Page 36 of Meeting Her Mate
“Uh-oh, I hope you don’t mean you’ve taken up shooting heroin in your veins.”
“What? No. Is this more of your Gen-Z slang?” Will asked, exasperated.
“Yeah. But it’s more like junkie code. They have these abandoned places where they gather to inject themselves with heroin and get high. They call those places shooting galleries,” I said.
“I will never go near a needle again for as long as I am alive,” Will said. “I have had enough of them injected in me to last me painful memories for a lifetime.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. It was like walking around a minefield, talking to him. I never knew what would upset him or trigger memories of his torture and imprisonment. Or worse, what would set him off.
“There’s something about the brute force of a bullet leaving the gun, the sheer recoil of the firearm, and the loud bang that is followed by a blinding flash of light that speaks to my baser nature and calms me down. Drowns out the anger, soothes me,” Will said. “Vincent and I repurposed a building as a shooting gallery. I go there once a day and release most of my pent-up anger and frustration.”
“I’m happy for you,” I said. “That you’re coping. As long as you don’t hurt anybody.”
***
If I had been hesitant about introducing Maliha to Will, that hesitation was gone the moment Will stepped inside Maliha’s apartment. The sheer bafflement that he was displaying at every single thing present in there was utterly hilarious.
I watched him with amusement as he carefully went from server rack to server rack, ogled at the different LED monitors, touched some of the keys on the RGB keyboards, and cautiously touched the computer mice as if they would bite him back. It was like reintroducing Tarzan to modern society.
Will tried to make sense of all the blinking lights on Maliha’s desktop towers, attempted to peek through the glass slats to the machinery underneath, and even endeavored to understand the gibberish of numbers and alphabets that were running across the screens.
“This place,” Will whispered in awe. “Is a testament to human advancement. It is truly a digital fortress.”
“Let’s not get highhanded. It’s a tech junkie’s hoarding place,” I said, taking off my jacket and opening up the buttons of my shirt. The sweltering heat emitting from the servers did not seem to bother Will at all. Nor, for that matter, did it bother Maliha, who was sitting there with chopsticks in her bun, wearing a crop top and orange shorts. She was ogling at Will with her mouth half open.
“Babe, who’s the himbo in the normcore drip?” Maliha asked.
“Are you talking about me?” Will wheeled around and shot a quizzical look at Maliha. “I will confess I don’t know any of those words.”
“Relax, Will. She’s just being herself. She thinks you’re a dumb but good-looking person dressed in vintage clothing,” I said, stifling my chuckles.
“Look, madam, I will inform you that I was top of my class at Bertrand Gesamtschule! I would have pursued literature in Munich if the war hadn’t broken out!” Will said vehemently.
“Ooh, you’re from Germany? Guten Tag Herr Will,” Maliha said in a melodious voice and did a curtsy bow.
Will’s face was overflowing with zeal and mirth, and his jowls stretched into a smile. “Herr fraulein, sprechen sie deutsch?”
Maliha threw her head back, causing the chopsticks in her bun to fall out, and started laughing while holding her stomach. “Nein, nein, ich spreche kein Deutsch.”
All the light disappeared from Will’s face, leaving a vestige in his eyes. “I really thought you spoke German.”
“Well, I just picked up a sentence or two from watching TV,” Maliha said. “And Schindler’s List.”
“Don’t mind Maliha here, Will. She’s eccentric,” I said, patting Will’s shoulder. I could see how discouraged he was feeling. “But she’s going to help us, isn’t she?”
“Yes. Any friend of Alexis is a friend of mine,” Maliha said, quickly getting behind a computer screen and racing her fingers across the neon-lit keyboard. “And just in case we get caught, the less I know, the better. I don’t want to know why you guys want to tap into the mayor’s phone.”
“Yes, the less you know, the better,” I nodded solemnly. I looked at Will. He had forgotten how disappointed he was a second ago in the wake of watching Maliha work on her computer. He watched her click and press and open up windows and write code with amazement.
“This woman’s speed is fascinating,” Will whispered to me.
“She pretty much runs exclusively on Monster and Red Bull. Don’t let it surprise you,” I said.
“What are those?” Will asked.
I shook my head, laughing a little. Sometimes dealing with Will was like teaching a toddler about the world. Instead of telling him what they were, I went to Maliha’s fridge and got a can of Monster out. I opened it and held it out to Will.
“It’s got a buttload of caffeine. Why don’t you drink it and sit down and let the hacker do her magic?”