Cyber Kittens and Cowboys (14 page)

She grabs, quickly stolen library opened to
local maps of Birmingham. She studies, intensively map then closes,
quickly eyelids. She’s tired of studying and reading about caves,
caving, spelunking falling asleep after eating three bags of chips
& two peanut cracker packs requiring three Cokes choking dry
salty entrees down her esophagus.

She wishes beyond wish she had access to
computer making her journey easier and faster since her degrees in
computers and her works in computers and her mind thinks in
computers. She has done pretty good with her limited resources and
limited time.

She glances at side clock: 11:03 pm,
stumbles, swiftly off bed & tears clean sheets from body then
shouts, loudly. “Hospital, dummy…the hospital.” Pamela can be
there…now…snooping and searching medical records of Ashley Slanton
not laying around here snoozing. “Hospital runs 24/7.”

She eye burns her new disguise of three navy
blue various sized sweat suits under extra, extra large baby blue
scrubs walking and trotting around the motel room for practice in
bulky and heavy clothes. She feels fatter and heavy and doesn’t
want people to stare at her new awkward self. She sets A/C on North
Pole cold to keep from dying of heat suffocation in little stuffy
motel room.

She waddles, weirdly to mirror & tugs
clothes neatly around neck, arms, waist and thighs from light nap.
She reapplies more makeup around blue eyelids, rosy cheekbone and
bright red lips. Her nails are painted bright yellow and cut very
short like nurses working around sick patients.

She replaces, carefully yellow short bangs
over her naturally black ones and long and short purple strands of
fake hair intertwines into her black braid to disguise her black
curly waist length hair. It looks funky but hopefully effective to
slide by hospital personnel.

She back pedals, slowly from mirror & eye
burns image top to bottom. She doesn’t recognize herself unless she
stands in bright sunlight. Good!

She grabs stolen book then stuffs into new
smaller backpack containing cash, new panties & personal small
items then flips, slowly over shoulder blades. She has perfected
this new disguise for upcoming-future-almost-happening interview
with Ashley Slanton when she finds Ashley from medical records at
Brookdale Hospital posing as fake nurse.

She floats, cautiously outside motel railing
for dangerous folks & crosses, quickly empty street to pay
phone at convenience store for taxi cab in heated night air of
80*F.

Time: 11:33 pm. Brookdale Hospital.

Pamela marches, steady around edges of
emergency room where most employees, patients and families gather
for nightly unpredictable events. She enters, nervously through
door & lopes, casually into lobby with bright lights and
information desk staff.

She sees, beautifully Gift Shop &
redirects, slowly footfalls to shop. She enters & collects
three candy bars, one package of bubble gum & four collar shirt
pins with Brookdale Hospital nurse symbols on them then moseys to
register counter for payment.

She twirls, purposefully black vinyl badge
with left hand & pops, loudly bubble gum for attention testing
her ingenious nurse disguise with unsuspecting night cashier.

Cashier advances to register & talks,
flatly. “Good evening.”

“Hi.” Pamela greets, nicely & grins,
toothy.

“Anything else.” Cashier asks.

“No.” Pamela does not shake skull in case
fake hair piece falls onto register & answers, singularly.

“These items don’t have employee discount.
Okay?” Cashier nods, once.

“That’s okay.” Pamela talks, meekly, chews
bubble gum.

“How you paying with your employee badge,
tonight?”

“Cash.” Pamela talks, softly then pops gum.
She flips back flap of backpack pulling $5.00, then sweeps items
into bag as clerk gives back proper change.

“Good night! Have a good shift!” Cashier
concludes, returns to side work.

“Thanks.” Pamela salutes, nicely then exits,
casually. She has passed minor test from sleepy cashier. She hopes
nurses are just as tired.

She paces, slowly to cafeteria for cup of
coffee. She doesn’t drink the toxin stuff preferring caffeine &
sugary Cokes. She replaces, carefully “play” badge around her neck
since she doesn’t realize hospitals give discounts to employees
requiring proper badge. Play badge is composed of toy police black
vinyl with black cord and taped photo of little girl wearing fake
yellow girl over her brown hair & colored big black letters:
DOLLY WALLACE across glossy cut-off from fake hair box. If Pamela
is caught, badge ain’t going to help or aid help but little prop
might let her slide by unnoticed. She giggles, lightly.

She walks, steeply carrying hot coffee to
third tier of empty corridor reading and studying signage for
nursing floors hopefully with low counts of patients and lower
count of visiting family members.

She turns right at intersection into 4SW
Nursing Floor. She paces, slowly by closed wooden doors
representing used and unused patient rooms with real live sick
people.

She slows, purposefully nearing middle of
nursing floor that appears like TV with circular station containing
six terminals some on top of counters.

She sits, gently coffee onto counter then
re-boots, quickly terminal at her finger tips. Machine beeps,
sweetly powering down. Pamela rotates, slowly skull side to side
for unwelcomed guests in her play shop.

Blackness exhibits screen. She re-boots,
swiftly. Brightness blinds eyeballs then sign-in box shows,
lovingly.

Pamela types: “ABCDE” for ID then “12345” for
password, striking ENTER hard.

Machine thinks, secondly then beeps, sweetly
tune of accessing hospital apps. Pamela grins, toothy.

Hospital use and pay common software vendors
for security simply because of money economics of medical industry.
These same vendors use common and traceable ID and passwords for
computer-challenged clinical staff within a single small town known
as a hospital. One hospital employs on average about 4,000 people
that’s lots of computer headaches every 4 minutes for tired and
rundown IT staffers working 24 hours, 7 days per week and 365 days
per year. Simply IDs and passwords are changed immediately by newly
employed nurses maintaining security procedures within hospital
polices.

Pamela employs her tricks to various sources
at work. Common “ID” and “password” works on separate
telecommunications systems, also. She giggles, lightly.

She accesses Brookdale Patient Medical Record
typing Thurston Slanton. Medical record pops, instantly on screen
as she locates private demographic information consisting of
address, telephone, physician then pokes & picks through bottom
menu for “death certificate” as report displays, magically.

Pamela reads, quickly death record, injuries
of broken bones with concession & insurance 100% payment of
outstanding bill with $0.00 balance. He died of heart attack. CIA
ain’t very creative.

Pamela can’t print hard copies of medical
records due to new Federal Government regulations of privacy acts
called HIPPA. She frowns, ugly.

She thinks, intellectually then pulls,
swiftly notepad of CIA code names from backpack. Pamela still can’t
figure out number chain on CIA string.

IT 106891618322 Slanton Thurston

She scans, slowly each numeric slot on
screen. She stops, suddenly. His birth date is January 16, 1986.
CIA String contains some of those single digits. She scribbles
numbers around on notepad.

1986, year of his birth, backwards.

The CIA string is month date and year typed
backwards in format.

10689161 01-1986-16, January 16, 1986.

8322, what’s that?

She shrugs shoulders once feeling confusion
of unknown digits but complete satisfaction of this particular
medical record is real dead Thurston Slanton. Pamela is here to
find alive Ashley.

She presses, tenderly computer EXIT prompts
backing out Patient Medical Historical Archive system, properly
before IT scan reveals improper access point discovering Pamela
illegal snooping.

She reaches, successfully beginning menu of
Brookdale Patient Medical Record. She punches, correctly Ashley
Slanton & sees, clearly there are multiple names displaying
“Ashley Slanton.”

“1, 2, 3, 4.” She counts, accurately. “You’re
good, CIA but I’m best.” She unscrambles birth date.

TAG 307891116540 Slanton Ashley

30-7891-11 03-1987-11, her birthday.

March 11, 1987 for Ashley Slanton.

Pamela back taps to beginning menu where the
nurse can retrieve patient by name, social security name or birth
date.

She types, quickly birthday March 11, 1987 as
new screen displays names. Other people are born on March 11, 1987
not just “real” & “fake” Ashley Slanton with 309,000,000
persons in US.

She scans, slowly & locates Ashley
Slanton. She blinks, swiftly eyelids shut then open. She sees,
clearly “four” Ashley Slanton with “four” March 11, 1987 birth
dates. Okay!

People can be named same and be born on same
date, same month but the CIA has carried this entertainingly
joke…way too far. CIA and hospital worked in tandem to disguise the
“real” medical records from snooping spies like Pamela performing
this illegal data search.

She clicks on “first” Ashley Slanton with
birth date of March 11, 1987. Screen blinks, slowly then re-creates
medical record for Ashley. Pamela pokes at bottom for menu of
“death certificate” calling up paperless item. She verifies,
quickly matching date in newspaper obit. Good! She’s got the right
Ashley.

Pamela flips, quickly to demographic screen
& scribbles street address from screen onto notepad with pen
then stops, suddenly. She’s got one Ashley but there are three
other Ashley’s.

She accesses “second” Ashley Slanton &
appears with death certificate on March 17, 2010 and different
street address, telephone and six different names of physicians.
Not good!

She repeats, precisely procedure for “third”
and “fourth” Ashley Slanton with death certificate on March 17,
2010, different street address, telephone and lots of different
names of physicians. Not very good!

She can’t print by hand mounds of data. This
is a dummy terminal, meaning the nurse can’t illegally download
medical/clinical patient data onto secret thumb drive or print easy
hard copies from machine only grab & read information with
eyeballs. Just awful!

Pamela thinks, intellectually & back
tracks to “first” name while querying the death certificate for
more information noting cause of termination is heart attack. She
searches all death causes: car accident, suicide and finally
cancer. CIA likes…way too much to write Hollywood fiction.

She clicks back to “first” name &
observes, acutely total 26 pages of medical record along with same
26 pages under each “name.” Pamela presses, quickly end of file on
page 26 looking for any useful data & sees, clearly “birth
certificate” for “fourth” name of Ashley Slanton.

“Birth certificate, why on Earth?” Pamela
whine, baby-tonish & snaps, quickly finger pads. “Of course,
she’s alive and being treated by physician. The physician would
need all her documents including birth certificate. Brilliant. So,
this is her, the right one.”

Pamela back tracks to “first” name &
locates end of file document seeing birth certificate also.

“Back to step 1.” She mews, painfully &
double checks end of files verifying all possess Ashley Slanton’s
birth certificate. “Which one is she?” She eye burns floor then
screen. She can’t stand her all night searching & hears,
distancely noises probably cleaning staff doing their jobs while
the patients are sleeping.

Her certificate looks really weird with
yellow bunnies wearing purple clothes playing with balloons.
“Keepsake Birth Certificate.” Pamela whispers, softly. These
documents are intended for framing and display in the child’s room
instead of using the State of Alabama original format with all the
boxes of crowded information containing home address, city, state,
zip code, hospital address and contact data and other useless
stuff.

State of Alabama Certificate of Birth

Ashley Louise Barnell

…
born on March 11, 1987 in Jefferson
County at 2:12 pm to loving parents…

“Blab, blab…her parents.” Pamela moans,
baby-tonish. She flips back to “first” Ashley & accesses that
particular birth certificate showing same silly yellow bunnies
wearing purple clothes. She reads, silently then re-reads,
again.

“Jefferson County at 11:20 pm. Hold on!”
Pamela talks, excitedly & flips to “fourth” Ashley. She was
birthed at 2:12 pm. This one is birthed at 11:20 pm. She eye burns
wall & ponders, deeply. “Birth times are different. I found my
clue but which birth time is correct.”

Pamela digs, carefully for Ashley’s obit
& re-reads, silently discovering no birth time. “Of course not,
dummy.” She re-reads CIA string of numbers and characters.