Karma

by Grant McKenzie

  Chapter 22

  The email arrived promptly at 10 p.m.

  It was blank except for two words, Click Here.

  Hackett hesitated before deciding to take the plunge and click on the embedded URL.

  Instantly, his web browser launched and he watched in fascination as his screen went crazy. The web page the link led him to had barely begun to load when his browser jumped to another site, then another and another. Pop unders. Pop overs. Windows were opening and closing so fast, Hackett couldn’t keep track.

  After what appeared to be at least 50 leaps through cyberspace, the browser locked onto one site. It was blank except for the acronym K.A.R.M.A. and two quotes in bold type.

  Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap - Galatians 6:7

  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction - Newton’s Third Law of Motion

  A chill ran through him as he remembered the two detectives asking about that word: karma. Hackett clicked on the page and watched it melt away to reveal a chatroom. He was asked to log in with a username of his choosing. The password field was already completed.

  After logging in, he discovered nearly a dozen people were already in attendance.

  CYPHER: Welcome, Tom. We’ve been expecting you

  HACK: Who R U?

  CYPHER: We are K.A.R.M.A.

  HACK: ?

  CYPHER: Kids Against Rape, Murder, Abuse

  HACK: Kids?

  CYPHER: Innocents

  HACK: U murdered my uncle?

  CYPHER: Executed

  HACK: Why?

  CYPHER: He was a pedophile

  Hackett felt a sharp pain in his chest as though something had snapped. He winced and closed his eyes, burying it.

  HACK: What makes u say that?

  CYPHER: We’re all victims here, Tom, but we’re uniting, becoming stronger. We won’t be victims any more — not for anyone

  HACK: So u commit murder?

  CYPHER: We exact punishment

  HACK: I saw the blood. Bob must have been sliced open. U did that?

  CYPHER: How many victims are there, Tom? How many children have their innocence sliced open every day? How many lives did Bob ruin before being stopped?

  HACK: How would I know?

  CYPHER: 1 in 3 sexual assault victims in this country are under the age of 12, Tom. Two-thirds are under 18. How many more lives should we allow these monsters to destroy before taking action?

  Christ, thought Hackett, I’ve fallen into the fucking cuckoo’s nest.

  HACK: Why involve me?

  CYPHER: We need you

  HACK: What for?

  CYPHER: To spread the word

  HACK: How?

  CYPHER: You’ve already begun

  HACK: The photo?

  CYPHER: Yes. We need the world to know what happens to monsters — and we want all the other monsters to know that we’re coming for them next

  HACK: This is crazy

  CYPHER: NO!

  HACK: Yes! What proof do u have about my uncle?

  CYPHER: The only proof we need — the word of his victims

  HACK: I don’t

  He was interrupted by a crowd chant.

  GHIRL: Believe

  RAT: Believe

  SQUEK: Believe

  FANOC: Believe

  SKULL: Believe

  CYPHER: Listen to us, Tom. We’re fighting back, protecting our brothers and sisters, children we’ve never met. We’re stopping the abuse, Tom. Not slapping deviants on the wrist, but actually stopping them before they can hunt again

  Hackett stared at the screen, his palms moist with sweat, a tremor causing his fingers to twitch. He needed something to calm himself, but his joint was long finished.

  HACK: Who R U?

  CYPHER: We’ve explained that

  HACK: I don’t want anything to do with it

  CYPHER: You’re already involved. You can’t back out now

  HACK: I won’t co-operate. This is madness

  CYPHER: We need you

  HACK: But I don’t need U

  CYPHER: Then tell Fats we’re sorry. We’ll be in touch

  The chatroom vanished from Hackett’s screen a half-second before his computer crashed.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Hackett stabbed his finger into the reset button. The computer began to whir and his monitor flickered to life with the warning message that he hadn’t shut it down properly.

  As soon as he was back online, Hackett opened the History folder of his web browser. It had been erased, leaving no trace of the path he had taken to get to the K.A.R.M.A. chatroom.

  He checked his email, the Click Here message was also gone and he knew without looking that all traces of it had been eliminated from his hard drive. Hackett knew there were dozens of simple programs available on the Internet that anyone could use to make their email self-destruct as soon as it was read. Erasing his browsing history was also easy, especially if they had managed to plant a simple virus in his system. Hackett remembered his phone’s last message: the squeak and squawk of a modem.

  Returning to the web, Hackett launched one of Fat’s search engines and initiated a trace on the K.A.R.M.A. acronym. It came up empty. In this day and age when every boring microsecond of everyone’s dull life was posted online, nothing comes up empty.

  Getting angrier by the second, Hackett logged on to his regular chatroom. He needed Fats’ help.

  The chatroom was empty, an event so unusual it took a moment to sink in.

  Fats was always online.

  No problem, Hackett told himself as the first footholds of panic skittered around in his brain and made his jaw ache. He picked up the phone and paged his friend, then immediately backed it up with both an urgent email and a text message to Fats’ cellphone.

  He waited two minutes without any response before the panic turned to fear.

  Hackett knew Fats was never far from his computer and never left his house. Even when going to the toilet, he at least took his pager and cell.

  And what the fuck did Cypher mean, ‘Tell Fats we’re sorry’.

  An alarming thought jolted Hackett out of his seat and he ran for the door.

  Chapter 23

  The rain in Vancouver was lazy, thought Eric as he adjusted the nylon straps on his backpack and reaffirmed his grip on the long, black tube.

  Instead of the big, fat, sloppy raindrops of the prairie, these puny droplets mixed with each other to form a shapeless haze that distorted your vision.

  It was like walking through a cloud of dishwater aphids, as if the coastal climate lacked the energy, will or desire to form proper rain. This stuff didn’t get you wet so much as make you feel damp and unclean.

  The moon had no substance either. It was simply a splash of dim light behind gray clouds like a child reading by flashlight beneath heavy, woolen covers.

  The locals seemed oblivious — their eyes downcast, elbows and shoulders tucked in tight like boxers, compacting themselves to take up as little space as possible. They walked hurriedly as though desperate to reach a better neighborhood before the clock struck twelve.

  The trucker had dropped Eric at the mouth of East Hastings before continuing on the Trans-Canada across Second Narrows Bridge into North Van. The man looked relieved to be rid of him; Eric’s wall of silence since Salmon Arm had obviously grated on his nerves.

  Eric caught a city bus outside the PNE grounds, but hopped off again when it turned south before entering downtown. From there, he walked west along Hastings for nearly eightblocks each one looking worse for wear than the previous. He felt he was walking against the natural tide, each step drawing him deeper into a forgotten place where the death rate climbed every fourth Wednesday when the welfare checks arrived.

  Eric had heard about Vancouver all his life. Most of Biggar’s graduation class left every year to seek their fortunes in Calgary, Toronto or Vancouver. The ones who returned from Vancouver always had the best stories of sunshine and lai
d-back, beautiful people who skinny-dipped on Wreck Beach and gladly shared weed and their bed if they liked your smile.

  But as Eric moved deeper into the downtown core, he started to think the stories had been lies, a barrier to stop people seeking the truth about why Biggar’s hopefuls had returned, no fortune in hand.

  The girls he saw on this street were huddled in doorways with eyes half-shut and chins nodding to a spasmodic beat. They wore gray and black to match the sky, limp collars turned against the rain; feet and hands tucked deep inside baggy shirts and shapeless pants; sexless faces, the color of curdled milk, lost behind Sally Ann curtains of damp, scraggly hair.

  Eric studied the deserted sidewalk, the road beside him a glistening mirage of shapeless vehicles. The drivers seemed intangible, dozens of unblinking eyes locked in tunnel-vision rigor as though wearing blinders to the world outside.

  Eric heard a whimper and turned to peer into a narrow doorway. Two figures stood close together, fully clothed, hips thrusting. The man’s hand pressed into the woman’s mouth, blood trickling from his palm to stain her teeth. The man grunted. In pain or pleasure, Eric couldn’t tell.

  “Do you need help?”

  Eric was surprised by the sound of his own voice, not sure if he had meant to say it aloud.

  Dark eyes turned to stare at him as the flick of a tattooed wrist produced a knife. The blade was at least four-inches long, its edge notched with sharp, flesh-ripping teeth.

  Eric ran, the hard plastic tube banging awkwardly against his knees.

  When he reached Main Street, he stopped to catch his breath. The women he saw around him now wore short skirts, knee-high boots with gold and silver zippers running up the sides, and translucent blouses over black, red and navy blue bras. They were native, black, white, Asian and shades in between. A popular accessory was a clear-plastic umbrella that made the owner’s features as indistinguishable as the raindrops.

  An enormously breasted black woman, her mouth so wide Eric could imagine her jaw unhinging to swallow him whole, turned to stare. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of his droopy backpack and the long, tubular case clutched tightly in his hand.

  “You lost, honey?” Her voice had the huskiness of a chain-smoker who soothed her throat with a nightly twenty-sixer of bathtub gin.

  Eric shook his head. “No Ma’m. I’m heading to Granville.” He plucked the name from memory.

  “Uh huh. Mall, island, street or station?”

  “Uh, station. The Sky Train.”

  “Well you better keep moving, little sugar. These streets can eat you alive. Eat you up so fast there’ll be nothing left but the laces in your boots — then it’ll swallow them, too.”

  Eric thanked her for the advice and quickened his pace. He had read on the Internet before leaving home that half the city’s murders occurred within a six-block radius of Hastings and Main.

  Now that he had seen it, he understood why.

  When he reached Seymour Street, Eric turned south.

  The sights began to change as he passed Vancouver Centre and arrived on Robson Street. His final destination was in sight, but for now Eric was ready to breathe in the buzz that still percolated within the large open-air mall.

  The people here had divided into close-knit groups of lookalikes, each one claiming part of the street as his or her own.

  Eric skirted around youthful clubbers, their eyes aglow with sexual promise as they strutted in Swing-era suits, pantomiming jazz on fat cigars to wide-eyed girls in cocktail dresses. Their breath was a sweet alcoholic haze of Chocolate Martinis and Lemon Drops.

  The large gay faction — those that had ventured away from Davie Street — split within its own ranks. On one side, the clean-cut boys blew kisses at the straights, laughing delightedly whether rebuffed or ignored. While across the street, black leather mixed with dark eye shadow and pouting lips to produce a scowl that was meant to repel as much as attract.

  Further down the street on Granville, boutiques and clubs gave way to sex shops and pawn stores, their doorways filling with the sad-faced cousins of those Eric had seen on East Hastings. The bars were quieter here, the neon more subdued, but danger leached from the mortar as unmistakably as shit from a blocked sewer.

  Eric backtracked until he found his own niche, a coffee shop that proudly announced itself in a hand-painted sign: Java Jerks - We’re plugged in.

  Eric entered the cyber café, found an unoccupied computer in the corner and ordered a steamed milk with Swiss Chocolate flavoring, and a plain bagel with cream cheese.

  After logging on, he checked his Gmail account for Cypher’s message containing the address of tonight’s chat. K.A.R.M.A.’s location changed daily and only Cypher knew exactly where it would be.

  The message was waiting.

  Eric sighed in relief, shrugged out of his wet coat and took a long swallow of steamed milk. It was the best thing he had tasted in days.

  Clicking on the URL contained in the message, Eric watched patiently as his browser started to leap from site to site, its tracks becoming untraceable due to a tiny, self-activating virus contained within all of Cypher’s messages.

  When he arrived at the K.A.R.M.A. homepage, Eric grinned. He had only been off-line for two days, but he had missed his true family more than he ever thought possible. They were the only people in the world who understood what he was about to do and why.

  Eric logged in.

  FARMR: Hey, everyone. I made it :-)

  Chapter 24

  Fats lived in a tree-lined neighborhood that offered the discriminating buyer the best of the old with all the modern conveniences technology could provide.

  The homes were wide and tall with curving roofs and sun-seeking balconies that jutted above glassed-in front porches. Manicured lawns spoke of hired gardeners and were expansive enough to give each house adequate elbow room from the neighbors to prevent accidental conversation. Private back yards hid behind high fences, concealing hot tubs, swimming pools and more than a few putting greens.

  Under the yellow light of the sodium-vapor streetlamps, the neighborhood gave the impression of having sprouted fully formed from the imagination of an idealistic ’50s sitcom writer — the only difference being the modern propensity for armed response security tags on the corner of every window.

  Smaller security tags attached to metal sticks dotted the edge of each sidewalk, warning intruders that the lawns and poured-concrete paths were rigged with motion detectors.

  Hackett often pondered the idea of driving up in the middle of the night with a cage full of rabbits, releasing one at every mailbox, and then sitting back with a six-pack of Guinness to watch the panic as every alarm in the neighborhood began to ring.

  He wondered what the armed-response security force would do when they saw two dozen, fluffy white bunnies hopping from lawn to lawn, munching on the perfectly trimmed grass.

  Fats even said he would pay for the rabbits.

  But tonight, practical jokes were the last thing on Hackett’s mind as he pulled the Jeep to the curb in front of Fats’ house: a milky, two-and-a-half-story estate with buttercup yellow trim that could easily have accommodated a family of eight.

  Fats said he enjoyed having the room, but Hackett knew he rarely used the first two floors. Instead, he spent all his time in the open-concept loft that housed his computer equipment.

  Hackett switched off the ignition and studied the house.

  His pulse raced.

  The house looked quiet, too much so.

  Not a single light burned in any of the rooms, an anomaly that perhaps only Fats’ best friend would notice.

  Being deaf, Fats harbored a suffocating fear of the dark. Cutting off his light was akin to wrapping your hands around his neck, thumbs against his windpipe, and squeezing.

  Hackett dug his cellphone out of his pocket and hit speed dial. His attention returned to the house, waiting to see if the lights would blink on in rhythm to the ringing phone as they were programmed to.
<
br />   The interior stayed dark. Not good.

  Hackett dropped the phone in his pocket and bent to unlock the sliding drawer beneath the passenger seat. When he sat up again, he was clutching a five-inch, aircraft-grade aluminum SureFire flashlight and an expandable eight-inch, black-steel Casco baton.

  With a quick twist of his wrists, he screwed the handle of the flashlight onto the baton. The combination allowed him to control the light with his thumb and, with the flick of one finger, expand the baton to a bone-crunching, 21-inch-long club.

  When you walked the streets of Seattle with several thousand dollars worth of camera equipment over your shoulder, Hackett found it paid to be over protective.

  Hackett slid out of the Jeep and made his way up the path to the front door. If he tripped any alarms, they didn’t make themselves known by either flashing the lights or making the neighbors’ dogs howl in protest at the noise.

  The front door was a solid piece of oak bordered by two narrow windows. A burglarproof steel grid was encased within the glass.

  Hackett peered through one of the windows, straining to see the security panel. When he located it, he saw several blinking lights to signal it had been activated.

  Hackett tried the front door and found it locked.

  He moved to the garage next and found the side door unlocked. Before entering, he went around the side of the house to locate the phone box. The gray plastic casing of the box was cracked open and the thin wires sliced neatly in two — effectively negating any armed response.

  Hackett returned to the garage and let himself inside.

  A dark blue Chevy Avalanche truck, its windows tinted so deep it was like looking into a series of mirrors, filled half the garage. Fats hadn’t driven the truck in over two years, which was a pity because he had pimped the ride with slick blue chrome wheels and a killer digital audio system.

  Hackett walked around the truck to see the connecting door that led into the house was loose on its hinges. He stopped on the threshold and took a deep, nerve-calming breath.

  OK, you cyberfucks, here I come. Ready or not.

  Hackett slid inside, his flashlight-baton raised in striking position: the light forward at eye level, the baton poised above his shoulder.