Chapter 4

'Hi, Edary my name is Alana. I'm Estonia but I'm Russia. Mom works a house. They no nice and when she sick sent her a home. Estonia people don't like me we don't belong. My mom sick a lot and a car took her she not move and took me I run away. I came back to save doll with my door locked and landlady said mom dead, She said me go a house to work, she said me mom owned lots money and me go work I run away I want leave Estonia so I want see boat, I only found plastic and now I don't know more'

As I looked down at her again she tried to smile at the same time as her tears started to run again. Do all girls cry that much? Suddenly I decided that I would keep her.

Yeah I know, why not get a cat instead, or a dog. If I got a canary it would sing right, or was that a nightingale? Before or after they stuck out its eyes? so what, my memory for trivia is miserable. Ask me about the stock results instead.

But hell, we were in the middle of an ocean here, Or, did you mean her feminine charms, like with me being in the same business and all.

Well, you're plain wrong there, not any longer and as I said, sex is sex but ten is a little too young for me. I prefer them when they can pay for themselves, and me. And also, I mean, what is it they can do that my right hand can't do just as good? Hell, I could even take it out on a double date if I used both.

After all, I'm a natural born economic, how else would I get rich? So, give me the benefit of a doubt here buster, for once I thought that my motives almost was altruistic. I mean, it was either that, drown her, or strand her on some beach, hoping someone would take pity on her.

And the funny thing was that I didn't trust those finding her, she was just too cute. I had made a mental game of it, trying to consider who would pay me most for her, but all it gave me was this headache and an empty feeling in my stomach. Yeah, I didn't like it either. It was increasingly disturbing finding that I had qualms about her destiny.

Just one more of those new strange things that made no sense.

So I sorted it under the sign stating 'unsolved mysteries, Marie Celeste, castaways, and others.'

You know, the drawer just over your left eyebrow, slightly behind the frontal lobe.

She deserved something, I didn't know what, but it made a strong imprint in my mind, imagining this little slip of a girl getting up on that mattress in the dark, all alone, paddling out to sea.

I know, I wasn't particularly sane thinking there, but heck, I doubted that I ever had been that sane. I was good on certain things, but so was Rainman? Manipulating was my forte, not empathy. I wrote.

'You stay Alana. Your Mom will like that.'

"If she's mad enough" I muttered. "Or dead." Which she apparently was.

Don't know why I wrote that last, it made no sense to me and maybe it did more harm than good as she started to cry reading it. I would be the first to admit that I'm not that good with kids, they are unpredictable and impulsive, I prefer people that remember what you tell them, that makes sense when they talk.

But I smiled at her and put her gently up in the chair, going up to a Russian site for children where they could dress a doll interactively, making it say Mama or whatever a Russian doll says, vodka? Or was that the Swedish one? She soon enough got the hang of it though, and as she seemed occupied I took the chance to make us some dinner.

I have to admit that I got used to have her beside me. She was a welcome distraction in the mornings and after the first week we had already gotten ourselves a routine, I let her use the bathroom first, and after she had brushed her teeth it was my turn. As I came out I more often than not found her in front of the computer playing with those dolls.

I had decided to sail back to the States first, she needed documentation and that I knew where to find, I had had some experience with it before. Also I was a citizen and a pretty rich one at that.

Money talks, bullshit walks, right. So maybe I could do it legally too? And without really understanding how this had happened I seemed to have adopted her, I just didn't seem like me any more.

I knew what I wanted to do, I wanted to buy her some clothes. But I didn't really knew what a girl at her age needed. But I had my old Russian companion, we had split as friends and he had a large contact net.

Using Pretty good Privacy with a 2056 bit private key solve most of your privacy problems but just to be sure I only spoke about it in general terms. I guessed he too would feel her plight, after all they were compatriots of a kind.

Instead I got an offer of him buying her, it seemed as some of his contacts, over there, had a constant need for young ones, it surprised me a little but after all the man only meant business, right? All the same it pissed me of and as I wrote back I made it clear that she was mine and that I hoped for a better answer.

As he answered he instead wanted to secure an option on her, payable in gold, after I was finished with her of course. I'm afraid that I lost it there and then. I won't tell you what I wrote but I think that what friendship we had ended then and there.

So I was back to square one, not knowing where to turn. This kind of problems wasn't my field. Then I got a brainstorm, it's fantastic how a single malt or two can lubricate the brain cells. I had a house in Berkeley, California and I had already decided to take 'Mine' and Alana there. California has a lot of weirdoes and she and I would just be two more.

Also they had some of the best freelance hackers I knew of, and I was in dire need of their services. So what did I do you ask? Well, I started to look for a Russian speaking nanny. As I searched the net I found one I thought sounded interesting. She was nineteen, of Russian parents, and sounded like a nice and friendly young girl.