Techno-Underground

“Shut it down! Shut it down now!”

Nate scrambles to the circuit breaker panel and snaps the door open. With karate chop movement, he flips circuit breakers as fast as possible. A hush falls over the once noisy room and all light is removed. A flashlight beacons from the middle of the room in his direction.

“Do you think they found us?” growls the deep voice.

“No, but they probably hit our last link” Nate replies, “but we had about 3 more seconds before they would have been knocking on every door in the area.” In the back of his mind though, he thinks they are on top of us. It is possible they could have picked up the last octet. Nate is not that confident that he was fast enough or covered his trail good enough.

“I guess we are finished using this site. I sure will miss the commute.” The large foreboding man neatly lays the laptops into the bowling bags, and zips them for movement.

As they come out from behind the now quiet pinsetters, the only lighting left running is the neon lights and the bar back lights. Both quietly exit out the service door off of State Street. On the weekends, Chicago is still full of life and entertainment at this time of night, but on Wednesdays, it is still. The 10 pin sign still remains lit, but it is very evident that the lanes have closed for the night.

As Nate glances around, besides the normal vagrants, there are no unusual cars or people standing on a corner at 2:00 AM. Acting as inconspicuous as possible, he waits for the bearded man to lock the door and head for the parking garage.

“G’night Major”

“Night. Code me tomorrow.”

“Will do” Nate says while packing one of the bowling bags into the back of his pickup. “Incoming at 16:30 UDT.”

“Wake up honey, you are late!”

Nate opens his eyes to his wife leaning over top of him. At first he thinks waking up to her voice is so very nice. Even after the eight years of marriage and the two kids birth, she still makes him feel warm inside. This morning though, she doesn’t look terribly thrilled.

“I have to leave in 10 minutes. If you are going to work, get moving.”

Nate had forgotten that Amy had to go to work early. He hurriedly threw on his clothes, power-brushed his teeth and attempted to water down his bed head. With hair still wet and cowlick sticking up, he throws on his dress shirt and khakis, grabs the socks and shoes and runs out to the van Amy impatiently has running.

“I take it you had a good time at your bowling party,” Amy asks while trying to control her disapproval with his getting home so late.

Nate replies “Yep. I was a nice way to end the bowling season. Mike and I stayed a little bit longer and had a few beers, otherwise, it was uneventful. I need a break. It is hard to keep up with those guys.”

An uncomfortable silence fills the vehicle. “How was your night?”

“Well, your Mom called and decided she was making plans for Memorial Day…for us.” Amy's timber moved from irritation to annoyance. “I tried to explain to her that we already had plans for that weekend to go to the Dells, but SHE felt it was necessary to be with” Amy raises her fingers into the air “family instead of taking a trip. SHE decided to invite herself.”

In an attempt to agree with his wife, Nate nods and says “We ARE family.” After saying it the way he did, he knew that the words did not come out the way they were suppose to come out. Quickly trying to recover he follows up saying “Husband, wife, and kids equal family.”

Nate has always had a way of saying things that are taken out of context. This is only one of the reasons he portrays himself as the introvert. Amy knows him, or at least she thinks she does. After all of these years, she understands the intended meaning of everything Nate says. If she really knew him, she would surely run away screaming.

Amy pulls into the train station drop off area, gives Nate a kiss, and heads off to work.

Nate checks the area and heads for the train platform. Nate is very aware almost to the point of paranoid and cautious today. He is pretty sure that they traced into his system. Unwilling to turn them on until he can format them, he has to think about every move he makes over the next week.

Nate boards the train and moves to the upper level and takes his usual seat.