by Tracy Deebs
Not to mention how someone managed to pull me into a ghost chat without my permission. And how they know who I am.
It’s the last thing that has me freaking out a little. I guard my identity very closely, and I really don’t like somebody finding a way around my security and dragging me into who knows what. I stare at the message box, blank now since the words disappeared seconds after showing up, and try to decide if I want to log out or click on the box—and let whoever sent this know that I’ve seen the message and am watching—when someone else chimes in.
AI: Listen to him. Please.
OH and AI… meaning what? Original Hacker? Artificial Intelligence? Origami Hamster? My finger hovers over the trackball as I try to decide. Stay or leave? Keep watching or close out the chat?
Suddenly, a third person joins.
EH: Dude, I never get played
Then a fourth.
IT: Who is this? What do you want?
AI: It’s Alika. And Owen. From the audition a few weeks ago
Okay, now things are starting to make more sense. Owen Heath, the kid who walked out early, not Origami Hamster. More’s the pity—hamsters don’t have nearly the attitude this guy does.
But how did he go from being the Lone Ranger with attitude to teaming up with Snow White, of all people? She’s the original good girl and team player while he… he, very definitely, is not.
I must not be the only one who’s surprised, because the chat comes to a stop for a good minute or so, as the others are probably trying to work out the same stuff I am. The others being EH, i.e., Silver Spoon/Ezra Hernandez, and IT, who is Buffy/Issa Torres. The only one missing is Mad Max/Seth Prentiss. And, of course, me.
I still don’t know if I want to join, even though reading the conversation in single lines at the bottom of my screen is getting annoying. But until I actually click into the chat, that one disappearing line is all I’m going to see.
EH: Hey, Alika, aren’t you the one who said we shouldn’t be talking?
EH: I’m pretty sure this little chat breaks ALL of Agent Donovan’s rules
OH: Lay off her, man
EH: It doesn’t look like I’m the one who’s on her
Ugh. I roll my eyes, very nearly stop reading. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s chest-beating testosterone jockeys. Especially when one only cares about himself, and the other… I still don’t have a clue what the other one cares about. And I sure as hell don’t know why he’s bothering to contact us now, when he didn’t stick around for much more than introductions at the audition. If I was part of the chat, I’d be tempted to ask, but since I’m lurking, I just sigh and wait for it to be over.
I guess I’m not the only one who’s annoyed by the testosterone overdose, because Snow White ignores all the posturing and takes the conversation back to its main point.
AI: The rules don’t matter if everything’s fake
AI: There is no CIA program and there are no college scholarships
The words disappear as soon as she types them, but they hang in the air around me, so huge that I can almost see them. So monumental that I can feel them lighting up a caution sign inside my brain.
IT: What are you talking about?
IT: Of course there’s a scholarship. They said
OH: They lied
IT: Why would they do that?
EH: Because we got played
That’s a big admission coming from Silver Spoon. It gets my radar up, has me wondering just what he did for the “audition” that has him caving so easily from his “I never get played” stance. Then again, he’s obviously a smart guy—one who’s smart enough to recognize the truth when he sees it and honest enough not to try to hide it.
A begrudging kind of respect kindles deep inside me. I ignore it, at least for now. One moment of self-awareness does not a decent person make. Besides, I still don’t know if the Lone Ranger and Snow White are lying to us.
My gut says no, but I never believe my gut. At least not without a lot of research to back it up.
EH: So, what’d they want with this little charade?
SP: Hey! Who is this?
SP: What’d I miss?
SP: Whoa, catching up now
SP: You can’t be serious
So Mad Max is in now too. I’m the only holdout. Again, my fingers hover over the trackball. In or out? In or out?
OH: If we wanna know what their goal is, we need to figure out what we did for them
IT: Don’t you mean, what WE did? You ran away
OH: Seriously? You’re going to blame me for that when you’re the ones who let yourselves get used by Jacento????
SP: Jacento? What do they have to do with this?
IT: Jacento? Are you SERIOUS?
The name Jacento rings a bell for me—well, rings a bell for everyone, I’m pretty sure, as they’re one of the largest telecommunications and computer equipment manufacturers in the world. Half the country has a Jacento phone or tablet or laptop, as does most of Europe and Africa. They’re just breaking into the markets in Asia and South America, but it won’t be long before they’re huge there too.
Global domination is pretty much their mission statement, after all.
The thought rings another bell for me, as I stare at my own laptop and phone, both of which are from Jacento. Sure, we’re in a ghost chat, which should be invisible to Android or any other OS, but should be are famous last words for a reason.
The thought has me googling something I remember reading a couple of weeks ago, even as I wonder what to do to make sure my Jacento equipment is safe. Call me paranoid, but paranoid is better than screwed. And definitely better than caught.
I keep an eye on the text box now, as I skim through the results of my search, looking for the article.
OH: Serious as a Trojan horse in your inbox
OH: We need to know what you did for them
IT: How do we even know you’re who you say you are?
IT: How do we know this isn’t just another test?
OH: Are you freaking kidding me, Issa?
OH: Are you really that brainwashed?
Not that brainwashed, I think, as I wait for Buffy to answer. That desperate. I know because I’m just as desperate. I can make enough with my hacking to support myself, but support myself and pay for Harvard? Tuition alone is over forty-three thousand dollars a year, and applying for financial aid is out, since it would raise all kinds of questions.
But there’s no way I can do that without help. Or without some major black hat hack, which… no. I’ve already done enough covering up of records, moving stuff around in the system, getting paid by my classmates to hack their school tablets for food and rent money. I’m not ready to move from that to stealing from people.
But, unlike Buffy, I’m not into self-delusion. Like Silver Spoon, once I know the truth, I don’t have the time or interest to hide from it. I’m too busy trying to find out why something happened to spend time or energy denying that it did.…
OH: Check this out
He posts a file for download, and I grab it before it disappears. As always, I use my VPN to download it so that it won’t be recorded in my history. But as the data streams onto my screen, I can feel my stomach start to sink.
The building we were in last month is nothing but a soundstage rented by some shell corporation the Lone Ranger managed to trace back to Jacento. Which is bad news for SO. MANY. REASONS.
A million questions zip through my brain, the most important one being, why did Jacento lie? Why did they feel the need to pretend to be the CIA? If they wanted work done, why didn’t they just hire us—or other, more experienced hackers—to do it instead of going through the trouble of the whole CIA ruse?
The only way it makes sense is if they’re planning something illegal. And not just a little illegal, but totally, completely, can’t-be-defended-in-a-court-of-law illegal.
And if that’s the case, then sure, I can totally see what they were thinking. Pick some stupid
(but very skilled) teen hackers, let us do whatever they need done, and then tell us, “Thanks, but you haven’t been selected for the program, blah blah blah.” They figured it’d be like any other job or college application—we’d cry into our keyboards a little bit and then move on, no harm done.
Except they made one miscalculation. One huge miscalculation. They forgot that hackers aren’t like normal people. We don’t just move on from something that interests us, and we rarely forget anything—especially if it matters to us.
Most important, we’re curious. Really, really, really curious. And in a world where technology is God, we’ve got the skills to indulge our curiosity in a way that few others do.
Which means that, unlike other kids our age, when crazy stuff happens, we tend to want to know why. And we dig until we do.
Hence the Lone Ranger finding all this out even though he didn’t even stick around for the audition. Something obviously felt off to him that day, and this mess of information is the result.
The others seem to be reading, and absorbing, what he sent too, because the chat is quiet for a couple more minutes—which gives me enough time to finally find the article I was looking for.
I pull it up on a split screen, start to skim it to make sure I’m remembering correctly. As I do, I keep an eye on the bottom right corner of my screen, waiting for the others to catch up as I try to piece together what I know with what the Lone Ranger just showed us.
Freaking out’s not really my thing—I prefer the calm and cool approach—but I’ve got to say that what I’m thinking is making me nervous. Really, really nervous.
So nervous, in fact, that I jump into the chat without thinking any more about it.
HB: I created an infection propagator that works on Red Hat Enterprise Linux
EH: There she is
EH: I always figured you for a lurker
EH: Also, Houston, we have a problem
EH: Because I created the same thing for Ubuntu
OH: They wanted me to create one for macOS
OH: It’s why I walked
IT: I created back doors into several large servers running Windows
SP: Uh-oh
SP: Houston, we have a BIG problem
SP: Because I created target locators and a tracking system for a polymorphic worm
SP: Also a suicide switch
AI: And I created a polymorphic payload
Her words go off like a bomb. Utter screen silence for several long seconds. Then:
EH: I repeat
EH: Houston, we have a BIG FREAKING PROBLEM
IT: Oh God
IT: What did we do?
EH: You want to know what we did?
EH: We created the apocalypse
EH: That’s what we did
6
Owen
(1nf1n173 5h4d3)
Ezra’s right.
I go over the list of what everyone did for the tenth time, trying not to tear my damn dreads out. Because come on. Just COME ON.
OH: What the hell were you guys thinking?
I type the words before I can think better of it, but once they’re out there, I don’t regret them. Because who does this crap? I took one look at what they wanted me to do and walked out. Why the hell didn’t the rest of them?
AI: Okay, let’s everybody calm down here
AI: We’re a far cry from a digital apocalypse
EH: Yeah, right
EH: Tell yourself that often enough and you might actually believe it
EH: Isn’t that how the government always gets into trouble, State Department Girl? By deciding something isn’t a problem and ignoring it until it’s a disaster?
AI: Don’t call me that! I’m not some government stooge, no matter who my dad is
EH: Then don’t act like one
EH: Do you even know who runs on Red Hat and Ubuntu?
AI: What am I, stupid?
EH: I don’t know, are you?
OH: From where I’m sitting, you’re all morons
SP: Okay, enough with the name calling
SP: We get it, we screwed up
SP: And the answer is everybody
SP: Everybody runs on Red Hat and Ubuntu
IT: Obviously not, or my part wouldn’t have been necessary
HB: Almost everybody important does
OH: Google runs on Ubuntu
SP: Technically it’s Goobuntu
OH: Really? Are you just screwing with me now?
SP: I was only trying to be accurate, jeez
IT: Amazon runs Red Hat
OH: Half the world runs Red Hat, including Social Security and the Department of Defense
SP: The DoD runs SELinux, actually, using their own code that’s totally classified
OH: Yeah, you just go on believing that, dude
IT: You hacked the DoD?
OH: Like I’m going to answer that
AI: And Apple runs macOS. Obviously
EH: Like I said
EH: The apocalypse
IT: That depends on the payload
Issa’s right, but she’s also wrong. The actual apocalypse might depend on what the payload is, but even the least malicious worm in the world will wreak total and complete havoc if it’s uploaded into even one of those systems. Loaded into all of them… it would take months, maybe even years, to sort out.
And that’s before common sense kicks in and says we’re not dealing with a bunch of gray hats here. We’re dealing with a major corporation who went through the trouble of creating a blind scenario to pull off their dirty work. There’s no way this code isn’t bad freaking news.
Because this is what I need right now, on top of everything else. Jesus. I just wish I knew how all five of them could have been so damn blind.
I split the screen so I can keep an eye on where this is going, then pull up a code I worked on months ago. I have a feeling we’re all going to need it before today is through.
EH: What’s the payload do, Alika?
She doesn’t answer right away. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s scared or if she’s just trying to wrap her head around the ramifications of what she did. Either way, I can feel the impatience—and the fear—emanating from the others. Maybe it’s my imagination. Maybe it’s just me magnifying my own feelings.
But I don’t think so. Not when it feels like the whole group of us is holding our collective breath.
SP: What’s the payload do?
IT: What’s the payload do?
Even Harper gets in on the act, all three questions going up at pretty much the same damn second.
HB: What’s the payload do?
AI: Information gathering, mostly
AI: It’s really not that complicated
EH: A simple smash and grab?
EH: You want us to believe that a major corp like Jacento went through all this trouble just to get people’s credit card info?
EH: No freaking way
AI: It’s not credit card info they’re after
SP: What, purchase histories then?
SP: That’s ridiculous. Companies share that stuff all the time
SP: Plus with Congress making it legal to sell browser history, what’s the point of all this cloak-and-dagger stuff?
IT: None of this makes sense
IT: I mean, we’ve got infection propagators, but how are they going to deliver the payload? How are they going to get in?
IT: None of us actually hacked these companies’ security, did we?
EH: No, but there’s no guarantee we were the only group they put together to do this
AI: Maybe not, but why get more people involved than absolutely necessary?
AI: The more people who know, the bigger the chance for a leak
SP: So what are they planning?
SP: To get in the back doors Issa put in the smaller servers?
IT: That’s risky
EH: Right?
EH: The places we’re talking about have way too much security
for that to work
HB: They’re not going in through the servers
HB: Check this out
HB: FILE UPLOAD
I click the button to download the file with a really bad feeling in my gut. It’s a feeling that only gets worse as the headline is revealed.
No Charger?
No Problem
Jacento to roll out charging kiosks throughout North America & Europe on New Year’s Day
I start to skim the article quickly, looking for the highlights. But by the third paragraph the bad feeling is no longer contained to my stomach. It’s crawling on my skin like lice, wriggling around all over me and making me twitchy as hell.
So I start back at the beginning, and this time I read every word. Carefully.
When I’m done, I go back and read it again. Because if Harper is implying what I think she is, then this is worse than I ever imagined. Depending on what Jacento is going for, digital apocalypse might be too mild a term for what can happen.
IT: Oh my God
EH: They’re going to upload it through the phones?
SP: That’s impossible
AI: No, it’s brilliant
OH: Yeah, it is
OH: Think of how many people in America use Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, on a daily basis
OH: Now think of all those people’s phones hooked up to chargers at the same time
IT: But it won’t be at the same time
IT: I mean, how many people are actually going to need to charge their phones at any given moment?
SP: In big cities around the globe? It’s practically infinite
SP: I mean, not really. But a lot
HB: Think about events
HB: Music festivals, antigovernment marches, conferences
OH: Professional sporting events, hot spots, airports, and train stations
OH: The list is endless
OH: People will use the kiosks in droves for their phones, tablets, laptops
