by Dan Wells
Finally Marisa found the mystery file, buried in the system folder of Anja’s djinni, and pointed eagerly at the screen. “There it is, but I don’t see it doing anything weird . . . wait. Your version is bigger than mine, almost double the size.” She peered closer, tapping out a few commands to ask the file manager for more information. “It’s connected to two peripheral programs that I didn’t have in my system: one in your sensor files, and one in . . . nowhere. A new folder it created. Obviously the first program is interfacing with your vision and hearing and whatever, but I have no idea what that second one is interfacing with.”
“Let me see,” said Anja, and Marisa handed her the screen. “This is . . .” Her fingers tapped out a few commands, opening the file to study it in detail. “This almost looks like Overworld code.”
“Why would you have Overworld code in your djinni?”
“It’s not actually Overworld,” said Anja. “It’s just similar. Something to do with the sensory feeds?”
“What exactly are the differences?” asked Omar.
“Why are you so interested in code all of a sudden?” asked Marisa, though she felt bad for saying it almost immediately.
“Because this thing tried to kill her last night,” said Omar. “I want to know exactly why, and then I want to know how to stop it.”
“Well,” said Marisa, taking back the screen, “welcome to the club.”
“It’s not that my version of the file is bigger,” said Anja, “I’ll bet you anything that this is its normal size—what’s really happening is that Marisa’s version of the file was smaller than normal, because the hotbox lacked the target applications. When this thing gets into a djinni, though, it finds a system folder to start unpacking itself in and sets up shop. Typical virus behavior. But it’s designed for djinnis, so the one in the laptop couldn’t finish unpacking.”
Omar nodded. “Like a plant in bad soil.”
“I’m glad you found a metaphor you can understand,” said Marisa, and instantly closed her eyes, sucking in a slow, guilty breath. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be treating you like this. I’m just . . . it’s been a rough couple of days.”
“Just get rid of that virus,” said Omar, “and all is forgotten.”
“I can try to delete this root file,” said Marisa, “but what are the odds that’ll actually work?”
“Almost zero,” said Anja. “Most of these things are designed to rebuild themselves when you attack them. But let’s try it anyway—maybe we get lucky.”
“Bombs away,” said Marisa, and deleted all three files. Tap, tap, tap, gone.
They waited, watching the file manager.
What happened? asked Sahara.
Marisa stared at the screen. “Nothing yet.”
And then the first file popped up again.
“Scheiss,” said Anja.
“Your antivirals should be catching this,” said Marisa, watching in confusion as all three files reappeared in the system. “Why isn’t it working? Have you run a scan?”
“As soon as you pointed out the files this morning,” said Anja, and tapped her forehead. “This frigging thing doesn’t even recognize them as malware.”
“Then let’s teach it,” said Marisa. “You use Yosae Cybersecurity, right?”
“All intelligent people do.”
“What’s Yosae?” asked Omar.
Anja gave him a patronizing pat on the head. “Don’t worry, baby, I’m only interested in your body anyway.”
“Yosae is a third-party antivirus system,” said Marisa, her fingers flying across the screen of the tablet. “Just like McCarthy or Putin or whatever you use.”
“Pushkin,” said Omar. “It’s the best you can buy.” He frowned. “Isn’t it?”
Omar uses Pushkin? wrote Sahara. Trying so hard not to laugh in class.
“Pushkin is okay for most things,” said Marisa, nodding kindly. “The average user is going to be fine with it, if you keep it updated and . . . pay through the nose for upgrades. Yosae’s just a little more high-level.”
“A ton more high-level,” said Anja. “You get better virus definitions, faster response time, a wider sweep, better control over your databases, full cortex customization—”
“It’s all awesome stuff that you’re probably not going to need,” said Marisa. She shrugged, feeling guilty for saying the next part out loud. “Or know how to use. It’s expert stuff; you have to be a coder to even understand most of it, let alone need it.”
“So you’re going to send Yosae a virus report?” asked Anja. “I know one of the guys in R&D, if you need an ID to send it to.”
“Better than that,” said Marisa with a grin, “I’m just going to update their definitions myself.”
What? wrote Sahara.
“There’s no way you hacked into Yosae,” said Anja, smacking Marisa lightly in the shoulder. She bent forward, twisting around to get a better look at the tablet screen, stepping on Omar’s toe in the process.
“Ow! Triste flaca—”
“Not Yosae itself,” said Marisa, “just your local definition file. One of the benefits of user-driven security software. They update so quick we’ve never had to do it before, but you totally can.” She typed in a few more commands and hit Enter. “Boom. I’m in.” She smiled triumphantly, dropping in the Bluescreen virus code and setting up the admin flags. “Now, just run a scan, and it will recognize these files as dangerous and scrub them out of your brain, with what I respectfully call ‘extreme digital prejudice.’”
“Awesome,” said Anja. She blinked, and her eyes refocused on her djinni interface. Marisa watched on her tablet as Anja’s Yosae Cybersecurity program began running a scan, searching each file and folder.
“And this will kill it, right?” asked Omar.
“That’s what ‘extreme digital prejudice’ means,” said Marisa.
Hey Mari! A message popped up in Marisa’s vision, from Pati this time. I’m home from school, where are you? Want to play Overworld? Marisa deleted the message without responding; she’d get back to Pati later.
The antivirus program raced through the files, one by one by one, faster than Marisa could follow.
And then it finished. The Bluescreen files hadn’t even been touched.
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Anja.
What happened? wrote Sahara.
“Yosae didn’t find the files,” said Marisa, frowning at her tablet. She checked the virus definitions again: the Bluescreen files were right there in the database, flagged as dangerous, ready to be destroyed as soon as the scanner found anything that resembled them. And yet it hadn’t touched them. “Why didn’t it find them? They’re right there.”
Maybe they’re undetectable? wrote Sahara.
“There’s no way they’re detectable to a file manager but hidden from Yosae Cybersecurity,” said Marisa. “There has to be something we missed.”
“We’re just asking one program to delete another,” said Anja, “there’s nothing to miss. The only reason it’s not working is . . . the file system is literally not functioning like a normal file system is supposed to.”
Omar grunted and punched the side of the autocab, hard enough that Marisa could feel it rocking from the impact.
Is he just super pissed off today? wrote Sahara.
Anja did almost die, Marisa wrote back.
I’m starting to like him for more than just his car, wrote Sahara.
“Hang on,” said Anja, and her eyes unfocused again, wobbling back and forth in her head as she started moving files through her djinni interface. “If the file system doesn’t look like it’s working, maybe it’s really not working. Maybe the virus rewrites the file system to make itself partially invisible—that could be what that other piece was for, the one you couldn’t find a purpose for.”
“Maybe,” said Marisa, watching the tablet helplessly, “I just—”
We need to talk. The message appeared in Marisa’s vision abruptly, not part of any other
conversation, and without any ID tag. Marisa started in surprise, and couldn’t help but glance out at the street. Rich kids were lounging on the high school lawn; others walked aimlessly in conversation. No one seemed to be paying them any attention.
“Did any of you get that message?” she asked.
Another message appeared. I saw your post on Lemnisca.te. I have information you’ve been looking for.
What message? wrote Sahara.
Anja shook her head. “What message?”
The words floated in Marisa’s vision like lost spirits. My name is Grendel. Meet me in NeverMind.
EIGHT
“Marisa, you look sick,” said Anja. “Did something happen?”
“I just got a message from someone named Grendel,” said Marisa. “Do any of you know who that is?”
“Some old monster,” said Omar. “Like a viking legend or something.”
Never heard of it, wrote Sahara. Where’d you meet him?
“I didn’t meet him anywhere,” said Marisa, probing the message in her djinni. “Looks like he hid his ID—santa vaca, he even hid the route his message took to get here. It’s like it just . . . appeared, out of nowhere.”
“That’s some high-level hacking,” said Anja. “What’d he say?”
“He says he has information about the Bluescreen code,” said Marisa. “He saw my post on Lemnisca.te.”
He’s from the darknet?!?!?! wrote Sahara.
“Double scheiss,” said Anja, “with a cherry on top.”
Marisa’s djinni display lit up, showing a voice call from Sahara. Marisa blinked on it, patching her into the autocab speakers, and Sahara practically screamed in their ears.
“Don’t talk to him, Mari; this is scary.”
“Some shadow from a hacker forum on the darknet just messaged you directly,” said Anja, her voice more serious than Marisa had ever heard it. “Without permission, without access, without even you telling him who you were. Scrub your ID and run.”
“Don’t you think that’s an overreaction?” asked Marisa. “We don’t even know what’s going on yet.”
“What’s Lemnisca.te?” asked Omar.
“It’s like a central hub for cyber criminals,” said Anja. “They all have their own little hidey-holes, but when they want to talk to each other they go to a darknet message board called Lemnisca.te. Marisa and I use it sometimes for stuff like this, just information gathering, but we’ve never messed with anything big enough to attract real attention. You steal one gold piece from the dragon’s lair, the dragon doesn’t wake up; when the dragon talks to you directly, though, you drop what you’re holding and run.”
“It’s not gold we’re carrying,” said Marisa, “it’s a monster. And it’s in your head. If he can help get rid of it, I think we’ve got to talk to him.”
“Don’t even think about it,” said Sahara. “This is not a game, Mari.”
“I know that,” said Marisa, trying to sound braver than she was and accidentally sounding angry instead. “What else are we supposed to do? Best case scenario, following your suggestion: I scrub my ID and hide from this guy and we never hear from him again, but Anja’s still got this crap in her head. We lose everything and we have nothing to show for it.” She tried to say more, but she was shaking and lost her voice.
“It sounds dangerous,” said Omar.
“Of course it’s dangerous,” said Marisa, swallowing nervously. She clenched her hands into fists, drawing strength from the pain of her fingernails in her palms. “That’s why we have to do it. You don’t get experience points sitting on your butt, right? You gotta go out and kill monsters.” She sucked in a breath and glanced at Anja. “Play crazy, right?”
A slow grin spread across Anja’s face. “Play crazy.”
“You’re insane,” said Omar.
“That’s what she just said,” said Sahara, and Marisa felt a surge of confidence at the sudden power in her voice. It was time to get to work, and Sahara was all business. “If we’re going to do this, we do it right,” said Sahara. “How does he want to meet?”
“NeverMind,” said Marisa, and shivered involuntarily. She’d never used NeverMind before, and it terrified her.
“Spooky,” said Sahara, “but probably the safest. Anja, do you have a tablet?”
“Just Marisa’s MoGan,” said Anja, shaking her head to disconnect it, “but it’s been plugged into my djinni, and we don’t want to use it till we’ve had a chance to scrub it.”
“I’ve got a MoGan,” said Omar, pulling one of the six-inch miniscreens from his pants pocket. “I don’t know if it’s got the software you need; I really just use it for the speaker.”
“This is why we have rich friends,” said Sahara. “Marisa, plug it in and let Anja monitor your firewall. I assume you’re using Yosae?”
Marisa clipped her adaptor cord into the port at the base of her skull. “Of course.”
“Good,” said Sahara. “Anja’s an expert in it.”
“Alles klar,” said Anja, clipping Omar’s minitablet to the other end of the cord.
“Watch her like a hawk,” said Sahara. “If this blowhole tries to upload anything, you kill the connection immediately, okay? No waiting, no trying to contain it.”
“You can’t upload over NeverMind,” said Marisa, “that’s what makes it so safe.”
“What’s NeverMind?” asked Omar.
“It’s a direct VR connection,” said Marisa. “Brain to brain. Normal VR invites the user into a shared space and controls your djinni’s sensory feeds, telling your eyes what to see and your ears what to hear, and so on. Really paranoid hackers—like Grendel, apparently—don’t trust that method, because that gives a third party access to your djinni. NeverMind bypasses that by skipping the VR and going straight into the feeds. The only thing giving it commands are the two brains connected to it.”
“Whoa,” said Omar, looking deeply suspicious. “You’re going to . . . That’s like stepping inside another person’s mind.”
Marisa shivered again, and grimaced. “Yeah.”
“That’s a VR program built out of some creep’s subconscious,” said Omar. “Some creep who named himself after a half-human viking cannibal.” He shook his head. “You’re not going to do this.”
“It’s freaky as hell,” said Anja, “but it’s safe. There’s no bad code in there, because there’s no code at all—there’s nothing but what you take with you. He can’t upload anything into Marisa’s djinni, just like she can’t upload anything into his. We can’t even monitor their conversation. I’ve done it before, and it’s fine—it’s the only way some of these weirdos can trust each other enough to communicate.”
“Anja’s going to watch the incoming data,” said Sahara, “just in case this guy’s found a loophole. And I’ve already got Marisa’s ID copied, so I can start tracing the signal back toward him, just to keep him occupied. If he’s busy trying to jam my trace, he won’t be able to mess with Mari.”
“I thought you were in class,” said Marisa.
“And abandon my best friend?” asked Sahara. “I stepped out—I’m hiding in a custodial closet.”
“I can’t wait to watch the replays of that,” said Anja.
“This is starting to freak me out,” said Marisa. She felt small and vulnerable. “What if he’s . . . got some sort of control over NeverMind? What if this is a trap?”
“It’s three-on-one,” said Sahara. “We’ve got you.”
“Four,” said Omar. “What can I do?”
“Hold her,” said Anja. Marisa and Omar both looked at her in shock, and Anja laughed. “What? She’s about to go into VR—her real body will be completely limp.”
Marisa looked at Omar, their knees practically touching in the small cab, and rolled her eyes. “Oh, please no.”
Omar sighed. “What am I going to do? I’m not the bad guy here.” He stood up, awkwardly, and moved across to Marisa’s bench. She moved her SuperYu arm self-consciously, as if it were too gross f
or him to touch. Omar tried to maneuver his arms around her, eventually just leaving them in the air like he didn’t know what to do with them. “Maybe lean on the door?”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” said Sahara, “just put your arm around her. Mari, lean on his chest. Omar, hold her upright, and know that if you do anything you shouldn’t, I’ll publish video of it to the entire city.”
“I’m not going to do anything,” Omar growled. “What do you think I am?”
“I think you’re sexy,” said Anja with a wicked grin. “Marisa, don’t get any ideas.”
“I’m going to be unconscious,” said Marisa dryly. She paused for a moment, then settled into the crook of Omar’s arm, propped up by him and the door. He smelled wonderful, and she rolled her eyes at herself. She took a breath. “We can do this.”
“Yes we can,” said Sahara. “Everybody ready?”
“Check,” said Marisa.
“Check,” said Anja.
“Let’s do it,” said Omar.
Sahara’s voice was firm. “Go.”
Marisa read the message again: My name is Grendel. Meet me in NeverMind. The last word was hyperlinked, and when she opened it she found a NeverMind portal, with the simple tag xNeeLO. She’d seen such portals a dozen times, and never dared to follow them—too often they were tricks, used to force people to experience something horrible: porn or snuff or worse. Once she was in, how did she get back out again? Would it be obvious? Would she be trapped?
She was doing this for her friend, and her friends were watching out for her.
She opened the portal, and the world disappeared.
Darkness.
Marisa panicked, feeling her body come into existence only as she thought about it: she reached with her arms, and suddenly her arms were there, and as she grasped with her fingers they appeared as well, curling out from her hands in a desperate need for—something. Anything. There was nothing anywhere. She looked down, seeing her chest, waist, hips, legs, feet, unfurling like smoke, wearing the same clothes she’d put on that morning. She felt her face, and it was solid; her hair moved around her shoulders like it always did. Almost. Everything felt familiar and distant at once, like a memory.
