Come and Find Me

by Hallie Ephron

  More excellent advice. But once Diana saw a pattern, she was like a terrier going after a bone. That’s what had drawn her into hacking in the first place—one puzzle after another, each more complex than the last, waiting for her to connect the pieces.

  Besides, it pissed her off when clients hired them to stop the hemorrhaging, then opted for a Band-Aid. Each time it happened, it pissed her off more.

  “This isn’t the first client who’s done this,” she said. “Hit the panic button and shut us down rather than track the problem to its source.”

  “Maybe it’s easier for them to just pay someone off. They definitely wanted you to stop digging.”

  “Pay someone off?” Diana remembered Chander’s words: We’ve been assured. If they’d been hit up for payment in return for silence, then the last thing they’d want would be for her to keep sniffing around.

  “You’re right,” Diana said. “The publicity could have done serious damage. They warehouse data for some of the biggest hospitals and health-care companies in the country. If someone’s got them by the short hairs, dammit, I’m going to find out who.”

  “You are, are you?” Ashley narrowed her eyes at Diana.

  Diana didn’t answer. But with or without their client’s cooperation, she was going to find out what was going on. Otherwise Gamelan was doing nothing more than playing a glorified version of Whack a Mole. At least this time she’d anticipated the speed bump. Only time would tell if she’d baited the laptop in time.

  “I know that look,” Ashley said. “What are you up to?”

  Chapter Four

  “Come on, spill,” Ashley said as Diana transported Nadia back to her virtual office.

  “You like this outfit?” Diana asked as she turned Nadia’s hair back to short and blond and traded her going-to-meeting clothes for leather jacket and jeans.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “You’d wear it?” Diana added a line of chalky black beneath Nadia’s eyes.

  “I know what you’re doing,” Ashley said, but Diana knew she had her. Ashley couldn’t resist the question. Clothes had always been the perfect distraction. “Absolutely. Those business clothes are so Marian the Librarian. Does she have a Cheerleader Barbie outfit, too? Remember when we used to play Barbies?”

  Diana did remember. They’d play for hours on end. They had Bride Barbie, Ballerina Barbie, Cheerleader Barbie, and Western Barbie. Western Barbie, Diana’s hands-down favorite, came with a pair of six-shooters, each with a cylinder that actually rotated. All the Barbies had lived in the Barbie house, swam in the Barbie pool, and argued over which one got to drive the pink Corvette.

  “All you ever wanted to do was change their clothes,” Diana said.

  “Which was hard because you kept losing the shoes and hair accessories,” Ashley shot back.

  “Hair accessories? You lost their arms and legs.”

  “Those were scientific experiments and sacrifices to the gods.”

  “Sure they were.”

  “So what’s this?” Ashley asked, pointing to the corner of the screen where a stack of messages had queued up. Atop the stack was a message from PWNED, a friend Diana had made in this virtual world. “E-mail?”

  “Just like.”

  With a ding, a new message appeared on the top of the stack.

  GROB: Hey!

  “Grob?” Ashley leaned toward the screen and slowly turned her head to face Diana. “What kind of a name is that?”

  Diana felt her face flush. A moment later, another ding.

  MISSION: UP IN THE SKY 6 PM COPLEY PLACE

  “Now here’s something you’ll appreciate,” Diana said, clicking the message open.

  SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION: 2NITE

  “Spontaneous Combustion? Sounds like a band. There’s a Copley Place in this Fantasyland?”

  “OtherWorld. Probably. There’s an Eiffel Tower. A Moulin Rouge. A Taj Majal. A downtown Detroit. However, this event”—Diana indicated the message—“is right here in Boston. The real one. Spontaneous Combustion is an improv group. Like a flash mob? They’ll pile into a subway car and fill it with balloons and streamers and serve cake. Or show up in a clothing store and all try on the same dress, guys, too, then walk out onto the floor and freeze like mannequins. They post videos of their events on YouTube.”

  “Like those people standing frozen in the middle of Grand Central during rush hour.”

  “This one’s at the BPL. ‘Meet on the front steps of the old entrance,’ ” Diana read from the screen. Those steps faced the west side of Copley Square. “ ‘Six sharp. Today. All you need is a cell phone and a pair of sunglasses.’ ”

  “What are they going to do?”

  “Be there at six and find out.”

  “Today? But I’m meeting Aaron.”

  It took Diana a moment to remember. Aaron was Ashley’s latest, a guy she’d met on a plane. A stockbroker, according to him. Wanted to date her but wouldn’t give her his phone number or tell her where he lived. The only way she could reach him was through e-mail.

  Ashley must have read her expression because she said, “You’ve never even met the guy.”

  Diana raised her eyebrows and held Ashley’s gaze.

  “Okay. You’re right,” Ashley said. “He is a shit. And on top of that, he’s been weirding me out. Checking up like he’s some kind of control freak.”

  “So why are you seeing him?”

  “I’m not. I’m dumping him. Tonight.” Ashley sounded determined.

  “Well, dump him early. Then you can go to this. I bet the people you meet here will be far more interesting than Aaron.”

  “ ‘If you accept this mission . . .’ ” Ashley read the screen. “So anyone can just show up and participate?”

  “And there’s a ring tone.” Diana clicked on the link and a piano crescendo played, then horns came in: DUM dah DUM, DUM dah DUM. Then a man’s solemn voice. “Faster than a speeding bullet.” There was a whoosh. It was the iconic opening of the old Superman TV show. “More powerful—”

  Diana laughed and turned off the player. “You’re supposed to download that to your cell before you go.”

  “That’s easy. I’m in.”

  Diana hit reply. “There. You’re registered.” She hit print and the original message rolled off her printer.

  Ashley grabbed the printout and scanned it. “Nadia Varata?”

  “Sorry. She got the invite, so you’re registered as her. It doesn’t matter. I’m sure they don’t make you wear name tags or show a photo ID.”

  A new message popped onto the top of the queue, confirming the registration. Diana was about to delete it when there was another ding. This time there was a blinking star beside the message—a file attachment.

  Yes! She’d planted the bogus data file in time and MedLogic’s hackers had taken her bait.

  A third ding announced a new message from GROB.

  Diana turned the monitor away from Ashley, stood and clapped her hands together. “So, you want to see what came in that UPS box?”

  Chapter Five

  The shipping box lay open on the floor of the living room. The only thing that remained, nestled among the tissue paper, was a red cap. Ashley’s white hobo bag lay like a deflated dirigible beside the box. From down the hall, the toilet flushed. Boot heels sounded on the wood floor. Then silence.

  Ashley peered around the doorjamb. “Ready or not.” She stepped into the room, and pirouetted in front of the fireplace. “You’re going to look so great in these.”

  Ashley looked pretty great herself in the skintight black jeans and elaborately hand-tooled red cowboy boots. The fitted leather jacket hung open over a T-shirt emblazoned with the fractured word HACKER.

  Ashley sniffed the arm of the jacket. “Leather, right? Because I’m allergic to latex and polyester.”

 
“No vinyls were killed to make any part of that outfit. We’re talking sheepskin. Cotton. Wool. Well, maybe a little Lycra in the denim.”

  Ashley pulled at the crotch of the jeans. “I had to lie down to squeeze into them.” Then she twisted, straining to look over her shoulder and down her backside. “Wish there was a mirror in this place . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Diana offered her the red newsboy cap.

  “Hang on.” Ashley rummaged in her purse and came up with a hair clip. She pulled back her long hair, formed it into a figure eight, and anchored it with the clip on top of her head. Then she put on the hat, setting it on her head at a jaunty angle. She zipped the jacket and turned up the collar.

  “You look great, Ash.”

  “Great pretty? Great sexy? Great . . . big?”

  “Great in a don’t-mess-with-me kind of way.”

  Ashley tugged the jacket smooth. “I can live with that.” She stood tall, her feet apart, arms folded over her chest. Wonder Woman. “Don’t mess with me.” She delivered the words with a snarl.

  “It all fits you so perfectly,” Diana said.

  “As if they were made to order. So, when I give them back, are you going to wear these clothes or what?”

  “Or what, what? Of course I’m going to wear them.”

  “I meant out. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

  “The point is . . .” Diana took a deep breath. Because if she barely left her own property, then what was the point of gorgeous hand-tooled boots and a butter-soft leather jacket?

  “I’m sorry,” Ashley said. “Forget it. I should mind my own business.” She slipped on the wraparound sunglasses. “These are perfect too. Where’d you get this outfit?”

  Diana jerked her thumb toward her office.

  “No. You found them online?”

  “In OtherWorld. And I didn’t find them. You draw what you want, then send them the design and your measurements, and they make the pieces to order.”

  Ashley’s mouth formed a perfect O as she looked down at her outfit, across to the door to Diana’s office, and back again. “This is the same outfit . . . ?”

  Diana nodded.

  “It’s much better in the flesh. You’ve got to show me how you do it.”

  Moments later they were sitting side by side in front of the computer. Diana scrolled through her inventory of OtherWorld places and transported Nadia to the unimaginatively named Main Street Mall. Sidewalks, trees, and storefronts, even a fire hydrant materialized around her avatar.

  “Put it up over there.” Ashley indicated the wall.

  Diana toggled a switch and the screen went blank. Main Street Mall came up on the wall across from them. Ashley sat forward, staring at the massive image, her elbows propped on the desk. She whooped when Diana pressed the up key and Nadia rose into the sky. She skimmed low across store roofs, over a pergola, a town green, landscape materializing around her as she flew. Soared over a winding river and back.

  Diana glanced over. Ashley was gripping her chair arms. It felt like 3-D without the 3-D glasses.

  Diana brought Nadia down onto sidewalk. “You want to drive?”

  “You bet.”

  They switched seats. Diana showed Ashley how to use the trackball and buttons to angle the view, and the keyboard’s arrow keys to move Nadia and change direction. Ashley got the hang of it quickly. From behind, they watched Nadia saunter along, neatly avoiding colliding with a couple strolling hand in hand in the opposite direction.

  “Those are . . . ?” Ashley asked.

  “Not window dressing. There’s a real live person somewhere in the world controlling each of them.”

  “This is way cool, love the way Nadia’s hair is kind of springy, like a sea anemone. And that hip-swing thing she’s got,” Ashley said.

  “Recognize it? It’s your walk. I programmed it. And I sell it.”

  “You sell my walk? How come I don’t get a cut?”

  Ashley tapped the arrow key and Nadia continued, past a car dealership and a gun store.

  “Okay, stop there,” Diana said.

  Ashley paused Nadia in front of a door that said HEADLESS BARBIE’S CLOTHING TO GO. Naked mannequins in the windows were displayed, as promised, without heads.

  Ashley chortled. “How perfect is that?” She moved Nadia through the shop’s door and inside. The store had pink walls and clothing racks on either side, a desk and a cash register in the front. Nadia was the only avatar there.

  Diana took over the mouse and clicked on one of the clothing racks. A woman’s voice said, “Can I help you.”

  “Custom order,” Diana said.

  A text box floated on the screen.

  Customer?

  Password?

  Diana typed in Nadia’s name and password.

  Style?

  Diana examined the invoice that had come with the new clothes and typed in the seven-digit style code she found. A 3-D image of her avatar’s outfit—boots, jeans, jacket, cap, and sunglasses—popped up, revolving in space.

  “You want it in a different color?” Diana asked Ashley. “It’s easy to tweak.” With a few clicks she’d turned the jacket orange and the boots bright blue.

  “Ick. I liked it just the way it was,” Ashley said.

  Diana changed it back. “We just drag it over to the cash register.” She clicked on the outfit and dragged it over. “And voilà. We’re good to go.”

  She was about to click check out when Ashley put her hand out to stop her. “So, what else can you get here?”

  Diana smiled. Ashley was so easily hooked. “Whatever your little heart desires.” She offered Ashley the microphone. “And if you keep it simple, you can just say what you want.”

  Ashley thought a moment. Then said, “Long pink dress.”

  A floor-length, off-the-shoulder dress materialized and revolved—a swirl of pale pink chiffon with a shimmering skirt—replaced a few moments later by a hot-pink strapless gown, replaced by a pink chintz number with muttonchop sleeves and tiny buttons going up the back to a ruffled high neck.

  “That one’s definitely you,” Diana said. “Little House on the Prairie. Just enter your measurements, charge it to your credit card, and it’s made to order.”

  “Leather jacket,” Ashley said into the microphone.

  Up came a brown World War I–style bomber’s jacket, followed by a fitted black blazer, followed by a western-style jacket with serious fringe, followed by Diana’s design.

  “Order that one and I get ten percent,” Diana said.

  “Of what?”

  “More than you can probably afford.”

  “I doubt that.” Ashley set her chin on her hand as she watched leather jacket after leather jacket materialize and dematerialize. “I could definitely get into this.”

  While Ashley changed back into her own clothes, Diana stayed in her office. It took just a minute to reorder the outfit. She planned to set the clothes aside for Ashley’s next birthday. It was an expensive gift, but she’d never been able to adequately repay her sister for the way she’d been there for her when Daniel died.

  As she waited for the receipt to print, she picked up the walking stick from the umbrella stand beside her desk. Bleached bone white, the long, smooth, slender piece of driftwood had belonged to Daniel.

  She ran her hand along its surface. Her breath caught as pine resin—more a feeling than an actual smell—seemed to enter through the palm of her hand, swirl through her chest, and climb up the back of her neck and into her sinuses. Her eyes stung.

  She shook herself out of it, put the walking stick back in the umbrella stand, slipped on her earpiece, and called Jake back.

  “Diana?” Jake answered. “It’s about time. Are you trying to get us fired?”

  “They were headed for the exit long before I opened my big mo
uth.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I sure as hell do. I know when I’m being played.”

  “Played? What are you talking about?”

  “This makes at least the third time a client has circled the wagons the instant we get a lead on the hackers. All we’re doing is damage control, plugging holes. I want to put the hole makers out of business.”

  “News bulletin: Gamelan provides a service. We do what our clients want us to do.”

  “Is that how you see it, Jake? They tell us what to do and we salute and march? Daniel would have—”

  He cut her off. “Would you stop with Daniel already? The truth is, neither of us has any idea what Daniel would or wouldn’t have done. Let’s just stick with what’s going on here and now.”

  “Here and now, we’re supposed to have some kind of expertise that our customers are paying for.”

  “Paying for. Exactly. We’re in business to make money. And it wouldn’t hurt if we focused a bit more attention on the bottom line.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Diana said. If they were having a cash-flow problem, it was news to her. Jake did their accounting and Diana drew enough to live on. With what they were charging and the way the business had grown, there should have been plenty for her and Jake and more after that.

  “We’re doing fine,” Jake said. “But it’s a very small world out there and we can’t afford to piss off clients. So could you at least discuss your next outburst with me before you go off half-cocked again? We’re supposed to be partners.”

  Partners? More like the remaining two legs of a three-legged stool. Still, she couldn’t disagree—she should have talked with him before the meeting.

  “It’s just that I . . . I get impatient,” she said. “It’s frustrating going after hackers and then getting stopped when we’ve barely slowed them down.”

  “Diana, these guys are just pulling the same kind of crap we were up to two years ago. Without them, we’ve got no work.”

  “So you’re saying we shouldn’t try to track them down? Gee, maybe we should put them on the payroll.”