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  “But what about working women?” I asked.

  “There you have the 1970s and beyond starting to happen. It doesn’t happen overnight, but soon and definitely by the 1990s, you have the need for two-income families occurring more and more. So you would assume that each person is receiving an adequate amount of strokes from outside sources to be equal, right?”

  I nodded, thinking he would make a good lecturer.

  “Well, the sad truth is that men still tend to get more validation in the workplace than their female counterparts, and to cap that off, with cutbacks and more telecommuting, people are becoming even more isolated than the 1960s housewife ever was, men and women alike. So, my thesis is that to go on-line and relate to a variety of strangers who are offering appreciative flirting, some affirmation of comments you make to the general room, and the offering of friendly conversation, goes a long way to providing all the validation that anyone requires. Healthy individuals equal healthy relationships. Ergo, the Internet will help save, not destroy, marriages.”

  “Bravo. Well argued, I must say. You’re going to get a lot of backtalk from all the people who believe that the Internet is the work of the devil, you know. But I can see your point. Are you planning to write this all up in suitable academic language for a sociology periodical? Hey, is Babel your laboratory?”

  “Oh, I’d just rather discuss it with like-minded individuals for the nonce.” He smiled at me, perhaps just a tad too ingenuously, which made me think I might have nailed it. Sanders was using his on-line discourse for sociological experiments. And I was willing to bet he hadn’t cleared it with any of his subjects. “Which brings me back to my initial statement, which is that real-life conversations like the one we’re having at the moment happen too seldom anymore.”

  I knew what he meant, and I could remember having longings fulfilled as I went on-line. What had happened to our ability to talk to each other, anyhow? Were there still groups of earnest people somewhere with candles stuck in Chianti bottles arguing whether Descartes had sold out, like Beckett seemed to imply? Was I just too old to be invited to the scrum? Or were they all talking about music videos and whether the latest pop idol had had breast enlargements?

  Winston “Sanders” Graham coughed politely, bringing me back to the table. I was glad we’d met, although I wasn’t sure I was any further ahead with the whole business of Ray Lopez and Thea the widow. Sanders had managed to very quickly deflect our conversation into a philosophical rant about chat in general, rather than anything personal. I was, in fact, more curious about his overview attitude on chat than anything else. I was betting he really was using us all as his guinea pigs for some sociology paper.

  “What about the assassin talk I overheard you making the other day?” I was going to play that I’d just wandered in behind their discussion if need be, but I had to know what he was up to in Babel. “Was that some sort of ploy to see how people react to outrageous commentary?”

  “What do you mean?” His face, just moments ago animated, was closing like a metal bank-vault door.

  “Well, I can see that you’re documenting all of this somehow, right? Now, whether or not I think that is moral, or even admissible evidence for a thesis, is beside the point. I want to know what sort of games you’re playing on Babel before the police close us all down.”

  Sanders spoke tersely. “It’s not a game on Babel. It’s a game here on campus, called Assassin. We sign up, and are given a target to douse with shaving cream. Someone else is given our name at the same time. You score points for ‘killing’ as many targets as you can before you are smeared in shaving cream yourself.”

  “You’re kidding.” I couldn’t fathom it. It sounded so sophomoric, even more so when being explained by someone older than I. Sanders looked a bit abashed as he admitted it. “And the fellows you were talking to on Babel are playing it, too? Are they from here, too?”

  “They’re thinking of signing on to play at their own campuses. There are Assassin games all over the world, though it’s a mainly North American phenomenon, I believe.” He shrugged, and then began to make a big show of looking at his watch and putting on his coat. For some reason, he was done talking with me, although I wasn’t too sure what subject had triggered the reaction. If this assassin game was so innocent, why the sudden lockdown on charm?

  “One thing that Detective Lopez mentioned has me puzzled.” I would give it one last try. “Why would there be so much Babel action coming from Edmonton? Do you know of anyone else besides ourselves who logs in?”

  Sanders’s smile was genial, but I am not sure whether it reached his eyes at all. He shrugged his shoulders as he pulled his scarf up toward his neck from behind, like a back-drying towel motion.

  “Until today, I didn’t even know you were from Edmonton. I’m not sure I really will have all that much to add for Detective Lopez.”

  “Please give him a call, anyhow, okay?” I hoped he would do it as some sort of chivalric gesture for me, if nothing else. “I’m not sure he thinks any of the information I’ve given him is worth much. At least if he hears it from the both of us, he’ll know it’s on the up and up.”

  Since I still didn’t have a phone number for him, although I was sure the police could retrieve that easily enough from the university administration, I figured it was worth doing the figurative eyelash batting. If Ray was right about there being a lot of Edmonton action on Babel, and Sanders was right about it being just the two of us, then one or the other of us was on there a lot more than we were willing to admit. I’d already admitted my undercover behavior, at least to Ray. Was Sanders hiding something equally shadowy?

  42

  I wasn’t satisfied with Sanders’s blithe excuse for discussing assassinations on-line. I had heard of murder-mystery parties and even dinner clubs, but this seemed a bit far-fetched. As soon as I got home, I logged into Google and searched “assassin game.” It was amazing. Over 120,000 hits came up, and the first ten included MIT, Harvard, Dalhousie, University of Manitoba, and Texas A & M.

  It sounded like a really complex game of tag, played with shaving cream. Everyone who signed into the game apparently was assigned a target to “kill.” Each killing had to be done in a public place, with a witness. The killings were not to be done during class. Aside from that, it was up to the killer. The only problem was that, at the same time as the assassin was stalking, he or she was also some other assassin’s intended victim.

  Having been the real intended victim a time or two in my life, I couldn’t see the glamor of the game, but Sanders had insisted it was a lark, played by a lot of university students to let off steam.

  I made note of the URLs that best described the game so I could give everything to Ray and Steve when I saw them next. I still wasn’t completely satisfied that Winston/Sanders was being straight with me, but I couldn’t dispute that the game really did exist and was played ferociously on many university campuses. I just couldn’t visualize a man Sanders’s age sneaking up on a coed with a can of shaving cream in his hand. There was something a little too Animal House about it all, and Sanders had chosen the Internet precisely to get away from that sort of behavior, or so he had said. For what it was worth, that part of his conversation I believed totally.

  There was something almost unreal about this whole business of Thea’s husband’s murder, and Ray’s chase for the faceless killer on the Internet. Somehow it still didn’t gel for me why there was such a strong police interest in Babel. Of course, I knew as well as anyone who watched TV that the police didn’t release all the information to the media. Maybe the murder had larger implications, or maybe it was the sign of a longer trail of killings. I had no real feel for the murder, of course. Maybe it was because I didn’t actually know anything about Thea’s husband. It wasn’t as if it was someone I’d chatted with. If other people were able to consign on-line personalities to mere blips on the screen they could turn off at will, I had a similar ability to consign fictional status to people I heard
about on the news or read about in the paper. If they ­didn’t actually intersect with my life, they didn’t actually take shape. In fact, fictional characters I’d spent any amount of time with were allotted more credence than strange names or descriptions in the news.

  I usually saw this as a blessing, in that it gave me a stronger link with the materials of my profession, but at the moment I could see it for the failing it was. I wasn’t some Ray Lopez, able to throw himself into the minds and problems of people all over the place whom he’d never met. I was having a hard time drumming up any sympathy for Thea for getting me into all this, let alone her poor fried husband, for whom I should be feeling the most pity. Instead, I think the real emotion that kept rising up in me was resentment. I was pretty ticked at Thea and Milan for starting an affair before Thea had rid herself of her impediments, and I was appalled at the way they’d decided to rid themselves of the impediment. They had muddied up my play area with their unethical actions, and if I was honest with myself, that was worse to me than the actual killing of her husband.

  I couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for Milan, left high and dry with all of this happening. I was pretty sure that Ray’s crew were circling around him, if they hadn’t already tracked him down in Milwaukee. If he wasn’t acting some really Byzantine double-blind, Thea had disappeared from him, too. It had to be something like that. If he was involved in the hiring and execution of the killing, then why on earth was he calling so much attention to himself?

  And were we really sure the killing had been committed by Tremor? Or was Thea more involved than she had let on? What if she had done it all herself, but created a smokescreen of a hired killer? Was she adept enough for that? I made a note to ask both Ray and Alchemist about what they figured. That reminded me that Alchemist was going to be setting up his scam with Tremor to draw him out, and I was supposed to log on an hour early to get brought up to date. I had things to tell him about Sanders as well. All in all, I was rather proud of myself for tracking Sanders down, even if it had been a best-out-of-three proposition.

  Alchemist was suitably impressed that I had found Sanders, and he accepted the assassin-game excuse a lot quicker than I did.

  Alchemist: Well, we know that Tremor is up to something. The odds of two hired killers working the same chat room have to be extraordinarily high. I can crunch the numbers if you want, if I look up the statistics on murders in North America as a mean. So, since we know that Tremor was up to something, I am willing to believe that Sanders is, statistically speaking, innocent.

  Chimera: Yes, well, you can take your lies, damned lies, and statistics, and put them in your pipe and smoke them. I still think there is something fishy about him. Besides, what about this extra action all over Edmonton that Ray Lopez was referring to? I honestly can’t see this guy Sanders wandering through Internet cafes; and the university computer labs all have dedicated IP addresses. So, who is logging in all over the place?

  Alchemist: Well, if it’s not you, and it’s not Sanders, the logical answer is . . . someone else.

  Chimera: Good God, Holmes!

  Alchemist: Scoff if you want, Watson. Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, is your answer.

  Chimera: Meaning what? That Tremor is a giant hound? That everyone on Babel lives in Edmonton? That Sanders moves around a lot? Maybe we should get Chatgod to let us access the server logs and just sort through for IP address usage.

  Alchcemist: Do you have any idea how long that would take? Not to mention the printout? Besides, I still think we should keep as low a profile about this to Chatgod as possible. He may have given the nod to you discussing this with the task force investigating the murder, but I don’t think he likes it one bit. Remember that non-­disclosure form you signed when you joined up? That explicitly says no discussion about what happens on Babel.

  Chimera: But this is the police we’re talking about! This is a little bit different.

  Alchemist: Not entirely. Remember, one of those policemen is a personal friend of yours. That constitutes a little blurring of the lines, don’t you think? Well, no matter what you think, I just think it’s advisable to look into this with the resources at our disposal. If the task force decides to impound the server down in Florida, that’s fine. It’s not our headache. But when all this is done and dusted, we’ve still got to work here, Randy. Looking out for number one!

  Chimera: I never took you for a Randy Bachman fan.

  Alchemist: Say what? Oh. Well, you know what I mean. The thing is, does it matter why they decided to target you in Edmonton? The real likelihood is that your monitoring duties skewed the numbers as far as they could determine, and they’re now just covering their bases by saying there were other IP addresses being bandied about.

  Chimera: Maybe.

  Alchemist: The thing to concentrate on is getting Tremor out in the open. If we can isolate him, and determine where he is coming from and that he is indeed a hired killer, then we’ve solved everything.

  Chimera: So why don’t we log back through to find discussions with Tremor and Milan or Tremor and Thea?

  Alchemist: Chances are they did all their talking in private rooms, or in some form of Instant Messenger program. We don’t have any logs of private rooms in Babel.

  Chimera: What? I thought it all had to be logged in order to have a licence.

  Alchemist: Technically. If you have a monitoring system in place, you can forego the private logging. Babel got really big a lot sooner than Chatgod expected. The server has only so much room, even for zipped ­material, and the regulations are that records have to be kept for six years. That’s why he decided to hire monitors. With us to monitor the content of the private rooms and chase people back into the general area, Chatgod can keep costs down. Our salaries are nothing compared to the upgraded system he’d have to instal to keep the authorities satisfied. And for what? I don’t recall ever being asked for records in the time I’ve been on Babel staff.

  Chimera: I suppose. It would be handy right now, though.

  Alchemist: Well, right now we have a handle on who to watch, and a pretty good idea of what we are looking for. How would having a record of their conversations help us? Thea’s husband would still be dead. We would still be only as close as their latest IP addresses, which we do have. You see, this is what comes of talking to the police—the methods take over from the logic of the ­matter.

  Chimera: All right, already. So, I keep pillow talk to a minimum. I understand. Meanwhile, what are we going to be doing about Tremor?

  Alchemist: Well, so far, I’ve sent him an e-mail asking to meet up with him in Babel tonight to discuss a business transaction.

  Chimera: Tonight?

  Alchemist: Strike quickly and decisively.

  Chimera: And who is supposed to be meeting with him?

  Alchemist: The two of us. We’re conspiring to kill your husband.

  Chimera: I don’t have a husband. And besides, why did you decide on us?

  Alchemist: Well, from what we’ve seen of his activity, Tremor has to be at least a bit of a hacker. If he has the ability to come in a back door and disappear at will, and switch IP addresses while he’s at it, then chances are he can also monitor to a degree what is going on in Babel. Likely he can’t get into ghosting through the private rooms and hovering like we can, but I wouldn’t put it past him to be able to track who is logging in and when. Since we meet daily and talk privately, it would make sense to him that we’re intimate and up to something. I was just aiming for being as transparent as possible. The more truth in your fabrication, the more strength.

  So, if Alchemist’s plan worked, I would be dickering with a hired killer tonight about the cost of offing my husband. I wouldn’t have a chance to discuss this with Steve or Ray, but maybe that is why Alchemist sprang it on me the way he had. I had the distinct feeling that he was warning me about Chatgod’s mood vis-à-vis the police investigation.

  Well, I’d been hired to monitor and shep
herd. I really believed that a good shepherd knows when to call in the reinforcements, which is what I had done. Well, not exactly; they’d found me. But, all in all, it amounted to the same thing. We had a whole group of people watching out for the innocent members of Babel, and that had to be in Babel’s best interests, right? Which is what Chatgod wanted, right? So why did I have the gnawing feeling that he was really irate about my connection to the constabulary?

  There was no real point in arguing with Alchemist about his plans. As far as they went, they made sense. We’d try to flush out Tremor with a decoy. If he went for it, there would be plenty of time to create a trap.

  Oh yeah, listen to me, I know so much. If I had all the answers, I’d have bought Amazon early and sold Lycos stock at $178.

  43

  There was no message from Tremor when I went into the main area of Babel, but Alchemist had told me to signal him by e-mail if Tremor showed up. He had also promised to come back in if he received a private e-mail back from Tremor. It was the best I could hope for, but I still felt extremely vulnerable. I didn’t spend much time in the main room. Instead, I created a private room and logged Chimera in there, then spent the rest of the time hovering up in the rafters of the main room, watching the action. I was in no mood to discuss anything with anyone on-line.