Flicking

the hostess.

  “Oh.”

  “I took a flier.” The hostess smiled that forced smile repeated in restaurants throughout America. The one that covers up aching feet, the rude manager’s threats and the low pay.

  Andrea walked toward the dark-featured boy, sitting, his back pressed against the buffalo colored leather back of the booth, his eyes wide and staring.

  Converse

  Andrea smiled and sat down, not sure what would happen next. She’d never seen a Deep Noder before, other than the disfigured body of squelch. She didn’t understand them, and what they did. How did they get their kicks from living their lives in front of computers? Even though, she had to be fair, she did the same. Somehow she’d always pictured herself apart from the geeks. She liked to say she had a better user interface.

  She focused on the child in front of her, a young boy, hardly old enough to walk to school. Well, a little bit tall, she supposed. And yet here he was, at the heart of the people who were desperately trying to kill her.

  She sat down, reached out her hand. “Hello Code, I’m Aaan…I’m Bunny.”

  “I’m…Well, hello. Should we maybe use our real names now that we’ve seen each other.”

  “Not yet. I don’t know if I can trust you. And can you really trust me?”

  “Have you decided yet?” The same girl from the front door knelt down next to their booth, looking at them at eye level. “Would you like to hear the specials?”

  “I haven’t…” Dorian stammered, looking down.

  “I’ll give you too lovebirds a minute.” She flounced away.

  Andrea laughed out loud. “Lovebirds? What is she thinking?”

  “I know!” the boy said. The frightened look left his face for an instant.

  “You weren’t followed? You came alone, right?”

  “As we agreed.”

  “Ok. Pick something to eat or whatever, so that girl gets off our back.” Andrea felt suddenly confident. This kid couldn’t possibly be dangerous. With him she could be safe. Though she might have to be in charge. Which, she reminded herself, she really didn’t mind. “I’m having the prawn sandwich. You?”

  “Uh, I don’t know.” He looked perplexed, lost. “The same, I suppose.”

  “And some orange juice.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Andrea could see waves of relief wash over Dorian’s face, like a lost puppy that needed her to help him. A child who didn’t know what to do next, standing in front of the cotton candy stand, finger pointing mutely. She burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  She took a breath. “We’re both scared shitless, to be honest, right?”

  He nodded.

  She continued. “We don’t know what the hell we’ve gotten into and here we are, hoping the other has the answers. At least I’m hoping you have answers.”

  Dorian shook his head, and tugged at his ear. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  They ordered. Andrea tried awkwardly to look Code over without being blatant. He seemed to be trying to do the same.

  “What do you know?” the boy asked, looking at her intently, his face open. “What’s going on?”

  “You’re asking me? I’ll tell you one fact, and after, you tell me one.” She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Ok?”

  “Ok.”

  “So. I found squelch. You know who squelch is, right?”

  “Of course. What did you mean you ‘found’ him?”

  “I found him near San Francisco. He was dead. Murdered.” Andrea could see the blood drain from the boy’s face. “And now someone’s told the police it’s me. They are looking for me, even though I had nothing to do with it. My question is who would do that and want to frame me?”

  “Fuck.” His mouth worked, the lips pressing together. He reached out his hand. “My name is Dorian. I’m from Milan, Italy. Until a few days ago, I was a student at Harvard. A freshman.”

  “Well,” said Andrea, raising her eyebrows, “nice resume. I hope that’s not your fact.”

  “I can’t believe about squelch. Horrible.” His head shook from side to side, as if it had become too heavy to balance on his shoulders.

  She’d have to trust him, that was clear. Maybe he’d feel more comfortable if he knew her name. “I’m…Andrea. Southern California. LA to be exact. IT professional and international fugitive.” She gave an awkward laugh.

  “My family was killed in the middle of the night by a team of professional,” the boy gulped, “killers.” He looked at her, expecting a reaction.

  “Fuck.”

  “The only thing they took was a server I had running there which I used to send out movies.” His voice rose as he spoke.

  “You’re talking about the peer to peer movie downloading you do, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I helped squelch win that last contest. Those were my pixes.” She smiled.

  “Ah, so that’s how that worked.” Dorian laughed. “Usually, no one can beat me.” He seemed to forget his family for a moment.

  “Yeah, I used all the best encoders from the movie studio where I work.” She shook her head. “Where I worked. That’s the true situation at this point.” She shifted on the booth’s leather bench. “So is that what you do? Was squelch part of the DN List? Is that some kind of club you guys were a part of?”

  Dorian stiffened. “The DN List?”

  “Yeah? What does DN stand for?”

  “Nobody knows about the DN List. Nobody.” He shook his head, taking in the news. “Squelch wasn’t supposed to ever tell anyone. There’s no way you should know that. I can’t believe he told you. Any reason why?”

  It was Andrea’s turn to be surprised. “What do you mean? Squelch didn’t tell me, I got it off an Instant Message transcript.”

  Dorian’s head dropped into his hands.

  “I’m stationed outside, but no one’s arrived yet. Shouldn’t take that long to get here,” Lieut shouted into the cell phone.

  “I…lots…bad reception.”

  “I said they aren’t here.”

  “…..”

  “They AREN’T HERE!” Fuck this. Liuet snapped the cell shut. That idiot better get here soon. Lieut needed information and permission to move in. Every instinct he had from years of running this kind of operation, told him he’d been duped. He wanted to run inside, rip the seats apart and check in every bathroom stall, but he held back. Colonel would tear him a new one if he did that.

  Dorian picked his head up with difficulty. “Who was instant messaging about the DN List?” he almost shouted.

  “It’s your turn to tell me something,” Andrea said. She needed to keep herself from catching his panic. She needed to divert.

  “No!” Dorian’s voice sounded desperate. “This is too big to hold back.”

  “Too big? We’re talking about killing, murdering. What’s bigger than that?”

  Andrea could see Dorian’s hand tighten around his water glass. Would he try to smash it?

  “The DN stands for Deep Noder,” he said his face pale. “The deep nodes are the computers that squelch and me and all the others have connected to the internet. They are the most secure and most secret computers there are, and they hold the original copies of the movies that everyone downloads over the peer to peer networks.

  “The network address for each deep node changes constantly like those secure keys people use to get on corporate networks. And each deep node is completely secret. Only a few slightly less secret computers are allowed to connect to the deep nodes, and they only attach using the constantly changing secret network addresses. In turn those computers are connected to by slightly more computers and so on, until there are thousands of computers that have the movies on them. And the DN List is the most secret of all. It,” Dorian hesitated. She could see him deciding if he should go on. His look implied that he had kept this secret for many many years. He swallowed and sighed at the same time. She couldn’t believe those two things were simultane
ously possible. He continued. “The DN List is a list of the true identities of all of us Deep Noders. It has contact address, name, all that shit. And only I have it, and only the Deep Noders know about it, and even I’ve never looked at it.”

  “You guys are paranoid.”

  “It’s only for emergencies. That’s why we created it.”

  “In case something went terribly wrong?”

  “Yes.” He looked resigned, his shoulders slumping into his chest.

  “In case people are being killed?”

  He looked ready to cry. “Yes,” she barely heard him say.

  “Sounds like someone wants it.” It sounded dumb when the words came out of her mouth.

  “And that is why my head was in my hands.” Dorian looked carefully at Andrea. “The only answer is there’s a mole in the Deep Noder ranks. Someone who’s talking about the list.”

  They ate in silence. Andrea sucked herself into her thoughts. She wondered for the Nth time what she had gotten into. Who was trying to kill them and why? Was it really about downloading a few movies. Who would be insane enough to kill for that? Sure, lose your job and stuff, but kill?

  Abruptly Dorian said, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.” He stood up and disappeared down some stairs.

  Andrea nodded absently. If only she hadn’t lost that stupid laptop, maybe they would have an answer to what was going on. Or at least a clue. Things had definitely gone out of control in a hurry. And Dorian’s family was dead. That was almost half a dozen people killed give or take. Depending on how big Dorian’s family was, she noted grimly. Panic tried to kindle itself inside her again. She needed to suppress. Not think about it. That had to be what she did.

  She looked around.