MAXWELL› Sin?
ERIN› Being ashamed. Having regrets.
MAXWELL› You are ashamed of your son? You regret having him?
ERIN› No. Only the way he was conceived. I guess you could say he was conceived in sin.
MAXWELL› Through an adulterous relationship?
ERIN› Not exactly. Worse, really.
MAXWELL› I don’t understand.
ERIN› It’s something to do with a sin you mentioned earlier.
MAXWELL› I mentioned? But what? Murder?
I didn’t respond. He’d get it fast enough.
MAXWELL› Your son was conceived through _incest_?
ERIN› Not exactly. It’s complicated.
MAXWELL› But I must know!
ERIN› I’ve said too much already.
MAXWELL› But Erin, I can help you with this. I have specialized knowledge. We must explore this!
ERIN› I need time to think.
MAXWELL› Of course. Yes. I understand. But we must speak again. The soonest possible time for me would be late tonight. Possibly very early tomorrow morning. Is either of these times good for you?
ERIN› Maybe. If I’m on-line, I’ll check the Blue Room. You can find me there.
MAXWELL› And if not?
ERIN› We’ll leave it to fate.
MAXWELL› How very appropriate.
ERIN› Good-bye.
MAXWELL› Yes. Good-bye.
After a giddy few moments staring at the screen, I called Miles back into the office. He snatched up the printouts of the conversation and read them with stunning speed.
“You’ve hooked him,” he announced, setting down the pages. “You know, Brahma sounds a long way from crazy to me. I feel exactly like he does sometimes.”
I took off the headset and pushed back from the computer. “Our conversations don’t have quite the same feel as his conversations with the other victims. I can’t put my finger on why.”
“I know. I don’t think he’s looking at you as a potential victim. A donor or whatever. He’s interested in some other way. Just keep stringing him along. By tomorrow I should be finished with the Trojan Horse, and we’ll be ready for Phase Two.”
“You sound like a bad movie.”
He grinned. “I like bad movies.”
That exchange happened four hours ago.
Since then Miles has been coding more or less steadily. He seems to have scented the finish line, and only stops for fresh Mountain Dew. Now and then he’ll shout something like “FMH!”-which he explained was a polite form of “Fuck me harder!”-a hacker curse usually directed at some particularly annoying piece of software that refuses to behave as it should, in this case his Trojan Horse.
I’ve read half a paperback novel, cleaned up the kitchen, and driven to Yazoo City and back, all in an attempt to keep my nerves steady. Knowing that the man we call Brahma is looking forward to his next conversation with me is more than a little unsettling. This connection is what I set out to establish, but now that I have, all I want is for Miles to finish his Trojan Horse so we can get the whole thing over with.
Around five-thirty it strikes me that Drewe might like it if I whipped up some dinner before she gets home. She might like it a lot. I have a vision of fresh tomatoes from our garden, then remember the heat-shriveled specimens I saw this morning. Without intravenous therapy they’ll never be fit for a dinner table. As usual, it’s too late to thaw anything out. I am nearly reconciled to tuna on toast when Miles walks into the kitchen with his laptop and says, “Why don’t you fire up the search engine?”
I start to remind him that Brahma said he wouldn’t be back on-line until late tonight, but arguing with Miles is useless. I expel the air from my lungs with a disgusted plosive, walk back into the office, and sit down at the EROS computer.
The search program begins its monotonous task with an efficient clicking of the hard drive. Searching for Brahma’s prose patterns takes much longer than a search for an account name. After a few distracted minutes of playing guitar on my bed, I look over at the computer. The monitor shows the screen format of a private room. The prompt at the top of the page reads: MAXWELL›. The answering prompt reads: LILITH›.
First I yell for Miles. Then I rehang my guitar on the wall and sit down before the EROS computer.
“He lied to me,” I say when Miles comes in. “He’s back on. He’s talking to Lenz again.”
“I thought he might. Same old shit from Lenz? Freud dispensed at the level of Sally Jessy Raphael?”
“Looks like it. Want me to turn up the sound?”
“Nah.” He sits on the bed and opens his laptop.
As I skim the usual purple prose, a wave of heat suffuses my face. My eyes have locked onto one passage like a laser sight.
MAXWELL› I understand too well. The majority of men are asshoels.
I reread the text above this line, but everything looks normal. Then this appears:
MAXWELL› We’ve discussed HIV in abstract terms, but we’ve neveer asked each other the one iportant question.
I try to yell “Miles!” but my voice comes out a whisper.
“You say something?” he asks.
“Typos! Look at this!”
In seconds he’s reading the screen over my shoulder.
“He keeps making them,” I murmur.
“He’s not using his voice recognition unit.” Miles grips my shoulder. “He’s on the move!”
My chest feels hollow. “Lenz knows that, right?”
“Got to. The FBI agents at EROS probably saw the typos before you did. Scroll back up. I’ll bet he’s been making errors during the whole exchange.”
I scroll through the previous lines and verify that Miles is correct. “Okay,” I say, trying to calm down. “Okay, they must have seen that. Too many to miss.”
“Brahma goes mobile two or three days before a kill,” I remind him. “Based on his error rate and the old murder dates, anyway.”
“Reconnaissance,” says Miles. “He’s out there right now using a laptop and a cellular. I wonder how close he is to that safe house.”
“I’m calling Lenz,” I decide aloud.
“Why? The FBI’s gearing up to slam this guy down right now.” Miles runs one hand over his still ridiculous crewcut. “You know, now’s the time to trace him.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s on a cellular, and we know where he’s headed.”
“I’m calling the safe house, Miles.”
“Go ahead, but they’re just going to blow you off.”
“Fine.” Scrounging in my wallet for the number Lenz gave me, I find it and drop it by the phone. My call is answered on the second ring.
“Yes?” says a female voice.
