The Optogram Read online

  “Virtual Private Network. Dunlevy’s security might be crap, but we don’t want to risk someone tracking us while we’re searching for the current status of a murder.” He threw Sibella’s name into an anonymous query. “Well, unless something has changed over the last few weeks, the investigation went cold with no resolution.”

  “Excellent. Here’s what I propose. I own a cabin up near the Nooksack. Over the years I’ve gotten to know the coroner, shall we say, in a very intimate way.” Agnes grinned.

  I could have lived without knowing that, thought Dothan.

  “I can call him tonight,” she continued, “and ask him to send me a copy of the autopsy scans. That way we have proof the post-mortem information was in our possession. If, by some weird chance, Dunlevy ever found out about the missing file, they’d have a hard time showing you got it from them.”

  Dothan shook his head. “This is turning out to be a lot of crap just to use a retinal scan. I’m pretty sure we could get free use of some super old, anonymous scans from the university eye lab if I told them it was part of a senior project.”

  “Hear me out. This is all about that table in the back of her eye. That thing is unique. With a bit of luck, we might locate it. Don’t you see? Finding it could prove this was the last image Sibella witnessed. If it connects police to the girl’s killer, your name will be everywhere. Your software could be the next big discovery in forensic investigations and maybe even offered as courtroom evidence. If it does, the money will flow like water.”

  “First off,” said Dothan, “what is this ‘we’ thing? I don’t remember agreeing to partner up with you. Second, I’m not so sure the problems involved are worth getting caught stealing this stuff. Beyond the fact that we have no clue what percentage of people die with their eyes open, this scan could just be an anomaly. I’d look pretty damn stupid trying to palm off an algorithm that only worked on a funky table in the retina of a single murdered girl.”

  “I’ll make a bargain with you. Run your thing again, but delete Sibella’s scan. If it stops and we find another optogram, we move forward together as partners. If it keeps going without an error, then you’re right, it’s a lost cause and I’ll say no more about it.”

  Dothan stood and paced the alcove. “But it’s in sequence. Rebuilding that would take a world of hurt. Then there’s the problem of Dunlevy catching us if we remove it from their system.”

  Agnes laughed. “You think I’ve been here thirty years and I don’t know how this place runs? Two decades ago I suggested we use an alpha-numeric standardization for these files, and the head of the department stared at me as if I’d grown three heads. The numbering has always been arbitrary to whoever loaded the images with no kind of logic. Trust me, no one will ever notice that file is missing from the system. Delete it and try again.”

  “Like I said, it’ll be a bitch to do over. I mean, it’s not as if my blue crayon breaks and I just open another box.”

  “Child, I swear. All right. If you just get on with it and the software finds no more errors, I’ll…” Agnes sighed. “I’ll smile and wish you good morning and bring you fresh coffee and a donut every work day for the duration of your internship.”

  “Deal,” said Dothan.

  There was a part of him hoping she was right. If his algorithm continued churning out beautiful high-resolution images filled with retinal vignettes, the software stood to change his world forever. To watch Agnes humble herself each morning with coffee and donuts, though, was almost worth the loss of that dream.

  Modifications took longer than expected, but when they were complete, he called her over to his desk.

  The wheels of her office chair squealed as she dragged herself next to him. As she leaned forward, her shoulder brushed against his arm. He prepared for the usual crippling panic in the close presence of another person in a social, non-sexual situation. To his surprise, though, there was no adverse response. Instead of paralyzing anxiety, her nearness evoked a warm sense of sanctuary.

  He looked at Agnes and grinned.

  She returned a quizzical half-smile. “What?”

  “Nothing. Ready?”

  She nodded. “It’ll be fascinating to see the result.”

  “I already know what will happen. Oh, and FYI, I want a triple venti soy, no foam, latte, and I’m open on the donut.”

  Agnes grunted as he began the process. After thirty seconds, he grew restless as a continuous stream of “Image Processed” scrolled up the screen.

  Dothan fidgeted. I hate always being right.

  He forced a grin as he swiveled his chair to face her. “We’ll give it a while and then you can get my coffee.”

  “Ha. We’ll see.”

  “So, you’ve been working down here thirty years?” he asked.

  “Just about.”

  “How did you manage? This place borders on slasher-film creepy.”

  “I suppose I got used to it. When I first arrived, they kept ten archivists busy all day. They had just painted the walls a bright yellow and those metal shelves were new. After computers and digitization became the norm, the powers-that-be downsized the staff, leaving me and the files to rot down here. Now, even the mail guy is too scared to bring stuff to my desk. He throws the folders into that box next to the elevator.” She shrugged. “I don’t mind. It suits me not to mingle with the crazies upstairs or make small talk with the office crowd except for a half-hour a week.” Agnes stared at him for a moment. “Let me ask the obvious. What kind of name is Dothan?”

  “I thought you told me not to talk about myself.”

  Agnes glared at him over her glasses.

  He grinned as he leaned back in his chair. “Dothan is a small city in Alabama where I was born. We moved to Oregon when I was a kid. What about you? Where are you from?”

  “Detroit, on the west side.”

  “Rough place to grow up, so I’ve heard.”

  “It wasn’t so bad back when I was a kid. My dad was one of the first black professors at the University of Detroit and very respected in the community. After the riots, he got offered an influential position in Arizona and off we went.” Agnes smiled. “In those days, Phoenix comprised three adobe houses and a cactus, and we were the only family of color for miles. I was miserable, but then I met…”

  A loud beep interrupted Agnes, and an error code flashed:

  >16:22:14.552 ERROR Bad data found in image #UH6758

  >16:22:14.677 ERROR Bad data found in image #UH6895

  >16:22:14.843 ERROR Bad data found in image #UH6992

  As more errors filled the screen, Agnes stood and clapped her hands. “I told you!”

  “Holy shit.” Dothan opened #UH6758.

  Agnes gasped. “Oh my lord.”

  Stretched within the golden-orange ball glowed the image of an ancient woman’s face with a tear trickling down her wrinkled cheek.

  He continued through the next two images. #UH6895 displayed the surgical mask of a doctor, and #UH6992, the most poignant, showed a child’s hand holding the ear of a teddy bear.

  Dothan shook his head in disbelief. It was true. His software unveiled all of this from dead souls whose retinas had recorded their last moment of life. The sudden reality of a future filled with money, authority and respect overwhelmed him. He jumped from his chair and wrapped his arms around Agnes, shouting for joy.

  She shoved him away. “Control yourself!”

  “You were so right. God, I’m going to be so rich.”

  “We are going to be rich,” said Agnes. “We’re partners in this, remember?”

  “Whatevs,” said Dothan. His mind raced with a thousand thoughts at once as he paced the alcove. “I have to figure out why it’s throwing errors, and I bet I can get those bizarre images to reach an even higher resolution. Oh, crap. I just realized I’ll need a better system to work on at home. There’s
no doubt about that. My laptop sucks.”

  “Before you go spending any money,” said Agnes, “don’t forget we have to prove this stuff is real.”

  “Let’s just grab that old lady. That’s quick and easy if she’s still alive.”

  “Oh, sure. Let’s invade that woman’s privacy to plaster a photo of her grief-stricken face all over the internet so you can turn a profit.”

  “There’s ways to get around it. A few release forms and we’re set.”

  “Where are you going to say you got the scan, huh?” asked Agnes. “You stole it? Unless there was an autopsy, or I’ve had carnal knowledge of the coroner, we can’t use any of those. Look, let’s work on Sibella Gale’s murder. I’ll bet you anything that feathered table is still at the place she died.”

  “So what do you think we should do then?”

  “I have an idea, but before this goes any further, I want to come to some kind of understanding between us. We need to be fifty-fifty down the line in this venture. Whether we fail or whether we win, you and I are partners in this. Agreed?”

  If it keeps you happy to think we’re in this together, then that’s cool.

  Dothan smiled. “Sure. You and me, right down the middle. And what now? All we have are autopsy notes and a few digital images.”

  “You’re the computer guy. Find out everything about this girl from the internet, and we can reach out to someone who knew her. I’ll get the original autopsy scans from Josh, he’s the coroner up north. I might even charm the police report out of my special friend at the Seattle Police Department. We used to play cops and robbers back in the day.”

  “Whoa, that is just TMI,” said Dothan, screwing up his face.

  “TMI?”

  “Too much information. Way too much information.”

  Agnes waved him away. “It’s hard to tell from the printed autopsy photos, but, I recall from the newspaper pictures of Sibella that she was a very pretty girl. I bet she had quite a following on all of that social online stuff you kids do now.”

  “Why do you keep referring to me as ‘you kids’?” Dothan rolled his eyes. “I’m not involved in social media at all. I get enough entertainment on my own.”

  “Speaking of TMI.”

  Dothan scrunched up his face. “Geez, get your mind out of the gutter. Anyway, I’ll start hunting down memorial pages on the various platforms. If I can get anyone to talk to me right away, maybe we could piece together a timeline of where she went and who she was with the day she died.”

  “One thing is sure,” said Agnes with a wry smile, “you’ll have no problem talking to the ladies. I’ve seen how that pink-haired hippie upstairs stares when you walk by her desk. It must be such a hardship having girls fall at your feet.”

  He grinned and turned his chair in a slow rotation.

  Agnes pressed her glasses toward the bridge of her nose and leaned in toward Dothan’s screen. “Let’s take those three optogram images with us as well.”

  “Affirmative, Captain.”

  After locating and destroying the administrative and library information, Agnes collected the corresponding accordian files for the three additional images. She returned to the alcove and handed Dothan the folders. “I’ll leave you in charge of these. Take them home, scan the hard copies, and destroy it all afterwards. Have you removed the digital traces from the systems?”

  “Working on it,” said Dothan.

  He copied the four retinal scans containing the optograms, their companion images, and his software to a thumb drive. With the data stored, he deleted the code from his secured server and erased everything from the system. “I need to let everyone upstairs think I’ve spent these last weeks working, so I’ll copy my original task list and mash something together tonight at home. I don’t want to raise any eyebrows about my work here when my stuff goes public.”

  Agnes nodded as she grabbed her coat and bag. She glanced around the semi-darkness of the dank basement. “You know what? I hope an earthquake opens up and sinks this place into Puget Sound. I spent three decades creating an efficient and well-managed library of documents, and just like that I’m no longer necessary. I don’t give two hoots that this software is theirs in any legal way. I’ve never taken so much as a pen from Dunlevy, so I consider this fair compensation. At least now I’ll retire with better benefits than an old folk’s home, surviving on a few cans of dog food.”

  Dothan hoisted his backpack over his shoulder and followed Agnes to the elevator. She lifted her hand and said, “Here’s to our partnership. I just hope I can trust you.”

  Flashing his most charming smile, Dothan gave her a high-five.

  Yeah, whatever. As long as it keeps you quiet.

  He pushed through the heavy plate glass door, smiling in disbelief at the fantastic opportunity dropped into his lap. Sure, it meant a bit of theft, but the ocular facility would never notice the files had disappeared. The company was in the business of research, not creating revolutionary software.

  The rich, earthy aroma of roasting coffee penetrated his senses as he passed a small cafe. He was short of money, but ordered a latte to go and winked at the chubby blonde server. She smiled as she asked his name to write on the cup.

  “Prince Charming,” he said, grinning at the disheveled woman, “who’s looking for a princess, just like you, Carolyn.”

  She laughed and blushed as she touched her nameplate, ringing him up with no charge.

  Works every time.

  Agnes was not wrong about his luck with women. He would have no problems charming Miss Gale’s female friends.

  He held his coffee steady as he raced from the cafe and caught the last bus heading toward his apartment complex. At the back of the vehicle, his mind churned over the technology required to make his glorious algorithm ready for the world. He imagined the hordes of venture capitalists and monster corporations throwing money at his feet and the life he would lead as the CEO of his own corporation.

  His life was turning around and before long he would have everything he ever wanted. Not even the old, toothless woman rocking in the seat beside him could upset him tonight.

  At the end of the long commute, Dothan climbed the wobbling metal stairs to his apartment and unlocked the door.

  “Crap.”

  It was the night he was to meet his lab partner, Rhonda, at the college to work on their lame summer coding project. They were to get together twice a month, but he had broken every lab date since securing his internship at Dunlevy. With each cancellation, it was becoming more difficult to convince her to reschedule. He had no wish to spend hours listening to the droning whine of the scrawny nerd, but he needed her to keep working on his part of the software.

  Dothan dialed her number and explained to her in a throaty whisper that he was ill. As he cared about her well-being, he believed he was too contagious to meet that night. Rhonda grew angry and accused him of using her to do his work and avoiding personal time together. After a few flirtatious comments and the offer of a coffee meet-up that weekend, though, she relented with a girlish giggle and agreed to take care of the project that week for them both.

  I am just that good, he thought as he ended the call.

  He retrieved the thumb drive from his backpack and connected it to his phone with a small cable. After pulling open the expandable folders, he removed the documents and spread the papers across the floor.

  With each document photographed, Dothan transferred the images to the tiny storage device. He switched on his tabletop shredder, feeding all the physical evidence from the file through its sharp teeth. Satisfied he had destroyed everything, he flushed the paper flakes down the toilet.

  Dothan held the thumb drive as if a precious object and surveyed the apartment for a perfect hiding place. The small bit of plastic and circuits contained every one of his dreams, and its security was paramount.


  He walked into the kitchen and pulled the refrigerator away from the wall with a loud grunt.

  “That’ll work,” he whispered.

  With no tools at his disposal, he used the edge of a butter knife to remove the flathead screws from the rear evaporator cover. Pleased to find it would fit, Dothan covered the drive in plastic wrap and, after taping it to the inside of the empty cavity, re-secured the plate.

  There was an immediate sense of relief as he moved the refrigerator back into place. As long as he kept the location to himself, no one would ever find that drive, not even Agnes.

  He wiped all traces of the images from his phone, except for the four optograms, which he locked with a password.

  After collecting his personal laptop from his backpack, Dothan settled on the couch and pulled open the lid to search for Sibella Gale. He clicked the query and watched as hundreds of images of a statuesque blonde with piercing blue eyes spread out in a grid.

  Holy shit, she was gorgeous.

  Sibella had achieved some internet fame across several social media platforms. At her death, thousands of followers had posted memorial tributes and messages.

  Dothan groaned. This will take forever. Maybe it would be quicker if I check the newspapers for the names of people that knew her in real life.

  News articles described the discovery of a young woman’s nude body found with her throat cut at a remote area of the Nooksack River near Locust Beach. Prior to kite-boarders stumbling across the corpse, there had been several search parties and pleas for her safe return by family and friends. One site shared a video made the day before the gruesome find. January Kinsie, the missing girl’s friend, stood with others at a podium, begging for assurance Sibella was alive.

  Unable to look away, Dothan watched, captivated by the exquisite young woman whose dark eyes shimmered with tears. As she swept away a thick mane of black hair cascading over her shoulders, his body tensed. It was as though she was trying to seduce him through each word uttered from her seductive red lips.

  God, what I would give for some of that, he thought, writing her name at the top of his list.