The Monitor Read online

  The Monitor

  A Randy Craig Mystery

  by Janice MacDonald

  The Monitor

  copyright © Janice MacDonald 2003

  Turnstone Press

  206-100 Arthur Street

  Artspace Building

  Winnipeg, MB

  R3B 1H3 Canada

  www.TurnstonePress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or ­transmitted in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the ­publisher. Any request to photocopy any part of this book shall be directed in writing to Cancopy (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), Toronto.

  Turnstone Press gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Government of Manitoba through the Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism, Arts Branch for our publishing activities.

  Cover design: Doowah Design

  Interior design: Sharon Caseburg

  Ebook Design: Jamis Paulson

  MacDonald, Janice E. (Janice Elva), 1959-

  The Monitor : A Randy Craig Mystery / by Janice MacDonald.

  This is for Martina, Lasha and Cora

  I cannot imagine better friends.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank my family, without whom I would literally crack into a thousand brittle pieces. Randy, Madeleine and Jocelyn, you are the most special people in the world to me and I’m proud to be connected to you. Thank you for your patience with me, for not minding when I make odd references to blood and mayhem during otherwise sedate moments, and for reading drafts not fit for human consumption (and for eating some meals of the same calibre during the course of the writing). Thanks also to Dilly, who sat on my shoulder and kept me company for most of the writing of this.

  I’d also like to thank the real Dr. Ray Lopez, who gave me some ideas on how to configure certain elements of the chat room; Ryan Sales, who told me about hunting bad guys; and Howard Rheingold, for creating Brainstorms, which is where you go when you grow out of the chats. Thanks also to all my “imaginary friends”—everyone who lent me your name or handle for characters and all the folks I’ve had pleasant chats with on various sites.

  Babel contains elements of many chatsites I’ve visited over the years, and also has some bells and whistles I’ve often dreamed of having available. While I’ve had some wonderful advice and help in the creation of Babel, all the errors are mine and shouldn’t be considered a commentary on any chat room in particular.

  While most writers would agree that churning out the manuscript is arduous work, it’s often what comes after that counts the most. I am very blessed when it comes to people who run this gauntlet with me.

  I am so grateful that the folks at Turnstone believe in genre writing enough to have created the glorious Ravenstone line. Thanks to Todd, a publisher who believes in writers and treats us like an integral part of the chain; Sharon who keeps it all happening smoothly; and Kelly, a marketer who somehow makes shilling the product seem like great fun and easy, to boot.

  Thanks to Jackie, Steve, Sharon, Laurie, Gail, Mary Jane, Linda, Henrietta, Gaylene and all other independent booksellers who hand-sell Canadian mysteries. Thanks to all the Canadian readers who support their local writers, and all the other readers who delve into Canadian books with such evident respect.

  The Monitor

  1

  Denise and I were sharing our monthly potluck supper of my Greek salad, her chicken enchiladas, and an inexpensive bottle of wine she’d pulled out of her shoulder bag. I’m not much of a drinker, but, since we both had things to celebrate, it seemed churlish not to indulge.

  We were drinking to Denise’s appointment to chair of a committee. It was at the department level, but it had larger implications. She was to be in charge of the writer-in-residence program, which was housed by the English department, but partially funded through alumni funds and some other administration purses. To me, it sounded like a headache and a half, but Denise was campaigning for tenure track, and from her tentative stance as a full-time sessional lecturer, this was the biggest opening she had been given. She was going to give it her all, I could tell, and Denise’s all was no small thing. If anyone was going to get tenure in this climate, it would be her.

  Being slightly older and armed with only an MA, I ­hadn’t fared quite so well in terms of the University of Alberta. Cutbacks had been rampant, and I’d been lucky to land a couple of distance courses run through Grant MacEwan College. I was hoping that they might pave the way to more work, though it was impossible to predict what might happen in the educational scene in this province anymore.

  However, I did have something to celebrate, too. In addition to my distance work, which barely paid the bills, I had just managed to land a job that was perfect for me, which paid very well and didn’t even require a new wardrobe. While I had signed a confidentiality agreement, I didn’t think it was going to be a big issue to tell Denise a bit of what I was going to be doing. After all, she did worry about me.

  Her reaction wasn’t quite what I had hoped for. “What the heck is a chat-room monitor? You mean on the Internet? Oh Randy, you mean you’re going to spend your evenings peeping on cyber-wankers?”

  “Not exactly, though the main reason for the monitoring is to crack down on kiddie porn for sure. In fact, I think that is part of the mandate that system operators have to agree to when getting that much bandwidth to operate.” I took more wine than I had intended and coughed a bit as the power of it went up my nose. “Mostly, though, I am there to make sure that no one gets out of line and nothing illegal takes place. The other chatters won’t even know I’m there.”

  “That’s creepy.”

  “Well, sort of, but not really any creepier than having surveillance cameras in department stores. You know they’re there for your general protection, because shoplifting makes everything pricier for everyone else, so you put up with the cameras and try not to take it personally.”

  “You know, I’ve never actually been in a chat room,” Denise mused while pouring herself another glass of wine. I put my hand over the rim of my glass so she couldn’t top up mine at the same time.

  “Let me clean up this mess, and then I’ll log us in and you can see what I’m talking about.” We were seated at my small kitchen table, which is set along the wall of the eating area of my apartment. Since my desk—complete with computer and printer—is also in the room, as well as a rather large filing cabinet, movement can get problematic if everything isn’t streamlined. I cleaned and washed off the table with a damp cloth, setting our dishes into a plastic dishpan in my old ceramic sink. I then lowered the hinged leaf on the table and brought one of the kitchen chairs over to the desk area. Denise, still holding onto her wineglass, settled in beside me as I booted up my computer.

  “So this is a real-time sort of thing? The folks are all logged in to their various terminals at the same time as us?”

  “Exactly. However, this isn’t what you’d call Internet Relay Chat. That is a bit too fast, even for me, and I type pretty quickly. This is real-time chat through a web browser, what they call a cgi-bin program. There is a self-reloading component to the web site that activates every time someone posts something. It’s as if you are hitting the reload button every so often and discovering that changes have been made to the site.”

  My desktop picture of the Edmonton river valley in full autumn color had by now appeared, and I clicked on my browser icon to hook onto the Internet. I had ­invested in a cable connection earlier in the fall and was gratified by Denise’s admiration of how fast my connection time was. I hit the
Bookmarks menu and pulled my cursor down to Babel, the name of the chat room I’d been hired to monitor.

  I logged in as Denise, signing her in as a guest. I had no problems telling her about the job, but I had signed a confidentiality agreement and I didn’t want to appear in the room before my appointed time with my trainer. It wouldn’t hurt, though, to just show her how chat worked.

  There were several folks in the room who responded to the automatic posting: Denise has entered the building.

  “You see, they’re mostly friendly. I’ll just post a quick comment for you, and you can see how the room works.”

  Denise: Hi folks. I’m a newbie. I’ll just watch for a bit.

  Maia: Jump on in, honey. We’re pretty friendly around here, and newbies are always welcome. There’s an FAQ up in the left corner there, if you want. *smile*

  “What’s an FAQ?” asked Denise, beside me.

  “It stands for frequently asked questions, and covers basic netiquette for the room, directions on how to create a private message, or a private room, how to choose an icon, who to write to with complaints or problems, that sort of thing. Most people don’t bother reading them when they come into a new community, but they should. It’s very easy to step on toes in the cyber-world.”

  “What does that mean?” Denise pointed to the screen, which had refreshed a few times while we’d been talking. Several folks had posted, and, along with asterisked body language, they had added various acronyms to their posts.

  “Well, that LOL means laughing out loud and ROTFLMAO means rolling on the floor laughing my ass off. FWIW means for what it’s worth and IMNSHO stands for in my not so humble opinion. There are others, like YMMV, which stands for your mileage may vary, and BEG, which means big evil grin. Chatters take pride in creating their own jargon, just like any other closed society. Besides, some of these are trying to get missing body language across to the room, while others are just compressing some really long phrases that tend to find their way over and over into general speech.”

  “Okay, so what’s a private message?”

  “Well, that is half of what goes on in any given chat room, though it had never occurred to me before I ­started monitoring. You wouldn’t believe the amount of flirting and innuendo that is flying around in there right now, I’m betting. For instance, if you were to private-message Maia right now to thank her for her help, it might take a wee while for her to get back to you. I have a feeling she and Daniel in there are having a few private moments. Hang on.”

  I demonstrated by highlighting Maia’s name in the chatter list to the right of the screen. Then I typed in the message box: “Thanks for steering me to the FAQ. I don’t want to mess up.”

  As soon as I hit the Post button, it appeared on the screen above as:

  PM from Denise to Maia: Thanks for steering me to the FAQ. I don’t want to mess up.

  A few more public postings came between, and then Denise gave a little whoop when she read:

  Bonn: Have you ever noticed how pink cartoon pigs are? I mean, that’s got to warp an urban kid’s mind, right?

  Gandalf: You don’t think the fact that cartoon pigs tend to talk might be a giveaway that it’s not quite National Geographic?

  PM from Maia to Denise: Don’t worry, hon. It’s not like you’re interrupting the brain trust here. *LOL*

  “See, you and Maia are the only ones who can see that post. Of course, there are all sorts of things being posted that you likely can’t see.”

  “But you can when you’re logged in as a monitor?”

  I shrugged. “Well, I think I can turn it off and on. I don’t spend the whole evening reading other people’s private conversations, but I can go in to make sure nothing ugly is brewing. Likewise with the private rooms; I can hover in the rafters and check on what’s happening ­within. Usually it’s private cyber-sex, and I don’t spend much time lingering, if you know what I mean. We just have to be careful that nothing illegal is taking place.”

  With that, I hit the Leave button, and the chat screen was replaced with Babel’s “See you next time” splash page, replete with banner ads and counter.

  “Although you can’t see it, Denise has left the building was posted after you logged out. Most folks announce that they’ll be leaving, and then there are myriad goodbyes posted before they actually log out.”

  “So, in other words, you’ve made me look like a rude person,” Denise offered a mock pout.

  “Well, if you actually decided to chat, I’d suggest you register with a handle that offers you some disguise. Never forget, the chat population is constantly changing. There will be a core group of regulars, but anyone can walk in off the street, just like we did tonight. You have to keep some healthy paranoia about you.”

  “What is your chat handle?” Denise seemed ­interested, but I had a feeling I hadn’t managed to sell her on the brave new world possibilities I was seeing in the Internet.

  “Chimera,” I admitted. “I know it sounds a bit melodramatic, but it felt right at the time, and now I’m stuck with it.”

  Denise laughed. “Not at all. I can’t think of a better name. After all, truth in advertising, and all that.”

  It wasn’t long before our conversation was back to Denise’s new position on the committee. We mulled over various of her fundraising ideas while drying the dishes, and I walked her to the front door of the apartment to watch her safely to her car.

  Although Denise had seemed a bit contemptuous of my new job, I was glad I’d told her about it. I am not that good at keeping things secret from folks I care about. This is odd, in that I am very good at keeping other people’s secrets. My own life, however, I prefer to live as an open book. Of course, it was probably a good thing I hadn’t told her about the interview process to get the job. I’m not sure I’d have been able to put a spin on that whole thing that would sound anything but bizarre.

  2

  I’d been surfing about the ’Net for a while, using it ­mainly to research my freelance work. It was cheaper than a membership to the university library, and far vaster. Then, to unwind after marking e-mailed essays or dealing with obtuse questions from students on the class conference board, I would pop into one of the myriad chat rooms set up on the ’Net, where there was always someone to talk to. It was like the coffee rooms in other workplaces, except that there you usually found yourself alone, drinking the swill from the drip coffee urn in the corner and reading the occupational safety posters out of boredom. Besides, with the irregular hours I was keeping, there was usually no one either unoccupied or sometimes even awake when I decided to take a break.

  A notice one evening in Babel, my favorite chat site, had made me sit up and take notice. “Do you come here regularly? How would you like to chat productively? Get paid for your efforts? For more information, leave a private message for Chatgod.”

  Well, never let it be said that I was the nervous sort, but I thought about that notice for an entire evening before replying.

  I figured no harm could come from a simple private message, or, in chat parlance, PM, so I left my handle “Chimera” with a PM posting saying I was usually in Babel from 10:00 p.m. onward and that I could always use the job. It was the next day before I received a reply.

  I’d seen Chatgod posting messages and announcements from time to time, but he’d never spoken to me before.

  PM from Chatgod to Chimera: Be in Babel at 10:05 tomorrow evening.

  I was intrigued. Nervous, but not a little bit flattered, too, that he should take my PM seriously. The next evening I showered and dressed nicely, even though I ­didn’t have a Webcam and I couldn’t afford the fancy bells and whistles that allowed chatters to see each other. I just needed to feel confident for the interview.

  I went into the room at 9:45, and chatted a bit aimlessly with the few folks there. Some of the East Coasters were calling it a night, the Swedes had all gone to bed long before, and the Californians were just beginning to drift in. Evangeline was moaning
about her exams, as usual, giving me the feeling that her parents had sent her to college for her MRS rather than for any intellectual training. Gopher was monkeying around, posting pictures of some nubile cartoon characters, and Kafir seemed to be marking time till his sweetie Kara arrived. I was just about to deselect images on my screen, to avoid yet another view of Sailor Mercury, when a small “ping” emanated from my computer.

  While I’ve been computer-proficient since my thesis days, I am Luddite enough to worry about any new thing that happens, figuring I’ve finally broken the magic toy. I quickly pulled my hands from the keyboard and stared at the machine.

  The screen shimmered for a moment, and then, where the usual advertising appeared at the top of the screen, there was suddenly a window with a man’s face at the center, staring straight at me. I jumped.

  The postings of the others disappeared and in their place came a message, without my even having to press the Post button. No handle appeared before his message, but it would have been redundant in any case. His message read, “Good evening, Chimera. I am Chatgod.”

  I was mesmerized by the face on my screen and felt as if he were looking right into me, although I knew he couldn’t see me. I gulped, and posted into the message box: “Hello.”

  So this was Chatgod. He wasn’t at all what I had expected. I guess I had imagined him to fit into the stereotype of cyber-tech geeks from university, bespectacled, pocket-protected, emaciated, and earnest. Instead, he was a startlingly handsome man in an ascetic, monk-like way. His graying hair was close-cropped to a ­perfectly sculpted head, and his high cheekbones and a thin aquiline nose gave him a look of ancient aristocracy. But it was his eyes that held me. They were blue, a piercing cold blue, as if they took their color from the depths of a glacier-fed lake. I shivered.

  Chatgod: Chimera, your name has brought you to the top of my list of prospective employees. I sense that you are the one we seek.