Dangerous Code

by Stella Marie Alden

  When her tongue hits an erogenous zone at the base of my neck, I turn, unable to take any more of her torture. I lower her hand over what she’s done to me.

  “Oh.”

  “Hell yeah, oh.” I make love to her again but this time, more slowly, taking the lead, making her beg for more. Before the sun rises, we’ll both be addicted to whatever we got going on because as I said, I don’t do one night stands.

  Chapter 6

  Colin

  A woman screams, sharp pain hits my left shin, and I dive to the floor with the safety off. Pointing the gun into the unknown, I’m blinded by the bright light and prepare to fight or die.

  “C-Colin, no gun! B-bad dream.”

  Meggie?

  Oh man, I hate waking up like that. Shaking, safety back on, I place my weapon on the night stand. Then I sit and wait for the adrenaline to filter out of my bloodstream. Her sheets slide to her waist as her chest heaves up and down silently. Knowing PTSD firsthand, I hold her tight, knowing the moment will pass.

  After a while, she slips out of my embrace. “I’m okay. Let’s go back to sleep.”

  She turns out the light and tugs the blankets over her shoulder, facing the wall. No way. If I’m in this for the duration, that’s not going to fly. I spoon her close and kiss the top of her head, inhaling the scent of strawberry shampoo. I mutter little nothings like ‘it’s okay’ and ‘you’re safe now’ until her body relaxes into mine.

  Instead of falling asleep, she surprises me by talking. “I have this reoccurring nightmare. A man pounds on the front door. I know this dream and I know he wants to kill me. It’s pitch black and I’m maybe eight or nine. Just like always, I twist out of my blankets and head down a cold hallway in my bare feet and pajamas. I always stop to check on my baby sister. She’s fine. Her thumb’s in her mouth, breathing regularly. The dream seems so real.”

  There’s a long pause followed by a deep sigh. Then she slides her hand down my forearm and finds my hand. I squeeze tight but say nothing and let her continue sharing, the moment strangely intimate.

  Then her whole body shivers. “I’m at the top of a staircase, scared beyond belief because the monster’s at my front door, about to break in. Danger music plays in my brain. You ever have that?”

  “Yeah, unfortunately.” Visions of my friends’ bloody bodies flash into the dark but I immediately shut them down. My background noise is the sound of gunfire, explosions, and their screams.

  I tune back into her monologue. “…down the steps and push with all my might. A game of tug of war ensues but like always he wins and the door flies open. I dash back up the stairs and hide in the bathroom, forgetting to lock the door behind me.”

  She stops. “You don’t really want to hear this, do you?”

  I squish her body into me and whisper, “Finish it.”

  “Well the bathroom morphs into my backyard and the evil thing follows on my heels, snapping, and snarling. I can’t win. The grass is cold and wet and mud squishes between my toes. I run as fast as I can but heavy breathing gets closer and closer. I know I’m about to die. Then this cell phone magically appears in my hands. With a glimmer of hope, I press 911. But I can’t because now the phone is an old black rotary. I stick my finger into a hole and pull it around. There’s ten slow ticks.”

  Megan pinches her nose to sound like an operator in an old movie. “What number please?’

  I have to snicker at her comic relief.

  She laughs a little. “Yeah, I have the weirdest dreams. I dial again and again, each with a different outcome. But the phone won’t work because help never arrives in time. Then the monster-man grabs me with a knife to my throat and slices slowly. My neck drips with blood…”

  She sits straight up and turns on the light. “Oh my God. I’m supposed to die but instead, I kicked that asshole with my heel.”

  I lean back, amused. “Ah, that part I recall well. Lucky you didn’t hit something more important.”

  “Sorry.” She reaches over and grabs a notebook and pen off the nightstand. “Hold on. I need to write some stuff down. Pretty soon I should be able to wake myself up.”

  While she scribbles, I thumb through a book close by. I always thought lucid dreaming was a lot of hocus-pocus but based on her excitement, maybe I’ll give it a try.

  Then content at whatever she’s accomplished, she lays back down and soon her breath becomes regular.

  I switch off the light and wonder what it’d be like to have her around. The sex is awesome. I bet she wouldn’t get all clingy. We’re two of a kind in a lot of ways. Thinking of all the possible ways I could make love to her, I drift back to sleep. Then in what feels like moments but is probably more like a couple hours, my phone rings. Oh no. Something’s up. My shift doesn’t start until noon.

  Untangling from Megan’s long legs, I reach for my phone. “O’Brien here.”

  My partner Joe sounds unusually agitated. “You need to come down to the office, now.”

  “Why, what’s up?” Rolling off the futon, I move to the opposite side of the room, trying not to wake Megan.

  “Just get your ass across town.”

  “Why? What happened?” With the phone cradled to my ear, my jeans slip over my bare ass and I already miss the warm shower with her that isn’t going to happen.

  “Drew is in with the captain. FBI’s had Jones under surveillance. You were caught with your pants down, dick out.”

  “How much did they see?” I pull my tee-shirt over my head and on the other side of the room, Megan stirs.

  “Enough. See you in five.” Joe hangs up.

  Back at her futon, I kiss her eyelids shut, and say real soft-like, “I’ll call you later. Okay?”

  “Mmm. Okay.” Her sleepy grin causes my stupid heart to beat irregular. I am so done for.

  Minutes later, I’m pacing outside my boss’s office. His blinds are shut tight across the glass window facing the cube farm. I knock once and crack open the door. Wouldn’t you know it? Drew’s there, sitting in the corner and smiling like the Cheshire Cat.

  Ignoring the jerk, I face my boss sitting behind his old steel desk. “Hey, Captain.”

  “Sit.” Mike Sansone’s always been more like a friend than a boss but today, his expression says otherwise.

  “Think I’ll stand, if you don’t mind.” I’ve been told I have authority issues but that’s not how I see it. I just have problems when someone stupid gets in my face.

  “You need to see this.” Mike swivels his monitor and starts the show.

  Megan and I are eating Chinese, kissing, and then she takes her shirt off. Thankfully most of the rest of the show is of my bare ass.

  “Really, Cap?” I turn to Drew. “What gives you the right to-”

  My captain interrupts, “Hold on, son. Slow down. You were caught banging a suspect.”

  “Suspect?” I glare bullets into Drew. “He told me she was with us.”

  The FBI agent raises his eyebrows, smirks, and shrugs. Mike misses the whole interaction, because Drew is hidden behind the monitor. That little weasel. But it’s all my fault. This is what I get for thinking with my dick and ignoring my number one rule.

  The captain, a pretty bright guy, no doubt senses I’m about to commit a capital offense and glares at the FBI agent, a supposed member of our team. “Drew has evidence that she’s been selling to the Chinese.”

  “Captain…Mike, c’mon. I’m having a really hard time believing that Doctor Jones is working with -.”

  “-Until I learn different, she’s a high security risk.” He sighs and clicks a few keys.

  A video plays of a well-dressed black man with Asian features entering her office. It’s the same surveillance camera that was probably used on me. As her transaction comes to an end, the evidence is pretty convincing.

  Mike sighs heavily. “That’s Danny Chiang. Freelance. Best known for brokering hi-tech software. One of the best. Word is out that he’s selling to terrorists in Northern Africa. Obviously, Jon
es trusts you so you’re going under cover. Stay close. Find out what she’s up to.”

  After some arguments which result in a threat to my paycheck, I walk back to my cube, seriously pissed that I’d been played. Drew must’ve sensed my attraction, planted the idea that she wasn’t a suspect, and hoped for the best.

  I’ve walked right into the middle of something but not quite sure what.

  Staying detached is necessary in situations like this and I’m not. How do I explain to the captain that she’s already more than a good lay? I can’t. I’ll lose my job. A job that I’ve worked long and hard for.

  Having no other choice, I re-read everything about Megan from our secure site. The overview suggests that Doctor Jenna Jones is brilliant but with a mushrooming case of paranoid schizophrenia. I’m not buying any of that. There would’ve been meds in the bathroom or next to her bed.

  My gut twists, my third cup of coffee already burning a hole through my stomach lining.

  I remember when Megan had written me years ago, all excited about early admission into a government sponsored program. Her unique spin on artificial intelligence was passed onto some government boys who arranged for an all-expenses-paid college education as long as she worked for them.

  That’s when she’d stopped emailing me or I her, depending on your point of view. That’s also when that bitch, my ex-wife Charlene, had dug her claws into me.

  The report states that the pressure of work and college became too much for the seventeen year old, Megan McCarthy. They researched her uncooperative behavior, she was diagnosed, and her scholarship revoked.

  A few years later she changes her name to Jenna Jones and resurfaces at MIT, disease under control. She makes sexual abuse allegations against the government and threatens to go public. Los Alamos subsequently shuts down their gifted program and facilities.

  The Feds continue to buy Jones’ software but due to her unstable nature, they keep her under constant surveillance. There’s more, but I don’t have time to read the rest because I get this prickly sensation at the back of my neck that I need to get back to her.

  That feeling is seldom wrong.

  Chapter 7

  Megan’s distress

  “Colin?”

  I stretch my arm across my futon but no one’s there.

  So much for my hope of breakfast in bed. Despite the disappointment, I can’t help but grin. Last night was so awesome that my sex twitches just thinking about him.

  I vaguely remember his cell phone ringing in the early hours of the morning. Colin had kissed me and said he’d call me but his voice was tense. I wonder if there were more incidents of terrorism. My conscience and I struggle but like always, curiosity wins out. I justify my actions by thinking I may be able to help.

  “Jason, playback Colin’s last phone conversation, the one in my apartment.”

  I know it’s probably unethical but with the kind of people in and out of my office, capturing the air waves makes perfect sense. I need the upper hand in order to survive.

  In the Bluetooth speaker that sits beside my bed, audio plays out. First, my sleepy Colin answers his phone, followed by the unbelievable rest.

  Oh my God! Perhaps I misunderstood? I ask Jason to play it back again. How much did they see? I was practically naked. I had the greatest orgasm of my life on my office table and there’s a video?

  Mortified, I run out into the conference room and check the ceiling, my plants, the walls. Nothing. My dolls? Sure enough. There’s a pin hole in the shadow box. Behind that, there’s a camera in the wall. I can’t find the mic but I know it’s there.

  Where did we have sex? On the table? On the wall? From that angle, I would’ve been mostly hidden by his big body, but still… How many people saw?

  I inhale and gasp, a fish without water. Dammit. Wheezing, I raise my hands high over my head and try to stop the out-of-control racing of my heart. It’s going to be bad. My worst panic attack in years. Just the thought triples my anxiety and I drop to my knees on my yoga mat like an asthmatic.

  Bracing in child’s pose, I work hard to convince myself that oxygen isn’t really being sucked out of the room. My apartment fades away to fog signaling the start of a repressed memory.

  Dr. Kate says this is healthy.

  I say screw that.

  A naked brown man with white straight teeth and dreamy chocolate eyes approaches. His black, well-trimmed beard emphasizes exotic middle-eastern features.

  Run! Don’t be fooled by his drop-dead gorgeous looks! But it’s too late. This happened years ago. Teenage-me is infatuated, thrilled that she’s going to make love for the first time.

  The fog shifts, the scene changes, and teenage-me is sitting on a college cot, naked under a thin sheet, with my legs drawn tightly to my chest. My dorm room is sparse, not even one poster on the wall. I hate this space. I want to go home.

  Mahmoud’s handsome features are skewed in anger. “Everything I’ve ever worked for is down the drain because of your high school scribbles. You think I’ll stand for that?”

  Trapped, I claw at the spider web of the dream but the movie plays on.

  Oh God, please. I don’t want to see any more of this.

  “…No more holding back, Megan. You belong to me, now.” The huge man holds me down and pounds me hard from behind while I scream for him to stop. It takes forever but finally he finishes and pulls out.

  “Go clean up.” His command drips with disdain. Forever more, I’ll know I’ve met the devil.

  The fog fast forwards to where teenage-me is curled up in a ball, crying while he jacks off, forcing me to watch a video of my first sexual experience.

  Tears stream as I beg for some greater power to have mercy. Then the fog thickens and I’m sitting alone in my dorm room, typing madly, coding the first version of Jason.

  Over and over I repeat my new mantra. I am safe. I am whole.

  A sheen of sweat cools my skin, I shiver, and yet congratulate myself for surviving another round of memories.

  I should call Doctor Kate.

  Oh sure.

  My side of the conversation will no doubt go something like this; “I met a guy, had a one night stand, and now I’m having bad dreams. Oh yeah. And there’s a video out there with me having hot sex with a NYPD detective that I knew as a fat kid.”

  That is not going to happen but I can’t stay here. Not until I call someone to fumigate the electronic bugs.

  I’m probably one-hundred percent manic but don’t care as I grab my college knapsack from the back of my closet. I stuff it with a couple clean shirts, my favorite jeans, and sneakers.

  Then I shout, “Jason, find any copies of any videos of me anywhere online and erase them all.”

  My app responds. “Working. Estimated time for completion, eight hours and thirty two minutes.”

  “I don’t ever want to see Detective Colin O’Brien again.” In a drawer under my futon, there’s clean pajamas which I add to my bag.

  Jason responds, “To clarify, I should make all attempts to keep Detective O’Brien out of your visual?”

  “Yes. And return any emails from him with an out of office reply. Accept no texts. No phone calls. Nothing.” I touch my cheek and it’s wet. God damn it. Damn the whole male species to hell.

  “Jenna. I sense you are unhappy. Should I try to understand?”

  “Not now.”

  “Detective O’Brien is buzzing at the downstairs door.”

  “Don’t let him in. Inform my staff I’m off for a few days. Unlock the alternate exit. Go into stealth mode.” I grab my purse, turn off the coffee maker and glance around, unable to fathom how my life had just turned on a dime.

  “Detective O’Brien has asked me to tell you something. Do you want to know?”

  “Fine. Yes. Just this once.”

  “He says that you are in danger and to please open the front door.”

  Well. Duh. I’ve been in danger my whole life. I push open the emergency exit and rush out of the
building and onto the sidewalk.

  Colin’s down the street by my office front door, shouting and pointing at something behind me.

  Then tires squeal, a muscular arm circles my waist, and I’m airborne.

  Chapter 8

  Colin

  “Megan! Stop!”

  My heart stops as the door of a white van slides open and just like that, she’s gone. The vehicle darts in and out of heavy traffic and disappears.

  Stunned, I pick up my radio but it interrupts my call with a squawk. Two blocks south of me, another suspect is strolling down Commerce Street with a bomb strapped to his chest.

  I’m torn in two but do what needs to be done. “O’Brien here. I’m on Seventh and Commerce. Responding.”

  Running, I speed-dial Joe. He’s the only one I trust with Megan’s safety. “Jones was just abducted outside her building. Commercial white Chevy van heading south on Seventh. No license. I’m responding to the new threat downtown. Find her. Find Jenna Jones.”

  “Copy that. Sending your coordinates to Georgio.” As I hang up, I pray and place all my trust in my team.

  On the other side of the street, the suspect approaches a grocery store wearing an oversized army vest. His fist is wrapped around a small object which could be the detonator. Jaywalking with a few other pedestrians, I close the gap between us.

  Breakfast hour, this street is lined with outdoor cafes full of people. If this guy has the same amount of explosives as yesterday, old brick buildings will crumble. Scores will die.

  I plug in my Bluetooth, call my boss, and say loud enough for the terrorist in front of me to hear. “Hi Mom, you all want coffee?”

  “We’ve got eyes on you. Backup ETA, five minutes. Don’t be a hero, O’Brien.” Sansone’s calm voice reminds me that I need to chill.

  “Sure, Starbuck’s. No problem.” I pause, betting everything on Megan’s app. “Yup. Yup. Just wondering. Can you ask Jason, if he wants some, too?”

  “Seriously? Her application? Just a second. I’ll see if it’s online.” The captain puts me on hold.