Chapter 4
Day 2
The day starts much too early for my liking, with the phone ringing downstairs.
I glance at the clock. Early? Shit! I overslept! I wake up quickly and realize the phone is still ringing, and jump out of bed. Why the hell isn’t Ciela answering the phone? Ok, dumb question, I decide, as I notice Mike’s bike still downstairs.
I’m going to have to harass her about that after he leaves. What the hell, she can only kill me once.
I expect the shop phone to stop ringing as I reach it but it doesn’t. I take a deep breath and answer. “Jayna Alexander’s Antiques Emporium, may I help you?”
There’s a pause at the other end, then I hear a familiar voice. “Did I wake you?”
Torres. “No, I was just busy.” I lie. “Why didn’t you use my cell number?”
“Couldn’t find it, and things are a bit hectic around here.”
Hectic at a police station, imagine that. “What’s up?”
“Oh, most of a graveyard. We’ve got a few hundred zombies wandering around J Street, being a general nuisance.” She pauses, and then decides to get to the point. “Is Azangel around?”
“Somewhere. I’ll send her over, ok?”
“Sounds great. Thanks.” She hangs up, and I do the same.
More zombies. Weirder and weirder. I'll have to let Az handle this one. I have my own brand of undead to fend off.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
One thing you have to love about possessing a mystical helmet that generates light and a few other things is the speed at which one can get dressed. Ciela is awake and out the door before Mike even has a chance to start complaining, let alone find his shoes. When he wanders down a few minutes later, trying to look like he hadn’t spent the night, I fight not to laugh.
“Mike.” I nod at him. Ah what the hell, I’ll leave them alone. Let them both be happy. Just because my love life stinks like a week dead whale in 90 degree heat doesn't mean I should be sarcastic toward them. “No work today?” He glances at the clock in the kitchen, and now it’s his turn to panic.
“Crap. Tell Cie I’ll see her later.”
“Will do.”
With everyone gone I have time to do some work. I’d agreed to meet Jimmy’s people at Zan’s apartment, oh, fifteen minutes ago. The day’s starting out bad, I wonder how much worse it could get? Scratch that. I don’t wanna know.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I get to the apartment and no one’s there.
Wonderful. Either they were here and left or Jimmy’s messing with me. Just what I need right now, more problems. Decisions, decisions. Fine, I’ll be civil. I open up my cel phone and dial a number from memory.
“Jimmy Lee’s, please hold.” The secretary puts me on hold before I can object. When she finally comes back, I ask to talk to her boss. Important business, he’s expecting my call. She puts me on hold and the line clicks over almost immediately.
“Jimmy. Talk to me.”
“It’s Jayna. Where are those guys you promised me?”
“Oh, damn. We’ve got a slight emergency down here, uh, you know how those things go? Everybody’s sort of tied up right now…” He trails off, and I hear his hand cover the receiver, and muffled shouting. He comes back slightly out of breath. “I gotta go, I’ll call you when I can spare someone.” He hangs up before I can object.
Crap.
Well, it can’t possibly hurt to try. I reach over and push what I hope is the ‘on’ button.
Gods, I hate computers.
The computer comes alive under my fingers, blinking orange lights turning steady green, fans whirring up to speed. The screen brightens and for a second I think it's going to be easy; and then it goes black. Half a second later, a small but ostensibly just-this-side-of-naked woman begins dancing across the screen. Screensaver? I hit the space-bar. Passworded screensaver. Shit.
Password? I ask myself.
No idea, I answer.
Shit.
Typing two-fingered, awkwardly, I discover the password is not Aquarius, nor Zan, nor Jayna; nor is it the name of any of his ex-girlfriends, at least the ones I know; nor a brand of designer water; nor any significant dates; nor, and at this point I'm reaching, is it the word password.
Damn. Where's the mystical Elfish-writing clue when you need it? Couldn't you have kept this stuff in a cursed pyramid tomb maze, or something simple like that? Think, I tell myself. What do you know about computers?
Nothing, I answer.
Fat lot of good you are. Fine. When in doubt, ask someone else. I hunt through my pockets for the slim black phone, stamped with the silver wolf's head logo. It dials itself as I flip it open, picking up on the first ring.
"Good morning, Jayna," answers a male voice. "We're listening."
"I need to hack a computer."
"Legal or illegal?"
"Er, legal. I guess? It belongs to a friend--"
"Is he just paranoid or does he know what he's doing?"
"...A little bit of both."
"We can have a retrieval team onsite in two hours. Access may take upwards of three days. The cost is--"
"Three days? I can't wait that long, I--"
"Is this an emergency?"
"Sorta. Yes. Yes, it is."
There was a brief muffled conversation at the other end of the phone. Someone new came on. "Jayna? This is Erin Grey. I'm going to talk you through some things we can try. Is there a model number on the machine?"
"Model... no. There's a picture -- a triangle, with lines from the points meeting in the center. And has the Greek letters pi and chi below it."
"Okay, is there a cradle on the tower?"
"A what?"
"It'll probably be black or gray, probably rectangular with a slot in it for a PDA, a handheld computer."
"Yes."
"Okay, what you're looking at is a Triathalon PX. While otherwise one of the most secure machines on the market, it has an almost unknown flaw in the BIOS design that we can use to our benefit. I'm required to tell you that performing this procedure on a computer you do not own is a breach of the J Street Personal Privacy Act (1999) and that the Callahan Group is in no way legible for any loss of assets or personal freedom that may occur as a result of following our advice in this matter, nor for any damages occurred in process of--" The legal spiel continued for at least thirty seconds, and then, finally, "For the record, could you confirm that you understand all that?"
"I--" wasn't actually listening. "Yes, I understand." Fingers crossed, doesn't count.
"Right," says Erin cheerfully. "Do you have a screwdriver handy?"
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Some minutes later, I've got the blasted thing open and I'm tracing wires based on the pictures Erin has sent to the phone -- I didn't know you could do that! -- and her careful explanations.
"You're looking for a flat gray wire running from the motherboard--"
"The large card."
"Right. Running to the hard drive."
"Got it."
"Unplug that."
"But how will we be able to see the files if the drive is unplugged?"
"We're getting to that. Done it?"
"Yes."
"Turn the machine on."
"Um, okay." I do. It beeps at me. "It says there's an error."
"That's because you unplugged the hard drive. It's supposed to do that."
"It's asking for the BIOS password."
"Type in default and then hit return."
"Nothing happened. The screen's gone gray, and it's telling me it was the wrong password."
"That's okay. The trick here is that, even though you can't see the menus, you can still access them."
"Huh?"
"It's just a bug we can exploit. Don't worry about it. Press the number 5."
Beep.
"Now press 2."
"Done."
"Press space, then the up arrow twice and then press space again."
"It beeped. Should it beep?"
"Yes, it should beep. Okay, you can turn the machine back off."
"Again?"
"Yes. You're going to want to plug the hard-drive back in."
"But I just unplugged it--?"
"Yeah, it works like that sometimes. Now, if you've done that right, and your friend hasn't altered the standard menu layout, what you've just done is set the machine to boot from the cradle instead of the hard drive."
"...okay?"
"Have you plugged the hard drive back in?"
"Er, not just... yeah, got it."
"Okay, you're gonna want to put the phone in the cradle in a minute. It's not going to be the right size, but all you really need is it to be touching the contact points; I'll reconfigure your phone from this end. Once the screen comes up, give it a minute, and then you should be able to skip password requests just by hitting the return key, okay?"
"Right."
"When you're done, just pick up the phone and dial 135."
"Dial 135. Okay."
"Okay? So, put the phone in the cradle, and turn the power back on."
"Right. Okay." I fumble with the phone, getting it in the slot and touching the metal points inside. Press the power button. The little lights flash, and then stop and a light on the cradle I hadn't seen before comes on. The phone's screen lights up "Receiving". Seconds later the main computer screen lights up, showing a spinning house, and then a blue screen requesting me to type in my name and password. A second smaller window popped up with Initialising CC&C Consulting OSOverRide 4.1 followed by System Red switching quickly to System Green and You May Proceed.
I hold my breath and hit return.Chapter 5
Day 2
Menu. I have a system menu. Praise the lords and pass the hackers. “Erin, it worked.”
“Great” the voice at the other end replies. “We’ll be in touch with payment details.”
The phone clicks dead in my hand and I close it, putting it back in my bag. So let’s see what we can see, shall we? Financial records? Good of a place to start as any.
Bills, bills, bills, water, electricity, garbage, men’s club, porn channels on his cable bill, why am I not surprised…
I keep looking and find multiple bank accounts. I didn’t know you could pay bills off J Street while you were still here. Interesting, he’s got utility bills from another dimension. He’s got two apartments?
Crap. How do you find one specific portal amongst all the multitudes on J Street?
Well, if Zan could find it, and keep an apartment there, it’s got to be a permanent portal. Yeah, like that narrows it down a lot. Who knows their way around the portals other than Joe Grendel? No one, that’s who. Do I want to risk owing one of the members of the Pantheon a favor? No way, so that’s out.
While I’m still looking at the computer screen, the mail arrives, and I stop my mad search of Zan’s computer files long enough to pick it up out of the mailbox. Let’s see…overdue cable bill, overdue car payment…love letter from Sherrie…bleagh.
Overdue car payment, with the name and address of the dealership, and lo and behold, they’ve already repossessed his car. That means they could possibly have records of where it was parked when they found it.
I glance at the computer and turn off the monitor. Just in case this doesn’t pan out I want to be able to continue my search of Zan’s files, without having to go through all of that hi-tech rigmarole with Erin.
* * * * *
The car dealership is one of those that actually seems fairly honest, but unfortunately they keep records about the way I keep the back room of my shop. Messy, cluttered and precariously stacked. They’re understaffed and the poor secretary is digging for the paperwork, answering the phone and talking to me at the same time. Not an easy feat, until you consider the fact she’s got three heads and six arms. The face that is looking at me is scowling in concentration as it tries to remember where the repossessions folder is.
She digs around for what seems like ages, alternately apologizing and answering the phone with her free set of hands. Finally she locates the folder on top of a filing cabinet, the last place she looks.
“Never let a temp arrange the files. I was out sick last week.”
I nod and she flips the folder open. “Oh, look at this, he only had two more payments to go! I wonder if I should make a note that he’ll probably be back for the car?” One head mutters to itself, as the other again answers the constantly ringing phone.
She hands me the folder and I sit down in the waiting area across from the desk to look through it. The vehicle in question was found abandoned by the JSPD, and impounded. They knew who it belonged to, and as a favor released it from impound, and called the dealership. They came and picked it up, then sent the papers to Zan’s apartment after a few days, when his next payment was due.
Zan loved that damn car, he wouldn’t abandon it.
Looks like I need to talk to Torres about getting a look at some JSPD documents.
Oh joy.Chapter 6
Day 3
Michael was on edge.
That was the best way to describe how he was feeling right now. How he had been feeling since a prospective new client had entered his shop in the mall and sat down, very patiently waiting to speak to him. She sat in one of the padded chairs in the small waiting area, one leg crossed underneath her, the other swinging freely as she leafed through a magazine. She looked to be about twenty-five, going on twelve. Any minute now, he expected her to start popping her gum.
He really wished she would leave.
He finished the last detail on his current client’s arm and began the usual clean-up routine. Adam was a regular, and was also the only customer Michael had that he knew of, that grew fur every full moon. How many tattoo-obsessed werewolves were there on J Street? He didn’t want to know, but he kept chatting with Adam for several minutes, as the former promised to send in some of his buddies for fresh ink. Mike nodded, agreeing with the tall blond werewolf, dropping a number of used items into the hazardous waste container nearby, before pulling off his gloves.
Adam hummed cheerfully as he left, pausing a moment at the exit to sniff the air, then turning to flash Mike a toothy grin and a thumbs-up. Mike waved him off, trying not to laugh. At least Adam had no concerns about the girl, which should have put him at ease.
It didn’t.
Now, unfortunately, he had to deal with her, he thought, crossing into the waiting area, where she still sat, leafing through a magazine. She looked up and grinned, and Mike fully expected to see vampire teeth or a forked tongue or something that would explain this feeling of dread at the pit of his stomach. But there was nothing there but a wide open smile.
He sat down across from her and she began.
“So, I was wondering…”
something’s wrong here…
“…if you can ink me and my boyfriend…”
there’s too many auras here…
“we want matching tats…”
one of them is dark…
“a rose wrapped around a heart …”
very dark…
“with a thin trail of blood…”
evil…
“from where one of the thorns pierces the flesh.”
malignant…
“Have you been listening to me?”
“Yes. Please continue.”
No…I want you to leave…
“ok, so for the rose, you know, I want…”
Warped. Twisted. Wrong.
Michael couldn’t focus on her words. He just couldn’t. Behind her bright smile and flashing blue eyes all he could see was her skull, covered with swirling shadows. He couldn’t do it. Everything felt wrong, the air was too thick, the lights too bright, the piped-in mall music outside too loud and too phony. He felt panic creeping into his system, sweat forming in the small of his back, his palms beginning to shake.
There was no way he could help this girl…woman…when all he wanted to do was shove her out of the shop and lock the doors, telling her to go somewhere else. Anywhere else.
As soon as the thought occurred to him, he stood.
“I’m sorry, but let me get you the name and number of a colleague of mine. What you’re asking for, well, it’s more his area of expertise. He’s very good at the more romantic tats, better than I am.” He lied.
The girl scowled.
“But…”
“No, I mean it. I never want to give someone bad ink, something I can’t handle. I send this guy work every once in a while…”
Mike knew he was really laying it on thick, and as a result cold sweat began breaking out on the small of his back. He knew he was a terrible liar, but all he could think to himself as she mulled over her options was Please buy this…please leave…take the card…please?
The bell on the door jingled and Mike sighed inwardly as she snatched the card from his hand and stormed out, just as two very familiar faces walk in.
“Cie, Torres, what brings you two lovely ladies in today?”
“Oh, nothing much, we were in the area and decided to drop by.” Torres laughed. Ciela on the other hand, stormed off to the small bathroom in the back without saying a word.
“Um…”
“She’s just pissed that she got zombie-bits all over her. A couple of them were REALLY ripe.” Almost as soon as Torres mentioned this, Mike noticed the smell and had to fight the urge to gag.
“I’ll have to agree with you on that. Geez.”
“I hope nobody comes in til after she gets cleaned up. She might drive off your customers.” Torres laughed. “We were wondering if you wanted to go out to lunch. My treat, Az saved me and the rest of the department at least six hours of work today.”
When Michael looked at her, puzzled, she added. “Who knew that a little concentrated light would work so well on zombies?”
“Most zombies don’t survive in daylight at all…” Mike gave Torres an unreadable look. “Are you sure you don’t just want to pump me for information, Lieutenant?
“Well, yeah, that was the plan, but lunch is still on me.” She cocked her hip as Ciela re-entered the front of the shop, wearing an oversized shirt and clean, fitted pants. “Cute, you keep clothes here too?”
“Er, yeah…um, I left some of my shopping here yesterday and forgot about it…”
“Riiiight…” Torres mocked, and a steady blush crept across Ciela’s cheeks. Mike, Torres noticed, was studying the floor, trying to hide a wicked grin. “Hey, I don’t blame you, Mike’s not bad looking.” she added, smirking, wondering just how red Ciela’s face could turn before it exploded.
“So!” Mike interrupted, looking slightly flustered himself. “Where do we want to go for lunch?”
“Oh, how about Jimmy’s?”
“Well we just ate there but I could go for it again.”
“Fine, pick something else.” Torres laughed as Ciela tried to regain her composure.
Just then the door to the shop banged open, nearly ripping off the hinges, and vibrating the glass shop window dangerously.
"Mike, it's happening again!"