reminded him that he should not take those friendships too far – he never knew when he’d have to abruptly end such a relationship – or the person’s life.
That night, the cell voted to proceed with Kyle’s plan, Operation Maggot. All that was left for Kyle to do was get all the other cells on board. All that was left for Ezra was to wait for the perfect moment to bring down the cell. If he timed it right, he may be able to implement a domino effect to put an end to all the cooperating cells at once.
۞
More weeks passed, and word had finally made its way, by traditional methods, to sixty-one cells across the nation. Coordination between the cells was critical on this operation, because in order to initiate the maggot in such a way that it would circumvent the NI security protocols, it had to be introduced to the system in at least fifty subservers simultaneously. Such a multiple incursion would disable the subserver security redundancies. It was a vulnerability related to the GPS satellite link. And that was something Kyle knew a little about, since it was a weakness in his own design that he had never had the opportunity to tell Neuralinx about before his hasty departure.
The final planning meeting was tonight. Sascha arrived an hour early, to have dinner with the family, as she had been doing at least twice a week for the past two months. When she arrived, she took Kyle aside.
“Can we speak in private for a few minutes?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” said Kyle, leading her into his study and closing the door behind them. He popped his head back out and called to the dining room, “Mikayla, Devin, go ahead and start without us.” He closed the door again, took a seat, and said, “What’s up, Sascha?”
“Kyle, I’ll tell you straight out. It’s Ezra. Maybe I’m just getting nervous because the operation is tomorrow, but - I don’t know.”
“What?”
“Kyle, I don’t trust him. I just don’t trust Ezra.”
“What? Why not?”
“Look, I know you two have become pretty close friends. But there’s just something about him. Something’s not right.”
“What is it?” Kyle said, concerned.
“I can’t put my finger on it. But given how important tomorrow is, I just couldn’t not tell you I felt this way.”
Kyle sat back in his chair and said nothing for a long while. He thought about Ezra – the things he’d said, the things he’d done over the past months. He recalled the day he’d arrived – how he’d shown up with Devin that night.
“Alright, Sascha. I’m going to check on some things – talk to Devin about how he met him, try to learn more about his background. I must admit, as much as we’ve become friends, and as much as he’s helped since his arrival, I really don’t know that much about him.”
“Think about it,” said Sascha, “you’ve known me for just as long, but I’ve told you all about my past. And it’s not just because we’re romantically involved. Think of Sam, and Holly, and Chen, and Viktor. They’ve all been a lot more forthcoming than Ezra. Even Jean, the most shy of all the newcomers, has opened up more than Ezra has. He’s very smart, helpful, polite, and really seems to believe in the cause. But who is he?”
“I’ll talk to Devin tonight. One way or another, we’ll find out who Ezra is. If it comes to it, I’ll just ask him straight out. I mean, if he’s got nothing to hide, it shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
۞
That night, after some serious prodding and an unpleasant argument about “privacy,” Devin told Kyle how he’d hooked up with Ezra in Salt Lake. A man named Cole Pitt had directed Devin to meet with Ezra in the alley that night, in an effort to buy a File. Devin didn’t tell his Dad he’d stolen his mother’s ring and brought it along for payment. Since cell member Tom was a former cop, Kyle had Tom check into Pitt and learned he had a criminal record – some BCC charges - but that he’d made a plea bargain several months ago. There was no record of what he’d agreed to do to earn his freedom.
The information fed Kyle’s suspicions, but was inconclusive. There was really no way to know what the deal was with Ezra. No way except to talk to him.
After learning what Tom had found out, Kyle sent for Ezra, then stayed up all night going over the maggot’s code, line by line, making sure there were no errors. The plan was set to go into effect at noon. At six o’clock, as the sun was rising over the Wasatch Mountains, Kyle’s eyes started to lose focus, and he nodded off.
۞
Ezra knocked on the front door, and a few moments later he heard the security beeps, and then saw the groggy-looking Kyle swing the door open.
“Hey, Ezra. Thanks for coming.”
“You look tired, man,” said Ezra, stepping into Kyle’s study behind Kyle. “Is everything okay?”
“The maggot is perfect. But everything is not okay. Well, maybe it is.” He shook his head. “You’re right, I am tired. Look Ezra, today is a huge day. You know that. We’re all a little antsy. I need to know that everyone is on board one hundred percent. That there aren’t any – any surprises waiting for us today. You know?”
“I understand your anxiety, buddy. This has been a long time coming.”
“I need to know, Ezra. Why did you come here? I mean, how can you go from selling black market Files one night to joining the Underground the next?”
Ezra was surprised to hear Kyle mention the method he’d used to gain Devin’s confidence, but it did not show on his face. Instead, his face became a picture of shame and regret. “So Devin told you, eh? Well, I guess you could say I had a change of heart. I started to realize that money isn’t everything. And that some things aren’t worth selling your soul to sell. What I mean is, I used to tell myself that my buyers knew what they wanted, and if I didn’t supply it, someone else would. But I was fooling myself. I realized that first night at that first meeting, when you were talking about changing the paradigm, that one person really does make a difference. Can make a difference.” He chuckled quietly, looking down, then looked up and met Kyle’s eyes. “To tell the truth, I came here planning to sell Files to your members – the ones that were ready to get out. I never expected to discover that I was ready to get in.”
Kyle rubbed his face and looked back at Ezra with a wan smile. “Hmmph. I can understand why you’d be ashamed to talk about what you used to do for a living.”
“It is kind of antithetical to the cause, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I’d say,” said Kyle with a short laugh. “Alright, well, I’m just glad we’ve cleared the air. Today is going to be an amazing day, my friend.”
“I have to say I’m glad, too, to have everything out in the open,” said Ezra. “There’s one other thing.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small package he’d been carrying for months now. “Here. This probably belongs to you.”
Kyle unwrapped the ragged cloth that cradled a shining band of gold. After some momentary confusion, he looked up at Ezra.
“My wife’s wedding band? Where - ”
“Your son paid me with it, when he first came to me looking for some tech. It was a down payment. But, since I’m not in that business anymore, well.”
Kyle shook his head and turned the ring over between his fingers. “The sad thing is, I never even missed it. I mean, not that any normal person would miss a piece of their dead wife’s jewelry. But then, for a long time, I was not exactly normal. I used to frequently pull it out of a drawer and stare at it, slip it onto my little finger, read the inscription over and over. But the last few months, I haven’t even thought about it once.”
Ezra swallowed hard as he recalled how he’d done the same thing with his own wife’s ring for the first few months after she was gone.
“Your wife – how did she die?” asked Ezra.
“She was taken by a virus. They called it Violator. It was so fast, and always lethal.” He took a ragged breath. “I’ll never forget how she was shivering uncontrollably the last few minutes. I held h
er in my arms, but there was nothing I could do.” He paused. “The virus came in through a hole in the GPS-1 patch. My hole. It was my fault.”
“You can’t blame yourself, Kyle,” Ezra said genuinely. “You had no way of knowing.”
“Yeah, that’s what everyone I knew told me. And what I tried to tell myself for the first several years. I think I finally started to believe it, too, after long enough.”
Ezra was surprised to find himself losing the tight grip he always maintained on his cover. Had he gotten too involved this time? Or was Kyle’s story just too close to home? In a moment of clarity, or perhaps impulsiveness, he opened up to Kyle regarding his own, real personal life.
“Kyle, I have to tell you something else I’ve never told you before. I had a wife. And a son. They were killed. Only, I never blamed myself. I blamed all the fools who refused to get Files installed. They were hit by a driver who was too busy looking at a map to pay attention to the road. If the idiot had only used a File with GPS interface – your invention – Celeste and Jake would be alive today. I have no idea how differently my life would’ve turned out had they lived.”
Ezra could see that Kyle was dumbfounded by the irony. His contribution to File technology had been the cause of his own wife’s death, but could’ve saved Ezra’s wife’s life, had it been employed.
“How long were you
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