Kill Process

by William Hertling

  “You knew. You lied to us. You lied to everyone. The police, your friends. You knew exactly what to expect, how everyone would behave. You engineered us. I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Angie.” She stands, lifts a steel pipe over her head, and slams it down on my legs.

  “NOOO!” I scream and keep screaming.

  The room blossoms into light and someone in scrubs races into the room.

  I’m still screaming when the orderly takes me by the shoulders.

  “You’re okay. I’m here.”

  “Where’s Emily?” I say.

  “I don’t know who Emily is. Your husband went down to grab some food.”

  “Emily’s not here?” I’m so confused.

  “I’m afraid not, hon. You were having a nightmare. You want me to page your husband?”

  I nod and lean back in the bed. Emily has never threatened me, never been a source of fear in my life or dreams. But the nightmare seemed so real.

  * * *

  They dismiss me from the hospital the next day. They probably would’ve let me go earlier, but someone took notice of all the press waiting to talk to me and decided to let me have another twelve hours of rest.

  I can walk, but barely, my legs pure agony. They bring a wheelchair and Thomas wheels me out to the elevator. Downstairs a few reporters are hanging around, working on their computers, probably second stringers who can afford to sit in a hospital waiting room. I don’t recognize any of them. One stands and introduces himself as a reporter for a television station, another for a newspaper, and the third for a local blog.

  I loathe the idea of talking to the press, yet I can’t pass up this opportunity. It’s too big a potential news mention for Tapestry, too big a chance to take a chunk out of Rasmussen and Tomo. I decide on the newspaper reporter: I want someone with more credibility, someone who’s got enough space to report the story properly. I tell him I’ll do an interview tomorrow.

  The police are still investigating my place, and I’ve been told it’s a disaster. Thomas inspected it, and pronounced that I’d be staying at his house. We drive back to his place, and he sets me up in his bed, then gets me the next dose of my pain medication. When he needs to leave for work, Emily comes over to take care of me.

  She takes one look at my bruised face and grimaces.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “I didn’t think it would be like this.” I try to say more, but I’m too choked up to speak.

  Emily holds me tight, and I rest my head on her shoulder.

  Later she gets me tea and sits next to me on the bed.

  “Angie, I have to say something. I’m not sure I want to bring it up, but I can’t stop worrying about it.” She shakes her head. “From what Thomas and your friends told me, you had to know this Daly guy was going to come after you. Why did you send us away?”

  “Are you blaming me for a sick bastard coming after me and torturing me?”

  “Not exactly, but . . .”

  “You are.”

  “You could’ve handled it other ways like a sane person. Like calling the police or having Thomas and I stay with you or even leaving town with us.”

  I shake my head. “It was the only way to make him stop. If he exposed himself and I got evidence, I could go to the police. It worked. He confessed and admitted it was Rasmussen.”

  Emily takes my hand. “You could have died. It was too big a gamble. Jesus, did you set out to kill him?”

  I stare down at where her fingers wrap around mine and debate what to say.

  “I thought maybe he’d come to my house. I pictured he’d come to the door, accuse me of attacking him, and confess what he’d done in view of the webcam at the front door. I never planned to let him in. It’s a Brumbie security door, for Christ’s sake. The robot was a last-ditch backup . . . not for him. For me. If I had to kill myself. I couldn’t stomach the thought of . . .”

  “Shh,” Emily says, as I cry. She leans over and hugs me. “I’m sorry for mentioning it. I couldn’t put the thought out of my mind. I didn’t understand how you, of all people, would put yourself at risk.”

  “I’m afraid of Thomas,” I say in a tiny whisper. “Each time he comes close I want to hide. All my symptoms are back.”

  “Then you’ll keep going to therapy. You kicked its butt once, and you can do it again. I’ll talk to Thomas for you if you want.”

  I nod.

  Emily strokes my hair, and eventually I’m done crying and wipe my eyes.

  “I need to do a press interview tomorrow. Can you help me get made up?”

  “Are you sure?” Emily says. “So soon?”

  “While the news is hot, and before the police try to stop me from talking to the press.”

  * * *

  Emily brings my laptop before she leaves, and I spend the afternoon getting caught up with what’s happened in the day and a half I’ve been out of things.

  There are a dozen stories about Chris Daly’s death, and someone has linked him to his official job at the FCC, who have made no statement except to confirm he was an employee. What’s been reported are the facts: gunshots, Daly dead, me hospitalized. There are mentions of the fraudulent blog post from a few days earlier, and some conjecture wondering if they are connected.

  Other articles reveal Lewis Rasmussen has been arrested and is in custody, but there’s no statement from the police yet about why, or what evidence they’ve found.

  Igloo retrieved the spare video recording from my apartment and leaked it, so the video is making its way around social media, everywhere except on Tomo itself, where someone cut in the censor filter to exclude the video. I briefly consider circumventing the censoring code, but there are too many eyes on me right now. Besides, they’re making things look worse for themselves, which is better for Tapestry.

  Lots of stories are connecting the two events, Chris Daly’s attack and death, with the arrest of Rasmussen, thanks to the video.

  The tightness with which the police are controlling the flow of information suggest the investigation is being run from very high up, which can only mean it’s being taken seriously—and that implies they’ve found further evidence linking Daly and Rasmussen.

  I’m distracted by the computer and the web, and I don’t notice until too late my legs are throbbing and my face aching. The painkillers have worn off and I’m in agony.

  “Thomas!” I try to yell, and stop short at the pain in my jaw.

  Nobody comes.

  “Thomas! Emily! Someone . . .”

  I panic, wonder if Daly got to them after all, or maybe he was working with a partner I didn’t know about. They could be dead, maybe lying in the kitchen in a pool of blood, while their killer makes his way upstairs to . . .

  The door bursts open and I shriek and cower behind my arm.

  “It’s just me,” Thomas says.

  I’m so relieved, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “Sorry,” he says. “I was on a work call.”

  “It’s okay. But I need something, I hurt so bad.”

  He glances at a clock. “Shit, you’re way past due.” He disappears into the bathroom and returns with a glass and my bottle of medication.

  It’s such a little thing to travel fifteen feet away for water and a pill, yet I’m so grateful that I’m overcome again. I take his hand and pull him close.

  He sets down the glass. “Okay to hug?”

  “Yes, gently.”

  He wraps me very softly in his arms, and I rest my head on his shoulder. He’s warm and his shirt has the familiar smell of his dry cleaner. I could stay there forever, but I give him a kiss on the cheek and push him away so I can take the painkiller from him.

  “What was that for?” he asks.

  “For being you,” I say.

  CHAPTER 48

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING Emily brings some of my things to Thomas’s house, then helps me dress and do my makeup. I’m waiting in the living room when the reporter arrives
.

  Two show up instead of one: Brian introduces himself as a technology reporter, and Kristine works on the crime beat. I did my research last night, and recognize the names as two of the most senior staff reporters.

  Brian asks easy questions, background about me and Tapestry. Based on what they’re asking, they already know the answers. Either they’re looking for a new angle, or they’re trying to soften me up before we move into the tough stuff.

  Then Brian nods to Kristine, a silent handshake between the two.

  “Tell us about the events of two days ago,” Kristine says.

  “I went home,” I begin, and “I don’t know exactly what happened, if he hit me or drugged me.”

  Kristine lets me talk about the events of that evening, and then she asks me to start with the beginning of the day. “When you woke up that morning, did you have any idea Daly might come after you that day?”

  * * *

  1997—New York City

  “In these situations,” Repard says, “you’re tempted to say as little as possible. The fewer details you provide, the less there is to remember. You can see why that’s a problem?”

  “They’ll keep asking for more information,” I say.

  “Exactly, and they end up digging deeper in unwanted directions than you’re prepared to go. The alternative is to provide a richly detailed story. This is just as wrong because you’ve got to remember all the details. If you prepare real hard, you can memorize all the details right, and tell them in the same order every time.”

  “Five minutes!” the guard yells.

  “Fuck you,” Repard says, and tries to give him the finger, but hits the limits of the handcuffs before he can raise his arm. He shakes it off and turns back to me.

  “If the story is too complicated, too rich, you have no choice except to memorize it verbatim. Then what will everyone remember? That you tell the same story the same way every time. It will feel like a fabrication, regardless of whether it is true or not.”

  “You’re saying leave out details even if they’re true?”

  “Jesus, yes. Even if everything is 100 percent true, you can’t tell it like it is, because you have no control over how they interpret the story. The objective is to establish a narrative, not tell exactly what happened. You leave certain holes in the narrative, and that makes them ask questions to fill in those gaps. Questions you’re prepared to answer, but, more important, questions to focus their attention where you want it, instead of where you don’t. They can only spot those gaps if there’s a structure to what you’re saying. Only then are you controlling the message.”

  “I don’t know,” I say, and gesture at the visiting room with its bars and plexiglass dividers. “Isn’t the message of your lesson somewhat diminished by the side of the table you’re sitting on?”

  Repard shakes his head and his lips spread in a small smile. “Open your mind, Angie. This is part of the narrative.”

  I try to force a smile to my face and fail. He planned to be arrested and spend the rest of his life in jail? Ridiculous. He’s trying to fit his circumstances to the story he’s telling himself.

  He appears saddened by my reaction. “At least remember this: you need a manageable number of details, not too many, not too few. Enough that it feels like you’re telling a true story, not so many that you have to memorize your recital. You parse them out economically, and make sure the story remains consistent with or without any individual detail.”

  I shake my head, unwilling to listen to any more of his advice.

  “Your luck has run out, Repard.”

  “Luck is for fools,” he says. “I—”

  “Yeah, yeah. You make your own destiny. I’ve heard it a thousand times.”

  I stand, fed up with the whole situation, and leave even before the guard returns for Repard. He’s losing touch with reality. Why do I continue to meet him? He wants to keep mentoring me, but what kind of mentor is someone in jail? I can’t trust anything he says. I’m mostly doing it for him, to give him some motivation to keep going.

  Half the White Knights are here too, rounded up in the biggest computer crime case the government put together since the new FBI chief committed to cracking down on cybercriminals. Now he has to make this case stick or he’ll lose political face.

  Repard and his cohorts are being held out as an example. If you total up all the possible crimes and run their penalties out consecutively, the worst case is three hundred years in prison.

  I’ve had nightmares about being arrested. Even my mother knew enough to spot my boss’s name in the paper, and asked me what I’d gotten myself into.

  In the meantime, I’ve been leading Repard’s section at the company, even though half the people left are senior to me, some by many years. Everyone knows I’m Repard’s favorite, so I’ve become de facto team lead. They’re all crazy, treating the situation like a temporary inconvenience from which Repard will return shortly.

  Three months later, my coworkers turn out to be right. The charges against Repard and the White Knights are dropped, and they walk with a public apology from the prosecutor’s office. The money is never recovered.

  A year after that, Repard retires and disappears. I try to track him down, but he’s totally off the grid. I don’t hear from him again, but when I apply for the job at Tomo, a recommendation letter from Repard mysteriously appears before my first job interview.

  * * *

  The news reporters continue their interrogation longer than I expected. I’m wearing out, and worse, I timed my medication for maximum lucidity when they arrived, which means now I’m in pain.

  “Why would Lewis Rasmussen go so far as to attack you personally?” Kristine asks. “Tapestry has an interesting but completely unproven vision. Tomo has two billion users, the largest revenue of any Internet company, and they’re sitting on a hundred billion in cash, a war chest they could use to fight you for years, maybe decades.”

  “We’re the first truly credible replacement for Tomo,” I say. “Not just an alternative. A successor with a fundamental approach that allows everyone to participate on a fair basis. People don’t want to do business with Tomo. Sure, they may desperately need the traffic funnel Tomo points at them, but at what cost? Nobody can deal with Tomo as an equal.”

  “How many partners signed up so far?” Brian asks.

  “Hundreds,” I say.

  “Really?” Brian raises his eyebrows, and flips through his notes. “Sorry, I don’t mean developers signed up for your API. How many partners at scale that could bring you hundreds of thousands or millions of users?”

  “The CompEx deal will bring on a hundred million users in the next twelve months. It doesn’t get much bigger than that.” When I return to work, marketing will kill me for stealing their thunder.

  “That’s one. Earlier you said you were worried Lewis Rasmussen influenced CompEx, in essence to buy voting power away from you, ensuring acceptance of his acquisition offer. Is CompEx even a legitimate partner in that case?”

  “We’ll see what happens. If they pull back now that Rasmussen is implicated, maybe they were a pawn. If they and the other investors are willing to negotiate an investment in good faith, without wresting away control of the company, then we’ll know they’re legit.”

  Brian nods. “Could be.”

  “I had a mentor who said you can only learn who your true friends are when you’re in a jam with nothing left to offer anybody. Anyone who still shows up to help is someone you can count on.”

  CHAPTER 49

  * * *

  THE INTERVIEW comes out on Friday. It’s both the first piece on Chris Daly with any depth to it and yet still far shorter than I had hoped.

  Still, the article is only the first in a series of investigative pieces, and it’s clear they’re working hard on fact-checking, only publishing what they can substantiate. They make the connection between Lewis Rasmussen’s arrest and Daly’s attack, and they’ve verified through “confidential sourc
es” that Tomo did in fact offer to acquire Tapestry on multiple occasions and was turned down.

  Daly turns out to be an enigma, a verified employee at the FCC with an electronic history turned up via a credit check that nobody can verify. Phone calls to past employers turn up employee records, but nobody remembers him. No neighbors know him at any of his previous addresses. The article includes a slightly blurry official-looking photo and a request for more information about him.

  The article promises more details into Rasmussen, the struggle for control with the board of directors, and role of CompEx next week.

  The article’s been live for a little over an hour when Owen Mitchell calls.

  “What the hell have you done, Angie?”

  “Yes, Owen, I’m fine, thank you so much for asking. You probably want to know how you can help, right?”

  “No, I want to talk about you going to the press.”

  “Really, Owen. Three days after I was attacked and beaten, and you never ask how I’m doing?”

  “Hell, I’ve worked with Amber and Igloo every day since you were attacked, helping them run the company, and getting regular updates on you. I didn’t want to bother you at home, not after what the board put you though. I’m very, very sorry about what happened, and also sorry we fell victim to Rasmussen’s manipulations.”

  Oh. I didn’t expect that reaction.

  Owen keeps going. “However, that doesn’t excuse talking to the press about the investors the way you did. CompEx has a substantial brand. They do not want to be connected to anything contentious. You’ve put them in an awful bind.”

  “They consigned themselves to that situation by taking orders from Rasmussen.”

  “You forced them to up their stake to appear clean. They feel manipulated.”

  “What are you talking about?” I say. “There’s nothing in the article about them upping their stake.”

  “No, but the reporters asked them questions yesterday, and made it clear they would be watching to see what CompEx does. Today’s article reinforced all of these issues will be exposed in the next week.”