git commit murder

Chapter 1

1

Dale thought the lobby of Byward University’s main residence hall looked like it was designed to house over-adrenalized post-pubescent howler monkeys.

Who had just discovered that extra-strong Canadian booze.

Which, in all fairness, pretty much was the design specification.

The mottled pale amber tile, with just enough rippling texture to keep water and mud from making the floor totally impassible six months of the year, was clearly chosen for industrial durability first and charm second. A broad glass wall exposed a couple of weirdly young-looking students meandering towards the brick lecture hall across the parking lot. The poured concrete walls had faint swirling trowel marks, a dab of character beneath layers of industrial semi-gloss white. Posters beneath plastic-framed Plexiglas advertised an Ottawa summer concert series, the s****l assault hotline, the Student Learning Resource Center—no, Centre. Each proclaimed its message in French and English, both carefully sized for precise balance.

Even in June, during the campus’ summer semester (semestre?), the rhythmically humming air conditioning couldn’t quite suck away undertones of fresh bleach and cleanser, the Sunday afternoon cover-up of a college dorm’s Saturday night. Supposedly the BSD North tech conference was held this time of year specifically because the dormitories and lecture halls were mostly abandoned, but maybe the summer students self-selected for “most likely to not get away with this kind of crap at home.”

At least the lobby had a dozen exits, leading out to the pedestrian walkway and the parking lot.

Once, a thirty-foot arch had welcomed everyone straight into the residence hall. In some prior decade, a wooden frame had been fitted into the arch, supporting a sturdy glass wall pierced by two turnstile-guarded doorways. You couldn’t walk into the residences without passing straight by fifteen feet of Reception.

Dale Whitehead had seen less solid reception counters at low-rent hotels back home in Detroit. The counter base was some heavy white glossy material, scuffed by years of idly kicking feet, topped with a sea-blue slab that looked like Formica but had to be far tougher.

The tall skinny black guy with the impressive crop of acne working the counter seemed perfectly cheerful as he discussed housing options with a bony kid wearing black—not really a kid, Dale reminded himself. He had to be at least twenty, maybe twenty-two. “Ten years younger than Dale” didn’t mean a kid, not anymore.

But if you showed up at a university dorm expecting to get a private room, a private bath, and a big-screen TV… you sure weren’t a grown-up.

And yet, the guy working the counter seemed perfectly cheerful as he patiently explained that the building didn’t have anything like what the kid wanted. Dale guessed it was true, how they said Canadians were too polite. And Canada’s capital was probably the most stereotypically Canadian city of all.

Dale released the handle of his brand-new rolling carryon and flexed his stiff fingers. Detroit was one of the few cities in the States that offered direct flights to Ottawa, but he’d had to jam his two hundred and ninety pounds into a cramped seat for two hours, his kneecaps bruisingly crushed against the seat in front of him. The tiny commuter jet was three seats wide, one on the left and two on the right, so he hadn’t needed to sit next to anyone, which helped, but every twitch of the stratosphere had knocked the jet like a toy in the bath. Even his favorite Agatha Christie novel hadn’t been able to yank his attention away from the constant heaving of the plane and his stomach. Ninety-one minutes on a blind roller coaster hadn’t eased Dale’s instinctive aversion to flying. His stomach still ached, and clammy sweat still soaked the back of his T-shirt beneath the hefty backpack holding his laptop and other gear.

The crowded, weaving number 97 bus from the airport to Byward hadn’t given him an opportunity to still himself.

The lesson there: when you already have motion sickness, don’t stand in the back of a tandem cantilevered bus.

At least he’d taken his meds before getting on the plane. A flare of attention deficit disorder would wreck his plans before the con even started.

“You’ve got to talk to Pete,” the man standing behind Dale said. “Get this whole buffer cache thing sorted once and for all.”

“Pete does not want to talk,” the woman said, her thin voice lumbering with a thick Eastern European accent.

“It’s the only way you’ll work this out,” the man said. “Sit at a table with him tonight, with a bunch of us. Have a beer. Talk about something else, anything else. Break the ice.”

“Oh, I’ll have a beer,” the woman said. “Probably on the other side of the bar. His whole page locking model’s screwed. I’ll need a beer just to get my head around it.”

They had to be here for the operating system conference.

Dale should turn around. Say hello. Meet his first conference attendees.

You’re here to talk to people. Make contacts. Learn. The convention committee flew you out here to present. That’s why the boss told you to come here.

But after the tumultuous flight on a jet that should have been labeled “the leaky rowboat of the skies,” the interminable wait at Customs, and the nausea-inducing tandem bus, Dale just wanted to get to a room so he could peel out of his sweat-soaked T-shirt and sit in quiet stillness for ten minutes. Give his heart a chance to slow. The roar of the airplane and the bus had faded from his ears, but still echoed inside his skull.

The longer you wait to introduce yourself, the harder it’ll be.

Dale made himself swallow. Even his teeth felt greasy. Airport bagels, miraculous things. Bread from anywhere else in the world wouldn’t leave your mouth feeling quite that repulsive.

My breath probably smells like puke. My clothes have to stink, after that flight. Not a good first impression.

“We do still have one double room left,” the counter guy said. “Two bedrooms with a shared bath. You could rent both sides.”

The kid at the counter said, “This is a joke, right? No, never mind—I’ll call the hotel down the street. The Royal York, isn’t it?”

“As you like, sir. There’s a phone book near the pay phone.”

Dale couldn’t suppress a tiny smile. When Sharon LePlace, the BSD North conference travel coordinator, had informed Dale that speaker accommodations included a shared-bathroom double suite, he’d flinched at the thought of sharing a bath and investigated hotel rooms. With the Canadian Parliament out of session the Royal York had rooms available, and thanks to low demand they’d lowered their rates to a paltry four hundred dollars a night.

But no question the entitled kid would get his private room that way.

The clerk looked up at Dale, relief shading his voice. “Bonjour? Hello?”

Dale tugged his rolling bag forward in relief. “Yes, please.” No, that sounded too rough. Just because his flight up here had left him feeling violated didn’t mean he should get snappy with this poor college student, who probably worked here to pay his way through this same school. He coughed to reset his voice. “You should have a reservation? Name of Dale Whitehead?” Dale, you are thirty-two years old. Stop making everything sound like a question, they damn well better have a reservation for you.

The kid clacked at his keyboard. “Are you with a group?”

“BSD North,” Dale said. No, that’s too harsh again. Sound confident, not like some jerkface American. He tried to relax his shoulders with the weight of his backpack. The motion made the spots on his thick-lensed wire-rim glasses more obvious.

He needed to clean those, too. Maybe a shower, straight away?

“Here you are,” the clerk said. “Half a double suite. Room 1408, on the fourteenth floor. Has Mister…” He glanced down. “—Lash come with you?”

“No,” Dale said. LaPlace’s email had said that his suitemate was Warren Lash, a programmer with the SkyBSD project. Dale had heard the name before, knew he was a project bigwig, but had never interacted with the man. “He’s flying in from… Colorado? Some place like that.”

“I’m Warren Lash,” said the behind Dale. The guy who’d advocated beer.

Don’t grimace. You’re supposed to be friendly—no, you are friendly, you just have a hard time with people. Dale couldn’t quite get a smile on his face as he turned.

Warren Lash was a tall guy with long straight red hair, with a face just picking up middle age fleshiness. He carried his laptop backpack with both straps over one shoulder, a tiny thing, probably holding an Apple or some other triumph of style over power, and a big rolling suitcase festooned with stickers advertising open-source software conferences in places like Serbia and Belize. Despite the darkened semicircles beneath his eyes, he grinned.

Cocky? Friendly? Hard to tell.

“You must be Dale Whitehead,” Lash said, holding out a hand. “Utah.”

You know how to do this. Pull up the corners of your mouth. Show some teeth, not too much. “It’s nice to meet you.” Shake the hand, not too limp.

Lash said, clearly travel-worn but full of easy confidence. “This is Marina Unpronounceable.”

The woman said something beginning with str and a herd of ch and k and not nearly enough vowels in it.

Dale blinked in bafflement.

Marina sighed. “Em-Day-Ess. SkyBSD.”

Dale blinked again, this time in surprise. mds@skybsd.org. “You do the crypto storage layers.” That was hard stuff.

“Some of them, yes,” Marina said.

“Gentlemen,” the clerk said. “Let’s get you both checked in. Identification?”

By the time Dale fumbled for his wallet and extricated his driver’s license from a flurry of receipts—can’t lose the receipts, he could expense all of this—Lash had moved up and slipped his license onto the cool laminate counter.

As the receptionist typed Lash looked at Dale and said, “You’re doing the talk on wireless IP service using abandoned building rooftops, aren’t you?”

He knows who I am. Dale’s back tightened as he suddenly felt hunted. “That’s right.”

“I bet that’s going to be a great talk.”

Dale swallowed. “I hope so. It’s my first time.”

“You’ve never been here before?” Lash said. “Well, welcome.”

“Welcome,” Marina said.

Of course he’s welcoming me, Dale thought.

He thinks I’m one of the good guys.