Jon Evans - Dark Places

She laughed.

"I just got back from traveling," I said defensively.

"Yes," she said, "and you're a guy."

"I do have some Glenfiddich," I said, remembering that she drank Scotch.

"You do? Then you're playing my song."

I drizzled some nectar of the gods over ice for both of us and we sat down on the couch. I felt surprisingly comfortable next to her. I'd never been able to relax around beautiful women, every moment I spent near them felt like part of a high-stakes job interview, but with Talena I felt perfectly at ease.

"It's a little scary that you can do this," she said. "So everything everyone does on the Web can be tracked down?"

"It depends," I said. "Like, if you're using AOL you're actually probably pretty safe from this stuff, because everyone on AOL looks like they're on the same machine. On the other hand the AOL people know everything you do. Yeah, as a rule, most of the stuff you do can be watched."

"And when they tell you this is a secure connection, they're lying?"

"No, that's completely true, those are probably impossible to break into. But they'll still know what machine you're using to connect."

"Well. Call me freshly paranoid."

"If you really want to there's ways around it though," I said. "If he'd been careful, if he'd gone through Anonymizer or Zero-Knowledge or SafeWeb or something, we'd never be able to reach him."

"What are those?"

"Sites you go through that basically clean up everything you do so you're anonymous."

"But how do you know they're actually doing that?" she asked.

"You don't," I admitted. "I mean you can run tests and so on, but to a certain extent you have to take it on trust. Doesn't really bug me though. I mean, I've got nothing to hide."

"You've got everything to hide," she said, "believe you me."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning… " She visibly decided to avoid the subject and shook her head. "Meaning I don't trust the powers that be to know anything about me they don't have to, is all. So our friend The Bull is in Indonesia. What do you think that means?"

"I think it means he's still on the road," I said.

"Yeah," she said. "And you know what else it probably means?"

"I'm afraid I do."

"Means somebody else is going to wind up with knives in their eyes in a week or two. Unless we do something."

"Do something? Like what do you have in mind?"

"Beats the fuck outta me. That's the problem," she said, and emptied her Scotch. "Have you eaten? I'm starving."

"Me too," I lied.

We went to Crepes On Cole, just a couple blocks from where I lived. By unspoken mutual agreement we didn't talk about The Bull. Instead we talked about everything meaningless that either of us could think of. Favourite obscure movies. Most overrated rock stars. The decline and fall of the Great American Novel. Best long walks through San Francisco. What to do if you're pursued by rabid deer while biking through Marin County. Ten ways to spot a New Yorker on Market Street. Why the best neighbourhoods always have the worst neighbours.

I think we were both surprised by how well we got along — a lot of the laughter was of the "I can't believe you like that too!" variety. She wasn't near as stuck-up and snobbish as I expected. Maybe a little bit, but when you're young and beautiful and you have the world's coolest job in the world's coolest city, a little bit goes with the territory. She lived in Potrero Hill and suffered through an hour-long commute to and from work, torpedoing my initial guesses about her perfect apartment and moneyed family. "LP mostly pays you with fun and prestige," she said at one point. "The dollars are pretty fucking nominal."

The only awkward pause came when I asked her where she was from. She grimaced and said "All over" in a distinct let's-change-the-subject tone. But we somehow got from there to the topic of proposed new Ben amp; Jerry's flavours and the moment was quickly forgotten. When the waitress leaned over and politely told us that they were closing soon, both of us were surprised and glanced at our watches to double-check. Eleven o'clock had snuck up a lot faster than either of us had realized.

We split the check and walked to the corner of Rivoli and Cole, where her bike was parked.

"Well," I said, "I'm glad you came over. That was fun."

She flashed me a million-watt smile that made my spine wobble. "Yeah, it was."

"So… " I said, as always drawing a blank on what I should say or do at this point.

"Yeah. We should talk about the whole… thing. I don't know. I feel like we have to do something, but I don't know what."

"Me too. Me neither."

We looked at each other for a moment longer.

"Well," she said. "I should go. Long bike ride home. Let's sleep on it. I'll call you tomorrow night, okay?"

"Sure thing," I said, and I watched her bike away, reluctantly abandoning all the fantasies in the back of my brain which involved her staying. Well, abandoning them for tonight. I didn't really think we were ever going to happen, but that never stopped a guy from dreaming.

Evans, Jon

Dark Places

Chapter 12 Consolidation And Restructuring

I got to work, logged in, read my email, and realized I had absolutely nothing to do. Suited me fine. I pointed Internet Explorer to www.interpol.com and began to read.

About a half-hour later I had given up my hope in Interpol. They seemed like a fine enough organization, sharing information and police techniques around the world, but they didn't run from country to country chasing international terrorists the way the movies made it seem. More of a bureaucracy than anything else. They specifically said on their site: to report a crime, don't contact us, go to the National Contact Bureau for your country.

What the hell, couldn't hurt. I compiled all the information I already had, except for the bit about the Lonely Planet web logs — didn't want to get Talena in trouble — and sent it the USA's NCB. I figured it would get read once and forwarded to the email equivalent of the Dead Letter Office, or Psycho Conspiracy Theorist Office, but at least I had tried.

Just as I finished Kevin came over to my desk.

"Paul," he said, "can I see you in my office? Something's come up."

"Sure," I said, guessing that the Morgan Stanley contract was finally official. "Should we wait for Rob? I think he's at lunch." He was due to be the lead designer on the project. Actually I hadn't seen him all day, but that was typical, he was an Artiste and played up his impetuosity for all it was worth.

"No," he said, "this doesn't involve Rob."

I went into his office and sat down as he closed the door.

"All right," he said. "Well. Look, Paul, everyone knows you're a brilliant programmer."

"Thanks."

"So brilliant that we've allowed you continue with your rather unorthodox work schedule of, is it four months vacation a year?"

"Four months unpaid leave." Was this one of their biannual attempts to convince me to work all year?

"But as you know the company's been going through difficult times lately. The bottom's really dropped out of the market, and we've been burning money like water."

I was going to bring his attention to the amusing mixed metaphor but decided against it. Instead I switched to rah-rah-rah mode and said "But the Morgan Stanley contract is going to save our bacon, right?"

"Yesterday," Kevin said, "Morgan Stanley assigned the contract to Quidnunc."

"Ah." One of our competitors.

"This has left us in a bind where we simply have too many employees and very few billable projects. As this was not totally unexpected we have assembled a contingency plan which we are now putting in motion. As a result of losing this contract market forces are forcing us to significantly restructure the size of the organization. We predict that this is a temporary expedient, only lasting until this anomalous market downturn is corrected."