Day Nine
The code made no sense. The code made no sense, but he kept working. Type, compile, errors, check, type, compile, errors, check… he had no idea what time it was anymore, but it was dark and Beth still wasn’t home.
She hadn’t said a word before leaving for work that morning, hadn’t called to say she’d be late. Really, he hadn’t heard her voice at all since the anonymous 911 call from the pay phone the night before. He’d never felt so isolated with people around.
He kept seeing Laura’s hands on the floor, everywhere he went. The first time it happened, he nearly screamed. Now he expected it. Under the desk where he sat, her hands would be there. It was like some crazy subconscious manifestation of guilt. He deserved it, he knew. But it didn’t make it any easier.
He closed the version of the file he’d been working on. “iSA” is what they called it. Security App for iPhones. He had his own version, where he could mess around. Beth’s was where the real work happened. She told him to leave it alone.
He opened it anyway.
The code was immense, and the connections were far beyond what he could understand. He saw linkages called “infrared” and “heli”, but the rest was just a mass of syntax that confused the hell out of him. He scrolled through it half-heartedly, then compiled it.
The iPhone simulator popped onscreen, loaded up iSA, and then went black, like the UI had failed to load. He wiggled the cursor, but nothing seemed to be running.
Just as he was about to quit the program, a little window appeared. It looked like an old telnet session, with the green text and flashing cursor and everything. A second later, text appeared:
“Enter command?”
He stared at it, hands off the keyboard.
“Help,” he typed. He meant it many ways.
“Command not found,” it replied. “Enter command?”
He paused.
“Show camera.”
“Please select camera?” it said, and gave him a list of several computers that Beth had access to, his iPhone, her iPhone and one or two other devices he didn’t know about. He clicked the entry that said “beths_iphone” and instantly the screen filled with live video from inside Beth’s purse. It was mostly dark, but he recognized the green wallet he’d bought her last Christmas. He hit the “close” button quickly and the list of cameras appeared again.
He thought for a moment, then tried typing: “Start heli.”
“Specify heli?” it said.
He had no idea what to type. Name? By IP address? He tried: “Start heli 5,” just to see what it would say.
“Heli 5 activated,” it said, and he saw a small video feed from the camera on the nose of the heli. It was in a store room somewhere, surrounded by concrete and metal shelving. The video feed started to tremble, and Raj realized the engine was starting up. He clicked around the screen until a small control panel came up, and he quickly hit the “engine stop” button. The image stabilized.
At the bottom right of the control panel was a button he hesitated before clicking. “Weapons.” It brought up a list of four items: taser, needle gun, shotgun, and buzz saw.
He quit the emulator, switched back to his own version iSA, and didn’t type another word all night.
Beth came home shortly after he went to bed, and he wondered how she timed it so well.