by Ted Weber
But would they make it? And wouldn’t the cops expect them to take the interstate?
Fuck Madison. Waylee spun the wheel to the left toward Forrest Street. Someone clipped the rear fender and they veered off course, facing oncoming traffic. She yanked the wheel to the right, trying to correct. “Get us out of here,” she yelled at Pel. “Where does Forrest go?”
More horns blew. She entered Forrest, which was empty except for parked cars, and accelerated over cratered pavement. “No sirens,” she said to Pel. “Your EMP bomb must have worked.”
Pel didn’t respond. From the back, M-pat shouted, “Yeah, it worked. But them guards that shot at us was past sixty feet. Better believe they squawkin’ now.”
“DG, directions,” Pel said at the same time. Staring forward, his voice trembled. “Follow Forrest one block and turn left on Monument. Then we can take Ensor to Harford and we’re out of here.”
Waylee reached Monument seconds later. One way east, a better choice than Madison. The light here was red too. Naturally. She decided not to run it, and checked the mirror, the one that hadn’t been shot out. No pursuit yet.
As soon as the light changed, she floored the van onto Monument. Not a whole lot of traffic. After a couple of blocks, she turned left on Ensor Street, three lanes in each direction, and headed out of the city. To the rendezvous point.
3
Waylee
As Waylee drove the getaway van north on Ensor, row after row of redbrick public housing on either side, Charles’s voice sounded behind her. “Which one of you is Aunt Emma?”
That would be me. Waylee focused on the road. But at the first red light, she unhooked her seatbelt. “Pel, you drive.”
His eyes widened. “What? We’re in traffic…”
Waylee made her way into the back of the van and Pel scooted over to the driver’s seat.
The back had no seats, just a black plastic mat. Charles huddled against the metal siding.
Sitting next to a ‘Green Baltimore’ reusable bag, Dingo grinned and thrust up a fist. M-pat stared out the rear window without the bullet hole.
She pointed at Dingo and jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “You’re shotgun now.”
“I’m down. You could have brought cushions, you know.” He didn’t look scared at all.
Waylee shrugged and handed him the rest of her joint.
“A’ight then.” He headed to the passenger seat.
“Watch for cops.” And keep Pel from freaking out.
The van jolted forward. Waylee tried not to fall as it bounced over fractured asphalt. She sat next to Charles, the floor mat hard against her ass. She pulled off her gloves, but kept the mask on, and reached out a fist for him to bump. Citywide gesture for solidarity and respect. “I’m the one who messaged you.”
Charles hesitated, then tapped a fist against hers. “And now you want my help,” he said. “Bad, to scheme up so much trouble.”
He looked so young. And flabby—he must not exercise much. And why the hesitation? “We made an agreement. Freedom for yourself, freedom for everyone.” An awakening, anyway, then others can do the rest.
He shrank away. “What if they catch me? They could try me as an adult, then I’d never get out.”
She closed the distance and touched his arm. “They won’t catch you. They catch you, that means they catch me, and I got enough problems as it is. Trust me, we planned this out. No way is BPD or PrisonCorp going to find any leads. These are the best masks made.”
Normally only movie studios could afford Baltimore Transformations, who didn’t even have to advertise their services, but her sister, a legend in the local cosplay scene, fabricated a batch of anime costumes in return.
His eyes roved across her face. “You do look real.”
“Plus, no fingerprints, no DNA, and both vans were hulks we found and fixed up.”
Charles still looked scared. “They got me from a snitch, someone from school.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have bragged about your hacking there.”
He nodded.
“I know my friends,” she said. “They all hate authority, they all have principles, and we’re tight like family. No snitchers.”
Music blared from the front. A neo-grindcore cover of Son Volt’s “Medicine Hat.” Dingo.
“Knock it down a bit,” Waylee shouted. “We’re trying to talk.”
“C’mon, this shit is apropos,” Dingo said.
The volume dropped. “Thanks, Pel.”
M-pat stared at her.
Shit, I gave Pel’s name away. Charles would have to commit, no other option. She turned back to him. “You’re the only one who’s ever gotten through MediaCorp’s defenses.”
“Still?”
“Yeah. The Collective considers Dr. Doom quite an elite.” Like Pel, he was in their inner circle, the closest they had to any kind of structure.
Charles beamed.
“You’re local,” she said. “And you passed our test.”
“What test?”
“Getting back to me.”
Once Pel discovered Dr. Doom—Charles Marvin Lee in the real world—was behind the MediaCorp hack, and was sent to Baltimore Juvenile for being dumb enough to brag about it in school, Waylee had mailed an old-fashioned letter from his fictitious Aunt Emma. She wrote that he had always been clever, and she held him in the highest regard. She advised him to learn a trade like car repair, and closed with, ‘Hope to hear from you soon. Auntie_Emma.’
It took a while, but Charles acquired an Occupational Training slot, accessed the Comnet through a car wireless and an unencrypted hotspot, and posted a private waypoint at the intersection of Charles and Eager Streets, tagging @Auntie_Emma. They exchanged coded texts from there, the best medium they could manage via the China Autotronics All-in-One Control System.
“Gave me something to do,” he said. “Deleted the evidence afterward.”
“We were impressed. And the guards never noticed?”
He smirked. “Them minimum wage monkeys? Only thing they know ’bout computers is how to find porn.”
The van shook, jolting down and up. Her arms clutched Charles as she fought to stay upright. “Geez, be careful!”
“Not my fault the roads are shit,” Pel responded in staccato tones.
Charles’s face flushed.
She let go of him. “Sorry.” She searched for the overlay of stillness from the pot and embraced it. Focus. “Before we go any further, I need to know for sure, are you with us?”
He looked her in the eyes. “I told you in my texts, yeah, I’m down with you, you got my word. And get back at MediaCorp and the cops for jackin’ me primetime and takin’ all my shit?” His nostrils flared. “Yeah, sign me up.”
He looked sincere. She might have jumped up and danced if not for the pot. “You, sir, are the best. We’ll go over the plan when we get to the house.”
“And you’ll show your real self?”
Why not now? Waylee peeled off her mask. The air—even Baltimore air—felt good against her face. “I’m Waylee.”
At his sentinel post by the rear window, M-pat shook his head a few degrees to either side. She decided not to introduce anyone else.
Charles’s eyes drifted, then fixated on her hair.
Oh yeah. She’d dyed her long cornrows red, white, and blue for that gig at Le Chat Noir in DC. She felt a little naked without her piercings, which had to come out to get the mask on.
He finally responded. “Charles. Can’t use Dr. Doom anymore.” He fidgeted. “You know it ain’t gonna be easy, taking over the MediaCorp feed. Why you wanna hit ’em so bad?”
She fought a surge of impatience, knowing there was no cause for it. “It’s been a long fight. I got this job at the Herald after graduation. This was like six years ago. They always gave the noobs the lamest assignments. In my case, nightlife.” Never should have bragged about my bands.
“I’d pitch meaningful stories,” she continued, “but the editors wouldn�
�t give me a shot. So I met… uh, my current boyfriend, and he got me interested in the Comnet and how it’s destroying free expression and democracy. MediaCorp cut these secret deals with the government during the national upgrade to highspeed fiber optics. Not just to speed up the old Internet, but to make it more efficient and secure.”
Charles smirked. “Ain’t as secure as they think.”
I love this kid. “That’s why I need you. Anyway, because of these deals, everything’s integrated. MediaCorp took over the backbone and switches, and they’re using that to control the content. No regulations except to prohibit public competition.
“I got some specifics, like who they spread money to and how their lobbyists called the shots. Pel recruited some Collective hackers to help me get emails and documents.”
Even though he wasn’t involved, Charles held up a fist in solidarity or appreciation.
“Did the paper run it?” she continued. “No. MediaCorp was planning to buy the paper and my bosses were scared for their jobs. In fact, the VP yelled at me for billing hours to something outside my beat. We had some words and they put me on probation. Then—did you hear about the police attack on the Independent News Center?”
Charles squinted.
Of course not. “INC was the last independent voice in Maryland. Media-Corp tried to buy them, but they wouldn’t sell. So the bastards hiked their Comnet fees, then bought their building, raised the rent, and evicted them when they couldn’t pay.
“Well, they decided to stay, and MediaCorp brought in the cops. I went to cover it. They used military crowd-control weapons—pulsed microwaves and classified stuff. I heard we were a testing ground.”
He leaned toward her. “What happened?”
“Dozens of people hospitalized, some of them just kids, everyone else arrested. This BPD thug stole my recordings and fractured my skull, took months to heal.” She still had a scar beneath her hair. “The paper fired me while I was in the hospital.”
“Why?”
“Corporate cost savings.” Her fists clenched. “So that’s the end of independent journalism. MediaCorp sold everything in the building or trucked it to a landfill. It’s all condos now. What they did should be a huge scandal, but corporate news spun it as a victory of law over ‘militant radicals.’
“I’ve been writing about this threat ever since, but no one will publish it. In a Comnet without MediaCorp—let’s call it the freenet—I could support myself, my boyfriend could work a legit job, and we wouldn’t have to steal oil to make it through the winter. And it’s not just me we’re talking about. MediaCorp is destroying journalism itself, critical inquiry, everything democracy needs to survive.”
Charles slapped his right palm with the back of his left. “I feel ya. Freedom of information. I’m down, I follow the code.”
The van turned right. We must be getting close. She reached into the ‘Green Baltimore’ bag and handed Charles a pair of jeans, a Jesus fish T-shirt, a faded Ravens hoodie, and generic white tennies. Goodwill’s finest. She hoped they fit. “Alright, Charles. Here’re your new clothes.”
He grimaced.
“Better than a bright orange jumpsuit. Change. We’re gonna switch vehicles soon, then I’ll show you your new home.” She turned away to give him some privacy.
Once Charles said “done,” Waylee tested his resolve.
“This op we’re planning could take a couple of months.”
He threw on the shoes and started lacing them. “Where am I staying?”
“With us. They’ll be looking for you at home.”
He tightened the left shoelace. “Ain’t nothin’ for me there anyhow. Just overdogged gramma, drunk-ass aunt, and more kids than we got beds. And no gear, nothin’.”
She felt a strange mixture of relief and pity. “We’ll get you whatever you need.”
“Yeah? Money too?”
“What you need and what we can get.” Another challenge.
“We’re almost there,” Pel shouted.
Waylee scrambled up front, threw her arms around his seat for balance, and peered through the bullet-cracked windshield. Putty Hill looked like every place else on Baltimore’s periphery—wide roads, impersonal tract homes, lawns either neglected or mowed down to the roots. She wasn’t sure where Putty Hill’s boundaries were, or even if it had boundaries.
Pel followed a side street to Paulo’s corrugated metal auto garage, tucked among scraggly, vine-choked trees, and almost impossible to find if you wanted a car repaired. Someone had rolled open one of the four bay doors.
Inside, Paulo, his black hair slicked back, pointed to the lift ahead. Pel parked and switched off the ignition. Paulo slapped a red button on the wall, and the garage door descended. Three assistants, no name tags on their polyester shirts, converged on the van with rags and squeegee bottles.
Pel pocketed his data glasses, peeled off his mask, and hopped out. Waylee followed Dingo out the passenger door.
The garage smelled like oil and spray paint. Their ancient Class C Motor Home sat to the left. Kiyoko bounded toward them, wearing a long pink wig bound in bows, her almond eyes shadowed and fake-lashed into Anime Big. She wore one of her frilly silk dresses, as if Paulo’s grease-stained chop shop was just another cosplay club. 24/7 fashionista.
Kiyoko hugged Pel, then Waylee. “You made it!” Her cartoonish eyes drifted to the bullet hole in the windshield. “Oh.” She stepped back. “What happened? Everyone okay?”
“No worries. PrisonCorp’s finest took some pot shots at us. No one got hurt.”
Dingo pulled off his Dick Clark mask, returning to a 23-year-old punk with an inch-wide semi-circular scar on his forehead. He stared at the mask’s empty eye sockets. “You, sir, are getting lucky tonight.”
M-pat yanked off his Mafia capo mask and rolled it into a ball. He couldn’t look more different now—Waylee’s age, with dark brown skin and a chin strap beard.
Charles darted his eyes from one person to the next, fingers twitching.
Kiyoko tilted her powdered face toward him. “That’s him? The super hacker you’re risking our lives for?”
“That’s him,” Waylee said. “And he is a super hacker.”
She frowned. “He’s just a kid.”
Dingo looked over. “You’re one to talk.”
“I’m almost twenty, Dingdong.” She strolled up to Charles and curtsied. “I am Kiyoko, Princess of West Baltimore.”
Charles took a step backward, then scanned her up and down. He smiled and nodded, but didn’t say anything.
Speaking to each other in Portuguese, Paulo’s crew wiped down the cargo van. They would take it apart next, etch off the serial numbers, and sell the parts or have them melted down at Sparrows Point. They did this every day, who knew how many stolen vehicles each year, and moved like choreographed dancers.
Pel threw his ginger mask and gloves into an old oil drum with a flame decal on the side. He looked at Paulo.
“Yes, we take care of that right after the van cleaned.”
Waylee slapped Pel on the butt. “I thought I was burning that.”
“Same thing.” No smirk on his face.
She clambered back in the van and retrieved Charles’s orange jumpsuit and her Storm mask. With empty holes for eyes, her mask looked grotesque, like a demon. “Goodbye, Storm. You’re still in my heart.” She threw it in the drum along with her gloves and the jumpsuit.
“Keeping my Dick Clark mask, yo,” Dingo announced.
M-pat frowned and crossed his arms. “The fuck you are. I told you and Waylee to pick anonymous faces but you had to go ahead and be some kind of celebrity. Pel and I the only ones that got sense in this crew.”
Pel threw up a solidarity fist.
M-pat pointed at Dingo’s mask. “I expect you to burn that goddamn thing lest you get caught with it.”
Waylee glanced around. “Can I change in private?”
Paulo pointed to a wooden door marked Sacos/Bucetas. “Over there.”
&n
bsp; She wasn’t sure what the words meant, but guessed they were unsavory. “There better not be any peepholes.”
She halted after a couple of steps. Charles couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off her sister, who was examining the bullet holes and dented fender. He probably hadn’t seen a girl in months, and Kiyoko had somehow hit the genetic jackpot, but she was off limits.
Pel, still unsmiling, interposed himself and shook his hand.
Good job.
“Charles,” he said, “it’s an honor. I’m Pelopidas. Pel for short. I’m the one who tracked you down.”
“How’d you do it?”
“Asking around, mostly. I’m in the Collective’s inner circle too.”
Charles’s eyes widened, and he grinned. “You got through all the puzzles?”
Pel took a second to respond. “With a little help.”
Charles smirked. “I didn’t need any help. What’s your avatar?”
“William Godwin.”
Charles squinted and didn’t respond.
Pel’s lips pressed into tight disappointment. The “inner circle” contained thousands of vetted hackers, ones who solved a series of cryptic puzzles, then proved themselves against selected targets. He was pretty touchy about his lack of status among them. “William Godwin’s an eighteenth century philosopher. An early thriller novelist too, believe it or not.”
Charles scratched his head. “Well thanks for bustin’ me out. I ain’t typed for jail.”
M-pat trudged over to Charles. “You in fo’ sho’?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
M-pat tapped fists with him. “M’patanishi.”
Dingo followed. Charles stared at the eyes tattooed on the backs of his hands, but returned his tap.
“What do you call fifty bosses at the bottom of the ocean?” Dingo said.
Having lived with him for over a year, Waylee knew all his jokes, especially the tired ones. Charles, though, shrugged.
Dingo laughed out the answer. “A good start.”
Waylee walked into the grimy bathroom and changed as fast as she could, then ushered everyone toward the motor home. “Let’s go.”
Kiyoko jumped into the driver’s seat and fiddled with her wig in the mirror.