Chapter 8
I was reading one of Meredith’s books on the Planet of Riches when my tablet alerted me to activity in the chat room. I’d been monitoring the room’s activity, watching as crooks contacted other crooks, jobs were handed out to underlings, and the other general minutia required for the smooth operation of a multi planetary mafia.
I learned a lot about the actions and maneuverings of a mafia. From who contacted who, who ordered what types of jobs, and more importantly, who wasn’t in the chat room at all.
Who hadn’t made an appearance yet in my mafia chat room?
The head honcho, the godfather, the don, or whatever else you want to call him. Or her. I wasn’t actually sure who they took their orders from. Half the time, the pronoun they used was he, while the rest of the time it was a she. Could there be two leaders in this gigantic mafia?
Possibly, but then who makes the executive decisions when there were disagreements? Maybe they flipped a coin or had some other system to deal with such things, but not once had I met him/her in the chat room.
Not that I really expected to, but it would have been fun to see what the underlings would do. How low would they bow, virtually of course, in front of their liege? Would they clean up their coarse language or would they feel safe enough to speak their minds since they might be planets away?
Even though I didn’t have the fun of watching the kingpin interact with his minions, I had enough entertainment watching the minions interact with each other.
Latens and Atrox were very high up in the organization, with Latens just above Atrox. They were involved in making a lot of deals and telling almost everyone what to do. They were so effective in their ability to order people around that at times I had difficulties deciding if they were on the same planet. Finally, after much pondering of the issue, I came to the conclusion that if they had been, they wouldn’t have been using the chat room to talk to each other.
Chat rooms were a very inexpensive means of talking to people on different planets. If you didn’t use a chat room, you had to get a satellite phone which charged you an arm and a leg for the privilege of horrible reception and garbled messages.
You’d think that a people who could travel between galaxies would have a reliable audible communications system, but you’d be wrong.
Watching my tablet, I saw Latens begin to talk with a new person, Omnia, from my invisible perch on the sidelines of the chat room.
(I loved how I could just watch these people make their plans and know they had no idea I was even there. You’d have thought they’d be paranoid that I might be watching, that someone might be watching, knowing I could be invisible, but it seemed to not have occurred to them. This just made watching all the more sweeter. They actually believed that if someone didn’t appear in the chat room as online, that they weren’t watching. How very…naïve.)
From the first word this new person typed, I felt their power, their importance within the organization.
Omnia: “Status on the money?”
Latens: “Trade happening in two days.” The only trade I knew of happening so soon was the money-jewels trade.
Omnia: “Dealing with a reliable source?”
Latens: “Reliable enough.”
Omnia: “Precautions?” Did they mean what precautions Latens was making that it wasn’t the police they were dealing with?
Latens: “Worked with them before.”
Omnia: “Not good enough. Could be mole.”
Atrox suddenly appeared on screen.
Atrox: “I’ve made precautions.”
Omnia: “Explain.”
Atrox: “She will be taken cared of after the deal goes through. I’ll know more details tomorrow.”
Omnia: “Define ‘taken cared of.’”
Atrox: “Shipped off to Barathrum.”
Omnia: “The money?”
Atrox: “Will be ours.”
Omnia: “The merchandise?”
Atrox: “Goes to my contact giving me the information.”
Omnia: “That negotiable?”
Atrox: “Already tried to. Won’t budge on that point.”
Omnia: “Pity. Latens, get all you can from them before they disappear. Atrox, keep me informed.”
Latens: “Yes ma’am.”
Omnia disappeared, leaving Latens and Atrox alone in the chat room.
Latens: “Why didn’t you tell me about your precautions.”
Atrox: “I didn’t think you’d care. As long as you get your money…”
Latens: “I care. I’ve been brokering this deal for months. You had no right –”
Atrox: “I have every right to protect our interests. I never trusted her. You know that.”
Latens: “And you trust your source?”
Atrox: “I don’t need to trust them. They give me information. If it checks out, I use it. If not, I’m not out anything. I have nothing to lose.”
Latens: “There is always something to lose.”
Atrox: “Are you threatening me?”
Latens: “Not a threat. A warning.”
Latens signed off, followed a second later by Atrox.
So Atrox and Latens answered to Omnia. Was Omnia the leader I’d been missing? If so, why had she shown up now? Or did she routinely come into the chat room to get updates on important operations?
There were so many questions and no answers. And even worse, no way to get the answers I sought.
I stewed about it for a few minutes before I turned to something more productive such as searching for the Planet of Riches, or as I’ve begun to think of it, the POR.
Opening my search program, I stared at the search box, trying to come up with some ideas as to what would narrow down the results.
But no matter how much I thought, nothing new came to my mind. As my eyes were wandering around the room, I saw a book for logic class and that’s when it hit me. Books and logic. Apart, they were only so useful, but together, they could be a powerful tool. Why didn’t I use the information from the hundreds of books Meredith had already provided me to narrow down the planets?
I’d already started making notes on the first book I’d begun reading, a habit from twelve years of college courses, so I had the makings of a preliminary search. Then, with each additional book, I’d add to my search criteria until I had a reasonable number of planets left.
I copied over the preliminary information I’d come up with, taking great pains to be as accurate as possible, and clicked search. Seconds later, something interesting happened. A screen appeared, which I’d never seen before, saying, “You’re search will take approximately: 3 Hours 56 Minutes 25 Seconds. Do you want to proceed?”
Almost four hours for my search? I clicked cancel and relooked at what I’d inputted. Everything looked right, a little scientific, a lot specific, but four hours to search all the planets? That seemed a bit extreme.
But what was I going to do? If I simplified my search, I’d never make any headway, but if I kept it the way it was, I wouldn’t know the results for four freaking hours.
Even through all my griping, I knew I really didn’t have a choice. I repressed search and confirmed that I wanted to continue.
Now I had four hours to kill. I could do homework, but I felt too antsy to get anything productive done, so I decided to go out on a fact-finding expedition.
After donning the requisite black on black with just a hint of black to complete the look, I made my way toward the dorms on campus. Pulling out my phone, I activated the tracking software, which allowed me to zero in on where my target was in real time.
Yes, for all my talk about knowing exactly where Meredith lived, I didn’t know the exact location of her home. No problem. I’d bluffed enough times to know what you can and cannot get away with. This was one of those times where your words sooner or later had to be backed up with actual information.
And the time for real information was approaching quickly.
I moved toward the blinking
figure on my screen as the night approached and felt poetic. The streetlights lining the sidewalk twinkled on and off as students, staff, and strangers passed them by. They reminded me of an old movie which had traffic lights and street cars. The blinking of the yellow lights at night, incessant, but beautiful in its way, like stars flashing on and off in the night sky.
The welcoming flickering of the streetlights was only enhanced by the blackness of the surrounding land. This blackness was thick, impenetrable, and oh so inviting to me. I lived for the delightful obscurity it provided. While most feared the exquisiteness it presented, I embraced it as a second home. I soaked in the dark as most soak up the sun. The complete nothingness of the night fed something deep within myself in a way nothing else could.
As I got closer to my target, I left the safety of the light and slipped into the darks delightful acceptance. I blended in completely with my surroundings, with even the light shining from dorm windows unable to touch me.
The blinking icon on my phone sped up as I moved closer to my target. When I was within one hundred feet of my target, the icon disappeared. I was directly between two three-floor apartments. Normally, having six separate dorm rooms to choose from would mean I’d have to break into each and every home or watch each one to find my target.
But campus housing was not the real world. In the real world, people didn’t have their names on their mailboxes, if they even had a mailbox. But on campus, every student was required to have their name on their mailbox so the school groups could send them fliers and the school could give notices.
The reality of the situation was, though, that nobody ever sent anything in paper form anymore. Everything, and I do mean every single thing that went on at school, happened online, but the tradition of requiring names on mailboxes stayed.
I stood out in the open, invisible to the unobservant, as I read the helpfully lit names on the three mailboxes to my right. Meredith’s name wasn’t there, so I turned to the other mailboxes, but again, I didn’t find her name.
Why couldn’t anything be easy? I’d been deliberately trying not to break into people’s homes and invade their privacy, but because Meredith couldn’t follow the simple rules, that’s exactly what I had to do.
But wait a minute. I stopped in my tracks. The school checked on this. It was one of the few things they were religious about. On the first day of each semester, school officials went out and checked id’s to mailboxes, making sure everyone had updated them.
How had she been able to get around this almost obsessive desire for address boxes the school had? Perhaps she didn’t live here, instead living in some other dorm room, but if that was true, why had my tracking software told me that this was her home base?
There was only one thing I could do and that was break into each dorm and search for signs of her living there. It wouldn’t be the fastest process, but it would get the job done.
Backing away from the buildings, I started to plot how I’d accomplish my goal tomorrow, for any attempt to get into the homes tonight would mean certain failure. But tomorrow, when everyone was away at class, would be perfect.
Yes, tomorrow would be the best time for nobody thinks that people will break into their home during the day. Everyone knows break-ins only occur at night.
Or at least that’s what the instructional videos every senior in high school is shown said. Crooks only work at night and sleep during the day. Just like vampires. Yes, all crooks are vampires, so why lock your doors during the day when they’re asleep in their crypts?
Planet Secrets Page 8
