Vaporware (18 page)

I
stopped. After a second, she did, too. “No. Not really. Come on, Shelly. I can
smell the wacky hijinks a mile away.”

“You
sure it’s not shenanigans?” The joke fell flat. She was gnawing on her lip as
she thought about it. “I’ll tell you what. If you’re so worried, I’ll talk to
him. Maybe he’s just messing with you.”

“Maybe….”
To my own ears, I didn’t sound convinced, or convincing. “If you could do
that….”

“If
it’ll shut you up, I’ll do it.” She looked down at the crumbling Butterfinger,
then made a face. “God, why do I eat this crap?”

“It’s
a manifestation of your deep-seated self-loathing. Duh.” For a minute I thought
she was going to throw it at me, but instead she folded the wrapper over the
remaining bits and stalked off. “I’ll let you know,” she called out over her
shoulder.

“Thanks.”
If she heard me, she didn’t show any evidence of it. I waited until she
disappeared back around the corner, then turned to go back to my office. Eric
was standing there, arms crossed over his chest, looking bemused.

“Do
you want to tell me what that was about?” he asked, planting himself across the
hallway so that there really wasn’t any graceful way to get around him.

“Meh.
We had a little talk with Terry today, and this is just due diligence on the
followup.” I peered at him. “Can I get to my office now, or is this suddenly a
pass-rushing drill?”

One
of Eric’s eyebrows went up half an inch. “I had no idea you knew what a
football was.” He stepped aside, pivoting like a door swinging on its hinge,
and made a gesture that looked like it was stolen from an old ZZ Top video. “By
all means. Don’t let me keep you.”

“Thank
you,” I grumped, and walked past.

“Let
me know how it goes,” he called out as I turned in to my office.

“It
already went,” I muttered, too low for him to hear. The instant message alert
was blinking on my monitor as I settled in at my desk, and I clicked on it to
see who it was from.

No
surprise, it was Shelly. I opened the chat window and read, LEON SAYS
EVERYTHINGS COOL. NEEDS A COUPLE OF NIGHTS TO SET UP.

I
typed back, NEEDS TO SET UP WHAT? WHATS TERRY DOING???

There
was a pause, and then the reply came back, WTF IM NOT UR SECRETARY. AND HE SAYS
TERRYS BEEN IN THE BL CODE BASE.

“Crap,”
I said out loud, and then repeated it with my fingers. CRAP. I sent it, then
added SO WHATS WITH THE CAMERAS?

TURN
OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK was the answer I got, followed by LEON SAYS THERE’S
SOMETHING WEIRD. HE’S PUTTING A SNIFFER ON TERRY’S MACHINE & SETTING UP
WEBCAMS TO TRY TO GET A LOOK AT THE SCREEN. Another pause, then THURSDAY NIGHT
IS SHOWTIME. 2100 HOURS.

I
said “Yes ma’am,” and tapped the caps lock key. Jesus, I typed. Can’t we just
tell terry to quit it? This cannot end well.

There
was a long, long break before the alert popped back up. LEON SAYS IT BEATS
HAVING 2 FIRE HIS ASS.

I
thought about it. If Terry was doing something dumb with the Blue Lightning
code base, it behooved us to get him to quit it before it ruptured him
permanently. On the other hand, throwing spyware on his machine and setting up
cameras to watch him was, if not technically against the rules, at least the
sort of thing that was going to cause all sorts of employee relations issues
down the road. As soon as word got out that we were spying on someone, even if
it was for the best of reasons, people would think they were next and start
running for the exits.

Tell
him to kill the sniffer, I finally typed back. Terry will find it and then
we’re boned.

OK,
came back after a minute, followed by, ALL THE NETWORK STUFFS LOGGED ANYWAY.

Principle
of the thing. Are we done?

YOU
HAVE NO IDEA.

I
laughed, and shut the window. There were other things I had to attend to. Lots
of other things.

*   *   *

The sugar ants
crawling over the tablecloth we’d brought along as a picnic blanket didn’t much
care about video games. They snuck up over the edges, scurried for cover behind
the squeeze bottle of mustard and empty soda cans, and launched a full-on
commando raid toward the open bag of veggie chips we’d left unguarded.

“Shoo,” Sarah
said, picking up the bag.

“I don’t think
they speak English,” I told her as I reached into the bag for another handful
of munchies. The debris of dinner was all around—crumbs, dirty paper plates
shoved into a plastic Food Lion bag, a small foldable cooler bag with its top
unzipped and a Horseshoe logo on the side—and we sat under a tree, holding
hands and watching it all.

I’d put the
picnic together on a whim, a spark of inspiration that came from actually
having beaten Sarah home from work for once. While Leon was pottering around
with his Terry project he wasn’t much available to collaborate with me, and
Shelly was enjoying being mysterious, so I packed up and headed home. Then the
muse struck, and when Sarah came through the door I turned her around and
bundled her right back out of it.

“What are you
doing?” she asked. “Ryan, I’ve had a long day.”

“Which is why
we’re doing this,” I told her, shutting the door. “Now get in my car.”

“I still
don’t….” She saw the cooler on the floor in the front seat. “Ryan, you didn’t.”

I grinned at
her. “I did. And now we’re going to. Or something like that. Come on. Bond Park
is still open for a couple of hours, plenty of time for a picnic.”

She was
grinning when she got into the car.

She was
grinning now, too. “So you’re saying I need to start teaching English as a Second
Species to ants?”

I shook my
head and popped a chip in my mouth. “No, I think we just shake out the table
cloth and let them have whatever crumbs fall out. Inter-species cooperation.
It’s a goal worth striving for.”

Sarah nodded.
“Like sharks and those fish that clean them off?”

“Or secretary
birds and crocodiles.”

“The Finding
Nemo fish and sea anemones.”

“Right. And
beautiful women and gamer geeks.”

Sarah snorted
with laughter at that one, and took my hand. “Well, are you sure that’s a
different species?”

I nodded
solemnly. “Absolutely. If we ever have kids, they’re going to have treat us
like Spock’s parents on Star Trek. All sorts of shots from Dr. McCoy and
everything.”

“Spock was
older than McCoy,” she said, and when my jaw dropped open, she grinned
wickedly. “I’ve been teaching myself a foreign language. Geek. Which reminds
me, why is my favorite geek not at his office? Not that I’m complaining.”

“Leon’s got
some sort of super sneaky thing he’s working on because of a problem with one
of his people, and I didn’t have a lot to do, so….” I shrugged. “I thought it
would be nice to be together for a night.”

Sarah squeezed
my hand. “Eww. Grease. You need a napkin. And whatever Leon’s working on, it
sounds serious.”

“It is. He’s
trying to keep one of his guys from getting fired. I might need to help him out
later in the week, but…that’s later.”

“It certainly
is.” She snuggled closer. “And we’ve got an hour until they chase us out of the
park there, and it seems a shame to let the ants have the whole blanket to
themselves, don’t you think?”

“I don’t
think,” I said truthfully, and kissed her.

Chapter 15

I
pulled up at Leon’s place at quarter of nine. It was raining, so it was a
relief to edge up to the curb and kill the engine before another sweep of the
windshield wipers creaked its way across my nerve endings. The sky was purple,
clouds hanging low and lit up in the near distance by the lights of Raleigh.
There was no sign of lightning, though, rare for summer but a good sign for us.
The last thing we needed was a blackout or Terry sensibly shutting down and
going home for fear of having his system fried.

I
hopped out of the car and walked up the driveway. The house stood well back
from the street, a white-painted example of the cookie-cutter house farms that
were springing up all over the area. His car was in the driveway, which wasn’t
a surprise—he’d long since turned the two-car garage into a workshop/arcade,
picking up old game cabinets at auctions and on eBay. All of them got
refurbished and wired so that quarters were no longer necessary to enjoy their
old-school charms. This made parties at Leon’s very popular, especially with
the older members of the staff.

It
also meant that there was no room for anything else in the garage, like, say,
his car. Tonight, as with every other night, it stood in the driveway, its dark
red paint washed mostly clean. Next to it, however, was another car, one I
recognized. Michelle’s Acura had been there long enough for new raindrops to
have erased any sign of wiper action on the windshield, and the hood was cold
when I put my hand on it.

That
was a surprise. I’d invited Michelle to the evening’s observation, mainly
because I wanted someone there with a low bullshit tolerance as a witness. I
hadn’t expected her to show, to be honest. I certainly hadn’t expected her to
show early, not to Leon’s.

Interesting.

I
could hear his voice as I came up on the front door. “It’s open. Come in.” Sure
enough, it was cracked enough that I could just push my way inside.

There
were two sets of shoes next to the mat by the door, Leon’s ratty old Reebies
and a pair of woman’s flats. I shucked my own sneakers and looked around. There
was no telling where Leon might have set up, though I could see that the living
room was deserted. Framed comic book covers dominated the walls; wicker
furniture did the same for the carpet. Prominently positioned against the far
wall was a mini-bar, with a half-dozen bottles of imported rum displayed atop
its counter. “Where are you, man?” I asked.

“Den,”
came the answer, and an echoing chuckle that had to come from Michelle. “Don’t
touch the rum. We’ve got beer in here.”

“Wouldn’t
dream of it,” I said, reversing my step and instead walking straight past the
stairs into Leon’s kitchen. It was a semi-open floor plan, which meant that the
rumpus room and kitchen were open to each other. This had its benefits—it made
it easy to get another beer during one of the marathon Xbox sessions at Leon’s
house—but it also meant that you had to brave the kitchen to get to the room
with all the electronic toys. And while the kitchen was nice enough, or had
been before Leon got his hands on it, it was always a crapshoot as to how
recently he’d done dishes or taken out the trash.

I
sniffed experimentally. “No funk,” I reported. “What’s gotten into you?” A
quick look showed no dishes on the counter or in the sink, no half-empty beer
bottles on available flat surfaces, and no crumpled paper towels or Hot Pocket
wrappers.

“I
cleaned up for company.” Leon was leaning over the back of his overstuffed
sofa, a blue monstrosity that looked like it had been made from skinned
Muppets. There was a low table in front of it, covered with various pieces of
consumer electronics—game controllers, a projection TV, remote controls, and a
laptop—and no other furniture in the room except for a couple of orange beanbag
chairs. The far wall had been painted white for use as a projection screen, and
at the moment it was showing a screensaver.

Michelle
sat on the couch next to Leon, holding a bottle of Sam Adams Summer Ale with
both hands and looking straight ahead.

“Pull
up a beanbag,” Leon invited as I walked over to the den. “Beer’s next to the
table, and the show can start any time you’re ready.”

“We’ve
just been waiting for you,” Michelle added, and took a swig of her beer. She
was wearing a black blouse, button-down—very fetching, in my unprofessional
opinion—and jeans. No socks, and her hair was loose and down. There was space
between her and Leon on the couch. She saw my eyes measuring and scooted over
to the left an infinitesimal bit. Leon looked at her, looked at me, and did the
same to the right. I had to bite my lip to keep from smiling.

“So,”
I said, and snagged a beer as I came around the couch, “is it working? Do we
have signal on your little camera thingie?”

Leon
nodded as I dropped myself into one of the beanbags.

“Camera
array,” he said proudly, even as he leaned forward to adjust the video input.
“And it’s running like sweet, sweet honey. I tested it earlier, while we were
killing time waiting for you.”

“Sorry,”
I mumbled, twisting the cap off the beer. “Sarah wasn’t really excited about my
coming here tonight. It took a while to convince her that I was just heading
out for some gaming, and not for, well, I have no idea what else she thought
I’d be doing.”

“Did
you tell her I was coming?” Michelle again. “I’m sure she’s probably not real
thrilled about that.”

I
took a sip of beer. “I don’t think she’s worried about me having a hot
threesome with you and Leon, Michelle. More like she thought I was going back
into the office for another couple of hours.”

Leon
poked at the top of the projector one last time. A box in the upper left read
“Video 2”; the screen was now pure black. “Man, she’s sort of right. I mean, we
are checking in on work here, right?”

“We’re
checking in on Terry,” I said, shaking my head. “Work’s the least of it.”

Michelle
suddenly uncoiled herself from the couch and stared down at me. “You should
have brought her along.”

I
blinked. “Why?”

Her
face curled into a look of disgust, one with which I’d once grown intimately
familiar. “Because it beats the hell out of lying to her about what you’re
doing. Assuming, of course, you actually want to keep her as your S.O. If not,
keep it up. You’re doing just great.”

My
eyes must have rolled involuntarily, because Michelle’s face went from
“disdain” to “fury” in a heartbeat.

“Come
on, Shelly,” I said. “What am I going to tell her? ‘I think one of the guys at
the office is trying to get himself fired by working on a nonexistent video
game, and I’m going to go spy on him to see what he’s typing in the middle of
the night in case I have to go save him from himself?’ Yeah, having her think
I’m crazy is so much better than having her thinking I’m a workaholic.”

Her
tone softened, even if her face didn’t. “You believe this is important. Maybe
she would, too.”

“Kids,
kids, now’s not the time to discuss this.” Leon was all bullshit bonhomie.
“We’ve got a friend to spy on, remember? We can argue over why Ryan is lousy
boyfriend material later.”

Michelle
looked unhappy but sat back down. I opened my mouth, found I had nothing to
say, and drank more beer to keep from accidentally saying something anyway.

Leon
nodded and smiled benevolently at each of us. “That’s better. Now, let me
explain what we have here. I’ve rigged a series of webcams all over the team
room, targeting Terry’s desktop. With a little focus, we can see what he’s
doing onscreen. We can switch between them with this,” he lifted the laptop,
“which will give us a good view, no matter how he bobs his shaggy little head.
The whole thing is dumped to a password-locked external site, which we’re about
to log into, and I bought Dennis lunch and got him to promise not to look too closely
at the bandwidth usage tonight. So, any time you two are ready, we can do what
we came here to.”

I
looked at Michelle. She looked away. “I still don’t feel right about spying on
Terry.”

Leon
shrugged. “We’re not spying, we’re looking out for him. If he’s doing something
really stupid, we can see it and set him straight before we have to take it to
Eric, and Eric blows him out the door. Seriously, how many all-nighters do you
think he can pull on a black project before he starts screwing up the day job beyond
repair?”

“He’s
already screwing it up,” I added, looking back and forth between the two of
them.

“It
still doesn’t feel right,” she finally said. “But what do I know? I’m just the
girl.”

“Michelle….”

Leon
waved me off. “Sooner we start, sooner we finish and can start flagellating
ourselves about being terrible friends to Terry.” He hit a key on the laptop,
and the image of the team room resolved onscreen. “Or the sooner we save his
ass.”

“Same
thing, really,” I said quietly. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Right
you are, chief,” said Leon, and flipped open the laptop. He hit a few keys, and
a Godzilla shriek cut through the room at deafening volume. Michelle jumped and
I winced.

“Sorry,
folks. Startup sound. I forgot the volume was up that high.”

“No
harm done.” Michelle crowded in next to him. “Now let’s see this.”

Leon
glanced up at me, one eyebrow raised. I had two options—crowd in on the couch
next to him and Michelle, or lurk behind them. I picked number two and settled
in behind them.

“What
are we looking at?” Michelle asked.

“Just
a minute, just a minute.” Leon fiddled a bit more, and a series of windows
popped up onscreen. On all of them was Terry, or some portion thereof. The
picture quality was grainy as all hell, but it was unmistakably him. There was
a small palisade of Monster energy drink cans next to his keyboard and a double
monitor setup behind them. To his right was a dev kit, a circle of green light
shining out from its power indicator and fuzzing up the picture.

“Kill
the ones from the left side,” I said. “The image is crappy, and the light’s
messing up the picture. All we’re getting is the silhouette.” Leon nodded, and
two of the windows went away. The refresh rate went up as he did so, treating
us to a slightly more realistic vision of Terry typing, leaning forward, then
typing some more.

“Let
me scan the room,” he said softly. “Make sure there’s no one else in there.”

“Can
you do that?” Michelle asked.

He
nodded. “Camera four is on a swivel. It’s got 270 degree coverage.” Slowly, the
window at the top right treated us to a view of empty desks covered with
equipment and empty soda cans, game cases and action figures, and the
occasional candy jar. No people, though. No computers that showed anything
onscreen, no other sign of life or work or light, only Terry and his machine.

“We’re
clear,” Leon announced with some relief. “Nobody but Terry in there. Which is
good, because I’d hate to be doing this and catch someone watching porn or
something and beating off at his desk.”

I
punched him lightly on the shoulder. “You’ve never done that.”

He
turned and looked at me, his face a mask of indignation. “The hell I haven’t.
There was this one guy we called Dr. Spankenstein, back when I was working at—”

“Guys,
can we focus here?” Shamefaced, we turned back to the laptop. Michelle’s
expression was half smirk, half disgust. “The important thing is that if he’s
the only one there and nobody’s running any processes overnight, then we know
that whatever we see is his.”

“Exactly.”
Leon gave her a grin. “But I still think it’s a good thing we don’t have sound.
Just in case.”

Michelle
let that one go without comment. Instead, she tapped the screen with one
finger, clicking her nail against it to avoid leaving a smudge. “That one,” she
said. “It’s from directly behind him. All we’re getting is his back and his
hair.”

“And
his back hair,” Leon quipped.

Michelle
ignored him. “Can we kill that one?”

“Not
yet,” I said, the beginnings of an idea coming to me. “Leon, can you zoom in
enough to show us what’s on his screens?”

“I
can try,” he replied, and hit a few controls. The images in half the windows
grew larger and blurrier in roughly equal proportions.

“No
good.” Michelle frowned. “The only angles you’ve got are side ones. It’s too
distorted. Maybe we could get a better feed if you killed the back cam?”

“No,”
I said, “And here’s why. We want to see what he’s looking at, right?” They both
nodded. “OK, put that one on max zoom and get ready to do some screen
captures.”

“What
are you going to do?” Michelle asked, but I was already whipping out my cell
phone.

“He’s
in the way? We’ll get him out of the way.” I dialed in the number for the work
switchboard and hit an extension at more or less random, then let it ring. A
second later, Terry’s head jerked up and to the left, presumably in the
direction of the now-ringing phone.