Flight or Fight (The Out of Dodge Trilogy Book 1)

by Scott Bartlett

“I’m regretting this already. I don’t know what came over me. I was just watching some videos of the New World, and one of them showed someone getting rescued by people in a boat…I guess it primed me to do something stupid.”

  “I’m Carl, by the way.” He held out his hand.

  The man shook it with reluctance. “I know that already. Hero of Dodge. Right? Gonna check up on how those kids are doing, hey?”

  Carl shrugged. “What’s your name?”

  “I’m David. And I’m late for a business meeting.” He opened the hatch. Leo, still below, leapt up the pole, latching on halfway up. He started shimmying toward them. David closed the hatch again. “Damn it. Who is that guy?”

  “He’s my brother.”

  David looked at him. “The one whose kid you’re supposed to be concerned about?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long can we expect him to wait down there?”

  “I don’t think he has much else to do.”

  “Schrödinger’s cat.”

  “Schrödinger’s brother.”

  David looked at him, unsmiling. “The Gawp post didn’t mention you have a sense of humor.”

  Carl took out his phone and texted Maria, asking her to find a blunt object and wait near the open hatch, ready to slam and lock it as soon as he entered.

  David crossed his arms, clearly affronted that Carl was taking the time to send a text. “Why are you still here?” he said. “Do you not know what it means to have a contract with your employer? They could fire me for being late, no matter what my excuse is.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I can speak to your boss, if you like.” Carl took a deep breath. “If I were Leo, I wouldn’t wait directly under the pole, now that we’ve already opened the hatch once to check. I’d wait a few poles over to make us think the coast is clear, and then I’d run over to tackle me once I descended. If I’m right, it should buy me time to escape back to my pole.”

  “Why are you explaining it to me? I need you out of my porch, right now. I’m seriously about to open the hatch and kick you down there myself.”

  “All right, all right.” Carl opened the hatch and leapt. He’d been right. Leo was waiting a few poles away. Unfortunately, he also stood in Carl’s path to home, and now he ran straight toward him.

  Carl dashed to the left. He was smaller than Leo, and now that he’d had a chance to regain his wind he could duck around poles much more ably than his brother. Rachel trailed behind, probably because she’d been waiting to intercept him if he tried for the building’s exit.

  He managed to circle around Leo, with a big enough lead that he got up his access pole first.

  The hatch was closed. “Shit.” He clambered up, managing to get it open, but not before Leo’s hand encircled his foot like a vise. The first yank nearly broke Carl’s grasp on the handle above his head. Then his brother jumped up, wrapping his arms around Carl’s leg and trying to bring him down with his body weight.

  There was nothing for it but to slam his foot into Leo’s face, which caused him to loosen his grip and fall to the concrete, landing on his back. Carl hesitated, concerned he’d caused permanent injury, but he quickly came to his senses when Leo got up and made another lunge. He pulled himself up into the porch and slammed the hatch, locking it.

  Once he’d sat panting on the porch floor long enough to start thinking about getting up, he called out to Maria. No answer. He stood, making his way into the TV room, where “Carl is a cock” still adorned the main wall.

  In the kitchen, he found a note waiting on the table. “I have to leave for a while,” it read. “I don’t know for how long. Please don’t worry. Do what you’ve set out to do. I believe in you, and I love you.”

  Dumbfounded, he got up and went to the TV room to watch Maria’s lifelog in real time using one of the non-frozen walls. He frowned in confusion. The feed showed a view from their bedroom, with the light turned on. He got up and rushed there, hoping against hope to find her safe and sound.

  Instead he found one of her outfits laid out on the bed. Inspecting it, he discovered several wires trailing from the blouse near the collar, and from the pants near the waistband. They connected to an adapter lying on the floor near the wall, which was plugged into an outlet.

  Normally smart clothes powered lifelogs by harnessing energy from the wearer’s movements. When the wearer took the clothes off, the lifelog stopped, and it started again only when the subject donned another smart outfit. Clearly, Maria had found a way to keep the clothes powered, giving the impression that she was still lying in bed. The illusion wouldn’t survive more than a cursory glance, of course. Anyone who bothered to closely inspect Maria’s lifelog would uncover the ruse. This must have been what Natalie had done during her covert shifts at FutureBrite.

  But why was Maria doing it? Where had she learned how?

  And why would she leave now, just as Carl had started to think that he really did want to spend the rest of his life with her?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Carl would start at FutureBrite on Monday, but over the weekend he didn’t have much to do at all, especially with Maria gone. That made it a perfect time for him to uncover his hacker’s identity and set about repaying him for years of torment. Or her. He called Anders.

  His new friend told him he’d come over just after lunch, which Carl considered preferable to just before lunch. While he waited, he kept himself occupied by calling his insurance company and telling them to stop selling people access to his lifelog. “I know I won’t have access to the rebate anymore,” he told the lady on the phone. “Yes, of course I want to reach the New World as soon as possible. But I also want to use the toilet without the knowledge that dozens of journalists have access to the experience in real time.”

  Anders came with a geezer named Suckeggs in tow. In order to make it into the porch, Anders’s girth required that the harness be lowered. Once he strapped himself in, Carl braced himself with his feet straddling the hatch and heaved, managing to get Anders airborne for about two seconds before dropping him again. “Um,” he called down. “I don’t think I can lift you.”

  “Yeah,” Anders said, seeming fairly calm about the matter. “I use an automated lift to get into my house.”

  Suckeggs hoisted himself into the porch with an agility that belied his years, and between them they pulled Xavier Ofvalour’s propagandist into the porch. Carl and Suckeggs shared small smiles of accomplishment that evoked hands being dusted off.

  Propelled by this small triumph and excited at the prospect of a greater victory against his long-time digital tormentor, Carl offered his guests refreshments.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Anders said. “And so is Suckeggs.”

  Suckeggs maintained an expression of studied neutrality, though Carl could sense the man reflecting on the fact that he was perfectly capable of answering for himself. Not wanting to contradict Anders, whose help he sorely needed, Carl didn’t press the matter.

  “This is the hacker’s latest contribution to the household,” Carl said, gesturing at the main TV room wall that continued to declare “Carl is a cock” in red scrawl.

  “I can appreciate the alliteration, anyway,” Suckeggs said.

  “Very funny.” Carl frowned. “How does one come by the name Suckeggs, anyway?”

  The geezer shrugged. “Family phrase is ‘Don’t teach your grandma to suck eggs.’”

  “Oh. Seems like good advice, I guess.” He scratched his nose to mask his confusion.

  Suckeggs sighed.

  “Do you have any enemies, Carl?” Anders aimed a couple half-hearted gestures at the wall, trying to get it to budge.

  “Not as such,” Carl said, thinking as he said it that he was about to risk making the most formidable enemy around: the Hand of the Market. “I suppose you could say I have a lifelong rival in Gregory Stronger. And Morrowne is quite gruff…”

  “A troll doesn’t need a motive,” Suckeggs said, leaning back against the arm of a couch. “T
hey’re happy to do it for just the chance to watch your life fall apart.”

  “Why go to all that trouble, though? If it’s just some random attack.”

  “A lot of bitterness going around in Dodge, Mr. Intoeverylifeali. A lot of disappointed people. If the wrong kind of person gets bitter enough, they start using the tools at their disposal to take it out on someone they see is doing well…someone likely to escape Dodge soon. I’ve seen it before. They’ll choose one person and hound him or her for years. The reps don’t do a lot about this stuff, so there’s not much risk involved, and besides, it’s pretty easy.”

  “Why is it so easy?” Carl said. “And so hard to keep them out?”

  Suckeggs scratched his stomach. “Mr. Anders is better at explaining that than me. Why don’t you—”

  “Good thinking, Suckeggs,” Anders said, lowering his hands. “You take over the wall. I’m useless. Have a seat on the couch, Carl, and we’ll chat while Suckeggs sees what he can do about this wall of yours.”

  Suckeggs stood close to the wall and began trying various gestures and verbal commands that Carl had never seen before. Obscure geezer-techie commands, he supposed. Occasionally, Suckeggs cursed.

  Carl sat, and so did Anders. “Since technological progress halted altogether halfway through the twenty-first century,” the man said, “our technology is riddled with bugs and flaws left over from that time. They were known about back then, but mostly they weren’t fixed, in part because tech companies were ordered not to fix them by intelligence agencies of the day, who used those flaws as backdoors to infiltrate any device they wished. Often they were included intentionally by the manufacturer, for copyright and competition reasons. They called those flaws ‘Digital Rights Management.’ Your hacker has no doubt exploited one of these leftover vulnerabilities. Against an unskilled target it’s extremely easy to do.”

  “Especially for a geezer,” Suckeggs said. “I’d put money on your hacker being one, or having one for a friend.”

  “What geezers do you know, Carl?” Anders said.

  “Well, my father was practically one before he left.”

  “Would he have any reason to target you?”

  “Not anymore. I mean, he’s in the New World now. He wanted me to marry my girlfriend very badly, which I did, so…”

  “Who else?”

  “My boss. And my preacher.”

  “Are they suspects?”

  “Well, I assume my boss keeps an eye on me, but I don’t see what his reason would be for harassing me. It would risk impeding the work I do for him.”

  “And your preacher? Does he or she have a reason to take a special interest in you?”

  “Schrödinger’s cat, Anders! My preacher is a man of God. If God exists.”

  “But would he have any reason to resent you?”

  Carl hesitated. “No.”

  Anders gave a grunt and turned to Suckeggs. “What have you found?”

  Suckeggs sniffed. “The main wall here is locked down. There’s no accessing it without formatting the entire house. Or asking the hacker nicely, if we’re interested in exploring that avenue.”

  “We’re not,” Anders said. “And we want to track him, so we don’t want to format yet, right?”

  Suckeggs nodded.

  “What do we do?” Carl said.

  “I have this other wall over here running in safe mode. I used the netstat command to detect all active connections. You house is connected on multiple ports, and I can tell what most of them are right away. I see the power company connected to your thermostat, your insurance company keeping an eye on you, your employer…you know SafeTalk has access to your house?”

  Carl nodded. “Part of our contract. In case we’re late, they want to be able to see what’s keeping us. Or whether we’re actually sick when we claim to be.”

  “I’m seeing Air Earth connected too.”

  “What? Why Air Earth?”

  Suckeggs glanced at Anders, who answered. “What kind of LifeRank subscription do you have from them? Basic human rights package?”

  “Third-tier.”

  Anders nodded. “That explains it. When you sign up for anything below second-tier you agree to let them check up on you and make sure you’re following the legal system you’ve bought into. It’s in their Terms of Service, Carl. You really should consider reading it sometime.”

  “I don’t have time to read a million pages of legal bullshit.”

  Suckeggs cleared his throat. “There was one connection I couldn’t identify. It’s accessing the port normally used for remote desktop access. Is there anyone you allow to have constant access? Like from a phone?”

  “No,” Carl said.

  “Didn’t think so. I poked around your house a bit more, and I found what’s called a RAT—remote administration tool. It probably got there from you or your wife opening the wrong attachment on an email, or visiting the wrong sites, like Mr. Anders likes to.”

  Anders grinned. “When you poke around the bowels of the net you’re bound to encounter some shit. That’s why I’m friends with some excellent geezers. Right, Suckeggs?”

  “I suppose. Anyway, Mr. Intoeverylifeali, my guess is that once your hacker got his RAT inside…I’m gonna call the hacker a him, for simplicity…once his RAT got inside, he used it to let himself in through the port that’s normally used for legitimate remote access. That way it wouldn’t look suspicious to anyone performing basic maintenance.”

  “What would be the point of that?” Carl said. “The hacker hasn’t hid his presence in any other way. You do see the message stuck on my wall, right?”

  “I’m just telling you what I would do if I were him. I think we should look into this connection that’s using your remote access port.”

  “Let’s.”

  “Already have. I traced it back to IPFly, a site that lets users dynamically map their IP address to a domain name. That’s what took me so long. IPFly is located in the part of the net Mr. Anders likes to frequent. They have a very low-level subscription to net neutrality.”

  “Give me the condensed version. What does all that mean?”

  Anders spoke up. “It means we can’t proceed until I get in touch with some friends. IPFly lets me access its records quite frequently. As a twenty-first century enthusiast, it’s sometimes important for me to be able to track a site back to its owner. Occasionally, the owner turns out to be some asshole who’s just making shit up.”

  “They let you access their records, no questions asked? Why would a hacker use a site like that?”

  “They charge for access to their records. Most hackers would probably be aware of that risk, but it’s a pretty small one. You gotta realize, Carl, most people don’t have the resources you have access to right now. You have a technologically proficient geezer here, as well as my contacts and funding. All for free.”

  Carl stiffened. “I don’t want you paying to find the hacker for me. I’ll put up the money for that.”

  Anders held up one of his fleshy hands. “It’s pricey, Carl. IPFly charges a lot to let people peek at the information their customers want private. Your hacker pissed me off. He endangered me. I’m gonna help you take him down. And besides, it won’t be me paying. Xavier Ofvalour agreed to.”

  Carl really didn’t like that. “Why?”

  “He’s already invested in you. Besides, he’s accustomed to funding my expeditions into the net’s dark corners. I need to research my crazy conspiracy theories, don’t I?”

  The idea of accepting money from Xavier Ofvalour when Carl was poised to derail one of the man’s major financial initiatives didn’t sit right. And he feared it would draw unneeded attention. But he couldn’t very well object on those grounds, because that would draw even more attention. He’d just have to accept it, in spite of how nervous it made him feel.

  “Thanks for your help, Anders,” Carl said as the man gripped the access pole. “Thanks, Suckeggs.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Anders said
, “till we’ve found the bastard.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Before he could begin his work at FutureBrite, Carl had to go to their main office to find out what unit they were assigning him to. An immaculately presented man greeted him at the door, his clothes without a wrinkle, his hair drawn to one side. The man’s eyes sparkled with warmth, and he had a broad smile. He was handsome, though quite thin. A hand extended. Carl shook it.

  “You must be Carl. I’m Jim Ofvalour. No relation…my ancestors just decided they wanted to emulate the great family.”

  “Pleasure,” Carl said. Having immediately recognized Jim as a company man through and through, his shoulders felt heavy. FutureBrite would likely place him in their least controversial unit, he realized, staffed with their most sycophantic employees. How had he ever expected this to work? At best he would help FutureBrite bolster its power, at worst he would end up on a prison barge, having accomplished nothing. He might have starting crying on the spot.

  “I was a FutureBrite kid, you know,” Jim said. “I like to think of myself as a showcase for what this company is capable of. I became a youth care worker a year after leaving the company’s care, and I’ve quickly risen through the ranks. Now I have quite a prominent position here at the office, in the Funding Department. But I still take a keen interest in the kids.” Jim chuckled.

  “Great.”

  “If you need anything, anything at all, just call, okay? I’ve already messaged you on Unfurl with my personal number.”

  “Okay.”

  “Pleasure meeting you.” That toothy grin flashed again, and Jim led him through a door off the main corridor and past a receptionist. He opened another door to a hallway filled with offices. “The big man said to let you in right away,” Jim said. “He’s waiting in the third office to the right.”

  “Thanks,” Carl said as he entered.

  “Carl!” Xavier Ofvalour said, hands spread wide. “Carl Intoeverylifeali now, isn’t it? I think I’ll continue calling you Carl, if that’s okay.” Xavier chuckled.

  Carl paused to collect himself. Having Xavier Ofvalour address him with such familiarity was not something he would have foreseen a year ago.