"Oh, no it didn't," Wendy snapped back. She'd worked very hard obscuring her trail, no way some kid could find it in less than an hour.
"Wendy, if I'd known you were going to be so judgmental about my voice, I would have had you speak to one of my associates. If this is an issue for you I
can hang up now. It's up to you."
Associates, she thought. The kid has associates. Well, that was intriguing.
Besides, though he sounded young he sure didn't come across as a kid. Still…
"Look, this was supposed to be a get-acquainted conversation," she said at last.
"So why don't you tell me something about yourself and, uh, your organization, I guess."
"We're not exactly an organization," John explained, relaxing a little. "We don't have a central location, for example. Our associates are spread all over the world, all over the Net—
"Do you have a central address where their reports can be accessed," Wendy interrupted. "I mean I assume that you're collecting information for a reason, which means that you interpret what you collect. Presumably you allow your contributors to assist in that."
"Actually…" John thought for a moment. How to put this? "Evaluating the kind of information we're going after isn't something a person can just walk in and do.
You need training."
"So, train me." Wendy tapped a fingernail on the Formica table. "That's my price
'cause I don't work for free, and I refuse to work blind."
John raised his eyebrows at that. He didn't need a loose cannon on board.
"You're not even hired yet and you want a seat on the board," he protested with a light laugh.
"Look, why did you even want to talk to me if you don't think I'm worth investing time in?" She was beginning to get annoyed. Speaking of time, this is a waste of it.
"It was obvious that you're very smart," John said. "Also that you might be so bored you didn't realize you were killing time in a very dangerous way. A lot of you computer jockeys think that what you're doing on-line isn't real and doesn't count. You think you're perfectly safe behind your keyboards and monitors, but let me tell you, Wendy, if you kick the tiger hard enough it will find you and it won't be friendly. Those are real fanatics you were talking to."
He paused and ran a hand through his dark hair. "I wanted to take your intelligence and talent and direct it into a useful channel. I'd like you to be safe, lady. You're at MIT, for God's sake! To the Luddite movement that's like ground zero, and you think they couldn't find you. You're kidding yourself."
Hunh, Wendy thought, the kid's really passionate about this. She knew she was suppressing the unease his words had awakened in her. Perhaps she had been foolish. Careless? Well, unwise, maybe.
"So what do you want from me?" she asked quietly.
"I want you to keep your eyes and ears open and to report to us anything you find out that might be useful. Useful being defined as something that will prevent harm from being done. I really don't care which camp is generating the damage. Are you interested?"
Wendy thought about it. Was she interested? I dunno, this all sounds kinda weird. A kid gathering information for some undisclosed reason and passing out
dire warnings:" I don't think I want to get involved. It wasn't like she didn't have enough to do with her time, after all.
"Sure," she heard herself say. Then laughed at how she'd surprised herself.
"What?" John asked.
"Sure, whatever," Wendy said. "I guess I'm game. Tell me what you want and I'll try to get it for you." It wasn't like she was joining the army or something.
So John told her what he was looking for, gave her a few Internet addresses he wanted her to check into and a few general guidelines. When he was finished he hesitated.
"What?" she said.
"You might like to recruit some friends to help you out," he suggested. "People you can trust."
Wendy sighed. "Well, I'd like to think I'm unlikely to recruit people I don't trust."
John winced. "Well, you know what I mean."
"Yeah, I guess. See you on-line, kid."
He could hear the smile in her voice and pressed his lips together impatiently.
This wasn't a terribly auspicious beginning to their relationship. He'd prefer that his recruits not find him amusing.
Hey, he reminded himself, if she knew the real story she'd run a mile. Screaming.
"Thank you," he said. "I'll keep in touch." He hung up and sighed heavily. I really need to be grown up, he thought. Too bad it wasn't something you could arrange. I guess I could work on my voice, or maybe get some sort of synthesizer.
I feel grown up, I just don't sound it. Oh, well. For real emergencies there was always Dieter.
CHAPTER FOUR
PESCADERO STATE HOSPITAL,
JANUARY
"Your girlfriend's back," Frances said, and laughed, her eyes filled with malicious glee.
Sarah didn't even have to look up to know that Loretta was indeed in the room; she'd developed a radar about her. Besides, she never stopped sniffling; it was hard to miss. Quite a number of patients had vanished over the holidays, to return one by one. Loretta was among the last to be let out.
One positive note was that Sarah knew she wasn't simply being paranoid; the other patients had noticed Loretta's attention and frequently commented on it.
Some positive note, Sarah thought. I know I'm sane and I'm constantly looking for ways to back up my opinion. How healthy is that?
Frances licked her lips. "I think she wants to—"
"You're going to work so hard at distracting me that you're going to distract yourself," Sarah warned. "That's how I won all your blue chips last time."
Frances pouted, but she shut up. They were playing gin rummy for battered poker chips. The two other players were usually silent, playing the game grimly, as if it were a matter of life and death. But suddenly Allison froze as she picked up a card, becoming so agitated that she actually gurgled instead of speaking.
Donna turned with a frown to see what she was staring at and turned back with a little gasp. She began fiddling with her cards nervously, her dark eyes darting left and right. Frances deigned to look and also froze. Then she put down her cards, got up, and walked away. Allison and Donna looked at each other over the table and started to rise.
"Wait a minute," Sarah said, taking Donna's wrist. "What's going on?" She had the uncomfortable feeling that someone was staring at her, someone who meant her no good, but she was damned if she was going to turn around and give Loretta the satisfaction of seeing her unnerved.
"I can't," Donna whispered. "I've got to… she's not… she…" The woman wrenched her hand free and fled, muttering, Allison nervously crowding her wake.
Looking around, Sarah saw that almost everyone was leaving the common room, giving Loretta and the large woman beside her a wide berth. Sarah rose and moved over to Elisa, a small Puerto Rican woman with, she'd been told, a serious death wish.
"What's going on?" she asked in a whisper.
Elisa tore her eyes away from the woman at the door to look at Sarah. "That's Tanya," she said, nodding at the woman. "She's pretty much crazy." She grinned
when she realized what she'd said. "I mean, out-of-control, watch-your-back insane. She's so out of it she even uses her teeth—a lot. One of the nurses is still having plastic surgery."