The Reign of the Kingfisher

by T. J. Martinson

  “No, let’s go right now.” Wren stood up shakily. She sat down on the mattress with her laptop.

  “What?”

  “Do we have network range info for the CPD network?”

  “JackoByte did recon on all that earlier, but—”

  “Send it to me.”

  “Just give me a fucking second, Wren.” Parker opened her laptop. “I need to let everyone know we’re going in now.”

  “No,” Wren said sternly. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t tell them. Let’s do this just you and I.”

  Parker stopped typing, faced Wren with a look that vacillated between disbelief and laughter. “Are you still stoned?” Parker asked. “It would be suicide to do this hack with just two people. The FBI cybersecurity team is going to be patrolling the servers now more than ever. We need all hands on deck, and we still have time to gather everyone.”

  “This isn’t about time.”

  “Then maybe you could tell me what this is about then, because I’m at a total fucking loss over here.”

  “I would just be more comfortable if it was you and I,” Wren said, hearing her words trail off into the promise of some further explanation, which she struggled to offer. “We don’t know who the other Liber-teens are. It’s not impossible that someone…” But she didn’t finish her thought.

  If ever a stare could possess enough energy to burn skin, Parker’s did so now. “You think a Liber-teen has something to do with this?” Wren tried to shrug, but only managed to lift her eyebrows.

  “I can’t believe this.” Parker shook her head, biting her lip.

  “If a Liber-teen is behind the video, then that person could be using us to hack into the CPD computers. Who knows what they would take once we’re inside? We may just be their Trojan horse, Parker. They would have unlimited access to insane amounts of data on not only the police, but also citizens. Don’t you understand how dangerous that would be?”

  “You’re being so fucking paranoid, Wren.”

  “Maybe I am. But who cares? Let’s do this together. Let’s hack the CPD servers and take the Kingfisher file and only the Kingfisher file. We’ll do exactly what the Liber-teens voted to do, but just ourselves.”

  Parker was shaking her head. “You’re not fucking listening—we can’t do it ourselves. The FBI is anticipating an attack. They’ll have the network protected like a fucking castle within a castle. The Kingfisher files were probably already buried deep. They’ll be deeper now. The FBI isn’t fucking around here, Wren.”

  “We’re better than they are.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Just send me the recon info. We have some time to test their firewalls and see what we’re up against. Let’s not waste any more time.”

  “You really think we can do it?” Parker’s skin glowed iridescent blue in the light from her laptop. Wren wondered if, were she to reach out and touch her finger to Parker’s skin, her fingers might meet nothing but the electric glow.

  “Yes. We can do it.”

  “This is reckless as hell,” Parker said, a smile warming on her face, or at least something resembling a smile. “But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t kind of love it.” She turned back to her laptop. “All right. I just sent you the network range info. According to JackoByte’s recon, the CPD last updated their servers a month ago. But obviously, the feds will have done some remodeling recently. We can poke around for a soft spot, but I’m guessing we’ll have to jackhammer the firewalls. It’ll sound the alarm. But once we’re inside, that’s your game, because the file is going to be stashed beneath layers of encryption. I can hopefully volley some attacks to keep the system distracted, but not for very long. Assuming we even manage to get through the firewall, I’d give us about a two-minute window to get the shit and get out. Any more than that, and we’re fish in a federal barrel. That means you’ll need your decryption algorithms on hand and ready to deploy for when we’re inside. Obviously you’ll have to adapt them, but we don’t need you wasting time writing code. You’ll have two minutes total, not a second more.”

  “That’s fine,” Wren said. “I can do that.”

  Parker leaned over and kissed her—deeply, shortly, infinitely. “Look at us. The twenty-first century’s Bonnie and Clyde.” She touched Wren’s jaw and dragged her thumb across her lips.

  “That’s not the greatest metaphor.”

  “Shut up. If we pull this off, we’ll be legends. Now let’s show these assholes who’s really in control.”

  14 GUN DRAWN

  THE AREA OF INDIANA where Baxter Bedford lived, though just a short sprint south of the same Lake Michigan that Tillman ran alongside every morning, felt like a different world altogether. All cornfields and silos. Sun setting overhead in no apparent hurry. Rusted tractors parked in driveways next to modest farmhouses with blue-painted windowsills.

  Something torn from another century and placed abruptly within this disinterested millennium.

  Her phone’s GPS directed her down a gravel road and into a prairie surrounded by run-down town houses that were scattered on either side. On the perimeter of the prairie grass, far in the distance, enormous smoke stacks spewed forth clouds of white smoke that glowed eerily in the pastel clouds, diffusing into the air.

  Bedford’s address was at the end of the gravel road. A gray-yellow, jaundiced building, windows dark. The architectural equivalent of a dying breath. She double-checked the address, the numbers on the mailbox. She had arrived.

  She parked a few doors down and scanned the rest of the street. There was no one in sight. Just two or three basketball hoops hung precipitously over gravel driveways. In front of each town house, grass grew knee-high and, with each breeze, it lapped like ocean waves.

  She checked her phone. A text from Jeremiah from an hour before. Second video released. Demands ME report, says he’ll kill another hostage by midnight. Sending you a link.

  She read the message again, wanting to feel surprised, shocked, disgusted. But all she felt was the absence of feeling. Jeremiah texted her a final time—a link to the second video. Her thumb hovered over it, but remained there, unable or unwilling to make contact, to make it real.

  Tillman got out of her car and approached the front door, practicing the script she had prepared. “Sorry to bother you, but I’m just wondering—”

  But before she could even reach the front step, an enormous, rasping bark erupted behind the door. A dog jumping and clawing, rattling the hinges, alarming whoever was inside the home to Tillman’s presence.

  Pure reflex, she drew the gun from behind her back, trying to keep it shielded out of sight behind her thigh.

  As quickly as it began, the barking stopped, but she could sense someone behind the door. A waiting presence. She was aware of herself being watched in the last light of day. She considered turning around slowly and calmly, walking—no, running—back to the SUV. She could put this all behind her, watch it fade in her rearview, disappear into the literal sunset. She could be back in Chicago in two hours. She could write this off as some fever dream.

  But instead she called out in a cool, tempered voice, “Hello?”

  She felt her gun cold in her shaking hands.

  “I’m sorry to bother you.” She swallowed. “I’m passing through with a few questions.”

  She knew it wasn’t the right thing to say. Knew it as she said it. She tried to collect herself, push the panic welling in her gut down into her concrete feet. She turned and looked around at the other buildings for someone in case this went south, but there was no one. She felt suddenly vulnerable, alone, and it came through in her voice.

  “Mr. Bedford?” she called out.

  From behind the door, a brassy voice. “Put the gun down.” Like a voice from the heavens reaching down from parted clouds.

  Her fingers curled tightly around the pistol’s grip until it felt like an extension of her skin. She could not have put it down even if she wanted to. />
  The voice said, “Toss that gun over here, take a step back, and get down flat on your stomach. Don’t make me wait.”

  She remained frozen, hundreds of instincts colliding all at once. They told her—a symphony—to remain calm, to panic, to run, to stay, to shoot, to beg, to fall to the ground and kiss the sleeping earth.

  “The gun,” he said. “Toss it over here now.”

  But she didn’t. She raised her weapon to the door.

  “Come out with your hands up,” she shouted.

  A sudden shift in the world, an electric current running through the air, the fast release of adrenaline into her veins like ice water.

  Click.

  She dove away from the door. A loud gunshot entered the evening and hung there. Deafening static rang in both ears as she collapsed to the grass, rolling onto a knee and swinging her gun at the door, which now sported a bullet hole at eye level. From inside the house she heard loud, ungainly footsteps running up a flight of stairs. She regained her footing and charged at the door, lowering her shoulder.

  The door swung back on its hinges.

  Gun at hand, she swept inside the doorway. To her left, a messy yellow kitchen with dirty dishes piled in the sink, fast-food wrappers on the counter. To her right, a living room with a couch and nothing else. Walls bare, cream white. Newspapers gathered in random, slanting stacks. A stairway directly in front of her. She stepped inside to follow after him, whoever this really was, but at that moment she heard heavy galloping from the hall, claws clicking against linoleum. And with her gun cocked and pointed, she saw from her periphery the figure of an enormous, hulking dog bounding toward her, teeth bared. She stepped back and grasped for the door handle, pulling it closed behind her. Even though she had busted the lock when she kicked in the door, the door miraculously shut. She felt the dog throw itself against the wooden barrier. Barking, scratching, howling.

  She rushed to the side of the town house, lowering into a crouch as she passed unlit windows. In the backyard, rusted lawn furniture was scattered about the overgrown and unkempt lawn. With her back to the siding, Tillman craned her neck to peek into the back window. A bedroom—messy sheets atop a twin-sized mattress. But she saw no other movement. Whoever it was inside, he was upstairs.

  She took one hand from the gun and patted her pockets for her phone, but she felt nothing. She cursed herself under her breath.

  She breathed in through her nose, tried to calm down. Her mind raced through her remaining options, chief among them making her way back to the SUV long enough to call the local police station for emergency assistance. She did not deliberate for long. After a few steadying seconds, she was running back to the front of the house. Her back to the wall, gun raised and ready.

  She took off from the protection of the house at a dead sprint, focusing all of her attention on the SUV, its promise of safety, as she glided over the lawn in long strides. The wind whistled in her ears.

  Midway to the SUV, a voice rang out from a window overhead. “Stop now or I shoot.” It possessed a textural grit and confidence of the moment that brought her to a dead stop. She raised her hands above her head and began to turn around in slow, deliberate steps.

  “No, don’t move,” he called out. “Drop your gun and stay right there. I’ll kill you right now if you move another inch. Don’t test me.”

  She let the gun fall from her fingers and closed her eyes. Curiously, she wasn’t afraid; she was only wondering what would it feel like. Death. Would it happen very fast or very slowly? So slowly that she would have time to realize how slowly it was occurring? An occurrence here and not here, there and then.

  But there was no bullet through her chest. Just the same hardened voice, now laced with annoyance. “What the fuck are you doing rolling up on me like this?” the man called out. “Who are you?”

  She began to turn her head to answer, but the man in the window made a halting noise, a chain-gun stutter in his throat.

  “My name is Officer Lucinda Tillman,” she said.

  “Officer?” He sounded surprised.

  “I’m with the Chicago Police Department.” It was a lie, but with a gun aimed at her back, she felt justified. Her only remaining hope was that he wouldn’t kill a police officer.

  “Chicago? What in God’s name are you doing out here? Running up on me like that?”

  He sounded more confused than upset, though he was undoubtedly upset.

  “Welfare check. We have reason to believe you might be in danger.”

  “So you roll up here with your gun in hand?”

  She repeated herself. “It’s just a simple welfare check. We’re checking up on you. That’s all.”

  He didn’t say anything. In the air, she could taste and smell the industrial smog from the liminal smokestacks on the dark horizon. It was musty, oxidized. Like licking a frying pan.

  “Well, looks like I’m just fine. So you can leave.”

  She considered it. Turning the keys, driving off into the sunset while the adrenaline waned and a waxing moon rose. Arriving back in Chicago in time to drop by the bar that Penny supposedly frequented—Lucky’s—with time to spare to get home and take her father to his bed. But at what cost?

  “I need to speak with you,” she said. “Ask you a few questions. I won’t take much of your time.”

  “You want to talk?” he laughed. “You just rolled up on me with a gun drawn. Doesn’t put me in a talkative mood. How about you show me some identification, Officer.”

  “I don’t have it with me.”

  “Well, then,” he said. “How about I call the real police? Let them sort through this.”

  “It’s about the Kingfisher,” she announced, and only after she said it did she realize the risk she was taking. She continued. “I have some questions I need answered from you, Mr. Bedford. That’s all.”

  The pause that followed lasted long enough for her arms to begin to ache as she held them upright.

  “Turn around,” he said.

  She saw a .30-06 rifle barrel protruding from a window on the upper floor. She felt its insistent stare on her gut.

  “A few minutes, Mr. Bedford. That’s all I need.”

  “I don’t think you’re exactly in the position to be making demands,” he said.

  “Please.”

  “You said this is about the Kingfisher? I can’t imagine what the hell is so important about all that.”

  “Then let me explain.”

  Slowly, the rifle disappeared from the window ledge. “Stay right where you are.” She heard footsteps descending creaking stairs, and a few moments later the front door opened to Baxter Bedford studying the busted lock, the bullet hole. “Jesus Almighty. This is a brand new door.”

  15 .EXE

  IT’S ALL MUSIC AND RHYTHM, improvised algorithms and premeditated scripts. The atonal patterns of network chatter, keyboards clacking. It’s magic in each stroke of your finger. Entire worlds imagined and forgotten, created and destroyed. Wren is reminded during hacks of the descriptive truth of the word cyberspace. Ordinarily, the impact of the word eludes her, its stunning banality in the twenty-first century. But during a hack, she realizes that it perfectly describes the digital world, a physical dimension of cybernetic architecture coexisting not-so-peacefully beneath the holographic veneer of everyday life.

  She hears Parker, vaguely, a voice submerging to meet Wren at whatever depth to which she has descended. “Holy shit. We’re inside. You’ve got two minutes. Not a second longer. In and out, Wren.”

  And the rest of the world—the physical world of trains, lovers holding lovers’ hands, and buildings grown from the earth—is something Wren remembers only in theory as real numbers scroll through her open eyes. This is the only world that matters, that ever mattered, that ever will matter. A landscape of information, corollaries, data—this is the physical world refined into the purest possible version of itself. And before Wren now are files, listed in haphazard and nonsensical orders. There are layers of
firewalls accompanying each file, and her steeled fingers move on their own as she pushes deeper, digging into the center of something so vast and layered she realizes it was hidden for a reason. Some leviathan caged in the depths.

  “A minute and a half, Wren.”

  She passes through the interior of the network, marveling at the ordained chaos of the numbers, the sequences, the purposeful mess before her eyes. Whoever had done this had done so recently, masterfully. It is almost beautiful, the bedlam before her unblinking eyes.

  “A minute. Get the file and get the fuck out.”

  This should frighten her, but nothing frightened her in cyberspace. She runs decryption on the files, but they remain obdurately inaccessible. They must have been locked down several times over. To open any of them, she would have to perform individual decryption, but there isn’t time for that.

  “Forty-five seconds, Wren.”

  She is able to organize the spread of coded files by their updates. She locates the five most recently updated files and ran manual decryption through her improvised algorithm. It’s a last-ditch effort, but so is everything else.

  “Thirty seconds.”

  The files rearrange before her. Wren opens an archived file. At the top of the page she locates the words ME Report #24447 and retrieves the file without a second thought.

  “Fifteen seconds. Get out, Wren. File or no file. Just get the hell out.”

  But she notices another file, updated at the same time as the previous one. She opens it. It is a letter. The subject line reads: “Detective Gregory Stetson Inquiry.” She does do not know what it is, but it is hers now.

  “Five seconds, we’re done. Get the fuck out, Wren.”

  She backs quickly out of the server like a body floating from the pressured depths to the surface of a storm. Fingers moving against the keys, separate from her body. And cyberspace dissipates into a dream, and there is only the physical world before her now, all shape and sound, blur and dream.

  She is back in her quiet apartment, joined to her flesh and bones, seated cross-legged on a couch next to a cracked window. Staring ahead. Rubbing her tired and disbelieving eyes. Waiting for the room, the walls, the face of the woman she loved whom she believed or trusted or hoped was looking back at her, to sharpen into something she could call focus.