After the first one took time to put together, I let go of Victor to wander off to a wall of cell phones. There were only a couple of other people in the store, so I was within sight. Victor was tapping at the new phone. I fiddled with display models.
I poked at an iPad display when another employee emerged from the back of the store. He carried a stack of cell phone cases and started loading them onto a wall unit. The face was familiar to me. I stared at him trying to figure out where I’d seen him before.
The boy must have sensed me staring because he turned. It wasn’t until I caught his full face that I remembered him being the nerd boy I’d bumped into in the waiting room of the school office the day before. Was it only yesterday?
“Hi,” I said. “You work here?”
The boy blinked at me in surprise. “Y ... yeah.” Maybe it was because of the store uniform, but he also looked distinguished. It was a good look for him to wear a polo and slacks.
“There’s school going on, isn’t there?” I asked.
His glasses shifted on his nose, sliding down a little. Part of the frame was crooked so maybe they didn’t fit right. “Y ... yes. I ... we ... I get out of school early.”
“How?”
“It’s my last year. I only needed two more classes.”
He looked so young, I would have thought he was my age, not closer to eighteen. “You’re a senior?”
“Something like that.”
I caught a glimpse of the nametag on his shirt. “Your name’s Wil?”
He touched the corner of his glasses, smudging part of the lens. “Y ... yes.”
“Can I ask you something?” This was great. He worked in a cell phone store. He ought to know. “How could someone duplicate a SIM card?”
His eyebrow arched up on his head. “You mean transfer the data from one card to the other or do you mean an actual copy?”
“I mean one person has an original and another person has a duplicate of the exact card.”
He brushed his fingers at the base of his neck. “I suppose if you had the phone. I imagine some hackers have a machine for that kind of thing.”
“What if you didn’t have the phone? Or the SIM card? What if all you had was the phone number?” It was the question that had been bugging me earlier. My phone was never out of my sight. I couldn’t believe that in the few minutes it was with Kota, it would have gone to anyone else. He wouldn’t do that. It wasn’t like Kota.
Wil shook his head. “Sounds impossible.”
“So they would need to physically duplicate the SIM card to intercept calls?”
“No. Someone can do that. It’s just hard to duplicate a SIM card without the actual SIM card.”
I tilted my head at him, reaching to brush my fingertips at his arm. “Wait, you can intercept phone calls without having the card?”
His eyes suddenly focused on my hand where I was touching him. I retracted my hand, unsure. I’d been around the guys too long, and didn’t know anything about touching. He stared back at me. “Sure. It’s actually easier if you just pick up on the phone signal.”
“What do you mean?”
He looked nervously across the room. “Are you sure you need to know this? Are you planning on hacking phones? You know it’s illegal.”
“I’m ... curious.”
“It’s kind of like cordless phones. Cell phones are similar. There’s a frequency flying through the air. All you need to have is some sort of scanner to catch the signal.”
“Will it pick up text messages, too?”
“I suppose if you could tap into the right frequency.”
“What would it look like?”
Wil gazed back around the store, as if nervous someone could overhear. “I don’t know if I should talk about it.”
“Please?” I pursed my lips, glancing back at Victor, but he was busy at the counter. I returned to Wil. “Can I tell you something?”
Wil lifted a curious eyebrow. “I guess.”
“I think someone at school has been listening in on my phone calls and intercepting my text messages. I just don’t know who.”
Wil winced. “Are you sure?”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you seen those other kids? They’re kind of dumb.” He waved his hand in the air. “No offence. Not all of them. Not you. I mean.”
“But is it possible one of them could carry around a device that could listen in on phone calls?”
“Sure, I guess. Maybe if they had a friend that could make them one. I think I heard in the news the other week about someone carrying around what looked like a cell phone, but he was able to pick up all the phone signals around him. He also got arrested and sent to prison for like a million years.”
“So it can look like a cell phone?”
“Or a laptop. I’m sure if what you say is true, it’s some sort of electronic gadget. It wouldn’t have to be too powerful to pick up a phone signal. It just needs the right program.”
That wasn’t what I was hoping for. The school was full of students with cell phones. I was sure a few of them had tablets and other things. How could we find one device that picked up other signals among a sea of cell phones?
Wil watched me, rubbing nervously at the back of his neck. “Are ... you okay, Sang?”
I straightened, startled again that he knew my name. But then, everyone at the school seemed to know. “Yes. Sorry, Wil. But thank you.”
“Any time, I guess,” he said.
I walked away and back to Victor. The assistant at the counter was finishing up the fourth cell phone. He handed the bundle to Victor, and bagged the chargers and boxes.
Victor fiddled with one of the phones. “Did you find a pink case?”
“I was looking for one?”
He passed the phone he was holding to me. “You can use the old one. I didn’t bring it with me.”
“Victor?”
“Hm?”
“What if whoever intercepted the calls didn’t duplicate the SIM card? What if he used a ... receptor phone? Like a cell phone that could pick up phone signals?”
Victor raised an eyebrow. “You mean like a scanner?”
“Yeah.”
Victor raked his fingers through his wavy hair. “I guess all he needs to do is be within range. But if we’re always on the move, then it’d be difficult. The thing would have to be near us all the time.”
“How close would he have to be?”
“Not sure. Within the same room, I think.”
I fingered the phone in my hands, unfamiliar and shiny with newness. “So if he wanted to intercept my cell phone signal with one, he’d have to follow wherever my cell phone went.”
“Right.”
“And he can follow a cell phone using the GPS tracker.”
Victor frowned. “That’s a lot of work,” he said. “That’s assuming your phone is going to be on all the time. You’ve had yours off for a while. I’m surprised this guy found my car at the spa. That was really last minute, random, and we didn’t have phones with us.”
That stopped my original train of thought, but I caught something in what he said. “So if he wanted to follow us to the spa, he had to follow us from somewhere he knew we’d be.”
“Yeah.”
“So he was at your house.”
His lips parted like he wanted to respond but he stopped short and stopped walking, too. His hand shot out, grasping the back of my head. He grabbed me, bringing me close and kissing my forehead in a quick peck. “Sang, I don’t care what Kota tells you. You’re an Academy girl.”
THE GOOD DOCTOR