Painful Truths

by Brian Spangler

  “Yeah, a bit,” I told him, shaking my head. “But what did you mean when you said ‘and beyond’?”

  “Oh,” he said, his eyes getting bigger, the whites of them showing like tiny moons. “With my remote access update, I’ve improved the infestation routines. I’m talking tenfold. We can root just about any device. That is, as long as Becky can see it—and trust me, Becky can see a lot.”

  “Root?” I asked, having heard him say that before. “You mean take it over?” He nodded excitedly. While I got the gist of what he meant—infestation sounding to me like some plague—I didn’t understand the details of everything he was telling me.

  “Take over any device,” he added.

  “Show me,” I told him as I pushed my chair back from the keyboard. I’d learned that it sometimes helped to see what he was talking about.

  He shook his head and nudged the mouse in front of me. “You can have the honors,” he said, insisting. “Just double-click Becky to open the app.” I frowned at the name again—making sure he noticed—and then followed his instructions.

  Every inch of my screen burst into a blaze of pixel animations, filling the darkness from corner to corner. The flyaway motions made me dizzy, and I braced myself, gripping the desk as pixelated shapes and glowing tails whizzed off the edge of the screen. “Very cool,” I said, trying to make it sound like a compliment.

  “Becky is searching, indexing all the devices she touches, loading, and then searching some more. And get this, she—my software—is always building and updating a secure cache too, meaning she’ll get quicker and quicker,” he went on explaining the technicalities as the screen settled into a steady rhythm, like a heartbeat. “There you go. See? The update is done.”

  And I did see. The primitive shapes stopped burning, and the expanded universe snapped back like a rubber band. All of the shapes fit onto my screen again like an assembled jigsaw puzzle. I double-clicked a rectangular box that held the street address I knew to be Steve’s station. Inside, some of the squares were filled with orange while others were a bright lime green. Each was saddled by names and numbers—some I recognized, some I didn’t. I saw Charlie’s name, and recognized his office in a layout of the station’s floor plan. I dragged my finger out from his virtual office and down the hall, passing the interview rooms, then stopping at a desk where I found my husband’s name.

  “There’s a lot,” I said, staring at the bubbles of information he’d collected.

  But there was more on my screen than just the police station. I recognized other buildings and streets in our town. And off to the corner of the screen, the landscape showed the big city. I only needed to zoom in to see the devices hidden in the pixels. Nerd’s software had grown exponentially, occupying everything it touched. “What else can you do with all of this?”

  “Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet,” he said, laughing. “Go ahead—click on your husband’s box.”

  My finger twitched, but my hand shrank involuntarily away from his desk’s icon, hesitant and unsure. Nerd placed my hand back on the mouse, encouraging me. His skin was soft and warm. Delicate. I clicked.

  Steve’s face exploded onto my monitor, and the screen’s sudden brightness made me sit back into my chair. Steve’s face looked grave, his skin paled by the thin blue light of his monitor. The image was strange and surreal, and I found myself fixed on the details, studying them like a map to some buried treasure. I waved my hand in front of his face, half-expecting him to wave back. Nerd sniggered a goofy laugh, and his hand joined mine. He tapped at the screen jokingly, poking Steve’s face, teasing.

  “He can’t see you,” Nerd assured me, his finger traveling to Steve’s nose and poking some more.

  “Knock it off,” I demanded. Nerd pulled his hand back, looking like a five-year-old who’d been caught tapping a fish tank. “You’re sure he can’t see us?”

  “He can’t see a thing,” Nerd said confidently, beaming from ear to ear. “We can hear him too.” Without asking for my approval, Nerd’s fingers tumbled over the keyboard, rattled off a set of commands. What I heard next was my husband’s breathing—the gentle roll of air in and out of his nose and the occasional whistle that sometimes kept me up at night. I laughed almost immediately—not because the spying was so intimate, but because it seemed so impossible. My belly tickled, the thrill swarming in it like bees. Watching my husband without his knowing it felt strangely provocative—I don’t mind adding that it even turned me on a bit.

  “And Becky—your software—it’s on all the computers at the police station?” I asked, but was certain I already knew the answer.

  “Well, kinda-sorta-maybe . . . but not exactly,” Nerd said, stammering as he resized the window and moved Steve’s face to the top of my screen.

  He revealed the digital map in the window beneath and hovered his mouse over another rectangle that was sandwiched between parading egg shapes. A new window popped open, flickered, and displayed a blurred image. The scene bounced in and out of focus before finally locking on an empty conference room. I brought my fingers to the screen, touching the picture of chairs and a redwood table that stretched the length of the room. Steve and I had come very close to having sex on top of that table. My face warmed at the memory of that night—my skirt hiked up to reveal mostly everything, Steve’s belt undone, and the smell of furniture polish. It had been a great holiday party. We’d been juicy drunk and hungry for sex, and decided to take our booze-fueled passions to the conference room. But just when things were getting interesting, someone barged in on us. It might’ve even been Charlie. The figure in the doorway bellowed a raucous laugh, his voice sloppy and wet. He had staggered off with apologies following him, and we decided it might be best to finish at home—just not necessarily in our bed.

  “The station’s conference room,” I said, clearing my throat and sounding a little more turned on than I intended.

  “My upgrades installed across the station’s network. But they went beyond that; the station is linked to federal offices and their computer systems too. We can read files, e-mail, watch conferences and meetings, listen to private conversations—”

  “And spy on my husband,” I finished for him, touching Steve’s face.

  Steve had begun to comb an eyebrow with the tip of his finger, a habit of his when troubled. Briefly, I wondered if it was me he was thinking about. When he pointed at his monitor, his lips moving along while he read the screen—I knew it was the case that was troubling him.

  “They have no idea? I mean, no idea we’re watching and listening?”

  Nerd let out a hearty laugh, forcing it to a point of annoyance. I chipped his boney arm with a sharp punch, shutting him up immediately.

  “Shit!” he snapped, rubbing where I’d tagged him. “Seriously, no hitting. And no, they’ve got no idea. Zero. Nobody knows we’re on except us.”

  I glanced back at the screen, thinking this was too good to be true. And then next to my own computer’s camera, I saw a potential problem. “But what about the light?” I was certain Steve would notice the green pin-light at the top of the monitor, telling him when the camera was on. His job was to notice everything. But Steve went on picking at his eyebrow, his lips bumping up and down.

  How could he not notice?

  “An excellent question,” Nerd answered, peering over with a slow nod. “A very good question. But of course, Becky has disabled them all.”

  I wasn’t surprised and chalked up my sudden paranoia to my hangover. Nerd was good. He wouldn’t have come this far only to leave the lights on—so to speak.

  “Can we record too?” I asked. I wasn’t entirely sure we’d have the need, but wanted to know everything we could do. “Save it, and play it back later?”

  “Like a TiVo,” he exclaimed as he tapped a few more keys, bringing up another interface with a red recording light and a graph that danced a blur of curvy, sinusoidal waves.

  “The audio,” I guessed.

  “We can time-shift too . .
. schedule recordings to watch later, and even skip the commercials.” He laughed again, but then stopped and covered his arm when I frowned.

  “Amazing!” I said, patting his shoulder. I was more impressed than I’d ever been before. Dizzyingly shocked might be a better sentiment to describe how I was feeling, actually. And then I had to wonder what it was that he wasn’t showing me.

  “How far, Brian? How far have you taken Becky?”

  He squirmed, shifting in his seat. He began to close the windows he’d opened. Steve’s was the last to be closed. Nerd playfully waved good-bye to my husband. Steve’s eyes stared blankly at us, his pupils racing from one side of the window to the other, reading. Nerd clicked the mouse, bringing us back to the map of the police station.

  “Far enough to cover what we need,” he answered, but I could tell he was holding back.

  “And . . ?” I urged. “Beyond what you’re showing me. What else is out there?”

  Nerd zoomed out of the screen. More boxes flew in from the top and bottom and sides. I saw red and green and yellow. Some with IP addresses, others just MAC addresses. He’d mapped our town and the city. And then I saw lines beyond the city—narrow paths like highways on a map, stretching and curving with the earth until reaching other cities. Beyond that, the pixels turned fuzzy and faded, as if they had fallen off the edge of the world.

  “Becky’s world,” I mumbled, realizing now what Brian meant by an improved infestation. Becky was growing, expanding, reaching, and indexing every device she touched.

  “She’s still going,” he added with some concern buried in his expression. “I couldn’t stop her if I tried.”

  I caught on to his concern, feeling troubled by it. “Sure you could,” I countered. “I mean, if we had to, you could push an update and turn it off, right?” I hated that I didn’t know all the jargon.

  Nerd leaned away, looking insulted.

  “Why would we do that!?” he objected. “I mean, I don’t understand it all yet, but we’ve hit the lottery with this one. Do you know how unlikely it is for any one piece of software to go viral? Hacks try every day, but the ecosystem is forever changing. It’s all in the timing and opportunity, and we’ve hit it at just the exact moment to make this work. Absolutely, impossibly rare.”

  “I don’t know,” I answered, watching as Becky extended her reach. New boxes appeared, slipping in from the edge of my screen and then squeezing into the fold of pixels before the software moved on to the next plane of computers. “But something tells me this is dangerous. And aren’t we going to run out of . . . I don’t know, space or memory?”

  Nerd sighed, a glint of nervous sweat beneath his eyes. He was afraid I was going to pull the plug on his project.

  “It doesn’t work like that. Becky isn’t stored here,” he said, pointing to our computers. “Let her run. To be honest, her pace is gaining speed so quickly I’m not even sure if I could push an update that would work fast enough to shut her off. Any push would only chase the software and cause a ripple that could bounce back and start the infections all over again.”

  “Pebble in a pond,” I mumbled.

  “Pebble?” Nerd began. “Try a stone! A rock! A big rock—”

  “Enough!” I said, my patience wearing thin. “I get it.”

  “But this isn’t a pond,” Nerd added. “The energy doesn’t dissipate. It just keeps going and going.”

  “So the best thing to do is to do nothing?”

  “Well, not exactly nothing,” he offered. “Let Becky run.”

  “Let her run then,” I added, tiring of the debate. “Change of subject. The case. Tell me what you’ve found out.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  “JUST A LITTLE SPYING,” I muttered. “No harm in that.” I clicked to open Nerd’s latest application and braced for the whoosh of flying pixels. A colorful blossom filled the screen for a moment before the layout to Steve’s office appeared again. “He mentioned caching,” I reminded myself. “And getting faster each time.”

  Will he be sitting at his desk?

  I glanced up at the clock. It was close to lunchtime, but he’d made two sandwiches the night before, packing one of them for lunch. I clicked. Steve’s face showed up on my screen, just as it had before. The gravely pale blue glow had been replaced by red and green, and washed-out reflections bounced in his eyes.

  “He’s watching a video,” I said, and then sat back. His pupils followed what was on his screen while his mouth moved, spilling silent words. He jotted down some notes. His cheeks were hollow—emptier and gaunt. He was losing weight. A spur of guilt told me I should have noticed the weight loss, should have said something or asked about how his physical therapy was going.

  When was the last time he said anything about it?

  I tried to remember, but nothing came to my mind. The guilt deepened.

  “This can’t be right,” Steve muttered.

  “What’s that?” I heard a woman ask. She stood outside of the camera’s view, and I found myself leaning to one side, as if that would help me see her.

  “Not like she’s around the corner,” I said, feeling stupid.

  “Air travel. I have airline records showing the husband was out of town on these dates,” Steve explained, pointing to his screen and then to the paperwork on his desk.

  A part of me was glad to hear him refer to my father as just “the husband.” The formality made the investigation a little easier to swallow.

  “We’re going out for lunch,” the woman told him. She stepped into the camera’s view and sat on the end of his desk. I pinched my lips, curious, and zoomed in on the small window. She was younger than me, attractive, with long, summer-red hair that she’d rolled up and pinned behind her head. Jealousy tugged at me. I tried to dismiss it, but some things were impossible to let go. I recognized the woman from the photos Nerd had texted to me. She was the one who had been with Charlie when they searched my mother’s station wagon.

  A detective’s badge on her hip thunked against Steve’s desk, and she shifted it up and out of the way. That’s when I saw the open blouse. She wore a striped top that matched her gray slacks, but the buttons were open. Not all of them—just the ones that were useful.

  “John’s replacement,” I said, catching Nerd’s eye as he looked at me over one of his monitors. I waved him off, pointing to my screen. He sunk back down until only the top of his head showed. “You’re John’s replacement.”

  Charlie had hired Garrett to take over Steve’s case load, but Steve had never mentioned who John’s replacement was. My attention stayed fixed on the buttons—I couldn’t help it.

  “So . . . lunch?” she asked, turning to face Steve.

  “I really can’t,” he answered, picking sheets of paper from the case file.

  The detective leaned forward, inviting Steve again as she took the papers from his hand. “Those won’t change anything. Not in the next hour, anyway.”

  “So close . . . all these years.”

  “It can’t be easy for you,” she said, sounding apologetic. “I mean to have unearthed a serial killer right in your own family.”

  “I should have figured it out.”

  “Come on out. We all need a break—you need a break.”

  “Thanks,” he told her, smiling nervously as his eyes pitched down briefly. Jealousy tugged a little harder this time. While I was intrigued to watch how the scene played out, I hated feeling suspicious. “But maybe next time.”

  “I’m going to hold you to it,” she warned, then leaned forward again. My chest hurt—my heart and head pounded as I spied on my husband. “And Steve . . . please do take a break. You need it.” Her words were kind and attentive and caring. She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed, comforting him.

  When she slipped out of the computer’s view, I picked up my cell phone and texted Steve. Nothing stupid or accusatory. Just a simple message: Hey Hon, I missed ya this morning. Luv u.

  I paused for a moment, giving the Luv u a secon
d look, my thumb perched above the Send button. I still hoped—wanted, really—an apology for the way he had treated me after my mother’s funeral. I still hadn’t heard one. I decided on the Backspace button, erasing the Luv u part, and hit Send before I could change my mind.

  From across the miles of cell phone towers peppering the open valleys and climbing the hills, my text message landed on Steve’s phone. From his desk corner his cell phone leaped into action, buzzing a jittery dance. He lifted his chin toward the sound, the phone crawling toward him. He picked it up, tapped impatiently to dismiss the buzzer, and then stared at the small text message. I folded my lips around my teeth, anticipating his response. A short reply was all I needed, something loving maybe, something to tell me we weren’t as far apart as I feared. But Steve swiped his finger, shooing my text from the screen like he was batting at a fly.

  “Hold up!” he called out. “Lunch sounds good. It sounds perfect.”

  I was crushed. My chin trembled, and I tried to swallow. I put my phone down and sunk into my chair. I felt more alone than I’d ever felt before. But it wasn’t just that he’d ignored my text. No, that’s not what hurt. It was because of his expression as he gathered his things and stood to leave.

  He was smiling.

  ***

  By the time I left the office, slanting sunlight shined from Romeo’s front windows, stirring a welcome thought: a drink with Katie, or with her memory anyway. I’d sworn off the ritual once before, but with Steve on my mind and that smile stuck in my head, I didn’t care. It’s funny how far-from-significant things become significant when emotions get shoved in the middle. I was a puppet to my feelings, and I’m sure I would have felt completely different about Katie and Romeo’s if it weren’t for what I had seen.

  But now? Fuck it.

  I was losing him to the case. But I acknowledged that I had begun to lose him with the lies I’d started about the homeless man. If he ever suspected anything else—Katie and Todd, or Sam Wilts, or worse, what led to his getting shot, I knew I’d lose him forever.