A hacker’s companion (jmmuse&e.d.noir)

 

I receive a message from Jörn but it is not through the usual means. Instead it comes to me through the Cabaret website in the ‘chat room’ that was set up during the contest from the launching of “Party in My Closet” which has taken on a life of its own

I have glossed over possible reasons for weeks about why shipping had stopped, using excuses it is due to bad winter weather but not wanting to destroy Cabaret’s recent success I had managed to get some distributors to agree temporarily to ship some orders direct. Even as my mind has not really been focused on Cabaret; besides being distracted for obvious reasons, my personal commitment to it has felt impaired by conflicting thoughts of where I truly stand with Jörn

yet I have found any excuse that provides some way to keep myself occupied with some illusion of normalcy which requires that I not look too deeply as to why I may chose any task as long as it seems to provide something, however menial, that is somehow necessary in some way, which is why I have continued to keep up with things going on at Cabaret, checking in every morning and going over orders and sales, reading through emails from customers 

Jörn appears in the chat room messaging platform that only automatically pops up on my screen if someone directly addresses me through my username which is ‘Le Chevalier’ ....and I only realize it must be him when I see the username ‘GretaWearsFishnets’

as I am half asleep at the desk I bolt awake at the appearance of it and glance self-consciously at the cameras 

The message in the dialogue bubble reads:

<I have a new # to give you>

At first I have to wonder over the possibilities this could be someone else in his spy world either trying to trap me or just some wild coincidence —but I don’t think much is known elsewhere of his fishnets or his Greta cover 

Still I hesitate as how to reply....    and —as I was about to ask if it was him and actually start to but— then backspace realizing how idiotic that is ....and then his message comes with just a phone number to call 

I reach for my mobil and start to tap it in when a call immediately comes in with the number 

his voice lowered, comes in crisp and dry, 

“it will be safer to talk now,” is the first thing he says; I notice he sounds different now; less tense and exhausted 

“Where are you?”

“I ....Duva —I still can’t say. It’s better the less you know—but first, Willem said you tried to call a few times last night. What was it? Is something wrong?”

“Oh did I? Gosh—my phone must have butt dialed you,” I say 

“Three times....?” he says after a slight pause 

“Why do you have a new number?”

“They took my other phone —they’re trying to search for things but I wish them luck, they won’t find anything.”

“They?”

“The government officials. They’ve been holding us....” he’s vague 

“‘Been’? Are you still there?”

“Uh— no....”

“Stina?”

“And her ensemble....” again he is vague 

“So they let you go?” I ask 

and I don’t know if I imagine it or I think I hear him hold back a laugh before he says,

“maybe not willingly.”

“Jörn— so.... ‘not willingly’ ....what does that mean?”

“Uh.... it is necessary to collect some evidence and that is just not possible while they keep us locked up, is it? They think we are linked to some activities that were perpetrated by —the clowns we have been after. Which was exactly their intention. With us locked up they are free to carry out the rest of their plans ....Duva, those things I asked you to do....”

“What things?” I ask 

“In my emails to you that I sent —remember ....? There were the ones about the underground tunnels and then the other one about— “

“Shit! Oh my god! I —I completely forgot!” and only now I turn in the swivel chair to go back to the emails, babbling excuses as I do this, “sorry, I must have been brain dead with hunger, no, I never read them through,” and apologize again but say as I search through the list of mail for this one, “are you guys like ‘on the run’ or something? Are you both fugitives wanted by Dutch and Swedish government?”

“To name two, but —I need you to do this now—I gave you instructions on where to find some documents, can you find the emails?”

“I think —yeah— here.... I just found them —here’s the one called ‘docs’ —are these emails safe?” I ask

“Duva, this is my work, I built firewalls on all our devices and networks—” he says with strained patients 

“—our....? Our?”

“Yes.... so—you see the email?”

I open it now and look at it and —force myself to focus on all the words as there are a lot of instructions. 

“Oh....” I say when I realize .... what it reads ....and still holding my phone, walk over to the tall filing cabinet by the bathroom door.... it says it is behind .... but it isn’t easy to move the cabinet, “wait, hold on, this is too heavy for me ....” I say and put down the phone to try to move it; it is far heavier than my own weight but I lean onto it anyway with all of it and manage to tilt it aside adjacently. There is a hidden little built in cabinet with a locked little metal door. I pick up the phone, “wait....” I say and go back to the email where it says where I will find the key.... it says the built in dry bar ....where the phone charger was —but under it. I have to get down onto the floor and.... cobwebs and dust I feel an envelope stuck on the underside of the unit “I just found the envelope with the keys,” I say into the phone 

“It’s the yellow one,” he says and quickly says, “don’t loose those keys! Put them back when we’re done.”

I find the one with the yellow rubber thing on it and go back to the little hidden door behind the filing cabinet and it opens,

“oh, what am I looking for?—I forgot what you said—“ and in the dim light see the little cabinet is filled with various odd things ....discs, papers, passports, metal boxes....weapons— “oh my god, there’s a gun!”

“You’re looking for a thumb drive— a flash drive; there are several in there but this one has a red piece of tape around it.... Duva? Do you see it?”

I find it,

“yes.”

He says now,

“go back over to my computer—“

“Jörn, but it never lets me on!”

“Well, in the email I tell you where you’ll find my password for it but —that will take too long so I’ll just tell you now—are you in front of it?”

“Aren’t you watching me?” 

“I’m currently walking somewhere and have to see where I’m going,” he says and then tells me the password. Then he says, “I need you to start downloading some files ....”

night terrors noir

 

It is the middle of the night .... I try the number —but he does not answer ....and lean against the wall beside the little bunk bed ....deep in the witching hours .... ever since the loss of my friend, this panic overwhelms me. I have dreams of death ....and dying.... of dying all alone ....in sleep ....and afraid to sleep ....alone and forgotten here, who would know ....? I try the number again but my fingers shake so much it takes several tries ....but he does not answer.... he does not answer ....why does he not answer?

Stranger notes; the petrified touch/Electra’s dictionary

 

“I want to know something,” he says now, but then he pauses as if not sure how to say, “.....what was your first impression.... your first reaction  or ....sense.... that first day in the lobby ....?”

our last phone call had ended abruptly like the time before with Willem 

....but my mind has been in some kind of dark bog; tangled up with painful and agonizing emotions about life. and need. raw emotion ....I don’t know.... and maybe he suspects the mudslide ....it is too far within and under it to .... be able to get out of it.... not the kind of terror people talk about ....ever; like being on an island surrounded by colossal dinosaurs breathing fire and slime at you with just a boggy pit as the only escape and out there in the vast ocean is a lost path where your heart is still bonded to because so is everyone who once mattered 

“What?” I say as I forget the question 

“I saw the look in your eyes,” he says 

Then remember the question,

“look? What do you mean....?” 

“You looked at me like you recognized me,” he says now; his voice low, it is almost a whisper 

I remember now,

“yes,” I say seeing it in my mind again 

“Did you think you knew me?”

It is only a second that I resist this. Between his question and the heaviness of the inky black bog wrapping its cape to seal out the air I ....go there instead 

“Why have you not ever mentioned these things before?” I ask him

or is it the safety of not having to face me that makes it possible to 

“Just answer,” he says

“Yes....”

“You did ....” he says but he seemed to already know 

So why do I choose the darkest corner on the floor to sit down in now..... and press my face into the curved wall and say into the phone,

“....but it wasn’t until that time in your kitchen when—“

“you took the cup,” he finishes my thought 

and then I am back there again in that moment,

“then it was like I ....knew.... it connected to the other ....things.... the dreams and then it felt like I had been expecting it.”

“So what was your first thought?”

His question is so strange now as so much time has gone but it seems some things are always,

“why do you ask me this now, Jörn? Is it because what I’m going through and you know I’m—“

“Please answer,” he says

“You go from never mentioning any of this and now with everything going on you choose now to bring this up—I don’t understand, is there something more dangerous happening that you feel forced to?”

“Just answer.”

“He came back for me,” I blurt out

“Wha—“ he stops himself in mid-syllable. The strange silence of the mobile phone dead-air nearly eclipse the conversation. 

was the call dropped ....?

until I hear his long exhale of breath, like he had been holding it in somehow and I guess then .... gives me courage to say what I never got to tell him until now,

“.... it was a strange chill that began like a tap on the shoulder and then took over and with it, like, the blinders came away ....even as it makes no sense.... it makes every sense.... that is ....what it felt like.... since you ask me this ....now.”

And I think now suddenly of what he said last time.... ‘I shouldn’t have left you there....’ and recognize the parallels 

where the catacombs go; e.d.&mynoirmuse

“The days are bright and filled with pain

Enclose me in your gentle rain

The time you ran was too insane

We'll meet again, we'll meet again....” 

                                                           —lyrics Jim Morrison ‘the Crystal Ship’

https://youtu.be/rbulIrN4scs

It is no wonder I never noticed the other entrances, designed this way, obviously with the intention to be invisible to anyone who did not know where they exist. Besides that the lighting is not so good in the distillery dungeon, there really are no visible clues nor signs that would reveal that they are there nor hints where they hide. As well, there is no consistency to the underground’s structure of cellar floors and walls, curving around in a tomb-like catacomb maze; nothing to suggest there are underlying secret passageways; hidden openings; secret latches disguised by bricks, camouflaged cracks in the walls; no trace at all of any entrances to secret tunnels.

And after the phone call that abruptly ended, leaving me with more questions.... and the vodka for company ....I spend a few hours reading through Jörn’s emails....  

Where he explains about and exactly where the tunnels go.....some go on for miles....

and lead to exits above ground that then lead to roads and highways through a cover of woods and forrest —yet .... to my amazement ! other shorter tunnels lead simply to parts something like ordinary rooms of a kind of house. And I discover from this, sleeping chambers with en suites —a sauna— and—guess what else? a gym that would not be hard to imagine who thought of this addition so— a complete underground bunker dwelling that only makes sense seen this way through these complexities of blueprints that read somewhat like maps 

But it is the discovery of the en suites in the blueprints which has me quickly quite interested and suddenly find myself avidly and aggressively searching for the way in and after some time of studying all of these I take to search to explore to find these nether regions. 

It seems this more domestic part of the underground is west of the stairs where I remember Jörn had been trapped with the bats when I had found him compromisingly dressed in drag. And, according to the blueprints, there is a shallow man-made pond outside above, sealed by plexiglass beneath the pond to let in daylight and solar heat, serving too as a kind of skylight.... wow, daylight; it’s been so long 

It is tricky to find the brick that hides a coded keypad to the doorway down and after the frustrating search for the opening and several rereads of the map, and, about an hour later, take my phone with me to open the email and save myself the trouble, it finally reveals itself. And while it would not win awards for interior decorating for any home magazine, it has a certain charm that I think would have appealed to Tolkien, with its rounded interior walls that look like white stucco but are smooth and reflects the daylight and the wide round bed of the first chamber neatly situated right under the skylight. Here the quiet takes on the peacefulness of a monastery and it seems to be somehow heated from beneath the floor.

Because I am curious, I search for the other chambers that seem to let out from here; another bedroom, this one with bunk beds and then a kind of old library or den with vintage leather bound books, a pool table and an ancient looking pinball machine and a jukebox with very outdated music ....Elvis’ Blue Suede Shoes and the Beatles ‘Help’ 

yeah .... I get the ‘Help’ 

But it is the bathtub that captures my undivided attention as all the taps actually work and after a rinse of it, is clean enough to use and don’t waste too much time before trying it out discovering that here too there had been particular attention to detail; I find bath oils infused with patchouli, bergamot, eucalyptus and lily of the valley that —are not vintage but like the honey and cacau, obviously are rather newer additions 

Still, I go back up to hunt through Cabaret shipments in search of fresh clothes to ad hoc my current lacking wardrobe, although most articles I find are not exactly my personal taste, I raid the shipment boxes on the conveyor belt for whatever I may improvise.

And long soaking in a sunken tub made of cement but surprisingly smooth inside, it is quite sometime later before I leave it, glad to be clean and human again and wrapped in a boudoir burgundy velvet robe. The round bed, an interesting place to throw myself upon, looking up at the odd glow through the plexiglass, when shocking the silence all around the hobbit tomb, my now fully charged phone alerts a call 

“Hello?” I sit up

“I shouldn’t have left you there,” he says, and his bewildering, tactile voice pervades me

“Jörn....” 

and then nothing else seems to follow but a very long and tense agitated pause; just strained dead silence follows. I hear him awkwardly clear his throat.... and ....it dimly starts to occur to me that he is trying to apologize. 

Without the presence of him and just the sound of his voice —after so many weeks, the effect it leaves on me washes over like an avalanche I could not have prepared for 

“Duva?”

But I don’t know what to say

“Are you there?” he asks 

“Yes.”

“Did you hear me?” and again, it washes over me and yet it is also what I hear in it, something different I never heard and am not prepared for

“I heard you,” I say

“—it just sounded like the call got dropped....” he curses under his breath to himself in Swedish ....but I find I am shaken by something even there in this that I can hear that I never have; it is something in the subtle nuance of his tone and he says it again, “I shouldn’t have left you there....”

more thoughts from the dungeon

this lengthy un-wellness that drags on and on gets to the mind.... is it just what this sickness does to the cells and emotions? I wonder has it reshaped the dna in those ways for the future archeologists to hypothesize about 

what do you think the world will look like —if ever let from the cage? 

I have found that lately I have long wondered over. 

will I recognize civilization well enough to want to dare ever rejoin it .... whatever would induce me to 

This world; once did I long to see more of it but weary now of things long lost and things transpired

The world and the madness of its inhabitants has lately made no sense to me

I just don’t know

Only, there must still be things left to believe

....and dare 

if only to know

as ever was before does it now remain emphatically yes, ever, more still....

 

for all that I am

Noir cave reflection/e.d.&muse

“Someone’s coming, we have to end the call,” Willem says and the call suddenly ends

and for awhile it seems I just sit there in the desk chair in some kind of stunned state of mind ....still holding the phone a long time later. still staring at nothing but thoughts inward. Alone, can at times, be a sentence but then, there is one advantage as it has often the benefit of removing  all the superfluous distractions that come with noise 

and at the moment, even if overwhelmed in chaotic thoughts, am aware there seems to be a bigger picture .... that I never saw with new factors I had not considered at all and blow my mind, what comes now as after shock of what Willem implied —my grandfather? 

And after quite awhile I do get up from the chair but it seems a task I force myself to do ....my world again seems to be crumbling.... these cave walls....

in a daze walk through the isles of the conveyor belts. The winding machinery, follow the curving isles that have now become familiar, to find some small corner to hide from spying eyes.... and again, not for the first time wonder —who is there to trust. Those rose colored glasses, blinders long peeled away and swapped by a sharp shooter’s optic lens

.... long past naïve, like some tarnished fairy tale 

My grandfather ...? Did he hire Willem ....? —to protect me from my father

and as I reflect am drawn back to the cage

I find my eyes are drawn to stare now at all the places where I last saw Jörn.... and can conjure him in my mind to see him standing there .... there—looking at the monitors, analyzing documents, pacing from the cage and back to the conveyor belts 

and as I search those empty spaces now I find it makes me sad

I go back to the under part of the stairs and consider my cardboard bed a moment as if to hide away from spying eyes

but then unlatch the hidden doorway and go back down slowly and let myself take it all in again now thoughtfully as I weigh it with the perspective of what Willem said

....it does explain what Jörn has been up to on all those long jogs 

and what seemed like hours of disappearing ....clearly he has been very busy.... I think as I stop to look at the golf cart thoughtfully ....

So it occurs to me to wonder if this must mean that the octopus arms all connect to the same center somehow? —secret doors? secret walls? secret stairs ....

I would suspect as this section of the limb would not really require a golf cart 

And now decide to understand the layout of what is here and walk around it now

It is all neatly laid out with a practical use of space, I discover, and find another doorway at the bend of grocery isles that leads to a small kitchen area for cooking and washing, with table and chairs. 

I had not noticed this before. 

And, locating tea bags, a cup and a kettle.... sit down with a cup of tea and .... reflecting, think of Jörn.... 

it seems ever since he has crossed my path I am being forced to look deeply at all my own truths.... and I wonder if it is maybe because he is the only one who has ever truly seen me