V. Larson - Spyware

“You’ll probably be wanting my ID, sir,” he said over his shoulder. “I know my papers are somewhere in here.”

The cop didn’t say anything, he just frowned and ran his eyes around the interior of the van. Spurlock could feel those eyes, burrowing into his back. There was no way to miss the curtains. He knew all too well how a cop’s mind worked. What was behind them? Drugs? Smuggled parrots from Brazil? A cage full of kids? Any pig would be dying to know. He hoped desperately that this fucker didn’t have to die to find out.

“Got it right here, sir,” he said, passing a handful of paper out the window. He prayed the cop hadn’t bothered to type his license number into his computer yet. His record would do nothing to improve the pig’s mood.

The cop eyed the papers dubiously. “Is the van broken down?”

“No sir,” said Spurlock, shaking his head emphatically. “I was just about to get on my way up to Redding. I’ve been driving all night up from L.A., sir and I stopped to take a nap.”

The cop continued to stare at the papers and didn’t appear to have heard him. Perhaps a half-minute passed. Spurlock smiled on the outside, but inside he was a screaming wreck. Why did this fucking cop have to find me? Why doesn’t the little rat-bastard kid just kick the wall already and get it over with? Just one kick, and it’s all over. The cop’s dead, I’m probably dead, the kid is definitely dead and it’s all over with. WHY DOESN’T ONE OF THESE TWO ASSHOLES DO SOMETHING?

“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.

The virus, sir! came the reply. Just look at the news! Company stocks are tanking. Websites are shutting down. All because you personally killed the internet. I’m impressed.

Don’t be. I didn’t do it.

\(*o*)/ Of course not. As you say, sir.

Ray sighed to himself. He supposed he was an obvious suspect. Nog had done his work well.

Look, he typed, I didn’t do it and what’s more I know who did.

Okay, okay, I’ll suspend my disbelief and hero worship for the moment. Why did you ask to talk to me? Just to give me the thrill of a net conversation with a fugitive felon?

First, let me ask you this: have you ever put together a virus?

Not a fair question!

It’s totally fair. You asked me the same thing in class, remember?

There was a pause. Ray wondered what kind of squirming was going on at the other end of the line.

Wait a minute. Don’t tell me you’ve got the feds there and now you’re fishing for a confession! I’m just a grad-student, remember.

Exactly, typed Ray. You’re a computer science grad-student. Suspect number One-A. And be serious, there aren’t any feds in the country that could sit still while I type away online to prove my innocence. I think they’d all sooner break my fingers.

There was another pause, then, Sure, so I’ve dabbled in the black arts. Can I still be a jedi?

Ray breathed deeply. He had contacted the right woman. He needed a hacker in his corner. The truth about technology was that the older, more experienced individual wasn’t the best. Computer scientists were more like gymnasts than normal, staid engineering-types. An older person could still be hot and produce solid work, but it was part of the nature of humans that you stopped wanting to learn a thousand new things every day about when you turned thirty. Families, daily pursuits, just having a life, all these things prevented older people from being the best techies. The true stars were almost always young, usually in their early twenties. Unattached people with too much in the way of brains and curiosity seemed to do the best. They lived on the net, poked into every forgotten crevice of their machines, were fascinated and excited by every newly developed gizmo. Ray had lost that edge about five years ago, and he knew it.