Spyware

“Looks good,” said the pig, giving a tiny smile that looked more like he was relieving himself rather than actually pleased. “I just saw you parked over here my last two or three passes down this stretch. Even though you’re off the highway system, abandoned cars always get my attention. Wouldn’t want your property stripped. We get a lot of that around South Sac.”

Air whistled out of Spurlock’s locked lungs. “Yes sir, thanks for the thought, officer.”He reached out for his papers.

The cop looked up and made as if to hand over the papers, but halted. For the first time, their eyes met. The cop was balding, tall and slim with broad shoulders. His face was long and looked fortyish. He wore a neat brown mustache that look as though he trimmed it with tweezers.

Then Spurlock saw it in his eyes: alarm bells had been triggered. Some fucking pig-instinct had just been tripped, and the cop smelled something, something he didn’t like.

“I would like to take a look in the back, if you don’t mind,” he said.

Spurlock forced a smile. That was it, then. His face felt dead and rubbery. There was nothing he could do now. He would climb out, hopefully behind him, then pull the.22 and spray every bullet he had into him. He realized numbly that it would be his first Murder One. He had often wondered when it would come.

“It’s locked, sir, I’ll just have to open it for you,” he said. He reached down to the door latch and popped it open. The cop back up a step automatically.

“Don’t forget your keys,” said the cop.

“Huh? Oh, right,” Spurlock said, giving a little nervous laugh. He turned back to grab the keys dangling in the ignition. Squirt-squirt-squirt, he thought, that’s all there was to it. He knew he would have to do it right away, without hesitating or hoping to get out of it. He turned back with the keys and sure enough, the cop had his back turned. He was talking into the radio mike that he kept clipped to his shoulder.

The little steel squirt gun was so tiny Spurlock could hide it neatly in his palm. He did so now as he closed the van door behind him. The cop was walking away, and Spurlock felt a moment of panic; he wanted to be at point-blank range.

Suddenly, the cop stopped speaking into his radio and turned back to Spurlock. “I’ve got an assistance call,” he said, “drive safe.”

And it was over, just like that. He trotted back to his black-and-white and drove off. Spurlock was left rubbing his fingers nervously along the barrel of his little black squirt gun.

“I’ve got to get rid of this kid,” he said to no one.

… 55 Hours and Counting…

Ray spotted Magic in a crowded cafe. He signaled her quietly, asking for a private conversation. Magic hesitated, then touched the mouse and the connection was made. The two of them conversed not in a physical environment, but rather in a chatroom. Nocarrier was a social networking site full of chatrooms, blogs and message boards, now slowed down by the choked internet, but still active. The name of the site caused many to smile when they read it. An inside joke, NoCarrier was the error message one used to get all too often when your personal computer tried to connect across the phone system to another computer and failed. He had found the boards that specialized in university socializing, figuring that Nog had recommended the site for this reason. Someone at the university had to know something.

Physically, Ray sat in a quiet corner of a hotel lobby. He had finally found one that had unprotected free wireless service. His greatest fear was that someone would recognize him. As a college professor in a college town, he was someone that was easily recognized by a lot of people. He had decided to set up camp in the stuffiest, most expensive hotel in town because students, as a general rule, didn’t have the money or the inclination to go there. Elderly couples, bent on golfing their way through retirement and business people who checked their watches constantly were the only patrons in sight. Hotels often had outlets as well. He’d spent the morning setting up in a quiet conference alcove of the Red Lyon Inn’s lobby. Using his prepaid cellular for the internet connection, he felt he had the perfect spot for his work. He had purchased one of the all-you-can-eat for a month phone cards.

Ray couldn’t help but smile at the number of users logged onto NoCarrier. Clearly, the slowdown of the internet hadn’t caused people to stop chatting and ranting. They were all addicted to the web and would keep playing until the Titanic hit the bottom, he supposed.

As the connection came up, he saw that Magic was typing already.

You don’t fool around, do you Dr. Vance? appeared on his screen.

What do you mean? he typed.