Part One
Part Two
Part Three
[Part Four]
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Two
Part Three
[Part Four]
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
4:53.
She scowled at me, pacing like a starving tiger, and then stopped, sat down and closed her eyes. She seemed to have lost her adrenaline high and was dropped unceremoniously back into her unfortunate circumstance. If I had looked up “beaten” in the dictionary, I would find a picture of her alongside the second or third definition. She sighed.
“Three men, dressed up as a truck driver and two mechanics. I thought they looked suspicious, but I've had to ignore my gut feelings for a while now.”
"They walked up to me when I was filling up at a gas station and told me that my left taillight was out. I showed them that it wasn't. They snatched my keys, threw me in the trunk, and drove...." She looked around and shivered when the wind picked up. "Well, drove somewhere."
She turned back to me.
“You don't look like them at all, now that I think about it. They were huge gorillas of men, hands that could crush cans into paste. You....aren't.”
I thought that was generous, considering I got knocked out by a crazy trunk-lady.
Her face softened for a moment. She was beautiful in a strange way, some combination of her almost sharp features, large expressive eyes, and jaw-length hair, which was currently all sorts of awry. Being locked in the trunk of a highway-bound car for an undetermined amount of time can do that, I suppose.
“Why do you have to ignore your gut feelings? Did they get you in trouble?”
She looked almost startled that I would ask her such a personal question. I got the feeling that she wasn't used to it. She took a deep breath and went back to her veil of suspicion.
“....you could say that.” She looked at the ground and absently played with some small rocks, trying to stack them up into towers, which didn't seem to work out. I would have prodded her further, but she began again of her own accord, lifting the metaphorical veil.
“I've had to tell a lot of lies to a lot of people, and if my gut had its way, I'd be in prison right about now.”
I was on a roll, as far as information-gathering went.
“So what's all the stuff in the car for, anyway? The switches? That stand thing?”
She clammed up again. I was not on a roll, apparently.
The sky darkened slightly and rumbled like a baritone giant. She stood up and stabilized a little awkwardly, favoring her left leg. Probably hit something on her way out of the trunk.
“I'm going inside. Come with me,” she said, which sounded more like an order than a suggestion. I wasn't about to argue with her or the approaching storm clouds, so I followed her to the Saab, grunching over the increasingly slick pebbles.
She slammed the driver's side door shut and relaxed, collapsing into the relatively comfortable driver's seat as raindrops began to patter on the closed sunroof. She glanced at the dash and frowned. “Great.” The car's display was dark.
I jumped in and closed the door behind me, remembering at the last second that there was a bunch of stuff on the passenger's side. I did a strange half-pirouette in midair and landed facing backwards with my knees on the seat, successfully saving the accessories from my feet. She only partially suppressed her smirk at my stupid trick, even in spite of the situation we found ourselves in. I looked over my right shoulder at the items on the floor.
“Is this your stuff?”
She leaned over to take a casual glance at it, which quickly turned very alarmed. “Yeah, that's my-OH SHIT! Give me that bag!”
I reached down for it, eventually dislodging it from everything else. I handed it to her.
“Here. It feels empty.”
She took the bag and immediately her face fell like a suicide jumper. She went limp and sunk into the seat.
“Of course. Perfect end to a perfect day. Fuck.” She tossed the bag over her shoulder, where it hit the rear seats with a flaccid flump.
I rearranged myself, managing to negotiate myself into a normal seated position. The thunder grew louder, but still didn't entirely reassure me that sitting in this car was such a good idea. Too late now.
Actually, it was probably too late however many hours ago I ended up with this car. Oh well.
I turned my attention to her from the rivulets that turned to rivers on the windshield.
“So what do we do now?”
She turned he head lazily, in a kind of trance, or more likely shock.
“...I don't know.”
I closed my eyes and leaned back, rubbing my temples, listening to the rain on the roof. It made me think of tribal drums, but I couldn't think of where I would have heard such music.
“Well,” I began, “We're in the middle of nowhere, and the car's dead.”
The map I had seen suddenly came to mind.
“Hey, what's in Lazero Cardenas? It's marked on your map.”
I had my eyes closed still, listening to the patterns the rain made on the roof. I heard a heavy sigh that sounded like it could have come from an ancient statue in a forgotten ruin.
“That's where I was intending to go the day before yesterday, and it's where the contents of that bag-” she pointed a thumb back at the seat behind her, “-are headed right now.”
She shook her head. “ Fuck.”
I saw a hint of distress as she winced in pain as she accidentally bumped her foot on the brake pedal, but her iron shroud returned almost instantly. I could guess there was a lot more where that sad look came from.
“I'm sorry.” I meant it.
She looked hard-eyed, almost angry, but I caught a watery glimmer in her eye for a second.
“No, I should be sorry. I should have expected this. I had it coming. It's all over.”
Tears escaped her eyelids and wandered slowly down her unmoving face, much like the water on the windshield. I reached over and flipped the wiper controls. She sniffled once and rubbed her face with her dingy shirtsleeve.
"What do you mean? Why is the bag go-" She cut me off with a wave of her hand. She began with a question.
"How much do you know about the Internet? Or, well, how much do you remember?"
I thought for a moment. "Not much. Bunch of websites."
She turned a little, halfheartedly facing me. "That's the Web. The Internet's the hardware that it all runs on, all the interconnected computers and wires and satellites."
My temper rose slightly. Arguing over the fine meaning of words has a place and time, but not in the middle of nowhere, in a thunderstorm, at 5:21 pm.
"So what? Why is the difference important?" I scratched the back of my neck in frustration, trying to relieve some tension.
I could hear her grinding her teeth. "The difference is important because changing hardware requires someone to be at the location to change it, or fix it, or whatever. Changing software can be done from one place, with the right access."
I laid my hands out in a questioning gesture.
"So what?"
Ana exhaled harshly. "So what? I was going to Lazero Cardenas to bomb the Web."
