Thanks for checking out the next #SaturdayScenes installment for my in-work Ghost Writer, book 6 of the Our Cyber World series. You may access the story summary and other sample excerpts through the table of contents.
I’m looking forward to hearing what you think!
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Over lunch, Cynthia has piqued Vivian’s interest with details from her past she wants recounted in her memoir. But before they can go on, they need to go to a secured location…
“Quite the caravan,” I say, breaking the silence.
For the last few minutes, Cynthia has time-spliced her time and attention between the road and her phone. It’s making me nervous. We have no-texting-while-driving laws for good reason. Nonetheless, I must admit she seems most adept at this. Her driving suffers none of the effects I’ve experienced when I indulge in distracted driving to tend to my social media needs.
“Good. We can talk,” she says.
I lean over just in time to catch her cellphone’s screen before she blacks it out. It’s flashing the same blue-green indicator I saw in Andre’s phone when he scanned my hotel room for listening devices.
“You don’t have to do this,” Cynthia says. “None of it. They’ll make you feel like you have to. They’ll pull something from your past for good ol’ leee-verage. Don’t be fooled. You are a free citizen. No, thank you is a perfectly sound answer.”
I pause for a moment. Less than twenty-four hours ago an alleged artificial intelligence gave me the same advice.
“I thought you wanted me to write your memoir.”
“Yes, of course I do. That and I want to make sure they keep believing I want to also.”
I blink. “What? Who’s they?”
“I think you know that well enough.” With a sideways glance, she raises her eyebrow. “I’ve seen your file. Your drug cartel embroilment. The Ernesto episode. Your producer’s sad demise. They’ll pull both rabbits out of the hat. They’ll put on a show and try to wow you. Don’t be fooled. It won’t feel like it, but you are in charge.”
Her words give me pause. Do they have new evidence about what transpired between Ernesto, Ivan and me? With Roger? What about Andre? What do they know about what he did? Is that why he’s playing along now? Because they pulled his strings? Up to now I’ve thought I have all my bases covered on that front. Things didn’t close out cleanly, but in the end, my job as a DEA informant came to a somewhat successful conclusion. The Feds had no evidence to hold me for anything else. Am I getting pulled into that mess again? A new, messier mess? Both of the above?
“I’m here to write your memoir,” I say.
“Of course you are.”
“What’s the problem, then?”
She taps on the steering wheel with her fingernails. “They’re going to ask you about Erin.” Her voice has almost dropped an octave, or it feels as if it has. Her tone is even, calm, monotone.
“Is that what this is about? This Erin, alleged rogue AI that can transform reality or the perception thereof?”
She gives me another sideways glance, complete with raised eyebrow. “How well do you know this Erin?”
“I may have read her Wikipedia page, like everyone else. I might have run across a couple of her blog entries, also like everybody else.”
“Yes, just yesterday, I’m told.” She lets that declaration hang between us, heavy and yet aloft. “Why the sudden interest?”
I feel the blood draining from my face. “How would you know that?”
“Oh, Vivian. You have so much to learn. By this evening you will know the answer to that and so much more. Just remember. No, thank you is a perfectly acceptable answer.”
“I asked, how would you know that?”
“I was briefed last week. Among other things, I learned about this novel of yours, how it sizzled-fizzled into obscurity, only to receive a glowing review from Erin and up-surge back onto the best-seller list over the last two weeks. How quaint of you to not even notice. Or should I say how self-absorbed?”
I look straight ahead. Though I try not to, I’m clenching my fists.
“Yes, very quaint. Laboring so hard with your next novel, for the art of it, for your passion, I suppose. Can’t even spare the time to raise your head and bask in the sudden onslaught of praise for your work.”
“So this is about a book review I got?”
“Well, it did get me to move your novel to the top of my reading list. I just had to start and finish it, couldn’t put it down, though not for the usual reasons. Read it in three days, through one long weekend.” She purses her lips like she just swallowed a bitter grapefruit in one go. “But I still maintain what I told your publisher. I absolutely loved it.”
“And why are they so interested in this review or my novel for that matter?”
Cynthia faces me with a mock forlorn smile, then returns her attention to the road.
“You must start picking up on these things a bit faster,” she says. “With a little practice you will start catching on, I hope.”
“Great. For now how about you draw me a picture? In color, please.”
“They are interested because they think it is of crucial importance that she has taken a vibrant interest in you. They think that your budding friendship with her is something they can use to bring her in.”
“Bring her in?”
“Yes, I believe their preferred expression is,” raising one hand to draw an air quote, “put her back in the box.”
“And how am I supposed to help with that?”
“By cooperating, of course. By putting yourself out there for God and country and national security and any other warm and fuzzy things that will get your sacrificial juices going.”
“Your memoir, then… We’re not writing it? Or we’re just pretending—”
“Don’t be silly, dear. Of course we’re writing my memoir. We’re writing it in full and with total flare and fanfare. It’s all part and parcel of the same mission.”
“The mission,” I say, not so much to ask a question as to cement in my mind what this is all about.
“Yes, the mission, also known as the cover. The act. And that’s the other shoe that needs to drop for you. The acting part.”
I let myself sink into the plush leather seats. I rest my arm against the window and rest my face on my arm. The road goes by in a blur, my past and this new unexpected present blending into one nonsensical smear.
“You get that,” Cynthia continues. “The perfection of it all, the convergence of Erin’s interest in you, your somewhat tarnished past and the skills you bring to the game.”
I close my eyes, but I keep seeing the smeared landscape speeding by.
“Here’s something that might go on my memoir,” she adds. “And you’ll love it because it provides such an indelible point of commonality between us. Ready?”
I keep my eyes closed.
Cynthia kills her pause with, “We’re fellow thespians.”
With fists clenched tighter, I manage to avoid a groan.
“In college I was a psychology major. As an elective, I took an acting class. I liked it so much, I took another, and another, until I decided to minor in it. Theater arts. I felt so sophisticated. And what a fortunate thing for me. It seems certain recruiters were taken with my skill mix, namely the ability to read and counsel people and to make them read me as something other than what I am.”
She allows a long pause, and we drive for a few minutes before I open my eyes and shift in my seat so I can face her.
“If you’re working for them,” I say, “then why tell me all this? Why tell me I can back out?”
“That line of inquiry arises from one tenuous assumption, namely that I work for them.”
“Or maybe the real assumption is that you want to gain my confidence and are pretending to be on my side. Acting.”
That elicits another raised brow and a proud smile. “Atta girl. Now you’re catching on. That’s more in line with someone who navigated the mine fields of DEA undercover work inside a Mexican cartel organization.”
“You still haven’t answered my question. What’s your angle here?”
“Oh, yes. Who am I working for? Well, when in doubt, I always work for the good guys. Most of the time—and I’m thinking mostly in the past here—they are the good guys. Or were. A lot of the time, mostly at present, it’s terribly hard to tell the difference. Which leaves me. I work for me. I strongly recommend you do likewise.”
Whether from the weight of it all, or from a long morning negotiating work unlike any I’ve done in my life, a wave of exhaustion envelops me. It drags me under, and once more I sink into my seat and close my eyes.
Cynthia lets me be. She pats me on the forearm and says nothing. We drive in silence broken only by road noise until we arrive at our destination.
I open my eyes to see a large, yet unremarkable rectangular building rise up four stories high at the end of a wide, sparsely populated parking lot. Atop of the building I read the company’s name. Infostream.
“Home, sweet home,” Cynthia mutters with a bitter edge to her voice.
“This is the company you and your husband built,” I say, recalling a conversation we had at the start of our morning and what I’ve read on the Internet.
“Built is not the word I’d use,” she replies. “But we can clean up the semantics later.”
“You’re still part owner here,” I say. “With a forty-five percent interest, as I recall? But you and your husband don’t run it anymore?”
“Oh, dear, no. That is, of course, if Martin and I ever ran it in the first place. And it’s more like thirty-five percent these days. But enough to keep the juices flowing.”
We look at each other, and she must read the question mark on my face.
“You will find out soon enough who runs it,” she adds.
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