"Don't worry. If it doesn't work, we’ll only be in the same place as a few hours ago,” Natalia encouraged him. “Let’s try it.”
Gus nodded and went back to typing. After a few seconds, there came the sound of a message.
"One of them has already started," explained Gus. A few seconds later, they received two more notifications. "Good, it's in motion.”
They all fell quiet again, expectant, looking insistently at the monitor, as if by doing that they would be able to get a quicker result. A fresh beep broke the silence. Carlos and Natalia riveted their eyes on Gus, neither one of them daring to say anything.
“It’s Skuld, one of my Finnish friends,” announced Gus, disheartened. “His program doesn’t work. He’s modifying it to put it right, but he doesn’t know how long it’s going to take.
“Okay, don’t worry. We still have the other two,” Natalia consoled him.
They went back to waiting, not daring to move from their seats, as if the slightest lapse in inattention could influence the result of what those young men were trying to do thousands of miles away. Another beep made them hold their breath.
"More bad news from Finland. Fenris’s program doesn't work either,” Gus threw himself into lighting another cigarette, fearing that his nerves were going to shatter.
“Well, to me the Russians have always seemed highly likeable: they invented vodka. Their program will work for sure,” joked Carlos, trying, unsuccessfully, to reduce the tension in the atmosphere. “By the way, your friends have the weirdest names.”
“They’re their usernames. These guys are hackers, Carlos. They have fun attacking other peoples’ computers. How can you expect them to give their names to anyone?”
“Not just to anyone, but to you, yes. After all, you’re all really good friends, and you all have enough trust in each other to be sharing the details of our investigation, right?”
Gus puffed out and went back to looking intently at the screen, pretending that he had not heard him. He was too nervous to get into another argument about that with Carlos. The minutes passed by without anything happening. He dared to start feeling a little hopeful. Didn't they say that no news is good news? He decided that, if he did not receive anything soon, he would send him a message asking him what was happening. On the clock on the screen, time seemed to have stood still. On grabbing the mouse to write to him, there came a beep announcing a new incoming message. It was from Yenisei, his last hope. He tried to contain the tremble in his hand in order to open the message, without really being sure whether he wanted to know what it said. The content caused all of his hopes to vanish.
"It's also failed. I'm sorry," Gus hung his head, unable to face his friends’ looks of disappointment.
***
The sound of the knife against the grinding stone pounded in my brain, reminding me of the previous deaths, of the blood, the screams, the tears... I could not allow myself to feel compassion or pity. I had to do it; there was no going back. I had chosen this road a long time ago, the only one possible for attaining pardon and redemption. It was my life or theirs, and I did not have the necessary bravery to end my own. At least not until I had finished paying. Not until I felt at peace.
I put the knife away in my rucksack along with the axe I had been sharpening moments before. The sight of the weapons turned my stomach, as I anticipated the images that I would have to see that tonight. There was no going back now; all of the cards were down on the table, and had been for a long time now. My desires to control my own life, to erase the past and to be a normal person were useless thoughts that only served to hurt me. The mistakes I had made could neither be erased nor ignored... I closed the rucksack and left it by the door.
***
“What do you mean, it’s not working either? There must be something that can be done, right?” exclaimed Natalia, feeling the urge to throw herself at the keyboard, for the sake of doing something.
“Well, there’s no need to despair. They’re trying to put it right,” Gus apologised.
“And how long will they take?” interrogated Carlos.
“I don’t know. It could be five minutes, or five days. Or it could be it never works. I already warned you about this when I told you my idea.”
“It has to be today,” Carlos got up out of the chair, unable to stay still a second longer.
“Calm down, there’s not such a hurry. It’s only been a fortnight since Patricia’s murder,” Natalia pointed out, in an even tone. “Surely we have more than a month before he tries it again...”
“No, it’s going to be today. I know it.”
“And how do you know that? Are you a clairvoyant?” she teased.
“No, damn it... It’s just the way I feel... It’s a gut feeling. And don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not making fun of you; I’m trying to get you to realize that nothing’s going to happen today. You’re just nervous.”
“Well I can’t help it. We have to do something,” Carlos sat back down again and lit another cigarette.
“Give us a few minutes. Maybe my friends will get somewhere with it,” said Gus.
They went back to waiting, until there came the sound of another message. Gus read it, and translated it for them.
“It’s Fenris. He can’t find the error. He thinks that it could be down to some protection from the server. But he’s going to keep trying.”
“Damn it, I can’t take any more of this,” protested Carlos, getting up again.
“And where are you going to go?” asked Natalia.
“I don’t know... wherever, to the kitchen. Anywhere where I can’t see that bloody screen. I’ll bring you both some coffee.”
Carlos left the living room without giving them time to consider whether they felt like coffee or not. A few seconds later, they heard the sound of pots and pans.
“Maybe you should go and see what he’s doing,” mentioned Gus. “The state he’s in, he’s going to destroy all of your tableware.”
“Let him get it out of his system. If he stays in here, the things he’s going to destroy will be our nerves.”
Through the loudspeakers there came the sound of another incoming message. Carlos opened the kitchen door and stood still in the lintel, expecting Gus to read it out.
“Message from Yenisei. He says that the program is still not working,” Gus stopped a few seconds before he carried on reading, not knowing whether he should continue. “I don’t want to get your hopes up a lot, but he’s asking me for Charon’s email address. He’s had another idea, and thinks that it’ll work this time.”
***
Susana sat down in front of the window to think. It was getting dark, but there was still not a single cloud in the sky. She sighed. An almighty rainstorm would have been a good excuse. She felt a pang of guilt for having the thought, which was increasingly more urgent, that it would not be terrible if she did not go. She did not understand what was happening to her. She loved him, and she knew that he loved her too. She was not afraid of him not showing up. So then, what was it?
She went back to thinking that her problem was fear that the dream would be over, that the magic would disappear once they were no longer two strangers who talked about love, and who dreamed of seeing each other, but rather two regular people. What would become of her if she realised that the boy she loved only existed in her mind? Would it not be better to carry on as she was, dreaming that one day they would meet, and that everything would be perfect?
Even more nervous, she turned on the computer. Alex must have already left his house, but just in case she was able to reach him... Maybe he was having the same doubts, and had logged in at the last minute. She waited anxiously whilst she connected to ICQ. There was nothing: not a single message. He was surely already on his way there. She should have told him about those doubts days ago, she should have realised before that she was not ready... She left the computer on, in the hope that she would still get a message from him.
**
*
“Could you explain to me what it is you’re all going to do now?” asked Carlos.
“But if you’re not going to understand...” complained Gus.
“Damn it, it doesn’t matter. That’s how we’ll pass the time.”
“I don’t know whether you think you’re the only one who’s nervous here. I’m hysterical, and explaining this to you now, with your level of IT, is not going to help me to calm down. You know you don’t usually understand a single word about computers but, instead of asking me to go along explaining concepts to you during the moments where we have nothing to do, you tell me to explain it to you now, as if it were that easy...”
“Gus, stop,” said Carlos in a firm voice. “Are you busy now? No, right? So explain. That’s what I’m paying you for.”
Gus went to retort again, but the look in Carlos’s eyes warned him that now was not the right time. He sighed in resignation, lit a cigarette, and leaned back in the chair before starting:
“Let’s see, how shall I explain it? ICQ requires a password, which only the user knows, so that everyone else can’t go into your account on your computer and steal your messages from you.”
“I already know that. That’s why we still don’t have his account.”
“Okay, now imagine that you have an account and you forget the password. Then, even though you would be the legitimate owner, you wouldn’t be able to get in. Are you following me?”
Natalia stopped channel hopping and came over to join them, interested:
“But we’re not the owners,” she replied.
“Natalia, don’t interrupt my flow. If you just let me carry on with my explanation, you’ll see how in the end you’ll understand it,” answered Gus, feeling annoyed. “Okay, when you forget the password, you can ask ICQ to remind you, so that you don’t lose the account. Then ICQ will send the password to your email address.”
“Excuse me, but we don’t have access to his email either,” said Natalia, disputing again.
“I know; that’s why my friends are trying to get into it. It’s easier to hack than an ICQ account. Once they have access to his email, they’ll ask ICQ to send them the password there, and then we’ll be in.”
They went back to waiting. Gus was looking anxiously at the screen, watching as the minutes went by extremely slowly on the computer clock. If only he could find something to distract himself with... The seconds between messages seemed eternal.
It had already been a good while since he had sent Yenisei the email address that Charon used, and he had still not received anything from him. He knew that, if he did not write, it was because he was busy trying to hack Charon’s account, and that that was much more important than sending him a message to put his mind at ease, but he could not contain the anxiety. He decided to write to ask how it was going for him. One minute later, there came a reply. Gus turned to face Carlos and Natalia, who were sitting in front of the television, although they were not watching it. The ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts situated between the two of them betrayed what their main activity had been that afternoon:
“My friend says he’s working on it and that, for the moment, he’s not encountered many difficulties, but we need to give him a little more time.”
“I hope he hurries up, because time is what we don’t have,” Carlos got up and parted the curtains in order to point up at the sky, which was getting increasingly darker. “Night’s already falling.”
The three of them fell silent once more. Carlos had managed to pass on his worry to the rest them, and now they were all feeling the urgency, the groundless but pressing certainty that that night, Charon would strike again. Carlos sat back down alongside Natalia, without even sensing her presence, his lifeless gaze on the television screen. The sound of another incoming message caused them to eagerly turn back around.
“It’s Yenisei again,” Gus’s face was glowing. “He’s done it. He’s got into his email account. Now it’ll be just a few minutes for us to get his password, and it’ll be ours.”
***
It was still not raining. Now there really was no excuse. He would be arriving at the beach in an hour’s time, and she needed to make a decision now. If she stayed at home going over it again and again in her mind, she would never dare to go. She needed to make a decision between taking the risk of her story with Alex not working out, or staying home: either way entailed losing him. She looked at the screen. He was still not logged in. He would be on his way there, and perhaps be as nervous as she was. She would have to risk it. The best thing would be to leave now and take a walk along the beach to calm herself down before he arrived.
On going to disconnect from the Internet, her anxiety began to skyrocket, making her feel like she was going to cry. The most likely thing was that everything would be ruined the moment they saw each other; that she would not be able to say even a single word. Her dream would end forever. Perhaps she ought to take advantage of that moment to tell him what she was really feeling for him, even if he did not receive it until he got back home. She clicked on Alex’s name on the screen, and typed out a message. Feeling somewhat more at ease, she turned off the computer and grabbed her jacket. She repeated to herself several times that everything was going to go well, in order to give herself some encouragement, and left for the beach.
***
“Message from Yenisei!” Before Gus could finish calling out, Carlos and Natalia were already by his side, looking avidly at the screen. “He’s done it! Here is the password: ‘Mónica’. To be honest, it’s a really easy one.”
“How is it easy?” said Carlos. “We could have spent years before that name occurred to us.”
“Sure, because to us it doesn’t mean anything, but Mónica must be an important name for Charon and somebody who knows him in person could be able to work it out. It’s better to set a password comprised of a combination of letters and numbers, something like A23F57Y,” Gus was not looking at them as he spoke, now focusing his attention on using the password he had just received to enter into Charon’s account.
“What could ‘Mónica’ mean to him, Natalia?” asked Carlos.
“I don’t know... It could be the name of a family member, that of his first victim, of his first girlfriend...”
“But wasn’t he homosexual? How is he going to have had a first girlfriend?” he objected.
“I told you it was a hypothesis. And in any case, we could still be dealing with a homosexual who doesn’t want to acknowledge that he is, so he could have had a girlfriend in the past. I don’t know, Carlos.”
“We have it. We’re going in,” Gus’s cries made Carlos and Natalia rivet their attention back onto the screen. “We’re now connected to ICQ via his account.”
“And he doesn’t have a single message?” asked Carlos, despairing. All those nerves, all that work, and yet again it feels like we’re not getting anywhere...”
“You need to wait a little,” the beep of an incoming message caused them all to fall silent for a few seconds, as startled as if they had just found a defiled grave. Gus reached out his hand to the mouse and opened the message:
−I know I’ll be seeing you in an hour, but I’m so nervous that I thought I would write to you in case something goes wrong. Whatever happens tonight, you need to know that I’ve loved you more than I’ve ever loved anybody, and these last few months talking with you have been the happiest of my life. I hope that everything will go well, and that I will be able to give back to you in return just some of the happiness that you have given me. See you very soon. I love you.
Susana
“Send her a message, quick! She mustn’t leave her house!” cried Natalia.
Gus typed quickly, feeling as though his heart was about to come out through his mouth. The message took a few seconds to go. Gus’s look of despair revealed that it had not worked:
“ICQ says that she’s not logged in. The message is from ten minutes ago, so she mustn’t be at home anymore.”
“Yes!” cried out Gus from the computer. Natalia turned towards him, taken aback by the exclamation of joy that was rather out of place, without allowing her brain to interpret it as a sign of hope.
“You mind telling us what the hell you’re happy about now?” asked Carlos, full of rage.
“It seems that Charon has been flirting with a very sociable girl,” Gus’s smile was radiant. “Look what’s in her ICQ information: her mobile number.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The nocturnal sky, of an intense dark blue, was illuminated by a myriad of stars. Carlos diverted his gaze towards the horizon. The sea was churning, carrying large foam-covered waves to the shore. The beach seemed calm, without people. He walked a few steps along the wooden platform from which he was observing, before stopping on the corner of a café, now closed, by which he could shelter himself from the wind in order to try and light a cigarette. Once he had managed that, he returned to his post alongside the guardrail in order to monitor the beach again. Along the shoreline, a female officer of the Ertzaintza was walking, dressed in jeans and a light-coloured shirt. From the distance that Carlos was from her, she could have passed for a fifteen-year-old girl.
They had been there just under half an hour, praying that their expectations would be fulfilled; that Charon would turn up for the date, and that they would be able to put an end to those journeys into hell forever. He remembered with sadness his mobile phone conversation with Susana; the way in which she had desperately refused to believe that what he was telling her was true, and her tears on finding out that it had all been a trick. She seemed to have been more hurt by the fact that the whole thing had been a lie than the horrible possibility of having been murdered that night. He went back to wondering how it was possible for this guy to have such an impact on them; to make them love him to such an extent that they ceased to have any doubts or fears, and that the only thing that mattered to them was a romance via a screen. It seemed that the warnings they had given over the television had been useless after all. These girls were not going to see it; they did not want to see it. But, fortunately, tonight the whole thing would be over.
Charon's Net Page 21