Torrent: The first book of Byte short stories Page 2

  Mac toyed with a napkin then reached into his pocket and produced a pen, he wrote a few lines.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing much, just scribbling a lil’ post-it poem on a napkin.” He pushed it toward me. Our fingers touched, warmth flowed. I picked the napkin up and read the poem.

  “Where is the shroud, I always knew? I looked but there was only sun, something not seen for so long. Again I ask, what became of the dark? When I awoke in the middle of my night.”

  He pocketed the pen and smiled at me. “Just a scribble is all.”

  “You are too modest by far dude and you are indeed the king of all post-it poems.” I read it again to myself. “I love this. Can I keep it?”

  “Yes, if you must.”

  I folded it carefully and placed it in my jacket pocket. A souvenir of our very first face-to-face meeting that I knew I would always treasure no matter how our futures played.

  The lights dimmed, and all the other patrons had vacated the premises.

  “Where’s your car?” Mac inquired lightly. “I think they want us to go.”

  I glanced around, the place was deserted. “Outside the bank, not far.” There was a slow realization that the time had come to say goodbye which caused a dreadful sinking feeling in my stomach.

  “Can I walk you?” he asked.

  “I would like that very much.”

  Mac picked up my jacket and held it out for me to slip my arms into the sleeves. Together we said goodnight to the last remaining waitress and stepped out into the cool night air.

  He took my hand and walked me slowly up the street. I could see the car waiting silently under the streetlight. I should have parked further away.

  “This is me,” I said quietly. “Thank you for a wonderful day.”

  “No, Ellie. Thank you.” He took both my hands in his and looked into my eyes. “I have wondered for a long time what this would be like.”

  “Me too,” I replied. “For weeks I have wanted to ask you to meet me for coffee.”

  He smiled; his eyes sparkled under the streetlight. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Too scared,” I said. “I would have been devastated if you’d said no.”

  There was something else too. What if he’d turned out to be a frog not a prince after all? I was more afraid of having my dream shattered than having Mac say no. The unnatural disasters I called relationships in my past warned that there was a high possibility of Mac being a frog. If that were so, my only option would be to renounce men completely and fulfill my mother’s prophecy.

  “Babe, I wouldn’t have said no.” He hugged me tightly; it was so easy being in his arms and hugging him back. So far so good, he was looking like a prince not a frog.

  “I still can’t believe it’s you,” I whispered. “…Before you go, take this.” I pulled back from him a little and reached into my jacket pocket. From my wallet I removed a business card and passed it to him, “It’s my card, so we can do this again.”

  “Definitely,” he said and looked at the card in his hand. “Special Agent Gabrielle Conway.”

  “Yep, that’s me,” I replied leaning on the car door. I didn’t trust my legs they seemed a little unsure at holding my weight.

  “How many phone numbers does one person need?”

  “Apparently I need four.” A direct dial, a cell phone, a fax, and the division phone number; Just the regular amount. “Oh and my home number.” I held my hand out for his pen which he pulled from his pocket and handed to me along with the card. I wrote my home number on the back and gave them both back to him. He smiled; a melt your heart type fantastic smile.

  I watched Mac take out his wallet and put my card in it then remove a yellow card which he handed to me.

  “I’ll be home in four days. If I don’t get lost.” He chuckled. “Call me anytime, I mean that Ellie, anytime. We’ll get together soon.”

  “Anytime?”

  “Yes!”

  “Okay. You might be sorry you said that.”

  “Never, I would never be sorry.” He shook his head.

  I studied the card in my hand just three-phone numbers, home, work, and cell phone, “Cormac Connelly-technical analyst.” I stopped and looked at him, “I remember the graphs you showed me one night, stocks, right?”

  “Yep.” He was still smiling but I detected something new in his eyes. “You know what?”

  “What?” I asked, the look in his eye seemed sad, his smile began to fade.

  “You know how some nights it’s really difficult to say goodnight?”

  I nodded.

  “Never mind,” he said quietly. “You should get on, you have a long drive, and it’s after midnight.”

  I knew what he was going to say, he was going to say what I felt, neither of us was ready to say goodnight.

  “Your drive is about the same, except I know where I am going!” I said.

  Mac raised an eyebrow. “Always the fuc’n smartass.”

  He leaned forward and kissed me affectionately on the cheek. It took much self-control not to turn my head toward his kiss.

  We stood looking at each other, our smiles dissolved as we both realized it was time to say goodnight.

  And that was how Ellie met Mac.

  2 ALL I WANTED WAS YOU

  (As told by Mac Connelly)

  “Mac!” Caine hollered from the darkest of the shadows in the parking lot. “Mac!”

  I cracked the window a few inches and called back, “What?”

  Ellie’s SAC, Caine Grafton, hurried over to my car, and leaned down by my window. “Keep your cell phones on.” He sounded tightly wound but it wasn’t without reason.

  “Okay,” I replied.

  “Be alert. Watch for a tail,” he said, his voice vibrating low in his throat. “Do I have to remind you how to drive?”

  “No, sir,” I replied, and could see why Ellie said he growled when he spoke.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, boy.” Caine looked past me to Ellie. “I want that report tomorrow. I want to know what other freaks from that chat room of yours could be lurking out here.”

  She replied tiredly, “You’ll have my report first thing. I’ll email it.”

  “Mind how you go.” He pulled back a bit and spoke to me, “Mac, I want to know what you know about this chat room too.”

  Caine slapped the roof of the car.

  I nodded. Zapped the window closed.

  And waved over my shoulder as I drove out of the lot and the hell away from the Interscape Café.

  I didn’t care if I ever saw another internet café; in fact, I hoped I never did.

  Ellie’s head was bobbing almost as soon as we left Lexington. I glanced at her but fell short when it came to saying anything. She rested her head on the passenger window; with eyes closed, she seemed almost peaceful. I left her to sleep and concentrated on the long drive back up to Fairfax.

  A light misty rain had been falling for some time; the roads were slick. The headlights played across the wet surface. Streaks of light illuminated the centerline.

  We weren’t in any particular hurry and night driving wasn’t something I enjoyed. I found myself a little more mindful of the conditions and the speed limit than normal.

  Even so, my mind wandered into the tediousness of the journey. Ellie slept. A yawn escaped.

  I switched the radio on, setting the volume low. I’d hit upon an eighties segment and recognized the opening of Bon Jovi’s I Want You. It struck me as peculiarly fitting. Strange thoughts flowed from the darkness. Would we ever talk together in the chat room again? Or would we just pick up the phone and call? We did a lot of that anyway, but it was still fun chatting online during the late nights. Everything had changed. For the next week at least, we were going to be in the same house. Something unexpected tugged at me as I realized I would miss seeing Otherwisecat has signed in on my messenger – it was an odd sense of loss that I hadn’t prepared for.

  I checked my mirrors.
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br />   We were almost alone on the road, two cars away back behind us and one about forty yards ahead. In my mind, I could clearly see the little messenger pop-up. Consoling myself with the idea that we could still do that once things returned to normal, telephone or not, even if it was just for old time’s sake and fun, took the edge off slightly. Four months ago, all we had was the internet, and then a bolt from the blue pulled us to the same place at the same moment in time. She was wearing a white tee shirt, dark blue jeans that day, had a gun on her hip, and an FBI badge hung around her neck on a black lanyard. White suited her well. She swept her blonde hair back behind her shoulders; it shone as it tumbled down her back, ending in soft waves an inch or above her waist. Her blue eyes danced with amusement under bangs that just grazed her eyebrows.

  She laughed at me.

  She laughed with me.

  The day drifted into evening, flowed into night, and I hated knowing we had to say goodbye.

  I sighed to myself. Dragging my mind back to the road as I fumbled one-handed for my cigarettes and lighter.

  They were still in my pocket, because their usual place on the seat beside me was occupied.

  I freed the pack, lit a smoke, and opened the window a little to stop the air becoming too foul.

  My mind wasn’t giving up on the bolt from the blue. The entire meeting was etched as firmly into my brain as the day I first said hello to her in a chat room two years previously.

  There were times when my steel-trap memory served me well, and this was one of them. I sucked smoke into my lungs, adjusted the wiper blades to cope with the steadily increasing rain, and let myself drift back in time.

  Whatever it was that drew us together that first evening was surprisingly strong. We had so much in common; it was if I were talking to myself at times. Who’d have thought I’d come across someone so like me in a poetry chat room?

  My stomach growled loudly, reminding me how damn hungry I was. I felt Ellie stir slightly and figured she’d probably heard the noise.

  “It’s raining a little harder,” I commented, to see if she really was awake. Rain bucketed down; I flicked the wipers to high.

  “Yeah,” she said, sitting up a little more and looking out the window. “Everything okay out there?”

  “Quiet out tonight.”

  “Good.”

  “You hungry?” I looked over at her; she looked a little paler than normal. It struck me how cool it was that I could make that observation in person.

  “Nope,” she replied.

  “Well, I am; we’re gonna eat at the very next place we see.” On second thoughts, I had a condition. “As long as it’s not a cyber café.”

  “Good call.”

  She was uncharacteristically subdued in her responses. I looked over; her head was again resting against the window, with her face turned slightly toward me.

  Her eyes closed.

  I watched a for a familiar road sign. We’d been on the road a while and couldn’t be far from home.

  A cell phone rang. I grabbed the offending piece of technology from its holder on the dash and immediately recognized the phone number displayed.

  Mom!

  I took a nicotine-filled breath hoping to stop trace of annoyance from creeping into my voice as I answered the call.

  “Your father is an idiot!” she spewed venomously into my ear.

  “Hi, Mom.” I sucked the life out of my cigarette, flicked the smoke butt out the window, and readied myself for whatever the problem was this time.

  “This printer is a piece of shit! It keeps printing out pages and pages of the same thing and your father says it’s my fault!” She was furious and I knew it was going to be a difficult phone call.

  “Mom, I’m not home right now. I can’t look up the printer manual for you.”

  “Can’t you just fix it?”

  I moved the phone away from my ear and sighed. Yep, I’ll just teleport myself right on over to their place and sort it all out.

  “How many times did you click the print icon?”

  “The stupid thing wouldn’t print! It took several clicks before anything happened! I need a new printer!”

  I wanted to yell, No, Mom, you need to stop clicking the goddamn print icon a hundred times and just wait for a minute, but I didn’t. The worse thing was I knew she wouldn’t listen to my simple instructions to remedy the problem.

  I could still hear her clicking the buttons.

  Dammit!

  “Let it run, Mom, and stop clicking on things. I’m driving, I gotta go.”

  “You have to help me, you know about this stuff!”

  What am I, a techie working for Hewlett-Packard?

  No, I’m…

  My thoughts paused as I considered the implications of disclosure.

  Don’t.

  I’m a stock trader.

  It was enough that Caine Grafton knew who I was. I figured he’d come up with a way to give me a badge and a gun without me having to break cover. He needed to hurry along with that. I didn’t like how the situation with Carter had progressed over the last twenty-four hours.

  “Mom, I have to go.” I adopted a firm but patient tone. “I’ll call you when I get home.” I hung up the phone and turned it off. I knew she’d call right back; she always did.

  I briefly considered how much shit I was going to get from my handler for getting involved with Ellie and the potential media circus that was bound to follow an FBI agent with a body in the trunk of her car. It wasn’t the first time I had to ask the hard question: Was she worth it?

  Again my answer was yes.

  The other big one was if should I remain "Mac the stock trader" or tell her the truth and let the chips fall where they may. I was acutely aware that my decision would shape any possible future for us.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Ellie slump forward in the seat belt.

  I pulled off the road and stopped the car.

  “Ellie!” I called loudly but she didn’t respond. “Ellie?” I undid my seat belt and slid across the seat, flicking the interior light on as I went. She wasn’t just pale; she was ghostly white. I touched her face. She didn’t move. I gulped as I placed two fingers under her jaw feeling for a pulse. I exhaled, realizing I had been holding my breath. At least she still had a pulse. I leaned closer and could feel her breath on my cheek.

  “Ellie!” I called again. “Ellie! Wake up!”

  Her eyelids flickered. I tapped on her collarbone.

  “Ellie!”

  A few seconds later, her eyes slowly opened. She lifted her head up and rested it on the window. Her hand covered her eyes. I figured the light was making them hurt.

  “Hey. You feel okay?”

  “No,” she replied. “My headaches.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Death,” she muttered and almost smiled.

  “Yep, that’ll fix ya right on up.” I was watching her closely. “How about food?”

  “Maybe that would help.”

  “Maybe’s ass.” I turned the light out. “Better?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Then I remembered I had a granola bar and a Dr. Pepper in the glove compartment. I grabbed them and opened the soda.

  “Here, drink some of this, then eat this delectable and yet nutritious granola bar,” I said, doing my best infomercial impersonation.

  She took the soda and drank nearly half before handing it back.

  “Mmmm, warm soda, delicious.” She sounded more like her somewhat sarcastic herself.

  I think my sales pitch was a little off on the bar. She opened it and looked none too thrilled at its contents.

  “Eat the damn thing,” I told her firmly. “We’re only about half an hour from home.”

  Her hand flung out and smacked me on my arm. “I’ll try and stay awake.” She pulled a face and bit into the bar.

  “Okay?”

  She nodded. I made a mental note to keep a closer eye on her as we continued homeward. I knew she
had vomited outside the café, and I knew we hadn’t eaten much all day, but it still bothered me. Most people don’t slump into near unconsciousness like that.

  I pushed the thoughts back, determined that I would ask her later, and meanwhile would pay careful attention. Her hand touched my arm.

  “You’re frowning,” she said with a small smile. “I’m just tired. Frowning isn’t required. It was shitty twenty-four hours is all.”

  “I wasn’t frowning, it’s just how I look,” I retorted with a grin. Her smile somehow made everything all right. “It’s gonna be okay, Ellie.”

  She smiled as she checked her weapon. “Yeah, it’s gonna be okay. Just another day at the office.”

  “They’ll catch whoever killed Carter, and you have a week off.”

  She reached for my pack of cigarettes.

  “I have a week off because Carter shot me and the bullet gashed my forehead,” she replied lighting a cigarette and exhaling smoke.

  She zapped her window down a couple of inches and leaned her head on the cool glass. “His death doesn’t figure highly on my give-a-shit-scale.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw the look on her face; I knew his death didn’t bother her half as much as how he died. I could tell she wanted to block out what had happened, but she couldn’t, any more than I could. God I wanted to. I wanted to fix it, to erase the memory, and I didn’t know where to start. That wasn’t entirely true. Mac the stock trader was lost. Mac the special agent undercover knew exactly where to start and was powerless. It was a shit of a situation to be in. Controlling the urge to whack my head into the steering wheel wasn’t easy.