by Ted Weber
She turned to him. “Yeah, sort of. It’s a friend of a friend of a friend kind of thing.”
Charles nodded.
Kiyoko frowned. “Waylee’s right, a $3 million reward is awfully tempting, and the actual smuggler, I don’t know anything about him.”
“Maybe we could disguise ourselves. Like with those masks everyone wore breaking me out of juvie.”
She smiled. “Of course. We could do that, if we could get the masks. It’s one of the longest borders in the world. There’s gotta be a way.”
An alert message popped up on the screen: ‘Package arrived.’
About time. He pulled the computer over a little. “Gotta check something.”
“What is it?” Kiyoko asked.
“We’ll see.” Charles navigated to the anonymous cloud compartment he’d set up for the MediaCorp engineer. It had a long list of new documents and a readme file, presumably from disgruntld1. Charles checked the files for malware, confirmed they were clean, then downloaded them to his computer.
As promised, the files contained details and schematics about Media-Corp’s broadcast and computer networks. It would probably take days to digest. The readme file included a backdoor address and password, but warned that most of the network was unreachable from outside the building.
Charles copied the files onto a memory wafer. “Waylee?”
She looked up again. “Yes?”
He handed her the wafer. “Got a bunch of documents from our engineer friend. Can you give this to Pel and take a look?”
She grinned. “Awesome. I knew we could count on you.” She bounded down the aisle and through the back curtain into the bunk room.
So it is possible to outsmart her. He was finally alone with Kiyoko. Kiyoko looked a little worried. “We’re not going to break into Media-Corp if we’ll get caught, will we?”
“Of course not. That’s part of the deal, we only do what we know we can do.”
No telling how long the room would stay empty. Charles decided to make his move. He leaned against Kiyoko and targeted his lips toward hers.
She turned her head and the kiss landed on her cheek. Disappointment rose inside him, followed by embarrassment.
Kiyoko slid away and blushed.
He’d failed. He’d told her he loved her, but she just wanted to be friends. Of course.
“Charles,” she said, looking down. “I’m sorry, this isn’t the time.” She looked up and spoke softly. “I told you, I can’t date you, you need someone your own age.”
“Waylee’s older than Pel.”
“Not by much. And they’re both adults, legally I mean.”
I’m an adult. No one takes care of me.
She sidled closer. “I’m sorry.” She covered his right hand with hers, her warmth spreading through his veins. “It’s not personal. We just can’t do this. Please respect me when I say that, okay?”
The disappointment grew. “Yeah, it’s just…”
Kiyoko peeked down the aisle. “’Kay,” she whispered in his ear. “Just one kiss, but that’s it, and it doesn’t mean we’re going out or anything.”
He looked at her, his heart pounding.
Her eyes darted around and her fingers fidgeted. “It’s just ‘cause you are pretty awesome and it’s been a while since I’ve kissed anyone, and I should just shut up…”
She placed her hands on his cheeks and kissed him. Her lips were soft and moist and warm. The cherry blossom smell of her hair and neck wafted through his nostrils. It was heaven, like being jolted with electricity, way better than he’d imagined.
He’d never actually kissed a girl before so he tried to duplicate the way she moved her lips. But then she pulled away, and it was over.
She blushed again. “Okay, it’s clear you need some practice. Here…” She positioned his arms around her waist, his hands on the small of her back, then put her hands around his neck, her face inches from his. “Now kiss me, put some passion in it, but no slobber or anything. And no tongue.” Her eyes sparkled. “Merge your soul with mine.”
They kissed again, pressing tighter than before. Their mouths opened together, their breath merged. She tasted like strawberry sugar. His hands moved up and down her back. Then he disappeared in her, like an immersion suit. Princess Kiyoko. I’m the luckiest man in the world.
Kiyoko let go of his neck and ended the kiss. “That was nice.” She pulled his hands off her back. “I’m a little out of practice myself. My last boyfriend, last summer and fall, wasn’t a real boyfriend at all, he was just a player and I still feel stupid for giving myself to him.”
“I’m not like that.”
“I know. Not everyone’s like that, I know.” She held his hand. “Remember what I said, though. We’re not dating or anything. We should get back to helping Waylee and finding a way to safety.”
“Ok.” No point disrespecting her and ruining what they’d built. She was nice and wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. And who knew what the future might bring. Ten more months and he’d be eighteen. He’d work out and learn Krav Maga and be a king like M-pat.
Kiyoko put a finger to her lips. “Waylee can’t know. She wouldn’t understand.”
“Yeah, our secret.”
31
January 16
Waylee
Waylee hardly slept. A hypomania symptom, but a good one. Sleep wasted valuable time.
While Charles and Kiyoko researched MediaCorp’s broadcast system, she refined her video. Knowing she tended to miss details, she ran each version by Shakti for feedback.
Waylee also decided to contact Beatrice Baddelats. Even though she’d been ousted from MediaCorp’s Board of Directors, she still had sway.
She borrowed Peter’s comlink and disabled the camera. Charles routed it through one of the Collective’s anonymous exchanges, creating a fake callback number, one that didn’t belong to anyone.
Ms. Baddelats answered after three rings. She scowled. “Who is this?”
Waylee thought about using Estelle Cosimo’s voice, but settled on her own. “Hi. Beatrice Baddelats?”
“Yes? Why are you audio only?”
“We spoke at the New Year’s party. Estelle Cosimo.”
Ms. Baddelats snorted. “You’re a fraud. You were impersonating her. Did you know you’re on the FBI’s Most Wanted list?”
“That’s a travesty. That list should be for murderers and financial scammers. And CEO’s who fix elections and try to control the world.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you want from me? How did you get my number?”
Waylee focused on the first question. “I want to help you bring down Bob Luxmore.”
“You’re wasting your time. The board loves him. They set me up and stabbed me in the back.”
“Forget the board, we—”
“Homeland Security’s onto you, Waylee Freid, born Emily Smith. I looked you up. You’re just some socialist punk from Baltimore—”
“I’m not a socialist. I’m—”
“I don’t want anything to do with you. Do yourself a favor and turn yourself in. Don’t call me again.” The screen returned to the dial pad.
Bitch. Waylee felt betrayed; her only outside ally had turned on her. Of course, she and Ms. Battleaxe never were allies except in the land of over-optimism.
She shuffled into the back of the camper and curled up beneath her musty blanket. She breathed in and out, trying to stave off depression. The world faded away.
Pel shook her shoulder. “Finished decoding the comlink data.” It was the first time he’d touched her since their argument two days ago.
Waylee threw off the blanket. She still felt energetic, still in the upper half of her quasi-sine curve. She lifted her arms to hug him, but he hurried away, ushering everyone to the forward couches and chairs.
Waylee plopped down next to Shakti on one of the couches. Her sari smelled worse every day, or maybe it was her underwear. Not that mine is any better.
Pel and Charles sat on the other side
of the table, facing Big Red and an interface unit. Peter and Kiyoko took the chairs across the aisle. Kiyoko pinched her nose and waved the air. “Pee-yew! Who hasn’t been showering?”
Charles and Shakti cringed.
“We can’t wash clothes,” Waylee said, “that’s the issue. No detergent.”
Kiyoko said, “Well Dingo gave me a whole bag of clothes. You all can split them up. And you can use my soap, I left it in the shower.”
Pel focused on his screen. He looked excited and smug, the way he always did after solving a problem. “Been working on this since the day after New Year’s. Got as much as I can. Props to Charles for his help.”
Charles shrugged. “You did ninety percent of it.”
Pel glanced around. “Anyway, we pulled the IDs and encryption keys from eighty nine comlinks, and Comnet access passwords from sixty two.”
Waylee led the applause. That many comlinks, they were bound to find something useful.
He nodded. “Every time a link accesses the Comnet, which happens more often than you’d think, it sends the user name and password, along with a signature identifying the comlink. The wireless signals were encrypted but our analysis program identified the keys from processor echoes.”
“English, please,” Waylee said.
He hesitated. “Details aren’t important. What’s important is that we’ve got a bunch of digital comlink signatures and the user names and passwords. We can pretend to be the users and access their accounts. And we can load scripts on their actual comlinks and cause all manner of mischief.”
“Can we do that from here?”
He stroked his growing beard. “It’s too much for us,” he said. “I’d like to distribute these codes to elites in the Collective and encourage them to run with it.”
“After the Super Bowl,” she suggested.
“No, better do it now, before the guests are notified and they change their passwords or buy new comlinks. Besides, it’ll be a good distraction; Homeland will think that’s what we were after.”
Makes sense. “Anything that will help us get into MediaCorp?”
“Maybe.” He turned to Charles. “Ready to hoist the Jolly Roger?”
Charles smiled. “Aye aye, Cap’n.”
“We’ve got no captains here,” Waylee said, “but… mind if I look over your shoulder? I should learn this stuff.”
Pel nodded. She abandoned Shakti and crowded next to him and Charles. He inched away when their legs touched.
Face blank, Pel swiped Big Red’s keyboard mat and woke it up. He opened some windows on the fabric-thin screen clipped to its foldout metal frame. One of the windows displayed a spreadsheet of names, Comnet IDs, passwords, and random-looking text. “We should be careful with Ms. Baddelats since she’s on to us.”
The name pierced her like a dagger. “Yeah. She might have some dirt on Luxmore, though.”
“Okay. But let’s start with… Wilfred Pickford, another MediaCorp board member. He and his wife were next to us at midnight.”
Waylee remembered their New Year’s kiss, how she’d wanted Pel right there in the midst of America’s elite. She gazed at her boyfriend’s handsome features and hoped she hadn’t ruined things between them.
Pickford and his matronly wife had also kissed at midnight. Even the people’s enemies were still human beings and capable of love and compassion. Too bad their focus was so narrow.
Pel ran his location spoofer and logged onto the Comnet with one of his fake IDs. He downloaded a program, from one of the hidden Collective sites it looked like, and checked it for malware. Finding none, he opened it.
A blank window appeared, with menus on the top and icons underneath. “It’ll figure out what kind of comlinks our targets have from the digital signatures,” he said, “and display replicas on our monitor.”
Charles craned his neck to get a closer look.
Pel brought up fields labeled “User ID,”
“Password,” and “Signature,” and swiped over data from the spreadsheet. The blank window transformed into a Comnet screen with sparse factory defaults. “The Comnet now thinks we’re accessing from Pickford’s link. We don’t know what’s on his real comlink yet, though.”
“We got his other passwords?” Charles asked.
“Not for Pickford.” Pel tapped on his name in the spreadsheet, which brought up another window with blue text. “He didn’t check his mail or anything, but his comlink ran some updates at midnight.”
“So computers celebrate New Year’s too,” Waylee joked.
Pel smiled. “They update software and back up data every day unless you tell them otherwise. Sometimes it’s irritating.”
Charles peered at the screen. “So we gotta get on his comlink to get his files and shit?”
“Yeah, and once you have the signature, it’s easy.” Pel opened a menu above the virtual comlink and tapped an option called “Sync.” A yin-yang symbol filled the display and spun clockwise. “His comlink’s on, which is good. He won’t notice what we’re doing; it’s all in the background.”
The yin-yang rotated for a while, then disappeared, replaced by a slate-gray screen with the MediaCorp logo and rows of icons. “Voilá. We now have an exact duplicate of Pickford’s comlink, with all his programs and data.”
“Can we go the other way?” Charles asked.
Pel nodded. “Yep. The Comnet thinks we’re Pickford. It’s like doing a cloud backup and install.” He slid the keypad and display over. “Wanna drive?”
“No doubt.” Charles clicked the maximize button, and Pickford’s comlink filled the screen. He pressed the ‘Comnet’ icon. “So I’m some rich old white guy now?” He navigated from site to site and downloaded programs, not saying anything.
“What are you doing?” Waylee asked.
Charles kept his eyes on the screen. “Loading worms and rootkits.”
Pel turned to her. “We can access all his data now—emails, voice mails, you name it. All his passwords are saved in files we have on our duplicate here. But we can also take control of his comlink, turn on the camera, microphone, and GPS, and spy on him 24/7 without any indicator lights or listable processes.” He returned to the screen. “The rootkits will hide our tampering and modify his anti-malware program to let us do what we want. We’ll install backdoors in case he changes his Comnet password.”
“We can sync to his other computers too,” Charles said. “Get whatever’s there.”
Pel nodded. “And send viruses to his contacts to take over their comlinks, although we have to be careful—likely someone will notice.”
“We need a strategy,” Waylee said, “before you tip people off and they replace all the comlinks you hacked.”
“I agree. And like I said before, we need help. It’s more work than we can handle by ourselves.”
“Can we see Scott Overmann’s emails?”
He squinted. “Who’s that?”
“MediaCorp News Director. A.k.a. Minister of Propaganda.”
Charles turned. “We can send him a document from Pickford, maybe as a reply to something, and encode a virus in it.”
“What about his security software?”
“I’ll write something special, custom encrypted. Like Homeland did to me. My defense program didn’t recognize it because it was brand new.” He scanned the display. “This guy can make us stinkin’ rich.”
“You can access his bank accounts?” Waylee said.
“Old people and IT don’t mix.” He grinned at Pel. “No offense, old man.”
“Who hacked all these comlinks, you snot-nosed brat?” He smiled to let Charles know he was kidding.
If Pel’s old at 26, I’m ancient at 28. “We can use money,” Waylee said, “but the Super Bowl broadcast is our top priority.”
Charles’s face fell. “We can do both.”
“You said you can get on other comlinks and activate their cameras, mikes, and GPS?”
“Yeah,” Pel said, tilting his eyebrows at her.
>
“If we get to the right people, we can map out the broadcast center that way. Especially if they’ve got data glasses like you used to have.”
Pel’s eyebrows relaxed. “I miss those.”
“And don’t forget we have disgruntld1. He sent us those network schematics—”
“Without any interpretation.”
Always interrupting. “And I bet there’s more he can do.”
He frowned. “Assuming we can trust him.”
* * *
January 17
Waylee searched through her copy of News Director Overmann’s emails. Thank you, Charles.
Rick Mustel, the president’s Special Advisor for the Media, emailed Overmann every night at 1 AM with a list of stories like “Check the new study (link here) showing how private schools outperform public schools. Be sure to blame teachers unions for public school failures.”
The next morning, Overmann, a former political media strategist himself, incorporated Mustel’s suggestions into executive memos that he sent to all the news staff, addressing what stories should be covered and how they should be covered.
Waylee ran some comparisons. Mustel’s talking points were remarkably similar to the news that day. So when the president told her, “I don’t tell their anchors what to say,” he was lying.
More damning, Overmann sent information the other way. “Justice Consiglio quite naughty – check out these live sex sites he frequents. Cover or no?”
Mustel’s response: “Hold off. Our team thinks he’ll play ball.”
The individual pixels seemed to pop out of the screen at her, flashing different colors. Conspiracy to blackmail a Supreme Court justice couldn’t possibly be legal. Jackpot! Except of course her evidence was collected illegally and therefore inadmissible.
What was the president’s agenda for the Supreme Court anyway? Waylee slogged through three years of communiqués.
Uphold private property rights…
She kept looking.
No anti-trust enforcement, especially regarding MediaCorp…
Of course.
Support the administration’s initiatives against “cyberterrorism.” These included a new guideline recommending life imprisonment for anyone committing crimes linked to the Collective.
