by David Estes
“Who is it?” says a muffled voice on the other side.
“Shut up, Chet, you know who it is,” Harrison says. He’s feeling better now that his brain is working again; after drinking three fizzers, it’s as if a thick fog has lifted.
“Who’s Chet?” the voice asks.
Harrison grits his teeth and growls, “Wire. I meant Wire. Now let us in.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” Chet, who prefers being called Wire, says.
“It’s always night down here,” Harrison says. “And don’t pretend like you were sleeping.”
There’s silence and Harrison thinks for a moment that Wire’s decided to ignore them. He raises his fist to pound even harder, when the door creaks open. Wire’s pale face appears between the gap, red tufts of hair sticking up from his scalp at odd angles. Anyone else would guess that the teen had been sleeping, but Harrison knows better.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Wire says, his eyes flicking between the three of them.
“We’ve got a mission for you,” Harrison says.
“You need me.” The hacker’s eyes light up annoyingly. It seems to be his mission in life to get Harrison to say he needs him.
“Your country needs you,” Harrison says, stealing a classic line from the recruiting pamphlets his father used to bring home.
“No,” Wire says. “If this was official Lifer business, Jarrod would’ve sent one of the others to see me. And not in the middle of the night. This is a personal request.”
Harrison swallows his pride and says, “You got me. We need your help, oh God of Hacking, oh Breaker of Encryptions, oh Father of Destructive Viruses.”
Wire grins. “That’s what I thought, although you didn’t have to be so dramatic about it. Come in.”
His face disappears, leaving a glowing void where his acne-riddled skin had just been. When the door doesn’t open any wider, Harrison realizes his friend has moved further inside, not bothering to let them in.
His hand fisted, he pushes the door open with his knuckles. A wash of light splashes from the room, which is full of glowing screens. A real hacker’s paradise.
“Come on,” Harrison says, urging Benson and Check to follow him.
Wire is seated at a desk, one hand fiddling with some sort of a control while his other hand strokes a disgracefully thin red goatee. His eyes are glued to a large holo-screen on the wall, mounted just above where his feet are balanced on the desk. Three-dimensional images pop in and out of view. A cobra, its fangs bared. A giant wall. What appears to be a grenade, exploding in mid-air, so lifelike that Harrison can almost feel the heat.
“What are you doing?” Check asks as Benson shuts the door behind them.
Harrison fires Check a look. It’s the wrong question to ask Wire.
Wire leans back in the chair, twisting his head to look at them, still fidgeting with the control and his wispy beard. “I’m so glad you asked,” he says. “Most people think the most challenging part of unleashing an unstoppable string of super viruses on an impenetrable government network is the doing part.”
“It’s not?” Benson says.
Harrison groans as he sees the delighted look that flashes in Wire’s eyes. He’s got an audience and he’ll take full advantage. Dropping his feet from the desk, he spins in the chair to face them. As his fingers fly across the control, the images continue to cycle from the holo-screen behind him. “Look, no hands,” he says, dropping the controller. “12B revert to waiting position, delete trail, erase entry point, open tunnel for 11C and pull back…pull back…NOW!” The images flash and bounce and react to his voice commands like obedient soldiers.
“Look, Wire, we don’t have time for all this,” Harrison says.
Wire screws up his face. “All this”—he waves his hand around the room—“is what helped save your brother’s life.”
He’s right. Without Wire’s network virus as a distraction, Benson might’ve never survived. His tone softens. “Thank you, Wire. You really kicked Pop Con’s ass last week.”
Wire’s eyes light up at the compliment. “I did, didn’t I?”
“But don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late for that,” Wire says, grinning. “The Slip asked a question though.”
“Don’t. Call. Him. That,” Harrison says.
“Touchy touchy,” Wire says.
“It’s okay,” Benson says. “It’s what I am.”
“No,” Harrison says. “It’s not. Their labels don’t apply to us. Father’s labels don’t apply to us.”
“Benson asked a question,” Wire says, rephrasing. “No, for a skilled and talented hacker like me, unleashing the virus was the easy part. The hard part is pulling the virus out and not getting caught. I have to be like a ghost in the night.”
“Why not just leave it in there?” Check asks.
Wire raises a finger. “One, because eventually they’ll crack the virus, and then they’ll know how to stop it in the future.” A second finger pops up. “Two, because only a two-bit hacker would send a virus on a suicide mission. I’m an artist.” He says it like he’s French—“arteest.” He raises a third finger. “And three, the threat of the virus hitting them again will be enough to drive Pop Con’s analysts insane.”
“Awesome,” Check says.
“Impressive,” Benson says. “And thanks. For helping my brother help me.”
Wire waves it off as if it’s nothing, but Harrison can see him beaming inside. “No problem. Now what can I do for you tonight?”
“This is going to sound impossible,” Harrison says, “but we want you to hack into Pop Con’s Death Match archives.”
“There’s a reason ‘possible’ is included in ‘impossible,’” Wire says.
“That’s deep,” Harrison says. “And it makes no sense.”
“Maybe not to you,” Wire says. “Anyway, what you’re asking is child’s play. Is that seriously all you got?”
“It might be just the start, depending on what we find,” Harrison says.
The prospect of more seems to entice Wire, and he swivels in his chair to face the screens. “All programs revert to auto-reverse,” he says. The holo-images fade away and are replaced by a single prompt: Command? Wire begins speaking a series of letters and numbers and words that make no sense to Harrison. As hard a time as he usually gives Wire, he’s completely in awe of what he can do with technology. He might have called himself an artist, but really he’s more of a composer, able to conduct an orchestra of holos into terrifying symphonies.
Wire keeps at it for another few minutes, throwing an occasional curse into his monologue. Harrison isn’t sure whether those are part of the commands or a display of frustration. Eventually Wire says, “Nice try, bastards, but I gotcha! We’re in.”
“Meaning what?” Harrison says.
“We can see everything. Every freaking record for the last fifty years.”
“Seriously?” Check says. “How did you learn to do all this?”
Wire laughs. “While Harrison here was being a good little student and attending all his classes and winning hoverball games, I was cutting class and learning useful life skills.” A flash of anger spills through Harrison, but it disappears just as quickly. Wire is right. He let the system feed him propaganda while he satisfied himself by becoming popular.
“The school let you do that?” Check asks.
Wire winks. “They put up with it for a while, but I got kicked out eventually. My mother was furious until the money started rolling in.”
“Money?”
“At first I just did freelance jobs. You know, stupid stuff, like investigating husbands and wives who thought their spouses were cheating—most of them were—or helping rich kids play pranks on each other. It paid well enough, but wasn’t that fulfilling. I wanted to do something real. Something important to test my skills at the next level.”
“And the Lifers contacted you,” Harrison says.
“Thankfully, no,”
Wire says. “The way it all happened was way better. I hacked their communication network and sent them a message offering my services. Jarrod was so shocked that I’d busted through their firewalls that he gave me the job. And they pay far better than all my other gigs combined.”
Harrison tries not to show it outwardly, but he’s impressed. What he did required initiative and perseverance, something he never thought Wire possessed.
“You’re more like us than…” Check trails off, his gaze drifting to Harrison.
Even though Harrison bonded with Benson’s friends over a few drinks, he knows he’ll never be one of them, not in their minds. Us and them. He’s the “them.” The gap between his life and his brother’s seems to widen further, until he can barely see the other side of the canyon. Even Wire is on the other side, and they only just met him.
“Now what?” Wire says.
“Pull up Michael Kelly,” Benson says quickly. Harrison’s eyes dart to his brother’s, but Benson doesn’t return the look. He’s staring at the holograph streaming from the screen, which is already showing his father’s face, rotating slowly in a circle, having responded to the command. Harrison watches as Benson bites his lip.
“Whaddya want to know?” Wire says.
Harrison says, “Does he have any outstanding Death Matches?”
Wire frowns at Harrison, but the system is already cycling through pages of data, searching for the information. “I thought your father was dead,” he says.
Benson flinches. Harrison says, “He is. But Death Matches survive beyond the grave, until both parents are dead.”
“Your crazy mom?” Wire says.
“I swear to God I’m going to knock your teeth out the back of your throat if you call her that one more time,” Harrison says.
“Okay, okay, geez. Touchy subject.” The spinning information stops and zooms in on a single line:
Michael Kelly: One Death Match Outstanding.
“Impossible,” Benson whispers.
Harrison smiles. He was right.
~~~
Private Forum for Agriculturists, by invite only:
Password required: **********
Password accepted, access granted.
JoseCuervo: My contact in warehousing informed me that there was another major food surplus this month.
SamAdams: How major?
JoseCuervo: Enough for at least a twenty percent increase in the population.
BloodyMary: Twenty percent!? What’s the current margin of population error published by Pop Con?
SamAdams: One-tenth of one percent. A couple hundred thousand people, mostly made up of UnBees, Slips, and illegals, like Jumpers and Diggers.
ShirleyTemple: Sorry, just arrived, got held up with a minor situation. So you’re saying there’s enough food being produced to support another hundred million people?
JoseCuervo: That’s exactly what I’m saying.
BloodyMary: Where’s it all going?
JoseCuervo: That’s what I’m trying to figure out, but it has to be going somewhere. Otherwise it would just end up spoiling. Or they could be preserving it and storing it in case of an emergency.
SamAdams: Keep us posted. Same time in two days?
JoseCuervo: Agreed.
BloodyMary: Yes.
ShirleyTemple: Wouldn’t miss it.
***Chat terminated by chat leader***
Chapter Thirteen
He can’t believe it. This entire time Benson thought all his father had was a harebrained plan to protect him from his enemies by being one of his enemies. But no, it was all far more complex. An hour with Wire has shown him that much.
Everything has been in place for years, more than seventeen to be exact, since Benson was born. Like clockwork, Michael Kelly has paid the fees and renewed his dud Death Match, well past the maximum five-year extension. The system only allowed it because of various complicated overrides that even Wire was impressed with. His father had also set up an automated program to attach the Death Match to a birth authorization in a hidden citizen profile he’d set up for Benson, complete with a unique retinal signature and birth records identical to Harrison’s.
The moment the Death Match died, Benson would’ve become an authorized and fully legal citizen of the Reorganized United States of America. The Death Match, a guy named Boris Decker, is apparently alive and in good health at the impressive age of one-hundred-and-one. The disease previously expected to cut his life shorter by almost two decades has long since been cured by medical advancements. According to his medical file, he could last another ten to twelve years, which isn’t particularly unusual anymore.
After thanking Wire—who provided a sweeping bow in response—and bidding him goodnight, the trio make their way back to the sleeping quarters, arguing about what to do next.
“It’s obvious,” Harrison says. “We find the guy and end him.”
“I agree,” Check says quickly. “It’s your only chance.”
Benson stops abruptly, glaring at his brother and friend. They stop. “What?” Check says. “It is. You’re a dead man walking and your Death Match is the only thing preventing you from freedom.”
Benson shakes his head, somewhat disgusted. “First of all, he’s not my Death Match. In fact, he’s not anyone’s Death Match. He’s just a guy trying to enjoy the last years of his life, years that must feel like a massive bonus to him. Secondly, there’s no such thing as freedom anymore. Third, do you really think Pop Con would let me exploit such a loophole? Dad cheated. They won’t let him get away with it.”
Harrison says, “That’s where you’re wrong, Bense. If there’s one useful thing I learned about the system in school, it’s that any deviation from procedure would cause it to self-destruct. Even if our father did manipulate things, if the system provides you with a valid birth authorization, then you’re legal. They won’t be able to change it without admitting they made a mistake. And if they made one mistake, then people will wonder whether they’ve made more mistakes. They’ll wonder whether the system is broken. Whether they’re all living on borrowed time from a clock that’s ready to implode at any moment.”
Benson’s somewhat impressed with his brother’s speech, but it still doesn’t change the fact that… “We can’t kill some random guy, Harry,” he says.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Sorry, Harry,” Benson says.
Harrison takes a deep breath and seems to make the decision to ignore the jab. “Not ‘we,’” Harrison says. “Me.”
“What?” Benson’s mind whirls. Harrison, the brother he’s only just met, is willing to risk his own life to save Benson’s? Potentially his soul, too, depending on what you believe. Thou shalt not kill, and all of that.
“I’ll do it alone if I have to,” Harrison says.
“No you won’t,” Check says. “I’ll help you.”
“No!” Benson blurts out. “My life is no more important than Boris Decker’s. It’s no more important than anyone’s. If we kill some innocent guy then we’re just like the Lifers.”
“Maybe we should be more like them,” Harrison says.
“You don’t really believe that,” Benson says.
“Maybe I do.”
“Then we have even less in common than I thought,” Benson says. With that, he whirls around and storms off. He needs to be alone.
Alone to think about his life versus an old man’s.
~~~
Janice is anxiously waiting for them to arrive. With Luce’s help, she’s set everything up. Well, Zoran helped too, but not much. He can be a bit lazy when he’s not off fighting dragons and saving princesses.
“The walls should be bluer,” Janice says. “My boys are boys. Not girls.”
Luce flashes Janice a smile. It’s a nice smile, one that Janice can’t help but return. Luce is nice to her. And nice to Benson, which is far more important. “We can fix that,” Luce says. “Holo—brighten color.”
The soft blue brightens to an electr
ic blue. Like an ocean of fireworks. Like a sky full of fish. She giggles at the thought of fish swimming in the sky while fireworks burst underwater.
“Better?” Luce asks.
“Like—” She’s about to explain the images in her mind when the door opens and her sons’ friends pour in.
The two funny Mexicans. The smiley Asian. The big Canadian guy with the crooked nose. Well, it didn’t used to be crooked. Ever since he got that crooked nose he likes to frown at Harrison. Minda, the Indian girl who always carries the big gun. Destiny, with a smile that dazzles like white snow against her dark mountain skin. Her hair is a big poof on her head that Janice desperately wants to touch. But she knows that would be rude. Harrison told her so when she asked him. And last, her special guest of honor:
Jarrod. The nice man who saved their lives and took them in and gave them a new home where they can be together again.
The only one missing is Michael. Janice stomps her feet and tells the thought to go find another brain to torment. Because tonight isn’t about Michael. Or her. Or any of the people who just entered the redesigned gym.
Tonight is about her boys.
“It’s amazing, Janice,” Check says, taking her hand. She looks down at his pale fingers touching hers. They feel warm and nice. And weird. Hands aren’t for touching anymore. Not for a long time.
She nods and pulls her hand away, watching the others take in the room. They look at the fish-in-the-sky walls and the hover-balloons bouncing off the equipment and the snake-ribbons coiling and springing. But most of their attention is drawn to the enormous three-dimensional “17” projected into the center of the room. Within the image are photos of Benson and Harrison. Well, mostly photos of Harrison, because that’s all she had. For Benson the only photo is the one Luce took while he was sleeping. That one makes her laugh because he looks like a baby again. So peaceful. When he’s sleeping he could almost be a real person, not a Slip. When he wakes up he changes so much. She knows what that’s all about. It’s about life. It’s about experience. The things that take our perfection and twist it into something that hurts, something that makes a mother cry, something that leaves us empty inside. Or full. Or sad. Or happy. She’s not sure whether change is a good thing or a bad thing—just that it’s inevitable.