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his friends, the other Deep Noders to the punch, that would never stop. And then having the Deep Noder release group be the first in the World to get a movie up. The kudos, fantastic. And they’d only ever had to put out one PROPER release, when they’d blown the audio sync on Batman Begins. He wondered if there was even one other release group that had a record that good.

  And imagine those stupid studios trying to stop it all. Like they even could. Movies were meant to be available, and Dorian was the best at putting them out there. Winning the race, that was fun. It never got boring. Being the first to encode the movie; getting the best pixes; first to make it available for download. And Superheroes would be no different, even if it did have the stupidest blockbuster plot ever.

  Apparently, Afterglow, the ‘living comet’, so the trailers said, went crazy after being cursed and turned himself into a nuclear weapon. Taking the ‘leader of the free world’ (would that be the president?) hostage, he threatened a detonation over a ‘major city’. Fortunately, Broken Wind, his off-again on-again girlfriend, a half Native American, half Chinese beauty whose superpower was to harnesses the elements, felt she must stop him, even though it might mean killing him. Cue much footage about devastating moral dilemmas spliced into the non-stop action. But then, who cared about the plot? these movies were fun! And Dorian would get them to the masses first, before anyone else.

  He glanced over at the boxes still stacked in the corner from moving in a week earlier. He’d unpack later, it wasn’t a priority. Federica would laugh and say nothing had changed. Even now, she’d say, here at Harvard, he couldn’t find the time to unpack a few boxes. He smiled. He sat back down at his computer, absently rubbing his hand over his jaw where it ached, probably from grinding his teeth in his sleep. When had he gone to sleep? Two? Too late, that was for sure.

  The phone rang as a shaft of sunlight shone in one of the dormer windows a few hours later.

  “Hello?” Dorian answered.

  “Pronto?” a voice said in Italian.

  “Si, pronto,” Dorian replied, slipping into his native Italian. “Who is this, please?” He vaguely recognized the voice, but not enough to place it.

  “This is Aunt Claudia.” Her voice sounded strained. “Dorian my child, my dear, dear child.”

  “What is happening?” he asked. “Why are you crying? Has uncle…? No…” Were Aunt Claudia and Uncle Tomaso arguing again? It happened a lot, but they never called him about it, that was for sure.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “You called me, Auntie,” he soothed. “Of course you can tell me.”

  “I shouldn’t have to.”

  “You have no choice, now, do you? You’ve called me. Now tell me what is wrong. I’m sure it’s not that bad. You’ll be alright. Everything will be alright.”

  “It’s not me. Dear Dorian, it’s you.”

  “Me?” Dorian didn’t understand.

  “You. Your family. Hugo, Cassandra. Your parents for gods sake. Even little Federica.”

  “What do you mean? Are they hurt?” His stomach knotted.

  A long pause. “No. Much worse.”

  “How?” he demanded. The line was silent. “Tell me now.” God, he needed to know. They were in Milan. Had something happened there? Weren’t they having a quiet weekend? But there had been no answer at their place.

  “They are no longer with us,” Auntie said.

  “Not possible,” he spat. It didn’t make sense. “I can’t believe it. They’re hurt in a hospital, maybe?” He swallowed. “No. Nonsense. I spoke to them two days ago. All of them.” He wavered. The room spun. Cotton stuffed itself into his ears. “Mamma? Babbo? No, I can’t. It isn’t.” They weren’t gone. This was one of those jokes that… It made no sense…they were still here. He had to be dreaming. He grasped the desk, trying not to fall. “You can’t tell me like this.” He held on with all his strength. “What happened?”

  “My god. My sweet little dear. Such a horrible tragedy.”

  “Please! Tell me!”

  “Oh dear. How can I?” Aunt Claudia said. “They were shot. Thieves, bandits. All of them shot. Probably Extra-Communitari who wanted money. I tell you Dorian, immigration is destroying this country. They’ll kill us all if we give them a chance.”

  Dorian watched the room around him fall apart. He shook. He could not hear. Bees seemed to swarm around and through him. He throbbed. He ripped. He couldn’t live another second. Stop this trick. He knew it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.

  Wait. He’d fly to Milan right now; wake them up. Never a problem. They needed a shake. At least he would do something.

  His eyes wandered sightlessly around the room.

  He leaned forward at his desk and typed an address into the browser with his free hand, the phone hanging limply in the other. He watched, glazed eyes, as a travel site appeared on his monitor. Damn it was slow. Boston to Milan. Today! Return flight? He couldn’t think about that now. Just give him the flight. The screen swam before his eyes. Fuck it. He would try later.

  It couldn’t be. It simply wasn’t possible. His body slumped, the energy seeping out. Federica, Mamma, Babbo. He pictured them laughing around the dinner table at the seashore. Then the picture vanished.

  His head fell back for a long time, his mind empty until he noticed a receiver lying alien in his hand and pulled it slowly to his ear.

  “Pronto?” he said.

  “Pronto.”

  “Auntie? What are you doing on the phone?”

  Accounts

  Something wasn’t right here. Andrea shifted in her chair, her eyes blurred by the long rows of financial codes in front of her. First of all, she pointed out proudly to herself, Melbox didn’t have offshore accounts, and secondly, why didn’t the account explain what it was for?

  “Marco,” she called over the top of her cube. “Do you know about an account Beehive? Is that a subsidiary of ours that you’ve ever heard of?”

  “Hang on there, hun. I’m on the phone.”

  Marco never answered a question when it was asked. For reasons no one could explain, he liked to wait, think things through and then reply, even on trivial questions such as Andrea’s. “I need to ponder,” he would say when pressed, but recently he’d taken to pretending to be busy, extending to the point that he would fake incoming cell phone calls when they were out for drinks at the TGIFridays down on Melrose.

  Andrea kicked open the bottom drawer in her desk, the ‘candy bar connection’, and scanned the contents with her keen blue eyes. “Frighteningly blue eyes” a stupid boy she met at Citywalk told her once. That was before she grabbed his nuts and asked “are you frightened now?” She needed some energy, Andrea thought, looking at the rows of plastic sealed goodness in the drawer by her foot. She picked up a Bounty, stripping the wrapper off and stuffed the first third into her mouth.

  “So what’s this ‘Beehive’, pumpkin?” Marco peered over the cubicle wall.

  She chewed slowly, savoring the chocolate. Marco always showed up when she’d gotten her mouth full. She tapped her slim fingers at the screen and swallowed as Marco slid next to her. “See this here. It doesn’t make sense. It’s registered as Beehive SA in the Bahamas. It’s a fully owned subsidiary with accounts and everything. There’s money going in from the rest of the company, but no revenue coming back out to us. All it does is suck money.” She looked at Marco questioningly.

  “That is weird.”

  “Not to mention,” she said, grabbing hold of his arm playfully, “that the account doesn’t appear on any of the test servers, which means that someone must have installed it specially. Probably without us being told.” Andrea loved to dig into the various and minute mysteries that cropped up constantly in the financial systems of Melbox Movies. “Maybe it’s a secret new feature film we’re funding?”

  “You know I can’t tell you about our secret movies.” Marco looked uncomfortable. “Not that that stops me.” He laughed, his large frame moving up and down in sharp jiggles. He rub
bed his chin, and unconsciously, Andrea rubbed hers as well. “No,” he said slowly, “this is a new one.” He turned to go.

  “Don’t you want me to investigate?” Andrea asked, her hand playing with her jet black hair in a gesture that men had told her was alluring.

  “Naw. Doesn’t look important. What are we talking about, couple thousand dollars. No need. Get your ass on the SAP upgrade issues for the video division. They are riding me like a pony at a country fair.”

  “Ok boss.”

  That night, as Andrea walked from the pre-fab offices where the IT department sat, in the middle of Burbank, California, she thought about the mysterious account and its significance. She could track it down in her spare time. Figure out what’s going on. That would be fun. Maybe she could find out about a cool new flick.

  Her steps passed a street that looked like Brooklyn, New York around the turn of the century, all brownstones and gas lights, after which she passed a Russian village, post USSR judging by the rusting corrugated roofing. She walked past two sound stages which, by the swarm of activity around them, looked deep in the midst of filming. Years ago, right around the time she realized that she’d never actually be an actress, she’d instinctively stopped noticing the sets all around her, maybe as a protection for her dashed dreams, not that she could have possibly admitted such a thing. Her path ended at a used BMW convertible which she opened with a flick of her key chain, driving into the balmy