The Silence of Six

by E. C. Myers

  “I just scanned the ones in your area for anyone using Tor on the same network. And here we are. Or rather, there you are. Try to be more careful. At least avoid cameras, unless you enjoy being the star of your own reality show. You should also try to disguise yourself to prevent face recognition.”

  “Oh my God,” Max said.

  “So now you see the urgency,” DoubleThink said. “The FBI could find you the same way, especially if they do have hackers working for them. And if you logged in to one of your personal accounts, even while running Tor, they could twig to your location a lot sooner.”

  “Oh,” Max said. “That’s stupid. Of course I’d never do that.” Not again, anyway.

  The phone at the concierge desk rang and he turned his head to hear a little better.

  “Why yes, there is.” From his peripheral vision, it seemed as if the concierge was looking straight at him. “I thought so. Yes, sir. Understood. I’ll do my best.”

  “You look nervous,” DoubleThink said.

  “I think I’d better go.”

  “Yeah, I think so. See you soon, Five-Oh-Three.” DoubleThink signed off.

  Max shuddered as he looked at the security feed again, thinking about all the cameras in the mall that had been tracking his movements that morning. The grainy video reminded him of those found footage movies; typically, this was what you saw just before something horrible happened. A monster attack, a paranormal event . . . or maybe a raid from the Feds.

  He certainly hoped that Evan’s mysterious friend was trying to help. If DoubleThink or Dramatis Personai at large was playing him, Max’s skills were no match for theirs. He could lose everything by going to this meeting; it could be the government luring him in and entrapping him. But he knew he had to go. He’d just have to take whatever precautions he could.

  Max closed the laptop and slipped it into his bag, resisting the urge to glance over at the concierge, whom he suspected was now closely watching his every move. He stretched his neck and massaged his left shoulder; he certainly hadn’t missed this part of his old life in front of a computer. Spending all his time in the virtual world had had very real consequences in the physical one.

  He stood and headed for the exit. By now the Feds could be on their way here—or outside already. Another reason to get as far away as possible. Oregon was as good a place as any. But he needed a way to get there, and all things considered, public transportation was too risky right now. It was time to put his dormant hacking skills to a real test.

  8

  Max exited into the hotel’s parking lot.

  Perfect.

  He put his head down, hands in his pockets, and walked slowly past a row of cars. He glanced sidelong inside each vehicle, looking for a blinking amber light on the dashboard. After walking past one row and halfway up another, he finally found a dusty, blue 2002 Hyundai Elantra with the security system he wanted.

  Not the fanciest wheels, but that was an asset when you didn’t want to attract attention. He slid his laptop from his bag and scanned the wireless networks in the area until he found one he could hack. 1 2 3 4 …nice password. Most people never changed the admin password that came as a factory setting on their routers.

  Max created a new guest network called “Change Your Admin Password,” connected, then logged in to the cloud storage he shared with Evan. He searched for their old files on “war texting,” a way to hack some devices that connected to the internet just like cell phones, via GSM modules. So-called “smart appliances” used cellular networks to send updates or even be controlled remotely.

  Only they weren’t that smart after all, because once a particular device was identified on the network, unauthorized users could send text messages to control it.

  Inspired by a video showing how hackers used such a flaw in an alarm system to unlock a car and start it, Evan had spent a month war texting vehicles in his neighborhood. He and Max had left McDonald’s Happy Meal toys on dashboards all over the city. They never took the vehicles for joyrides or stole anything from them—they had just been doing it to see if they could.

  That was about to change.

  After Evan pointed out the exploit to car alarm companies, many of them had updated their firmware to patch it. But one budget manufacturer, Hedgehog, never responded to his e-mails.

  Max ran the script Evan had developed and searched for GSM modules on the network in the range for Hedgehog’s devices. In three minutes he had located and disabled the alarm—he hoped. The telltale amber light was still flashing on the dashboard. He typed the command to open the doors and waited anxiously to see if the hack still worked.

  “Locked out?”

  Max jumped at the voice. He had been so focused on his screen he hadn’t noticed the man approaching on his left, jingling his car keys.

  “Sorry if I surprised you,” the man said.

  “I was just thinking about something,” Max said. His heart was racing. What if the car’s owner had come outside while Max was breaking into it?

  Max closed his laptop screen halfway. The man was in his forties with graying brown hair. He was wearing a puffy black coat over gray sweatpants and Timberland boots. He didn’t look like an FBI agent, but without the dark suit and badge, they probably looked like normal people, even with potbellies like this guy’s.

  “Shouldn’t you be in school?” The man pulled a cell phone out of a pocket. To call the cops or snap a photo of Max?

  Shit. Max concentrated on staying calm.

  “I have a free period,” Max said.

  The man glanced back at the hotel and his brow furrowed, probably trying to understand why a high school kid would be hanging out at a hotel in the middle of the afternoon and not liking the conclusions he was coming to.

  At that moment, the car’s interior lights blinked on and off and the door locks clicked open. Max hurriedly pulled his key ring from his pocket and pressed the unlock button on the fob for his dad’s car. Max was relieved that the hack had worked. Now came the tricky part—and he hadn’t anticipated an audience.

  He opened the driver side door and slid behind the wheel. The seat was obviously adjusted for someone much shorter than Max. He closed and locked the door and hoped the man would leave him alone.

  The man stepped closer and tapped on the window. Max couldn’t lower the window until the engine was on. He typed the command to start the car then rested his laptop on the passenger seat.

  “Hey, is this your car?” the man shouted.

  “No. It’s my teacher’s.”

  The start-up command was taking too long to process. Max slowly adjusted the seat and mirrors then buckled in. He inserted his key in the ignition, pointedly ignoring the inquisitive man.

  Max glanced over at the hotel. Through the sliding glass doors, he saw two men in suits talking to the concierge. They had to be FBI, and they were only a few hundred feet away from him. If they went out through the same door Max had, they would see him.

  The man tapped on the glass again.

  Jesus. Why was this guy in his business?

  Max looked at him.

  “Where is she? Your teacher?” the man asked.

  Max jerked his head back toward the hotel. “He’s inside.”

  “Is there something going on that you want to talk about, kid?”

  Max shook his head. “I’m fine.” The agents were exiting the hotel. They were going out the front doors. They would see Max if they turned and looked to their right.

  Max was not fine.

  The car wasn’t starting. He unbuckled his seat belt then held a finger on the unlock button. If they noticed him, he would grab his laptop, push the door open, and run.

  The man tapped on the glass again then jiggled the door handle.

  The car roared to life. Max choked back a giddy laugh.

  One of the agents turned an
d looked right at him.

  Max pointed. “There he is! Tell him I’ll see him at school.” The man jumped back as Max pulled out of the spot. The only problem was: He would have to drive past the FBI agents in order to get to the highway.

  The agents were standing by a black car like the one he’d seen earlier. They were not the same guys who had tracked him to Bean Up. If the search for him was widening, now was the perfect time to get out of Granville—if he could make it out of the parking lot first.

  As the stolen car approached the black sedan, Max felt the urge to speed by before they identified him. Instead, he looked straight ahead and drove at what felt like a snail’s pace, willing them to ignore him.

  When he was only two car lengths away, Max casually leaned over as though he were reaching for something in the glove compartment and turned his head away from them. Not a safe driving practice, but safer perhaps than getting arrested. He popped back up as soon as he had cleared their car and glanced in his rearview mirror. They weren’t paying any attention to him.

  Max turned onto 18th Street and headed west, away from Lake Alhambra. He reached the highway and wiped the sweat from his forehead and the back of his neck. He lowered all the windows to let the cold air rush in. He whooped.

  Once he was driving past the Los Medanos College campus, he relaxed his grip on the wheel. He’d gotten a rush both from the successful war texting and another close call. It felt wrong to be doing this without Evan; now he kind of wished they had taken a car for a spin after all, at least once.

  As “gray hats,” they had hacked only for the intellectual challenge and to point out security flaws, like the ones they found in those car alarm systems. Max liked improving overall security and raising awareness of weaknesses that could harm the public, but Evan had wanted to do more. Instead of helping companies get richer, he wanted to change the world—even if he had to do it by leaking sensitive information or bringing down systems to make a statement.

  Max should have suspected long ago that Evan was in Dramatis Personai—his philosophy was a perfect fit for their specialized brand of controlled chaos. That was where Max had drawn the line, but now he was edging over it into Evan’s world. Unlike Evan, Max was raised by a father who was a “hacktivist” before the term existed, so he knew what the risks were. And he also knew that the stakes had to be high for Evan to involve him. Evan’s death meant Max couldn’t wash his hands of this situation. As scared as he was of what had backed Evan into this corner, Max couldn’t go on as if nothing had happened. He had to understand, and maybe even finish, whatever Evan had started.

  Burner phone or no, Max decided not to use its GPS for directions to his rendezvous point with DoubleThink. Now he had to worry about the other hacker’s safety as well. So he would have to do this the old-fashioned way. He would stop at a gas station and check a map once he had put more distance between himself and Granville. For now, he headed for the I-5 entrance ramp.

  The brake lights of the cars ahead of him smeared into blurry blobs of color. Max blinked back tears. He could run from Granville, but he couldn’t escape his memories of Evan, or missing his dad, Courtney, and the life he was leaving. He wasn’t sure for how long.

  Max switched on the radio and scanned for anything but the news. He couldn’t handle listening to people conjecture about STOP and the debate anymore. He settled in for a long ride, splitting his attention between the uncertain road ahead and looking for flashing red and blue lights and black cars behind him.

  9

  War texting was easier the second time around, when Max traded the Elantra for a green Nissan Cube he found in the parking lot of the library in Redding, California. According to his map, he was about halfway to Roseburg. He got back on the road just after eight p.m., confirmed he still wasn’t being tailed, and decided to chance a quick call home on his burner phone.

  Max was prepared to leave a voicemail because his dad rarely heard the phone. But he picked it up on the first ring.

  “Hello?” Bradley’s voice was strained, the way it got when he was stressed out about work.

  “Dad, it’s me.”

  “Oh, thank God. Where have you been, Champ? You skipped school today?”

  Max tightened his grip on the phone. He hated nicknames like “Champ” and “Sport” and “Ace.” Bradley only used them to tease Max.

  Something was wrong. It was easy to imagine that the men following Max earlier were tapping the call, or maybe were even there at his house.

  How long did it take to trace a phone call?

  Max eased the car into the right lane and slowed down a little. “I couldn’t go back there. I was too freaked out about what happened.”

  “I understand. But next time don’t leave my car at the coffee shop.”

  Max sighed. His dad loved that car. He was probably legitimately pissed about that one. “Yeah, sorry. I just needed to run for a bit.”

  Bradley was quiet for a moment. “Where are you now? I’ll come get you.”

  “No need. I’m just hanging with a friend. He’ll give me a ride home,” Max said.

  “Who are you with?”

  It wasn’t like his dad to ask so many questions. Bradley Stein wasn’t the stern, overprotective type, and he had always trusted Max.

  Smart, Dad.

  It was weird knowing that someone was eavesdropping on their call, but this was an opportunity to explain away Max’s behavior today, if they played things right. But if they raised any suspicions, his dad could be arrested for interfering in their investigation.

  “My friend Ming.” Ming was a forward on Monte Vida’s soccer team, and definitely not a friend. Max didn’t even remember his last name.

  “You’re calling from his phone?” Bradley asked.

  “Yeah. . . Why?”

  “Because I have your phone right here.”

  “How’d you get it?” Max started to move into the left lane when a car zoomed past from his blind spot. He swerved back over to the right and a horn blared. He bet the FBI would realize he was on the road and would be analyzing that recording for clues to his whereabouts.

  “A federal agent dropped it off after school since you weren’t there to collect it today.”

  “Great. I was starting to go into withdrawal without it.”

  “I know what you’re going to ask. It’s working just fine,” Bradley said.

  That meant the Feds had what they needed from the phone. They wouldn’t have returned it otherwise.

  “Oh, and Courtney called the house looking for you. She sounded upset,” Bradley said.

  “Yeah, we argued after the debate. Maybe we need some time apart.”

  “That’s probably a good idea, Sport.”

  So the Feds had gotten to her too.

  “You sure you don’t want me to pick you up?” Bradley asked.

  “Yeah. Thanks though. Hey, I should let you go back to work.”

  “Well, it’s a school night, so remember your curfew.”

  Max didn’t have a curfew, and if he did, Dad would never notice if he kept to it or not.

  “Of course.” It felt like they’d been on the phone too long, but Max had one more important thing to say, and he wasn’t sure when he’d have another chance. “I love you, Dad.”

  “You too, Ace. Be safe.” Bradley clicked off.

  That was that. There was no going back. He would have to face this head-on.

  Max switched off the phone and pulled out the battery. He checked his map and made a quick change in plans: He would take a short detour away from his true destination and ditch the phone at a service station, in case the Feds had managed to get a fix on him.

  What were they after? If they just wanted to talk to Max about the text message and his connection to Evan, they were going about it in a shady and aggressive way. Granted, Max running at the first sig
ht of them had probably convinced them they had good reason to pursue him.

  Unlike at Evan’s place, the FBI wouldn’t find a shred of evidence of Max’s past as a hacker. It might be unusual for a teenager to own three laptops, but he was the son of a computer geek. There was nothing more incriminating in his room than porn and some pirated media on his hard drives. When Max made a clean break from hacking, he’d never looked back. Until now.

  Max grabbed a quick bite and a replacement phone at the next rest stop, then he pushed on, mulling over the call and the strange turn his life had taken the rest of the way to Roseburg.

  He reached the Denny’s several hours early for his meeting with DoubleThink, so he parked in the lot beside a row of cargo trucks and napped as best he could manage in the compact car—which wasn’t well, even as exhausted as he was. He finally dragged himself into the restaurant at seven, in search of a more comfortable seat and a cup of coffee to wake him up.

  The inside of the Roseburg Denny’s looked exactly like the one in Granville, where Max and Evan had spent countless late nights eating pancakes and chicken fingers to fuel their online misadventures. Even the picture placemats were identical. The resemblance was oddly comforting; after driving north 450 miles, it felt like his home was still close-by, even though he’d never been farther from it. The restaurant was nearly empty aside from a few big guys who were older, hairier, and wearing way more plaid than Max. They didn’t set off any alarm bells. He didn’t think any of them were undercover government agents, but no one looked like a hacker, either. Max must have arrived before DoubleThink.

  He squeaked into a slightly sticky booth by a wide window facing the parking lot where he would see everyone who arrived.

  He yawned. God, he was exhausted. He was also famished. All he’d had on the road was a two-liter bottle of pop and a package of Twinkies. He might as well eat while he waited for DoubleThink.

  He looked around for a waitress. There were two women in matching black blouses arguing by the register, a short woman with brown hair styled in a pageboy cut, and a blond girl with a ponytail. He couldn’t hear them, but the brunette glanced over at Max not once but twice.