Planet Secrets

by Trisha M. Wilson

  Chapter 9

  It wasn’t until early the next morning when I was making my way back to campus that I remembered my search. Opening Search the Universe, which I’d downloaded from Meredith’s computer unbeknownst to her, I saw I’d narrowed down the field of choices to 3.5 nonagintillion planets.

  Great. I was really on my way to tracking down this one planet. I’d have it cracked in no time.

  Not.

  I closed the program and returned my thoughts to my plan to get into the apartments without attracting attention. I had a standard way of getting in which was almost always foolproof and if I added in the newest application I’d found while surfing the internet, I should be able to get in and out with no problems.

  Unlike last night when I’d been in all black, today I was wearing typical school attire – backpack, stretchy pants, and hoody with the school’s name and logo on it. In these clothes, I was indistinguishable from any other student. Not only would anyone who saw me not question my presence, they wouldn’t even see me. Students on campus were as invisible as trees in a forest.

  Opening the infrared body heat sensing application, which I’d downloaded a couple years ago from a spy website just in case I ever had the need to look inside buildings without the people inside knowing what I was doing, I directed the sensor toward the dorms I passed. On my screen, I either saw black, which indicated that nobody was in the dorm, or a rainbow of reds, yellows, and blues, meaning that someone was home.

  This quick sneak peek through walls would be very valuable to me for I’d only enter a dorm if it were empty. Someone home? I’d try back later in the day, but I had a feeling everyone would be out.

  On the other side of campus an ice cream social was going on. Who wanted to miss out on free ice cream to stay in their boring dorm studying? I wouldn’t. In fact, I was planning to swing by the social after my little B&E.

  When I reached the two dorm buildings in question, I took one more look at the names on the mailboxes, hoping I’d missed something in the dark, but I hadn’t. Meredith’s slimy little name still wasn’t present.

  Starting on the dorm to my right, I covertly scanned the building, searching for even a hint of a heat signature. I found nothing except for what looked to be a small pet on the second floor.

  I’d have to be careful of that dorm. Pets, as a rule, don’t like strangers in their homes and were willing to take a chunk out of anyone who threatened them.

  I walked up to the third floor’s door, which was clearly visible to the outside world because these three dorms were all only accessible from the outside, searching in my purse as I went, making it look like I was searching for the key. What I was really doing was cementing in the minds of anyone who might be watching that I belonged. For who, other than the dorm’s resident or a friend of said resident had a key and would enter the room during the day? Remember, criminals are vampires. They never come out when the sun’s in the sky.

  When I didn’t find the key in my bag, I started patting my pockets, miraculously finding the key which had so eluded me. In fact, the only thing I’d found was my lock picking tool.

  Putting the thin piece of metal into the lock, I jiggled it around for a few seconds before hearing the click of the lock. Pushing open the door, I began what would become a very familiar routine.

  I started with searching the living room/kitchen/dining room, then moved into the bedroom/study and ended in the bathroom.

  I hacked into electronics to find out who their owner was, looked at digital pictures to see if I saw Meredith’s ugly mug, and even checked email accounts, but none of this produced the results I expected.

  Some of the dorms were obviously occupied by boys who’d never heard of cleaning up, or only believed that to be their mother’s job. There would be dirty clothes on the floor, dirty dishes in the sink, and tv’s the size of boats on the walls. Not that women couldn’t be as filthy as these men, they could be, but I’d found that women at least had the common decency to not leave stained underwear on the floor for all the world to see.

  One would think that these obvious signs of a man, or men living in the dorm would mean I could just leave, but that is where you are wrong. I couldn’t assume anything. For all I knew she could be shacking up with one of these men and used this as her home base. So, as tempting as it was to assume she didn’t live in these dorm rooms, I couldn’t. I had to cover all my bases and make sure I overlooked nothing.

  After searching every single dorm room from top to bottom, I was standing in the last dorm, which was on the third floor of the second building, trying to come up with an answer to my problem, but my mind kept going around in circles. She had to live here. All of my intel told me so and it couldn’t all be wrong. I had to be missing something.

  I looked around, noting that something seemed off about this dorm. It wasn’t that it didn’t look like every other college dorm I’d been in today because it was. But there was something different about it that I couldn’t put my finger on.

  I went back to the front door and made my way slowly through each room one more time. The living room/kitchen/dining room had a wooden frame couch with cushions which seemed to have no life left in them. The coffee table was scratched, dented, and had a lot of watermark stains, in addition to other stains I couldn’t identify and probably didn’t want to identify. The kitchen area had a half stove/oven, with two old burners, a sink barely large enough to hold a regular sized dish, and a mini fridge.

  The bathroom had a tiny, pedestal sink, a toilet, and a shower which would fit one person.

  The bedroom/study was just as spartan as the rest of the dorm. The wooden bed frame had a bare mattress on top of it, a small side table, and a stepladder.

  A stepladder?

  What was a stepladder doing in this dorm room?

  None of the other dorms I’d searched had a stepladder in them and with a dorm as devoid of character as this one, I’d have thought that a stepladder wouldn’t be part of the standard furniture a student would need.

  This got me looking to the ceiling. There had to be a reason for the stepladder, which I was missing. Within seconds, I found the answer to my question.

  Just right of the bed was a square cutout which presumably led to the attic. But why? Dorms didn’t have attics. There was no reason for them. It would only be wasted space and in these days of conservation, who could afford wasted space?

  Pointing my phone above me, I saw nobody. Dragging over the stepladder, which was just off to the side of the bed, I pushed the panel aside and was attacked by a retractable ladder.

  That at least explained how she’d be able to get up and down without the ladder I stood on being directly underneath the cutout.

  I carefully climbed up, unable to predict as to what I’d find.

  And what a find it was.

  In what had to be a six foot peak height, I found neatly stacked belongings. At one end was a mattress with a blanket and pillow while on the other was a microwave and dishes.

  This was where Meredith lived? I couldn’t believe it, unless…yes, that must be it. She’s taking the money the school’s giving her for rent and pocketing it. Now it all makes sense. She’s even more clever than I thought.

  I liked my creature comforts, but if you could live without them for four or more years, you could take home a very tidy chunk of change.

  This must be how she’s paying for those jewels. My mind began racing with other random implications of living in an attic for free before I stopped them. I had to make sure it was Meredith who lived here and not some other student cheating the system.

  I finished climbing into the attic and the first thing I saw was a tablet on a small nightstand. I went to it and turned it on. I hoped she didn’t have it password protected, but I was disappointed.

  “Fine, I’ll go through the backdoor.” On my own phone, I activated my trusty hacker program, turned on my jewelry and waved my hand over the tablet, which was an older model than
Meredith had brought with her to our meeting.

  (This older model tablet, which was most likely a back up in the event she broke or lost her newer tablet, had many more advantages to the newer tablet I’d been looking at.

  It was easier to get into, for there were so many security holes in the software that it looked like Swiss cheese. These security holes were well known, and my systems had already been upgraded to look for them and exploit them to the point that breaking in was much easier than it would have been for anything newer. Not that my software had any real difficulties with the newer gadgets, but I knew there would come the day when my software would be unable to get in because the security on these items was so advanced and impossible to crack that I’d be out of luck. I dreaded the arrival of this day, and just hoped it would never happen in my lifetime.

  There was also a greater chance that she wouldn’t have covered her tracks as much because it probably never left home, so there was no reason to worry about anyone trying to hack into it. This would make my hunt for answers much easier than with the newer one.

  Also, people were notorious for only starting new neatness rituals with new pieces of technology. It gives the users a fresh start and doesn’t make them waste the time which cleaning up their old piece of technology would take. I was hoping this old tablet was a mess, with everything in the one directory people normally put their documents into.)

  Within seconds I was searching through the tablet, hunting for some type of identifying information. I quickly found my smoking gun: Search the Universe.

  Only Meredith would have this program on her tablet. No normal college student would have the time or inclination to search the cosmos unless they were an astronomy major and even then, there’d be other indications of that major, such as star maps and papers on the makeup of stars.

  Instead, I was presented again with her own type of compulsive organization. But at least I now knew where she lived.

  I turned away from her tablet and studied her room. She had very few personal possessions, no pictures to speak of, and only a trunk full of clothes. Where was the money, though?

  I didn’t think she’d trust anyone enough to put it in a bank or let someone else hold it for her, so it must be here somewhere in this very cramped space.

  I dug into her trunk of clothes, around the microwave, and under the mattress, but found nothing until I looked in her pillowcase. That’s when I hit the jackpot.

  Thousand dollar bills. That’s the first thing I saw. Thousand dollar bill after thousand dollar bill stuffed around her foam pillow with no care or consideration. The more I reached into the pillowcase, the more loose thousands came out. If they’d been falling from the sky, instead of coming out of the pillowcase, I’d have thought it was raining money. In total, there had to be at least sixty thousand dollars in this ratty, cobweb covered attic.

  All of which she was going to trade for those jewels which were probably worth ten times what she was going to pay for them.

  My palms got sweaty just thinking about the jewels, their worth, and the money I was holding. How could I let it out of my grasp when the money I held was a good down payment on the life of luxury I was saving for?

  The logical part of my brain kicked in even as I thought of everything I could use the money on. If I wanted Meredith gone and also obtain the jewels, I’d have to let the deal go down and then tell Atrox where she was. There was no other logical choice.

  If I stole the money now, she’d become incredibly suspicious and bolt. Meaning I’d never get the jewels or her on the slave planet.

  Now that rationality had settled upon me once more, I put the money back in its home. I’d been here too long as it was. I could not afford to be caught because I’d been ogling the cash.

  Stooped, I looked for another exit other than the way I’d entered, but saw nothing. Hell, there wasn’t even a window, so how was she able to get up here without the person below knowing?

  After checking to make sure the coast was clear, I climbed down the attic stairs and was making my way through the dorm when something occurred to me. There were barely any personal items.

  I glanced back at the bathroom and saw that other than a towel, there was nothing on the sink. No cosmetics, no creams, not even shampoo. Did someone actually live here?

  The more I looked, the less I found. I didn’t even find any personal electronics other than the standard computer that came chained to each dorm room.

  No, nobody lived here, but if that was the case, why was Meredith living in the attic instead of this empty dorm?

  A jingling by the front door drew my attention. Someone was coming in and I needed to hide.

  The living room was out of the question, there was barely enough room for the small couch, chair, and table, let alone someplace to hide.

  The bathroom was out. I’d be a sitting duck trying to hide behind the clear shower door.

  There were no closets, for closets would take up space which we can’t afford to give to lowly college students. That only left the bedroom.

  As the front door was opening, I ran into the bedroom and closed the door halfway. People never entered rooms where the door was halfway shut. They only ever checked when the door was completely shut and they didn’t remember shutting it.

  I dove under the bed, feet first.

  I was just in time, for not two seconds later I heard footsteps coming down the hall.

  The steps were hesitant, as if the person sensed that someone else had entered since they’d left. I heard them push open the bathroom door, pause, and then move on to the bedroom door. This door opened. I felt the person’s eyes scan the room, taking in every detail.

  It wasn’t until I heard the person take a few steps into the room that I remembered that the trapdoor to the attic was in the bedroom. What had I been thinking hiding in here? I should have taken my chances hiding behind the couch.

  Blue sneakered feet appeared next to the bed. They stood still for a second before turning around in a circle. They waited a heartbeat or two before moving toward the door to the attic.

  I heard the scrape of the stepstool and the thump of the attic ladder falling. The stepstool was put back in place and heavy steps went up the ladder. I heard the ladder retract and then waited.

  What was I waiting for?

  I was waiting to see if she was waiting for me to move.

  That’s right folks, this could be a trap to get me to show myself, but I wasn’t going to fall for it.

  I waited for five endless minutes before I made a thump noise with my foot. It wasn’t loud enough to normally attract the attention of someone a floor away, but for someone listening, it sounded loud enough to be a gunshot.

  The trapdoor opened, the ladder fell to the floor, and I heard heavy footsteps run down the ladder. These same steps rushed out of the bedroom. I heard the steps become fainter and then the creak of the front door opening.

  I could imagine Meredith sticking her head out of the door, looking for whoever had made the noise in her apartment, searching the crowds of students milling about below her apartment door and stairs for someone running away or looking guilty.

  Obviously not seeing anyone who fit her preconceived notion of an intruder, or even seeing a person because most students were probably at the ice cream social, so why would they be walking past her building to get to their own dorms, Meredith slammed the door closed and stomped back up to her attic. I waited another ten never-ending minutes before shimmying out from under the bed and quietly leaving the dorm.

  I knew she wouldn’t be vigilant after the false alarm, but I also knew that any loud or suspicious noise would send her scampering after me like the rat she was. That’s why I didn’t breathe until after I was out of the apartment, down the stairway, and on my way back home.

  As I walked, I looked at my to-do list again.

  Operation: No More Meredith

  1. Find out where she lives

  2. Find someone to take her
away

  3. Decide where to send her

  4. Celebrate when she’s gone

  I’d just completed number one, so I crossed that out, making a mental note she’d have to be taken away from her attic or else the neighbors would be alerted.

  Thanks to Atrox, I tentatively had someone who would take her off my hands for me – at no additional cost to myself I was proud to say. Along with that, I knew where she was going, so I crossed out two and three, leaving only step four left undone.

  But I was a long way away from celebrating. She needed to exchange the cash for the jewels, come home with them, and then get grabbed by Atrox’s man. Then I’d have to confiscate the jewels before Atrox tried to double cross me and take them for himself.

  Only after all that was done could I celebrate.

  And what a celebration it would be.