6th February 2019Charlie snuck quietly into the ft, flicking on the light, her eyes wandering around the space that had formerly been homely, and now looked like a particurly low end charity shop. Suspecting that things might go awry in the near future, she’d decided not to spend lots of money and had done a quick tour of various local dumping grounds which had pulled up some grotty basic furniture. She’d hunted out a local charity and bought the stuff that was borderline unselble.
Stepping over to the table, she flicked open a tired ptop. She waited and waited whilst it logged in. One click and the ptop was off browsing a variety of news sites and blogs based on a popurity algorithm she’d thrown together.
Make the haystack bigger, she thought to herself as she wandered into the kitchen and, gncing around her, lifted the top from the hob, revealing an ancient mobile in between the cooker rings. “Can so too fix a toaster,” she grumbled and dumped the very battered phone onto the counter. It’d arrived in a jiffy bag this morning, along with her coffee and breakfast at Suzie’s. Suzie cimed to have no knowledge when she plonked the tray down. Charlie had quietly slipped the envelope into her bag and taken it up to the ft. If someone knew to find her there, then they presumably knew where she lived. The first boot had revealed a longstanding joke Jess and Charlie had shared, scrolling slowly across the tiny dispy. It’d then started receiving a ton of spam messages, which was wildly irritating. Hidden in the messages was a note requesting a text back when she got it, and Charlie had dutifully replied before turning it off and hiding the phone for a while.
Now, once she woke it up again, it chirruped maniacally for a while, dancing to the edge of the counter as it vibrated. The flood of spam messages the account was set up to receive drove Charlie nuts, but, there, hidden in the fee-free accident cims and offers of discounts, was a message from Jess.
Charlie smiled at the thought of the various and sundry people who’d caused her life to become so chaotic dashing off to a geocache hinted at in the message, expecting to find Jess or some Jess reted object. That was assuming they’d worked out that this phone had been sent to her by Jess, and that this message was from her. And that the misdirecting reference was a geocache, which was, to be fair, exactly what it looked like. The slew of other messages kept the phone chirruping with irritating frequency, and Charlie quickly slipped the battery from it again, causing it to fall silent.
How to get to the site quickly, and without prompting suspicion – that was more of a challenge. More than once they’d passed the abandoned turning the location – a housing estate that had been abandoned mid-build. Charlie had used it as a meeting point with some of the other bikers before heading out on a ride. While Jess’d not been fond of being pillion, she’d come out a few times and knew the spot well enough, clearly. It existed in that sort of hinternd between city and countryside. She hoped that the parties interested in Jess’ disappearance hadn’t been following them on one of those rides.
“Oh shit,” she muttered, cursing her motorcycle’s near brush with fire. It wasn’t the sort of pce she could just hop in a taxi and get to… at least, not easily. She grabbed the ptop and pulled up a map of bus routes. Moments ter she clicked the ptop closed, stood and quietly dropped the phone back between the rings of the hob, repositioned the cover, and stepped out from the ft.
Two buses ter and she meandered into the cinema. Picking the shortest film of the bunch she sat and endured 90 minutes of tedium before wandering outside and using the free-phone to call a taxi.
“The Anchor, please, out on the B4456,” she muttered to the driver before psing into the uncompanionable silence of a long taxi journey. As the concrete blocks barring the abandoned site appeared Charlie interrupted the cabbie’s reverie
“Hey, mate, pull over for a second. I’m feeling a bit sick.”
The driver flicked a gnce at the mirrors before pulling up. Charlie mumbled thanks and asked him to wait whilst she got some fresh air. Once out she theatrically took several deep breaths while wandering around the blocks. Lurking under a corner of the furthest one was a bright orange film canister, looking strangely out of pce in the rubble and gravel dumped at the boundary.
Charlie gnced across at the driver who was, it turned out, staring at her. She turned away, and perched on the edge of the block, doubling over and taking some more deep breaths. She quickly grabbed the canister, then slipped it into her jacket as she stood.
“Better, thanks,” she mumbled, cautiously sitting back into the taxi.
“Are you sure? Because if you throw up in here, it’s extra.”
“Yeah, ‘m good.”
The driver looked at her dubiously, but pulled out anyway.
—
The Anchor had, once, been a really nice pub. The sad remnants of the overgrown beer garden with picnic tables being reabsorbed by nature suggested it had once been a summer retreat. The gravelled carpark consisted mainly of pot-holes surrounded by rge suspension destroying rocks. The taxi driver drew up on the road, unwilling to drop her nearer the doors.
Charlie paid up and hopped out, gingerly making her away around the worst of the watery holes. She peered into the semi-darkness and decided that, contrary to appearances, the pce was still open. There were two reasons that, despite its slide from charmingly retro to apparently unsightly hovel, Charlie kept returning to this pce. One was that the rooms were mostly clean and cheap, making it a handy stop off if the weather got too inclement to ride. And secondly, from autumn through to te spring they always had a decent fire going.
Today was no exception and she made camp next to the fire, a pint of something parked in front of her mainly for looks.
Charlie gnced around. The bar was, as usual, empty. Jess had decred that the pub was a front for the Mafia, as it seemed to have no other source of income. No quiz nights, no big-screen TV. Only a single, broken game machine lurking in the corner. Out the back, Jess cimed, was the very sad remnants of an original PacMan console with a shattered screen and an array of dents, suggesting that it’d perhaps not been popur with the customers.
Charlie quietly smiled as she recalled her foiled attempt to peek through the fire-door before the pugnacious manager had wandered back through, closing it (and somewhat armingly, locking it). She’d always wondered if Jess was right, but never had another chance to find out. Despite her charm offensive the manager had remained stoically aloof.
Her mind returned her gracelessly to her current predicament and she wandered over to the bar to book a room. ‘At least’, she thought, ‘if I’m gone a day they might think it’s a bit less odd of me to take a taxi all the way out here’.
The bedroom was as spartan as she remembered, but thankfully also as clean. Charlie slipped off her jeans and shirt and infiltrated the bed, wriggling to get comfortable on the unfamiliar mattress. At some point she’d have to put the battery back in her main phone to text Noah and let her know she was okay, but she didn’t want to attract anyone to her current location if they’d not found her already.
Charlie rolled the film canister around in her hand, carefully hidden under the covers. Whatever the contents were they quietly scraped and cttered inside. Scrabbling around so she was entirely under the sheets, she clicked the cap off and dropped a memory card into her hand. She stared at it for a moment in the half-light before putting it back into the container.
‘Well, that’s a bollocks, isn’t it,’ she thought ‘I bet there’s a ton of shit on there. It’s not just going to be “I’m here come get me.”’ She y there watching passing traffic’s headmps flickering on the ceiling and trying to fathom what to do. Eventually the darkness swallowed her and she restlessly passed the night.
Charlie awoke to the sounds of the countryside and eventually the sound of a tractor rattling past the pub. “’s gonna have to be a bus, I guess,” she muttered as she crawled out from the covers.
She showered quickly and headed out leaving her usual healthy tip. While she paced at the bus stop she finally made the decision to put the battery back in her phone. It chirruped incessantly as a succession of messages, mostly from Noah, poured in. Charlie fired back ‘Promise I’m not doing anything stupid. Just needed some space. On my way back now.’ and then yanked the battery again as the bus pulled up.
—
Charlie slowly padded up the concrete stairs, the buzzing from the lighting grating on her consciousness as she tried to pn how to access the files without a clean ptop. She knew that Jess had a very, very paranoid install that would work on most PCs straight from a USB stick, but she didn’t have a copy of that. Charlie thought she’d left her own nefarious behaviours in her past and that she’d never need those skills again. She grumbled quietly and, exiting the stairs, tucked the memory card behind the emergency exit sign on her floor.
The springs of the pin-tumblers clicked as she inserted the key for her ft, but before she could turn the key in the lock, the door was opened.
“Hello ‘Ms Jones’.”
Charlie could feel the quote marks around her name as Christopher Alden, or at least the man ciming to be Christopher Alden greeted her from inside her own ft. “Did you have a nice holiday? Seems an unsettling change in your routine.” He paused, gazing levelly at her. “I’m not overly fond of changes in routine.”
“Well, I fancied getting away for an evening. Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Charlie gestured at her hallway.
He stepped aside and Charlie strode in, making straight for the kitchen.
“Coffee? Tea? A vast amount of alcohol?” she called out. She turned around to find him standing in the doorway staring at her.
“Did you make contact with Jess Mitchell st night?” he asked with polite menace.
“You know, your interrogations would go a lot better if you’d be a little more friendlyS” She aimed for cheery, but even to her it sounded forced. She took a steadying breath. “Perhaps you could bring a cake. Or a Danish. Everyone loves a good Danish.”
“Did you make contact with Jess Mitchell st night?” This time, there was no attempt at a light tone. The question was delivered bluntly, the depths of pain avaible to enforce getting an answer incredibly clear.
Charlie turned and filled the kettle, then pulled out mugs, tea, and the various accoutrements. That done, she finally enunciated, “No, actually, I didn’t. I went to a pub, had a couple of drinks by myself because I can’t see any of my friends for fear that you’ll hurt them, and then I went to bed. At the pub, incidentally. You’re welcome to check. Oh, and that was also by myself, incidentally, just for the sake of bloody crity.” She took a steadying breath before finally turning, holding the charity shop mug. “Last offer: did you want something to drink?” she trailed off as she realised she was alone in the room. A moment ter she heard the quiet click of the front door lock.
“Well,” she muttered, “That went better than expected.”
As adrenaline coursed through her she grasped the shaking cup with both hands and pced it carefully back on the counter, taking a moment to steady herself. Eventually, she took her tea and slumped on the couch, trying to decide how to make sure she wasn’t monitored when she looked at whatever was on that memory card. It was abundantly clear nothing in the ft was safe. Clipping the battery back in her phone, she finally steeled herself for the conversation with Noah.
Noah was, to put it mildly, unimpressed. Charlie spent a lot of time listening to a stream of invective expining her failings as a friend, interspersed with disturbingly long periods of silence. She spent a lot more time apologising in a variety of different ways and promising to be better in future. And whilst neither Charlie nor Noah believed that any of these promises would be kept, they both felt better for presenting the fa?ade. Eventually, Charlie commented that she’d had a visit from the man they were still calling Christopher, and that they were obviously still keeping tabs on her.
Noah, being Noah, was almost out of the door to her house preparing to come and rescue her before Charlie managed to expin that he’d left very quickly and it’d been a cursory visit, as if to remind her that if she went away they knew what she was doing.
Once she’d wound down from the call, Charlie considered the memory card currently hiding out in the hallway. She needed a clean, safe, unmolested computer of some sort and she also needed to be on a network connection that was unmonitored. Or at least sufficiently unmonitored for them to not be able to connect it directly to her. She grabbed her definitely monitored ptop and fired up a browser before realising that even looking at maps would let them know she was pnning to not be where she was now. Or at the very least give them that hint. Pausing to set it browsing the news again, she hopped off the couch.
Pacing the lounge, she wished that she had some non-electronic means of meeting her very specific requirements. And then it came to her; wedged under a unit in the kitchen, supporting one of the kitchen cabinets, was an aged Yellow Pages. When they’d first moved in they’d found it outside the door and used it to support the disintegrating memine shelf under the sink.
She took a single step towards the sink before being struck by the fact she was almost certainly being watched. She gnced almost unconsciously round the room – each speck of reflected light could be a camera. If she didn’t want Christopher Alden’s associates to know what she was pnning she’d have to be cunning and pn out every single step. So no looking at the Yellow Pages until ter. Perhaps even after it was dark when night vision might let them know she was looking at something, but not necessarily what it was. Then, even if they identified it as the Yellow Pages, it’d still not give too much away. But she’d have to be quick - if they suspected she was up to something they might physically follow her. Or kill her, which would make helping Jess quite a lot more difficult, she thought wryly.
Needing a computer though, that was a bit of a problem.
She grabbed her cards and headed back out. Taking a meandering route to the nearest cashpoint she withdrew a bit more than she thought the cheapest, crappiest second-hand ptop might cost. Then she headed out to the local supermarket and bought several bags full of the cheapest, bulkiest items she could find with as little of the cash as she could manage. As she made her way back home she noted the shiny bck car parked outside, surrounded by her neighbours’ foxed rides. An unsubtle man waited at the bottom of the stairs. As she brought her key up to the lock the door was opened again and the studiously bnd-faced Christopher Alden was back in her hallway.
“Miss me?” Charlie chirruped before wandering into the kitchen and dumping the bags.
“You seem to be a little erratic of te.” He slowly scanned the bags of shopping. “Previously you seemed to be a creature of habit.” He paused to allow Charlie to consider just how much, and how long, they’d been watching her. “But your behaviour’s not fitting your prior profile. You’re outside the bellcurve of your normal habits. And while I allow some flex for–” he paused, his unblinking stare boring into Charlie’s back as she tried to maintain her air of nonchance by unpacking her groceries. “Shall we say, ‘the ongoing changes to your situation’? It seems that you are engaging in behaviour that you think might throw off our monitoring.”
“Well, being watched by a dubious group of people’ll do that to a girl.” Charlie pulled a packet of biscuits from one of the bags and slowly peeled the tear-off strip, opening it. “Y’know,” she continued brightly, “I always find these break if you’re not really very careful.” As the first custard cream started to slide free she waved the pack in front of her interrogator. “Biscuit?”
“Stop fucking us around, Ms Jones.”
Charlie quirked an eyebrow at him. “I’m not sure you’ve sworn at me before, Mr Alden.” She smiled slightly. “Look. I want you out of my life, in case you’d not realised. I’d like you out in every way, not watching me, not following me, and for fucks sake, not monitoring my shopping. Although you do now know I like custard creams - a sure sign of my anarchist tendancies.” She waved the pack in front of him again. “Sure you won’t?”
An eyebrow lifted ever so slightly before he said, “You think we didn’t already know what’you buy? Where you go? Who you’re with? How long do you think we’ve been monitoring you and your little friends? Days? Weeks? Months?” Charlie gazed back at him, and holding her nerve, she popped the entire custard cream in her mouth, crunching it loudly.
Finally, she swallowed. “You think you scare me, Christopher? Well, yeah, you do. But then so do a bunch of things. And you’re not the worst thing in the world, even if you want to be. I don’t know how much you truly do know about me or how long you’ve been watching me. But you don’t know how hard I worked to be here today, and your little game won’t phase me. I’m going to get on with my life - and if you try and get rid of Jess, then that’s fucking awful. Because she may be wild and difficult and may have fucked up whatever the hell it is you’re doing, but she is good, and she’s mine and…I love her. Thanks for helping me realise that, by the way. I thought I wanted her out, but actually, I don’t. I want her back, right now. I want her stupid fucking computer right back over there, with her doing whatever fucking secret nonsense on it that I don’t get to know about. And it’s pretty fucking clear to me at this point that you are sure as shit not a good person. You’re not on the right fucking side, whatever that is. Not by any stretch of the imagination. So, no, I’m not going to make your life easy. I expect you’ll kill me, but frankly, I thought I’d be dead a decade ago, so either get it fucking over with or take your little party of spies, fuck off out of my ft and let me cook dinner.” Her voice cracked as she screamed the st sentence at him, and she slumped against the counter from the effort.
He stared at her impassively for a beat before he simply stated, “Better now? Got all of that anger out? Good. Stop trying to hide.” He turned sharply and walked out, the door clicking shut behind him.
Her heart racing, Charlie slid down the door of the kitchen cupboard, slumping to the floor, finding herself unable to move from the spot where she’d stood her ground. Ragged breaths struggled to fill her lungs. Eventually, slowly, she dragged functionality from her anxiety-ridden brain and started working the problem again. It took a while, but then inspiration struck and Charlie realised she could flick through the phonebook with impunity so long as she used it for a seemingly appropriate purpose, and did so in a location that was unlikely to be as well covered by cameras. If her ft was, indeed, well covered by cameras.
She dug into the cabinet and slid her arm in, finally pulling out a ratty old Yellow Pages. The shelf slumped downwards and the array of cleaning products, shoe cleaning brushes, and random half empty packs of things she didn’t even recognize went skittering towards the centre of the mouldering and now rapidly descending shelf. Flicking through, she paused momentarily to note the address of a computer shop on the other side of the city. ‘Reconditioned and Second Hand Computers Our Speciality’ and ‘Discounted Student Prices!!!’ were embzoned happily across the page. Charlie prayed it was still open before flicking further and finding the ‘take away’ section, leaving it open on the counter and ringing to order a delivery pizza.
Charlie realised that this would probably be considered ‘erratic’ on the behaviour front, and waited for another visit. Happily, the next person she saw was the driver dropping off her pizza.
The pizza was, as Charlie expected, sub-par. But that’s what you get ordering pizza from a random company, she reckoned. Pizza pces had to be methodically researched and assessed. Scored - as with all proper scoring schemes - out of seven. Poke them once more, she reckoned, and then they’d hopefully be bored of her for the day. She clicked the battery back into her phone and speed dialled Noah.
“Fancy a coffee? My treat. I’ve got something for you,” Charlie started before Noah could speak.
“Uhm, where?” Noah sounded horribly confused.
“Usual pce,” Charlie said, hanging up rapidly.
She gnced around the room, attempting to look as furtive as possible before slipping out of the front door. She moved swiftly, swiping a USB stick from the bottom of her st shopping bag on her way past and stuffing it very visibly in her pocket. As she slipped into the stairwell she quickly knocked the memory card she wanted from its hiding pce and stuffed it into her sock.
When she arrived at the office Noah grinned at her. “It took a moment. I was like, where the fuck have we been for coffee? Everywhere around here is shit. And then it came to me. Here. You meant here.” She ughed. “Gd I was right, otherwise you’d be sat somewhere being pissed off.” She dropped the wire crimpers on the stand next to the bike before wandering over to her beloved machine and starting on the drinks. “I will say though, this is hardly a bloody treat.”
“Oh come now, I brought you chocote biscuits.” Charlie grinned and handed over the packet.
“This is my treat?” Noah commented disparagingly as she stared at the Everyday Value pack of Tesco’s cheapest.
“Oh no.” Charlie’s grin became broader still. “Your gift is me winding someone up.” Charlie swung the door wide as a bck car drew up outside. “Bored yet?” she shouted across the street.
“Seriously, they’ve been following me all fucking day.” Charlie grumbled, “I thought it was my turn to have a bit of fun.” She turned and hollered, “I can do this all week, since you’re screwing with my life and I can’t do anything else.”
She gratefully accepted Noah’s coffee before she slumped into the sofa. “It’s getting really tedious. They popped up after I went for my break, then after I’d been shopping.” Noah made some sympathetic noises and gazed levelly at her friend.
“So was this just a wind-up attempt?”
“Nah, I just thought I’d drop by and say hi. Let you know I’m still alive and kicking. The irritation to our mutual enemy was merely a side benefit.” Charlie settled into the sofa more before commencing on an in-depth dissection of the news in Noah’s life and, more importantly, her progress on Charlie’s beloved bike.
As they made their way onto a second cup, Noah enforcing a ‘your second is a decaf’ rule they were interrupted by the crisp pings of stones flung from fast moving tyres. Christopher Alden stepped through the door a few moments ter, and walked directly towards Charlie. Noah stood, clearly prepared to defend her friend, but Charlie waved her down. “You know Christopher, don’t you Noah?” Charlie pushed her voice hard into overly friendly territory. “Noah, Christopher. Christopher, Noah. He’s the guy who’s been stalking me. Only he’s not really called Christopher.” She finished in a pantomime whisper.
“What’s on the USB stick?” Christopher said bluntly.
“Oh, so there are cameras then. I presumed there were, but it’s nice to know. Is this baby’s first stakeout?” Charlie allowed some vitriol into her voice as she dug in her pocket and tossed over the USB stick. “I’m guessing then that whatever you’re after is data that you think will fit on a USB stick. Y’know, I think probably I’ve learned more today than you have. It’s bnk, by the way. And a shit brand, so don’t put anything you’re worried about on it.”
Christopher slipped the stick into his pocket and walked slowly towards Charlie. Noah made to stand a second time, but Charlie waved her down again just as he arrived in front of her. She could feel his breath on her face as he examined her.
“You’re pying a very dangerous game, Ms Jones. One with which I’m beginning to lose patience.” He suddenly grasped her arm, twisting it, so she was forced face-down onto the coffee table. She heard, but didn’t see, her mug skittering off and shattering on the floor. Instead she saw Noah jumping up, but in her peripheral vision the knife glinting in the man’s hand waved a ‘sit-down’ gesture. Noah slowly acquiesced, looking furious.
Christopher brought the knife closer as he leaned in to whisper in Charlie’s ear, “As I mentioned, I’ve been encouraged not to kill you, Ms Jones. It’s not something I, personally, agree with. But my superiors would like you alive, at least for the moment. And so, for the moment, I’m willing to accede to that request, but you are making it less and less patable for me and I would really enjoy having an excuse to terminate our retionship. Please do continue your behaviour and give me the excuse to do so.”
The only thing in Charlie’s vision at this point seemed to be the knife. He twisted her arm further, causing the pain in her shoulder to worsen, before he just as suddenly let go, stood and turned to walk out. He paused at the door, “Ms Bankes, Ms Jones. I expect I’ll be seeing you both again soon. Do let it be in more favourable conditions.”
Both vehicles started up, the fumes and ctter invaded the office as they peeled out at speed.
“I’m going to fucking die doing this, aren’t I?” Stray tears leaked from the corners of Charlie’s eyes, and she swiped them away angrily as she stood up, “But I don’t see another way, and I reckon they’ve made their bloody point.” Charlie paused and looked up to the ceiling. “And I know you’re still bloody listening.” She said more clearly “I’ve nothing for you: no news, no cyphers, no magic beans. No fucking Jess. Literally or figuratively, since she’s not bloody here. Will you please just fuck off and leave me alone?”
Noah gnced upwards, “So, it’s bugged in here then. I assumed they’d fucked around in here too, but nice to have it confirmed.”
Charlie sighed, “It’s bugged everywhere, as far as I’m concerned. Cameras, bugs, people following me. The whole thing is mindblowingly tedious. It’s not even like I’m doing anything other than pissing them off. I don’t know what Jess had or has, all I want to do is get back to my life and sort out things with my girlfriend, to who I now owe an apology. Although she owes me a fucking epic apology too. Let’s just say we’ve got stuff we need to talk about.” She paused momentarily, then gnced up towards the ceiling. “Thanks for that, guys! You made me shout at her for nothing.” She scooped the bigger shards of mug off the floor and dumped the remains unceremoniously in the bin. “I should go. I shouldn’t be dragging you into this any more. And I know I’m the one who initiated this afternoon, but I thought it was safe. Ish. Although I think I might’ve pushed it a bit.” Charlie could hear the tremor in her own voice and attempted to crush it.
Noah stood and wrapped her arms around Charlie. “If you need anything, at any time, hon.”
Charlie smiled an uneven smile and edged out from the hug, dashing out the door.
It’ took Charlie several minutes of staring at the map before she worked out the arcane combination of buses required to get her to the computer store and, at the same time, look like she was headed somewhere else entirely. Eventually she worked out a route that took her over to the coast afterwards, and she texted Noah telling her where she was off to before perching on the sloped bench of the bus shelter.
By the time the bus arrived, she’d also texted Noah begging her to please hurry with fixing her bike.
“Peasant wagon,” she muttered quietly as she finally slunk through the bus’ door. Several changes, and more than a little despair with public transport ter, she hopped off. As the bus pulled away to a safe distance she made a rather dramatic show of cursing and grumbled out loud to everyone listening that she should’ve got off several stops ter.
Charlie wandered away from the stop, surreptitiously trying to find the store. She finally spied the seedy looking shop mid-street. She window-shopped her way down, taking care not to dwell too long in case another appropriate bus came and some helpful soul tried to direct her to it. It seemed to take an eternity, but eventually she made it. And fortunately, there was enough random tat in the window for Charlie to have actual real interest; her acting skills were beginning to take a bit of a hit from her prolonged feigned fascination at the other shops.
She stole through the door and, having made a quick tour, headed for a pile of ptops that were clearly well past their best. She fished a likely looking one from the pile and flipped it over to find the price and a sticker prociming an entire week’s warranty. “Overpriced,” she mumbled as she headed over to the counter and dropped a pile of cash, stuffing the ptop into her bag along with a power supply handed over by the monosylbic teen. She exited and, impressively, made it back to the bus stop in time to catch the bus that tied into her pre-pnned fabrication.
The seaside proved dismal; she managed to time her arrival just as kids got off school and flooded the seafront. Charlie quickly checked tide times and disappeared down the beach, the tide being so far out that, instead of running her toes through warm sand, she instead tramped out onto mudfts, carefully considering each step in case she discovered quicksand.
After some desultory attempts to make it look fun, she wandered back up the beach, found a chippy and slung herself uncomfortably on a rock, munching the warm, soggy chips and wondering how long she should kill time before heading back. She was both saved and disappointed by the arrival of rain. Whilst it gave her a good excuse to go home, the one minor pleasure she’d been enjoying was the warm sun on her face.
The journey back was a mixture of non-specific terror and tedium as she waited for a member of team Alden to appear. For a while, Charlie stared at each passenger, attempting to discern whether they were watching her, before concluding that she was drawing more attention to herself than intended and that she’d probably not notice the one person who actually was watching her.
Finally, several stops from home (and a safe distance from Suzie’s) she stepped off the bus, and wandered through the drizzle to the convenient anonymity of a Starbucks. She confused the barista with her order of a decaf bck americano, which appeared to ck the requisite quantity of caffeine, fvouring, cream or milk, then snuck off to a corner of the store which, she noticed, was not particurly well covered by CCTV.
Having decided that this was the best she was going to be able to manage without doing something really bizarre, like taking the ptop mountain-walking with a satellite phone, she powered it up. She waited while the aged thing creaked through its boot cycle, then made absolutely, positively sure that it wasn’t connecting to WiFi. Finally, holding her breath, she inserted the memory card.
