Breaking and Entering

by Jeremy N. Smith

Alien and her peers were listening so attentively to Story Jack that they didn’t notice that not all the other Jacks were still behind them until the other Utility Jack, a gravel-voiced brunette, interrupted him. “Enough with the history lesson,” she said. Alien looked up. This woman and Head Jack had not only touched the Little Dome—they had ascended it. The brunette was at a lower level; Head Jack was at the very top. “Care to get some fresh air?” she said. “Anyone?”

  Alien hesitated only a moment, but Cal had stepped forward before her. He pulled himself up to the landing next to the brunette. Alien followed immediately. Only after she was beside Cal, panting, did she see Tail Jack bring out a hidden ladder.

  “Could have told you, guys,” she said.

  Alien didn’t care. Being one of the first freshmen on the landing was exhilarating. And the curved part of the dome, she was surprised to see, had metal rungs. Between gripping these and a little determined leg shimmying, she made it to the top even before Cal.

  Looking out over Massachusetts Avenue, then across the Charles River, and then out to the bright lights of the nighttime Boston skyline and beyond, Alien felt the thrill of possession. A few hours ago, all these sights, like the dome itself, had been landmarks, beautiful but inaccessible. Now, with this climb, she had made them hers.

  The tour ended at four a.m. back in the East Campus courtyard, where the Jacks told more hacking stories and served punch and doughnuts. Afterward, Cal walked Alien back to her room. He couldn’t stop talking about how cool it had all been. She agreed—and seven days later, when it was time to choose permanent housing, they both moved into Fifth East.

  Alien carried her blanket, bedding, and backpack up five flights in one trip, and her suitcase and a tub of school supplies up in another. As she’d seen the night of the midnight tour, East Campus comprised two five-story buildings. Yet each of the ten halls—First East, First West, Second East, Second West, Third East, Third West, and so on—was its own independent forty-person living group with a separate, fully furnished kitchen, common area lounges, rules, and culture. Fifth East might have no more in common with Fourth East, just a floor below it, than it did with Baker House, located on the opposite side of campus.

  In her immediate vicinity, the groups Alien had heard the most about during Rush were Second West, Third East, Fourth West, and Fifth East.

  Second West was hands-on engineers: they built their own computers, their own stereos, and quite possibly their own desks and chairs. Third East was the home of the Tetazoo hackers, renowned for their homegrown chemistry talents, specifically with explosives. “Happy, clean-cut pyros,” an upperclassman had summarized to Alien. Fourth West was said to host legendary parties with rare and unusual drugs, like opium and 2C-B, under the indulging smile of a Cheshire cat mural. And Fifth East, of course, was where the black-clad, door-busting, dome-topping roof and tunnel hackers congregated.

  Black-clad, door-busting, dome-topping—and sticky. Everything Alien touched as she settled in—bed, desk, walls, and floor—clung to her. Obviously, the Fifth East crew’s considerable powers of organization exhibited on the hacking tour did not extend to cleaning. Under her radiator was a blood-like red stain; on the ceiling above her bed was a hardened wasp’s-nest-like cluster. Cal, brave soul, tested each substance by swabbing it with his pinky and bringing the finger to his tongue.

  “Kool-Aid,” he diagnosed. “And shaving cream.”

  At midnight they walked together from her room to the lounge at the other end of the hall, traversing crumbling, paint-splattered carpeting that crunched lightly with cigarette butts, broken pens and pencils, used staples, and other discarded items underfoot.

  Art partially excused the squalor. Fifth East was divided into three wings: Walcott, where her new room was, with one lounge; Goodale, on the opposite end, where Cal’s room was, with the other lounge and kitchen; and Bemis in the middle.

  Up and down Walcott and Goodale were beautiful murals of a forest, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Grateful Dead dancing bears, and other designs. Even some of the ceiling tiles had been colored, making bright overhead mosaics, while black lights in the Walcott lounge, Alien saw, made a mural of a fire-breathing dragon glow.

  Bemis, the central wing, by contrast, was painted wall-to-wall black, with dimming red gels over its ceiling lights to complete the Stygian atmosphere for the hardest of the hardcore. Here, most particularly, the hall smelled of smoke, rotting potatoes, and failed experiments with uric acid.

  A French flag hung across the door of the last room before Bemis turned into Goodale. Behind the door, Alien heard shouting at the loudest volume. “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!” a suite of strident male voices repeated.

  Cal turned to Alien, eyebrows raised. She shrugged, smiling, took his hand and squeezed it.

  In the Goodale lounge they found several familiar faces—Radio Jack, who introduced himself as Zhu; Tail Jack, Vanessa; Story Jack, Sam; Utility Jack, Rochelle—among a half-dozen students. Those who wanted to smoked freely. And Rochelle strolled around wearing only her underwear, which Alien noticed attracted Cal’s attention. It wasn’t only buildings, she realized, that hackers wanted to explore.

  Head Jack himself lumbered out of the kitchen, carrying popsicles for everyone. He and Vanessa kissed.

  “This is Rex, our fearless leader,” Sam told Cal and Alien.

  The lounge walls were painted red and black, one red side emblazoned with a scowling, geometric black-stenciled skull several feet high. The skull was Krotus, Sam said, the God of Fifth East.

  “God?” questioned Cal.

  “Well . . . malevolent deity,” said Sam. He winked at Alien before grabbing and unwrapping a popsicle. “What comes up, Krotus brings down.”

  A little after two a.m., Alien got up to stretch her legs. Loud epithets continued in the French flag room. Now, though, the door was open. Peeking inside, she realized that the “shouting” was in fact a recording playing from tall quadrophonic speakers. A shirtless, strikingly fit older student, dressed in black combat pants with lots of pockets, stood at the rear of the bedroom, his back to Alien. He had long, smooth honey-colored hair, rippling arm and back muscles, and bare feet.

  Common to all rooms on Fifth East were a bookshelf, a desk, a sink, a radiator, and a twin extra-long mattress and bed frame. To this furniture Shirtless had added a futon couch and dresser. Everything—even the radiator and ceiling—was painted the same black as the Bemis hallway. He had black blankets and black sheets, too—and piles of black clothes brightened only by white briefs. Alien watched, intrigued, as the guy cracked his window and climbed outside.

  Where was he going? Alien paused only a moment before walking to the window herself and sticking her head out to see.

  It was quiet—calm even—in the night air. Shirtless was sitting six or seven feet to the left of the window, on the ledge facing the East Campus courtyard. With him was another guy Alien couldn’t see from her current position. Both male voices were resonant, however, discussing something to do with “the Pru”—Boston’s fifty-two-story skyscraper, the Prudential Tower.

  Alien crawled out to join them, the pressure of her heartbeat increasing as the clamorous “music” behind her diminished. Shuffling through the steam tunnels or climbing the Little Dome, she’d had guides near, and other students to support her. Mess up and, at worst, she burned herself or fucked up her ankle. Slip here, she realized, and she’d drop straight down five stories to pavement. And the ledge couldn’t be wider than twenty inches.

  As soon as she could, Alien crouched on the cool concrete. From this vantage, the courtyard’s red metal picnic tables looked like tiny Legos. The surrounding shrubs and bushes seemed hardly wider—or more cushioning—than a sprig of parsley. Alien clenched her jaw and focused on a lit window across the courtyard. When she next inhaled and exhaled, the breaths came a bit easier.

  Little by little, she inched left.

  “Hi,” Alien said when she was just a foot and a half fr
om Shirtless.

  His bicep twitched. He didn’t turn.

  “Nice night,” Alien said, trying to be friendly.

  Again, Shirtless ignored her. Alien scooted closer, legs dangling almost comfortably. The other guy on the ledge also had long hair, she saw now, chestnut brown and parted down the middle like in a portrait of Jesus. He wore an American flag as a skirt.

  “So what’s the power output?” Shirtless asked Jesus.

  “Two hundred milliwatts,” Jesus said.

  “Wavelength?”

  “Six hundred and fifty nanometers.”

  “Range?”

  “Ten miles.”

  “Bullshit,” Shirtless said. “Show me the scope.”

  Alien watched as Jesus lifted something that had been hidden at his side. It looked like a rifle. He passed it to Shirtless, who peered through a tiny top hole before turning and aiming the fifteen-inch-long barrel just above Alien’s head.

  He handed the rifle back to Jesus. “Hit it,” he said.

  Jesus shifted his body south, facing Boston. It was an exceptionally clear evening. All the way across the river, colored lights blinked brightly atop the Prudential Tower. Jesus slowly raised his rifle, pointed it at the postcard-perfect scene, and pulled the trigger.

  Immediately, Alien saw, the skyscraper’s central penthouse was illuminated by a faint but enormous green laser dot.

  Shirtless stood, stepped over Alien, walked back to his window as if the ledge were a normal sidewalk, and ducked inside. Alone with Alien, Jesus had a sullen, taciturn demeanor, but he answered direct questions when asked. His name was Heston, he said. Shirtless was François—hence the French flag. Both were sophomores. Yes, he had built the rifle-mounted laser himself. And he had helped run the radios during the freshman hacking orientation tour, monitoring both Jack and police channels, so the hackers were always a step ahead.

  Alien suddenly remembered the initial feeling that night of being watched while she waited in the courtyard. Maybe Heston had been sitting on this very ledge a week ago, seen her, and sent Zhu and Vanessa out to get her, she thought. Before she could ask, however, François returned, carrying a gallon jug of dark liquid. He chugged for several seconds and then passed the drink to Heston.

  “I thought we’re not supposed to drink and hack,” Alien said.

  Both guys laughed at her. “It’s apple cider,” François said. “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t have sex, and I don’t compromise. Ever.”

  Alien laughed back, happy at least that the older students hadn’t told her to get lost. “Can I have a sip?” she said.

  François didn’t answer but passed her the jug after Heston had his fill. Alien drank. It did taste like cider. Lights turned off across the courtyard as other students went to bed.

  Alien didn’t tell Cal about meeting François and Heston. She also didn’t ask what had happened with Rochelle after she had left the lounge. When she and Cal were alone together, they were devoted to each other—that’s what mattered. That’s why the next night, they decided that it was time for them both to lose their virginity.

  Cal had a double room to himself. Alien did too, which had seemed strange, given that they were freshmen, until they realized other prospective residents had probably visited the hall before signing up to live here and decided that the sticky walls, loud music, sketchy people, and general hacker scene was incompatible with graduating. They had chosen easily the most squalid housing at MIT. But almost certainly also the most liberated. The only way to be seen as a freak on Fifth East was to get up before noon.

  Together, that evening, they visited the CVS in Kendall Square. Alien bought the condoms. Cal contributed a bag of miniature Hershey’s bars and a candle. Back at the hall, they split the chocolate with others in the Goodale lounge, leaving ten minutes apart just before and after one a.m. When Alien snuck into Cal’s room, he had already lit the candle and placed it on the nightstand next to the bunk bed.

  They took off their clothes and sat on the top bunk together. He had cute red armpit hair. After a little kissing, it was time. Cal put on the condom and it was over so quickly Alien wasn’t sure that it had even happened. But it was sweet, and they were both happy.

  “Oh, that was wonderful!” Alien said, and they snuggled up together.

  02 / /

  The Coffeehouse Club

  Classes started the next morning. These were essentially the same for every freshman: physics, chemistry, calculus, and something in the humanities. Spring semester would be identical, only more advanced, and with biology in place of chemistry. Then you had to choose your major.

  Majors at MIT were called “courses,” as in “course of study.” Like the buildings on campus, they were identified not by name but by number. Computer science was Course 6, for example. Economics was Course 14. Nuclear engineering was Course 22. In the past, various majors had been designated Course 19, but it no longer had any official use. As an inside joke, those in the know appropriated the name to refer to hacking. And in this unofficial Course 19, almost all “instruction” took place between midnight and dawn.

  “Follow us,” Sam said. He, Zhu, Rex, Vanessa, and Rochelle wore dark tees and black combat pants and carried a slim Maglite flashlight, lock-picking tools, and a Leatherman Wave. Walking casually down the Infinite Corridor among other students there after hours, they darted off in twos and threes and wove their way up and down staircases and across corridors, trailed by Alien and Cal. Fifteen minutes later, everyone had regathered in the basement machine room with the hacking group murals.

  “Are you ready for your first sign-in?” Rex asked the freshmen.

  They nodded solemnly. Alien fingered a Sharpie she’d put in her pocket for this very purpose.

  Rochelle and Zhu kept watch while the other upperclassmen led them around the corner. Sidling through an almost invisible opening, they entered the narrow tomb with the hacking ethics mural. The walls around the mural were covered with sign-ins dating back decades. Alien studied the names and symbols, feeling part of something bigger than herself.

  Hackers and MIT administrators coexisted in an uneasy relationship, she knew. Though tombs like this one weren’t exactly discreet, the Institute still allowed them—and their sign-ins—to remain. There seemed to be a kind of gentlemen’s agreement: Hackers didn’t get hurt or hurt others. They didn’t get caught. And, except for intentionally public displays, they didn’t leave any evidence behind to show non-hackers where they had been. As long as these rules were obeyed, the higher-ups let the hackers be.

  Cal left his sign-in first: an L nested inside an A nested inside a C to form a nautilus. Alien admired the geometry but had chosen something looser and more free-spirited for herself, drawing a cute circle face topped by two bent antennae.

  Underneath it she wrote “Alien” and the date.

  “Congratulations,” Sam told her and Cal.

  “Welcome to the dysfunctional family,” said Vanessa.

  Rex grunted. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s see how far you can go.”

  They returned to the main room. Alien didn’t see Rochelle and Zhu, though she heard the echoes of whispered snickers.

  Where were they? she wondered, searching left and right before thinking to look up.

  Above them, filling three quarters of the high-ceilinged room, hung a tangle of thin red-painted water pipes and wide white-painted metal air ducts. Zhu and Rochelle stood on the duct directly over her. They waved at Alien. But how had they gotten there?

  The answer came a moment later. One at a time, Rex, Vanessa, and Sam grabbed the hanging metal venting and pulled themselves up after the other veterans. In seconds, they and Zhu and Rochelle had proceeded quickly farther upward, treating the surrounding ducts like sidewalks and staircases, until they were fifteen feet above the beginners. So that’s how you do a sign-in on the ceiling, Alien realized.

  “Is that load-bearing?” Cal asked skeptically of the ductwork, at least one shaft of whic
h wobbled noticeably when Rex stepped near it.

  “The edges are safe,” Sam said. “But avoid the middle.”

  “Tell them about the pipes,” Zhu said.

  Sam’s face reddened. “They can hold you fine,” he said, “but if they’re too hot they can also melt your shoes.”

  “Wisdom of experience,” Zhu whispered, winking.

  Cal pulled himself up before Alien. He offered her a hand from the top.

  “She your date?” said Rochelle.

  The others chuckled.

  Alien glared at Rochelle; she waved Cal off. He was taller and stronger than she was, definitely, but she weighed much less. After two failed leaps, she finally got a grip with which she could wriggle up. Inelegant, maybe, but effective, she thought proudly.

  The ducts led them to a ceiling passage crowded with more sign-ins. Long ago someone had even left behind what was now a yellowed, curling copy of Scientific American. Tonight, though, the bulkhead-style door separating this area from an outside hall was locked in such a way even the older students couldn’t open it.

  Rex made a circling motion with his index finger. They turned around, Alien briefly in the lead.

  At Sam’s instruction, she jumped down in a different part of the room. Her ankles stung, but Alien walked it off. The others joined her, and soon, traveling up stairs and from hall to hall again, they had reached the other side of the blocked ceiling passage from the mural room. It had a padlock on this side, which explained their difficulty opening it.

  “Now that’s just cheating,” Rex said. He stepped forward, taking a thin L-shaped turning tool and pick from a hollowed-out pen. Rex inserted the turning tool in the bottom of the keyhole, knelt for leverage, turned the lock’s cylindrical casing, and then played the pick like a tiny violin bow back and forth inside the cylinder. Alien watched, impressed. In seconds, the lock popped open with a satisfying click.