Cyber Thoughts

by Dima Zales

  I project my relief that he’s okay and my love for him in general, and he shines with a deep violet aura—his happiest state of being.

  He then crunches on his snack and tries to send me the resulting emotions, as though he’s trying to say, “See, I told you it’s yummy.”

  I do my best not to gag and wish I had access to Google so I could check if it’s safe for rats to eat cockroaches. Common sense tells me it should be, or else New York would be littered with rats that died from cockroach poisoning. I bet that in the wild, rats eat a ton of insects for protein, so why not cockroaches? They’re nonpoisonous bugs, after all.

  An idea forms, and I ask, “Mr. Spock, can you get outside?”

  He doesn’t seem to understand, so I try a command I typically use when I’m leaving the house. It tells him to jump in my pocket if he wishes. “Mr. Spock,” I send. “Fresh air?”

  I see that he recognizes what I said, because I’m hit with a wave of ratty excitement that typically accompanies the idea of riding in my pocket.

  I wait to see if he extrapolates the command to be as I meant it, which has nothing to do with going in my pocket.

  Gulping down the last of his gross meal, Mr. Spock scurries away, telling me he’s probably looking for fresh air, or, just as likely, for me and my pocket.

  The app that allows me to see what he sees doesn’t work due to lack of connectivity, unfortunately, but I do get an idea of his progress based on the emotions I gleam from the EmoRat app.

  After a few minutes, the EmoRat app disconnects, informing me Mr. Spock is out of range from the phone—a sign he went somewhere far, though not necessarily proof that he went outside.

  My theory is that Mr. Spock hid somewhere in that helicopter. That means his journey brought him to the ventilation shaft of a garage or hangar or roof—places that are likelier to have exposure to the outside and cellular connectivity, assuming we’re near cell towers right now and not somewhere like Antarctica.

  What’s key is that after Mr. Spock finds fresh air and enjoys it, he must then get back into the app’s range. If he doesn’t, my idea won’t work. I’m hopeful he’ll do the right thing, because once he does find cell connectivity, he should get his rat version of the brain boost back, and that will increase the chances of him coming back. Or he might just come back in any case when he wants my company again.

  Deciding to work on the assumption that I’ll see Mr. Spock again soon, I rush to fully implement my idea and launch the AROS IDE.

  Luckily, the required code is something I should be able to handle without the boost, though all the pains in my body and worries about my immediate future are distracting.

  The premise of the app is simple. I plan to use Mr. Spock as a high-tech carrier pigeon of sorts. Each Brainocyte is a tiny computer with a basic processing unit and memory. The Brainocytes’ resources are limited. This is why we use the server/client architecture that puts most processing and memory requirements in the cloud. But, in a pinch, Mr. Spock’s Brainocytes have more than enough memory to store a short email and another app. The new software will run in Mr. Spock’s version of the AROS system and scan for internet connectivity. Once the app gets online, it will send the pre-prepared email to a predetermined list of people.

  I code away, and the work makes time fly, which is great, especially since my captors are probably leaving me be so I can ruminate in my tied-up boredom. What would usually take me minutes in my enhanced state takes two hours—and by the time I finish, I’m really worried about Mr. Spock not getting back, thus making this whole programming exercise pointless.

  I review the code I wrote about a hundred times and test parts of the code that can be independently tested. It would suck if I missed my chance to get in touch with my friends due to a mundane software bug. When I feel like I’d rather have another tube up my nose than review the same lines of code again, I stop coding the email-sending part of the app and write a module to receive emails, in case my friends reply.

  When all the coding is complete, I consider what to include in the actual email.

  “Hi, all,” I begin. “People who claim to be part of a government task force have taken me.” I go on to explain my predicament, what they did to me, and take care in describing the people I’ve encountered. “Ada, the shrink you booked for me is with the CIA or something similar. I know how crazy that sounds, but I assure you it’s true. I bet you could confirm it if you dug deeper into her cover as a psychologist. Joe, the pseudo shrink’s receptionist might know something. She didn’t seem like a government agent to me. Her name is Monika.”

  I pause and check if Mr. Spock has returned, but the EmoRat app is silent.

  To kill more time and stop myself from going crazy, I review my recording of the session with Golovasi to see if I can include anything else in my email that might assist my friends in helping me. I come across something useful, but I’m not sure if I’m upset enough with Golovasi to include this tidbit. Then I decide I am, and end the email with, “Joe, Golovasi mentioned she has a son. It could be part of her cover, but by the way she said it, I don’t think so.”

  Since Mr. Spock isn’t back, I work on expanding the email app to support image attachments, figuring I could include a snapshot from the Golovasi videos, as well as one of Agent Lancaster’s face. Once the task is complete, I attach a couple of images of my captors.

  When I can’t think of any more improvements to the app, or anything to add to my message, I begin to fret about Mr. Spock’s return in earnest.

  Suddenly, the door to my room opens, and two masked people walk in, dragging some sort of wheeled table.

  A green piece of cloth covers the table, but despite the obstruction, the setup makes my bare feet grow colder as blood leaves my extremities.

  “What is that?” I demand, trying to sound brave. “And do you realize you’re keeping me here illegally?”

  Instead of responding, one of the men pulls the cloth off with a flourish. Dumbfounded, I stare at the objects on the table as the two people leisurely exit the room.

  Nausea curls in my stomach as I catalog each item. There are mallets, scalpels, saws, drills, a car battery with sinister-looking clamps, and a vast number of sharp and painful-looking things I can’t even name.

  My worst fears are manifesting.

  They plan to torture me for real now.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  No.

  These are government employees, and the government doesn’t torture people. Okay, maybe they do, or did, but not officially and certainly not like this—with equipment a Bond villain would cringe at. At least I don’t believe they do, even in the case of spies and terrorists. Then again, they shouldn’t have pumped me full of drugs either, but they did.

  There’s a small chance this is a psychological tactic meant to scare me into cooperating. If that’s the case, it’s working really well.

  Battling my nausea, I examine each tool for signs of prior use, but that doesn’t lead anywhere. If anything was used before, it’s probably been sterilized, and that makes a dark sort of sense. You wouldn’t want to give your captives HIV or hepatitis while torturing them, since that would go beyond breaking the Geneva Convention. It’s a bit like the alcohol swipe used on prisoners before a lethal injection.

  I begin to scream obscenities at my captors and continue until my throat hurts. Then I plead for them not to use this stuff on me and to let me go. I get no results, aside from bringing myself to the edge of a panic attack.

  I’m about to burst with worry, when a wave of positive rat emotions interrupts my tribulations.

  “Mr. Spock, buddy, you made it back.” I cram my message with all the relief I’m feeling. “Please, stay where you are. I need to do something.”

  I have no idea if he listens to me or runs toward the room with the phone, thus staying in range of the hotspot, but I stay connected to Mr. Spock long enough to load the new app that will turn the rat into a high-tech carrier pigeon.

&nbs
p; Now for the trickiest part of all.

  “Now, Mr. Spock,” I send. “I need a huge favor. I want you to go outside again.”

  A dose of confusion mars the happy feelings coming from the EmoRat app. Without his boost, the little guy has trouble understanding human language.

  “Who’s a good little rat?” I reassure him as soothingly as I can. “Don’t get scared.”

  When he’s content again, I mentally cross my fingers and try the whole “go outside” thing again, though I fear he might reply with something like, “Hey, fool a rat once, shame on human. Fool a rat twice, shame on rat.”

  “Mr. Spock,” I send casually, as though I’m about to head out for a stroll in Central Park. “Fresh air?”

  I guess his lack of brain boost can work in my favor.

  Mr. Spock gets excited, and I can tell he’s going for it. I just hope he was outside when I lost contact with him—a big assumption.

  After ten nerve-racking minutes of hoping to lose connectivity with my rat, the EmoRat app throws a connectivity error.

  Having nothing new to do, I resume looking at the cursed table and wonder if it’s considered a form of torture to make someone wait to get tortured. Eventually, I force myself to close my eyes to stop staring at the damn table.

  A couple of seconds after I close my eyes, the horrific drilling sound resumes.

  “Hey, I wasn’t trying to sleep,” I yell, knowing full well that my complaints are pointless. “I’ll keep my eyes open. Just shut that down.”

  The sound remains, so I override the noise with music again. This time, a song by Evanescence comes on.

  Since it’s 10:12 p.m. and I know it’ll take Mr. Spock hours to complete his task, I start playing games on my phone to kill time.

  After more anxiety-inducing hours, I decide that, by all rights, Mr. Spock should be back by now. It’s almost six in the morning on the eighteenth, meaning it’s been an hour longer than the last time I waited for him, assuming that, with all this lack of sleep, my math is correct. Also, is it safe to assume it would take Mr. Spock the same amount of time to go outside and come back as the last time?

  In another hour, I start to wonder if I should develop a Plan B.

  When no Plan B occurs to me, even after another hour of concentration, I realize I’m starving and thirsty and, paradoxically, need to go to the bathroom. I guess my circadian rhythms know it’s morning, and my body is demanding breakfast and a bathroom trip as per usual.

  I stop playing with my phone, open my eyes, and resume making myself crazy by imagining the horrid equipment on that table being used on me.

  After another half hour that feels like it spans half my life, the door to the room opens.

  I turn off the music and find the drilling sound is gone.

  Tensing all over, I watch Agent Lancaster slowly amble into the room.

  If I thought about it, I would’ve expected him to be wearing a black patch over his eye, like a pirate. Instead, the entire right side of his face is covered in bandages. He looks more like an unfinished mummy.

  “My superiors doubt my objectivity,” he says, his voice colder than Siberian winters. “They’re sending a replacement interrogator to this facility, which means we only have twenty-four hours to enjoy each other’s company.” He brushes his fingertips over the torture instruments with a lover’s caress and adds, “I intend to make the best of what little time we have left.”

  I open my mouth to plead for mercy, though nothing I say will give this guy his eye back. Before I can get a word out, his cell phone goes off, the heroic ringtone sounding like the theme from a show like 24. How the hell does he have reception in this place? I guess his phone must use Wi-Fi for calls, like some of the more recent phone services allow, or maybe this wasn’t a call at all, but an email message or text.

  Agent Lancaster looks at his phone, his remaining eye narrows to a slit, and he storms out of the room.

  I frantically check the EmoRat app to see if Mr. Spock is in range, but he’s not. Did Mr. Spock even get outside? Do my friends know what’s going on with me already? Could that message Agent Lancaster received have something to do with it?

  Could they somehow save me before he gets around to his grisly task?

  For another two hours and forty minutes, nothing happens, and the wait is driving me insane. Suddenly, the door opens again, but instead of Agent Lancaster—and to my slight relief—Golovasi walks in.

  “We need to talk,” she says, her face wearing a mask of motherly concern. “Steven—I mean Agent Lancaster—might have lost it.” She scrunches her nose at the torture devices. “I couldn’t—”

  I don’t catch what she says next because, to my huge relief, I’m hit with Mr. Spock’s emotions.

  “You’re the best rat ever,” I send him and check for any emails he might’ve brought me. “I’ll get you a whole pound bag of peanuts once we get out of this.”

  There’s an email from almost everyone I know. I’m about to read the email from Ada when I catch Golovasi looking at me quizzically. I guess she didn’t expect me to not pay attention to her.

  “Look, Jane, or whatever your name is,” I reply, my tone clipped. “I understand the game you’re playing. Your colleague, Agent Pugh, already tried a similar technique. You’re the good cop right now. Lancaster is the crazed bad cop. I watch a lot of Netflix and know the drill.”

  She looks thoughtful, probably considering how best to handle me. Finally, she says, “He really will hurt you. I can promise you that.”

  I believe her. Though she’s a liar, I’m convinced she’s telling the truth right now, and despite my renewed hope, that knowledge floods me with dread.

  “It’s not like we’re asking you to betray your friends or your country,” she says earnestly. “We just want—”

  I don’t listen to her sophistry about the government’s need to be able to crack any crypto security that its “enemies” might deploy. Before this debacle, during a recent Brainocytes Club meeting, I argued with Muhomor about this very topic, and my views at the time were sympathetic with what she’s saying. Things are different now. I won’t lift a finger to stop Muhomor from unleashing Tema into the world, open-source style. Hell, I’ll help him, or do it instead of him, just to spite these people.

  Holding eye contact and nodding at Golovasi like I’m listening, I read Ada’s email.

  “Sweetie,” it begins. “I hope it’s okay, but I had to delay Mr. Spock from going back to you to give us time to do some research into your situation. Look on the bright side. We can now pass some useful information your way. You’re going to get messages from the others, but just know I got out of the hospital and no one bothered me, so you don’t need to worry about me. Muhomor is indeed in a coma. Your situation made your cousin crazier than usual, and I didn’t think that was possible. He thinks he has a way to get you the help you need, but he said we don’t want to know the details. You should read his email—”

  I stop reading Ada’s message, ignore the email from Mitya, and open Joe’s, noting there’s an attachment to his email, which is odd.

  “Her real name is Jean Berger, and she indeed has a son,” Joe’s email begins, and I feel a chill run down my spine as I look at the person Joe is talking about. “The son’s name is Mark. His wife’s name is Evelin. Her granddaughter’s name is Mary. I’m in their home in Queens. See attached.” My mental finger shakes as I double-click on the attachment icon. I see an image of a man my age. His eye is black and swollen, his face looks scared, and Joe’s gun is to his temple. “Tell that bitch that if I don’t hear back from you in a few hours, I’ll kill them, one by one, starting with the kid.”

  I nearly choke on a mix of horror and relief, but push the emotions aside.

  Joe just gave me the little bit of leverage I need.

  “Your name is Jean Berger, and your son, Mark, is in deep trouble,” I say in a hushed whisper, interrupting Golovasi-Berger’s tirade.

  She pales and looks over her
shoulder, confirming my suspicion that this place has a camera and microphone embedded somewhere. “What? How can you—”

  “Come closer,” I hiss. “I’ll whisper the rest.”

  She eyes the table, and I can see she’s tempted to grab something sharp and stab me. Her motherly instincts win out, however, and she approaches close enough that I could bite her ear if I wanted to.

  “Do you know what kind of monster my cousin is?” I ask her as softly as I can, hoping the microphone behind her isn’t sensitive enough to pick up my words.

  She nods, her chin trembling.

  “Then you understand the severity of the situation.” I realize I sound inhumanly cruel, but it can’t be helped. I don’t have much sympathy for this manipulative woman. “Joe is in your son’s home. Besides Mark, he also has Evelin and Mary. He says he’ll kill them if he doesn’t hear from me. He says he’ll start with Mary.” I describe what Mark looks like in the picture.

  “Tell that psycho if he so much as touches a hair on their heads, I’ll skin you alive,” she hisses vehemently, forgetting to whisper.

  “You’re wasting valuable time,” I whisper. “I don’t want innocent people to get hurt.”

  Something inside the woman seems to break. Her shoulders droop, and tears flood her eyes. “Look, I don’t know how you’re communicating with him, but I can’t get you out, even if I wanted to. I’m not—”

  “Let’s make sure Joe doesn’t do anything crazy,” I interrupt. “I’ll tell him to stand down, but you have to get me onto your Wi-Fi so I can make that connection. Quickly.”

  She looks confused but says, “The Wi-Fi password is in my phone.” She reaches down, plays with her phone, and shows me a long string of digits. “How do you plan to reach your cousin? Do you want me to bring you your phone? It might be faster if you call him with mine.”

  “Jean.” Agent Lancaster’s voice manages the impossible feat of sounding colder than ever before. “I can’t believe you’re falling for his social engineering hacker tricks.”