CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: A Visit to the Tech Store

HE had rushed to their room the moment he had heard the first cough.

They had been bed-ridden for weeks as they lay there in between the sheets, looking up at him with their ever loving eyes that had watched over him since he first came into this cruel terrible world.

He couldn't help himself as he began to tear up, blurring his vision of them until his mother called out to him.

"My beautiful boy, don't cry, " she cooed, taking his hand into hers.

"Please don't go. Don't leave me," he muttered amid sobs as his mother caressed his face, wiping away the tears.

"Hey," his father spoke this time, a wide smile on his face that would have fooled anyone if they had no idea of the amount of pain he had endured for days. "What did I tell you? You have to be strong."

"B-but h-how can I d-do that when you're g-gone—"

"That's why you need to be strong. For yourself, like you've been for us," his father responded, handing him an old Casio™ watch. "You have had enough time with us, son. Now it's your turn to make your own time—for yourself and most importantly—for others in your life."

"My boy," his mother spoke again, holding his face in her hands, "you know we're never really gone. Not when you have all the strength and love we've shared with each other."

We'll always be there for you. . ."

"Whenever you need us," his dad finished.

Everything then fell deadly silent as he watched them both breath their last, leading him to scream and cry at them to wake up.

The yelling had intensified so much that he had almost failed to notice someone calling him, followed by a hand being placed on his shoulder. He turned around and found a bespectacled girl standing there, wide-eyed with concern. That was when Derek Mbūgua realized he had been dreaming.

"Are you okay?" Tamana Minajri asked in a small voice, "you were shouting in your sleep. Bad dream?"

Derek turned down her pitiful look by staring at his wristwatch, instantly cursing himself for causing such a ruckus . He was about to ask her how much of that she had heard but thought better of it.

"Guess I didn't sleep well, last night."

"Clearly," Tamana responded, obviously going with this charade, not wanting to bring out anymore akwardness, "sleeping in a swivel chair in front of a computer tends to do that."

"Y-yeah," Derek said, a little happy with Tamana's take on his reaction until he heard the mention of the computer. "Oh shit! The drive!"

Turning on the computer, which had gone to sleep mode just as him but probably had a better slumber, the screen came back to life and the file was still encrypted.

"Still no luck, huh?" Tamana muttered disappointedly.

"I have to find a decryption key," Derek said, "it's the only way we can open this thing."

"Last I checked, you didn't happen to have any of those lying around, did you?"

"Sadly, no."

"Oh, what're we going to do?" Tamana moaned, directing the question mostly to herself as she sat back on Derek's bed.

Derek turned in his chair, staring at the monitor then down to the hard drive that was still plugged in. That's when it hit him.

"Hold on," he started, "we may never find a decryption key here but we can surely get something close to that."

"Really?" Tamana looked at him, "where?"

"There's this cool tech store that I go to to get all the stuff that I need for my own store. It's actually right off from where we bumped into each other."

"And I ruined your phone screens. Sorry about that."

"Hey, no hard feelings."

"Let's get going then," Tamana sprung up from the bed.

"Whoa," Derek raised a hand, "is that really a good idea?"

"What're you talking about?"

"I mean, there's a killer after you. I think you'd be safer here and wait—"

"And wait for you till you come back?" Tamana shot haughtily, "I can't stay here and do nothing, Derek. Plus the killer saw your face too. No doubt she'll come after you just as much as me."

"I could literally be anybody in this city. There's no way the killer could find me."

"Don't underestimate that assassin. She was able to track me down across the bloody Indian Ocean and disguised herself as a room service lady!"

"Shit, really?"

"And as a gas company man before that."

"Oh. . ." Derek was at a loss for words.

"So, I'm coming with you. Whether you like it or not!"

This girl could be really assertive, Derek gave her that. "Or are you just being overly stubborn?" He didn't tell her that.

"Fine," he finally said, "but first, I have to move this file out of the drive."

He turned back to the monitor and prompted the 'move' command but the file did not move. Instead, he got another prompt on his screen displaying an error message.

"That's odd."

"What?" asked Tamana.

Derek tried to move the file several more times but got the same error message. He even tried to copy the file from the drive but it still did not work.

"I can't move the file."

"Maybe your computer's broken?"

"I take very good care of my computers, thank you very much," Derek snapped. "It has to be your drive."

"Well, I can assure you that there's nothing wrong with my drive."

"Only one way to find out," Derek said, "scanning for viruses."

"Really?" Tamana rolled her eyes.

"Huh. . ." Derek frowned, "the drive's completely bug-free."

"Told you."

"Then why can't I move or copy the file?" he turned to Tamana, "you said your father sent you this file via email, yeah?"

"Yes."

"Then you copied it to the drive?"

"Yes, then the original file deleted itself from my inbox."

"Seriously?" Derek raised his eyebrows.

"You don't think my dad sort of designed a fail-safe to prevent the file from being stolen, do you?"

"He literally sent you a self-destruct message—which is very awesome by the way—"

"Thanks."

"—so it is possible that he found a way to alter the file. To keep it from being copied or downloaded, only to be viewed actively from the drive itself. Your dad was a genius!"

Tamana's momentary smile faded into a pout after Derek had regarded her father in the past tense.

Derek noticed this, instantly regretting it. "Hey, on the bright side, this means that if anybody wants the file, the only way they can get it is through this drive."

"Yeah, I guess so," Tamana whispered and Derek realized surely there was no way he was going to just leave her here alone.

"Let's get going, then," he said, putting on a jacket.

Tamana grabbed the drive, put it in her satchel and together, the two left the apartment.

On their way out, they met with a buffed up shirtless guy, drunk out of his mind, with a woman on his side. The two were laughing stupidly while exchanging kisses as they passed them.

"Gross!" Tamana remarked.

"Tell me about it," Derek said shortly, ignoring the couple who disappeared into the apartment just opposite his.

"Honestly, Derek, how do you live with such a neighbor like that?" Tamana wrinkled her nose, "I can literally smell the putrescence of his stench up my brain!"

"When the rent's good, what can you do?" Derek replied with a smile on his face.

"For starters, you could inform the landlord or something."

Derek really laughed this time as they made their way down the stairs.

"What? What's so funny?"

The next fifteen minutes found the two alighting a City Shuttle transit bus just outside the Westgate Mall, not so far from where Derek and Tamana had ran into each other.

"So, we're going to the mall?" Tamana asked as she and Derek walked along the kerb.

"Not exactly," Derek said, pointing to another building a little farther back, "more like there."

Tamana followed Derek, all while throwing back glances now and then, dreading to spot a black clad assassin but all she could see were motorcycles, buses and a lot of vendors.

"Here," Derek offered after they had arrived at a building with a neon banner that Tamana noticed had been inscribed with the words Salute iWorld.

As was customary with any other commercial/official building in the city, one had to be checked by a Covid patrol agent if they had been vaccinated. Both Derek and Tamana had their bracelets scanned and for the first time, Derek noticed something peculiar about Tamana's (bracelet) though he did not get the time to ask about it as there were a lot of customers coming and going.

"So, what are we looking for, exactly?" Tamana asked.

"It's a device that will allow us to convert the encrypted data on your father's file in a sort of reverse-encryption by decoding the encrypted information so that we can decrypt the data using a secret key or password."

"Right, forget I asked," Tamana shook her head then adding as an afterthought, "dear, is that what I sound like when I'm explaining genetic mutation and immunology? Now I know what Priya was talking about."

"Priya?"

"Oh, we go to the same school," Tamana said, thinking about her for the first time since she left India.

"So you two are close?"

"She says she's my best friend but I prefer 'crazy gothic lovable being' but I guess, yeah, we're really close."

"Does she know where you are, right now?"

"She's probably going crazy over the party that Ganesh is having at his place today."

"Ganesh?" Derek asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, he's this big bloke who's always trying to get inside my pants."

Derek nodded at the distasteful look that Tamana made with that statement right before her face turned all gloomy and distraught.

"This way," Derek hurried off to the section he was looking for, sensing yet another emotional meltdown about to be unleashed.

They went through rows of endless technological equipment ranging from drives to computers and TV screens until they stopped at one shelf where Derek began to go through certain devices that must have been what he had earlier described.

"Can I help you?" a young man, slightly older than Derek, appeared next to them. He was wearing a blue shirt with a tiny Salute iWorld logo and khaki pants.

"Do you have the standard issue?" Derek was asking when Tamana got momentarily distracted by something.

It was at the row they had just passed where a number of plasma TV screens were on display. They had been showing sports briefs before they all simultaneously shifted to a live broadcast.

Without realizing she had left Derek alone at the shelf with the attendant, Tamana was then standing in front of the screens.

. . .she was shot to death on Wednesday morning at the Villa Rosa Kempinski Hotel in Westlands and it remains unclear as to why this happened. The authorities arrived at the scene today early in the morning, where the case is now being preceded by Inspector of Police, Spencer Owuor—

"Hey!" Tamana jumped after Derek tapped her on the shoulder, "now's not the time for window shopping."

"It's the hotel!"

"What?" Derek followed her gaze to the TV and saw the live broadcast. "That's where you were yesterday?"

"Yes."

. . .the police are not being forthcoming with information but we've received word of the suspect who is allegedly a foreigner after their passport was recovered—

"Huh!" Tamana gasped, immediately thrusting her hands into her satchel. "Oh no! No, no, NO!"

"What? What is it?" asked a perplexed Derek as he watched her rummage through her bag.

"I must have dropped my passport on the way out!" Tamana said, placing a hand against her head, "how could I have been so stupid!"

"Okay, we better get going, then," Derek offered, "can't risk anyone recognizing you now."

"Wait, what about the pass code thingy?" Tamana asked, "did you get it?"

"Turns out it was way more expensive than I expected."

Tamana fished something out of her bag then smiled up at Derek.

Moments later, the two had walked out of the tech store with a flash drive loaded with decryption software after a shocked attendant had been left with quite a handful of one-thousand shillings notes on his desk before being politely requested to keep the change.

Derek had almost forgotten how much money Tamana had with her.

"From now on, can we at least talk before you go throwing cash everywhere?" he said as they were making they way back to his apartment.

"What? We needed that thingamajig and you could not afford it!"

"Decryption key," Derek corrected, "what I mean is you're now a wanted criminal—"

"Hey!"

"—Sorry. . .but you gotta be a little more careful around here, okay?"

Tamana sighed and was about to respond when something caught her eye. It was tall and dark, just like she had seen it before when she had been running for her life.

"It's her!" she gasped.

"What?" Derek followed her eyes and sure enough, the leather-clad assassin was walking across the street though not in their direction.

"Here!" Derek huffed, grabbing Tamana by the elbow and the two hid just around the corner of the apartment building.

"Oh no, she's found us!"

Derek dared to sneak a peek. He watched the assassin lingering over a newspaper stand, pretending to read The Daily Nation while looking farther down the street and not anywhere close to their direction. She had on a long dark furry coat over her leather attire and a wide velvety hat to match.

She could have easily been mistaken for a tourist but both Derek and Tamana knew better.

"I don't think she saw us," Derek said. He watched her until she continued on down the street and out of view. "She's gone."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, now come—"

"HEYYY!" someone shouted from behind.

Derek had felt his heart literally perform a bungee jump inside of him but his reaction was nothing compared to Tamana's screeching that was followed by a rather hilarious reflexive movement.

"Ow!" the person behind them moaned, "kwa mapua!"

It was Jim Kamau and judging by his face, Tamana had punched him squarely in the nose.

"Dude, what the fuck?" Derek frowned at him.

"You don't sneak up on someone like that! Tamana snapped, "Honestly!"

"We're in the middle of the city in broad daylight!" Jim lamented, gingerly feeling his nose.

"Can we get inside, please?" Tamana ignored him and the three of them rushed to the apartment's entrance as Jim went on complaining about his nose potentially being broken and why everyone was in such a hurry.