textfiles/sex/EROTICA/S/scorched.txt

Scorched Earth
by Bare Bodkin

The Engineer barely had the target secured by the time the tropical storm
moved in. The house was only a few miles from the coast, and as the woman
knelt and placed his penis in her mouth massive sheets of rain began to
pound at the picture windows. 

The Engineer was pleased as he listened to the howling of the wind
outside. This contract would probably end up his most famous job, and the
storm would add a nice touch of drama to the videotape.

He had been contacted a month earlier, through the usual channels. The
go-between had given him only a price quote and a social security number.
The dollar figure was impressive enough that he dropped his other plans
and paid immediate attention to the job. He spent a few hours on-line
checking the number. 

First he accessed a recent tax return, for a basic name and address. The
number belonged to a 23-year-old woman who worked for Prudential Insurance
in Florida. She had earned $22,405 the previous year. Credit report:
sizable student loans, car payments and credit-card balances. Car loan:
nine months into a 72-month lease on a Ford Festiva. Credit-card receipts:
mostly department store and women's clothing purchases, with a few utility
bills added in. 

Getting the transcript from her university was a little trickier, but
after fifteen minutes he managed it. She had started out her freshman year
as a dance major with a minor in women's studies. In her junior year she'd
switched to business administration. Her grades were high in the women's
studies classes but poor in serious academic courses. There were several
incompletes, and the woman had taken five years to finally get her
bachelor's degree. She had graduated only six months earlier.

As he prepared an abstract of the data the Engineer wondered why someone
was willing to spend a very large amount of money for a contract on this
mediocre entry-level insurance agent. There was really no way of telling.
His curiosity increased after he contacted the go-between and found out
what the client actually wanted done. 

It was to be an extreme hit, a "scorched earth" contract. The Engineer was
hesitant; he knew the FBI would become involved at some point. He finally
agreed to execute the contract, but only after long negotiation doubled
the initial offer. He spent several weeks preparing. 

Through e-mail he contacted a Taiwanese black-market tech dealer who had
connections in the PacRim porn industry. The Engineer verified that the
dealer had Internet access and a Mac with a Tektronix Phaser color
printer, and made a quick agreement with him. The tech dealer never
learned more about the Engineer than his anon.penet.fi address and PGP
key, which suited them both just fine. Next the Engineer arranged private
access to a Kodak PhotoCD processing machine. He paid off the
down-at-the-heels manager of a photofinishing shop for overnight use of
one at a moment's notice. 

The helmet-mounted three-dimensional video equipment, however, took him
some time to construct. Realtime portable video digitization wasn't quite
practical yet, so he had to originate on prosumer analog.

After some testing he built a lightweight fiberglass helmet with a
removable dual-camera mount on the top. The miniature triple-CCD cameras
were tiny but approached broadcast quality, and were carefully angled at
the standard 7.5 cm corneal separation distance. Their signals were fed to
a pair of Sony Hi8 VTRs, which were synchronized and powered by a single
battery brick; all three items fit into a small knapsack worn on the back.
A pair of bud-style combination earphone/PZM microphones fed a binaural
signal to the 8-bit digital audio tracks of the video decks. He also
attached a Contax 35mm camera to the forehead of the helmet, its automatic
shutter wired to a wrist-mounted control, and a pair of diffused halogen
lights on either side for shadowless illumination. 

He made several tests of the helmet using a mannequin to stand in for the
target. The 35mm pictures turned out well-framed and in focus, even in
macro. The video images, when interlaced and viewed through LCD
shuttergoggles, were remarkable. It looked like a small window in the
monitor screen rather than a video signal. The binaural audio enhanced the
effect. For the client, it would be the next best thing to being there.

To monitor the video he silvered a pair of SportVision goggles,
lightweight sunglasses with a video eyepiece built into the frame, and
wired them to the output of one of the Sony VTRs. When worn, the silvering
cut down light transmission only slightly but presented a mirrorlike
facade to the outside world, concealing his eyes. The final element to his
disguise was a carbon fiber mask which covered his face from the nose to
the chin, and out to the ears. The mask had a terrifying military look but
was actually manufactured for weekend-warrior paintball competitions. It
was very lightweight and presented no impediment to breathing or speech. 

With the equipment preparation complete, the Engineer turned to the
logistics of the hit. He ruled out a strike in the target's apartment
after learning that she shared it with three other recently graduated
women. The target's line of work, however, left her vulnerable. The woman
had just been licensed to sell insurance after a several-month training
and trial period, and was now trying to hustle annuity policies to the
huge South Florida population of elderly and retired. She doubtless had a
quota; her eagerness to get new business might give him an opening. He
packed and flew to Florida.

It didn't take him long to find an empty house to use. South Florida had a
great deal of unoccupied residential real estate, most of it in multi-unit
developments, and by checking listings and driving around for an afternoon
he found an empty two-bedroom bi-level which was relatively isolated from
its neighbors. No one would be able to see a car parked outside or hear
screams from within. 

The Engineer took out his picklocks and surveyed the interior of the
house. It had an open floor plan and a large, airy living room, which was
ideal. He checked the electricity---as usual, the previous tenants hadn't
bothered to disconnect it. It would be a safe haven for an evening's work.

The only thing left to do was to contact the target. He used his
blue-collar trucker voice to reach her from a pay phone. He told her he
was calling for his elderly mother, who couldn't use the phone because of
deafness, but who wanted to buy a large new policy. 

The target sounded flustered but very eager to meet. She offered to visit
the following evening after dinner. The Engineer agreed, gave her the
address, and hung up.

The next day he had everything ready hours before the appointment time,
and waited patiently at an upstairs window for the target to arrive. He
watched the dark stormclouds move in from off the ocean. 

When the target rang the bell at 1900 hours sharp, it was already raining
and quite dark. After starting the video recordings the Engineer called
out cheerfully from an upstairs window.

"C'mon in out of the rain---the door's open. I'll be down in a sec."

He heard the front door open and close, and the sound of someone shutting
an umbrella. He walked down the stairs into the front hall. The target
turned to greet him with a big smile, but her face fell when she saw his
black jumpsuit, Darth Vader facemask and technology-studded helmet. She
stared dumbstruck at the 9mm Beretta automatic in the Engineer's gloved
hand. 

She was plain-looking, but not as bad as the Engineer had feared. By the
time she hit middle age she would probably be rather drab, but youth made
her appealing. She was wearing rimless eyeglasses. Her light brown hair
was parted on the side and curled, and she had faux-pearl stud earrings
and a light amount of makeup on. She wore a dark knee-length skirt, heels
and a white blouse. 

Her body was decent, not overweight or too scrawny. All told, a
run-of-the-mill young-professional type, ubiquitous on the streets of any
American city.

He moved quickly between the target and the front door and pointed the
barrel gun directly into her face. "Go into the house." 

She hesitated for a second and then screamed. It seemed rather
half-hearted and not very loud. The Engineer quickly kicked her in the
stomach with his steel-toed Doc Martens. She fell backwards on the floor,
the scream cut off with a gasp. She curled up, holding her stomach, and
tried to catch her breath. 

The Engineer kicked her again in the back for good measure. The client had
given him a detailed script to follow, and introductory battery was
required anyway. The target moaned in pain.

"Shut the fuck up," the Engineer said. He checked the signal from the
video camera; it was clear and in-focus.

The target gasped and tried to speak. "Please---take my credit cards. And
my car keys." She looked up at him. "I won't call the police."

"You're about to get raped, honey. Get used to it." He shoved her with his
foot, and the woman rolled on her side into the living room. "Get on your
knees," he told her. 

She looked at him imploringly. "Please don't!" she said, a pathetic
expression on her face.

"Get on your fucking KNEES!" he shouted. She did. 

"Put your hands down in front of you. Look at me."

She did as she was told and looked up at him, her face full of fright. She
looked stunned to find herself in this situation. As she gazed up at him
he stomped the heel of his boot onto the fingers of her left hand and
ground it into the carpet. Her features contorted with pain. The wind
howled outside. The Engineer snapped several photographs and then jammed
the barrel of the gun into her nose.

"Listen to me, you cunt. You're going to do what I fucking say WHEN I SAY
IT, hear me?"

The target gasped and nodded. 

"Stand up and show me your asshole."

The target, still wincing with pain, hesitated. 

"Show me your FUCKING ASSHOLE, you dumb FUCK!" The Engineer waved the gun
at her with sudden violence.

"You're insane," the target said hopelessly, more to herself than to him.
She started to cry as she stood. She painfully lifted up her skirt, pulled
her blue cotton panties down off her ass, and spread her cheeks apart. She
bent over and, weeping loudly, displayed her anus to the Engineer and his
cameras.

The Engineer snapped a couple photos, then jammed his forefinger, in its
black leather glove, up her rectum. After rotating and pushing for a
moment, he got it embedded up to the second knuckle. He wiggled it around
energetically. 

He grabbed the target's hair with his other hand and pulled her head back.
She was wearing a pleasant scent, an Opium knockoff. He slid out the
forefinger and waved it under her nose. She winced.

"Your asshole stinks. Let's see how it tastes." He shoved the finger into
her mouth. The target continued weeping for a minute or so, the gloved
finger resting on her tongue. Then the Engineer took it out and stood
back. 

"Sit against the wall," the Engineer ordered. "Show me your pussy."

The target turned around to face him, crying,  and reluctantly pulled her
underwear the rest of the way off. "Please don't do this," she said
between sobs. 

The Engineer didn't respond. She sat down slowly with her back against the
living room wall and spread her legs apart. The young woman had a rather
large vulva, bright red and gnarled-looking. It looked out of place in her
pubic hair, like a big worm had attached itself to her body. 

The target's tears would add drama to the videotape but her contorted face
wasn't very photogenic, so he decided to wait until she stopped. He stood
watching her until her shoulders stopped shaking and she wiped at her eyes
with her sleeve.

"Look at me," the Engineer said. "Brush your hair out of your eyes.
Smile."

The target did as she was told, and even gave a pathetic-looking imitation
of a smile. The Engineer kneeled for a better view and snapped several
photos of her genitals on display beneath her business clothes. "You have
an ugly cunt," he told her. He stood up. "Open your mouth." 

The Engineer took his hardening penis out of his pants. He had a very
large and well-formed member; it was one of the qualifications for his
profession. He held the thick shaft at the base and swatted it at the
target's face. The semi-soft penis thudded against her eyes, cheeks and
nose, and she blinked. After a moment it became fully erect in his hand,
all eight thick inches of it. He pointed it down and inserted the swollen
red shaft into the target's mouth.

"Suck it, you fucking bitch," the Engineer commanded. The target closed
her mouth and tongue around his member and sucked. The Engineer felt sweet
sensation flow upwards from his crotch. He allowed himself a minute's
enjoyment, then forced himself to again concentrate on his work. 

He checked the video signal; it was a good birds-eye view of the blowjob.
"Look at me," he told the target. Her eyes turned upwards as the large
cock stretched her jaw wide. He brushed the hair away from her forehead,
then snapped several photographs of the thick penis filling her mouth.

"Give me your hands." The Engineer took the target's wrists in his and
held them firmly above her head against the wall. Then he shoved his hips
forward and pressed his cock deeper into her mouth. The target gagged and
snorted as her mouth was completely filled and the thick head of his cock
jammed into the back of her throat. He could feel her tongue work as she
swallowed frantically, trying to keep from choking. 

The Engineer kept pressing his hips forward, then gave a final deep
thrust. His cock entered her mouth to the hilt. He could feel it
surrounded by a narrow hardness as it jammed into her gullet. Her eyes
bulged as she tried desperately to avoid gagging and to breathe through
her nostrils. The Engineer carefully composed and then photographed this
view of his penis impaling the target's face. His pubic hair was brushing
against her nose.

If the girl didn't know how to deep-throat before, thought the Engineer,
she did now. 

He left his cock in her esophagus for several minutes, moving it slightly
in and out, until the girl appeared almost ready to lose consciousness.
Then he slowly slid it out and stepped back. "Stand up and take your
clothes off," he ordered.

The target spent a long moment gasping and coughing on the floor of the
empty house, the wind howling outside. When she finally composed herself
and looked at him her face was full of fury. "You're going to get caught,"
she said, her weeping voice trembling with rage. "You're going to jail for
the rest of your life, you disgusting psychotic pig." 

The Engineer calmly kicked her in the ribcage with the steel toe of his
boot. She collapsed in pain and groaned.

"Even if I don't kill you," the Engineer said, "I can always rip your
eyeballs out. Take your clothes off, little cunt whore, or you WILL be
sorry."

When the target finally got up again her expression had changed. She wore
a blank and passive look. Mechanically she stood, pulled her skirt off,
lifted her blouse over her head and took off her brassiere. She stood in
front of him, looking at the carpet, completely nude in the middle of the
room. 

"Look at me," he said, snapping some pictures. "And turn around." 

She did. She looked better naked than with clothes on. She had a light
tan, with pale white patches over her crotch and breasts, and small
nipples. Her legs were long and nicely shaped.

"Now get on your hands and knees and crawl around in a circle." 

The target did as she was told. Her breasts hung down and her ass wiggled
as she moved around on the floor at his feet. 

"Snort like a pig, bitch."

The target snorted and honked as she crawled. The Engineer tried to keep
from laughing. He let her continue while he disconnected the 35mm camera
from its mount, rewound the film, and loaded a fresh roll. After taking
another picture of her to start the roll he laid down, shoulders on the
floor and head propped up against the wall. 

"Get over here and suck." The target crawled over to him, crouched above
his legs, and took his cock into her mouth. It had become flaccid, but
hardened quickly as she began to suck him. Outside the wind and rain
pounded at the windows.

The target obediently fellated him until his member was rock hard again.
Then he shoved her head off. "Sit on it," he commanded.

Her face a complete blank, the target sat up and straddled the Engineer's
stiff rod. She positioned it at the opening to her vagina and tried to sit
down on it. She was very tight and dry, and his cock was very large, but
slowly it pressed inside of her. Eventually, with a wince, she lowered her
weight fully, and he was embedded to the hilt up her cunt. He felt the tip
of his dick rub the hard golfball of her cervix. The target started
humping up and down.

"Put your hands behind you and lean back, you ugly fucking whore." The
target did so and the Engineer carefully centered his cameras on her. This
was the most photogenic way to photograph sex, he thought, the woman
leaning back with her breasts swaying, her stomach flat and a big dick
visibly splitting her pussy apart. The Engineer checked the video monitor
and pressed the shutter release.

"Faster!" he said. "Fuck me, slut!" The target humped more energetically.
She started to gasp from exertion. The Engineer put his hands behind his
head and relaxed for a few minutes, while the target panted and thrust
atop him. 

Then he sat up and, without extracting his rod, shoved her onto her back
and lay his full weight on top of her. He put his hands on the top of her
head and shoved down as he thrust his cock in to the hilt. The cameras
weren't able to focus this close to her face, so he arched his back up as
he slowly slid his dick all the way out of her pussy and then back in
again. Then he started seriously fucking her, with hard, deep strokes and
a fast rhythm. 

She whimpered underneath him on the carpet. He inserted three gloved
fingers into her mouth and held them there as he rammed her.

Finally, when orgasm approached, he got off and knelt over the target's
face. He straddled her shoulders, lifted her head with one hand and held
the base of his swollen cock with his other. He swatted his dick against
her face.

"Open your mouth," he ordered. 

She did, and he shoved his rod into her until it filled the back of her
throat and she gagged. Then he took it out and rubbed the swollen scarlet
glans on her lips, nose and cheeks.

"Stick your tongue out." He pressed his dick against her soft pink tongue
and kneaded its shaft, until he felt himself about to come. He stopped and
let himself cool off. Then he repeated himself. He plunged his dick into
her mouth again and let her suck him for a few minutes, then swatted his
heavy rod against her face some more. He kept at this, holding off on
orgasm until he could barely contain himself. Then he carefully positioned
her face beneath him, made sure the cameras were focused, and ejaculated
onto her.

The target winced as the first big spurt splattered a trail of heavy white
semen on her lips, up her nose and onto her eyelids and forehead. The next
shots he fired directly into her open mouth, causing a puddle of come to
cover her tongue. Photographing non-stop, he ejaculated for nearly a
minute, leaving the target's face and mouth covered with hot semen. 

"Swallow it," he said, and without expression the target closed her lips
and swallowed the mouthful of his seed. He wiped as much come as possible
off her face with his gloved fingers and made her lick them off. In a
minute she was fairly clean, and his exhausted penis had softened.

'Look at me and open wide," the Engineer ordered. The target mechanically
complied.

He took his member in hand, aimed it and relaxed his bladder. A thick
stream of yellow piss flowed out of his penis and between her open lips.
The target gagged when she tasted it but didn't close her mouth. 

Soon her mouth was filled with urine and the overflow started to run down
her cheeks. She was obviously trying not to swallow. The Engineer cut off
his stream and pinched the back of the target's jaw with his fingers. She
gasped and with a gulp the urine went down her throat. 

The Engineer's bladder wasn't quite empty but he saved a little. He got
off of the target and tossed her the panties to wipe herself off as he
rewound the film camera. He loaded another roll, then set up both portable
tripods and carefully positioned them around her. It took him several
minutes to affix the Contax and the dual video cameras onto the tripods
and frame a good picture. The target watched, her face a blank. 

When the equipment was ready the Engineer pulled his pants down to his
ankles and crouched over her face. He used the video monitor on his
goggles to carefully position his buttocks over her open mouth. 

The target closed her eyes when she realized what was going to happen. The
Engineer snarled at her. 

"You FUCK!! Open your eyes and open your mouth. Fuck this up and you don't
walk out of here."

The target looked up into his asshole and obediently opened her mouth. Her
thoughts seemed to be elsewhere; her eyes looked sad and glazed.

The Engineer set the Contax to snap a frame every half second and then
watched carefully through the video monitor as he squatted. When
everything was aligned he concentrated for a moment and then let his
bowels release. In the eyepiece he saw his anus flare and a thick hard
tube of brown feces slowly squeeze out into the target's open mouth. It
cut off suddenly and the lump of shit thudded heavily onto the woman's
tongue. She gagged and her eyes watered. 

The Engineer quickly turned around and aimed the 35mm camera. It was an
excellent shot: the target was clearly recognizable as she looked at the
camera, her mouth full of warm shit. He continued to photograph as he
pointed his penis down at her face and urinated. The shutter clicked as
piss splashed on her cheeks and up her nostrils.

"Chew it!" the Engineer growled. A sudden lightning bolt flashed into the
house, followed several seconds later by a massive clap of thunder. The
target painfully closed her teeth upon the turd and worked her mouth. 

After a moment, though, her face turned white. She turned quickly on her
side and vomited violently, shit and puke mingling in a puddle on the
carpet. The Engineer let her retch and re-attached the cameras to his
helmet. As she gasped and coughed he gently rubbed some lubricant on his
cock. By the time the target had finished retching the cameras were in
place and his thick member was rock-hard, glistening with K-Y Jelly.

He grabbed the target by the hair and dragged her, still gasping, over to
a clean spot on the carpet. He pressed her down flat on her stomach. Then
he straddled her legs, pressed her thighs together, and spread her soft
buttocks with his fingers. He positioned the thick red tip of his cock in
her asshole and shoved. Her anus was incredibly small and tight, but
patiently he pressed his penis inside of it.

The Engineer was starting to enjoy himself by now. Sodomy was his
favorite; he loved the tight resistance of the anal sphincter followed by
the rectum's forbidden smoothness when the dick finally slid inside. The
vagina was designed for a cock, after all, but anal entry was like
penetration of the body's slimy internal organs, an orifice even more
hidden and obscene than a cunt. Thunder rumbled in the distance as the
woman's anal tissues tore and his cock rammed up into her intestines. She
gave a sharp cry of agony, and he smiled.

He thrust into her slick rectum to the hilt, then slid all the way out
again. Her body was convulsed with pain beneath him. He positioned himself
at the orifice again and re-entered, aiming the cameras down at the soft
flesh of her buttocks as his cock split them open. He did this several
times, replaying the pleasure of the initial penetration, then started to
ram himself hard and fast up her smooth ass. 

The target grunted and groaned as he began to beat her. He pounded at her
body with his fists, raining blows upon her back, shoulders and head. She
desperately tried to wriggle out from under him. He doubled the force and
savagery of his punches. 

When he felt himself start to come he pulled himself out of her asshole
and quickly wrenched her body around beneath him. For the first time, the
target was actively resisting, kicking at him with her naked legs and
trying to grab his facemask with her hands. She was no match for him, of
course, but the brief wrestling match was amusing until he got her
restrained. 

Soon he had her on her back. He yanked hard on her hair and pressed one
knee down on her throat. He grasped the base of his cock and pointed it
down at her. The shaft was covered with blood and slimy brown fecal
material from her intestines. He shoved it deeply into her mouth and felt
her convulse. He released his hand and let the warm friction of her
gagging tongue bring the orgasm out of him. 

It soon did. He pulled out a bit as he ejaculated, to let the cameras
record the white spurts of semen shooting out into her pink mouth. "Suck!"
he ordered her.

Her eyes glared at him but she did it, sucking blood, come and her own
shit off his cock. The Engineer stayed on her until she had licked all the
bloody scum off and swallowed it. Then he got off of her and with an
exhausted sigh prepared to cleanse the target and the site.

He put all the extra equipment back into his bag and got out a dog collar
and long leash. The target had collapsed weeping on the floor but he
slapped her until she sat up. He fixed the collar around her neck and gave
her a battery-powered Dustbuster. He stood over her holding the leash as
she crawled around the living room floor, crying, vacuuming up the carpet.
Any fibers or debris he might have left went into the collection bag.

Then he walked behind her, literally kicking her ass, and steered her
crawling into the neighboring bathroom. As he supervised she douched her
vagina and washed her mouth out with mouthwash. Then he started the
shower. 

By this point the Engineer had to urinate again. He bent the target over
the bathtub and kneaded his cock into semi-erection. With some effort he
forced it into her anus, and then leaned back and emptied his bladder up
her ass. The target gasped as the hot urine slowly flooded her guts. When
he pulled his penis out piss squirted out of her rectum and dribbled down
her legs in a yellow gush. 

He made her get in the shower, wash and rinse her body from head to toe,
and squirt an enema up her asshole. The target was told to clean out the
drain with her fingers and place the accumulation of hair and scum into a
plastic bag. 

Then, still wet and dripping, he tied her wrist to the pipe under the sink
with her brassiere. It wasn't a strong knot, but with only one free hand
it would take her a few minutes to get out of it.

He looked down at her. She looked back at him, her face scarlet with
hatred. 

"It's been nice working with you," the Engineer said politely, then kicked
her in the stomach and harder in the face. Blood streamed out of her nose
as she fell to the floor and moaned, half-unconscious. Her nose was
fractured. The Engineer took an epoxy syringe out of his pocket and
inserted it into the woman's vagina. He squeezed the plunger and slowly
filled her twat with the plastic cement, then rubbed the remainder of the
tube on the floppy lips of her vulva. It would dry in a few minutes, and
some reconstructive gynecologist would be given the opportunity of a
lifetime. 

The Engineer stood in the doorway to the house and removed his helmet. He
double-checked the area for any physical evidence he might have carelessly
forgotten, then put the woman's cheap Daytimer into his bag, grabbed the
rest of the target's things and left. 

It was pitch black and pouring with rain outdoors. The Engineer trotted
down the front walk and dropped the woman's clothes and purse next to her
Ford Festiva. As he removed his facemask he considered whether to park
across the street and continue taping. The sight of the target walking
naked out to her car and trying to dress herself would be amusing. He
decided it was safer to just make his exit. 

He trotted the half-block to his rented car, looking carefully around to
see if anyone could see him. In weather like this, he doubted anyone would
notice him even if they were standing five feet away. He got in the car
and drove leisurely away.

He was at the airport and in the air within hours. By daybreak he was back
in his loft, halfway across the country, making an arrangement to use the
Kodak Photo CD machine that evening.

The machine was designed for mom-and-pop stores and was simple to operate.
It developed the film automatically and then displayed digital scans, at a
variety of resolutions, on a small monitor screen. The Engineer tweaked
the scans and then saved all three rolls of film onto a single gold CD.
When finished he incinerated the original negatives.

Back in his loft he evaluated the pictures. Some were dark or out of
focus, but most had turned out clear, bright and sharp. He carefully chose
the six he would use. He selected a detailed shot of the woman smiling and
exposing her big pussy under her skirt, a full-frontal nude, a photo of
her bent-back and impaled on his large penis, a view of her face and mouth
covered with semen as she licked his cock, a close-up of piss flowing into
her open mouth as she looked at the camera, and another of the brown turd
sliding between her waiting lips. 

The Engineer brightened, cropped and modified the resolution of the
photos, then compressed them as 24-bit JPEG files, carefully adjusting the
compression ratios to make sure no visible artifacts appeared in the
pictures. He UUencoded the files into 20K segments. Then he took out the
free America Online startup disks he'd collected from computer magazines. 

The disks were good for ten free hours of online time, starting
immediately at signup. The Engineer knew that with the company's drive for
membership the user's name and payment information weren't verified until
the next billing period. By canceling the membership before the ten hours
were up, the information was never checked. The Engineer dialed the
toll-free number with his modem and enrolled, using a nonsense name and a
randomly typed credit card number. Once online he E-mailed the JPEG files
to the Internet address of his subcontractor in Taiwan, as well as the
database list he'd compiled. Then he canceled the AOL membership.

The subcontractor would assemble the digitized images and print them on
standard-size sheets of dye-sublimation paper using his Tektronix color
printer. Then he would cut them apart, put each set into an envelope
addressed to a name in the database, and mail them to the US from a blind
drop in Thailand. Nearly everyone the target had ever known, even
casually, would receive the obscene photos of her, printed along with her
name, address, phone number, date of birth, social security number and
employer information. Using a variety of sources, mostly the Daytimer and
old school yearbooks, he had compiled a list of all the woman's friends,
family, classmates, co-workers and clients, from childhood to the present
day. He had added the local, state and regional managers of the insurance
company she worked for. Using tax and credit reports, he had managed to
get current work or home addresses for nearly everyone. 

The photographs and personal info would also be posted to Usenet
newsgroups and adult-oriented BBSs around the world. The videotape would
be edited slightly and sent to a dozen underground pornography dealers,
who would duplicate and redistribute it globally, printing the woman's
identity on the packaging. The Engineer had an open-ended contract---every
new employer or social contact that the target met, that he could find out
about, would be sent a copy of the photographs. The woman was about to
become more famous than she could imagine. The client, of course, would
receive all the originals.

By the time all the e-mail had been sent and deleted from his hard drive
the Engineer had been without sleep for forty-eight hours. He was
exhausted. As he climbed between the black sheets of his futon he scanned
his memory for any incriminating errors he might have made, and the tasks
he needed to perform upon awakening, but before he had gotten far he had
already drifted off into a deep restful slumber.