Michelle got a little giddy when Jack called after noon to see if she could scare up a barber that could come by and give him a cut. Then when he actually asked about corporate gossip, she almost fell off her chair. His only calls since Lisa's death had been to order groceries and get rid of his physical therapist.
Hanging up the phone, he continued keeping pace with his running machine as he watched his heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing. No one had seemed to notice that he had ordered a second running machine for the gym downstairs, and it had never arrived. He had managed to waylay it at the front door and have it brought upstairs on the pretense of 'goods inspection'. He must have walked and run around the world on it and was sure he could take up long distance running next year if the company no longer needed him.
His bags were packed with Lisa's laptop sitting in its case with the charger and other cables he'd need to connect; he didn't plan on letting Lisa's machine out of his sight. His own laptop was in a check-in case that could handle the rigors of baggage handlers. Shutting down the walker, he stepped off and headed for the shower. It would be his first foray into the real world other than the occasional trip to the doctors, and Jack was nervous. Aside from stock reports and limited business or finance news, Jack had little idea what it was like out there.
Six months after the operation, the doctors had given up. At the last meeting they had said, "Jack, we can't make you walk again, but you can. When you decide to do that, call us." Upon his return, he had promptly fired his therapist and thrown himself on the floor. It had taken five weeks of dragging himself around by his arms and upper torso to wake up his legs. He could still remember the joy of sticking a needle in his big toe - something his doctors had been doing for months - and having it hurt like hell. In another week he'd been crawling around like a nine-month-old baby. It had taken another two months to get upright, and a year and a half after being brought down by New York's finest, Jack was running farther on his running machine than he ever had in his former life.
Aside from the commitment to walk again, Jack had become possessed with finding Lisa's killer. He lived, not so much to ask why, as to watch the life of this person slowly fade away as he leaned down to whisper, "
…are you enjoying it as much as I am yet
?" He was driven by a search for closure - not meaning, because there was none, but he driven just the same.
There had been four other killings since Lisa's - all chatters. Their computers had been found on, and the crime witnessed by a lover or friend who had unwittingly been forced to witness the last gruesome moments. There seemed to be no preference for male or female victims. One couple had been two gay men, chatting while one was away on business. Another had been cyber-lovers, a man and woman that had never met in real life, their only sin being an open show of love and commitment in a public chat room. The husband and wife were a surprise until Jack learned that the man worked for one of the big oil companies and commuted on a regular basis, spending two weeks every three months out of the country during which the couple extended their love life into cyberspace.
His computer room and the workout room had become his home, where he pondered, existed, and worked, but not work in the normal sense of the word. His time not spent running and exercising was spent sitting in his wheelchair, transfixed, watching twenty different chats in as many rooms, flipping between cams to see if he could find anything that would give him a clue. He had seen it all: the quiet chatters there just to chat and meet friends; the on-line sex partners that made triple xxx look tame; and aggression beyond belief. While it never went beyond the keyboard, the amount of anger and just plain meanness that could be found was astounding.
He had set up a small stereo system and patched in all the computers sound boards so he could switch from voice chat room to voice chat room without bearing the discomfort of headphones or earplugs. It was here, he first heard him. Early one morning after midnight when the real hardcore chatters and insomniacs came out, he had been channel-surfing, switching from voice channel to voice channel, listening in to the endless stream of psycho-babble people were using to persuade their way into someone else's life, when he heard the word. 'Bitch'. The word, the voice, the tone, even the intent was there. Grabbing the headphones, he'd continued to listen, waiting to hear it again. Nothing, just a bunch of people
chatting
about sex. He had to dig around a little to find the cam their attentions were focused on but did. He watched and listened for an hour, but he was unable to find the voice again. His momentary jubilance turned quickly to deep depression as he sat and thought how close he'd been and missed it. A few keystrokes and the printer spit out a list of occupants in the chat room. Picking it up, he scanned the names, looking for some clue in the strange nomenclature people used to identify themselves.
He almost missed it the second time but caught enough to know who was on one side of the conversation. Deciding to try written chat first and avoid being recognized, he 'paged' blue_goose to see if he could 'PM' which means a private written message between the two of them that other room occupants couldn't see. At first, Jack was afraid he would be 'Ignored' or 'Blocked', but finally, blue_goose answered.
"Sure teddy_bear, how u this morning" - no one used proper punctuation, sentence form, or spelling. Chat shorthand was phonetic and built for speed. If you weren't accustomed to it, you couldn't keep up with a room full of fifty or sixty people, half of them talking to the multiple chatters at the same time.
It took a few brief minutes of mindless chatter to get invited into their conversation, but Jack made it. He had feigned no microphone to explain why he would stay in written chat while they were welcome to just 'keep on a talkin'.
And there it was. "Sure, she's a real bitch, hell, she talks like one too." He sat frozen in his chair; his mind in turmoil as he edged forward and gripped the arm rests of his wheelchair until his knuckles hurt.
"Sure 'nuff," answered blue_goose, and Jack noticed the other occupant in the room was lacy_lace.
"Yeah, I watched her the other night, and she turned out to be a spitter. What a waste of time," lacy_lace replied.
Frantic, the voice bouncing around in his head, he jumped up and ran to the end of a room to dig in a file cabinet for a microphone. He had never counted on talking and had dumped all the microphones in a file cabinet; his plan had been stealth. His hands shook as he tore at the plastic and fumbled with the tie wrap that held the microphone cable in place. Throwing trash around and falling to his knees, he had practically pulled the connectors loose from the back of the computer, trying to get it out from the wall far enough to get the microphone plug into the jack of the soundcard on the back. Up on his knees, he watched the screen, and heard lacy_lace respond again.
