Hacked

by Linda Gerber

  Logan didn’t leave my side all night…even when I completely dominated him in killer Uno. Yes, I know I was the only one in the room anywhere close to his age, but I didn’t get the sense that he was hanging out with me by default. He could have gone to talk sports with Bayani at any time, but he didn’t. That made me think that maybe things between us could be getting back to normal.

  And it had kept me from sparing a single thought for the blog.

  But now that it was quiet, I remembered, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I opened my computer, but even before it booted up, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get online. If the Internet had been out all afternoon while skies were clear, it sure wouldn’t be working in the rain. But I had to see for myself. I had to know.

  Sure enough, there was no connection. I grabbed my phone on the off chance I could access the Web with it, but it wasn’t showing any signal bars, either. I even climbed onto my bed and held the phone up high, angling it toward the window. Nothing.

  I slumped back down onto the mattress. It’s probably fine, I told myself. That weird blog post was most likely a onetime deal, and I had fixed it. There was nothing to worry about.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t very convincing.

  When I couldn’t make myself go back to sleep, I rolled off the bed and paced back and forth across the room like a restless tiger in a too-small enclosure. It took only about three steps to cover the distance. I always thought that expression about walls closing in was overdramatic, but that’s exactly what it felt like: the room was getting smaller. If I didn’t get out, I was going to be crushed. Without even bothering to grab my robe or slippers, I rushed out the door and into the dark and silent hallway.

  It didn’t feel much better out there. What I needed was space. Room to breathe. I felt my way along the wall until I reached the railing that surrounded the balcony and stairs. The gas fireplace in the great room was still lit, although the flames had been turned down low. Shadow and light leaped over the furniture. It jumped and stretched up the walls, alive and playful.

  I sighed with relief and tiptoed down the stairs. About halfway down, I could feel the temperature drop just a hint. Heat really does rise. I almost went back to my room to grab my robe, but I figured it would be warm by the fireplace, so I just hugged my arms as I hurried down the rest of the stairs and padded across the room.

  “Couldn’t sleep, either, huh?” Logan sat up from where he had been lying on the couch.

  I clutched at my chest, where my heart had just about jumped right through my nightshirt. “Logan!” I stage-whispered. “What are you doing down here?”

  “Same as you, I s’pose,” he said. “Too quiet in my room.”

  He scooted over to make room for me, and I hesitated for a moment before sitting on the couch next to him. Even though earlier the evening had ended up feeling pretty normal between us, the shorts I was wearing beneath my pajama shirt weren’t long enough to cover much. I tugged at the hem of the shirt when I finally sat, then drew my knees up to my chest, stretching the fabric over my bare legs. There wasn’t much I could do about my hair, and I turned my face away from Logan for a second so I could check my breath.

  He tilted his head so that the light from the fire cast half his face in shadow. “You okay?”

  “Yes,” I said too quickly. “Why shouldn’t I be?” My voice sounded defensive. And high-pitched, like a third grader’s.

  “Um, you’re kind of fidgety,” he observed.

  “I didn’t know you’d be down here.”

  “Sorry. I can leave.” He moved like he was going to get up from the couch, and I grabbed his arm.

  “No! I mean…you can stay if you want.”

  He settled back down on the couch, and we both stared into the fire for a moment. Now that we were finally alone, my mind stumbled over itself trying to come up with something clever to say. I had nothing.

  “Whadya think’ll happen with the agenda for tomorrow?” Logan asked finally.

  I shrugged. Really? The shooting schedule wasn’t exactly what I had hoped we would talk about. “I guess it depends on if it keeps raining or not,” I told him. “Maybe we can go biking like we were supposed to do today.”

  “And if it doesn’t stop?”

  “Then we’ll probably have to go to one of the indoor places with the When in Rome group.”

  “Wow,” he said flatly. “Exciting.”

  “Beats tromping around in the rain.”

  “I don’t know. This stuff they’re filming is supposed to be real, right? Why not tromp around in the rain?” He grinned at me. “Nice word, by the way. Victoria’s influence?”

  “What? Tromp is a perfectly fine verb. Very onomatopoeia.”

  He laughed softly. “Victoria, for sure.”

  I bumped my arm against his. “I do have my own vocabulary, you know.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said with mock seriousness. “And a very impressive one at that.”

  “Shut up.”

  He was quiet for a moment, then tilted his head at me again. “It’s actually not so bad, y’know.”

  “My vocabulary? Of course it’s not bad. I’ll have you know I—”

  “Naw. I meant doin’ the show with you.”

  I studied his face in the firelight, looking for any sign of a tease. He held my gaze steadily. Sincerely. “Thanks,” I said. “It’s not torture doing it with you, either.”

  He chuckled and bumped his arm against mine this time. “You could’a told me it was your idea.”

  I nodded and looked away. That would have been the easiest thing, of course. But I figured Logan’s dad would have mentioned it to him. And to tell the truth, even though Logan and I had been talking online steadily since I left the show, I was still a little shy about telling him how much I liked him. I was afraid if I told him I had requested working with him, I would have to tell him why, and I didn’t know how he would take it. “Sorry about that,” I said softly.

  “It’s all right.”

  The conversation kind of died after that, but that was okay. For the first time since we were back together, I didn’t feel like I had to say something to fill the space between us. We both sat and watched the flames in comfortable silence.

  Have you ever noticed how hypnotic fire can be? I hadn’t forgotten about the blog again, but I was able to push it to the back of my brain…my mushy, drowsy, zoning-out brain. Before long, my eyelids began to feel heavy, and my head even heavier. I wrapped my arms around my legs and rested my head on my knees. And then—I don’t even know how it happened—I found myself off center, listing just a bit to the left, toward Logan. I was leaning against him. He was leaning against me. His head came to rest against mine. And maybe because of how mushy, drowsy, and zoned out I was, it felt completely natural.

  We were in a cocoon of warmth from the fire, from the silence, from each other. I wanted to close my eyes and let myself drift away right there. But then I saw the light.

  No, not that light. The tiny red blinking light on the camera Claudia had left on the mantel. In fact, it was the blinking that caught my attention. Like in the kitchen that afternoon when the battery was getting low.

  Which meant the camera was on.

  I jerked away from Logan, suddenly very awake.

  He blinked and rubbed his eyes. “What’s the matter?”

  I pointed to the camera. “What did she do, leave it going all night?” I whispered.

  “Could’a been on a motion detector,” he whispered back. I don’t know why we were whispering, because neither one of us was wired for sound. But you never know how much the camera’s mic will pick up on its own.

  “We, um, haven’t really been moving. What does that mean?”

  “It means it’s time to clear out.”

  Without another word, we left the couch behind and hurried up the stairs. On the landing, we paused, but only long enough to nod good night to each other. The silence was no longer comfortable. All the way back to my room
I imagined a hundred red eyes watching me from every corner.

  I slipped inside the door and pulled it tight behind me. How many cameras were out there, lurking to record Logan and me on the sly? I crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin, even though I knew I could never close my eyes or I’d see the camera’s red, blinking light staring at me. And hear my mom’s voice telling me to be careful.

  She would flip if she suspected Liz was using hidden cameras to get the “unscripted” footage. So would my dad. They’d put an end to the show before it even began. Then I’d never get a chance to hang out with Logan again the way we just had downstairs.

  I rolled onto my side and watched the raindrops making their snakelike tracks down my window. And I made a decision. I wouldn’t tell them about the camera just like I hadn’t told them about the blog. I could handle it. I’d talk to Liz myself. Spare them the aggravation. When you thought about it, I was doing them a favor.

  So why did I feel so guilty?

  The next morning, I didn’t know which was worse: the continuous staccato beat of the rain on the roof or the persistent nagging in my head that I had done something wrong. I showered and got dressed, but I couldn’t work up the nerve to leave my room for fear I’d run into Mom or Dad. They’d take one look at me and know something was up. I needed to work on my neutral expression before I could go down to breakfast.

  I was practicing in front of the mirror when my phone buzzed on the nightstand. All efforts at perfecting a poker face were forgotten as I dove for the phone. The connection must have been fixed! I had my first text!

  I admit to a tiny pang of disappointment that the message was from Zoe and not from Logan, but at the same time, getting a text at all deserved a fist pump. Maybe now things would get back to normal.

  Or not.

  Because what I read in Zoe’s message told me that normal was a long way off.

  Is everything OK? Your blog today is unhappy. I think Victoria was nice. What happen? Write back! I worry for you.

  This was not good. The only blog post I’d written since coming to Costa Rica said nothing about Victoria. The one I erased hadn’t said anything about her, either. That could mean only one thing: my blog had been hacked into again. And if Zoe saw the “unhappy” post all the way in Greece, chances were that other people saw it, too. Like the network. Or my mom and dad. In which case, I was dead.

  I typed a quick reply to Zoe, assuring her that I was fine and that Victoria really was nice. I promised to write more as soon as I could, but when I touched the Send prompt on the screen, nothing happened. I tried again. Not a blip. Which was probably because the connection bars had disappeared.

  “No!” I jumped around the room, waving the phone above my head as if I could find hidden signals hanging in the air. No such luck. The connection was gone. I tossed the phone on the bed and rushed to my computer, even though I already knew what I would find. Sure enough, no Internet connection, either.

  This was not good. I closed my computer and hurried downstairs. Poker face or not, I needed to find Bayani and convince him to take me to the Internet café so I could see what Zoe was talking about. And fix it before my mom and dad fixed me.

  Bayani was already eating by the time I reached the dining room for breakfast. I slipped into the chair beside him and accepted the bowl of fruit salad he passed to me.

  “Hey, Bayani,” I started, “do you think you could—”

  Dad chose that moment to wave at me from across the table. “Good morning, Cassie-bug.” It sounded more like a question than a greeting the way he said it. His hand hovered over the empty space next to him as if it was wondering why the chair was still vacant.

  My breath caught for an instant. Did he know about the hacked post? I couldn’t tell. “Buenas dias, Papá,” I said, trying to sound casual. My voice came out all chirpy. I spread my napkin on my lap and took a deep breath to erase some of the perky from my voice. “Did you sleep well?”

  Dad’s eyebrows hunched together. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I slept…well. You?”

  Sure, if you didn’t count the panic attack in the middle of the night, or being haunted by the mantelpiece camera’s blinking red light. “Same,” I lied.

  “Me, too,” Bayani informed us, totally eavesdropping. “I love the rain. Slept like a baby.”

  “Well, that’s it, then.” Mom slid into the seat next to Dad. “The forecast hasn’t changed. Rain and more rain. Looks like we’ll be doubling up today.” She paused long enough to give me a distracted smile. “Morning, honey.”

  I managed to say good morning back without letting too much relief creep into my voice. (I hope.) If she’d heard anything bad about my blog, she would have led with that, not with an update on the weather. I might still have time to fix whatever it was Zoe saw.

  “Where’s the shoot today?” I asked, proudly keeping my tone neutral.

  “The Monteverde Cheese Factory,” she said.

  I groaned. “Are you serious? We’re going to go watch people make cheese?”

  Not that I have anything against cheese. I actually like it quite a lot. But, really? What kid my age is going to sit through a reality show about making cheese curds? No matter how much Liz prodded us, there was no way Logan and I could make that look exciting.

  Mom and Dad kept talking about the day’s scheduled segments and what they would have to adjust to accommodate the change in plans. While they were busy talking, I quickly asked Bayani about going to the Internet café.

  “Sure,” he said. “Maybe we can go this afternoon after the shoot.”

  “I was thinking more like this morning.”

  He shoved a forkful of fried plantains into his mouth and talked around it. “Sorry. Far as I know, you have lessons until eleven, then it’s time to go to the cheese factory.”

  “But—”

  “Hey, I don’t make the rules.”

  “It doesn’t have to take long,” I begged. “I just need to—”

  Victoria chose that moment to show up. She stood behind me and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Are you about finished? Liz would like you to get wired before class. Claudia and Estefan are working on Logan right now.”

  Since it was clear Bayani wasn’t going to help me, I followed Victoria over to where Claudia was waiting for me, lav mic in hand. I stood numbly as she clipped the mic to my shirt and adjusted the receiver along my back. All I could think about was my blog. There had to be some way to get to a connected computer so I could check on it. I just had to come up with a plan. And quick.

  Logan gave me the answer without even realizing it.

  “Do we have to work on those research papers again today?” he asked Victoria. “I already read everything in those pamphlets about spider monkeys, and there’s not enough to fill half a page.”

  “I am sorry about that.” Victoria sighed. “I had planned on the two of you doing some Internet research, but with the connection down—”

  “What if we went to an Internet café to look stuff up?” I asked. “Bayani and I found this really cool one that’s built into a converted bus, and—”

  “I don’t think so,” Victoria said. “We need to be ready to leave for the factory at eleven, and I don’t know how we could get to the café and back before then.”

  Estefan lowered the camera. “I know this place,” he offered. “We pass Internet Pura Vida to get to the factory. Very close.”

  Victoria hesitated. “I see. So you think we could stop at the café first, on our way to the cheese factory?”

  “Sí. If you like.”

  I could have cheered out loud, but I kept cool for the camera as Victoria considered the merits of the idea.

  “Well, then,” she said, “let’s find Liz, shall we? She’ll want to know our change in plans.”

  I quickly learned that getting permission to go to the café was only half the battle. Liz, whom I suspect was going stir crazy after having been shut in with the rain all night, decided to come with us
. Then she turned the whole thing into a huge production, grabbing Claudia to man the camera while Estefan was driving, and Daniel to touch up our hair and makeup, which meant we had to borrow some old seven-passenger van from the farm so everyone could ride together. She even made me go back up to my room to change because I had chosen to put on my own shirt that morning rather than one that the sponsors had given me.

  “Let’s not forget who butters our bread,” she told me.

  “That’s not even how the saying goes,” I muttered to Victoria. She just smiled and nudged me toward the stairs.

  Sometimes it’s not a good thing that Logan knows me so well. He watched me as the van bumped over the rutted roads, and no matter how hard I tried not to let him know I noticed, I couldn’t help sneaking quick peeks at him over and over again. Finally, he caught my eye and raised his eyebrows in question. He turned his back on Claudia and her camera and mouthed, What’s up?

  I shrugged and looked away. We couldn’t talk with our lav mics on, and even if we could, what good would it do to tell Logan about the blog? It wasn’t his problem. As long as he didn’t know anything, he couldn’t get into trouble.

  It’s a good thing Victoria was sitting in the front seat with Estefan, or she would have seen right through me. I couldn’t tell her about the blog, either. Which was a problem, because unlike Bayani, Victoria would actually check to see what I was doing on the computer. I had no idea how I was going to check on my blog without her knowing, but I figured I’d come up with something when the time came.

  The time came sooner than I thought. The ticka, ticka, ticka of the van’s turn signal drew my attention to the front just in time to see Estefan pulling into the familiar Café Pura Vida parking lot. I took a deep breath and started to climb out of my seat, but Liz stopped me.

  “You two wait here,” she said, including Logan in her directive. “Claudia and I will go inside and speak to the owners.”

  I sank back down onto the worn vinyl seat. This could take a while. Whenever we did a public shoot like this, we had to get signed releases from everyone who might possibly show up on film. Then we had to test the site for optimum light and camera angles. No doubt Claudia would study the line of computers where Logan and I would need to work, and choose the best ones. Which meant the people who were on those computers would have to be kicked off (and compensated). It could take forever.