Him.
“Oh. . .sorry.” She sat up straight and tried to smooth her uniform.
James laughed. “Don’t be. You’re much better silent.”
“We’re not fighting.”
“Did you enjoy-”
“Will you shut up?”
“No.”
“Fine.” She sighed, then looked around, seeing a gas station and diner. “Where are we?”
“Don’t ask me where. You hungry?”
“I guess. But we don’t have to stop-”
“I’m starved. Come on.”
Sian grabbed her bag mutely from the back seat as James got out and shut the door. She followed him a minute later into the diner and headed towards the bathroom.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ll be back.” She opened the door to the ladies room and looked in the mirror. Her hair, though rumpled, was decent enough- that’s why she’d cut it short- but her uniform was limp and dirty where it had been resting against the door. It was also dreadfully uncomfortable; the temperature was still much too high for layers. After a moments consideration locked the door, then opened her bag and look out a pair of jeans and a shirt. She undressed, then put them on. The shirt felt tight and somehow wrong after wearing a long sleeved blouse and blazer, but she decided it would have to do.
Hurriedly, she shoved her uniform into her backpack and forced the zipper shut, then left the bathroom and joined James at the table, where he was looking at a menu.
As she sat down, he looked up at her and blinked. “You changed.”
“Yeah.” She picked up a menu and held it in front of her face. “What are you getting?”
“I don’t know. Are you going to take off your sunglasses?”
Sian froze. “No.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t want to. All right?”
“Fine, fine. I’m having steak.”
“You know how to eat on the run.”
“It’s not expensive.”
“It’s not any good.”
“It’s meat, at least. How about you?”
“Tomato soup. And tea.”
“Real good.” He look at her. “You a vegetarian?”
She shrugged. “Not really. I just don’t like meat much.”
“Oh.”
“What’ll you have?” The waitress stood over them, leaned so that they could see wisps escaping the mass of her black hair and the name tag reading “Jenny” that was only half-attached to her uniform.
“Strip steak.” James looked at Sian the entire time. “Rare.”
Jenny’s voice was paper thin and bored. “Baked, mashed or fried potato?”
“Fries.”
“All right. To drink?”
“Coke.”
“And you?” She turned her gaze to Sian.
“Tomato soup.”
“Is that all?”
“Yeah.”
“To drink?”
“Tea.”
The waitress rolled her eyes. “We don’t have tea.”
“Oh. Water’s fine, then.”
“All right. I’ll have it right up for you.” She was already moving towards the next table as she ripped off the bottom copy of the check and placed it on the table.
Sian looked at James. “Rare? Mooing?”
“Bloody’s the only way to go.”
“Disgusting.”
“I thought you weren’t a vegetarian.”
“I’m not. I just think you're disgusting.”
“I like it.” He half-smiled.
She rolled her eyes. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I just know that a lot of people are dead. Kurt’s even-”
“I know.”
“I mean, he’s gone. He’s my uncle. I called; my aunt told me he’d been murdered.”
“They didn’t get her, too?”
“Not if I talked to her."
“Oh.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Sympathy.”
“I guess. So.” He tapped the dge of his glass of water. “You’ve learned sympathy since the last time we talked.”
“We’re not-”
“Yes, we are. You didn’t have to mess up my computer.”
“If you were half the hacker you’re supposed to be to get on Rabbit, you would have been able to fix it.”
“You should have asked first.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re not sorry.”
She considered. “No, I’m not.”
“And you told me you were a guy-”
“I never said that!”
“Yes, you did. You said your name was Mackie.”
“It’s my nickname.”
“Then you told me you were a guy.”
“I did not.”
“It was right after Valentine’s, remember?”
“Oh. . .then. . .”
“Yeah. Then. Kurt told me you weren’t, though.”
“Your uncle?”
“Yeah, my uncle.”
“No wonder you got on Rabbit.”
“Go to hell.”
She shrugged, and he stared at her, then burst out again. “Dammit, of all the people who had to live through this, it had to be you, didn’t it?”
“I guess; otherwise, you wouldn’t be so annoyed.”
“Figures. I get lined up with my ex.”
“I am not your ‘ex.’” Jenny set James's coke on the table without a word and moved on. “We didn’t date.”
“We were going to.”
“We didn’t. I didn’t even know your name.”
“Are you always this cold, or am I just lucky?”
“Always this cold.” She took a sip of her water. “Sorry.”
He glared and ignored his Coke. “And that’s that?”
“I don’t understand; do you want me to write it down for you?”
“That might help.”
“Fine.” She picked up a crayon from the abandoned table next to her and started scrawling on her napkin. I. Don’t. Like. You.
James stared at the red writing on the white napkin and said nothing.
“Here.” Sian held the napkin towards him. “Read it.”
“Love you, too, bitch.”
She threw the napkin and hissed at him through clenched teeth. “Can’t you read?”
“I can read between the lines.”
“Just shut-”
“How are you two doing?”
They both looked up and glared at the waitress. “Fine!”
Jenny shrugged and placed their meals in front of them, then walked away as they locked eyes and started to laugh.
“This is stupid,” he said. “Let’s just eat.” They nodded at each other, then started in on their food. Sian opened up a packet of crackers and crumbled them up into her soup, then lifted the spoon to her mouth and grimaced.
“What’s wrong?”
“This stuff is horrible.”
“Oh.” James looked at her bowl, then pushed his fries towards her. “You want some?”
“No thanks. I’m not that hungry.” She picked up the remaining cracker packets from the table and placed them in her bag. “Thanks, though.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” With a shrug, she pushed her bowl away and stood up. “I’m going to try to see if they’re gotten to my computer yet.”
“How?”
“I- trust me. I can find out. I’ll be back in a minute.” She picked up her backpack and walked away from the table, towards the pay phones. Even though she was facing towards the parking lot outside, she knew that James was watching her as she took her electrical tape and wire device out with her laptop and connected one end to the phone, the other end to the computer.
“Come on, come on. . .” she watched the screen intently, then jumped in the air as the connection came through. “Yes!”
A few customers turned to look at her; Sian didn’t notice. She was too busy shoving a disk into her laptop and typing furiously. All she needed was a few seconds to know whether her computer was still connected.
It was.
The red LED glowed from inside its next of electrical tape. She was receiving a potentially dangerous feed, even as she connected to her computer.
The glow bothered her. She rooted around in her files and tried to ignore it. It danced along the edge of her consciousness as she tried to open her log file.
Locked. Beyond what she normally used. They’d gotten to it. Damn.
She tried to end the connection, but her computer refused to let it go. Finally, she ripped the device from the phone receiver and hung up.
Someone had been on her computer. Someone had suspected that she would try to get back on it.
Two state police officers listened to their wireless radios, then stood; they gave Sian a very bad feeling. She rushed back to the table.
“We’ve gotta go.”
James looked up at her mutely as she shoved her equipment back into her bag. “Why?”
“Because there was a tag on my computer. And those cops know we’re here.” She glared at him from behind her sunglasses, and nodded towards the advancing officers.
“Shit.” He set his fork down. “Do they know who they’re looking for?”
“It’s not going to take them long. Who was just using the pay phone?”
“Okay. We’ll leave. Quietly; come on.” He reached into his pocket, then stopped as Sian placed a twenty and a ten on the table. “Oh, come on. I’ve got it.”
“Just go.” She stood, leaving the money, and trusting him to follow. They walked out of the door.
Jenny looked at the money left on her table and whistled. “Nice tip.”
The two officers looked at her, then locked eyes and headed towards the door.