Vaporware

by Richard Dansky

  She caught my reflection in the glass front of the machine. “What are you smiling at?”

  “Nothing,” I said, and turned away. “I’ll meet you in my office, OK?”

  In return, I heard the beeping of buttons, and then the solid thwack of a candy bar falling too far, too fast, and hitting the merciless steel of the bottom of the machine. “Hang on,” Shelly said, and reached in to snag her Butterfinger. The top half of it sagged at an odd angle; the fall had clearly broken it.

  “You want another one?” I reached into my pocket for change.

  She shook her head. “It tastes the same, and this way, there’s more crumbs for you to clean up. You said your office?” Without waiting for an answer, she walked out of the break room and down the hall.

  I hurried to keep up. “So about these cameras….”

  Shelly shrugged and took a bite of the candy bar. After a few seconds’ thoughtful crunching, she said something that might have been “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I tried. He just smirked at me.”

  “Ah.” We turned a corner, Shelly taking the inside. “If I had to make a guess, I’d say he’s going to set up cameras. Was that helpful?”

  I stopped. After a second, she did, too. “No. Not really. Come on, Shelly. I can smell the wacky hijinks a mile away.”

  “You sure it’s not shenanigans?” The joke fell flat. She was gnawing on her lip as she thought about it. “I’ll tell you what. If you’re so worried, I’ll talk to him. Maybe he’s just messing with you.”

  “Maybe….” To my own ears, I didn’t sound convinced, or convincing. “If you could do that….”

  “If it’ll shut you up, I’ll do it.” She looked down at the crumbling Butterfinger, then made a face. “God, why do I eat this crap?”

  “It’s a manifestation of your deep-seated self-loathing. Duh.” For a minute I thought she was going to throw it at me, but instead she folded the wrapper over the remaining bits and stalked off. “I’ll let you know,” she called out over her shoulder.

  “Thanks.” If she heard me, she didn’t show any evidence of it. I waited until she disappeared back around the corner, then turned to go back to my office. Eric was standing there, arms crossed over his chest, looking bemused.

  “Do you want to tell me what that was about?” he asked, planting himself across the hallway so that there really wasn’t any graceful way to get around him.

  “Meh. We had a little talk with Terry today, and this is just due diligence on the followup.” I peered at him. “Can I get to my office now, or is this suddenly a pass-rushing drill?”

  One of Eric’s eyebrows went up half an inch. “I had no idea you knew what a football was.” He stepped aside, pivoting like a door swinging on its hinge, and made a gesture that looked like it was stolen from an old ZZ Top video. “By all means. Don’t let me keep you.”

  “Thank you,” I grumped, and walked past.

  “Let me know how it goes,” he called out as I turned in to my office.

  “It already went,” I muttered, too low for him to hear. The instant message alert was blinking on my monitor as I settled in at my desk, and I clicked on it to see who it was from.

  No surprise, it was Shelly. I opened the chat window and read, LEON SAYS EVERYTHINGS COOL. NEEDS A COUPLE OF NIGHTS TO SET UP.

  I typed back, NEEDS TO SET UP WHAT? WHATS TERRY DOING???

  There was a pause, and then the reply came back, WTF IM NOT UR SECRETARY. AND HE SAYS TERRYS BEEN IN THE BL CODE BASE.

  “Crap,” I said out loud, and then repeated it with my fingers. CRAP. I sent it, then added SO WHATS WITH THE CAMERAS?

  TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK was the answer I got, followed by LEON SAYS THERE’S SOMETHING WEIRD. HE’S PUTTING A SNIFFER ON TERRY’S MACHINE & SETTING UP WEBCAMS TO TRY TO GET A LOOK AT THE SCREEN. Another pause, then THURSDAY NIGHT IS SHOWTIME. 2100 HOURS.

  I said “Yes ma’am,” and tapped the caps lock key. Jesus, I typed. Can’t we just tell terry to quit it? This cannot end well.

  There was a long, long break before the alert popped back up. LEON SAYS IT BEATS HAVING 2 FIRE HIS ASS.

  I thought about it. If Terry was doing something dumb with the Blue Lightning code base, it behooved us to get him to quit it before it ruptured him permanently. On the other hand, throwing spyware on his machine and setting up cameras to watch him was, if not technically against the rules, at least the sort of thing that was going to cause all sorts of employee relations issues down the road. As soon as word got out that we were spying on someone, even if it was for the best of reasons, people would think they were next and start running for the exits.

  Tell him to kill the sniffer, I finally typed back. Terry will find it and then we’re boned.

  OK, came back after a minute, followed by, ALL THE NETWORK STUFFS LOGGED ANYWAY.

  Principle of the thing. Are we done?

  YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

  I laughed, and shut the window. There were other things I had to attend to. Lots of other things.

  * * *

  The sugar ants crawling over the tablecloth we’d brought along as a picnic blanket didn’t much care about video games. They snuck up over the edges, scurried for cover behind the squeeze bottle of mustard and empty soda cans, and launched a full-on commando raid toward the open bag of veggie chips we’d left unguarded.

  “Shoo,” Sarah said, picking up the bag.

  “I don’t think they speak English,” I told her as I reached into the bag for another handful of munchies. The debris of dinner was all around—crumbs, dirty paper plates shoved into a plastic Food Lion bag, a small foldable cooler bag with its top unzipped and a Horseshoe logo on the side—and we sat under a tree, holding hands and watching it all.

  I’d put the picnic together on a whim, a spark of inspiration that came from actually having beaten Sarah home from work for once. While Leon was pottering around with his Terry project he wasn’t much available to collaborate with me, and Shelly was enjoying being mysterious, so I packed up and headed home. Then the muse struck, and when Sarah came through the door I turned her around and bundled her right back out of it.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “Ryan, I’ve had a long day.”

  “Which is why we’re doing this,” I told her, shutting the door. “Now get in my car.”

  “I still don’t….” She saw the cooler on the floor in the front seat. “Ryan, you didn’t.”

  I grinned at her. “I did. And now we’re going to. Or something like that. Come on. Bond Park is still open for a couple of hours, plenty of time for a picnic.”

  She was grinning when she got into the car.

  She was grinning now, too. “So you’re saying I need to start teaching English as a Second Species to ants?”

  I shook my head and popped a chip in my mouth. “No, I think we just shake out the table cloth and let them have whatever crumbs fall out. Inter-species cooperation. It’s a goal worth striving for.”

  Sarah nodded. “Like sharks and those fish that clean them off?”

  “Or secretary birds and crocodiles.”

  “The Finding Nemo fish and sea anemones.”

  “Right. And beautiful women and gamer geeks.”

  Sarah snorted with laughter at that one, and took my hand. “Well, are you sure that’s a different species?”

  I nodded solemnly. “Absolutely. If we ever have kids, they’re going to have treat us like Spock’s parents on Star Trek. All sorts of shots from Dr. McCoy and everything.”

  “Spock was older than McCoy,” she said, and when my jaw dropped open, she grinned wickedly. “I’ve been teaching myself a foreign language. Geek. Which reminds me, why is my favorite geek not at his office? Not that I’m complaining.”

  “Leon’s got some sort of super sneaky thing he’s working on because of a problem with one of his people, and I didn’t have a lot to do, so….” I shrugged. “I thought it would be nice to be together for a night.”

  Sarah squeezed my han
d. “Eww. Grease. You need a napkin. And whatever Leon’s working on, it sounds serious.”

  “It is. He’s trying to keep one of his guys from getting fired. I might need to help him out later in the week, but…that’s later.”

  “It certainly is.” She snuggled closer. “And we’ve got an hour until they chase us out of the park there, and it seems a shame to let the ants have the whole blanket to themselves, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t think,” I said truthfully, and kissed her.

  Chapter 15

  I pulled up at Leon’s place at quarter of nine. It was raining, so it was a relief to edge up to the curb and kill the engine before another sweep of the windshield wipers creaked its way across my nerve endings. The sky was purple, clouds hanging low and lit up in the near distance by the lights of Raleigh. There was no sign of lightning, though, rare for summer but a good sign for us. The last thing we needed was a blackout or Terry sensibly shutting down and going home for fear of having his system fried.

  I hopped out of the car and walked up the driveway. The house stood well back from the street, a white-painted example of the cookie-cutter house farms that were springing up all over the area. His car was in the driveway, which wasn’t a surprise—he’d long since turned the two-car garage into a workshop/arcade, picking up old game cabinets at auctions and on eBay. All of them got refurbished and wired so that quarters were no longer necessary to enjoy their old-school charms. This made parties at Leon’s very popular, especially with the older members of the staff.

  It also meant that there was no room for anything else in the garage, like, say, his car. Tonight, as with every other night, it stood in the driveway, its dark red paint washed mostly clean. Next to it, however, was another car, one I recognized. Michelle’s Acura had been there long enough for new raindrops to have erased any sign of wiper action on the windshield, and the hood was cold when I put my hand on it.

  That was a surprise. I’d invited Michelle to the evening’s observation, mainly because I wanted someone there with a low bullshit tolerance as a witness. I hadn’t expected her to show, to be honest. I certainly hadn’t expected her to show early, not to Leon’s.

  Interesting.

  I could hear his voice as I came up on the front door. “It’s open. Come in.” Sure enough, it was cracked enough that I could just push my way inside.

  There were two sets of shoes next to the mat by the door, Leon’s ratty old Reebies and a pair of woman’s flats. I shucked my own sneakers and looked around. There was no telling where Leon might have set up, though I could see that the living room was deserted. Framed comic book covers dominated the walls; wicker furniture did the same for the carpet. Prominently positioned against the far wall was a mini-bar, with a half-dozen bottles of imported rum displayed atop its counter. “Where are you, man?” I asked.

  “Den,” came the answer, and an echoing chuckle that had to come from Michelle. “Don’t touch the rum. We’ve got beer in here.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said, reversing my step and instead walking straight past the stairs into Leon’s kitchen. It was a semi-open floor plan, which meant that the rumpus room and kitchen were open to each other. This had its benefits—it made it easy to get another beer during one of the marathon Xbox sessions at Leon’s house—but it also meant that you had to brave the kitchen to get to the room with all the electronic toys. And while the kitchen was nice enough, or had been before Leon got his hands on it, it was always a crapshoot as to how recently he’d done dishes or taken out the trash.

  I sniffed experimentally. “No funk,” I reported. “What’s gotten into you?” A quick look showed no dishes on the counter or in the sink, no half-empty beer bottles on available flat surfaces, and no crumpled paper towels or Hot Pocket wrappers.

  “I cleaned up for company.” Leon was leaning over the back of his overstuffed sofa, a blue monstrosity that looked like it had been made from skinned Muppets. There was a low table in front of it, covered with various pieces of consumer electronics—game controllers, a projection TV, remote controls, and a laptop—and no other furniture in the room except for a couple of orange beanbag chairs. The far wall had been painted white for use as a projection screen, and at the moment it was showing a screensaver.

  Michelle sat on the couch next to Leon, holding a bottle of Sam Adams Summer Ale with both hands and looking straight ahead.

  “Pull up a beanbag,” Leon invited as I walked over to the den. “Beer’s next to the table, and the show can start any time you’re ready.”

  “We’ve just been waiting for you,” Michelle added, and took a swig of her beer. She was wearing a black blouse, button-down—very fetching, in my unprofessional opinion—and jeans. No socks, and her hair was loose and down. There was space between her and Leon on the couch. She saw my eyes measuring and scooted over to the left an infinitesimal bit. Leon looked at her, looked at me, and did the same to the right. I had to bite my lip to keep from smiling.

  “So,” I said, and snagged a beer as I came around the couch, “is it working? Do we have signal on your little camera thingie?”

  Leon nodded as I dropped myself into one of the beanbags.

  “Camera array,” he said proudly, even as he leaned forward to adjust the video input. “And it’s running like sweet, sweet honey. I tested it earlier, while we were killing time waiting for you.”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, twisting the cap off the beer. “Sarah wasn’t really excited about my coming here tonight. It took a while to convince her that I was just heading out for some gaming, and not for, well, I have no idea what else she thought I’d be doing.”

  “Did you tell her I was coming?” Michelle again. “I’m sure she’s probably not real thrilled about that.”

  I took a sip of beer. “I don’t think she’s worried about me having a hot threesome with you and Leon, Michelle. More like she thought I was going back into the office for another couple of hours.”

  Leon poked at the top of the projector one last time. A box in the upper left read “Video 2”; the screen was now pure black. “Man, she’s sort of right. I mean, we are checking in on work here, right?”

  “We’re checking in on Terry,” I said, shaking my head. “Work’s the least of it.”

  Michelle suddenly uncoiled herself from the couch and stared down at me. “You should have brought her along.”

  I blinked. “Why?”

  Her face curled into a look of disgust, one with which I’d once grown intimately familiar. “Because it beats the hell out of lying to her about what you’re doing. Assuming, of course, you actually want to keep her as your S.O. If not, keep it up. You’re doing just great.”

  My eyes must have rolled involuntarily, because Michelle’s face went from “disdain” to “fury” in a heartbeat.

  “Come on, Shelly,” I said. “What am I going to tell her? ‘I think one of the guys at the office is trying to get himself fired by working on a nonexistent video game, and I’m going to go spy on him to see what he’s typing in the middle of the night in case I have to go save him from himself?’ Yeah, having her think I’m crazy is so much better than having her thinking I’m a workaholic.”

  Her tone softened, even if her face didn’t. “You believe this is important. Maybe she would, too.”

  “Kids, kids, now’s not the time to discuss this.” Leon was all bullshit bonhomie. “We’ve got a friend to spy on, remember? We can argue over why Ryan is lousy boyfriend material later.”

  Michelle looked unhappy but sat back down. I opened my mouth, found I had nothing to say, and drank more beer to keep from accidentally saying something anyway.

  Leon nodded and smiled benevolently at each of us. “That’s better. Now, let me explain what we have here. I’ve rigged a series of webcams all over the team room, targeting Terry’s desktop. With a little focus, we can see what he’s doing onscreen. We can switch between them with this,” he lifted the laptop, “which will give us a good view, no matter
how he bobs his shaggy little head. The whole thing is dumped to a password-locked external site, which we’re about to log into, and I bought Dennis lunch and got him to promise not to look too closely at the bandwidth usage tonight. So, any time you two are ready, we can do what we came here to.”

  I looked at Michelle. She looked away. “I still don’t feel right about spying on Terry.”

  Leon shrugged. “We’re not spying, we’re looking out for him. If he’s doing something really stupid, we can see it and set him straight before we have to take it to Eric, and Eric blows him out the door. Seriously, how many all-nighters do you think he can pull on a black project before he starts screwing up the day job beyond repair?”

  “He’s already screwing it up,” I added, looking back and forth between the two of them.

  “It still doesn’t feel right,” she finally said. “But what do I know? I’m just the girl.”

  “Michelle….”

  Leon waved me off. “Sooner we start, sooner we finish and can start flagellating ourselves about being terrible friends to Terry.” He hit a key on the laptop, and the image of the team room resolved onscreen. “Or the sooner we save his ass.”

  “Same thing, really,” I said quietly. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Right you are, chief,” said Leon, and flipped open the laptop. He hit a few keys, and a Godzilla shriek cut through the room at deafening volume. Michelle jumped and I winced.

  “Sorry, folks. Startup sound. I forgot the volume was up that high.”

  “No harm done.” Michelle crowded in next to him. “Now let’s see this.”

  Leon glanced up at me, one eyebrow raised. I had two options—crowd in on the couch next to him and Michelle, or lurk behind them. I picked number two and settled in behind them.