Audio Assault

by Jeff Adams

  It was good to hear that. I felt like I’d really screwed up the mission side of it, though.

  “Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say. I hugged him back with an arm around his back.

  There would be a lot of questions about Eddie and the Cochranes. In particular there’d be a search for any signs that something was amiss. TOS would have to figure out how they escaped all the checks that were supposed to be in place.

  For me, it was a toss-up which discussion was going to be worse—talking with the agency or my friends. At least it was summertime so I wouldn’t have to go back to school for several weeks. There was still Mitch and Iris.

  Dad squeezed my shoulders again before he stepped back. I appreciated the support along with the fact that they were letting me decide what to talk about. I’m sure they knew from Shields that she and I had a long talk last night. She wouldn’t have gone into details but it was a safe bet they at least knew she thought my overall mental health was as okay as it could be.

  Comfortable silence hung in the air for a few moments while the breakfast tasks held our focus. This kitchen was smaller and laid out differently than ours, but we did a pretty good job of not running into each other.

  Quite a feast ended up on the table. The kitchen counters became the serving space so the table wouldn’t get overcrowded.

  “So, we’re pretty much done with what we came here to do,” Mom said as we sat down with our plates. “We’ve got more debriefing to do with Oliver and his family, but that will probably finish today.”

  “We thought we could stay another day or two for some time off.” Dad threw out the suggestion. “Oliver says we can stay as long as we want.”

  New York for a few days wouldn’t be a bad thing. I didn’t exactly have a need to rush home anymore. Having more time to figure out what the hell I’m telling people would be good too.

  “I’m game.”

  “Anything in particular you’d like to do?” Mom asked.

  “I have no idea. I didn’t consider we’d be here to do vacation things. I’d love to bike around the city more.”

  “Let’s all think about it,” Dad said between forkfuls of food.

  My phone vibrated with Lorenzo’s pattern. “I should get this.” I got up from the table and went to the living room.

  As soon as I connected, Lorenzo gave his ID.

  “How’re you feeling, Winger?” he said. “I know it was rough yesterday.”

  He was such a good boss—usually taking that moment to ask how I was, especially after difficult missions. He took care of his people.

  “Okay. Having breakfast with the family, so that’s nice. Any word on how the program Split Screen and I worked on is doing in the field? I haven’t had a chance to look at reports yet.”

  “It’s only been a few hours but thousands of files have been cleaned. It’s a great start.”

  “Have to say I enjoyed working with her. Her insights and skill in designing a fix were great. I’d love to do more with her.”

  “Good to hear. We were lucky to find her. She’s already told me she liked pairing up with you. Teaming you two for some brainstorming on new initiatives could be very good.”

  After all of this, it’d be great to focus on work like that—back to the old days when I’d first started with the agency.

  “That sounds great.”

  “Cool. We’ll talk more about that when you get back to Boston.” He paused, and I had a sense we were headed for topics neither of us wanted to talk about. “I wanted to bring you up-to-date about Eddie and his family. We still have no idea where they are. We’re running all kinds of facial recognition and other protocols to try to determine where they’ve gone. Not only did Eddie’s Facebook page disappear, but they’ve scrubbed everything else possible—DMV, personnel files from where his mom and dad worked, Eddie’s school records. Taking out things like school records raises more questions than I’d want if I were disappearing. I’m sure they did what they felt they needed to.”

  How long had they planned their exit? Eliminating that much data took some orchestration.

  If Eddie knew he was about to crush me when we were watching Stranger Things that night before I left, he’d hidden in perfectly. I shuddered a bit recalling hiding my face against him when I got scared. And later there’d been the bit of pillow fight and wrestling.

  I sighed far louder than I meant to.

  “Winger?”

  “Sorry.” I shook my head vigorously trying to clear it. “They had a solid story to begin with. TOS ran the checks when I first met him and everything was right.”

  “That’s the scary thing. They either fooled everyone and they were Blackbird agents right under our nose. Or, someone got to them and we missed it.” Lorenzo paused for a moment, but I had no idea what to say. “Hopefully we’ll find answers for you and us. There’s a team devoted to this. Once I have anything I can share I’ll let you know.”

  I ran my hand through my hair. Anything he can share. Made it sound like he might know something already. I wouldn’t force him to tell me that I didn’t have clearance. “If I can help let me know. And if I think of how to find them I’ll definitely pass it along.”

  “I appreciate that. It’s probably better if we don’t involve you too much if for no other reason than it won’t be easy for you.”

  “Understood.”

  “When are you headed back?” he asked, sounding more like his usual easygoing self. “It’ll be nice to get you back to our planned projects.”

  “We’re staying here for a couple of days. Decompress a bit. You know how I am, though. I don’t do idle particularly well so I suspect I’ll work at least a little.”

  “Winger, you’re allowed time off. We’ll schedule the overall debrief for next week and work on the lenses can pick up then too. You’ve given us so much data in the past few days that it’ll be some time before we know what software adjustments need to be made.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “I’ll let you get back to breakfast. I’ll update you if I get anything relevant. For now, though, consider yourself on vacation.”

  “Will do. Thanks, Doc.”

  “Take care, Winger. And if you need to talk, officially or unofficially, I’m here.” He disconnected, and I pocketed the phone.

  Returning to the table, I got questioning looks from the three of them.

  “Just general updates, nothing too interesting.”

  Except it was all interesting. A struggle with myself brewed. I hated unsolved issues and Eddie was a huge one. It’d be too easy to focus on finding him. TOS didn’t want me doing that. I knew it wasn’t a good idea for me to dwell on it. Relaxing in the city would either be good to distract me or the worst thing. I’d talk to Shields about it. I had to make sure I didn’t fall down that hole because nothing good would come from it.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I’D TAKEN a few hours to go out and explore Brooklyn, mostly just meandering around, but ultimately I rode along the coastline to Coney Island and the beach. I couldn’t ask for a better day for a long ride—clear sky, mild temperature, slight breeze. I focused on my surroundings and how it felt to ride, keeping away from the noise that could easily take over.

  Sofia was on the stoop as I arrived at the brownstone. Did she do this often? Maybe since this was where she grew up, she didn’t have to worry about people bothering her. I was sure security was close at hand if anything did happen. She looked up from a notebook as I brought my bike up on the sidewalk.

  “Hey.” She sounded thoughtful as she closed the book. This was the Sofia I enjoyed most, when she seemed like regular people.

  “What’s up?” I leaned my bike against the railing that ran between the two buildings’ staircases. “Working on new songs?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got some ideas I want to show my dad. Maybe we can work together more. The last few days have made me appreciate family all the more. It’d be crazy for me not to write with him after how
good that first song was.”

  “Cool. I’d love to hear what you two can come up with.”

  We traded brief smiles. She looked like she had more on her mind. She needed to come out with it because I wasn’t in the mood to fish for details with someone I hardly knew.

  While I waited, I pulled a rag from my back pocket. I’d gotten it from the household staff before I’d left, to make sure I could clean up the bike. I loved the new wheels. I’d debated leaving it here, maybe donate or something. But it was too good to give up. I’d get in touch with the bike shop to see if they could break it down for shipping.

  “Look, Theo, I’m sorry.” She came down and stood over me as I crouched to wipe down the chain and gears. “I don’t know all the details, but I’m sure you and Eddie would still be together if I hadn’t brought him here. It seemed like a cool idea to have your man around while you worked…. I should’ve left it alone.”

  I looked up at her, but when I couldn’t figure out what to say, I focused on the bike. Sofia didn’t move away.

  “If there’s anything I can do to make it up to you or fix it….”

  I shook my head as I stood. “I don’t think it can be fixed. I’m pretty sure this would’ve happened sooner or later. I suppose sooner was better.”

  She looked unsure and maybe a little sad. I put my hand on her shoulder, hoping to offer little bit of comfort because this wasn’t her fault.

  “If you’re sure.” I dropped my hand, and she started to turn but stopped and fixed her dark brown eyes on me. “You’re a good guy, Theo. I hope I find someone like you one day. And I’m sure you’ll find someone worthy of you too. I know you’ve heard this from my folks, but thanks for the help. I don’t know what would’ve happened without you guys.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that.” Unexpectedly she hugged me. It was the hug of a friend. Maybe we’d be that after I left. We certainly bonded over some weird stuff. “You going to be at the dinner tonight?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it. All of this has really taught me to hang with my family more. It’s why I want to do a project with Dad. You’re tight with your mom and dad. You even seem to enjoy working together. Anyway, I’ve always respected my parents. Appreciated what they built and what they do. But it’s more than that with yours, and I’d like to get that with mine.” She blushed a little and cast her gaze to the sidewalk for a moment. “I must sound silly.”

  “Not at all. It’s good there are positive things coming out of the past few days.”

  “Well, I’ll let you get back to your afternoon. I heard you’re around for another day, so if you want to hang, I’m here. You’re welcome to come to the Christmas show taping too.”

  “Thanks. Maybe. I’ll let you know.”

  I couldn’t imagine going to the show. Eddie’d been too excited for it.

  My Eddie anyway. I didn’t know the other Eddie—the one that had stolen mine. The one that could bring me dinner in one moment and then drug and steal from me was a stranger. I didn’t want to know him. The idea of two Eddie’s, while logically ridiculous, made things easier for the part of me that wanted to believe that at some point he’d actually loved me.

  Sofia headed upstairs, and I grabbed my bike and went into my apartment.

  Funny.

  My apartment.

  I sometimes called my bedroom my office. This, however, was by no stretch mine. It would’ve been better had I actually stayed upstairs with Mom and Dad because then Eddie couldn’t have pulled off what he did.

  How had Eddie let himself vanish? Could I do that? I couldn’t imagine leaving Mitch, Iris, my friends, and everyone else without being able to contact them again.

  Eddie had, either voluntarily or involuntarily, cut himself off from everyone.

  TOS searched far and wide to find him. Maybe I could. What would it mean if I did?

  As I’d done with my parents’ phones years ago, I had planted a piece of code on Eddie’s that I could track him with. I’d only used Dad’s once—when he was missing in Denver. That was still something I’d never revealed to TOS or my parents.

  I’d added it to Eddie’s phone right after our one-year anniversary. I reasoned that he was family. The code was fairly impervious to wipe out or discovery because I put it in the root of the phone so even OS updates couldn’t touch it.

  Did I want to violate the rule I’d set for myself about not wanting to find him?

  If I did, then what? We might get more information about his family’s involvement. Of course, if I did that I’d have to admit how I did it. That might lead to the code I had on my parent’s phones, and I didn’t want that.

  I dropped into the chair at the dining room table.

  The laptop was right in front of me. I should just do it. If there was no blip, I wouldn’t have to make a choice. If there was a blip at least I’d know, and then I could decide what to do.

  I pulled the computer to me and went for it. I stayed incognito as much as possible so no one would know I’d done this if they examined the computer.

  There was nothing.

  That could mean anything—his phone could be turned off, destroyed, someone could’ve figured out how to get my code off it and he’s walking around with the same Galaxy he’s always had.

  I slammed the laptop shut.

  Why was I doing this? It wouldn’t fix anything. Knowing if he was out there wouldn’t give me my boyfriend back or even resolve the situation. It might look good as an agent if I brought him in.

  It might also be better if I never knew if he was caught.

  Eddie could be on the other side of the world. Depending on how much Blackbird wanted to hide him, he could even be disguised.

  This morning Lorenzo had emailed me info. After Eddie left the apartment he walked to Grand Army Plaza and got on the Manhattan-bound 2 train. The last time any camera saw him was at Canal Street. He didn’t get off the train, but a camera picked him up moving aside to let someone off. He was on the train when it left that station, but he was never seen on another camera. My phone was found on the train, inside one of the conductor compartments, later that night.

  Lorenzo buzzed my phone, and it scared me. Did he know what I’d done? He couldn’t have.

  I plugged my earbuds in and connected.

  “Glad I caught you.” His word choice—caught—sent a shiver through me. “I know you’re on break, but I’d really like your thoughts on something. We got the analysis back on the sound encoded in the song file. I wanted to see if you see the same thing I do.”

  “Of course. I’ll look.” I reopened the laptop and logged in to TOS.

  The screen filled with code as soon as I was in.

  “Do you want to tell me what I’m looking for, or would that be a spoiler?” I asked as I skimmed what he sent.

  “I’d like to give you a moment. I want to make sure I’m not projecting something else onto it.”

  “Fair enough. I do like a challenge.”

  Lorenzo was quiet as I reviewed. It was only a couple of minutes before I saw similarities from…. Where had I seen this before?

  Light bulbs went on. I went to another area on the TOS network to look over some analysis I’d done after we’d wrapped up the tracker project in Denver. I paged quickly through the report looking for what I wanted.

  Lorenzo’s call made perfect sense.

  “There’s code here that looks derivative of the mind control that we saw in the old tracker chips,” I finally said. “Except in this case you don’t need a chip implanted, you simply need to be someone able to hear the tone.”

  “Part of me hoped I was wrong because that’s scary. I mean it doesn’t mind control you per se, but the rage is potentially worse.”

  “We should run distinct analysis between the two and see where the similarities are.”

  “Can you imagine if Blackbird further refines this?” Lorenzo asked. He didn’t need to say the rest. If they figured out how to do mind control simply through sound, the results wou
ld be horrible.

  This triggered something else. “Remember the virus I found on Eddie’s thumb drive?”

  I displayed information back to Lorenzo. It was the disc image that my computer captured when the security alert happened. Most of it looked like schoolwork—a lot of Word docs, some spreadsheets and images. There were also sound files, which I had ignored at the time because I was focused on the actual virus.

  Some of the files were labeled as class notes because Eddie liked to record some of his classes. There were others that appeared to be songs.

  “Do you suppose some of those contain a version of what we’ve seen the past few days? This one’s really interesting.” I used the mouse to point at a file that was labeled as an Alicia Keys song but was a WAV file instead of an M4A. “Who uses WAV files for music anymore?”

  “We’ll get all of this looked at.”

  “You made a great find with that mind control stuff,” I said.

  “You too. You made the additional connections. Don’t second-guess yourself, Winger. You’re good at this work.”

  I nodded, even though no one could see it. “Maybe they really were targeting me. Using Eddie. Maybe he’s being forced.”

  “Maybe.” Lorenzo’s voice was quiet and reserved. “Thanks for taking a few minutes.”

  Not offering a theory was rare for Lorenzo. I’d left the door open to get more than maybe. It wouldn’t be fair to push him to say more. The nonanswer didn’t help the ping-pong game that played in my head—Eddie betrayed me and needs to be captured versus Eddie was forced and I can rescue him. Running my hand through my hair, and massaging my head at least felt good even if it didn’t quell the thoughts.

  “For you, anytime,” I said without missing a beat. “Call me if anything else comes up. Tonight, it’s dinner with family and the Glenwoods so I’ll be able to slip away.”