Marja didn’t arrive until twenty after one.
Marja was dressed casually in capris and an open blouse over a green tank top, although her hair and make-up were immaculate and appeared to be professionally done. As usual, Casey was dressed similarly, except wearing a yellow tank top.
After showing them in Natalya stood in front of one of the couches and invited them to sit down. Marja remained standing across the coffee table. Terri sat on the armrest at the far side of the couch with her arms crossed.
“So what, we can talk without anyone recording anything, whoop de do,” Marja said. “No one is buying this 3CV bullshit. Sure, you have some crazy fuckers running around, but anyone who knows anything knows you’re full of shit.”
Natalya smiled innocently. “Would you like some bruschetta? I ordered it from Finelli’s. I know it’s your favorite,”
Casey eyed the bruschetta and looked disappointed when Marja said, “No, I don’t want your bruschetta.” She then crossed her arms and said, “Since we can talk freely here I’m going to tell you I know exactly what your plan is. You are using this 3CV to attack my uncle Ragnar. This stupid ideology of yours is some backwards Luddite craziness that preaches that VuDyne somehow robs people of their rights. You know VuDyne goes out of its way to respect people’s privacy when they want privacy—Uncle Ragnar can’t help it that no one really wants privacy anymore. But you are making him out to be some sort of villain. So no, I’m not going to go along with your plan. The only way I’m going to leave this room and say that we are reconciled is if you renounce all ties with this Craynium and this Conrad Hicks and say that you were brainwashed and that I was the one who made you see sanity again. You see, after we leave this room I’m going to be the hero, not you. You’re not going to steal this away from me like you stole away the Fine Fools. You are going to publically thank me for saving you from the clutches of Conrad Hicks. You think you can go toe to toe with me? Your father owns a few fucking hotels. My uncle runs the biggest, most important, most influential company on the fucking planet. You were never my equal. Your mother is a drunk rotting away in rehab and your half-brother is a fucking pervert, and you think you can become some sort of new age saint? Fucking seriously?”
Natalya maintained her smile, although when she spoke her voice was an octave lower. “There’s no need for insults.”
“Oh no? Oh no? Is that why you want privacy, to hide your sick, fucked up family? You think you have resources at your disposal? Do you think you have connections? I have a fucking army of programmers. I have more CPUs at my disposal than most countries. There’s nothing I can’t find out.” There was a savage half-smile on her lips as she put her hands on her hips. “Let me tell you a story. Remember summer camp when we were thirteen? The first summer camp when you met this Rockhead here.” She motioned her jaw at Terri. “I was jealous of you then. I was insecure, the last few summers before that we had been inseparable, but you were ignoring me so you could be with your new pet. And I was jealous because you got your boobs and I was still flat as a board. All the boys were eyeing you and ignoring me and I felt ugly and left out. But you know what? There was someone who came visiting you—and he was handsome and charming, and wouldn’t you know it, he was paying attention to me. He was looking at me the way the other boys were looking at you—it was like he was looking inside of me, and saw that I was beautiful on the inside. And one morning, real early before the sun rose, I went out to meet him, and I wasn’t wearing my glasses.”
Terri noticed that Natalya’s smile had slowly vanished, she was visibly pale, and her hands were little red balled up fists at her sides.
“Your brother wanted me. This big, mature, charming young man wanted me. And it must have been because he could see the beauty that was inside me. Right? That’s what I told myself. Because why else would he want me? I looked just like a little girl. No boobs, no ass. No man would want me unless he loved my inner beauty. It wasn’t until later that I realized that he just liked to fuck little girls. He told me not to tell anyone, that he would get in trouble if anyone found out, that we could be together when I was older.” She snickered. “Right. But you know what, there was something else he said. Something he said while he was fucking me. In amongst all the ‘Oh yeses’ and ‘So goods’ he said something that surprised me, that I thought I must have misheard.” Marja paused for a few moments. “I bet you’re dying to hear what he said. Even with your newfound appreciation for privacy, you want to know the word your brother said while he was fucking me.”
Natalya’s face was no longer pale—it had turned pink and was now moving to deeper shades of crimson around the edges. Her lips pressed together and her jaw muscles throbbed.
“Your brother said, or should I say, grunted, a name.” Marja was savoring this moment, her green eyes flashing. “He grunted out ‘Nat’. ‘Nat’. As he came. I don’t even think he realized it. ‘Nat’. Why would he say your name, Nat? When he’s fucking someone? Someone who looked like a flat little girl? Why on earth would he say that? Nat.”
They stared at each other, Marja’s pleasure and Natalya’s rage. They stared until Natalya managed to get out the words, “You’re lying.”
“Really? Am I? Maybe I am, I can’t prove it, can I? I wasn’t wearing my smart glasses. I no longer have my soiled underwear. So, yes, I can’t prove it. Poor me. Why would I tell you all this, right? I told you I have a fucking army of programmers. I have CPU cycles up the ass. You know about these pervs, these pedophiles, they like to record their conquests and share them. I know, it’s stupid, but they can’t help it. There are places on the Hardline that are deep and hard to find. They have these videos that these pervs can share. They block the faces, they always block the faces. And of course they are all recorded offline so they don’t have VuDyne validation. But the bodies are exposed, and you can compare bodies to the bodies of known people. Well, you can imagine my disappointment when there were none that matched my ‘romantic’ rendezvous in the woods. He hadn’t recorded that, or at least he hadn’t uploaded any recording. But they did find something. Something I thought was . . .” she searched for the right word and eventually decided on “delicious.”
She paused again to drink in Natalya’s reactions. Natalya was a frozen statue of rage. Marja continued, “He was younger then, only about 14 himself. He was in a bedroom, in the dark. He was using a night vision camera. Comparing the body to verified video of him at that age came to better than a 98 percent match. And I think you can guess the identity of the nine year old girl he was fucking. I can see that you know. That body was a 98 percent match to . . . well, I don’t have to say it out loud. You know who it is.”
“It’s fake,” Natalya said with effort. “You have the resources to fake that.”
“I do, yes, I admit that I do. But there is something about that old night vision camera. It used an old authentication method of VuDyne’s, something that worked without being online. It’s an encrypted hash with a time stamp, to detect any tampering. Of course there was tampering, to block the faces, but the date stamp places it at the right time. He was just a stupid boy; he didn’t really know how to hide his tracks. He just wanted to boast about his first conquest to his online perv buddies. Like you said, it can be faked, with enough resources and knowhow, it wouldn’t stand up in a court of law, but with the timestamp of when it was put on the Hardline and with the level of validation that exists, enough people would believe—enough people who would investigate further, and they are sure to dig up things. Think about what that would do to your social standing. Think about what it would be like whenever you walked into a room, about what people would whisper. Everyone will have seen you. . .you don’t want that. No you don’t.
“I’ve always wondered how I would inform you about this. How could I tell you about what I have on you without it getting out into the public? Everyone is always recording our conversations. And look at this! Here you have brought me to this Blank Room . . . a room where I can safely t
ell you all this without it getting out into the public. You just gave this right to me. You have given me the opportunity to tell you that you are now mine. You will give up this 3CV. You will cry. You see, you have started crying already. You will cry and thank me in public for saving you from Conrad Hicks and his 3CV.”
Terri looked at Natalya. Still motionless except for her grinding jaw, a single tear was now falling down her cheek. Then slowly, deliberately, Natalya opened up her clutch and reached in to it. Holding it up to her chest she searched around with her hand and brought out a crumpled tissue. She moved it up to her cheek and dabbed her face. Then, just as slowly, she put the tissue back into the clutch. When the hand came out again it was holding the gun.
Chapter 50
“Holy shit!” Casey cried. She bumped her knee against the coffee table, knocking over the champagne flutes as she turned and fled toward the door. Holding the gun in front of her straight with one hand, Natalya swung her body toward Casey and fired two shots in rapid succession. Casey continued running for the door, at first Terri thought Natalya might have missed, but then Casey bounced off the door and crumpled onto the floor. Natalya spun toward Marja who hadn’t moved—her mouth half open, her eyes following the gun. It was now pointing at her chest.
“She was supposed to be paralyzed with fear!” Natalya cried out. “It’s a fucking gun! You’re supposed to be paralyzed with fear! You!” She shook the gun at Marja. “You’re doing it right!”
She fired straight into Marja’s chest.
Marja fell backwards onto the couch, like someone sprawling after a hard day at work. There was just a slight spasm of her body, her eyes wide open and rolling in her head. Then she stopped moving, her last breath hissing out.
“This is why we can’t have nice things!” Natalya yelled down at Marja. She then turned her body, and the gun, toward Terri. There’s something about someone pointing a gun at you that makes you just have to stare at it.
“We have to get an ambulance,” Terri said, her mouth suddenly dry. She took a cautious step toward the door. “There might still be time.”
Natalya looked back at Marja. “I had to shoot her,” she said manically. “She was threatening me! It was self-defense!”
“Yes,” Terri said. Her heart was pumping frantically but she could feel herself regaining control over herself. She knew she had to regain her self-control, to stay alive. “That’s what we’ll tell the police. That it was self-defense.”
A grin overspread Natalya’s face, like she had a remarkable epiphany. “We’re the only ones who know what happened here. We are the only people in the world who know that Marja is dead. We can say whatever we want to say. It’s like it hasn’t even happened yet. How does anyone know who killed Marja?”
“Natalya, we have to go to the police. It was self-defense.”
“Of course it was.” She thrust the gun in Terri’s direction. “You were defending me. Marja came at me and you thought she was going to hurt me and you had to shoot her. Then you panicked and shot Casey.” Natalya nodded her head. “There you go. And don’t worry, you’ll be fine, you’ll have the best defense lawyers in the world.”
Terri felt as if the floor had fallen away from her. She steadied herself as the room swirled. Finally, she managed to say, “Put the gun down and we’ll go to the police.”
Natalya nodded again. “Sure, sure, but we have to get our story straight. I have gunshot residue on my hands, but so do you!” She thrusted the gun again toward Terri. “You were at the firing range today. But why is it on my hands? There must have been a struggle. I tried to grab the gun from you, to make you stop. But you wouldn’t give it to me. Then it went off, in my hands. I . . . I . . . I should be wounded. I . . . I got shot in the leg.” She pointed the gun down at the meaty section of her upper left leg, the gun a centimeter away—and to Terri’s shock the gun went off again.
“Ow! Fuck!” She remained standing but shifted all her weight to her right leg. “Shit! Shit, that burns!” There was a black powder burn mark around a red flesh wound that was starting to leak blood in drips down her leg. “Shit! Ow, I didn’t think it would burn!”
With Natalya distracted Terri took the opportunity to run to the door. She pulled it open and ran into the hall, toward the elevators, but as she passed the stairwell she decided to run down that instead. She was down the first flight of stairs when she stopped to think.
She didn’t know what to do. If she went to the police and told them the truth it would be her word against Natalya’s. And Natalya was the one with the leg wound. If she told the police about Natalya’s motive, about the videos, she wouldn’t have any proof. Natalya would say she just made that up. Who was she? Just some crazy Portuguese Rockhead—a nobody who Natalya had picked up from the street like a stray cat. Natalya would have an army of the ‘best lawyers in the world’. Terri would have nothing.
She took out her contacts and put them in their case. Then she took out the Blink Dog contacts and put them on. She ran down the stairs.
Chapter 51
Conrad was in a mad state of helpless anxiety. He had a new set of Blink Dog contacts on and they were connected to his father’s WiFi. He was watching the news feeds coming in from the Hardline. Reports of the shooting in the Blank Room. Images of Natalya sobbing uncontrollably. Marjaana Kekkonen and Casey Northrop were dead. A city-wide manhunt for Teresa Vieira. “How could she have escaped?” the talking heads all wondered. “How can someone move through the city unseen?”
Through the news feeds he watched the nighttime scene of the mob in front of his apartment. They were agitated, confused. Was Teresa a hero protecting the most prominent follower of 3CV from the scion of the evil VuDyne? Or was she sabotaging the work being done by Natalya who was trying to bring back the power of privacy? Shouting matches were happening outside—the crowd was getting ugly, turning on itself.
Conrad knew Terri had used Blink Dog to get away. He knew where she had probably gone—under the Bergs. He had to go to her—to talk to her—to hear her side, just to know that she was safe. But how? There were news vans and police and a freaking crazy mob outside his apartment. There was no way he could get to the Bergs without being seen.
A male reporter was streaming live. “I’m here outside Conrad Hick’s apartment where news of the death of Marjaana Kekkonen has brought a mixed reaction from the crowd. Here we have a follower of 3CV, who tells me he doesn’t wish to be identified. Why are you out here today?”
A wiry kid in a Guy Fawkes mask was standing next to the reporter. He yelled to the camera, trying to deepen his voice. “Today is the day of revolution! Teresa Vieira has fired the second salvo against the oligarchy! The first was by Armin Shubert! We will not be silenced! We will not be ignored! The oligarchy is not safe anywhere! You are not safe in the Helix! Simon Hersh and Marjaana Kekkonen are only the first victims of the revolution! We are legion and we have nothing to lose!”
There was the sound of breaking glass as the reporter looked behind him as flames licked at a police car—someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail.
Conrad heard the mob outside get louder, he heard screams and howls.
Riots in McGee’s Rocks, the news stream announced. Mobs of people, many wearing the smiling, mustachioed Guy Fawkes mask, rushing and trying to flip over another police car. The police themselves were backing off to a safe distance. Another Molotov cocktail was thrown in their general direction.
Conrad knew what to do.
He went into his father’s bedroom closet, to the chest marked “For the Revolution”. He opened it and took out the Guy Fawkes mask, a gas mask, and two smoke grenades.
Putting on his hoody sweatshirt he donned the gas mask and put the Guy Fawkes mask under his shirt. He then went to the front door and turned on the outside camera. Some kid had ducked into the stairs for safety and was peeking up onto the sidewalk. After a few moments the kid saw something that caught his attention and he scrambled back up off the stairs. Conrad quickly
opened the door and pulled the pin of the grenade, tossing it onto the sidewalk to the left. Then he pulled out the other grenade and tossed it up to the right. He closed the door to wait for the smoke to build.
His father would have loved this.
After waiting twenty seconds he went outside and ran up the stairs.
He was surrounded by smoke and the shadows of people rushing about, silhouetted by flaming cars. He could feel the heat and smell the smoke and the collective rush of adrenaline seeping through the filter of his gas mask. By memory he moved to the nearest alley. Distant sirens wailed from different directions, warbaling toward them. Some of the rioters had decided it was time to leave, some heading toward the same alley. At the edge of the smoke Conrad removed the gas mask and put on the Guy Fawkes mask. He was now just another rioting kid. He ran off into the darkness.
Chapter 52
Natalya stepped into Jerome’s publishing house office. She hadn’t contacted him, but he had been expecting her. Anyone could follow her movements just by watching the local news. She was dressed in jeans, high heeled black boots and a matching black leather vest over a white t-shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She sauntered in with a strange, confident air, considering her recent experiences. There were the barest traces of a limp as she favored her right leg.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Jerome said from behind his desk.
“Why not? What’s wrong with me visiting my favorite publishing company, the producer of such classics as” she looked up at a poster, “Scary Hot.” She chuckled.
“This is a bad idea. Someone will connect the dots between us.”
She went to the edge of his desk and sat on the corner, looking at him over her shoulder. “You’ve got to worry less about what people think. People can think as many bad things about you as they want. All you have to worry about is what they can do to you.”
Girl in a Fishbowl (Crowbar Book 1) Page 24