1. Vienna Woods
By Andrew Nash
Ring. Ring. Slowly Andrea realized it was the hotline. Why tonight? Although many forgot Mayday as social democracy struggled to find meaning in a neo liberal world – she still believed, and still celebrated. Ring. Ring. The phone wouldn’t answer itself.
They’re coming after you. Look out. Click.
He’d been careful, using static generation to thwart voice recognition, probably a historic pay phone in some forgotten corner of California. But she recognized him.
Franz. Why, of all people, Franz? He’d left them for the buzz of Silicon Valley and promise of stock options. While never central to the project and he probably wouldn’t name names, she was paralyzed by memories. Franz had been more than a colleague. He’d even asked her to come along to California, but, like her grandmother, Andrea was too stubborn to give up the dream.
Enough memories. This was serious. Franz might have left them – and her – but she knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t be kidding. Time to move.
They’d prepared. Patricia had drilled them while they’d hoped the moment would never come. Paranoid Pat, they teased, but like the best security geeks, she had it in her blood. Andrea reached for the burner.
Ping. Ping. Ping. Philipp looked at the clock. Not a drill. Andrea would have warned him last night at the Rathausplatz Mayday celebration. They’d been seeking beer-inspired wisdom: How had the right become so good at social media while the left remained clueless? Which led to shop talk and more beer.
Philipp replied to the Signal message asking how he liked his new refrigerator with a one. He was on his way to the bunker. He didn’t notice them until he was unlocking his bike. Damn, Pat was right. An SUV across the street with two guys in suits. At 3 AM, in Favoriten?
He answered the Signal reply asking how satisfied he was with the refrigerator delivery service with another one. In other words, he was being followed and would take evasive actions.
Andrea was luckier, she didn’t see anyone following her, but took a roundabout route just in case. Not only had Pat taught them how to notice tails, but how to lose them. Bikes were perfect for escaping through Vienna’s maze of narrow streets and squares.
When Andrea got to the bunker, she almost didn’t recognize Pat, who, of course was in disguise and already executing the crisis plan. The bunker had been built in the second world war and forgotten, now it was filled with the smell of coffee brewing and the light falling from a bank of monitors.
The first priority was protecting their infant application. They’d started building it as part of a grant they’d received from the city of Vienna’s digital humanities program. They hadn’t told the city how they’d planned to leverage the project into a new – secure and private – socially responsible social media platform. Their bad.
Now someone important had noticed and didn’t like it one bit. …
Episode 2: Bunker Business
First published 21 November 2021 in New_Public’s Flash Fiction contest.
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