Mind + Body, Aaron Dunlap [smart books to read TXT] 📗

the big thing?” I asked as she tumbled into the chair opposite me at the table. She looked both frazzled and distant, resting her chin on her open palm and tapping at her teeth with her fingernail.

“I was keeping an eye on Comstock, like you said,” she began. “Between every class I was looking for him or trying to follow him. I went into the admin office three times pretending I needed forms and made a copy of a blank piece of paper just to see if he was back in his office.”

“Okay…”

“The last time, during lunch, Comstock was just leaving his office and saw me in the front, over where the forms are and he started talking to me.”

“Talking to you about what?” I was watching the wind blow the branches of a tree on a street in a neighborhood twelve miles away.

“About you,” she said.

I looked up from the computer. “About me?”

“Yes, you. He said that you hadn’t been in school lately and asked if I’d talked to you. I told him I didn’t know you that well and only saw you a few times during the day, but that I thought it might be something about your dad dying.”

“Why would he talk to you? He’s got no reason to think we even know each other.”

“I don’t know. He started mentioning our fourth hour study hall, he knows we have that together, but as soon as he brought it up he clammed up and walked away.”

“Okay. That’s weird.”

“Is that a new laptop?” she asked, now noticing the thing I’ve been looking at this whole time.

“It’s… a laptop, and is new to me,” I said.

“You trying to see how fast you can spend all your money?”

“Hey, I got it used. And I bought it for remote spying on Comstock’s house.”

“What do you mean?”

I showed her the video feed and explained about the wireless camera I’d attached to a tree, and how you could connect to from any computer and watch it remotely.

“Any computer?” she asked.

“Any computer with internet access,” I said.

“So why did you have to buy a laptop?”

I sighed.

Amy got up and went around the counter and looked in the fridge. “Haven’t gotten any food yet?” she said, her body blocked by the open door.

“I went to the store last night, got some sandwich stuff,” I said.

She opened the deli food drawer and said, “Ah hah.” She brought out the bag of sliced turkey and the head of lettuce, and started looking, I guessed, for mayo.

“Didn’t you eat at school?” I asked.

“No, I was in the office during lunch and after Comstock talked to me I left.”

She began untwisting the tie from the bag of bread on the counter.

On the computer screen, in the feed from the webcam, I saw a white mail truck go around the cul-de-sac and out of view.

Amy had two pieces of bread on a paper plate and forcefully opened the jar of mayo.

“Put those away,” I said, standing up. “We’re going out.”

She frowned and tossed the slices of bread back in the bag and returned everything else to the fridge.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To break some more laws,” I said, putting on my jacket.

“Bringing the gun then, are we?” She was joking.

I looked at the gun sitting there on the kitchen table next to the salt shaker. I told myself I needed to find a place to put it. For now, I set it on top of the box it came in and covered them both with a kitchen towel.

“Perfect,” Amy said over my shoulder. “Nobody ever looks beneath the tea towel.”

+ + + +

We got in my car and I drove back to Nathan Comstock’s neighborhood, parking on the street again where I had before. I got out and casually walked to the mailbox in front of Comstock’s house and flipped through the envelopes. Amy got out and went over to the median in the middle of the street loop and tried to find the camera I told her about. I saw her spot the plug, then follow the wire to the tree, then move some branches until she saw the camera. It took her about 15 seconds total, but she was looking for it. I hoped it would be harder to otherwise detect.

I took the one item from the mailbox that looked promising and went back to my car. Amy returned a few moments later.

“What’d you get?” she asked.

“I was hoping for a bank statement, or a membership card from the Criminal Suspect Discount Club. All I got was this.” I held up an envelope from Dell Financial Services.

“Computer bill?”

“Better than nothing, I guess.” I opened the envelope. Inside was a statement from a Dell credit account. The balance was only a few hundred dollars, not enough to buy a network of supercomputers for cracking missile codes. As far as stereotypical super villain behavior to look for, I was running on empty.

The statement listed his contact information at the bottom. The address I knew, the phone number was the one I already had, but it did list his e-mail address. That, I did not have. It was a free Hotmail address not one from the school. If I could get access to his personal e-mail, I’d know what he was buying, who he was talking to, what websites he was registering for, and more. The possibilities were endless. But how to get in?

I pulled my laptop from the bag in the back seat and connected to the “default” wireless network. I tried logging into Hotmail with his address and a few obvious passwords. The password wasn’t “password” or “Comstock,” the two most obvious options.

I know people con their way into e-mail accounts all the time, but I didn’t have the resources for that. I’d need help, but I didn’t want to bring someone else into this. I tried to think of a way to do so without explaining the whole situation, but realized I shouldn’t be just sitting in my car when I’ve probably maxed out my suspicious behavior quota for the day. Besides, I promised Amy food.

We stopped at a sandwich shop about ten minutes away that advertised free wireless internet. Inside we sat in wooden chairs and ate subs at a table with a red-checkered picnic-style tablecloth. I tried to keep the crumbs away from the computer while I attempted to look up the address of the only person I could think of from school who could help me with my e-mail problem. We waited out the time until school was formally released in the restaurant, trying to talk about anything but myself and taking turns checking our own e-mail accounts.

“How are you going to convince him to help us get into a principal’s personal e-mail account?” Amy asked, after we’d worn out all other topics.

“I don’t know. He’s not exactly Mister School Spirit, he might do it just for the fun of it,” I said, closing the computer’s lid to spare its battery.

“Yeah, but it’d be weird to just show up and say, ‘Hey, I had a cool idea for a prank. How about you help me get into Mr. Comstock’s e-mail, even though he probably isn’t even your assigned principal and I cant really give any good reason to in the first place? And don’t ask me any more questions.’ Doesn’t seem like that’d float.”

I nodded and said, “True. A prank, though, maybe that’s a viable angle. Say we’re planning a senior prank.”

“What senior prank would require access to his e-mail? That kind of prank is supposed to be some kind of social rebellion, not targeted at one person. They fill the swimming pool with Jell-O or let a bunch of chickens loose in the hallways. They don’t spy on principals.”

I started tracing the pattern of the tablecloth with my finger in silence. It was weird, trying to figure a way to get a “normal” person to help us. Just another kid my age, a loner dork with too much free time; a person I was exactly like just a few weeks ago before people started trying to kill me. If I were going to help someone break laws back then, it would have been because I got some kind of benefit from it. I can’t offer to pay him without seeming more suspicious. I had to make it so having this kid help me access someone’s e-mail was good for him and me. Like if it would get him access to privileged information. Social outcasts love to feel included in anything, a clique of friends, a small bit of gossip, anything to make them feel connected, superior.

Just then I had an idea, and with the thought of it a smile spread across my face.

“What?” Amy asked, “You think of something?”

“Possibly,” I responded wryly, “but it would require you to have a very limited sense of personal shame.”

“Done,” she said.

+ + + +

Dale Carpenter’s house was in a neighborhood of smaller houses that made up the original, historic area of Fredericksburg before it was absorbed into the cruel system of suburban sprawl, Starbucks, and attached condominiums. The area was charming, though a bit depressing at the same time, like a Renaissance Faire attendee decked out in a period-authentic tunic, leggings, and a pair of silver-and-blue Nikes.

I tried to present this analogy to Amy, but she didn’t get it. It’s entirely possible that I’m a crazy person, to be fair.

The two of us stood at the front door, me wearing my backpack with the laptop, Amy with her messenger bag. I hung my thumbs from the hoops on my bag’s straps, trying to look like a kid who still went to school. Amy rang the doorbell.

A woman came to the door and answered it. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt advertising a store that I believed wasn’t in business anymore. I smiled like an idiot, and Amy spoke, “Hi, we’re here to work on a project with Dale?” She said it as a question like how I noticed a lot of annoying girls spoke most sentences at school, and I mentally patted her on the back for her acting.

Dale’s mom stepped back and pointed down a hallway toward his room. I said thanks and we both walked down the hall and through the open door to his room and immediately felt a gust of heat.

Dale was the hardest-core geek I knew. He was in every computer class I took and frequently engaged in inside jokes with teachers. While most of the classes were a way for me to learn new things about computer hardware or programming, for him they were an exercise in repeating that which he already knew. Dale usually ended up sitting near me in classes, so I spoke to him a bit, as one does to those near him, but that was the extent of our relationship.

His room was small, but practically filled with computers. Four or five were lined up under his desk, most with their cases open and insides exposed. At the other side of the room there were two computer cases on their sides, cases also open. IDE and Molex power cables spewed from inside the two metal cases like entrails protruding from a grenade victim. Only one computer had the distinction of sitting on the desk; it had a silver case and blue neon light spilled from the clear window cut into the side of its metal chassis. All the computers and their fans made it dry, hot, and loud.

“Baker? What are you doing here?” Dale was sitting at the