Castle Murders (2 page)

Yeah? So then what was he doing now, impaled as he was on the claws of Nadine Borkowski? She was into him deep. He'd even cut his hair and sold his BMW motorcycle.
She
wasn't about to ride on the back of that thing, so what did he need it for? Yes, Nadine. Anything you say, Nadine.
 

Chad wasn't polygamous. He was just dumb. Dumb to fall for that domineering, scheming, lowborn, vile, deceitful . . .

She took a deep breath. So what? She'd lost him, and that was that. Did she still love him? Of course; he was terrifically good-looking and a lot of fun. But someone else had snared him, and Melanie was history. Life goes on.
 

Yes, she was still in love with him.

Melanie typed at the keyboard, telling the BBS to search for messages with the name McDaniel in the "To:" line. A pair popped up, and she keyed in the digits for the first one.
 

 

To: Melanie McDaniel
 

From: Fran DiMiro

Subject: Abortion

The Fundamentalists aren't going to change tactics now. Sure, some recent court decisions have been going their way, but

 

Melanie squelched the message. Another go-around on the abortion issue. She wasn't in the mood for serious discussion right now. Besides, she didn't know how she felt about the issue any more. For years she had harbored the suspicion, unspoken and even unrealized until very recently, that if she were indeed ever faced with the decision of whether to have an abortion, she wouldn't be able to go through with it. Not because of moral qualms, but general queasiness.
 

Well, now she was faced with it. She was almost sure she was pregnant with Chad's baby. You don't miss two periods and put it down to the whims of nature. Not if you knew your diaphragm had slipped off on at least one occasion. There was an outside chance that the missed periods were due to something else, but . . .
 

An abortion? She just didn't think she could go through with it. Funny how you could intellectually believe in a thing and not be able to accept it emotionally.
 

Without logging off the system, she left the desk and lay down on the bed to cry quietly for a while.

When she was done she got up and sat back down at the computer. She hoped The Blues weren't returning: her depression. She had suffered with it off and on since her early teens, and had once been prescribed medication for it. Now, what with Chad and the pregnancy, a bad bout of The Blues was a danger.
 

Drying her eyes, she punched in the other message number.

 

To: Melanie McDaniel
 

From: Linda Barclay
   
Msg 287

Subject: Boyfriends
 

 

Melanie smiled. She liked Linda and had been exchanging messages with her for several months over the private channel of the system. Linda knew everything about Chad and about Chad's straying off to Nadine. Melanie had been very open, spilling everything but the pregnancy. That was still top secret.
 

The body of Linda's message read:

 

You sounded pretty down in your last post. Did something new happen? I mean something BAD new? If so, tell me about it. Don't stew. I know you've heard it all before, but it isn't the end of the world when your boyfriend dumps you. Life goes on. Doesn't help, does it? Okay, but talk about it. It might stop hurting just a little bit. Post back soon. See ya.
 

—

Origin: The Castle BBS (1:897/675)

 

Melanie gave the computer instructions to boot up the wherewithal to post a message. The process was the computerized equivalent of writing a note on a piece of paper and thumbtacking it to a cork bulletin board, except that it was done with electrons, not paper and metal and cork.
 

 

To: Linda Barclay
 

From: Melanie McDaniel

Subject: Life

You're right, I'm not feeling very good. Its like what's outside tonight, just snow swrling around and darkness and lonliness. Sometimes i think i just want everything to go dark forever, and no more Melanie. I guess im in a pretty bad way. Hell. Damn. Know any good fourletter words? You cant say the F word on the Net or the moderator will come around and wjs

 

Her eyes filled with tears and she was blinded. By the time she'd dabbed her face dry with a tissue she saw that she had inadvertently hit Control-s. The message had been "Saved" and posted on the system. Well, she'd just kill it and start all over again — but then she shrugged. What the hell. Leave it. She didn't feel like BBSing any more tonight.
 

She was about to log off, when she noticed something blinking in the upper left corner of the screen. It was a prompt, and it read PRESS "R" TO READ INCOMING MESSAGE. She'd never seen anything like it before. Was the System Operator trying to talk to her on-line?
 

She hit r and the message spilled across the screen at 2400 bits per second.

 

To: Melanie McDaniel
 

From: Linda Barclay
   
Pvt Msg

Subject: Worried
 

No, you don't sound at all good. Something did happen. Tell me about it. Post back immediately. I can talk to you on-line. Please answer!
 

— Linda

—

Origin: The Castle BBS

 

Melanie was puzzled. All this time she had assumed that Linda was posting from a BBS far away in another city. It took days, sometimes weeks for a message on the CyberNet to negotiate the maze of interconnecting phone lines and reach its intended recipient, and the same length of time for an answer to get back. The Net was not a direct-communication system. That would cost a lot of money, and the Net was a nonprofit system. A bulletin board didn't work like that. It was slow; however, it was cheap.
 

But Linda was answering a message that Melanie had just posted minutes ago. That was impossible, if Melanie understood the way the Net operated. The only way it could happen was if Linda were sitting at the terminal of the university's BBS computer over in the Student Union, just a block away.
 

But the message's Origin line had read "The Castle BBS," not the "Eagle's Eyrie," the name of the university system. Melanie had never noticed a location tag for The Castle, but it had to be outside the university.
 

At the SELECT: prompt she hit r for "Reply" and TO: LINDA BARCLAY came up automatically. For "Subject" she hit the Return key and the computer reproduced Linda's subject line: WORRIED. She began typing the body of the message.
 

 

I was surprised to get your message. Are you somehow patched through the Eagle's Eyrie? How did you get my message so quickly? Anyway, I'm sorry about that last post. Was feeling pretty rocky. But I'm okay n

 

Suddenly the keyboard froze. She vainly jabbed random keys and hit Return, but nothing happened. Then:

 

CHAT:start

Hi, Melanie! Thought I'd break in and talk on-line. Your message did worry me. How are you really feeling?

 

On the screen, the cursor had moved to a blank line. Melanie was puzzled. She typed:

 

Linda? Is that you?
 

 

Yeah, it's me. Want to tell me what's going on inside your head?

 

How are you doing this? Are you on the university system?

 

No, but I'm using a modem you wouldn't believe. It can do almost anything. I'm on a direct line to your computer.

 

Wow, that really neat. I can't understand it, but its great. Anyway, your right, I'm pretty down. But Ill be alright.

 

Excuse me if I don't believe that. You're really sound depressed. You're not thinking of doing something silly, are you?

 

Melanie thought about. She was indeed thinking of doing something. But what she typed was:

 

No, I"ll be alreight. Excuse my typing
 

 

You're putting up a good front, but aren't you having suicidal thoughts?

 

Melanie sighed. No use to hide it.

 

Okay your right. How did you know?
 

 

How? Because I've been there myself. But I sense something else wrong, something major. Care to tell me?

 

Well, there is something. Jeez, I don't know.

 

Are you pregnant?

 

Melanie was amazed.

 

Linda, do you have a cristal ball? Yeah, you guessed it.I'm preggy.
 

 

That's "crystal." I don't need one to know who the daddy is, do I? The dork.

 

Chads not a dork. He's immature and needs someone to tell him what to do and be a mother to him. I wasnt ready to do that.

 

Sorry. Have you told him?

 

No. Why complicate his life? It was my fault anyway.

 

It takes two to tango, kid. Well, have you thought about what you're going to do about it?

 

If your talking about abortion, I think ive pretty much ruled that out.

 

So, you either keep the baby or give it up.

 

I havent even begun to think aobut that. I guess Ill have to drop out of school.

 

Not necessarily, but you might want to do that just to get yourself together.

 

Yeah, Im so behind. I haven't done a thing all term. I might flunk out.

 

Ever thought about getting away for a while, away from everything, just to clear your head?

 

I'd love to be somewhere else, anywhere else. The Virgin Islands maybe. Hah! Great place for a woman in my condition. Sun, sand. Blue water. I'd love it.
 

 

Well, I can't give you the Virgin Islands exactly. But you're welcome to come stay with us at the castle.

 

What's the castle?

 

It's just what it sounds like. I live with a lot of people in a huge castle. It's fun. We'd love to have you.

 

Where is it?

 

Very near to you. In fact, you wouldn't believe how close it is. Want to hop over for a visit?

 

Sounds inviting. Maybe I'll take you up on it someday.

 

Why not now? We can come pick you up.

 

Melanie thought it over. What the heck. What else was she doing that was so important?

 

Tonite? Well . . . OK. Yeah, if it's not too much trouble. Want me to wait outside the dorm? Im in Haberman Hall. Are you going to send a car? Hey. You guys aren't terrorists or anything, are you?
 

 

Yeah, we hijack castles. We have a fix on you right now. You don't have to do anything. Just a sec.

 

The cursor blinked at her silently. She sat and waited for half a minute, then keyed:

 

Linda, are you still there?
 

 

Yep. Melanie, go to your closet and open the door.

 

Melanie frowned.

 

Huh?
 

 

Just go look in your closet. You'll be surprised.

 

Well, if you say so. This is really

 

Melanie didn't know what to say. She got up and went to the closet of the small dorm room and put her hand on the doorknob. Was this some practical joke, some jape designed to make her feel foolish? If so, it wasn't very funny, and it didn't seem like a thing Linda would do. But what else could it be?
 

She turned the knob and opened the door.

The closet was full of her roommate's junk, just as before. No change.

So it was a joke after all. Melanie didn't understand.

Then she saw light coming from the rear of the closet and suddenly noticed that it looked as if the back wall had been torn out. Light was coming through from what she presumed was the room next door.
 

"Melanie?"

It was a woman's voice, and one she didn't recognize.

"Who is it?"

"It's me, Linda. Can we clear some of this junk out of the way?"

Melanie shoved aside her roommate's four winter coats — one of which was fox fur and very expensive — and revealed a smiling face.
 

"Hi! Melanie? I'm Linda."

Linda was pretty and blond and had large blue eyes. Her teeth were very white and even.

"Hi," Melanie said. "You were right next door all the time?"

"Not exactly. Is all this stuff yours?"

"No. My roommate ran off to Peru with a guy, an archeologist. She left all her stuff."

"So you have the place to yourself, eh? Great. Want to come through?"

"Uh . . . okay."

Melanie shoved the tangle of clothes to one side and made an opening for herself, which she slipped through, ducking under the low shelf. She stumbled on a guitar case, and Linda helped her out the other side.
 

What was on the other side was not another dorm room. It was an immense chamber with a vaulted ceiling, filled with strange and wondrous things. The place looked like something out of a Frankenstein movie. Melanie's gaze was torn between the huge machines resembling electrical transformers along the far wall and an arrangement of even stranger components in the middle of the floor.
 

"That's the computer I've been working with," Linda said, pointing to the latter grouping. "It's a mainframe."