“Sure,” she said, resting it on the empty top shelf.
“Can you hand me that big reel on the end?” He pointed at the first Rocky Horror reel.
“Sure.”
Once the main reel started he breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, we have some time,” he said. “So once again you were Natalya’s hostage.”
Terri brought her backpack onto her lap. “I’ve got all the stuff we need. See, I printed out some newspapers, and I have some rice, and I even have this!” She pulled a plastic squirt gun from the backpack and pointed it at him.
“Oh no,” Conrad said, holding up his hands to block the aim of the gun. “My dad said no squirt guns. Do you know how hot the projector bulb is? If any water gets on that it will explode! Literally explode! And it’s not like they make new ones anymore.”
In the theater the opening credits started with the big red lips floating in space singing Science Fiction Double Feature.
“Oh, come on. That’s the fun part! We can go in the corner way over there.”
“Nope, if Dad came in and saw us using that he would freak.”
She looked out the square hole at the audience. “I know! I’ll squirt the audience. Boy, look at those people. This is so cool. Much better than Natalya’s party.”
She was hogging the view. Conrad leaned in to look and his shoulder rubbed against hers. The contact was warm and soft. She moved a little so he could see out. Their heads were practically touching and she smelled like green apple shampoo. He wondered if she minded that they were pressed close together, or if she was thinking about it as much as he was, or if she was aware of it at all. She didn’t seem to be aware of it.
Terri sprung back in her seat. “Rice!” she said. “Time for the rice!”
“We can’t throw rice in here either.”
She pulled a zip lock bag of rice out of her backpack. “We’ll throw it at them,” she pointed at the audience.
She grabbed a handful of rice and held it above his hands. He opened his palms and she poured it in. As the wedding scene began she threw the rice at the opening. Half of it hit the wall and bounced back in. For a second Conrad saw a single grain of rice fly toward the projector. He almost screamed, but it bounced harmlessly off the side.
Oh screw it, he thought and threw his own rice at the opening. Terri squealed.
They got up to dance during the Time Warp. Terri tried to watch out the hole while they danced. “I can’t see; I don’t know the moves.”
“I know it all, just do what I do.”
They did the Time Warp again, at a safe enough distance from the projector. Terri giggled at the pelvic thrusts. When the music stopped Conrad collapsed to the floor. When he saw Terri still standing he said, “You have to fall on the floor, it’s part of it.”
She fell down on the floor next to him. Their faces were close and they were breathing fast and Conrad didn’t think—he just moved his head forward and closed his eyes and kissed her on the mouth. His lips puckered forward and he felt her lips move and return the kiss. Their lips moved uncertainly against each other, tentatively discovering what this whole kissing thing was about. When he finally pulled away he looked at her face and she was looking back, smiling at him. The happiness of that smile surprised him—she liked the fact that he kissed her—this wonderful girl who he realized was the center of his life actually liked the fact that he kissed her. The image of her smiling face so close to him was imprinted onto his brain and he knew that just that image alone could sustain him though anything—allow him to endure whatever life threw at him.
He then looked up at the projector.
“Oh jeez! The next reel.”
He got up and ran over to the projector in the nick of time.
Chapter 37
Natalya got out of the Mercedes, looked at Metronome, and tried to make sense of what she saw. Hackers are generally portrayed as one of three tropes in the movies. You have the hunky, athletic hacker who ends up being hired by some nefarious organization for a sketchy job that always goes bad—the hacker takes the fall but is able to use his combination of brains and brawn to get revenge and clear his name. Then you have the geek chick hackers who are really hot but tend to hide their hotness through excessive geekiness, which only makes them hotter. These tend to be supporting players. Then you have the traditional geeky guy, either skinny or fat, but definitely not athletic. Whatever charms they have comes from their personalities, because it certainly doesn’t come from their looks.
You can’t go much further from ‘athletic’ than the hacker she saw waiting for her in the misty nighttime rain in front of Conrad’s apartment.
Jesus fuck she thought as he spun his chair to face her.
“Hi Natalya,” he smiled warmly at her. “It’s good to finally meet face to face.”
“You look like a turd,” she blurted out.
Metronome just sat there (of course he just sat there) stammering for a few seconds.
Fuckin’ aye, she thought. He’s upset. Shit, you’d think he’d have a sense of humor about his . . . condition. How can you live like this if you don’t have a sense of humor about it?
Finally, Metronome managed to say, “You just called a black man with no arms or legs a turd.”
“I didn’t say you were a turd, I said you look like a turd, which—” she motioned her hand up and down toward him. “And I don’t want to hear any of this ‘black man’ business, I have no respect for that. So, sorry if you were offended, it was just a joke.”
Metronome’s chair spun slightly toward the apartment and back to Natalya, and then back toward the apartment. He was the one who had called her here but she saw, like in most situations in life, she would have to take the leadership role.
“In the message you said you knew Conrad and Terri had left their apartment.”
“Oh, um,” he finally snapped back to the business at hand. “I have Wi-Fi in my chair, you can join my network. You should subvocalize while we’re here so no one can listen in.”
She searched her settings for Wi-Fi and saw his network flash on her HUD. She clicked it and subvocalized, “So how do you know they’re not inside?”
He spoke back to her without moving his mouth, “After I realized David Hicks could monitor VuDyne I commandeered one of the city utility drones to watch over this apartment. I took it offline from VuDyne and had it simply record what it saw. Then every hour or so I downloaded the video. Earlier today I saw Conrad and Terri leave the apartment. I tried to track them and quickly realized they were using Conrad’s father’s software to mask their movements.”
“Those fucking little shits!” Natalya said. “They got the stealth software and they didn’t come to me immediately with it? Those Rockhead shits!”
“Yes,” Metronome said after a pause. “I haven’t had time to make an extensive analysis of their movements, but it’s clear they were heading toward Fuji. Since the apartment is empty I figured it was a good time to use the information gathered from your last visit to break in and get on David Hicks computer.”
Prior to her visit to Conrad, Metronome had sent her a very special Louis Vuitton bag. There had been very little room in that large bag for any of her personal effects. Most of it had been filled with god-knows what kind of electrical equipment to scan the apartment’s security while she talked to Conrad.
Strapped to either side of Metronome’s chair were what Natalya could only describe as saddle bags. His robot arm (fuck, that’s creepy) reached into a bag and pulled out a mask that looked like it was made of flesh-colored putty (that’s creepy too). The other arm reached into the other bag and pulled out a fake thumb. He put the mask on his face and it formed itself into the likeness of Conrad Hicks.
“The door has a 3D scanner, so an image of Conrad isn’t enough,” he said. “You wait here. I’ll call you down if the door opens.”
“Sure thing.”
Metronome rolled his chair down the stairs.
Natalya was fuming at
the thought of Terri running off with Conrad. She knew how much the stealth software meant to her. How could she choose that Rockhead over her, after all she has done for her?
She heard clicks from the bottom of the stairs.
“Door opened,” Metronome’s voice said in her head. “Come on down.”
She went down into the apartment. Metronome closed the door behind her.
“This is strange,” Metronome said. “When you came in here last time, my equipment detected the local Wi-Fi and it was password protected. Now it’s open. It’s got to be a honeypot. I’ll start up a virtual machine and log in from there, see what havoc it brings.”
Natalya walked into the kitchenette and wrinkled her nose at the dirty dishes. She turned around back toward Metronome and was surprised to see a small blue dragon standing on its hind legs in front of her. Its front paws were hanging down its sides while its neck was stretched up straight, its lizard face looking right at her.
“Whatthefuckisthat?” she said.
Little blue hearts appeared above its head that floated up like bubbles before popping in the air.
“You are pretty and beautiful,” the little dragon said.
“Digby, stop that,” Metronome commanded. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“Digby?” Natalya said. “This thing is yours?”
“It’s an AI I wrote. He’s my assistant.”
“He’s cute!” Natalya exclaimed. “Can you make me one?”
“His program is in my chair. I have enough processing power in this chair to run a small city.”
Natalya crouched down in front of Digby. “Cute little dragon! You’re a cute little boy, yes you are!”
Digby rubbed its virtual head against her knee.
“I want you to make me one.”
“He’s not ready for general production yet. He’s still experimental.” Metronome spun himself around. “My virtual machine is on the local Wi-Fi. It looks like I have complete access. Very strange.” He drove his chair to the hallway. “This door is unlocked.”
“Really? Well, that makes sense right? Conrad had to get in to get the stealth software.”
“Yeah, except . . . if what you say is true and he didn’t have access, and now he managed to break in, why would he leave all of the security off while he was away?”
Natalya followed Metronome into the hallway. Digby trotted behind her. “Maybe he’s just stupid.”
“If he can break into all that security he’s not stupid.”
The door to David Hicks’ workshop was ajar. Metronome pushed it all the way open. “This seems too easy.”
Some microdrones flew out Metronome’s chair and into the workshop. Metronome’s face went blank as he watched what the drones were watching from the data stream they sent to his brain implant. After a few minutes he said, “I’m getting the all clear.”
“Great!” Natalya said. “I’m getting me some stealth software!”
“Great!” Digby echoed. “Me too!”
Metronome said, “Stay right here. I’ll go in.”
He rolled into the room to a computer terminal. He plugged in a USB drive and started typing on the keyboard. “Wow,” he said. “Oh wow. Yes, that makes sense. Wow.”
Natalya imagined Metronome was jizzing his pants. Great, good for him. As long as she got her stealth software. She was going to have to have a serious talk with Terri the next time she showed herself.
“Hm. The last thing he was working on was a distributed blockchain based system for data verification—essentially a decentralized version of VuDyne. People have tried that before but there are two major hurdles—one is scalability—maintaining real-time responses while hashing billions of bytes per second. The second is that it would have to be able to withstand cracking from a quantum computer.”
“Then there’s the qualdom marfing the fissledorf while cross-referencing an overdone maxidome.”
“What?” Metronome said.
Natalya shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, but what I said made as much sense as what you said. And I didn’t hear anything about the stealth software in there. We need to find the stealth software.”
Chapter 38
Nose insisted that they stop for lunch on the way to the Hotel Vienna—and he insisted that it be a picnic—in a graveyard. The graveyard was expansive, descending along a gentle slope overlooking Downtown. The grass was now as dead as the graveyard’s inhabitants, Nose had brought a blanket in his backpack and spread it out for them to sit on. He had made sandwiches for the trip—Spam and mustard in two sliced of brown bread. The bread was circular, Nose said that brown bread came in cans. Conrad had not been aware that bread was available in cans. “Mustard lasts forever,” Nose said several times as they ate—to reassure them, Conrad supposed, because mustard doesn’t come in cans.
Conrad finished his sandwich and was now walking impatiently around the blanket. Nose sat cross-legged and Terri lay on her side, both sipping their Mountain Dew. Conrad looked at the closest gravestone—Mary Wintertop, 1941-2009. A little beyond that was a life-sized statue of an angel holding a bouquet of flowers, looking up to heaven, its view blocked forever by the inside of a mountain.
“Are we ready yet?” Conrad said.
“Did you like the sandwiches?” Nose asked.
“They were excellent!” Terri said.
Conrad had to admit to himself that they were pretty good, but he wanted to get going. “Nose, you have Spam down to an art. So how much farther until we get to the hotel?”
“Not too far,” Nose said, bouncing up to his feet. Terri rolled herself over to the grass and stood. Nose picked up the blanket by the corners and turned away from them to shake it out. He then started to fold it carefully. Terri came in close to Conrad and whispered, “I know you’re anxious to go but I think he likes the company.”
“After we find Dad we can visit him as much as you like,” Conrad said.
Nose finished packing the blanket and said, “We’re off!” They followed him down the slope.
“I’ll take you to the hotel but I won’t be going in. I haven’t been in there for a long time. Not that they weren’t nice to me, they were! It’s just that I’ve been in thirty fights too many.”
“They would make you fight again?” Terri asked.
“Well, they wouldn’t make me . . . they would ask real nice and I would feel bad and they’d tell me what a good fighter I was and well I would say ‘Okay one more fight’ but that would be thirty-one fights too many.”
“They won’t make us fight will they?” Conrad said.
“Oh no, they won’t make you fight. They only make the staff fight. You are guests. The guests watch the fights. And they do other things, in the other rooms. I was never part of that. But I’d hear stories.”
“What kind of stories?” Terri asked.
Nose looked around and lowered his head, whispering to them. “Orgies.” He looked around again and said, “Are you guys going to the orgies? Because, that’s okay, I’m not one to judge, I’m just not into that myself.”
Terri giggled and said, “Nooo! We’re not orgy people.” She looked at Conrad uncertainly, “Right?”
“Yeah right! Absolutely! Definitely not orgy people.”
“Because I’m not one to judge. You’re a nice couple. I’ve met nice couples before and I wouldn’t have guessed they were orgy people. But then bam! They’re orgy people. Who would have known? You know, that’s okay.”
“But we’re not orgy people,” Terri insisted.
“Yep, no orgies for us,” Conrad said.
They left the graveyard and the ground leveled off as they entered into the urban section of Downtown. They were right below the peak of Mt. Fuji—Conrad could see the top of the Armada Bank building, ground zero for the dirty bomb attack. Partially obscured by the arches holding up the mountain, he could make out the scarred side where the dirty bomb had blasted a black hole out of the side.
The blocks now fol
lowed a regular grid pattern. There was even the occasional abandoned car. They walked down the empty streets, surrounded by the shells of buildings, sterile of life and lights.
Nose led them to the edge of a wide square with a large fountain in the middle. The fountain had four carved stone fish at the corners, where apparently water had once flowed out of their mouths toward the center. From their vantage point in an alley Nose pointed across the square at a building beyond the fountain.
“That’s the Hotel Vienna,” he whispered, almost reverently.
Conrad looked at the building. It had two revolving doors under a broad awning. Along the edge of the awning were the words Metropolitan Hotel. The lower part of the façade had fluted art deco abstract designs up to the fifth floor. Above that was modern glass and steel up to the top twenty stories.
“I know it doesn’t say Hotel Vienna. That’s because the hotel itself has a handle. Everything has a handle.”
“Okay,” said Terri. “So what should we do now? Should we just go up and walk in?”
“I don’t see why not,” Conrad said. “We’re just a couple of lost tourists, accidently stumbling into a fight-club . . . orgy . . . mystery hotel . . . place.”
“I’ll stay right here and make sure you get to the door,” Nose said.
Terri turned to Conrad. “What’s the chance you’d think your dad is in a fight-club orgy hotel?”
“Not very high,” Conrad said. “Although this place has one thing Dad really does care about—privacy. With all these handles and things there might be a lot more to it than just fight-club orgies. Maybe it’s an organization dedicated to privacy that just happens to have fights and orgies because that’s the kind of stuff you do when you do have privacy.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Terri said. She turned to Nose. “We’ll come visit you once we’re done here. Thank you very much for everything. The food, the place to stay, you have been so very helpful.”
“Yeah, thanks Nose,” They shook hands and then Conrad and Terri stepped out into the square.
Girl in a Fishbowl (Crowbar Book 1) Page 20