Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing

Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 19

Posted on July 11, 2014

Jonathan cracked open the door. The absence of the shrill shrieks and the overpowering physical presence of Victoria Walter had left a powerful silence in the suite. On the far end the laptop, or a laptop, sat on the desk, opened but with a black screen, the Moleskine notebook, the fountain pen it its crease, beside it, the Crumpler bag on the floor. Jonathan crossed the room and plumped down into the chair. He swiveled round and scanned the suite and the adjoining bedroom, turning the key card over and over in his fingers. No backpack.

With his thumb Jonathan caressed the laptop, but when his index finger hitched on the spacer the screen flashed to life. A shock sent goosebumps over his skin as he stared at a picture of him. A picture of him at café De Eland. For a moment his brain shut down. He shook his head, unable to get his finger to let go of the trackpad. The cursor’s arrow pointed at one of his half-closed eyes. He retracted his hand, folded his arms and grabbed his sides. One of them must’ve snapped a picture of him while he sat at the bar. He swallowed the annoyance back and studied the picture. He wasn’t drunk at the time of the picture. At least not blind drunk, like he must’ve been when he left. It was dark outside and his body and those of other guests reflected in the large window. Jonathan zoomed in. Faces were a blur. The picture must have been taken from some where in the back of the café. He searched his memory and the picture for signs of recognition. He had sat there and had drunk himself into a stupor. And now he had no clue what was happening to him.

He slumped back and stared at the picture. He had wanted to go, find his backpack, leave the Crumpler behind and go. Home. The picture held him back. He couldn’t go home. Not yet. Too much triggered his curiosity, too much bugged him, worried him. These people were bending over backwards to make everyone believe he was Dallas Bard. There was a story to this. A story that might get him back into the saddle. If he could find out what was going on, he could maybe shed the big loser L that seemed inked on his forehead. With a good story he could fight his way back and maybe even revenge the bitch. He moved the cursor to the docking station. First he needed to find out what this Barbie doll and her ashen-faced he-man were doing with the computer freaks downstairs. It couldn’t be just a practical joke. No one in his right mind would book an expensive suite in a hotel like this for a practical joke.

The mail box looked organized and very much unlike his messy, spam-ridden inbox. It opened without asking for a password, but that didn’t prevent his finger from trembling as if he was about to commit a crime. He pushed all thoughts back and moved the cursor to the inbox. They claimed he was Dallas Bard. He had every right to look into the mail.

The inbox held a few mails marked read and two emails marked unread. Both were sent by Victoria Walter. And both were sent when he’d been in the bathroom. He clicked on the first one.

 

Hey Dallas!

Yay!!! Happy you decided to come! The meeting is a fab chance to meet everyone. Don’t worry!!! We won’t throw you in at the deep end! Just introduce you to a few people. If anyone mentions algorithms, just cut them short!! You signed an NDA! That’s all you need to say. 

Aee you @ the Ams-ix party in the Paardenstraat. 9PM sharp. Yr badge is yr ticket!!!

And change! You’ll find a bag with new gear in the bedroom!!

Later!!!!

V

 

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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 18

Posted on July 10, 2014

“You must be tired.” Matt Turing startled Jonathan with his question, which sounded more like a statement. “Let’s go to your room.”

“I—I don’t have a room. I wanted to—I had to return this…” Jonathan stammered, taken off guard by the sudden twist.

They both ignored him and Turing pulled him along without any ceremony. Within three rushed breaths, he found himself in an elevator with Victoria. The elevator shot up to the top floor, smooth and silent. Even Victoria didn’t say a thing. She had stepped away from him, the second the door had closed. Now, she studied her nails, like the guest service’s girl had done, as if he wasn’t in the elevator with her at all. When the door opened, Turing stood waiting for them. He panted lightly, but not much. He grabbed the keycard from Jonathan and slid it past the lock of a door a little down the hall. The door opened with a muffled click. Victoria shoved him in.

 

The suite was larger than his apartment. Light streamed in from all sides.

“Oh my God!” Victoria squealed. “What a fabulous room!” She skipped through it like a little girl, touching everything with her pink nails. She twirled back to him, took his hand and pulled him along. Her high heels hammered the wooden floorboards. “Look at this,” she screamed. “This is so awesome.” She danced away from him and flung open a door. “Oh my God,’ she screamed again, and she feigned total awe. She beckoned him, leaning into the doorframe, hips and tits thrusting forward. “It’s got a jacuzzi. And it’s big enough for two.” She winked and licked her lips, her tongue slipping out like a snake’s.

The impulse to flee ran a shudder up his spine. He glanced back, to where Matt Turing blocked the doorway. Turing’s gray eyes rested upon him, but Jonathan wasn’t sure if the man actually saw him. The stare set Jonathan’s teeth on edge.  as if he was measuring him. Jonathan lowered the bag to the floor and shrugged the shudder away. He’d been sweating around with this stupid bag long enough. And he needed time to get his head straight.

“Sure,” he mumbled, as he approached the winking, lip-licking Victoria with care. He quickly slipped past her and closed the door.

Within the safe barriers of the bathroom, the hangover needled its way back to his brain. He leaned his forehead into the door and listened to the murmuring of Victoria Walter and Matt Turing. Unable to understand a single word of whatever they were talking about, Jonathan pushed himself away from the door and sat down on the toilet. He kicked off his sneakers. Instantly, the rancid stink of athlete’s foot chased the delicate scent of perfume. He pulled off his socks, too, and stared at his feet. He tossed his socks into the washbasin and smirked at his reflection. As if he would have the discipline to apply it. He shed his clothes and stepped into the shower cabin.

Water from the gigantic shower head enveloped him like a tropical waterfall. Jonathan closed his eyes and let it flush the hangover from his system. Bit by bit his energy seeped back in. With the heel of his hand he rubbed the glass wall free of condensation and peeked through at the door that shielded him from Ken and Barbie. Matt Turing and Victoria Walter. The names didn’t ring a bell and while he’d been zonked out last night, he was sure that neither one matched the vague snippet of memory that whirled around in his memory. Dallas Bard. The other name that didn’t ring a bell. And yet, he must’ve met either one of the them. It was the only possible way that guy Bard’s bag had ended up at his home.

Jonathan turned away from the glass wall and rummaged through the tiny bottles for shampoo. It took him three washes before it fulfilled the rich-and-creamy promise that was stamped in golden lettering on the bottle’s label. He wrapped himself in the sheet-sized towel and sat down on the toilet seat again. Eventually, he had to face them, Matt and Victoria, and possibly other people from the Winter Garden. Had they only met this Dallas Bard online? Was that the confusion? The geeks downstairs didn’t seem like they mingled with real people very often.

He pushed listened at the door, but all he heard was the soft hum of the bathroom’s ventilation system. Jonathan checked his watch. More than half an hour had gone by. If he was lucky, they had returned to their party.

 

digital data flow through optical wire

 

 

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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 17

Posted on July 9, 2014

The woman, or girl, ignored Jonathan’s obvious embarrassment and held the Tee in front of him. Standing on tiptoe, she titled her head backwards. “Oh, Dallas,” she cooed. “You’re so tall!” She thrust the Tee in his hands and chattered on about how she always had wanted to be taller and how she envied Amsterdam girls and their infinite legs.

He couldn’t concentrate on the words that left her pink-painted lips like the tiniest hailstones in an unexpected summer storm. Every now and again he caught the name Dallas, but that was all. After she shoved a conference folder and a memory stick in the Crumpler, without showing any embarrassment for poking around in someone else’s bag, she took him by the wrist, a cool and small hand, and pulled him back to the Winter Garden.

He followed her, stunned by her determination. As he trailed along, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her body. Ten-centimeter-high heels didn’t even manage to push her up to shoulder height. Her ginger-blond hair was tucked up in an untidy bun. Loose strands of hair accentuated a long, slender neck. The green top had slid down one shoulder and revealed the pale skin. No visible bra lines, but her breasts stayed up like they were a Barbie doll’s. Jonathan cast his eyes down and tried to suppress the arousal, but looking down her pale legs only made things worse. The heat from his cheeks shot down to his groin. He looked up again, to her face and the triumphant look that spread across it. Her pink-lacquered nails clasped around his wrist. Barbie with her new best friend.

 

Back in the Winter Garden, she led him to a man with a sharp-lined face. His skin was white, too, not the alluring paleness of the woman, but the sickly white of someone ill, someone who never saw the light of day. The man’s crew cut covered his head like a bat’s shadow, spreading out over his cheeks like wings. As they walked up, the close-set gray eyes of the man locked on Jonathan without blinking, killing every trace of arousal Jonathan had felt. The irises were an eerie sort of solid gray. Like the eyes of a puppet, it darted through Jonathan’s mind when he stood face to face with the man. Like eyes made of glass.

The woman didn’t fit in, but the man stood out even more. With his massive shoulders and trained body he was the diametrical opposite of the sagging bodies that populated the hall.

“Dallas, dude,” the man said. His voice was dark and husky, gravely, as if he’d swallowed coarse sand, and even though the man spoke softly, the voice seemed to fill the room. The few people that were still clicking away on their keyboards stopped.

Jonathan wanted to protest again, but the silence and the paralyzing feeling of being looked at by an entire room of people who listened to every word he’d say, kept him from pointing out the obvious. The man wrapped his arm around his shoulder. His fingers dug deep into Jonathan’s upper arm. Jonathan tried to tear himself away, but the man only dug his fingers in deeper.

The woman pulled at the man’s arm and whispered in his ear.

Matt Turing, said the badge dangling on the man’s chest, and the company’s name was Giddyap. The ‘MT’ of the What’s App message. Jonathan sucked in a deep breath, expanding his chest and straightening his shoulders, ready to tell them that they were wrong, that he wasn’t who they thought he was, but something held him back. He glanced at them. They had no eyes for him anymore. Barbie whispered excitedly. Her voice was so low he couldn’t understand a word of what she said, even though he stood not a few feet away from her. He stole a look at the badge that sat squeezed between her breasts. Victoria Walter. And according to the badge she worked for a company called Mathgrlzzz, Inc.

Victoria and Matt. Barbie and Ken.

 

digital data flow through optical wire

 

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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 16

Posted on July 8, 2014

Jonathan watched the hall in surprise. There were people inside, lots of people, more than two hundred maybe, but no one seemed interested in one another. The usual buzzing sounds of a party was absent. The only human sounds came from behind him, from a restaurant where employees were talking in loud and quick Dutch. From the hall came nothing but the clicking of keyboards. Most people were male and most of them wore faded Tees or wrinkled shirts. And all of them had a large square badge on a lanyard, dangling on various sizes of potbellies. At every table stood three, four, five men and the occasional women, all hammering away on laptops. He spotted more men, sitting on the floor and leaning into the walls, laptops or smart phones clutched in their hands like a life line.

The smell of a large group of people huddling together drifted up. That and the overwhelming number of people, made Jonathan step back. He didn’t feel comfortable in groups anymore, avoided them as much as he could. In the corner of his eye, he registered a woman breaking away from a clutter of men, the only group where no one was looking at a laptop or a smart phone. In a split second, the fierce and deliberate ticking of her stilettos silenced the keyboard symphony, like a director silenced the orchestra with a flick of his baton.

“Dallas!” the woman exclaimed.

Jonathan froze.

She was with him in a second and seized his arm, before he could summon his legs to make a run for it. A soft and excited murmur rose up from the hall but died down immediately, again causing a silence that almost felt like it could break.

“So! Glad! You! Made! it!” The woman spoke with an almost palpable exclamation mark at the end of  her every word. “We’ve been waiting for you!”

“Hi,” Jonathan muttered. He pushed the Crumpler forward. “I’m not…”

She pulled him into the hall and away from the doors, and before he could object, they arrived at the end of the hallway.

The curious looks that now followed him, too, freaked him out. His shirt stuck to his back. A drop of sweat released itself from his hair and slid down his forehead, along the bridge of his nose and into his eye.

“Let’s register you!” The woman stopped at a desk, where a handful of lanyards with badges waited with stacks of paper beside a huge glass bowl with memory sticks and a pile of neatly folded Tees. She took one of the lanyards and hung it around his neck. She smiled, her head tilted in admiration as if he was her child.

Jonathan wanted to wipe the drop of sweat from his eye and the tear it had caused. He wanted to tell her he wasn’t Dallas Bard, that he didn’t have clue who Dallas Bard was. He wanted to give her the bag and forget about his own. He wanted to tell her that he’d never seen anyone so petite and yet so intimidating, that she looked like she’d walked away from a photo shoot rather than a hall with sweaty and overweight men. But he couldn’t get his mouth to form the words. All he could do was watch her and the tight black skirt that accentuated her curved ass when she turned and bend over the desk to grab a shirt. She couldn’t reach it, stretched. Her top slid up and showed a small triangle of lace above the waistband, clinging to her pale back like it was inked, the string lost to sight in the cleft of her perfect round buttocks.

Jonathan flit his eyes to his hands when she turned and silently cursed the heat that spread up from his neck.

 

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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 15

Posted on July 7, 2014

The blue-striped marquees were lowered, guarding every hotel window from sun and prying eyes, like standing soldiers. Jonathan squeezed past some cabs that blocked the entrance and climbed the steps to the revolving door. With a mixture of distaste and envy he regarded the extravagant luxury inside. Men, all suited up and smug-smiled, hurried past him. More subservient men, some in livery even, schlepped to and fro with suitcases and bags. They all ignored him, drilled as they were to single out guests with generous tips in their pockets from the occasional shabby visitor. Jonathan fought the urge to turn and run, forced himself to step towards the front desk.

More men in suits swarmed the floor, cluttering at the polished marble counter. Three receptionists checked guests in and out at such a swift pace, that Jonathan found himself alone at the desk within minutes. The woman threw him a questioning look. Jonathan felt the heat of unease crawl up his neck and cheeks. He put the bag on the counter and handed her the business card.

“Ah, Mr. Bard,” she said. “We were informed of your arrival.” She sent him a radiant smile and started typing on a hidden keyboard. Not two seconds later she pulled a key card from somewhere and handed it to him.

“No, no, no,” Jonathan stuttered. “I’m not—you are wrong. I’m not…”

“Welcome at the Krasnapolsky,” she rattled on, without paying any attention to his attempts to rectify her mistake. “We have a suite ready for you. Your luggage arrived early this morning and has been brought up. If you need anything, please call us at the front desk. Enjoy your stay at the Krasnapolsky, Mr. Bard.”

“I’m not Dallas Bard,” he tried, but she already directed her attention to the next guest in line. The man elbowed him out of the way. Jonathan snatched the bag from the counter and stepped back, the key card clutched in his hand.

 

It took him a while to shake the confusion. For a moment he considered approaching one of the other receptionists, but noticing the very same radiant smile chiseled on their faces, he set out to the foyer, in search of anything that would resemble a garden, a winter garden no less.

He wasn’t five steps away from the front desk when he spotted a sign with a large black arrow printed on it and the logo that had been on the conference papers. The sign made him breathe easier and he followed it past a small wooden desk at which another hotel employee sat studying her nails. ‘Guest services’ said the notice on her desk. She didn’t look like she was going to serve anyone today, and he decided not to disturb her. He rounded the next corner and found himself facing invitingly opened doors that gave way to a two story high hall with a frosted glass roof. Filtered sunlight left the room in a golden glow, very much unlike the burning heat outside. ‘Wintertuin’ it said in golden letters above the middle one of the arched doors.

Inside, wide steps lead down to a black-and-white checkered floor with high tables, crammed with empty and half empty glasses, bowls of snacks and pastries, and an astonishing number of opened laptops.


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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 14

Posted on July 4, 2014

“Dallas Bard.” Jonathan read the name out loud. He gazed up and watched a canal boat glide by. Smoke, stinking of frying fat, wafted up from it. Tourists snapped pictures of the gables, of him. In a reflex, he hunched up as small as he could, as he was used to ever since the book came out. He straightened up again, when the boat disappeared under the bridge. One day, he would get back at her. One day, he would tell his side of the story and show everyone what a world-class bitch she was. But he needed his notebooks. He’d plotted his revenge in his notebooks. He stared at the container with identical business cards. Nothing came up. He didn’t know a Dallas Bard. The name didn’t ring any bells. All the card ventured was a name, a company name, Messiah LLC, an email address and a telephone number that started with +1, a US number, which he wasn’t gonna call. It would cost him a ton.

He put the card down and rummaged through the papers. Most dealt with a meeting that seemed to be some sort of internet conference. Most papers were mere technical blabla. He leafed through. No names, no addresses. He stuffed it all back, locking his gaze on the laptop. He slid with his finger over the smooth surface, hesitated, pulled his finger away. It already felt like he was invading someone’s privacy. His finger slipped back to laptop. His thumb joined. Between them, he lifted the laptop, no more than an inch, felt its lightness. His breath hitched, when his eye caught sight of a black-covered Moleskine notebook. One of his! He tempered his hope right away. Literally millions of people used these books. Millions.

It wasn’t his. As soon as he spotted the tiny handwriting, he knew that. The writer had used a black felt pen with a very fine point and the lines set so close together that he couldn’t even begin to discover which language the writing was in. He flicked through. Some pages were filled with plain text, some had addresses and what looked like phone numbers, but most pages were scribbled top to bottom with mathematical formulas and equations. With a shudder of disgust he thought back at the eternal struggle with math in high school. He leafed quickly past the formulas to the notebook’s inner pocket in the back. It held two tickets for the Rijksmuseum, one for the Anne Frank House, a Segway flyer, and a clipping from an English-language newspaper. He threw a glance at the article. A murder and a suicide in the States. Some lines were blacked out with a thick marker. He shoved the tickets, flyer and article back into the pocket and concentrated on the pages with the addresses that were scribbled throughout the notebook, but all he could read were the street numbers, the street names as undecipherable as the rest of the notebook’s texts. The digit 8 wasn’t a Dutch one, which would make sense if the bag belonged to an American.

Jonathan snapped the elastic band back around the notebook and shoved it back into the bag. If he wanted to return this bag, he had to call this Dallas Bard guy, which would send him right over this month’s phone plan. Jonathan punched in the number, but as soon as he heard it ring, the bag’s insides started vibrating. He found the vibrating iPhone hidden under the cabling mess. The screen showed a phone number in big white digits. His number. Startled, Jonathan disconnected and stared at the iPhone in his hand. Slide to unlock, said the message on the screen and even before he realized, he had swiped the screen.

His finger barely left the screen when it flicked to life. Instead of a request for a password iMessage opened, indicating someone typing on the other end of the line. Within a second a text appeared.

Dallas! Dude! Where are you? We’re all at Kras. Everyone’s DYING to meet you!

Before he could decide what to do the next line appeared.

Dude! Drinks at the Winter Garden. Now!

In a reflex, Jonathan dropped the phone back into the bag. Hurriedly and with trembling fingers, he closed the Velcro straps, as he tried to shake the feeling of being caught. Come on, he scolded himself, this was what he had wanted. He wasn’t breaking in or hacking or whatever. He was returning a guy his gear.

Jonathan’s fingers brushed the bag’s black shoulder strap, the white Crumpler logo. ‘MT’ had been the sender of the messages. Kras had to be Hotel Krasnapolsky, only a quick bike ride away from where he was now. Dallas Bard might be there. And at least this MT, who definitely seemed to know the man.

 

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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 13

Posted on July 3, 2014

Undefined piano music trickled from the speakers. Café De Eland was deserted except for two elderly people sipping cappuccinos at the reading table in the back. Mark wasn’t around, his place behind the bar taken by the bald-shaven guy whose name Jonathan always forgot.

“Jonathan, what can I do for you?” The bartender lifted a beer glass of a stack and held it to the tap, his other hand resting on the shiny black knob.

“No, no. Nothing. I–I think I left my bag here. Last night. When I left.” Jonathan looked around. No bag. Not near the corner where he usually sat, not near the coat rack. “Did you find it? Did Mark find it?”

The bartender threw an unconvincing look behind the bar. “Nope, nothing here.”

“Are you sure? It’s important.”

“I could ask Mark.” He nodded at the iPhone that sat in it’s dock. “If you insist,” he added, the reluctance oozing from every word.

“Thanks,” Jonathan said. “I’ll wait.”

The bartender raised an eyebrow, but pulled the phone from the dock and punched in a number.

The conversation lasted less than thirty seconds. The piano trickling resumed. Shaking his head, the bartender smiled. “You were the last to leave,” he said. “Mark says he put the bag around your neck when you left. You been to more bars? An all-nighter, maybe?”

“No,” Jonathan replied, but he noticed the hesitation in his own voice.

The bartender shrugged and threw him a smirk, while he swiped his cell phone. The piano music gave way to Loudon Wainwright. ‘Drunk men stagger,’ Wainwright sang and the bartender hummed along.

Jonathan spun around and left. “Asshole,” he groused, but not loud enough for the bartender to hear. De Eland had been his last resort for these past months, the only place in town were he didn’t feel watched, or smirked at. “Asshole,” he repeated. “Fucking asshole.”

At least he found his bike. It stood locked to the mailbox, across the street. Jonathan patted his coat pockets for the key. He unlocked the bike, but when he mounted it the red bag swayed to the front and knocked the handlebars out his hands. He lost his balance, had to grab the mailbox not to fall flat on his face in full view of the asshole inside. With an irritated swing, he shoved the messenger bag to his back. The mocking gaze of the bartender burned in his back as he pedaled away. He’s read the book, it flashed through Jonathan. He’s read the book. He speeded up, cursing the humiliation, the bag, his fucking bitch of an ex who had felt the need to display his entire sad life in a book and not even tried to disguise his identity. He cursed again, at his own destructive stupidities.

 

“Damn, it’s Tuesday,” he muttered at the closed door of the coffee bar, where he’d wanted to sit and gather his thoughts. He parked his bike and sat down on the white bench that stood locked to the facade. Velcro scratched when he ripped the bag open. He didn’t lift the flap, couldn’t get past the feeling that he was prying into someone’s life, as if he was a goddamn NSA spy. Jonathan fiddled with the velcro and the black plastic clasp. He wasn’t a spy. He snorted at himself. Definitely not a spy, even if that would be a good character trait for a journalist. But he wasn’t a journalist. Not anymore. And he would never be one. He was just a loser who drank himself into stupor every night, because his ex-girlfriend was a vindictive bitch who’d written a book, a fucking bestseller no less, about their life together and with that she’d thrown his life out on the street, naming and shaming him, making him the sucker of the century. Jonathan flipped open the bag. He was not a spy. He was trying to find the owner of this bag and get his own back. He was just trying to get his life back.

A silver laptop sat in the bag, a MacBook, smart and sleek. Jonathan steadied his trembling fingers and dug deeper. The main compartment contained paperwork. Loose papers, some clipped together, some stapled. There were notebooks and a jumble of cables, adaptors, memory sticks and other computer junk in the bag. He fished out a small platinum-colored container with a faded orange logo, black, flaking lettering printed on the back. Ams-ix. Probably a company name or something. He’d never heard of it. The container revealed a small stack of business cards, all similar. Two circular capitals formed the first letters of a name: Dallas Bard.

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