The kid was maybe ten or eleven years old, it was a weekend so he was wearing typical kids clothes not school uniform, no way of obviously telling if he was local or not. The shop wasn’t very busy, it was in a side street not on the main shopping drag, what the British still quaintly called the high street. Still hanging in there selling technology products at over the odds prices, getting ground down by the out of town malls or retail parks as the British would call them. They’d already cut down on staff so the kid was left alone playing on the laptop that was on display. No obvious parent in sight but there were some shoppers so it was hard to tell.
Hank watched the kid, he’d been watching for the past couple of minutes as he pretended to be checking out a camera bag on sale. He needed to make a move soon; a guy looking at a camera bag for much longer would start to look odd. He needed to stay where he was; able to keep an eye on the door and the kid. He considered checking out the nearby cameras but that could attract the attention of one of the few shop staff, keen on the commission paid out on the higher price items. Did the Brits even pay their sales staff commission? Hank wasn’t sure and didn’t care, but he couldn’t risk a conversation, Hank was a big guy and his American accent would make him too memorable.
He checked the door again then scanned the shop floor for possible parents, no likely candidates, perhaps the kid was out on his own. He checked his watch; time was running out for him he was going to have to make a move.
The kid only stood a foot or so above the height of the display shelf, his young face lit up by the laptop’s display barely more than a foot away. He stared intently at the screen playing a game on a website that one of his friends had shown him.
So transfixed was he, on the game, that he didn’t feel the man’s presence until he was right behind, looming over him. His breath caught with a start as he suddenly became aware of the reflection of the man’s face in the glossy screen. Their eyes met for several seconds before the man spoke, his voice gruff but to the kid sounding strangely like the voices he had heard a thousand times before in movies and on TV.
“Beat it kid, I wanna take a look at this computer.”
The kid held Hank’s gaze and for a split second the American thought he had miscalculated, “Jeez don’t let this one be a screamer.” he thought to himself. But a moment later the kid looked away and a moment after that he slunk off hands in his pockets looking for some other gadget to play with.
Hank watched him go, anxious that the kid was going to tell on him to an adult, but instead the kid was playing now on a game console as some other kid stood by with a disappointed look on his face. “Shit rolls downhill” Hank thought and turned his attention back to the laptop.
He had wasted most of the morning looking for a computer like this with an unsecured internet connection. Most of the shops were getting wise to the kids that would come into the shops and leave all the display machines showing porn sites. Instead installing demo programs that showed off the machines features but locked down the device from any actual usage. This smaller retailer hadn’t caught on yet and the laptop was unsecured, just what he needed.
Fishing a memory stick out of his jacket pocket Hank rapidly plugged it into the laptop’s USB socket and called up a browser session before typing in an IP address URL that Frank Miller had given him from memory. An almost blank screen appeared with a user id and password box. Looking around he typed in the required codes and hit the enter key.
“Incorrect Details!” flashed up on the screen.
“Shit”, Hank breathed under his breath.
Collecting himself he retyped the codes, this time paying more attention on the small keyboard with his large fingers. This time when he hit enter the codes were accepted and a simple screen appeared with a SecurePortal logo that looked like it had been created for a computer game in the eighties. “These guys didn’t waste time on interface design”, he thought to himself.
He hit the upload option and then, opening up another window, he dragged the files from the memory stick across onto the browser window, and waited. A simple percentage counter started to slowly count its way up to 100.
Beads of sweat formed on Hank’s forehead as he watched the numbers rise, this was taking too long. He looked around the shop again, the laptop kid was still playing on the games console but the other kid had given up and was nowhere to be seen. The shop assistants were still occupied either with other customers or with their mobile phones. He glanced back again to look for the kid, his eyes automatically looking low down, knowing where their target would be, a shapely pair of legs in tight jeans caught his attention. He raised his gaze slowly. The woman was about mid-twenties, a tight brown suede jacket covering the rest of her slim figure. Long straight blonde hair just past her shoulders, a pretty face and a nice smile, a smile that was smiling straight at him. Their eyes met, and Hank smiled back, act natural, that was the rule. She looked away, almost coyly, her hand raising to the side of her head brushing the hair over the back of her ear, a natural flirtatious gesture just moments before Hank was also about to divert his gaze. They were just a guy and a girl in a public place exchanging glances, no big deal.
She was good, but the hand gesture was her undoing, Hank caught sight of her earpiece, not ear buds like on a Walkman, not a Bluetooth headset like for a phone, but a clear in ear piece with a cable that wraps around over the top of your ear before carrying on down to whatever device you’re listening too. More like the in-ear-monitors that musicians wear on stage, unobtrusive, the cable routed round the back of the head and down their backs. Maybe she was a musician, or an audio nut, but her cable went straight down vertically. No second cable from her other ear to pull it round the back of her head, a mono device… a whole different ball game.
“Shit !”, he looked back at the laptop, 99% he willed it to go faster, the kid was now using the game console to watch movies, slowing down the shop’s bandwidth. He looked back at the girl but she was pretending to look at something in her hand, her face partially turned away but he thought he could see her jaw line move subtly, like she was talking.
The screen clicked up to 100% and he was out of there, grabbing the memory stick from the socket, he stabbed at the Alt and F4 keys to shut down the browser session before he ran for the door.
Colchester is said to be the oldest recorded town in Britain; in fact it was the main centre of power for the ancient king Cunobelin prior to the Roman occupation. Later destroyed by queen Boudica’s rebellion in AD61.It’s architecture is a vibrant mixture ranging through Medieval, Tudor and Victorian to more contemporary styles. Many of its streets are still the narrow thoroughfares more common in bygone years. Many of its pavements are similarly narrow.
As Hank ran from the shop he crossed the pavement in a single step, before he realised it he was in the road. The driver of the car didn’t stand a chance, as passers-by told the police later, “The guy just ran straight out in front of her.”.
Lilly didn’t hear the crash or the resulting commotion outside the shop, she was too wrapped up in the music she was listening to, she sung in a local band and was in the shop buying a new audio recorder and player. It was a great device and even though the shop’s price was a little bit more than she might pay if she bought it online she wanted to hear how it sounded with her in-ear-monitors.
The man watching from the other side of the street saw the whole thing go down. He’d been watching from the moment Hank entered the store; but left when the police arrived. He didn’t provide a witness statement for the tragic accident.
