password. Andrea copied them down and opened the link.
The voices weren’t familiar, but project Beehive certainly seemed suspicious. One dispatch in instant messaging from ‘tarantula’ said
surveillance on code in full swing. We can bring all in as soon as feasible.
cross heart.
Who the fuck is ‘Cross Heart’? She thought.
Another phone call contained a conversation,
“…we need to contain Italy. It could turn the entire operation upside down.”
“Can’t happen.”
“I’m not saying it should. But it will if we don’t watch it.”
“Ensure it doesn’t.”
“We need the info. Can’t stop now.”
“If the target get’s loose, we will be in a bad spot…”
She looked through a third transcript.
sliding scale of damage having insufficient effect. we need to break the boundaries and take less risk at same time. bonus depends on closing the conduits.
None of it quite made sense. She continued trawling through the information until she couldn’t keep her eyes open for even another minute. Talk of operations and stings and ‘breaking the back’ of things. The data didn’t quite fit together, as if she was missing the frame of reference. Clearly some major operation had gone wrong in Italy, or did she have that wrong? Were they spying on a competitor, but why in Italy? No movies in Italy had been a competitive threat in decades. And the Beehivers spoke over and over again about problems they were having with their programming, but that made no sense since they clearly weren’t coders. Was this some new TV channel that Melbox was planning on launching. In that case, her goose really was cooked.
Andrea, rubbed her head, closed the laptop and threw herself into bed. Some sleep might keep Marco off her back for a bit. She looked at the clock. Two am. Not too damn likely.
The next day at work was a quiet one. A Friday. Even Marco didn’t have much to say. She tinkered around with the quarterly EMEA reports, finally sending them to Joseph. He probably didn’t expect them for another two weeks if she knew him. He’d be overjoyed.
Around noon she received an SMS.
I’d like to pluck your mandolin.
He was so damn cheesy. How could he write that? He was supposed to be an artist. But at the same time, she felt a surge of desire. It would be fun screwing the shit out of him. But of course she’d leave in the middle of the night so she wouldn’t have to talk to him in the morning. Or better yet, they’d do it in a car. Then they’d have a quick coffee and call it a day. Ha.
Around two pm her phone rang. She answered without noticing the missing caller ID, part of her strict screening regime.
“Hello?”
“Hello.” The voice was strangely distorted, low, growling.
“Who is this?”
“The tooth fairy,” the voice said. “Who the hell do you think it is?”
She thought hard, trying to place the weird familiarity. “I don’t know.”
“It’s squelch you idiot. Can’t you recognize my voice, especially vadered?”
“What?” She felt momentarily dizzy, sitting down at her desk. “Hang on.” With effort she got up and went into one of the conference rooms. “How did you get this number?”
“Look, I don’t have time to explain.”
“Oh yes you do. Or I hang up. I didn’t tell you anything about me.”
“You’re in some serious shit. Danger I mean.”
“Danger, my ass. How did you get this number?”
“I embedded some code in the vadering software, ok? Uploaded your contacts. Not to mention I know you work for Melbox, remember what you did for me? Fine?”
“You fuck.” She kicked her foot hard enough that one of her sandals flew across the room and smacked into a wall.
“You’re in danger. Don’t worry about that other shit. I’m telling you, you need to leave LA now.”
“That’s so ridiculous it’s stupid. And how would you know?”
“The surveillance I was doing for you, well an instant message went by. It said ‘terminate Andrea Bauer’. I think that’s significant.”
“Oh god, they’re going to fire me. How did they find out?”
“No, worse. They sent your home address and said ‘tonight’. The person they sent it to doesn’t work at Melbox.”
“Fuck, you know everything that’s been going on.”
“You called in the best.”
“Clearly.” Andrea sucked her lower lip between her teeth.
“So you need to leave.”
“You’re nuts. Where should I go?”
“Here.”
“Here? I don’t have the slightest where you live. I don’t even know your name. Why should I consider you trustworthy?”
“Chris Gonzales. Or Gonzo for short.”
“And you think I should come to you? Now?”
“If you don’t want to die.”
An icy shudder crawled up and down Andrea’s spine. “And why are they always looking at their programming code? Do you know the answer to that?”
“They are?”
“I think so. They talk about code a lot.”
“Oh.” He paused for a minute. Then spoke slowly. “Don’t you think they might mean ‘Code’, the hacker. You know the one.”
“Oh god. Of course.” She kicked again, her other sandal clanging against the wall. “I’m such an idiot.”
“Sorry, doll, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.”
“Fuck off. And tell Code I need to speak to him.”
“Here’s my address. It’s in Stinson Beach outside of San Francisco. My parent’s summer house. If you leave now, you can be here in six hours. And whatever you do, don’t go home.”
“How do you know all this fugitive stuff? I wouldn’t know what to do. I couldn’t run away from a snail on an ice cube.”
“I don’t. I’m making this shit up.”
“Oh.”
Hopping
“What is going on?” Tara asked Dorian who was seated at the dining table typing into his laptop. “You seem agitated.” She put her arm around his shoulders and leaning down, kissing him on the lips. “Don’t get so worked up. It’s bad for you.”
“Bunny’s looking for me. She wants to meet. She’ll help me get to the bottom of what has happened. ReeperG’s disappeared and I can’t figure out how to get him so I need to find some hints to follow. She’s what I need. Someone who knows what is happening, you see? I can’t sit here and waiting. Waiting for them to track me and slip a knife in between my ribs or whatever those stronzi will do. Probably six hundred bullets through my body. One for every artery or something equally baroque. That and a happy talk to say ‘thank you for dying’. That’s what I look forward to. See?” His shoulders jerked unconsciously, throwing off Tara’s warm hands. He turned to face her, his fingers still hovering over the keyboard. She looked shocked. “Well, that’s the way it is. Sorry I haven’t told you before. I know you want to know, but you understand now why it is dangerous to know me, let alone to know what is going on. See?”
Tara stepped backward slowly, finally landing softly on the couch.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Dorian said. “I told you things were fucked up, va fan culo. Now you know.”
“Yeah. I do,” Tara said. “Who’s Bunny?”
“Screen name; some girl.”
“Oh. Interesting.” Tara stood up, frowning, and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
Dorian turned to the computer and searched the internet for cheap flight tickets. He went outside and withdrew two hundred pounds sterling, the max. This will be my last money for a while, unless those clowns are too stupid to trace my cards.
Andrea drove straight home, deliberately ignoring squelch’s advice. What was the chance he was right? But the drive didn’t feel right, like it normally did. The streets were ominous, dangerous. Cars swerved close, bristling with menace. The stray glanc
e of a passerby had grim undertones. Fuck this. I’m not scared. All I did was try to help the company. No one could possibly want to hurt her because of that.
As her car slowed on the off-ramp into her neighborhood, her mind plotted escape routes. Up Santa Monica Boulevard, or around the block onto the almost hidden 10 East on-ramp. Or cut through the neighborhoods and head north to PCH. “I’ll need to be careful about getting stuck at lights,” she said out loud. “Worst case scenario in any case.” She turned onto her street, fully expecting to drive straight into her garage, park and pack an overnight bag.
Eucalyptus trees lined the road in broad canopies that shaded the low apartment buildings on either side. The smell of the bark hung ripe in the air. Through her open windows she could hear her tires crackle along the hot pavement.
As she approached, certainty evaporated like ice on a stove. What if there was someone there? Should she really take her life into her own hands? She slowed the car, but did not turn at her garage, instead continuing a few more feet to afford the best view up into her front window. She stopped, looking up. A couple of plants, a little fake stained glass and the usual gauze curtains providing little privacy. Everything in order.
Wait. Not quite. She looked a few more seconds, wanting to be sure. Suddenly she realized she could see a figure in the window. She craned to get a better look. The shadow shifted behind the curtains and disappeared. No one ever entered her apartment. She sat back, shaken. Her eyes locked on a man staring at her intently from the front seat of a grey car across the road. She noticed his bushy eyebrows and stringy long hair. He appeared to come to a conclusion, opened the door and climbed out.
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