Packing Heat(42)

“Okay then. Do your thing.”

I paused and then laughed. “What do you mean?”

“Get the Spiders to contact you.”

“I didn’t do anything last time. They just took over my computer.”

“What were you doing when they took it over?”

“I was searching for them,” I admitted.

“There you go. Search for them.”

“Aren’t we being watched right now?”

“Not in here. They’re remodeling this room, and the surveillance stuff is turned off.”

I nodded. That explained why he had decided to come here instead of staying back at our room.

“Does that mean they’re watching and listening to us?”

“No,” he said. “It means if we do this in our room, they’ll know where to find us right away. But here we’ll have some time before they come looking.”

“I see,” I said, feeling nervous. “Are you sure this is safe?”

“Nothing we’re doing is safe,” he said, grinning at me. “But don’t worry. I’m here to protect you.”

“That’s very soothing.”

“You’re welcome. Now get searching.”

I sighed and started typing. If I was going to do this, I might as well get it over with. I could sit around and argue and worry all day long, but that wouldn’t help.

We needed to do something. I couldn’t sit around in the room and wait for Rafa to somehow save me. I needed a task, a job to complete. I hated being passive in all of this; that simply wasn’t my personality. I was a journalist, and as a journalist I was constantly checking out the world, searching and learning. That was just how I existed.

But so far, I’d been too afraid to do anything. I’d been following along, doing what needed to be done, but not taking any big actions on my own. It was time to change that. I had made the decision to go with Rafa, and to follow through with the pregnancy, but now I needed to take a little responsibility.

I began to search for the Spiders just like I had that night. I wasn’t really interested in what I was finding, more in the act of doing the search. I hoped that the Spiders were monitoring searches for their name and would spot me trying to contact them.

Ten minutes slipped by. Rafa disappeared at one point and came back a couple minutes later with a bottle of whisky and a glass. He drank while he watched me type.

Frustration mounted. The first time I did this, they contacted me within a few minutes of searching. As the minutes slipped by, I began to wonder if they would even notice me.

Maybe they didn’t want to talk. I was sure they knew where I was. Maybe they saw me as a traitor and wouldn’t want to communicate.

After twenty minutes, Rafa began to pace. “Maybe this isn’t going to work,” he said.

“We have no other choice. It’ll work.”

“Fucking hell. I hate this technology shit.”

“Technology isn’t to blame. People are always people, tech or no tech.”

He laughed at that. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t blame technology for people being shitty.”

He smirked and returned to pacing. I kept typing away, digging deeper and deeper, trying to find any seeds of the Spiders.

And suddenly, just like last time, my computer screen went black. A green cursor was blinking in the top right corner, and a message scrolled across the top as someone somewhere typed to me.

“We know where you are. You turned us down.”

I looked over at Rafa. “It’s them.”

He walked over and crouched behind me. “Okay. Let’s talk.”

“I need your help,” I typed.

“We know.”

“Tell them we need information,” Rafa said.

I typed his message.

“We won’t talk with Rafa Allegri. We will only talk with you.”

I paused and then looked at him. “Spooky.”

“They’re bluffing. Tell them I’m not around.”

I typed that message. They responded a minute later.

“We don’t trust Rafa, and we believe you are lying. Lie to us again and this is finished.”

He laughed softly. “Okay then. Tell them you won’t talk without me.”

I frowned at him. “Rafa, I think you should go.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No. Let me talk to them. I understand what needs to be done.”

He looked at me silently for a second and then sighed, shaking his head. “Okay. This goes against my fucking nature, but I’ll let you handle this.” He stood up. “I’ll be back in soon.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded and then left the room.

I felt like I was alone for the first time in a long time, though it hadn’t even been a day yet.