My interface pops up and disappears as I tap rapidly through the commands. While I don’t necessarily hack into phones often, it’s second nature. I can do this in my sleep. So, holding a conversation with Jessica isn’t difficult.
“My mother wanted perfect children. Unfortunately for her, she only got one. When I was young, she tried to have mefixedso I would sit still and shut up. I learned quickly how to mimic the behavior she wanted from me so she’d leave me alone, and I didn’t have to keep going to the doctors.”
“That’s shit,” Jessica says.
I shrug one shoulder. “The world is a shit place filled with shit people.”
“He’s not perfect.”
My fingers stop for a minute as I try to figure out what she’s on about. Did I say an inside thought out loud? I twist to meet her eyes. “What?”
“Myro isn’t perfect. He struggles every day to live up to that title.”
I tilt my head and turn back to my computer. “I’d love to discuss this with you, but we’re running out of time on a bigger problem right now.”
“I know. Sorry. What can I do to help?”
“Start talking about Brek. Tell me everything you know, whether you think it’s helpful or not.”
“That’s going to help?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know whether this is targeted or happenstance, and until I figure that out, I’m checking both avenues. I’m listening, even if it doesn’t appear that I am.” I glance at her again. “It may look like you’re talking to a wall, but I promise, I hear you.”
Jessica nods. “Okay.” She takes a breath and begins talking about Brek’s job. His sales. The man he works closest with, Zaiden.
While she talks, I command my computer to access the app I managed to install just months ago. I’m so fucking relieved I was able to. I don’t know how I’d find him otherwise. What ifhe’d continued to elude me and I hadn’t gotten my hands on his phone?
After several minutes, I turn to the vertical monitor and watch. “Keep talking,” I tell Jessica when there’s a break in her rambling.
“Is that his phone?” she asks, coming closer.
I rock in my swing, leaning heavily against the rope. My hands tap on my knees as I stare at the background of Brek’s phone. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I’m about to think that the app isn’t playing when the screen brightens, signifying that Brek has just unlocked it.
The screen we’re looking at swipes sideways. The messaging app opens, and we watch as he texts a reminder to himself. The screen goes dark on that screen. He didn’t close out of the messaging app before shutting down his screen.
We wait again. When minutes go by, I hit the forward button on my phone. One minute jump. One minute jump. I end up hitting it twenty times before the app brightens again. The messenger app closes, and the screen swipes up to bring up the apps not on his home screens.
Swipe right. Right. Right. Shuttled. While he’s ordering, I pull up the map on my phone, where I’d been tracking the movement of his phone, so I can match timestamps.
Shuttled is ordered, and he swipes out long enough to text me. My heart skips a little. I’m the first and only one he messaged. Then he’s back at the Shuttled app. I presume watching.
I flip a second monitor sideways and plug my phone into it, making it project what I’m seeing on my small screen onto thebig monitor. As soon as Brek is presumably in the Shuttled, I sync the timestamps and watch as his Shuttled app tracks his progress in time with what my phone is showing with his GPS.
Brek moves out of the Shuttled app to scroll. I lower the replay to split the big screen and pull up the Shuttled app on his phone so we can watch the progress as well as what he’s looking at. It’s only a few minutes before the half of the screen showing his phone goes dark.
“He gets carsick,” Jessica says quietly.
That means we’re left watching the two tracking devices. As the car approaches the intersection of routes 17 and 40, the Shuttled app reflects a notification that Brek canceled the drive, and the driver receives partial payment.
Shuttled is no longer tracking where Brek is headed, but the GPS on my phone that’s tracking the location of Brek’s phone continues to play. Instead of turning left toward home, it turns right and heads east.
“Watch this screen,” I tell Jessica, nodding toward the GPS tracking. “If he moves off the road before the truck stops and I don’t see it, tell me. I’m going to see what I can find out about his Shuttled driver.”
It doesn’t take me long to pull up the driver in Brek’s phone and grab the plate number, make and model of the Shuttled car, and the driver’s name and photo. Then I’m moving toward my single screen left on my computer and running the identifier program that’ll tell me everything about this guy, including his fucking blood type.
“I think they stopped,” Jessica says.
I turn toward the screen, and sure enough, the dot isn’t on the highway. I click back over and tap until I can zoom in and turn on satellite view instead of looking at the cartoonized, featureless GPS model. Gas station. It’d be nice if I could rewind the satellite and see the man fueling. Or maybe changing out drivers?
