Spirits in the Wires (22 page)

“So what does any or this
have to do with you?” Suzi asked, finally turning away from the screen to face Aaran where he sat on the other end of the sofa.

Aaran muted the sound on the TV and regarded her for a long moment. Sometimes when he looked at her—surreptitiously, when her attention was focused on something else, rather than like this—an unaccountable feeling rose up to collide with the other, more earthy, hunger of his libido.

He didn't know exactly what it was, but he could feel it now. There was this subtle something different about her that set her apart from the other people he knew. Something that rose from her like an almost visible aura. If he had to describe what it felt like, the first word that came to mind was blue—a warm, electric blue, if that was possible with such an inherently cool colour.

Maybe it had something to do with him seeing her through this growing infatuation he had for her. Maybe it was her living the way she did. He couldn't remember ever really talking to a street person before, never mind spending this much time with one. But whatever it was, she seemed to have a different take on everything, a different way of looking at the most simple thing. Like with this business on CNN.

She didn't seem to be in the least perturbed by what she'd just seen on the TV screen. Maybe once you were homeless, events beyond the ragged borders of your street life didn't really register anymore. Or matter. But it mattered to him. And the longer he sat here thinking about it, thinking of the enormity of what he'd gotten himself involved with, the more of a need he had to talk to someone about it.

Suzi was here. She was also so divorced from any other part of his life, that talking with her felt like it would be easier than with someone he actually knew. And it wasn't like there was anyone else he could turn to. But he
had
to talk about it.

“It's all my fault,” he said.

“I don't get it.”

“That guy in the computer,” Aaran said, jerking his head to the desk. “I got him to run a virus to bring down this Web site called the Wordwood.”

“I still don't follow you.”

“Something must have gone wrong. Don't you see? All those people got sucked into their computers. I knew this was connected to the virus the first time I heard about it. I just
knew
it. Jackson sitting there in my notebook only confirms it.”

“That's not a person,” Suzi said. “It's just an image—and not a very good one, either.”

“No. He's in there. Maybe not in my notebook, per se, but somewhere in the Internet. They all are. Jackson told me about these, I don't know, things that live in the wires. They're like voodoo gods or spirits or something. And they don't like people messing around with them. They don't even like people talking about them.”

He could see what she was thinking, how she thought he was crazy. She was probably seriously regretting that her clothes were still in the dryer and she couldn't just bolt from the apartment. He didn't blame her. He felt a little crazy himself.

“Hold on a minute,” Suzi said. “First of all, nothing
lives
on the Internet. That's just impossible. And secondly—” She pointed to the muted TV screen. “Nobody's saying anything about computers on the news. When you cut through all the bullshit, they're not really saying much of anything.”

“And you know what makes me feel the worst about all of this?” Aaran went on as though she hadn't spoken. “His landlady told me that he used to admire me. I'm such a shit.”

“Listen to me,” Suzi said. “Computers don't swallow people.”

“Then where did they go?”

“I have no idea. But they're not on the Internet.”

“But these spirits …”

“Web sites are set up by people,” Suzi said. “Living, breathing people, no different from you or me.”

Aaran shook his head. “I don't know …”

Neither of them said anything for a time. They sat on the sofa, watching the talking heads on the silent TV screen. The dryer stopped its cycle in the laundry room and Suzi got up. She took her clean, dry clothes into the bedroom and closed the door. A few minutes later she came back out again. Aaran noted that she was still wearing the T-shirt he'd give her under a zip-pered fleece jersey.

“Okay,” Suzi said as she sat down beside him again. “Let's not talk about where these people have gone or spooky Web sites because we're never going to agree on that. Instead, let's deal with where you're at. You feel responsible. So what are you going to do?”

“What
can
I do?”

“Well … you could go the police and tell them what you've told me.”

Aaran nodded. “And they'd believe me as much as you do. I know how crazy it sounds. To tell you the truth, I don't know if I even believe what I've been saying.”

“No,” Suzi said. “You don't talk about boogiemen on the Internet. You talk about the site. How this guy—”

“Jackson Hart.”

“How Jackson Hart brought it down with a virus. How maybe the people running the site have found some weird way to take their revenge on him,”

“Not to mention how many hundreds of other people.”

She shook her head. “No, just stay focused with this. Talk about what you do know. Nothing more. Let them make connections and try to sort it out.”

“I'll probably spend the rest of my life in jail by admitting to any kind of involvement. This is a big deal now. Way bigger than anything I was really trying to do.”

“But all those people …”

Aaran bent over, his hands against his face.

“I know,” he said, his voice muffled.

How had it come to this? It had seemed so simple a week or so ago— just a way to get back at Saskia and her too-cool crowd.

“Well,” Suzi said. “I guess the other thing you could do is contact the people who run the site. Do you know who they are?”

“Not really …”

“You must know something about them to have enough of a grudge to have your friend write a virus that would take down their Web site.”

Aaran sighed. He really didn't want to get into any of this. But he felt committed now, having told Suzi as much as he had. Besides, what would it matter? It wasn't like they knew anybody in common. What made him hesitate was that he didn't just want to get into her pants anymore. However improbable it might seem to anyone who knew him—including himself— he was beginning to care about what she thought of him. But he was into this too far to hold back now.

“It wasn't with them, per se,” he said. “There's just this woman. She treated me like shit and then she got all her friends to do the same.”

Suzi gave him a funny look. “I know how that feels.”

“You do?”

“Maybe we'll have time to exchange war stories later, seeing how we're sharing all these confidences. Right now let's focus on the problem at hand.”

Aaran sighed again. “God, I feel like such a shit. When I think of all those people … it makes me feel like a monster.”

“Did you ever hit a woman or a kid?” Suzi asked. “Did you ever beat on someone not as strong as you? Someone you should have been protecting?”

He shook his head.

“Then you're not so bad.” She smiled. “Or at least not entirely bad. So tell me what this ex-girlfriend of yours—I'm assuming she's an ex?—”

Aaran nodded.

“What do she and her friends have to do with what's happening now?”

“They were all really into this Wordwood site,” Aaran explained. “So I thought a way to get back at them would be to have Jackson take the site down with a virus. I wasn't planning anything permanent—and certainly not on this scale. It was just supposed to be an inconvenience.”

“But you don't know any of the people who actually own the site?”

“I'm not sure who's running it now, but one of the people who started it up lives here in town.”

“Then start with him.”

“It's a her. She owns a bookstore up on the north side.”

“Then we should start with her.”

“I guess …”

Suzi stood up. “So come on.”

“What, now?”

“Why put it off? Is it okay if I leave my stuff here till we get back?”

Aaran pushed himself up from the sofa and gave her a puzzled look.

“You're coming with me?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“Why?”

She smiled. “I've got a bunch of reasons. The first is, well, you seem to be a pretty good guy. I know you'd like to jump my bones—oh, don't deny it. You don't think I can tell from the way you've been looking at me? But the thing is, you've been polite and you haven't pushed or anything. After what my life's been like for the past few months, I appreciate that.”

Aaran was going to protest, but then he simply shrugged. He'd started out with the truth when they started talking about Jackson. He might as well stick with it.

“Secondly,” Suzi went on, “I get the feeling you don't have a whole lot of friends, and I know what
that's
like, as well. Especially when people you thought were your friends turn on you.”

Aaran caught something, not so much in her voice, as passing over her features, that told him there was more to it than that. A world of more. He wanted to ask her about it. He wanted to know why this whole conversation, why
everything
about Suzi was making him the feel the way he did. He'd never talked to anyone the way he was talking to her.

“I wasn't all that nice to her, either,” he said instead. “To Saskia, I mean. The woman I was trying to get back at when I started all of this.”

“But we've already established that you weren't hitting her or anything, right?”

“Words can be almost as hurtful,” Aaran said.

Suzi's eyes clouded. “Yeah, don't I know that. But you regret it now, don't you?”

Aaran nodded. Surprisingly, he actually did. Not because of the trouble it had ended up getting him into, but because it had been wrong.

“Who are you anyway?” he said. “You've got me saying things and feeling things no one else ever has.”

She smiled. “Maybe I'm your guardian angel. I mean, we're all supposed to have them, right? But who says they have to be these celestial beings floating around with harps and halos? Maybe they're just someone you happen to meet by chance and that meeting changes your life. Hell, if that's the case, maybe you're
my
guardian angel because I'm sure feeling a lot more human than I have in a long time. You know, being able to have a conversation like this where the other person doesn't think you're just some loser or freak.”

Aaran could only shake his head.

“Which brings me to my last reason,” she said. “I've been living on the streets for three months now. I know that's not a long time in the overall scheme of things, but when you're actually
doing
it, it feels like forever. Every damn
day
feels like forever. And the worst of it is how you just feel so worthless. But I don't feel like that right now. I feel like I'm helping you, that you appreciate my support, and that makes me feel like maybe I'm not as useless as people make me feel when I'm trying to get a job or panhandling.”

She paused. “I'm talking too much, aren't I?”

“No. And you're right on all accounts. But let's eat first and then I'll call a cab.”

“Let's take the bus. Does it go as far as we need to go?”

Aaran nodded. “We can take the subway up as far as Alicia and Moore and transfer from there. But what's wrong with a cab?”

“We'll probably still be talking about all of this and when you're in a cab, you don't think the driver's listening to every word you say?”

“But there'll be even more people on public transport.”

“That's true,” she said. “But only ten percent of them actually pay any attention to what the people around them are talking about. We'll just sit among the other ninety percent.”

“And we'll know the difference because… ?”

“I'm good at noticing that kind of thing.”

Aaran laughed. “Okay. You want to make some toast while I finish cooking us brunch?”

“Love to,” she said as she trailed into the kitchen behind him.

She touched his arm before he could pick up the whisk to beat the eggs.

“This'll all work out,” she said. “That's why doing the right thing is always the right thing to do.”

“We'll see,” he told her. “But these people dislike me something fierce. And …” He hesitated, then added, “I guess with good cause.”

“Don't be so hard on yourself.”

Aaran shook his head. He couldn't believe this woman. She was living under the worst circumstances he could imagine—penniless, homeless, and apparently, though he found this hard to believe, friendless—and yet she was still so upbeat and positive.