than her. She should have taken those lessons from that stunt driver boyfriend. She looked into her mirror before turning. Shit. The grey car approached quickly from behind. Panicked, she turned sharply right, narrowly missing a car parked too close to the corner. Gunning the accelerator, completely ignoring the other traffic, she raced around the block a second time, turning right, right, right. Now she was back where she started, but the grey car had not caught up. Whipping the wheel left, she turned into the road that would lead to the freeway on-ramp, squeezing between two cars double parked, and pulling onto the freeway. At the 405 interchange, she headed south towards LAX. Hopefully this would put them off her trail. She looked in her read-view mirror so often she barely saw the road in front of her. Nothing.

  Passing the LAX interchange, she headed on the 110 towards downtown, finally heading north up to connect with the 5 towards San Francisco. She thanked her luck for the emergency bag she carried in her trunk, intended for unexpected nights away from home in far-flung parts of LA, possibly in connection with well muscled actors if it came to that. At least she had the basics.

  “I think I’ve shaken them,” she said to her car as she passed Bakersfield. She tapped the dashboard with her fingertips and her shoulders relaxed ever so slightly.

  Dorian’s internet phone woke him from a daze. He put on his headset and answered.

  “I’m keeping this simple,” the voice said, vadering.

  “Yeah. This being what?” Dorian responded. He flipped on his many tracers.

  “Tara will be dead unless you tell me who the Deep Noders are. That simple. That easy.”

  “Ah, my favorite person. Hello ReeperG. So, tell me, how would I know who is who? That seems to be your department so far.”

  “You messed up one of your routing tables. After that, you were easy to catch. So tell me who they are, where they live and their names.”

  “I don’t know you bastard.”

  “I’m really very sorry for Tara.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You have until tomorrow to find out. And in case you don’t believe me, read this link from the San Antonio Express-News. The last times I showed you a gun, this time it’s for real. You’re right I can find all of you scum, but it takes me too long, understand? I need a shortcut, and you need some slut to poke your Johnson into. Take a look. I’ll give you plenty of time.”

  Dorian opened the link.

  Tragic Accident Fells One Of Our Brightest

  SAN ANTONIO Last night in a freak accident, Jonas Cole, 16, of Alamo Heights, electrocuted himself on one of the numerous electronics and computer items in his possession. It is thought that he was assembling a science project when he inadvertently came in contact with the power supply. Mr. Cole had been a grand prize winner in the Texas Science and Engineering Fair and had been admitted to university one year early. Police do not believe that foul play is involved in the death.

  Mr. Cole leaves behind two parents and a brother.

  “You’re disgusting,” Dorian said. In the background, every trace in his considerable arsenal worked busily, but somehow he knew it wouldn’t work.

  “That’s ‘Albu’ as you call him,” ReeperG said.

  “What’s that weird noise in the background on your end?”

  “Oh, that’s the Lehigh steel smelting factory,” said ReeperG. He laughed. “What kind of dimbo do you think I am? Like I’m giving you the last clue about where I am.”

  The call ended as suddenly as it began.

  Automatically, a recording of the call transcribed itself onto a data key Dorian had plugged into a USB plug on the laptop. Within seconds, the file was encrypted and locked. When the process finished, Dorian pulled the data key from the plug and opened a secure IRC connection.

  USER Code ENTERS CHANNEL

  Code: Has anyone heard from Albu? Albu, u there?

  Striptz: Nice to hear from you.

  Code: Well, have you? need to speak

  Striptz: nothing

  Ruutor: just did a scan on his nodes. They’ve disappeared. That why u ask?

  nil8: gettin his pud pulled a wee bit too often

  Code: this is serious. he’s gone looks like

  70mm: no sign. he did seem nervous lately

  Code: bye

  70mm: what? no stick around to chat

  Code: must run

  USER Code BECOMES IDLE

  “Tara,” Dorian yelled, a quaver in his voice.

  “Yes?” she called out from the bedroom.

  “Pack your bags. We need to leave.”

  “Leave where? It’s not dinner time yet. I’m not hungry.” Her voice floated languidly through the apartment, as if nothing in the world could be wrong.

  “You aren’t listening to me. Pack your bags. Luggage, get it? We need to leave for a while.”

  “My bags?”

  “Yes, goddammit.” He got up to walk to her bedroom.

  “That’s demented, mate.”

  “I don’t care. We’re leaving now.” Dorian opened the door to the bedroom. Inside, Tara lay on her bed, her blouse unbuttoned provocatively.

  “I think I need some lurvving.” She smiled.

  “You don’t understand. We can’t wait.”

  She got up, yanked his shirt and pulled him down onto the bed, her lips lingering on his. “Like this,” she said.

  “But…”

  “I promise to come with no protests, but only if you come first.”

  “Fine,” Dorian said, feeling suddenly and ridiculously horny.

  An hour and a half later, they hailed a taxi outside Tara’s door.

  “Where are we going anyway?” Tara asked.

  “I don’t know. Put your bags in and get in.”

  “Where you off to guvn’r?” said the driver.

  “Heathrow.”

  Tara looked up. “What?”

  Dorian leaned back in the seat. He could sense the driver looking back at him. What did he want?

  Dirt

  Andrea’s car clock showed ten pm as she followed Route One off the steep ocean side cliffs into the town of Stinson Beach, an hour north of San Francisco. Her mind was fogged by the hours of driving and the stress of being chased. She stopped at the one traffic light, and turned left onto a small street that snaked back approximately in the direction she came. She peered through the darkness and the rough edges cast by her headlights to seek out the street numbers. A few times she thought she had it right and stopped. But each time the address had been wrong. Finally she arrived at a tiny cottage built of wood flush with the sandy ground. She checked the number, twenty-five. This was it. She parked at the nearest available spot in the tiny street, about thirty yards down, pulled her bag out of the trunk and walked back. Acura Integra, hmm, couldn’t be that poor, that was for sure. H
ow old was this kid?

  The lights were on in the windows behind curtains. She walked up to the door, and seeing no doorbell, rapped hard. No answer. She waited a little, then knocked harder. Still no answer. Maybe he went shopping or something. She walked around, trying to peer through the curtains. She could see vague blobs through the material, but nothing more. She pressed her ear against the glass and heard a TV, a laugh track, some words.

  She could just wait for him. Maybe the door was open and she could wait inside. She tried the front door. Locked. She knocked again, ‘for good luck’. She walked around to the back, squeezing herself through a hedge of prickly bushes, halfway through realizing she could have used the gate. Too late. At the back door she tried again, and this time the knob turned and the door opened, screeching as it opened.

  “Hello?” she called out. “Anybody home? It’s Andrea. I’m supposed to come visit.”

  Nothing but the television. She’d entered a small kitchen connected to a living room where the sound was coming from. She walked through the doorway and screamed.

  Dorian and Tara sat silently in room four twenty-seven of the Sheraton Heathrow Hotel. Tara idly flipped channels while Dorian connected to the internet. He looked for messages from squelch about when Bunny could meet, but no reply. And no sign of Bunny either. Finally, he found 70mm in an IRC channel, and opened a private connection.

  Code: I need your help.

  70mm: shoot. what is?

  Code: need get in touch with Bunny. You remember her?

  70mm: oh yeah. kinda hot I always imagined. hasn’t been around much for a while

  Code: I know. But she’s back. Been talking to her though squelch. If you see either, tell her New York in two days is best.

  70mm: pressing the flesh? Shit, things are going craaaaayyyyyzzzzzzy around here. Cat’s and dogs and all that…

  Code: chill out man. It’s not like that

  70mm: no, course not. much much worse.

  Code: Just tell her, k? Thanks!

  70mm: sure man.

  Code: and be careful.

  70mm: why?

  Code: no reason. just be it, got it?

  Dorian found some cheap tickets for New York on the internet and bought two to be paid in cash at the ticket counter. It might take them a few extra days to get at that information. Especially with the slight misspelling in his name.

  “Tara, tomorrow morning we leave.”

  “Back home?”

  “No, we’re flying.” That left thirty-five hundred dollars to his name.

  Andrea screamed. It came out first, like an explosion. Then she registered the scene: a room with a TV and an old-fashioned couch with lace doilies on the arm rests. The TV and the floral wall paper behind the TV were sprayed with blood. He lay on the ground, hands strapped behind his back so the plastic cord dug into his flesh. She knew in her heart it was Chris even though she’d never seen him before. Blood congealed in a pool around his head. A deep gash sliced through the side of his neck. His clothes lay tangled and bloody around him, low slung jeans hanging off boxer shorts. He wore a Burning Man t-shirt half blackened by blood. And his eyes. His pleading eyes seemed to stare right at her.

  Could she stop the blood? Was there a way to save him? She quickly knew it was a figment of wishful thinking that he was anything but murdered, dead.

  She couldn’t tear her eyes away, at the same time desperate to block the scene from her mind. She sank to her knees, sliding back slowly down the wall. What was happening? No one had to die. All this could have been stopped so easily. Tears erupted; tears she couldn’t stop for many long minutes. “Sorry I got you into this, Chris,” she said under her breath. She never could have imagined anything like this. Really it had never crossed her mind, even when she was being chased by that driver. She really really didn’t think anyone would be killed. Did she? She thought hard. No. Definitely not.

  The whole thing should have been fictional, like she’d seen so many times in her precious movies. Like American Psycho, or even Blade Runner. Even when she’d been little and her parents let her watch movies that were really a bit too scary, even then she knew it was a trick, a story. Even the dreams with the witches. Even that she’d known was a story.

  This? This was real. Or had she slipped into a dream? She wasn’t violent.

  Her eyes drifted around the room, taking in the lace curtains, the chipped molding, the faded rocker chair, snapping back every few seconds to the body of her friend who thought all he had to do was save her from herself.

  Slowly another thought drifted in. What about her? If they wanted to kill Chris, they would want her even more. Did they know she was due here? Were they already on their way. Was one of them about to burst through the back door. “We only want to talk to you,” they’d say, “just need some information.” Bit it would only be a way to distract her long enough for them to grab her.

  She jerked up, truly scared for the first time. She needed a plan right now. She needed to wise up. From here on anything could happen. She couldn’t count on anything or anyone. She needed to get out of there as quickly as possible. But she also had to get the police involved. Somehow.

  She looked for a phone, spotting one on the other side of the couch on a small wooden table. She shuddered. She’d have to maneuver around Chris’ body, avoiding the pool of blood. She’d dial and run, she thought. Right now she couldn’t be talking to police. They’d probably implicate her, and in the meantime the real killers could find her. Maybe once the police had found the killer, then maybe she’d be safe.

  But she couldn’t even be thinking about that right now. She first needed to stay alive. That had to be her priority. Nothing else mattered right now.

  She found a way not to leave footprints in the blood, but get to the phone. Using her shirt, Andrea picked up the receiver. She dialed 911 with her knuckle. As soon as it rang, she put the receiver down on the table the receiver. She maneuvered her way back around Chris’ body, past the TV and ran out. It didn’t matter how long it took them to get there; Chris was dead.

  She drove back to San Francisco, checking into a hotel by the marina right by the freeway off-ramp. She used a fake name and cash. The bored receptionist didn’t notice and didn’t care. She really needed to lay low, she thought. This wasn’t going to go well otherwise.

  In her room, she snapped on the TV, catching the last few minutes of an eleven pm news show. Nothing yet. She opened her laptop, connecting to someone’s open WiFi router and opened IRC.

  USER Bunny ENTERS CHANNEL

  Bunny: hello?

  70mm: hey. how are you.

  Bunny: been better

  70mm: you’ll be happy to know. hang on…

  USER 70mm OPENS PRIVATE CHANNEL TO Bunny

  70mm: this is more secure. Code wanted you to know that he could meet you in two days in New York City. hehehe. what are you two up to anyway?

  Bunny: nothing. just meeting a friend

  70mm: not with all this cloak and dagger shit. they’ll be some pokey pokey going on.

  Bunny: seriously, we’re friends

  70mm: who can’t call each other.

  Could she trust 70mm? She’d thought about it a long time. Every angle landed in the same place: she didn’t really have a choice. Code was the most likely to be able to help her and one of the Deep Noders was already dead. They had as much to lose as she did.

  With a nervous sigh she sent the message.

  Bunny: here’s my number, tell him to call me.

  USER Bunny SENDS FILE Bunny_cell.vcard

  Bunny: make sure he calls.

  70mm: oh yeah baby.

  USER Bunny EXITS CHANNEL

  Andrea logged onto Melbox’s network, relieved that no one had thought to revoke her access. All of her accounts were there. It meant that whoever was after her didn’t control the IT department yet, a very good sign. Well, good sign of what, she wondered. They were trying to kill her. So they hadn’t blocked her from the network. Nice over
sight, but would it keep her alive? Stop.

  She looked at the names on Chris’ list, picking the first three who’d left their laptops on. That would be the best she could do that night. And she was sure they would turn off her access soon. Downloading their shit was definitely against policy though, but, she chuckled, wasn’t it also against policy to kill people?

  She launched a transfer of all the documents on the laptops. The data came slowly because of the bad connection. Idly, she picked her nails, finally turning back to the TV. Halfway through a comic monolog, she fell asleep fully clothed on top of the bed. Her laptop hummed.

  The next morning she woke up around seven, unable to sleep a moment longer. No calls on her cell. She switched on the TV, trying to catch a news segment on one of the morning programs. Finding nothing, she left Channel 2 on and went to brush her teeth, keeping half an ear out.

  “Now let’s come back to the top stories of the morning. In the sleepy town of Stinson Beach, a horrific murder committed last night. Chris Gonzales of San Francisco was found knifed to death in a cottage owned by his parents. It is believe that he may have been involved in a Black Widow style internet killing as the police are seeking Andrea Bauer of LA in connection with Gonzales’ death. Further details have not been provided by authorities, however we will follow this fast moving case as it develops this morning.”

  Andrea shut off the TV, and searched for the nearest bus station on the web. Downtown SF. Ok. She threw on her spare pair of clothes and drove into downtown, parking her car in a random lot. From there she went to a Bank of America branch. Hopefully no one would have seen her picture or name.

  “I’d like to withdraw five thousand dollars from my account,” she said when she finally reached a teller.

  “That’s a lot of money. What are you going to do with it?”

  “This is my money, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, sorry. Just making conversation. Can I see a valid form of identification?”

  Within two minutes, she had the money in her hands, more than she’d ever held in cash before.

  Down the street she found a cellular reseller who gave her a new pre-pay SIM card and fifty dollars of credit and a refurbished phone. As soon as Code called on her current phone, she’d get his number and throw her old phone out. That should stop the police tracing her and give her a few minutes to call Code before he had to throw out his phone. And if they weren’t listening yet, at least they’d be searching in the wrong place once they started looking. If only Code would call. What was taking him so long? She went into a Jamba Juice, ordered a smoothie and sat down to think.

  If she took her car, they’d find her in a second. And how did the police know it was her so fast? That didn’t make sense. She hadn’t left any prints, had she? And even if she had, they would have taken a while to process. And worse, she’d never given her fingerprints to anyone, so they must have gotten her name some other way. They must have had her in their sights from the first. But the whole thing was strange because they’d never tried to call her, which would have been an obvious way to