Playing with Fire

by Sherry D. Ficklin

  “Hey, kiddo, you girls have a good time tonight?” he asks as I lay the dress bag over the back of the chair.

  “Yep. Got a cute dress and some accessories,” I say, digging his credit card out of my wallet and handing it back to him.

  He jerks his head over his shoulder. “Put it by my wallet on the kitchen counter,” he says, and then is immediately distracted by the sound of a referee blowing a whistle on screen. “You’re damn right that was offensive interference!” He pauses, and I gather my dress. Before I can make a clean getaway, he calls out over his shoulder, “What was the damage?”

  I grimace, telling him the final total. He whistles.

  “I hope you plan on getting married in that dress,” he jokes, turning his full attention back to the TV.

  “So eager to get rid of me?” I say, slinging the dress over my shoulder.

  “Well, you do eat a lot,” he says absently. “On the other hand, without you around, who would do the dishes and take out the trash?”

  I give him a mock salute and head for the kitchen. There, on the counter, is Dad’s wallet, keys, and cell phone. I drop the card atop the black leather wallet and lift the phone, pocketing it before I can change my mind.

  I know I shouldn’t do it, but I am already this far.

  Making a beeline for my room, I spare a quick glance at the TV. It’s only seven minutes into the third quarter. I have just enough time to do what I need to and get the phone back before he notices it missing. Unless it rings, of course. Quickly, I flip it to silent, dropping the gown on my bed and turning for the office.

  After connecting the phone to my computer, it takes me all of three minutes to get past his passcode and into the firmware on the phone. I pull up the email, still sitting in his inbox. Opening it, I back trace to the point of origin. Whoever sent it is really good, not a rank amateur sending something from his mom’s computer. The message routes through three server farms, before coming to a dead end at a bulletproof host in China. I tuck my hair behind my ears with both hands, and then crack my knuckles before trying something else.

  Finally, I have what little info I can find scrawled on a hot pink Post-it note. The date the email was sent, the time it was sent, and a tiny scrap of data stored layered in the original message, one word, repeating over and over.

  Splice.

  It’s not much—not nearly enough—but it’s all I’m going to get. I sit back, unplugging the phone and pondering my options.

  Sneaking to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, I replace the phone, grab my drink, and return to my desk. I decide to try from the other end.

  Bianca is the strongest possibility, and right now, the only real suspect. I already know she has the know-how to pull it off. But she herself admitted that her mother was initially blamed for the screw-ups. So what’s her motive? Does she have mommy issues and want to get her in trouble? Was it unintentional? Until I have some kind of motive, I don’t dare mention it to anyone.

  But that doesn’t mean I can’t track her online. Opening up the Omega Portal, I search through until I find the black market, the buy and sell corner of the dark web. Most people only see about ten percent of the Internet in their lives, the white-washed, government approved areas. But the Internet is so much bigger and more dangerous than that. Omega Portal is the seedy underbelly, haven to hackers, designers, and perverts alike. It’s a no-holds-barred, anything-goes area that would scare the average Joe so badly they might never sleep again. I scan through the most recent listings and chat areas. Scrolling past someone selling software that will let you remote access a cell phone’s mic and camera, I find the thread I’m looking for. A conversation from last week—one of the usernames is 0Splice.

  I grab the profile and trace the activity back. 0Splice has been very busy, and it takes me the better part of three hours to find what I’m looking for. The screen goes red, a single image stark in the center of my monitor. It’s a black Rottweiler with three heads, each baring fangs. The dog is Cerberus, the guardian of the Underworld in classic Greek mythology. Under each head is a white rectangle with a blinking curser, a password port.

  I sit back in my chair, my hands falling from the keyboard. Either the site requires three separate passwords to access, or you only get three attempts to enter the correct one, and I have no idea which. All I know is that my standard algorithm won’t work on it. Hacking a password is essentially like picking a lock; you go through, trying each possibility until the tumblers fall into place. But this…this is far too sophisticated for that. The only way in would be to get myself into 0Splice’s computer and find the passwords stored there.

  The dog growls and the screen blinks three times, dumping me back in the main chat area of the Omega Portal.

  Oh, and apparently, I have a time limit too.

  Delightful.

  Then, I decide to try something a little more basic. Retrieving the list of names from my backpack, I type in the first one and hit the search button. To my surprise, something hits. I click the link and am taken to a video of what looks like a child’s birthday party, uploaded six years ago. I try the next and the next, catching everything from photos clearly hijacked from their phones to text message archives. Finally, I type in the name I’ve been avoiding. Oliver’s name.

  A string of videos pop up, the most recent dated three weeks prior. I click it, and he’s sitting in his room, strumming a guitar, singing an old Beetles song. I watch, hypnotized by him, by the way his fingers pluck each chord, the way his voice sounds, so sad and melodic, but mostly, by the way the light catches his eyes when he occasionally looks up into the camera. Closing it out, I scroll through the others. They are all set to private—not that that really means anything on the Internet—but I can’t help wondering why he’s hiding such a talent. Between his looks and his voice, he could be an overnight Internet sensation; I’ve seen huge careers begin with less. Each video is basically the same, just him, singing. I close the last one, feeling like I’ve just breeched a chasm between us, or possibly, horribly overstepped my bounds, invaded his privacy.

  Feeling guilt twist in my gut, I shove the list back into my backpack, knocking it off the desk and scattering its contents onto the floor. Another folded paper falls out, and I clutch it in my hand. Without even opening it, I know it is Oliver’s note. I read and reread it so many times, the edges are worn and the ink smeared.

  Rocking back in my chair, I remember the mysterious white pills. Getting back on the computer, I do a search for the numbers, but nothing comes up. That alone makes the small hairs rise to attention on the back of my neck. Retrieving the image from my phone, I try searching the online pharmacy guide, but again, nothing hits. Then, I decide to use the power of the Omega Portal in my favor. Posting the link in a chat window under my nic, Cypher464, I caption it, ‘Found these. Anyone know if they are a good high?’ Then, while I’m waiting, I scroll through images of steroids and opiates and known club drugs. Nothing matches the pills, and no one responds to my posting.

  There’s obviously only one way I’m ever going to figure out the truth, I’m just going to have to break down and ask Oliver about it. No matter how cute or charming he is, if he’s using drugs, it’s a deal breaker. Deep down, I wonder if that’s what’s keeping me from just saying something.

  When I turn everything off and head back to my room, the blinking lights of my alarm clock read 2:16 am. I change quickly and slip into bed, expecting my brain to be too engaged to sleep, but exhaustion wins and soon I’m out cold.

  My sleep is restless, full of dreams of drugs and winding up at homecoming naked and dateless. Then it grows darker. The dreams become me, under water as the tide rolls over me, tossing me to and fro under the surface. I reach upward, kicking my legs, but I’m pinned below. I just can’t force myself up through the surf. My lungs burn as I fight to hold the last, precious breath inside and my legs cramp with each desperate flail, but I can’t surface. There’s no escape. Some distant part of my brain tells me to re
lax, to let myself sink, but I can’t. I writhe and I fight even as each new wave rolls overhead. Through the chaos, I hear my mom’s voice, singing lullabies in the darkness.

  Startled, I bolt out of bed, falling onto the hard floor with a grunt. My clock read 5:45. I run my hands through my hair and try to push the images out of my mind.

  Maybe I should ask Dad about going back to therapy.

  The alarm wails, the sound echoing through my small room. I get to my feet, untangling my blankets from my legs, and slap it off, reluctantly heading for the shower.

  On the way to school, I fill Reid in on my final plan for getting into the guidance counselor’s office. As it turns out, I’ll need more help than I had originally thought, which means trusting Derek and Kayla with at least the basics of what I was up to. I swear them to secrecy, and then start talking. By the time I’m done, they both look at me as if seeing me for the first time, a weird mixture of surprise and excitement.

  Kayla agrees eagerly and Derek shrugs, content to follow wherever she leads. I notice as he looks out the window, a large, red welt is visible under the neckline of his black Henley. I want to ask him about it, but Kayla catches me looking at it and pointedly shakes her head, silencing me. In the back of my mind, another plan forms. One that has nothing at all to do with the squadron or the person hacking it. I push it to the back of my thoughts, letting it unspool in the background while I draw my focus forward to other things.

  When I lay out my plan in detail, Derek nods.

  “You have a truly devious mind,” Reid says.

  “Finally, four years of drama class is going to pay off,” Kayla adds, a bit maniacally, as she rubs her hands together.

  Oliver is back at school, apologizing again for his behavior the night before as he walks me to class. When I tell him I won’t be at lunch that day, he frowns.

  “I hope this isn’t about how I acted,” he begins. “I’ll do anything to make it up to you, I swear.”

  “No, it’s not that. I have a meeting with Mrs. Groves,” I say lamely.

  He recovers quickly. “Well, there’s always tomorrow,” he says, kissing the tip of my nose before leaving me to head to his own class.

  We don’t see each other much through the morning, and after third period, I hurry to the second floor.

  There’s a small waiting area, a few chairs, and a tall, round table scattered with brochures for various colleges strewn about. When she opens her door, greeting me with a friendly smile, I shudder. The last time I found myself sitting in a guidance office had been because someone had spray painted the word slut in bold, white letters across my locker, and somehow, it was my fault. I’d been told that maybe if I dressed nicer, smiled more, was more approachable, I’d have more friends. Never mind the fact that I’d committed the cardinal sin of narcing out a party, gotten half the lacrosse team suspended for underage drinking, and the most popular boy in school ended up on probation for possession. Naw, all I needed was a little lip gloss and a dress to make people like me again.

  Steeling myself, I step into her office. A desk, a few chairs, piles of papers and books, file cabinets, lots of artwork—most of it homemade—and a computer so old there might have been pictures of it in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Though I don’t look, I hear the secure server humming behind the slim closet door to my left.

  “So, what can I do for you today?” the stubby woman asks, her kind, brown eyes wrinkling at the corners.

  She has a puckered mouth and her gray hair hangs, black at the tips as if she had once colored it but had stopped years ago. She isn’t fat exactly, but the kind of overweight that comes from spending all day sitting at a desk. Her pinstriped suit strains in the middle, though the white, gauzy blouse underneath looks five sizes too big, draping from her frame in odd places.

  “Well, I had a few problems at my old school and I wondered if that stuff was going to hurt my chances of going Ivy League after graduation,” I begin smoothly.

  Okay, it isn’t entirely a lie, but the best lies are based partially in truth. Honestly, the top five hundred honor students in the country would have to die for me to have even a snowball’s chance in hell at Ivy League. I know this. She knows this. But she can’t just come out and crush my dreams, she will need to gently steer me in another direction.

  Her ancient computer winds to life as she types in my name. She leans forward, reading my file, and frowns. What she’s seeing is probably the fact that at my last school, I’d been kicked off the newspaper for reporting that my principal had been altering grades for athletes to keep their basketball team in the state finals. The allegations were completely true, but I’d gotten canned anyway. Or the time I’d gotten suspended for a week for fighting. Never mind that I’d been jumped in the girls’ bathroom and was only defending myself. Or, possibly, that one time, I’d refused to sit in class and listen to my computer applications teacher try to teach me how to use an Excel spreadsheet. I’d told him I’d come back when he could teach me something I didn’t already know, gotten up, and walked out. At first, he’d threatened to fail me, then, after he handed me the end-of-the-year exam and I passed it with flying colors, he let me just sit in his office during class and design website templates, which he then sold and split the profits with me.

  Absently wondering which story is putting that magically delicious frown on her face, I slide my hand into my backpack, feeling around for my phone. I find it and hit the send button.

  There’s a loud series of thuds, then wailing and shouting in the hallway.

  “What’s that?” I ask loudly.

  Mrs. Groves stands quickly, tells me to wait where I am, and then leaves the office, closing the door behind her. I don’t know what Kayla did to cause the commotion, but whatever it is, it worked. By now, Derek has taken up his position outside the door and is acting as lookout. He gives me a quick thumbs-up through the glass panel beside the door.

  Slipping into the empty desk chair, I plug my flash drive into her machine, minimize my file, and start pulling up the confidential files for each student on my list, dropping them onto the drive. I still have Oliver’s file at home, but I haven’t looked at it yet so I decide to throw it on the drive anyway, just in case there’s something on here that never made it to the hard copy, which can sometimes happen. Guilt stabs at me again. It’s like all I’ve done all week is invade his privacy. If he’d done something like that to me, I’d have kicked him to the curb. Yet here I am, being a filthy hypocrite. Again.

  I’ll only look at his last, if I haven’t found anything on someone else, I promise myself.

  Derek coughs and steps forward, out of my line of sight. I hear him exchanging words with Mrs. Graves.

  “You’ll just have to make an appointment some time later. I’m with someone right now,” she says curtly.

  Derek tries to protest, but she says something else and dismisses him.

  I’m back in my chair, flash drive tucked into my front pocket, when she strides through the open door. “Is everything all right?” I ask.

  “Yes, Kayla Pierce took a fall down the stairs, but it looks like she’s alright,” she says coolly.

  “Oh, Kayla’s a friend of mine, Mrs. Groves. Do you mind if we do this later? I’d like to go check on her.” I try to infuse concern, rather than amusement, into my voice.

  She pauses. “Oh, of course. She’s in the nurse’s office.”

  I thank her, gather my stuff, and bolt from the room before I can burst out laughing. I’d asked for a distraction, and Kayla threw herself down the stairs, going full-tilt drama queen.

  Of course she did.

  Reid meets up with me outside the library. “You get what you need?”

  I hold up the drive. “I sure hope so.” I pause, tapping it on my chin. “What I don’t understand is why? Why would anyone here want to threaten a squadron? I mean, it’s bad news for all of us, right?”

  Now it’s his turn to shrug. “It could be an attention thing. Or a rage thing. Or e
ven a boredom thing. Why do people do anything?”

  I tilt my head. “That’s the thing. People are generally predictable. You act because you need something or want something. So what does threatening a squadron get you?” I hold up a hand, counting on my fingers. “Typical motives are revenge, love, money, ego, and power.”

  “Not ego, probably, or they would have signed their name,” Reid reasons. “Probably not money. You can’t exactly sell grounding a squadron.”

  I pause, something clicking into place in my brain as Bianca’s words flitter through my mind. “You can buy and sell anything. Actually, if you created a program that could screw with military aircraft on-board computers, that’d be worth a fucking fortune to the right buyers.”

  “Ok, so money is a maybe. But my money is still on love. The squadron gets locked down, no deployment. No leaving your family behind.”

  “But you can’t sustain it. Say the squadron gets grounded, permanently, what do they do? They just send everyone out to other squadrons. It’s a temporary reprieve at best.”

  “It’s a helluva risk to take anyway,” Reid adds. “I’m sure the DOJ is all over this. And probably Homeland too. Eventually, they will find the person responsible.”

  “And when they do, that person will be put in a very dark hole for a very long time.” I shake my head. “I just don’t get it.”

  Even with all the info I nabbed from the counselor, I still only have one real suspect. My pick for crazy bitch is Bianca Peterson. According to her file, she has a history of behavior problems and has attempted suicide twice. Her parents thought she was acting out, desperate for attention. All signs point to her, like neon lights. So why is there something, nagging, in the pit of my stomach that’s not convinced?

  Proof. I need solid proof. And the sooner the better. If she is behind it, I can take the info to my dad. He’ll be pissed I ignored his order to leave it alone, but I’ll happily take that over something really bad happening. If this is about money, if she really is looking for someone to buy the code she created to screw with the planes, come hell or high water, I’ll stop her.