Chapter 10: Spats

Alex awoke in the hotel bedroom and had already decided on a plan of action. She often 'sent' problems to her subconscious, fully confident that she'd have an answer in the morning – she called it her Unconscious Computer. She had a surprisingly high level of success.

This morning her UC had some suggestions. The first and most important: get a digital security firm to go through her house, looking for bugs and the like. She didn't have much hope for that, though, because she hadn't said "The Traveler" aloud. That, she was sure of. So it had to be something in or on her computer. She went out and bought another laptop, intending to transfer MPC to it. She'd continue to use the University system. She thought that the more likely point of invasion. But she'd never even typed "The Traveler" in there either.

Just because everything pointed to her computer as a point of access didn't mean that she wasn't being tracked. She'd have the security firm go over her car also. And her clothing. Sometimes paranoia was justified.

She put further investigation out of her mind, leaving her UC to worry about it. She'd taken things as far as possible consciously.

So, she worked on getting all that accomplished. It took all morning, and then she had to recover her car and arrange to let the security team into her house. She wouldn't be comfortable giving them free rein in the house. Certainly not the locked dungeon downstairs. Being a closet pervert certainly was a complicating factor.

By eight in the evening, she got a clean bill of health from the security firm. So, unless they were in on the scam, the intrusion didn't come from electronics in her car, home, or clothing.

Could the security firm be in on things? she mused. Nah. Paranoia can be overdone.

She kept having a thought in the back of her mind. Her UC trying to get its conclusions out.

'If all else is eliminated, what remains must be the answer.'

Yes, yes. A Sherlockian answer. She thought. So what remains?

She looked around, and unthinkingly picked up Spats. She began to pet him, the loud 'Purrrr' calming and reassuring her. Her hand paused on the way down his spine for the umpteenth time, as she froze.

Unlikely. But he hasn't been checked for intruders. Spats remains.

She put him down, walked to her office, and shooed the cat out the door. A few keystrokes and she was set up. She grabbed a felt-tipped pen and wrote on a piece of paper rescued from her printer.

Then she opened the door and held the paper where Spats could see it.

"Email me at g34ars8392@xmail.com"

The Traveler operated under an assumed name: Greg Harrison. That was the name registered in MPC. No one could look him up or find him under that name, even if they could break his passwords, because it wasn't his real name.

He looked at the image that popped up on the little window that tracked the cat in Alex's home. He was surprised. No one else had ever figured out how he managed to invade anyone's private space. If he answered her, he'd probably never get into her space again.

Did he want to contact her? That was a good question. She was one of the good-guy users of the Master PC program. There were so few of them that it would be nice to be in contact with another. But if he contacted her, it was possible that she'd want to break off all contact with him.

Well, that wouldn't be so terrible. He knew that she wasn't going to come after him unless he did something bad. And he wasn't going to do that. Unless he caught the new user in the DFW area. A user that he called JQ35, after the first four characters of her MPC registration number.

He'd been on the trail of JQ35 for several years, since he first stumbled across her in Memphis. She was a serial pedophile and murderer who had always managed to stay one jump ahead of both the police and him; although, really, the police had little idea that she even existed. She'd had one brush with the law in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she'd tried to capture a child who was immune to the long-lasting effects of MPC programming.

That reminded him: he'd have to go back to Winston-Salem and investigate this boy. How could anyone be immune to MPC instructions?

Back to the topic at hand. Did he want to contact Alex, and reveal his contact mechanism, the tomcat named Spats?

A reasonable risk, he decided. And nothing to lose. Who knows what the gain might be?

He sent the email to g34ars8392@xmail.com

Alex had set up an alarm to beep whenever mail arrived at the g34ars8392 inbox. After getting several annoying messages from the xmail.com people, welcoming her to the wondrous joys of getting mail through xmail, she was tempted to turn the alarm off. Good thing she didn't.

Hello Alex

You asked me to contact you and so I am. The best way for us to communicate would be by storing draft messages in this account and NOT to send messages to each other. To do that, I will need this account's password.

I assume you have some questions that you'd like answered. I do also. Ladies first.

Traveler

Wow, she thought. He answered.

She looked again at Spats. Thought about how the cat had shown up near the basement dungeon sometimes. How he sat at her elbow and watched the computer screen.

How could he have seen through the eyes of the cat?

She posted a draft message to The Traveler. Then she held a piece of paper up to the cat's eyes: it said 'baNana16$'.

The Traveler typed in the password to the account and then read the draft that was on file.

Traveler, how did you see through the cat's eyes. A

He pondered a moment. She is very smart, he thought. Got right to the most important aspect of his invasion of her space. No 'What do you want?' No recriminations about the invasion of privacy. He thought a moment longer. Smart too in that question. It would show how much of a bad guy he was. If he was truly evil, he wouldn't give up his strongest weapon. Speaking of that, I wonder if she acquired a weapon to deal with this attack – such as it was.

A: Use 'Vulcan mind meld' on the command line. The Master PC creator liked Star Trek it seems. Don't use it on your own record. You'll get into a chamber of mirrors. Looking through your eyes at an image seen by your own eyes at an image seen by your own eyes, etc. Took me 25 minutes before I got to type 'UnMeLd.'

My turn: Do you have any leads on JQ35? The new User in the DFW area. I assume you have noticed her. T