strategy. Brahma has been killing women for some time. He had enough forethought to murder a man for his on-line identity. Surely he realized that the day would come when the police would attempt to trace him to his lair by phone. Nest-ce pas?
I have my own theories about Brahmas modus operandi, but I choose not to share them with Lenz at this point. The time may come when I need bargaining chips with this man.
Ciao.
Hearing Miless flamboyant e-mail style repeated by a mindless android voice is singularly unsettling. Yet even through the insectile drone, I heard one thing distinctly: Miles Turner is having fun.
His second message is much briefer.
The Strobekker account went active under the alias Shiva at 7:42 P . M . Baxters techs traced the call from our office through a couple of Internet nodes in the Midwest to New Jersey, through a transatlantic satellite to London, then back into New Jersey. By that time hed dropped off. Theyre pulling out the stops, and theyre faster at it than I thought possible, but they dont know much more than they did before they started. The atmosphere is like Mission Impossiblea bunch of guys in suits and ties playing with gadgets. Do you think Brahma wears a tie?
Ciao.
I roll off the bed and sit down at the EROS computer. Feeling more than a little paranoid, I print out hard copies of Miless messages, then delete them from the computers memory. Part of me wants to log onto Level Three and lurk in the background, searching for traces ofStrobekker or Shiva or Brahma or whoever he is. But something has been itching at the back of my brain since I talked to the FBI. Ever since I realized Baxter and Lenz might leave EROS up and running despite the fact that women are in danger. I have friends on EROS. More than friends. And no matter what Miles or Jan or the FBI think is prudent, I have a duty to warn those people.
My closest friend on EROS is a woman who calls herself Eleanor Rigby. Her choice of alias was probably influenced by one of the stranger informal customs that has developed on EROS. For some reason, wild or obscure code names like Electric Blue or Leather Bitch or Phiber Phreakso common on other networkswere absent on EROS from the beginning. It wasnt company policy to discourage them, but somehow a loose convention evolved and was enforced by community consensus, more a matter of style than anything else. Apparently EROS subscribers prefer their correspondents to possess actual names for aliases, rather than surreal quasi-identities. All in all I think this has benefited the network; it has kept things more human.
The interesting thing is that while outlandish noms de plume are discouraged, the practice of assuming names made famous by literary, musical, or film works is very popular. I frequently see messages addressed from Holden Caulfield to Smilla Jaspersen, from the Marquis de Sade to Oscar Wilde, or from Elvis Presley to Polythene Pam. Moreover, it seems that at least some of the subscribers choose their famous (or infamous) pseudonyms to fit their own personalities. In the case of Eleanor Rigbyan alias that belongs to a woman named Eleanor Caine MarkhamIm positive the name was chosen out of a deep affinity for the character in the Beatles song. Eleanor Markham is a moderately successful mystery writer from Los Angeles who, except for a second job, rarely leaves her house. The same melancholy sense of loneliness that pervades the Lennon-McCartney tune shadows more than a few of her messages.
Yet Eleanors second job seems wholly out of character with this first image. To supplement her income, she sometimes works as a body double for major actresseswho have reached that exalted status where they do not have to agree to remove their clothes on-screen to win roles. I know its sexist, but I always imagined women who had these jobs as airheaded blondes with exquisite bodies but common faces who spent their days at the spa working on their legs and abs or at their plastic
I have my own theories about Brahmas modus operandi, but I choose not to share them with Lenz at this point. The time may come when I need bargaining chips with this man.
Ciao.
Hearing Miless flamboyant e-mail style repeated by a mindless android voice is singularly unsettling. Yet even through the insectile drone, I heard one thing distinctly: Miles Turner is having fun.
His second message is much briefer.
The Strobekker account went active under the alias Shiva at 7:42 P . M . Baxters techs traced the call from our office through a couple of Internet nodes in the Midwest to New Jersey, through a transatlantic satellite to London, then back into New Jersey. By that time hed dropped off. Theyre pulling out the stops, and theyre faster at it than I thought possible, but they dont know much more than they did before they started. The atmosphere is like Mission Impossiblea bunch of guys in suits and ties playing with gadgets. Do you think Brahma wears a tie?
Ciao.
I roll off the bed and sit down at the EROS computer. Feeling more than a little paranoid, I print out hard copies of Miless messages, then delete them from the computers memory. Part of me wants to log onto Level Three and lurk in the background, searching for traces ofStrobekker or Shiva or Brahma or whoever he is. But something has been itching at the back of my brain since I talked to the FBI. Ever since I realized Baxter and Lenz might leave EROS up and running despite the fact that women are in danger. I have friends on EROS. More than friends. And no matter what Miles or Jan or the FBI think is prudent, I have a duty to warn those people.
My closest friend on EROS is a woman who calls herself Eleanor Rigby. Her choice of alias was probably influenced by one of the stranger informal customs that has developed on EROS. For some reason, wild or obscure code names like Electric Blue or Leather Bitch or Phiber Phreakso common on other networkswere absent on EROS from the beginning. It wasnt company policy to discourage them, but somehow a loose convention evolved and was enforced by community consensus, more a matter of style than anything else. Apparently EROS subscribers prefer their correspondents to possess actual names for aliases, rather than surreal quasi-identities. All in all I think this has benefited the network; it has kept things more human.
The interesting thing is that while outlandish noms de plume are discouraged, the practice of assuming names made famous by literary, musical, or film works is very popular. I frequently see messages addressed from Holden Caulfield to Smilla Jaspersen, from the Marquis de Sade to Oscar Wilde, or from Elvis Presley to Polythene Pam. Moreover, it seems that at least some of the subscribers choose their famous (or infamous) pseudonyms to fit their own personalities. In the case of Eleanor Rigbyan alias that belongs to a woman named Eleanor Caine MarkhamIm positive the name was chosen out of a deep affinity for the character in the Beatles song. Eleanor Markham is a moderately successful mystery writer from Los Angeles who, except for a second job, rarely leaves her house. The same melancholy sense of loneliness that pervades the Lennon-McCartney tune shadows more than a few of her messages.
Yet Eleanors second job seems wholly out of character with this first image. To supplement her income, she sometimes works as a body double for major actresseswho have reached that exalted status where they do not have to agree to remove their clothes on-screen to win roles. I know its sexist, but I always imagined women who had these jobs as airheaded blondes with exquisite bodies but common faces who spent their days at the spa working on their legs and abs or at their plastic
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