Anarchy by James Treadwell Read Free Book Online Page B

It’s cheap this time of year.”
    â€œI don’t take up much space.”
    â€œThere’s no room, Dad. I’d show you if you could get the picture working.”
    â€œI probably can’t leave the business that long anyway. It takes all day to drive up there, is that right?”
    â€œThere’s a flight once a week.”
    â€œI can’t afford a plane. Hey, did you hear about the airport in Montreal?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThey closed it. All flights canceled. Thérèse was supposed to go to New York.”
    â€œShame for Tess,” Goose said, dutifully. She got on all right with her sister, especially at a distance, but she’d long ago stopped pretending not to resent her for being the glamorous one who got whatever she wanted.
    â€œSome security thing with the computers, that’s what they’re saying. She and that guy were about to check in.”
    â€œHe’s got a name, Dad.”
    â€œWhatever. They were using those do-it-yourself machines that print your boarding passes? It printed junk.”
    Goose was getting impatient. “Uh-huh.”
    â€œShe reckons it’s this Chinese virus.”
    â€œThere’s no Chinese virus, Dad. I’m a law enforcement officer. If China was engaged in cyberterrorism, I’d have heard about it.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t have heard jack shit, angel. This stuff goes way over our heads. Those guys are doing stuff people like us don’t know the first thing about.”
    â€œYou don’t know the first thing about your own toaster.”
    â€œMaybe.” Even in the bad light of his desk lamp, with the dark brown bachelor decor of his den swallowing the back of his balding head, the whole scene sluggishly pixelated, she could see his stubborn face coming on. “I got a message from the bank today.”
    â€œYeah. Me too. Same message, I bet.”
    â€œI don’t like it when they start sending messages about security. The ATM in town shut down yesterday too.”
    â€œWe had the same thing.”
    â€œUp there?”
    â€œYeah. It’s not a big thing. We spoke to someone about it. Just a glitch.”
    â€œWho did?”
    â€œWe did. The police. People were trying to use the machine anyway so we had to tape it up. Called the bank.”
    â€œWhat’d they say?”
    â€œJust a glitch. Some technical thing. They’re going to fix it overnight.”
    â€œI don’t like the sound of that.” He looked grudgingly satisfied, the way he always did when things he didn’t understand (technologies, human relationships) went awry. “I reckon I’m going to go in tomorrow at nine and get a bunch of cash out.”
    â€œJeez, Dad.”
    â€œThere’s more and more stuff like that going around.”
    â€œJust don’t hide wads of money under your mattress, okay? Burglars like it when people do that.”
    He harrumphed. “There won’t be wads of money to hide unless business starts picking up.”
    â€œWhen the weather changes. It’s not long till spring.” Her father had a small gardening operation in the lower Fraser Valley.
    â€œNo sign of it. People are sitting on their hands anyway. You heard about those people in Wenatchee?”
    â€œThat’s in America.”
    â€œIt’s not that far.”
    â€œYou’d have been out of business a long time ago if everyone stopped spending money every time Americans acted weird.”
    â€œI dunno. They say it’s happening some place in California too, bunch of people going off the grid. There’s a funny mood around.”
    â€œPeople watch too much TV.”
    â€œSomeone saw that bird thing up at Punchaw.”
    â€œI don’t know what you’re talking about, Dad.” She loosened her shirt, checked the time, reached down for the folder and started getting its contents back in order.
    â€œYou know. That thing in England. The angel of