Darkness...

Sudden scratch and thud sounds, as if something heavy was dragged and thrown away...

The objects obscuring the view are being removed, piece by piece — at first, there is nothing but blinding white light coming through the holes, but gradually, as we're getting used to light, more and more of the scene can be seen. All kinds of things you would expect to find in a geek's closet &mdah; books, CDs, broken mice and discarded internal components — are flying away, tossed by a single pair of arms...

...as a high-pitched female voice repeats impatiently: "It must be here... somewhere, right here..."

"There it is!" announced the voice after removing the last item covering the view — some piece of cloth, probably a towel. The arms reached for the...

...camera?..

And, with a click, it all became pitch black again.



"Stinger! I've found the camera!" said the woman with the high-pitched voice, lifting said camera into the air triumphantly.

She was short and youthful, around twenty-five, and had all the distinctive traits of an African: a well-expressed round forehead, a big mouth, thin yet long and expressive black eyebrows, long black hair falling behind her shoulders in cornrows, and an ever-cheerful facial expression. In fact, if not for her skin color, sufficiently pale to suggest a Caucasoid, she could have been presumed to hail straight out of Africa — or, for that matter, any town district in the United States where African-Americans were commonplace.

Her head was turned to a young man with razor-cut hair, wearing glasses and earphones, sitting in front of a computer right next to her. The room they were in appeared to have been an office once, before being turned into one of those museums of discarded gadgets that sysadmins' chambers typically resemble. A second computer, opposite to the one taken by the man in glasses, was unoccupied.

The woman waited a bit, but the man was clearly paying no attention. She sighed, secured the camera's strap on her shoulder, and walked to the man to see what he was watching on the screen. "Stinger, what in the world is this?!" she exclaimed.

"Erm..." Stinger closed the browser window hastily and finally turned to the woman. "Widget," he grinned in an obviously forced manner, "is Sailor Moon's super power the ability to spin at that speed without throwing up?"

"Not quite," said Widget coldly.

"Did I grasp the basic premise, at least?" persisted Stinger.

"Mmm, yes..." answered Widget. "Mostly. But if you're into it, watch some real anime, like Love Hina. That's some... emotion, character development, not a repetitive and childish..."

"Enough, I get it, I get it," said Stinger defensively. "Never mind, I'm not the geek here. Next thing you'll probably recommend me is Evangelion..."

He smiled, probably expecting Widget to follow suit, but got a completely opposite reaction. Her joyful grin disappeared, replaced with a thoughtful and concerned expression. "No, it's too dark for my taste," she whispered, "and they were too careless with biblical references. Too frivolous... They may regret it — he does hear..."

"You believe?" asked Stinger innocently.

"I believe. Believe that he hears. Not that he listens." She swallowed. "Anyway. No time for chit-chat, you slacker. Did you find enough determination to copy the PRE between watching Mipipe clips?"

"Right here," responded Stinger, pointing at a USB flash drive with a heart-shaped case lying on the table.

"Good." Widget put the flash drive on as a necklace. "Let's move on, better early than late. We'll be able to get some sleep for the first six reports or so."

She leaned against a wall, waiting apathetically while Stinger, somewhat nervous, was shutting down the computer. Widget stared at a large poster on the opposite wall, showing a balding middle-aged man in a suit in front of an open window, playing on the contrast between the grey blandness of the room interior and the bright, colorful landscape beyond the window: golden meadows, a dark blue sky with white clouds, and a rainbow. And below this magnificent view, a corporate logo and the motto: Omnisoft: Defining your digital future.

But it seemed a bit... unnatural to her. Maybe the colors were too expressive, or the shading too explicit — but it looked more like a scene rendered for a big-budget Hollywood 3-D cartoon, but obviously not from a scene in real life. And that mismatch between the poster and reality has always bugged Widget — usually, though, she was too busy to pay close attention.

Having turned off the computer, Stinger walked to the exit; Widget followed. The switch was customized to make the light fade out slowly, as the two preferred it this way. Before closing the door, Widget looked behind, watching for a moment as the balding man and the panorama of impossible beauty were being engulfed in darkness.



..."It's your turn," said the angel in Stinger's voice, tossing Widget from the gates of heaven down, back to Earth. Widget cleared her eyes; Stinger, sitting right beside her, was poking her.

She looked at the presentation schedule, which she left lying on her knees before falling asleep. She found the relevant fragment quickly. "11:30 — Roy Buzzworth. 11:40 — Widget Styler." That's equality: the CEO is given as much time as a security strategist of just one division, among the thirty managers scheduled for this day's six-hour-long event. And the conference, scheduled to last a week, has just begun. Less than two hours ago.

"...developers, developers, developers, developers, developers!" finished Roy, the man from the poster, clapping his hands, as the audience applauded and cheered wildly. Well, at least he did not end his speech with some nonsensical plea about "integrated enterprise solutions" that would help them achieve "groundbreaking paradigm shift", as oh so many of their colleagues did. This, on the other hand, was simple, but nice — coming from a seasoned PR expert, who knew what worked on a certain audience and what didn't.

After the CEO left in his usual blaze of glory, Widget stood up, approached the table with the laptop plugged to the projector, inserted the flash drive and opened the file, looking at the hourglass cursor impatiently.

The presentation has begun.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said in the microphone in a calm and confident voice. "I am Widget Styler, the head of security strategy of the Internet department, and I am going the results of our latest security audit."

An uneasy silence ensued.

"Most of you are undoubtably familiar with the criticism surrounding Omnisoft's market-leading Internet suite, Omniweb. Rumored vulnerabilities range from mostly harmless denial of service attacks to malevolent botnets created with trojan horses."

Silence.

"While I do acknowledge that these independent vulnerability reports are true, we remain focused on —"

— and suddenly, her speech was abrupted. Literally. The microphone stopped amplifying her voice; Widget shook it violently, but to no avail. A few seconds later, the projector turned off, leaving only an empty screen. The audience burst into loud chatter, in which Widget could hear a mix of surprise, anger and impatience.

And then the lights went off. Momentarily. Not knowing what to do, she decided to exit the conference hall into the still-lit hallway and question someone there. With her camera still hanging from her shoulder, she ran towards and through the exit — luckily, it was right here, at one side of the stage.

Breathing heavily, Widget turned around — and spotted Mr. Buzzworth himself standing in the doorway, blocking her way back to the conference hall.

"Get her," he said calmly.



...Obviously, Widget didn't take the elevator, fearing it would be turned off midway. She ran down the stairs — luckily for her, this wing of the Omnisoft headquarters was only four stories high. By the time she reached the ground floor, the security guards down their had already blocked the exit. Left with no choice but to break through by force, Widget ran to a janitor, grabbed his mop and smashed the nearest glass wall. Before the guards could react, Widget was already heading for the parking lot.

Widget climbed into her car, a Toyota Sienna, and quickly started the engine, as the key was left in the ignition lock. So big was her shock that she completely forgot to take down the camera.

Rapidly changing thoughts were flooding Widget's head. Where to go..? For now — away from Redland, and the farther the better. First southeast towards Sumamesh, then northeast before reaching it, into the mountain area. She did not have any idea what was going on, what exactly Omnisoft was going to do after "getting her", and whether authorities had been alerted. If police was involved, she obviously had no chance to outrun them; hiding was the only option.

Or maybe, Widget asked herself a few more minutes of driving through the nearly-empty highway, the sense of danger was overinflated, and she had nothing to fear? She will run, but after ensuring her safety, she will call her colleagues back and ask what went wrong, and offer to negotiate in a way that would involve more talking and less legal action...

Suddenly, she heard the familiar Nokia sound — her phone was ringing from inside her shirt. She took it out, her hands shaking, and accepted the call.

"Yes, yes, I'm ready to cooperate!" she yelled hastily.

"Widget," said a coworker via the phone, "I'm having troubles with that online map thing. It says I'll have to swim across the Pacific to get to Tokyo — should I comply?"

"Very timely. Use your brain, already," exploded Widget, then turned the phone off.

Perhaps the most rational thing to do would be just going back — particularly since nobody appeared to be chasing her. If the Redland police was really after her, they would have caught up with her by now. But Widget felt so nervous that her brain was essentially blocking any other thoughts besides an escape strategy.

After half an hour or so of driving, Widget made it to the mountain area. She got the car as far as she could, staying away from well-maintained roads, and went farther into the wilderness on foot for a few more minutes. After reaching the top of the hill she ended up on, she stopped and looked around.

Directly beneath her, downhill, she spotted a narrow, rocky stream, and on the other side of it, there was what looked like a cave entrance. Widget carefully descended, stepped over the stream, even wasting a few seconds, which may have been too precious to waste, to film the area. She then entered the cave.

The entrance was narrow, with a low ceiling, but it widened as Widget was walking through it. Inside the cave itself, it was dark, and Widget, not having a flashlight, could not tell its size; however, judging by the echo she got after clapping her hands, it was ample enough.

Widget waited until her eyes adapted to the darkness, then turned on her cellphone again — its screen could provide, at least, enough lighting to observe the floor around her. "So careless..." Widget thought. "Wandering into a cave without even the basic spelunking equipment."

She looked at the cellphone indecisively. The signal was weak, but it would probably be enough. The stress was going away, and she was once again able to think rationally.

"Bah! What am I, a fugitive or something?" Widget said out loud. "I don't even know what they head in mind!" She started typing Mr. Buzzworth's number... but only managed to type the first five digits before, with a sudden "Wham!", a door (?!) opened in the farthest wall of the cave, revealing an entrance to a well-lit area behind and a silhouette standing in the doorway.

"Stop that!" the silhouette shouted in a female voice. Widget, astonished, nearly dropped the phone. She just stood there as the other woman, who was cloaked, ran to her and grabbed her arm. "Come!" the woman said angrily.

Widget followed. They climbed what seemed to be a short stairway, although Widget could not see the steps in the darkness. Behind the door was a well-lit room, narrow but long, full of worn furniture. Widget could now see the second woman — she was white, young — likely younger than herself, — had straight red hair and blue eyes, and wore a dirty robe that looked like it was not washed for at least a month.

The woman took Widget's phone, turned it off and wrapped it in tinfoil — several sheets of it were lying on the floor just beside them. Then she drew out some kind of hand-held detector and dragged it over Widget's chest — it beeped over the chest pocket of her jacket, where Widget kept her Omnisoft passcard.

"Rfid!" she exclaimed. "Phoning, and a rfid card, so careless! You're a living tracking device!"

"I just thought..." started Widget defensively.

"Thought? So you think sometimes? Think once more, you may like it. Birdie!" the redhead shouted across the room, presumably referring to some unseen third person. "The cover's blown! Prepare to take off!"

To be continued...