Bobby rubbed at the back of his neck as he considered what the man was asking. “Ya know, I don’t even own a computer…”
“Lucky for you I brought a spare.” Roger was smiling now.
“I don’t even have a phone line at my house, Roger. Have you not seen it? It’s literally a hole in the ground.”
“I brought a satellite uplink with a paid internet account. All you have to do is place the dish in your yard, point it at the southern sky until you get signal and voilà! You’re online.”
“Jeezus. You sound like you weren’t leaving until I said yes.” Bobby narrowed his gaze at his onetime friend.
Roger finished his coffee and set the cup down gingerly. “Bobby, there’s not many people I’d trust to do this. We had a coworker give it a shot and they sniffed him out. He was outed and his family was threatened.”
“And since I have no family to speak of…”
Roger shook his head. “That’s not the only reason. Another guy got sucked into all that conspiracy crap. He actually believed that the government had built concentration camps all over the place and was just waiting for the proper ‘trigger’ before they outlawed everybody’s guns and started rounding up patriots.” Roger sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I trust you because you’re not stupid, Bobby. You know how to play into these guys without losing yourself.”
“Sucking up will get you nowhere.” Bobby smiled at the man and held his coffee cup in the air for a refill.
“Did I mention that we’ll pay you for your trouble?”
“Won’t be the first time I put my time in on Uncle Sam’s dime.” Bobby stared at the man and shook his head. “How is it you can talk me into doing things I swore I’d never do again?”
Roger chuckled. “You mean like that time you finished the tequila bottle and swore you were gonna…”
“Stop. No blackmail or I walk. I mean it.” Bobby held the cup out while the waitress refilled it. Roger held a hand over his cup and shook his head when she tried to refill his. “I swear to god, the people you work for better not know about that.”
Roger shook his head and reached for his wallet. He stood and dropped a ten on the table. “Take the night and think about it. I’m leaving Texas tomorrow at noon.” He clapped Bobby on the shoulder as he started to leave. “Just consider it a personal favor for me.”
Bobby nodded and watched as Roger walked out of the diner. He sipped his coffee and considered the pros and cons of the request. His mind tended to go off the deep end as he weighed the cons, but he was smart enough to know where the fantasy ended and reality truly sat. He set his coffee cup down and stood up. He glanced around the diner once more then hitched up his pants. “I guess it won’t kill me.”
Now, as he sat in front of the computer screen and read the rantings of the men in the chatroom, Bobby glanced at the three dead bottles in the trash and shook his head. “This shit is going to be the death of me.”
He copied the Word document and sent it off in an email to Roger. He clicked on the IM button and highlighted Roger’s name. “Roger, these guys are so misguided that any voice of reason is considered godlike. I’ve only been doing this for a couple of months and now once the monkey-poo fight starts, the first thing they do is call for me and ask my opinion.”
“Voice of reason? More like voice of experience, and these guys can tell that you aren’t full of shit,” Roger replied.
Bobby grunted as he read the message. “How much longer do I need to do this? Don’t you have enough on these asshats?”
A moment later his computer dinged and Roger’s reply shown in the dialog box. “Shouldn’t be much longer. Right now all we have is a lot of talk. DTM thinks some of these guys are just stupid enough to try something. Hopefully soon.”
Bobby groaned as he clicked the box off and stared at the chatroom chatter again. Talk about “putting bounties on the ragheads and letting rednecks loose on them” always seemed to crop up as the fervor died down. Someone always suggested lubing the soldiers’ weapons with bacon grease or lard. It never failed. Bobby knew better than to save any comments like those.
“I wish we could taint the flags they burn with a chemical that would kill everybody near it.”
Bobby’s interest was piqued. That was a new one. He glanced at the user name but it didn’t ring any bells. Who was GabrielsButler_72? He hovered the mouse over the name and comment for just a moment as he weighed whether or not he should copy it to his Word document. Just as he was about to click it, both the name and the comment disappeared from the chatroom. Bobby stared at the screen in disbelief. “Where the hell did you go?” He scanned the entire page and didn’t see anything similar to the user name again. He checked the check in/check out log and there was no user by that handle to be seen.
Bobby leaned back and debated what to do. He stared at the screen a moment and tried to clear his mind enough to think. He found his hands reaching forward, his fingers stroking the keys. “I like that idea, GabrielsButler_72. Too bad there isn’t something like that out there, huh?” Enter.
Bobby watched as other members
