“You’ve got the car?” I mumbled, realizing my husband might know more than I could remember. “And you’re looking for the registrations?”
I needed to bring out as many memories as I could from the past, so I used the computer to open a map website, and zoomed in until I was over my mother’s home.
“Dad’s tree,” I mumbled, my heart rising in my throat. I zoomed in some more, clicking the mouse until I could make out the gnomes my parents had carefully placed along the edge of their garden. The details were lost in the pixels, but my mind filled in what wasn’t on the screen.
“Enough of that,” I said impatiently, zooming out until my mother’s house looked like a dead spider at the center of an asphalt web. I traced the road leading east to the ocean, running my finger a hundred miles before pitching it up toward the city. I slowed, trying to fill in details like the missing pixels. I was trying to find where my mother had taken me to pick up the men.
Nothing looked familiar. Frustrated, I did a quick search on truck stops, which produced a dozen icons on the map like breadcrumbs for a lost child to follow. I clicked on one, and the screen opened up to show me a truck stop with gas pumps and a market and a place to park for the night. I’m sure the smell in real life would have been what I remembered: tires and diesel fuel. I could almost hear the bell chime out as trucks ran over the air-hose indicator. And there had been the smell of the sea too. But that came later—much later. I followed the thickest line on the map, the widest road. It led away from the truck stop and toward the ocean. When my finger hit the beginning of a long bridge, a memory bubble popped, spilling the sights and sounds of crossing a bridge with a dead man sitting next to me. I pulled my finger back from the screen and jabbed the mouse, closing the window. Too much was coming back to me. Too much for one night. Especially with only a cup of tea to soothe the intake.
Before leaving, I cleared the computer’s browsing history, deleting the map site’s cache and any searches I performed. Nerd had taught me a lot, and with Steve working in the cyber division, I couldn’t take any chances. Of course I peeked at what terms Steve had been searching, and noted links to show Nerd, hoping he’d figure out how or why my husband was using his software.
TWELVE
WITH A HALF-CAF LATTE in one hand and a caramel-whipped something in the other, I went to the office early. I went knowing Nerd would be working, knowing we’d need to discuss the software I had seen on my home computer. I also hoped he might have found the station wagon and the registrations Steve had listed. Nerd was often up late into the night, so I texted a mess of messages, filling him in on the vehicle registrations I wanted him to research.
It’ll take time, he’d texted as a reply. Nothing moves fast at the DMV.
The bigger question for today was whether or not we were safe. Could we continue to pick up new cases? After all, a girl’s got to play, and we had to get paid. I had another reason for going into town as well. Steve had to work the weekend and would be at the station later. With my news to him that morning—along with the little something extra—I wanted to surprise him with a gift. I hadn’t done that in a long time and it felt like we were finally making a turn and getting back to normal.
He felt it too, I told myself. I know he did.
“Extra caramel!” Nerd beamed, sucking up the sugary mess like a fly on honey. “Thank you. I’m on to something and need the jolt.” I glanced over to his desk, finding a half dozen empty energy drink cans—lined up like shiny bowling pins.
“Really?” I asked as I motioned to his mess. “Come again about needing more?”
He shrugged, adding, “Oh, those? Those are so last night—ripping code. I didn’t want to stop.”
“You really should eat better.” His face slowly lifted with a roll of his eyes. The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them—he wasn’t Michael or Snacks, but still, I felt the urge to tell him to take care of himself. “I mean, if you’re going to work through the night. I can’t have my business partner falling over sick.”
“I’m fine. But thank you for asking,” he answered, slurping his caramel sweet. “Plus I had a Hot Pocket. I filled the freezer if you get hungry.” It was my turn to roll my eyes, but I resisted and changed the subject.
“Speaking of ripping code . . . listen, I have some concerns about the picture I sent you,” I said, lightly rapping my knuckles against the top of my desk—a habit I’d gotten into when I wanted to discuss business. Nerd went back to his computer, tapped his keyboard, and waited. “I mean, it looks just like your software—even had some handles I recognize. How is that possible?”
My question was met with straw-sucking sounds and a rattle of keystrokes. His face lit up, reflecting his screen’s colors. “I want to say it’s impossible,” he answered, and continued sucking the remains of his drink. I wasn’t convinced, though—I knew what I’d seen. “Might look like mine, but can’t be the one we’re using. That said, there’s a hack floating around. My guess? This is what you saw.”
I joined him at his desk, needing to be convinced about our security. On his monitor, I saw the familiar Deep Web listings—the links to our potential cases and to storefronts where we’d shopped for what I liked to call “ingredients.” But next to the software and listings, Nerd had opened another window—that was what I’d seen on our home computer.
“That’s it!” I exclaimed, tapping his screen. “That’s what I saw this morning. Isn’t that the same application we’re using?”
“Is it?” he asked, sucking on the straw.
I yanked the caramel drink from his hand and plunked it on the desk.
His face glowed with slight amusement before he added, “So ignore the structure of the application—the column headers, the query fields. Just look at the content and compare the two.”
I did as he said and read through the listings. While a few were the same, the majority were different. Completely different. And the cases surfacing near the top, the ones we’d pick up? Those were all different too.
“So what does this mean?”
“It means that some shit-hack probably traded up for less time after getting pinched while playing amateur hour.”
“You mean they wrote software as part of a plea deal?” I asked, considering the possibility. I knew from Steve how deals were made for less time in exchange for rolling on someone. In this case, it wasn’t someone—it was software.
“It is my software, though, no doubt about that. But it’s old. Might even be beta or alpha old.”
“You wrote this?” I asked, my earlier concern growing.
“Most of this is mine, but the hack added a few tweaks,” he answered, his attention waning as he clicked through the application. “Might be worth taking it apart to see what’s new . . . maybe.”
“But how did your software get into their hands?”
“I posted it,” he mumbled, distracted by his investigating.
“Brian!” I said, raising my voice. “Focus for a minute. What do you mean, you posted it?”
“In trade. Nothing uncommon—we do it all the time,” he said while clicking furiously on the column headers, changing the sorts and forcing new queries. “Watch this. I’ve got a very quick confirmation.”
I leaned in closer as he continued his mouse-clicking barrage, jabbing each column with an assault, changing from ascending to descending and back, filtering on the posted dates and prices. The application stopped responding, freezing the screen and throwing his mouse pointer into a spinning-wait cursor. He leaned back in his chair, picked up his caramel treat, and sucked on the straw, mumbling, “Old bug. None of the new filtering or fixes are in.”
“So that’s good? We’re safe?”
“We should be,” he confirmed with a slow smile. “The cops will see stuff, but they’ve seen stuff for a while. They just won’t be seeing the same stuff.”
“Good,” I answered, letting out a shaky laugh and feeling relieved.
“I fixed that bu
g a long time ago,” he added, pointing to the screen. “Didn’t know what I was doing and tried too many queries—” Nerd’s voice changed midsentence, and his shoulders slumped. After a moment, he sat up and rolled his chair closer to the desk. The wait cursor had disappeared, refreshing the screen with a new listing of content. “Someone’s been updating more than the user interface. They’ve updated my search code . . . not just little tweaks either.”
I read through the list, matching up some of the line items with what was showing on our application. And while the sorting was different, the links were the same. Steve was seeing the same listings. My heart dropped, realizing we couldn’t trust the software.
Nerd remained wide-eyed, his fingers brushing over the keys as he coded a script in a new window. He slammed his finger on the Enter key, and we watched the screen roll upward in a green flash. His lips moved without a sound as he compared the two listings. The sight was unsettling, and what it would mean to suspend our work began to register, to take hold like the dreadful feeling in your gut when receiving bad news.
“Talk to me,” I demanded, the suspense causing pins and needles. I cleared my throat to hide my nerves.
“A little over thirty percent,” he answered with a shake of his head. “The cops are seeing approximately thirty percent of what we’re seeing.”
“Can you fix it?” I asked, talking fast and desperate. “I mean, since you can identify what they see, we could drop those from our list?”
He shrugged, answering, “Fix what?” He looked up at me with severe concern.
“Fix the list,” I insisted.
“The list is compromised,” he continued, talking more to himself than to me. “Need to get the word out.”
“But we know what they are seeing, right?” I repeated, believing we could cull the list of the suspect links. He slowed, taking his hands from the keyboard. The change in his expression told me he understood where I was going. “Understand? So we know what not to pick.”
“That’s true. I get it, but we won’t know if the hack who made a deal with the cops is updating the software.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, rushing my words again. I tapped the screen, adding, “We can see what the old app is producing.”
Nerd shook his head. “That app was old—posted before the dude got himself pinched and made a deal. For all we know, he could be a half dozen feature releases ahead by now. Might even be better than what we’re using.”
“Better? So could be more than thirty percent?”
“Could be much more,” he answered, sounding grave. But more than that, Nerd sounded defeated, as though he’d lost. And maybe to him, maybe to all the nerds like him, this was a game. “The real risk is not knowing if a link that’s posted is a sting. You know, bait. They could manipulate a post so that it doesn’t show on their list. How will we know if it’s legitimate?”
“We’ll need to vet the post,” I suggested without knowing if it was possible. I patted his back, hesitating, uncertain if he’d take to the gesture. He remained still, concentrating on the code scrolling up his screen. “I’ll dig around,” he began. “Dig in and see what’s what and what I can do. Maybe they left something for me to key off of.”
“There you go,” I said, assuring him, wanting to see him work his magic.
“Might take some time. I mean, a lot of time.”
“How long?”
“No new cases.”
Slowing down was out of the question. “We need something else, then,” I stated, feeling frustrated, clenching my jaw as I struggled for something to come to my mind. “We have to see what they know, to see what they are seeing. That’ll help us confirm which cases are clean.”
“A spy,” he offered with a laugh. “You could just check your computer every night. Quietly sneak on, load the software, export the day’s listing the station is working, and bring it in for me to cross-check.”
I shook my head in answer. “Too slow. Would be dated too. Need something live, something online all the time.”
“Could rat the station’s computers,” he answered, raising his brow briefly to the idea. “Nah. Could never get on one of their computers to load it.” I heard the doubt in his voice, but wanted to learn more. To me a rat meant a snitch.
Does that mean we’d have a snitch working in the station?
“What do you mean by a rat?” I asked, intrigued.
“Name sounds funny, doesn’t it?” I waved my hands, agreeing, but encouraged him to get on with it. “A rat is a tiny bit of software that lets you control another computer. Remote access terminal. RAT. It’s an acronym. If we could somehow load one at the station, then we’d see everything they see. It’d be like having a virtual spy working for us.”
“Didn’t you say you had software that acted like a virus? Is that the same as a rat? I mean, couldn’t you use the virus to infect their computers, load the rat?”
He shook his head, but I could see in his face that he was thinking about it. “That was just an experiment, a challenge with some friends to see who’d come up with the fastest infection rates,” he answered. “Beyond spreading, the virus doesn’t do anything. I left the action empty—blank.”
“Did you win?”
“Please. What do you think?” he answered sounding surprised that I’d even ask. “I always win.”
“Just wondering . . .” I began. I was glad to hear the confidence back in his voice.
His face lit up with an idea.
“I left the action blank,” he repeated. “I could add a rat to my virus and . . . but we’re still missing a piece. I can’t just walk into the police station and ask to borrow a computer.”
“But I can,” I blurted. “Well, not exactly. But I can walk in. I’m going there this afternoon. Bought my husband a present for his new desk.”
“Oh yeah?” he said, his face twisting as he continued thinking through what he’d proposed. His fingers were moving again, typing more code, working the idea.
“You’re adding the rat to your code, aren’t you?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, mumbling in a way that told me I’d lost him to his work. “The present. What did you get him?”
“A picture frame for his desk,” I answered. “One of those digital ones. I loaded our family album on it.”
“USB?” he asked and lifted his hands from his keyboard. “I mean, is it the kind you can plug into the computer?”
“Sure,” I answered, confused by the question. “That’s how I loaded the pictures on it.”
“Dude, we can use that!” he said more to himself than to me. He jumped up from his seat and went to my desk with his hands extended. “They’re cheap, but most have a decent processor. I only need to load my kernel, and then add a rat to my virus.”
“How?” I asked, confused but following his lead. I dug Steve’s gift from my bag.
“It’s a simple deal. Plug the picture frame into his station’s computer. The rat will load as a background process, and the virus will seek out any connected computers and spread. I’ll rat the whole place!”
I missed most of what he said, but loved the enthusiasm and handed the packaged gift to him. “But what about the pictures?” I asked. “It’s got to show the pictures.”
“It will,” he assured me. “If it didn’t, your husband wouldn’t leave it on his desk, would he?”
“True,” I answered while Nerd dug into the wrapping. “Whoa! No need to do that. I can’t rewrap here if you tear into it.”
He handed the gift back to me, “Could you do it? I’m too excited.”
I’d become an expert at unwrapping and rewrapping presents in the second grade. From then on, I’d find hidden holiday and birthday gifts, ease up the clear tape, keep the folds, and rewrap after discovering what was inside. I demonstrated this for Nerd, pulling up the clear tape smoothly after blowing warm breath over it briefly.
“It’s like steaming an envelope,” I told him. Then I shook my head at the perplex
ed look he gave me. He was too young to understand the concept of steaming envelopes open when report cards and other official documents were mailed to your house. These days, everything was online. When the digital picture frame was clear of the wrapping, I handed it to him and carefully set aside the colorful paper. “There. And remember, the pictures are already loaded. Don’t lose them.”
“I’ll back up the rendering software and your pictures before loading my kernel,” he said, removing the picture frame from the box and carefully flipping it over to study the back.
“Can we use it?” I asked when seeing him hesitate.
He dug through the box, pulled its power adapter from the cardboard. “Ditch this,” he instructed, tossing the adapter to me. “Throw it away, or put it in your drawer if you want to save it.”
“But the frame won’t work without it.”
“Ahh, but it will,” he said, lifting a USB cable. “You got lucky buying this model. The picture frame powers over USB so he’ll have to plug it into his computer. Once it’s plugged in my software will load, and we’ll be in business.”
“That’s it?” I asked, uncertain. “No power cord?”
“Just tell him to plug it into his computer—no plug. Tell him it’s green or something environmental. People love that shit.”
“And that’s when your software will gain access,” I added to indicate that I understood the plan. “So how will you get your software on there?”
He lifted a small computer from his desk, no bigger than a credit card, and placed it on the back of the digital picture frame, “I’m going to sister the boards up for the extra memory, pair them off the USB port. Just need an hour.” And like that he was gone, flying up the stairs to the loft. He’d built out a small workshop up there already. With a half dozen computers and a spaghetti mess of wires, he was in his element.
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