Laura Charles lay on a lounger at the edge of the pool, sipping a bottle of water and reading a paperback. It was starting to sprinkle. Randy and Catherine were rough housing in the pool, forcing two young boys to cower in the shallow end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHey hon,\u201d Joe said, tapping Laura on the shoulder. \u201cI’m heading to the room for a minute. You need anything?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI’m good,\u201d she said, and smiled. His return smile looked more genuine than hers felt. He loved Maui; she hated it. It smelled too much like coconut oil and feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don’t understand why you won’t get one of those e-readers,\u201d he said, flipping a corner of her book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDrop it, please,\u201d she said, offering another strained smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFine,\u201d he said, and flip-flopped his way out of the pool enclosure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Laura had a gift or a curse, depending on how you wanted to look at it \u2013 she could pick up digital transmissions with her mind. WiFi, 3G, 4G, and more recently 5G — you name it, she could read it, just as easily as she could read the book in her hand. She had first experienced this ability back in 1999, when taking accounting courses at the U of T. That year the university had installed its first public WiFi router in the Gerstein Center, a library she passed every day on her way to class. One day she thought she heard faint whispers from the library, hints of words she couldn\u2019t quite make out. She told herself it was nothing, just some radio playing somewhere, and changed her morning route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the years the problem grew, and with it her denial. By the early years of the twenty-first century the whispers had become clear conversations, sometimes accompanied by pictures, even the odd video if she passed a house with a strong WiFi signal. Over time she learned to ignore it. She couldn\u2019t tune it out completely, but she could fade it enough to function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, in 2008 to be precise, Canada had become an ocean of noise. Before then she’d been able to avoid Blackberry hotspots and the odd Wifi puddle from a house or a coffee shop, but the iPhone, and later the Android, ushered in the zombie apocalypse of digitization. Suddenly buses were full of blank faces staring at screens, and people couldn\u2019t even drive for a few minutes without endangering their lives and the lives of others by answering a text. Laura had spent much of that year at home with migraines. Eventually she had adjusted \u2013 it wasn\u2019t like she had a choice — and she no longer suffered headaches. She had even learned, over time, to use her strange gift to her own advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She\u2019d discovered at some point that she could listen to the surface of a signal, or, if she focused, dive below it. When she went deep enough, the sender\u2019s online information would gather in her mind like a tumbling snowball. She knew this was a violation of privacy, and she knew she did it far too often with her own family. She hated herself for it. She also couldn\u2019t quite stop. It had basically ruined her relationship with Joe; exposure to his explicit online life had worn her respect for him down to a nub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there was something else. If she dug even deeper, went beyond the sender\u2019s personal online dossier, she would arrive at the edge of what she could only describe as an endless black hole. She\u2019d only experienced it a few times, while experimenting, like a person testing how long they could hold their breath underwater. The black hole terrified her, because it pulled, like a sort of world drain. It was the entrance to the digital superhighway, the Internet proper, and it seemed as enormous as the universe itself. If she ever fell into it, she thought she might be smeared like a bug on a windshield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0She had never told anyone about her ability, for three reasons. First, people would think she was nuts. As a kid, she\u2019d seen Lucille Ball in her later years on a talk show discussing how she could pick up radio signals with her teeth. She remembered feeling embarrassed for the woman. Second, didn\u2019t people with supernatural abilities get kidnapped by the government and stolen away to some underground bunker for the rest of their lives? Or killed and buried in the desert? And third, everyone would know. All the people she had ever eavesdropped on, including her own family, would know. They would judge her for invading their privacy. And she was guilty, more times over than she could possibly count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A couple entered the pool area. Laura guessed they were mid-thirties, roughly her and Joe\u2019s age. The woman, willowy thin, wore an aqua blue one piece decorated with sea turtles. The man, presumably her husband, was in a red speedo. They found a couple of free reclining chairs and reclined. The woman retrieved some lotion from her bag and applied it to her legs and chest while her husband pulled a book out of the same bag and began to read. No phone or e-reader \u2013 a physical book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They wouldn\u2019t have been on her radar at all, except they weren\u2019t on her radar at all. These days it was super rare to see a couple without a phone, and these two looked upper-upper-middle class, the sort who sported latest models. But Laura wasn\u2019t feeling them; not at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMom!\u201d Laura jumped. It was Catherine, whipping her long hair around carelessly and getter her mother\u2019s legs all wet. Laura sometimes bemoaned the fact that her daughter was sixteen years old going on ten. \u201cRandy was trying to fucking drown me again.\u201d Laura looked toward the pool to see her son throwing his hands up in apparent frustration. The two younger boys were still in the shallow end, pretending to have fun while keeping wide eyes on Randy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSwearing,\u201d Laura said, and held her hand out. Catherine sighed, went to the pants she\u2019d crumpled by a chair, dug in a pocket, pulled out a dollar, and gave it to her mother. Laura had insisted her kids carry pocket cash wherever they went, and most of it ended up coming back to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCath, you\u2019re old enough to deal with this yourself. Anyway, It\u2019s lunchtime. Let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the way back to the suite the kids announced their plan to check out the beaches of northern Kihei after lunch. Laura told them to be back by two. They were all going to a luau later and she didn’t want the usual last-minute rush of Catherine fussing with her hair and Randy looking for his ear buds. They glanced at one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Laura knew her children had gone online two weeks before and chatted with a young guy from the island who sold some exotic strain of weed. They were going to meet him this afternoon. She\u2019d given them the tight deadline to jeopardize that meet up. For all its challenges, her ability could be an effective clandestine parenting tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That night Laura lay in bed thinking about her children. She was pretty sure they hadn\u2019t met their guy, so one small win for Momster in the battle of raising two rowdy kids. But weed was legal in Canada now, so in two years Catherine could buy it at the strip mall and Randy could do the same in three. No, she had bigger concerns nibbling at her psyche tonight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her son was looking at an unbelievable amount of porn every day, and not just the regular stuff. Hard core, pervy crap. BDSM, in which women were tied up and treated like human garbage. She knew boys had a natural curiosity for the perverse, but she was worried it was growing into a habit. It was the same sort of stuff that his father watched on occasion; wouldn\u2019t that little nugget of information spin his young head right around. If only she could tell him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Catherine seemed to be shutting down these days. She hadn\u2019t signed up for intramural baseball like she had every year since grade school, and lately she\u2019d stopped meeting with her friends. Laura had tried talking to her about it a few times and gotten shut down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She sighed, rolled over, and tried to go to sleep. When she finally dozed off she had the same dream that had dogged her since Steve Jobs had kicked off what was arguably one of the largest social experiments in human history. She was running down a creek in the woods, terrified of a 20-foot wall of river water rushing up behind her. There was a clearing up ahead and if she could just make it there she\u2019d be safe. But when she looked over her shoulder it wasn\u2019t a wall of water she saw, but an enormous black void, sucking the river, its banks, all the trees, even a few hapless birds, into its growing maw. From its depths she heard a terrible grinding, as if there were metal teeth in there, eager to grind her to a pulp. Feet from safety, she was pulled backward, off her feet, screaming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She woke up as she always did, with a sheen of sweat on her body, her heart pounding. Beside her, Joe snored lightly. She sighed, rolled over, and went back to sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next day, the Charles family browsed the aisles of a general store down the street from their hotel. The kids wanted snorkeling equipment, Joe was on the hunt for a case of Laguna beer, and Laura had no motive other than to carry out her duties as family time cop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The place was buzzing. Laura tuned out the cacophony without even thinking about it, but a few transmissions leaked through; they always did. One man was having a conversation with his wife about a mole prognosis (bad news), while a woman texted a man in France saying that she had bought the plane ticket and her husband had no clue. A kid broadcast an invitation to his seventh birthday party: Come one, come all, Trevor is having a STEVEN UNIVERSE BIRTHDAY on SUNDAY!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n As they stood in line, Laura picked up something she called a dark transmission \u2013 disturbing information she didn\u2019t want to know. It came from a tall man ahead of them wearing a touristy Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat. He was texting across a VPN that had stronger than normal encryption; Laura knew this because the signal flowed sluggishly, like sausage being churned through a meat grinder. The man was holding a young blonde woman in a hotel suite nearby and wanted to know if he should dispose of her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laura felt sick. She thought of a girl Catherine\u2019s age tied to a bed with tears streaming down her face, trembling in terror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI’m going to step outside,\u201d she said to Joe. \u201cGet some air.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSure,\u201d he said. \u201cYou look like you could use it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Outside she lit a cigarette and took a long drag, then stared at her phone. She would make an anonymous 911 call, but first she would watch the man go to his car and get his plate number. Without that she had nothing. Hopefully he came out before Joe and the kids. He\u2019d been ahead in line, so he should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That was when she saw the strangers from the pool. They must have seen her first, because they were walking quickly toward her, almost jogging. Today they were in business casual, she in loose white cotton slacks and a billowy sky-blue blouse and he in tan slacks and a white dress shirt with an open collar. They were trying their best to modulate their steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laura dropped her cigarette and instinctively turned back to the store entrance. Common sense told her she wasn\u2019t likely to be abducted here in plain daylight in front of a busy store, but still, it would be safer inside, amongst the crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe girl in the hotel room is named Anna,\u201d the man shouted. \u201cWe already have people going to her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laura stopped. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnna,\u201d the man repeated. \u201cShe\u2019s going to be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n They were only a few feet from her now, both breathing heavily. Laura stared incredulously at them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOliver read your mind,\u201d the woman said. \u201cHe can only do that when you\u2019re upset. My name\u2019s Jessica.\u201d She extended a hand. At a loss, Laura shook it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOliver,\u201d Oliver said, and shook her hand as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWho the hell are you?\u201d Laura asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They both smiled. Laura had the impression they were salespeople. She and Joe had gone to Vegas a few years back and had been approached in their hotel lobby by a couple trying to sell timeshares who had smiled this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re like you,\u201d Jessica said. \u201cWell, not exactly like you, but we have abilities. And there are more of us. We\u2019re a collective, trying to use our talents for good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laura squinted. \u201cWhat sort of good?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, stopping guys like Lenny in there for one,\u201d she said, pointing at the man in the straw hat who had been texting about kidnapping, and had just stepped out of the store and was strolling to his car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe want you to come with us so we can tell you more,\u201d Jessica said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAre you insane? My family is going to be out here any minute. I can\u2019t just leave.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019ve done it before,\u201d Oliver said, staring across the road at the sun glittering Pacific. \u201cIn Vegas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat the hell did you say?\u201d Laura had walked out on Joe without telling him once, during a Vegas trip, because he had admitted to a one-night stand that she had already known about. She had spent forty-eight hours wandering the casinos, drinking just enough to keep herself numb, and then she\u2019d gone back. Nobody but her and Joe knew about that. They\u2019d even kept the kids in the dark with some excuse she couldn\u2019t remember at the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI told you, he reads minds,\u201d Jessica said, flashing another big smile. \u201cTry to ignore him. I do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t you want to do something with that dark secret of yours?\u201d Oliver said \u201cOther than eavesdropping on people and feeling guilty about it, I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She didn\u2019t answer him. Instead, she peered through the store’s sliding doors. Joe and the kids were at the cashier paying for their things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRight now? Just walk away from my family?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can call Joe in a little bit,\u201d Jessica offered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christ, she knew Joe\u2019s name. Part of Laura wanted to go with them, wanted to believe they were well-meaning. And if they weren\u2019t? Well, if they knew Joe\u2019s name then they already knew too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo you’re not government?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo,\u201d Oliver said. \u201cNot at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sweat beaded on her forehead and dripped into her eyes. She held her arms away from her body and fanned her pits, not caring one bit how unladylike it looked. She squinted at her new acquaintances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe need an answer,\u201d Jessica said. \u201cYour family is just about finished.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOkay,\u201d Laura said. \u201cLet’s go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hotel lobby was like the one at Laura\u2019s hotel \u2013 gleaming white tile, bulky leather furniture, an enormous oil painting behind the front desk. It made her wonder whether every chain on the island used the same interior decorator. It was nice to get out of the sun, but the AC was so strong it chilled her sweat-covered arms and chest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou need to pay for a room,\u201d Jessica said. \u201cMake sure you ask for west-facing. That’s important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re not staying here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo. We\u2019ll be gone by this evening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy husband will know if I pay for a room. We have a joint account.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThen call him and tell him you’re going to be renting the room. Would he be so surprised?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laura gave her a razor-edged look, then went to reception and asked if she could make a local call. She told Joe she was going to spend the night on her own. He sounded hurt but too weary to fight. She promised him everything would be fine in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the room, Oliver and Jessica told her to lie on the bed and relax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m going to stand for a while if that\u2019s alright,\u201d Laura said. She was still within arm\u2019s reach of the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d Oliver said with a dry chuckle. \u201cThis isn\u2019t a sexual thing.\u201d That was, of course, precisely what she had just been thinking. Oliver\u2019s ability to reach into her head was disarming. \u201cBut stay by the door if it makes you feel more comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oliver went through the room scanning the walls and ceilings, picking up and examining anything he could, opening drawers, and running his hands along hidden surfaces like the back of the television and the space between the wall and the AC unit. Laura assumed he was looking for hidden surveillance devices. When he was done, he put the coffee on and set a thin laptop on the desk which was attached to a dark grey box with a bunch of rubber antennas sticking off the top like spiked hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d Laura asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a jammer. It\u2019ll block WiFi and phone signals for a kilometer if I turn it up, but I won\u2019t do that. We only need localized silence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI didn\u2019t even know those existed! Are they legal?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou know, I might feel more at ease here if you two explained to me what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oliver was attaching a foot-wide grey satellite dish to his computer and carefully adjusting it to point out the open window. Occasionally he glanced at the laptop, tapped a few keys, and re-adjusted the dish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cExplain it to her, Jess.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessica said, \u201cLaura, are you familiar with Darwinian theory?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPassingly. Animals evolve over time according to survival of the fittest \u2013 those who are born with beneficial mutations live long enough to pass their genes on to the next generation. What does that have to do with me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll get to that,\u201d Jessica said. \u201cThat\u2019s the theory they teach in schools, but it\u2019s incomplete. It doesn\u2019t explain sudden bursts in the evolutionary line. The Cambrian Explosion, about 540 million years ago, is a perfect example. Did you know that the ancestors of just about all the animals you see on Earth today appeared during the Cambrian period? And they didn\u2019t appear gradually, either; from an evolutionary timescale it was like they popped into existence overnight, as if Mother Nature had simply dropped them from the sky. Scientists have theories, but they haven\u2019t agreed on an explanation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd, what, you two have figured it out?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of answering her, Jessica pulled her blouse out of her waistband and lifted it to expose her belly. There was a hole to the left of her bellybutton that Laura first mistook for a healed surgical drain of some sort, but it was rectangular and there was something thin and white going across the center of it that looked like a bone chip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat you\u2019re looking at is a biological USB port,\u201d Jessica said. \u201cI was born with it. An irregular nerve bundle runs from it up to my brain. I can upload information directly into my mind. It allows me to learn instantaneously.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laura stared for a few moments in disbelief, then said, \u201cYou must have been born before USB technology even existed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessica tapped the side of her nose. \u201cYes, I was. You see, we believe that whatever was responsible for upheavals like the Cambrian is also responsible for these more recent mutations. And as far as we can tell it isn\u2019t limited by time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That last line hurt Laura\u2019s brain. Everything was limited by time, from human lives to the universe itself. Time travel only worked in the movies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have our own name for the phenomenon,\u201d Jessica said. \u201cBitemporal Darwinian Adaptations, or BDA. Your BDA is relatively common, believe it or not. We\u2019ve met dozens like you, and most of them work for us now, as purely digital entities on the Internet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laura looked at the small antennae dish Simon had set up by the window, and suddenly she understood. These people wanted her to cross the dark void at the end of the transmission, and become — what? An application? A virus? A digital entity<\/em>? That could mean anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat do you people do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s simple, really,\u201d Jessica said. \u201cThe Internet has blanketed the earth, and yet before us it\u2019s gone largely unmonitored. Those who we work with, they know the Internet as well as you know the streets in your hometown. They\u2019re our boots on the ground. They find the digital bad guys, Laura. The pedophiles, the blackmailers, the terrorists. They find them and then we inform the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve never heard of you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessica\u2019s smile reflected a practiced patience. \u201cPrecisely. You won\u2019t hear about us in the news, but we trickle our knowledge to every world leader through anonymous channels. They don\u2019t always listen, but there\u2019s nothing we can do about that. You can lead a horse to water, yada, yada.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd it\u2019s up to me whether I go along with this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCompletely.\u201d If she was lying, she was very good at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThen I\u2019ll have to pass.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She had been so close to saying yes. For years she\u2019d wondered what would happen if she just let herself fall into the void. Judging by Oliver\u2019s setup, doing so on her own could be catastrophic, like trying to skydive without a chute. But they were offering he the equipment. She could escape, presumably safely, if these people could be believed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only now she realized she didn\u2019t want to. She kept seeing Randy, Catherine, even Joe, who had always been a caring partner even if the foundation of their marriage was crumbling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessica and Oliver didn\u2019t try to talk her out of her decision; they simply smiled understandingly, which Laura found disconcerting. Up to now this had felt like a hard sell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then she opened the door and understood that she wasn\u2019t going anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tall man from the store \u2013 hadn\u2019t Jessica called him Lenny? — blocked her exit. Laura stood inches from him, staring at the design of his tacky Hawaiian shirt. He pushed her, and she stumbled back into the room. He closed the door and pulled a pistol from his waistband, then Oliver grabbed her, threw her face-first onto the bed, pulled her arms roughly behind her back, and secured them with a zip-tie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWrong answer,\u201d Jessica said, bending down so she and Laura were eye-to-eye. \u201cI\u2019m sure you understand there are practicalities to remaining anonymous. As George W. Bush once said: if you aren\u2019t with us, you\u2019re against us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was it; they were going to kill her. There were no deserts in Maui, so maybe they would feed her to the sharks or throw her into the volcano.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessica, still bent over her, said, \u201cYou can still change your mind. We can come to an agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat, and be your slave?\u201d She spoke in a shaking voice. Her own bravery shocked her. \u201cNo thanks.\u201d \u201cSuit yourself,\u201d Jessica said. Then, to her tall accomplice with the tacky shirt: \u201cLenny, take her to one of the places. I don\u2019t want to know which one.\u201d She nodded at Oliver. \u201cGive him a hand to the car. I\u2019ll wait for you here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMake a noise and I\u2019ll break your nose,\u201d Lenny whispered to Laura as he led her out of the room. They took a stairwell, Oliver jogging down ahead of them, presumably to check for witnesses. Lenny draped himself around Laura as if he were helping her down the stairs, which hid the fact that her arms were tied behind her back. Any security cameras would see a regular couple, the man helping his wife who may have had too much to drink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The stairwell emptied out on the side of the building. Oliver went back in while Lenny took her to a non-descript Honda with rental plates. He helped her into the passenger seat \u2013 still playing the gentleman. He climbed in and they drove off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She had always a good sense of surrounding, and she recognized the road they were on. She and the family had driven south on it when they had arrived, from Kahului Airport to Kihei. Now she and Lenny were headed north. She briefly pondered whether the woman he had texted about in the store was still alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhere are we going?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNone of your fucking business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n His phone buzzed. Ignoring distracted driving laws, he answered it with: \u201cYa huh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She could have listened in but what was the point? She would only learn his plans for her, which would scare her more than she already was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYep, gotcha,\u201d he said, and then something happened. He swerved dramatically toward the ditch without slowing down, his eyes wide and unfocused. \u201cbahhh\u2026 brmmm\u201d he droned, making spit bubbles. The phone dropped from his hand and clattered into the foot well. They were shooting off the road at eighty kilometers per hour and Laura, her hands immobilized, could do nothing about it. She screamed, a high-pitched bray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lenny\u2019s eyes suddenly cleared, and he yanked the wheel violently, fish-tailing them back onto the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHoly shit!\u201d he shouted. His voice had changed from in-control to manic. He absently wiped drool from his chin. \u201cHoly fucking shit!\u201d Then he looked over at Laura.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSorry, Mom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat did you call me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lenny pulled the car to the side of the road, clicked his hazards on, and turned to Laura.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI called you Mom. It\u2019s me, Catherine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laura felt the world shift underneath her. She stared at Lenny. Lenny smiled back. The light in the eyes, the turn of the lips \u2013 it was Catherine. No doubt about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2026 how?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, absurdly, the big man looked bashful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI never wanted you to find out, but I know about your ability. Maybe I inherited it, because I can listen in on signals too. And I can do more \u2013 somehow I can\u2026\u201d she looked away, clearly searching for the right words. \u201cI can surf the signal. It sounds dumb, but that\u2019s the way it feels to me, anyway. And if the person sending it is still listening to their phone or staring at their computer, I can usually enter them. Take them over, be them. For a while, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was beyond incredible. Laura had to accept it, though, because it was staring her right in the face. \u201cWhere are you?\u201d she asked. \u201cPhysically, I mean. What is your real body doing while you\u2019re here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn the hotel with Dad and Randy. I\u2019m in the washroom. I told them I was going to have a bath. When I do this\u2026 I think it looks like I\u2019m having some kind of stroke or something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMom, we don\u2019t have much time. Maybe twenty minutes. You need to run.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there was nowhere to run. People like Jessica and Oliver and Lenny, they would never leave her or her family alone. This would be a continuing nightmare unless she did something about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCan you really stay in this body for twenty minutes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSure\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She grabbed her daughter by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. \u201cThis is very important. No matter what happens, I want you to know I love you. I love Randy too, and your dad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMom, you\u2019re scaring me\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat happens to you if something happens to \u2013 this guy? Do you know?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t\u2026 I\u2019m pretty sure nothing happens.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAre you sure?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo, I can\u2019t be sure! I mean, I\u2019ve never been in anyone who got hurt or\u2026 I just think it\u2019ll be fine. Mom, do you want me to cut you loose?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Time was getting away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYeah,\u201d Laura said. \u201cDo you have something to cut with?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Catherine searched the man\u2019s pockets and came up with a pocketknife. She cut her mother\u2019s hands free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCath, can you get out of that body quickly if you have to?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Catherine smiled confidently. \u201cYeah, that\u2019s easy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOkay,\u201d Laura said. \u201cLet\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessica was getting antsy. Lenny was supposed to have called by now to say he was at the drop site. Another fifteen minutes and she would be forced to declare him AWOL, and then the Internet soldiers would dismantle his online identity, locate him, and inform a hitman who would wipe him from existence. Jessica had made that call before and didn\u2019t like to do it. She\u2019d been a sensitive person once upon a time, and this cold existence could only wipe so much of that away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTime to pull this down?\u201d Oliver asked, indicating the equipment. Another way deals like this went down was for the target to change their mind on their way to the disposal site. In that case, Lenny would call and say he was on his way back. That kind of last-minute win occurred roughly half the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot yet. I need to hear something back first.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a knock at the door. Oliver looked up, startled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWho is it?\u201d Jessica said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s Lenny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Something was up. She didn\u2019t know what, and that didn\u2019t matter right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDid you get the job done?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThen don\u2019t be a stranger,\u201d she said. She leapt like a cat to the side of the door. Oliver, who was woefully untrained for such scenarios, just gawked at her. She wasn\u2019t concerned about Oliver\u2019s safety \u2013 she hadn\u2019t known him forty-eight hours ago. Ans she wasn\u2019t worried that Lenny would come through the door hot. In fact, she sort of wished he would. She was trained in karate and jiu-jitsu and knew how to disarm a man before he could get a shot off, and she yearned to test her skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The door opened and Jessica found herself staring at thin air where Lenny should have been. She looked down just in time to see Laura Charles hunkered on her haunches, holding Lenny\u2019s big pistol in both of her shaking hands. Taken off her game, Jessica was too slow — Laura swung the pistol around and pulled the trigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The massive bang and kick of the gun stunned Laura, who fell backward and scrambled desperately in the doorway for a few seconds before crawling to the side. Once she was behind the cover of the hallway wall, she stood up. Her heart felt like it was going to explode. She was shocked to find she hadn\u2019t dropped the gun \u2013 there it was, cradled in her right hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLaura!\u201d It was Oliver. \u201cI\u2019m going to come out! Listen, I\u2019m not armed!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She wasn\u2019t going to fall for that. She wrapped both hands tightly around the gun. She was certain Jessica was dead, had seen her head rock back and blood flow from her face. God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGet on your hands and knees and crawl out here,\u201d she said. Her voice was as high as a whistle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOkay, alright.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For several terrifying seconds she stood there aiming the gun at the doorway, every muscle and tendon in her body tensed and ready for Oliver to come leaping around the corner. When he did appear, it was on all fours as instructed. He crawled into the hallway, then looked up at the gun pointed at his face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat do you want to do now?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI want you to\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oliver grabbed her legs and she sprawled forward, the pistol flying as she put her hands out to break her fall. He flipped her over, pinned her arms to her sides with his legs, and wrapped his hands around her neck. The hallway \u2013 everything \u2013 began to rush away from her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then it all rushed back, and she was free. Coughing and sputtering, she got to her feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lenny \u2013 Catherine \u2013 stood over Oliver, who lay on his back. Stunned, Laura stumbled over to see Oliver\u2019s face was bloodied, and his nose looked badly broken. Catherine must have kicked him in the face. Laura had told Catherine to go back to the car, lock herself in the trunk, then leave Lenny\u2019s body. Clearly she hadn\u2019t listened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe\u2019ll never leave us alone,\u201d Catherine said, and there was a finality in her voice that Laura didn\u2019t think was caused by her speaking with a large man\u2019s larynx. There was a sense of surrender in the words that scared Laura more than the prospect of Oliver getting up. \u201cHe\u2019ll come after us as soon as he\u2019s awake, or he\u2019ll call others. It\u2019s never going to end, is it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne thing at a time,\u201d Laura said. \u201cAt least we\u2019re\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At some point Catherine had picked up Lenny\u2019s pistol. Now, without warning, she pointed it at Oliver\u2019s chest and pulled the trigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The gun fire had filled Laura\u2019s head with ringing, so she couldn\u2019t hear whether there was movement on the floor, but the hallway was still deserted. Surely someone had called the cops by now. She stepped over Oliver\u2019s body, back into the room, forcing herself not to look at Jessica\u2019s corpse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGet out of here,\u201d she said to Catherine, who still stood in the hallway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot without you, Mom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not going back. These people gave me an option to live online where they said I could make a difference. I don\u2019t think they were lying about that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLive online? You mean enter the darkness?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laura was furiously trying to figure out the user interface on Oliver\u2019s laptop while she was talking, but now she stopped to stare at her daughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou see it too?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat about me?\u201d Catherine said, ignoring the question. \u201cWhat about Dad and Randy? You can\u2019t just leave us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think I can protect you,\u201d Laura said. \u201cIf I stay with you I can be killed, but once I\u2019m digitized I don\u2019t think I can be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She found what looked like the option to transmit, but it was password-protected. Of course it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShit, this isn\u2019t going to work.\u201d She stepped over Oliver again, back into the hallway. The ringing in her ears had eased off and she heard sirens outside, approaching quickly. \u201cHoney, the police are going to be here right away. Go lock yourself in the bathroom. Take the gun. When you hear the police come in, go away. Alright?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She could tell that Catherine was near tears. Playing out on Lenny\u2019s rough face it should have looked ridiculous, but it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOkay, Mom. I love you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI love you too, honey. I always will.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the next few hours, as the sun slowly dipped toward the Pacific, Laura wandered through a myriad of tourist shops, listening in on other people\u2019s digital conversations. Several times she stood on the edge of the black void but couldn\u2019t jump. She worried that someone might already be searching for Joe and the kids but knew they wouldn\u2019t hurt them until demands were made, and there was a good chance Catherine would slow them down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She wandered toward her own hotel, unsure what to do, yearning for familiar surroundings as the light fled. Eventually she found herself at the pool where she\u2019d met the strangers. It was closed, but it wasn\u2019t guarded by razor-wire or anything, so she climbed the fence, kicked off her shoes, and walked the steps into the shallow end. She kept going until she was neck-deep, then rolled over and floated on her back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would be so easy to go under and let the water flood her lungs. Easier than plunging into the unknown, it seemed to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A young couple passed close to her in the twilight. They were newlyweds; she knew this because one of their phones was busy syncing pictures with the cloud. The images flashed through Laura\u2019s mind: the couple\u2019s beatific faces on the beach, at an evening luau, on a sailboat, in a helicopter. She went deeper, learned they were from Texas, had known each other in high school and just re-connected online six months ago, had already suffered through an early miscarriage of an unexpected pregnancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They were walking out of range. Laura had to decide now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She closed her eyes, dipped underwater, and tried to relax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t think. Just do.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n She rushed past the selfies, toward the black hole, and leapt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joe Charles sat in his basement home theater four months later, staring at the blank screen. He still watched satellite occasionally, but he wanted his on-demand back. Craved it, actually; the ability to watch what he wanted, when he wanted, with no infuriating commercials. But he couldn\u2019t have what he craved, because since coming back from the nightmare at Maui, he and the kids couldn\u2019t get WiFi on their computers or any kind of data on their phones, not even text messaging, which was nuts because those were completely different channels. Their providers had exhausted all troubleshooting strategies and thrown up their hands. Joe had swapped out their old home router for the newest model. Nada. He and the kids had all gotten new phones. Made no difference whatsoever. At least they could still make and receive calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this dead zone wasn\u2019t limited to the house, either — it followed them everywhere. When people around them had full bars, they couldn\u2019t even get a signal. It was so ridiculous, so bizarre, that they had agreed not to speak of it to anyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He couldn\u2019t deny the poetic justice. His wife, who had despised online devices as long as he\u2019d known her, drowns in a pool in Maui (he still refused to think of it as a suicide), and suddenly the family can\u2019t get online to save their lives. It was like one of those old Twilight Zone episodes. He looked around to make sure he was alone, then said to the air: \u201cHoney, if you’re doing this, nice one. You win. Game, set, match.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every night he came down here to his den to try to get Netflix, even though he knew it was pointless. No luck tonight, so he went to a spare room, opened the closet, and dug out an old board game. He and Laura used to play this with the children back when they had still been children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He went upstairs to find Randy reading his way through a stack of his dad\u2019s old Mad Magazines he\u2019d found in the garage, and Cathy drawing with some art pencils that hadn\u2019t seen the light of day for several years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWho’s up for a game?\u201d Joe said, waving the box so it rattled. His kids ignored him, so he said: \u201cI’ll order pizza.\u201d This got them off their butts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A half hour later pizza arrived, and the family, one member down and still healing, sat cross-legged in the living room playing a silly game. The conversation and laughter flowed effortlessly, making it easy to forget that since Maui the three of them had been at each other\u2019s throats. Joe didn\u2019t know what made this evening so special, only that it was, and he didn\u2019t want it to end. It reminded him of a time long ago when he was more a hero to his kids than an annoyance, and for the first time since Laura\u2019s death he felt things might eventually be okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Catherine was coming back from the washroom. Randy had remembered she was ticklish under her arms and had held her down and tickled her until she\u2019d almost peed herself. Hours ago she would have gotten pissed off and yelled at him if he\u2019d tried anything like that, but something miraculous was going on with her family tonight, and she only wished that her mother could be there to enjoy it with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As she came down the hallway toward the stairs, she saw a faint glow coming from the darkness of her father\u2019s room, and her heart leapt. It was his phone; he must have left it on the nightstand. It only lit up like that when there was a call or a text message. Her father rarely if ever received calls, but before their lives had become signal-free he had always been complaining about spam texts. Could it be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n She went in and stared down at the screen. There was no indication of calls or texts; the screen was simply glowing. Disappointed, he turned to leave, but the screen blinked twice, making her turn back around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She had hoped to hear from her mom by now. She wanted so desperately to believe her mother had made it to the other side, and she wasn\u2019t thinking of the afterlife; she didn\u2019t believe in that kind of stuff. She missed her mom terribly, but beyond that she also needed someone to coach her with her power. She lived in constant fear that someone associated with the bad guys from Maui were going to come after them. So far nobody had. She made a habit of listening in on the transmissions of everyone around her. She took the strange digital dead zone around her and the family as a good omen, surely her mother\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMom?\u201d she said hesitantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The phone blinked twice. Catherine\u2019s heart pounded in sync with the blinks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re checking up on us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Blink blink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI love you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Blink blink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGoodnight, Mom. Talk to you soon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One blink, and the phone went dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When she got back downstairs, her dad said, \u201cWere you talking to someone up there?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Catherine laughed. \u201cI think you\u2019re losing it. Who would I be talking to?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYour imaginary boyfriend?\u201d Randy said. \u201cYou talk to him in your sleep too.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Catherine punched him in the shoulder and grabbed a slice of pizza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCome on, who\u2019s turn is it, anyway?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n THE END<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Laura Charles lay on a lounger at the edge of the pool, sipping a bottle of water and reading a paperback. It was starting to sprinkle. Randy and Catherine were…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-179","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185,"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/179\/revisions\/185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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