His jaw clenches, and his fists become tight, white balls. Looking to the sky, he says, “I’m having her evicted. That’s it. This needs to stop.”
I gather my computer and stuff it into my bag. I hit the button on my phone that tells Yolanda I’m ready to go.
“You’re not going to stay?”
“No, I should go. I’m tired, and we’re both crabby.”
“Fine.” He crosses his arms. “You should run the anti-spyware here.”
“I’ll take it up with Gage and Jim.”
Yolanda appears, and I run the fob over the elevator. I’m mad at Landon right now. I get that he’s upset about something, but he knew my software was still a work-in-progress when they bought us.
I’m angry with him for not celebrating how close we are. He knows this is huge to only be five seconds off of real-time. There will always be a few-second lag, mostly because direct translations don’t make sense because sentence structures vary from language to language. Whatever. This has to be about something else.
When I finally make it home, I sit in my dark apartment. I’ve been all over the place today, but right now I’m scared this isn’t going well. Joining Disruptive Technologies was supposed to help me, but I’m still working on my own.
What if I can’t get this to work?
What if they give my software to someone else to finish because they aren’t happy with me?
What if they terminate me? I’ll owe them their money—and I don’t have all of it anymore. I won’t be able to work in this area of software again. And I won’t see any stock options. My eyes pool with tears, and I let them fall.
After a few minutes, though, my fear turns to anger. I fire up my laptop, download two spyware catchers, and begin to run them on my hard drive.
My heart stops when they show three red flags.
There are two sniffers, transmitting both keystrokes and sound.
Shit.
I examine them more closely, and they’re ugly. Someone loaded these on my computer. I suddenly feel incredibly violated. I’m not sure what’s safe and what’s not.
It occurs to me that I probably have something similar on my phone. I leave my computer in the living room and use my cell phone to turn on some music close by.
For once, I’m grateful for the landline phone bill I get each month. It’s something my mother always insists on.
I pull my home phone into the bathroom, turn the water on, and make a call.
I ring Yolanda. “Sorry to bother you,” I explain when she answers.
“I can be back in twenty minutes.”
I nod even though she can’t see me. “That’s not necessary, but I need to see Jim and Gage. Can you let them know I’m coming in the morning? And Landon should be there, but I’m not sure me calling him is safe.”
“Do you want to meet tonight?”
“No, I need to be fresh.”
She agrees, I assure her I’m physically safe, and we hang up until tomorrow.
I take screenshots and close down my computer. I turn the television on and sleep with it that way all night. The noise helps me relax, and maybe it will drive the person listening a little insane, if I’m lucky.
Chapter 13
Tinsley
In the morning, Yolanda arrives at our agreed-upon time: 6:45. I would prefer to be going to the Y to swim, but I don’t want to run into Tomas. He wouldn’t like what I have to say. I didn’t sleep so well with the television on, but at least I know whoever is listening didn’t hear me even murmur anything.
The drive over to Clear Security is farther than I thought. They’re south of Market Street, close to the baseball park. There’s a big technology pocket here, and I interviewed with a few companies in this part of town.
We pull into the garage, and I get out. Jim comes to meet me.
I hand him a note I’ve written.
I found spyware on my computer last night and possibly on my phone. It includes voice and keystroke capture. Do you have a room with a jammer where we can meet?
Jim reads it and looks up at me, surprised. Landon pulls in behind us, and Jim hands him my note. After a moment he shakes his head, confused.
We silently follow Jim. He puts us in a room where the walls are padded, and Gage joins us. They look at me expectantly.
“I’m sorry for all the cloak and dagger. Yesterday I was having lag issues at Landon’s apartment in The Adams. Landon thought it was an excuse, because we’ve not made as much progress as he’d like. Part of me wondered if it was caused by something besides the software. From my home network, I ran the McMillan Spyware Detector and the Julian Spyware Sniffer. Both identified different spyware on my computer, and I have to believe it could be on my phone. There may be others.” I show them the photos from my cell phone of the spyware, just in case the alerts don’t show up here.
A woman appears with a carafe of coffee and cups.
I boot up my computer and hope for the best. Thankfully, the alerts are still there.
“What the fuck?” Landon demands.
“This wasn’t on my computer three weeks ago, before I joined Disruptive,” I tell him.
“We ran the Thompson Spyware check, which I suppose Mattis would have known about and been able to
