Feral: An Our Cyber World Prequel

by Suastegui, Eduardo

  “How’s Martin taking to all this? You being there? His new company?”

  “You know Martin. He loves to dream. The bigger the better. So big he can never see past to the implementation phase and what it means beyond two weeks from now.”

  “That’s where you come in. Like last time. He dreamed big about what such and such an algorithm could do, and you breathed real-world pragmatism into it. You typed it up.”

  Sasha shook her head. Chana always got that part wrong. “Typed it up” instead of “coded it.” She saw no use in correcting the repeated slip of the tongue. She saw no use in explaining—once again—that the code she and Martin had brought to life and how it worked was too complex to simply say she, Sasha, had brought it to fruition with single-handed craft. She had plenty to do with it, far more that Martin had ever given her credit for after his arrest. But Sasha wanted to keep believing he’d done that to protect her, to keep her out of his mess.

  “You still there?” Chana said.

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s next?”

  “Assess, adapt, and advance. Good ol’ triple A.”

  “Exactly right. Go with the flow, float along, and don’t stir things up. The path to follow will reveal itself to you in due time.”

  Across the quad, a man entered and walked as if looking for something. Not something. Her. Sasha recognized him as one of the guys in Robert Odehl’s goon squad.

  “Line of sight,” she whispered into the phone before she hung it up and stuffed it into her hoodie sweater’s side pocket.

  He saw her and began a sauntering approach. Before he reached her, she worked her fingers to snap the battery away from her phone’s body. By the time he stopped walking to survey the surroundings, she felt the battery slide off with a satisfying muffled click.

  “Lost?” she said.

  “No. And very glad you’re not either.”

  “I’m an outdoor kind of gal.” She gestured at the fountain and the green area to her right. “Just wanted to get some fresh air. It’s nice here.” Another wave at the water behind her. “And the sound of the water is so soothing.” Should she say it? Heck, why not? “It blocks out all the city noise. Like it’s not there.”

  He gave her a knowing look. “Were you on the phone just now?”

  “I don’t have to answer that. Not because I want to be rude or pleading the Fifth, but because you guys already know.”

  His eyes flashed with another knowing look.

  “What did you do wrong to get night watch duty, for me, of all people?”

  He grinned. “It all pays the same.”

  “You and Martin should get along swell. He loves to say that.” She stood up. “Would you like to come up? I can make us some coffee.”

  He looked around and rubbed his neck.

  “No one will know. Or you can sell it as ‘keeping a closer eye on her’ or ‘gaining insight into her psyche.’ I see lots of brownie points in your future if you spin it right.”

  After another roundabout look and another hand squeeze at the back of his neck, he smiled at her. “Sure, why not?”

  She smiled back and walked past him. With him in tow, coming along on her virtual leash, she kept smiling. His willingness to come up to her place told her one thing: he was alone. She filed that away for future reference.

  22» Evening Brew

  Back in her apartment, Sasha offered Agent—“you can call me Danny”—Samuels a Martini. Standing behind the minibar, she shook an expensive bottle of Vodka, and waved at the various other liquor bottles he could choose from. Of course, he declined. On the job.

  “You’re no fun. Coffee, then?”

  He smiled at her and to his credit didn’t mention that was what she offered downstairs. “Sounds good.”

  She gave him her best impression of a little pouting girl. He smiled some more, and she walked into the kitchen, bottle of Irish Whiskey in hand. He followed her. With his help, she figured out how to work the coffee pot. As the coffee brewed, with her back turned to him as she located coffee mugs in the coverts, she kept smiling inwardly, recalling Chana’s advice.

  You always push them. You stretch them as far as they’ll bend, and learn their limits. And each time they give in a little more.

  Sasha set the coffee to brew and turned around to face him. “While we wait, how do you like it?”

  He smiled. “Black, thank you.” He took a position across the small kitchen, arms folded, right shoulder propped against the entryway’s wood frame. His eyes sparkled at her. “As in plain, without any additives.” His chin aimed a loose line at the bottle of Irish whiskey.

  He looked good standing there. Sasha gave him her best playful smile. It didn’t feel forced. Not faked at all. For a brief moment she let herself entertain the what-if.

  “Been doing this long?”

  “Long enough.” His eyes sharpened a bit. “Not as long as you.”

  “Oh? I’m a spring chicken compared to you.” She glanced back at the pot to judge its status, realizing she’d given him the impression his question had made her uncomfortable. Maybe it had. She found herself wanting the brew to end, the pouring of a cup to complete, and him to drink up and leave.

  “You and Martin go way back.” He omitted the question mark, perhaps wanting it to remain implied, but also sounding like he knew the answer to the day, hour and minute.

  She faced him again. “Worried he’ll be jealous?”

  “No, seriously.”

  “You want me to be serious? OK.” She stole another glance at the coffee pot. Maybe he was unnerving her a bit. Whatever. He wanted to have her tell him what he already knew? Fine. “As I’m sure the dossier you read on me says, he and I hooked up in MIT. And here I use the term hooked in the strictest technical sense.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Most people meet at bars, or on Facebook, or on some online dating site. The geekier set might hook up while gaming. Been there, tried that. Doesn’t work well once you get out of virtual space, if you know what I mean.”

  “I’m kind’a thinking I don’t want to.”

  He grinned at her, under his blond crew cut, and once again she contemplated that what-if. Hmm, not now. No sense in going off mission now, seducing—or letting herself be seduced by—the wrong guy. Only if it served her purpose, she decided, and she filed that away for future reference as well.

  “Good for you,” she said. “Martin and I met in a virtual space of sorts, except it isn’t so virtual. These days it’s where reality happens, where all those bits and packets shape what happens in the real world.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You know how it went, right?”

  “Stories never come alive for me on paper.”

  “We went head to head on some stupid, capture the flag hack. Depending on who you ask it was either a tie or I won by a slim margin.”

  He grinned some more. “But for you two to hook up in the non-technical sense…” He drew air quotes around the last two words. “I’m guessing the official score had to call it a tie.”

  “You’re closer to the fragile male ego than I am.” She flapped a deferential hand wave in his direction. “So you’re probably right.”

  He crossed his arms again to resume his propped against the doorway pose. “Uh-huh.”

  That was, what? The third or fourth time he’d said “Uh-huh”? What it suggested about his verbal skills sank the what-if potential in her mind—at least the fun, desirable kind. She glanced back at the coffee pot. Though still gurgling, brown liquid rose almost to the four cup line. Almost done. Thank God.

  When she faced him again, he was standing at attention. A frown creased his wide forehead. His left hand pressed against an earpiece.

  “Samuels here.” He listened. “All right. Let me switch position, and I’ll give the all clear once I do my check.”

  With that he turned for the front door, saying as he went, “Gotta go.”

  “Raincheck, then?” Sasha said, exitin
g the kitchen and trying to sound nonchalant about the quick turn of events.

  He stopped at the door. Wearing the same frown, he turned to her. “Mr. Spencer is coming.”

  Martin smelled the coffee as soon as he came in. “Planning an all-nighter?”

  “You know me and new toys.”

  “Do I?”

  “I like to test them before I need them. Figured I’d take it for a spin before breakfast tomorrow morning.”

  Stopping to stand in the middle of the kitchen, his gaze switched from her to the pot, back to her. “That’s a lot coffee for a test.” His gaze fell on the two mugs on the counter.

  “You know me,” she said. “I like my redundancy. Either that, or I couldn’t decide which mug I would like best.”

  He frowned a bit, then shook his head, probably at the fact the two mugs were identical. With a twirling hand wave he dismissed it all.

  “We gotta talk.”

  “Dropping in with quite the huff, preventing my preparations for deep beauty sleep, yeah, you better have something awesome to talk about.”

  He looked her up and down. His glare was easy enough to decipher. Still fully dressed, she didn’t look like someone anywhere near deep or even shallow sleep.

  “Everything OK?” she said.

  He shifted his lips left and right before answering. “Whoever sent those guys to chase you down in L.A.—” His frown returned, deeper this time. “They know we’re here.”

  Sasha almost asked how he knew that. But she didn’t have to. Cynthia and her teammates had gotten an intelligence bulletin. Hot off the presses. Highly actionable.

  “You said they were after me.”

  She shrugged. “That was an educated guess.”

  “Come on.”

  “Let me guess again. Your place is in your name. Fully bought and paid for by your investors.”

  “It’s owned by the company.”

  “How charming. Like a parsonage.”

  “Get serious.”

  “Oh, I seriously think they parked you in a place registered under your name, Martin Spencer, CEO of newly minted InfoStream. Full front page story to follow. Look him up in the county taxable property books.”

  He nodded. He looked away. At that moment, he looked to her like a caged animal. No, he didn’t look it. He was just that.

  “They wanted to take me to a hotel.” He looked back at her, no frown this time. “I said, no. Not if—” He halted, as if ashamed at what he’d almost said. “Your place is off-grid.”

  “A safe house.”

  “Right.” He shrugged. “So I said bring me here.”

  He left the rest unsaid, but Sasha could read between the lines. So she’d be safe, too, with the full detail watching both him and her. She almost asked what Cynthia had said about that, but she didn’t have to.

  “Well, then. How do you like your coffee?”

  He wrinkled his nose at the coffee maker. “That’s brand new.”

  “Mm-hmm. Took it out of the box earlier.”

  “You can’t just brew a pot first time off. You have to let it run hot water through a couple of times.” He shrugged. “At least once.”

  “There goes that, then.”

  He gave her a stern look and held her gaze for a moment. “Do you have any paper?”

  “What for?”

  “It’s a test for the coffee.” He winked at her, without a smile. “Google it, OK?” He nodded at her.

  She nodded back. Earlier she’d spotted a notepad and pen in one of the drawers. It took her three tries to find the right one. She handed pen and paper over to him.

  “Totally looking forward to this… scientific demonstration.”

  He nodded again. “Watch and learn.” He handwrote with the speedy flare of a doctor writing a prescription. Fortunately, the end result was more legible.

  “TELL ME WHO’S AFTER YOU… AND ME!”

  “And now what?” she said. “How long does this… test take?”

  “Shouldn’t be long.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she said as she scribbled, “Folks not happy with my skim hack.”

  “Almost there,” he replied while he wrote. “ASKING FOR MONEY BACK?”

  “Oh, I see. Is it supposed to go yellow like that?”

  “Yeah.” He opened his eyes wider and shoved the paper and pen back at her.

  She wrote, “Yes, and then some.”

  He let out a slow breath. “It looks good. The color means not too metallic. No iron excess.”

  He was totally BS’ing now, and Sasha wondered whether the folks listening in on their conversation would catch on. Or who knew? Maybe a quick let-your-fingers-do-the-Googling excursion would prove Martin’s test true.

  “So what color is it supposed to turn if the coffee is no good?”

  He glowered at her. “I forget. Brown or blue.”

  “Great. Let’s pour it. Cream? Sugar?”

  “Black.”

  “That’s a familiar refrain.” She said that picturing someone listening in to her conversation with Agent Samuels. How great was that? She thought she’d played him, and he’d played her all along, complete with a recorded pumping session.

  Martin was giving her a questioning frown.

  “Never mind.” She handed him his mug. “Long day. Very long, Martin. And now we’re caffeinating it to keep it going. How crazy is that?”

  He drank from the mug. He took his time with it. “Good,” he said. “Beans?”

  “Ground fresh.”

  He kept sipping. Sasha started drinking from her mug. She wasn’t much of a coffee aficionado, but this evening brew tasted like chocolate going down, but with a sharp, acidic bite to it. The way her chest warmed from the top down wasn’t bad either. She took another long sip, letting it turn into a hot, almost burning swallow. The second time around Sasha got nothing but bitterness on the edge of sour going down. The caffeine kicked in next. She should’ve eaten something, but earlier her appetite had eluded her, and she’d skipped dinner.

  Martin’s phone rang. Cynthia’s voice sounded off, audible enough for Sasha to make out what she was saying. More like shouting. Something about staying put and, “don’t open the door until I get there.”

  No sooner had he put his phone away, someone was banging on the door.

  Sasha grabbed three steak knives and walked to the door. Martin tried to catch her by the arm, but she shook him off. She approached from the side, hugging the wall. The pounding continued. At the doorframe now, Sasha paused. Then, in one quick motion she slid up to the peep hole.

  The wide angle lens showed a distorted view of Agent Samuels. It took her a second to realize part of the distortion came from his expression. And the way he was holding his throat.

  She reached for the deadbolt and unlocked it.

  “No,” Martin shouted.

  Samuels stumbled in. Sasha closed the door, then turned as Samuels dropped to his knees, still clutching his throat before he fell face first, convulsing. Blood covered his shirt.

  “What the hell?” Martin said.

  Sasha checked him. No wounds. She went for his neck, prying his grip away. Closer examination showed it. A tiny puncture.

  “The blood’s not his,” Martin said, as if realizing some truth in slow motion.

  Sasha didn’t bother fill in all the blanks, how Samuel’s had probably put down the other guy before he’d succumbed to his own tiny wound. She searched him until she found his spare clips. Useless without his gun, which he’d probably dropped in the struggle, she tossed the clips aside.

  Then she used one of the steak knives to slash off her ankle bracelet.

  “What are you doing?” Martin said.

  “We gotta move, and fast.” She jumped to her feet and quick-stepped to the door. “Martin, now.”

  “Cynthia said to stay here.”

  “She would.” She pointed at the bracelet on the floor, next to Samuels’ body. “Because she doesn’t know that thing led them right to us.”
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  He opened his mouth and froze it in an almost perfect circle. How, she could tell he wanted to ask. Like he didn’t have the imagination to figure out how someone had tapped into a U.S. government tracking asset.

  Martin stood by the downed agent’s body. Sasha shouldn’t have done that, take off that bracelet. Not because he thought she was wrong about how her pursuers had found her. No, not that. But taking it off and running out would leave Cynthia in the dark about their whereabouts.

  “Martin, we need to move.” Sasha’s calm voice cut with the edge of restrained anger. Or panic. Martin couldn’t tell.

  He bent down and reached for the bracelet. He realized cutting it off had done something else, namely it had severed the wiring that indicated “bracelet on.” Bringing the cut ends together, he held them in place with mild hope of reestablishing the connection and making the short-term break look like a glitch. Especially if they didn’t have a real time feed. He looked up at Sasha.

  “Do we have tape?”

  She re-bolted the door. “Jesus, Martin.” With three long strides, she reached the couch. “Help me with this.”

  Martin stood up and joined her. With one hand still holding the bracelet in place, he assisted her to slide the couch to the front door.

  “Standing at an angle,” she said.

  Once he saw her lifting one end, he got it. He lifted and pulled on that end too, until its weight lodged it against the door.

  “Hold it there,” she said, while she walked to the lower end. She shoved it forward until it formed the hypotenuse of a triangle. Sasha pushed down on the lower end, dragging it back and forth until dug into the carpeting that edged up to the hardwood floor entry area.

  “How often have you done this?” he asked with a vain attempt at levity.

  She bent down to pick up her knives. Hands at her hip, one holding a knife and the other gripping the other two, she shook her head at him. Martin looked away from her and at the couch parapet. Really good setup, really. Opening that door would take some doing. For bonus points, if someone decided to shoot through it, the bottom of the couch would catch most of the bullets.