Eternity's Voice - Hey, there is pride in being a glorious chunk of male flesh. Lot's of pride. Hmm... I loved my present, and yah see! It works!
Eli - I always did like Gabe. Sigh. I will bring in a Gabe-like character, but I almost fucked up the whole story line I'd managed to develop while attempting to make this more like the original. And thank you for the encouragement. I need it.
Dragongrrl - Yeah, it seems to not work very well, but I am attempting to find pictures that represent them better anyway. 'Sides, imagining how Alex looks is fun. Really fun. Hehehe.MUAH! I love you all!
Oh, and special thankies to Eternity's Voice for the über-cool analogy that starts this chapter off from, gasps, the bad-guy's perspective!
By the way, to find out the origins of the quote from Eternity's Voice, read Thief of Spirits. It is veddy, veddy good.
Chapter 13 – It's been a while…
Logging on to the Internet was a thrill for her every time. She turned on the modem, and opened the proverbial windows to the reality she craved. She was the spider in the great web that she only had to crawl along to reach the juicy moth and drain it dry. (Oh, that was a good one, girl.)
Every little bit of information she wanted was hers at the click of her fingers on the keyboard. It was easy, almost too easy, to get into almost every system. There is a chink in every armor, her mentor used to say. Find the fissure, and exploit it. It worked every time, too.
That is why it was so easy to hack into Digi-Indie's system and make... adjustments to plans. It was easy to get them into specific places at specific times. It made it easy for her associates to plant the wonderfully undetectable and deadly pearl flower leaf. Nature's greatest invention, she thought.
But as her mentor said, every armor has a fault, and as she did a quick scan of her computer, she noticed one in hers. Oblivious to the sounds of her cats fighting in the kitchen, she studied the disrupted pattern.
Seconds later, her screen was replaced by a video-satellite image. The man on the screen told her what to do, and offered her a substantial offer.
She had to take it.
*~*
After the third murder, a pattern began to show up on the computer's that had been confiscated from the offices of the deceased persons. A code that was the same on all of the hard-drives. Natalie inquired about it, thinking that it was, perhaps, something that existed on all company computers.
It wasn't. It was a specific hacker code.
But Natalie couldn't find it anywhere. Either the hacker was a complete amateur, or someone was setting up a trail to lead them to the origin of the hacker.
Natalie was hoping for the first, but would settle for the latter. Cheryl was the first to notice it. When she asked Natalie if she remembered the code from her old hacking days, Natalie nearly choked. Of course she didn't, dammit. It had been years... Or maybe months? She couldn't remember.
Maybe that was her way of getting out of recounting her days as a hacker. By having a wonderfully in working order selective memory. It was better, that way. To not remember.
Even if she had known the hacker who was suspiciously on every one of the victims' computers, she wouldn't have remembered. Cheryl didn't know that, though. No matter how many questions she asked, Cheryl knew very little about Natalie's past.
And Natalie wanted to keep it that way.
*~*
Alex was always there; watching and waiting for a time when Natalie would finally discover the feelings she had subconsciously hidden deep in her brain. She didn't even realize that when she slept at night, it wasn't of silicon chips or ways to update Zeta ('member her?) It was of Alex. Their past and future lives together. She didn't know how much she tortured Alex. He would wake up unsatisfied and aroused, not remembering details, but the vague picture was enough to send him into a cold shower immediately.
All of his lessons in self-control were useless when it came to Natalie. It was about time she realized that. He wasn't going to stand down anymore. He wanted her and he wanted out of Irons' control. It was only a matter of time.
*~*
Irons found it amusing, how independent his creation had become. He supposed he deserved it, seeing as his attempts to raise the boy in solitude hadn't worked as well as the other's had. Maybe if he'd kept him frozen, growing and learning by the memories and talents being placed in his head.
His experiments with creating a protector without cloning were in vain. He was self-determining. He followed orders in his own way, of course, but he put up a fight. A personality suppressant would have been a great investment, he thought.
In his own twisted way, Irons loved Alex. He was his greatest creation yet. Even with all of his faults, he was relatively perfect. Maybe that is where he went wrong.
Next time, he would make him ugly and uninteresting. Yes, that would have to be.
Didya like it?
Didyah?
Huh?
I kind of do. I think I did a pretty good job with minor character developments. Yay! It isn't much of a step up in the whole department, save for the beginning (Thankies Eternity's!) but I think I made headway.
