Shaddyr's Eclectic Collection > Pretender Fanfiction > Exchange
Exchange
by Liz Shelbourne
For Nikki, who opened the door, for Pasha, who turned on the light, and for Shaddyr, who invited me in. And, of course, for the elusive one…
HOW ARE YOU DOING TODAY, CHAMELEON?
[MISTY]
12:23 AM
It has been a while since I saw you here, what have you been up to?I HAD SOME BUSINESS THAT TOOK ME OUT…
[CHAMELEON]
12:25 AM
of circulation for a while, but I wanted to stop by and check on you. How are you, and how is your project going? Did my advice help you at all?
OK, AND MORE THAN I IMAGINED. I THINK I MAY HAVE…
[MISTY]
12:27 AM
found something, but I’m not sure what it is. I sneaked my way past a firewall and stumbled onto a subprogram, I’m looking at it right now. I wish I understood better what I was doing, your advice helped, but I think that I might be in over my head. I’m still learning.
THEY SAY THAT YOU SHOULD NEVER STOP LEARNING
[CHAMELEON]
12:30 AM
What kind of subprogram did you find?
MISTY, ARE YOU STILL THERE?
[CHAMELEON]
12:35
MISTY?
[CHAMELEON]
12:43
C 911!
[]
12:45
Jarod stared at the white numbers on the screen in front of him, the light from the VDO reflecting off of his face as he gently rubbed the side of his index finger across his lower lip. He paged up, then down, re-reading the posts on the message board that he, "Misty" and myriad others had been using as an on-line chat room. Misty had been a regular Monday through Thursday nights for months now, talking with anyone and everyone who would respond. Each night she would log on while she took her breaks during a late second shift at a large insurance company. She was a warm and friendly personality in the darkness of cyberspace, a faceless name who had become a valued friend.
Where had she gone?
He reviewed the posts again, thinking about the woman who had so suddenly stopped responding. He was fairly sure that she was a woman, although on the Internet you could never be really sure of anything. She had made a few off hand comments so quickly posted that he was sure that they were coming from a real person and not someone trying to assume an identity. For a moment his mind wandered; did he ever do the same, did any of his postings betray his real identity, and if so, what was it? Could Misty tell from their on-line conversations just who he was, and what he had been through? He doubted it, although he knew that occasionally his ever-shrinking naivete made an appearance. Misty had always been happy to explain or correct a faux pas, if gently laughing while she did. In turn, he had aided her in upgrading a few programs that made better use of her time at work, or helping her learn her way around the mainframe. She had been more than grateful.
And that was what troubled him. Misty had always been kind and polite. Even if she had needed to leave the computer for just a few minutes, she had excused herself and informed whoever she was "talking" to when or if she would be returning. It was unlike her to simply leave without saying good-bye. And the last posting, what did that mean? Was it from her or one of the other hundred or so people who used the board? He waited for fifteen minutes, then a half hour more, prompting the board again and again and getting nothing new, all the while the hair on the back of his neck slowly rising. There were no more posts, no one else was on the board, not untypical for a Tuesday night.
It had to have been her. C, for Chameleon, his on-line name. She was calling out to him, and the 911 was only too obvious. What had happened, what had gone wrong that she needed help and she couldn’t return? Why had there been such a delay between her posts, what had happened in those eighteen minutes of silence?
Finally he could no longer stand the growing concern in the pit of his stomach and the list of unanswered questions. He had to do something, but the last question in his mind was obvious, what could he do? Misty was a "voice" in a vast, electronic desert, one of millions, a nameless entity who could be living anywhere in the world. He knew he had to try to help, but first he had to find her.
Thinking back over their conversations, he tried to recollect any information she had given him about herself, any little detail that could help him to try to form a mental picture of her and her life. He thought about her personality. She had come across as a cheery, intelligent woman, probably middle-aged, with a can-do attitude and a desire to learn just about anything. Although the Internet might be filled with people’s alternate personas, he never had received the impression that she was anything other than exactly as she portrayed herself. They had had long discussions about everything from cooking to sociology. She had two teenage sons whom she adored, and took any opportunity to brag about. They, as she explained, kept her young while making her old, although she was always quick to point out that they were good boys. She had taken her present job when they were old enough for her to leave them alone at night, with a reliable neighbor next door, and as of yet, they had been up to her trust.
Could that be it, could something have happened with one of the boys? It might have been, but Jarod was sure that if that were the case, she would have dashed off some quick message explaining. The 911 was not an explanation, it was a cry for help.
He thought about her job. She had started out as simple data entry, taking information off of reams of paper and entering it into the insurance companies electronic files. As she had become more confident and learned the system, she had advanced to a position where she was now manipulating some of this same data, generating reports and graphs for the corporate types to use in their planning and budgeting. With her promotion, she had been offered a regular nine-to-five position, but had begged to stay on at night so that she could spend the days with her mother, a partial invalid due to Alzheimer’s disease, now living with her and her sons. The insurance company, recognizing her talent, had capitulated and given her a security key card of her own, allowing her access to the building at any hour. Given her busy life, Jarod wasn’t sure when she slept.
During her breaks, she had hopped onto the Internet, bouncing around a variety of different chat rooms and bulletin boards, filling up her lonely lunch hour with spirited talk, knowledgeable discussions and the occasional motherly advice. She had more than a few friends, regulars at the different sites she would visit, but almost always, Monday through Thursday, she would at least check in at this board. He had found her accidentally one night as he was casting about in his never ending discovery of humanity, and they had struck up a fast and easy friendship.
She had said that she had blue eyes. That and everything else he remembered took him absolutely nowhere. The light from the screen still reflected on his face and the message mocked him, "C 911!"
It took him over an hour to find the actual server that powered the message board and then to get past the security to access their archives. The server was owned by a large company that had more concern for their commercial interests than the web sites that they had set up, most of them as just another form of advertising. This bulletin board had probably started out as something completely different, at least in the minds of it’s original creators, but over the course of time it had, like many things in the digital domain, taken on a life of its own. Now, the board served as a gathering place for a variety of people looking for a variety of things: information, companionship, or simply a place to be heard, all connected by the tenuous thread of a common interest. Jarod had found the board a perfect place to continue his study of the human condition while interacting in a personal yet anonymous way.
Looking through the directory of the server, Jarod determined that the heaviest security was found around the commercial aspects; the rudimentary safeguards around the web sites belied their overwhelming concern for their business, not their "customers." Someday he might have to offer his services to their IT department and teach them a little more about backdoors. Had he wanted to, it would not have been difficult to access any of their departments through the Internet.
His interest now, however, was not in the business, but in the archives of the bulletin board. While he had an excellent memory, he could not be sure of all of the conversations he had had with Misty over the last year. Now and again, he knew that she had unwittingly given him clues to her identity and her location, but, in the interest of their mutual anonymity, he had purposely ignored them. Now he would need to go back and find each of the references, put them together and pray that they gave him enough information to try to find her.
The archives were vast, tucked away in another library program. Jarod was sure that they were kept for an obscure reason, either for some luckless soul to analyze and use for "market research" or simply kept to cover their company’s corporate behind. Either way, there were months of transcripts, going back to before he had first visited the site. Leaving as little electronic trail as possible, he downloaded the files into his own computer, sorted through to find all of Misty’s posts, and began the search.
****
IS ANYBODY OUT THERE THIS EVENING?
[MISTY]
12:05AMHELLO, MISTY. HOW ARE YOU TONIGHT…
[CHAMELEON]
12:06AM
or shall we call it morning? My pleasure to meet you.
THE PLEASURE IS ALL MINE, CHAMELEON.
[MISTY]
12:08AM
I have never chatted with a lizard before. *smiling* Tell me, are you the kind that enjoys basking in the warm sun?I DO ENJOY THE SUNSHINE, MISTY…
[CHAMELEON]
12:09AM
But I rarely have the opportunity to stay in one place long enough to bask. Are you one of those whom they call a "sun worshiper?"*LAUGHING* NOT REALLY, MORE LIKE A VAMPIRE…
[MISTY]
12:12AM
locked up in this basement. Why must computers always be in windowless rooms? Not that there is anything to see at this time of night. No, actually, I burn easily. I took my family to the State Fair last weekend and I ended up all pink, even with sunscreen.
****
Jarod noted the date; the second week of July. He had his first clue, now to narrow down a list of fairs held that weekend. He had another bit of information, she had called it a "State Fair." Hopefully, there would only be one "State Fair" per state. Unfortunately, she had never said whether the fair was in her city, or if she had traveled to it.
A little checking found seven states with fairs that either started or ran through that weekend. Seven states out of fifty, if she had not crossed the border of her own. He could only hope.
****
GUTEN MORGEN, CHAMELEON
[MISTY]
12:23AM
How are you today?SPRECHEN ZIE DEUTSCHE, MISTY?
[CHAMELEON]
12:25AMNEIN, NEIN, CHAMELEON.
[MISTY]
12:26
That’s just about the limit of my foreign language abilities. *laughing* I never was able to remember how to conjugate the verbs. Do you speak any other languages? Of course that assumes that English is your native language, and I should not make that assumption.A FEW, AND IT IS A SAFE ASSUMPTION.
[CHAMELEON]
12:28
But shouldn’t we be saying "Guten Abend?"I AM AN OPTIMIST, I CONSIDER THE DAY TO
[MISTY]
12:31AM
to be started already, albeit barely, but still another chance to make the best of it. Besides, working these hours, night and day have very little meaning other than where the sun happens to be at the time.
****
Another hint. She was probably in the same time zone as the server. Jarod quickly checked the physical address of the server, a city outside of Dallas. That meant the Central Time Zone, and also eliminated four of the states from his list. He was left with just three now, Texas, Kansas and Minnesota. He went back into the archives.
****
WHAT KIND OF WORK IS IT THAT YOU DO, MISTY,
[CHAMELEON]
12:04AM
if I may ask? You said that it involves computers, are you at work now?SSHHHH! YES, I AM, AND DON’T TELL ANYONE.
[MISTY]
12:07
*grin* Actually, it’s no problem. I’m on my break right now and they don’t really mind if I jump on the Internet, as long as I’m not downloading anything nasty. I work at an insurance company and I’m currently putting thirteen thousand pieces on paper into a computer file, one page at a time. It has to be the most boring work in the world, but it pays the bills.****
This was one of the days that he had helped her by showing her how to streamline the information input, developing a program that had eliminated some of the inherent redundancy of the task before her. With his encouragement, she had also decided to begin taking computer classes at the local technical college.
Scanning through the postings, Jarod found himself smiling. Here they discussed gardening, here they traded recipes for chili. Scattered throughout were various references to her two boys, almost always proud. Another conversation jumped out at him: her promotion. She had been so happy, yet given him most of the credit. He shrugged it off, knowing full well that Misty deserved the recognition for what she had accomplished, he had merely given her a little push when she needed it.
****
CHAMELEON, GIVE ME YOUR ADDRESS,
[MISTY]
12:01AM
I want to pick you up and take you for a ride in my NEW CAR!CONGRATULATIONS, MISTY!
[CHAMELEON]
12:03AM
You must be very happy. Unfortunately I have to be leaving the country for a short time, so I will have to take a rain check on the ride. What kind of car did you get?JUST THE CUTEST THING IN THE WORLD!
[MISTY]
12:06
I bought myself one of those new Beetles. It even comes with a bud vase on the dash board! I haven’t had a new car since I was married, and that was the one I traded in. After fourteen years, it had just about rusted into nothing, but I was holding onto it as long as possible. Now, with my promotion, I could afford to put a little on financing and get what I really wanted. Thanks again, I couldn’t have done it without you.****
Two more clues. He could trace all of the Volkswagen Beetles bought that month in three states, but he was fairly sure that the number would be daunting, and he didn’t feel he had the time. Her mention of her rusting old car had given him another idea – where would a car rust? Certainly not very much in Texas, probably not that much in Kansas. Without another option, he was willing to guess that she lived in Minnesota.
The Minnesota DMV was helpful, even if they did not realize it. Their computers stood up to his hacking only a little longer than the server had, until he was into the vast database holding all of the vehicle registrations for the state. He was able to first narrow the field down to one months worth of registrations, then only the new cars, then, finally, the Volkswagens and then the Beetles. He was amazed. In one month, dealers in the state had sold 179 of the quirky little cars, 119 of them to women. Exasperated, he downloaded the list of new owners, then returned to scanning the messages once again.
He needed something to cross reference this list to, another data base where he could compare names, and hopefully come up with a match. Reading months and months of transcripts, he hoped that what he needed would not slip by him unaware. He paused suddenly, remembering a conversation that they had had only a few months before as he reread the opening words.
****
CHAMELEON, YOU SOUND SAD, IS THERE
[MISTY]
12:34
something the matter?YOU ARE REMARKABLEY OBSERVANT, MISTY
[CHAMELEON]
12:36
Is it the tone of my voice?THAT’S NOT LIKE YOU CHAMELEON
[MISTY]
12:37
You aren’t usually sarcastic with me. My boys are great at using sarcasm to cover up when they’re feeling frustrated or hurting, which one is it with you?YOUR BOYS ARE VERY LUCKY
[CHAMELEON]
12:40
to have a mother like you. You are right, I apologize, and it is both. I have been searching for someone for a long while, and every time I feel that I am getting near, something or someone comes along to thwart me. It has happened again.I’M SO SORRY TO HEAR THAT, CHAMELEON
[MISTY]
12:41
May I ask who you are searching for?COME NOW, MISTY, I KNOW THAT YOU
[CHAMELEON]
12:43
have already figured that out, with those remarkable powers of observation. *smile**SMILING BACK* OK, THEN WHY ARE YOU
[MISTY]
12:44
looking for, is it them, or just her? Are you adopted?NOT ADOPTED, TAKEN, AND IT IS THEM.
[CHAMELEON]
12:46
And I also have a sister whom I’ve never met. My brother died soon after I met him.OH, CHAMELEON, I AM SO SORRY.
[MISTY]
12:50
I’m sitting here, thinking wishful thoughts about sending my sons off to boarding school because they are driving me crazy, and then you tell me this about yourself – I don’t even know what to say, other than my heart and prayers go out to you. If there is ever anything that I can do to help you in your search, please tell me.THANK YOU, I WILL. ACTUALLY, BEING
[CHAMELEON]
12:52
able to talk to you this way has been helpful. I’m getting to know what kind of a woman my mother was, is, because I’m sure when I meet her she will be much like you. Your boys are truly lucky.IF YOU DON’T STOP SOON, I’M GOING TO
[MISTY]
12:53
start to cry, and that wouldn’t bode well for the keyboard. If I had the chance, I would adopt you right now, but we would have to change your name. *s**LAUGHING* DON’T YOU WANT TO INTRODUCE
[CHAMELEON]
12:56
me to your friends as "my son, the lizard?" I’m hurt. *grin* But honestly, Misty, that is very sweet of you, and nothing less than I would expect. However, I think that I am a bit too old to fit into your family as a son, it would be stretching the term "older brother" to extremes.ARE YOU SUGGESTING THAT YOU
[MISTY]
12:58
fit into the family in a different way? Let’s see, mother is taken, daughter is out, hmm, what’s left…. *laughing merrily* I have to get back to work, Chameleon. As always, it has been a pleasure. Good luck on your search, I will say a prayer for you. Have a good day!YOU, TOO, MISTY
[CHAMELEON]
12:59
*smiling* Flirt.ALWAYS!
[MISTY]
1:00****
Jarod smiled to himself. When he had started that conversation with Misty, he had been angry and frustrated, at the end he had been smiling. She had a way of doing that for him and he appreciated it.What else could he do for her?