Kill Process by William Hertling

best friend. I read secondhand how Todd told Nancy he loved her, how he appreciated the beauty she created as an interior designer. Later, he disclosed that he wanted to overcome the abuse he survived as a child and start a family with her. Nancy gushed to her friend about how funny and smart he was, how she loved to stare into his blue eyes.
    They married, and then with the predictability that comes from thousands of these cases, he isolated her. He lost his job, seemingly through no fault of his own, and got a new job outside of Santa Clara with a tech startup. She moved a thousand miles to a town with no family, no friends. Because she once said she dreamed of a farm house, he bought a home far out in the foothills. They were in one of the biggest, most well-off metropolitan areas in the world, yet she was still alone.
    Then, when she was separated from any kind of support, the violence started, hand-in-hand with the threats he would kill her if she left, and then he would kill himself.
    At least, the last bit is my conjecture, based on the patterns of domestic violence. Because her online trail slowly fades after they move to Santa Clara, and there’s no way to be sure. At some point he probably began monitoring what she posted on Tomo. Then one day there’s no data going in or out of their house when he’s not there, which means that he took away her access to a computer or even a phone.
    This is the most dangerous time of all.
    I’m in the VW van, parked in a multi-level garage downtown. It’s a great viewpoint with wi-fi access to hundreds of locations. Using the directional antenna I glom onto a strong open signal a few blocks away.
    I will fly down to Palo Alto on Wednesday, in theory to visit Tomo headquarters. I want to do a bit of last minute research before I go because there’s so little data available from Nancy right now that I must take more active measures.
    Todd should be home now, and he’s got a smartphone, and it’s on, and it runs Tomo. He checks into Tomo every day to visit Nancy’s profile, her parents, and her best friend.
    There’s a tiny part of me that wonders if she’s already taken off, and he’s simply not telling anyone. Or if he’s already killed her. Strange as it might seem, I won’t kill him if Nancy is already dead. I’m not doing this for vengeance. I’m doing it so people can rebuild their lives. On the other hand, he’ll probably repeat the pattern.
    Still, I’ve got to know.
    I’m sitting in my chair in the back of the van, curtains drawn. Cameras monitor all four directions and feed a small display to warn me in case anyone approaches, and another panel displays the status of my private onion-routing network. I lost two nodes last week, which happens from time to time. Eventually someone climbs up on a roof for maintenance or cleaning, discovers one of my solar-powered computers, and picks it up. Then the unit self-destructs, and I’ve lost a node. Still, the network comprises three hundred live routers, more than enough to securely route my packets and hide my origination point.
    I’ve got a connection to the router in Nancy and Todd’s house, which I’ve usurped so I can intercept all their traffic. Every fifteen minutes, the Tomo app on Todd’s phone checks for notifications. My code running inside Tomo’s data center receives the request and responds with the control packets to set debug mode on Tomo.
    The console prints out “debug mode on,” and I’m in. Now the app will accept an extended set of commands, and I turn the microphone on.
    I listen and hear only muffled, distant sounds. Someone washing dishes. Maybe talking. I turn up the volume as far as I can, which only results in louder noises in a background of hiss, the conversation too indistinct to make out. I suppress the camera indicator light, and turn on the front and back cameras. Nothing. No light at all. More time goes by, more distant sounds. The accelerator says the phone is absolutely