William Dietrich - Getting back

You idiot, he kept repeating to himself. Leave her alone.

The admonition did no good. He walked after work to clear his head of her and yet the city seemed vacuous. The incessant pop songs of the cafes and arcades seemed annoyingly repetitious. The iridescent avenues, ablaze from shows and pleasure palaces, seemed like a deliberate distraction from whatever he was truly straining to see. He couldn't decide what to eat from the food court choices, where ever more inventive spicing had so exhausted his palate that he could taste nothing at all. He finally retreated to his apartment and scanned eight minutes of entertainment listings, finding nothing that engaged either his mind or his emotions. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one he wanted to see. Except her. Had she betrayed him?

He sat on his terrace and watched the artificial suns of advertisers rise into the dark sky once more as he chewed on a Ready-Meal. Life was easy if you simply went along, he conceded. Work was usually an undemanding set of rote motions, his pay was adequate for all but the silliest luxuries, and entertainment could be as all-consuming as one wished. Other people lived for baseball or theater or console games and seemed content. Why couldn't he? Why did he do?

Damn her. It was necessary to find her for his own peace of mind. He'd put it to her plainly: did you rat on me? She'd deny it. He'd ask for a meeting to clear the air. If she showed, it would be excuse enough to…

He didn't even know her last name. Yeah, you know what you were thinking with.

He went to his terminal and sat for a moment, drumming his fingers in frustration. What was the name of her vacation company? Outback Adventure? He ran computer searches for it and found nothing, which was strange. Had it all been a lie?

He ran searches under her name. Raven. He turned up ornithology texts and Native American legends, but no address or link. Good grief. And he was contemplating mucking about with truth cookies? He was a humbled hacker, his electronic trail at Microcore embarrassingly plain. An amateur in an age when privacy consultants made millions.

So it was decision time. How serious was he? Did he really care?

Of course he did. It was a challenge now. It wasn't boring, like Microcore. He called Fitzroy. The one-time cop had the pals, the codes, and an e-vault full of passwords. But it would cost Daniel a thousand dollars, a day's wages, to get a lead on a woman who had rejected him. Foolish, he knew.

Dammit though, he wanted to confront her. He wanted to know.

"Yeah?" Fitzroy's grizzled head, swollen to giant dimension on Daniel's vid-wall, popped into view. Christ, the man was ugly at that resolution. Bagged, rheumy eyes, sallow skin, veined nose. Nobody had to be homely anymore: why didn't the guy get a laser-lift? Because he lived in his machine, not the world: a cyber hermit. It was the one place he had power, his own personal heaven.

"I need something."

"Hold on." The screen fuzzed, came back. Fitzroy had switched on his scrambler. "Yeah?"

"A woman."

"What a surprise. Geez, I've never heard that one before."

"I've got a first name and some tourist outfit she says she might sign on with, but that's all. I need their numbers. Can you get it?"

The private detective snorted. "That's it?"

"If it's easy, maybe you can give me a discount."

"Fuck that. Give me what you got."

"Her name's Raven."

"Raven? What the hell kind of astral handle is that? She a fucking Indian or something?"

"No. Maybe. I don't know, what does it matter?"

"You couldn't get her last name?"

"It didn't come up."

"Gotcha. Well, what's her company? Where does she live?"

"I don't know. I first ran into her in Calabria and met her later at Pitney Tube."

"Geez. Either the shortest relationship in history or you move quicker, with less talk, than anybody I've heard of. You don't know anything about her?"

"If I knew anything I wouldn't need you. Look, I may be getting jacked around here- I'm suspicious of her- so's there's a company I want you to check out. Called GeneChem. Heard of it?"

"Spell it. There's only about fifty million fucking gene-soft-micro-tech bullshit companies out there by now, all of them farting vaporware and DNA that doesn't work. I wish they'd go back to vanity names you can remember. Like Chrysler. Or Kellogg. What was wrong with that? Mine is Fitzroy Investigations. Simple. Honest. None of this net-web-splice-tel crap, you know?"

"Right." Daniel spelled it. "Now, this Raven says she's going on a trip with a company whose name you'll like. Simple. Honest. Outback Adventure."

"Outdoor Adventure? This is, what, swing sets? Pickle ball?"

"Outback, not outdoor. Adventure travel."

"Oh yeah, right. Bugs and dirt. Jesus, people are stupid. That's another five hundred."

"Why can't I ever get a discount, Fitzroy?"

"Because I have to eat." He clicked off.

Daniel paced, straightening up. He was as neat at home as he was untidy at the office. The company shrink would have a field day with that one. After an hour there was a chime and the detective was back on his screen.

"I don't see the transfer in my account yet."

"I wanted to make sure you could get the stuff. That was a thousand?"

"Fifteen hundred, Einstein."

"Whatever." He clicked some commands. "It should be there."

He saw Fitzroy glance away, then back. "Nobody wants to pay their fucking bills."

"What you got?"

"The only thing in our favor is the unusual first name. There's just a few of them so I could eliminate by age, location, occupation, no possible interest in outdoor adventure- that kind of thing."

"And?"

"And this is some broad you're stalking, if I got the right one. Fancy name, fancy address. She even looks good on her ident-screen. This the one?"

Raven even took a good license picture. "That's her. The last name?"

"DeCarlo. Lah-de-dah-dah. De-Carrrr-lo. My, my. I don't think you can afford this one, newbie."

"She's actually a cheap date."

"Cost you fifteen hundred this night, Romeo. Listen, I got her number. And her address. You want that?"

"Of course."

Fitzroy blanked out and the screen flickered with the information. Daniel printed it out and destroyed the file and transmission record. He was in enough hot water for privacy violations already. Paper you could burn, eat, shred. Bytes were forever.

The detective came into view again. "And the adventure company?" Daniel asked him.

"That one's odd. No open-door web address, no ad, no listed number. Pretty tough to buy from."

"So I get a refund?"

"You gotta be kidding. I found 'em- through an industrial link to export firms. They've got a keyworded web entry, encryption, a bunch of other bullshit."

"Export firm? What does that mean?"

"A kink in your romance?"

"You can't kink what you don't have. But maybe this woman is being conned; she thinks it's a vacation outfit. You sure you got the right company?"

Fitzroy laughed. "If you got the right name. Maybe they put airholes in their shipping containers!"

"Can I get in?"

The detective shook his head. "The site is invitation only. You need the password, the encrypted entry code, and it's all proprietary. Maybe this broad knows it." His grin was a leer. "For fifteen hundred bucks, she'd better know something."

"You found me."

There was no surprise in Raven's voice, no delight, no disapproval. It was rather a flat statement over the vidphone, her face on the monitor displaying a cool perusal of his own. It was as if she'd expected to hear from him again.

"I need to see you."

"Are you sure that's wise?"

"We need to talk."

"Why?"

He could accuse her of getting him into trouble at Microcore, but suspected she'd simply hang up. "It's about this company you said you might go with. Outback Adventure. There's something funny about it."