Mixed Signals

Mixed Signals
by
Lawrence R. Calmer

Lots of clubs required transmitters, but few were the zap-zones that Le Sex was. Keith sat alone, randomly scanning, trying not to look as obvious or desperate as some of the other lone zeeks, who rapidly scanned everyone around them with their readers, hoping for some kind of encounter. A real zeek never had an encounter, they just liked to be where the action was, sitting and imagining. For a zeek, scanning was just another form of voyeurism; an electronic one.

Keith came to Le Sex often, and was having his usual lack of success finding what he wanted. He was beginning to wish he had gone to a nude-bar, a bar where readers and transmitters were banned, but scan free bars were rare and usually inhabited by Methuselah types. Everyone knew that scan-joints were where the action was, although action aside, deves, screamers, even bryants seemed to have a better chance of finding someone at Le Sex than a straight. Le Sex was always a mixed bag.

As usual, the number of straight males far outnumbered straight females broadcasting an interest in meeting or talking to anyone. Keith had passed a few tables with women whose transmitter readings showed an interest in meeting or talking, but most of them had already been talking to someone, the rest were less than attractive by Keith's standards. A few of the more homely types went so far as to have not just suggestive first level messages, but downright pornographic ones. A first level message like "Will do blow-jobs," wouldn't be allowed on the street. The FCC had ruled that in public, first level messages had to pass the same kind of transmission standards as any other form of over-the-air-transmission; in other words, first level messages couldn't be vulgar or inflammatory. In an over-21 establishment like Le Sex it was anything goes, but few bars actually attracted the kind of crowd that was so crude and blatant with messages on their transmitters. Of course that was the seductive allure of Le Sex.

Three attractive ladies worked their way to a table just across from Keith. He hardly had to aim his reader to scan the trio, just move it from side to side slightly from where it sat on the table in front of him. The first two ladies had the same first level message, "With friends." The third, and most attractive, had the real surprise. Her transmitter read: "Looking for a real man."

Keith almost got up then and there, but restrained himself from going over immediately. He didn't want to let an opportunity pass him by or let someone else beat him to the punch, but he also didn't want to appear too anxious. It wasn't much of a pause, but Keith slowed down long enough to read her second and third level messages at least. He had to do a double-scan and check his aim, but both lower level messages still turned out to be blank. Leaving the second and third levels blank was common, even to be expected, coupled with first level messages like that of the first two women, but unusual for someone transmitting an interest in meeting someone new. There were no hard and fast rules for what to put on the second or third levels, but convention suggested that you put a short list of desires or expectations on the second, and a longer message with everything else you might want a person to know, on the third. Some people practically typed a personal-bio into their third level.

Keith decided the first level message spoke for itself and got up to introduce himself to the beautiful and mysterious lady with the short message. Keith wasn't exactly sure why he thought of her as mysterious, perhaps it was her eyes, with their slight almond shape, more than it was her message, that evoked thoughts of mystery or inscrutability. Whatever mix of races had produced her had done more than a good job. She wore a green iridescent dress, accentuating every curve, especially the tear shape ones at the bottom of her slightly more than average sized, but none the less pert and firm breasts. Its neck-line plunged deeply in front, and plunged even more severely in back. Keith could imagine separating her dress from her shoulders, slowly peeling her out of it like some huge unripened banana. The hard part was imagining how the dress stayed draped on her shoulders in the first place.

"Hello," said Keith, as he approached his mysterious beauty from behind. He then waited for her to acknowledge his presence. Slowly she turned towards him. "I read your message and thought I'd see if I fit your bill as 'a real man,'" he continued.

At first she didn't say anything, just looked him up and down twice. "Get lost zeek," came the sharp reply, heavy with contempt. She then turned back to her friends. Even the bounce of her black hair, swinging back to cover her shoulders, seemed to laugh and taunt at Keith.

Keith stood immobilized with shock. He looked back towards the table he'd come from as a place to retreat to, a place that felt like his own territory, a place to lick his wounds, but it was already taken by what appeared to be a loud group of screamers. No refuge there. He turned away from the pale, mocking shoulders of the woman who had snubbed him, walked a short distance away to a relatively uncrowded section of the bar, and tried to pull together the tattered pieces of his already fragile ego. He knew it was over sensitivity on his part, but he was finding it hard to keep his irritation and embarrassment from showing in the face of this recent, rude rejection.

Keith couldn't help looking back towards the table that still echoed of humiliation. Another male was trying to make time with the lady in green. Like watching an instant replay, Keith saw his stand-in receive the same kind of rejection. Like him, his successor looked about, slightly confused and hurt, then moved away to more friendly territory.

Scants, thought Keith They probably take turns being the bitch. Some women were scanties or scan-teasers unintentionally, but these three were out and out scants. Cock baiting as a sport had reached new heights now that most everyone carried MCS readers and transmitters. Make a man, any man, want you, then turn him down cold. The three sat, laughing and giggling among themselves. They were having great sport. Once outside on the street they could change their message-sets back to something more appropriate, less inviting, and definitely safer.

Le Sex had lost its appeal to Keith; at least for the night. It wasn't the first time he'd left the club early in disgust. His walk out into the cool night, left him thinking darkly to himself about how, despite readers and transmitters, you still couldn't read women. At least he felt he couldn't. He knew he wasn't ugly. In fact, in a rather immodest way, he knew he was rather good looking. He worked out at least three times a week and kept all-around good care of himself. He still seemed to have less luck with women than he felt he deserved. He had better luck than a lot of his colleagues, but then computer programming wasn't a career known for being populated with Casanovas.

As he walked along, Keith couldn't help but think about the technology that made adult playgrounds like Le Sex possible. Like anything else that had advanced electronics in it, Keith had more than a passing interest in how Multi-Communication-Sets (MCSs) worked. Most MCSs came in three pieces: a transmitter, a scanner or reader, and a keyboard. There were other variations, like all-three-in-one models, but three piece models tended to be the most common.

The transmitter portion of an MCS typically had the most functions built in, the most important of these being an alarm-broadcast; and while not as important, the most used function of MCS transmitters was something called beam-activated-messaging.

The alarm-broadcast feature of an MCS was divided into the three types of alarms it could issue: an emergency response alarm for physical dangers like fire or health emergencies; an assault alarm, for summoning police in event of robbery, mugging or any other violent crime in progress; and an assistance alert, that signaled on a low power, low priority frequency, to let it be known that you either, needed minor help or assistance, or that you were being mildly harassed by someone.

The beam-activated-messaging (BAM) feature involved both the reader and the transmitter portion of an MCS (the keyboard also if you included where the messages were typed in originally). An MCS wasn't a true MCS if it didn't have BAM. BAM is what had made MCSs so popular when they hit the consumer market. A reader or scanner sent out a low power infrared beam, when the beam hit a transmitter with built in BAM, the transmitter would signal back automatically on the reader's frequency with what ever preset messages the transmitter's owner had previously typed in.

It was the BAM feature of MCSs that really changed the way people related to one another in social environments. It had taken a couple of years for standard transmission formats to be finalized, and even then there were legal battles over what constituted privacy, invasion and freedom of speech with the new technology.

Most MCSs also included a cellular phone, paging unit, text messaging and a digital voice recorder; everything but the kitchen sink. Maybe that's why so many people insisted on calling them a mux. Some said the letters M, U, X, came from "Me and U Hugging" others said it meant "Me and U X-Rated." The truth was far more bland. Mux was short for multiplexing, a process long associated with communication. Mux also sounded like "mucks" which sounded like a variation of MCS or MuCS, so somehow it just got borrowed. When anything went wrong with a phone call or message, you just said "everything got all muxed up."

Keith remembered when he'd gotten his first full function mux, they'd just become all the rage when he'd turned eighteen. He, like so many others, had spent hours in parks and public places scanning and reading the personal transmissions of others. Scanning, reading, beaming, lazing or zapping someone (and there were lots of other synonyms for the activity) was strictly a line of sight operation, it had to be, so you knew who you were scanning when you pointed your reader. Most of the personally recorded text messages you read though, seemed simply boring, silly or stupid to Keith.

It had seemed, in those early days of electronic tag, that MCSs or muxes would make it easier to find a women to pair up with. No more guess work. "Scan, BAM, thank you ma'am," as the saying went. Men quickly overloaded the system however; there were always more men looking for available women, than women who felt they were available. Like the CB fad of an earlier era, the desire to scan and read everyone quickly passed, but unlike CBs, the security the devices provided made them a permanent fixture of modern society. A lot of males like Keith, because of the new technology, thought it was harder than ever to make contact with women. Like most technological innovations, this one too, had turned out to be a doubled edged sword.

Keith knew in his heart that a large percentage of women that one passed on the street, whose mux-messages indicating they weren't interested in contact, were just as lonely inside as he was.

 
* * * * *
 

Kim smiled politely as the bouncer scanned and logged her MCS transmitter's identity signal into the entrance computer. "Kimberly Renee Logan, of legal drinking age, no criminal history," blinked the screen in white letters of acceptance. The bouncer nodded with a blank expression, and with that Kim pushed her way through the rather crowded bar, looking for the table of friends that she was supposed to meet there. Just inside the door was a sign that read, "Scanned or banned." Kim hadn't bothered to bring her reader with, but had the required transmitter. Like most females she never went anywhere without it.

Kim traversed the length of the bar twice. Not finding her friends, she decided to escape the crowd and head to the mezzanine, where hopefully it would be a little quieter and she could hang out and unwind until they showed. It irked her more than a little that her girl friends would gang up on her to come out to a meat market like Al-E-Katz and then be late. As zap-zones went it was really pretty mild, but she just didn't want to be anywhere where socializing was going on.

An hour passed, and she ordered a drink to keep herself company. This had better not be some kind of setup, thought Kim to herself, they surely know I won't talk to anybody here. And with that thought, as if on cue, up swaggered a male on the make, half the swagger from being full of gin, the other half from being full of himself, at least that's the way he appeared to Kim. From the corner of her eye, she had seen the practiced hand motion of a male doing a reading, without trying to be too obvious about who he was scanning.

"Hey little lady, why are you all alone?"

"I'm waiting for friends," answered Kim in clipped tones that she hoped this creep would be able to read through his alcoholic haze and leave her to her solitary musings.

"And they're making you wait here for them? Hell that's an inconsiderate thing to do to a lady as fine as you. Maybe you need some new friends, or maybe just one new friend."

"Maybe I just need a bouncer."

"Ah hell, honey, that's a damn waste, a beauty like you..." The man's words trailed off as he saw Kim's hand headed towards her hip in a pointing motion towards her transmitter.

"No need for that, I'm outta here," he mumbled, obviously having been tagged before by women activating harassment alerts.

Kim thought briefly about going to see the management; they would surely bounce the obnoxious pest if she did a 30 second playback, but it just wasn't worth the effort. Unconsciously she patted the transmitter on her hip, thankful for the insulation it normally gave, and for the more forceful backup it still provided when that insulation failed.

Other than panhandlers, asking for money, one rarely encountered someone who tried to talk to you when your transmitter read that you didn't want to talk. It was a new social taboo, and one that hadn't taken very long to become deeply rooted in society. A few state courts had even flirted with making such uninvited-conversations a minor crime or misdemeanor; there were already lots of cities with such ordinances. The new uninvited-conversation-ordinances were designed mostly to discourage panhandling, but they also high-lighted people with various mental problems. One such person stood out in Kim's mind, he had been a sad, pathetic, little man, with some type of mental illness or impairment. He'd followed her for blocks, proclaiming his love for her, asking her to marry him over and over; despite her repeated, but polite refusal to have anything to do with him. The vast majority of people who just came up and started talking to you were like that; mental cases or down-and-outs, most barely literate. Things most people took for granted, like operating a mux, was beyond many of them, even if they had had the very small sum required to purchase a stripped down entry level model. The love sick homeless man that had followed Kim that day (at least she assumed he'd been homeless) had been, in the language of the street, a real chatter-minded, prattle-brained, muckless, talkie. All the same she had felt sorry for him.

Kim thought again about the creep who had just come up to her in the club. It was hard to think of him as a talkie, since he'd been well dressed and clean shaven; it was equally hard to feel sorry for him, since he'd been so forward. She looked around and saw that the creep, or well dressed talkie, had walked some distance away, but seemed to keep glancing back towards her. She regretted not having paused her transmitter's recorder, it was probably already well past its maximum playback loop length. Just when she was getting ready to move to a different table, the creep slinked off to some other corner of the club.

Kim kept a watchful eye out, but when her antagonist didn't resurface she turned her attention elsewhere, looking down over the edge of the mezzanine into a contorted sea of legs and arms. She'd never understood the common desire to press so closely together with a mass of humanity when dancing. In her mind, dancing was something that should be done with a little room, or better yet done with someone in private. An image of herself and John dancing half naked in her apartment pushed its way into her head. The music wasn't fast, wasn't slow, it was just right for the two bodies, pushed closely together at the hips, his right leg pushed between her two bent legs, his thigh creating a delicious friction in the silk material of her panties. John had turned out to have a lot of faults, but damn could that man dance, he could also...

"Kim, there you are," Charlene's voice broke Kim's light nostalgic trance.

"Ah yeah, where have you been? And where are the others?"

Charlene shrugged her shoulders and sat down. "Not coming I'm afraid. Marge is with Gail, trying to calm her down because she just found out her boyfriend has been screwing Carol. And Carol, well you can guess where Carol is. Anyway I was with Marge and Gail until just a half an hour ago. Marge is such an over-reacter, she was afraid she couldn't comfort Gail by herself, and too agoraphobic to come down here alone to let you know what was going on."

"You could have paged me," sniffed Kim, not ready to forgive Charlene so easily, even though Charlene turned out to be the most considerate of her four friends. Her reluctance to let the incident pass was due mostly to just wanting an excuse to be miffed at someone, someone present so she could vent a little frustration.

"We did page you, you never called or signaled back."

Kim hoped her embarrassed blush was masked by the subdued lighting of the discotheque. She'd had so many messages since breaking it off with John, she'd turned her pager to silent log mode. She was sure if she looked now she would see three or four pages from her friends. She could have saved herself a little time and grief if she'd thought to look at her messages when she realized they weren't at the bar. She just didn't seem to think so good these days.

"I've got a present for you," said Charlene, and with that she pulled a small ring of keys out of her purse, handing them over to Kim.

"Thank you Charlene," said Kim with a sigh of relief. "I just couldn't face him, especially to ask for these back. He's been driving me crazy, leaving a dozen messages on my phone and pager every day. That's why I turned it off."

"Well don't you worry about all that now. Why don't you finish your drink, while I go to the rest room, then we'll blow this joint, go someplace empty and just have some girl talk." Normally the two would have headed to the ladies room together, but Kim did have a half finished drink and neither had a man to primp for.

"Right, I'll meet you out front," replied Kim, anxious to get out of the club as soon as possible; she'd started to think about the creep again. She would be sure to tell Charlene all about the incident when they got to wherever they were going.

Charlene hardly needed a transmitter to tell men her state of mind. She took long purposeful steps down the isle, her hips hardly moving. It wasn't that she walked like a man, but just now it had an I'm-busy-doing-something quality to it. In an equally matter of fact manner Kim tossed back the rest of her Seagram's and Seven, then headed for the door. Her head spun a little, the quick gulp of alcohol, getting up suddenly and having forgotten to eat before coming out, combined to make her light-headed. Near the entrance she stumbled a half step. She'd begun to make a mental list of things draining her, and decided to add fatigue to it. Drop dead John, I'm not losing any sleep over you, she lied to herself. Besides, I'm the one that called things off, you lying, pimp assed bastard. She'd really never caught him in a lie, but somehow she felt the fact that she'd been seeing him exclusively for over six months entitled her to know if he was also seeing other women. Stupid me again, I guess I have to ask, she thought sarcastically. Now you're making my life hell, with this sorry, sorry, please take me back routine.

Once outside, she slumped up against the building, not giving a damn how it looked, she suddenly felt very tired and hoped Charlene wouldn't be too long; one never knew how long the line would be at a ladies room.

It always felt a little strange to leave a place like Katz a couple of hours or so before closing. The inside was at its most packed, few people still arriving, but fewer yet departing. Leaving the huge mass of connected humanity and noise to exit out upon a completely quiet and empty street struck Kim as too complete of a contrast; as though the two extremes couldn't exist separated by the mere distance of a doorway. It wasn't a very busy section of town even in the daytime and at the moment there weren't even any cars going by. The only noises that could be heard were the dry Autumn leaves, rustling in the slight cool breeze, and a faint lud-ub sound like a heart from the base beat of the music inside the club.

Amidst such quiet it was easy to hear the foot falls that were approaching. There was a man apparently walking straight towards her, for a second she worried it might be the creep from inside the club. She hadn't looked at the dandified talkie directly while in the club, but this wasn't him. The walk was the first thing that she realized was different. This wasn't a swagger, just a stroll. Kim wasn't sure why, but she always looked at a man's walk first to tell her something about him, this ones gait said thoughtful and purposeful. Her gaze lifted upward to find a pleasant enough face also, one with a concerned look on it. She straightened up from her slouch against the building.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Kim didn't know why, but she was suddenly embarrassed. She'd never seen this person before and shouldn't care what he thought, but she was embarrassed all the same. It wasn't another talkie encounter, from her slumped position it probably did look like she needed assistance. "Yes fine, thank you," she managed in overly articulate tones, "just waiting for some friends." God I must look like as much of a mess as I feel, she thought to herself.

"Sorry to bother you," said the stranger who then turned to walk on.

"Um, thanks for checking," said Kim in rather embarrassed tones, breaking the first rule of an outside social encounter, to imply to a male that it was all right to talk to a female uninvited. She'd even made eye contact. It was odd, for a moment she wished she had brought a reader along to do a scan on him. Stupid thought, ones like that are always taken, she said to herself, turning away so as not to stare at the retreating buttocks, that suddenly seemed very attractive. It was the first time since calling things off with John two weeks ago, that she'd felt anything resembling a stirring of desire.

Kim leaned back up against the building, this time taking care to look more casual, instead of like someone ready to pass out. This is taking too long. I'd better go back in and see what the hold up is. Those were her last clear thoughts before two strong arms snaked around her small body, one around her face and mouth, the other around her waist. For a second she was too startled to struggle, which was about all the time it took for her assailant to pull her around the side of the building into the alley. Her feet were a good foot off the ground and she couldn't seem to find an angle to kick or elbow who ever had a hold of her. The enveloping darkness and an inability to breathe deeply, because of her well covered mouth, made it feel as though she were drowning. The panic was certainly the same, her arms and legs flailed out, trying to grab anything to prevent from being pulled further down the abyss like gap between buildings.

Just past a grease stained, dirty green dumpster, the carrying and pulling stopped, the grip on her struggling body changed as she was pushed up against the rough, brick sided building. Her left hand darted about her hip like a frightened bird, but he quickly pinned it behind her body.

Please God, I don't want to die, were the first word like thoughts that went through her mind, barely squeezing past wordless terror of what was to come. Despite the firm detention however, her attacker hadn't hurt her--yet. He didn't need to manhandle her, his height, weight and strength advantage made her feel helpless in his grip. Had he been less capable physically, she probably would have already been quite bruised.

Now facing her assailant, she recognized him as the man who had passed her on the street. Not a talkie, but a rapist.

"Oh you like this kind of thing don't you?" he hissed in a loud whisper. "Yeah, you won't come out and say it, but you like this kind of thing. Like making men feel small, like pushing them far enough to give you what you really want."

Kim could taste the salt on the fleshy part of his hand, but couldn't think clearly enough, in the horror of her situation, to bite him; all of her concentration was on her thigh length dress that was being pushed up to her waist. The only thing between her and violation were a pair of skimpy, red panties that John had given her. Why did I wear these tonight, she groaned inwardly, why didn't I wear jeans? I'm never going to wear a dress again.

His hand slid easily beneath the flimsy fabric of the panties, and with one pull they fell away. Kim was almost catatonic, her breath coming in quick, short bursts through her nose; she was almost on the edge of passing out from hyperventilation. Please, please, please don't let it hurt, started to go through her mind, she was less sure now that dying was worse than what was soon to come. Kim knew some people dealt with pain better than others, she was one of the ones that didn't. Kim hadn't even noticed when her attacker's pants had fallen around his ankles, all she knew was that his bare thighs were already pushing between hers, and it didn't seem as though she could make the right muscles work to keep her legs closed. As the tip of his penis touched her entrance, her thoughts shifted again. No, God no, please no diseases. If I'm going to die, please make it quick. She clamped her eyes shut, bracing for a tearing push that didn't come. Instead, whoever this man was, rubbed himself slowly back and forth against her, and she felt a slight wetness between her legs. Its a lubricated condom, thought Kim, with a strange mix of relief, guilt and surprise; relief that this probably wouldn't be as dangerous or painful as she'd expected; guilt for being glad that this wasn't going to hurt as much; surprise that someone so crude as a rapist would think to take the care or comfort of his victim into account. In that moment of realization it happened, he pushed all the way in.

There was pain, but not the searing pain she'd expected. Bad, but not as bad as when she had lost her virginity, he'd been a bastard too, but she'd let him do it. The dream-like sensation become stronger, and where everything had seemed to be happening too quickly before, time now stretched out and took forever. You bastard, she thought, you can't trust anybody. Especially the good looking ones, or the ones that look like they've got everything together like you, or John... And with that the dam burst and she started to cry; cry like she'd never cried before. Her body began to shake and snot began to bubble out of her nose.

Her assailant's rhythm increased. Despite the condom, she knew she didn't want to let him come insider her. His tempo became even more frantic, and Kim was able to push her left arm out, as his grasp eased a little in his excitement. Her fingers grasped something solid in the dumpster beside them. She pulled it out with all her might and swung it into her ecstasy distracted rapist's side; she'd hit him with a broken mannequin arm. He stepped back and out, startled.

"You bastard!" screamed Kim, pushing her skirt down. "You--you bastard!" This time she found the alarm button on her transmitter and pushed it.

Instead of taking off, like she'd expected, he just stood there, slack jawed like some animal caught in a car's headlights. "What is wrong with you?" he asked in confused tones like he was the one being violated.

Three bouncers rounded the corner of the building to see what the alarm signal was about.

Kim realized she hadn't thought things all the way through. She wasn't the kind to push things through the courts nor did she want everyone to know she'd been violated, but she couldn't just claim attempted rape when her assailant was still standing there. She just wanted this to be over, so she could go home and never come out again. She had to say something though, and out it bubbled. "This bastard just raped me!" she rasped, trying to hold back her sobs. She wiped the snot away from her face with the back of her hand, but the gesture did little good, she just collapsed back into a a wet mess of sobs and gasps for breath.

That was all it took for the bouncers to be convinced, two of them leapt onto the confused individual standing across from Kim. He didn't struggle, he didn't say anything, even as one of the bouncers twisted one of his arms painfully behind his back. "What's your name fucker?"

"Keith. Look--look, there's been some kind of mistake," he stammered.

"Yeah, and I think you're the one that made it," came the cliche reply from the bouncer who had a hold of his arm, and with that the bouncer gave it slightly more painful twist.

"Ow. Look I had my reader and my recorder going, ease off will you. At least let police handle this when they get here."

This time it was the bouncer's turn to look confused, and he let off on the pressure to Keith's arm. For all he knew someone else had raped this girl and Keith had just blundered along at the wrong time.

Kim looked sideways down the alley through tear stained eyes, everything seemed to swim a bit, but she could see a crowd forming, a crowd of gawking onlookers straining to see what was up. You're all bastards too, thought Kim, you just want to have something to talk about to your friends tomorrow. You'd be happier to see my body lying in a pool of blood back here. Somewhere in the distance she could hear the blare of sirens. At the front of the crowd she saw the creep from inside. Not as much of a creep as this one turned out to be, she thought. Guess I'm not a very good judge of people. It might have been her imagination, but creep number one, seem to shift uncomfortably under her gaze, and then melted out of sight behind the crowd.

The sirens become very loud, then stopped with the familiar, rr, rrrr, rrrrrr sound they made when winding down. Slam, slam, slam, slam came the sound of squad car doors closing, four patrol men pushed their way through the small crowd.

"Is this the victim?" asked the lead officer, "We got an assault in progress alarm."

Kim's sobbing had died down, but now she felt as though she was going to be sick. She just wanted everyone to go away. "Yes, Officer, I'm the one," she managed. Thankfully, some policeman at the rear were herding the curious onlookers away. That alone made things a little more bearable. "He's the one, he, he..." Kim pointed at Keith, but couldn't say the word "rape" any more. When she'd said it the first time she was mad, now she felt dirty, ashamed, used and guilty. She didn't know why she felt these things, but try as she might, she just couldn't hold onto the earlier anger. She was sure it would return with a vengeance later, but for the moment all she wanted to do was die.

"Can we have your MCS transmitter ma'am? If you have one," asked the officer who seemed to be in charge. Kim didn't know how to tell police rank, but he did have the most stripes on his sleeve. She unclipped it from inside her side pocket and passed it to him, upon which he clipped it into a reader. He could have pointed it at her and gotten the same reading, but like Marandizing suspects, this had become a ritual, and made sure there was no chance of a misreading.

The officer's face held a strange, unreadable look, almost distaste. Across on the other side of the alley, another officer had been going through a similar procedure with Keith along with the bouncer who had held him, Keith was showing them his scanner. They seemed to retreat a few steps from Keith, leaving him alone to straighten his rumpled appearance.

The two lead officers walked a short distance from where Kim and Keith stood, and exchanged muffled words. When they walked back it had the strange look like they were finishing up; not like officers on edge, ready to take a suspect in.

The one with the most stripes began to speak with a polite, apologetic tone. "It looks like there's been some kind of misunderstanding here," he said.

Once more Kim took a ride into mad on a roller coaster of emotion. "Misunderstanding!?" she shouted incredulously. "He raped me! How do I misunderstand that?"

"Look ma'am, you don't want to make any embarrassing accusations that will cause trouble later."

"He raped me!" screamed Kim.

"You're making this a formal charge?"

"Of course I'm making this a formal charge!" Kim answered exasperatedly, she couldn't believe these officers could be so dense.

The police Sergeant walked back to where another officer and the one remaining bouncer were standing, she couldn't hear most of what they were saying, but she could see shrugs and expressions like no one knew what to do. Rape cases were way down these days, thanks to muxes, but still all too common. She couldn't believe this was the way most cases were handled. She looked over towards the low life whose first name she'd overheard was Keith. He and the officer who had gone to take him from the first bouncer on scene, were standing in what looked like a relaxed fashion. Keith's arms were gesturing, and he was saying something, but as far as Kim was concerned he should be hand-cuffed and sitting in silence in the back of a squad car. What was there to say about all this?

Kim suddenly became aware of the breeze again, this time because she realized she still didn't have any panties on. Reflexively she tugged at her dress, but thankfully it was all the way down mid-thigh as far as it went. The panties lay in a little heap right next to where she was standing. She didn't know what to do. Should she pick them up, or leave them there? She knew in a way they were now evidence, and again she regretted wearing something so sheer. She would have liked to have had something on, but going without for now seemed the only choice. Even if they hadn't been torn she knew she wouldn't have worn them again, probably never this dress again either, maybe not even these shoes. The body she was stuck with.

Charlene finally appeared, making her way past the officers, walk-running straight to Kim as fast as was practical on a brick alley in high heels. "Oh God, Oh God, what happened?" she asked, although from appearances, she had a sinking feeling she already knew.

"Oh Charlene," was all Kim could manage before bursting into tears in her friend's arms. Her soap bubble frail feeling of anger had popped again, bone crushing hurt and shame took its place, made all the worse by feeling so vulnerable with no undergarments on.

Charlene's eyes darted around the small area in the dim back alley. She couldn't quite make sense of everything, but she was sure Kim had been raped. Her eyes spied the small patch of red lying on the ground next to Kim's feet. She recognized them as a pair of torn panties.

"It's getting cold out here," called Charlene, "don't you have something extra my friend could wear?"

The fourth officer, who had been hanging back by the squad cars, waving the curious away, quickly produced a blanket from the trunk of one of them.

"Here you go ma'am," he said. He talked in the same formal manner as any of the other officers, but the tone was soft, and his eyes seemed kind and understanding.

Kim pulled the courtesy offering tightly around her body; a cocoon of drab green wool she wished she could pull completely into. She met the officer's eyes with her own in a silent "thanks," but he quickly averted his own eyes as if ashamed.

The sergeant in charge walked over to where the two women and fourth officer were standing. "I know this is hard for you ma'am, but I have to ask a few questions." The words were right, but the tone seemed odd and wooden. "First, do you desire immediate medical attention? We can go now, but if you would, we'd like to get a few details straight before we leave the area."

"I'm, I'm all right," sniffed Kim. The blanket pulled tight around her and her friend close at her side made it possible to go on. "What would you like to know?"

"Do you know the man you're accusing of rape? Have you ever seen him before?"

The word "accusing" seemed to have an odd accent to it, like he was implying she might be mistaken. In her mind the question should have just been "Do you know the man who raped you?"

"I don't know him," said Kim slowly after a short pause, deciding not to complain about the officer's wording of the question. "I saw him for the first time about two minutes before he grabbed me."

"And what were you and he doing at the time?" continued the sergeant with his line of questioning.

"I was leaning against this building out front, and he walked up and asked me if I was feeling OK or all right or something. I told him I was fine and he walked away, not far I guess." the last words coming out in a mixed sound of sarcasm and irony.

"Then what happened?"

"He grabbed me and pulled me into the alley, and raped me..." Kim finished in a barely audible whisper.

The sergeant's voice seemed a little more sympathetic with each question, but still with a note of confusion, like someone saying "let me get this straight."

"Again, I know this is hard, but you're going to have to be very specific about these details. How did he grab you, did he run at you, did you scream?"

Kim nodded her head and proceeded to map out everything as it had happened, trying not to leave out anything, especially pointing out the panties that had been ripped off of her, at which point the sergeant picked them up off the ground with a pencil.

"Are these the ones?" he asked.

Kim nodded affirmatively to the ridiculous question, as though she could have lost track and was pointing to someone else's torn and discarded undergarments, at which time the sergeant placed them in a plastic bag and handed them to the other officer, who thankfully placed out of sight.

When she pointed out the mannequin arm, the sergeant picked that up and passed it to his his subordinate. The officer seemed a bit confused as what to do with the object. He didn't have a large enough evidence bag with him, so he just held it by the wrist, dangling like some cannibal's meal. Under other circumstances, Kim would have found it quite comical looking.

"I think that about completes the preliminary questioning, I'd like to have Officer Langley here take you to the hospital now for a routine examination, if that would be OK?" asked the sergeant in his most solicitous voice.

"Fine," said Kim, glad to finally be leaving the alley.

With that the sergeant turned to Charlene. "I know you probably want to be with your friend right now, but I think you could help us get the matter wrapped up a little more quickly if you came to the station with us now and helped us get some of the more tedious details out of the way."

"I guess so, Kim?" asked Charlene, checking with her friend first.

"I'll be OK," replied Kim, at which Charlene nodded.

"Him, what about him?" asked Kim as they walked towards the closest squad car. "You're arresting him aren't you?"

"We'll have him down for questioning," said the sergeant in a tone like questioning was the same as arresting.

"I said arresting," she continued, unwilling to leave this line of thought.

"This is a matter of procedure ma'am," he answered. "That will have to come later, after you make a formal statement at the station, and I guarantee we'll have him down there."

That didn't seem quite good enough to Kim, but she could tell there was no way to tell the officers to do this any differently, so she slid into the squad car for the ride to the hospital.

The sergeant and the officer who had handed her the blanket, Officer Langley, exchanged a few words off to the side, after which the lower ranking Officer Langley slid into the driver's seat to drive her to the hospital. She cast one last look at her assailant in the alley. I'm done being a victim you bastard, you're going to pay for this, and with that, the squad car lurched over a curb and back out onto the street.

 
* * * * *
 

Keith watched the first squad car pull away carrying the crazy woman who seemed bent on ruining his life. A few more official vehicles stopped by, and finally the commotion died down.

"Hey, good luck man, no hard feelings," said the bouncer who had held Keith until the police arrived, now turning to go back to the club.

Keith just shrugged, he couldn't blame the bouncer for trying to help an apparent victim, but his arm still ached from the twisting it had received, and Keith suspected the bouncer enjoyed inflicting pain whenever his job allowed.

"If you could come down to the station, we'd like to get a more formal statement," said Officer Stein, one of the two remaining patrolmen.

"Is that really necessary Officer? I don't intend on filing false accusation charges," stated Keith, wishing the whole matter would just go away.

"I'd strongly advise coming. Despite your scanner reading, whatever case she thinks she's got will be stronger if you don't."

"Whatever you think is best," said Keith reluctantly. "I'll get my car."

"Do you know the way to the station?" asked Patrolman Stein.

"Ah yeah, on Third just off the Levy." replied Keith.

"Is your car located far from here?" asked Stein, obviously intent on making sure they didn't lose sight of Keith.

"It's the blue one on the corner," replied Keith pointing.

The car clearly in sight, Stein nodded to Keith that it was all right to go. As Keith walked towards his car, Officer Stein and the other remaining patrolman, pulled up the block, stopping just behind it to wait. They're really intent on keeping track of me, thought Keith dejectedly, when things go wrong they just keep going wrong.

The trip to the station made Keith nervous, not because of the allegations against him, which legally were just a nuisance, but because he just didn't like having a patrol car following him. It wasn't likely they would pull him over for some minor traffic violation, but he certainly felt as though he was under pretty close scrutiny. He'd told them earlier he hadn't been drinking, but hadn't mentioned the beer he'd had a couple of hours ago while at Le Sex, and he sure wasn't going to volunteer where he had started from without a lawyer.

Keith kept his speed a good ten miles below the posted limit, the slow pace across town gave him a chance to reflect on what awaited him. It seemed unlikely this would go any farther than a formal statement, but he remembered reading something about a man who had had consensual sex with a woman with multiple personalities. The court had ruled that it was some kind of rape because the woman wasn't in full control of her mental facilities. Could this woman have some kind of mental or emotional problems? Keith suddenly had a sinking feeling in his stomach. For the first time it occurred to him that this crazy woman might be real crazy. Maybe she really had multiple personalities. Perhaps the reading he'd taken while she was slumped up against the wall was put there by one of her other personalities. In that case, he had, in some weird sense, really raped someone tonight. That thought put a real knot in his stomach, and for more than one reason. He realized that these police, while sympathetic to his plight, were operating as if it was possible he was going to be treated like a criminal by the courts.

Keith pulled into the near empty parking lot at the station. His earlier irritation and confusion now turning to dread.

 
* * * * *
 

Sergeant Denny's instructions had been clear: take the complainant to the hospital for a rape examination, and under no circumstances discuss any details of the case with the staff there; after the examination, bring her straight to the station. Officer Scott Langley had never had to escort a rape case before, it was one type assignment he had hoped he might avoid. Despite long hours of training, he still found it hard to deal with victims, especially sexual assault victims. Most of the ride had been made in silence, except for the light chatter he made responding to the police headquarter's dispatcher. He'd been guiltily relieved to turn his charge over to the rape crisis volunteer and the female doctor on call at the hospital. Despite that relief, he'd been vaguely insulted also.

"Thank you Officer, we'll call you when we're done," said the rape crisis volunteer, but the tone seem to say, Get out of here you useless male. Your kind only make things worse.

Scott's mouth opened to acknowledge the statement, but the volunteer's back was already turned. He wasn't used to being treated so abruptly while in uniform, but all in all he didn't care. He would rather have not been at the hospital all, let alone talk to anyone one there about the rape victim he'd brought in. On that score he at least had instructions from a superior to say nothing. He was going to have to drive Kim back to the station when this was all done, and that ride would probably be just as uncomfortable as the one to the hospital. He knew his discomfort was nothing compared to what the girl, Kim, he'd brought in was going through, but trying to concentrate on the victim's feelings just made Scott feel even more uncomfortable. He would like to have been able to have done something for her, but he knew at the moment there was little someone like himself could do. He was sure that in Kim's mind, he was some strange, male authority figure with little understanding of the kind of thing she had just gone through.

After about an hour, Kim and the rape crisis volunteer emerged.

"Your intending to take Miss Logan here, to the police station for more questioning tonight?" asked the volunteer. The tone definitely sounded combative.

"That would be best if Miss Logan is up to it, we have the--" Scott paused looking for a word other than rapist, which is what almost fell out, "Suspect at the station and it would be hard to hold him without a more complete statement."

"I'm fine, I can go," responded Kim.

"You have our number, remember, call if you want to talk, talk about anything," said the volunteer, in her best mother hen voice.

"Thank you. I have to do this now, but I'll remember."

The drive back to the station would have been made in total, awkward silence, if Kim hadn't broken it. "I'm sorry, I forgot your blanket at the hospital."

"No problem, we have more. I wouldn't worry about anything like that right now, besides I'm sure they'll get it back to us," replied Scott.

"Well thank you anyway for letting me have it," Kim continued on. She didn't want to sit in silence at the moment. It made it too easy to think back about what had happened.

"Well I'm sorry I didn't think to offer it to you before your girl friend asked for something."

"Charlene," said Kim softly.

"I'm sorry," said Scott, not having heard what she'd said.

"Her name is Charlene," said Kim stronger.

The was a small pause, but Scott was picking up that Kim didn't want silence. "You've been friends long?" he asked, in order to continue the conversation.

"The longest," she answered. "She was the first friend I made when I moved to this city."

Kim's words fell out in a jumble from that point, with little prodding from Scott, lots of small unimportant details about her and her friend Charlene. All the early fun and carefree days she'd had when she'd first gotten into town. The torrent of words continued right up until their arrival at the station, then silence descended again as Kim felt the ugly present rushing in on her.

 
* * * * *
 

It seemed to Kim as though she had been waiting in the small room she'd been escorted to for hours. She'd never given a statement before, but it felt like she was being treated more like a criminal than a victim. Finally someone came, two men in drab, brown colored suits and a third, an officer, who didn't stay, but just looked around the room before leaving.

"I'm Inspector Gains," said the shorter of the two men. He had a pleasant enough smile and demeanor, but he made Kim nervous all the same. The taller, grayer of the two had a rather unreadable look and piercing eyes that seemed to be looking for the smallest of details. For a moment Kim thought they were going to play some kind of good cop, bad cop routine. She was really beginning to think that the man who had raped her must be somebody of power and authority. Let's make this easy, make it disappear. That's what you want to hear isn't it? she thought, readying her nerve to be as defiant as possible. But Inspector Gains didn't introduce his colleague as another policeman. "Ms. Logan, this is Dr. Schneider, he'd like to ask you a few questions before we get started."

"What kind of questions?" asked Kim, more apprehensive than ever.

"Mostly how you're feeling now," said the doctor in a soothing tone that was just a little too patronizing. "I understand you've been through quite an ordeal tonight. It's normal for a person like yourself to be confused about some things when something like this happens. An ugly, awful experience will often cloud one's memory of details, and although difficult, it's important we get all the details we can."

"Ask the Officer I talked to, where it happened. I gave him all the details there are, there's not much more to say about it. That bastard raped me!" Anger had returned again. It was easy to be angry when somebody like this doctor appeared to be treating you like a child.

"Well you seemed to have left out one little detail, or been mistaken about something. Can I ask you Ms. Logan, have you ever had a rape fantasy?" the doctor's features took on the look of a parent trying to coax a child out of a lie.

"What kind of question is that? If I ever had had thoughts like that it wouldn't matter, and I certainly wasn't thinking anything like that tonight!"

"I'm afraid it matters very much when you put something like the following on your transmitter," said the doctor, sliding a piece of paper across the table.

Kimberly Renee Logan

Personal MCS Transmitter Broadcast Messages

1st level access - "Seeking to socialize"

2nd level access - "Rape fantasy"

3rd level access - "Looking for tall, white male, to engage in rape fantasy. Must be realistic. I'll tell you I'm waiting for friends if you're the one."

Kimberly's mouth dropped open, "I, I, didn't put this on my transmitter," she stammered.

"Can you tell us who did, Ms. Logan?" asked the Inspector.

"No one. I downloaded a message from my keypad before leaving the house, all it said was 'Not seeking to socialize', I left the second and third levels blank."

"Blank? Your sure you didn't forget to erase something that was there earlier?" asked the doctor in an overly eager fashion. It was probably Kim's imagination, but he seemed to be enjoying asking the leading questions.

"I blanked them. I didn't forget. I didn't mis-type. There were never messages like those to start with," hissed Kim back.

"Someone had to put these messages on your transmitter Ms. Logan. Are you sure you're the only one whose had possession of it since leaving the house?" It was the Inspector again, his voice taking the tone of a good investigator on the trail of an odd mystery.

"Wait, wait, the creep in the club. I told some guy inside the club I was waiting for friends, he must have programmed my transmitter by remote in the club."

"The creep? Do you know who he is, could he have had access to the keyboard that comes to your transmitter?" continued the Inspector, eager to have some new avenue to explore.

"No, I don't know him, he just came up to me while I was in the club. He was a talkie, but not like a street-people-talkie, he was smooth and well dressed, that's why I remember it so well. Would he really have needed my keyboard? Couldn't he have done some kind of techno what-cha-ma-call-it, override or something, I don't have to hook my transmitter directly to my keyboard to program it." Kim was sure now that the talkie-creep from the club had something to do with the messages on her transmitter.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it really is not that simple to pirate messages into someone's transmitter. You could jam the signal, or override it temporarily, but the messages wouldn't stay inside the transmitter."

"I don't understand, you must be wrong, someone changed the messages in my transmitter," argued back Kim, not willing to give up the best explanation for what seemed to have happened.

"Not without your keyboard I'm afraid," the Inspector remained firm on this point. "We'd better go over to where you live and check to be sure no one has stolen your keyboard. Before we go there though, I have to ask you if you're still intent on filing charges against the man we picked up."

"No," said Kim weakly and discontentedly, but she could see that she wasn't going to be able to nail Keith for what had happened; at least not legally she wasn't.

Dr. Schneider leaned over and whispered something into Inspector Gains's ear. The inspector nodded and with that the doctor got up. "Nice to have met you Ms. Logan," said the doctor getting ready to leave.

Kim realized she had passed some kind of initial psychological examination for being rational, but maybe not totally rational. I know this has something to do with that creep in the club, she thought to herself. And your not going to get off so easy either, Keith. The name Keith getting emphasized and dragged out long in her mind, the "th" sound hissing like a tea-kettle about to boil. I don't care what you thought you read.

 
* * * * *
 

Keith sat impassively at a questioning room table on the other side of the station from where his accuser had been undergoing questioning. He'd told them everything over again, without much to add, and now he waited. Eventually a patrolman came in with some news.

"You can go now Mr. Sanders," said the officer. "The woman has withdrawn her complaint."

"So that's it?" asked Keith in what seemed a rather anticlimactic moment.

"'Fraid so sir, unless you've changed your mind about filing a wrongful sexual allegation complaint."

"No, no I just want to go home," said Keith. Not only did he just want this to be over, but he didn't want anyone to know about it. Despite what his reader said, there were always those that would never believe a man's side of a story. He also didn't want to get stung by some kind of legal counter maneuver on the woman's part, like maybe she did turn out to be schizo, and thus really find himself in a legal dispute.

"Before I go, do you know why she dropped the complaint?", asked Keith.

"They told her what was read off of her transmitter on site. She says she never put those messages on it, but she was sane enough to know she couldn't press charges against you."

Despite everything, Kim didn't seem like a loony to Keith, if she had, he would never have played along with her. At least I thought I was playing along, he thought to himself, not sure whether to feel guilty for what had happened tonight or not. Maybe someone did program her transmitter. That would explain a lot, but... But Keith realized how hard it would be to covertly program someone's transmitter. He might be able think of some very exotic ways it could be done, all very unlikely, besides which it was a police matter not involving him any more. He hoped.

 
* * * * *
 

It seemed to Charlene like no one would speak to her now. She'd given a statement and supplied the clerk with all of the personal information he requested about Kim, she'd even given them her mux to examine, but now everything was a waiting game. She'd wanted to rejoin her friend after they had brought her in, but they'd said that wasn't possible during a questioning.

"Are you Charlene Patterson?" asked the patrolman who had just walked up.

"Yes I am, can I see Kim now?"

"Ms. Logan is in transit to her apartment, you can probably talk to her there after they finish their investigation."

"Investigation at her apartment? I don't understand, do you know what's going on?" Charlene asked.

"No ma'am, I'm sorry I don't. I was just sent with a message for you that you should probably go home and call for your friend later."

"Later? Later? She needs me now! What do you cops think you're doing? Do you know what she's been through tonight?" Charlene was really working up a lather now.

"I really don't know ma'am," continued the patrolman unperturbed; he was obviously use to dealing with individuals that were angry. "All I know is what I've told you, and to offer you a lift to wherever you need to go."

"I need to be with my friend."

"Like I said ma'am, I was told there was an investigation in progress. I can take you there, but I won't be able to allow you on site until the investigation is over."

"And how long will that be?" asked Charlene, still hot as ever.

"I really don't know ma'am, I could have one of the officers on site give us a call here if you would like to wait, or relay a message to your home if you would prefer to wait there."

"I'd prefer to be with my friend," continued Charlene.

"I'm afraid that's not possible at this..."

"Time," finished Charlene for him. "Yeah, yeah."

Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Keith leaving the station. "Have them call me at home, don't bother to give me a lift," she said briskly, then hurried down the hallway where she'd seen Keith leave. She didn't have any trouble catching up with him in the parking lot.

"Hey You!" she yelled in a none too friendly tone.

Keith turned to the sound of the enraged female voice and saw Charlene come trotting up to him.

"You know I couldn't believe it was you," said Charlene having caught up to him. "I thought you were some kind of gentleman or something."

Keith hadn't looked closely at Charlene in the alley, he'd been concentrating on the officers and the crazy woman whose name he now knew was Kim. Here and now he recognized her right away. They worked together.

"Look I really don't want to talk about this," said Keith trying to break this off as quickly as possible.

"Well that's just too bad," continued Charlene, "Kim is my friend. I know what you did to her you shit. You fucking shit! Wanna try doing it to me here and now big man?"

Charlene moved forward and started flailing away at Keith, and for the first time started to cry herself. "You shit, You shit, how could you do it?" she repeated over and over.

"Look you don't know what's going on. Go talk to your friend," and with that Keith retreated into his car and made to drive away, but not before Charlene got two good kicks in on his driver's side door. Keith heard the metal buckle, but didn't stop to protest the abuse of his property.

"You fuck!" she screamed at the departing car.

Well that did a lot of good, Charlene thought to herself, but at least it had made her feel better. She also realized she had better get back to her apartment quickly so she could get in touch with Kim as soon as possible. She looked back at the station, but couldn't bring herself to go back and ask for the lift that she had turned down earlier. Her car was back at the club.

She thought briefly about calling a cab, but she knew she needed to get home quickly and didn't want to risk waiting around an hour before one showed up. The only person she could think to call, and certainly owed her a favor or two, after having been such a jerk to her friend Kim, was Kim's ex-boyfriend John. Serves you right you pig, she thought at the prospect of getting him out of bed, if you hadn't cheated on her, none of this would have happened.

 
* * * * *
 

Kim let one of the officers open the door to her apartment and turn on the lights. "No sign of forced entry," he commented.

"Does everything appear the way you left it Ms. Logan?" asked Inspector Gains.

"Yes," answered Kim awkwardly. It was strange, almost funny, after all she'd been through tonight, that her first thought on coming through the door, was what the officers would think about the dirty dishes in her sink. A neurotic thought at best, given that her apartment was spotless, and the dishes consisted of all of one plate, a fork and a knife. They were even rinsed off.

"Could you show us where you keep the keyboard for your transmitter?" Inspector Gains asked.

"Yes, it's right over here." And with that she went to the counter between the small living room and attached kitchenette, the keyboard was next to the phone.

"Does it appear to have been moved in anyway?"

"No," answered Kim, disheartened.

"How many pieces are in this MCS-set?" asked the inspector.

"Just this keyboard, the transmitter you have down at the station, and the reader is in one of my drawers," answered Kim.

"Would you mind if we took both pieces down for inspection Ms. Logan?" asked the inspector.

"Oh yes, of course," replied Kim. Hopeful still that somehow there would be a clue as to how the rape message had been put on her transmitter. "I still don't see why it would have to have been my keyboard that programmed my transmitter, there are some awfully clever people out there when it comes to this kind of thing. Maybe I could come down and look at some mug shots or something, I know that talkie that I mentioned I ran into at the club has something to do with this," her voice had taken on a pleading quality.

"You really don't have much of a case against him, Ms. Logan, and I'm afraid unless you could provide some plausible explanation as to how he could have gotten around your personal PIN and DCN, I don't see how he could have been involved in anyway at all."

"PIN and DCN, what are those?" Kim asked, trying to understand everything connected with the hurtful messages on her transmitter.

"Well a PIN is a personal identification number, you choose that when you first buy an MCS set."

PIN sounded familiar to Kim now, she had the same PIN number on all her bank cards and this mux-set as well.

"What about DCN?" asked Kim before the inspector could continue on.

"Very similar to a PIN, but in this case its a device communication number. It's much longer than your PIN and you never have to know it. The point is that your unit, or anyone's unit for that matter, has a special encryption key scheme that depends on the DCN that is burned into them when they are built. Unless someone took one of your MCS-units apart and copied the DCN directly out of the circuitry they couldn't program your transmitter by remote. They would either have to have had your keyboard tonight, or copied your DCN some time ago.

Kim didn't quite understand what was meant by "encryption key scheme", but the inspector seemed to know what he was talking about, which probably meant that he and his fellow officers thought it unlikely her transmitter could have been programmed by anyone but herself. It had gone through her mind a dozen times since she had seen a transcript of the download from her transmitter, but now she finally said it. "You must think I put that message on my transmitter."

"I'm not paid to think anything for sure until an investigation is over Ms. Logan," the inspector said in a kind voice, but Kim could tell he had wanted to believe they would find her keyboard missing and thus have someone else as a suspect. "We'll get in touch with you if anything comes to light."

Kim mumbled some thank-yous and for the first time since "It" had happened, she was alone. The officers had told her, that her friend Charlene could be reached at home, before they left. She knew she should call Charlene right away, but she needed a moment to think before she made the call. Most of all she needed to figure out what to tell her friend. How could she tell her that the man who had raped her, had in effect been given permission? Maybe I'm going crazy, she thought. Those officers must certainly think so. Could I have typed in those messages?

Two images kept going through Kim's mind, the talkie inside the club and Keith, the rapist, outside the club. Maybe they know each other, she thought. In which case, despite what the police had said, they had found some way to do something to Kim's transmitter. For that matter, she had only the police's word as to what messages were stored on her transmitter; and they still had the transmitter.

Dozens of conspiracy theories flashed through Kim's mind. One thing remained constant in every scenario; that bastard Keith had raped her. She might have been able to blame him a little less if he had stopped when she had started to cry, but--no, he'd continued on. Kim closed her eyes and tried to hold back the tears. She tried to throw her mind to something else, but there she was, pinned against the building, he was pumping faster and faster. "Oh you like this kind of thing don't you?" echoed over and over again through her mind.

"No! No! no, no..." Kim's shouts dissolved into shuddering sobs, as she slammed her fists down on her legs. The pain was distracting, and much better than remembering the other pain.

After she composed herself, Kim decided to call Charlene, but explain things later when she came over, which she was sure to do. She hardly understood things herself, but she would find some way to tell Charlene about the messages in her transmitter. She'd think about what to say while in the shower after she called.

"I'm not home at the moment," came Charlene's familiar voice on her answering machine, "but if you insist on leaving a message, I'll probably ignore it. beep."

"Charlene, this is Kim. I'm all right. Please call or come over, we have to talk about -- well you know." Kim put the receiver down and went to take her shower, glad to finally be getting out of the dress she was wearing and the hospital undergarments that had been given to her.

 
* * * * *
 

"You didn't waste anytime getting over here," said Charlene, a little surprised at John's punctuality. She assumed he'd just thrown his clothes on to get over so quickly, he had a rumpled, dirty, sweaty look.

"You said it was important, what's going on I thought you were going out with Kim tonight. Did you get arrested or something? Where's Kim?"

"Kim's," Charlene hesitated, "Kim is at her apartment."

"And your out here in a police station parking lot at 2:30 in the morning?"

"I know some guy that got arrested tonight," said Charlene trying to deflect John's curiosity away from how Kim might be involved.

"Some guy? What guy?"

"You don't know him, his name is Keith, I work with him."

"What did he get arrested for?"

Charlene cursed herself for not having thought up a story ahead of time, but John had arrived so quickly she'd barely had time to calm down, let alone think up a cover story. There was a long pause while Charlene tried to think of what to say.

"Does he know Kim?" John continued to press, he obviously knew Charlene was trying to hide something.

Charlene still didn't say anything. Her silence seemed to be telling John far more than she wanted.

"Did this guy Keith hurt Kim in some way? Tell me!"

That was it, Charlene couldn't keep it inside any more. "He raped her John, he raped her, and it's my fault." With that, Charlene began to cry into her hands. "When we left Katz I didn't come outside right away, I was talking to one of the bartenders I'd met the week before. I was giving him my phone number while my best friend was being raped."

"Who is he?" asked John in low voice between clenched teeth, the tone more a command than a question, his face contorted into a rictus of pure anger and hate. Before Charlene had a chance to say anything one of his hands gripped her right shoulder painfully.

"Who is he!?" John repeated.

"Keith Sanders," said Charlene now scared for the first time.

"Is he still at the station?"

John's grip on her shoulder grew stronger.

"No. Ow, you're hurting me. They let the bastard go."

"Where does he live?"

"I don't know, I just know he works at the firm I work at, I think he's a programmer or something. He's always typing in real complicated stuff on his terminal."

John's grip relaxed then he let it go completely. His face took on the look of someone formulating a plan. "Can you get into work this late?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah I guess so. I've got a pass and there is always someone working on something upstairs. I've seen some of those computer types leaving at eight in the morning, when the rest of us are just coming in."

"Can you get me this Keith's address at work?" asked John in voice that had become more normal and reasonable sounding again.

Charlene hesitated a moment, she didn't know what John was up to. It wasn't that she wanted to protect Keith, he probably had whatever John wanted to do coming, she just didn't want John to get himself, or her for that matter, in trouble. She was almost surprised to hear her own voice saying "Yeah I think so."

John turned off into a side street and turned around; Charlene didn't have to ask where they were going.

 
* * * * *
 

Keith threw his keys on the small end table in the living room. It was very late, but he knew he wouldn't be able to get to sleep for some time, especially with that girl Kim's insistence on going to the police. That was something he'd not expected, but at least her transmitter bore out his version of the story.

There was something nagging him about her transmitter though. since muxes had evolved primarily into security devices, they had lots of safeguards built into them to prevent abuse, things like PINs DCNs and the such. One other feature built in was a time-stamp for incoming or outgoing calls, messages or any other operation on an MCS-set.

A thought hit Keith and he realized he should call the police right away. It should be possible to determine whether Kim's transmitter had been programmed sometime in or around the club. The police would probably think of it for themselves, but it should be possible to dump a log of the last 100 or so operations and the time they occurred. Things like, call received or transmitter message update, each in turn followed by the time and date of the interaction.

Keith's mux had come with a 150 page instruction book, there were still a lot of features he didn't know about or use in his reader and transmitter. It could be the case this was something the police had, or would overlook, in which case he wasn't sure he should make the call. As things stood he was in the clear, why give information that would possible help that girl Kim. She'd surely fuck him over if she had the chance, like just about every other lady in his life lately. Still, even if the dump log showed she was telling the truth, it wouldn't hurt Keith's story, and he would look much more cooperative in the police's eyes, if he was the one to give them the tip.

He decided to make the call.

 
* * * * *
 

"Will this take long?" asked John, peering over Charlene's shoulder at her terminal.

"Well his address will either be here or not," said Charlene, who typed in just three words "Finger Keith Sanders," then hit return.

" > Keith M. Sanders," replied the machine.

sign-on and E-mail skeith

Work Phone extension 205

Home Phone 555-7896

Home Address 1248 w. Andrews Avenue Apt. #7

"Thanks," said John, his voice returning to a low menacing tone again, he then turned and walked briskly away, obviously not waiting for Charlene to come along.

Oh Shit, what have I done? thought Charlene. She knew she had better find her way over to Kim's apartment and tell her what had happened. Luckily Kim's place wasn't far from Charlene's office, and she was sure she could con a car out of one the techno nerds, who were walking by to stare at the good looking daytime girl who had invaded their nighttime sanctuary from society.

 
* * * * *
 

Kim expected Charlene over soon, but took her time in the shower, intent on scrubbing as thoroughly as possible. The loofa-pad she normally used seemed far too mild, so she switched to the scouring-pad she used to keep the sides of the bathtub clean, proceeding then to scrub until all but bleeding; until her skin, raw-red, stung under the soft pelting of water. Still it hardly seemed like enough, but she had to finish sometime, and was surprised that Charlene hadn't arrived already. She was combing her hair out as the door bell rang, saving her from the decision as to whether to cut off the majority of her auburn tresses. Before Kim could even set her brush down, knocking started also.

"Kim, it's me," came the impatient, muffled voice through the door. Charlene rushed in as soon as Kim opened it.

"I'm not sure how you're going to feel about this, but I did something really stupid," said Charlene, "I told John what happened tonight."

"You did what!?" exclaimed Kim, not believing what she'd heard.

"I'm sorry, I know you probably didn't want me to tell John anything, but he just got it out of me," apologized Charlene.

"Oh great Charlene. I didn't expect to keep this secret from everybody, but it just happened tonight." Kim's face screwed up into a strange mix of anger, irritation and shame. It would have been hard enough to face her friends without them all knowing right away, but now...

"I also told him where that bastard Keith lives," continued Charlene with her confession.

There was a pause as Kim absorbed the new piece of news.

"How do you know--this Keith guy?" asked Kim suspiciously.

"I work with him. I don't know him very well, but I recognized him for sure when I saw him down at the police station," explained Charlene.

"And why did you drag John into all this?" Kim asked.

"I didn't mean to. I just needed a ride back to my car. He knew something was up, and well, he just went crazy. He forced me to get Keith's address for him from work. I sorry Kim. I'm so sorry, please forgive me."

"John went crazy?" asked Kim. She'd been set to give up on all men, especially John, but maybe he really did care about her, and not just himself.

"Really crazy. I'm afraid he's going to do something really stupid. I think he's on his way over to Keith's place right now."

There was another long pause as Kim pondered what she should do. "Do you have a car here with you?" she asked finally.

"One that I borrowed," replied Charlene.

"That's fine, gimme the keys," responded Kim rapidly, "and tell me the address."

"Don't you want me to come along?" said Charlene, more confused than ever.

"Just stay here in case the police call, but don't tell them where I'm going."

 
* * * * *
 

Reports normally waited until the end of a shift, but word had come down to get everything down on paper now. It was usually a sign that the legal department was uncomfortable with how the force would be perceived by the public in a sensitive case. The rape, non-rape debate was rampant in the squad room, and Scott was one of the few betting that Kim was a victim and not some kind of psycho-feminist trying to entrap an unfortunate male in an embarrassing situation.

"Oh come on," cajoled Tim Stein, Scott's partner, who had also been on site. "Her transmitter read that she was looking for it, he didn't leave the scene, he even left his recorder going."

"I didn't say he was a full fledged rapist," responded Scott. "I said I don't think she wrote the messages, and whether she did or not he should have stopped when she struggled."

"So you want to send him to jail?" asked Tim with exaggerated incredulousness.

"Look, all I really said is that I didn't think she is crazy. Everyone here seems to assume I want to crucify this guy, because I think something strange happened tonight and that we don't have the full story yet."

"Well, if you ask me, she's just some scant who's plan backfired."

Tim's calling Kim a scant really annoyed Scott, but he let the comment pass; calling his friend on it would only prolong the debate and put them both in a bad mood for the rest of the shift they had together.

"Hey Tim, Scott, you were both on that Logan vs. Sanders thing right?" asked one of the nighttime squad room clerks. Both men grunted acknowledgement. "Well word up from the lab is that the lady's transmitter had been programmed sometime while in or around the club, and the tip on how to check it out came from that Sanders guy."

Scott got his apology from the look on Tim's face; he didn't have to say I-told-ya-so. That the tip came from Sanders was an odd twist, but it wouldn't be the first time that a perp had gotten nervous and come through with a tip to make himself look innocent.

 
* * * * *
 

John couldn't get the image out of his mind; his Kim violated by this Keith character. Well he was going to take care of it now, she'd want him back after he took care of it, he'd make it all better again. With that he unlocked the glove compartment and took out the small hand gun.

Nothing seemed to go right any more for John, but maybe he could redeem himself in Kim's eyes, then the two of them could disappear together. If it didn't work, well, nothing really mattered any more.

John had parked the car on a side street two blocks past the address he'd gotten from Charlene. He was amazed at himself; he didn't feel nervous at all. He sat in the car for a minute more and went over what he would do in his mind.

It was time. He put the gun in the pocket of his windbreaker and got out of the car. He didn't lock the door. He might not be nervous now, but he didn't want to be fumbling with the keys when he got back.

Even close as it was to three in the morning, John's first attempt to enter Keith's apartment building was abandoned, some young couple were walking straight down the block as he got there. He decided to walk a couple blocks past before turning back and entering the main door.

Once inside, John relaxed a little. Apartment #7 was on the second floor. He scanned the stairwells, and knew even if anyone opened their doors to look, all they would see would be his back as he ran away. With any luck, no one would get up or call the police. He wasn't sure if it was true or not, but he'd heard that if you pushed the gun right into your victim, the body provided a large degree of muffling.

John knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" called Keith.

"Police, Mr. Sanders," John said in his best practiced voice, sure that this Sanders guy wouldn't think is was so unusual to hear from the police after what had happened tonight. "Open up please, we have a few more questions."

Keith hadn't expected to hear back from the police the same night, or maybe at all. The person he'd eventually talked to on the phone at the station sounded decidedly unenthusiastic about Keith's idea of dumping the time-log from Kim's transmitter, but he had promised he would relay the idea to the proper person or persons, and something would be done about it.

One thing was sure, he didn't want to seem unwilling to cooperate, and went to the door and unlocked it.

John moved into the room quickly, and slammed the door shut. "Don't say a word," said John, motioning for Keith to move back, as he slid further into the room.

 
* * * * *
 

Kim didn't see John's car on the street, but she was sure he must have made it to Keith's apartment first, so she didn't bother to look for "No Parking" signs; she just parked the borrowed car right in front. She kept telling herself that her panic was unwarranted, but that didn't keep the thudding of her racing heart from her ears as she rushed into the apartment and bounded up the stairs. Kim didn't know what John had planned in this confrontation with Keith, an uncertainty made worse because, from what Charlene had said, she didn't know what John's state of mind was. He'd always been one to do things without thinking them all the way through. Much as she might like to see Keith get all that what was coming to him, she knew she couldn't let John be the one to give it to him.

When she got to apartment #7 she pressed her ear against the door.

 
* * * * *
 

John and Keith both heard loud steps in the hallway. "Are you expecting company?" asked John in a whisper.

Keith was tempted to answer back in a loud voice, but the gun barrel pointed at his chest, told him to answer in a volume no louder than he'd been asked in. "No," he answered more with lip movement than sound.

"Are your neighbors usually up this late?" asked John.

"I don't know," answered Keith, glad for any reprieve, however short, from this deranged man with a gun.

John's mind was really racing now. He would have to take Keith with him, he couldn't risk whoever had been making noise out there to be around for a gun shot. Maybe it would be better this way. He could take Keith out into the country and kill him there. They would wait here a few minutes and then John would force Keith to come with him.

 
* * * * *
 

Officer Langley felt a small jolt of anxiety before knocking on the door. Somehow it had fallen to him and his partner, Officer Stein, to carry the news about Kim's transmitter to her house; if she were there. Dispatch said a call had been made to Ms. Logan, but the person answering the phone said Ms. Logan was out. Kim had told them down at the station that she lived alone, along with about a hundred other personal questions. Someone had to investigate what was going on.

"Who is it?" came Charlene's voice tentatively.

"Police ma'am, we're looking for a Kimberly Logan," replied Scott in a loud voice through the door.

"I told your people over the phone, she's not here," answered Charlene much more nervously than she had answered the police official that had called there earlier. She'd promised Kim not to tell the police where she'd gone, but she hadn't expected the police to show up in person.

"Please open the door ma'am, we really need to talk to you even if Kimberly Logan isn't here." This time it was Tim talking through the door. Finally Charlene cracked it open.

"Sorry to bother you so late at night, but we know Ms. Logan lives at this address and we need to make contact with her," said Scott, talking over the lead in the investigation.

"Look she just needed to get out," lied Charlene, and none too well to the two suspicious officers in front of her.

"Look ma'am, this is important, we have to get in touch with her right away," said Tim.

"I don't know were she is," said Charlene, clinging to her story.

"Look ma'am--Charlene right?" asked Scott, trying to gain her trust. Charlene nodded yes. "Are you familiar with everything that happened to your friend tonight?"

Charlene was hesitant to answer, but decided to admit to as much as she knew. "I know that she was rapped," the words coming out in a slow, sad whisper.

"But do you know anything about what was on her transmitter?"

Charlene felt like she was being tricked, but the officer seemed to know something she didn't, something that Kim probably knew as well. "No," she replied, still in a whisper.

Scott wasn't a detective, and standard procedure said a patrolman didn't give away unauthorized information. Also, in no small way, Charlene was a suspect in the message mystery, but Scott had a feeling it was important to find out where Kim had gone, and information was the only thing he had to bargain Charlene with. "Kim's transmitter had a rape fantasy request," he said slowly.

"That's not possible," responded Kim. "She'd didn't go in for anything like that, she was--was an old fashion girl. That's just a lie."

"The fantasy request message was there. We thought your friend had made some kind of mistake, but we just got word from the lab that someone tampered with her transmitter somehow. That's why we're here; to tell her that there is new news about what was found on her transmitter."

Charlene was still hesitant to say anything, but Kim hadn't told her anything about messages on her transmitter. She didn't know what to think about the new information, but she knew she was in way over her head.

"She's gone to stop her old boyfriend John from doing something stupid at Keith Sander's place," blurted Charlene finally, realizing the officers were truly trying to help.

 
* * * * *
 

Kim thought she had heard a few muffled sounds from inside the apartment, but now nothing. She waited, but the silence continued. She was afraid to knock. She decided to try the door, to her surprise, the knob turned easily, the door was open.

Something grabbed her hand and pulled her in.

"It's all right Kim, don't say anything," said John in a soft soothing voice.

It didn't take long for Kim to see that John had a gun and Keith was standing motionless in the center of his living room.

"Oh John, thank God you haven't done anything yet," said Kim in an only slightly relieved voice.

"I know what this guy did to you and I'm going to take care of it," said John, still intent on his mission.

"No, no you don't know," said Kim. "It was all a mistake, Charlene didn't know what was going on."

"You mean this guy didn't rape you?" asked John.

Kim had to think for a moment. It seemed best not to try explaining about her garbled transmitter, it was all just too complicated.

"No, he's not the one," she lied.

John looked over to Keith, then back to Kim. For a moment he'd almost put the gun down. "You're lying, you just don't want me to get myself in trouble, well don't worry about it, I'm gonna put this fuck away."

"No wait, John," pleaded Kim, "I'm not lying, it's very complicated. My transmitter got fouled up somehow, it said I wanted to have sex with this guy. He thought--", Kim paused shortly to get her quivering voice under control. "He thought I wanted to be raped." It almost made her sick to be defending Keith, but it seemed the only way to keep John from getting the two of them in big trouble.

"He still raped you though didn't he?" continued John.

"It was a mistake John, you can't kill him for making a mistake."

"You say your transmitter was all fouled up."

"Yes, someone jammed it or reprogrammed it or something," explained Kim as best she could.

"Do you know what this guy does for a living?" asked John.

"I know he works with Charlene, that's all I know," answered Kim.

"He's a programmer. If anyone could program someone else's transmitter it would be a programmer."

Kim fixed Keith with a accusing stare. She'd been set on keeping John from killing him, but now it didn't seem like such a bad idea.

Keith spoke for the fist time since John had pulled Kim into the room. "I'm a programmer all right, but that just means I know how hard it would be to type a message into someone else's transmitter. There are code numbers that I'd have to know to get the job done."

"If anyone would know how to get around a DCN it'd be some computer geek like you," John nearly shouted.

This time Kim's gaze fixed on John. John worked as a salesman in a clothing store, and wasn't all that literate when it came to things technical. He was one of those people who couldn't program a VCR without help.

"How do you know what a DCN is?" asked Kim.

"I'm not completely dumb, besides I've got a friend that knows all about this kind of stuff," answered John, keeping his gun leveled on Keith's chest.

"Some friend?" asked Kim suspiciously.

"It isn't important. Just someone I learned a few things from. I bet he could guess how our friend here jimmied your mux."

"The creep, the talkie I met at the the club," blurted Kim without thinking. "You had the keys to my apartment for the last two weeks, you came in sometime and got my keyboard for this creep friend of yours so he could copy this DCN thing. He read my message at the club, then used my DCN to change it." Kim had forgotten what the letters stood for, but now she knew what had happened.

"I don't know what you're talking about," said John, but his voice was strained and his gun hand began to shake a little. He obviously didn't know what to do.

"If anyone raped me, it was you!" continued Kim, shouting at John.

"Shut up!" screamed John back. "You weren't..." John paused and started again in a softer voice. "You weren't supposed to get raped. And you wouldn't have if not for this shit," said John, waving his gun, but still keeping it well trained on Keith's chest. "Tom reprogrammed your transmitter, he was supposed to follow you outside and just scare you. The messages were there as an alibi in case he didn't get away in time, or was picked up later by the police."

"Why? What on Earth was all this all supposed to accomplish?" asked Kim genuinely perplexed.

"I was going to show up and stop him before anything happened. He gave me a call that everything had been setup, but I had flat tire on the way over to the club," explained John.

"And you figured I'd be so grateful that I'd just fall back into your arms," finished Kim for him.

"We belong together Kim, can't you see how much you mean to me. I figured if you got a little scare thrown into you, you'd come back to me," explained John.

"Well you thought wrong. You, you just..." Kim just let the words trail off. She was mad, but the sad thing was, she realized how close John had come to succeeding; she'd come over to keep him from getting himself in trouble over her, and she probably would have gone back to him if his fake rescue had worked.

"I know I've made some mistakes, but I'm going to make up for it," said John, keeping his gun trained on Keith. "You'll see. We'll get things back to normal after this shit is gone."

Kim was fast realizing how far gone John was; much too far gone to reason with. John was intent on killing Keith, as if that would make up for mistakes he, John, had made. Then what? What would happen to her? What would John to do her, when John realized there was no chance that he and she would ever get back together again?

John seemed split between concentrating on Keith and looking back to Kim, as if trying to get approval from her for what he planned to do. During one of John's nervous glances back toward Kim, Keith made his move, rushing forward to knock the gun out of John's hand. The hastily aimed swat made contact just as the gun went off.

Keith collapsed and John's gun went skittering across the floor.

"Oh my God, Oh my God..." screamed Kim, but John grabbed her and covered her mouth.

"Shut up, shut up, we've gotta get out of here," he growled through clenched teeth.

There it was again, the salty taste of a man's hand over her open mouth, but this time she bit down has hard as she could. She could actually feel her teeth piercing the skin, ripping through the muscle in the heel of John's hand.

John jerked his hand away reflexively, allowing Kim to dive out of his grasp and towards the gun. Before John could start to move she had it trained on him.

"Kim, Kim, take it easy with that thing," said John with hands out stretched, all the while taking small, slow steps towards her.

"Stay right there John, believe me I'll use this."

John froze in place. Blood had begun to run down his arm and drip off the end of his elbow.

Keith lay in his own small pool of blood, but began to stir and groan, clutching his side. It seemed a pity to Kim that Keith hadn't gotten the job done. She'd tried to save Keith earlier, but that was to keep John from getting himself in trouble. Now she cared less for John than even the bastard who lay groaning on the floor. Kim's finger began to tighten on the trigger.

Just before the pressure became great enough to send the hammer singing forward, there was a pounding on the door.

"Police, open up!"

The moment seemed to have passed.

"Help! She's got a gun!" yelled John.

The door burst open and in rushed Patrolmen Langley and Stein, guns drawn. Kim still hadn't lowered her aim on John.

"She shot him, and now she's going to shoot me," squealed John.

"Put the gun down," ordered Scott, keeping his gun trained on Kim, at the same time motioning his partner down to where Keith lay moaning on the floor.

"Look officer, I didn't shoot that piece of filth on the floor, this shit did, and now he's going to pay for that and everything else that happened. He's the one responsible for the messages on my transmitter."

"That may be, but you're going to be the one doing time if you shoot him. Your also gonna do time if you don't let us get that man there some medical help."

"I really just don't give a damn."

Out of nowhere John began to cry, "Please don't kill me Kim, I'm sorry, it was a mistake. You told me yourself you can't kill someone for making a mistake."

"This man is in bad shape," interrupted Tim from Keith's side. "We have to get him medical help now!"

"Might as well make it pair of bodies as well as one," said Kim with a grim emotionless voice.

"Listen Kim, I know you've been through a lot tonight, but you ought to know that the reason we're here is because of a tip we got from that man on the floor," Scott said in a calm voice, trying to reason with Kim. "He showed us that you're not the one who put those messages on your transmitter."

Kim's face clouded with indecision and the pain of remembering again. "He should have stopped. It doesn't matter what he saw on my transmitter, or who put it there. He should have stopped when I started to cry. He just should have stopped." Kim's eyes had begun to water.

Keith was in pain, but conscious the entire time. He propped himself up despite Tim's efforts to keep him still. "I didn't know you were crying. I swear I didn't know," he rasped. "I felt you shaking, I thought--I thought you were climaxing."

"Climaxing!" screamed Kim hysterically, almost on the verge of laughing. "Get him out of here, I really don't care what you do with him."

Scott nodded to Tim. Tim helped Keith roll over on a nearby rug, then pulled him into the hallway to await paramedics.

"Shut the door. Any more police enter this room and I pull the trigger," shouted Kim as soon as they were out.

"So now what?" asked Scott, "You know I can't leave as long as you have a gun pointed at that man, and if you shoot him I'll be forced to shoot you."

"Kim, listen to him, don't do anything stupid," blubbered John.

"Make sure it's a good shot. I don't really want to be around after I take him out anyway," responded Kim.

"Look, you're not in any trouble yet, if you let me have the gun then it's all over."

"Oh it's not over, it won't be over for a long time," said Kim shaking her head. Her eyes streamed with tears, forcing her to wipe them back with her free hand. She then put both hands back on the gun to steady it, stretching her arms straight out as if to brace for the recoil.

"Please, please, stop her," whimpered John.

"Look, I know this is going to take a long time to get over--" started Scott.

"What do you know about it, huh? You just don't know," said Kim, cutting him off short.

"I know," said Scott. "It happened to me too."

"What are you talking about? It happened to you too," said Kim. "You've never been raped."

"Oh yeah, I was--" Scott had to pause, "raped." It was an admission he'd made to few. An admission he'd never made to anyone remotely connected with his job.

"Raped? Oh come on. Some big, mean woman held you down and had her way with you?" said Kim, her voice dripping with sarcasm and shaking from emotion.

"No," responded Scott, continuing with his painful confession. "I was twelve, and I was somewhere I shouldn't have been, out drinking with some older teenage boys. The details aren't real important, but oh yeah, I was raped."

"What has that got to do with me?" asked Kim, but Scott's words seemed to be sapping her resolve already. There was something in the delivery that rang true. She regretted her earlier dismissal of Scott's admission, it just didn't seem possible that a man could know pain the way a woman could.

"You don't ever feel like you're going to get over it, but you do. I didn't feel like I would ever be a man after what happened to me; like no women would ever want to kiss me or have anything to do with me if she knew what I--" Scott paused, his face contorting strangely as he fought with the words, "what I'd been forced to do with another guy. Maybe that's why I became a policeman; trying to prove I'm not a coward to myself. You're not a coward Kim, you've proved it already, now just let it go. You don't have to kill this guy to get over this."

There was a long silence, then Kim lowered the gun. "Don't worry about finding a new girl friend John," she said. "Where you're going, you're going to get to be one."

Scott moved forward and relieved Kim of the weapon that dangled limply in her hand. John fell to his knees, still blubbering softly, half relief, half fear of what the Law was going to do to him.

"Clear," shouted Scott back towards the apartment's front door, as if by magic, the apartment was filled with other officers.

Tim was the first one by his partner's side. "Good job man, I really thought she was going to DO the guy. You must've talked her down just right."

"How much of it did anyone hear?" asked Scott.

"You really couldn't hear anything through the door," replied Tim. "And the others just got here."

Scott looked deeply at his partner, but Tim didn't give anything away with his look back. If Tim had heard anything, it wasn't something the two of them would ever need to talk about.

Both Kim and John were being Marandized, it wasn't likely the D.A. would press charges against Kim, but the police had to go through the motions. Kim made one request after hearing her rights, she wanted to say something to Scott before the trip to the police station. It wasn't easy to give the two of them much space in the crowed apartment, but Scott's fellow officers turned their backs a little for what ever Kim had to say to him.

"I--" Kim didn't know how to start to say what she wanted to say. "I just wanted to say thanks. You really kept me from doing something--something I'd have regretted. And thanks also for--" Kim paused again. "Just thanks."

Scott nodded an acknowledgement yes back, but couldn't find his voice to say anything else. He just stood, trying to look professional as Kim was led out of the apartment. He wanted to follow her out and thank her also, but he'd knew he'd probably have a chance to do that later, right now he had to finish his job. He didn't know if it would be an easier job in the future, when he had to face some other sex assault victim, but he knew he wouldn't be asking himself why he was the one to be doing it.

I probably should have added an Afterword in 1991, but I will correct this oversite now. There will undoubtably be speculation on my motivations for writing on such a sensitive subject. I have never experienced as severe a sexual trauma in my life as is described for two of the main characters of this story. I, like most everyone, have had uncomfortable experiences I would only share with close friends and family.

The main thing to understand in the motivation for writing this story is that this does not have the original first draft ending. The story started with this as a premise: would it be possible for someone to rape someone as a mistake? And after such a horrendous event could they be forgiven, even become a lover? I don't know how these questions sprang to mind, but once framed, the main text of the story flowed quite quickly.

The original ending had Keith putting himself in harms way to save Kim, although it ultimately remained for her to save them both. This is where the original broke down. I find I was not skillful enough to craft a balanced enough pair of characters, that they could be together in the end. Thus Scott was added as a way for Kim to explore and resolve her rage. I am unhapply with the way focus shifts from Kim to Keith to Scott. Rightly I should have ended with Kim in this final version. The shifting focus is left over from when I was trying to balance the perspectives of Keith and Kim more evenly, and I am afraid it shows.

Having mentioned a different first draft ending, begs the question does it still exist? Thankfully NO. Trust me, it was trite, happily ever after, trash.

One final point about this story, and one I hope comes out in the writing; while strongly motivated people will find ways to abuse technology, the technology itself is not to blame. Some people may see a bleaker world than the one I intended to portray. While the main character Kim is raped because of someone tampering with technology, the same technology provides some measure of security and help for most, against some of the more disturbing and violent trends we see here at the end of the 20th Century. While some of the main characters find some aspects of this new technology dehumanizing, it really only exaggerates existing circumstances. I guess what I really wanted to say is: the more things change, the more they remain the same. However cliche that is.

 
Lawrence R. Calmer -- November 17, 1999