Kill Process (26 page)

I try to swallow, my saliva sticking in my throat as my heart pounds. I abandon the coffee line and look for something to lean on as I open the email.

From: lewis ([email protected])

To: [email protected]

Hey Angie,

I hear you’re working on some interesting stuff. We’d love to have a look, maybe help you with funding.

- L

Lewis is the CEO and founder of Tomo. I panic and half-run for the exit, pushing my way way rudely though the line. Outside I take gulps of air, but I’m afraid I might be sick. Lewis Rasmussen is literally the last person on Earth I want to know about Tapestry. He has bought, crushed, or rendered obsolete every company that has in any way competed with or threatened Tomo. In my car, my heart pounds as I read the message over and over. Why this message, why these words? He didn’t mention the non-compete, which isn’t in their database, but he’d certainly know it should exist. He could have threatened me. Of course, that is never his way. He doesn’t need to do anything like that.

He can afford to be nice. He paid billions for Picaloo, because why not? He’ll offer to buy me, give me all the money I need to succeed, maybe even offer me a pick of staff from Tomo. I knew this message would come some day. I didn’t think it would happen so soon. I imagined it occurring when I had a product and users, millions of users. It is inevitable we’d eventually go head-to-head, only I imagined that would be when I was on equal footing, with an army of lawyers and executives on my side.

To attract his attention now means he believes I’m dangerous. Powerful people don’t like dangerous things around them.

When I call Emily it goes to voicemail. I hang up and call back. It takes four tries before she answers.

“What’s up?” she says, the urgency in her voice making it clear she’s in the middle of something important.

“Lewis emailed me. He knows about Tapestry.”

She sighs. “It was going to happen sooner or later.”

“Why so quickly?” I say. “Why Lewis and not a flunky?”

“He knows you. You were an early employee and a veteran of the company. Seems natural they’d keep track of what you’re doing. Maybe he’s paying you the respect you deserve by contacting you directly.”

How does Lewis even know what we’re doing? Is he spying on me?

“Who’d he find out from? Practically nobody knows.”

“There’s only so many people in tech,” Emily says. “Maybe those new employees you want to hire said something?”

“Maybe he’s reading my emails.”

“That’s paranoia talking,” Emily says, her voice suddenly stronger, like she’s paying attention to this conversation for the first time. “Look, there’s no point in worrying about any of this. You don’t want to hear Lewis’s offer, right?”

“Right.”

“Then ignore the email, and go about life like you didn’t receive it.”

We hang up a few minutes later, Emily’s reassurances failing to convince me. Lewis must be keeping track of me to know so soon, and with such perfect timing. Of course he’d approach me when I’m most desperate for financing. There’s an obvious answer: hack Lewis back and check all of
his
messages. Find out what he’s doing.

*     *     *

Lewis is on my mind as I go through my morning investor pitch. My delivery is off, and the investor knows it. We’ve scheduled a twenty-minute videoconference, yet after a few minutes all I receive are distracted nods while the investor does something else on his computer in the background. At ten minutes he says he’s not interested, and we end early.

Amber hears my cursing and comes running from the living room. I quickly recap the call without saying anything about the email from Lewis. I’ll take care of that myself later.

“Let that one go,” Amber says. “Let’s get you back in the game before the next pitch and grab some lunch. Boki Bowl?”

I love the noodle shop, but it’s expensive for noodles. “Let’s do Thai.” Though I’m not sure saving five dollars on lunch makes a real difference, I feel sick with every extra dollar I spend.

We eat, then Amber suggests walking up Mount Tabor. I huff and puff my way to the top, and we spend a few minutes circling the crest and gazing out on the city from several hundred feet up.

By the time we head back down, I wouldn’t say I feel good, but I feel normal enough to function for the second pitch. I handle the call better, and the investor asks me to send her the rest of my slides. That’s at least a little promising.

I leave after the call and head home. I grab an extra laptop from our office, then image the laptop with a clean operating system. I drive across town to a dive bar on Alberta I know has deep booths. It’s early and the place is almost empty. I take a dark booth in the back, order the burger because it’s one of the least expensive items on the menu, and pull on my headphones. I’m not listening to anything, but it should keep the waiter from interrupting me too often. I pull out a little USB wi-fi adapter about the size of a deck of cards. It’s got a directional antenna in it, nothing as effective as a Pringles can or any of my good electronics gear, but it’s enough to acquire the open wi-fi of a coffee shop a block away.

I pull down an encrypted disk image off an old website. Decrypted, it gives me enough basic tools to do what I need. After rerouting through a public VPN, I connect into Tomo’s network. Reading Lewis’s email and Tomo messages, stored on the Tomo network, couldn’t be easier. Of course, Lewis is a CEO, and his inbox is massive. He receives more email in a day than I get in a few weeks. I want to search his messages for any mention of me, but I can’t resist peeking through his inbox.

His email is a gold mine. He’s got messages from everyone on his executive team, detailing plans for the next several quarters. He’s running a whole bunch of secret projects, PrivacyGuard being only one of them. I’m reading about their plans for providing free Internet access when I feel vaguely disgusted with myself.

The net effect of Tomo is evil, but is Lewis Ramussen himself a bad guy? Is it right for me to read his email? I want to beat Tomo so bad, but what I’m doing essentially amounts to corporate espionage. I have no problem reading some asshole abuser’s email, but this feels dishonorable. I shake my head and take a bite of my cold hamburger. No. How can it be inappropriate? What Tomo does is unethical. Aren’t I justified to use any means possible to end their abuse of their users? I waffle back and forth, unwilling to look at any more of his emails. Why does this feel so wrong?

I want to win fair and square, that’s why. If I beat Tomo by reading Lewis’s emails and spying on their plans, then anything I ever achieve with Tapestry will forever be tainted by what amounts to cheating. Though I’ve done much that needs to be accounted for, Tapestry is my chance for a fresh start, untarnished by my history.
All
my history. The killings, the hacks, the secretiveness. All of it. Leave the past where it is. It’s time to move on.

I sit for a long time staring at Lewis’s inbox. Then I close the windows, disconnect from the network, and run the script that will wipe the hard drive. When it’s done I close the lid and put it back in my bag. I feel strangely numb, half certain I’m making a bad decision, and half certain I’m doing the right thing.

I pay and go home, still in some strangely detached mental state. I slip Metallica’s Black Album into the CD player and zone out.

*     *     *

1985, Brooklyn, New York.

The shaggy-haired blonde guy in combat boots is the only real metal-head in graphic arts shop class. “You listen to Metallica?”

I nod. “
Kill ’Em All
is brilliant.”

“You ever listen to them on ’shrooms?”

Sean turns every conversation to drugs. Usually he likes to impersonate both sides of a conversation between a person on ’ludes and another person on speed.

“My roots!”

We both turn to the only other rocker in the room, the platinum blonde girl whose name I’ve never bothered to learn.

She’s holding a compact in her hand, and points to her forehead. “My roots are showing.”

True enough, her dark hair is growing in. I never quite know what to say to her, in part because nothing she says is ever more intelligent than what she’s said just now.

Sean and I turn back to each other. He silently mouths, “poser.”

I giggle.

“Metallica’s playing a secret show in New Jersey next weekend,” Sean says. “Want to go?”

I tilt my head and look crooked at him, trying to decide if this is him asking me out.

“How’d you find out about the show?”

“A post on a BBS.”

“Bee Bee Ess?”

“Bulletin Board System. You use a computer and a modem, and you can call all these different places.”

My cousin has a computer he plays weird games with, but I’ve never used it. “What’s a modem?” I ask.

“A thing you connect to the computer so it can talk over the phone to other computers.”

“What do you talk about?”

“Anything. Music. Drugs. Mostly I hang out on DDial.”

I shake my head in puzzlement again. “Dee dial?”

“Diversi-Dial, a chat system,” Sean says. “You can talk to other people.”

“A DDial is a BBS?”

“No. Look, come to my house after school and I’ll show you. It’s cool.”

Now
is he asking me out?

I have nothing to do after school and my mom won’t return until after five, so I walk home with Sean. He offers me a Marlboro Red, which I accept eagerly. I can’t afford to buy my own. He flips a brass Zippo open to light me. We argue about whether Metallica or Slayer is better, and he tells me stories about doing mushrooms with his ex-girlfriend.

When we get to his house, he yells that he’s home, and we go up to his room without waiting for a response. There’s a faint yell of his mother’s response, which he ignores. Once in his bedroom, he locks the door. His room is overflowing with dirty clothes, metal posters, and random shit. Other than my cousin’s, I’ve never been in a boy’s bedroom before. He sits in front of his computer at a desk.

“Grab a seat,” he says, gesturing to his messy bed.

I tug at his covers to make a flat spot and gingerly sit on the edge.

He turns on his computer, and opens a drawer to reveal an ashtray overflowing with butts. We light up again, and when the computer is on, he types some stuff. Suddenly there’s a shrieking, warbling noise from the computer, then it goes silent.

“See, these are all the other people who are online.” He points to scrolling green text, a bunch of lines that are some variation of “Hi Ruger!”

“Who’s Ruger?”

“I am,” Sean says. “You need to pick a handle. What handle do you want to use?”

“How do you pick a handle?”

He shrugs. “Pick anything you like.”

I look at other’s people’s handles. Malek Resr0n. BTS. Cyclone. Blue Adept.

I have no idea what they mean. Choosing a handle? What does it say about me? I watch Sean chat with these other people, most of whom seem to know him. Finally, I’m done with my cigarette, and I stub it out in the ashtray.

“Angel of Mercy,” I say. “That’s what I want to use for my handle.”

“Okay,” Sean says. He types a message into the computer.

#4[T1:Ruger) Hey, my friend is here. This is her first time on DDial. Her name is Angel of Mercy. Say hi to her.

#3[T1:Blue Adept) Hi Angel!

#2[T1:BTS!) Welcome AoM!

#6[T1:Malek Resr0n) Greetings, Angel of Mercy.

Sean stands up. “Here, you sit and type.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“It doesn’t matter. Say hi.”

I sit in his chair, and because I don’t know how to type, it takes me forever to hunt and peck “hi everyone” A few people ask me questions, which I answer with the shortest responses I can, and then I see a new person suddenly appear.

#0 (dragon) Welcome, Angel of Mercy. Enjoy sanitarium.

“Why does his name look different than everyone else?”

“He’s the sysop, the system operator. He owns this.”

“Owns it?”

“Yeah.”

I keep chatting with people online, while Sean lies on his bed and chain smokes, and calls out comments on what people are saying from the bit of the screen he can read. All of a sudden, I remember to check the time and discover almost two hours have passed. “Holy shit, I have to go. If I’m not home before my mom, I’m gonna be in a heap of trouble.”

I don’t want to leave. DDial is awesome. It’s talking to other people without judgement of who you are or where you’re from. My mind spins with new ideas, new names, new friends. “Hey, would it be okay if I come over again sometime?” I hold my breath hoping he’ll say yes.

“Yeah, course.”

I jog home, narrowly beating my mom there. I lie awake in bed that night, fantasizing about being online.

The next morning I see Sean in the hallway after first period, and ask if I can come over that afternoon. He says yes, and I end up visiting his house after school every day that week.

On Saturday morning, my mom wakes me up just before she leaves to go grocery shopping. “Get started on your chores,” she tells me, once I nod to indicate I’m awake.

I lie there in the bed for a minute, hear the front door slam, and then I race into top gear. By the time she comes home, I’ve vacuumed, dusted, cleaned the kitchen, and I’m starting in on the bathroom.

“Help me unload,” she yells from the entrance.

“I’m almost done with the bathtub,” I call back.

A few seconds later, she appears in the doorway. “Since when do you clean
the—”

I make the mistake of looking at her. She gets one glance at my face, which betrays my hopeful excitement.

“Uh oh. What do you want? If it’s to go to that CB whatever music place, the answer is still no.”

“CBGB, and no, that’s not it.”

“Is it a boy?”

I inadvertently think about Sean, and when
he—

“Ah, it is a boy. Who is he?”

“No, mom. It’s not. I want . . .” My stomach is trying to climb into my throat. I’ve never desired anything so much, never felt so much riding on a single decision from my mother. “I want to buy a computer.”

“A what?”