by E. C. Myers
A few minutes later: Geordie Powers says, “I was murdered by Kevin Sharpe. The U.S. government owns Panjea, and it owns your personal information. ST0P government surveillance. http://small.panjea.truth.”
Max sat down in the desk chair as all the nervous energy that had kept him going suddenly left him. He felt shaky and exhausted. His shoulder had a dull ache. He wanted to sleep for a week.
Max’s cell phone rang. Plan(et)9 handed it to him. Max sighed with relief: It was Penny.
28
Max studied Penny from the corner of his eye as he drove them to Granville Cemetery in his dad’s Impala. After a week of driving a series of unfamiliar stolen cars—which had all fortunately made it back to their owners, who were generous enough to not press charges—it felt great to be behind the wheel of a car he knew well.
Penny had been quiet since he’d picked her up from the train station half an hour ago. He couldn’t blame her—this was a somber occasion. But he hated to think they didn’t have anything to talk about now that Panjea and Sharpe were slowly slipping from front–page headlines to filler. Courtney was continuing to cover all the latest developments on her blog, which was now drawing national attention and keeping her busy.
Yesterday, Kevin Sharpe had been indicted on five counts of murder, conspiracy, and a range of other charges related to his illicit activities as the head of Sharpe & Company. Governor Angela Lovett—President-elect Lovett—had severed all ties with him as soon as his crimes came to light. That had been enough to drop her in the polls until she and Senator Tooms were neck and neck, but she managed to hold back the effects of the scandal, and won on Election Day anyway. Max still couldn’t believe it: The bad guy had become president.
The FBI was looking for Victor Ignacio.
Max and Penny hadn’t been charged with any crimes. Public sentiment was in their favor, but they were told in no uncertain terms that the FBI would be watching them more closely from there on out. Max couldn’t stop looking over his shoulder, expecting to see an unmarked car tailing him.
That hadn’t stopped him from doing the media circuit, granting TV interviews, trying to carry on what Evan had started and get the truth out. It was ironic that he had all but given up his own privacy in order to discuss it, but he was eager to return to a normal life.
Max was glad to be home, but even though he was back at school, he didn’t have his old life back. He didn’t think he ever would.
Instead, his life had become a very strange charade of pretending he was the same old Max. He and Courtney were no longer one of the school’s star couples, but they found they were even better as friends. Max had missed the end of the soccer season due to his shoulder injury, and while Isaac and Walter and the other guys tried to include him, the connection was missing. He couldn’t shake the feeling that despite everything he’d done, they didn’t trust him anymore.
Max had never felt more alone—even when he was on the run—and he’d been finding himself spending more time online, chatting with Risse and the tattered remains of Dramatis Personai, which seemed ready to embrace Max as 0MN1’s replacement.
The real difference, and the one thing he couldn’t do anything about, was that Evan was gone. No matter how much he hoped, no matter how many times he dreamed that Evan was still alive—better than the nightmares about him dying—his friend wasn’t coming back. People kept calling Max a hero, but Evan was the real hero. Even after making the ultimate sacrifice, people weren’t giving him the attention and praise he deserved.
Max still struggled to understand why Evan had chosen to deliver his message the way he had instead of fighting on. For all the theories he could come up with, he would probably never have the full answer. The only person who knew what had gone through Evan’s head in those final days and minutes was Evan.
And so bitterness mixed with Max’s grief. That’s why he had invited Penny to Granville. That, and he’d wanted to see her again. But she acted like she couldn’t even stand to look at him.
Max guided the car up the long driveway to the Granville Cemetery. He switched off the car and they sat in silence, listening to the click of the engine as it cooled.
“Is everything okay?” Max asked.
Penny turned her head slowly. “‘Everything.’ Everything will not ever be okay.”
“Fair. I mean with you.”
She pursed her lips. “We haven’t changed anything. Lovett is President. People are still using Panjea. After the controversy over the data leaks, they lost about ten million customers, but that’s only ten million out of two hundred million—and they’re slowly coming back.”
“I know. People think just because it has a new CEO that it’s safe to use it again. Just like with the NSA, they complained online, they made jokes and T-shirts about it, but then most of them didn’t want to change their habits. At least this time the people who tried to do something weren’t punished.”
“Except for the ones who died.”
“Yeah. But they’ll get justice.”
“We’ll see,” Penny said.
“I think we did a good job. Evan couldn’t have asked for better. Technology isn’t inherently dangerous. It only becomes that way when people misuse it. Panjea was a major threat, but then we turned it against itself to fix the problem. Think about what else it’s capable of.”
“You’re starting to get into this Dramatis Personai thing.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“What do you want, Max?” Penny met his eyes.
He couldn’t tell her what he really wanted. Not yet.
“I want to go to school, and hang out with my friends, and screw up and get in trouble, and graduate. I want to take . . . someone to prom. I want to do all the things we’re supposed to do when we’re young, because we’re going to grow up too soon as it is.”
“I think it’s already too late,” Penny said.
“You’re probably right.”
“You’ve said you don’t fit with that life though. You fit with me. With us. You’re a hacker, Max.”
“I still have some things to figure out. I can’t go back to my old life, I know that. But I’m not ready to dive into this new one either.” Max glanced at the street behind them. There’d been a car there a second ago, but it was gone now. “I’m thinking I might try to go abroad next year, take a break from all this. Start over.”
“Where?” Penny said.
“Granville High has an exchange program with France.”
“Isn’t that where your mom lives?”
“I don’t know, but now I know she’s out there. I need to find her.” If Vic Ignacio knew where Lianna Stein was, Max had missed his chance to ask him. And Max had done a thorough job of disabling the only tool that might have led him to his mother when he took down Panjea’s surveillance capability.
“They have internet in France,” Penny said.
“They do. It’s even better than ours. Except for it being in French.”
She smiled. “I know Dramatis Personai won’t be the same. Some things don’t recover from a blow like the one this group’s been through. Its own members working for the government, stealing information and working against other citizens, and even against themselves. Then there are the deaths . . . . Hacking isn’t supposed to endanger your life.
“I don’t blame them for not trusting each other. Sharing information and maintaining anonymity aren’t compatible anymore. But if anyone can make them a force for good again, it’s you. I’m just going to try working in the open for a while, as Penny Polonsky instead of DoubleThink. See how that goes.”
She flashed her fingertips at him. Her nails had a fresh coat of paint: Panjea-green with red letters. B-E-Y-O-U-R-S-E-L-F.
“Be yourself,” Max read.
She waggled her fingers. “Good advice for all of us.”
“What about R
isse?”
“She can be DoubleThink without me. I might start a sort of side business. Infosec consulting,” Penny said. “It may not be entirely legal. Don’t tell Cort.”
“Uh oh,” Max said.
“Want me to keep you posted?”
Maybe he didn’t have to give up hacking, or try to keep his two worlds separate anymore. That would be impossible now anyway, with everyone aware of his past. He would like to keep using his skills to do something meaningful and positive, to help people more openly. To try to change the world the way Evan had.
“Yes,” he said.
“Look for an invitation from +g00d,” Penny said.
They looked out the windshield at the same time.
“I guess we should do this,” Max said.
“I guess so.”
They got out of the car and followed the directions Courtney had given him. Max soon found the grave they were looking for. Evan Baxter, Beloved Son, January 11, 1997–October 21, 2014.
“Hey, Evan.” Max breathed heavily, his breath puffing up in front of his face.
He glanced at Penny, but she was looking resolutely ahead at Evan’s headstone.
He wasn’t good at this kind of thing. He didn’t believe in an afterlife, and even if he was wrong about that, he doubted his friend’s spirit was hanging around his grave.
Evan lived on as electronic bits scattered across the internet. He lived in Max’s and Penny’s memory, and in his legacy as ST0P, a worm that even now was still working its way through computer systems all over the world. Those parts of Evan would never die, and the digital world had always mattered more to him than his physical one.
But it would be rude not to say hello, just in case.
“Sorry it’s taken me a while to get here. Sorry for . . . everything. Uh, how’s it going?” He sighed. “This is stupid. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“Just say good-bye. And thank you,” Penny said.
He nodded. “I wish I’d had a chance to tell you this in person. Evan, you’re a freaking hero. Oh, um . . . also, thanks for introducing me to Penny. She’s great.”
The sun broke through the cloud cover and weak beams of afternoon light fell across Max and the gravestone.
Max looked up. “Is this for real?”
Penny giggled. And just like that, it wasn’t somber anymore. Instead of dwelling on the days he’d missed with Evan, he found himself remembering the good times they’d had. All the things they’d done together that had made Max the person he was and led him here, to this moment, with Penny beside him.
Max noticed something on the side of the rectangular headstone, shining silver in the sun. He walked closer to examine it, then hopped off the grave.
“Sorry!” he said.
“I don’t think he minds.” But Penny skirted the grave too and joined him by the headstone.
There was a sticker on the top corner: a barcode. Did the cemetery barcode their graves here to track its . . . occupants?
“Nice,” Penny said. “Freaking vandals. Who thought a grave was a good place to market their crappy product?”
Max grabbed his phone—a new one that his dad had given him as an early Christmas present along with his replacement laptop, Winston.
“I wouldn’t,” Penny said.
Max opened the barcode reader app and lined up the square reticule of the camera with the block of code. A red line blinked in the center and a web address flashed briefly before loading the page. It looked like an IP address, not a domain name, like a server on the Deep Web.
A password field appeared. Max sighed and showed it to Penny.
She raised her eyebrows.
“Evan,” Max said.
“But how? I mean. . . .” She gestured at the mound of dirt at their feet, decorated with a fresh bouquet of roses. Max hadn’t thought to bring anything.
Max was pretty sure Evan had something to do with this, because no one trying to advertise a product or service would require a passcode to access the website—and it wouldn’t be on the underground internet used for acquiring all sorts of illegal goods that was the Deep Web.
He quickly tried all the passwords Evan had used to-date, but none of them worked. In a fit of pique, he typed in max.
A black video window popped up with a swirling circle in the middle as it buffered.
“Come on, Evan. Three letters? That’s not very secure,” Max said.
Penny crowded close, her face inches from Max’s. They waited for the video to load, looking at their own faces reflected in the glossy black screen.
When red had inched about halfway across the progress bar, Evan’s face appeared in a burst of pixels.
Max clutched the phone tighter, thinking he was going to have to watch Evan’s suicide again. But even though this video was lit exactly the same, and Evan was wearing the same outfit from the night he’d died—hardly conclusive, because he always dressed that way—Max knew this was something different when he heard his friend say, “Hey, Max.”
Max paused the video.
“I need to sit down,” he said.
Penny sprawled with him on the grass beside Evan’s grave. She put an arm around him. He pressed Play.
“Long time no see, huh? I know you’re watching this after I’m . . . .” Evan swallowed. “After I’m gone. I’m sorry for what I’m about to do—what I’ve already done to you and my folks and my online friends. I’m sorry for everything.”
Evan’s voice broke. He pushed up his glasses and rubbed his fingers against his eyes. “No, don’t do this,” he muttered. Then he looked up again, and his eyes had lost some focus. He was looking past the camera.
“It has to be done, and if you don’t understand it yet, you will one day. God, that’s such a cliché, isn’t it? But you will.” Evan shook his head. “This sucks. I had big plans for us. We could have done so much together.” He gave a weak smile that seemed somehow painful. “We did do a lot, didn’t we?”
Evan let out a long, shuddering breath. “So, a contact of mine was instructed to place this link where you’d find it, after the presidential election. I know whatever happened, you did your best. You always do. So. . . Thank you. Not just for this, but for being my best friend.”
“Shut up,” Max said, barely able to get the words out past the ball of emotion lodged in his throat.
“You’re one of the only people I feel like I could trust with my—” He laughed. “My life. And now with this, what’s left of it.” Evan spread his hands. They started shaking and Evan stared at them until they calmed down. He squeezed them into fists.
“Don’t worry about showing this to my parents. Oh, um, would you check on them once in a while? Mom. . . .” Evan looked away. The picture jumped and Evan was now more composed, but his eyes were red and puffy.
“Your mom’s okay, Evan,” Max said. “She misses you, but she’s going to be okay.” He’d been to visit the Baxters a few days ago. They were still a wreck, but knowing that their son had died trying to make a difference was helping them to pick up the pieces. They were talking about taking a long vacation, to get away from Granville and the media circus, and the memories.
“As soon as you accessed this video, a link was automatically sent to Mom and Dad and a few other people, with a different video and some other things they’ll need.”
On cue, Penny’s phone beeped in her purse.
“Max, don’t feel bad. We drifted apart a bit, but it’s okay. Really. I’m glad you have your own thing, that you weren’t dragged into this sooner and ended up hurt because of me. I hope you’re happy. Good luck. You’re going to need it without me there keeping you out of trouble.”
Max let out a strangled laugh, half a sob.
“Take care of P-squared.”
Max glanced at Penny. She blushed.
“
I know you have a freakishly good memory, but I’m leaving you with something else to remember me by. I saved some things on the cloud for you.” Evan’s face was wet with fresh tears, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Link?” Max asked.
“And I have one last favor to ask. This one’s easy: Hold on to some stuff for me for a while. You don’t have to look for it. You probably won’t find it even if you do. But it’ll be with you, and you’ll have it if you need it. But I hope you won’t need it.”
“God damn it, Evan,” Max said. “What is it now?”
“Maxwell Stein, good-bye. It has been an honor and a privilege.” Evan gave Max a goofy salute he’d copied from an old British science fiction show.
The video faded to black.
“Wait. What?” Max said. He tapped at the screen. “That can’t be all.”
Max’s phone beeped and a message popped up: “This application is attempting to upload data to your phone. Accept?”
Max’s finger wavered over the Yes button. He didn’t know what Evan’s program was sending, but there was a chance that the next time he visited this site, the data would be gone. It was now or never.
“Come on,” Penny said. “Is there any question?”
He tapped Yes and file names flickered over his screen, too quickly to read.
“What the hell, Evan?” Maybe Evan wanted him to have his comprehensive digital porn collection.
After five minutes, the progress bar reached 100 percent. Then another box popped up: “Warning. Disk almost out of space. 35MB free.”
Evan’s data dump had taken up nearly 10GB on his phone’s SD card. Which meant Max’s phone was way over his monthly data allowance. Great.
He checked the website again, and it returned “HTTP Error 503 Service Unavailable.” He’d made a good call grabbing the files while he could. All trace of them, and the video, was gone.
“What is it?” Penny asked.
Max thumbed through the files.
Folders full of images, and a few files that looked like junk, with no file extensions. He’d found that garbage data on Evan’s four dead drops too, along with the code for SH1FT, but hadn’t been able to figure them out yet. That was a problem for another day; he was tired of puzzles and riddles.
