The Phantom - 3. Chapter 3

Someone wept, silent tears loud in the hushed quiet.

Gerry walked down a long corridor, doors every few feet. White walls, white doors. He opened one and went through, into another corridor like the first. His shoes tapped against the linoleum.

"Hello?" he called.

The weeping stopped, for a heart beat or two, and then began again. Gerry followed the sound, but every door led to another duplicate corridor. Sometimes the weeping grew louder, other times quieter. He called out, but no one answered.

Soon he ran, throwing open doors as he went, but the corridor never ended. When he spoke he could see his words, as if typed on the walls. He stopped in front of them, and they stopped as well, hovering against the walls like an electronic messaging board. Hesitantly, he raised his hand.

His fingers passed right through the letters, plunging Gerry into a red-cloud nothingness with no floor or ceiling. He flailed for purchase, and then he was falling ....

"Ah!"

Gerry sat up, pillow in one hands, sheets twisted in a death grip around his calves. His clock read three eighteen. He'd only gotten to bed a little over an hour ago. Rubbing his face tiredly, Gerry rose and went into the bathroom for a quick shower. Towel around his hips, he sat down at his computer. A touch of the mouse brought the screen to life.

There was nothing. He sighed and rose. Much as the Phantom irritated him (to no end), he wasn't sure he wished him harm. Or anyone, really, for that matter. In Necropolis, those kinds of wishes could all too easily come true.

The Phantom was untraceable, nameless, purposeless (unless one considered his bent for making Gerry's life as complicated as possible), and he had no idea where to start. Or even if that SOS was real. It could be a joke, another prank, but something about this felt different. He wished he could sort out why.

He asked Mark, later that day. Mark knew more about supers than anybody else they knew. It was a hazard in their line of work. If anyone would know how to go about this, Mark would. He had investigative reporting in his bones. Gerry just knew how to hold the camera.

"If you needed to find someone," Gerry began, "but you don't know where they are, what would you do?"

"Well," said Mark. "Do you know the family?" He glanced over at his partner, but the man looked fully engrosed in his blackberry. The phone had practically been glued to his hand the last few days.

"No," Gerry replied. He rubbed his head, wanting to take another painkiller for the lingering effects of the previous night's hangover. He shot Mark a guilty look, but the reporter had his eyes on the road once more. "I don't even know his name." Thank God his blushes weren't easy to see.

Was this about Bruce's missing lover? Mark wondered. He kept his voice neutral, a handy trick for a reporter. "What about a job? Where does he live?"

"I don't know. He's always contacted me."

"That's not much to go on."

"I know." Blackberry in his hand, resting on his knee, Gerry stared steadfastly at the city out his window.

Mark added up what he knew, and what he knew made his hands clutch tightly around the steering wheel so as to not betray his excitement. He held his breath and let it out slowly, only speaking when he was sure he wouldn't betray himself.

"Bruce, are you trying to find a super?"

He ducked his head, glancing side-long at his partner.

"Oh, my God." Mark stared at the tail lights in front of them, concentrating on not getting into an accident. "The Phantom," he said, in the same hushed whisper. He threw another glance at Gerry. "It's the Phantom, isn't it? Huh. Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle." He pulled over, struggling not to hyperventilate.

"Uh, Mark?"

"You're shagging a super?" Oh, my God, it made so much sense! Like teasing little girls on the playground in grade school to make them cry or pulling their hair in class. All this time ....

"Why didn't I see it?"

"Uh, Mark?" Gerry said again. "I'm not 'shagging' anywone."

"You're the super?" He stared at his friend. "When do you have the time?"

"No, no." Gerry started to laugh for the absurdity of it all. "I'm not a super, Mark."

"Oh." With effort, he reined in his ragged heart rate and breathing. "Would you tell me if you were?"

"Um, well ...."

"I'm your best friend!"

"You're also a reporter. Could you contain yourself?"

"Hm. Got a point there." Checking for traffic, he pulled back onto the road. "So what's all this about, then?"

"Well, basically, I think the Phantom's not a stalker at all --"

"Told you so."

"He's a super."

"Ha! I knew it!" He turned his head to leer at Gerry , almost rear-ending the car in front of them at the stop light.

"The more I think about it, the more it makes sense," Gerry said, fiddling with his blackberry. "I mean, why didn't I think of this before? Except, why would he pick me? If you can travel through electical lines, then why not do something more meaningful than programming my computer to play Madonna at two a.m.?"

Mark snickered. "Seriously?"

"That's only the very tip of the iceberg," Gerry replied with a sigh, remembering waking from a very sound sleep to 'Like a Virgin' blasting on his stero. "To top it off, I think the guy's in trouble."

"A super?"

"Yeah." He frowned in worry. "That's why I need to find him."

"Super's are always in trouble," Mark commented. "Hey, I thought you hated the Phantom. Why do you want to help him now?"

"It's the right thing to do," said Gerry with a shrug.

"Yeah, mate. Okay. So, how're we going to find him?"

"I don't know. I don't have a name or -- I don't even know what he looks like. How am I supposed to find him?"

"If you haven't met the man, then how've you two been shacking up?" Arriving back at the station, he parked, unbuckling and turning to face his partner.

Bruce cocked an eyebrow. "I don't suggest you continue with that line of questioning."

"Er ... What about by phone? Surely you've --" he stopped when Gerry shook his head. "You haven't talked to him, either? Geez, Bruce!"

He thought for a moment. "Email?"

"No. Nothing with an address, anyway."

"Then how do you two communicate?"

"Well, we haven't really, um." Gerry scratched his neck sheepishly. "I've been more trying to avoid him, you know. The Phantom contacts me."

"You are in a bind, mate. Hm." He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, staring out at the city through the driver's side window.

Mark and Gerry were in the news business. Keeping up with current events was required, more so for Mark, always being in front of the camera. Being a working reporter was a tough, demanding job, but he loved it. One couldn't get an anchor position without first trudging through the trenches. By the time he started feeling his age, Mark wanted to be popular enough to secure a cushy anchor slot somewhere.

There was something he'd heard just that morning, on the Morning Edition, a breaking story about the World Bank. That was the kind of story Mark aspired to, following the big dogs, the events changing the shape of the world; not petty larceny and celebrity gossip, however entertaining it could be.

"Hm," he mused. "I think there was a 'Phantom' in my da's time, but he wore purple and lived in the jungle, if I remember correctly. Not our boy's M-O."

"No," Gerry agreed quietly.

"So you think he travels via electricity?"

"Seems a fair enough guess."

"Well, we know he can fiddle with our camera. You say he sends you texts and can access your computer. Anything else?"

"Not just access my computer," Gerry corrected. "He does stuff with it."

"Like what?"

"Like ... Like downloading obscure music titles and hiding files. He booby-traps stuff, too. Like, I'll go to the music player and a browser window will pop open, or I'll click on my documents folder and everything gets translated to Chinese. Oh, and we have a MySpace page now, apparently. It's actually pretty cool. Hm. I've had packages somehow delivered to my address from all over the world, stuff that FedEx tells me has been lost for, like, forever."

He stretched out his legs, smiling slightly as he continued, "Let's see, he cancelled all my credit cards, convinced the bank, temporarily, though, that I was dead, makes my car sometimes seem like its possessed ... What else? Oh! I got a check." He fished in his back pocket for the envelope and handed it to Mark.

"You know I've been fighting my loan company for like the last six months, on what I owe them. Or don't as the case would be?"

"Yeah." Mark pulled the letter and check out of the envelope. His eyes widened. "Crikey."

Gerry smiled. Mark was Americanized, but sometimes his accent slipped back in. The curse word sounded more like 'croikey,' which was perfectly adorable. He might have said something if to do so wouldn't put him at risk for bodily harm. He settled for a small smile instead.

"Basically," Gerry went on, "the letter says that they found an 'error' in their accounting software and my account is now closed. That's what they say they owe me. Got it yesterday. I called them." He indicated the letter. "But nobody was answering."

Mark unfolded the letter to peruse the contents, cocking an eyebrow at Gerry. "That's a rather large 'accounting' error."

"Yeah. I'm afraid to deposit it in case they decide to take it back."

"Google it yet?"

"Same result. Nothing."

"Huh." He gave back the letter and check, rubbing his chin as he thought. "You think the Phantom's behind it?"

"Yeah. I mean, I've tried everything, you know. Everything. To no result. Although, doesn't really seem his thing," he mused.

"I dunno," Mark argued. "He's done a lot to help us. Ms. Laney had it in one. Who would have believed we'd make it so far so soon? Turn a gossip column into some of the most popular news time ever?"

"Hn," Gerry grunted, unimpressed.

"People watch us, Bruce. Not the news. Us. They get a little news mixed in, but folks are watching the news again, Bruce. Thanks to us, and I don't just mean Necropolis, either. Other, national broadcasts are picking us up, and there are clips on Youtube translated into a half-dozen different languages."

"Huh."

"Yeah, mate." He smiled a little. "Where've you been lately? We're in danger of being bought out, didn't you know? Hm," he added. "At least, we were until a few days ago. Brass thinks we're doing it on purpose to drive the ratings down." He decided to forgo mentioning the lucrative offer of an hour-long, daily feature. Mark was a reporter and although he was intrigued, his principles recoiled from the idea. He knew Gerry well enough to know the man would run screaming for the hills at the very mention of dragging out their clips into an actual show.

"It's why they came down on us so hard."

"Oh. Guess I missed that." His mind had been elsewhere, lately.

This was like one of those games, a puzzle with no picture, and missing pieces. If the Phantom could set right Gerry's finances, what else could ... he gasped.

Gerry, idly pushing buttons on his blackberry, looked up sharply. "What?" Mark looked like a cat who'd caught a canary rather unexpectedly, and wasn't sure what to do with it.

"The World Bank," he murmured.

"Huh?"

"Geez, Ger! Where have you been?" He waved his arms in emphasis. "It's been all over the news!" Opening his door, he hopped out. "Come on!" Mark wanted to see the night's 'cast. Maybe hearing the latest news would help rattle something loose.

Mystified, Gerry followed silently.

They went into the small, secondary editing room where Mark grabbed the reel with the day's date written on the tape, and cued it up.

"Breaking nrews reported the World Bank in a panic, about some missing funds," he said quietly by way of explanation. He fast-forwarded to the part he wanted to hear. "Sounds exactly like what that letter said, Bruce. Computer says everything's correct, but there's billions and billions missing." They watched the ten-minute segment.

"Says they're finding it," Gerry pointed out. He scratched his head and gave Mark a puzzled look.

"Some. Here and there," said Mark. He set his chin in a palm, drumming his fingers against his lip. "Very obscure locations, too. Like, why would it be there? There's no trace of the transfer. Just, one day it was here." He held up one hand, and then the other. "And now here."

He frowned, locking eyes with Gerry. "Started a week ago."

"The Phantom's been gone ten days. Give or take."

Mark had already counted back the days in his head. "Think about it. An untraceable hacker. I'd say there's quite a few folks who'd pay a great deal for someone who could pull off this bank deal." He paused a minute, continuing in an even more serious tone, "That money didn't have to be found, Bruce. They're giving it back."

"Why? If they took it, why give it back?"

"To make a point?" Mark suggested.

"A demonstration?" Gerry gasped. "How do we help him, Mark? How will we even find him? If he's been taken? God, this is like some bad movie with Halle Berry."

"Never mind that, Bruce." His excitement bubbled over, making his eyes seem to dance in the dim room. "Think about what this means! This is the scoop of a lifetime!"

He could almost see it now. "We'll be famous! We ... we could win a Pulitzer!"

"No, Mark!" Gerry exclaimed. He grabbed his smaller friend by both arms, peering at him intently. "We can't breathe a word of this to anyone."

Mark stared at him a moment. "What're you talking about, mate? This is the biggest story in ages and you just expect me to sit on it?!"

"We don't know for sure that supers are involved, Mark," he tried to explain, letting go and backing off to pace. Two strides, pivot, three strides, turn. He crossed and recrossed the tiny room.

"You let it slip and there'll be chaos. To most folk, supers -- even the villains -- are like Robin Hood or comic book caricatures."

Mark observed, "Bet most of 'em have their own comic."

"The point is," Gerry snapped, "that, to most folk, supers are what happen to other people. We announce there's supers involved in swindling their money and setting banking transactions back to the Great Depression, and there'll be panic. You remember the scene in 'It's a Wonderful Life?' There's not enough hard cash in the world to meet that kind of demand."

Mark swore bitterly, the eager light fading from his eyes. "Damn it, I hate it when you're right. But, Bruce, they're finding the money. It'll all be over in a few days."

"Will it?" Gerry murmured. "I think they'll be so grateful to get back their trillions that a few millions, here and there, will go completely unnoticed."

"Fuck, I hadn't thought about that."

"Or!" Gerry stopped pacing, color draining from his face as the thought occurred to him. "Mark, they really don't even have to steal anything."

"What? Didn't -- but, they did!"

"Yeah, I know, but computers can hold far more significant figures than are ever seen on a receipt or transaction. Grab a few hundreths of a penny, from this account, and this one, and this one ..." He snapped the fingers of his hand out, grabbing an invisible coin to press into his other hand. "And soon enough, there'll be real dollars there, and no one will ever know the difference."

"There's millions of accounts accross the world in that bank," Mark breathed as he understood.

"What's that movie?" Gerry muttered, beginning to pace again. "It was done somewhere, I know it! Shit! And they'll never be caught, because this isn't a program or a worm or anything. It's a person. A super. Oh, God."

He halted, mid-turn, to stare at Mark. "What'll they do with the Phantom when they're done?"

Neither wanted to voice their suspicions. Would the crook's greed win out? Could the Phantom drag things out long enough for them to find him? Or would the need for secrecy and tidying up loose ends override everything and turn a rescue mission into a recovery mission?

"I've thought about wringing his neck," Gerry whispered. "But I don't want him dead. Mark, what are we going to do?"