Mind + Body by Aaron Dunlap (free books to read TXT) đ
- Author: Aaron Dunlap
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God, was she pretty.
She looked back at me with soft eyes, curious. âWhat?â she asked.
I thought about it, but the talk from yesterday crept back into my head. About Quantico, about my dadâs work, about how Amy grew up in a town I was always locked out of.
âDo you have anything to do today?â I asked.
Amy looked down, then out the front windshield. âNo, I donât think so,â she said.
âFeel like visiting your old town?â
She looked back at me, stifled a low chuckle, and said, âSure.â
âI need to get something first, wait here a few minutes.â I handed Amy the keys then got out of my car and went back inside Dale Carpenterâs house.
Fifteen minutes later, and fifty dollars lighter, I came back outside. Tucked in my pocket was an innocent-looking device that, hopefully, would allow me to commit several counts of high treason, probably punishable by years in prison if not execution.
âAll right,â I said, pulling the car into gear, âletâs go see Daddyâs office.â
I drove back to my house just so I could get some kind of credentials to at least insinuate that I had some kind of business being in Quantico. My dad always had an identification card he clipped on the front of his shirt, but I hadnât seen it since he died. Since he was at work when he died, it is obviously still there. I wasnât exactly sure what kind of security there would be to get into the city. It wasnât like I was trying to sneak into the Corps base and take pictures of their command center; I just wanted to go visit the university where my dad worked. Most universities enjoy visitors.
Regardless, I grabbed an expired driverâs license and his death certificate from the top drawer of the desk in my parentâs bedroom. If I had to, I could at least attempt to prove that my dad was my dad.
The Trans Am took well to the open road. Highway driving with my old car was occasionally a bit of a negotiation, but in this car I could actually feel the engine pulling me. Amy agreed.
Quantico was half an hour north on 95, or halfway to Lorton, the town where I bought a gun and killed a man. I hoped todayâs road trip would be less eventful, but I supposed that would be up to the United States Marine Corps.
I couldnât imagine how my dad made this drive twice each day, itâs so very boring. Trees on both sides, a lot of the road unlit; maybe it would have been relaxing to someone in another mindset. Me, I was a bit nervous, and the monotony of the travel allowed the anxiety to reverberate inside my body.
Amy directed me off the highway and onto Russell Road. For a while it looked like I was cutting through uncharted wilderness, then on my left I passed a giant foreboding building that I couldnât read the sign for, then more trees, then a giant parking lot, then more trees, then a giant foreboding building with a giant parking lot, then more trees, then I came upon a guard station. Both lanes of the road were blocked and between them was a small booth manned by two Corpsmen. They were both dressed in olive pants and khaki shirts with soft garrison caps. In the other lane was a stopped car, one of the guardsmen spoke through the carâs window. The other man motioned for me to stop at the gate, walked around the back of my car (probably looking for clearance stickers) then around to my window. He seemed surprised at my age when he saw me, though not unusually so.
âGood afternoon, sir,â he said in a quick tenor, âmay I ask your business here?â He looked to be 25 years old, had a flat face. The tag on his chest said his name was Meyers.
âIâm wanted at the Marine Corps University,â I said. âMy fatherâs car is parked and Iâm to remove it.â
He looked at me, then at Amy. I expected pepper spray any minute. âDo you have a visitor request on file with the OCS?â he asked.
âNo, I donât think so,â I said. âWe were called at home to pick the car up, I came to pick it up.â
âSomething should have been set up in advance,â the guard said. âVisitors arenât allowed on-site without pre-approval. I can call the office of where the car is parked and ask that the car be brought here if youâd like.â
That wouldnât work for me. I tried to think of something else to say. I pulled the two driverâs licenses from my pocket and said, âThere are also some personal effects I am to collect. I believe I was supposed to be granted a visitorâs clearance to the University; I didnât realize it had to be set up first. I thought my name would just be put on a list.â I handed him the licenses. âThis one is me,â I said pointing at the top one, âThe other is my father. Could you check his clearance and contact whoever his superior is and ask if I may be allowed in?â
The guard made a face and said he would contact the security office, and then stepped away.
âI donât think this will work,â Amy said. âSecurity seems to be ramped up since 9/11. I donât even remember there being a guard station here.â
âWell I donât know what else to do,â I said, more to myself. âI believe they make military bases so that you canât talk your way onto them.â
The guard had been inside the booth for a few minutes; I could see him talking into a phone through the glass. He eventually hung up, and stepped out carrying something small and orange in his hand. This time, he walked around the front.
âAll right Mr. Baker, youâre clear for entry to the base. You can pull forward through the gate and turn into the parking lot just to the left. A private will come around to transport you to the MC University. At that time, the young lady may leave in this car or she may wait in the parking lot for you to return, but she or this vehicle arenât permitted past the parking area.â
I looked at Amy. She shrugged. âOkay,â I said.
The guard gave me the items in his hand, an orange laminated visitorâs pass with a metal clip to affix it to my shirt and the two driverâs licenses. He stepped back into the booth and the gate before my car lifted. It seemed I was in.
I pulled into a small parking area as instructed and shut off my engine. I asked Amy if she wanted to wait here or just take my car home. She said sheâd wait and make sure I wasnât taken into a basement and set on fire.
Five minutes later, a small green Jeep pulled in and idled next to my car. I got out and asked the driver, âThis for me?â
âIâm to take you to the MC University,â he said, as if saying anything more would get him court marshaled. I nodded then hopped into the passenger seat, I started to look for the seat belt but the vehicle lurched forward before I could bother. It took a few minutes of driving through the woods before it seemed like we were actually in a city. Old, New England style buildings were all around. If I didnât know better Iâd have thought I was in Cambridge, not a city dedicated to training young men and women to kill. The driver said nothing, so I sat in silence as well, idly fidgeting with the USB drive in my pocket.
At school, I once heard Dale Carpenter talking about his foolproof idea for getting anything he wanted off of somebodyâs computer without touching the keyboard and using only a USB memory stick, the small portable hard drives that most people use for moving documents or files between computers. He said something about making the USB drive trick the computer into copying files from the computer to the memory stick, but I didnât really pay attention at the time because I assumed he was just talking to hear his own voice. While I was at his house, though, when I went back a second time, I asked him about it.
âThis genius plan you have for taking files from a computer with a USB drive, what was it?â I asked, returning unexpectedly to his room.
He smiled proudly, and said, âItâs simple. I can partition a USB stick and format it to CDFS, so when you plug it into a computer, Windows thinks itâs a CD, not a memory stick. If Auto-run is enabled, which it always is because people are idiots, it will run whatever program on the USB drive I want. I can put a shell script on there that will run in the background and search the computerâs hard drive for files matching any keywords I set, and then copy them onto the USB drive. Other than that âdo-dunâ file the computer makes when you stick the drive in, someone using the computer would have no idea what was going on. You just plug in the drive, the drive finds the files you want and copies them, and then you take the drive out and walk away.â
I nodded and tried to process the words I understood.
âSo you first program the type of files to look for?â I asked.
âYeah,â he said, âjust edit a text file with the keywords you want, then when it runs on someoneâs computer it searches for any files matching your keywords.â
âYouâre sure this works?â
âYes it works,â he said, defensively, âIâve tried it a few times. Thought about making it search for .doc files so I could get teachersâ tests or answer keys by sticking the drive in a school computer while the teacher is logged in, but I realized theyâre all so lazy they never make the tests until the night before.â
âSo you have one⊠that works?â
âYeah, a one gigabyte stick. Why? You want one?â
âIâll buy that one,â I said.
âIf you just bring me whatever memory stick you want Iâll set it up for you.â
âI need it today. Iâll give you however much it costs to buy a new one for yourself. One gig, those are like fifty bucks now, right?â
âWas seventy when I bought it, but theyâve gone down.â
I pulled the rest of the cash from my wallet. I need to go to the bank again, I thought. He dug through desk drawers until he found a small, silver USB memory stick about the length of half a stick of gum. He looked it over, and then plugged it into a free USB port on the front of his computerâs tower.
âYeah,â he said, âthis is it.â
I stepped forward and looked at the screen; there were a few files on the drive. He opened one called kw.txt and said, âThis is the
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