The chair went tumbling backward when Amanda jumped to her feet. “The son-of-a-bitch. He set me up!”
My hands were shaking, but I had my arms out and around her now.
Behind me, I could hear Tomlinson making a strange whoofing noise. Was he groaning or fighting back nausea?
“Let it go,” I told her. “Let it go.”
“My mom wouldn’t have done that! My mom would never have done that! I don’t care what he says! You bastard!” She was yelling and now she smacked the screen with her open hand. “You filthy-minded creep!”
I pressed Amanda into Tomlinson’s arms as I took her spot in front of the computer and began to type a reply. Gail73679: The trick’s on you. This isn’t Gail.
I could hear Amanda crying, still furious, as I waited for the fairy dust sound. Darkrume: I know that!): =) Gall73679: Why so sure? Darkrume: Wouldn’t you like to know. You’re Amanda. The daughter. Gail73679: Amanda’s not here. Darkrume: You’re lying. Either Amanda or some computer nerd friends. Someone to figure Momma’s password. Not smart enough to do it alone. Gail73679: You changed her password? Darkrume: Just in case. Someone has to protect our privacy. Gail73679: Pretending to know Gail, pretending to know Amanda, too. You’ve never met either of them. Darkrume: ‹- Smile smile smile! Right. Never met you. The ugly daughter.
I was fighting it, trying hard not to get mad. Gail73679: Why so mean? Darkrume: Not mean. I’m happy. HAPPY! Want to do to you what I did to your mom.
What then followed was a graphic litany of his sexual triumphs with Gail. Real or imagined, it was impossible to judge. But very specific. Each outrage was listed as a conquest.
I waited patiently. Then: Darkrume: You want the same things done to you? Gail73679: Love it. Let’s arrange a meeting. Tell me who you are. Darkrume: Figure it out. Gail73679: Okay. Darkrume: I’m serious. Try. Gail73679: We’ll go through your letters, they’ll tell us. Lots to choose from. Pick the best ones and take them to the police. Darkrume: Be my guest. Better hurry!
From behind me, Tomlinson said, “What the hell does that mean?”
He still had his arm around Amanda, reading along with me.
Gail73679: Why so evasive? You’re a friend of Gail, we’re friends of Gail. So what’s the problem. What are you scared of?
Tomlinson said, “That’s the wrong approach, man. This guy wants to be in charge, let him be in charge. Don’t push him.”
Darkrume: Why should I care about Gail? Already done everything I wanted to do to Gail. But I wouldn’t mind meeting you. Got any videos?
“This is a sick, sick person.”
“Yeah, man. He is truly and honestly twisted.” Gail73679: Got a great video. You’ll love it. Tell me where to send it. Darkrume: Find me, asshole.
“He’s not going to cooperate.”
“Nope, not a chance.”
“Then I’m done playing his game.”
“Don’t blame you. Fire away.” Gail73679: Find you. Exactly what I plan to do. Darkrume: Oh. You sound so dangerous. Gail73679: I’m not. Darkrume: Didn’t think so! Gail73679: No. Amateurs are dangerous. Darkrume: ‹- Shivering with goose bumps. That means nothing. You expect me to be scared? Gail73679: No, I expect you to be inept. Darkrume: You jerk. I don’t waste my time worrying about people like you. Gail73679: I’m counting on that, too. Darkrume: On what? Gail73679: Your stupidity. Darkrume: Fuck you! Darkrume: Fuck you! Gail73679: You illustrate my point. Darkrume: FUCK YOU!
Tomlinson said, “You’re getting to him.”
“Apparently. Let’s hope he’ll hang on until he lets some information slip.” Darkrume: You don’t have a goddamn clue who you’re talking to. Gail73679: Wrong. I know the type of person you are. So did Gail. That’s why she stopped writing. Darkrume: She never stopped, you idiot. Gail73679: But she refused to meet with you and she told me why. Darkrume: I’m the one refused to meet her, scum. That slut would have met me anytime anyplace.
“There,” Tomlinson said, “we just learned something.” Gail73679: Because of the problem you have, she said she felt bad for you. I’m your friend, too. That’s why I’m telling you this. Darkrume: You got the problem, not me. Gail73679: No, but I’m sympathetic. Impotence or homosexuality, nothing to be ashamed of.
In the long pause that followed, I suspect that he typed and erased a number of replies. I wish that I could have read them. Finally: Darkrume: You think I’m stupid. You must really think I’m stupid. Gall73679: Already told you: inept. Is your memory really that bad? Darkrume: Time to show you how smart I am. How much smarter than a cross-eyed hag like you ever thought of being. You say I don’t know you. You’re so wrong about that it makes me laugh. ‹- laughing right now. Remember the letters you planned on reading? Read them now. Bitch!
The Instant Message screen was suddenly filled with a series of strange figures.
Behind me I heard Tomlinson say, “What the hell… Hey… HEY!” He lunged over my shoulder, began to click the mouse frantically, but our cursor was now frozen.
“He’s pumping in some kind of… he’s uploading a file into our system. Look at that crap… it’s like taken complete control, shooting its way right in here…” Tomlinson slapped the desk with his hand. “Shit! Now he’s taken over the whole computer.”
The screen continued to pulse with line after line of figures:
Just before the screen froze, the last instant message from Darkrume read:
You lose! ‹: +))
“I appreciate the fact, man, that you’re trying to concentrate. Trying to pull off one of those total-recall deals. But do you really have to drive so slow?”
We were midway across Alligator Alley, the Everglades holding the horizon in all directions. Saw grass, globes of cypress shadow, gators baking mud gray on canal banks, black vultures cauldroning.
I’d asked Tomlinson to give me some silent time. Let me think about the few letters we’d had time to read.
“I suppose that means no radio, too.”
He’d been switching back and forth between WAXY 106 and ZADA 94. Miami and Lauderdale, all the old hard-rock classics.
“The radio’s fine. The radio I don’t have to think about.”
“Yeah, well… the radio doesn’t make you think ‘cause you weren’t the one who dated Janis Joplin. But don’t get me started on THAT weird episode.” He was tinkering with the dials. “Hey… you know, it wouldn’t kill you to have a tape player installed in this truck. Maybe a set of earphones for your noise-loving buddies.”
I just nodded.
What was it about the few letters I’d read and my exchange with Darkrume that I found so troubling?
Something. Couldn’t manage to nail it down. Perhaps it was tone or implication; a word or a phrase that nagged at me. But if it was important, really important, why couldn’t I dredge it up out of the narrowest processing conduits of my brain?
I kept fumbling with it, going over and over what details I could remember. Not that there was any alternative. Whatever data Darkrume had uploaded into Gail’s computer had destroyed or garbled the entire program system.
A call into Bernie Yager had confirmed it. “So you sit there, don’t switch off the machine, and let someone invade you? Doc, the memory bits that were destroyed were in HER computer, you didn’t even have to be on-line at that point. Now you expect me to help? Believe me, if there was anything left to save, I’d do it. But the virus you just described, what’s left after something like that?”
Nothing, apparently.
“The piranha programs, I’ve heard you can buy, them from the heavy-duty hackers,” Tomlinson told me. “I’ve come across cyber punks who pretended to have them. Same kind of weird crap shoots across your screen. But this was the first time I ever saw anyone actually do it.”