Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing

Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 26

Posted on July 22, 2014

Chapter 3 – Matt

 

The worst part of the red eye had not been the humiliating plea for a possible upgrade, which he failed to get, or the agonizing long wait before his luggage arrived at the belt. The true horror had been the dark, when the lights went out and the windows were darkened, when the massive body of guy sitting next to him bulged under the armrest and pushed him against the old lady sitting on his other side. He had fled to the bathroom and spent the major part of the red-eye there. It was small as a coffin but at least the glaring light kept him breathing. Matt looked up from his hands and dropped the toothpick with which he had been scraping the dirt from under his nails. He wriggled free from the plastic upholstery of the bench that stuck to his back and took his laptop from his backpack.

Today’s top story was Victoria’s. She carried the title Queen of Wastebook with pride.

 

Victoria Walter

Was googled 170,141,183,460,469,231,731,687,303,715,

884,105,728 times today 🙂

 

Grant Tarpin

hehe… now you have to add 1 more! What can I say – I’m trying not to work so I googled you. 😉

 

Dallas Bard 

it’s more impressive a figure in binary, ms Walter!

00110001001101110011000000

10110000110001001101000011

00010010110000110001001110

00001100110010110000110100

00110110001100000010110000

11010000110110001110010010

11000011001000110011001100

01001011000011011100110011

00110001001011000011011000

11100000110111001011000011

00110011000000110011001011

00001101110011000100110101

00101100001110000011100000

11010000101100001100010011

00000011010100101100001101

110011001000111000

 

Matt logged off and logged back in using his own profile. V was online and that usually called for lots of comments. Comments that would serve him well. He keyed in his made-up travel information and V’s reply came within seconds.

 

Matt Turing

AMS -> KEF -> BOS -> SFO. 😦

 

Victoria Walter

Stop whining, Turing. You are one lucky dog working for Giddyap and your life is about to improve on so many levels, I can’t even start counting.

 

Matt Turing

That’s only up to Dallas, V! Only up to the Messias of Algorithms.

 

Victoria was right, even if she had no idea to what extent. Soon life would improve. He watched the list with comments grow until he caught sight of his suitcase and duffel bag on the luggage belt. He logged off, stuffed his laptop in his pack and leapt up. He snatched the case and bag from the belt and took off. Not long now, before he could scrape off the film of sweat and grease and dirt that had him zip-locked and made it prevented his skin from breathing. Not long now too, before he could try and rub out the memory of earth settling into the folds of his skin that paralyzed him every hour of the day and night, and that sickened him whenever he even tried to close his eyes.

Matt slipped the handles of the bag over the pull handle of the suitcase and tried to ignore how his shirt stuck to his back. He brushed past a family, toppling over a stroller. The child shrieked, as did his mother.

Matt shrugged and sped to the one free customs desk, but the very moment he handed in the customs form, he realized that the man behind the desk had seen what he had done and, more important, that the guy wasn’t amused.

“Fuck no,” Matt muttered.

And that too proved to be a mistake.

 

digital data flow through optical wire
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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 25

Posted on July 21, 2014

As forceful as his hangover allowed him, Jonathan shook off Matt’s hand. He got up, pushed past Victoria and hurried to the door, but before he reached it a monkey-suited guy closed it and shielded it like he was a Swiss Guard. At the same time the lights dimmed and what was left was the eerie glow of hundreds of laptops. Jonathan stepped closer to the door.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” the guard said. He flicked a look over Jonathan’s shoulder to where Matt and Victoria sat, and smiled. “We’re about to begin.”

Jonathan flopped into the nearest chair. What the fuck… He leered at Matt and Victoria. They sat erect, watching the podium, seemingly unimpressed by his attempt to leave. It was the alertness in Matt Turing’s posture that warned Jonathan that the man was aware of his every move.

Except for the ceaseless keyboard clicking, the conference room went quiet. Lisa Wheeler climbed the stage.

“Colleagues.” Her voice filled the room and drowned out the tapping of keys. A shiver ran up Jonathan’s spine, but this time it felt like it lifted the tightness in his chest and made him breathe easier. He squared his shoulder. Neither Matt Turing nor Victoria Walter could keep him here. Whatever movie they had, they would claim it was Dallas Bard in it. He was Jonathan Groen. Not Dallas Bard. No one could tie this to him. As soon as the doors would open, he would run. Grab his bike and disappear. He studied the woman on stage, listened to her voice.

Or he would stay.

Not let himself scare by their cheap blackmail. Like he had intended last night. Find out what’s going on. Find the story. The scoop. And get back at them in writing. Get back at Anna in writing. Get back at the world in writing. If he could find the story behind this all, expose whatever was going on, he could revenge himself. Because there was story to this all and he was going to find it. He was journalist, a goddamned journalist. He would show the world he was a killer one, too.

“Not five minutes ago,” Lisa Wheeler said. “I shared an elevator ride with…”

Jonathan straightened up at her words. Keyboards were silenced.

“I shared an elevator ride with…” Lisa repeated. The falsetto was gone from her voice and what was left was an alto full of suspense. The tension in the room rose. “Dallas Bard.” She whispered the name in the microphone.

No one touched his laptop.

“Dallas Bard,” she continued. “The man of whom they say he will change our lives forever. The man who is said to have found our holy grail, the holy grail of the Internet. I know he is not scheduled to speak, but I do hope he will raise a corner of the veil for us. I hope he will shed some light on his pioneering algorithm, an algorithm so mind-blowing that even the mere thought of it brings back the riveting and electrifying vibes of the early days of the Internet. With Dallas Bard and his compression algorithm everything is possible. Everything!”

The audience turned as one and hundreds of laptop-lit faces stared at Jonathan. A loud applause rolled through the room, not for Lisa but for him, Dallas Bard. Jonathan tried to avoid the inquisitive stares by looking at Lisa, who stood applauding. She nodded at him, a reassuring smile across her face. If he wanted to find out more, he should brace himself for this kind of attention. He should play the game and shed Jonathan Groen. He should become Dallas Bard. Edgy from the persisting applause and the staring looks he lowered his gaze and studied the white half moons of his nails. He would become Dallas Bard.

Lisa tapped the mike and cleared her throat. “Let’s not make Dallas feel too uncomfortable,” she said, and she smiled again. “Let’s give him some space. Okay? Leaves me nothing but to wish you all a successful and informative meeting. Grant, the stage is yours.”

A thirty-something guy took over the mike. “Thank you, Lisa,” he said. “Welcome, people. I agree with Lisa. Let’s restrain ourselves and not jump Dallas.”

The room sniggered.

The man went on introducing a horde of speakers about a myriad of unfamiliar technical subjects. Jonathan threw a covert look at Matt and his heart instantly missed a beat. Matt was the only one who hadn’t turned back to the stage, instead his eyes locked on Jonathan, without blinking, a small smile played around his lips.

 

digital data flow through optical wire

 

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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 24

Posted on July 18, 2014

The woman patted Jonathan on the back. “Don’t be scared,” she whispered. “Remember you’re among friends.”

Whatever had driven him into the elevator, now pulled him out into a wide hall thronged with people. Even before the clicking of her high heels, like the clicking of a  gave her away, Victoria wedged herself between the woman and Jonathan. She wrapped her arm around his waist and pulled him close.

“Dallas,” she cooed. “I missed you sooo much.” Her piercing voice not only ricocheted against the marble floor and walls but also against the insides of his skull. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder and fluttered her eyelashes at him. The eyelids were painted a dark purple, a color that matched her short, tight dress. “You were awesome last night,” she whispered in a low voice, but not low enough for everyone around them to hear.

“I see,” the woman from the elevator said and a world of disdain lay in those two words. She sent him a chilly smile, nodded curtly at Victoria and disappeared into the conference room.

Jonathan felt the urge to run after her and tell her she didn’t get it at all. That even he didn’t get it. That he had nothing to do with the blond monstrosity and that he had no business at all at this meeting. That he didn’t want her to go, that he wanted, no needed to listen to her voice. He tried to shake Victoria’s arm off, but she strengthened her grip and lead him into the conference room, where she pushed him into a back row seat.

She nestled down next to him, blocking his way out. “What did Ms. Wheeler have to say to you? Did she try to draw you out? Offer you anything?”

“Ms. Wheeler?” he asked. He wiped his forehead, not particularly happy that Victoria sat next to him but glad he could sit for a moment.

“Lisa Wheeler. She’s with Yahoo. Competition. Off limits.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he mumbled.

She looked at him. Her lashes no longer fluttering, her gaze as piercing as her voice, until she shrugged. “I watched our little movie from last night,” she said, so soft that he could barely pick up what she said. She clawed her nails in his arm. “You are one violent man, Dallas Bard. You’d sell like crazy on a porn site.”

Slowly he turned his head toward her. Her face was not more than two inches from his and he could smell her sugary breath. The radiant, girly glow in her eyes had changed into an icy cold one. “What movie,” he stuttered. Suspicion crept up his spine like a scorpion ready to sting.

“You know,” she said, now a wide grin across her face. “You. Me. Bed. Sex. Violent sex. Webcam.” Her bleached teeth lit up in the half-darkened room like the fangs of a snake.

Unable to speak, Jonathan rose from his chair.

She caught him and with surprising strength pulled him back. She moved in closer, her nose touching his. “Leaving?” she hissed, squeezing her eyes to slits. Her lips brushed against his. “Whereto?”

“Away,” Jonathan growled. “Home.” He wrenched his arm loose and got up, but before he could even lift his butt off the chair, a steel hand landed on his shoulder and forced him back.

“I don’t think you’ll get far if we go public with this particular movie,” Matt Turing said, as he stepped over the row of chairs from behind and sat down on Jonathan’s other side. He spoke as softly as Victoria, but the threat loomed in his voice. “You have no idea how vulnerable and underaged V can look with the right lighting. And how agonizing and heart-breaking she can cry and beg. I know you Dutch have a liberal name to hold up, permissiveness and whatever tolerance you all blab about all the time, but this, my friend, this is rape and I’ll bet my ass that you folks ain’t liberal about that.” He moved in closer. “It’d suggest you stick around a little longer.”

 

digital data flow through optical wire
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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 23

Posted on July 17, 2014

The elevator took forever to arrive. Jonathan felt worse with every passing minute, like he’d been run over by a truck. He leant into the wall, granting his tired body some support. He closed his eyes, unable to focus because of the headache that again spread to his temples and the nape of his neck. Champagne couldn’t do this. And he was used to drinking a lot more before he felt this bad. He reached out to summon the elevator again.

“Hello?” The soft voice came from the elevator car. “Are you joining me? We’ll be in time for the opening.”

His hand froze halfway the elevator button. For a moment it seemed like he couldn’t breathe anymore. He hadn’t noticed the elevator’s arrival or the doors sliding open. He swallowed back the bile, while he gaped at the woman holding the doors open.

“Are you joining me?” she repeated, her voice the spitting image of his ex’s voice, low and throaty.

“I—Yes—I…” he said, but he didn’t move, couldn’t move. Anna’s voice but in English, an alto laced with an atypical falsetto that seemed to give every word a hint of irony. He hated that voice. He longed for that voice. The last time he’d heard it was the day she left. He had yelled at her that he had been framed, that she had no right to throw his life out on the fucking street, that she made him look like a lier, a fraud. She had just jeered at him and had told him in that rousing voice that he was a gutless wimp, too cowardly to admit he’d plagiarized, an opportunist who blamed the entire world for his own shortcomings, and then she had turned and walked out. Two days later, when he was out drinking himself into a stupor, she had stripped the apartment from whatever she thought was hers. Talk about gutless wimps. About cowards.

“Are you okay?” The woman was less tall and somewhat plumper than Anna. Her palm felt soothingly cool when she put it on his forearm. “Cold feet?”

Jonathan wanted to shake his head, wave her and the elevator away. He wanted to breathe. He wanted to forget that voice, but all he could do was step into the elevator car, like a junkie looking for a fix. The door closed as silently as it had opened. With a little jolt the car started moving down. Jonathan wiped his hands on his jeans.

“What a relief to find someone without a smartphone or laptop,” Anna’s English voice said. “I am so tired of the lack of interest in human contact, like there’s only a virtual world, one made of binary code and nothing else. Aren’t you?”

He looked up, speechless because of her voice, because of his hangover, because of the bizarre circumstances that had brought him here. Looking at her gave him some relief, like she was a life-line he could hold on to. She wasn’t Anna. She wasn’t even Dutch. She didn’t know him. Or his story. She had no idea of his shameful past. Jonathan attempted a smile.

The woman who wasn’t Anna smiled back and when he didn’t try to answer her question, she went on, paying no attention to his obvious unease. “I know it’s our future. I know we live well off it, that virtual world. But still.” She laughed and winked.

The laugh ran a shiver through his gut. Jonathan shook his head again, but the mist in his head didn’t lift. “I…” He searched for words. I don’t know what you are talking about, he wanted to say, but instead of words bile burned passed his vocal chords. He swallowed and glanced at her badge, but she had folded her hand around it. Why did she think he was one of them? He could be anyone, just a random guest at the hotel. He didn’t carry a laptop or a smartphone, as she so aptly had noticed. Nothing indicated that he was part of the conference. He stared past her into the golden elevator wall and it took him a full minute before the logo on his T-shirt penetrated his cotton-balled skull. He opened his mouth to apologize for this stupidity, his rudeness and thickness, but the elevator beat him to it. It stopped and the doors slid open.

 

digital data flow through optical wire
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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 22

Posted on July 16, 2014

A piercing and continuous ringing woke him. Jonathan was halfway opening his eyes when the racket stopped. He nestled his head deeper into the pillow and pulled the duvet cover tight. A vague headache surfaced and settled behind his eyes. He tried to moisten his lips, but his tongue was so dry it seemed like a grater scaling the skin from his lips. He shut out the pounding inside his skull and dozed off, only wakened by the persistent ringing once more. He pushed himself up against the headboard. Again, the noise stopped before he was able to determine where it came from and for a moment he thought he had imagined it.

Despite the headache and the cotton balls that seemed to have replaced his brain, he knew where he was. The suite had not changed since he collapsed onto the bed. He remembered the day, the bag, his arrival at the hotel, meeting Victoria Walter and Matt Turing. He remembered everything up to Victoria’s email, the dinner brought to him by the asshole in the monkey suit and his own embarrassment. He remembered his anger when he discovered the LinkedIn profile picture.

What he didn’t remember was undressing and tucking himself in. He had collapsed onto the bed, yes, to close his eyes for a minute in an attempt to overcome the effects of the champagne and the burning pain in his knee, but he knew one hundred percent sure he had been dressed when he closed his eyes. And that the curtains were open. He was naked now. And the curtains were shut tight, leaving him in a darkened room. Jonathan moved his leg. A sharp pain shot through his upper leg. No dream. No hallucination. He reached under the duvet and rubbed his knee, when the phone rang again.

“Good morning, Mr. Bard,” a cheery voice tweeted in his ear. “This is your wake-up call. It’s seven thirty. You are expected in the main meeting room in one hour. Have a nice day.”

In a daze he muttered a thank you, but before he had finished, a dry click told him that the girl had already disconnected. The receiver clamped in his hand, he sank back into the pillows. Good morning. She had said good morning. He had spent the night in the suite. One simple task he had set himself: find out what was going on. Instead, he had downed a bottle of champagne and fucking passed out. He hauled himself out of bed and tottered to the bathroom, where he stared at his reflection in the large mirror, at his ashen face with the dark bags under the eyes, his chest heaving too fast for his age, and down until his gaze hitched at the flaky specks of dried semen plastered to his blubber gut. He raised an eyebrow. Really? Instinctively he glanced at his right hand. “Stupid drunk,” he muttered. “Fucking wino. You can’t even remember the good things.”

The shower flushed the leaden feeling from his brain but not from his legs, like basalt blocks chained him to the floor. The minty taste of toothpaste did chase some of the hang-over remnants. He squirted some more on the hotel’s toothbrush and rinsed his mouth with it, before he wrapped a towel around his waist and plunked down on the bench at the bed’s foot. His cloths were folded in a neat stack next to the bag Victoria had left. He searched his fogged-up brain for even the slightest shred of memory. Nothing came up. He touched the Tee and jeans, hesitantly, as if they weren’t his. He shook his head. They weren’t his. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t his style. He would’ve dropped the clothes where he’d taken them off, no longer pestered by the superior looks of his ex.

Jonathan smacked himself in the head to get rid of the fog. This wasn’t him. And whatever Barbie and Ken wanted him to believe it was, he couldn’t care less. They could stuff their lame jokes up their asses. He was too tired and too sick to bother.

He slipped into the jeans and zipped up, the indigo fabric cutting into his gut. He threw on the Tee and dragged himself to the door.

 

digital data flow through optical wire

 

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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 21

Posted on July 15, 2014

The cover held a soup plate filled with a steamy orange soup. A sprig of green floated in the middle. The briny smell made his stomach rumble. He was hungry. He plopped into the chair and spooned up the soup. The hint of alcohol in it boosted his confidence. The burger he found inside the other cover was dry but tasty. He washed it away with three glasses of champagne. He sat back and looked out the window, at the bright blue May sky. He dabbed the plate with is finger and licked off the last crumbs, before he placed the plates and covers back on the trolley.

Then Jonathan slipped into the new jeans. He still had an hour or so before Victoria and Matt expected him at the party. He sat down at the desk and swiped the trackpad, opened a browser and googled NDA first. The Wiki article confirmed what he had expected; a non-disclosure agreement. A legal term for secrecy, for hiding, for keeping the truth from others. The memory of his downfall rushed up from his stomach like bile. How his ex had written a book about their lives, about the disgrace after his thesis had been marked as plagiarism, how it had aborted his career in journalism. She had sworn secrecy to her publisher, she had chosen to side with everyone who mistrusted him. And she had left him the day the novel saw the light. She had changed his name in her writings, but had shown no scruples exposing him in interviews. Interviews that soared the sales of her book, while kicking him down into the deepest pit. Jonathan finished his glass. For a moment he feared that they too knew. Victoria and Matt. That this bizarre set-up was all part of the plan to bring him down again.

He shook the idea. No more paranoia. No more. These people came from the States. They had no idea. They were nerds, didn’t follow the news, let alone Dutch news. He returned to the screen and googled Victoria’s company name. Mathgrlzzz was a marketing and research firm, exclusively targeting Internet companies, technology and Internet pioneering. Hers was the only name mentioned on the site. No mention of other math girls. He concentrated on Matt Turing. A technical hotshot at Giddyap. The list of hits numbered up to tens of thousands. He stared at the fire red Giddyap logo and remembered a news clipping. This was the company that had vowed to break the supremacy of search engines Google and Yahoo. They hadn’t done a good job. He’d never heard of them again after their boasting.

He dove deeper down into the search results. Like Victoria’s name, Matt’s name popped up on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+. It featured in blog posts with incomprehensible technical blabber and in and a seemingly endless stream of technical documents.

Jonathan forced himself to type in the next name. When he did the search engine came back with considerably less hits. Still a couple of hundred, but still. His stomach knotted with excitement when he opened the LinkedIn profile, almost as if he was about to open a porn site. Dallas Bard.

It wasn’t the text of the status update that caught his attention, or the education at MIT, or the recommendations. What caught his attention was the thumbnail that stopped his breath. No wonder Matt and Victoria thought he was Dallas Bard. It was as if he looked into the eyes of his doppelgänger. He clicked the thumbnail to enlarge it.

And gasped.

“What the fuck,” he cursed at the screen and the picture. “What the fuck is this shit?”

The picture was only slightly larger than the thumbnail, but it was again a photo of him. Not the one that was plastered on to the desktop, where he still looked reasonably sober. In this one he was hammered and about to pass out, his eyes only half open. And at home, sitting on his couch. The walls closed in on him at breakneck speed. He pushed away from the desk. A memory flashed through. The memory of a blond-haired man with an American accent. Not the clipped and staccato accent of Matt Turing but more melodious, more southern. He dug into his memory to nail the face and the hair and the voice. Nothing came up. He leapt up. His knee knocked into the table-leg. Moaning he fell back. His kneecap had shifted an inch, the ligaments and muscles burning.

Jonathan sat back, rubbed the pain from his knee, and waited for his breath to calm down. “Shit,” he muttered. “Shit, shit, shit.” He should stop acting like a fucking retard. No wonder he’d been caught plagiarizing. He lacked every single instinct a journalist needed. He grabbed the bottle of champagne and downed the last drops, before he moved his knee back and forth and tried to stand up. The room started spinning right away. He grabbed hold of the chair. His legs trembled, the muscles no longer able to hold him up. Jonathan stumbled over to the bed and collapsed. Nausea forced him to close his eyes. He drew in deep breaths to stop the room from spinning like a madman.

 

digital data flow through optical wire
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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 20

Posted on July 14, 2014

Except for the final three lines of the message, Jonathan couldn’t make head or tail from her rambling. Algorithms? NDA? A total mystery. What didn’t puzzle him was Victoria’s apparent preference for the exclamation mark. As if her nail got locked on the key. He sure could teach her a thing or two about writing. He left the mail unanswered and went in search of the clothes, she had mentioned.

The bag was from de Bijenkorf department store and sat under the low bench at the foot end of the bed. He pulled it out and emptied its contents on the bed. Five boxershorts, two shirts, a pair of jeans, five pairs of socks and a couple of Tees fell out. Five? That girl had plans for five days? Fat chance. Jonathan unwrapped a pair of boxershorts and held it up. He wasn’t too crazy about them, preferred the tighter slips that kept his balls in check. He ripped off the price tag. It was an easy choice. All he had to do was go to the party and find out what was going on. With a little luck he’d run into the mysterious Dallas Bard. If not, he could vanish around midnight, like a male version of Cinderella. No way he was going to stay with these freaks.

A knock on the door made him lose his balance. He pulled up the boxershorts and dashed over to the door.

In the hallway stood a waiter with a trolley, which held two silver-plated bell covers and a wine cooler with a bottle of what looked like champagne. Without a word, just a short nod to acknowledge Jonathan’s presence, the waiter pushed past him and went straight for the table. He folded out a white linen placemat, placed one of the silver covers in the exact middle and, with careful and measured movements, laid out the silverware. He popped the cork without so much as a soft fizz and poured a glass, then lowered the bottle back in the cooler. Water and ice cubes sloshed against the scratched silver. The man smoothed down the white napkin on his black-sleeved arm and looked at Jonathan, eagerness and expectation written all over his face.

Somewhat bewildered, Jonathan looked back, painfully aware of the pasty blubber that poured over the orange boxershort and not sure what the man exactly expected him to do. He folded his arms but dropped them immediately again. Victoria had mentioned a party, not some room service or whatever this was. The waiter must’ve made a mistake in the room number. And why not. This day seemed all about mistakes and mistaken identities. Jonathan stared at the well-groomed man, but waiter’s face didn’t reveal a thing. Only in his eyes gleamed something that looked pretty much like contempt. Physically paralyzed by the man’s frosty stare, Jonathan’s mind raced. What the hell did he want? Was he going to stand there and watch him eat?

After what seemed an hour, the man shrugged and turned on his heels. With a barely audible hiss he strode to the door, closing behind him without a word.

A tip. He had waited for a tip. The words shot through Jonathan’s brain like an arrow of ice. It took him a few minutes to get his bearings back.

 

digital data flow through optical wire

 

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