Creating a Monster ch 11
It was nearly noon buy the time we got up. I was doing better than Allison, not having quite the same chemical cocktail cursing through me. She got up, showered, changed, and I followed, except the only clothes I had are what I came in. I found the dress crumbled somewhere, and managed to use it to cover what I could.
I told the girls Haley could spend some time there today because Allison and I were going to go shopping. They liked the idea, at least I assume they like the idea, they barely took their heads off whatever it was they were doing in Jessica's bedroom long enough to acknowledge me with an okay. Allison and I jumped in my car, she had switched in to the exact opposite attire of the night before, and she went for ultimate comfort, big sweat pants, an oversized t-shirt, and the zip up Hoodie. A pair of mirrored aviators and she would have looked a bit like a female unibomber. Somehow she even managed to make all this look good.
Our first stop back into town was at my house, there was no way I was walking around dressed like this. I pulled into the garage, waited for the door to shut completely, and told Allison I would be just a moment. She chose to wait in the car. I went upstairs changed in to more appropriate clothing, I can't do sweatpants, they just don't work for me, faded blue jeans and a sweatshirt do though. In less than 5 minutes, I was back in the car and out of the driveway.
Coffee at the usual place was good, but Allison was very quiet. we sat outside where no one else was around.
"So do I want to know what happened last night?" Allison said softly. I didn't like this in her, she was too strong and vibrant to be broken like this.
I shook my head softly "I don't think so."
"The welts on my skin, and the fire in my ass tell me I must have had a run in with Melanie." her head down, she never looked up from her coffee.
"Yeah I said." and nodded.
"Do you understand now?" she asked.
"Oh yeah." was my more firm reply.
"And that's why I need information from you, I need you to tell me everything you know about her, about what she has on us, about how she keeps it, about everything, I need to know everything."
"There's nothing you can do about it, she has it, she won't give it up. So unless you're willing to spend the next 10 to 15 in the state women's prison, probably getting abused worse than we are now," her voice just trailed off at that.
"Look," I told her "I have some abilities myself, I can do certain things, and I know certain people. I can make things happen, but I have to know what's going on, I have to have some information going in." She looked back at me, not quite understanding. I said "You know I have a decent job, I make decent money..."
She nodded back at me.
"Well not your kind of money." I said with a grin, and she grined a little back to me for the first time that day. "I run the cyber security department for my company, which doesn't sound like it would be all that involved, but we have several high dollar defense contracts that necessitate a level of security beyond what is normally needed, I know this stuff, I know how to deal with this, but I can't go in blind."
She nobbed a little, and seemed to understand a little more. I'm not sure she was convinced, in fact I'm fairly certain she wasn't, but at least she knew I had an understanding of what was ahead.
"She told me once," Allison continued, "I think I had shown a little too much resolve, that she kept copies of all our images on the cloud, I didn't know what that meant at the time, I do now of course. She also hinted that there were other people involved, above and below her. I kind of believe this as a few months ago, at one of our little parties, there was a guest Melanie seemed to cater to.
"This is the kind of stuff I need, this is good." I said to encourage her along I was taking the time to write it all down.
"But what if even if you get rid of this stuff, I'm sure she has printouts of all this stuff tucked away in some secret spot."
"I would really doubt that" I told her "if that was found, yeah, you and I would be in trouble, but she'd have a tough time explaining her possession of kiddieporn, she wouldn't want that." I paused for a moment as someone was walking by "No I think she's smarter than that, or at least she thinks she is. I'm sure it's all digital, I'm sure it's all very well protected, I don't know if this is going to be easy, I don't know if it can be done, but I know I'm going to try. She has to be stopped, she's sick."
Allison just nodded stared at her coffee, which had barely been touched. "Back when we were just friends, before any of this started," she continued "she told me she has a safe at her house. I don't know much more than that. She told me when she was trying to convince me I should have one, saying 'even I have a small safe at my house, to keep important things in."
"Very good." I said, continuing to write down notes of what she told me. I was using old-fashioned pen and paper on this one, I didn't want too much in the digital world yet. "Do you know where she came from before she was here? I asked.
"Memphis I think, or somewhere down that direction. That's about all I know, she didn't like to talk about the past much. Maybe her past is why she is as messed up as she is today."
"Maybe," I said "but I don't really care why she is the way she is."
This was a good start, having this information will certainly give me a leg up. We had spent about as much time as reasonable with the coffee shop. I returned from restroom, Allison still sitting at the table. I said "I do have one question for you, it's not related to Melanie."
She looked up at me, and she didn't smile, but certainly some anguish had gone from her face. "Good, cause I'm tired of that conversation." There was no one around so I could be open.
"When.." I said with a bit of a stammer, "when is my pussy going to stop flowing?"
She chuckled a little looked me square in the eyes and said "I don't know, I've never seen anyone take three of those pills before." she seemed to actually be holding back allow a laugh.
I grin an embarrassed sort of grin, and said "Well, I was trying to act all seductive for you. "
"Oh that part worked" she said "you just have to pay the price now."
We drove around for a while we talked about mundane and regular things, it was very sad to see her this way.
Bits of information would occasionally flow throughout the day, I found out Melanie had been married, her husband was somebody apparently named Steve, although Allison said it was only mentioned in passing once, so she wasn't sure. She made it sound like they had moved around every few years before coming here, but she didn't really know much other than the reference to Memphis. She did tell me Melanie had once warned her she knew powerful people. I explained to Allison that I did too.
It was early evening by the time we got back to Allison's house, we had gone by my house again and packed a small bag things, included a few items Haley might need, as I decided we would stay the night there. We arrived with groceries for dinner and the evening was mostly uneventful. The girls were uninterested in playing their games with us, which was good because I don't think Allison and I were really up for it that night.
I stayed with Allison in her bed that night, I held her much as you would hold and care for a child. This woman was as strong as any I had ever known, and yet she was broken now the point that she needed my caring.
Monday morning came, Allison got the kids to school and I headed off to work. Most of my work today would involve Melanie and not the corporation. The first thing I went about doing was I looked through our collection of malware and viruses. We had been attacked so many times we had started to keep them, we kept them much as a scientist would keep samples of pathogenic bacteria or viruses, as something to study later. Most of them were simple and easy to understand, I found one seemed would be useful and suit my needs. It took very little modification, maybe 40 or 50 lines of code, and this compact package would do my bidding. I knew I had to be stelthy with this, it would be easy to use a sledgehammer on a pain glass approach, but that would probably not get me what I needed, and could get me caught.
That night at home was back to Haley and I at our house. Haley was very quiet all day, barely spoken word through dinner, just kind of kept to herself.
Right before bed, before she scampered off to her room, she looked at me a little sadly and said "Have you ever started to do something, but you found out later wasn't exactly what you thought it was, and it kinda wish you hadn't done it?"
"Yeah sweetie," I told her "life is full of those little decisions, the key moving forward is to not let those decisions turn into more bad decisions."
I don't know if she really understood me, but I found this brief conversation and enlightning and promising. Right after she had gone to bed, I took her tablet, which I knew contained one copy of the images, and I needed to do some work on it. First step, I put the package I created at work on it, this simple bit of code would incorporate itself the next time she sent an attachment to any of her friends, via email, text, or any other form. It would replicate itself, and then send it along to anyone they sent something to. I limited it to five generations, figuring if I hadn't reached my target by then, I never would.
This package would send back bits of important information about the device they were on, as well as leave a small opening in the back door that would allow me access later. I could have told Haley what I was doing, it seems she was no longer in enthralled with the circumstances, but in the event that this all went bad, I wanted Haley to have what government insiders call 'plausible deniability'. I didn't want anything that would be traced back to her, and didn't want to give Melanie any reason Punish her.
The next day surprised me, I found I was receiving a great deal of information. By noon my little virus had already gone, in some cases, through its 5 generation limit. Most of the systems it was on I had no interest in, and either deleted the date or tucked it away for potential safe keeping. I was now strongly embedded in Jessica's tablet and phone, Madison's phone and laptop, it had even gone to Allison. I debated on whether or not to tell her, for the same reasons I hadn't told Haley. I thought I would give her some heads up, without too much detail. The only disappointment was I hadn't quite reached Melanie. Seemed inevitable however.
I went about data mining everything I could on my intended target, and within a few hours I had every vital record regarding her from her birth, to now. I knew everywhere she lived, I knew every phone number she had, I knew everywhere she went to school, I knew the names addresses and phone numbers of most of her acquaintances, of her friends and relatives. Huge loads of information, and I haven't read through most of it, I hadn't read through hardly any of it. I just stopped there, I would use it when the time came.
