The Pretender - Chapter 2

Monday, June 21, 2083.  2:30 p.m.

Marcie’s day had exploded.  The advertising released over the last few days was working all too well.  Marcie wanted to get the assistant hired, but her phone wouldn’t stop ringing.  She finally routed her phone through the office system, but even then there were many inquiries she had to take herself.  Six new jobs were logged in one hour, when they normally got six jobs in a day.  They were going so mad even Robbie was answering the telephone. Marcie tapped her neck to clear the call she’d just finished and looked at Dana Herrod, the applicant sitting across from her.  Dana had sat patiently through the last five telephone calls.  She was tall, with a sunny disposition, curly auburn hair and brown eyes.  She had six years experience as an administrative assistant for one of the major law firms, but she’d left because she found the work unfulfilling.  Marcie liked her immediately.  She was one of three they’d short-listed and since all the short-listed applicants’ references were already checked and background checks were done, Marcie was free to make a snap decision.

“When can you start, Dana?”

Dana looked around at the mayhem.  “Immediately.”

“You’re hired.”

Dana looked excited.  “Great.”

“The first thing I want you to do is call Kelly, another applicant.”  Marcie handed Dana a file folder.  “Tell her she’s hired too and she can start right away, today if possible, but only on a temp basis for now.”  Marcie would need another hand while she dealt with the Pearce case. Marcie guided Dana over to a relatively empty desk.  “This is where you’ll sit.  After you call Kelly, please order a new desk, and find another telephone for her.  Got it?  Good.  Tracy!”

Tracy was just coming out of the bathroom. She had a real knack for being in the right place at the right time.  “Yes, Marce?”

“This is Dana.  She’s starting with us right now.  She has two small tasks and then she’ll be helping you today.  Make sure we have all the paper filled out, set up an employee file, and copy her i.d.  You’re training her, okay?”

“Okay.”  Tracy smiled at Dana.

“Oh, and we need all these desks shifted down to accommodate one more, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Hey!  What about me?”

Marcie turned to Dana.  “That’s Jeff.”  She looked up to see Jeff going up the stairs to the Stacks with a pile of CDs and a coffee.  “You’re S.O.L. buddy.”  He rolled his eyes in response as he disappeared behind the shelves.  The telephone was ringing again.  “Will someone get that?”

Robbie turned and picked up the telephone.  “Noel and Company.  Oh yeah, hi.  Hold on a sec.”  He put the call on hold.  “Hey, sugar.  It’s that Pearce guy.”

Marcie almost put him off for another hour.  She really needed more time to organize things, but she reconsidered, nodded, and picked up the telephone.  Pearce was going to pay her a lot of money and she owed him her attention.  She picked up the phone.  “Mr. Pearce, what can I do for you?”

“I’ve got a list of the names you asked for, the ones from the hospital files we couldn’t get into.  Should I email it to you?”

“Sure.  You have the address?”

“Yeah, from your business card.  Look, I really appreciate your help.”

“No problem.  I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

“Thanks.  I’ll send the list right away.”

“Great.  Anything else?”

“Uh…not yet.  Talk to you soon.”

“Bye.”  She hung up the telephone.  “Jeff!”

“Yeah.”  He popped out from behind the shelves and looked down at her. 

“An email should be coming through from Greg Pearce on my account in the next few minutes.  I want you to drop everything and investigate all of the people on the list.  Who are they?  Have they gone missing?  If not, where are they?  Jobs, immediate family, blah, blah.  We’re looking for connections, Jeff.  Something other than a hospital database is tying these people together, yeah?  There may be some association with infertility – that was Roper’s specialty.  Log the time on the Pearce docket and, oh, we’ve got an assistant coming in for you too.  Her name is Kelly.  I think you’ll like her.”

Jeff, who’d been scowling, broke out into a smile and gave her a wink.  He had a great smile when he bothered.  Marcie hoped that getting a little help in would make everyone more relaxed.  It had gotten a bit tense here lately.

“By the way Marcie, I have a few David Welshes in the Toronto area. Most of them are innocuous enough, but one is a tabloid reporter.  He might be your guy.”

“Oh yeah.”  Tracy piped up.  “A guy named Dave Welsh called looking for you this morning.  He could’ve been a reporter.”  She didn’t sound certain.  “He was trying to get information on the Pearce case.”

“The Pearce case?  Who out there knows I’m on the Pearce case.”

Tracy looked at her quizzically.  “Good point.”

Marcie thought back.  Hadn’t Welsh called first?  He’d made contact, however clumsily, even before she’d heard from Pearce.  That meant Welsh was working for someone who knew Greg Pearce better than he did himself.  She walked the stairs up to the loft slowly, deep in thought.  She poured another cup of coffee, draining the pot. 

“Jeff, when you can get back to it, keep digging for info on Welsh.  I don’t think this guy is a reporter.  David Welsh knows more about the Pearce case than Pearce does.”

“Gotcha.”

Fine.  Time for a bit of fun.  She turned back and addressed the lower floor.  “Okay, everyone.  I am now incommunicado.  Take messages.  I’ll be available by the end of the day.  Interrupt me only for emergencies.  Oh, and Dana, make coffee, please.”

She ignored the groans and retired into her bedroom.  Half of the bedroom housed a queen-sized bed and nightstand; the other half was taken up by a massive computer system, with five vidscreens, ten different boxes and a bevy of peripheral equipment.  She sat down, opened a browser and initiated a search on the name Helen Pearce.  She often got her best ideas about a case if she just let her mind wander while she did the preliminary research.  She found the longer she took at this stage, the more easily the puzzle fit together later.  She got so few criminal cases; it was fun to be working on one again.  She’d become too much the saleslady, too much the order-taker.  She wanted to flex her muscles.  She may as well do it on the most challenging case to hit the office in a year. 

The search came back with about seven hundred thousand responses.  The Internet had millions upon millions of web sites and pages, approximately two or three sites for every man, woman, and child in North America alone.  Most people had, or were mentioned in, a family site, a work site, and sites devoted to their favourite pastimes.  Surprisingly, many websites were defunct but still sitting out there undeleted.  The Internet was an unwieldy monster, but it would sing like a pretty little bird with the right person asking the questions.  She started adding more variables to her search. 

Every search popped with the right information.  A search like this one might take about ten keywords to pop, compared with probably fifteen for someone named John Smith.  A ‘pop’ for Marcie was a result of only a few hundred sites with the first, say, thirty sites being truly relevant.  Helen’s would pop with much more because she was all over the news sites right now.  Marcie was certain she’d have to go through thousands of entries over the next few days, but she didn’t mind.  She had her coffee.  Business was being taken care of.  And she was billing for this.  Bliss.

At keyword three, the responses dropped dramatically from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands.  That amount didn’t go down again until keyword ten at which point it settled at about three thousand.  Marcie started reading. 

According to the papers, Roper was killed by a single shot to the head – classic ‘hit’ style – and certainly somewhere other than his office where his body was found, a full four weeks after his death and, apparently, his burial.  The corpse was found on an examination table partially decomposed and partially eaten by insects, soil all over it.  Despite a very large amount of money being offered as reward by the family of the deceased, no one had come forward with information about his killer.

Why would anyone murder someone, bury the body for about a month, dig it up, and then move it back to his office?  Only someone who wanted to prove Roper was actually dead.  But if Helen had gotten away with that much money, why would she come back and reveal the body – an act that only confirmed Roper wasn’t off gallivanting in the Caribbean with a cute little bimbette and all his wife’s money?  An act that made her the prime suspect?  Doesn’t make sense.  It made more sense if Roper’s widow moved the body.  She, at least, would collect on the insurance if she could prove he was dead.

But the papers were in love with the idea of Helen Pearce as gold-digger.  There was sex, murder, love, theft, and a gruesome aspect missing from most people’s lives.  Thank goodness.

Marcie opened a new browser and started a search on Roper. She ignored all media sites for now and whittled the number of responses down to only a few hundred websites.  In the midst of these, she found his practice site, still up and running.  It was helpful.  Roper was a well-to-do gynaecologist in downtown Toronto who specialized in helping infertile parents conceive.  He’d had a thriving practice and was making a lot of money.  The web site was warm and fuzzy, painted in pastel pinks and baby-blues, and accepted Visa, Mastercard, and WorldExpress.  A first time consult with the guy cost over five grand.  Seemed almost fair enough, due to the amount of research he, apparently, had to do to make a recommendation on treatments, but Marcie got the feeling he liked raking in the dough. 

She ripped off the site including images and stored the whole thing on her computer for later reference, and then she searched through to see what he had to say about hospitals he partnered with:  Toronto General and Toronto Women’s.  Both these hospitals were world-famous for their fertility facilities.  But so was North York Gen, and he didn’t go up there – ever.  In his practice, he was a real downtown Torontoner; a trip to the inner suburbs probably gave this guy a headache.  Why oh why, then, Hamilton?

Marcie popped another browser and found an article on the history of fertility research.  Approaching the middle of this century, North America was struck by a major fertility crisis.  Some said it was smog, some said it was God but, for whatever reason, children became very much in demand.  Many couples adopted from the third world and mmigration was stepped up to ensure the country had a reliable workforce.  But the wealthy and the desperate started to vote with their dollars and billions were spent on fertility research over a decade.  Toronto, Chicago, and Portland, Oregon, were the three cities that built whole industries around a problem that continued to this day. 

But not Hamilton, Ontario.  Hamilton was part university town and part steel town.  They had excellent facilities, to be sure, but not better than Toronto. Why would Roper send Helen to Hamilton for tests?  Torontonians were Toronto-centric:  Most people who live in Toronto don’t realize there’s anywhere in Canada outside Toronto, even if they were born and bred in British Columbia.  Was this some kind of referral?  Did he determine that Helen had some other kind of problem not related to her fertility issues?  We need to interview his old staff.  We need to pull her records.  She popped her organizer, opened a new file and made a note to ask Greg Pearce if there were written instructions to his wife about the testing.  Also, she made a note to ask his staff whether Roper had ever had any dealings with the hospital in Hamilton.

She went back to her initial search on Helen Pearce.  She waded through the rest of the newspaper articles as quickly as she could, knowing that she’d get back to them later.  Then, she looked at her watch.  It was already almost five p.m.  This was going to be a long day.  She walked out of the bedroom and back to the open area of the Loft.  The tension in the room seemed to have subsided.  She even heard one of the women laughing downstairs.

“Hello folks!  Anybody still here?”

She received catcalls and cursing in return.  Goodness.  I have to look at my management approach.  Now there are five of them!

“Blah, blah, blah.  Floor meeting!”  She stopped to pour yet another cup of coffee and followed Jeff down the circular stairs to the lower level.  Tracy had done a great job of guerrilla redecorating, and the fifth desk, that Dana had made appear sometime in the afternoon, did not make the room seem crowded in any way.  In fact, they could probably get yet another desk in if they needed, maybe two.  All and sundry were there waiting when she arrived.  Marcie perched on her desk and made a point of nodding and smiling at Kelly who still looked a little shell-shocked after being pulled in at the last minute.

“Okay, welcome all new folks to our little enterprise.  I hope we’re already working you too hard.  Just so you know, even though you’re assisting, you’ll be offered the same kind of bonus for volume that Jeff and Tracy get, so feel free to quiz them ruthlessly about the money they make.  Good luck and, please, try to give us a few days warning before you quit in disgust.

“Tracy, how many jobs in today?”

“Eighteen in total.  If this keeps up we’ll need to hire more staff this week.  We are swamped.”

“Stay on top of it and do whatever you have to do. All I have to do is keep placing the advertising, right?”

“Right.”

“Jeff, I’ll have an extra few research jobs for you by tomorrow, just to make your life hell, and Robbie, I need you to check out a few places for me.  I’ve sent you an email with the info you need.  First Roper’s office, that’s the doctor.  And second, the Pearce residence.  I might want to come with you on that one, so give it a day or two.  Oh, and you need to find and interview Roper’s old staff.”

She stopped and looked at them.  They were all young, enthusiastic, hard working, and darn good looking to boot.  She had no idea how she’d attracted them in the first place.  Just lucky, I guess.  “Okay, that’s it.  Go when it’s time for you to go; I’m back in my cloister.”

“Three messages for you, sugar.”

She looked at Robbie.  “Anything important?”

“The papers for the condo came in.”

“Oh yeah.  I have to approve them and fax them back.  Where are they?”

“I put them on your desk.”

“Okay, anything else important?”

“No.”

“Fine.  Pass the other stuff to Tracy.  Whatever you can’t handle, Trace, I’ll deal with in the morning.  Okay?”  Nods all around.  “Okay.  Good night, folks.”

She turned, walked back up the stairs and into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.  She liked to have these meetings around normal quitting time, just in case one of them actually had a date or something.  But if they were true to form, most of them wouldn’t leave for hours and one of them would make sure food was ordered.  Aaaah.  Pizza.  Normally, Marcie would work until around eleven and then go down to the gym for a workout and a sparring session, if she could find a karate partner.  She rarely slept before midnight and she rarely got up before eight.

She sat down in front of her computer and thought about her progress.  Since things weren’t adding up, she decided she would go through every entry…even if it took her until Friday.  Two hours later, someone brought her two slices of pizza.  An hour after that, she put aside the newspaper, magazine, and other news sites so she could concentrate on more standard responses, like Helen’s own sites that covered Helen’s take on her life, her family, her interests and her volunteer work.  Helen was living a very suburban life, except there were no kids yet.  Clearly, they were trying but hadn’t been able to conceive.  In her web page, she mentions she’d like to have a family again; both her parents had died when she was ten.  When no other relatives came forward, Helen was placed in a foster home where, apparently, she had thrived. 

Nothing struck Marcie as out of the ordinary.  She felt Pearce was probably right.  If Helen had been faking it all this time, then this was an award-winning performance.  Probably better than any she had ever seen.  On the other hand, nothing in these pages suggested why she would be a target for abduction.  She was just an average woman.

Except that Marcie could also see why the police assumed there was some hanky-panky going on.  Helen Pearce was beautiful.  She was tall and lithe, with curly auburn hair and green eyes.  She looked like a runway model, but without the pouty cynicism that often showed on those models’ faces.  She looked like a woman most men would find attractive.

At nine o’clock, Marcie switched from coffee to bottled water.  She loved her coffee, but liked sleeping just as much.

After she came back to her computer, she started finding password-protected pages in the list with the name Helen Pearce in the keyword list – odd for such a general search.  When Marcie searched on government topics, many entries came back encrypted or protected by password, but not usually on a search about an otherwise average citizen.  Marcie was intrigued.  Nothing in Helen’s background suggested any mystery.  She decided to rip one off. 

As long as she didn’t hack into a computer, Marcie didn’t worry about getting caught nor feel even one little twinge of guilt.  If you honestly thought you could leave a page out there on the Internet, encrypted or otherwise, without defending it behind server passwords and protocols, and you thought it would be safe, you were an idiot.  Marcie didn’t like idiots and tended to actively thwart them at every turn.  She downloaded one of the protected pages and was reading it within five minutes.

It was a terse communication dated about three weeks before and noted that “…Helen Pearce had been incarcerated at the Institution.”  What institution?  Marcie was put off by the swastika she found at the bottom right hand corner of the page.  What?  Some weird neo-neo-neo-Nazi group? She opened another of the uselessly protected pages.  Nazi-types locked things up because they locked up everything.  They liked to keep everyone in the dark because it was the only way they could keep control.  The second encrypted page was similar to the first and had more information about movements and incarcerations of people.  Marcie made a note of the names.  Again, there was a small swastika at the bottom of the page.

Marcie sorted her responses on encryption and found one more page like the first two.  She noted all the names mentioned on all three pages and sent an email to Jeff with instructions to try and track these people down and see if there were any connections between them.

She didn’t think this was a coincidence.  She opened another browser and did a search on “swastika, meaning of” and she found out that before WWII, the swastika had meant something completely other than genocide and warmongering.  It had meant good fortune and success.  None of these pages mentioned Dr. Roper – the man who had run out of both luck and fortune.

She shrugged it off and went to the gym.

Thursday, June 24, 2083.  9:00 a.m.

A few frustrating days later, Marcie had waded through thousands of sites, but was no closer to learning anything of real value to the case.  She checked herself in the mirror as she walked out of her bedroom on her way to the morning floor meeting.  She stopped to grab a cup of coffee in the kitchen.  Robbie stood up as she came down the stairs. 

“When are you going home, Robbie?”

“I miss you when I’m not here, sugar.”

“Sure, sure.”

What was up with him?  Marcie sat at her floor desk and checked her email as the rest of the staff settled down with coffees.  They were a sombre, but expectant, group this morning.  Marcie could tell that everyone was interested in what was going on.  There was an email from Pearce saying they could come by anytime.  He’d taken some time off work.  Could he do anything to help as he was stir crazy?  Well, maybe he could.  There was a lot to do on his wife’s case, and every day more mysteries emerged, more questions were asked, and no answers were forthcoming.  Perhaps he could make some telephone calls or do a little bit of legwork.  She could read between the lines.  He just wanted to be able to do something to help Helen.

Marcie routed a few other client emails straight to Tracy without even opening them.  Tracy would let her know if she needed anything.  Actually,…

“You know Tracy, you’re handling this very well.  Thank you.”  Marcie had pulled Jeff totally off the day-to-day work and assigned Dana and Kelly to Tracy.  Tracy had taken over organizing everything, including client communications.  Marcie hadn’t spoken to even one client in the last two days, which was great, because she needed the time.

Tracy smiled.  “Oh, I’m enjoying this more than straight investigation.  The clients are cool.”

That isn’t what Marcie would have said, but she kept it to herself.  Tracy had always been in awe of the famous and the almost famous who came through the doors.  Marcie had, almost to a person, found them spoiled and irritating, so she was secretly glad she wouldn’t have to nurse them all along anymore.  She wondered how long it would take the shine to rub off Tracy’s pearl.  Marcie gave her two weeks.

“Suck up.”  Jeff was often petulant before he drank his coffee.  He was looking tired.  He’d done extensive background checks on dozens of people in the last few days.  He must have been working twenty-hour days.  It was an amazing puzzle they were trying to put together.

“Anything anyone needs to tell me?”  General dissent and shakes of heads.  “Anyone quitting in the next forty-eight hours?”  Smirks all around.  Great.   “Okay, Tracy, I want you to regularly check my email.  I’ll leave it open on my desk.  Handle everything that needs it and leave the rest.  Also, please call the phone company and route my old phone code through the office permanently and get me a new code.  Jeff, I have a new list for you from last night, if you can believe it, and Robbie, we’re going to the Pearce residence today, right?” 

Robbie nodded.  “As soon as we’re done, here.”

“Great.”

“Oh!”  Jeff looked a bit stunned.  Drink your coffee, lad.  “I’ve altered a genealogy program to let us track the associations of these people – if there are any.  I’ll need some help exporting data, making some phone calls to gather info and then doing some data entry.”

“Tracy, give Jeff one of the assistants for as long as he needs her.”

“Then, I need a temp in.  Well, actually two.  We’ve had twenty more jobs booked over the last two days.  It isn’t as crazy as Monday, but it seems to be steady.  Calls from all over the city, by the way, as far away as Newmarket.”

Why did I decide to advertise this month?  “Do what you have to do.”

“Oh, can we have your desk for the day?”  Tracy looked a little sheepish.

“Of course.  Actually, you can have it, period.  I’ve got all that hardware upstairs; that’s where I really work.  And Jeff, listen.  Do you use this desk down here?”

“Just for email, really. Reports, things like that.  I’m usually too busy in the Stacks.”

“Can I boot you up there for good, then?”

“Oh yeah, sure, but I’ll need this computer.”

“Okay, Trace.  You have two more desks and one more computer for good.  So, get on the telephone and order another box, okay?  Oh, and can you call Martha and see if she can do some extra bookkeeping over the next few weeks?  I’d like to watch the escalating costs.  I want to make sure all this new business is making sense.”

“I already called her.”  Tracy looked sheepish again.

“Great.”  Marcie smiled.  She looked around and nothing more seemed forthcoming.  “Okay?  Let’s go, folks.”

She stood and walked out the door.  Robbie was right on her tail.  Her shadow.  As she walked out she tapped her neck and said: “Greg Pearce.”  The phone dialled as she punched the elevator button.

“Hello?”

“Hi Mr. Pearce.  Marcie Noel.  We’re on our way over.”

“Great.  Look, is there anything I can do to help?  I’ve taken some time off from work; I can’t concentrate anyway and I really want to be a part of…”

“I’m sure there’s a lot you can do.  Okay?”

“Sure.”

“See you soon.”

“Great.  I’ll put some coffee on.”

Good lad.  She disconnected the call.  A few moments later, they exited the elevator and walked up the flight of stairs to the roof.  “You don’t want your own desk, do you Robbie?”

“No way.”

“Okay.”

The flight over was uneventful:  about ten minutes in the low lanes for local traffic, but it still gave them a nice view of the city on a beautiful, sunny day.  Lake Ontario was a sea of diamonds.  They descended as they approached the eastern suburb, and they came to rest on the Pearce’s driveway. 

The house was modest.  Bungalow style, and exactly like every fourth house on the street, it was painted in mocha and cream with cinnamon accents, very subdued.  Marcie sniffed.  She preferred a little less cream and a little more spice in her life.  There was a rose garden in front that Pearce was obviously keeping up – quite an achievement considering the trouble visiting the house.  In his place, Marcie was sure she’d let the garden go.  An old style garage had been modified with a roof hatch for the family PA. 

Robbie and Marcie went up to the front door, which was standing open for them.  Marcie walked in with Robbie right behind her.

“Hi Mr. Pearce!”  No answer.  She could smell the coffee brewing in the kitchen.  “Mr. Pearce?”  Still nothing.  She and Robbie looked at each other. 

“You stay here, sugar.  I’ll go upstairs.”

“Sure.”

Robbie disappeared up the stairs in a flash.  He could really move for a man his size.  She heard him calling out for Pearce.  Marcie did a quick turn around the main floor, which was tastefully furnished from major department stores, nothing too expensive or flash.  On her way by, she looked out the sliding doors to the back veranda and the yard beyond.  The Pearces had a fairly large pool and a beautiful flower garden.  At the back of the property, there was a shed that Marcie could see was closed and padlocked, and a small vegetable plot.  No sign of Pearce.  She checked the sky and saw quite a few PAs ascending into the lanes over Scarborough.  He could be in any one of them.  But why would he run?  He wouldn’t.  Could someone have picked him up?  She heard Robbie come back down the stairs.  He stepped back into the hallway and made eye contact.  She shook her head.

“I’m down.”  She heard him walk down the stairs to the basement, again calling out for Pearce as he went.  She walked back to the front door and looked around the yard.  She stepped out onto the porch and, again, looked at the sky.  A lot of traffic was climbing to merge with the lanes.  There would be no way to know if one of them had come from this house.  She looked around the neighbourhood.  It was a quiet street with neat little houses, most of them in good shape.  All in repose.  Greg Pearce could be being held right now in any one of those little houses, behind any of those windows with pretty curtains.  She sighed and walked back inside. 

Robbie met her as he came up from the basement.  He shook his head.

“Okay, let’s take the opportunity to look around.  We’ll start on the second floor.”  Robbie nodded and followed her up the stairs.

Two hours later, they were none the wiser.  They couldn’t conduct a real search for fear of the police charging them with obstruction, so they wore latex gloves and disturbed very little.  They found what you might expect in a suburban home.  She was a gardener; he liked model trains.  There were books on both.  She used a running machine in front of the TV in the basement.  He had a separate weight room.  She liked romance novels.  He preferred magazines.  They were trying to conceive a child and there were many books and journals on the subject.  There were photo albums.  There were vegetarian cookbooks.  Apparently, they ate a lot of vegetables and tofu.  The house was well tended, clean and neat.  Nothing had been disturbed.  Nothing taken.  There was a case with silverware, lots of electronics, and jewellery.  The only thing of value in their investigation was an address book. 

Marcie searched the book for family entries, found one, and called Pearce’s mother in Montreal.  She explained what had happened and suggested Mrs. Pearce call the police if she heard nothing from Pearce by tomorrow, but despite Marcie’s advice – the police wouldn’t even consider him missing for at least twenty-four hours – the woman insisted on coming right over. 

While they waited, Robbie ordered pizza.  Mrs. Pearce arrived just as they were finishing their meal.  She was a short, plump woman with slate grey hair pulled back into a loose bun.  She looked at them with haunted eyes.  Marcie just shook her head.

“We’ll find him, Mrs. Pearce.”

“Find them both, please, Ms. Noel.  They were so happy before all this happened.”

“We’ll try.”

“I understand Greg was paying you Ms. Noel.”

“Yes, but don’t worry….”

“You must consider yourself in my employ, Ms. Noel.  Greg was getting his money from me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”  She’s loaded?  “But don’t spend your savings.  I…”

“Nonsense, Ms. Noel.”

“Fine.  We’ll need you to authorize some paperwork.”

“Whatever you like.”  She sighed and looked around.  “I think I’ll stay here for a while.  You can contact me here.”

“Fine.”  Marcie gave her a business card and asked some of the usual questions.  She received the usual answers.  It was rare that someone’s mum knew anything really helpful about his or her life.  Mum knew only what you wanted her to.

Marcie and Robbie left a few minutes later and flew back to the office.  Neither had to say it was too much of a coincidence that Greg Pearce disappeared this morning.  Clearly, he’d been watched.  He was probably under surveillance since he hired someone to crack that hospital computer, perhaps before.  Perhaps they started tailing him the first time he made a stink at the hospital. 

The police would put another spin on it.  They would assume the bird had flown, that Greg and Helen were working together the whole time.  It’d been done before.  Besides, Greg already proved he could be a little violent; he probably had a bit of a history of it.  The police might believe he killed Roper.

But Marcie was sure the case wasn’t so simple.  If this pair was, in fact, an average suburban couple as they appeared, then something else was going on here.  Who would want to abduct Greg Pearce?  And, why? 

“So, if Pearce was being watched, then almost certainly someone is watching us too?”

“Right.  So no more cell calls.  That includes your earphone.”

“But I love my phone.”  All cell phone calls, including earphones, were far too easy to trace, far too easy to monitor.  Every time she used her earphone, someone with the code and access to the system could pinpoint her location in seconds.

“Too bad.”

She’d also have to beef up security around the office.  Some changes would have to be made.  She walked in the loft door.

“Tracy!”

“Yeah.”

“I need a revised Pearce contract, please.  Same contract, but the client name is now Cecily Pearce.  Send the revised copy over to the Pearce residence for approval as soon as you can.”

“No problem.”

“And Jeff?”

“Yeah.”

“I need to talk to you.”

Friday, June 25, 2083.  9:15 a.m.

The next morning, Marcie sat at her bedroom computer, thinking.  A tap came at the door and Tracy popped her head in. 

“It’s hard to have the morning meeting without you, you know.”

“I thought you hated meetings.”

“Yeah, well.  I do.”

Marcie got up and followed her out of the bedroom and down the stairs to where everyone was waiting.

“Okay troops, what gives?”

They looked blankly at each other, but then Tracy took the lead.

“The number of new cases coming in has settled down to about ten per day and, though we have quite a backlog, I think we can catch up without hiring anybody else.  I expect the rate to taper off slowly until you decide to advertise some more.  You’re not going to do that in the immediate future, are you?”

“No, no.”  Marcie responded absently.  Then, she smiled.  “Maybe a TV commercial, Trace.  But let me think about it.”

Tracy smiled.  “Yeah, well.  Your new phone code is AE5-7872.  The office is picking up all other calls.  Oh, we’re getting a lot more inquiries from reporters.  Maybe because of the advertising, who knows?  One guy offered two-hundred thousand dollars for an interview on the Hayworth family.”

“Policy does not change.  If we take the two-hundred grand, no one calls us again because they can’t trust us.  So what’s the point?”

“Okay.”

“Next.”

“Me.” said Robbie.  “I went out to the doctor’s office and the place was locked up.  I took a look around and I think the service door in the back was broken into because it looks recently fixed.  With Jeff’s help, I’ve got the info I need on the staff and I have interviews set up with two part time nurses and a receptionist.  I’m also going to see the widow.  All four meetings are set for today, so I’ll have something to tell you this evening, if there’s anything to tell.”

“Great.  Next.”  Jeff raised his hand.

“Not great news, my end.  I’m going through these lists of people and it’s not going well.  But that in itself is interesting.  I’m pretty good at investigating people.  I can find out anything about anybody given enough time.  But these people?  It’s like someone’s gone through their lives with an eraser.  It’s slow going.”

“Any official missing persons on any of them?”

“No ma’am.  Weird, huh?  And, no real information, otherwise.  Look, if they were the type of people to go into the hospital in the first place, they should have some kind of life, yeah?  I mean, there’s the odd nut who won’t use the Internet, right?  But that’s the odd nut.  I find it hard to believe that all these people – ten from the McMaster files and another twenty-five from you research – I mean, I find it hard to believe that all these people are odd nuts.  Something’s going on here.  So, I had an idea:  I thought I’d try to search the ‘Net for pages tagged for deletion.  Deleted files don’t actually disappear right away; some sit there for years.  I’ll be getting on that today.  Oh yeah, and I thought I’d widen the search to outside of North America.  That’s it.  I’ll have to tell you the results over the next few days.”

“Fine.  Good luck.  Anyone else?”  The new staff members were still far too timid.  “All right, on my end, I’m still trying to do my research and I’m getting no where.  Like you say, Jeff, someone’s gone through the ‘Net and wiped important information.”  Marcie looked at a file folder on a desk a few feet away.  The tag had been done in fluorescent pink over blue-penned capitals:  EMERGENCY!  She could read it clearly from about ten feet away.  Tags.  She gasped a little, slipped off her perch without ceremony and started walking upstairs.  So simple.

“We’re done, then?” Tracy sounded amused.

Marcie stopped, turned around, and looked at her.  “Absolutely.” 

Marcie turned back toward the stairs, went up, and went straight to her computer, past the coffee machine that beckoned with the smell of a fresh brew.  She sat down and pulled up some of the encrypted files she’d hacked a few nights before.  She checked the source code on these files and found the tags that identified the picture file name for the swastika itself:  swasti3.gif.  She entered that name in a search of the entire Internet and waited.   Nothing came back immediately.  Fifteen minutes later, she was still waiting.  So, she went and got a cup of coffee.  She stopped in downstairs to see if all was well, and when she came back a half hour later, the search was finally complete and ten locations were returned.  Only ten machines on the whole Internet hosted that gif file.  She stared at her screen and wrestled with her conscience.  These machines held the key, the information.  She needed to know what was on these machines.

Friday, June 25, 2083. 5:30 p.m.

Later that afternoon, Marcie was continuing her research when her extension rang.  She picked up the phone.

“Marcie Noel.”  She stared at her computer screen, still open on the ‘swasti3.gif’ search results.

“Hey there, sugar.  I’ve finished all the Roper interviews.  I’m on my way back.”

“And?”

“Roper’s staff isn’t particularly loyal to his memory.  The receptionist and the assistant both remember Helen Pearce and they’re both surprised about what happened.  Not that they put it past the doctor to be attracted to his patients, apparently he was no saint, but they don’t see why Helen would bother with him.  They both think if Helen Pearce were going to go after someone, she could’ve had a billionaire.  Why would she settle for a guy like Roper?”

“And the referral to Hamilton?”

“He’d never sent anyone to Hamilton before.  He rarely referred at all; he was a top specialist.  People referred cases to him.”

“Okay.  What about the family?”

“Roper’s widow was only too pleased to talk to me.  She likes telling her story, boy, but something about her doesn’t add up.”

“Like…?”

“Like she’s lying about something or she’s happy he’s gone.  The grief seemed forced, if you know what I mean.”

“Sure.  Any other family we can get in touch with?”

“Oh yeah.  Two grown kids.”

“Okay, make some appointments with the kids.  I want to come on those interviews.  Set it up for the weekend or Monday, whatever.”

“Got it.”

Saturday, June 26, 2083. 1:45 a.m.

Later that same night, or rather, very early the next morning, Marcie was still clacking away at her keyboard, but now, she was a little schnackered.  Well, a lot schnackered.  She was alone for the first time in a week.  Robbie’d left that evening on business, saying he wouldn’t be back until morning.  He often disappeared for days at a time – no warning, no explanation.  Marcie wondered where he went, but she was never rude enough to ask.  If he was some sort of drug dealer, frankly, she didn’t want to know.

Cecily Pearce called a few moments after he left.

“Ms. Noel?”

“Yes, ma’am.  What can I do for you?”

“Ms. Noel, I don’t think the police are going to help me find my son.”

“Why not?”

“Well, they told me to go down to the precinct and fill out some forms.  I did that right away….”

“Yes?”

“Well, no one would speak to me, Ms. Noel.  Is that usual?”

“No ma’am.”  Distraught parents got ten minutes minimum with a detective if they filed a Missing Person Report.  Even the most obviously cuckolded husband was treated with respect if he came down to the station and filed.  The police had to be seen to be taking every inquiry seriously because distraught parents and spouses who felt unsupported liked to go to the papers.  And, as part of the Metro Force’s community outreach program, everybody got treated with respect.  Even the cranks.  The Police Commissioner was hoping the new warm and fuzzy image would deflect attention away from the obvious problems with corruption and discrimination on the force.  So, everybody got their ten minutes with a detective – except Mrs. Pearce.

“They said they consider Greg a suspect, not a missing person.  No one would help me Ms. Noel.  And now when I call, they won’t even talk to me.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Pearce.  Let me see what I can do.”  Well, that’d be exactly nothing if Marcie were going to play by the rules.  She decided she would set up the hack.  Nothing wrong in prepping, just in case she should decide to go ahead with it.  Boy, am I rationalizing.  But she set it up any way.

She spent the next two hours staring at a telnet connection, sipping scotch and contemplating life. 

She bought access to a temporary I.P address from an outfit in Hong Kong that rented them out, asked no questions, and answered even fewer because they kept no records of transactions for longer than fifteen minutes – just enough time for the money to transfer into their bank account.  She powered up a box and assigned it the fake IP and then she further covered her tracks by routing all her requests through an aliasing site.  She successfully connected to another aliasing site through the first.  There were few people on the planet who could trace these requests back to the machine she was using and most of them wouldn’t be interested in taking the time on the project – unless you dangled a lot of money in front of them.  Besides, by the time anyone bothered, the machine she was working on would have effectively disappeared.

She’d written a brilliant piece of code she liked to call the ‘fly on the wall’.  It would drop, in effect, a monitor to record keystrokes as they were entered.  Then, all she’d have to do is wait until someone tried to log in to the target server.  The ‘fly’ would record their log-in name and password and she’d be in.  She could run the code to monitor all ten servers and just wait.    It was foolproof.  Well, mostly.  If there were any other solution, she wouldn’t hesitate to try it.  She’d promised herself years ago she wasn’t going to hack into computers anymore.  It just wasn’t right.

But the authorities weren’t giving her any options.  She was sure if she went to the police with her suspicions it would only be a matter of time before she disappeared herself.  The lack of response to Greg and Cecily Pearce’s inquiries smacked of conspiracy.  Unless there were damning facts on this case that hadn’t been made public, she was sure most good detectives would come to a similar conclusion – it was unlikely Helen Pearce killed Clyde Roper.  And if that were true, Greg Pearce’s disappearance becomes much more sinister.  Therefore, it became likely that Helen Pearce was herself abducted or murdered.  Why, then, had Cecily been ignored at the police station?  What if the person who kidnapped Pearce, also killed Roper?  Wouldn’t the detectives in charge of the Roper investigation want to talk to her just in case?  It all made no sense and made Marcie leery of going anywhere near the police.

She only had one lead – the ‘neo-neo-neo-Nazis’.  She had a hunch that even if they weren’t behind the disappearances, they were definitely wrapped up in the whole thing and she liked to follow her hunches.  What she was considering was unethical at best, and certainly illegal.  She felt like she needed some kind of guidance, some kind of sign.  She couldn’t just go back on a personal oath to never hack again, just like that.

About an hour later, the scotch won the debate.  She passed out, sitting up, staring at her computer screen.

Saturday, June 26, 2083.  7:00 a.m.

A rock band was playing an arrhythmic tune.  Bang, bang, bang.  Silence.  Bang, bang, bang.  “Open up!”  Bang, bang, bang, bang.

Marcie opened her eyes and groaned.  She’d slept in her chair, her head lolling back.  Her neck felt like it needed major surgery and her mouth tasted like the surface of the moon. 

Someone broke down the door downstairs.

Marcie tried to stand and managed the feat the second time around.  When they busted into her room, she was sort of prepared to meet them.

“Marcie Noel?”

“Yes.”

“Marcie Noel, we need you to come down to the station for questioning.”

Marcie stared at him and at the I.D. he shoved in her face.  Metropolitan Police Force.  Right.  Okay.  Water!  “About what?”  She croaked those two words.  She was sure she’d never croaked before in her life.

“The murder of Dr. Clyde Roper.”

What the…?  She allowed herself to be taken in without argument.  In what seemed like less than a minute, she was in the back seat of a smelly ground cruiser that must have been fifty years old.  A few minutes later, they hustled her out of the cruiser and into the local police station.  She was marched into an interview room and was left there to stew.  She relaxed and waited.  She knew they expected her to do something stupid, like try to warn her accomplices on her earphone.  Many criminals did not know that the police could legally monitor any earphone or cell phones transmissions made by anyone in a police station – not just suspects.  And this statute included defence lawyers.  Landlines, however, were still unmonitored.  She would have to wait until they gave her access to a telephone.  They left her a long time.  Evidently they were waiting for her to make a phone call or break down.  Apparently, they had no evidence.  So, she simply had to wait and do everything by the book and she’d be out in a few hours.  She sat in the sparely furnished room, staring at the empty table, wishing for, almost willing to appear right in front of her, a cold, clean glass of water.  She must have waited for over an hour, but she couldn’t be sure.  Finally, the door burst open and Marcie winced at the sudden sound.  A large plainclothes policeman came in, slammed the door, and sat down opposite her.

“Ms. Noel?”

“Yes.”

“We have a few questions we need you to answer.”

“I’m sorry.  I can’t talk to you without an attorney present.”

The policeman laughed.  “Don’t you know you’re incriminating yourself with that very statement?”

Liar.  So much for legal rights, when it’s considered incriminating to invoke them.  Marcie decided she’d play the stricken socialite.  “No, no, please!  My lawyer made me promise!”

“Well, I tell you what.  You answer one or two questions and I’ll see to it that the papers don’t hear about this.”

If the papers hear about this, officer, you’ll be out of a job and you know it.  “No, I’m truly sorry.”  She made a show of trying not to cry.  “But my lawyer was clear about this.”  She faked breaking down and crying.  She put her head in her hands.

The policeman was silent for a moment.  Then, she heard an exasperated sigh from him.  He had no more respect for her than he had for an ant on the floor.  Good.  All right, I should get a telephone in here soon.

“All right.  We’ll get you a telephone.”

“Okay.”  Marcie forced the word out between sniffles.  “Oh, and do you have some tissues?”

“Yeah, sure.”  The officer got out of there quickly.  A few minutes later, another officer came in with a telephone and a box of Kleenex.  Good cop, hmmmm?

“Miss?  Miss?”  He had a kindly voice and demeanour.  “Miss, are you all right?  I brought the telephone so you can make a call.  And here are your tissues.”

“Oh!  Thank you, thank you.”  She reached for the telephone and a tissue at the same time.  She pretended to wipe her nose while she dialled Wilbur Poole, her lawyer.  The service answered immediately.

“Marcie Noel for Wilbur Poole, please.  This is an emergency.”  There was some waiting.  She heard the call rerouted twice.

“Marcie?”

“Will?  I’m in trouble.  They have me down at the police station on Queen West.”

“Okay, Marcie.  Don’t say a thing.  I’ll be there soon.”

“Okay, Will. Oh, and bring me a bottle of water, huh?”

She hung up the telephone and looked at the ‘good’ cop.  He smiled.

“I’m Detective Rolf, Ms. Noel.  If there’s anything I can do for you, just say the word.”

“Great.  I’d like out, please.”  Rolf’s smile disappeared.  His tactics weren’t working.  “No?  In that case, just bring me a Coke, okay?”  Rolf just stared at her.  “No?”  Fine.  Marcie sighed.

Will would be here in a few minutes to demand her release and because the police had nothing, she would walk.  The police were clearly fishing or they would’ve charged her with something by now.  Rolf made a couple of other attempts to gain her confidence and then gave up and left her alone to wait.

Will must have been around the corner because she was out in half an hour.  She was happy to see him.  He was always there when she needed him.  They walked out onto Queen Street as Marcie finished her bottle of water.  It was barely nine o’clock in the morning on a Saturday and the street was littered with the detritus from the crowds the night before.  A street cleaner buzzed by like a hungry insect.  Will checked his watch as if he had somewhere to go.  Even on a Saturday morning, Will was dressed for business.  He was one of the hardest working lawyers she knew, especially where human rights, especially the rights of children, were concerned.  She’d probably interrupted him on his way to or from an advocacy meeting.  He took her arm and steered her to the left toward his parked PA.

“So, they want to know what you’re doing consorting with known murders and swindlers.”

“Well, that’s the point, Will.  The Pearces are not ‘known’ anything.  They’ve been tried and convicted in the press; that’s all.”

“I have to tell you the police are pretty certain themselves.”

“I don’t see why.”

“Someone phoned in a tip, Marcie, that’s why.  Watch yourself.  Oh, and please don’t get thrown in jail again for the next two weeks.  I am on vacation.”

“You?”

“Yes, me.  What are you implying?”

Wilbur had never, to Marcie’s knowledge, taken a vacation.  He had certainly never talked about one.  “Where are you going?  Paris, Rome?”

“Oh no.  I’m going fishing.”

“Fishing?”

“What?  My family’s had a cabin on the north shore of Kitchie Lake for generations.  It’s way up there. North of Timmins.  Rustic.”  They arrived at his PA, a current model Porsche with all the bells and whistles.

“Have you ever been there before?”

“Oh, no.”

Marcie waited for him to explain himself as she opened her door and reached into the PA to remove a bag on the passenger seat, but he stopped talking.  He could be stubborn, so she dropped the subject and climbed in.  The bag was from the Tilley store, a place that sold upmarket outdoorsy clothes.  She tried not to giggle.  The idea of Wilbur Poole in red plaid shirt, a Tilley vest and Tilley fishing hat sitting in a rowboat was too funny.  Will just ignored her.  They were only a few blocks from the Loft, but Will flew her there and dropped her on the roof.

When she walked into the Loft, she found that every member of the staff, including three eager young temps, had opted to come into work for the day.  And they were standing in the shambles.  The power was out and the place had been turned upside down, some parts of it literally.

“Oh, great.”  Marcie was having a very bad day.

Saturday, June 26, 2083.  6:00 p.m.

Marcie finally closed the door as the last of her staff went home except, of course, for Robbie.  He was already set up on the main floor with a sleeping bag.  He simply wouldn’t listen to her when she told him to go home. 

The police came to log the break-in by around noon and this process had taken hours.  Then, an electrician arrived and tried to hook up power while everyone worked on fixing the place up and checked on what was missing or broken.  One of the hardest tasks was putting the Stacks back together because there were thousands of CD’s, MC’s, fiches, and hundreds of books up there.  Some things were broken, but nothing of real value, and nothing appeared to be missing.  About five o’clock, the wiring had been patched and the lights went on.  Everyone rushed to watch the security tapes.  They showed a man of average height and stocky build, in a simple white t-shirt, jeans and a balaclava over his head.  No distinguishing markings.  The intruder was recorded walking over to the power back-up units and systematically pulling cables.  Very soon thereafter, the screen went black.  These were pros.  They would be impossible to catch.  People started leaving very soon afterward.

“All right, if you’re going to stay here, then you have to work.”  Marcie was feeling a bit petulant.

“I am working, sugar.”  Marcie looked over the rail at Robbie who was sitting on Tracy’s desk cross-legged, playing a Gameboy. “I’m watching you.”

“Oh no.  You can’t sit down there by yourself.  You have to come up here and talk to me.  What do you want for dinner?”

They ended up ordering from a Thai place down the street, but Robbie wouldn’t go and get the food by himself.  Marcie had to accompany him – for her safety, he said.  So, they went out into the early evening together.

The traffic on the street was often at its worst this time of day.  The revellers were arriving while the last of the workers were leaving.  The cafes and bars were filling up, the retail offices were closing, and the stores were changing the guard.  The streets were packed.  Robbie and Marcie shouldered their way down the busy sidewalk, to My Thai, a little hole in the wall that served the best Thai food in the district.  The order was ready when they got there.  Marcie paid and Robbie carried.  Marcie kept looking around to see if anyone was paying them too much attention.  She couldn’t peg anyone in particular and they got back without incident.

“Okay,” said Marcie as they came in the door.  “Didja see anyone?”

“Na.  Didn’t expect to.”

“Me neither, but someone’s gotta be watching us.  The break-in doesn’t fit the style of the police around here.  It’s too obvious, even for them.”

“Unless they want you to think that it couldn’t be them.”

“Sure, Robbie, but that’s a little convoluted don’t you think?  They can get a legal search and seizure on suspicion.  They really don’t need to pull a trick like this.  I’m sure the break-in is linked to the Pearce case.  I hate coincidences.  This one is too big to ignore, and besides, I think I know who did it.  It wasn’t the government at all.”  Marcie was stewing.  “I think I know.”

“Okay, so shoot.”

“The ‘neo-neo-neo-Nazis’.”

“Who?”

“But what were they looking for?  They turned everything upside down and they didn’t steal a thing.  I think they wanted to know what I know and I think all they did was download our data on the Pearce case.  I’m going to crack one of their machines.  Tit for tat, I say.”

“Sure, sugar.  So who has Greg Pearce?”

“The ‘neo-neo-neo-Nazis’!”

“Why?”

Marcie looked at him blankly.  “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

After they finished eating, Robbie went back to his Gameboy and a soccer match on the television.  Marcie went back to her room.

She powered up the machine with the rented IP, popped another browser, opened a few telnet sessions, and started setting up some nice, clean, brand-spanking-new aliases.  When she was hiding behind three layers of alias, she stopped and did a search on ‘swasti3.gif’ again.  She was ready to go in.

A half an hour later, the search came back with a null result.  Damn!  That search was right on this screen. The ‘neo-neo-neo-Nazis’ got the information they needed and did a little damage control.

She searched back in the memory of her scotch-addled brain. Was that only last night?  She remembered only one server location:  1941::213:39:10:5.  She would start there.

She opened the telnet and immediately encountered password style security protocols in operation at 1941::213:39:10:5.  She dropped her monitor program to track keystrokes and waited.  It was only a matter of time.  She got up and poured some coffee – avoiding the scotch like the plague.

Three hours later, her computer beeped.  She’d been dozing in her chair, but she popped up awake and started typing immediately.  With her multi-layered persona, she logged into the site as quickly as she could and requested a file list.  Some security systems could catch a monitor in action.  If this one had, then time was of the essence.  Marcie wanted to get as much out as she could before the machine shut itself down.

There were approximately ten thousand files on this server in a very simple directory tree, representing just over one thousand gig of data.  Without knowing what files were important, and what ones weren’t, and not having the luxury of time she needed to investigate, Marcie executed a filecopy all command.  She copied the files to a remote location and from there to another, and then another; all remote and all untraceable to her machine because the traceable locations and personae were aliased.  The trail would be near impossible to follow.  Once at the third location, Marcie executed an immediate download of data – just in case they tried to stop her.  Then, she sat back to see just how many files got out – and then just how many files made it to her machine.  She felt that old rush she used to when she made a good hack.  This was going to work.

Ten minutes later, server 1941::213:39:10:5 shut down as the eight-hundred and fifty-ninth file was being transferred.  A real coup.  The remote server security was a little slow on the uptake.  Marcie assumed that would never happen again.  She watched the trail as the files continued their journey.  As the files made the second jump, Marcie could see someone was trying to delete them at the same time.  Some hotshot was on the trail.  Only seven hundred and eighty files made the second jump and then six hundred and fifty made the third.  But hotshot boy didn’t make the third jump.  All remaining six hundred and fifty files came down to her computer.   

She set to clearing any trace of her aliases, her personalities, and her connection to all remote locations.  Within sixty seconds, she was clear.  She double-checked her work and fifteen seconds later, for security, shut down not only her machine but also her network connection to the Internet.  Then, she re-powered up the box she was working on and reconfigured the IP address back to normal.   It was about ten o’clock.  When she powered up and logged onto the Internet again in the morning, no one would be able to find the machine that made the hack, because the address, in effect, would have disappeared.  A year or so from now, when that outfit in Hong Kong re-rented the IP, no one would care.

For Marcie, hacking was the science of pretending to be someone else for the short period of time you were doing what you should not oughta.  Now, to the spoils.

First, she copied the six hundred and fifty files three times onto MC.  One went to the Stacks, one went into her desk drawer, and one went into an envelope and down the mail slot just up the hall, addressed to her mother a few kilometres away.  Robbie insisted on accompanying her to mail slot.

By the time she was done, she was dog-tired, but she went to the gym as usual, to appease The Watchers as she’d started to call them.  She didn’t want to do anything out of the ordinary, give anything away.  She could read the information when she got back.

Robbie was right on her tail and followed her all the way to the gym.  Marcie didn’t know whether to be flattered or irritated by his behaviour, but she drew the line when he wanted to come into the change room with her.  Granted, at that time of night there were no other girls in the place and the change room would be deserted, but Marcie didn’t like flying too much in the face of tradition.  She changed on her own.  Besides, she loved those moments of peace before a match.

Ben’s Gym was fifty years old, and sometimes Marcie thought you could smell every drop of sweat that had been shed here.  The change room probably hadn’t been painted in the last thirty of those fifty years – if ever – and there were no saunas, coffee bars, or comfy chairs to sit in.  There were trainers, but no personal ones.  There were boxing rings and sparring mats, punching bags and weights.  No boom boxes.  No walking machines.  No babysitting services.  It was certainly not a gathering place for the latte crowd and that suited Marcie.  In fact, she loved it here.  Sadly, there were rumours that old Sam (the original Ben was long dead) was ready to sell the place.  The new owner would be crazy if he or she didn’t turn it into a spa and aerobics haven with all the choice clientele wandering the streets.  Marcie would have to find somewhere else to go.

She changed into traditional karate garb, moving slowly, centring.  She stood in front of the mirror, tying her black belt around her waist and trying to put the last few days out of her mind.  She needed a break.  When she came out, she could see another black belt over on the karate mats who seemed to be looking for someone to play with.  Marcie assessed him as a possible opponent.  He was no taller than she, but he was clearly stronger and heavier.  She looked around for a more evenly matched opponent but seeing no one, she sighed and walked over.

“Want to work out?”  She smiled at him.

He looked at her, obviously sizing her up.  Most men new to the gym laughed at her when she suggested a sparring session.  That was fine.  It got Marcie’s blood going.  She liked beating men who could not imagine being bested by a girl.  But this man was not of that kind.  He was truly trying to assess her ability and her strength as an opponent.  She liked that.

“Sure,” he said finally.  “I’m Reef Callum.”

“Hi Reef.  Marcie Noel.”

He walked to the far corner of the mat without saying another word, leaving Marcie to slip off her sandals and prepare herself in peace. 

These fights were for practice with very little serious contact.  It was a good workout for the body and the mind.  Marcie set her things down, and breathed deeply for a few moments.  When she was ready, she stepped out onto the mats.

Her opponent was already waiting for her.  They each bowed as is customary and then both adopted their own defensive stance.  He had a mean look in his eye and Marcie felt herself bristle, ready for anything.  Suddenly, Callum leaped in the air with a blood-curdling cry and came down at Marcie with a kick meant to break an opponent’s neck.

For some reason, Marcie was ready for the attack.  He’s serious!  Surprising even herself, she managed to sidestep Callum’s foot, whirl around and land a solid kick of her own on his chest as he came down, which threw him off enough that he fell on the mats a couple of feet away.  She turned back to him and she caught the look in his eye.  This was no practice match.  This was for real.  This guy was trying to kill her and he looked a little miffed that his first hit hadn’t done the job.  There were no surveillance devices in Ben’s Gym. Sam thought cameras were stupid – they stopped the guys from doing what they wanted.  Too true. 

Callum seemed energized by their first pass and popped up like a cork in water, coming at her again.  Marcie knew she was in trouble.  Oh the better part of valour.  But she was in too close to be able to turn and run without leaving her back open to a serious hit.  Instead, she executed a flip to get away from Callum and to relative safety.  Callum shifted immediately.  Marcie hated close quarters; she needed to buy herself some time.  She focused and kicked. 

The shot was well directed and caught Callum full in the face.  His head snapped back and he fell backward on the mat.  Marcie did not pause to wait for him to get up.  She closed with the intent of trying to pin him on the mat, but he got a good grip on her wrist as she approached and used his left leg on her chest to throw her over his head.  She rolled smoothly, unhurt, and just as smoothly came up on her feet ready to face Callum again, but the man was running toward the fire exit with Robbie chasing him.  Marcie followed.  As Marcie and Robbie rushed after Callum, he crashed through the fire door and disappeared out onto Queen Street.

Marcie and Robbie were only seconds behind as they went through the door, but Callum was already in a grey Escabar PA, the most popular PA on the market.  There were millions of them out there and they were all grey.  Of course, the PA’s plate was so dirty, they couldn’t read it.  Marcie and Robbie stood at the doorway, watching the vehicle take off, powerless to give chase.

“Jeez.”  Marcie was disappointed.  Who sent you Mr. Callum?

“Okay, that’s it for sparring.  No more.”

“Forget it.”

“Then you spar with me from now on.”

“Okay.”


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Thanks for reading Chapter 2.  If you liked this chapter and want to encourage Jacqui to post more chapters and write more books, please click on one of the sponsored links on this page.  Thanks!

Jacqui Burke is a Freelance Director/Writer/Theatrical Teacher.  At time of posting, projects include:  Shakespeare is Boffo! March Break Camp for 9-15 year olds; Wrong For Each Other for Encore Entertainment, opening late March; and The Mayan Prediction, this years Toronto Homeschoolers Kidsplay.  Up to date information on Jacqui's projects can be found at her website.

Thanks, as always, to John for his ongoing support and Brenda for her ongoing inspiration.

The Pretender - Chapter 1

Friday, April 16, 2083

         Dr. Roper picked up the telephone and tried to relax.  He dialled the number. This patient was a lovely young woman.  He couldn’t help but wonder to what fate he was sending her.  The telephone rang once.  Roper settled back into his office chair, starting to feel a bit more confident now that he had made the decision to make the call.  She’s a homebody.  She’ll be there.  He read, from the conclusion of the legal document on his desk, General Directive to Canadian Physicians from the Government of Canada:  “Physicians, therefore, are required to report any and all patients conforming to the criteria above.  Patients who have suffered any of the following diseases are exempt from this directive….”

“Hello?”

“Hi there.  Dr. Roper here.”

“Oh doctor.  So good to hear from you.”

“I don’t have anything definitive to tell you; so let me apologize for that right off.  We need you to come in for more tests.”

“Sure, when do you want to do them?”

“That’s up to you.  These tests are extensive; so you have to go into the hospital.”

“That’s a little scary.  I’ve never been in the hospital.”

I’m sure you haven’t.  “This kind of procedure usually has a waiting list months long, but I’ve had a cancellation for this weekend.  Would you like to take her place?”

“Yes, I would really appreciate that. I hate waiting.”

“All right.  Go to the McMaster University Medical Centre tomorrow morning at ten a.m.”

“But that’s in Hamilton.”

“Yes, it’s a bit of a hike, but it means no waiting.  Report to Admitting on the main floor.  You’ll have to stay over night.”

“Over night?”

“Don’t worry.  You’ll be done by Sunday afternoon, okay?”  Roper held his breath.  Is she turning me down?  He was surprised.  She was dedicated to having a child.

“Okay.”  The voice was uncertain, a bit tentative.  Like she knows something.

“Fine, then.  We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Fine.  Oh, and doctor?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks so much.  You don’t know how much this means to me.”

“No problem.  Good-bye.”

“Bye.”

Roper hung up the telephone and looked at the two men sitting across the table from him.  They were shady types.  Roper was surprised they were working for the government.  The older man with the salt and pepper slicked-back hair actually gave Roper the creeps.  He looked capable of anything.

Roper raised his eyebrows.  “Okay?”

“There’s just one more thing, Doctor.”

Saturday, June 19, 2083  10:00 a.m.

Marcie Noel couldn’t help but feel a little full of herself.  This move would definitely be a move up.  Looking out the floor-to-ceiling bedroom windows, she could see the city laid out in front of her.  It reminded her of just how small she was. Wow.  What’s the view from the office?

She walked into the bare room that would be her home office and stared out another floor-to-ceiling window that displayed a magnificent view of the lake and the city at the same time.  She could put her desk right in the centre of the room, run the cable through the floor, and have this beautiful vista to stare at while she was working.  Darn sight better than what she had now.

This condo was fantastic:  a large two-bedroom with solarium, huge bathroom, squash courts, gym, swimming pool, PA landing pad and parking on the roof.  And it had a nice roof lobby.  So few buildings had that yet.  Marcie looked around.  It seemed a little stark, a little antiseptic.  Perhaps a coat of paint?  She frowned.  What’s bugging me about this place?  Marcie couldn’t put her finger on it.  She didn’t feel completely comfortable.

Kerri Belson, the realtor, coughed politely, signalling her entrance into the room.  She was a short, beautiful woman, with blond hair, blue eyes, and an earnest face.  She looked barely thirty, but was ten years older, and she was tops in her field; Marcie settled for nothing but the best these days.

“Did I tell ya or did I tell ya?”

Marcie smiled and turned to her.  “Oh yeah.  It’s perfect.  Far from the madding crowd.”

“But…?”  Kerri let the question hang in the air.

“But, what?”

“There’s something you’re not sure of?”

“Maybe it’s the newness of the building.  I’m used to a place with a bit more, well, character.”

“Don’t tell me you’re really going to miss the bums on Queen Street?”

Marcie laughed and shook her head.  “No, I won’t miss the bums, Kerri.”

“Right.  So, you want to place an offer.”

“Absolutely.”

Marcie was a private investigator whose clientele drew from Toronto’s rich and trendy.  She was also a reformed hacker.  In her teens, she won the annual Hacker Deface Contest three years in a row.  She was famous in some circles.  At twenty-five, part of her was embarrassed by these achievements and part of her was so proud, she wanted to put it on her resume.  Of course she couldn’t.  She was lucky she’d smartened up before she’d turned eighteen.  She had no criminal record.  Criminal records don’t help your creditability in this business.

“When do you want to take possession?”

“Now, of course.”  Her ‘phone beeped quietly in her ear, signalling a caller.  “Excuse me.”  She turned back to that spectacular view and pressed her neck lightly under her right ear lobe.  “Marcie Noel.”  She wasn’t sure she liked being so plugged in, but it was either in or out in her world.  She’d rather be in.

“Marce, hey, it’s me.” 

She hated that.  She worked hard to try and place the voice, but she couldn’t figure it out.  She never understood why people assumed she would know who was calling.

“Me who?”

“Dave Welsh.”

“Sorry?”

“From the Oxygen Bar on Thursday night.”

Heck, this was Saturday.  Did he expect her to remember that far back?  And jeeze, she talked to, oh, hundreds of people each day.  Dopey me.  But she still didn’t remember him.

“Sorry?”

“You are some piece of work.”  He sounded irritated.

“Sorry?”  Sometimes, she disliked being Canadian.  It seemed to limit her vocabulary, especially when she was supposed to be saying f-you.

“I bought you the drink.  The fuzzy navel.”

“Mr. Welsh.  I don’t drink fuzzy navels, and I think you’re confused.”  She had been at the Oxygen Bar on Thursday night, but she had had nothing to drink.  She was working, meeting a client.  Dave Welsh?  No bells.  She’d never met this jerk.  She sighed.  Just some reporter trying to get info on a client.

“Well, then how did I get your number? Answer that.”

She hung up.  She simply couldn’t figure out a polite way to say f-you; so she opted for a lesser insult.  Her ‘phone code was in every book in the great city of Toronto, on three billboards, in various in-print newspaper adverts, and splashed all over four websites.  She had just started an advertising campaign that she hoped would bring in a lot more business.  That’s how a fledgling business turned into a real going concern.  Besides, she wanted a bit of a challenge.  The daily grind had gotten a bit boring.  Hmmm.  I wonder where he got my number.  These kinds of calls were coming in more frequently: hangers-on, gold-diggers, wanna-knows, reporters wanting information. 

When she started this business, she prided herself in being on the frontline when dealing with clients.  When you called Noel and Associates, you got Marcie Noel right off, no waiting.  Customer service is how you build a service business.  But it was getting too irritating and counter-productive to answer the ‘phone.  She was going to have to start routing all calls through the office.  Perhaps it was time for a new personal code as well?

Kerri caught her look.  “Who was that?”

“I don’t know.  He said his name was Dave Welsh.”

“That’s funny.”

“What?”

“I know a Dave Welsh.”

“Great, who the heck is he?”  Kerri laughed.

The ‘phone beeped again.  Marcie decided to ignore it.  She tapped her neck under her right earlobe twice. The beeping stopped.  The system would take a message.

“The David Welsh I know I went to high school with.  I haven’t a clue what he’d be up to now.”

Marcie just smiled and shook her head.  “Oh!  I have some questions about security.”

“Shoot.”

“How many views can I have of the roof?”

“Only the one.”

“And the ground lobby?”

“Only the one.  A complete list of security features is here if you want to study it.”  Kerri handed over a four colour glossy brochure on the building. 

Hmmmm, I’ll have to install a few cameras of my own.  “Thanks.”  She hugged the brochure and looked around one more time.  Maybe it’s just cold feet.  “All right.  Put the offer in.”

“I’ll have to warn you:  This purchase will be competitive.”

“Kerri, I don’t care about the price, really.  Just get it for me.”

“Okay.”

“Oh, I’m definitely going to change my ‘phone code over the next few days.  Call the office if you’re looking for me.”

“Sure.”

“Okay, that’s it then?”

“That’s it.  I’ll fax you the papers.  You just need to sign them and fax them back.”

“Fine.  See ya.”

Marcie lightly tapped under her ear twice again and walked out of the room.  She surveyed the main room one more time.  A small dining area, but a lovely large living room.  Perhaps I’ll spend a little more time relaxing  Maybe it’s time to enjoy the spoils.  She turned to leave.  As she stepped out the door, the ‘phone beeped again.  Marcie answered.

“ Marcie Noel.”  She walked down the hallway toward the elevators.

“Ms. Noel.  My name is Steve Turner.  I need some help.”

“What’s the problem, Mr. Turner?”  Marcie punched the button to call the elevator.

“It’s my wife.  She’s missing.”

“Missing persons isn’t my specialty, Mr. Turner.  I have a friend I could refer you to.”

“Well, I’m not being clear.  I actually think I know where she is.  I…I need your help.”  The elevator came and Marcie stepped in and punched UL for Upper Lobby.  She really liked that.  She would never have to touch the ground.

“Sounds like you need a divorce court.”

“No.  I need your help, Valhalla.”

Well, a computer friend, then. Valhalla wasn’t her hacker name; it was the nick she used currently and only in one chat room – protected and monitored, a place where former hackers met and swapped stories.  Currently, it was called safeinmyarms.com, but the domain changed frequently, sometimes weekly.  Marcie waited to see what he had to say before she decided what to do.  He invoked the name, but that just made her listen; it committed her to nothing.

“What kind of help?”

“Will you meet with me, please?”

She considered it.  She hated face-to-face meetings, but she felt an obligation due to their shared connection.  “Well, as my mother would say:  How can I turn down such a polite request?  Where?”

“How about the Oxygen Bar?”

“The Oxygen Bar?”  She was nonplussed.

“Is there a problem?”

Marcie didn’t know what to say.  She didn’t like coincidences; they made her feel out of control.  “Yes I think there is.  Meet me at the Eight Ball.”

“Okay.  Thirty minutes.”

“Sure.”

Marcie stepped out of the elevator into a very nice, if a little small, Upper Lobby.  She retrieved her keys from behind the desk, making a mental note never to leave them behind again – no doorman in sight.  She went out onto the roof PA pad and got into her little ‘plane.  She powered up and waited a minute or two while the vehicle ran through a lengthy, pre-flight check, then she backed to the centre of the PA pad.  She put the PA on auto and said clearly:  “Eight Ball Lounge” into a microphone on the dash.  Then, she sat back while the vehicle connected with Flight Control.  She could have made this jump without Flight Control if she liked – it was very short, but Marcie wanted to relax.  It was Saturday after all and besides, it was prudent to keep a record of client meetings.  Control confirmed her destination and the PA received a flight plan in about ten seconds.  Then, the PA took off on its own, moved into the lower and slower intra-city stream of traffic without a hitch and headed north to its destination. 

The skyline had risen steadily over the last hundred years, but Toronto was still a beautiful city.  The newly opened Don Valley Cycling Park (it used to be a highway) cut a swath of green all the way to Newmarket.  Toronto maintained its reputation for cleanliness and friendliness and, amongst the world’s great cities, Toronto was consistently ranked as one of the top five.  Marcie loved living here.

She enjoyed the view while she considered buying a new PA; so she could get the Remote Start-up feature.  Then, she could initiate the warm up sequence with a device she could carry on her person and the vehicle would be ready for her as soon as she got to it.  I hate waiting.

Saturday, June 19, 2083  10:30 a.m.

Very few places were interesting at ten thirty on a Saturday morning, but the Eight Ball was one of those places.  Hugh Pale, the owner, ran one of the city’s best billiard tournaments every Saturday starting at eight.  Most of the players hadn’t gone to bed from the night before.  By ten thirty, a few rounds were generally done and three quarters of the players had been knocked out.  It was starting to get interesting.

Marcie came down the stairs from the roof and found a good stool in the observation lounge.  She had a view of the top seed table and could also clearly see the bank of television vidscreens on the wall.  Fun.  She ordered a cappuccino and watched.  Her ‘phone beeped again.

“Marcie Noel.”

“Steve Turner again, Ms. Noel.  I’m here, but I don’t know what you look like.”

Marcie turned to look at the front door.  There was a man there, tall, dark hair, coffee and cream skin, plain khaki pants and off-white t-shirt.

“I’m over here by the observation window.”  She waved.  He looked her way and waved back.

She tapped her neck to disconnect the ‘phone and her coffee came.  She looked back at the billiard game in progress.  The top seeds were a couple of players she didn’t know.  They were both young and lanky and very serious, but one was clearly out of his league.  He was about to be knocked out.

Turner joined her as the waiter left.  Marcie tore her eyes from the game, turned around and smiled at him.  She pegged him at mid to late twenties.  He looked very much like a suburban husband, bland and nondescript, which he probably was.  She held out her hand.

“Marcie Noel.”

He shook.  “Steve Turner.”

“Sit down, Mr. Turner.”

He sat, but looked uncomfortable.  Marcie smiled again, trying to set him at ease.  “Do you want some coffee, Mr. Turner?”

“No.  No thank you.”

Marcie waited.  “Well, what can I do for you, Mr. Turner?”

He sat for a moment, considering.  “I need to get into a computer.”

Marcie looked at him levelly.  “I don’t do that anymore, Mr. Turner.”  Her ‘phone beeped.  She was annoyed with him – everyone in safeinmyarms knew that she was no longer hacking.  Why is he wasting my time?  She decided to take the call.  “Excuse me.”  She turned away and tapped her neck.  “Marcie Noel.”

“Ms. Noel, my name is Steven Turner.”  What?  Marcie schooled her expression and took a moment to breath.  “Are you there?”

“Absolutely.  No, I’ll go higher than that.”

“What?”

“I heard you.  What else?”

“I wanted to warn you that someone is running around pretending to be me and he’s asking a lot of questions about you.”

“I understand completely.”

“No!  You don’t.”

“Yes I do. Okay?  Let me know if there are any more offers.”

“He’s with you now, isn’t he?”

“Oh, yes.”

“All right.  There’s no reason to believe me, right?  We’ve never talked on the phone.  Just get him to confirm this week’s password to safeinmyarms.  He couldn’t’ve stolen it from me.  It’s only in my head.”

“Right.  Okay, call me later.”

“Talk atcha.”

“Thanks.  Bye.”

Marcie looked back at the man on the stool beside her.  Suddenly, he looked a little more threatening than he had before.  How does some schmuck from the suburbs crack ‘safeinmyarms’, find out about Turner, and get to me?  What could a guy like that really want?  She was intrigued.  She savoured the feeling.  Who is this guy? 

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m a businesswoman and I want to stay in business.  I can’t screw up.  There are thousands of good hackers out there with no reputation and nothing to lose.  Go find one.”  She dropped a few dollars on the counter in front of her and slid smoothly off her stool.
“I have a lot of money.”

“You couldn’t pay me enough. Besides, I’m still not sure you are who you say you are.”

“Ask me anything.”

“How do I know you?”

“Through a hacker chat room currently called safeinmyarms.”

“Fine.  Tell me the password to ‘safe’.”

“8Xcr1502mlK5.”

Very old password.  Almost three days.  She had to fake it.  She smiled as if a little relieved.  “I hate face-to-faces, don’t you.”

“Yeah.”

“Look.  You know me.  I don’t do this anymore.  You have to know that I wouldn’t risk everything.  And besides, it’s likely if you can’t hack it, I won’t be able to get in either.  Find someone else.”  She knew she sounded sincere.  She was proud of that little performance.  She almost believed it herself.

“I’m sorry.  You have to come with me.  You have to help me.”

Marcie looked down at the gun he was suddenly pointing at her.  She ran everything through her head as quickly as she could.  This man is not Steve Turner.  If this man were a policeman of some sort, what he had just attempted was called entrapment, which is plain stupid.  If this man were a criminal of some sort, he just introduced a weapon in plain sight in a bar that’s completely wired, which is extremely risky and plain stupid.  Therefore, this guy is stupid or desperate or an amateur or all three, which means he’s a most unpredictable and dangerous animal.  She didn’t want to call for the cops, they tended to be no help and then charge the PI with public mischief.  The Toronto cops were not supportive of the city’s burgeoning PI force.  They thought PIs were a nuisance; the less there were the better. 

Besides, Marcie was intrigued.  She wanted to know what was going on.  Why was this obviously average guy so desperate?  There was a good way to find out without anybody getting hurt: call in the cavalry.  She dropped her right arm casually and tapped her outer thigh at arm’s length three times.  Tap, tap, tap.  Her emergency call procedure.  There was a small device installed in her outer thigh that instructed her ‘phone to speed dial one number.  Most people who had this feature installed usually called 911.

This guy was so stupid.  He didn’t pick up on it.  ‘Steve’ gestured toward the front door.  “Please.  I’m serious.”  Actually, he looked a little insane.  Marcie complied.

She wasn’t calling 911.  She was calling Robbie McLean, a good, long-time friend, and an occasional employee.  Robbie didn’t ask questions, accepted any reasonable payment, and was a pro.  He was also a very large man who could subdue anyone.  He was so good, she considered him her insurance policy.  The call went through.

“Yeah,” answered Robbie.  Good.

“Where are you taking me?”  Marcie spoke in a clear voice.

“Can’t tell you that.”  Because you probably don’t know, you idiot. 

“Hello, sugar.  In trouble again, are we?” said Robbie.  “Don’t you worry your pretty, little head.  I’m tracing.”

Great.  He was home, only a few blocks away.  She could hear him tapping away in the background.

“What mess have you got yourself into now, sugar?”

“Well, who are you then?  You should at least tell me that.  I know you’re not Steve Turner.”

“Can’t tell you that.”

“He can’t tell you anything.”  Robbie sounded calm, almost relaxed.  “Oh, I gotcha.  On my way.  I’ll only be a few minutes.  I want to transfer the homing signal to my palm.”  Robbie had a small computer installed in his right hand that worked for limited tasks like homing signals.  It cost him a lot of money.  It was flexible, didn’t affect the function of the hand and looked like real skin, until the display came on.  Then, it was a bit creepy looking. “O-o-o-kay. Got it.  See you soon, sugar.”

She heard the connection die and suddenly felt very alone.  ‘Steve’ was practically shoving her across the room in his haste to get to his PA.  She moved as slowly as she thought she could get away with.  She hated hand-to-hand combat despite almost fifteen years of karate.  Her mother had been very clear that a woman should be able to defend herself, while all the while telling her daughter that the best fight was the one you ran away from.  Marcie could almost certainly take him, but he was so agitated he might fire that weapon by mistake and hurt someone;  like her, which wouldn’t do at all.

They got to the stairs and Marcie started walking up slowly.

“Hurry up!  Goddammit!”

He grabbed her arm and pushed her forward.  Great.  Control freak.   They got to the roof and he practically carried her over to a PA that reminded her of its owner: bourgeois, suburban, and nondescript.  He opened the pilot’s door and shoved her in ahead of him, never letting go of her.  She had to admire his single-mindedness.

She bruised her knee and scraped the other ankle as she tried to climb into the front passenger seat.  PAs weren’t built for acrobatics.  He sat down and shut his door.  Normal start-ups took a few minutes.  She toyed with a single well placed punch to the head, but decided to wait.  Robbie would be along.

‘Steve’ inserted his keycard and punched the engine into life.  He pressed a series of keys that started the pre-check sequence.  He looked agitated, hurried.  He was making mistakes, swearing.  Finally, he successfully initiated the start-up.  Then, he remembered to point the gun at Marcie.  She almost laughed.  The vehicle ran through its safety checks and beeped.  ‘Steve’ programmed his destination and waited for the vehicle to beep clearance from Flight Control.  Marcie shook her head.  This whole thing could be traced.  He didn’t even have the sense to do an uncontrolled jump.

Suddenly, the pilot’s door opened without warning.  A big hand reached in and yanked him out of the vehicle and down to the ground.  ‘Steve’s’ gun clattered harmlessly on the tarmac.  Marcie leaned over and hit the “KILL” switch.  The PA powered down and was silent.   She grabbed the keycard, jumped down out of the passenger side, and walked around the vehicle.  Robbie had ‘Steve’ up against the side of the PA, arm locked behind his back, face pressed hard against the driver’s side window.  Serves him right. 

“What do you want to do with him?”

Marcie looked at ‘Steve’.  She was definitely annoyed, but something about his desperation intrigued her.  She honestly couldn’t remember being this interested about anything in a long time.

“I think I deserve to know what’s going on here.  Can I offer you a cup of coffee, Robbie?”

“Oh yeah.  That would be nice.”

“Uh huh.  And how about you?”

She turned before “Steve” answered and ignored him when he called after her.  She got into her own vehicle, sat down, sighed, and said: “Home.”  She looked at the keycard.  She checked her bumps and scratches.  Nothing really bad.  She sat back and waited for Control to give the okay.

Home was currently a loft on Queen West right in the middle of Toronto’s new boutique district.  The area had just recently turned around and Marcie’s life had turned around with it.  Sometimes, life was all about luck.  Marcie had rented her office space just before the district became popular and when the new crowd came in, Marcie’s business became popular too.  She started to attract a completely different type of clientele, the type with a lot of money to spend.  She had become something of a darling to Toronto’s ‘in crowd’ and, within a couple of years, was following errant husbands and libidinous wives, confirming backgrounds of nannies and chauffeurs, and chasing down minor con men.  She had enough work to have two assistants on staff, as well as Robbie from time to time, and she was interviewing for a third full-time researcher on Monday. Where would she put everybody? 

The loft was two stories tall with the office located on the lower floor.  There was a small reception area, complete with impressive desk – that usually stood empty.  Tracy and Jeff, her two current researchers, played ‘receptionist’ from time to time when a particularly important client came in for a rare visit.  Business was done primarily over the telephone or at the client’s location.  The main office space had four large desks floated and facing centre; so that the staff could all converse easily if necessary.  There was nothing to separate Marcie’s desk from anyone else’s.  There was a storeroom, a small conference room (which was used for eating pizza and client conferences), and a bathroom.  Up a metallic spiral staircase, and taking up only half the area of the office floor, was the loft space.  Here were the Stacks, and Marcie’s personal space.  The Stacks were four shelving units of reference materials, old-fashioned fiche records, old-fashioned CDs, and the latest in MCs (memory cards) with gigabytes of reference material (addresses from all over the world, telephone directories, etc.).  Marcie loved memory cards.  You could walk around with a whole library full of information and not break a sweat.  There was only one computer up in the Stacks, and that was Jeff’s baby.  No one else was allowed to go near it, not even Marcie.

Marcie’s personal space was a galley kitchen, with a small table and two chairs; a living room with one loveseat, a coffee table, and a television – not even a holovision – a bathroom and her bedroom.  She’d had a designer come in a do it all for her and, though it was striking; in the end, the effect was a little cold.  Another great reason to move.

Now, if she hired one more person, all the desks on the main floor were taken.  What happened if the advertising actually worked and she needed to hire two or three people?  She’d have to boot Jeff up to the Stacks, which might seem like a loss in status for him (even though he loved it up there).  She didn’t want to lose Jeff over something like that.  He was a crack researcher.  She certainly didn’t want to move office locations.  So it was time to split home and office.  Well, mostly.  She lived her work; so she knew that at home, the most used room in the house would be her office.

She landed on the roof of the six-story building she called home.  In the early twentieth century, this building was a factory, but over recent decades many of the old sweatshops in the area had been renovated for lofts and most of the inhabitants used to be artsie-types seeking natural light – the windows were floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall.  Marcie liked living with artsies because they generally couldn’t afford PAs; so there were always a lot of parking spots on the roof.  As a bonus, artsies were generally quiet, and they were nice to you in the elevator.  But now that the rents had gone up beyond belief, most residents were artsie-wannabes with tons of money that they spent putting up expensive window treatments, throwing loud parties, and buying PAs.  And now there was always a fight for parking spots on the roof.  To make matters worse, none of these trendy-types said hello in the elevator.  This always worried Marcie.  If you were capable of ignoring a living breathing person standing right next to you in a box that was about as interesting as white bread, what else were you capable of ignoring?  A lot, Marcie was sure.

Eventually, Marcie found a parking spot.  She was going to have to insist that the building management allot the spaces on the roof evenly to the leaseholders.  She needed to be able to put her PA down somewhere and she hated leaving it on the street.  She parked the PA and got out of the vehicle.  Robbie and ‘Steve’ were already waiting at the roof door.  Marcie walked over to meet them and they all went down the stairs to the top floor.  Robbie had ‘Steve’s’ arm firmly behind his back, and he did it so effortlessly that three people they met coming up noticed nothing out of the ordinary.  Or perhaps they were just being ignored.

Marcie’s Loft was on the second floor.  They took the elevator down and, luckily, no one got on with them.   They exited into a deserted hallway and walked down to Marcie’s door at the end of the corridor.  It wasn’t locked.

“Hi,” she called as she went inside.  Two responses came back.  Both Tracy and Jeff were working this Saturday morning.  Marcie gave bonuses for volume and her assistants were often at work on the weekend, but they’d been getting behind lately, even with all the extra hours being worked. 

“Where would you like the package, ma’am?”  Robbie enjoyed his job a little too much.

“Please sit him over by my desk, Robbie, and make sure he doesn’t run off.  Can you stick around for a while?”

“Sure, sugar.”

‘Steve’ had lapsed into a docile funk – he must have realized Robbie’s strength.  He hadn’t said a word since they arrived, and he hadn’t attempted to escape either.  Marcie was very curious about who this man was and why he had decided to pick on her.  Robbie walked him over and sat him down at one of the visitor’s chairs at Marcie’s desk.

“Stay there,” he said.  ‘Steve’ looked very much like he would be happy to comply.

“Hi Marce; hi Robbie.  Who’s that, then?” asked Tracy.  Tracy was an expat Brit who really sounded it when she was surprised.

Marcie was walking upstairs to pour herself and Robbie a cup of coffee.  “Meet ‘Steve’.”  Her tone of voice verged on the scornful but, dammit, her knee hurt.

“Steve?”

“Yes, he says his name is ‘Steve Turner’, but I happen to know he’s not.  Jeff, I’ve got an A-priority job for you.”

Jeff popped his head over the rail from the upstairs.  He was in the Stacks.

“How is that different from all the other A-priority jobs I’ve got?”

“It’s not for a client; it’s for me.”

“Gotcha.”

Marcie went on to assign him the task of checking out the chat room to determine who visited it, their backgrounds, etc.  She took her coffee back downstairs.

“This could take months!”

“It’s a seriously restricted chat room, Jeff.  There are only five of us with unlimited access and there can’t be many more than that who shadow.  See what you can do.  If it becomes too huge a task, let me know.”

“What is the objective?”

“I want to know who ‘Steve’ really is.  I’m not sure how forthcoming he’ll be.”

“Gotcha.”

“Oh yeah, and Jeff?  I have another little job.  I want to know who a David Welsh is.  I got a rude call from him this morning.  He may or may not be from Toronto, but my guess is he’s a reporter or PI.  Not priority.” 

“Sure.”

All this was said in front of ‘Steve’ while she stared directly at him.  She wanted to let him know that she wasn’t without resources.  He couldn’t hold her gaze for long.  Hmmm, feeling a bit ashamed of yourself?  Great. 

Marcie decided to let him stew for a moment, while she sent encrypted emails to the other four registered members of safeinmyarms.  She knew that they’d be able to crack the message in minutes; so she didn’t reference any key for the encryption.  The email detailed that the chat room had been somehow compromised, that she’d been attacked, and appealed for help in determining who ‘Steve’ was and what his motives might be.  The security measures were strong, but no one was safe from a hacker who was motivated enough.  She knew that first-hand.

“Well.  ‘Steve’.  Perhaps you’d tell me what your real name is?”

“Greg Pearce.”

That was easy.

From above, she heard Jeff’s voice:  “I’ve got it!  I think his name is Greg Pearce.”

“Very funny.”

She looked at Greg, trying not to laugh.  Jeff’s humour was well placed.  She didn’t feel like playing the shady, underworld figure today.  She just wanted answers.  The joke took the edge off.  “All right, Greg Pearce:  How did you get my name?  Why me?”

“I hired a kid to do a job for me.  He couldn’t complete it; so he told me about you and the chat room.  He gave me the password and I shadowed for a few days.  Then,  I just looked you up on the telephone book.  I’m sorry about what I did.”

“About what you attempted to do.  Do you know that the Eight Ball has you marching me out of there at gun point in full colour and from at least three angles?”  She had never known Hugh to call the police, but he always had a great record of any incident in his bar.  The police were always given the one cam standard security record.  But his own three-colour, three-angle version?  He’d been known to sell the memory cards to both the prosecution and the defence.  It was a good sideline for him.

“They’re monitored?”

Marcie suppressed the impulse to say: Duh! “They’re totally wired, every table and most of the gallery.  Which reminds me.  Tracy, call Hugh Pale at the Eight Ball and get a copy of his security memory cards from this morning, from ten to eleven, please.  Oh, and don’t let him overcharge you.”

“Sure.”  Marcie knew Robbie would sit down, drink his coffee, and wait until she told him she was done.  Then, he’d do whatever she wanted with Pearce.  Now that was power.  Marcie was secretly enjoying this.  She didn’t get into the business so she could do background checks on au pairs.  She really craved a bit more adventure in her life.

“Why don’t you try telling me what you really want, Mr. Pearce?”

“I really am looking for my wife.”

“Okay.”

“She disappeared about a month ago.  I took her to McMaster University Medical Centre in Hamilton for some tests.  I took her through Admitting and sat with her until the doctors came, and I had to leave.  But the next day, when I went to pick her up, she wasn’t there.  No one knew anything.  They said she’d been released the night before.  And then I couldn’t get in touch with her gynaecologist either.”

“Wait a minute.  Helen Pearce?  From the news?”  Tracy was still hanging over the balcony listening.

“Yeah.  The police think my wife ran off with the doctor, but then he turned up, a few days ago, back in his own office, dead on an examination table.  He’d been shot in the head.  And he’d been dead for some time, the coroner says about four weeks.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Tracy loved this sort of thing.  She looked at Marcie.  “They were just about to drop the case – no body, right?”

“Right.  But, because they found him dead, they checked the doctor’s records and his bank accounts have been cleaned out.  So, now my wife is a suspect.  They think she’s on the run with all his money.”

“I heard it on the news too.  They’re looking for her all over the country.  What, they think she took about twenty million dollars?”

“Yeah.”

Marcie looked at Pearce:  “And you’re going to try and tell me that she’d never do such a thing, that you were in love and that you want to prove her innocence.”

“Yes.”

“Right.  Okay.  But what computer did you want me to crack?”

“I wanted to get into the records at the hospital to see if she was even admitted.  They won’t tell me anything.  No one will tell me anything!”  He paused and studied Marcie for a moment.  “You have that look on your face, Ms. Noel.  You think she killed him.  Everybody does.  No one will help me!”  He tried to calm himself.  “She wouldn’t hurt anyone for money.  Look, we’ve been together for ten years, Ms. Noel.  Why, all of a sudden, would she change so completely?”

“Because the opportunity presented itself, I expect.”

“Okay, okay.  Just, let’s say.  Let’s pretend.  Let’s just say she isn’t involved in killing her gynaecologist for his money.  What if she’s still my Helen?”

“Okay.”  Marcie was willing to see where he was going.

“Well, where is she?  If she’s still my Helen, why hasn’t she called, why hasn’t she come home?”

“That’s a good question.  The easy answer to that question is that she’s not ‘your Helen’.  That she is, in fact, guilty.”

  Pearce became more agitated:  “I don’t believe it.  Something else is going on here.  Someone’s abducted her!  For God’s-sake, she wouldn’t use a gun.  She hates guns.”  He tried to steady himself again.  “Look, I think someone might be able to pull the wool over your eyes for a period of time, maybe as long as a few years.  But I don’t think you can live with someone for ten years and not know something about who they really are, the good and the bad.  And I don’t believe that she’s anything other than an integrally good person.”

Marcie let that sit for a while.  He was probably right.  She’d have to be a brilliant actor, and purely evil, to be able to fake it for that long; especially with a spouse that saw her day in and day out for ten years.  In Marcie’s experience with married couples, she had found that when one is bad, the other is too.

“Greg, why didn’t you hire some kid to crack the hospital system?”

“I did.  I hired three of them.  None of them could do it and they all said the same thing.  The last guy got the closest, but he said that the level of encryption was much higher than he’d ever seen.  He got into the system easily, but when he tried to look at my wife’s records, he was stumped.  Her file, and about twenty others, were so well encrypted, he didn’t think they would ever be cracked.  I asked him who he thought could crack it. That’s when he told me about you.  He gave me the impression that you liked a challenge.  I thought you’d take the job.”

“You thought wrong. Why the phoney name?”

“I thought that you’d help someone from that chat room.  It’s nuts, I know.  I guess I am a bit nuts right now.  No one will help me.  Not the police. Not reporters.  Not the four private detectives I’ve already seen.  No one.  I’m sorry about trying to coerce you.

“You’ve been watching too many movies.  You say that most of the patient records were relatively easy to get into, but there were a small group, including your wife’s, that couldn’t be cracked.  Could you see the names of all of these patients?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s a place to start.  Let’s see if any of those people have disappeared as well.  That would give the police a different perspective.  They might start taking you seriously.”

“Can you do that for me?”

“Bring me the names.  I’ll do what I can.  Oh, and Greg, this’ll be at standard rates, including today – uh with a nice fat bonus for my bruised knee.”

“Charge me whatever you like.  I’m glad someone is willing to help me.”

“Fine, we’ll start in on it Monday.  Tracy!”

“Right here.”  She was standing at Marcie’s right shoulder.  Spooky how she knows when I need her.
“Get Mr. Pearce a standard investigative contract and go over it with him.”

“Mr. Pearce, I’ll need you to authorize the contract and give us a deposit.”  Tracy smiled at Pearce and gestured toward her desk.

“Fine.”  Pearce followed Tracy.  He looked like he couldn’t believe his luck; someone was actually taking the case.  Maybe I’m the one who’s nuts.

“When he’s done, Robbie, take him back to his car, please.  Here’s his keycard.  Oh and Robbie, what are you up to for the next few weeks?”

“I am, as always, ready to help you, sugar.”

Marcie nodded.  She was glad.  She had a feeling she was going to need him.

Sunday, June 20, 2083  7:30 p.m.

A baby started to wail somewhere in the building and Norman Li almost jumped out of his skin.  It was true what they said about a guilty conscience.  Norman had always thought that that psycho-bullshit wasn’t worth the expenditure of hot air, but not now.  Now, he understood it all much better.

Norman always used to sleep well, because he had never had anything on his mind.  He’d always done the right thing, played the game straight, paid his taxes.  He did not expect to have to make the kind of decisions he was making now, this late in the game.  Norman was fifty-two.  He was the Security Executive at a government run research facility called The Eastdown Institute.  He had been with the Institute for the ten years it had been open and he’d always been proud of his work.  He knew what he was doing for humankind. 

But, just lately, they’d started testing little children.  He had lain awake all Saturday night and Sunday morning and finally rose, determined to do what he could.  He hadn’t been able to get away for most of the day, but just after dinner, he had leaped on his wife’s complaint that she had a book she wanted to return to the library.

He read the email on the computer screen in front of him.  It would be very difficult to trace.  He’d even paid for the computer time in cash.  About seven thousand words:  dates, diagrams, details.  They would know and maybe they would get the government to stop what was happening.  If this didn’t work, he was going to go to the papers himself.  His little girl was almost finished college now and her education was all paid for.  His family didn’t need him to avoid risks the way he used to. 

He pressed ‘send’.

He deleted the free email account he had used.  He logged off the internet connection and then edited the connect logs of the public library computer to clear the record of the connection with the free email website.  He powered down the machine, removed the memory card and slipped it into his pocket.  He walked out of the library as nonchalantly as possible.

Once out on the street, the fresh air and the bright day did not impinge on his consciousness.  He turned away from the street at the first alleyway he came to and walked down to the end away from prying eyes.  He pulled out the memory card and a cigarette lighter.  He lit the memory card on fire.  The plastic twisted and melted immediately, sending off an acrid odour.  It quickly became too hot to hold and he dropped it on the pavement.  He stepped on the destroyed card and ground it into the asphalt below.  He waited a moment for it to cool. Then, he picked up the ruined thing and slipped it back into his pocket.  He was sure that no one  had seen what he did.

He walked back out to the sidewalk and strolled down the street as if he hadn’t a care in the world.  About three blocks down, he walked into a convenience store and bought himself a chocolate bar.  He pulled off the outer wrapper and slipped it into his pocket as he continued on down the street.  Another block later, the chocolate bar was finished.  He stopped at a garbage can and threw the wrapper away.  With it went the remains of the memory card. 

Evidence thus destroyed, Norman Li went home and telephoned his insurance broker, who happened also to be a good friend.  He scheduled a game of golf for Thursday afternoon, his afternoon off.  He wanted to make sure that his insurance was up-to-date.  It was the least he could do for Marion.



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