Cyber Kittens and Cowboys (10 page)

Therefore, her only real clue is two proper
names: Ashley & Thurston Slanton. She can’t use this laptop to
access Internet blogs. She can’t stay here, either. She has seen
Preston & his FBI car fly dangerous through the intersection
traffic light heading to computer center on 9th Avenue and 15th
Street from her work ID trace. Another resource gone!

She stands, swiftly & trots, slowly to
bathroom for refreshing. Empty! She stares, studiously into mirror.
Baseball cap covers, partially face and black hair very well. She
tucks, lousy long ponytail down vest in back hoping to fool Geneva
or Preston if they cross her path, accidentally. She thinks,
quickly of chopping off her only black wavy hair. She lacks
instrument of scissors and doesn’t have time to find, acquire &
perform that deed without being noticed by other store employees.
She washes, cleanly hands then leaves bathroom heading out door
without laptop.

This is Birmingham, 10th worse city for
crimes, robbery, thievery and other serious incidents. In less than
30 seconds, that poor laptop will be gone along with cops and
Geneva chasing their new stupid owner. Pamela giggles, lightly.

When Geneva finally acquires the hardware,
she won’t find nothing, Pamela isn’t leaving much of a hot dusty
trail. She only wants Geneva pondering Pamela’s wasting her time
searching the code word: BOA.

Instead, Pamela’s real investigation work
begins. She’s going to find Ashley Slanton, first name on CIA
secret list. For that, Pamela needs another computer and access to
the library archives.

She walks, nervously to yellow taxi cab while
driver hangs near hood. She’s located in one of the most popular
scenes in Birmingham, Southside. People, visitors, students &
families enjoy restaurants, carriage rides and starry sights of
Birmingham’s most frequented tourist attraction. Therefore, taxis
hover on corners for prospective paying customers.

Pamela directs cabbie to library in Hoover
about 12 miles drive, South. Hoover has got the best archives for
back jumping into past looking for Ashley Slanton.

Time: 12:00pm. Birmingham Airport.

Preston speeds, illegally using his blue
light into street parking at airport. He gallops, swiftly into
airport lounge near security gates & parks, deeply faded blue
jeans in one of the smaller cozy sofas for privacy then places,
carefully tiny earphones of iPod bombarding his ear wax. He
concentrates best when his inside environment is shutout from noisy
distraction like people talking and walking around airport terminal
looking for flights. Secondly, his favorite country song relaxes
& focuses, totally his active mind on the problem at hand.

Preston doesn’t give a hoot about tripping
onto Pamela, first. She’s not here. She’s not coming here. She’s
someplace else. Her POV file he ripped from Burn U computer
contains clues to her next move or maybe, her whereabouts for him
to figure that out. He grins, toothy.

Preston plugs, carefully thumb drive into his
laptop & reads, carefully the first face page of POV file.

She has copied each Internet face page using
“Ctrl C” command and then pasted information with “Ctrl V” command.
Some of the data is blurry but readable and can’t be re-copied or
reformatted without totally destroying it based on her rushed work
using her work ID at campus computer center terminal. Not good!

Preston re-reads first page of file
representing IPAM protocol. That’s doesn’t make any sense. He
concludes, finally this particular page is garage left over from
her importing data files of hidden clues.

He decides, quickly to start at bottom of
file & scrolls, swiftly down to last page of content. He sees,
clearly her scheduled and paid trip from Birmingham, Alabama, plane
transfer in Atlanta, Georgia then landing in Paris, France.

“Jesus!” He stands, swiftly & catches
falling laptop from knees as earphones along with iPod drops,
steady to carpet. “She’s going to fly to Paris. That’s the
message.”

His thumb presses, accidentally up arrow as
screen flows in that direction. Eyeballs catch, quickly her second
scheduled and paid trip to London, England. He re-seats on edge of
sofa & stares, studiously at screen holding hand palm over
light speeding healthy heart organ calming his mind & his
bio-rhythm. “That’s not the hidden message. Both trips are here.
She’s not fleeing. Pamela, you just gave me a freaking heart
attack.” He sighs & breathes, deeply then presses, gingerly
down arrow to bottom of folder verifying both overseas travels from
Birmingham. He chuckles, lightly. “A ruse…for me or Geneva?” He
shakes, sideways skull. “Not for me. She’s not coming here. That’s
the first message. What else ya got, Pamela?”

Preston eye burns laptop for next subject
from Pamela’s message. He sees, clearly her order and payment of
four tours at four different famous sights in both Paris and
London. “Definitely a ruse for Geneva.” He chuckles, lightly. “And
clever…expensing trips on Geneva’s personal credit card.” Preston
has never heard such ugly language from a lady but Geneva ain’t no
lady.

Preston scrolls up arrow & verifies
purchase of evening gowns and accessories. “Okay? I got it. Next
date, we go dancing but I got a feeling that’s not your real secret
here. There must be some kind of encrypted cyber space message
here, Pamela. But, I just can’t figure out what you’re trying to
tell me, honey.” He sighs & breathes, deeply.

He scrolls up arrow to next page showing the
proper name: Geneva Lassater. He pauses, dramatically & snorts,
heavily. “Our favorite person, right, Pamela?” He studies,
observantly page. Electronic copied & pasted one full page
length of Internet contents with varied categories of Geneva
Lassater….correction. Only highlighted various nouns represents
Geneva shown in Geneva Conventions referring to the Fourth Geneva
Convention of 1949 for forcing Germany to pay the Allies after WWII
and other useless junk on three more Internet pasted pages in
folder.

“This doesn’t help me, honey. What does this
mean?” Preston whispers, softly. He leans, deeply into sofa &
replaces, slowly music pod into ears. He closes, slowly eyeballs
& controls, steady his breathing trying to concentrate on
Pamela and her selected meaningful Internet postings.

He opens eyeballs, slowly then stares at next
page containing separate highlighted “Lassater” references. Pages
go on for three different electronic copied by “Ctrl C” and pasted
“Ctrl V” contents. Preston talks, confusingly. “I don’t understand,
Pamela.”

He gives up, voluntarily then scrolls,
swiftly upward again. Page shows proper name: Pamela Craft. Preston
notes, quickly that there are multiple people named “Pamela Craft”
living in different parts of the USA. He sifts, slowly through
Internet paragraphs & discovers “Pamela Craft of Birmingham.”
He can’t access the cached site since this is only pasted copy of
flat page.

He reads, loudly. “Pamela Craft, member of
United Methodist Church chorus in Sept. Okay? You go to church. I
know you like to sing, especially in the mornings.” Preston grins,
toothy then continues scanning & finds another reference.
“Pamela Craft wrote article for Burn U in Feb. You’re a writer,
that’s cool! I didn’t know that personal tidbit about you,
honey.”

Preston reads & sights, slowly three more
interesting tidbits about “Pamela Craft of Birmingham” on next two
copied electronic face pages but without the Internet site access
he can’t figure out the hidden message. He sighs & breathes,
deeply. He scrolls next subject.

He sees, clearly the proper noun: ipam
attached to one cached paragraphs, ipam author of Alien1 (Pamela
Craft). Preston whispers, softly. “Pamela Craft is an author but
uses a pen name entitled
‘ipam.’
Is that you, honey?” He
taps another page as the same pen name ipam displays right next to
Pamela Craft for three more different titles of eBooks. “Got it.
You wrote that article in college. So, you have a secret desire to
author science fiction. I like reading science fiction novels, too.
Something else we have in common.” Preston has discovered another
fact about Pamela Craft, not helpful in clearing her of this
illegal mess.

Preston scrolls upwardly to last page…in this
case, the first page of the folder beginning over with the computer
IPAM protocol. He huffs & puffs, musically & shakes,
sideways black skull without understanding what’s he seeing. He eye
burns wall. He ponders, deeply.

Pamela presents those particular Internet
pages for some direct purpose but why and what does it mean for
him.

Preston scrolls, quickly down at the bottom
again & thinks, logically. “She isn’t going to Paris or London
but she paid for…correction. Geneva paid for it.” He laughs, hardy.
That act is so precious and clever just like Pamela using Geneva’s
money.

Preston presses up arrow to trip to London
costing eight grand. He laughs, hardy. “Good girl, Pamela. I know
my instincts were right about you.” He pats, tenderly breast pocket
containing three carat diamond engagement ring.

He pulls, slowly blue velvet box from jacket
without opening the lid picking up the ring this morning after they
left, separately for work from Jewelry store on University Drive.
He has decided to marry Pamela. He loves, cares & cherishes
her, deeply.

Past two weeks his relationship has moved
from tenderly to awesomely with her. He doesn’t want to look at
another female, only Pamela. He’s going to marry her right after he
kicks Geneva’s ass for this mess and involving his girl.

Preston replaces, slowly blue box into jacket
then scans, slowly airport terminal. Everyone runs for flights
ignoring him. He sighs, breathes, deeply.

He returns to laptop & studies page of
London trip then taps arrow up to next item purchase of tours,
followed by evening gowns. “I got it. You humiliated Geneva using
her personal credit card number exhibiting your awesome but illegal
hacker skills. So, what? The balances total around…” Preston flips
pages back and forth calculating monies. “…over 23 thousand…on one
card?”

Preston starts at bottom of file verifying
each credit card number to the last page of purchases. Entire
amount of $23,000 is purchased on one credit card. One credit card
holds over $20,000 in multiple transactions without maxing out
using Internet verification payment methods. If the card hit the
limit, the electric guidelines would reject the transaction. He
frowns, ugly.

Preston pulls, swiftly wallet with his two
credit cards & slips, slowly the green card for eye
examination. He calls, quickly bank for his credit limit. Bank
supervisor relays that particular green credit card holds $5,000
max. He asks, kindly if he can raise the limit to $20,000 making up
great big lie. Bank replies “no.” Preston replaces cards and wallet
into jeans.

He eye burns wall & thinks,
intellectually. Geneva possesses personal credit card for $20,000
and more in dollars. How’s that possible for an average Federal
Government employee? Does she possess $20,000 in her bank account
to cover these purchases? Well, the purchases are illegal so Geneva
doesn’t really own the money but financial theory’s interests his
brain cells.

Geneva is only Director almost equal to his
status. As a matter of fact, Preston almost got her & his job
combined but he refused, flatly. So, she doesn’t get paid millions
of dollars for her job instead their pay grade and rates are equal.
Secondly, Geneva might be independently wealthy affording to pay
that credit card debt until good old Uncle Sam repays her for the
thievery but Preston doubts it since Geneva has some serious facial
collision with broken glass, or someone else’s fist.

Geneva needs, badly plastic surgery if
wealthy she can pay for that from her personal bank account. Third,
Geneva was visually upset about the funds on her credit card
therefore she doesn’t have the extra money.

Preston has outstanding credit owning his
house and his car and other tangible property and still can’t get
his limit raised to $20,000 on his credit card. He snaps, nosily
finger pads.

He presses up arrow to next page sighting the
proper noun: Geneva Lassater. He scans all pages slowly for Geneva
Lassater as paired words.

“She’s not there. That’s what Pamela telling
me. Geneva Lassater is not there as a person on Earth.” Preston
whispers, softly.

He scans backwards to proper name: Pamela
Craft. Internet is tattle-tail of tidbits almost on any person in
the solar system especially if that person joins an organization or
shits in their toilet in the guest bedroom since folks are
literally attached to social networks, cell phones and electronic
blogs. Pamela Craft exists as one name of his girl and other girls
called Pamela Craft throughout USA on the Internet. However, Geneva
Lassater is not on Internet.

Pamela has goggled & copied electronic
third pages of Geneva Lassater with no such reference to that
particular Christian name/person. The last page shows ‘ipam,’ not
the computer protocol. It hints that Pamela uses another name for
her novel work so if Geneva is covering something with a chosen
fake name, the Internet would pick it up, also.

That’s the message Pamela’s sending to me:
research Geneva.