by Piotr Ryczko
As his monitors flashed into view, a myriad of analysis data flowed in. The techie’s face twisted into an unsettling smirk.
“You sure this is real, Lady? The results, they are all over the place.”
“What?” Viola leaned over his shoulder and eyed the screens. Whatever diagnostic software was being used, the program threw off a myriad of random errors. All of them were contradictory. Her eyes scanned over them, forcing her mind to spin at possible conclusions.
“Yeah. You are right. Unless... unless... Is it possible these swabs belong to two separate individuals?” She thought it was a long shot, too obvious a solution, but at this point, anything was worth a try.
He cringed at the stupidity of the idea, but punched away at the keyboard. Pretty soon a 3-D scan of the analysis source flashed up on the screen. His face flinched as they both realised the cotton swabs were indeed from two different people.
He cringed as he shot her an uneasy glance. She waved this away as a lucky guess, and pointed him back towards the screen. As he realigned the two samples, she realised they were nearly identical.
“Mother and daughter.” Adrenaline shot through her body. This was it. Inches away from her answers.
And as the techie nodded in confirmation, his body suddenly froze. His eyes squinted at the monitor. Froze for a longer moment. Then spun towards her with exasperation filling his face.
“Hey, Lady, where did you get this from, huh? This must be some fucking joke to you? Isn’t it?” For every word that he spat out, his tone grew more confrontational.
“Hey. What do you mean? Please! Tell me what you see there,” she begged and leaned over to see the LEDs, but he blanked them out, then pushed her towards the entrance.
“Get out of here! Right now. Get the hell out of here. Before I call security!”
And before they knew it, his shrieks caught some unwanted attention. Concerned glances were directed at them from the passers-by. A man halted and stared.
Viola realised she had about ten seconds before the whole thing blew up in her face. She whirled on her heel, and raced for the door.
* * *
The blizzard blasted into her face as she desperately attempted to locate the keys to her car. Where did she hide those things? She was absolutely certain they were in her jacket, in one of the pockets. She dug even deeper into them, turned them inside out, but still nothing.
Her mind tried to make sense of what the hell had happened back at the lab. She had been promised this guy was trustworthy. At least enough to get her errand done. She had counted on this. Despite this, she had gone in there and lost the most substantial proof she’d had in years.
And now? She had not only lost the DNA profile but also her car keys. For Christ’s sakes!
She glanced at her numb fingers. Way too cramped to be of any use now, the cold had eaten itself into her bones. She punched her car several times, then let hopelessness take over her body as she slid down against the car door.
She had gone down into hell, and this was rock bottom. She had finally hit it, and would now freeze to death beside her car, in what might be the most nonsensical death of this century.
Then she felt a chuckle come up from some undefined place inside herself. This plain conclusion cheered her up. At least now things couldn’t get any worse.
Then she felt her phone purr out a vibration. She slid it out of her pocket with her skewed thumbs.
It was a text from her mother.
You on the plane, girl? Viola began to smile to herself.
You’ve been nothing but disappointment in my life, blurted out the next SMS. Viola felt her chuckle turn into a giggle. She was wrong. She could be sure of one thing, if things could get worse, they probably would.
Sorry? Anne asked Viola in the third SMS. But with Anne, the apologies lasted only until the next message. One that would arrive about ten seconds later.
I’ve booked another plane for you. Be there. Or I will fire you! Viola shook her head, but her chuckle only increased. She couldn’t help herself anymore. These messages were a hoot.
Strike that. I cancelled the booking. No second chances. This threat made her bawl out in laughter. And it hurt. In a good way.
You there? another SMS burst in. Viola cackled at this.
Sweetie? I love you. And as the last message arrived, Viola’s laugh launched into a howl.
As she leaned backwards, she bumped into the car’s door. And as she did that, it opened.
With ice-covered eyes, she barely saw through the haze. But as she pushed at the door further, she realised it had been open all along. She had simply forgotten to lock it. And as the keys came into sight, she realised they were still in the ignition. Just as she had left them.
Chapter 27
Earlier, Viola had been more than prepared to return to Aftenposten and convince her mother that her life had changed. For the better. She had recuperated from a temporary disability, which was nothing to worry about.
She had even prepared a whole tale.
But that was then. And now, everything had changed.
At this moment, the last thing she wanted was to stumble into Anne. She sneaked into the Aftenposten’s offices with one goal only. Get in, talk to their IT expert, get her answers, then get out. And do this before Anne realised Viola was here.
That was the plan anyway.
In practice, things had gone wrong from the moment she set foot there. For one, her feet left a long trace of smudgy footprints on the office carpet. This would be perfectly normal with the winter blazing outside. But she had not foreseen the brand new off-white carpet which Anne had installed.
As she entered the open space area, she felt everybody’s smirks stabbing at her back. Her idea of an inconspicuous entrance had flip-flopped into a feeding frenzy.
But she wasn’t about to stop and indulge in any unnecessary conversations. She blasted her way past everybody’s glances and into the IT section of the offices.
* * *
Viola could barely see over Jorunn’s obtrusive shoulder. The woman’s fingers whizzed in hyper-focused bursts across the keyboard.
Viola and Jorunn were both in the Hole, the place where all of the administration, backup, and security work of the Aftenposten’s servers happened. Viola figured Jorunn was a woman in her twenties, although it was quite difficult to pinpoint, with the girl resembling a champion sumo wrestler.
The Hole got its nickname from Jorunn’s offbeat interior design habits, which transformed the office space into a medieval-looking dungeon crevice, with her as a self-proclaimed “Dungeon Master”. All the lights were out, except the incandescent LEDs lined up on the desks.
And to add to the charm, the Hole was thickly layered with chips and sushi leftovers, all of them more than a week old. Viola sighed as she saw the waste dump. Even Anne couldn’t make Jorunn see reason. Not after Jorunn prohibited any activities that resembled cleaning. All this due to the servers’ sensitive nature.
But Viola couldn’t care less about the mess. She was certain she had seen Marianne in the video stream on her blog. But when she landed at the clinic, the blogger was gone, replaced by another woman named Ingrid with an identical recording. At this point, even Viola began to doubt herself, and the only way to confirm her suspicions was to check the WordPress logs of Marianne’s site. And this was where Jorunn’s White Hat hacker skills came in.
“Sorry, can’t help you. Short of breaking into the ISP provider hosting Marianne’s WordPress site, there is nothing I can do. And I am sure you wouldn’t want me to do that anyway. Right?” Jorunn swerved her huge body to the side.
“Right! Uh-huh. Right. But... why wouldn’t I want you to do that?” Viola knew exactly where this was headed, but it didn’t hurt to play stupid. This was her territory. If they took the next step, it would mean breaking the law. And the Norwegian law didn’t take this lightly, with a minimum sentence of five years. Not to mention the legal repercussions for the newspaper.
/> Viola had lost count of how many times she had asked for Jorunn’s services. Always in the name of a good cause. One more pressing than the other. But no matter how dramatic the situation, or how tragic the fates of the people involved, the girl always turned Viola down. And not because she couldn’t do it, but out of principle.
“Come on, Viola. You know why. I just can’t.” The woman repeated the same old story. It was clear to Viola that Jorunn didn’t want to turn her down. They had always been on a good foot. Sometimes even approaching personal. And considering Viola’s aloofness, this was quite a miracle.
“How are you holding up?” Jorunn changed gears and prodded Viola softly. But when Viola’s eyes faltered away, the hacker mulled this over and continued more brashly.
“Tell me. This thing. The blogger. You quitting your job. Is this connected to you somehow? Personally?”
Viola knew Jorunn was sensitive, and her silence would hold all the answers the young woman needed. So, the safest bet was to let the question peter out into nothingness.
And as the silence drew out, Jorunn glanced at Viola.
“You know. Your mum. She is not so bad after all. Maybe she will even have you back. Sure you don’t wanna to talk to her? Come back to us?” Jorunn never stumbled with her choice of words, but she did now.
Viola was touched as she felt an emotional attachment below these words. But the only thing she could do was shake her head. And when Jorunn noticed this, she sighed again.
“Give me two hours. I will get you what you need.” The woman voiced her decision, then squeezed Viola’s hand tighter and glowed toward her.
* * *
“I used a chain of a dozen or so different bugs in the WordPress binaries, which gave me partial editor privileges. From there, the road to critical vulnerability wasn’t long, and with remote root access, I was able to download the blog’s SQL database and its most recent backups.” Jorunn was feverish from excitement. She then pointed to two text files.
As Viola eyed them, she felt perplexed. Whatever was so obvious to the Dungeon Master, was completely incomprehensible to her. And Jorunn must have noticed Viola’s reaction, because she smirked in amusement, then clicked on two texts.
“These SQL databases list the media files that are uploaded to the WordPress site. If you compare these two, you will notice a video file has been deleted and re-uploaded within a very short period of time. Two days, to be exact.”
“I appreciate this, Jorunn. But I can’t base my story on a database hack. It’s too vague. Other than that, I now know for sure that someone replaced the media, this gets me nowhere.” Viola’s stomach felt heavy as her mind churned away at the possibilities. This was not enough. One video file tampered with, that could be purely coincidental.
“Nowhere? Inconclusive? Well, grab some sushi, girl, put up your feet, and watch this!” The young woman pounded away at her keyboard, and it was immediately followed by two video streams that started simultaneously, side by side.
Viola felt a surge of electricity punch through her body. Four years, countless dead ends, and even more sleepless nights. Only now did she have this. The single most irrefutable piece of evidence since she started digging into this case.
Her eyes widened at the two videos. Each one, by itself, might not mean much. But both, side by side, they could only mean someone had taken great care to cover their tracks.
One stream showed Marianne and her kid, and the second one, Ingrid, choreographed, dressed, and lit to look almost identical.
Evening
Viola’s legs felt incapable of supporting her as she reeled out from the Hole. Her mind was a jumbled mess as all the questions stabbed at her with their sharp edges.
Why would the clinic go to so much trouble to record a similar version of Marianne’s video? The obvious answer would be to cover their tracks. But what lay behind this? Had Marianne become too big a liability for them? And if so, what did they do to her after they found out about the recording? Was she even still alive?
Every one of these questions demanded a rational explanation. Something her head wasn’t capable of delivering right now.
She had to get the hell out of here, before Anne caught on to her. The last thing she needed now was a confrontation with Anne’s should-haves, impropers, and unacceptables.
But as she twisted her body, about to flee, her eyes locked onto a familiar set of wrinkled brows. Right in front of her.
Her mother.
* * *
Viola repeated her story several times. And for each telling, her mother’s face grew more wary of the details. They both knew it was a house of cards, about to crush Viola.
As Anne listened, somewhere in the distance, Viola heard a pen as it made a grating noise against Anne’s desk. Its every single beat hammered Viola’s pulse into a gallop, as Anne’s eyes pierced right through her.
“That’s it? Is that supposed to impress me?” Anne tested the words in her mouth, not really sure what she thought about her daughter’s proposition.
“Frankly, ever since Markus, I am sceptical about you.” Anne jabbed at her daughter.
“Markus? How the hell does he have anything to do with this?” Viola fired back.
“Everything. How long since you’ve been to visit his grave?” Anne wouldn’t let this go. Viola knew she had no one to blame but herself. And the mere mention of her son bristled every single hair on her body. She had to redirect her mother’s attention before this ended in some kind of brawl.
“Please... I am willing to do anything, Mummy.”
Anne sent a glowing smile toward her, then threw an envelope on the table.
“Something for you. Dropped on my desk earlier today.” Anne pointed towards the plain envelope, which had no addressee nor sender.
“Maybe not a Middle East correspondent job. That one went to Jon,” Anne said, making sure to stress the name.
Viola’s body froze. She was about to lash out, but then restrained herself. The guy was barely twenty-five, with little experience. But he more than made up for that in looks and charisma. Something that didn’t go unnoticed with Anne. But she had difficulty believing her mother would cross that line. No way.
Maybe there was something else behind this. Maybe Anne simply wanted to hack away at Viola’s dignity. If she couldn’t have the job, Anne could at least give it to the least suited person in the paper. Viola realised this smelt of paranoia, but she often enjoyed indulging in her neurosis.
But then she collected herself and did the only thing that made sense.
“Are you kidding me? Of course!” When everything else failed, an act of humility would be the best tactic.
Viola glowed as she unwrapped the envelope, which revealed a set of pictures. But before she knew it, her throat compressed in a wrenching, silent cry. She felt her knees were about to collapse as she struggled with the effort to keep standing.
The picture set depicted the interior kindergarten at InviNordica. It also revealed the identity of each and every woman at that place. But the worst part was that Viola immediately recognised the situation. This was the exact time of her presence. Viola fumbled through the pictures, expecting the worst.
Finally, she laid her eyes on the last image, and just as she expected it, there she was. Only, she had her back turned towards the camera. A mixed blessing that filled her with contradictory feelings. Every woman’s identity was compromised, but hers wasn’t. And while she kept up her poker face, she felt the ground give in. How the hell did Anne learn about this whole thing?
“A tip from an anonymous source. This place. A clinic. InviNordica. And there is some substantial evidence pointing towards illegal gene therapies.” Anne summed up the whole thing without any hidden meanings.
“Who is your source?” Viola blurted out.
Anne responded by grabbing the picture with Viola in it. She played with it between her fingers, then locked gazes with Viola.
“Anonymous. And will stay that way.
But only if you manage to do your job.” Was Anne talking about the source, or her own daughter?
Anne knew about everything.
“So, what do you want me to do?” Viola swiped the envelope back.
“Can you manage, nothing?” She pursed her lips innocently.
“What do you mean, nothing?” Viola said calmly, but everything in her croaked at the suggestion. Had she heard her mother right? She tried to wrap her head around this. Something that went against everything she believed in. The manifesto, the family tradition, all of it evaporated in a micro second.
“No more questions. What I need to know now is, is my best watchdog up for the job? Or do I have to worry she will run off somewhere and mess further with everything?” Anne stabbed at Viola, making her intention perfectly clear.
An unnaturally long pause followed. Finally, Viola just nodded to Anne and decided there was nothing to add.
“Believe me, it’s for your own good.” Anne sent her a compassionate glance.
Viola sneered, twisted around, and began to flee the room. But she didn’t make it to the door before Anne halted her with a cough.
“You never answered me about Markus.” Viola bit down on her lip as she heard the words behind her back. She couldn’t afford any more escalation. So, she tucked away her ego, contained her burning anger, her unresolved needs and motherly traumas, then turned towards Anne.
“I haven’t been to his grave,” she whispered.
“Since when?” Anne pursued the matter to its bitter conclusion.
“Since the funeral.”
She fled the office.
* * *
Viola lashed out at the dashboard in her car.
Why did Anne bite down so easily on this truth? After all, her daughter had failed her so miserably with the Middle East correspondent job. She had betrayed her own mother. And everything she stood for. So why were there zero repercussions?
Her mother played tough, but one thing had changed. Beneath those refined games was an old woman’s attempt to save her daughter from herself. A desperate cry to save her family. But this wasn’t rooted in some family sentimentality. Viola had no doubts about what lay behind this.
