by David Yoon
On monitors 4 and 5 Max could see two security camera shots of the interior of a café. On monitor 6 Max could see a laptop camera view of Shane. On monitor 7 he could see the café ceiling—the view from Shane’s smartphone front camera—and on monitor 8 he could see blackness: the view from the phone’s back camera.
Pilot had set up all these cameras with disturbing ease.
Earlier Pilot had handed Max a sticky note.
u: thegreatmaze
p: noellephant
i trust you completely
The note felt like a mostly empty gesture, for what was Max to do with this? Open Pilot’s strange laptop and begin helping himself? Noellephant. Would he discover the secret of Pilot’s daughter?
Regardless. The sticky note felt as scary as nuclear codes, so Max committed the creds to memory, ripped the paper to confetti, and flushed it down a toilet.
“Microphone check, one, two,” sang Max into the mic.
On monitor 6, Shane touched his ear. “And you don’t stop.”
“You nervous?” said Max.
Shane just smiled and shrugged: Nervous about what?
Shane had dressed up for this occasion: actual pants—with shoes!—and a button-down tee shirt: something called a trim-fit, according to Akiko. Pilot ordered them for same-day delivery from A2Z. Shane wore them bursting at the seams like a male exotic dancer in an office worker costume.
Max looked over at the café interior footage. There sat a few afternoon types: old men, students, moms on taxi break.
Akiko jabbed a finger. “There she comes.”
A Whitewoman in expensive, tight-fitting yoga clothes entered, sat, and flipped open a laptop. She reached beneath her chair and plugged in a power adapter to an outlet there.
Shane waited ten seconds. He moved to the table next to her, holding up his own power adapter in explanation.
“Mind if I plug in?” he said, all baritone.
Akiko giggled at his voice. “Oh my God.”
And the Whitewoman, suddenly gazed upon by a man like Shane, looked him up and down, tucked a ribbon of hair behind her ear, and said, “Not at all.”
Max and Akiko and Pilot stomped their feet and clapped.
“Girls like Shane,” said Pilot.
“Girls like muscles,” said Max.
“They do,” said Akiko with a smirking shrug.
A stream of text appeared on a nearby monitor.
“And Team Vee-Zero is in,” said Pilot. “Good job, Muscles.”
The Whitewoman was Cherry Lacroix. Cherry Lacroix was an Executive Senior Vice President of People Operations at Wren. She was thirty-seven, single, not religious, slightly libertarian in her political views. She liked Doozy and shows on Filmbot and social athletic pursuits like beach volleyball and yoga. She had a younger brother named Brett and two retired parents living in Boca Raton, Florida.
Pilot had compiled all this information over the course of thirty seconds.
She was also the woman who laid off Max from Wren, so many weeks ago.
Every Wednesday Cherry Lacroix posted a photo of the artful cappuccino foam from this café, with the hashtag #WFC, which stood for working from café.
A hashtag was a special character (#) that prioritized its attached word or phrase in search results. This allowed users to find #cappuccinofoam photos, for example, or people living the #wrenlife. People used these hashtags constantly, because—strange as it is to say—it was once considered very important to be noticed by as many strangers as possible. Hashtags became so prevalent people even used them in spoken, face-to-face conversation for an ironic effect, as in:
I’m never going to that party, hashtag nope dot com.
Cherry Lacroix maintained her weekly café ritual despite increased security policies at Wren caused by the Big Fix hack, because she was Senior, doted upon by an infatuated boss, and used to having whatever she wanted. This was according to Akiko, to whom Cherry Lacroix liked confessing things for some reason.
Not for some reason. The reason was Akiko was Non-White. Which meant she sat outside the tribal expectations of Whitewomen, which meant she was a safe, nonpartisan sidekick to confide in.
Akiko never saw Cherry Lacroix outside work.
Cherry Lacroix’s laptop was protected by a virtual private network and other security bogglagons, none of which mattered once Shane plugged in his power adapter. For he also replaced Cherry Lacroix’s power adapter with one of Pilot’s—a custom item built at his workshop table back in the oubliette—and hid her original adapter aside.
So when Pilot said, Good job, Muscles, it meant he and Max and Akiko could now see Cherry Lacroix’s computer desktop on monitor 9.
“Muscles,” said Max. “Do your dance.”
Shane looked lost.
“Shane’s gonna dance?” said Brayden from the couch where he lay.
Without hesitation, Shane did the following:
Raised his sinewy arms to display them in a long, luxuriant stretch.
Moaned.
Shifted in his seat with a slight thrust of the hips.
Once again Cherry Lacroix glanced over and tucked a ribbon of hair behind an ear. Shane leaned in to deliver his killer line:
“Is your wi-fi working?”
And just like that, he had turned his laptop toward her and her hands upon his keyboard. There they were now, huddled close together on the laptop camera on monitor 6.
“Password should be capfoam,” she said. “Huh, your F key is stuck.”
They both reached for it at the same time.
“Dang, girl, your hands are cold,” said Shane, laughing.
“They keep it freezing in here,” said Cherry Lacroix, not moving her hand.
“Thirty-something skank,” said Akiko.
“Fingerprint acquired, everyone,” said Pilot. “Miz Akiko?”
On monitor 6, Shane and Cherry Lacroix were now giggling about something with their faces just inches apart. Cherry Lacroix snuck a long look at him.
“I will cut a bitch,” said Akiko.
“Fight, fight,” said Brayden from the couch.
“Akiko Minnie Hosokawa,” said Max. “Now, if it’s not too much trouble?”
Akiko pounded away. She angry-typed. On Cherry Lacroix’s screen, black windows bloomed and closed. Four progress bars shot to completion in quick succession, and then Akiko restored the desktop to its original state. Not a trace.
“Got you,” said Akiko, flinging her fingers at the screen. “I am you.”
For indeed, Akiko could now control Cherry Lacroix’s laptop from anywhere in the world, even while it was in sleep mode, as if she were right on Wren’s internal secure network.
“Good job, duncie,” said Max to Akiko. Then to the mic: “Muscles, get out of there.”
On monitor 6, Shane checked his watch and made an excuse to leave. Cherry Lacroix literally frowned a sad-face frown. She gave him her number on a café napkin. He slipped it into his pocket like a waiter receiving a tip. Then he wrote down his phone number on her napkin in return.
“I’d say let’s get coffee sometime, but I guess we kinda just did that already,” said Shane with a wink.
“Gehehyeah huh,” said Cherry Lacroix.
“Time for phase two,” said Max.
1.12
Max remembered an old black-and-white television episode in which five characters found themselves trapped in an oubliette in search of an exit, with no idea of how they got there. In the show, the characters had been:
A clown
A hobo
A ballet dancer
A bagpiper
An army major
In Max’s oubliette, however, the characters would be the tech Big Five:
Cal Peers, CEO of the social network Wren, 3 billion users
River Askew, CEO of the taxi and lodging service Airlift, 250 million users
Linda Belinda, CEO of the discussion forum Knowned, 300 million users
Jonas Friend, CEO of the computer giant Quartz, 600 million users
Hunter Mole, CEO of the retailer A2Z, 400 million users
Five people with data on almost half the world’s population.
The show never said how the characters got in that oubliette, or why, but Max now knew. They were brought there by impossibly long smoke tentacles that plucked them up and dragged them across the world in the dead of night.
Max had liked that vision. He typed it into a sticky note on his phone where he kept all his Version Zero ideas. Call it a hit list. Call it a dream journal.
Call it both.
1.13
When Shane returned, Akiko threw a cushion at him.
“You gave her your number?” she said.
Shane was back in his shredded tank top and shredded shorts. He caught the flying cushion, no-look, with one hand. “You really think I would do that, baby?”
“So what did you write down on that napkin?”
Max waited for Shane to answer. He looked around and saw Pilot and Brayden waiting, too.
“Cal Peers’s cell,” said Shane with a chrome-bright smile.
The room exploded with hoots and applause. Max kicked a chair across the room on silent casters. Akiko savored a smile and a slow clap.
“Up top,” said Max, holding up a hand, and Shane delivered a high five of great robustness.
Pilot laughed, too, but then his face fell flat. Pilot’s smile could stop on a dime. “Max?” he said.
Max nodded. He turned to Akiko. “Let’s start phase two.”
By now it was early evening, which meant everyone at Wren headquarters had gone home for the day but for the security detail, which no doubt had been upped since Max’s Black Halo speech in the lobby. Akiko typed. She woke Cherry Lacroix’s laptop, quickly accessed the Wren master user database, and then opened up another window:
Knowned.
She held out a hand to Pilot. “Creds, please?”
Pilot handed her a sticky note.
Akiko did not sign in to the regular Knowned site. She signed in to an austere-looking administrative view, nothing at all like the bright front-of-the-house version regular users were familiar with.
“Where’d you manage to get admin creds, by the way?” said Max.
“I was once on the board at Knowned,” said Pilot. “Until.”
Pilot stopped. It was as if someone cut off his power.
“Until what?” said Max.
“Until I quit,” said Pilot, resuming.
Max nodded. “Why did you—”
“Because it was a festering sore fuckhole of a place full of shit-breathing trolls,” said Pilot in a single breath.
Everyone looked at Pilot. He had been shouting.
Pilot lowered his voice. “What is fundamental to human civilization?”
Silence. Brayden raised his hand. “Tools and buildings?”
Pilot winced at the boy’s facile answer. Brayden put his hand back down.
“It’s trust,” said Max.
“Mister Max gets it,” said Pilot. “No trust, no civilization. What happens when you construct a social space devoid of trust?”
Max laughed. “You get the internet.”
“Because you can post shit all anonymous,” said Brayden.
Max nodded. “Shit you’d never post under your real name. There goes trust, flying right out the window. No trust? People’s instincts default to mistrust. Mistrust makes men mean as motherfuckers.”
“Usernames versus real names,” said Akiko. “You and I have talked about this, like, a million times.”
“You have?” said Shane.
Max and Akiko talked about a great many things, often over text messages, often at night. We been friends for so long, Akiko would say. I can really talk to you.
An ugly thought flitted by: I am a better match for Akiko because I am smarter than Shane.
Max buried it. It was a ridiculous thought. Max knew Shane had leapt into the flaming wreck of her home life to save Akiko, and there were details of that daring rescue that Max would never be privy to.
Details forged by fire into steel bonds, hidden from view.
Shane is a better match for Akiko because she entrusted him with her life, and he has honored that trust ever since.
Here was Max, talking about trust and calling Shane stupid at the same time.
Overcome with sudden guilt, Max said, “Not a million times. Just work chitchat, ha ha.”
Max explained. “We’re matching everyone’s usernames—including all their fake ones—with their real name.”
“Well, technically it’s more involved than that,” said Akiko.
“Okay, nerd,” said Max, smiling. Akiko smiled back.
“Okay, nerd,” tried Shane, too, but Akiko was already busy typing again.
Akiko had reached some sort of complicated search interface full of checkboxes and pull-downs and runes and cryptograms and other arcana.
She scrolled through an infinite list of user posts and zeroed in on one. “Here’s a lovely comment: Jew stink, jew should go take a gas shower, posted by some guy named BloodySoil.”
“How do you know it’s a guy?” said Brayden.
“Oh, please,” said Akiko.
Everyone looked at Brayden.
“Four thousand Knowners liked BloodySoil’s comment. Just lovely.”
Akiko revealed the myriad data attached to the comment.
USER DEVICE: Quartz Milc 8.0
CLIENT: Knowned app v5.2.9
DEVICE ID: 109JJFM09R3IR09QEP093V
INTERNET ADDRESS: 128.242.240.244
GEOLOCATION: lat 38.029353, long -78.479607
And so on.
“And now we tries,” she sang, “to de-anonymize.”
“Is it enough to work with?” said Max.
She cross-referenced that Knowned post data with the Wren master user database and soon found a single 99.4 percent data match: a user named Fred Mould.
“It’s more than enough,” said Akiko. “Here is Fred Mould of Heather, Virginia, otherwise known as BloodySoil.”
“Quite the nom de douchebag,” said Pilot.
“So you just copy and paste BloodySoil’s hate comment from Knowned onto Fred Mould’s Wren feed for everyone to see?” said Shane.
“Copypasta,” said Brayden.
“His friends will love what he’s been shitposting,” said Akiko.
“Script that shit up,” said Max. “Let it run automatically all night across everything on Knowned since the day that motherhugger launched.”
“Fucking A,” said Akiko. Pilot prepped a code window for her, and she began.
public void trollout() {
1.14
Fred Mould (1 day ago): Why did the mathematician divide sin by tan? Just cos! Hahaha
12 PEOPLE LIKED THIS.
Karen Mould (20h ago): you are such a geek i love you
Peyton Ching (18h ago): hi mr. mould!!!
Fred Mould via Newsish—What Galaxy Prime Character Are You? Take the Quiz! (12h ago): I got Leaf Man . . . how predictable
8 PEOPLE LIKED THIS.
Jarvis Means (11h ago): I got Captain Polk
Peter Campos (11h ago): leaf man too
Kylee Kapoor (10h ago): empress pyra!!!
Fred Mould via Newsish—Five Female Math Pioneers You May Have Never Heard Of (8h ago): So inspiring! Shout out to all the girls in my classes!
27 PEOPLE LIKED THIS.
Peyton
Ching (8h ago): love!
Fred, these pants will change your life.
ModernWash Jeans. Shop now >>
Fred Mould, as “BloodySoil” on Knowned (3wks ago): Jew stink, jew should go take a gas shower
0 PEOPLE LIKED THIS. (4,062 PEOPLE ON KNOWNED LIKED THIS.)
Version Zero (3h ago): #trollout
Fred Mould (3h ago): I don’t know what this is, everyone, my Wren account got hacked I think, please disregard!!
Karen Mould (3h ago): honey what is this
Peyton Ching (3h ago): wow
Peyton Ching (3h ago): is this a thing NewsDay Breaking: Trolls Reportedly Outed Publicly by Cyberterrorist Group Version Zero
Peyton Ching (3h ago): what the actual f is going on NewsDay Breaking: My Boyfriend Was Secretly a Nazi. Yours Could Be Too
Fred Mould, as “BloodySoil” on Knowned (2wks ago): JEW$ died from starvation just like every other concentration camp POW everywhere else, show me the official “final solution” policy docs and I’ll be the first to shut up!!! #hollowcaust
0 PEOPLE LIKED THIS. (188 PEOPLE ON KNOWNED LIKED THIS.)
Peyton Ching (3h ago): Mr. Mould
Fred Mould, as “BloodySoil” on Knowned (1wk ago): Never bothered to read Anne Frank diary, not a fan of FICTION
0 PEOPLE LIKED THIS. (2,502 PEOPLE ON KNOWNED LIKED THIS.)
Fred Mould (just now): I have been HACKED everyone!
Fred Mould (just now): Something is seriously wrong with Wren. I cannot delete or edit anything. They need to fix their cybersecurity measures ASAP!!
Fred Mould (just now): Wren are you listening . . . you are ruining peoples lives with lies posted by CYBERHACKERS. You’re going down mark my words
Fred Mould (just now): Please everybody you have to know this is not me
Fred Mould (just now): Please everybody
1.15
All morning Max had been checking his phone. He had texted Dad early:
