Assured Destruction: The Complete Series

by Michael F Stewart

  At the mention of my father, my eyes blur with tears and I run a sleeve across them. “I don’t care. They don’t know Lolz; they know Janus Rose.”

  His expression softens again.

  “I can’t do that to you. Or to your mom,” he says. “I should never have included you and I’m sorry.”

  “That email is sent. And in it you were saying I had a chance of infiltrating Darkslinger, but you really meant Bitchain.” It’s my voice rising now and I’m annoyed by how squeaky it sounds.

  “No. I won’t.”

  “Even if that costs you your relationship?”

  I watch the pistons firing behind his eyes.

  “Yes, even then.”

  He really does love my mom. I regroup and let the silence extend between us. When I think I can speak without my voice breaking, I ask: “Why’d you rejoin Darkslinger as CrowBar? Why show your face again?”

  He cocks his head as if trying to figure out the end result of this new line of questioning. I think he sees it because he grins appreciatively.

  “I’m guessing it was to keep an eye on me. To help me,” I say for him.

  “You’d make a good agent,” he says. “You’re good at seeing people’s vulnerabilities. Exploiting them. Do you know how we evaluate a good recruit?”

  I don’t care. All I care about is that I’m pushing buttons, but he continues: “It’s called MICE. The first letter stands for whether the potential recruit needs money.”

  “My money is on CrowBar helping me, if only to keep me out of trouble,” I say.

  I’m like an investigative reporter. How do you fight corruption? Evidence. Lolz is going undercover.

  “And that’s the C,” he says. “Coercion. And you also have the I on me. That stands for ideology. We share the same ideology. I want these guys as badly as you do.”

  “What’s the E then?” I ask, interested, despite myself.

  “Ego. That’s where your challenge is.”

  “Like you don’t have an ego?” I laugh. “You’ve used me ever since I got in with the police force.”

  He stares down at his stocking feet. “I did, but I was wrong and I realize it. I can’t let you put yourself in more danger.”

  And I understand. Someone with a big ego doesn’t admit mistakes. Peter’s problem, though, is that he doesn’t realize how big the stakes are. I now know what meeting Sw1ftM3rcy was talking about. The same meeting my dad tried to crash. It’s time for me to get a seat at the table, and I can only think of one way to regain my street cred. One reason for Sw1ftM3rcy to award me my links rather than expunge me.

  “You’re going to let me call you out on Darkslinger,” I say. “When they see that Lolz has outed a spook, and none other than the great silver hat CrowBar, they’ll elevate me to elite and I’ll be on the inside.”

  His fingers clench into fists, and then it’s as if all of him wilts. Peter gives me the same expression my mother had when she agreed to tell me about my dad.

  “All right,” he says. “But promise me you’ll give me until tomorrow to prepare a few safety measures.”

  “I promise,” I say and grin when he reaches into the oven to pull out a rack of lamb.

  I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a meal more.

  Chapter 27

  <> Gumps tweets.

  When I see the tweet, I know who stands behind the account: Peter. And I should have known because who else could have hacked my Twitter accounts but a former government-techno-spook. But what does his tweet mean? I’ve promised to give him a day, and that’s just what I’ll do. I told Peter I was staying with Hannah.

  I’ll figure it all out later; for now, I can’t believe Assured Destruction will be done today.

  I wake at six, having spent the night camped out in the van with a dumpster mattress, rousing every hour to start and run the heater for ten minutes. At five I skipped the engine, hunkering under the blankets until dawn, but then the generator cranked over, rumbling to life, and an artificial dawn blazed from a high-powered light that allows the workers to start early.

  I stumble bleary eyed, wrapped in my parka, into the electric light of Assured Destruction’s parking lot. I am willing to give a finger for just a sip of the double-double Tim Horton’s coffee the guy fiddling with the generator is drinking. I needn’t have worried, though. Some good Samaritan has donated coffee and a box of a hundred donuts. It rests on the tailgate of a pickup and I plunge in, polishing off my second meal of deep fried dough in twenty-four hours, this time chased by caffeine.

  Luckily the plumbing still works inside Assured Destruction, and I clean up a bit before starting on my thank you gifts. I can already tell I am going to need as many as yesterday, perhaps more. All day I collect components and fiddle, making my stuff, greeting helpers, saying thank you more times than all my life combined.

  The librarian chick pops by at midday and says that her daughter has already sold her pair of earrings on some website and is asking if she could have more. I didn’t know quite what to say. She liked it so much she sold it? But I am not about to insult someone who is lending me a hand. So I just shrug and tell her to help herself. She flushes as she takes two pairs. Funny thing is, I have more female workers today. Some people swing past and don’t really look like they’ve been working. One woman clicks over in four-inch heels, grabs her gift and walks back out. Someone whistles at her and another catcalls, so I’m pretty sure she is paying for her purchase.

  Later, with the sun setting, my pile’s depleted and Jonny tugs me out of my cave. I’ve watched the progression of the restoration, of course, but it’s wholly another matter when the electrical is reconnected and switched on and pot lights shine through drywall that has never existed, and shelves for god knows what people expect us to sell line the walls. A slightly used cash register graces a counter so polished the reflection hurts my eyes.

  At the back, Chop-chop has been brilliantly repainted with these big fangs and googly eyes by Jonny.

  I step through a new door to the outside and look back.

  Assured Destruction looks back at me. It’s done.

  I’m not alone in wandering around, admiring the finished product. I just start laughing and crying at the same time. For their sacrifice of time and money, and for who? Me!

  “Thank you,” I shout. Then I jog back inside, and flip the Closed sign to Open. I hear the cheer before stepping back out into it. It’s a full minute before it quiets.

  “You know I suck at … you know … talking.” I swallow. “But I want to say thank you. To everyone. I wish my mom could be here. I’ll take her a picture right now. Right after this. It means so much to me. To us. So, yeah …” I hold my hands palms out because that’s all I have for them. “Thank you.”

  It’s not enough. It can never be enough, I know. And I wonder if these are the points in people’s lives when they decide that they need to spend the rest of theirs giving back, if only in a vain attempt to return what was given to them. Maybe that’s what Annie is doing in her kitchen.

  I glance back at the milling workers and notice something. Anyone with a piercing, man or woman, is wearing one of my creations. Men in heavy jackets and hard hats sport necklaces of flex circuitry; others in safety vests have headphone earmuffs.

  “Good speech,” Jonny says, taking my hand in his. My fingers are already cool, but his are warm, his heart being bigger than mine. “You have to see the upstairs.”

  I marvel at everything I pass. The well-oiled and restored conveyor. Chop-chop’s rumble—fully rebuilt after the heat of the fire.

  “I was thinking,” I say. “Maybe if we find an old vending machine, we can hook it up to Chop-chop and people can just wander in, pay the machine, and pop their hard drive in.”

  “
Hacker,” he says.

  “That’s not hacking,” I say.

  “Sure it is.”

  And maybe he’s right. The gifts, the upcycling. It’s all hacking in some ways. Hacking is just finding solutions that aren’t otherwise obvious, like turning a toaster into a toaster oven just by turning it on its side. Hacking doesn’t have to include technology. Life hacking.

  We grind upward in the slow-as-it-ever-was elevator. Jonny insisted we take it for effect. I discover what he’s talking about when the doors open.

  Somehow they managed to slip everything from a couple of couches to a dining room table, lounge chairs, and beanbags past me while I worked. Sure, it’s all a bit battered but I’m not one to complain, I spent a good part of the night finding a spot for my head on the dumpster mattress that didn’t stink of spoiled milk. In here it smells of lemons and sawdust. The bedrooms facing the parking lot have been refurnished too. Gone are the overhead fluorescent lights and the windows facing the living area. Funky, blown-glass pendant lights hang in not an old office, but a bedroom, with a real bed and not just a mattress on the floor. Even the heat has turned back on.

  I turn into Jonny and reach up so that my fingers run up behind his ears. And then I draw him to me and kiss him.

  Excitement ratchets up in me for a moment as I have the same sense of invincibility I had in the police station, on the road, when I tossed away my crutches, when I was at the peak of my mania. Kissing him, I feel as though everything will work out. That anything’s possible. And then I realize what it is I’m feeling. What my dad talked about. And maybe that scares me even more.

  “I love it,” I say.

  I might have said more but Jonny sweeps me up and kisses me with such tender force that words are not necessary.

  Chapter 28

  <> JanusFlyTrap tweets.

  My lips are sore in a really good way as I float into my mom’s hospital room. Nothing can bring me down.

  For once I have my mom to myself without Peter; she’s lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Hi, Mom,” I say, bouncing to her side. “Can’t wait to show you these pictures.”

  Her chin dips so she can see me, and I fiddle with the albums on my phone to reveal the recent pictures of Assured Destruction. I hold the phone above her and I swipe through exterior and interior shots, ending with the one of her new bed, which includes a special bar to help her get in and out. Seeing it, her lips twitch in a smile, but she remains silent.

  I bury the phone in my pocket and touch her wrist. “Are you all right, Mom?”

  She nods, but a tear breaks from the corner of her eye and runs past her temple.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m so sorry,” she chokes. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What? What’s going on?”

  I expect her to say something like she’s sold Assured Destruction, or maybe that she’s still sick and not ready to return to work.

  “Peter told me everything,” she says.

  “Oh—”

  She places a finger to my lips. “You don’t have to say anything, I’ve been too absent as a mother, and I’m sorry.” She removes her finger to struggle into a seated position. I press the button to raise the back of the bed, and she bats away my hand. “That’s what I’m talking about. I’m checking out of the hospital tonight and I’m going to start taking care of you.”

  “Listen, Mom, it’s okay. Depression isn’t something you snap out of. And what Peter did. It’s all right, he—”

  “It’s all right that he used you as a contact for a gang? The same gang that recently kidnapped you and showed you where they killed your father and then proceeded to firebomb your home? It’s all right?”

  “You … you broke up?” I ask.

  “Janus, I never want to see that man again.” Her eyes hold an icy clarity that I haven’t seen for months.

  Peter didn’t have to do this. Why would he do this?

  “I don’t want you anywhere near him or that gang,” she says.

  And then I understand. Maybe it’s because I’m only starting to figure out the depths of my feeling for Jonny. That a relationship is so much more than thinking someone’s cute and making out until your lips hurt. It’s sacrifice, and Peter’s paying ultimately. He did this to keep me from carrying out my plan. It was the only thing I held over him. And he took it away. He really is my Obi-wan Kenobi.

  “He loves you,” I whisper. “He really does.”

  “That may be so, but I love you, and he broke my trust.”

  “But he didn’t need to say anything.”

  My mom squints at me. “You mean I didn’t need to know?”

  “I wanted you to get better.”

  “Well I am,” she says. “Tomorrow morning Assured Destruction reopens for business and I’ll be at the cash.”

  I can’t imagine how much she must be hurting.

  “And you’re grounded,” she adds.

  “What?”

  “Peter told me your plans. That you want to infiltrate this … gang.”

  Wow, he really told her everything. I really didn’t think he’d do it. After years of tracking these gangsters, he’s walking away. A shudder brings my shoulders to my ears. This was his big chance.

  “Mom, Peter himself said we can’t go to the police, and I really don’t want to wake up to smoke ever again. Have you seen what’s going on out there?” I point at the window. “The Zombie Worm is still everywhere and I’m betting that this Bitchain gang is growing stronger. They killed Dad. Who will stop them?”

  “Not a sixteen-year-old girl.”

  “Seventeen!”

  My mom freezes and her face screws with sorrow. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. Your birthday.”

  And then I start laughing.

  “What?” she asks.

  “I’d forgotten too,” I say, and I laugh some more until my mom finally smiles.

  A nurse ducks her head in and shushes me.

  “She’s a real bitch,” I whisper and my mom grabs my fingers, then bursts into great guffaws.

  “She is.”

  “Shush!” the nurse hisses from the corridor.

  “Wouldn’t want the depressed patient laughing,” my mom quips, tears of mirth and pain streaming down her face. And we’re laughing again, holding each other, despite everything.

  I’m first to stop. The answer to my question coming to me. Who is going to stop Bitchain? Peter. He didn’t want me to give him twenty-four hours in order to take precautions. He wanted a head start.

  “I need a computer,” I say. But there’s none here. “I have to go.”

  “Jan—”

  “Sorry, mom,” I say. “I have to go.”

  “But you’re grounded.”

  And it sounds so out of place that I actually chuckle. “I know. I promise not to do anything dumb.” Like your ex-boyfriend.

  Inside of twenty minutes I’m back at Assured Destruction, booting up my laptop, armor on and lip bitten.

  I call Peter. No answer.

  I open the browser, click on Darkslinger, log in …

  You are expunged.

  No, no, no!

  I create a new account and am welcomed on Darkslinger. A minute later I’ve seen a list of CrowBar’s posts. He’s called me out. Told everyone that I used to work for the cops, used my having spread the anti-virus around for free as proof. Says he knows who I am and will give my name to the highest bidder. OMG. I know he doesn’t mean to, but still.

  PM me, Sw1ftM3rcy responded. And that’s it. Peter’s setting himself up to enter Bitchain and maybe that’s what he had in mind all along.

  Can I help him? Can I help a former secret
agent? Probably not. Maybe the best thing for him is for me to let him go and hope he returns triumphant.

  But that’s not the Janus way. I’ve just been helped by dozens of strangers. I can’t stand by and let someone I care about down.

  Do I care about him? The man with the gleaming teeth and the meaty fists? My mom sure does.

  Maybe I don’t have a choice. My heart lodges in my throat as I open the second-most popular thread of the day. It’s mine, or rather Lolz’s. Somebody has cracked Peter’s encryption and the code I copied over is there for everyone to read.

  Congratulations! You’re a hacker! Better than that, to crack my encryption you’re elite. Or 31173 in 1337 sp3@k. 101.

  Even though I can barely breathe, all I can think is make the l337 speak stop.

  What? You really didn’t expect me to give you a hard drive with actual data on it, did you? There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who do not.

  This is a bad geek joke. In binary, 10 is the number 2.

  If you can crack this, it means that it’s time for you to understand a few things.

  Yes, I’m Peter, but I’m also CrowBar on Darkslinger. A former USPS agent—one of the good guys. Just like you. The funny thing about retirement is that no one ever really prepares for it, and I still have big—

  That’s where it cuts off. Big plans, I bet. I’d only copied a portion of the code over, but it’s enough. Peter’s cover is blown, which means he’s walking into a trap. And it’s all because he trusted me. And I distrusted him.

  What do I tell Mom? What do I do? I’m hyperventilating over my desk. The idiot.

  This year’s Darwin Award winner? @Pumpkineatr, JanusFlyTrap tweets.