Her email was mostly spam. She responded to one message and then dialed into her voicemail. There was nothing on her personal system, so she dialed into the one for the office. The building might be a pile of rubble now, but that shouldn’t affect their phone accounts. The first couple of messages, she tried to memorize the details, but when she started to lose track, she grabbed a pen and started to take notes around the edge of the newspaper. Names, numbers, call back, ignore, cancel. It wasn’t her job anymore, but organizing Benjamin’s career had been her rock for so long, there was something numbing about pretending for a few minutes that this was just any other day.
A cop had left a message saying they were still investigating the disappearance but that leads were starting to dry up. They wanted to interview her again. They wanted to interview everyone again.
Everyone was a brief list.
Rora felt a surge of guilt. This guy was doing his job without any idea it was a futile one. Benjamin was dead, his body either destroyed or lost in the waste of Wonderland. She was sitting on the floor between the armchair and coffee table, drawing hearts on the corner of the newspaper, waiting for the next message to start, thinking about Strike and how long she’d wait before popping some tires.
Hanging up the phone, Rora ran out of patience with the past. Taking a breath, she acknowledged to herself that she shouldn’t be sitting here pining and waiting. There was a major piece of business she’d neglected so far, and it wasn’t going to deal with itself.
Before letting Strike dash off to deal with his own business, she should’ve asked him for a favor. She didn’t have the time to go out there and get herself arrested because she’d have to wait to be released, which could take hours. So how else could she get her man’s attention?
Chewing on her lip for a minute, her attention caught on Buddy’s phone again. Snatching it up, she opened some of her online accounts, using the usernames and passwords from her former life. Searching for expensive items, she started to make purchases using the saved card details. The transactions would bounce, but she wouldn’t be around for delivery anyway. It wasn’t like she needed any of the objects, they meant nothing to her.
But if she knew Strike, and she was beginning to get some insight, he’d have some sort of alert setup to tell him that there was attempted activity on her bank accounts.
When she had tried to charge about twenty thousand to her accounts, she sat in her armchair and fixated on the door. Not so long ago, she’d sat in this chair, staring at that door hoping and praying he’d walk through it. This time she was somewhat more optimistic—he’d promised to come back.
He’d promised her.
Sure enough, twenty minutes went by and the door opened. Strike strode in, his face set in a scowl, his focus on the phone in his hand. A few feet into the room, he stopped typing and took his attention from the screen to lift it to her. They made eye contact for a few seconds and said nothing.
Rora was trying to judge if he was mad because that might impact his willingness to help her out.
His brows rose in time with his shoulders. “What?” he asked. “I’m here, what do you need?”
Ok, good, he knew what she’d done and why, he didn’t seem mad just suitably impatient, but he was always impatient.
Leaping out of her chair, she dashed across the room, past the sleeping Buddy. Coming up on Strike so quickly that her body bounced on his, Rora descended from her tiptoes while wiggling a fingernail into his torso between the edges of his open jacket.
“Will you ad hoc me a car?” Rising to her tiptoes again, she tipped her head all the way back and let her fingernail trail south until she could open her palm over his fly. She began to massage him through the denim of his jeans. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
Picking up his phone, he read something on the screen before looking at her again. “I’ll get you a car. You don’t have to do that.”
Falling onto her heels, she grabbed his hand. “Good, ‘cause I don’t really have time.”
Pulling him along, she led him out of the apartment and down to the street. They walked a few blocks over and around to a parking lot in an alley. Strike didn’t seem to ponder, he walked straight to a car like it was his, typing on his phone as he did.
Rora liked to tell herself that she was playing look out, even though Strike hadn’t asked her to. But he didn’t pause for more than a heartbeat before opening the passenger door for her. As she descended into the seat, she noticed him looking around for the first time.
“This is a nice car,” she said when he got into the driver’s seat. “Can you hot wire cars like this?” But he wasn’t bent over or crouched looking to open any panels like she expected him to be. His frown was set on his phone. “The owner could come back any second. Is this really the time to be texting?”
But the car burst to life and her jaw fell. “Perfect time,” he said and put it into reverse to pull out of the lot.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she said a block later. “You can really start a car without actually touching it?”
He shrugged. “Modern cars are basically just computers. Trick is to disable the trackers and security systems first. Starting it’s an afterthought… The start button will work without the key now.”
Nodding, she sought out the start button next to the steering wheel. That was good because it meant she would be able to stop to sleep if she had to without worrying about getting the thing going again.
“Ok,” she said, moving onto her knees. She put a hand on the dash and the other on his shoulder to lean over the console and kiss his cheek. “Thanks. You can, you know, pull over and get out whenever. I just have a couple of things to take care of.”
“Sure,” he said.
But he didn’t stop. Rora stayed suspended over the console, her eye going from him to the steering wheel. Deflated, she sagged back into her seat. “You’re not going to stop and get out, are you?”
“Yeah, no, that’s not going to happen.” Her face fell into her hands and she cursed herself for thinking he’d walk away without a fight. “North or south?” Turning to the windshield, she saw they were coming up to two different routes and she’d have to make a decision… Would he pass the test? “Babe, I need to pick a lane.”
Opening her mouth slowly, she inhaled carefully. “North.”
He slid into the lane. She wilted back against her door and glimpsed at his profile. Did he have any idea what she’d just done? There was no hint on his face that he knew she was about to test him, to confront him with a decision he’d said he wouldn’t make in her favor.
She hadn’t expected him to join her on this journey. She’d wanted to dispense with a problem that hung over them without letting it continue to be an issue. For her, it was about living up to her responsibility to Benjamin. But Strike coming along wasn’t part of the plan.
Rora told herself that she was proving a point to her love, but that wasn’t completely true. There would be an answer at the end of this; she just hoped she hadn’t set herself, or Strike, up for failure.
Directing Strike to the secluded resort she’d stayed at with Benjamin, Rora could feel her anxiety rising. Instead of going into reception like a normal couple and requesting a reservation, she asked Strike to go into the resort’s mainframe and make sure they got exactly the right room.
“You like the view?” he asked when they entered the suite on the top floor.
“Something like that,” she said, but it wasn’t the grand windows filled with the view of the lake that she fixated on.
It was the bed that caught her eye.
The huge four-poster number was all ruffles and silk lace. She smiled remembering when she’d first seen this bed. Benjamin had been so in love with the resort, he thought it was romantic, and it was. They’d taken walks around the lake under the midnight stars and eaten outside on a terrace lit by twinkly lights.
“Benjamin and I had sex in that bed,” she whispered, but snapped out o
f her daze a second later to see that Strike was more unimpressed than usual. “I don’t know why I said that, I… I just meant that we came here together.”
His eye twitched. “Literally,” he grumbled and stormed on past her to toss his jacket on the end of the bed. “You bring every guy you’re screwing here?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t… expect it to feel so… fresh.”
Bending, Strike caught her wrist to yank her over to him. Angling her to face the bed, he stood behind her and pushed her head forward until her chin met her chest. Shoving her hair away from the back of her neck, he licked her spine and then dragged his teeth over it.
“Strike,” she breathed out, opening her fingers against the front of his thigh.
“What?” he asked. Keeping her head forward with one strong hand, he used the other to push her hand from his thigh to press it against the erection behind his fly. “This is why we’re here, right? But you say his fucking name and I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”
She managed a smile. “I don’t think I could ever confuse you for him.” Stepping from the caress of his mouth on the back of her neck, she curled her fingers into his and turned to face him. “That’s not why we’re here. I just pray you’ll forgive me.”
His demeanor grew tight and he pulled his hand away from hers. “Who is it? FBI? Interpol? J-CAT? What did they promise you?”
“No,” she said and gave his chest a shove. “And you’re forgiven for thinking I’d ever do that to you. If I didn’t have you around, who would ad hoc me vehicles, buy me cupcakes, and make love to me at night?”
Leaving him at the end of the bed, she went down a passageway at the back of the room and peeked up at the vent above the closet. Inhaling, she then blew out the breath and steeled herself. This was it. The moment of truth. Retrieving a chair, she opened the closet and from the outside, she had to reach up inside to the lip beneath the vent.
His voice came from the direction of the bedroom. “What are you doing?”
“Just give me a second,” she said, her tongue meeting the corner of her lip as she found the bump she was looking for. Smiling, she began to pick the tape and worked it side to side to pull it from the adhesive. Pulling out the metal USB stick, she held it up, triumphant. “I got it!”
When she looked down, she found Strike right there in front of her. With a hand on his shoulder, she leaped onto the floor and grabbed him to drag him back to the bedroom.
“What is that?” he asked.
Shoving him onto the bed, she climbed on beside him and crossed her legs to lay the metal rectangle on the middle of the bed. Looking at it for a second, she exhaled and then looked up at him and gestured at it.
“Strike,” she said. “This is the Point.” He leaped up and staggered back a step, his hand rising to his mouth. “Don’t be afraid of it.”
She reached for him, but he didn’t take her hand; he took a good minute to breathe before pointing at the small object. “That… that’s…”
His next inhale was ragged and she laughed. “Strike—”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that’s why you were coming here!” he said, lunging forward to grab his jacket. “I’m out of here.”
“No,” she said and scrambled off the bed to catch up with him. Rora squeezed herself between him and the door. “Please, just… hear me out, ok?”
Dubious though he obviously was, he let her turn him around to push him back into the room. Except when they got near the bed, he turned out of her advance, leaving her to stumble forward.
“I don’t want to get too close to it.”
Seeing him like this was funny until she saw how tense his expression was. “Baby, why?” Rora asked. “What could possibly happen to—”
“You remember what happened to your driver’s license, right?” he asked. Yeah, he stole it from her. Oh. “Shit.”
Grabbing something from a secret pocket in his jacket—a piece of tech, small and flat—he gritted his teeth and snapped it in half.
“What the…”
He tossed the broken pieces to the floor. “I’m stealing from you and every other person every minute.”
“That absorbs data?” she asked.
“Designed to do a lot of things. Does nothing now.”
Going to him, she took his hands, one at a time, letting them hang loose in hers. “Ok, let’s just take a breath,” she said and shook his hands. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but… I needed to come here and get this, and you didn’t want to get out of the car and—”
“If you’d given me a hint, I might have pulled over,” he said and to her surprise, he lifted his curled fingers to let the back of them brush the underside of her jaw. “Cupcake, I can’t be in the same room as that thing.”
Now to make him understand. “You won’t be,” she said. “I had to come and get it because I want us to destroy it.”
His mouth opened a fraction, but she wasn’t sure he actually breathed in. Sealing his lips again, he swallowed hard. “You want me to destroy cutting-edge technology? You want me to destroy it without… playing with it?”
She smiled and nodded. “Yes, and I know you will.”
“How do you know that?”
Moving in closer, she let her head fall back to gaze up at him. Sure in her resolve that she could have faith in him, even if he didn’t have it in himself. “Because I’m asking you to and you love me.”
“I…” Taking his hands out of hers, he walked away, gripping and squeezing the fingers of one hand with the other. “Babe, I told you this wouldn’t end well if you gave me the chance… I warned you.”
“I’m not worried,” she said, and followed on to take his hand again. “Please, I think if you let me explain the implications, you’ll see that I’m right. There’s just no way this can be released into the world.”
Rora tried to take him over to the bed, but he resisted, so she diverted to seat him on the couch by the window. “Ok,” he said, drawing in a long breath through his nose. “Tell me, Rora… What’s the Point?”
“An algorithm,” she said and felt a sense of relief. “An algorithm that basically quantifies the human soul.” His mouth opened, but she put a hand to it. “It can see inside a person. It learns everything a person cares about, every weak spot, every vulnerability, every crime, every humiliation… every secret. It figures out ‘the point’ of each person’s existence. For some, it’s their kids, some their career, some their secret fetish, or a clandestine affair. It doesn’t matter, the point is it can access every piece of data that ever existed on any person ever, and it runs them through this formula and figures out where a person can be squeezed, and it doesn’t just come up with the obvious answer.
“It actually does a psychological profile and monitors communications as well as measures the frequency of visits to websites, physical locations, etc. It’s extremely complex. It analyzes thousands of bits of data and finds out the truth. It doesn’t just answer with kids because a person has them, it figures out what really drives that person, something that sometimes even they don’t know about themselves… It finds out their price without ever asking them a question or having any contact with them.”
Her hand fell from his mouth to his thigh. “That’s—”
“And it does it in a fraction of a second. It’s… spectacular.”
His eyes widened. “You’ve seen it?”
She nodded and her lips rose. “It had a one hundred percent accuracy rate. A hundred percent, Strike. Isn’t that incredible?”
“But you said it didn’t work.”
“Well,” she said, her hand sliding from his when she sat back. “It needs to be refined. Benjamin designed it to give people an opportunity to protect themselves, you know, to help us learn about our own vulnerabilities and how easy it would be for our weaknesses to be exploited.”
“Oh yeah,” he said, a purr of anticipation in his voice as his eyes drifted toward the window.
“I do, baby. Hypothetically, someone could program it to blackmail and manipulate thousands of people simultaneously. Once the user sets it loose, they wouldn’t have to lift a finger, just sit back and wait for the capital to pour in.”
Getting frustrated, she hoped he would see past the potential personal reward. “And that’s the terrifying part. If this gets into the wrong hands someone could run it and extort people. Part of the reason it doesn’t work is limited capacity, and that’s why it needs to be refined. The code is unwieldy. At the moment, it can only work on a handful of people at a time, but hypothetically, anyone who wanted to use it for their own sinister reasons could, if they had the ability—”
“With the right tech, they could run it on every person on the planet simultaneously,” he said, his eyes flicking back and forth between hers. “I understand exactly what the implications are. With that kind of information, someone could control the world. It goes beyond ransom and extortion. Keeping secrets like that, personal, private secrets, that gives the user the ability to control everyone on a permanent basis. Sure, you can start with, ‘give me all your money’ but easily move onto, ‘I want your wife on weekends’ and then it’s just a quick hop to insider trading and directing governmental affairs… on a global scale…”
Rising from the couch, his hands went through his hair and he moved to the window. Examining him, Rora hoped that giving him a minute to think about it would make him see how it was wrong to let one person or group have that much power.
“It’s scary how it takes every piece of digital information about a person, everything from their deleted internet history to the frequency they use phone apps. It can track the GPS of every phone you’ve ever had to map every place you’ve ever been and cross reference that with every other phone to see who you’ve been near… it gets into all the minutia,” she said, a frown slowly forming on her face. “No one would be immune… including you.”
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