Saturday, June 23, 2018

The Anti-Social Network, Part Five

I didn’t sleep much.
            Rachel got up early. I finally got up at 8:30. I showered again, dressed and ate breakfast, and went into our shared office. We worked in silence. I didn’t even bother listening to the radio on my headphones.
            Now what? I wasn’t sure I could trust myself. One murder attempt, and one stab at suicide. Presumably from Keeton, but I couldn’t prove either scenario. And I was afraid to go on the internet.
            So I answered a few emails, put off any new work, and resisted the impulse to check my Capper page.
            At 10:30 Rachel’s phone buzzed. “Yeah? Okay, come on up.” She sighed. “Hey, idiot? Derek’s here.”
            I’d almost forgotten. But at least she’d spoken to me. “Coming.”
            Derek was a young Asian-American man in jeans and a black hoodie. I’d met him once before, when he’d helped us track down a vampire killer. Not a vampire killing people, but a person killing vampires. It’s a long story.
            He shook my hand. “Good to see you again, Tom.”
            “Same here. Can you help me?”
            “I’ll try. I have to go out of town in a few hours. On a mission.” He winked at Rachel. “Hi there.”
            “Hi.” She pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “In there.”
            “Can I get a Coke?” He headed into the office.
            His gear was spread out over my desk when I returned. Not your usual electronic paraphernalia, aside from an iPad. Dice, a deck of cards, and a pile of feathers. He’d connected his iPad to my laptop, which made me nervous, but Rachel apparently trusted him. So I kept my mouth shut.
            Derek pulled up the Capper home page. He tapped some keys on my laptop and found my settings. “Give me that access code?”
I showed him the Post-It that Keeton had given me. Then he did something on his iPad, tossed a pair of dice, and tapped another key.
            He tossed the dice again. “Okay. We’re in.”
            “How does this work?” I leaned forward.
            “Magic? You might have heard of it.” His fingers ran over the keys—mine and his. “Okay, give me a few minutes.”
            I went into the kitchen for coffee. Rachel followed me.
            “Who is this guy again?”
            “He’s a friend.” She glared at me. “What, are you jealous?”
            “No, I’m just scared. Him and that Leo guy—”
            “Leo’s kind of scary.” She nodded. “But Derek’s all right.”
            I didn’t know much about Leo, whoever he was. He was involved in some kind of supernatural war, and he killed people. A lot. But Derek seemed harmless. If weird.
            “Okay.” I sipped my coffee. “Sorry about last night.”
            “You should be.” She gulped hers, even without cream. “Do you even know what that’s like? Finding your boyfriend with a knife at his throat?”
            I’d dealt with Rachel being possessed by a demon. But maybe that wasn’t the same thing—or the right time to talk about it. “I was stupid. I’m sorry.”
            “If we’re going to be together . . .” She put her mug down. “You can’t be doing stupid things.”
            I’d done enough stupid things in our relationship already. “I know. I’ll . . .  try.”
            Rachel slugged my arm. “Do that.”
            “Uh, Tom?” It was Derek, inside the office. “I need you.”
            Inside the office I looked at my computer screen. Everything was numbers and symbols, like the feed from The Matrix. “What’s that?”
            “The code for the whole platform. It’s millions of strings long. But this—” He jabbed a finger. “That’s not ordinary programming. That’s different. It’s a spell disguised as a code.”
            “What kind of spell? Disguised how?” I leaned down.
            “A mind-controlling spell. I’ve seen stuff like this before. I don’t have time to take it apart.” Derek held out his deck of cards. “Cut the deck.”
“Okay.” I lifted some cards. Two of clubs.
            Derek shook his head and shuffled the deck. Then he rolled his dice. “Okay. Again.”
            What the hell? I glanced at Rachel. She nodded.
            So I cut the deck again. The queen of spades.
            “Yes!” Derek tapped his iPad. “There we go!”
            My screen cleared and went back to the Capper site. All 60,000+ members. “How is this—”
            “Everything is here. Nothing’s hidden.” He grinned. “I’m good sometimes.” He stretched his fingers. “Search for your profile.” He pointed toward the corner of the screen.
            I typed in my name and the access code.
            My profile came up.
            KILL TOM JURGEN.
That was from yesterday. I clicked on it, and found everyone who’d received it. I recognized one face. The guy who’d tried to stab me.
            I looked at Derek. “How did you do this?”
            He picked up his dice. “It’s what I do. When I’m not out hunting the Circle.”
            “What’s the Circle?”
            He shrugged. “You don’t want to know.”
            We kept searching. A moment later I found the message from last night: KILL YOURSELF.
            I shuddered.
            Derek started gathering up his supplies. “I have to go soon.”
            “Hang on a minute.” I saved the page with my would-be stabber. Then I did a search for Morgan Montez.
            There it was, open on my screen: KILL ERIC GRACE.
            And then Montez’s confession:  I JUST MURDERED ERIC GRACE. I HAD NO CHOICE.
            “Yuck.” Rachel shivered behind me.
            “Just a few more minutes. Please.” I typed in “Emma Willings.”
            A nanosecond second, I got found another message, commanding Capper members to murder her.
            Who’d actually done it? No idea.
            I sat back, crossing my arms. Then I did the search I should have started with: James Keeton.
            I was inside the back end, so I could see everything he’d posted. News about the business, pictures of his yacht—and commands to kill people.
            “Oh my god.” Rachel leaned on my chair. “What can we do? We can’t—the cops won’t believe any of this.”
            “No.” I tried to think. “Derek? Can we send a message to Keeton?”
            “Sure.” He moved my mouse to a button called “Publishing Tools.” He clicked. “Right there.”
            I looked at the page. I could post to the whole site, or send a message straight to Keeton. I could even schedule when he’d see it.
            I smiled. “I’ve got an idea.”

Rachel and I stormed into the KeetonTech office. “We need to see Keeton. It’s urgent. Tom Jurgen.”
            The receptionist, a young African-American woman, looked at my card as she lifted her phone. “James? There’s uh, a Tom Jurgen to see you? He says it’s urgent.”
            After a moment she set down her phone. “Go ahead. You know the way?”
            “Yeah.” I led Rachel through the office. Workers popped their heads up over the tops of their cubes, watching us. Some were nervous, as if we were consultants coming in to fire them. Others were just annoyed because we were interrupting their work.
            James Keeton sat behind his desk, glaring. “What is this?”
            “We know how you’re doing it.” I set my laptop on the edge of his desk and opened it up. “Take a look.”
            “Oh, no.” Keeton groaned. “You’re just like that Montez woman, aren’t you? You’re both crazy. I’m calling the police.” He reached for his phone,”
            “Yes, you are. Right after you see this.” I clicked a link and turned the screen toward him.
            He blinked. “What the . . .”
I looked at Rachel. “I hope this works.”
            “Derek rolled a Yahtzee.” She punched my arm. “It’ll work.”
            Keeton’s eyes glazed over. For a moment he seemed paralyzed. Then he pulled his keyboard toward him.
His eyes were wide, as if he couldn’t believe what he was doing. He spoke while typing: “How did you—this isn’t possible . . .”
            I leaned over to check the message I’d sent to his Capper profile:
            CONFESS EVERYTHING ONLINE. CALL THE POLICE. THEN CALL A LAWYER.
            The door opened, and a blonde woman peered in. “Jim? Is everything okay? Should I call the police?”
            “He’ll do that in a minute,” Rachel said. “Right, Jim?”
            “I have to.” He kept typing. “I can’t stop.”
            “What’s going on?” The woman leaned on the edge of the door.
I looked over my shoulder. “Capper can brainwash users.” She might as well know now. “He used it to kill people.”
            She stared. “That’s crazy.”
            I shrugged. “Go take a look at your computer.”
            She left.
            “Okay.” Keeton hit “Post.” Then he picked up his phone, glaring at me even while dialing 911. “No one’s going to believe it.”
            “Kind of doesn’t matter.” I smirked. “They’ll think you’re crazy. So will your users. It’ll be all over social media—and the regular media too. And they’ll look into the other murders. Even the attempt on me.”
            “Yes, my name is James Keeton.” He looked down at the floor. “I have to confess that I used my social media network to brainwash people into committing murder. What? Their names are Eric Grace, Emma Willings . . .”
            I pulled my laptop around and clicked to Keeton’s profile. There it was:
            I TOLD MORGAN MONTEZ TO KILL ERIC GRACE. I USED A SPELL IN THE PROGRAMMING CODE TO DO IT. I HAD EMMA WILLINGS MURDERED. I TRIED TO KILL TOM JURGEN. I KILLED . . .
I closed my laptop and grinned at Rachel. “Our work here is done.”
            She punched my shoulder. “Don’t get cocky, kid.”
           
Back at the apartment I had a celebratory Coke and then called my client. “I got James Keeton to confess online to everything. How that’ll play out . . .  I don’t know.”
            “But . . . he did it? Keeton? Capper?” Her voice was low.
            “He planted some kind of spell in the website code that let him brainwash users when he wanted to. He tried to do it on me.” I swallowed, still nervous about the switchblade attack and my suicide attempt. “So you were right.” I didn’t know if that would help.
            She groaned. “I knew it. Nobody believed me, but I knew it.”
            “I’m sorry for doubting you.” It was lame, but I had to say something.
            “That’s okay.” She sniffled. “Just . . . thanks. And send me your bill. I’ll pay it.”
            “Thank you.” We hung up.
           
Detective Hawkins of the Chicago Police called me later that afternoon. “Jurgen? What the hell?” It was how most of our conversations started.
            “Good afternoon, detective. So how can I help you?” I winked at Rachel, working at the other side of our office.
            “You can tell me how I’m supposed to handle a millionaire who says you forced him to confess to brainwashing and murder! What the hell am I supposed to do with him?”
            “Look at the evidence.” I’d gotten used to arguing with the police. And editors before that. “I didn’t force him to do anything—his own software forced him. I didn’t tell him what to confess. He could have admitted to not paying his parking tickets. All I did was send him a message. By the way, I’ve identified the man who tried to knife me the other night. I’ll send you a link to his Capper profile. Did Keeton mention that online? I haven’t checked.”
            “He’s all lawyered up.” He clicked his tongue in frustration. “I swear to God, Jurgen, whoever gave you a P.I. license was probably brainwashed too.”
            I rolled my eyes. Good thing Hawkins couldn’t see me. “I’m sure you and the department will handle the matter with your usual professionalism and commitment to justice. Is there anything else?”
            “You come down here in the morning to give me a statement. And for Christ’s sake, try to stay out of trouble.”
            “I’ll do my best.” The problem is, trouble always seems to find me.
            Rachel stood up and stretched. “How’s Hawkins?” Of course she’d heard him through my phone. His voice tended to carry.
“He wants a statement. Tomorrow.” I saved my work. “Let’s have dinner. I have that red beans and rice—” from when I’d tried to kill myself.
Rachel shook her head, “I want to go back to that restaurant.” She walked to the door. “Five minutes while I change my shirt?”
I nodded. “Of course.”


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