by CD Reiss
That makes no sense.
“Jack checked on her. Did you know we interviewed her?”
“For what?”
“The cage. To replace Walter.”
My skin tingled. My breath stopped. My brain went into complete shutdown while I tried to remember every woman we’d interviewed.
I couldn’t recall a single one.
But how many had been that hot? You’d think my dick would at least have a little recollection.
“I’d remember.”
“You were looking at your phone the entire time, but sure. You might remember her score on the coding test though.”
The test was a beast, and my guys in the cage were the best. None of them had scored under ninety percent.
“What was it?”
“Perfect. But, your dick.”
Was that true? Had I forgotten a perfect score? I mean, yes, I didn’t hire women. Very few small operations did. When I was as big as Google, I’d take the risk. Until then, I couldn’t afford a lawsuit or an HR debacle. Couldn’t deal with a work slowdown when we were hosed constantly. And the guys in the cage? We didn’t have a pill to manage the awkward social reflux.
“What the hell was Keaton doing on TV?” I asked, changing the subject. A group must have gathered around Deeprak. I could hear the guys goofing off.
“He called off the Oracle meeting. Someone traced the blockchain and yada yada—he was unmasked.” Tap tappa of keys. “Why can’t we get you on video?”
“I’m on a landline. And bullshit. He wanted to be unmasked.”
A group cheer went up from the other side of the line.
“It’s up!” Deeprak shouted. “‘Enter decryption code to boot OS.’ Like a boss.”
“Two more,” I said quietly.
I was in two worlds, thinking with two minds. The feel of her body and the comfort of my real life. Getting between her and Damon because she needed me. A way in. A path I was unreasonably afraid of losing.
But I didn’t know her. I only felt her in places I hadn’t thought I had. I didn’t know why she was doing what she was doing. Why she kept me here. Why she wanted me to teach her the fine art of fucking. If she just wanted vengeance for not getting a job, she would have stolen my system and sold the decryption keys to the highest bidder. So there was something more.
And Keaton was making a move. He was loyal and trustworthy, but not always in the way you expected. He’d be the first to do some damage to QI4 in the service of what he thought was the greater good. He’d act unilaterally and inflexibly.
I’d gotten mono in high school. Worst three weeks of my life. While I was laid up, some script kiddie trying to make points doxxed my personal email, address, name, and birthday. His name was Nelson, and he’d gotten the info simply. He knew me personally and just posted shit from the school directory as if he’d cracked my ID.
Turned out that, besides making points, Nelson was a little twisted out. His girlfriend had mono too. She’d given it to me. Or I’d given it to her. We’d never know who had it first.
Once Keaton found who doxxed me, he erased Nelson’s ID from the face of the dark web and wiped out his parents’ bank accounts, all while I couldn’t get out of bed.
I wouldn’t have done that, but Keaton wouldn’t undo it. He was Alpha Wolf, and his decisions were not under review. A hacker was only as good as people’s fears, and if he let shit slide under his watch, he had no way of maintaining respect.
What was he after now? Why was he coming out of his shell? I wasn’t there to tell him to stop or to plead for Harper. I was laid up in Barrington with an analog illness, and Keaton was home and assuming we’d been attacked by a hostile entity.
And weren’t we?
Wasn’t Harper just another bad actor after an exploit?
Why did she deserve anything less than the most painful response? She’d publicly humiliated us, and she needed to be dealt with. Anything less would be a show of weakness.
I jumped when the phone rang. Not with the usual long rings you hear in old movies. This was a quick European bring-bring with pauses between.
Back when phone phreaking was a thing, changing the ring was a fun trick to pull.
Ha-ha.
I picked up the handset. “Keaton.”
He was in what sounded like a crowded restaurant. “Hello, Beez.”
“Dude. You’re pulling call data from the office?”
“You’re calling from a landline. How convenient.”
Convenient because the location wasn’t cloaked. Was I being stupid or subliminally intentional?
“Listen to me,” I said.
“No. You listen to me.”
I would not be shut down. Not after all the work I’d put in. Not after coming this far. But the back door opened behind me, and a gaggle of women entered with groceries. They were chatting, laughing, plopping bags on the counter.
“Barrington?” he said, having tracked down the phone number in five seconds. Fuck.
Catherine patted my cheek then kissed it. “Hello, Taylor.”
“Thank you for helping!” Juanita kissed my cheek too.
I was sure Keaton could hear it. Shit, this was embarrassing. Mrs. Boden gave me a wet one. If Harper came and kissed me on the mouth, I was never going to get Keaton to look me in the eye again.
But she wasn’t with them, which was strange.
“What the hell is going on over there?” Keaton asked.
I went into the dining room, stretching the cord around two doorways until the coil was pulled straight. “I don’t know what you have planned, but you have to run it by me first.”
“You’re a non-actor as far as I’m concerned. You’re taking too long. Did you find him?”
“I did. I’m getting it unlocked. Just—”
I was met with rage.
“You’re asking for decryption? Waiting for it? Like a patsy. Like a n00b. No. We don’t wait. We take. This is what you never got. We take what we want and destroy people who get in our way.”
“Keaton, I have this.”
“So do I.”
“How? Can you tell me how?”
“I don’t work for you.”
That was true. It had been made clear at the outset. Money flowed at his discretion. We weren’t partners, but I wasn’t the boss either. And now that he had physical access to the cage, it was too late to cut him off.
“I’m not saying you need my permission. I’m querying the exploit,” I said.
I heard a car door slam on his end. A luxurious thup that shut out noise from the street. “Someone in this company brought a device into and out of the cage. Yes?”
“Yes. It communicated with a loaded power strip in reception.”
“Did you find out who it is?”
“No.”
“Once I find out, I’m going to grind them under my heel. Then I’m going to make it easy for both of us. You’re going to destroy the man who tried to destroy us, then Barrington is going to be thrust into the dark ages.”
He didn’t have to tell me the gory details. Revenge and chaos were what he did. That was the kind of person he knew. His family’s friends broke things for a living. He could fry the power plant, the water supply, or the sewer filtration without breaking a sweat. He didn’t have to touch Harper to do it.
“What if I get the codes before you start breaking shit?” I didn’t know why it mattered to me that he didn’t destroy Barrington, but it did.
“At the rate you’re going?”
“You find the mole there. I’ll take care of shit here. Like a team.”
“Get me the codes. All of them. Until you do, I’m going to protect you. I’m going to do what you won’t do yourself.”
Could I warn Harper? Would it matter? Without knowing his plan, what would I warn her about?
Why was I setting myself against my entire life to protect her?
“Fine.”
I was about to walk back to the kitchen to hang up, but Keato
n said, “Taylor.”
I stopped halfway between the kitchen and dining room as two teen girls came through with dishes and flatware. They giggled when they saw me. The red-haired one blushed hot pink.
“Yeah.”
“Remember why you started this. You wanted to change the world.”
The click and scrape of the girls setting the table got far away.
“Are you there?” Keaton asked.
A little girl with one pigtail half out came into the dining room with a big pitcher of water.
Red Hair took the pitcher and flipped the one intact pigtail, saying, “Go fix your hair, muffin.”
“I’m here,” I said.
The pigtail was half out because the little one had been cleaning the walls of an abandoned factory all day. And why would a child do that? Everett Fitzgerald was coming to town, and they were all working toward a common goal. That was why I cared. I wanted to see if they could do it.
“She sounds young for you,” Keaton said.
“That’s not funny.”
He paused. Keaton didn’t fill the air with words if he had nothing to say or if he needed to take a moment to think. “Something’s just become really clear to me…”
“I’ll call you when I have the next code.”
“You were always a sucker for pussy, Beez. I knew one of them would get to you eventually.”
He hung up.
The kitchen was in full swing. All four burners had pots, and every bit of counter space was covered with someone hacking away at a vegetable.
I didn’t give a shit about Barrington. I didn’t care about Harper, her family, her friends, her father’s fucking factory. I could have passed a polygraph stating I didn’t give a shit about anything but QI4 and a tight circle of people, none of whom were in this little factory town, dammit.
“What’s wrong?” Catherine asked.
“I don’t care!” I barked the lie that revealed itself more the more I repeated it.
I cared.
God dammit. I cared.
The hustle in the kitchen stopped for a second. Catherine took me by the elbow and led me into the pantry.
“Catherine, really,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. I was thinking about something else.”
“Do you need to go home? I can get someone to give you a ride.”
I breathed a rueful laugh. I should have asked her in the first place. I’d have been home already. But it was too late. Keaton knew where I was and that there was a woman involved. And I cared.
“I need Harper.”
I didn’t mean I needed Harper. But it didn’t matter what I meant anymore.
“I can call her.”
I didn’t need a nursemaid, and I didn’t need favors. Catherine had enough to do without me worrying her about a threat from Keaton. She didn’t need to worry about me or my whining either. Harper and I could take care of it.
“No. I’m fine. Never mind.”
She reached into her apron and plucked out a car key, dangling it between us. “She’s helping Pat at the store for a couple of hours if you want to pick up a few things.”
That must have been the store where she and I had met a hundred years before.
I took the key. “All right.”
“I’ll get you a list.”
I was left in the half-empty pantry with its peeling shelf paper and scalloped molding.
Note to self: you’re not going to put anything past that woman.
XXXVIII
I felt blinded by my location. The miles between my company and me were almost as bad as the lack of digital communication.
I had to go back to Cali. Had to get out of here. Had to warn Harper. Had to help the company, myself, this woman who was in the process of destroying me. Had to find out how this knot of facts would turn into a noose and leave me swinging on Main Street.
P&J, as it turned out, was indeed the grocery store Harper had been minding when I’d arrived. I wondered if she’d made it a point to be there, knowing I’d be coming in that way.
She had. I knew it as well as I knew my own motivations. She was too smart to leave that to chance.
Pat was behind the counter. Not Harper. I grabbed the things off the list and dropped them on the belt at the only checkout.
“Thanks for helping out today,” Pat said as she rang me up.
“No problem. You were there all day too, and you’re right back to work.”
She shrugged. “Gotta get done if you want your carrots.”
“Have you seen Harper? She’s going to miss a really nice dinner.”
“She’s over at our place. Our modem’s been on the fritz. She’s the only one that can fix it since our youngest went off to school.”
“Ah.”
“Eleven seventy-two.”
I gave her twenty, and she made change.
“I don’t have my phone.” I took the coins. “And I need to talk to her. So, can I borrow…”
I stopped myself. Asking for a home address was weird enough. Asking so I could chase a woman down was weirder. I’d have to ask to use the store’s phone.
“You can just go over there. I hear you’re pretty handy with computers too. She might need some help.”
“Yeah. True. Hey. I was wondering something,” I said, using all my powers of nonchalance. I was pretty sure they were inadequate. “How did you all find out Everett Fitzgerald was coming to look at the plant?”
She smiled, leaning against the counter. “Well, so interesting. Harper told a fancy commercial realtor over in Doverton he was looking for a space. Said she talked to someone she knew from when she was at college who happened to work for him. Fanny connected the dots.”
“It’s lucky the agent in Doverton had those kinds of connections.”
“Fanny knows just about everyone.”
I could accept that as the official story, but unofficially, no.
“Did you talk to Fanny?” Too direct. I backpedaled. “I mean, did you send her a fruit basket or anything? It would be pretty cool if it went through.”
“Harper took care of it. Those kinds of connections, you only get them in college.”
“I’d have to agree.”
We chattered aimlessly as Pat bagged. She had three smart children she was extremely proud of. All were away. Temple. Duke. Northwestern.
“You cannot believe what these places cost.”
“I can imagine.” I’d used the second of Keaton’s Bitcoin infusions to pay my student loans. He’d thought it was funny that I still owed people money when I knew how to hack a bank and take thousands in such small increments I wouldn’t get caught.
“We couldn’t put up anything for tuition,” Pat continued. “The house isn’t worth squat. Johnny can only fix so many clocks, and the grocery store margins are pretty tight. I don’t even want to think about the debt they’re gonna have.”
I wanted to employ her children without even knowing what they did. I had an impulse to employ the entire town as if it had cast a softening spell on me.
“Don’t. They’ll work it out.”
She gave me directions. I thanked her, took my bags of groceries, and headed over to Oxalis Street. The layout of the town was becoming clearer. The main strip that Harper had taken me past was a few parallel streets from the civic center. Post office. Library. City clerk.
A cluster of houses grew around a closed train stop. Following Oxalis Street around it, I found Pat and Johnny’s place. I parked in front of the narrow, white-shingled house with a porch and a rusted swing in the front yard swinging in the late afternoon sun.
A dog barked, but no one answered the door.
“Who is it?” an impatient male voice came from the end of the driveway.
The drive was grass with two dirt stripes leading to a one-car garage. A circa-1970s Mercedes covered in boxes and tarps took up one side. Benches and tables took up the rest. The carriage doors were open, and Johnny was leaning over a brightly lit table with magni
fication goggles.
“Hey, Johnny,” I said. “Have you seen Harper?”
He stood straight with difficulty, as if his back still bothered him. “Went home. Fixed the wireless and left.”
I should have gone, but I couldn’t help looking at the table as he laid his tweezers down and pushed the goggles up on his head. The table was lined with butcher paper, and an open clock sat on it. Gears were arrayed all over the table with pen circling them in groups, labeled with arrows, or placed on tea saucers.
“Where’s my watch?”
“Close by.”
“Johnny, you’re pissing me off.”
He shrugged. “You took off after lunch. There are guys still there cleaning. The trade was the watch for a full day of work. Not half a day’s work for a really nice piece you lost fair and square.”
I was going to lay into him. Keaton had made me feel like half a man, and now this asshole was halving the difference again. I wouldn’t be taken advantage of. I was lost and trapped and worse for the wear, but that watch was mine.
“You look like you’re about to blow a gasket.” He got off his chair and buckled from a back spasm. Instinctively, I reached out to help him, walking him to a beat-up green couch.
“Where’s the watch?” I asked when he was settled.
“Where I can’t get to it right now.”
“I want it now.”
“Don’t worry, Cali-Boy.” He shifted until he was settled in the cushions. “Things will go to shit if we know what time it is or not. Fancy watch ain’t gonna save nobody.”
Maybe he was right. Maybe I shouldn’t get a whole watch for a few hours of work, and maybe everything was going to shit. Maybe I couldn’t save the world or Harper or myself. But I couldn’t use that as an excuse for not trying.
XXXIX
It was getting dark, but I found the way back to the Barrington house easily. Nothing to it. I had the lay of the land already. I drove around the back and put the car where I’d found it.
Mrs. Boden, wearing a different color bandana on her head and the same bangly bracelet, came to the back porch with the red-haired teen.
