Something New

Moll typed fast. "Amelio. I did it! I'm over him!"

Amelio, her married 40-year-old online buddy typed back. "No Way!"

"Yes way!

"You did?"

"Yep..." she typed one last time, bursting into laughs. Wow. What a long time it had taken her to get over this hot man.

"But you LOVE him! I mean, what happened to the mad woman I know?" he typed furiously.

"She's dead!" Moll typed again, so relieved.

Amelio was silent. "Guess I have to close the book on Spain then, huh!"

SPAIN. Spain was the code name for Moll's long unhealthy infatuation. Spain was what made her insanely hilarious. Her love for this invisible person she had never met, except random communications on the Internet. Spain was tall, handsome and according to Moll simply delicious!

But Amelio never objected to his friend's madness. If anything it gave him a basis for a close friendship. Time away from his wife, whom he no doubt loved. And a sister of sorts in Moll. A sister he never had. A kind of baby sister he could protect from the world that made her borderline zany, and made him feel responsible. That's what he told her wife, at least. "I can't possibly leave her alone to go to the ruins. She's so childish about this online thing. If I'm not there, she'll surely perish!"

And now, things had finally panned out as he had wanted. Amelio could rest. SPAIN was no longer.

"It's that easy!" Moll assured him. "I will no longer get butterflies when he writes me. I won't day dream. At least not with him in it. I won't compare every man to him. It's finished," she typed jubilant, tossing her shampooed hair about.

"Good riddance, then?" he asked one last time. He really did want one. A promise. For her to promise him NEVER EVER to speak to that man again. For all they knew he was a bad man. An evil twisted man who had conned her. Conned her into loving him.

But Moll had never agreed before. So what finally broke her away from him, he couldn't stop wondering.

"Boredom," she typed. "I got bored of being lonely and unwanted. I need to meet a real man, Amelio," she typed. "A real man. I man I can frolic in the hay with. Not some ghost who will appear out of the blue once in a while and then demand to have a conversation."

She was right, Amelio thought. But he didn't say anything. "But don't you dare find another man here," he typed instead. "Focus on your work. Let some time go and maybe then," he typed, hoping she would listen.

"Okay," she wrote, making him wonder even more.

"And there's nothing else then?" he asked again, one last time.

"Nothing," she assured, and then signed off.

It was impossible, as far, as Amelio's calculations of Moll, that she would just up and about her plans. If anything this sudden decision and her willing to go along plan made him squeamish.

Amelio signed off, but not out. As a network manager he never quite did. It was his job to surf the Internet, to find out what was going on, and to report things that were unusual. Lately, the new demands of homeland security had meant that he work extra hours fishing, though little real work got done. He used this time, instead to keep track of suspicious characters. SPAIN was certainly one of them.

"SPAIN". He opened the search command and typed in that file name. SPAIN that bastard who had played with his sister was no fan of his, though he never said this to Moll. He never spoke, for e.g. of SPAIN's long list of female friends. The ones he met for weekend sex. The ones who he cybered with and made proclamations of love. It wasn't all that possible to talk about him either.

SPAIN was not just any man, after all. He was top-level clearance kind of guy. A con.

Amelio had tracked the man's positions for a long time. And not just where he logged in from. As soon as he had tracked a physical location, he'd send a man over, only to find two other groups already inspecting. SPAIN was very important. A few international deals worth billions important. A few people in higher places made sure SPAIN was clean as a whistle, as far as the official records were concerned. All this worried Amelio greatly.

He placed a trusted man outside Moll's apartment to protect her, with orders to shoot anyone remotely suspicious.

"Do you know! There's a bald short man who moved into the opposite apartment across the street and all he does is stand outside his door and stare at my apartment!" She was furious.

"I'm sure he's no harm. Unless he's rude to you, you should let it be," he typed back, a little surprised she had noticed.

"Let it be? He practically stares me down when I go out. I have to like glare at him until he looks away. And frankly speaking, I don't get it. He looks depressed. Like someone told him to stand there and he really just wants to be doing something else. So, why does he always have to be there for?" he felt her yelling through the Internet.

Amelio giggled again, ushering his wife into the room to read the message.

"Still nosing about people's business, huh?" she put his coffee down on the table and read over the message. She often did. While she had nothing to fear of this sister character Amelio had found over the Internet, it was always good to be part of one's husband's life. Even if half of it was spent on the Internet.

"I'm not nosing. I'm helping," Amelio explained. He always felt like he had to explain things to her, in case she felt neglected. In truth, he didn't do all this on purpose. It was a just a work-related hazard. Too much time online. "I will just feel responsible if something happens to her. And the man works for the wrong people," he scoffed as she walked away rolling her eyes.

"So, what do you mean he stares at you?" he returned to Moll, immediately. "I thought I told him to....." he typed, but quickly erased.

"Yeah. So rude. And obnoxious," Moll scoffed. The thought of the man made skin crawl, but she didn't know why.

"Don't worry. He's probably just antisocial," he typed and looked at the watch. His wife always left him the coffee when she wanted him to stay awake. It was late. Did she have plans?

While Moll went on typing, he quickly logged on to his other ID, and sent the boy a quick but stern message before running off to his wife.

"You are to keep an eye on her house. Not on her. She complained about you and may report you. Got it?"

Jose rolled his eyes. On the other side of the world where Amelio had sent him, Jose hated it. It was the 10th hour he had been standing outside his door staring at an apartment 206. He really hated his job, but here he was, protecting stupid insane women from online predators.

And who was he to question Amelio. If Amelio said "do it", he did it. The woman was obviously in need of protection, or something. He had heard of SPAIN. Why they called him that and not by his real name, he did not know, but he knew how bad the man was, whatever they called him. Daily, he looked through her mail to find letters that might be dangerous and had them sent back to the lab for further study. SPAIN's name had appeared only on one envelope. And in it was no love letter but a plastic bomb. Yes. And what son-of-a-bitch does that kind of thing to a woman who's insane about him?

"The girl's incredibly stupid," he typed his girlfriend. "To fall for someone like this," he rolled his eyes.

"You mean, to fall in love online," she scoffed right back. "Have you forgotten how WE met? And are you implying that I'm stupid?" she typed back angrily.

"No..no!" Jose typed back frantically, only to see her stomp out.

Alas! How could he forget! Indeed he had met her in one of those cheesy hangouts for dumped people. Room 30's romance or something it was, though she turned out to be 40. Initially it was to find Moll, make her fall in love with him, and then protect her until SPAIN became a non-issue. At least, that was Amelio's great plan. And that's why he had been outside always looking. To fall in love and marry a complete stranger even if her brother was willing to pay a good $40,000 for it from NSA discretionary funds – even that required some level of wooing and physical attraction. And that is why, girlfriend in Canada or not, here he was staring at her window, hoping she would notice. Hoping she would fall for it, and who knows, maybe things would work.

She wasn't ugly that's for sure.

But, after six months of chasing her on chat rooms and failing – the BITCH – he gave up. The woman had way too much pride. She could read him like a palm, too. She knew, for instance, he was planted. By whom, she had doubts, but she knew. She knew and she told him to stop stalking her. And then some security folks from the chat site ordered him off. Now, all that stuff, she never told Amelio. Why not? What did she not trust?

So, Jose changed his focus. Amelio decided that money would be given him, just as agreed. Now, he just had to keep her alive.

"He's been married once. Two kids. Will lose his wife's financial leverage if she leaves him, because he's sleeping around. She had no clue. But if she does, she's surely not stand by his side when he runs for election," he typed to his old girlfriend in Montreal, whom he had started seeing again. "And my job is to make sure that Amelio's sister doesn't get hurt in the process," he tried to sound honest, keeping his eyes on Moll's door.

When she walked out he watched every step. When she came back, he followed her like a hawk. And a part of him paced frantically back-and-forth as he did, like it was something he waited for all day. To see her if only once! And when he did, his heart sank, because it was only a job. What would she think?

"I really should go back to work," he signed off from work and made himself available for Moll, back at the front door, though she would never look. Why did she not? Who was she, anyway to treat people like they didn't exist?

Once he purposely picked a fight with her online. And asked her that. And then he told her he'd loved to make love to her.

But, as suspected, she had 'iggied' him for the hundredth time after line one. She had sniffed him out.

Angry! Neglected and his pride hurt, he made sure she saw the letter on her doorstep. 'MARRY ME!" it said in bold. But instead of reading it, she quickly turned, and like angry woman tore the letter in two.

"In time she'll come to appreciate that I kept her alive," he typed instead, to his old girlfriend in Canada.

"He's stopped staring," Moll found herself typing to Amelio.

"Who?"

"The man. Apartment 107."

"Oh!" Amelio remembered. How could he forget! "Yes, well I told you so," he typed an LOL at his sister. "But if he does anything again, just let me know. I'll hack a hole in his computer so big he'll never bother you again."

Moll chuckled. In his own little quirky way, Amelio was the perfect brother. He kept a watch over her when no one damn cared. And though she pretended not to know, she knew, what he really was. It was simple. The man across the street, for e.g., appearing out of nowhere when she began to tell Amelio about the strange mail in her box. The funny phone messages. The creepy online chatters.

He had looked after her, even though she had never told him the whole truth. That she knew.

After all, she had seen SPAIN face-to-face. It had not been arranged. In fact, it was all a big coincidence. She had gone to Los Angeles to visit friends. And there he was speaking at a public gathering. And might she add, looking like he owned the place. Such airs!

The way he commanded the floor. His voice, decisive.

But instead of being jubilant, there she was with mud on her face. Realizing her big mistake. He was not who he said he was. But far more.

It had not meant anything to him, she realized, those years of knowing each other, in whatever capacity. Of talking. Laughing. The innocence lost in one moment of recognition. And then, it became clear, why he had said they could never be together. "I have some secrets, he said."

"Too many secrets," she mumbled aloud as she walked up to him in the line of the many. And as they met face to face, and his jaws dropped three miles, she no longer feared anything. The worst had already been done. And he would be lucky to hear from her again.