by JM Addison
*
The afternoon had been long and tedious. After doing battle with the dour librarian of the municipal records, Mara was ready for a drink and a hot shower. The campus libraries had been the most helpful and she had a lot a material that she copied or printed to take with her and go over later. She was also anxious to see Dell. She stopped at a shop in the campus area to pick up a set of cheap play clothes to change into. She had to wash the ones she was wearing before they took on a life of their own.
On the train ride back to the suburbs, she reviewed in her mind some of the material she had discovered. Almost everyone at the top of Viiradium was involved in some way or had a stake in the interest of other companies. Some sat on the boards or acted as hired consultants. She wondered how they even got things done at their regular jobs with all the extracurricular activities of the executives.
The most obvious outside activity was the fact that Chairman and Chief Executive Officer if the company, Bob Danvers, was running for Massachusetts state governor.
She was more interested in what was not so obvious. If there was something to hide, then it wouldn’t be so easy to find, would it?, she thought to herself. During the course of the day, she began to make a chart of the facts. She was hoping to use the chart to then sift through what she knew and what she found out and hopefully come up with the next steps to take in the investigation. Between all the research she did and Dell’s help, she was hopeful that they would make good progress and start to make some serious progress soon. She financially wouldn't be able to hold up much longer.
She took the time during the day to set up an account on one of the free e-mail sites. She did a little research to find the e-mail address of the companies that were identified on Chris’ sketch. They included Riptide Softworks, Sequitus Technologies and Taligent. She sent an e-mail inquiry to all of the “sales”, “info” and “webmaster” users at each one. Her message was simply a probe, a fishing exercise. She would have to get back to a computer with access to the internet to check her messages to see if any replies were received. Her message was the same to each one, just an inquiry about any possible encounters with data theft even though they might believe the data to be adequately protected by strong encryption techniques. She hoped her message would make it through the junk mail filters of each organization.
She found herself distracted a bit too often by thoughts of Dell. She was glad that he didn’t seem to have any romantic attachments in his life. She hoped that he didn’t think she was too young. What was she doing? Her mother’s murdered body was still warm and she was thinking of herself! She had to stay focused and keep her mind from any exploration of frivolous infatuation.
She got off the train at the Russell Field station with the rest of the day’s workforce and bustled outside to find a taxi. There would be a few this time of the day, but there was also likely to be a lot of people needing them since it was the evening rush. She had no problem and realized that most people simply couldn’t afford a taxi in their daily commute and had cars parked in the lot or someone to pick them up or a bus or something.
After an exhausting day, she paid the driver and approached the motel on foot carrying all of her notes and material she had copied or printed from the library and a shopping bag of clothes. She approached cautiously, but didn’t note anything out of the ordinary and eventually fumbled with the key to get the door open. She was tired enough to barely notice the cold as she shoved the door shut with her foot and flopped her armload of papers and notes on the bed.
The first order of business was a hot shower and fresh clothes. It would be a little odd not washing the new stuff first, but at this point what choice was there? She got into the shower fully clothed and undressed under the beam of steaming water. At least the fatigued little motel had a decent shower. She hadn’t realized how difficult it was to get out of sopping wet clothes, they sort of stuck to you. She piled everything in the corner of the tub and stood under the hot spray letting the steam relax her.
She toweled off and rejoiced in the delicious feeling of clean underwear. She also splurged when she was at the store and treated herself to a nice fluffy, crimson bathrobe. She was rubbing her hair dry and noticed in the mirror a remarkable improvement over the last time she looked.
