“All right. Let’s do this,” said a man in Spanish, the voice echoing from behind the door.
Fuck… She ran to the car and yanked open the rear driver’s side door. Her purse remained on the floor where it had fallen during the abduction. She dove in to grab it and pulled the door shut behind her. After hunkering down out of sight, Dakota fished out her smartphone.
With the angry shouts of her abductors going on overhead, yelling at each other as much as they called her a bitch or shouted about all the ‘pleasant’ things they wouldn’t have to do to her if she showed herself, she swiped her way into the utilities menu and tapped an icon for a golf simulator game.
Only, it didn’t run a golf simulator.
Not that Dakota ever had aspirations at being a car thief, but she did have an almost pathological need to possess the ability to do anything and everything hack-ish. One of the dark web locations she’d visited a while back had specifications she’d used to concoct a nice little bit of software. A fake golf game screen appeared, complete with a ‘could not connect to game server’ error. She drew a password glyph on the screen with her finger, unlocking the real program beneath the false game. Its plain black interface had one button: go.
She tapped it.
“Where are you?” screamed Light Voice, overhead.
Oh, yeah, like I’m going to tell you. She rolled her eyes. Did CSI hire these guys from Henchmen R Us?
If not for being scared shitless, the idea of a room full of thugs waiting to be hired to go do corporate badness, punching a time clock and taking lunch while abducting or beating people up, would’ve made her laugh.
The app picked up the wireless in the car, resolving the control frequency in eighteen seconds. Another icon popped up indicating it scanned for the key fob signal. She peered up at the roof, mentally commanding one of the thugs to walk close enough, and be the one who had the key on him.
Twenty-two agonizing seconds of screaming and banging echoed through the warehouse before the phone displayed a full set of buttons to start the engine, set off the horn/lights, or open the trunk. Hah! Sucker walked in range.
She slithered between the front seats into the driver’s position. As long as she kept the app running, her smartphone acted like the key fob. The car would detect it being present and work.
Dakota pushed the engine start button, and the Lincoln’s dashboard lit up. The gas engine wouldn’t turn over until she tried to go faster than twenty miles per hour, or the battery died. This, she was totally fine with: it meant silence. She grabbed the shifter in both hands since the cuffs forced her to, and pulled it into reverse.
The driver door whipped open. She snapped her head to the left, staring at a middle-aged guy with slick-back hair and brown skin. He didn’t radiate a choking cloud of cologne, so he couldn’t be Light Voice. He barked a little cry of victory and grabbed a fistful of her hair at the back of her head, like he scruffed a wayward kitten.
“Sneaky little thing, aren’t cha?”
“Yeah.” She grunted and spun toward him, jamming the stun gun into the front of his throat before squeezing its only button.
Hot spittle flew out of his mouth. Legs locked rigid, he went straight to the ground like a plank, twitching and convulsing. His death grip on her hair tightened, dragging her out of the car so she fell on top of him. She gave him another zap until his fingers flew open, then leapt back into the Lincoln, pulled the door shut, and stomped on the gas hard enough to make the combustion half of the engine kick on. Tires squeaked on concrete as the Town Car hurtled backward.
Fortunately, the open tarmac between warehouses had enough room that her clumsy effort to steer in handcuffs didn’t send the Lincoln sailing rear-end-first into a wall across the street. She had to let go of the wheel to shift into drive, and again squealed the tires when she mashed down on the accelerator. Two men in leather jackets came running out of the warehouse behind her, but had no hope in hell of catching a car on foot. One pulled a gun, but didn’t shoot at her.
She turned at the first possible chance to go right, away from the water, and accelerated down a narrower road flanked by forklifts, racing past warehouse after warehouse. The area on the left opened into a massive field of transoceanic shipping containers stacked ten or so high on a lot big enough for three or four football fields to stand abreast.
A handful of gang punks emerged from dumpsters and junk trucks, reacting to the sound of an approaching car. None did anything more than make bewildered or startled faces at her as she careened on by. The road curved around to the left, bringing her past a row of semi-trailers up against a building. She spotted a gate out to a city street and planted her hands on the wheel, spinning it around like a suicide knob.
“Fucking hate handcuffs…” She grumbled, and let out an “oof” when the Lincoln hit a speed bump at near 60 MPH that sent her head flying into the roof.
By some miracle, no cop appeared out of thin air when she squelched the tires in a hard left turn that left a haze of white smoke in her wake. For a while, she drove taking random turns, too freaked out and mentally fried to comprehend where she went. Gradually, the idea that she’d stolen a car, or possibly pilfered an already-stolen car seeped into her brain. It didn’t seem likely one of those men would’ve used their personal car for abducting and torturing someone. They also probably didn’t rent one because… paper trail.
“Yeah, they stole it. Crap!”
Some twenty minutes after she started the engine, she managed to slow down enough to drive like a normal person who hadn’t just been kidnapped. With each passing traffic light, her fear of getting busted for stealing the car grew. Sure, perhaps the cops would let that slide if she told them the truth, but that would take her right back to confessing to interstate digital break in, which would go straight to the FBI. The police would take the kidnapper’s handcuffs off her only to put a shinier set on in their place. And though her yoga pants had a couple of little holes in the leg, she still preferred them to an orange jumpsuit.
“Fuck,” she muttered.
At the next traffic light, she pulled a right turn and parked in the first open spot of street, not caring about the no parking sign. After tucking the stun gun into her purse, she pulled out a moist towelette packet, and used it to wipe down the start button (pushing it hard enough to shut down the car) as well as the whole steering wheel and the inner handle on the driver’s door she’d used to close it. She opened the door with her foot, kicked it closed, and wiped down the rear door handle she’d first touched.
Reasonably confident her fingerprints didn’t exist anywhere on the Lincoln, she clutched her purse in both hands and hurried off down the street, twisting away whenever anyone came close enough to possibly notice her wearing handcuffs. She had an ‘asshole boyfriend’ line ready, which may or may not be helped along by facial bruises from her ‘chat’ with Light Voice.
She hurried three blocks over and ducked into an alley, taking a seat out of sight behind a dumpster and fishing a paperclip out of her purse. After bending out one strut to use as a handle and biting a crimp into the narrow end, she wedged it into the keyhole on the cuff around her left wrist. A little twisting (and a lot of swearing) later, the cuff popped open. She unlocked the other side and spent a while rubbing her wrists and flexing her fingers to let blood flow into them again.
Her emotion zoomed from elation to fear to anger and back again. She stood, tossed the cuffs into the dumpster, and ran back to the street. Randomness pulled her to a shifty-looking bar named Lenny’s a few blocks down on the opposite side. She ducked in and hurried to a cramped booth table in the back, near a pair of beat-up pool tables. Her seat gave her a good view of the front door. There, she pulled her phone out and dialed Eric’s number.
“Yo, Babe. What’s up?” His voice radiated a huge grin.
“Eric,” she half-whispered. “I’m in deep shit. We’re all in deep shit. Please, I need you to pick me up, but I’m not sure where I am…”
“Whoa, slow down. I’m still at work for like another hour.”
She curled up, hunched over the table. “Eric, please… people tried to kidnap me. I got away and I’m freaking out.”
Eric didn’t respond for a few seconds. “Holy shit, are you serious?”
Dakota’s sniffly, “Yeah” sounded too much like a scared child for her liking. Angry at herself, she cleared her throat. “Yeah… I’m… CSI I think. Hang on a sec.” She checked a map application on her phone. “I’m at this bar… Lenny’s in Carroll Gardens. Please, Eric. This isn’t a joke.”
“All right. I’ll tell the boss it’s a family emergency. On my way.”
She bowed her head against the phone, smiling and shaking in equal measure. “Hurry, please.”
“Sure thing, babe.”
When he hung up, she sank low in the seat, staring at the door. The bartender shot her a curious look, but didn’t approach or say anything. The odds of those thugs finding her here at some random tiny dive bar were pretty slim, but she couldn’t shake the dread those men would walk in at any moment.
She slipped a hand into her purse, hunting for the stun gun, and found the can of Habanero Hammer. The rigid steel canister felt good in her grasp. Fourteen ounces of pure unadulterated awfulness ready to be unleashed at her command. She held it tight, not the least amount of hesitation in her mind at using it.
If she saw one of those guys again, she’d definitely put him in the hospital with burns all over his trachea.
Real Life
27
For a touch past twenty minutes, Dakota sat in a ball, staring between her knees over the table at the door. The bartender, a pale, black-haired guy in his middle thirties, eventually wandered over.
“Hey, kid. You okay?”
She’d seen him coming out of the corner of her eye, so she didn’t jump. “No, but I’m okay.”
“You’re not okay but you’re okay?” He scratched his head, one eyebrow raised. “Need me to call the police or somethin’?”
“I got a friend coming, thanks.”
“Someone assault you, hon?” He leaned to the side, trying to get a better look at her face.
She turned her head toward him. “Why, does it look like it?”
“Yah. Little bit of a bruise there, an’ you seem kinda scared shitless.”
Dakota tried to dial back the pitifulness radiating from her, and sat up straighter. “Some creep tried to drag me into an alley but I got away. I didn’t get a good look at him. Ran here. The cops’ll just tell me they can’t do much if I can’t describe the guy. No point bothering them. I’m not a kid either, I’m twenty-two.”
“All right.” The guy nodded, taking a step back. “I’m Nathan. If you need anything, let me know, ’kay?”
“Actually… can I get a Corona or something? I need to relax.”
“Sure.” Nathan smiled. “Can I see some ID?”
She fumbled her wallet out of her purse and showed her card. “Thanks.”
“Thanks?”
“For thinking I look young.”
“Kid, that’s not a compliment until you don’t actually look like you’re eighteen.” He nodded at the ID card and handed it back to her. “Nine bucks.”
She paid cash, and nursed the beer to dull the edge of her nerves.
The door chime made her jump and look up, but Eric―not a kidnapper―nosed in, as if unsure of having found the right place. Dakota perked up in her seat and caught his eye. He slipped past the door, closed it, and hurried over. She leapt up into a hug, clinging to him for a little while until her mouth decided to obey her brain.
“Holy shit it’s good to see you.” She held him tight for a moment more, and took a step back so she could look him over. “Are you okay? Did anything happen to you?”
“Uhh, no…” He raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”
Dakota pushed him into the booth seat and climbed in beside him. “I’m still not sure. Look.” She held up her arm to show off the red mark around her wrist. “I was walking home from work and some guys grabbed me.”
“Shit…” he whispered, listening as she clung to his arm, recounting as much as she could remember. “Where did that come from…?”
“I dunno.” She raked her hands through her hair. “They knew who I was, but they didn’t know how I got into that data.” Her toes curled inside her sneakers at the thought they might’ve been smashed one by one until those men finally believed her. “The only thing I can think of is that the system, the helmet, read my thoughts when I saw that information about the vote manipulation or the thought influencing. Maybe the game engine is constantly scanning for ‘forbidden’ information.”
“What about that mod? Our helmets are shielded.”
“Yeah, but we didn’t install that until after I spent like an hour reading over that shit with my jaw on the floor. Plenty of time for the thought police to flag the no-no information in my head and send out the dogs.”
Eric lifted her left arm into his grip and gently rubbed the line of bruise over her wrist. “Did those fuckers touch you?”
“Not like that, no. Couple slaps, stun gun. I’m really surprised I didn’t get groped. Maybe they thought I was underage.”
“Maybe. They say terror shaves years off the face.”
“Oh.” She poked him in the side. “My stealth ass saved me. If I had a real booty, I’d probably wouldn’t have made it out.”
“Huh what?” He stammered, almost chuckled.
She reached around and squeezed his butt. “My ‘white girl’ non-ass didn’t trap my hands behind me.”
Eric laughed. He cradled her head, pulling her into a firm embrace. “Damn, girl. If I ever pick on you again for that, tell me to go straight to hell. I can’t lose you.”
Whoa. She tightened her fingers, gripping his polo shirt. It had been a long time since anyone gave off such strong feelings of protectiveness, not since before her father went all conspiracy kooky.
“We have to warn everyone,” said Dakota. “I’ve got emails for Christina and William… but I don’t have any idea who Nighthawk is.”
“Who the heck is Christina?”
She looked up at him. “Really?”
He nodded.
“Angel813. She’s not too far from here I think. William is Kavan.”
“William said he lives near Nighthawk, maybe he can get word to him. Or you could hack CSI again, check his account info. Dude’s gotta have a cush job where he can play from work, or he doesn’t have a job.”
“Uhh, let’s try William first.” Dakota finished the last half of her beer, and set the bottle down hard on the table. “You drive.”
After she stood up out of the bench seat, Eric slipped past her and led the way outside, down half a block, and stopped next to an older Nissan Sentra.
“Oh, wow. I didn’t even think to ask if you had a car.” She hopped in the passenger side.
“I don’t. This is my mom’s.” He flopped in behind the wheel.
Dakota emailed Christina with, “Hi, this is Fawkes, if you don’t remember giving me your email. Serious BS just went down. I need to call you. Urgent.” After sending it, she sent the same email to William.
Eric drummed his fingers on the wheel, waiting, giving her an expectant look.
A bit over a minute later, her phone pinged with an incoming email. Christina sent back, “OMG what happened?” and a phone number.
Before she could click over to the phone, William also replied with his number.
Dakota decided to conference call the pair of them at once, and put it on speaker.
“Bill Decker,” said a voice matching Kavan from the game.
She’d never seen so much as a photo of him in real life, but his voice made him sound tough and confident… just like Kavan.
“What? How’d you call me?” asked a woman with a mild Chinese accent.
“I called you,” said Dakota. “Hi guys, it’s me Dakota… or Fawkes. Look, this is s
erious. Like two hours ago, some guys kidnapped me and dragged me to this abandoned warehouse. They knew about what we saw, and they also knew that other people saw it, too. You guys need to be extra on guard. I got away from them, but they might be going after you. Maybe even right now.”
“Whoa, slow down, hon,” said William. “What happened?”
“Are you okay?” Christina asked, her voice drenched in worry. “Did you go get checked out?”
Dakota shook her head, not that they could see her. “No. Nothing. Just hid out until Eric found me. That’s Rallek.”
“Hey all,” said Eric.
She squeezed his hand. “I can’t go to the cops or I’d have to confess to breaking into CSI’s network, and probably dragging all of you with me. We agreed not to make this public, so I didn’t want to do anything until I had a chance to talk to everyone.” She took a breath and gave them the five-minute version of her ordeal. “My wrists are a little sore, but that’s about it.”
“Stun guns can cause other problems. You really should get checked out,” said Christina.
“I’ll worry about that when I’m not looking over my shoulder for a black Lincoln Town Car.” She peered at the rearview, giving the nervous eye to an approaching Latino in an army coat. He passed by without incident, and she resumed breathing. “William, I don’t have any contact information for Nighthawk. You said you live near him, right? Can you warn him?”
“Yeah. No problem. I got that covered.” Metal clicked in the background.
“Is that a gun?” asked Dakota.
“No, it’s a rifle.” William chuckled. “I did eight years in the Army. Had to pay for school somehow.”
“Oh, awesome. We have our own Green Beret.” Dakota laughed nervously.
“Nah, just an infantry grunt here, but I know which end gets pointed at the bad guy.”
“Charming,” muttered Christina. “So, what are we supposed to do if we can’t call the police?”
Dakota thought that over for a moment. “I… Wait. How about we steal Tom Urban’s mindset? F me? No… F you.”
“Which means what exactly?” asked Eric.
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