Final Encryption - Part 7

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Final Encryption - Part 6

Ricky tries, and fails, to grasp the situation...

Ricky followed the surviving members of the “intervention” team down the stairs and into the convent’s strange HQ-Basement. He’d spent the ride back from Montreal trying to sort out what had happened to Eddie, while the others alternated between distraught and furious. Only Marie-Ange was quiet. She had started murmuring a prayer a couple of times but then closed her mouth into a grim line before she finished.

She’d gone to the chapel  to properly pray, Ricky guessed. The rest were gathering in the basement, explaining the loss to the team.

“I should have realized that SBO would attack us,” said Nina softly, “given that we were getting close, it fits the profile...” She trailed off as Raven turned away and kicked one of the stone pillars.
One of the men took off the earpiece he’d been using to listen to a telegraph, “What do we do now? There’s been no word from Oldie.”

“Just wait Miguel,” said Gaston, “we’ll talk it over with Marie-Ange.” The others grumbled assent and then went back to pretending to be busy. But Ricky knew they were all thinking along the same lines as him.

He hadn’t ever been a survivor of anything before. He liked to think of himself as a bit of a renegade, sure. A man that lived on the edge – anyone that had seem him drive could agree to that. But Crowbar Eddie, a guy that looked like he could chew iron and spit nails, had been taken out by some digital ghost-monster and now Ricky was on its shit-list.

He considered telling everyone that this was more than he signed up for, but he saw a few red, puffy eyes in the group and thought better of it.

After poking around and looking at the array of working antiques they collected, he resigned himself to the fact that there wasn’t going to be any cold beer and sat down.

Just then, Marie-Ange threw open the door at the top of the stairs. Still in her nun’s habit, she had a ragged fierceness in her eyes that drilled holes into Ricky. He nearly stood up out of fear alone.

“Alright. This thing is dark, and dangerous, and its sniffing at our door. It took Eddie from us...but I won’t sit by waiting for it to take someone else. What I’m asking for isn’t easy, but you know in your hearts what’s right. We need to hit StormBrainOne, and I know how.”

Ricky was jostled as Marie-Ange came down from the stairs and began making plans with her team. “Hey,” he said as they began discussing a map and where he should drive them to get at SBO, “you guys can’t just assume I’m going in for this plan”.

This was how he ended up driving Marie-Ange and part of her team to Club Stereo the next night. As they approached on the street, they could hear the thrumming of the bass inside the enormous club.
Ricky sighed at the musical trauma he’s experienced since meeting Marie-Ange and her cohorts. “So, if this thing is all digital, isn’t going into a dance club that only plays electronic music kind of suicide?”

“Only kind of,” said Marie-Ange humourlessly.

Final Encryption - Part 5

   In which we meet Nina, see the team in action, and hear some more Wurlitzer.

   It was a fancy hotel of the kind that caters to rich tourists and business travelers, and can be found every three feet in Old Montreal.  Through its front windows, Ricky could see a pleasant lobby with dark, classic furniture and old, bare stone walls.  A man in an elegant suit sat in a leather chair and typed on a laptop.  A black briefcase lay by his feet, on a plush, persian carpet.

   The team was suiting up, which involved, as far as Ricky could tell, putting on canvas vests and what looked like WWI aviators’ leather helmets that covered the ears and made everyone look insane, except the grey-blond lady, who didn’t wear one.  Bare copper wires protruded from both pieces of clothing in several places.  Each team member then put an old, ebonite laryngophone over their necks.  The old blind man took a seat in the back of the van and switched on an old short wave radio.

   “Testing,” he said.  “Marie-Ange, can you hear me?”.

   “I hear you, Gaston,” the nun answered.

   Gaston, since that was his name, proceeded to test the connection with every team member.  Then Marie-Ange unfolded a strange map of the city marked with hundreds of coloured dots.  Waving her finger around Old Montreal, she gave her orders

   “Ok,” she said, “what Aurélien has given us is coordinates to this place, and a time.  This means that StormBrainOne will strike someone here, in eleven minutes.  We don’t know who, and we don’t know StormBrainOne’s reason’s for choosing that person.  We have analyzed its previous hits, and we think we’re seeing a pattern emerge, but we’re unsure.  That means we have to find out who’s the target.  Nina, that’s your job.”  

   The grey-blond lady nodded distractedly, her gaze lost in some faraway though.  

   “As usual, we can expect StormBrainOne to be watching, and we have to assume it can hit us too.  So we have to make it blind.  There’s two main signals to disrupt.  One’s on the roof of that building across the street, the other at the back of the souvenir shop on the corner.  Eddie, you take the roof.  Raven,” she turned to Crew Cut, “you take the souvenir shop.”

   Ricky frowned at Crew Cut.  “Raven?” he mouthed.

   Raven shrugged.  “Hippy parents,” he said, as he hopped out of the van and ran towards the street corner.

   “Gaston,” Marie-Ange went on, “you stay on the radio and listen.  Oldie will likely try to give us more info on the target, we need to be ready.  I’ll run point from the van.  Nina,” she finally said, turning to the grey-blond lady, “as usual, you go in.  Good luck, and God be with you.”

   Nina gave an enigmatic little smile, said “I don’t believe that God is anything else than a fluid power that rests within the human self and creates itself constantly through the collective unconscious and the universal human experience,” then climbed out of the van and walked to the hotel with careful little steps.

   “And me?” Ricky said, “What do I do?” 

   “You stay here with your foot on the gas.  We may need to get out in a hurry.”

   Ricky watched Crowbar disappear into an alley, heading for a fire escape.  “Fine,” he said.  “Now, can you tell me why we’re here?”

   “Not sure yet,” Marie-Ange said, “but Oldie sent us those coordinates over the telegraph.  That means that StormBrainOne, the digital entity, will strike here.”

   “Oldie?”

   “The Analog entity.  Its communications are imprecise, and it’s slower than StormBrainOne, but it sees a lot, and StormBrainOne has no access to it.”

   “And how will that StormThingaling strike?”

Marie-Ange shook her head and looked worried.  “It used to be it would steal money or hack into databases, that kind of thing, but as I said, recently it’s started to kill.  We’re not sure why.”

   “But you have an idea?”

   She nodded.  “We believe it’s eliminating witnesses.”

   “You mean people who know about it,” Ricky said.

   “Yes.  But we don’t know much more.”

   “How does it kill?”

   “Unknown.  Several victims seem to have just disintegrated.”

   Ricky’s heart skipped a beat.  “Just like Hans,” he said.

   Marie-Ange nodded.  “All we know is, it acts better if there’s strong digital signals in an area.  That’s why Raven and Eddie are disabling the cable boxes.  Gaston is also jamming cellphone signals.”

   “Ok.  Now please tell me why you sent that sweet, small, older lady into danger.”

   Marie-Ange smiled.  “She’s the one of us whose the least in danger, Ricky.”

   Ricky was about to ask why when the line crackled.

   “Ok, Angel,” said Crowbar’s voice.  “I’m on the roof.  Opening the box.  I should have the thing down in a minute.”

   “Good work, Eddie,” said the nun.  “Raven, what’s your status?”

   Raven’s voice came on the line, sounding tense.  “The box is behind a fu… frigging dumpster full of cinder blocks.  I’m trying to get to it, but I don’t know how long.”

   “Alright,” Marie-Ange said, keeping her voice calm, even as her face betrayed her worry.  “Nina?”

   “The front desk clerk just told me his life story,” Nina said over the line, “but I don’t think he’s the target.”

   “Understood,” Marie-Ange said.

   “How the hell does she know that?” Ricky asked Marie-Ange.

   Nina’s voice came on again.  “Same way I know you’re the second of three children, have an older s sister who’s a nurse or a lawyer, have lost both your parents when you were between sixteen and twenty-three, like to watch car movies and romantic comedies (which you’re ashamed of), and… no I’ll stop there, I believe that last part you don’t like people to know.”

   Ricky tried to prevent his jaw from dropping and failed.  

   “Nina was a police psychologist for thirty-five years,” Marie-Ange said.

   “Ah, profiling criminals,” Ricky said.

   “No, the cops,” Marie-Ange said.

   “The psychopathologies are very similar, in fact,” Nina said over the com link, “especially regarding ego weaknesses and the pathological detachment from the self.  Jung actually wrote that…”

   “Nina,” Marie-Ange said gently, “Please focus.  Who else is in the lobby?”

   “Ah.  Yes.  The lobby.  A man by the window with a laptop.  A janitor mopping the floor in front of the elevators.  A chambermaid with a cleaning cart.  A piano man playing music in the bar.  A mother and her two kids.  A couple of customers in the bar too, I can’t see them well.  Marie-Ange, there’s no way I can get sort through them all.  There’s no time.  I need more data.”

   Gaston was turning dials and flipping switches on his machine, shaking his head and frowning.  “I have nothing,” he said.  “Sorry.”

   Raven’s voice broke in over the com link. “I can’t get to the box.  That dumpster’s just too damn heavy.  How much time left?”

   Marie-Ange looked at her watch.  “Three minutes.  Keep trying.”

   Raven’s only answer was a strained grunt, probably as he gave the dumpster another push.

   “It’s not the janitor either, I just talked to him.  I don’t think he’d be a threat to StormBrainOne.  I’m moving to the man with the laptop.  Marie-Ange, you have to give me more time.”

   “Raven,” Marie-Ange said, “you heard her.  We need that box taken out now.”

   “I’ll go help him,” Ricky said suddenly.

   He opened the door and ran to the corner.

   “Wait!  You don’t have your protection suit,” Marie-Ange called after him, but he was already in the alley.

   Raven was wedged between a massive blue dumpster and a brick wall, pushing hard, face red and veins swollen with effort.  The thing wasn’t moving.  Ricky ran to the other end of the dumpster and started pushing too.

   “You shouldn’t be here,” Raven said.  “It’s not safe.”

   “Just push, Van Damme,” Ricky said.

   The dumpster was made of steel, and filled with concrete blocks.  It had wheels but they were caked with rust.  Sweat poured down Ricky’s forehead.

   “It’s not the laptop man,” Nina said over the com link.  “He’s too normal.”  

   “Gaston, do you have anything?”  Marie-Ange said.

   “I got music,” Gaston’s raspy voice said.  “Some Fender Rhodes track.  Or Wurlitzer.  Nothing we can use.”

   “Wait,” Ricky said through clenched teeth, “Wurlitzer? As in that shitty music Marie-Ange made me listen to on our way to the convent?”

   “I…  yes,”  Gaston said, puzzled, “we found that some specific pieces keep StormBrainOne away somewhat but…”

   “Nina, check the piano man,” Ricky said between grunts.

   “He’s right,”  Marie-Ange said.  “It’s the only lead we have.”

   “I’m on it,” Nina said.

   “Raven, Ricky, any progress?” Marie-Ange said.

   The dumpster was moving, inch by inch.  In a minute, they had enough room for Raven to wiggle behind it and get to box.  “We’re in,” Ricky said.  “Van Damme’s opening it now.”

   Nina’s voice came on again, this time a whisper.  “I’m with the pianist.  I don’t think it’s him either.”

   “Too late.  Strike time is now.  Stay with him and protect him.  He’s our best bet.”

   “Understood,” Nina said, her voice strained.  “He was just telling me about how he lost his cat three years ago.”

   “The box is down,” Raven said, as he ripped out a fistful of wires.

   “Good work,” Marie-Ange said.  “Now you and Ricky get yourselves back in the van.”

   “Marie-Ange?”  Gaston said.

   “Not now Gaston,” Marie-Ange said.  “Strike time’s in three… two… one…  Nina, brace yourself.”

   Ricky climbed back into the van.  There was a long silence over the com.  Strike time came and went.  After what felt like an eternity, Nina’s voice came on again.  “Marie-Ange.  Nothing’s happening.”

   Marie-Ange frowned.  “Nothing?”

   “Marie-Ange,” Gaston intervened.  “I’m listening to the Wurlitzer track again and…  it’s not the real thing.”

   “What do you mean?”  Marie-Ange asked, worry in her voice.

   “It’s digital.”

   “Oh shit,” Marie-Ange said.  “It’s a trap.  Nina, Eddie, get back to the van, we need to get out of here now!”

   “I’m on my way,”  Nina said.

   “Eddie?” Marie-Ange said.  “Can you hear me?  Get back to the van.”

   Nothing.

   “Eddie?”  Marie-Ange called again, her voice weaker.  “Crowbar?”

   Still nothing.

   Raven tried to hold Marie-Ange back, but she was already out of the truck, running towards Crowbar’s last position.  Ricky swore and followed.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Final Encryption - Part 4

In which we get a boatload of exposition, and almost learn what the hell happened to Hans.

   They traded the Tercel for an equally ugly minivan that handled like Kia Motors’ idea of a combine harvester.  Marie-Ange climbed in, followed by Crowbar Eddie and three other people that the nun called the intervention team.  Apart from Crowbar, it appeared to be composed of a tiny woman of about sixty with grey-blond hair, a young man with a crew cut and muscle shirt, and an elderly man carrying a white cane.

   Ricky floored it.  As they sped towards Montreal at twice the speed limit, Ricky, white-knuckled from holding the non-power-steering wheel, spoke again.

   “Alright, so, what’s going on, sister?”

   Marie-Ange nodded.  She’d had no time to change back into civilian clothing before leaving the convent, and her face seemed grimmer under the habit’s black and white headpiece.  Ricky had to admit she looked more at home in it than in the jeans and blouse he’d first met her in.  She popped a tape in the old tape deck and the power chords of Def Leppard filled the cabin.  Ricky’s grip on the steering wheel increased.

   “What I am about to tell you,” the nun said, “you can’t repeat to anyone, or you will die.

   “That’s a little un-nunlike, threatening to kill people like this,” Ricky said.

   “She wouldn’t be the one killing you, you rockabilly smartass,” Crowbar said from the back.

   “Who then,” Ricky told the ex-cleaner.  “You?”

   “StormBrainOne,” Crew-Cut intervened, like it made complete sense.

   “Is that your favourite white trash DJ?” Ricky asked him, and in the rearview mirror he saw Crew-Cut’s square jaw tense.

   “Ok, kids, calm down,” Marie-Ange said.  “Ricky, all you need to know is that this information is very dangerous.  ”

   “Like what happened to Hans?” Ricky asked.

   “Yes.  But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

   “Ok.  Explain.  I want to know.”

   “My name is Marie-Ange Lévesque.  I’m a sister of the order of Saint-Mary-Magdalen and The Holy Child and The Holy Gates Of Heaven.”

   “You should get yourselves an acronym.”

   “The order,” Marie-Ange went on, “is big on finding your calling.  My spiritual advisor insisted heavily on that during my years as a novice.  So, after working in prisons, on an army base, at homeless shelters, in food banks, with orphans, at CCS, in hospitals and in South Sudan, I finally found mine.”  She smiled and looked at the intervention team with motherly fondness.

   “And it was…?” prompted Ricky after a moment.

   “To assemble a team of experts whose goal it would be to restore the balance of justice, stop dangerous imbeciles who threaten the Earth, protect the meek, and save the world in general.”

   There was a long silence, during which Def Leppard had time to play two songs that sounded exactly the same, and Ricky considered jumping out the moving car.  Finally he settled for “You’re insane, sister.”

   Marie-Ange shrugged.

   “What’s that got to do with me and Hans?” Ricky pressed on.

   Marie-Ange’s face darkened.  “I’m sorry for your friend.”  Ricky could see she meant it.  “Our present mission is very dangerous, and it appears I had underestimated the reach of our enemy.”

   “Enemy?”  Ricky said.  There was a genuine worry in Marie-Ange’s tone that made him afraid.  And really, what the hell had happened to Hans?

   “Our previous mother superior, God rest her soul, was an old psychotic religious bigot,” Marie-Ange said.

   Ricky wondered what that had to do with anything.

   “When she passed away, five months ago, I was charged with cleaning up her chambers.  She’d accumulated a lot of crap over the years.  Papers, journals, little angel statuettes, a crucifix collection to rival the pope’s…”

   The pope had a crucifix collection? 

   ”…the collected works of Robert Fripp, all that.  Going through it, I found a key, wrapped in an old piece of paper where the mother superior had written Tool of the Devil. The key eventually led me to the crypt you’ve seen earlier today.  It contained only the old radio you saw.”

“The GE Colorama E-126,” Ricky said.

“Yes.  I plugged it in and switched it on.  Nothing happened.  Dead.  It was too heavy for me to carry out, and so I left it there.  In mother superior’s diary, I found an entry about getting the radio as a present from a devout parishioner way back in the day.  She writes that the moment she turned it on, an earthquake shook the convent, unhooking the crucifix above her desk and shattering the rose window in the old chapel.  Mother superior, being an old psychotic bigot, concluded it was a tool of the devil and had it stored away in the crypt, where it lay forgotten for fifty-seven years.”

“Maybe I could sell the thing on eBay to raise some money for charity.  Thinking I’d have to get movers to get it out of the crypt, I went to vespers and then to bed.”  

“But in the middle of the night, I couldn’t sleep.  Without knowing exactly why, I went back to the crypt.  This time the radio was on.  A faint yellow light illuminated its dials, and a crackling voice rose from the speaker.  It seemed to come from far away, and to be repeating the same thing over and over again.”

“What was it?” Ricky asked, intrigued.

“First, what sounded like a piece of an old radio commercial, that said You need to listen well, young lady.  Then a string of numbers: 573-515-B-H-719.  Then Churchill saying The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.  And last, Churchill again, saying We will never surrender.”

   “What the…?”

   “Exactly.  And every night, at exactly 2:17 am, the radio repeated the same words, the same string of numbers.  I started thinking this could be important.  I asked the team to look into it, and eventually we found the answer.”

   “What was it?”

   “For now, all I can tell you is the numbers led us to a recording.  On a hidden tape.”

Ricky waited.  He was starting to wonder if Marie-Ange was maybe psychotic, but she seemed coherent, and he was still intrigued.  Plus, again, what the hell had happened to Hans?  “Who made the recording?”  he asked.

   “Not who.  What.”

   “Oh for Christ’s sake,” Ricky said, throwing his hands in the air.  The van swerved dangerously into oncoming traffic, but Ricky put it back on track with one expert twist of the wrist.

   “Hey, careful man,” said Crew Cut. “And you watch how you speak to Marie-Ange.”

   “Alright, don’t get your pants in a knot, Van Damme,” Ricky said.  “So, what made the recording?”

The old blind man spoke for the first time.  He had a weak, raspy voice.  “An entity born of the analog world.”  

   “Huh?”  Ricky said.

   “We don’t fully understand it,” Marie-Ange went on.  “All we know is, all the analog technological devices that mankind created over the years, the old technology, like radios, magnetic tapes, cathodic tube TVs…”

   “Moog synthesizers,” the blind man interjected.

   “…And all that, it appears to have created some sort of consciousness.  Some crude entity that is aware of the world and of itself.”

   “And… what does that mean exactly?”

   “The recording was made of cuttings from early radio shows and old songs.  It was a warning The analog entity had sensed the appearance of a new consciousness, one different from it.  A digital entity.”

   The tiny, grey-blonde woman spoke for the first time.  Her voice was soft and slow, as if she weighed every word.  “And this digital entity is taking over the world.  Up until recently, it seemed to be content with controlling bank accounts and governmental databases, but in the last few days, it’s been leaving the confines of its digital world.”

   “It’s started killing people,” Crew Cut concluded.

   “We’re here,” Crowbar interrupted as Ricky veered into a narrow Old Montreal cobbled street.  “Suit up.”

TO BE CONTINUED.

Final Encryption - Part 3

In which we get a Bible quote, a 1936 General Electric Colorama E-126, and some nudity.

The nun led Ricky down a long stone corridor, to a chapel.  A few rows of cherrywood pews, four stained glass windows filtering the pale morning light into simple geometrical motifs on the floor.  The altar was some concrete modern thing from the sixties.  It reminded Ricky of a ’57 Buick, which made him think of his Mustang, and how it was probably stolen by now, by some greedy bastard who would soon regret being born.

“Don’t worry about your car,” the nun said.

“What,” Ricky snickered as they walked down the aisle, “you’re gonna tell me God will take care of it or something?”

“God has better things to do,” she said.  “And soon, so will you.”

“No I won’t.”

“Also, I think God hates red cars.  Now be quiet.”  She kneeled down in front of the altar, joined her hands together in front of her like a supplicant, and yelled:  “You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!”

“Uh?” said Ricky.

The altar pivoted with a soft electrical whirr and revealed a flight of metal stairs descending into the ground.  “Matthew 23:24,” the nun said.

“What does it mean?” Ricky said.

“Not a clue.  But it makes a good password.”  She gestured Ricky to walk down the stairs, and followed him.  She still had the gun, but by then Ricky was too damn intrigued to think about running.  Who the hell was this crazy nun, and what was she doing here?  Where was here, for that matter?  It looked like some sort of religious building, an old convent maybe, but it seemed deserted, except for that man with the strange antenna contraption he’d seen in the yard.  And he couldn’t deny that the nun had a certain strange charisma that seemed to be drawing him in despite his best judgment.

They climbed down into a large concrete room overhung with fluorescents.  Wooden shelves, packed with books and documents, lined the walls.   Three rows of oak desks occupied the center of the room.  Sitting at the desks were eleven men and women, working under old articulated desk lamps.  Ricky took them in quickly and the first thing he thought was that they couldn’t have looked less well-matched.  Dress, age, looks, hair, everything about them was dissimilar.  The next thing that struck him was that, where they appeared to be doing some sort of office work, there were no computers. 

In fact, the only piece of technology he could see in the room was an antique, massive radio that stood in the middle of the room.  Ricky immediately recognized a 1936 General Electric Colorama E-126.  An array of cables and wires ran from it and disappeared behind a stone column.  It appeared to be off at the moment.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Ricky said.  “What the hell is this place?  Who the hell are you?”

The nun put her gun away.  “You’re right, I owe you an explanation,” she said.  “But first, take off your clothes.”

“I beg your pardon?” Ricky said.

“We need to search you,” the nun said.

“Really?  I think you just want to get yourself some eye candy, sister.”

The nun laughed.  “Oh, I’m not the one who’s gonna do the searching,” she said.  “Crowbar is.”

A man that looked like a mountain with tattoos rose from one of the desks and stood in front of Ricky, who found himself staring at sirloin-like pecs.  He tilted his head back until he was able to meet the mountain’s eyes, but found only a pair of knock-off ray-bans.

“Your mom has fed you well,” he said.

The nun turned chastely around and stared at the wall as Ricky stripped to his shorts.  Crowbar’s search was surprisingly gentle, which made Ricky more uncomfortable than the usual rough pat-downs he’d gotten used to on some of his cross-border ventures.

“So, what are you doing here working in a convent for a nun,” Ricky asked as Crowbar checked his leather jacket and looked through his wallet.

“Marie-Ange saved my soul,” Crowbar said in a soft voice.

“You always exaggerate, Crowbar,” the nun said in an oh-you-sweet-talker tone.

“What’d it need saving from?” Ricky said.

“He’s all clean, Ange,” Crowbar said without answering.

Ricky got back into his clothes and Marie-Ange turned back towards him.  “Crowbar Eddie did some work for the bikers several years ago.  He was what I believe they call a cleaner.  I found him in the Bordeaux jail.”

“What the hell brought you there?” Ricky said.

“A call from God.  Plus I needed to get away from the convent and all these women having their PMS at the same time as me.”

“So now Crowbar works for you,” Ricky said.  “Doing…?

Marie-Ange nodded.  “Yes.  The explanation.  So…”

A fast clicking sound from a desk in the corner interrupted her.  She turned.  The man at the desk spoke in an urgent tone.  “Marie-Ange.  We have activity on two.”

Marie-Ange walked quickly over.  Ricky followed, puzzled.  The man who had spoken was well into his seventies, with short silver hair and a well-groomed mustache.  A threadbare tweed jacket hung on his shoulders like it hadn’t moved in a decade.  He was manning what looked like an antique telegraph machine.  “This is Aurélien,” said Marie-Ange.  “He’s our telegraph operator.  I found him when he quit the navy.”

“Honorably discharged,” Aurélien said with a smile that bore such sadness that Ricky almost looked away.  “Cross of Valor and everything.  All for burning down a village.”

“What do we have, Aurélien?” Marie-Ange asked before Ricky could say something.

“Coordinates.  With the usual nine-letter intro code.  It’s him.”

Marie-Ange’s face tightened.  Four people, two men and two women, got up from their desks and headed for the stairs.  “Where?” the nun asked Aurélien.

“Old Montreal,” Aurélien said.  He scribbled an address on a piece of paper and handed it to her.

“When?”

“Two hours.”

Marie-Ange’s jaw tightened.  “We won’t make it,” she said.

“We will if I drive,” Ricky said.

He had no idea what had made him speak up.  But he knew he’d put his finger into something that was about to eat him whole.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Final Encryption - Part 2

   The shitty Japanese thing that still clung to the illusion of being a car more or less sped along highway 10 towards a destination unknown to Ricky.  He was driving, with the baggy-bloused lady’s gun still pointed at him, but she was just giving directions minute by minute, like a living blond GPS with too flat a chest.   At least with a real GPS you could imagine the voice’s owner according to your own preferences.  Ricky sighed and tried to focus.

   One of his present problems with focus was that the radio was playing frigging Supertramp, from a cassette tape, for Christ’s sake.  Even with the windows rolled all the way down, the noise of the wind couldn’t mask the intolerable Wurlitzer chords that filled the hot summer air.  He tried conversation.

   “Where are we going?” he asked, screaming to cover the wind and the Wurlitzer.

   But the lady shook her head.  “You’ll see.”

   “At least tell me your name then,” he said.

   “Not here.”

   Not going anywhere.  “So, you like Supertramp?”  Gunpoint was a good excuse for shitty lines.

   “No,” she said.

   Ok.  “So… why are we listening to it then?” he said, and extended his hand towards the off button.

She batted his arm down with such force that his hand hit the gearshift.  “DON’T TURN IT OFF!” she screamed.

   “Ouch!  You’re insane.”

   She clenched her teeth, muttered “I wish I was,” and said nothing for the rest of the trip.

***

   They finally arrived as dawn brought a fine band of pink and grey on the horizon.  She’d made them take several detours and side roads, probably to try and confuse him.  Ricky let her think it had worked, but he knew they were about 15.5 km northeast of Lac-Mégantic, near the US border.  To the best of his knowledge, there was nothing out here.

   They took a dirt road and drove through a wrought-iron gate.  Ricky looked for a sign, a name plaque, anything, but the property seemed anonymous, at least from this entrance.  Then in the distance, over the trees, he saw a bell tower.

   “Taking me to church, lady?” he said.  “Isn’t it a bit quick?  I mean, I know how sexy I am, but maybe we ought to get to know each other a little.”

   A ghost of a smile played on her lips.  Or maybe it was a smirk.  “We’re here.  Turn left.”

   They stopped in front of a grey stone building that looked more than a hundred years old.  Morning mist still hung around a small courtyard with a statue of some saint in the centre.  The light was a ghostly yellow, and Ricky wondered when was last time he’d been up this early.

   She took the car keys and they entered a small coat room.  “Wait here,” she said, “I’m going to slip into something more comfortable”.  Right before she left the room, she added, like an afterthought:       “Oh, and if you were thinking of hotwiring the car, don’t do it.  It would explode.”

   “You’re bluffing,” Ricky said.

   “Maybe I am,” she said, and left.

   Ricky stayed in the coatroom, which smelled of must and incense and something else that made his nose itchy, like a weird cleaning product or something.  He peeked through a small window on his left and saw a man in the courtyard.  He was dressed in overalls and climbing up a metal ladder.  He carried some sort of contraption in his left hand, a long pole with some large copper cables coiled over it, and what looked like a big black light bulb on the end.  Before he could wonder about this apparition, the lady walked back in.

   Except she was wearing a black and white nun habit.

   “Please follow me,” she said.

   “You looked better when I could see some legs,” Ricky said.  “Why are you dressed as a nun?”  

   She laughed.  “Why do you think?”

   “Wait…  you are a nun?”

   She nodded.

   “But you’re young.”

   “And you need to get laid but I can’t help you with that.  However, if you will follow me, I will explain to you how not to die.”

TO BE CONTINUED

Final Encryption - Part 1

Good morning everyone,

Today we're starting publication of a serial.  I've always enjoyed reading and writing those.  As a reader, there's the feeling of being taken on a long journey, and looking forward to the next leg of the trip every week.  As a writer, there's the pressure of producing something regular and coherent over a long period.  I always found the pressure kind of liberating (when you have to post a story in two hours, you have less time to worry about whether you have properly developed your main characters profound motives and all that).

In any case, here's the first installment.  Enjoy!

   Custom cars lined the parking lot.  Ricky leaned on the hood of his ’74 Mustang convertible and smoked.  He’d found the piece, and paid a high price.  Now so would his buyer. 

    On the nearby sunken highway, cars screamed by.  Strings of multicoloured lights hung between lampposts and the giant, orange, spherical restaurant that overlooked the parking lot where classic car enthusiasts gathered every week.  Ricky distractedly appreciated a ’68 Citroën DS idling by the fast-food counters as its owner, a redhead in expensive jeans and ridiculous red and gold high heels, ordered an amount of fries that no one with that figure should have been able to eat.  He liked the car, and he liked the girl, but his mind was elsewhere.  Trying to figure stuff out.
   Like, for example, what the hell had happened to Hans last night?
   He lit another cigarette and squinted in the blur of headlights as an ugly, grey, recent, fucking japanese car turned into the lot and headed towards him.  It looked like a Tercel but it was hard to tell with all the rust.
   From it emerged a woman with straight, blond hair cut at the shoulders.  She wore perfectly creased jeans and a white blouse that looked too big on her.
   “Are you Ricky?” she said.
   Ricky nodded, blowing smoke through the side of his mouth.  Manners in front of a lady and all that.
   “Do you have what I asked for?” she went on.
    Ricky nodded again.  “Do you have the money?”
    She gave a strange smile.  Ricky had never seen that kind of smile.  It contained an equal mix of contempt, pity, sadness and some sort of vindictive glee.  It made him wary.  And curious.
    “Of course,” she said, and produced a large reusable shopping bag that read Magog Army Surplus. 
    Ricky checked it and counted. “All there,” he said, and went to the trunk of his Mustang.  “I’ve got your thing right here.  Genuine, original 1956 Ford radio antenna with vintage copper coil and couplings.  Took me forever to find it.”
   “Thank you, mister Ricky, well done,” she said, putting the antenna in the trunk of her own, well, car.
   “I hope you’re not planning to waste it on this shitty box on wheels you’re driving,” he said.
   Her smile grew enigmatic.  “I’m not,” she said.
   “Can I ask what you’re working on then?” he said.  “I’m the best mechanic around.  Maybe I could, you know, give you a hand.”  Get her talking.  Find stuff out.
   The smile disappeared, and she suddenly looked twice her age.  “There are things that you’re better off not knowing.”
   Ricky lost what little patience he had.  He took a step forward and loomed tall over the woman.    
   “Alright, let’s cut the crap,” he said, “What happened to Hans?  You know, don’t you?”
   She didn’t flinch, didn’t take a step back, just looked at him calmly, and again with that hint of pity.   
   “Hans is your partner, isn’t he?  You seemed to have a lot of affection for him when we first met.  Is he alright?” she added, with what seemed like genuine concern.
   Ricky lost it.  He often did.  “No, he’s not alright!  Last night, when we tested your goddamn antenna, he just… I don’t know… he disappeared!”
   She frowned.  “Disappeared?” she said.  “How?”
   “I don’t know, lady!  It’s just like he was a pile of sand and some invisible wind blew him away or something.”  Yeah, and he was ready for the nut house.
   The woman’s frown turned into a look of intense concern.  “Get it the car,” she said in an anxious voice.
   “What?”
   “You’ve been compromised.  Give me your phone.”  With surprising speed, she reached into his jacket, grabbed his phone and threw it in a storm drain.  “Now get in,” she said again, shoving him towards the Tercel. 
   “Hey, my phone!  You…”  he stopped when he saw her pull a revolver from inside her baggy blouse and point it at him.
   “I’m sorry,” she said, “Get in the car.  Please.”
   “But…  my Mustang…”
   “We don’t have time.  Get in now.”
   He got in.