Preston shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Eliza—we need to look at logs, we need to figure out what happened, if there’s a larger security breach—”
“Then keep it. Just don’t ever give it back to me.”
“I know what happened,” Brandon says from behind the desk. Everyone turns to look. He rotates the monitor toward the room. The website is instantly familiar—the horrid orange brown, the layout so bad that it renders the page almost invisible.
“4chan?” Suzanne asks.
“It’s everywhere,” he says. “Reddit. 4chan. Personally hosted websites. All I had to do was Google her name.” Everyone leans in to look at what is unmistakably a scan of Eliza’s Fancy Dog file—username, password, even her allergies to penicillin and fish. Every email address she’s ever had, she’d had to write down on the application and check off if she still uses it or not; a precaution to prevent leaks. Most people lie—who would know? What an idiot, not lying on that form, not keeping something to herself. Doesn’t she care about digital security at all? We don’t need an ounce of hacking knowledge to get her. It is all out there. Her address. Her phone number. Numb and puked out, Eliza looks back down at her phone. She has voicemails.
She shades her eyes so the rest of the room won’t see her face and presses the little recording icon. The first two are fine—offers from talk shows. The third one is intriguing—an offer from Diverse Games Now!, for media training, free. The fourth, she puts on speakerphone.
It is a recording of “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” The part where the voice gets higher and higher. “This song,” she says, her voice small like the sound of it is trying to fold in on itself, “used to give me nightmares when I was little. That was, gosh, how many years ago? How would they know that? How could they know that?”
Eliza looks up from her phone, still playing—“to the funny farm.” Everyone is looking at her. Except Jean-Pascale. He is looking at the computer screen with her file all over it, turning paler and paler like someone is sucking all the red from his face. He pitches forward in his chair and hits the floor with his beak-like nose. Everyone scrambles to him, someone shouts, “Jean-Pascale!” Eliza stands too, but she is lightheaded from vomiting. She sways, and notices Lewis still standing beyond the glass, never having set foot in the office. His eyes meet hers. Nothing goes on in his face; his own version of shark eyes. Jean-Pascale is stirring, his nose bloody and already starting to turn colors.
Eliza, still quiet, still small of voice, wishes for superpowers. Instead of reaching her hands out to electrocute the entire structure of the city, the world, until no computer is left functioning, until everything catches fire and burns to the ground while she watches, she says, soft, squeaky: “I don’t want to play anymore.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
The Inspectre is not the person who takes Lewis’s post and spreads it like oil in an ocean, or rather, he’s not the only one. One person can’t do that by themselves anyhow—we all do it together. He isn’t even the person who comes up with the virtual gang rape idea. Or should we call it rape? Some among us say it’s not the same thing because it’s fiction, fake, digital; the consequences are imaginary. Others point out that, to everyone who sees it, to people who don’t know she’s hacked, Circuit Breaker consents. Whatever we call it, The Inspectre is simply an involved witness at this point: elated at the crowd gathering, giggling at the things the hacker is making her say. He, of course, wears the Vive. A developer’s edition, actually. He has one of the first beta invites (based on the number of hours he spends playing Guilds). Surrounded by all these people watching this gorgeous act of violence, retribution for her earlier lack of response, he is turned on. He is in line to take a crack at it; he is hard.
When they pull the plug on Circuit Breaker’s account, he gets angry. Some of the other men are grumbling, sure. But he feels such fury—they took his toy away when he hadn’t yet had his turn. He is outraged the hacker hadn’t seen it coming and prevented it. The Inspectre is the better hacker; he will figure out some way to play on. He pulls up her information—it’s easy to find by now—and he digs deeper.
He’d been the first person on her emails, the one to change the password. Sure, the smarter thing would’ve been to go for the bank account before someone else got it (and someone else did get it), but The Inspectre isn’t worried about money. He’s worried about information. And emails, G-chats—that’s like living in someone’s head. He settles in to read the conversations, things Eliza always assumed would be private; he’s sure he’ll find something there. The ones with the men don’t interest him. The only ones with a woman, though, a Suzanne Choy—he starts there, with the most recent.
It takes him seconds; he is so fast. Find. Download. Straight to voicemail, that’s what he wants, to leave a message. He wants her to stumble upon it, like tripping into a hole in the ground or stepping on unexpected four-sided dice with bare feet. He cracks his knuckles, imagining her fear and wondering if, like so many others (he supposes), her orgasm face is the same as her terror face. He devours every conversation between Eliza Bright and Suzanne Choy as if they are novels put on shelves for people to access.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Brandon rises from Preston’s chair, marches over to HR, the keepers of the file now leaked in its entirety, and fires the whole department on the spot.
And that’s all. End of chapter.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Suzanne pulls Devonte aside. “It’s me,” she tells Devonte, and then she realizes that makes no sense. “She told that to me, like, two fucking hours ago. I was talking her through the tweets—we were making fun of them, like thinking of way worse things that could be happening, thinking of creepier stuff. I just wanted her to not be so freaked anymore. I wanted to be not so freaked anymore.”
Devonte pulls Suzanne over to the window; it looks like they are contemplating the city. He arranges his posture to look reflective, sad. It doesn’t take much pretending. “Talk out this way,” he says. “Lewis is right out there. We don’t know who else might be watching. Now. Do you think you’re hacked?”
“No, I don’t. I haven’t seen any weird tweets or anything like that, I haven’t gotten phone calls.”
“Where did you tell her this?”
“G-chat.”
“Okay, do you have your credit card associated with your Google account at all? PayPal, anything else? Your bank? I’m talking even log-ins?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t say which. What we are going to do is calmly go back to your floor, and you are going to take your iPad out of your bag, turn the Wi-Fi off, TunnelBear on, and switch every log-in that uses the Gmail account to something different—if you don’t have another email floating around, make one up. Don’t report it to Fancy Dog.”
Suzanne nods. She breathes deep. “It’s someone in here. That’s her internal file. And Christ, Devonte, it could have been anyone—so many people could have grabbed that, copied it and sent it.”
“I know. But three guesses who. You go first. I’ll follow you down.” Suzanne starts to turn, but Devonte says, “Oh—and think of anyone you know who can help us figure out who the funny-farm guy is.”
“Someone—anonymous?”
Devonte nods.
Chapter Fifty
@theinspectre: @yrface You sound sexy, Suzanne. Don’t be jealous just because your friend
@theinspectre: Eliza is getting all the attention right now. @yrface
@theinspectre: Don’t worry, @yrface.
@theinspectre: @yrface I see you.
@theinspectre: Your turn will come. @yrface
Chapter Fifty-One
Immediately after Eliza whines that she doesn’t want to play anymore, she runs from the office. Flees into the night like the coward she is, can’t take a fucking joke. Preston makes it all the way to the street, panting, and finds she has disappeared. He looks both ways, scans the shop windows and heads bobbing along the street—nothing.
He even walks up and down, going inside establishments and craning his head between aisles and around corners, checking coffee lines. He knocks on the Starbucks bathroom door and is surprised by a surly, deep voice. Gone, he thinks. So he continues on to her apartment; he knows where it is, after all. The thought stops him in the middle of the street: now, so does everyone else. We know too. His skin tickles as if it’s crawling with tiny people, tiny hands and fingers, prying open the fruit of his skin. The entire internet knows where Eliza Bright is on her way to, right now. It makes his face flush. He is hot and cold all at once. He has to breathe intentionally, steadily, with the weight of the internet and our eyes pressing down on his chest. He continues on.
He finds himself almost instantly knocking on her door. He jumps a little, startled to realize he remembers almost none of the cab ride. His hands grow clammy at the thought of his mental faculties deteriorating. Wasted brain space. Wasted on the thoughts of his fuck buddy, this person who has weaseled her way into his affections, conned her way into his consciousness.
When Eliza opens the door, wider this time than before, he notices: that she is a hot mess; that she is wearing next to nothing. Her hair is twisted up in a messy bun, bra and panties—plain white ones—and her glasses jammed slightly askew on her nose as though someone played pin the tail on the donkey and got them mostly where they should be. It isn’t unfamiliar, this sight. He knows her body so well by now. The birthmark under her belly button, the scar on the ball of her ankle, the way her lips part when she sees him outside of work.
Eliza opens the door when she hears the knock. We think that is unwise, given her situation, but she is ready to fall into the arms of someone comforting, someone familiar. Or she looks through the peephole and sees her prey. Or she is drunk. Very drunk. She has a bottle of WhistlePig rye whiskey in her hand. Her eyes are red and puffy, her cheeks almost as red as her eyes; her face hurts. “Oh thank goodness,” she says, instead of “hello” or “why are you here?” And that confirms it, for us. They’ve been going at it all along. She falls into his arms at the door and lets herself be taken up, carried back over the threshold. Preston, this is such a bad choice! How could you let yourself be swindled like this! You have a higher purpose, more important things to do, and this actual succubus is going to drag you into hell. Normally we would abandon such a person as a lost cause, but we can’t abandon someone who has never abandoned us. Who gives us cause to exist. We’ll never abandon Preston Waters.
Preston has no issue hoisting her, but when he sets her gingerly on the couch, she collapses, limbs splaying out in all directions, her insides so obviously pickled in liquor. There is something sexy about her in this state, even though she is a six. Gorgeous in her brokenness. We are hard for her vulnerability. The idea that now anyone could have her, just like we all had Circuit Breaker. More gingerly, Preston sits down beside her, coat still on. We wonder: why doesn’t he take his coat off? Does he really have no idea what’s coming?
“Whiskey?” Eliza asks. It is almost a purr.
“Fuck yes,” Preston says as he takes the bottle, takes a swig. It is rakish, piratic, comfortable.
In spite of herself and everything else, Eliza grins the grin of the satisfied, the demon who has won. The alcohol mutes the echo of the rat skull joke that she always carries with her, that usually prevents her from smiling with her whole mouth.
“Shit,” he says. It isn’t impassioned, it isn’t loud or even really a curse word. It is just a fact, stated plainly. “Shit.”
“Yep,” she says. He passes the bottle back. Pull; burning in her mouth; pull; burning in her throat, then her empty stomach. At least the whiskey washes the taste of vomit out, replaces it with the memory of taking Preston out, drinking with him until he gave her what she wanted.
“We weren’t joking, you know,” he says. “About rehiring you. It’ll give you institutional support to deal with this. And besides, no one needs to know about us.”
“It’s over. Everyone already knows about us. And at this point, it’s about what we would rather. Do we want to keep doing this, or do we want to work together?”
Preston thinks about all his reasons to rehire her; that they wouldn’t look like idiots if they got her back. And then he thinks about throwing her into bed, picking her up and slamming her down. He is too far gone to think about not sleeping with her. A puppet. He wants both things, and damn it, Preston, it gives her so much power. He opens his mouth to argue that they can have all of it, every single morsel or drop or whatever, but changes his mind. There will be time, he thinks. He can convince her, when she needs the lawyers or when it all blows over or—sometime. Sometime in the future, the nebulous foggy future, he is sure he can convince her to come back. Instead: he kisses her. Sweetly, then passionately. She bites his lip and draws a little blood. All she can think of is grabbing Preston’s hair, pulling it. That same exact electrifying feeling from the office, back when she had a career. Back when she could imagine herself behind Preston’s desk one day, or at the very least launching a game of her own. An image arrives, unbidden: unzipping his skin and climbing inside. She bites harder and he yelps. It is the closest she can get. She inhales the small squeal, pleasure and pain, but mostly she drinks in the power. The power she has over his body in the moment; the power she has over his mind more generally. When she pulls away, she does her best to look into his eyes as the whiskey rocks her back and forth. She has just enough presence of mind to set the whiskey bottle on the table before he reaches under her shirt, something he’s done a thousand times before.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Or it could’ve gone this way:
Preston makes it all the way to the street, panting, and finds Eliza has disappeared. He looks both ways, scans the shop windows and heads bobbing along the street—nothing. Gone, he thinks. So he continues on to her apartment; he knows where it is, after all.
He finds himself almost instantly knocking on her door. He jumps a little, startled to realize he remembers almost none of the cab ride. His hands grow clammy at the thought of his mental faculties deteriorating. But no, he is just worried. Concerned for Eliza, concerned for the future of Fancy Dog. Nothing about this afternoon went to plan.
When Eliza opens the door, wider this time than before, he notices: that she is a hot mess; that she has furniture—nice furniture; the computer and the hard drive poking out from behind the television; the white walls are mostly bare and her bookshelves are lean—he can relate to that, the minimalism.
Eliza opens the door when she hears the knock. We think that is unwise, given her situation, but she hasn’t thought of it because she’s a dumb cunt. She has a bottle of WhistlePig rye whiskey in her hand. Her eyes are red and puffy, her cheeks almost as red as her eyes; her face hurts. “Why bother with a glass?” she says, instead of “hello” or “why are you here?” And then, to answer a question she thinks she can see in Preston’s face: “It’s from my pre-no-income days. I guess I’ll buy cheaper next time.”
“I didn’t say—didn’t even think—”
But Eliza laughs, mean. “Sure you did.”
“Eliza, I swear, no judgment. About anything. No judgment at all.” Both stand still, looking at each other across the threshold. Eliza tries to remember how to exist in her numb body. How do limbs move?
She takes another pull from the bottle. “Welp. I suppose you should come in.” And she turns around and leaves the door open for Preston to walk himself through and shut. She collapses on the couch, limbs splaying out in all directions. More gingerly, Preston sits down beside her, coat still on. We wonder: Why doesn’t he take his coat off? Does he really have no idea what’s coming?
“Whiskey?” Eliza asks.
“Fuck yes,” Preston says as he takes the bottle, takes a swig.
“I would’ve got you a glass,” Eliza says.
“You said it yourself: why bother.”
In spite of herself and everything else, Eliza grins because she didn’t know he w
as like this. She sees only his professional self, and then only the self that fired her. The alcohol mutes the echo of the rat skull joke that she carries with her always, that usually prevents her from smiling with her whole mouth.
“Shit,” he says. It isn’t impassioned, it isn’t loud or even really a curse word. It is just a fact, stated plainly.
“Yep,” she says. He passes the bottle back. Pull; burning in her mouth; pull; burning in her throat, then her empty stomach. At least the whiskey washes the taste of vomit out, replaces it with the barest hint of impending questionable decisions. She wriggles in her seat, suddenly very aware of how close he is to her. He radiates heat next to her and she can’t concentrate on anything else she wants to say.
Something comes over her; it is the whiskey and the accusation and the realization that he isn’t her boss anymore. She kisses him. Hard. It is the closest she can get. Or she is simply fucking her way to the top, exactly like Jean-Pascale said she would. Or sex would feel good after the shit day she’s had. Or she’s drunk, it’s that simple. And Preston is the beneficiary of good timing. We like Preston. We wish we were Preston too. Sex is always good, even with a six. A sad six, especially. She will be feisty; she will do things to annihilate her body, to make herself forget.
Eliza bites his lip and tastes the breath from his yelp and the copper from his blood. When she pulls away, she does her best to look into his eyes as the whiskey rocks her back and forth.
He looks surprised, but not shocked. She has just enough presence of mind to set the whiskey bottle on the table before he kisses her back.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Or how about this way:
He finds himself almost instantly knocking on her door. He jumps a little, startled to realize he remembers almost none of the cab ride. He was so distracted by the idea of us, the threat of us. We wish we could tell him we mean him no harm, none whatsoever.
We Are Watching Eliza Bright Page 13