“Hi Zane.” Julie Dark said. She and the hacker had known each other through school: they had even dated. “Before you ask, you’re in the hospital. I’ve been appointed to your hacking case and since you don’t have any next-of-kin, I volunteered for bedside duty.” It was a courtesy Julie felt she owed him. Zane Letterman was the first boy she had ever kissed on the lips. That was before their paths headed in opposite directions. Julie had gone to law school and he had written computer virus programs to become the outlaw ‘Meet Your Messenger’ hacker.
“I remember you.” Zane felt a twinge of confusion. The hacker’s parents and hers had been acquaintances and the last he’d heard, Julie Dark worked in a downtown club. “Do you ever regret not signing up to colonize other planets?” The meet your messenger computer hacker asked in the way of small talk.
“This is the real world.” She said condescendingly. “You’ve got an enormous legal problem to deal with. The FBI wants you to spend time in prison for malicious hacking and writing computer virus programs.”
“Aren’t you a nursing assistant?” The meet your messenger hacker asked innocently.
“I’m your defense lawyer.” She examined his face for a trace of humor, or even dementia, but detected none. “Unless you have the money to hire another attorney.”
“Lawyers,” Zane scrutinized her for symptoms of lunacy, “haven’t been around since the 1880’s when the rule-of-law was abolished.” He distinctly recalled Julie sitting next to him in history class when they covered the many changes that occurred after the rebel south won the American Civil War.
“What happened to you today?” The lawyer asked. Julie took some pride in her intuition regarding when people were telling the truth and Zane the hacker had seemed as serious in his absurd statement about a different space and time, as if quoting established facts.
“I received word that my father had died of a flue virus but before I managed to get a space flight back from Ganymede, my mother had also passed away from the same virus.” Zane recounted. “Today I was in my parent’s room, when a phenomena of ball lightning entered through the open window. The words ‘Meet Your Messenger’ resounded in my mind. Then the ball lightning hit me and I woke up to find you sitting here.”
“Ganymede.” Julie repeated the name of one of the planet Jupiter’s moons. “Zane, I knew your computer game playing life headed off in an antisocial direction and that has landed you here. You’re charged with having committed cyber-vandalism and distributing computer virus programs under the hacker code name of ‘Meet Your Messenger’. But I didn’t know that you were into mind-altering drugs.”
“Julie,” Zane Letterman’s voice was as judgmental as hers had been, “I know you stayed here on earth when many of your friends left to colonize space: that must’ve been lonely. There’s not all that many good career opportunities open on earth, and my mother told me you started dancing on tables for your living.”
“Are you suffering from a dementia virus or or am I really meeting a messenger from space?” Julie Dark asked seriously, but her lips hinted at a smile as she imagined herself in that job.
