Pranks and Sandwiches

Amy wasn't at my place yet when I got home. I double-checked my phone to see if she'd called, nothing, so I brought my stuff inside and set up my new laptop at the kitchen table. I went upstairs and got some software CDs from my room so I could start making this computer my own. I cracked open a can of Coke from the fridge and sat back down at the computer. After I'd set it up with my home's (secured) network, I went online and checked the remote camera I'd set up just minutes before.

The feed was laggy, coming now remotely over the internet rather than on a local connection, but it worked. The tree branches were annoying, still, but there was still a clear view of both entrances to the house. I sat for a few minutes, staring at the small video window and wondering what I was looking for.

Amy came through the front door, without knocking, and threw her messenger bag on the couch as she walked toward the kitchen. It was about 1pm now.

"What's the big thing?" I asked as she tumbled into the chair opposite me at the table. She looked frazzled yet 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 different forms and made a copy of a blank piece of paper just to see if he was back in his office or not."
"Ok..."
"The last time I went in there, during lunch, he was just leaving his office and he 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 was saying that you hadn't been in school lately and if I'd talked to you or knew why. 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 4th hour study hall, he knows we have that together, but as soon as he brought it up he clammed up and walked away."
"Ok. 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, that is new," 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," 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." She brought out the bag of sliced turkey and some lettuce, started looking for mayo, I'd guess.
"Didn't you eat at school?" I asked over the lid of the computer. I was trying to fix the user account and set up my email.
"No, I was in the office during lunch and after Mr. Comstock talked to me I left."

She began untwisting the tie from the bag of bread on the counter. Help yourself to some food, I thought.

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 was opening 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 with the loaf from which they were born and returned everything else to the fridge.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"To break some more laws," I said, putting my jacket on.
"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 that. For now, I set it on top of the box it came in and covered them both up with a kitchen towel.

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

* * * *

We got in my car and I returned to Nathan Comstock's neighborhood, parking on the street again where I had before. I got out and casually walked over 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'd 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 indeed a statement from a Dell credit account. The balance was only a few hundred, not enough to buy a network of supercomputers for taking down the IRS database or anything. As far as stereotypical super-villain behavior to look for, I was running on empty.

The statement listed his contact information. The address I knew, the phone number was the one I already had, but it did list his email address. That, I did not have. It was a freeHotmail address. If I could get access to his email, I'd know what he was buying, who he was talking to, what websites he was registering for. The possibilities were enormous, as far as I could see it. 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". I couldn't think of anyway to get in without lying into a telephone, and that one only works so many times.

I knew people con their way into email accounts all the time, but I didn't have the resources for all of that. I'd need some help, I knew, but I didn't really 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 there 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, something a lot of small businesses were doing back then because some article in Forbes said it would make you rich. 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 tried to look up the address of the only person I could think of from school who could help me with my email 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 email accounts.

"How are you going to convince him to help you get into a principal's personal email account?" Amy asked, after we'd worn out all other topics.
"I don't know. He's not exactly mister school-spirit, he might just do it for the fun of it," I said, closing the computer's lid to spare its battery.
"Yeah, but it's be weird to just show up and and say, 'Hey, I had a cool idea for a prank. How about you help me get into Mr. Comstock, who probably isn't even your assigned principal, get into his email for no reason? And then you don't ask me any more questions.' Doesn't seem likethat'd float."
I nodded and said, "True. A prank, though, maybe that's a viable angle. Say we're planning a Senior prank for some reason."
"What Senior prank would require access to his email? Those kind of pranks are supposed to be like some kind of social rebellion, not targeted at one person. They fill the swimming pool with Jello or let a bunch of chickens loose in the hallways. They don't spy on principals."

I started tracing the pattern on the tablecloth with my finger in silence. It was weird, how we were 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 was 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 without seeming more suspicious, I had to make it so having this kid help me accesssomeone's email was good for him and me. Like 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.

Just then I had an idea, and a smile grew across my face.

"What?" Amy asked, "You think of something?"
"Possibly," I responded wryly, "but it would require you to have a limited sense of personal shame."
"Done," she said.

* * * *

Dale Carpenter's house was in a neighborhood of smaller houses that probably cost just as much as the bigger ones because they were on old land and not part of a modern development. The house wasn't maintained very well, and the lawn could use a mow. Amy and I 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 I noticed a lot of annoying girls spoke most sentences at school, and I mentally patted her on the back for her acting, though I didn't know why either of us weren't just being ourselves. Perhaps we thought that, just because we had been the target of a possible hit and were in thecrosshairs of the FBI and state police, we were more important than everybody else.

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 ever took and frequently engaged in inside jokes with the teachers. While most of the classes were a way for me to learn new things about computer hardware or programming, they were just an exercise in repeating that which he already knew, kind of like how English classes were for me. Dale usually ended up sitting near me in classes so I spoke to him a bit, 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 power cables spewed from inside the two metal cases like entrails protruding from a grenade victim. Only one computer had to 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 case. All the computers' fans made it rather loud in the room, the air a bit dry, and everything very hot.

"Baker? What are you doing here?" Dale was sitting at the computer desk in a high-topped leather rolling chair. The big CRT monitor on his desk was about the size of my old car's engine, and from the looks of it the computer was just now being booted up.

"Hey Carpenter," I said, moving to let Amy through the door. "This is Amy," I said when she did.
Dale turned his chair a degree to look at her, then said, "What? Girlfriend?"

Amy raised her eyebrows at him and grinned.

"That's kind of why we're here," I said.
"I thought you might want the homework from the last week or so of A-plus class you've skipped," Dale said, still sitting, "everyone thinks you split your wig about your dad or something."
"Hey," I said, "when they say 'take as much time off as you want,' I'm taking as much time off as I want."
Dale smiled, then looked at Amy, then back to me. "So. What?"
"We've got a bit of a problem," I said, gesturing to Amy with my elbow. She was looking at a series of books on a shelf just by the door.
"Ok...?" Dale said.

"About a week ago," I started, "Amy and I skipped out of our classes and met up in one of the empty classrooms down in the 'dungeon' to engage in some... activities. Well, someone saw us sneak back in there and came and snapped a picture with his cell phone--"
"Wait," Dale cut in. He looked at Amy, "You --" then back at me, " -- and you?"
I just looked at him flatly, he took the hint. "Humans," he said to himself, then shook his head and laughed.

"Anyway," I continued, "someone took a picture of us in 'the act'. I didn't know about it, but he just showed me today and had a good laugh. He says he might send the photo to Mr. Comstock just to be a dick."
"Who is it?" Dale asked.
I tried to think of someone idiotic enough to do something like that, "Tim Isham," I said.
"He should," Dale said.
Amy looked up, surprised, and said, "He what?"
"He should send them. You guys are both under 18, right?"
I nodded slowly, realizing a slight flaw in my lie.
"Then he's got child pornography," Dale said in a laugh, "he sends that out and he's screwed, could probably get Comstock in trouble, too. Cops don't know what's what. Sending, receiving, they don't know the difference."
"All the same," I said after a second, "I want to get into Comstock's email so that if Tim does send it, I can delete it before Comstock gets it. I have his address, it's a hotmail account, but I don't have his password."

Dale leaned back in his chair, enjoying his position of power.

"We could pay you, if that's what you want," Amy said. I looked at her.

"Nah," Dale said. "If I do it for the fun of it, it's a prank. If I take money for it, it's like a crime or something."

"Yeah," I said, looking again at Amy, "a prank."