Echoes (US Edition)

by Laura Tisdall

  She and Warden had spent yesterday evening researching all they could on Daedalus. They were still wary of The Asker’s warning about looking into it, so they went carefully, but given what they are planning, the possible danger had seemed fairly insignificant. They had split up the task to save time; Warden examining Daedalus’s life, and Mallory, The Reckoning and the events that had followed his death.

  At first, she had found little she didn’t already know. Jeffrey Mullins Jr had shot himself in his mother’s North Bronx two-bed on October fifteenth, 2011, after being traced there by the FBI. Next Tuesday will be the second anniversary – but then that didn’t feel too significant given that it was already four weeks since whatever was going on had started with the disappearance of Cyber Sneak. Daedalus had been dead by the time the Feds had found him but, before his suicide, he had released that stupid final video introducing The Reckoning and baiting other hackers to try and follow this final quest trail, to find his swansong ‘super virus’ and use it to ‘change the world’ – though no one seemed to be able to agree on what that actually meant in practice.

  Mallory’s next move had been to watch the video again herself, but nothing had stuck out. Like in all of his videos that she’d seen, it had featured a seriously freaky talking cartoon Minotaur – more mythology – with a capital letter delta seared into its chest. The delta looked like an isosceles triangle, with the right-hand line drawn thicker, and was the first letter of Daedalus’s name in Ancient Greek. He used the symbol in everything he did. The voice the Minotaur spoke with had managed to drip with pretentiousness as it described The Reckoning, despite having been electronically altered, but no new angle had presented itself to Mallory on re-watching, nothing that she’d missed when she’d first watched it two years ago like everyone else. She had spent countless hours trying to follow Daedalus’s last quest then – creepy Minotaur or not, it was impossible not to admire his abilities, and hard to ignore such a beckoning challenge when everyone in the hacker world seemed to be talking about it. The clues ultimately led nowhere, though. If The Reckoning was hidden online like Daedalus had claimed it was, someone would have found it by now, or at least some part of it – hence, why most adept hackers had long since stopped trying.

  So why were all these extremely smart people looking for it again, and why now? That was what Mallory needed to find out, what she had looked into next, and The Asker had been right when he’d said that there were people who still followed Daedalus – although idolized was maybe a more accurate description. It was kind of disturbing. Mallory had found numerous online groups dedicated to him. They ranged from forums and chat rooms discussing his hacks and quests – complete with heated arguments over what was a ‘genuine Daedalus’ and what wasn’t – to cyber gangs with names like New Daedalus or the anarchic We Are the Reckoning (a.k.a. WAR). Warden’s personal favorite had been the Children of Daedalus, because their acronym spelled out CoD – a point he’d seemed to find disproportionately amusing when she’d told him. The CoD were based in New York, but then so were a lot of the groups she’d traced. Daedalus’s old stomping ground was a popular location. Nothing that came up had been especially useful, though. Yes, there were people still seeking after The Reckoning and, yes, several of them seemed to be in NYC, but Mallory hadn’t found any overt threats against rival searchers. In all honesty, most of the groups seemed fairly harmless in that regard. Weird, yes – downright creepy, a few – but she and Warden were looking for something that could have compromised five of cyber space’s most formidable hackers, causing them to disappear. None of the websites for the groups or gangs she had looked into had had security setups good enough for the programmers behind them to be of any real danger. In a way, it had backed up what she had always thought; that serious hackers didn’t give The Reckoning much credence any more. The trouble was, there was also such an indecipherable mishmash of rumors that had sprung up since Daedalus’s death that it was hard to be sure of anything.

  Warden hadn’t had much luck either. He’d reported that before going solo, Daedalus had first surfaced in 2003 as part of the Finders Reapers, a cybergang he’d co-founded with another hacker called Apollonian. The group ran anything from denial of service attacks, to stealing data, to repeatedly crashing the networks of various companies, causing enough havoc to get themselves officially branded as cyberterrorists. Mallory had vaguely recognized the group’s name, but she hadn’t known Daedalus was one of them – all of their activity had been long before she’d started hacking, coming to an abrupt end in July 2005 when six of the members, including Apollonian, were caught in an FBI sting. According to Warden, Daedalus had acrimoniously parted ways with them a few months before, and managed to evade it. None of the other Finders Reapers had given him up, claiming to not know his real name. More likely, he had enough dirt on each of them to send them away for longer if they snitched. Warden had looked into where the other Finders Reapers were now, wondering if they might somehow be involved in what was happening, but he’d met only dead ends. Some of them had never been caught, like Daedalus, but none of their monikers had been heard of since the arrest of the others. Of the members Warden did find real names for – and could track down – most had now gone straight, working legally as white-hat programmers or internet security experts. Or they’d got out of the internet game entirely. More than that, it seemed their animosity towards Daedalus was well documented – they had publicly washed their hands of him – so, it’s unlikely any of them would care for completing his legacy.

  Mallory felt like she knew a little more about the background to whatever was going on after they’d shared what they’d found – but that was all it was, background. Nothing either she or Warden had discovered had told them any more about why hackers might be going missing now, and nothing really seemed like it would help with what they were going to do later. It hasn’t stopped her obsessing over every detail all through school, though, nerves growing and growing as it nears the final bell…

  On Wednesday night, she had told Warden yes. His idea for hacking Labyrinth’s security system had been a good one – safer than what she’d been planning – and so she had gone for it. It needed both of them to work, so she’d told him where the club was and they’d arranged where and when they were going to meet; nine blocks west of the warehouse, eight thirty tonight. They’d decided to wait an extra day until the weekend, Warden suggesting Labyrinth would be busier on a Friday, easier to blend in to. Mallory’s been trying not to think about what it will actually be like with all those people inside… She’s so tense by the time school does end that her jaw is aching from how much she’s been clenching it. There are no message notifications on her phone. As she was really expecting, The Asker hasn’t come back, and neither has Scarlet. That means the plan will be going ahead.

  Roger had taken the car for an early shift that morning, so Mallory and Jed have to ride the bus home. She can tell her brother knows something’s up, but he doesn’t say anything till they get in the house. She’s gone back and forth over what to tell him. She can’t tell him nothing because, actually, she needs his help. She wants to trust Warden like he’d said she could, but with everything that’s been going on, she’s not going to take any more risks than she has to. She looks down at Jed. No, she’s got to be careful.

  ‘A friend of mine is having some trouble,’ she says, after he finally asks her what’s wrong, ‘and I need to go out tonight and give them a hand.’ His brow furrows, maybe because she’s never exactly had a lot of friends.

  ‘Okay,’ he says, though.

  ‘I need you to do something for me too,’ she continues. ‘It’s important.’

  ‘’Course, Mal,’ he nods. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Give me your phone,’ she says. He takes out his cell, the screen scratched from where he dropped it on the gravel out front a while back. She flicks through his menus, sliding across to a new page, blank apart from one app; a new app she’d added to it last night. She shows him. ‘
You see that,’ she says, tapping the icon and opening it up, ‘it’s a tracking program. I put it on there for you.’ Jed glances up at her, light brown eyes going a little wider. There’s a GPS map and a button saying on or off. It’s switched to off right now. ‘Watch,’ Mallory says, and she taps the button. After a few seconds, a red arrow appears in the center of the map and starts zooming in. The screen stops moving, now showing only Watertown, Connecticut. The little arrow is pointed right at their street in Oakville. Jed looks up at her again.

  ‘A tracker to our house?’

  ‘More specifically, me,’ she answers. ‘My phone.’ She takes it out her pocket. ‘Now your phone can find my phone if it gets lost.’ She turns the app off and hands Jed’s cell back to him. It stays sat in his palm. His lips purse.

  ‘Where are you going, Mal?’ he asks.

  ‘To New York. To help a friend, like I said.’

  ‘What kind of trouble are they in?’

  ‘Nothing bad.’

  ‘Is it dangerous?’ His eyes hold hers, searching, and she feels a tug of nerves. She taps the pattern on her leg.

  ‘No,’ she says firmly. ‘But look, you’ve got this now, and the thing I need you to do…’ She hesitates. ‘It should be fine, but if I’m not back or haven’t messaged you by the time you get up tomorrow… you’ll know how I can be found if anyone needs to.’

  Jed’s eyes really do go wide then.

  ‘Mallory – ’ he says, voice rising in alarm.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ she says sharply, as much to herself as to him. It’s just a precaution, only there because there are so many unknowns in this and it’s stupid not to always have a back-up. She has a fairly tight window to get everything ready and drive in to the city to park. She doesn’t have time for questions. ‘Look, it’ll be fine,’ she repeats, ‘I just need you to do this for me, okay? Trust me, Jed. Can you do that?’

  ‘Mal – ’

  ‘Can you do that?’

  There’s a pause, then he nods.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says.

  ‘Be careful.’ His tone pulls at her.

  ‘Of course.’ She taps the pattern again. ‘You don’t turn that on unless you need to,’ she says. ‘That’s important.’ Jed nods again. ‘Now, I gotta leave as soon as Roger gets back with the car, so I won’t be able to get you dinner. You’ll have to do a pizza again.’

  ‘Okay, Mal.’

  It’s not good, him having pizza twice like this but, well, things are what they are. She heads through the kitchen and into the garage to get one out. As she does, her eyes fall on the boxes of Jeanie’s stuff and she stops. She still remembers exactly what’s in each of them. She looks down at the one to the left of the freezer – the one with all her work things, her uniforms, old patrol gear – and an idea pops into her head that she both likes and doesn’t. They’ll need to blend in at the club. She reaches out, hand wavering just a little bit, and opens the box.

  Gilbert

  Mallory is seated in a silver plastic chair by the front window of Stevie’s Space Age Diner, looking out on the street corner where she’s agreed to meet Warden later. Labyrinth is still several blocks away, just a few buildings out from the East River. She hadn’t known about the space age theme when she’d looked up the diner online and decided to wait there. She’d picked the place because of its view of the street, but it must have had a refurbishment since they last updated their website. Apparently, ‘Space Age’ to Stevie means everything is painted in cheap silver and blue, with flashing fairy lights hung around rubber UFOs. Mallory’s table is right next to the door, a perfectly-positioned spot she’d had to wait a quarter hour for, deliberately staring out the couple who were sitting there when she’d arrived until they left. She’s been there nearly an hour now, just watching people go by and checking, checking, checking… She’d driven into the city as soon as Roger had got back at five. She looks at the time on her phone. Eight-oh-one. Twenty-nine minutes until Warden shows – or doesn’t show. He’d confirmed he was coming last night, agreed everything again, but it’s still possible he could get cold feet…

  And then, what if he does come?

  Other kinds of worries surface. For the first time, he will see her and not Echo Six, whatever idea that name conjures for him. Is she going to lose something by doing this? What if she isn’t what he expects? What if it changes things too much? Are they giving up something important?

  Four, three, four, two.

  Four, three, four…

  A sparkly-clad waiter with blue face paint and fake antennas comes over to refill her coffee for the third time. His gaze wanders down to her finger, beating out a positive tattoo against the table. She makes it stop, but the jitters continue flitting round inside of her.

  She wants to run away.

  She wants to stay.

  She wants her mind to shut up a moment.

  She drinks the coffee too quickly, eyes locked on the street corner. The minutes tick by and she stays watching. She hasn’t seen anything strange during the past forty-four she’s been sitting there, just lots of people. Lots and lots of people. It makes her skin prickle. No one’s been loitering, though. She’s scanned the area systematically, making a mental note of anyone who’s stood in the same place for more than ten minutes. Apart from a guy flogging beanies and scarves from a stall, the only ones to hang around that long were a clearly tourist family of three, who really didn’t know how to hail a cab. Mallory’s nerves have spiked every time she’s seen a boy around high school age pause and look around. Each time she’s wondered if it could be him, and then the boy will have moved on or she’ll have noticed he’s already with friends.

  She had refused to tell Warden what she looked like over the internet, and she’d stopped him before he could tell her. Maybe it was paranoid – she knows the chat was secure, she knows it – but still, she couldn’t do it. They’ll just have to go on what they’ve already figured out about each other, look for someone the right age and gender, who’s clearly looking for someone else too… She stares out at the vast throng. Maybe it was damn stupid as well as paranoid. She’d forgotten how busy New York was, how fast everything moved compared to home. Still, like with The Asker, she’s almost avoided imagining Warden’s face before. To her, he is his name, lit up in a chat box, the constant stream of words that flow out from him, paragraph after paragraph of streaming babble that just appears – paragraph after paragraph that she always reads all of. He is the hacks he does, the neat little twists he thinks of. And that is how she feels comfortable with him. That, not this.

  She swallows, and checks her phone again. Eight thirty-one. She starts, and looks out of the window with renewed intensity. It’s beginning to drizzle. There really are a lot of people and they really are moving so very quick. She watches as they exit to the subway, watches as cabs pull up, but their inhabitants turn out to be older or female…

  She watches and watches, but no one looks right…

  It passes eight forty-five. More jitters begin to grow in her stomach, the ones asking what if he’s not coming? What if she has to go to the club by herself? What if she’s all The Asker has? What if…

  She feels disappointed.

  She feels it more intensely than she’d thought she would. She knew a no show was a possibility – she’s thought of backing out herself a hundred times. She knew and yet still…

  Another cab pulls up on the street. The back door opens and a teenage boy clambers out, awkwardly dragging a small, paisley-patterned wheelie suitcase with him instead of getting out first and then reaching back in for it afterwards. A green satchel is looped around his shoulder, just the right size for a laptop.

  Mallory’s heart skips.

  He’s medium build, not especially tall, and wearing a short-sleeved brown shirt, navy sweater vest and black cord pants. His hair is a short, dark and sandy blonde, growing darker as the rain dampens it. He pays the driver and then just stands like a lemon on the sidewalk, with suitcase and satchel,
getting wetter and looking thoroughly lost.

  It’s him, Mallory thinks. She’s not sure how she knows, but something about him just clicks. Her pulse is rising in a way that isn’t just too much caffeine and her mouth seems to have gone dry. The urge to run away grows stronger, but she stays glued to her seat, watching.

  Watching Warden…

  It has to be…

  He squints up into the rain, trying to both shield and partially unzip his suitcase as he pulls a parka out of the top. It takes him a further minute to navigate putting the coat on without letting his satchel fall on to the wet ground. It is only when his hood is up that he really starts looking around him. Mallory can see him taking in the passers-by, can see on his face that he is wondering where she is, if she’s there yet, if she is who she said she was…

  Warden, who is nothing more than he said he was…

  He looks across at the diner.

  And then he sees her, sees her watching him.

  Their eyes meet through the glass and, for a moment, she can’t really move. Then her finger starts tapping on the table again, even as she sees the question now in his eyes, eyes that don’t move on from her like they did from everyone else.

  This is it, she realizes, the last moment to back out. She could turn away. She could get up and leave.

  She could…

  She nods once, small.

  His face breaks out into this smile. Mallory clenches her hand to a stop, pins and needles rippling all over. She stays watching him as he waits at the traffic lights, as he crosses the road, as he walks to the diner door, as he opens it, chiming the bell above and pulling down his hood…