Defective - A Psychopath's Tale

Chapter 22

Lydia used the information from Julie's computer to figure out another employee's password for the banking network account and used that instead of Julie's since hers was being watched by Tullis. Also since she was now a vapor trail, activity on her account was ill advised. The last thing we wanted was the I.I.D. tracking our internet link.

She worked for about an hour tracking all of my identities. Most of the rest were clean except for ones from two certain creators. One I didn't care about, I knew they were in with Tullis already. The second one was... different.

This person was someone, that to the best of my knowledge, wasn't a supporter of Tullis & Company; he was more of an independent and had been out of the mainstream for some time. We used to be close, I could almost say he was like a partner, back in the day. We'd lost touch years ago, over a decade. Work and time had simply eaten away at our close relationship.

There was something else about the identities he'd created for me that didn't jive. He'd made 11 identities for me over a few years; only three of them were being monitored. They just happened to be the first three he'd made for me if memory served me right. This fact didn't make sense if he'd sold me out, that he'd only rollover on three of the identities.

Holland Fuzzy and I had known each other since I came to join the Gagucci family; just after my name became Nicolas Gagucci. We were cell mates at the boarding school I attended. His parents were well-to-do up-and-comers, that were making their mark and their money in tourism. They'd started a single travel office in their hometown in Wyoming. Fuzzy Travel became a hit and they expanded to another town in Wyoming. Their success grew and they grew the company, eventually going national.

Holland, after graduation, invented a software program that helped his family's company go national. Over the years it'd been updated and upgraded many times but is still the best travel reservation software in use, and only Fuzzy Travel has it. The name Fuzzy is synonymous with vacation travel; of course, owning their own resorts as well as a cruise ship and an up and coming new zeppelin air tour ship helps keep them popular as well.

But it wasn't just programming that Holland was into and excelled at. By the time we'd drifted apart, he held a 1,000 patents and too many copyrights to count in the electronics development industry. Not only did several of his inventions make cellular phones possible, he helped bring Apple Computers out of bankruptcy with another invention that made smart phones a reality.

Holland was a rebel spirit. He liked living on the ragged edge of life; straddling the line between being a good citizen and being an outlaw. His 'customers' were people whom didn't want anyone to know their business, and thus, didn't like to buy their devices from mainstream dealers. That's where Holland came in, he was all too willing to build something without any questions, serial numbers, model numbers or any other trademarked, traceable components. He was also a covert means of repair.

Then there was the talent I needed of him. His unique ability for creating the best fake identities. No one could top Holland. I had wanted him to take care of Lydia's problems with identity; now I was having second thoughts since several were being monitored by Tullis.

I needed to be sure of the situation before I punched his clock. Only three were tainted. This raised questions. Holland had never been a syndicate boy; never had an interest in being subordinate to anyone. Holland was his own boy, his own boss and in the past, if anyone had tried to shackle him, they met my business side.

Many years had passed though. Maybe Holland changed, decided having someone backing him wasn't such a bad deal. And maybe turkeys suddenly became the smartest creatures on the planet and I started disliking twat.