"More secure, too," I added. "The tradeoff is that I need to physically connect it to a keyboard and monitor."
"But can you get Netflix on it?" Sophie joked, smirking. "Seriously, though, that's pretty cool. What about physically, where are you wanting to go?"
"We can go just about anywhere," I replied, "although staying away from the big cities or places with a strong organization presence would be safer. While I've done most of my work in this half of the USA, I've pulled a few contracts overseas. The networks are more intertwined than you would imagine, and the farther I can get away from that the better."
"Hmmmm, well, I have always wanted to go to Fiji," Sophie said, before cocking her eyebrow. When I gave her no reaction one way or another, her face gaped in wonder. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"As long as I can get a satellite Internet connection I am," I said, tucking my smartbox back in my pocket. "And before you ask, yes I have a backup to the smartbox. Without one of those, however, nobody can get into my accounts. We're set for life if you want, Sophie."
Sophie thought it over for a bit, then looked at me. "Can I get in touch with my friends? I'm not saying permanently, but Tabby in particular has been my friend for years. I should at least tell her goodbye or something."
I thought about the safety risk. If the Confederation knew about Tabby, and if they had put a trace on her e-mail accounts, there was a chance that the mail could be traced back. This was especially true if Sophie's laptop had been hacked by Owen Lynch or the Confederation, and a tracer placed on it. Honestly, it was just one too many ifs to worry about. After all, they could already safely assume she was alive, and most likely with me, after the two men didn't report back successfully. I'd dumped their bodies in a river the night before, so they couldn't even be technically traced back to her place. "Not from just anywhere," I said, thinking quickly. "It'll need to be from a public place, few security cameras, public terminal, stuff like that. Is your e-mail accessible from a web browser?"
"Sure. Where then?"
About an hour later, we pulled up to a Best Buy, where Sophie gave me a suspicious look. "Keep your ball cap on, and we'll be fine," I said. "They sell prepaid phones here, I put it on my Mark Snow ID, and even if they trace it, they'll just know it was me. That's all."
We were in and out in a half-hour, and the clerk, a somewhat pimply faced high school kid, didn't even ask to see my ID. I filled out the form with total lies, and we walked out with a little web capable phone. As soon as we got to my truck, we plugged in the charger to my USB port I had replaced the cigarette lighter with, and turned it on. Two minutes later, Sophie was on the web, loading her mail. "The service here really sucks," she said as we drove down the road. "I mean, this thing is loading slowly.”
"Well, what can you expect for a hundred dollars. The phone's probably cheap as hell too. Glad you're good with a stylus."
Sophie nodded, her head stilling as she loaded her message. "Mark, pull over."
"What is it?" I asked, pulling into a dry cleaners and putting the truck in park. "What's wrong?"
Sophie handed me her phone, which had an e-mail message up. "They took Tabby."
Miss White,
If you're reading this, then you've decided not to disappear as completely as I'm sure Mr. Snow advised you to. Our benefit, your mistake. We have Miss Williams with us, staying as a guest of our organization. She would like to have you come visit her. Even though we keep telling her that it can't rain all the time, she insists that you are the best person to help her. We tend to agree. Just remember Sophie, this is the really real world, there ain't no coming back. If you wish to visit, give Tabby's cell phone a call, she'll be happy to pick it up. We know you must feel like a little worm on a big fuckin' hook right now, but hey, are we having fun or what?
Friends of Mark Snow
"What's with all the cheesy lines?" I asked as I handed the phone back. "Nobody I worked with talked like that."
Sophie nodded and sighed. "A sign that they actually have or know Tabby. Back when we were in college Tabby went through a bit of a Goth-lite phase. She watched that old Brandon Lee movie The Crow at least twenty or thirty times on her computer, to the point that we could both quote lines to each other constantly. Last time I was over at her place, she still had a Brandon Lee poster and a copy of the DVD."
I didn't want to tell Sophie what I knew, which was that for any of the senders of the e-mail to get that information, they most likely tortured Tabby for it. I reached across the table and took her hand in mine. "What do you want to do?"
Sophie squeezed my hand and looked me in the eye. "Can you save Tabby?"
I thought it over, then nodded. "Maybe. I'd need some help and some luck, though."