Sundel Agarwal. Aruna Ragini. Cecil Grover. She wasn't sure what her name was supposed to be now.

She could still hear the pitbull growls. Every now and then they would alternate with scarily earnest barks. She kept holding her breath and hoping and praying that the dogs left the thoroughfare, clearing the area for her.

Their owner, that vile Pernelius Higgins, pretend monitor, would clap, hoot, or yell to communicate with his dogs or to scare her into giving her position away.

She was hidden from their view by the thicket of trees behind the long barn-shaped auto garage. But she was trapped: she could not move in any direction without creating a distinct rustle that would easily carry over.

Exactly how did I find myself in this position again? she asked herself for the millionth time.

All she had wanted was to make sure her name was in the clear in the aftermath of Fuddy's murder five days ago. Leaving the city with a suspect's baggage would be like jumping off the cliff into a waterless ravine.

After escaping from the shabby row of old townhouses that fateful night, she had run straight to an apartment block where her school friend Tina lived with her grandparents. Feeling safe there, she did online chores, mostly editing, proofreading for end-of-year school papers and even wrote an essay for a lazy kid of middle class parents. This would allow her to buy her ticket to Lansing.

She had stopped going to school as there was no point and it ensured her safety. On the third day of these arrangements, Tina approached her with a grave face on returning from school.

"You told me you were hiding from your Uncle as he was harassing you."

"That's right. What's the matter, Tina?"

"Remus from 12th grade is telling everyone that you're a shady girl as your uncle was killed in a controversial manner and that's exactly when you stopped coming to school."

Tina was a really simple person and pretending to be shocked in surprise at the 'news' of her uncle's murder was an easy trick to fool her friend and earn back her trust.

The real worry, however, was the possibility that the police might catch on to her presence on the scene at the time of murder.

Instantly, she knew what needed to be done.

The very next day, she caught a bus to Eastside, Kalamazoo and reached the crop of old, gringy-looking, matchstick-box houses along narrow streets.

She remembered well where Maximillan Bachir lived, that whizkid from 10th grade . She had been to his house with her friends at a party he threw for all the nerdy, less popular kids in school a month ago. He had made no secret of his self-made status in the deep by-ways of the internet then. He impressed the guests with his mastery of the gargantuan cyber-iceberg that the surface swimmers of the world wide web had no idea existed.

Reaching his house, she had to knock the backside window of Max's bedroom for ten minutes before he paid attention.

A claustrophobic scene of close range battle strobed around her in holoview when Max pushed up the window pane to let her in.

"Cecil! How unexpected. Wait. Aren't you … Maybe I shouldn't have let you here."

She instantly turned her attention to him. "I know the rumors and they're all wrong," she blurted out in one breath, then narrated how she'd found herself trapped in a closet while her uncle was butchered outside by an angry organ scout.

In two swift motions, Max killed the gaming system and locked the door. He then offered her a seat and a glass of water.

"I admit I've heard at least one similar story before," he said.

Roxid was relieved at the note of trust in Max's voice as he continued.

"Easy drug flow has really made everyone violent these days. Actually, it's not that bad at school. No one barely knew your uncle, or his death, or TangoCard. Or, that you had a connection. I'm sure a few seniors figured it out and then the Lucky Cheers band started talking everywhere. But honestly, most kids don't even know who the hell are you. And I've definitely seen no police at school if that's what you're worried about."

"But I still need your help checking out if I'm on anyone's radar or not. Police, local news. I can't get out of here until I'm sure I'm in the clear."

She got up and went to sit in a chair by Max's PC system. Max rubbed his forehead and drew his lips in.

"I can definitely tap a few places." Saying that, Max too went and sat beside her. He tapped fast at his keyboard for a few minutes before saying: "You're in the clear."

His smile widened at her astonishment. "Think of me as an angler who's pulled all-nighters just setting up all his lines. When a job comes calling, I know which ones to reel in."

"Mind-blown." She mimicked a shockwave at her temple with her hand.

"Police have not yet discovered there was another person in the house," Max continued. "I'm guessing you were very careful removing all traces of your stay."

"Yeah, my aunt in Virginia told me to be ready and she'd pick me up asap. Uncle Grover creeped me out sometimes."

"Of course, I get it. You did good; or, you'd have been in trouble."

"What if the police do catch on, though, or hear from someone who knows? The school office saw Grover enroll me but a few months ago."

"Hmm." Max scratched his head a bit, then: "I could be of help with that … but … I'm gonna need something." He indicated money by swiping his fingers against his thumb.

"I don't have lucres," she hastily replied. "But I'm getting paid tonight for a lab report job and I'll give it away all to you."

"How much?" Max raised an eyebrow.

"Honestly, I still don't know how it stands between skids and lucres," Cecil admitted sheepishly.

"Five hundred skids makes one lucre. Just remember it's like half a millimeter."

"Yeah. Thanks. So she's already paid her 50% guarantee: 500 skid. And she better pay the rest tonight, or she won't meet her deadline tomorrow."

"Sweet." Max whistled in appreciation. He loved what the bitcoin disasters of old had evolved into today.

"So what exchange do you use?" he asked as he accessed the Treasury corridor on his 3D view.

"Any of the new ones whose reviews are really good."

"I'll tell you of a forum where only the techies are reviewing. I mean, if they say it's reliable it means your exchange is truly untraceable to any of your ids."

"Thanks. We should keep in touch, you know?"

"Hell yeah, we should. I'm all for more clientele!"

After the guarantee money was transferred, Max entered the school website like a hoot. He was inside the registry in a minute and played around in the profile of one Cecil Grover. By the time he was done, the guardian name had changed from Grover Bradley to Groover Badgley with different, fake contact information. To deepen the conceit, he even made a webpage advertising a freelance editing business by Groover Badgley and made sure it was the first hit on a Google search.

Just then a doorbell sounded in Max's house and in a minute a knock rapped his bedroom door. "Your friend Perl is here, Moxie" her mom's voice announced outside his bedroom door.

"Send him in! He's a friend of mine. You wanna stay?" Max asked her.

"No. Not really. I should be going now." She hastily collected the small purse she had with her and got up. "Thank you very much, Max. I can't thank you enough."

In response, Max leaned in toward her a little to whisper: "Don't forget the transfer later."

"Oh yeah, sure."

They had already exchanged necessary contact information. She got out the same way she had come in. As she took to the side of the street and moved beyond the cover of a Black Gum tree, she heard someone yell in the open window:

"Hey, isn't that the girl in hiding?"

She shouldn't have panicked. Max would have certainly distracted the Perl guy, made up a story, or used some other strategy to mislead.

But she did panic and began to run.

She took the first turn south that came up and breathed easier when no one followed her. After a few more turns through the maze of narrow lanes, she sensed the opening of the aural vista - cars honking in the distance zooming by, pedestrians calling to each other and vendors talking up their goods. She was approaching Michigan Ave toward the bus stop.

At the same time, however, she heard ferocious dog barks that increased in volume every passing second. She turned her head and saw a pair of pitbulls gaining the street from its far end, their leashes held by a young, black-hatted and black-booted man who was hooting and whooping along.

"I just wanna have a chat with you, hunny."

She distinctly heard that in a high-pitched voice dripping with obvious sleaze as she turned into an angled street that would take her straight to the bus stop. But instead of a smooth glide, she crashed headlong into a tricycle abandoned in the middle of the street by some precocious kid.

She got up and ambled for a few steps nursing the ripped skin patch near her right ankle. The pitbull barks sounded deafeningly close. She was hidden beyond the street's angle but she'd lose that soon. She spotted a thick cover of trees behind a long, brown, barn-shaped structure to her right. Ignoring her scratches, she ran toward it and jumped into the foliage. Calming herself down to avoid any rustling - the pitbulls had entered the angled street - she inched as close to the rear end of the building as the jumbled mass of twigs and leaves allowed her.

The smell of earthworm-dug soil mixed with the smokier odor of oaks, lined by the stale stench of gasoline coming from the barn. It must have been an abandoned autoservice as it had been dark and silent. The dogs and the whooping young man seemed to have moved past the front of the barn toward the thoroughfare. Roxie turned to face the building wall and explored. Her finger caught on to a metal bar that turned out to be a rung.

She felt for other, higher rungs of the ladder and soon found enough to climb. She was high near the roof when she heard the barking approach the barn again.

"Come on, come on, wherever you are. Come on, girlie, I know you are here somewhere. Show your face. We only wanna have a little talk."

Why did this high-pitched maniac voice sound so familiar?

Then it came to her. It sounded like the brother of Cornelius Higgins, their pretend smart-ass fellow student from 9th grade who secretly came to Max to pull off the real smarts. Cornelius often boasted about his 'spy' brother when he actually meant a monitor at that freaky Bureau place. She had no idea that the brother was also a frequent visitor at Max's. Still, Max should have warned her about him, given how sensitive her situation was.

Holding the topmost rung with one hand, she took out her phone and saw that Max had left her a string of messages.

I'm really, really, sorry about this C. I have no idea how this happened.

I was busy talking to my mother and it took Pernelius five min to see what we were doing.

I didn't know he could hack into my system, honest to God!!!

She drew a breath and waited. Pernelius was still going on but his voice had receded. She could hear the occasional pitbull panting, hushed in respect of their owners' speech.

She cringed when she could hear him clearly again.

"C'mon baby. Gotcha report ya. Get some bucks outa' ye. Can we play our version of Let's Make A Deal?"

Either Pernelius had gotten hold of a drink or he was high on corruption. She wanted to ask "what are you gonna do?" but kept her lips sealed. He answered the unspoken anyways:

"It's a win-win. I get some handy cash - and I accept lucre too - and you get to keep your secret. We can come to a satisfactory bargain - a neat little arrangement. Otherwise, it would only take me one tip-off to set a chain of events in motion that will never let you go."

What a bully. She had heard of such double-dealing monitors but never had any reason to believe the stories until now.

She looked for something handy on the slanted rooftop. Her hands scampered across rusty plates, metal scraps and dead twigs and leaves, finally landing on a stone. She carefully picked it up and looked around. Even the dogs seemed to have tired of Pernelius's yarns.

Another rooftop was partially visible atop the thickets across the block. If a well-aimed throw could reach it, the clang could wake up the drowsy pitbulls enough to move the frenzy across to the other side.

She looked at the time on her phone. She knew the next bus was scheduled to arrive in five minutes. Timing was key.

She opened the text app again.

"At my signal, convince Perl I made my escape from the opposite end of the neighborhood with my aunt, bound out of state. Stay in touch."

As she hit send to Max and trained her ear toward the incoming side of the Michigan Avenue, Perl got going yet again.

"Girl. I'm never gonna let you go. I'm in for the long haul. It's a good game. Once the coppers are on it, you're a bounty. Everybody is in a race here. And every catch counts towards the smartline! While my pocket fattens!"

Perl's voice was tremulous with excitement. It made him sound unhinged, but his monologue had the scary tune of the truth.

A languid wave of sleep arose then from the urgency of her panic and threatened to overcome. The warblers sang. The flies droned around the rotten twigs behind her. The pitbulls seemed to be snoring drowsily, while Perl devolved into a villainous laugh - a shady hero in ruthless times.

The eerie ambience of the morning swelled with a distant rumble of a bus turning up the curve of the thoroughfare. Roxie raised her hand, the rooftop corner in sight, and flung the rock.

The rock landed on the mark with a loud, noisy drumming and very obviously tumbled down the slant to a stop.

The pitbulls instantly raised the sky, jogging and barking. They couldn't find a way through the thicket. It took the mad monitor some time to control them into skirting the block to reach where the other side.

As soon as they turned out of sight, she slid down the mossy wall on the far end and landed with a thump onto the grass. The gentle roll of the bus wheels almost made her smile just as she ran to the stop, some feet ahead.

As she climbed the bus and scampered to the farthest seat from the view of the barn-shaped building in rusty brown, she felt strangely home.