by B Branin
Chapter 2
Though I felt like shit the next day, I learned that you can drown that damnable feeling called guilt in hard liquor, several games of darts, and one local barfly named Terra. It was a lesson that I took to heart though I privately vowed I would do my best to never fall victim to guilt again.
Despite soothing my conscience, I still had a particularly curvaceous problem to over come. All of last night and most of this morning, I couldn’t get Fiona off my mind. Not only because she was a pleasing image to mentally conjure but because, like it or not, I was stuck with her.
It had dawned on me that I had broken my personal dogma when committing a con. Avoid face to face interaction! Over the years I’ve avoided scams that require face time with the individuals you were ripping off. Sure, I’d done it before, but never enjoyed it. I preferred to take money from some rich snob who wouldn’t miss it, a faceless corporation, or the government.
So of course scamming Fiona felt different. It didn’t feel like a con. It felt like shame. I actually took money from a young woman at the end of her rope and most likely mentally and emotionally disturbed. I might have exceedingly low standards, but picking on the weak or mentally ill managed to slip under the bar on my dented moral compass.
I decided the best way to wash my hands of this whole affair was to discover if Ms. Fiona Ambrose was some sort of crazy and inform the proper authorities that she was a danger to herself and others. I might even return her money (or at least the sum I hadn’t blown last night).
That’s why I went to see Buggy, the informal information broker.
My good friend Buggy had been born with only two things worthy of note. First was the horrible name on his birth certificate which read Mark Marko Marcus. The second being social skills that any ape could rival (if the first contributed to the second, I had no idea). Despite his off-putting nature and variety of extremely eccentric behavior, I liked the guy.
You see, regardless of his various shortcomings Buggy was extremely intelligent (perhaps not as brilliant as Dr. Spriggan) and excelled at his own field of expertise which happened to be computers. If it could be decoded, hacked or cracked, Buggy was the guy to do it. If it existed in cyberspace, virtual reality, or in some poor sap’s hard drive, it was free game to the master hacker.
Though I swallow my pride in admitting this, if Buggy hadn’t received a 2.6 million dollar bribe from some big corporation executive that had been illegally reading their employee’s emails (ironically that’s exactly how Buggy discovered the dirty little secret), he might have become a better conman than me. What Buggy lacked in charisma and social skills he made up with ingenuity and an abstract thought process. That coupled with his internet wizardry, would have led Buggy into cyberspace scams whose magnitudes would have shaken even Wall Street.
Armed with my usual tribute of pizza, a six pack of cheap soda and a baggy of pot, I knocked on Buggy’s door. As usual, I waited for about five minutes while the master hacker realized that reality was calling. I really shouldn’t call these goodies a bribe. Buggy and I were friends after all, but it always helped to bring a special house warming gift each time I saw him. Ironically, the pot actually relaxed Buggy from his usual level of paranoia long enough for me to get some good info out of him.
Four minutes into my wait I heard the familiar sound of locks being turned followed by a scraping sound, which would be the 2x4 that was always braced against the door. This was followed by the jingling of chains being unlatched and tumblers to deadbolts being thrown. Five minutes on the dot, the door opened a crack, revealing a sliver of a pasty face and a single, scrutinizing eye.
“Are you or have ever been, associated with any law-enforcement agency including the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, or similar organizations?” Buggy asked, sounding as grumpy as a baby being woken from his nap.
“I’ve known you for years Buggy,” I replied with a sigh, “And you ask me that every time I show up.”
“Every day is a new day,” Buggy replied, “Yes or no?”
“I am currently working for the FBI…” I started.
Buggy paled even more than usual and a look of stark betrayal made his eye open wide.
“…the Female Body Inspectors,” I finished, “Strip searches aren’t mandatory, but encouraged.”
“Stop doing that!” Snapped Buggy, opening the door and moving to one side so I could squeeze past him, “That one is even less funny than the CIA acronym last month.”
“C-Cup Investigative Agent?” I laughed as I entered the basement apartment, “It was great!”
Upon entering Buggy’s little domain my nose was assaulted by various smells that thankfully lacked a known origin. Far be it from me to claim the title of the cleanest individual, but compared to Buggy I was the authority on spotlessness. Despite being a millionaire, Buggy lived like a ten year old who hadn’t learned the wisdom of cleanliness. His basement apartment was small and confined, with a single bedroom and single bath. If you could see his floor through the layers of discarded clothing, food wrappers, trash, and other less-then-sanitary substances, then you had better eyes than me.
However there was one corner of the apartment that bordered immaculate. That was, of course, his shrine of computers. An enormous oak desk held three computer monitors (top of the line plasma screens of course) while its belly held three powerful computer towers. There were several other devices placed here and there, including a laptop computer and a palm pilot. I had always been curious how the hacker switched between machines so easily but never bothered to ask.
Sometimes genius is best left to the geniuses.
“Pepperoni, olives, chicken, pineapple, and double cheese,” I announced holding up the pizza box to Buggy, then dropped the baggy on top of it, “With some additional herb and spices.”
A smile broke out on Buggy’s pasty face. Despite having known him for so long, Buggy was still nearly featureless to me. He was simply one of those people who stood out because they didn’t stand out at all. He wasn’t exactly chubby but wasn’t skinny either, and always wore the blandest of clothing. It was as if his body and face were almost as indefinable as his thought process.
“So what brings you by my humble abode?” The haphazard hacker asked, taking the pizza box and then flopping down on a couch, or at least what seemed to be a couch underneath tons of old magazines.
“I haven’t heard from you in a while, and wanted to see if you had any heads up on any new scams out there.” I replied. Now this wasn’t quite a lie because Buggy kept me well informed about which scams were being cracked down on by the cops or if the DA was on the warpath.
“A few pyramid schemes have been targeting tree huggers and earth friendly groups,” Buggy replied with a shrug, opening the pizza box and inhaling with relish, “But nothing that really concerns you. I mean, you’re pretty much retired now thanks to the money rolling in from your…ahem… ‘paranormal research.’”
“Laugh it up, dopey.” I shot back, exchanging the friendly barb, “I have a better chance of getting big foot to co-sign my car lease than you have on cracking ‘the conspiracy!’”
Buggy gasped in mock horror as he selected a slice of pizza.
“Go ahead and mock me but you’ll see that I’m right!” Buggy vowed, “I am onto something big. Bigger then the moon landing! Bigger than Area 51!”
Other than cracking codes and punching holes into internet security, Buggy’s favorite past time was conspiracy theories. Why or how he got into them was unknown but he tackles them with uncharacteristically rare enthusiasm. I really didn’t mind listening to the rants or supposed evidence of the Illuminati because I found Buggy’s stories much more entertaining than the letters usually addressed to me.
“But seriously,” The hacker asked around uncouth chomps on an enormous slice of pizza, “What brings you by? I know something is on your mind when you visit the Master-of-All!”
“Is that your new internet handle?” I asked with a genuine smile, pulling out my trust
y switchblade and beginning to clean the dirt from underneath my nails.
“Yeah, my Master-of-the-Universe accounts were tagged by a Swedish security biz,” Buggy shrugged, “For the next few weeks I can’t even send an email from those accounts without it being flagged.”
“You don’t seem too upset,” I said, surprised, “Last time someone black balled your accounts you gave them that virus that changed their home page to porn sites for a month.”
“It was a wormhole not a virus,” Corrected Buggy, then shrugged and tried to hide a smile, “You win some, you lose some.”
“Buggy…”
“What?”
“C’mon, spill it!”
“What?!”
“I know you!” I prompted, “There’s gotta be a reason why you’re not going cyberspace Rambo on this security biz.”
“Well,” Buggy began, his face flushing a bit red, presumably a blush, “The chick that caught me did a really good job. I got sloppy.”
“Oh a chick, eh?” I laughed stabbing the air in triumph, “It all makes sense now! Nothin’ hotter than a nerdy girly right?”
“Shut up!” He huffed defensively, then sighed as he continued, “She’s really good. I think I’m gonna try a few other things against this security biz to see if she catches it.”
“Does that count as foreplay?” I asked, twirling the knife and slipping it back into my pocket.
“Shut up before I max out all of your credit cards by ordering a few thousand blowup dolls.” Buggy warned, “Delivered right to your door of course.”
Knowing that if he had half a mind, he would make good on his threat, I gave up the little game.
“Okay, there is a reason I came to see you,” I admitted, “It also involves a chick.”
“I don’t condone stalking,” Buggy warned.
“Nothing like that, idiot!” I huffed, and then continued, “She actually hired me as a Paranormal Investigator.”
If my friend had any note worthy features, I’m sure the face he made was quite comical. Since he lacked any outstanding characteristics, Buggy squinted his eyes and stared at me with a hard frown, almost as if he wasn’t sure whether or not I was lying. I don’t blame him. Lying was as much apart of me as my hair or fingernails.
“You were actually hired as a Paranormal Investigator?” Buggy asked, then his nondescript eyes lit up as he grinned, “That’s classic! Why in God’s name would you actually agree to that?! Why not lie and say you were going to Mexico to hunt a chupacarbra or something?!”
I was wondering that myself. Shrugging, I continued on as casually as possible.
“She paid me five hundred bucks cash. So I’m hoping to milk this for all it’s worth…but, just so I’m not taking advantage of anyone here…”
Buggy snorted and I gave him a harsh look. He threw up his hands in defeat and then hauled himself up off the sorry sofa and moved over to his leather seat that rested comfortably in front of the computer monitors.
“You wanna make sure she’s sane so the cops don’t find such a respectable character like you preying on the disabled?” Buggy asked, hitting the nail on the head.
“If it’s no trouble.” I asked politely, “Her name is Fiona Ambrose. Supposedly.”
“Of course not,” He shot me a grin, “It’s what I do best!”
This time I was the one who gave a snort of laughter which he chose to ignore. After ceremoniously cracking his fingers, Buggy leaned forward and began to hammer away at one of the several keyboards that littered the desk. Seeing that he was having a good day (meaning he wasn’t going off on conspiracies or swearing me to secrecy over something or another), I walked over to the couch-like creation and carefully sat down.
I was just done wiggling me a niche in the paper-covered cushion when the sound of Buggy’s furious fingers pounding on the keyboard stopped. Assuming he had something, I stood back up and walked over.
“Well, this is interesting.” Buggy said with a click of his tongue.
A sinking feeling manifested itself in my gut.
“Seems this isn’t some fake name or alias. Fiona Ambrose has a birth certificate, social security number and medical records that all check out. As far as I can tell at least.” Buggy announced, meaning they were as authentic as you could get, “She seems to working as a waitress at some really classy social joint full of big spenders…”
Buggy scrolled down and a picture of Fiona appeared on screen. He whistled.
“But with those looks it’s no wonder she is working at the Maison de délicieux.” Buggy whistled, lingering on her picture just a second too long to be considered appropriate, then caught himself and continued on, “Never mind that. It’s her medical history that’s the most interesting.”
At last, sweet freedom. I was moments away from getting rid of my first and hopefully, only legitimate client. Fiona was about to be announced insane, then I will refund what little remained of her money and go back to being a scoundrel.
Everyone wins.
“Says here she is perfectly sane.” The hacker finished, tapping the screen that held medical reports.
“Impossible! She hired me as a Paranormal Investigator!” I exclaimed, gripping the back of the leather chair, “She wanted me to hunt down her dead sister for God sake!”
“Well according to this, she checked herself into the city hospital’s mental institution a month ago. She stayed there for about a week and was cleared by her shrink. The official diagnosis was fatigue and stress at work,” Buggy continued, scrolling down the page, “Maybe she had like a stress relapse or something. Or maybe she just wants attention?”
“She’s an eighteen year old girl with the body of a goddess and the face of an angel,” I snapped back, enjoying the poetic flare I gave to Fiona, as if I were somehow doing her a small favor, “She should have more attention than she could ever want.”
“First off, she’s twenty.” Buggy corrected, “And hey, personality disorders affect a wide variety of people.”
“How do you know?” I dared to ask.
“Well the illuminati categorize all people who are not completely absorbed by the system,” Buggy replied as if stating a well known fact, “Personality disorders affect people outside the system. For example did you know that schizophrenics-”
“No and I don’t wanna know.” I snapped harshly but was in no mood to humor my friend, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go hunt down some cult who is apparently running around with my client’s long dead sister.”
As I stomped angrily away from Buggy and his cyberspace throne, he called out helpfully before he relapsed into complete paranoia.
“Look on the bright side!” He offered mildly as he finished a piece of pizza.
“What’s that?” I asked as I cracked open the door, thankful for the breeze that lessened the stale smells inside the basement apartment.
“Well she’s sane so you can take her money.” The hacker commented with a shrug, “And she’s legal!”
“Thanks, Buggy.” I replied, exiting his domain.
I hate to say it, but that last comment did cheer me up.
