And he would have.
He’s still going to fail, she thinks viciously. She keeps typing, faster and faster. Once she’s committed, there is no going back; she has to time it perfectly. The Asker shifts in his seat at the change of pace, but he doesn’t say anything. Scarlet clicks her nails. Mallory puts in another alteration.
And neither of them notices a damn thing.
***
‘What’s taking so long?’ Scarlet mutters. She’s been doing it a lot since Mallory started slowing down. She had realized she was on the penultimate level about a half hour ago – too early. It’s only three thirty. She’s been stalling ever since.
‘Don’t speak,’ she says, not taking her eyes off the screen.
‘You know, I’m real tired of – ’ Scarlet begins.
‘Please, keep talking if you want me to crap this up. Otherwise let me do what you keep waving a gun at me to do.’
‘Cool it,’ The Asker tells Scarlet. She backs off, but, ‘You are slowing down, Echo,’ he adds.
‘Well, it’s getting harder,’ she tells him. ‘It’s like a video game. Each level is more complicated than the last. You have to keep all the previous parts in your mind, then align the new one to slot in with them. You want to do it, by all means…’ She leans back, arms out. The Asker’s face darkens, but he doesn’t move. ‘No? Didn’t think so.’
‘Be careful,’ he warns.
‘Always am.’
She looks at the clock. Just a little longer…
***
‘She’s stalling,’ Scarlet says.
It’s four now. Mallory’s on the last level. She can even see what she needs to do to finish it, but…
Not quite time, not quite…
Beside her, The Asker sighs. He rises from his chair and sits on the table next to the laptop. Mallory glances up at him, hand tapping nervously against the wood. He lifts the gun a little, like he’s reminding her it’s there.
Four, three, four, two…
Four, three, four, two…
‘You don’t need that thing out,’ Mallory says, her muscles tightening at the sight.
‘I’m sorry, Echo,’ he answers, ‘but I think Scarlet’s right. I think you are stalling.’ He frowns. ‘I thought I made myself clear before.’
‘You did,’ she answers. ‘I’m almost done.’
‘I could go and get Warden – ’
‘No,’ she says. She hesitates. ‘Look, just a few more minutes and you’ll have your reckoning. Just leave him alone.’
‘A few minutes,’ The Asker says. ‘Then I get him.’
Mallory starts typing again. He’s claimed more than once that he doesn’t want to hurt them and, despite all he’s done, part of her almost does believe him on that – the person she’s known for two and a half years wouldn’t want to – but he’s already shot Warden once. She can’t push it. She glances at the clock again. It’s close enough.
It has to be.
She lets her mind shut them out, ignores The Asker as he sits back in his seat and restarts his pointless staring. She lets herself disappear into the code. She fills in the final gaps, sees how it all clicks into place to form something complex, and beautiful and terrifyingly, wickedly smart. She sees them, the last few steps.
Then the final click.
And even given where she is, even given what it is, a satisfied thrill shoots through her and…
The screen goes blank.
‘What’s happening?’ says The Asker, sitting up abruptly.
‘It’s done,’ Mallory tells him.
‘But where’s – ’ Scarlet begins.
A new video appears; Jeffrey Mullins Jr – Daedalus – in the same bedroom as in the first, in the same Pac Man T-shirt with the same Tomb Raider poster on the wall behind him. His face is strangely expressionless, though, compared to before.
‘Well, well, well,’ he says, ‘you actually did it. It seems I underestimated you.’ He frowns. ‘I’m afraid I spent all my time on your consolation video – this was more of a just-in-case after thought – so it’s not as good. I’m sorry about that. The other one had music, dancing girls, streamers…’ His eyes narrow and he scratches his forehead. ‘But you’ve done it, so this is what you get to see instead.’ Daedalus glances down. He shakes his head and, when he looks back at the screen, his face is serious, somber even. ‘I am a man of my word,’ he says quietly. ‘I give you The Reckoning. Goodbye, Nathan.’
He switches off the camera, all the bravado gone.
‘That’s it?’ Scarlet asks. ‘Is that really it?’
The Asker looks unsure, then, ‘He lost,’ he says.
The code appears on the screen, scrolling in its entirety, faster than you could read. It begins working automatically, opening up other windows, releasing itself onto the internet by hacking into the nearest Wi-Fi network. Mallory locks her hands tight as she watches, watches what she has helped create, all the while knowing the damage it is about to cause.
Not as much as it could have, she tells herself. Lost within that swirl of digits, are the changes she made, including a single, secret marker that’s also being sent out. She feels a swell of apprehension as she wonders if it will find its target, if it will be located and understood quickly enough, before everything starts to go wrong and it is too late for Warden, too late for her… Please, please, please…
‘I knew you could do it, Echo,’ says The Asker. There’s an intensity to his voice that makes her turn to him. His eyes are glistening. ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I’m proud of you.’
Mallory swallows, the words getting to her, even now, words that would have once meant everything…
Screw you, she thinks, but she doesn’t manage to say it out loud. She looks back at the screen, just stares in silence with him as The Reckoning begins to take effect. It starts low key, just like it was designed to, entrenching itself across thousands of different computers before it really begins to act.
And it works.
The Asker gets up from his seat. He goes to Scarlet and they embrace, Scarlet’s eyes glistening just like The Asker’s had been.
‘We did it,’ she whispers to him. ‘We did it, Apollo.’ When they pull apart, The Asker’s face is flushed and damp.
‘Tell the others,’ he says to Scarlet, resting his hand against her cheek. ‘Tell them to stay on watch, but to also set their laptops to start collecting data.’ Scarlet nods and heads out of the kitchen. The Asker opens up another laptop, one that she had brought in earlier. He begins searching, begins copying, begins downloading from targets that have already been hit – as others around the world are probably already realizing they can do too, are probably already starting to.
It’s going to be a mess.
Mallory checks the clock again; four twenty-one. She completed the code about five minutes ago, so the virus went out around four sixteen. Even with the changes she made, it’s still going to be a mess. A lot can happen in seventy-four minutes. Maybe she judged it wrongly…
Maybe…
‘I want to see Warden,’ she says. The Asker looks up, his face still flushed, eyes still blazing with triumph.
‘You don’t want to see this?’ he says. ‘After all that we have worked for – ’
‘I want to see Warden,’ she repeats. ‘I did what you asked me to. Now’ – she swallows – ‘now, let us go. We won’t tell anyone what you did. Please, just let us go.’
The Asker watches her carefully.
‘Not yet,’ he says.
‘Warden needs medical help,’ she begins. ‘His leg – ’
‘He’s had medical help,’ he cuts her off. ‘I told you, Sneak’s a doctor and she’s been watching him. He’s not bleeding out and the wound is clean. He can hold on for now.’
‘But he – ’
‘Not yet,’ he repeats, and it’s final. It’s the answer she expected, but she still feels herself sag, feels a little of the remaining fight dissipate. ‘It’s early days,’ he tells her, indicati
ng the laptop, ‘and I’d like you to stay a short while longer, just in case we need you.’ Mallory holds his gaze. ‘I will let you go,’ he promises, ‘both of you, in a few hours. I’m a man of my word.’
‘Like Daedalus,’ she says. The Asker doesn’t reply to that. ‘I want to see Warden,’ she repeats. ‘If you won’t let us go, then at least let me go check on him myself.’ He still hesitates. ‘Come on,’ she says, ‘what am I going to do? I’ve given you what you wanted. I’m not going to blow that on trying to do something stupid now. I trusted you for over two and half years’ – she tries to keep her voice calm, the words stinging – ‘and I don’t think you want to hurt us.’
Four, three, four, two…
Four, three, four, two…
‘I’ll wait like you want,’ she continues, ‘I won’t fight you, but I just want to wait with him.’ She sees it in his eyes, sees the cogs ticking, his face softening, sees the words working. He cares what she thinks. He still does care… ‘Please.’ She forces herself not to drop her gaze. He finally nods.
‘Okay,’ he says. Then, quietly, ‘I’m not a bad person. I know you must think that now, but I hope one day…’ He trails off and Mallory has to clench her fists to stop herself reacting. She wants to both scream at him and break down at the same time.
They find Sneak waiting at the top of the basement stairs now, laptop still open.
‘Reception’s crap down there,’ she says, then she looks at Mallory. ‘Thank you,’ she tells her, and it sounds like she really means it. Mallory just nods.
‘Lock her in with him,’ The Asker tells Sneak. ‘There’s only junk in the boxes.’ He looks again at Mallory. ‘What you’ve done tonight has fulfilled everything we were trying to do with the Forum, but never could. I know you don’t believe me, but you’ve made things better, Echo. You will see that,’ he says. ‘Eventually, you’ll see.’
No, she thinks, stepping through the door, no, I won’t. And, in a few minutes, neither will you.
Touch
Mallory stands just inside the doorway. She feels the air move as it shuts behind her, hears the key turn in the lock. The basement is even darker than before, the yellow light from the beaded lamp now the only illumination, casting its strange mottled shapes against the walls and boxes. She walks down the stairs, floorboards creaking beneath her feet. Warden is lying on the bed like before, his face in shadow. She can’t tell if he’s awake. Everything is so very still, but, inside, her body feels like it’s been twisted and twisted and twisted and now it’s just this tightly wound ball.
‘Echo,’ says Warden, as she reaches the bottom step. He’s awake then. He tries to sit up, his face lifting into a beam of light, but she hears a gasp of pain –
‘Just fricking lie still,’ she snaps, her heart clenching at the sound, at the thought of The Asker’s threat against him, at the thought of what she’s done and what it could mean for him and…
Oh shit. Oh shit!
She finds herself standing next to the bed.
‘Lie still,’ she tells him again. He leans back down, obeying. ‘Thank you,’ she says, and her voice catches because…
Because…
‘Echo, what’s going – ’
‘I should search the room,’ she interrupts. ‘There could be something we can use.’ If she can just find some way to contact help, something to use as a weapon even. She opens the packing boxes, but finds only books and toys and VHS tapes. Just junk, like The Asker had said. There’s a wardrobe too, but it’s empty.
‘They took the coat hangers,’ Warden tells her. ‘There aren’t even bed springs. Just wooden slats and foam – but not memory-foam. Why it’s so uncomfortable.’ He pauses. ‘I don’t think we can escape. We’re in a box of bricks with no windows and we can’t exactly fight our way out. I can’t walk and there’s nothing in here that you should try using against a gun, anyway. Even if there was, it wouldn’t be safe.’
‘None of this is safe,’ says Mallory.
She has to tell him.
She has to…
The words don’t come. Why are they so much harder in real life? She stays by the wardrobe, saying nothing, doing nothing.
‘You don’t have to stand,’ says Warden. He shifts sideways on the bed so he’s up against the wall, making space. He winces as he does and it catches at her again. ‘There,’ he says, ‘now you can sit down without coming within a foot of me.’ His tone is genuine, not mocking. She hesitates, then she walks over. She sits with her back against the headboard, careful not to jog or touch, hugging her legs into her chest and resting her chin on her knees. Beneath her, the bed still feels warm where he was just lying. The mattress is hard and lumpy.
‘You’re right,’ she says, ‘it is uncomfortable.’ She glances down at him then, and there’s a half smile on his face. He still looks far too pale, though. ‘Did they give you more painkillers?’ she asks.
‘Yes.’
‘But it still hurts.’
‘I’ve had worse.’
‘No, you haven’t.’
‘You don’t know that,’ he answers. ‘I might get shot all the time.’ He’s trying to lighten things again.
‘Yeah,’ Mallory says, though it cuts a little too close to current reality, ‘you’re a real badass.’
‘That’s me.’
She stays silent, trying to hold it in, trying but…
‘Damn it,’ she says, her voice cracking.
‘Echo?’
Don’t cry, she tells herself, looking away from him as her eyes glass up. Don’t you damn cry. She clings on tighter to her legs, bites so hard that her lip starts bleeding again, holding it down until pain blanks out everything else…
‘Echo, what is it?’ Warden repeats.
‘I’m fine, okay!’
‘Okay.’ And he doesn’t say anything more, just waits, waits for her to be ready, waits as her breathing slows. She looks up at the ceiling, at the cream styrofoam tiles above them, letting herself sink into the darkness. They know each other better in darkness, not as faces or expressions or sounds that complicate things in real life and make them so much more difficult.
She has to tell him.
‘I did it,’ she says. ‘I did what they wanted. The Reckoning has gone out and it’s working. I had to, Warden. I had to or they were going to hurt you. They were – ’
‘It’s okay – ’ he begins.
‘No, it’s not. It’s not, because that’s not all I did.’ She takes a sharp breath. ‘I told you before that I had an idea,’ she says. ‘Well, while I was going through the encryption, I noticed the kill switch Daedalus had written in to delete the code if The Asker missed Tuesday’s deadline. The later levels were set up so that it would gradually allow you to neutralize it as you completed it… but I didn’t, I left it in. I kept thinking about what you’d said and what it could do, and I kept thinking of my dad when he was in Iraq and, Warden,’ she says, ‘I changed the deadline to today.’ Her anxiety grows, even as she says it, all the possible consequences flitting through her mind… ‘The Reckoning will run perfectly for one hour, fourteen minutes, and then at five thirty, it will delete itself. It doesn’t matter where it’s got to by then, where it’s copied to, it will vanish like it never existed.’ She feels him shift beside her and finally looks down. He’s watching her too, but she can’t tell what he’s thinking in the dim light. ‘Seventy-four minutes,’ she tells him, ‘for the FBI to track a ping request I sent them within the virus, and to respond. There wasn’t much I could do with The Asker and Scarlet watching, and there was only so much I could mess with the code anyway, but I managed to write in a single ping command and I targeted it at that IP address in the Javits Federal Building, the place the FBI tried to track me from last year. It will send again and again, every time the virus copies – and encoded inside it is our location.’
Warden doesn’t say anything for a few moments, a few moments in which it feels like Mallory can’t really breathe…
Th
en, ‘You’re a bloody genius, you know that,’ he says.
She feels a tug of relief, but, ‘Not if it doesn’t work,’ she replies. ‘I tried to base when I released it on estimating the FBI response time – factoring in them figuring out the ping, deployment, travel – so it would be loose for the minimum amount of time possible, do the least amount of damage, but if I got it wrong, if they don’t get to us in time…’ The Asker was prepared to risk everything to release The Reckoning, to complete a goal he’s apparently had since long before the Forum even existed. Mallory has taken that from him. Just thinking of how he will react when he realizes, of how Scarlet will react, the apprehension wells up again, and she gets this sudden urge to reach out to Warden, to hold on to him…
‘It was still the right thing,’ he says. ‘I meant what I said before. The Reckoning may only be a computer virus, but it will still hurt a lot of people. Unchecked, it would have brought chaos. I mean, with some bad luck, it could have even started World War Three. What you did was right, Echo.’
‘Even if no one finds us in time?’ And there is nothing left between them and that gun, and the anger that will be behind it. No one else is going to come. They haven’t been missing long enough to be reported and the tracker she put on Jed’s phone will be useless now hers is smashed. They have one chance.
‘The Feds may not be able to catch you usually,’ says Warden, ‘but they’re not stupid and you don’t normally send a flaming beacon right to their front door. We’re talking someone having cracked the common internet encryptions and made it viral, Echo. They’ll follow this. It was the right thing,’ he repeats.
Mallory doesn’t know whether she believes him or not. In a way, it doesn’t really matter now. She’s done what she’s done and she can’t change it. She closes her eyes. Crap, she feels tired. Her body is prickling all over with swelling spikes of adrenaline, and at the same time she feels like she could collapse right where she is. She doesn’t quite understand how that works.
‘I want to lie down,’ she says, the words just seeming to slip out.
‘Sure, I,’ he stutters, ‘yes, sure.’
She uncurls herself slowly, careful to keep in a straight line, to not cross the invisible barrier that would be too close to him, in spite of the urge she felt to before. As her head touches the pillow, her remaining strength seems to evaporate. Lumpy mattress or not, she sinks into it. She stares up at the ceiling tiles and wonders how long they have left now? An hour? Fifty-five minutes?
Echoes (US Edition) Page 27
