“Scare tactics won’t work,” Bradley said. “Bill knows what he’s doing.”
“He’s been so busy trying to get everything back online that he hasn’t had a chance to look,” Haley said. Her voice was strained, and Bradley could practically hear her grinding her teeth.
“Just, just tell him to double-check the logs where I accessed the systems. If I’m right, you’ll see I’m not the only one in there.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bonnie drummed her blue fingers against the coffee shop’s holo-table. Each time her fingers struck the glimmering blue-gray surface, ripples of pixels jumped away from her skin. She shifted in her chair, still trying to get comfortable in the eight-foot-tall body. It wouldn’t have been too bad, but every time she moved, her tail seemed to get twisted beneath her.
The shop was filled with more aliens than usual, but Bonnie chalked that up to the fact that it was nearly two in the morning in DC.
The shop itself was about the size of a large hotel lobby. Bonnie sat on a slightly raised portion where patrons hunched over steaming cups. She glanced down at her own. A pair of cats trying to sit in boxes too small for them played across the surface of the liquid.
In the middle of the coffee shop stood a variety of casino tables. She saw blackjack, roulette, and poker. There was also a sportsbook along the far wall, though all the bets were for games like Virtual Assassin 4, and Fightfest 3k.
She watched as a pair of green-skinned aliens with long tails that sprouted from their heads and wrapped around their necks snuggled in a corner booth in her section, and she felt a pang of jealousy that she was still stuck in a musty barn by herself.
Well, not entirely by herself.
“How do you know that she got your message?” Stryker said from his spot on the other side of the cafe.
“We’ve been doing this long enough to know how to set a decent trap,” Rogue said.
Then she switched to a private chat so only Bonnie could hear.
“We can do this ourselves.”
“I agree,” Morpheus said.
“Who invited you?” Stryker said.
“I did, and I know we could,” Bonnie replied. “But I’m not going to complain about an extra set of hands.”
“Even if those hands slow us down?”
“He’s a smart kid,” Bonnie said.
“I was talking about Morpheus.”
“Oh, how I’ve missed your friendly disposition,” Morpheus said.
“If you two can’t get along, I’m going to kick you both,” Bonnie said. “But don’t break into a private chat again.”
“Yes, Mommy,” Morpheus said, sounding amused.
They switched back to the main chat in time to hear Stryker finish saying something.
“Come again?” Bonnie said.
“I asked what exactly you want me to do.”
“I’m not sure yet,” Bonnie admitted. “It’ll depend on how she shows up. Just make sure all your scripts are loaded and ready to go.”
“Roger that.”
They continued to wait, and Bonnie felt her eyes starting to get heavy. The silver opera mask she wore began to chafe, and she felt a bit slow every time she put it on, like she was just waking up from the middle of a REM cycle. The crowd started to thin around 4 a.m., but there were still enough that she wasn’t ready to give up yet.
Twenty minutes after 4 a.m., the revolving door spun and a girl only a few years older than Jacob walked through. Her brunette hair was pulled into pigtails, and she wore a red dress with white polka dots.
On her chest was a blue and white sticker that said: “Hello, my name is Lucy.”
“I think we have her,” Bonnie said.
She could practically feel the other three focus on the girl.
“Any luck on an IP?” Bonnie said.
“If I try while she’s in the open it’ll just draw the Admins,” Morpheus said.
“I’ve got this,” Stryker said.
“Wait,” Bonnie said, but it was already too late.
Stryker pulled out a sidearm and fired a single bullet at the girl. The bullet caught her in the chest but just bounced off like she was Superman.
The girl cocked her head, taking in the room before zeroing in on Stryker.
“Stryker, log out now,” Bonnie snapped.
“One second,” he said. “Trace is almost—”
The girl held up a hand and lightning cracked across the room and struck his green chest plate.
He exploded in a cloud of binary.
Bonnie swore under her breath.
“Please tell me he was proxied,” Rogue said.
“I set it up for him,” Bonnie said. “He should be OK.”
“Not exactly a great way to start,” Morpheus said. “Should we abort?”
The girl looked around the room, looking like she was trying to find someone.
“She’s not spooked yet,” Bonnie said. “If we leave now, it’ll just look suspicious. With any luck, she’ll assume he was a random script kiddie.”
“Which he is,” Morpheus said.
“Can it.”
The girl finally seemed to spot who she was looking for and started walking toward Bonnie’s table.
“Everyone ready?”
Rogue and Morpheus gave her a thumbs up.
Rather than pull the chair across from Bonnie out from the table, she vaulted over the back and landed with perfect posture. She looked Bonnie up and down for several seconds, then waved her hand, and a pink fizzy drink appeared next to her.
“Frech3tte?”
Bonnie nodded.
“Thanks for knocking that dweeb out of here,” Bonnie said when the girl didn’t say anything else. “He’s been scanning everyone that’s come in. It was getting obnoxious.”
Still, the girl didn’t say anything.
“Morpheus, is she doing anything I can’t see?” Bonnie said into the private chat.
“If she is, I don’t see it either.”
“You said you wanted a job,” Lucy said, pulling Bonnie’s attention back to her. “But how did you find me?”
Bonnie tried to shrug but felt it was over-exaggerated with her tall body and thin shoulders.
Morpheus strolled past casually, letting one hand slide across the back of Lucy’s chair. Bonnie was careful not to look up as he did.
“I’ve seen your work in action,” she said instead. “You’re not the only one with feelers in the DC Metro Police network.”
Lucy’s eyes narrowed.
“I’m pretty sure the only other one in there is a hacker named B0nn13.”
Bonnie tried to shrug again.
“Not every hack is technical.”
Lucy sat back, her eyes still little more than slits.
“You have a source inside the department?”
“Possibly,” Bonnie said. “Are you interested yet?”
“I could be,” Lucy said slowly. “Who is it?”
“If you’re asking, you’re not as good as I thought you were.”
“I just wanted to see if you’d give it up,” she replied. “What do you want?”
“Like I said, looking for a job.”
“Post your resume on CareerLink.”
“I’m not looking for a cubicle,” Bonnie said. “I’m looking for something a bit more high risk, high reward.”
“Why do you want to work with me?”
“It takes balls to hack a cop. That’s the kind of person I want to work for.”
Lucy rolled her eyes.
“Why does everyone associate boldness with balls?”
“I just meant I was impressed,” Bonnie said quickly.
“Yeah, yeah,” Lucy said. She took another sip of her drink, draining the pink liquid in one giant gulp before setting the glass back on the table with a thud.
“You seem eager enough,” she said. “And the fact that you found me is impressive. But I’m not looking for a student.”
“I’m not that ki
d you blasted earlier,” Bonnie said. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Maybe you do,” Lucy admitted. “But I’ve never heard of you. Which means you may be good, but you’re not good enough to be on my radar. And I don’t have time to get you there. Thanks for the drink.”
“If you change your mind, here’s my card.”
Bonnie slid a business card across the table. Lucy stared at it for several seconds.
“I didn’t put anything on it,” Bonnie said. Then she smiled. “Though if I did and you didn’t find it, maybe that would be enough to get on your radar.”
Lucy laughed and nodded begrudgingly. Then she picked up the card and twirled it in her fingers before it disappeared.
“I doubt it,” she said. “But we’ll see.”
With that, she froze, then dissolved like a big purple bully snapped his fingers.
“Debrief,” Bonnie said, tapping her own logout button.
She reappeared in a stone room with a long table running down the center. Torches were burning on the walls. Stars winked through a window on the opposite side of the wall, and she could hear the crashing of waves on rocks outside, though the smell of burning pitch overpowered the salty air.
Bonnie rolled her shoulders, savoring the familiarity of her own body.
Stryker was already sitting in one of the chairs at the table, his bulky armor clashing with the castle’s stone. Rogue and Morpheus appeared seconds later.
“What the hell was that?” Morpheus asked.
“I thought I could do it,” Stryker said.
“You nearly blew our cover,” Morpheus said.
“And I nearly got her IP.”
“Which would have done what?” Rogue asked. Her tone was less accusatory than Morpheus’s, but not by much.
“We could have tracked her down,” Stryker said.
“That’s not how it works,” Bonnie said before the other two could pounce. “Even if we got the IP address, the only thing we’d see is where she’s proxying from. Just like we were doing; she could be anywhere.”
Stryker threw his hands ups. “Then what was the point?”
“So much to learn, young padawan,” Rogue said.
“Did you get it?” Bonnie asked, looking at Morpheus.
He held up a report card. There was a large “C—” written across the top.
“You found a way in already?” Rogue asked.
“Unlike small fry over here, I know how to avoid shooting my load before I’m sure it’ll work.”
Stryker’s face grew red, though Bonnie wasn’t sure if it was from anger or embarrassment.
“What’d you get?” she asked before she found out.
“There were only a few users logged into that server during your chat,” Morpheus said. He reached into his vest and pulled out a thick stack of papers, which he dropped on the table.
“According to the logs I pulled, looks like our girl Lucy is actually running her operation from somewhere in Florida.”
“You can’t tell exactly where?” Stryker asked.
“Kid, this isn’t like on TV,” Morpheus said, clearly enjoying Stryker’s lack of knowledge. “You don’t just watch a line on a map and yell things like ‘Stay on the line ten more seconds.’”
“How big is the area?” Rogue asked.
Hector reached back into his vest, this time coming out with a map, which he spread out across the table. He glanced at the report card, then tapped a point on the map.
“The lookup says it’s in a ten-mile radius of this point.”
“That’s still a lot of real estate to be hiding in,” Bonnie said.
“This was pointless,” Stryker said, frustration boiling through.
“Give me the IP,” Rogue said.
Morpheus pulled a piece of paper from the stack of logs and handed it across the table.
“I’m going to make a few phone calls,” she said. “I’ll let you know what I find.”
She tapped one of the red buttons on the front of her flight suit and then disappeared.
“What’s she going to do?” Stryker said. “Start calling everyone in the neighborhood?”
Morpheus rolled his eyes.
“Where did you find this idiot?”
“He’s new,” Bonnie said. “Probably ahead of where we were when we started.”
Morpheus snorted.
“Still here . . .” Stryker said.
“I doubt she’s going door to door,” Bonnie said. “Where would you go if you needed information on a large group of people in one area?”
“Can we please skip the lesson?”
“Not like us at all,” Morpheus said.
Bonnie ignored him.
“How do you get online?” she asked.
“I plug in.”
“OK, and who provides the connection?”
“The cable company.”
Bonnie made raised her eyebrows dramatically and motioned for him to continue.
“She’s going to call the cable company?” Stryker frowned. “They won’t give her an address.”
“Don’t underestimate her,” Bonnie said. “Rogue can be quite persuasive.”
“Thanks for calling FiberNet, my name is Zack. I was able to pull up your account based on your phone number, so thank you for being a loyal customer, Ms. Halloway. How may I help you today?”
“Hello, Zack,” Dana said. “I’m the IT admin for a startup here in DC, and we’re seeing a lot of traffic coming from one of your customers.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Zack said.
Dana looked down at the notes from her four previous calls. Those representatives had been helpful enough to tell her their process and direct her to the abuse department, but she didn’t want to file a formal complaint.
“Well, this is a bit of a mess,” Dana said. “One of our systems got overwhelmed with traffic and went down. Now my dick of a boss is yelling at me, and I’m trying to find out what happened.”
“OK . . .”
“Look, man, I need this job,” she said, letting a bit of desperation into her voice. “My husband was in a car accident, and I’m barely keeping the kids and us together.”
“Ma’am, I’m really sorry, but I don’t know how I can help.”
“I don’t know if you can,” Dana said. “I know that you get yelled at all day, so I’m sorry if I’m being rude.”
“You’re not rude, I just don’t—”
“I’m just so sick of my boss yelling at me for something I didn’t do,” Dana continued. “He says that I screwed up the build, but I have the logs to show that someone was trying to take us down.”
“I’m sure he’d believe you if you showed him those,” Zack said.
“I did!” Dana practically wailed. “But the prick said that I was just making something up. He’s old school and said no one would want to take us down. Now if I don’t figure out who it actually was, I’m screwed.”
“Ma’am, I wish I could help, I really do,” Zack said. “But I’m just a customer service rep.”
“I know, I know,” Dana said. “I just have an IP address. I guess I was hoping you could tell me who it belonged to so I could try to find out what was going on. You probably don’t even have access to that. I’m sorry for wasting your time with such a stupid idea.”
In fact, the previous two agents had had access to the IP assignments, but she’d been using the excuse that there was an issue with her own connection, so she couldn’t ask about another customer.
She sniffed into the receiver again, trying to let Zack come to a decision on his own.
“You said you have an IP address?”
Dana smiled.
“Yeah,” she said, careful to keep her voice sniffly.
“What is it?”
She read the numbers to him slowly.
“Look, I can’t give you another customer’s information,” Zack said.
Dana smothered a curse.
“But there seems to be an error
in your account that may be causing the issue,” he continued. “Please check to make sure that your billing address is correct.”
Dana frowned but clicked through to the billing screen.
Instead of the dummy name and address that she’d used when she set up the account, there was a street address in Florida.
“Is that correct?” Zack asked.
“That’s perfect,” Dana said. “You’re a lifesaver.”
“Glad I could help,” Zack said. “If there’s nothing else, have a great day!”
“Thank you, Zack, I’m sure I will.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Durdan looked across the maze of trenches from their observation tower. Thousands of soldiers raced up and down the paths carrying packages, envelopes, or shepherding children or convicts between various bunkers.
“You’re sure this isn’t just a trick?” Lazorus said beside him. The bandages around his arms fluttered slightly on a breeze that Durdan didn’t feel.
“No,” Durdan admitted. “But I don’t see any harm in double-checking.”
“Either way, we’re not giving her access to the network,” Lazorus said flatly.
“Agreed. But I’d like to at least know if she’s right.”
Lazorus made a noncommittal grunt and peered down over the side.
“She hit the evidence database and inserted her kid into missing persons, right?”
“Yep,” Bradley said.
Lazorus waved a hand, and numerous sets of glowing footprints appeared in the mud below them.
“Let’s get this over with,” Lazorus said. Without any additional warning, he stepped off the platform and dropped to the trench below.
After two false starts, as he looked over the ledge, Durdan finally closed his eyes and followed.
He fell, gaining speed at first but slowing as he drew close to the ground and finally touched down, his boots squelching in the mud. Following Lazorus, they rounded a corner, and Durdan saw a set of glowing green footprints in the middle of the pathway. Soldiers guided children and adults with glassy eyes down a trench to a bunker at the end with “Missing Persons” written in red spray paint in front of it.
“What are we looking for?” Lazorus asked.
“She just said to double-check.”
Lazorus grunted and knelt down by the footprints. He stared down into the mud, then frowned.
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