Catfishing on CatNet

by Naomi Kritzer

  “Okay,” I say. “Thank you.”

  I realize too late that Rachel is back, and reading over my shoulder.

  “CheshireCat has been tailing your father?” she asks, kind of incredulous.

  “Not physically,” I say. “Spying on him through his phone. CheshireCat is a hacker. A really good hacker.” It’s not a lie, I tell myself.

  “But you just said they’re not just a hacker.”

  “I’ll have to get their permission to tell you the details, and right now I need to call Ico.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she says. “I’m sorry. Yes, you should do that.”

  I don’t want Rachel’s parents to overhear, so I step outside.

  I’m really not used to making phone calls to strangers. Like, at all. I think about what I’ve seen people do. You ask for the person you want, right? Right. It can’t be that hard. It’s actually LittleBrownBat, I mentally rehearse telling Ico. I stare at the phone keypad and then think, He is in danger; I need to stop being a wuss. Finally, I dial the number.

  It rings. It rings again. I’m beginning to wonder what sort of message I can leave, and then a woman picks up.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, um, is this Ben’s mom? Can I speak to Ben? Please.”

  I sound all wrong, and there’s a pause, and then the woman says, “Who is this?”

  Oh god oh god, I didn’t prepare for this one. “Stephanie, but everyone calls me Bat.” There. Now he’ll know who’s calling. Hopefully. “From his English class.”

  “Okay.” Ico’s mother sounds really dubious. “Ben!” she calls. “Ben, you have a phone call!”

  “Who is it?” he shouts back, sounding angry.

  “A girl named Stephanie. I mean Bat. She says people call her Bat. From your English class?”

  There’s a long pause, and I think he’s not going to make the connection. Then, in the background, I hear galloping footsteps, like someone is running down a flight of stairs. “Hello?” Ico says into the phone.

  “You’re welcome,” I hear his mother say in the background. I’m pretty sure she’s rolling her eyes.

  “Ico?” I say. “This is Little Brown Bat.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I figured that. How did you get my mother’s number?”

  “I got it from CheshireCat, who is the world’s greatest hacker and has been keeping it a secret, and listen, okay? That guy, my dad, turns out he’s super scary. Also, he has an IP logger that logged every visit to that website, so he knows where all of us live, at least approximately, and he lives in Silicon Valley … Mil—um—Mil something—”

  “Milpitas?”

  “Yes, Milpitas. It’s really, really close to you.”

  “But, like, all he has is my IP address? That’s not going to get him my house. Especially since I was using my neighbor’s Wi-Fi—”

  “So that social engineering thing you explained to us? He’s really good at it. Really good. If he called your neighbor’s ISP, do you think he’d get their address?”

  “They’re not supposed to give that out…” He trails off, and I’m pretty sure he’s thinking about how he’d try to get an address out of an ISP. “Huh.”

  “Ico, please trust me that he’s dangerous. Be careful.”

  “Okay.” There’s a pause. “Yeah. I will. Thank you for telling me. I’ll be careful.”

  “I can tell you more in the Clowder if you can get online…”

  “My parents are mostly not letting me out of their sight right now because they found a laptop they didn’t know about. Although they did not find the rest of the laptops they don’t know about. It’s hard to get online right now, though.”

  “I’m glad your mom let me talk to you.”

  “Well, number one, you’re a girl and you’re calling me up. She’d love it if I got a girlfriend. Or any other sort of friend, actually. Number two, you said you were in my English class, which I’m currently failing, and she’s hoping this means I’m actually going to take an interest in the next thing that’s due. So you hit several of her weak spots.”

  “Oh. I assumed you had friends because of the laptop selling thing.”

  “That’s less a friendship thing and more like I’m their dealer.” There’s a pause, and he says, “That was a joke. People can never tell when I’m making a joke.”

  “L-O-L,” I say like I’m in the Clowder. “There, now you know I’m laughing.”

  “Fantabulosa,” he says. “Was that everything?”

  “Yeah, your life is possibly in danger, lock your doors, and be careful—that was most of it.”

  “Also, CheshireCat is a world-class hacker.” He sounds admiring. “I will definitely want to talk to them for some tips. Okay. I’m walking back to where my mom is now so I’m going to say some stuff about English class … yeah, Bat, thank you very much for calling me, and I will try not to let our group down. I’ll call you back if I have any questions. Can you give me your number?”

  I give him my phone number.

  “Cool. Excellent. I’m hanging up now. Good-bye.”

  I go back inside. Rachel is sitting at the kitchen table with her own mac and cheese. “Do you want me to reheat yours?” she asks. “You didn’t eat very much.”

  “I wasn’t hungry. Because my father’s not an arsonist; he’s a kidnapper. He probably cut off my mother’s finger, and he knows where we are because everyone visited his website. He’s looking up flights to where people live, including us but also Firestar and Hermione and Marvin. And even if I run—somewhere—my mother’s stuck in the hospital here.”

  “Under a fake name, though, right?”

  “Yes. Under a fake name. So … hopefully he won’t find her, as long as he doesn’t find me.”

  Rachel takes my bowl and sticks it in the microwave with a big slice of extra butter. It comes out a bit more edible.

  “My parents have a friend with a cabin,” she says. “It’s up in La Pointe, Wisconsin. Actually, I think it might be a yurt or something. But maybe they’d let us go up there? If we need to?”

  “Is there internet in the yurt?”

  “I don’t know,” Rachel says.

  The thought of not even knowing what’s going on makes me feel even worse. “He’s after all of us. I can’t just take off and leave everyone else to fend for themselves.”

  “He’s only after the rest of us to get to you,” Rachel says.

  “I don’t think that’ll help, though.”

  “I still want to know how CheshireCat knew all this stuff.”

  I open up my laptop and send CheshireCat a message. “Rachel saw some stuff over my shoulder. Can I tell her the truth?”

  Another pause—a long pause, considering—and CheshireCat says, “As the human saying goes: in for the penny, in for the pound.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “It means that everyone’s going to figure it out sooner or later, so you might as well tell Rachel now.”

  I close the laptop. Rachel is finishing her own mac and cheese, her eyes on me. It would be totally quiet if it weren’t for the birds shrieking in the next room.

  “CheshireCat is actually an AI,” I say.

  “A what?”

  “An artificial intelligence. They’re a computer program, basically.”

  She wrinkles her brow. “Like Siri?”

  “Well, Siri isn’t actually a person. Siri’s faking being a person. Siri’s basically like the sex ed robot; it’s got a bunch of responses programmed in. CheshireCat is actually a person.”

  “Why do you think CheshireCat is an AI? I mean, how did you find this out?”

  “They told me after I got all freaked by the screwdriver. Remember when the screwdriver showed up?”

  “Steph, there’s no way. They’re a hacker, that’s all. They figured a few things out and they’re making other stuff up.”

  “Like what do you think they’re making up?”

  “Well, obviously they actually figured out your location, but I bet
a hacker could do that. But all the stuff about following your dad around? They could have just made it up. All of it. We know he’s scary. Does it matter whether the stuff about driving to Sacramento is true?”

  “Do you think I’m making this up?”

  “No! No, of course not, Steph. I think CheshireCat is probably older than we are, probably for real a hacker, and they told you this story that they’re an AI to cover up something they’re doing that’s actually illegal.”

  It had not occurred to me that when I told someone about CheshireCat, they would think I was gullible.

  “They knew Ico’s number and real name,” I say.

  “Maybe they got it from the admins?”

  “They said they literally are all the admins.”

  “Did you actually check that with Alice? I mean, maybe it’s true, that still doesn’t mean they’re an AI.”

  I have not checked it with Alice, but that much, at least, is easy. I open my computer back up and send a message to Alice.

  “Hi, Alice,” I say. “Can you confirm for me that you’re CheshireCat?”

  “Of course this is me,” Alice says.

  “Rachel is skeptical of the whole AI thing,” I say.

  “Oh!” Alice/CheshireCat says. “That’s funny. I guess that’s reasonable, though! It’s arguably an extraordinary claim. Do you think I should prove it, or do you think I should just leave her thinking I’m a hacker? Because if you think everyone will believe I’m just a hacker…”

  “SHE IS READING THIS OVER MY SHOULDER,” I type.

  “Tell them I want proof,” Rachel says, her tone skeptical.

  “She wants proof,” I type.

  “Okay,” CheshireCat says. “Tell her that her father’s phone is currently at the IGA and based on the purchase receipts going to his email, she can expect him to arrive home with a gallon of milk, a bag of ground coffee, a pound of deli meat, and a 1.5-quart container of rocky road ice cream.”

  Rachel falls back a step, her eyes really wide.

  “He should be home in less than five minutes unless he’s detouring somewhere. It’s going to be really awkward if he eats the ice cream himself on the way home. Is that a lot of ice cream to eat in one sitting? Human stomachs hold slightly over one quart, so in fact you could probably CONTAIN that much ice cream, but I would not expect the experience to be enjoyable.”

  Rachel puts the kettle on the stove and then goes and looks out the back window toward the garage.

  “Does that sound like stuff he’d get?” I ask.

  “He doesn’t usually get ice cream,” she says.

  The car pulls in just as the water’s coming to a boil, and he comes up the back steps with a gallon of milk and a plastic bag. Rachel unlocks the back door and opens it to let him in.

  “Did you get ice cream?” she blurts out.

  He holds up the bag. “Rocky road!”

  Rachel whirls to stare at me wide-eyed as she closes the door behind him. Upstairs, I hear a door close, and then her mother’s footsteps on the stairs. She’s wearing another paint-spattered oversized work shirt, and two tiny feathers drift away in her wake.

  “I brought you ice cream,” Rachel’s father says warmly, and she gives him a kiss.

  I kind of can’t deal with this. Any of it. Even if they’re going to give me a bowl of the ice cream, I just can’t, so I ignore Rachel’s plaintive glare, grab my laptop, mumble, “Excuse me,” and bolt upstairs to Rachel’s bedroom.

  * * *

  Upstairs, I take out my cell phone to see if my mother has texted me. She hasn’t. I don’t know for sure that she has battery power or anything, and although I could probably get Rachel to drive me over to the hospital right now for a visit, I’m afraid that going back will just increase the chances that they’ll get her info and put her under her real name. Even if my father tracks me down, he won’t know where my mother is, and he probably won’t go looking at the hospital. It’s actually probably a decent place to hide. As long as she’s there under a pseudonym.

  I think for a while about what text I can send her that she’ll find reassuring. I don’t think I want to tell her that my father might be on his way. She can’t leave the hospital yet, and if she’s freaking out and trying, that doesn’t seem like it would be good for her.

  Finally, I text:

  Staying safe with a friend.

  Txt me when you’re awake.

  Love S

  I stare at my phone for a while, but she doesn’t text back. I’d been hoping I could ask for the password for her computer, but I don’t think that’s going to happen today.

  Rachel comes upstairs a few minutes later with two bowls of ice cream. She hands me one.

  “Okay,” she says. “I guess I believe that CheshireCat is really an AI. Or … something.”

  “Something?” I ask. “Like a wandering wizard or a demigod or…”

  “The God of the internet. There could be a God of the internet.”

  I think this over. “I think maybe CheshireCat is the God of the internet.”

  “What sacrifices does CheshireCat require?”

  “Cat pictures! Haven’t you ever noticed that the internet loves cat pictures?”

  “I can offer it bird pictures…”

  “CheshireCat likes bird pictures, too.”

  “Hand-drawn henna art?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I touch my arm. “Has it been enough hours?”

  I slip out of my shirt, and Rachel rips open the little moist towelette of fixative and runs it over the art on my shoulder and arm. She opens up her closet so I can get a good look in the full-length mirror on the inside of the door. It’s beautiful and perfect, the little bats clearly recognizable as little bats.

  “This is amazing,” I say. “I want you to do this exact tattoo for me when we’re adults.”

  “Are you sure you won’t get tired of it?”

  “Never,” I say. “Can you take a picture of it so we can show it to the Clowder? Just keep my face out of it.” She poses me carefully, tries several angles, and finally just has me drop a pillowcase over my head to hide my face. We upload the pictures, and I take another look at the art in the photo.

  Henna pens have been a thing at every school I’ve attended in the last five years: drawing art, or letting someone draw on you, is one of those friendship rituals I’ve been excluded from since middle school. In middle school, I was shut out deliberately. In high school, it was just that I never had a close friend. Other girls had friends who drew art on them or who let them use their arms, hands, and shoulders as canvases. Other girls also had friends who brought them cupcakes on their birthdays or left them notes on their lockers before big tests.

  At most of my high schools, it wasn’t that people were mean to me on purpose. It was just that they didn’t know me, because I was new. I was always new. Because I never stayed in one place long enough to make friends.

  Rachel is looking at me again, almost anxiously, and I say, “You’re the first real friend I’ve had since Julie. This is the first time I’ve ever had body art.”

  “I’ll lend you a sleeveless shirt tomorrow,” she says. “So you can properly show it off. If you want to come to school, anyway. Do you think you’ll be safe there?”

  “If you tell your parents to call their friends and take me up to the yurt on Madeline Island,” I say, “what do you think will happen? Do you think they’ll just take me up there?”

  She chews on her lip. “They’ll want to know why, first of all. And you’ll have to explain about your mother. They might want to talk to the police. Maybe. They don’t like the police here much, after what happened last spring.”

  “Do you think they’ll want to know how I know all this stuff about my father?”

  “Maybe.”

  So … the police. Officer what’s-his-face again. And it’s one thing to tell Rachel about CheshireCat’s secret, but a bunch of random adults? That would really be a betrayal. And then I’ll be stuck somewhere, depende
nt on the adults who took me there. Also, I’ll be alone. There’s no way they’ll send Rachel with me.

  “I’ll go to school tomorrow,” I say. “Unless CheshireCat thinks it’s really not safe.”

  19

  Clowder

  CheshireCat: Hello, everyone. I have something important to tell you.

  Marvin: Are you about to come out to us?

  CheshireCat: Not exactly. It’s about LBB’s evil father. I found him, and I’ve been keeping tabs on him.

  Hermione: What do you mean?

  CheshireCat: I mean I hacked his computer so I could find out what he was up to.

  Firestar: SERIOUSLY?

  CheshireCat: When everyone looked at that Searching for Stephania Quinnpacket website, it logged your IP addresses, so he knows where you are. And he’s been looking up flights to the major airports near your homes.

  Firestar: What even is an IP address?

  Hermione: Your IP address is this string of numbers that identifies your computer on a network.

  Firestar: Okay but does that tell him where my computer IS or …

  CheshireCat: He at least knows your town.

  Firestar: Like my specific suburb or like BOSTON? Because even if he has my picture, which seems unlikely, he could spend a long time looking in Boston before he found me

  CheshireCat: Probably your ZIP code.

  Also, he’s very good at getting information out of people. He is an expert at the “social engineering” Ico described. So using your IP address, he might be able to persuade your internet provider to share your exact address, even if that is against policy.

  Here’s his picture:

  {External Image File}

  Hermione: That’s really freaky.

  LittleBrownBat: He’s really dangerous. Seriously dangerous.

  Marvin: Dangerous, check

  After us, check

  Has our addresses or will soon, check.

  Any suggestions on what we should do? This guy’s an arsonist, right?