I check my protective programs to make sure they’re in place. This laptop is as secure as my mammoth system at home. It may not have the same kind of power, but I have made sure the activities I perform from this device are just as untraceable as from home. To be sure, though, I won’t use this café again, at least not for a long while.
After making sure everything is 100% secure, I log in to the H-loop. I wish I didn’t have to, but I need to do something about my money situation, and I normally find my hacking gigs among some of the most diehard, veteran members of the loop. Whenever they have a gig they can’t take due to time restrictions, they hand it over to others like me, who hack only occasionally, for extra cash, not to actually make a living out of it.
I browse the users who are logged in, looking for Hazard-US or SMASH, but they are not here. I stare at the cursor blinking, blinking next to my user handle.
$Warrior> |
The small flashing stick looks as lonely as I feel, beating away without purpose, without anything useful to do. I squeeze my temples and shut my eyes against the loneliness that seems to be winking at me, even from my computer monitor—from the cyberspace that has always been my haven—the one place where I can hide.
Angered by my self-pitying mood, I begin to type, my fingers deciding what to do way before my mind does. I go in a mad trance, the kind I’ve known only a handful of times since computers and hacking became my thing. I stay on the beanbag, chin pressed to my chest, fingers moving over the small keyboard, mind rolling from one line of code to another, until two hours later, when the large cup of coffee takes effect and I have to rush to the bathroom. It isn’t until I get back and look over the code I’ve written that I fully realize what I’ve done.
I’ve created a hack to allow me to break into IgNiTe’s network.
Doubtful of my motives, I scroll through the code disbelieving my eyes. For the most part, I know Aydan keeps IgNiTe’s vital systems off-grid, completely inaccessible to anyone outside of The Tank. However, he can’t keep the network as an island—not if he plans to be aware of what is going on in the world. For that reason, he maintains one outside connection, a way out to the Internet, behind a firewall plus an amazing custom-made security system, one that I know well enough to find its weaknesses.
I frown, wondering why I’ve done this and what I can gain from it. If James finds out, he will probably kill me and then throw my remains into a pit full of hungry Eklyptors.
As I scroll through the program, absentmindedly chewing on my bottom lip, I spot a few problems and fix them. I think of Aydan, his arrogant ass and how he would react if he caught someone perusing around his sacred domain. Would he suspect me?
My own arrogance makes me think I’d be the first one he would suspect. I chuckle sadly, realizing that we have more in common than I’d like to admit. No wonder we rub each other the wrong way.
My index finger twitches over the enter key. I tap it just enough to make a hollow sound, but don’t press it all the way down. I go back and forth between caring and not caring about what James will say or do.
I have the DNA samples. There should be saliva in the can and hairs on the jacket. Mom had a comb in her purse. I could call and say I’m coming over to personally hand him what he asked for, but something tells me he would take what he needs and then send me on my way to “rest”. He has no time to deal with a messed-up, out-of-her-mind teenager who doesn’t know the meaning of discretion and has nervous breakdowns when she should be grieving quietly and with dignity.
The hell with that.
I have waited long enough for him to change his mind. I can’t wait anymore.
With a strong surge of resentment toward James and his decision to keep me away, my finger bears down on the enter key and unleashes my hack against IgNiTe’s closed doors.
Ha. And they thought they could keep me out forever.
Chapter 19
The screen flashes with an “ACCESS DENIED” message.
I curse, feeling a giant bruise blooming on my ego. I’m not as good as Aydan, after all. I’ve almost decided this failure is for the better when I spot the problem, fix it and run the program again. After a long, breathless moment, the screen flashes and I’m in.
A week ago, I would have jumped up and cheered or, at least, thrown a fist up in the air. Today, I barely manage a smile. I look around at the patrons and the guy behind the counter, imagining they see the guilt in my expression. I’ve always restricted hacking activities to the comfort of my bedroom, and the targets have invariably been corporations whose CEOs go for coffee runs in private jets. Now, I’m out in the open and invading James’s network. The shame feels like slime on my face. They don’t see it, though. Everyone is too focused on their own devices, most of them just burning neurons in Mr. Zuckerberg’s anti-social media site.
I look back down, wondering what I’ll find. Hopefully some useful information that could give me an opportunity to help. I crack my fingers, ready to begin perusing around, but before I press the first key, random characters pop onto the screen, first slow, then faster and faster, until the entire surface fills with them and, finally, goes blank.
“Shit!” I exclaim.
Heads turn my way. The barista frowns at me, but doesn’t say anything. I bite the end of my thumb and curse again, this time under my breath.
Damn Aydan! Did he just fry the only computer I have?
I press the space bar, expecting the worst: a dead laptop. To my surprise, the screen comes to life again, spelling a message with large letters made out of ASCII characters.
It spells “Caught ya!”
$Specter> I knew you’d come
$Warrior> |
A handle with my H-loop username waits for me to type a message. I stare at it, seething with anger. How the hell did he find out my handle? I’ve never chatted with Aydan, on or off the H-Loop—at least not to my knowledge. I wonder if he was ever part of those forums. Admittedly, I’ve spent endless hours on the H-Loop. That’s where I learned many of my tricks and soon started showing up every script kiddie who dared challenge me. Everyone there works anonymously, so it’s a possibility. I doubt it, though.
One possibility … I was logged in to the H-Loop the time he hacked into my computer at James’s request, when IgNiTe was trying to recruit me. That must have been when he saw my handle, and since “Warrior” is my last name in English, it would have been easy to remember.
After a moment without my response, Aydan types a new message.
$Specter> I left an open door for you. Build it and they will come …
That arrogant bastard.
$Warrior> Sure you did
$Specter> No one else could have found it
$Warrior> Even your compliments sound like insults
He doesn’t reply. I imagine him typing, then deleting some mean response. Even through messaging, silence feels awkward with him, so I type my cover-up story.
$Warrior> I got what James asked for. Mom and Luke’s DNA
$Specter> He’ll be glad. Are you okay?
Huh? It’s not like he really wants to hear that my life has gotten worse since last I saw him or that I don’t even have a home to go to anymore. I don’t need his pity.
$Warrior> Since when do you care?
The cursor just blinks, no answer comes for a moment.
$Specter> I’m sorry
I stare at the words, shocked. He’s sorry? About what? Asking? Never caring before? Aydan never apologizes. I start to wonder if this is even him I’m talking to. I have no response to this, so I backtrack to the one topic that really matters.
$Warrior> How do I get these DNA samples to James?
$Specter> I can meet you, get them from you
That’s how low I’ve fallen. I’m not even welcome at The Tank anymore. Not only that, I have to meet Aydan, of all people. We make arrangements for the next day.
$Warrior> Anything else I can do to help?
I hate myself for asking, but
that’s why I hacked into their system, isn’t it? To find out if there’s anything I could do for the cause. Now that I’ve been found out, though, all I can do is ask because, surely, whatever door Aydan left open for me in their network will be gone after I log out.
$Specter> Nothing for the moment, but I’ll let you know if something comes up. Something always does
My guess is I’ll never hear from them again.
$Specter> If you need anything, ping me here
What? He’ll leave this open for me? I frown, confused.
$Warrior> Will it be safe to leave this open?
$Specter> Yes. This is only
The typing stops. I wait for it to resume, but the cursor flashes on, spelling nothing. Did the connection drop? Someone’s cell phone rings, then another and another. I look up, stare at a mussed-haired guy as he presses an iPhone to his ear. His brow furrows. His eyes dart from side to side as the caller speaks.
“What the hell is that thing?” a guy with blond hair and a dangling earring asks as he stares at his computer monitor.
I look at the other patrons who are also on the phone or laptops. Their eyes are wide and shifting, too. A sense of panic builds in the air like a cloud of steam. In the corner of my eye, I notice activity on my screen. I look down.
$Specter> It’s happening!
$Warrior> What?
My heart beats and beats. I didn’t really need to ask that question. I know what he’s talking about. I’ve been waiting for it, seeing it like a flashing light in the distance, dreading it for weeks.
$Specter> It’s all over the news. I have to go
I have no idea what to type, so I just sit there, staring, the steamy panic that hangs in the room seeping into my bones like the chill of winter. I shiver.
$Specter> Marci, please be careful!
Aydan’s last message sits on the screen for a few seconds. I stare at it as if it were a rare museum piece that got filed away in the wrong exhibit. Words like “please” aren’t in Aydan’s normal vocabulary, not to mention the sentiment behind them. After a moment, the window in which we’ve been chatting goes away, giving me a clear view of my wallpaper: the image of a platinum-colored Vyrus 987 C3 4v road bike.
Numbly, I pull up my browser and click on the news link. If I thought my life had gotten as bad as it possibly could, I was deeply mistaken.
Chapter 20
I secure the door behind me and draw the curtains, making sure to cover the window perfectly. The room reeks of cigarette smoke, old carpet, and muffler exhaust—which is entirely my fault, but there’s no way I’m leaving my only means of transportation outside. I’ve rolled my Kawasaki into the room and placed it next to the bed.
Feeling rather vulnerable, I check the small bathroom to make sure it’s empty. The area is tiny, but thankfully clean. I leave the light over the sink on and close the door halfway, then turn off the lamp by the double bed. The less it looks like someone is in here, the better.
Kicking off my boots, I sit on the bed and press my back against the wall-attached headboard, feeling fortunate I got here before things got any worse. My hands shake over my lap. I squeeze them into fists and concentrate on breathing and conjuring random, off-the-wall things.
Souped-up road bikes.
Machiavellian.
Double espressos.
The ideas run out as images of what I saw on the news insert themselves in the middle. Fires. Tear gas. Pike Place enveloped in flames. People running, trying to escape the chaos. Police officers wearing gas-masks, holding shields. Shaky camera shots of hunched figures slipping in and out of dark alleys, snatching men and women from the sidewalks and pulling them into the gloom where no one dared follow.
I think of the terrified faces of the café patrons as their lives suddenly went from run-of-the-mill existences to run-for-your-life, apocalyptic nightmares.
A police siren wails outside, faint at first, then loud, then gone. I stand, skirt around my bike and peek outside, pulling the dusty curtain back just a bit. The street is dark, only a “Vacancy” neon sign shining on the sidewalk. There isn’t a soul roaming around, not even cars driving by on the adjacent road.
I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at my sock covered feet.
The world is not what it was yesterday, and it never will be again.
Monsters are real, and they’re no longer afraid to come out and show themselves. On the contrary, they are eager, prepared and organized—more than I could have ever imagined.
Their coming out was nothing less than a concerted effort. They are on TV, radio, Internet. All the news channels are reporting their existence at once. Some are calm and quite informative on what will happen next. Others are frantic and unable to express what their eyes are seeing. It is clear which news organizations are run by Eklyptors and which aren’t.
Depending on their news source, citizens around the world are being encouraged to seek help and information from their local authorities or to stay home and lock their doors. Depending on their trusting natures, people are either going out looking for answers or barricading their windows and gathering anything that can be used as a weapon. Depending on their choice, some citizens aren’t human anymore and some have quickly remembered how to pray.
I shiver thinking of our failure. We could have warned them. We could have done something, but we were utterly unprepared for something of this magnitude.
The extent of their invasion is staggering. They are everywhere. Police departments, fire stations, hospitals, news channels, government organizations. Every place imaginable. Their numbers are beyond my wildest calculations.
My stomach flips, a combination of fear and disgust. My life is destroyed in every possible way, and there’s no solace in the fact that I tried to fight. Because it all amounted to nothing and, now, everyone is to share my fate or actually worse.
Whatever hope there was, it’s now gone. They will persecute us until every last one of us is one of them. The CBS anchor said: “There is no point in fighting. We are stronger in number and strategy. Our plan has been in motion for many years. If you are learning about it now, it is because we are well past the point of no return. The scales have finally tipped in our favor, and there is nothing, let me repeat, nothing that anyone can do to stop this. So … come peacefully and join our ranks, we promise you and your loved ones won’t be harmed. Listings are available through the link below for locations where you can seek information and learn more about our new society. We promise you it will pale in comparison to anything seen before. Lastly, I entreat you to ignore any deranged reports about our movement. They are blatant lies, mere Hollywood stunts.”
It is laughable and terrifying at the same time. In spite of the full-fledged Eklyptors— “creatures” as some news reports are calling them—that attacked law enforcement agents and appeared on some of the newsfeeds, they’re claiming none of it is real and want people to believe that it’s all ridiculous lies worthy of a sci-fi movie; for when has anyone seen half-human monsters pouncing on policemen and ripping their throats out?
“My God! My God!” an independent news reporter exclaimed as she and her camera crew filmed one of the beasts from a distance. “It’s a … it’s a sort of animal. No, not animal … creature. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Her voice went raw with fear. “I don’t know if you can see, but it’s massive. It’s got huge claws, and they’re … they’re bloody. Oh, Jesus. Back up! Back up!” The image shook as they moved further away. “God, it can stand!” she said as the Eklyptor reared on its hind legs and pounded its chest. It looked a lot like Ape Man, except bigger and further gone into nightmare.
Even with that, most members of our oh-so jaded society think the horrifying, quickly disappearing, YouTube videos are part of some elaborate hoax. Because who in their right mind would believe that honest-to-god monsters are walking our streets? Who would believe in men leaping over cars, tearing people in half with their bare teeth, blocking bullets with their exoskelet
ons, delivering poisonous bites?
No one.
Not when we’ve grown up in this CGI era and have become used to end-of-the-world special effects and plots.
If children don’t believe in monsters under the bed the same way they don’t believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny, of course adults don’t believe in werebeasts. That it’s all a big, fat joke or a twisted reality show created by Hollywood is really the only logical explanation. Forget locking the door and hiding. That’s for losers and deranged conspiracy theorists. Most will trust the authorities and walk into a nightmare suspecting nothing, a nightmare they’ll never, ever walk out of.
I lay back and stare at the ceiling, wondering what the members of IgNiTe are doing at the moment, how they are reacting to this turn of events. Did they know this was coming so soon? Are they prepared to fight? Will James call me now? Am I more valuable in this new world?
Jumping off my bed, I pull out my laptop and set up a hotspot with my cell phone. I sit cross-legged on the floor, run the program I wrote and access the pathway that Aydan left open for me.
I wonder if there is some mechanism that notifies him. Hoping that’s the case, I wait for him to notice my presence, but he doesn’t. I roam the system for a while, hoping to find something useful, but there’s nothing. Not even “read.me” files. Aydan was thorough cleaning everything up, which suddenly strikes me as odd. Why do all of this just to leave a door open for me? Why not just block all access? Why create the means to communicate with me?
It makes no sense.
The whole world makes no sense any longer.
Chapter 21
I close the laptop, a feeling of disorientation falling over me. The world is truly bent out of shape and I don’t know which way is up anymore.
Dragging my limbs, I head for the double bed and crawl under the covers. The comforter—if it could be called that—is rough, with the colors and patterns of a week-old bruise. Exhaustion clamps around me like a heavy suit of armor. My body gives into it, finally overtaken by the events of the day. I pull my knees into my chest as a tremor makes me shake all over.
Eclipse the Flame Page 11
