Flicking

by Lukas Oberhuber

in marketing early. All of those innovations have allowed us to be at the top.”

  “It’s not as if your movies have done particularly well lately. Of your three major releases last summer, only one had a strong opening weekend. Not to mention that international sales have been moderate.” The man stroked a finger across his nose.

  “Where are you coming from? That is completely false. Don’t come in here with half-truths. Yes, we would have liked to have done better on Social Slide, but on the whole, we had an excellent summer.”

  “And the Superheroes movies. Is this really the last?”

  “Absolutely. We don’t want to outlive our audience’s patience.”

  “Marketing ploy?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well. In fact, I’ve got information that you’ve green-lighted an additional sequel.”

  “What? Impossible.” Mel looked up at the pretty woman at the back of the room. She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. Clearly not earning her paycheck, no matter what it was. “You couldn’t know that since I would have to order it for it to happen.” He shifted in his chair. He should have had this interview in his office. More imposing. But then, these reporters always were slimy little shits. He pushed his hands onto the glass table. “Look, let me talk about something important here. I’m sick of these stupid juvenile rumors. Here’s the real story. Piracy. That’s what you should be covering. Piracy is killing our business, and we are going to wipe it out.”

  “Isn’t the Superheroes franchise, and aren’t blockbusters in general falling out of favor with the audience? Isn’t it a giant risk to go forward with another episode?”

  “Of course not.” He didn’t give a shit if this guy was from Variety, the most important magazine in his industry. Either this guy laid off or he was going to get one. “Blockbusters will always be a staple of our business.” What right did he have to criticize Mel Boxton, head of one of the most important studios in Hollywood?

  “Can your studio really afford another flop of that magnitude?”

  “I already told you: there is no flop.”

  “And you spoke of your production process. But didn’t this Superheroes go almost one hundred percent over budget? How did that happen?”

  “Focus on the piracy you little shit. That’s the problem this industry has. My production methods are the most progressive in the industry. We get better results.”

  “My data tells me that’s simply not true.”

  “We will erase piracy, you watch.”

  “Exactly how do you propose to do that?”

  “Shut up, bitch. You are the stupidest person I’ve ever met.”

  “Mel, that’s simply rude,” the little man said, as if asking for the sugar.

  “Fuck off, you little two-faced piece of shit. There, is that rude enough for you?” Mel rose to his feet. “And don’t ever come back to this studio again.” He stormed out of the conference room.

  Door

  The door swung open. Stuffy hot air billowed into Dorian’s throat. He coughed. What was he going to find inside his parent’s apartment? The furniture destroyed? Blood stains? The big pastoral oil paintings pulled from the wall and smashed on the floor, or gone altogether? He braced himself.

  His eyes focused on the living room inside. It looked normal, everything in its place. Yes, there was a new lamp on the antique table by the window, but other than that, it looked the same as when he’d left for Harvard a few weeks ago. Nothing that surprising actually. Hardwood floors gleamed in dark oak, a wall full of bright Tuscan landscapes, the couch, the TV cabinet they’d made the year before out of walnut. Everything where it should be.

  He called out his parents names, “Mamma, Babbo,” the words fading half spoken.

  Of course, he cursed, no one was there.

  He crossing the living room, confused, or even just a slight bit hopeful. How could anyone die in such a normal situation? There would have to be a struggle. Maybe there had been a mistake?

  He turned the corner into the hall that snaked through to the rest of the apartment. Splinters jutted out of jagged holes in the floor. White plaster chips lay sprinkled across the floor boards. A series of holes climbed the wall like cat paw prints. Broken glass glinted against the far wall, though he couldn’t tell where from.

  Dorian walked forward, light-headed and dizzy. Standing up didn’t seem to work anymore. Shards crunched under his feet. It really had happened.

  He passed Federica’s room, barely a glance, not wanting to see, and pressed on to the closet where his server should had been. His vision closed in, leaving only a tunnel in front. He fumbled the last few steps to the closet, gripping the handle and pulling the sliding door open.

  Adjusted to the dark, he scanned down three shelves of neatly pressed sheets, towels and finally to the bottom shelf where a single white cable hung from the wall. It had been ripped from the plaster at the back of the closet.

  Oh god, Dorian thought. He looked closer, kneeling on the floor, examining the area around the cable where his server had been. That cable used to be connected to his Deep Node, a small black box, his server. All he could see was a void, an absence of server. He looked around. Maybe someone had moved it? His eyes scanned the shelves looking for the small black box. No. Nothing. It wasn’t there.

  He turned to the cable. Someone must have tried to rip the server out of the closet. That’s how the cable got pulled from the wall. But no experienced computer thief would have done that. Were these people just cruel burglars? He looked again at the end of the white cable. It looked intact, the delicate fiber optic mechanism still exactly as it had been. What did that mean?

  He tried to reconstruct the scene. His mind leapt at the puzzle, distracting him. So. They tried to pull the black box out, but once they noticed it wouldn’t move, then. He tapped a finger on the ground. Then they’d unscrewed the connection instead. Once finished, they’d removed the device. Simple as that. That was the only explanation that fit.

  No, these people had known what they were doing.

  His mind reeled as all the pieces fell into place. The Ispettore had claimed that nothing had been missing from the apartment. Full wallets, everything had still been there. Which left the only thing missing to be Dorian’s server, and that hadn’t come easily. Those were the facts, and the facts meant that they had wanted the Deep Node, his Deep Node server, and the only reason they could have wanted the Deep Node was because of what was running on it: software. They had wanted the program that Dorian used to upload movies all over the internet, and probably the movies themselves. They had wanted to put him out of business.

  Dorian dropped hard to the floor, steadying himself against the door of the closet. He couldn’t breath. He had killed his family. He rocked his head slowly from side to side, sliding a hand through his red hair. It was squarely his fault.

  Time must have passed. What had he been doing?

  The killers: if they had known about his server, how could they have known? He’d kept everything extremely secret. No one knew his real identity. He was sure no one could find the server. Encryption, proxies, spoofed addresses, fake names, and still, somehow, they found the fucking server.

  Sobs welled up. Movie downloading had been a funny joke, nothing more. This was all his fault.

  After a long time he stood up. He had to continue. If he wanted to find these people, he had to continue.

  He walked towards his parents’ bedroom, hands clenched tight against his sides. Bullet holes chased splintered trails across the floor, up the bed posts, past where a mattress had been, and onto the wall. The trail cut over and back down the other side of the bed. The image of those holes burned his brain. He turned away to erase the negative space, the missing figures of Mamma and Babbo. They had been in the middle of the trail of bullets. Too late.

  He’d insisted he needed to see this. He couldn’t shy away now. It meant too much. This was what was left of his family.

  He had to see Federica’s r
oom, to find any clues that might remain, things the police had ignored. The stupid police. Why couldn’t they find these obvious clues? Why didn’t they trust his views? He stopped himself. This whole thing wasn’t their fault, was it?

  Inside her room, other than a missing mattress, all was the same. The only difference he could find was a splintered hole in the floor.

  A single bullet. That’s what killed her.

  His knees wobbled. He screamed but choked back the sound in his throat. He would kill whoever had done this.

  Dorian slumped at the kitchen table, exhausted face pale and creased. The sun glared angular and hot through the glass doors. Aunt Claudia, his mother’s sister had earlier pleaded through the bedroom door that he eat something, or at least have a breakfast coffee. He’d come down, needing to move, the black and silver wallpaper crawling into his eyeballs. He sat now, hands limp. His stomach felt like a foreign country he would never willingly visit.

  Aunt Claudia gave him a steaming cappuccino, a worried smile on her face. He stopped himself shoving the drink away. He gulped, frowned and took a sip, forcing the liquid down. It would have been rude not to. Surprisingly, the hot froth tasted good. He looked up, squeezing a wan smile. “Thank you,” he said.

  ‘Senseless Mafia-Style Killing’ blazed the front page of the Corriere della Sera, the daily newspaper. ‘Is It Time For A New Clean-Hands Regime?’ questioned the headline. Was that really all they had to talk