Maxwell Huxley's Demon

by Michael Conn

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  Pirelli and Hastings get on board late , after forcing the ferry workers to delay departure for a minute. They both leap from their cars , leaving them park ed haphazardly. Ignoring the protests of other passengers, Pirelli and Hastings sprint to the stairs. “Protocol says we start at the lower decks,” pants Pirelli.

  “If I was nine,” Hastings replies. “I’d run straight to the top . . . and hid e in a bin or something . . . they’re just kids.”

  In order to get to the upper decks , Hastings and Pirelli must use the outdoor stairs . A second ferry blasts it s horn , causing Pirelli to look across the water . Two ferries departing at the same time, busy night. In the gathering dusk, Pirelli sees people on deck of the oth er ferry.

  Sprinting to catch up with Hastings, some movement on the other ferry catches his eye. Some kids waving. Four kids. Two boys. Two girls. Pirelli stops running. “Hastings!” he says . “Look.”

  Hastings looks where he is pointing and flushes with anger. “Seriously . . . ”

  “They are just kids , right ?” s ays Pirelli .

  Hastings kicks over a garbage can , spilling its contents on the deck. “Stop laughing and get this boat back to the dock . . . now!” Hastings gets on his cell and barks orders about a helicopter.

  Pirelli he ads off to find the ship steward and c aptain.

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  At the airport two gorillas in well-tailored suits wait for a group of kids that never show up.

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  When they arrive on Digby I sland , the kids immediately get on a bus that takes the first ferry back to the mainland. Max sits between Virginia and Naomi , three kids crammed onto a seat built for two . Max talks to Virginia and Naomi even though they don’t seem to be listening. “School taught us many things. American football wasn’t one of those things. It should have been. Wear your opponent down with a running game, and then destroy their morale with a well-timed pass. Too bad I can’t play football.” He leans forward and looks across the aisle at Walker . “Walker , you have to keep coding.”

  “What do you need , Max?” Walker asks.

  “First hack the Canadian Passport office and have them produce passports for us. Don’t apply for passports; just force their system to print them . Have them ready for pickup.”

  “I can do that, ” Walker says. “Go to sleep Max.”

  “Code me hydrogen p eroxide . . .” Max leans back and passes out . The girls prop him up for the sixteen-hour bus ride to Vancouver.

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  Pirelli and Hasting walk back to the helicopter sitting on the deck of the Port Hardy ferry. “We had them.” They both say. Then t hey call in a report to Mr. Newton . It’s not pretty for either of them.

  “I’m starting to hate Max.” Hastings spits.

  “Now you see how I feel. They could be anywhere now . . . Buy you a drink when we get back on land ?” Pirelli asks. I’m starting to love Max; at least my life has some entertainment in it now. I’ve been meaning to get down to Vancouver for months anyway.

  Chapter 13 –Doritos

  Walker comes back into the room with some “food ” from the hotel lobby . He found muffins , which are essentially pure trans fats mixed with highly modified flour and genetically engineer blueberries. “Mental note, make stop to load up on Twinkies , much better than these glow in the dark radioactive muffins .”

  “This isn’t good enough, we need new clothes and some real food, but first I need a shower ,” Naomi says. “Then new clothes . We stand out too m uch with torn and dirty clothes. We should just throw them out .”

  “For once , I agree with Naomi , ” says Virginia .

  “Alright.” Walker sets up his laptop . “You guys shower , then can you get clothes for all of us, you think you can buy boys clot hes too, just jeans and hoodies?”

  “Yup, we’ll get some food while we are out too.”

  “I’ll let Cinderella sleep as long as he wants.” Walker fires up his reader and lies back in bed .

  Max sleeps straight through until the girls return. They dump the supplies , clothes, new backpacks, first—aid kit, four pay-as-you-go cell phones, crutches, and more food.

  “Where is she, did she follow us, we have to use her . . .” Max finally wakes up. The others ignore his questions unsure even w ho he was talking about. Max stands up. “Walker are you coding yet . . . we hav e to code ?” He sounds frantic .

  Virginia faces Max. “Max , you smell , and need a shower. You can show er on your own or with my help . . . your choice.” Max tries to move around Virgi nia. Virginia gently blocks him. “You stink, my friend.” Max shrinks and moves to the bathroom.

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  Later, sitting around the small round table the four devour some Doritos. “What the hell are these things?” Walker says. “They’re fantastic. Twinkies and Doritos, I’m not going to eat anything else ever.”

  Max finishes his third Twinkie. “We need to finish our passport pickup plans . And hack more. I’m going to hack Fire, Ambulance, and Police. But first , Walker , can you do me a favour, I wanna hear wh at we’ve made?”

  “Hear it?” Walker asks .

  “Ya , we have a synchronization pulse for all the electrons and protons right ? I want to hear that.”

  “I get it, ” Walker says, “just give me a minute.”

  While Walker codes, Max turns to Virginia. “Virginia can you find us a n ew hotel for tonight?”

  “What’s wrong with this one?”

  “Nothing, but I won’t stay in a hotel longer than one night. How much money do we have?”

  “I took out $1000 more today , so about $1200, ” Virginia answers.

  Max hands Virginia a list. “Can you pick this stuff up from—”

  “OK, I g ot it.” Walker turns the laptop volume up and they hear a high pitch ed barely audible sound .

  “Nice , Walker , ” Naomi says “You’ve invented the sound of finger nail s on a chalk board.”

  “Hold on.” Walker types again. The tone falls in pitch , lower and lower , until the y hear the individual beats , lower still , unti l Max says , “Stop.”

  Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.

  “Hear it ?” Max stands up and almost falls over.

  “Yes , Max , ” Virginia says . “We hear that it sounds like a heartbeat, but really Maxwell . . . I can do that with garage band.”

  Max feels the world zoom out. He stand s behind himself again. “Ya but . . .” I wonder if I have always loved her ? “But we have everything we need , Walker , you get this. Make the periodic t able dammit.”

  “OK Max, I get it, make the elements”

  “Ya , the element s , but more, make chemicals, make DNA , RNA —make it all. You start on the elements , a nd I’ll start on DNA . Get our hacking done , then the elements and proteins , OK?”

  Virginia, Naomi, and Walker exchange concer ned looks. They can tell they’r e all thinking i s Max still with us or is he slipping again?

  “OK, Max,” Walker agrees and they code. This calm s Max.

  Meanwhile, Virginia and Naomi leave to get supplies and to find a new hotel. At 3PM they return and a fter changing clothes , the group cabs over to the next hotel.

  Max and Walker start coding again. Virginia exercises, something like Pilates combined with kick-boxing. Naomi stares out the windo w lost in her own world .

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  Max and Walker write code until late , then announce that the passpo rts will be ready for pick up Monday m orning at nine .

  “Excellent Max, now please sleep, ” Virginia pleads. “You’re hurt and wo n’t get better unless you sleep.”

  “I’ll sleep later; I need to finish the e lements and DNA with Walker first . We don’t have time, if I sleep now , we ’ll get caught.”

  “If you don’t sleep , you might die.” Virginia turns her back on him and continues her ‘yoga ’ routine .

  “Walker , please work on the enc rypted cell phone detector. If an encrypted cell phone c
all is made near us then I want it s number, lat , long, and direction from us.”

  “Alright Max, with what we have now this should only take four hours or so.”

  “Ug h .” Naomi groans and pulls her pillow over her head.

  Max goes into the bathroom and although he knows he should spend time on it takes out his tablet looking for the next Midge entry.

  2001/02/18 23:01

  The following video was pieced together from school hard mounted security cameras, vehicle mounted cameras, and helmet cameras.

  Midge runs along the top of the wall that surrounds the school. Guards attempt to illuminate her with spotlight s , but snow piled high on the wall makes their light s ineffective.

  Midge is dressed in black. Her hair flies out behind her as she runs. Guards chase her along the wall , but she is easily running twice their speed. More guards approach her from the adjoining wall. They threaten to trap her at the corner where the two walls meet .

  Midge runs close by a security camera, her face ecstatic with black ey e liner smeared over her cheeks. She looks like she’s laughing.

  The guards slow. They can tell she's trapped, and draw their guns. Midge p icks up speed. The corner of the wall is scant metres away.

  Sensing what she intends to do , Pirelli screams , “Shoot.”

  Midge takes three more strides and launches herself off the wall and into the air . Twenty-one metres off the ground , she curls into a ball and disappears into the blizzard.

  The guard s shoot a net where Midge was moments before.

  (the video cuts to a view from outside the wall) Snow drifts tower high on either side of the road approaching the school, easily reaching four metres deep. The video shows new snow falling, but not only snow. A small black figure streaks down and disappears into a snow drift.

  (the video cuts to a view of a snow covered road filmed from the front of some kind of vehicle) Snow blows at a ste ep angle through headli ght beams showing t wo snowmobiles carrying two people each on either side of the beam. The snowmobiles pull up and stop near a snow bank, the riders on the lead vehicles dismount.

  With guns drawn , four riders climb the bank and disappear in the blizzard. Minutes pass , and then two guard s come sliding back down the bank unconscious. Then a black blur flips onto one of the snowmobiles and tears off into the storm.

  (the video cuts to a view from a helmet cam) “Spread out,” Pirelli screams . “Flank her.”

  Midge flies over an open field of snow, her snowmobile quickly approaching the tree line. Pirelli stay s on her. The other two snowmobiles head right and left.

  (the video cuts to a view from inside the forest) A snowmobile is bent and steaming, smashed into a tree. Pirelli approaches the tree. Blood and footsteps lead fa r ther into the bush. “Got you now , girl.”

  Guards move along the trail of blood. The trail stops, no blood, no footprints. Pirelli senses it coming and crouches. A branch swing s over his head , narrowly missing him. The guard standing beside him is not so lucky. The branch knocks his helmet flying off. “She's up in the trees.”

  Lights angle up. Midge flashes across to the left. Her foot connects with a guard and he goes down ; bullets tear into the branches and trees. They fire dozens of shots. Bra n ches and twigs fall to the ground along with the small black figure, which hits the ground and lies still.

  Someone knock s on the bathroom door. “Are you OK, Max?”

  Max recognizes Virginia’s voice and pulls his thoughts away from the brilliant and reckless Midge and shuts down his tablet a lthough he wan ts to find out more about her . “I’m OK.” He leaves the bathroom and goes back to coding.

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  Agent Hastings ’ phone rings. “Yes.”

  “Security alert for Agent Hastings. CSIS detected a s ecurity breach in the Passport Office in Vancouver . Four passports order ed . Two nine-year-old boys, two nine-year-old girls. Rush order approved. To be picked up at 9AM this Monday at 757 Hastings Street West , Vancouver, BC, Canada .”

  Hastings hangs up and smiles . “Got ya this time. I ’ll be ready and waiting for you . . .” He points a picture of Max. “. . . on Monday.”

  Hastings calls Pirelli. They start making calls and putting a plan together. When they finish , two Canadian agencies, three American agencies, and of course the MGA are involved. This amounts to forty agents .

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  At 1AM Monday , Max start s working with the supplies Virginia got him. When he is done he has two old style phones with their handsets duct taped to each other with ear piece to mouth piece. There are odd looking mechanical fingers poised over the number pad of one phone , and both set s are connected by a mass of wires.

  Nao mi looks at the electronic mess. “What the hell Max?”

  “No, no, no this is a good one. I dial into this phone , an d it makes the other phone dial out to any number I want . If someone traces the call , they just get this phone , bec ause the handsets are physically disconnected. I t’s a perfect firewall, except you can only use it on c e . . . that makes it an imperfect firewall . . . but a perfect single-use firewall . . . I guess that makes it a crappy firewall, but just what we need right now .” Max smiles.

  “Very nicely done , Max. Now b e quiet please .” Naomi rolls over and pulls the cover up .

  Max writes out a checklist : 1) Fire, Ambulance, and Police hacked – can monitor and track authorities 2) Canadian Air hacked – can book flights under any name and without payment 3) Tower control at YVR hacked – can alter take-off and landing priorities 4) Passport office hacked – bypassed normal approval process 5) Traffic Control hacked – remote control of city traffic lights 6) Seismic Monitors hacked – can trigger earthquake alarms 7) Bank machines hacked – can withdraw cash from phantom accounts 8) Cell phones hacked – untraceable calls 9) Cell phone tracker created – can monitor cell phone use near us

  Next on the hack list are credit card companies. But Max thinks they have enough for now.

  Just before sleep , Max opens the four cell phone s and loads his code onto the SIM cards. In the process , he removes the telephone numbers and replaces them with voice recognition software . Similar protons are load ed up to the local towers, to spread themselves overnight.

  Max lays the phone s on the dresser. Thump-thump. The phones visibly pulse. Max looks at the clock.

  Tick .

  He leans on the dresser , and it squishes under his weight. He looks down; the dresser wobbles like a giant block of Jell-O. Breath e . . . let it go . . . it’s not real . The desk solidifies. But t he phones keep throbbing like they have a pulse .

  Tock.

  Good enough. Max goes to bed and dreams .

  Max burs ts into a dingy bedroom and stands s till. Listening. Nothing. Light filters through torn curtain s, leaving the room dark. Max listens.

  There is a four poster bed in front of Max, a wardrobe and dressing table to his right. The wall on his left is cover ed wall-to—wall and floor-to-ceiling with drawers of all sizes, l arge and small , randomly placed over the entire wall . Each drawer face is covered with intricate carvings.

  Max faces the wall of drawers , feeling smaller than usual. Don’t touch. He knows he shoul dn’t open any of them. This is unkind. He listens. From one drawer, Max hears a faint scrabbling sound. One drawer seems to move if he doesn’t look directly at it.

  You don’t want to know this!

  On his tip toes, Max can barely grasp the drawer knob . The drawer front has a bracelet carved in it. He opens the little drawer but can ’t see what’s in it. He senses Naomi in the room. Knowing she is sitting on the edge of the bed watching him.

  “Max, stop , ” Naomi whispers. “You don’t know where this will lead .”

  Max pulls open a large drawer near the floor . It has a nurse leaning over a patient carved on it. It holds ruffled lace bedding. Max uses it as a stepping stool . Standing on the edge of the first drawer , he opens a second. This drawer has a bowl carved into t he front of it and
contains a hat . He steps up on this drawer as well .

  “Stupid boy,” Virginia scolds from her perch on the dresser. Her long dark hair obscures most of her face but frames her mouth as she speaks. “You’ll never hide this. She’ll know.”

  Max look s in the little drawer. Inside is a box . He reaches in to take it out . A mouse scurries from behind the box and disappears in the back of the lit tle drawer. Max looks in deeper. The drawer has no back, and the mouse is gone. He hears scratching sounds higher up the wall .

  Max takes the box down , lays it on the bed, and opens it.

  Naomi pushes away from him, moving to the other side of the bed. “I warned you , Max.”

  The box contains sealed letter s addressed to Emma Huxley, old paper s , and photographs . Max takes out two ultrasound images . He looks closer at the printed words near the top of one of them . “Victoria General Hospital – Ultrasound Imaging – Emma Huxley .”

  ‘Maxwell’ is handwritten near the bottom of the first ultrasound .

  “Max, I’m sorry. I tried,” Walker says from the bedroom door. Startled, Max turns. His mother storms toward him and snatches the pictures from him.

  Max wakes up with a jolt.

  No. This is not good enough.

  Chapter 14 –Passports

  Overnight, t he entire platform updates . Voice recognition and natural language routines find processing spaces as needed. This morning, the platform breaks through the Chinese firewalls.

  Max, Walker , Virginia, and Naomi take the sky train and then walk to a café two blocks from the Passport Office. Walker takes out his laptop and they wait. They are all so nervous no one can think of anything to say.

  Finally, Max , barely able to walk, turns to Virginia. “It’s all up to you. The passports are in there ready for pickup. I can only get us this far. Now you have to use force to get us the rest of the way.”

  At 8:45, numerous outgoing encrypted cell calls are made within a ten block radius of Max . Walker ’s process creates a klm file and frequently imports it directly to Google Earth and Google Maps. They see a dozen red dots appear on a map. “OK, that will be all the agents checking in . We want more than that.”