Feral: An Our Cyber World Prequel

by Suastegui, Eduardo

  He ate most of his salad while the transfer completed. With a few bites left, he installed the download and launched the tracer application. He finished the salad while the trace completed, right here on this pitiful laptop rather than on that high-end bank of computers back in the vault. Oh, the irony of it.

  He allowed himself a gloating grin, only to have it disappear when his screen turned a deep maroon red with flashing yellow text. A human and feline eye pair stared back at him. Wink-wink, they went. Then they vanished, leaving in their place a time, an address, and instructions to wait for an orange taxi cab.

  He threw the laptop across the room, then went to it and kicked it into shards. His anger subsided when he realized he needed to clean up. Rushing into the kitchen, he grabbed a trash bag and came back to gather the laptop’s remains.

  He stood up. Bag in hand, he looked around the apartment. What else did he need? An invisible cloak would be nice. Somehow he had to get around the one or two guys they posted around his apartment complex.

  From his room, he grabbed a small messenger bag and on a whim stuffed a T-shirt and a set of underwear in it. Next he decided what to do about his phone. What he normally did every night, he decided. He turned it off, and plugged it into its charger.

  Not wanting it out and visible, he stuffed the messenger bag into the trash bag. Out to take the trash to the shared bin in the building’s bottom floor. That’s all they would see.

  He stood at the door, bag in one hand, door knob in the other. He couldn’t think of anything else. The sense of urgency, a deep desire to run out and chase after her overwhelmed him. He didn’t know exactly why. He tried to convince himself it was the logical thing to do, that if he didn’t follow her instructions to go meet her, he could kiss his future goodbye. She would land him in jail. So yeah, he had to go after her and put a stop to this—to her hack.

  He stepped out and locked the door behind him. At a normal pace, he approached the elevators. He pressed the call button. The elevator came in a matter of seconds, and the ride down took but a minute. He walked out to the underground parking lot and headed for the trash area. All along he felt as one walking through water, feeling the weight of it on his head and shoulders, and the resistance of it with each step.

  He stepped up to the trash bin and extracted his messenger bag before dropping the trash bag into the bin. Outside the trash area, he searched for the parking lot’s rear exit, the one that led to a back alley. The heavy door opened after two tries, the second taking a strong shoulder push.

  Cool evening air welcomed him. Only now did he realize he’d been sweating. After a deep breath, he got his bearings and went east along the alley until he reached an adjacent street. There, he headed north, looking over his shoulder until he went two blocks, turning left, and crossing another three blocks. He looked up at the street signs. The street names matched the instructions he’d read on the laptop’s screen. He nodded, as much to agree with himself he’d gotten this right as to shake off the way the bright yellow letters had imprinted in his brain.

  Now came the waiting. He didn’t know exactly how this worked, but whoever was picking him up wouldn’t trust him to come without being followed. He scanned the street from where he’d come. Nothing. No one.

  Ten minutes passed before he saw a pair of headlights approaching. The car approached without a sound other than the occasional crunching of tires on road debris. Its hood came into view. Orange.

  Martin stepped up toward the curb only to realize: the cab was slowing down, but not enough to come to a complete stop. He stepped back in time to see a package flying out of the passenger side window. It reminded him of a newspaper delivery. He caught it, not a newspaper, but a padded yellow envelope.

  The cab sped off.

  It took Martin a second to recover his wits. He stepped back into the shadows. There, using the scant light from a nearby street light, he pried open the package. He took out a piece of folded paper. Two pieces, he realized, once he separated them: one a printed airline ticket for Henry Sawyer, and the other, a car rental reservation under the same name.

  The package’s weight made him look in it again. He found a driver’s license with his picture, also for one Henry Sawyer. The heaviest item turned out to be a cellphone, a cheap thing. A burner, he guessed.

  He looked in the envelope again. He pushed his hand in there, making sure he hadn’t missed anything—a note with further instructions, maybe. He found none.

  Feral expected him to piece it together, and it all fell into place by simply looking at the airline ticket. Noting how it specified a flight from San Francisco (SFO) to Los Angeles (LAX), he concluded he needed to get himself to the airport in the next ninety minutes or else miss the flight.

  Using the cellphone, he dialed up a cab.

  By the time Martin turned on his phone after landing in LAX, he had a text message with next steps. It said, “UCLA Medical Center, IT Department.”

  He arrived at UCLA an hour later and wound his way through the medical center’s parking lot. He parked and stepped out of his car. Now for the fun part: how best to reach the IT department. Cipher locks stood in his way at three doorways. At each one, he received a text with the combination and a reminder to swipe Henry Sawyer’s driver’s license after keying in the code.

  After crossing the third and final threshold, he found himself in a humming, semi-dark computer lab. What now? Sit at one of the terminals and hack away? Wait for Feral to show up?

  He didn’t ponder the question for long. A click on the lab’s door brought him back to more immediate concerns. Two men came in wearing blue renta-cop uniforms.

  The beam of a flashlight beam caught Martin before he had a chance to hide behind an equipment rack.

  “Hey, guys,” he said, knowing how stupid he sounded.

  “What are you doing here?” the larger of the two men said, waving the flashlight beam in and out of Martin’s eyes.

  Martin thumbed at the server rack to his right. “Here to install a patch.”

  The guy kept waving that flashlight, now to scan up and down Martin’s chest. “Where’s your badge?”

  Martin patted his chest, swept his hand up and down. “Oh, man. Where did I leave it now?”

  The other guy stepped up, his frowning expression coming under one of the overhead lights. He reached behind his back, and came up with handcuffs.

  “Hey, wait a minute.” Martin held out his hands. “This is a mistake.”

  “Yeah. Big mistake. Yours,” handcuff guy said.

  Martin stepped back and around the equipment rack, like that was going to work.

  “Stay right where you are, please,” the other guy said as he stepped to the left to intercept Martin.

  Martin had nowhere to go. He knew that at the moment the lab’s door clicked open again. Through a gap in the equipment rack, Martin saw her silhouette. He shouldn’t have recognized her in such poor lighting, but he did, every curve of her svelte body, and even the way her short hair hung longer on one side than the other.

  “He’s with me,” she said.

  “He’s got no badge,” the larger of the two renta-cops said.

  She dangled a shiny rectangular object from her hand. “Right here. He left it on my… Hmm… let’s say desk.” She grinned. “You know, us, absent-minded geeks.”

  The cops traded a look. The skinny muscular one shook his head and tucked the handcuffs behind his back. Martin stepped to the side as both cops eased off. He watched them make their way around the equipment racks, and heard the sound of the door clank as they stepped out.

  “So,” she said. “Looks like you owe me big time.”

  “You called them, didn’t you?”

  She stepped up, patted him on the chest, and clipped the badge to his shirt collar. Her eyes mocked him. “You can never be too careful these days, you know.”

  She stayed there, her face inches from his, her brown, sharp eyes peering into his.

  “I guess not,�
�� he managed to say.

  “I haven’t heard a thank you, yet.”

  “Thank you for setting me up?”

  “You’re such a jerk. It’s always so about you.”

  “What?”

  “Hey, big shot hacker. Do you even remember my name?”

  He let out a soft sigh. “Right. Like one could forget.” It came to him at that moment, not only because he knew it, but because it rose through him like a gust of breath after a punch to the gut. “Sasha.”

  Something gave way in her expression. It softened. Her eyes lost some of their sharpness, releasing a hint of sadness. She flinched for a moment. Then those brown eyes closed, and her lips pressed against his.

  10» Righteous Cause

  After the warmth of the kisses wore off, Sasha could tell it would take more than that to win him over. She could see it in the way he fidgeted in his chair, how he craned his neck this way and that to loosen the tension there, and above all, how he avoided her eyes.

  “We just sit here, then,” he said.

  “Mm-hmm. Until we know one way or another they didn’t follow you.”

  “Shouldn’t we… you be cleaning up the code? Shredding any trace of it?”

  She grinned at him when he brought his gaze around to meet hers. “Not necessary.”

  “Self-destruct?”

  “Like you designed it. Morphing into something not resembling the original.”

  He looked away again and shook his head. “What’s this about, Sasha?”

  “That trip to the Sierras we always dreamed about?”

  Though he didn’t verbalize it, from his faint smile, she could tell he remembered. She took that for a hopeful sign. He remembered how she and he had hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail. He remembered how they’d dreamed about doing something grander, namely the John Muir trail in the Sierras. She’d dreamed about it then. The faint hope of it had kept a part of her alive.

  “No, really. What’s this about?” he said.

  “What do you think it’s about?”

  His gaze darted back to her before it escaped again.

  “You can look me in the eye, Martin. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  That did it. He shot her an incredulous look, and this time he kept looking at her. But not the way she wanted him to.

  “Before your head gets too big,” she added, “no, as a matter of fact I’m not here to ignite our short-lived but bright flame.”

  He spread his arms. “OK. So… what’s this all about?”

  “An opportunity.”

  “Opportunity for what?”

  “For you to get out.”

  “Oh, so you came to rescue me.”

  Sasha ground her teeth and counted to five. “If there’s a rescue in the air, you’re going to get it done all on your own.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’ve used your code, Martin. I’ve used it to show what one can do. Certain parties are very interested in the potential. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Certain parties? Who are we talking about here?”

  “Not who, but what. Your ticket, Martin. Your ticket out of this virtual jail cell they’ve thrown you in.”

  He folded his arms, leaned back in his chair and squinted at her. “Are you saying we sell this hack of yours—”

  “Uh-uh. Your hack, Martin.”

  “We sell it in exchange for what? Fake passports and tickets to Moscow?”

  Sasha wrinkled her nose at him. “Moscow, yuck. Think less snow. Much less snow, and a lot more sand.”

  “OK, Venezuela? Cuba?”

  “Getting warmer, actually. But not that totalitarian.”

  “Well, that’s downright romantic of you. I’m sure you’re planning your tan already.” He unfolded his arms to spread them again, wider this time. “Are you crazy? You think you can run from these guys?”

  “People do it all the time. For decades. For a lifetime.”

  He dropped his arms and shook his head. “Not in this day and age. Not unless you want to live in a cave.”

  “And that’s not what Martin wants out of life, is it? They’ve been whispering sweet nothings in your ear, haven’t they? Promises of better things to come, great success.” She paused and tilted her head. “Maybe your own tech company. Imagine how rich you’ll be when you go IPO.”

  He looked away, and Sasha knew she’d connected. But not the way she had intended.

  Sasha hadn’t said anything else for a good five minutes. Martin remembered that about her. She knew when to back off. She knew when he needed his space and never failed to give it. He’d liked that about her back then, during that months-long affair. Maybe he’d even loved her for it, even if he never admitted it to her or to himself.

  He checked his watch. Another minute had passed while he reminisced about all that.

  “I really wish you hadn’t done this,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “It’s my mess now.”

  “That I can’t agree with.”

  He sighed. He found it hard to keep looking at her, but this time he didn’t withdraw his gaze. He forced it to remain steady, even if to get it to stick he had to clench his fists and grit his teeth.

  “I know what you did, Martin. I know you did it for me.”

  He tried to shrug off her comment, but his shoulders wouldn’t go up more than halfway. “No need for both of us to go down. That would’ve been a waste.” He pointed at the computers, none in particular, all of them in general. “But this. I didn’t leave it in the open so you’d do this.”

  She grinned. “I haven’t done anything to these.”

  “I thought you said—”

  “The self-morph bit? It sounds so dramatic. I couldn’t resist. But why chance it when you can come up with something simpler.”

  Elegant. That’s the word she left out. She used to say that was the one flaw in his code. Always trying to do it the fancy way. Too clever. With cleverness came complications, complexities that inevitably led to greater probability of error, and to unexpected outcomes and behavior. Straightest line between two points, Martin, she used to say. At his side, she had make sure his code—their code, he admitted now as he did in the end back then—reached “optimum simplicity.”

  “So what did they promise you?” she asked, reverting back to their earlier conversation.

  “Keep my nose clean, I get to keep the front company they set up in my name and grow it into something more.”

  “Something more. Yeah.” She swiveled in her chair to eye the door into the lab. Returning her attention to him, she added, “With fat, juicy government contracts, I take it?”

  “I guess.” He gave her a full shrug this time, but it struck him as no more complete and certainly no more convincing than his previous attempt.

  “What do you think you’d call it?”

  “Call what?”

  “Your company.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I like the sound of InfoStream.”

  “Sounds like you do know. Like you’ve been staying up at night to dream all about it. Yeah. InfoStream, live the dream.”

  He didn’t appreciate her tone, but decided to leave it unchallenged.

  Her voice softened. “You really want this, huh?”

  “I suppose I do.”

  “You think any of that’s real, Martin? Even if it happens? Even if one day you go to the stock exchange and stand on that balcony and ding that opening bell and see InfoStream’s stock symbol stream across the NASDAQ ticker tape?”

  “It would be real enough.”

  Sasha rested both elbows on her knees and leaned forward. From her now lower position, she aimed a sharp, yet soft stare up at him. “It’s not. Real. My little hack proves it. As does every burst bubble and crash and rip-off before it.” She snapped her fingers. “You think you’re sitting on tons of wealth, and the next second…” She snapped her fingers one more time, and followed it up by a side-swipe o
f her hand. “Gone. All of it. Or diminished to the point where you have to hand over the rest to pay off the creditors.”

  Martin forced himself to hold her stare with one of his own, even if his resolve ebbed and waned with every second that passed.

  “It’s all a fantasy, Martin. A mirage. An illusion. You can count on none of it.”

  “What can I count on, then?” He stopped short of adding, “You?”

  “You tell me. What can you count on?”

  One day, long ago, around the time he met her, he would have replied in a flash. Himself. He could always count on himself, on his wits, on his intellect. If he could trust anyone, he was it. But he couldn’t say that now. As much as he still wanted to cling to that self-confidence, someone, something, everything that happened, had knocked it out of him.

  “Maybe we can’t trust anyone or anything,” he said.

  “How sad.”

  “Sounds like you have the answer, then.”

  He saw her eyes tear up. “I trust my heart, Martin.” Her lips quivered for a second before she clenched them still. “It may hurt at times, but your heart? You can trust it. It’s the only thing.”

  He scooted and rolled his chair toward her. At first he intended to only hold her hand. But as soon as he reached for her, she dove into him. Her head came to rest on his chest, just under his chin. He smelled her hair and closed his eyes.

  11» Sasha’s Quandary

  This time, Sasha didn’t think about circuit breakers when she found her apartment in darkness. Chana’s voice came at her with the same mocking tone she’d used a couple of nights before.

  “That seems to have gone well.”

  Sasha flipped on the lights and allowed herself a second or two to enjoy the way Chana squinted and shielded her eyes.

  “Shouldn’t we find safer, more discreet places to meet?” Sasha said. “Keep dropping by and someone’s bound to notice.”

  Chana didn’t reply, easing her expression as her eyes adjusted. “How did he seem?”

  How did he seem? Like Chana really cared about his well-being. Not so fast, perhaps. Sasha knew she cared insofar as psychological handles to manipulate him were concerned. Still, she shrugged. Acting the part of a head shrink didn’t fall into her portfolio.