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Data Ghosts
by Jimmy Jacobson
Chapter 3: The Ghost of Frank Crane
Snapping the phone shut and off after reading a new incoming message, the man with immaculate black hair inspected the tan bag he had retrieved from the messenger earlier this night. After noticing the computer in the bag was powered up, he found a pair of glasses in the main pocket and placed them on his perfectly symmetrical ears and over his grey eyes. Drawing back in terror, he saw Frank Crane's name hanging in the air above the seat next to him. A buzzing in his pocket startled him to action and pulling his phone from his jacket pocket, the sharply dressed man was even more unsettled at seeing a newly delivered message from Frank himself.
"You... you're dead!" he stammered to himself as he checked the timestamp on the message. It was sent barely 30 seconds previously. With a flick of a thumbnail that would soon be nervously chewed to the quick, he read the message.
"You may have killed me, but I will erase you. - Frank"
The next morning, the man that slept on perfectly pressed, one thousand thread count silk sheets woke not remembering how he got home. Rubbing his eyes, he flipped on the flat panel to see if any of the previous night's adventures had made the news feeds.
".... was found still burning after exploding in the early hours of the morning. Data recovered at the scene identified the victim as Sid Cantwell, 45, of ..."
The man formerly known as Sid Cantwell felt his tongue swell up, his heart slowed to what felt like long deep strokes and he nearly fainted. There on the TV panel was Frank's burned car, his charred corpse and a reporter identifying himself as the deceased!
He was shaken and spooked but not entirely unpleased; the man who would now end up dying twice hurried to get dressed. He had overslept, which was not like him, and now only had an hour before passing the tan satchel up the food chain. The man, who preferred Rachmaninoff to the Rolling Stones, queued up the Rach 2 piano concerto over his bedroom sound channels causing him to miss a small note on the news feed directly after the story of his own death.
"A series of individually small but collectively substantial bank heists has now been linked to a fugitive named Frank Crane." The artificial voice of the news feed continued, "Crane was wanted in connection with the brutal slayings of his girlfriend and own brother. Frank disappeared five years ago." The voice droned on as the symphony joined the pianist in the background of the perfectly kept apartment, "And is suspected to be involved in the death of his ex-partner, Sid Cantwell, in a fiery explosion earlier this morning."
Chapter 4: Dead Reckoning
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