Chapter 2

I was deep into my ‘consult and monitor’ business when the mail slot opened and disgorged the daily snail mail. I ignored it for now. I had to call the COO and CFO of the account at the new community bank in Brooklyn. “Mr. Cipriano and Mr. Goldman. You may have a major problem. Your employee, User #11079, has logged into a bank in the Caymans eleven times in the last 36 hours. This individual has also made purchases at several questionable websites lately. The Caymans bank does not correspond with any of your associated financial partners but does a fair amount of business with several groups in the Mid-East. The web buying just feels dirty. I recommend you call in an independent forensic accountant and notify the banking commission of a potential issue. As of now, all of User #11079’s activity will be mirrored on Mr. Goldman’s secure office computer. Something fishy is happening.”

They thanked me for the warning and promised to let me know the outcome of the investigation.

I notified the hardware store that someone had tried unsuccessfully to access their professional customers’ credit card files. I suggested they put the info behind the firewall, isolated from the regular log in portion. They loved the personal touch.

I looked in on the naked girls. They had all but polished the living quarters and were talking about a revamp of the test area. I realized that I had not been on the fifth floor since the day they moved in. Since I needed to measure for the dry sauna on the fourth floor, I may as well scope the top floor.

The girls’ space was spotless. Their common room looked more like a study hall/library with a TV. There were a few throw rugs to soften the hardwood floors. I didn’t bother looking into the bedrooms and bathroom. There some things a guy does not need to know.

Down on the fourth floor, I realized that there was plenty of room for a small sauna near the bathroom. Might even consider a whirlpool in the bathroom. I imagined the home improvement store would give me a good deal on the installation and wiring.

I went down to the second floor and asked the girls how much longer they planned to clean.

Amy estimated, “Maybe another hour. Is that all right?” She was tempted to cover her interesting parts but didn’t want to look like she was being disobedient. Ellie moved behind a stack of boxes.

“Sure. Meet me in the office when you’re done. It’s nearly two o’clock, See you by three.” I wanted to deal with the mail before we quit for the day.

The mail contained four payments totaling a considerable amount of money. I set those aside for Amy to record and deposit. An invoice from the market was less than I expected given how well we ate these days. A bill from the pharmacy was itemized by insurance coverage status. I carried major medical with a huge deductible, so I was curious about what the ladies had ordered. I discovered they had renewed their birth control prescriptions, prescriptions of which I was not aware. Ah, the implants, I remembered. ‘I guess their Mom set that up sometime before she left them on their own.’ I thought, ‘At least she was a little concerned about her daughters’ welfare. She still abandoned a perhaps twenty year old with her fifteen year old sister in New York City.’ The idea pissed me off.

I still had to deal with an ‘age’ issue, but not now.

Thinking evil things about the redheads’ parents, I sorted the rest of the mail. Some résumés, a business account bank statement, a summary of my accounts at my investment bank, some pure junk and advertisements. The last item was a letter, forwarded from Amy’s old address, having a return address from Seattle. The name of the sender was ‘Lorri McGee’. Hmmm. Speak of the devil.

Soon, two self-conscious naked girls came in and waited for me to notice. Both seemed happy. Hot and sweaty, but cheerful at having a productive day, despite being unclothed.

“I hate to spoil the mood but you need to read this letter, Amy. It is from your mother.”

Amy and Ellie paled. Amy opened the envelope and she and Ellie read the letter together. I waited until they were through. “Mom says that after the divorce was final, Dad disappeared. She thinks he went to Mexico to avoid any child support since she got custody of Ellie. Mom has met a man there and wants to make a go of a new relationship. He has kids. She did not mention wanting us around. The letter sounds like an emotionless update on her status and not like a personal note to her daughters.” Amy hissed the last part.

“At least she gave us a phone number and email address.” Ellie said with a bit of venom. “Maybe Mom expects us to beg to go to her.”

I realized that we were at a crossroads. They had consciously to decide their future: stay here with me or ask to go west.

“How about you call her and see how she sounds? Tell her to send a notarized letter authorizing you to act in loco parentis for Ellie.” I told Amy.

“I need another crazy parent?” Ellie quipped.

“No. It is a legal term meaning ‘in a parent’s place’. Amy needs to be able to approve any serious medical treatments, driver’s training, off campus study, field trips and things like that. I can’t sign documents for you. You can’t until you are eighteen. Amy can, with an authorization from your legally designated ‘Mom’. We already bluffed the transcripts and school entrance. Let’s not push your luck.” I said, knowing I was giving them an out if they felt odd about our current arrangements.

Amy asked for the phone. I blocked the caller ID response, making it anonymous and handed it to her. She took a deep breath, which did wonderful things to her little B cup tits, and dialed her Mom. Ellie looked annoyed.

“Hi Mom. Got your letter. How are you doing?”

“Good for you. I have a very good job that pays a lot. It’s easy. Now Ellie and I can afford to live on the Upper Westside. I put her into a private school so she can be safe. That school she was in was dangerous.”

“So we have two step-sisters? Will we meet them?” There was a long pause in which Amy teared up.

“Oh. I guess I understand.” She looked quite mad now.

“OK. Just send me a notarized letter giving me ‘in loco parentis’ authority to make decisions involving Ellie.”

“Just have your divorce lawyer do it. It’s probably a form letter. I’ll reimburse you the fee. You know if your daughter gets sick, I cannot get a doctor to treat her without that letter?”

“Well, I care. Do it today. Send it to my job address, Zephyr Computer Systems.” She gave the address. “Send it to my attention. I’m the office manager.”

“OK. And I really need that letter. Do you want to talk to Ellie?”

“No matter. I’ll see you sometime. Bye.” She slammed the phone down.

Ellie and I waited for the report. Amy closed her eyes, calming herself. “That woman did not have time to speak to her youngest daughter!” She exploded. “She is engaged to a guy with two little girls. No, we will probably never meet them. No, she has not mentioned us to her new man. I had to volunteer the changes in our lives, she never asked.” Amy paused to breath deeply.

“The letter, will she send it?” Ellie asked.

“Probably, sis. I got the impression it would happily be the last she has to do with us. She is clearly willing to make her abandonment complete. I could have begged to go west and she might grudgingly have relented, but I’ll be damned if I ever ask that women for anything. I’m happy, safe and loved here. Mark is firm but good to us. We have a future. Why would I beg her to leave a place a thousand times better than her life can ever be?”

Ellie added with emphasis. “She did not have time to say one word to me? She did not care to know if I liked the new apartment or the new school, nothing about my grades, health? No nothing? Make sure you do send her money for the legal fees. We will owe her nothing. Soon she will forget our names!”

They hugged, both aware that the past was truly past. They cried it out and turned to me, “Mark, thank you for getting us out of that hellhole downtown and giving us all you have.” They ran to me and nearly hugged me to death. I didn’t mind a bit. The crossroads was in the rear view mirror and getting smaller in the distance.

“My girls, I’m calling it a day. Let’s shower, fix a late lunch and get back to the project. We have a future to build.”

“Works for me.” Ellie, suddenly not so shy, squealed and dragged me to my shower with Amy pushing. Ellie adjusted the water temperature while Amy striped me to the skin. The redheads washed me several times and I was encouraged to returned the favor, paying extra attention to certain parts. All of us came at least once, but the girls left the shower with their virtues intact.

They toweled one another and me dry somewhat slowly, enjoying the contact. I slipped on some boxer shorts. The girls, as instructed, wore the uniform of the day. Beautifully, if a bit shy.

Early dinner/late lunch was tomato soup, grilled cheese and ham sandwiches. They ate like they were starved. I watched and laughed. “We built quite an appetite today. We’ll need the strength tonight. Thinking is hard work.”

“You do the thinking for us. So far, it’s worked OK.” Ellie declared. “Look at how much we are saving on clean clothes!” She blushed furiously, not really that comfortable with the situation, but trying to make light of the embarrassing situation she had gotten herself into.

I watched as she wiggled her titties. I reached over and pinched her nipples firmly. She did not pull back. I did not hurry.

Amy added, “That’s why you make the big bucks, so you can spend them on us.”

“I’m really liking the new work clothes. They are attractive, fit perfectly, and are easy to maintain.” I said, checking the fit on Amy’s tits. They were perfectly tailored. She was perfectly submissive.

“Ahem. If we don’t clean up now, we will have a bigger mess.” Ellie interjected, “We should be working on the project. I want to save my inspection for later.”

We did stop long enough to clear away the debris from late lunch. I dropped by the bathroom to get towels to drape over the chairs and couch in the conference room. The office computer started beeping loudly. I ran in to discover the bank in Brooklyn was under attack but the firewall was holding. I called Mr. Cipriano, who recognized the caller ID. “What the hell is going on?” he wailed.

“I guess you noticed that your web presence is compromised.” I said in a calm voice. “Please get your best IT person on the line with Mr. Goldman. May I call you folks Bob and Izzy? The mister stuff is getting in the way.”

Izzy and Vanna were on the line by then. “‘Izzy’ here with Vanna, our Alpha Geek.”

“Hi, Vanna. Mark Allyn, Zephyr, here. Tell me the sequence.”

“About six minutes ago, the traffic on the site spiked. Too many password fails to be legit. The server is crashing.” She reported without panic. Vanna is one cool lady.

“Bob. Log her in to the desktop in your office and get out of the way. Call Homeland Security and bring them on board. You are under a cyber attack. Conference the local agents with your forensic accountant and Izzy. You have kicked a hornet’s nest and they are pissed. Probably the Caymans bank alerted the shady people. Sorry to be abrupt but we have to work fast.”

I started to disable the website as I instructed Vanna. “Vanna. You have one chance. You will not see a cursor or your entry. Enter this string.” I gave her a bunch of code. “You are at the firewall icon, a brick with spikes. Enter ‘ROCK BREAKS SCISSORS’, uppercase, proper grammar. You are looking at a blue screen with a blinking green horizontal hammer in the center. Enter ‘titanium$$’, lowercase, no spaces. The hammer changed color and flipped to vertical. Enter ‘Havoc’ in uppercase. Press ‘control and escape’. Enter “Bite Me, Asshole!” with a Capital B and M, a comma, space and a Capital A. You just isolated your core database, made the firewall bullet proof and sent a spybot and a fail command to each computer involved in the attack. The spybot will trace the origin if the computer is a captured proxy, and then smack the next one harder. There ain’t no cure. But it only follows the hack. It can’t go wild. Your core database is now on a third drive on the server. You will have to flip several toggles in a precise sequence to reconnect it. The bank closed early today but will reopen on time tomorrow after you run the dailies and proper back-ups.”