Terror Kid

by Benjamin Zephaniah

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘Are you a revolutionary?’ Speech asked.

  ‘What kind of question is that?’ Rico replied.

  ‘It’s a simple question. Are you a revolutionary? Do you want to change stuff?’

  ‘You can call me what you want but, yeah, I want to change stuff.’

  Speech kept his eyes on Rico.

  ‘So tell me, what do you want to change?’

  ‘There’s so much,’ Rico replied. ‘Where do I start? Our school is falling down. I’d do something about that. How do they expect us to have a good education if the buildings are falling apart? Every other week my mum has to do more work for less pay – I’d do something about that. I keep getting stopped by the police, and I want to do something about that. I turn on the TV and all I see is war. I know we can’t stop all wars but we can stop selling guns all over the world. I’d change the way old people are treated. I’d change the way we treat homeless people, refugees … you know, poor people. And most of all I would make sure young people have a say. There’s so much.’

  Speech interrupted. ‘But this is all talk, isn’t it? You say all this stuff, but if it came down to really doing something about it you’d run a mile, because you don’t know what you’re really talking about, do you?’

  ‘That’s not true, man. I care about stuff but no one else does. Especially not kids of my age.’ Rico was getting angry now.

  Speech looked deep into Rico’s eyes. ‘I might not be your age, but I care,’ he said. ‘And the truth is, I know you do too – that’s why I’m talking to you now. Because you’re talented.’

  ‘Get to the point,’ said Rico.

  Speech continued. ‘The cops have been doing what they want to do and getting away with it for years. It doesn’t matter which government is in power, it’s all the same. That’s because all politicians are the same. The best government is no government; the best system is no system.’

  ‘Come on, man,’ Rico said, showing his frustration. ‘I said, get to the point. I thought you wanted me to do something for you?’

  ‘I do,’ said Speech. ‘Do you know Lloyd House?’

  Rico thought for a while. It sounded vaguely familiar but he couldn’t recall it. ‘No.’

  ‘It’s on Colmore Circus. Not far from here.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Rico. ‘The police headquarters.’

  ‘That’s right, man. The headquarters of the West Midlands Police Force. The second largest force in the country. That’s where they live. That’s where they plot and scheme. That’s where they launch their operations. How about you hack into their computers?’

  Rico stiffened and shouted, ‘Are you joking?’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ said Speech.

  ‘You want me to hack into the police network?’ Rico said, trying to control his disbelief.

  ‘Ah, are you saying you can’t do it?’ There was a hint of excitement in Speech’s voice. His eyes had lit up. ‘Think about it, man, it’s the ultimate protest. Almost anyone can hack into a supermarket, or an estate agent, but this goes right to the people who administer power over us. This goes right to the people who keep stopping and searching you as you go about your lawful business. You can do this. I know that they have a backup system – they’ll spend about ten minutes trying to fix the old system, and if that doesn’t work they turn on the backup. So it will be down for ten minutes at the most. But it’s not about the time; the point is, they’ll lose power for a while. And for the time that they lose control, we are victorious. It’s easy.’

  ‘This is madness,’ said Rico. ‘I don’t even know you, and look at the things I’ve done for you already.’

  ‘Yes, and I’m grateful. But this is not for me.’

  ‘Who’s it for then?’

  ‘This is for all of us,’ Speech said, waving his hand to the horizon. ‘This will be part of a day of protest that many people have been planning for months.’

  ‘How come I haven’t heard about it?’

  ‘Because it’s an underground thing. It’s not being advertised. This is not a student demo. This is going to be a national day of action by really radical organisations.’

  ‘So what else is going to happen?’ asked Rico.

  ‘We got people hacking into banks, politicians’ websites, loan sharks, even an arms dealer’s website. It’s all righteous stuff.’

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’ said Rico, still uncertain.

  ‘You just have to put their systems down for ten minutes, man. You don’t have to change anything; you don’t have to take anything. You’re just putting them out of action for ten minutes. I know you can do it.’

  ‘Of course I can do it,’ said Rico. ‘But do I want to do it?’

  ‘Just ten minutes. Come on, man. That’s all it takes,’ Speech said, trying to reassure Rico.

  Rico looked around. He stepped away, rubbing his chin and thinking hard. He thought about all the times he had been stopped by the police for no reason. Then he turned to Speech. ‘OK. I’ll take it down for ten minutes, but that’s all I’m doing.’

  ‘Great,’ said Speech, smiling and nodding his head. ‘I got information and codes for their website and their internal site – they run on separate systems. Just think of it, cops running around like headless chickens for ten minutes. It will be cool.’

  ‘How long have I got?’ Rico asked.

  ‘We need to do it on Monday.’

  ‘Monday!’ shouted Rico.

  ‘Keep it down,’ said Speech. ‘Yes, Monday.’

  ‘But I start school on Monday. Now it’s Saturday. That gives me one day.’

  ‘How long will it take you to check it out and see what’s possible?’

  ‘I suppose I could do that tonight,’ said Rico.

  ‘Well, you do that, and then meet me here at this time tomorrow. If all goes well we should be ready for Monday.’

  Speech reached into his jacket pocket and handed Rico a memory stick.

  ‘All the information you’ll need is on that. I’ve done as much as I can but I need you to just crack the last stage. You’ll see what I mean once you have a look, but make sure you keep that stick with you at all times, and make sure you give it back to me. And one last thing. Don’t say a word to anyone, not even your closest friend. She’s a great girl but we need to keep it tight.’

  ‘How do you know about her?’

  ‘I’m an organiser, Rico,’ said Speech. ‘I have to know about everything. Just be really careful around her. She can’t control her tongue.’

  ‘Don’t worry, man. If you know so much, you’ll know that I can control mine,’ said Rico.

  Speech reached out and put his hand on Rico’s shoulder. Rico felt uncomfortable but didn’t flinch or move away. Speech squeezed and said, ‘Great. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Chapter 13

  A Protest Like No Other

  Rico went home and got to work straight away. His hacking technique was quick, and his work method well tested. It was now just a matter of breaking a few codes, breaching firewalls and working around security systems, and that didn’t take long. Rico got in, and got out quickly. Then he got to work on some ideas that would make the hack more creative.

  The next day at the appointed time Rico went back to the subway to meet Speech, who turned up ten minutes late again. Again he began to speak without saying hello.

  ‘So what you got for me?’

  ‘I’m all ready. I went onto the network and checked it out. They got good up-to-date security, but I can deal with that. We sell that stuff in our shop.’

  ‘So at a given time it will just go down, will it?’ asked Speech.

  ‘No,’ said Rico. ‘I thought I’d jazz it up a bit. There’ll be this big peace sign that will come up on the public website for about ten seconds, and then the site goes down. As soon as it goes down, the internal network gets hit. First a page comes up with a big sunflower for five seconds, and then big words appear s
aying, “You’re under arrest”. And then that network goes down.’

  Speech rocked with excitement.

  ‘Oh man, you’re having a laugh. That’s so cool. I like that, I really like that.’

  Rico continued. ‘They should both be down for ten minutes, then ping, up pops a laughing policeman for five seconds, and everything’s back to normal.’

  Speech’s excitement rose even more.

  ‘A laughing policeman? Are you for real?’

  Rico broke a sly smile. ‘I thought we should have some fun.’

  ‘Too right,’ said Speech. ‘Fun. Militant fun. Yeah man, that’s what we need. Have you got my memory stick?’

  ‘Right here,’ said Rico, dipping into his pocket and handing the stick over.

  ‘This is going to be good,’ said Speech. ‘We’re making history.’

  ‘It might be good,’ replied Rico. ‘But I’m not so sure about making history. Sites are being hacked all the time.’

  ‘Trust me,’ said Speech seriously. ‘It is good, and you are making history.’

  Although Speech was a little strange, and Rico wasn’t as excited as Speech, Rico was beginning to feel that the idea of doing a peaceful, humorous cyber protest was a great one, and he was now very pleased that Speech had approached him. His previous hackings had been minor ones – solemn, lone experiences – but now he was part of something bigger.

  ‘We’re ready to go tomorrow,’ said Speech.

  ‘I just don’t get it. I haven’t heard about any cyber protest, and I usually know about these things,’ said Rico.

  ‘I told you,’ said Speech. ‘This is real underground stuff, and you’re a part of it. This isn’t organised by a trade union, you know, there are no posters on the streets. This doesn’t happen until it happens. And it happens at one o’clock.’

  Rico stepped back and flung open his arms. ‘What kind of time is that? I’ll be in school then, and it’s our first day back.’

  ‘You don’t have to be. Just slip out during your lunch break. You can do that, can’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Rico. ‘But I could also stay in school and just programme it so that it comes on at one without me.’

  Speech thought for a couple of seconds and then spoke. ‘No. I think you should be there, just to make sure. And the timing has to be exact. One on the dot. You can do that for me, can’t you, man?’

  ‘I can do that for you, man,’ said Rico. ‘It’s just weird timing. What kind of protest happens in the middle of the day, when everyone’s at work – or school?’

  ‘Like I said,’ replied Speech, ‘this is a protest like no other. It will be cool.’

  ‘But I need to get back to school quickly,’ said Rico.

  ‘That’s OK. Your lunchtime starts at twelve-thirty, it takes you about fifteen minutes to get home. You got time to relax, take it easy, and do your thing at one, then you got fifteen minutes to get back. Just don’t stop and talk to anyone and you will make it in plenty of time. There will be a lot going on. Who knows, you may even get the afternoon off school.’

  ‘What? Are you hacking the school or something?’

  ‘Let’s just say – all you need to do is concentrate on what you’re doing.’

  ‘OK. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll hack in, that will take a couple of seconds, and then I’ll leave. Their website and Intranet will go down for ten minutes, but I’ll just go back to school. The hack closes itself down anyway.’

  ‘That’s what we need to hear. How much money do I owe you?’

  Rico was quick to reply. ‘This is not about money. This is about us. I don’t want any money. Just send some work my way when you can.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Speech. ‘So we’re on for tomorrow then?’

  ‘We’re on.’

  ‘Good luck, my man,’ said Speech, and then he was gone.

  Chapter 14

  Best Laid Plans?

  The first day of the new term started awkwardly. Mr Donavan, the head teacher, spent fifteen minutes addressing the school and talking about the evil people who went on the rampage over the holidays trying to bring society down. Without naming names he mentioned that he had heard that some of them were from this school, but he assured everybody assembled that there would be no riotous behaviour in this school. Then it was off to class and soon it was as if the holidays had never happened, and it was lunchtime.

  As planned, Rico left school as soon as the lunch break began. When he got home his mother had just left to start her shift at work. There was still hot water in the kettle. He had reached home with enough time to make a sandwich and a cup of tea, and then he went upstairs. He had left everything on standby so had very little to do. He waited until it was one minute to one, then he typed in some code, and at one second to one he clicked on the mouse and watched it happen.

  Peace sign.

  Site down.

  Sunflower.

  Message: YOU’RE UNDER ARREST.

  Intranet network down.

  He smiled. He wanted to stay to see the laughing policeman, but he had to go. Then the doorbell rang. Rico began to panic.

  ‘Speech,’ Rico said aloud. ‘It better not be him.’

  He thought that maybe Speech had done the ultimate surprise appearance act, appearing at his home. He thought of looking out of the window, but he ran downstairs instead; he was heading that way anyway. He opened the door, convinced it would be Speech, but it was Karima. Rico sighed in relief, and then surprise.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she said. ‘Why did you leave school? I was worried about you, brov. Thought something was wrong.’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ said Rico. ‘I just had something to do. But it’s good to know that you cared. Let’s go.’

  They rushed off back to school and as they parted to go to their classes they made a plan to meet that evening with some other friends and hang out on the streets. Rico thought that by then people would have heard about the various sites going down, or maybe the school site would have gone down too.

  The school site didn’t go down. Everything was quite normal, until the last lesson of the day. Rico was sitting at the back of the English class when Mr Donavan came in and spoke to Mrs Dovric, the English teacher. Mr Donavan used his hand to shield any words from straying in the direction of the pupils, but from the teachers’ expressions it was easy to see that whatever they were talking about was serious. Mr Donavan then turned to the class, looked around and called Michelle Holland out. She was a quiet, blonde girl who nobody knew much about. She stood up and walked to the front of the room.

  ‘Now, class,’ said Mrs Dovric. ‘I need to leave you alone for a few minutes. Read the passage we were just looking at and find as many punctuation mistakes as you can. I’ll be back in a moment.’

  All three left the room and for a moment there was silence, but then the class started to chatter. Most were wondering what Michelle Holland could have done that was wrong. She was such a good girl. Some started to make jokes saying that maybe she was a bad girl after all; they began to make fun of her. Rico just watched and listened.

  Mrs Dovric returned, looking upset, but went straight back to her teaching as if nothing had happened. But one pupil shouted, ‘Is she in trouble, Miss? What has she done?’

  ‘Never you mind,’ Mrs Dovric replied. ‘Michelle has had some very bad news, so remember, be nice to her. Now let’s get back to work. We do English here, not gossip.’

  By home time, word began to spread around the school. As he walked towards the gate Rico overheard one girl saying to another, ‘Did you hear about Michelle Holland? A bomb went off at the big police station in town and her dad was in there. He died. It’s a shame, isn’t it?’

  Rico was shocked by what he had heard. He marched quickly to the girl and began to ask questions.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘A bomb went off at that police headquarters place at lunchtime. Lots of peo
ple got killed. Michelle Holland’s dad got killed.’

  Rico’s head started to heat up. ‘Are you sure?’ He nervously bit on his bottom lip.

  The girl spoke hurriedly. ‘Everyone’s talking about it. It’s on the Internet and everything. Her mum came and took her out of school. I saw them both crying their eyes out, getting into a police car.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Rico, walking away and going to a corner of the playground where he could be alone. He was trying to process what he had heard. A bomb, the hack: could there be a connection? He heard a familiar voice calling.

  ‘Rico. What you doing?’

  Karima was running towards him. As soon as she got to him she put her arm around his shoulder and continued to speak. ‘You waiting for someone?’

  ‘No,’ replied Rico.

  ‘So, be seeing you later then?’

  ‘Yes. What we going to do?’ Rico asked, trying to sound interested.

  ‘Don’t know. Maybe we can go into town.’

  ‘Have you heard about the bomb in town?’ asked Rico.

  ‘Yes. But that will be all cleared up by tonight,’ Karima said dismissively, but she could see that Rico was thinking deeply.

  ‘Hey. It wasn’t me,’ Karima said, laughing. ‘I told you I ain’t on that any more. I’ll come round and get you later.’

  Karima walked off, leaving Rico on his own. Rico turned on his phone and began to walk home.

  Rico’s house was not far from the city centre and the police headquarters. He could hear the emergency vehicles as they tried to make their way through the traffic. When Rico arrived on Cavendish Road the first thing he saw was police cars, a long line of them. As he got closer he noticed they were near his house. He turned and walked the other way. As he did so his phone rang. It was his mother.

  ‘Rico. Where are you?’

  ‘What’s the matter, Mum?’

  ‘Rico, what have you done?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘The police are here. They’re taking all your computers. Come home.’

  Rico began to run in the opposite direction from his home. ‘I haven’t done anything, Mum.’