Cobalt has stated several times that he is already independently wealthy through hacking, although he has not divulged any details. According to a text message sent to a friend in December 2047, Cobalt stated, “Yeah no i dont have a fuckin real job. I dont want one. Why would anybody [sic].”
Apart from working with Sons of Man, Cobalt is reputed to work with a handful of other hackers on major projects. Several have claimed to be in his small “posse” but Cobalt has not publicly acknowledged any of them.
In May 2048, Cobalt claimed responsibility for bombing the federal courthouse in downtown Orlando. He stated that he disabled security allowing anarchists the Boom Boys to enter the building. This is the first known occasion that he has partnered with the Boom Boys.
Of course. The federal courthouse that was bombed just days ago.
Helen’s daydreams expanded to dizzying heights. Maybe even more was possible than she’d thought.
A message came through from Christian: [ Congrats on the donations you 'secured.' Nicely done. Loved your letter. ]
The guy was persistent—she had to give him that.
Then a massive boom of thunder shook the building, and everything went dark.
Shit.
She looked around as the emergency lights flickered on at the corners of the ceiling. The projcom keyboards and displays were still off. The people around her grumbled and began to pack up their things. A library employee with frizzy hair called out, “It’s twenty minutes to closing anyway. Might as well go home, folks.”
No!
Cobalt only gave her fifteen minutes to reply, and she’d wasted five of them already.
An older man with wild gray hair stood up, took in a deep breath, and started shouting hoarse profanities. He wanted his computer back on.
The people nearest him moved quickly away. The employee took a step back, eyeing him for any signs of a weapon.
Helen hesitated, wondering whether there was any chance this guy’s obscenity-laced tirade would actually get the computers back on, but when the man picked up a chair and threw it, she grabbed her things and hurried out into the driving rain.
How could she get to another anonymous projcom fast enough?
A Scenie electronics store. They were open late, and they always had projcoms and clamshells and Earworms set up for people to try out. With a quick voice command to her e-paper, she learned there was one eight minutes away.
At the Scenie store, she shielded her eyes against the overly bright neon-colored LED lights in a too-white store. She hobbled up to a clamshell and sat at one of the neon-colored stools, dried her hands on her damp clothes, logged back in to Whatsit, and typed rapidly to cobaltx98. [ I’m here. The Robin Hood Thief. What now? ]
She hit send with less than a minute to spare.
She stared at the inbox anxiously and scratched mosquito bites acquired on the way in. A salesman approached. “Anything I can help you with, ma’am?”
“No.” She gave him a flat stare, and he took the hint.
She kept watching Whatsit. It occurred to her that a hundred other people would have messaged Cobalt by now, the FBI and CIA among them. That explained the narrow window for her to contact him. Probably this was an account he’d delete after they talked.
A little blue LED came on next to the camera on the front of the clamshell. She frowned at it at first, then figured it out and hastily put her thumb over the camera. “No way,” she muttered. She didn’t have a disguise in place right now.
She saw a return message show up. [ Show urself ]
It was a painstaking struggle to type one-handed and without taking her thumb off the camera. She had to resort to text-message language. [ Not going 2 risk that. This cld be a trap. U prove who u r. ]
She looked around anxiously, afraid that she would see a sea of blue lights pop on next to the cameras on all of the computers in the showroom. What would she do then?
Her vision suddenly went blurry, and she blinked furiously, which didn’t help. She cursed. Not now. Why are you doing this to me now?
A message came through and Helen leaned close and blinked hard. It took an agonizingly long time to make out the message.
[ Well i cant think of a way. How cld i prove it when u dont know anything abt me. Not like im gonna use statesecure. ]
StateSecure accounts were government-verified. Using one would prove, but also reveal, Cobalt’s true identity.
She felt a presence closing in on her right and glanced over. A figure in a suit was surveying the products on her table.
She tried to minimize the Whatsit window while keeping her thumb over the camera, but she couldn’t find where to click in all the fog.
The suit leaned into her space. “Can I look at that one?”
Helen glared at him through her misty vision. “No.”
He stared at her for a moment with an expression she couldn’t make out through the blur. Then he stepped away and looked at something else.
Cobalt—if it was him—had replied again. She rubbed her eyes with her free hand, which didn’t help, and leaned closer to read. [ Look im gonna help u. Youll see im legit. A cop cant pull off what im going to. So anythin u need with computers… data… go bigger. Lets do some damage. Message me tomorrow at profile 76xtlaboc. Tomorrow, not today and not after. Peace/up.]
The blue light next to the camera turned off.
Helen committed the profile ID to memory. It was easy once she saw that the letters spelled cobaltx backward. Then, with great difficulty, given the clouds over her eyes, she deleted the browser’s history and closed it.
She looked around the Scenie showroom, gauging how bad the blurriness was. She could hardly see beyond a few yards—everything faded into clouds. Driving would be suicidal.
Just as she was getting truly frightened, her vision cleared.
Helen let out a sigh.
Was that going to happen again?
Who knew?
But for the moment, who cared? Go bigger, Cobalt had said. Hope returned in full bloom.
She left the Scenie showroom and limped back to her car with her head held high.
She fell asleep that night with her thigh throbbing but with possibilities spinning in her head.
18 Days
Dear Cobalt,
I know we could do more blackmail stuff, but I have a way more fun idea—if we can pull it off.
The sentries.
Every rich house I’ve stolen from has had several sentries. They watch, they listen, they talk, and they’re armed to the teeth. If we can hack them—especially if we can hack them en masse—we can force people to turn over a lot more money to charity.
I don’t have a lot of time, though. That’s something I probably should have told you right up front. I figure we’ve got a couple of weeks, max, to do everything we want to do together. So if we can get this one going in a few days…? I’m coming up with other ideas, too…
What do you think? Is it doable?
Love, the Robin Hood Thief
The response was almost immediate. [ Oh nice… i like it. Could be really hard tho. Lemme talk to my posse. Message me @ profile skiesblue tmrw. Peace/up ]
Helen eased back from the library projcom keyboard and absently stroked her injured thigh.
It wasn’t a no.
She smiled.
As she stood up, a wave of intense heat came over her. By the time she made it to Old Blue, sweat stood out on her face.
17 Days
K so i did like a whole lot of research into this. Its not easy i mean security is the 1# thing with these companies right. But there are only four different companies making most of the sentries and they have the same propiatery software supplying three of the companies. So if we hack into that one software we can get a lot of the sentries.
But actually i dont recommend that we do that. Too ambitious to try to get three makes of sentrie because they do have different command packages. I think we should just try to get into one make. That w
ill still get like %40 of them which is a lot.
*
Okay, I’m not sure I understood all of that, but if we can get 40% of the sentries, that’s great. How will it go down?
*
So well get into that software and write a new command package and once its uploaded everywhere we pull the trigger. During busness hours so they can do whatever paperwork or bank thing u want them to do.
Im thinking what if the sentries hunt whatever owner is home at the time and actviate weapons and threaten them to do it? And if no one is home then it just doesnt do anything. Cuz the timing is going to be important. Everything has to fire off at once. If no ones home we just miss the chance at that house.
But if u figure we get %40 of rich houses and then maybe %10-20 of people are at home thats still going to be thousands of people we get.
*
Okay. I love it. I’m really impressed. I understand you say it’s not easy, but from out here, it sounds easy. What all do you have to do to make it happen?
*
Uh its like way too hard to explain all the details. To someone who doesnt know this stuff.
*
Fair enough. I guess I don’t really need to know. How long will it take?
*
Its not like the movies it takes time to do stuff. Even with my lil posse it still itll be like days and thats working like nonstop.
*
Okay. A few days is okay. I hope it won’t be longer. Here’s what I want you to program the sentries to say…
14 Days
Early in the morning three days later, Helen cradled a hot cup of coffee at a dim, worn coffee shop with rickety tables, waiting for Cobalt to reach out to her. She huddled in a shadowy back corner where no one could see the screen of her brand-new clamshell. It was a burner clam she’d discard as soon as this mission was over—Cobalt’s idea.
She had taken her sleeping pill early the preceding night so she could be here in time—they wanted to catch people before they left for work. Waking up came hard. The hallucinations still haunted her—Mandy’s face and eyes melting off and onto the floor as she tried to pick them back up and shove them back onto her skull. Then her hands melted too…
Helen refocused on her screen.
Somehow, Cobalt was going to patch her in to the live feed of a sentry as it did its thing. It would be fun to watch… if it worked. Nerves ran through her stomach, twisting and clenching it. She’d been fretting for days that the plan sounded too easy. Surely something would go wrong. And if this didn’t work, that was three days gone forever, and only fourteen left.
She glanced at the time in the corner of the screen. Cobalt was eight minutes late. He had emphasized starting on time. What did it mean, being eight minutes late?
Helen’s stomach clenched again. She put her head down on the table next to the clamshell. If this didn’t work… She just didn’t want to die yet. She hadn’t done enough good yet.
A window opened on the clamshell, and Helen picked up her head. The window was blank, empty.
Another, smaller window popped up next to it, and words began to appear in it. [ U there Robin? ]
Helen typed quickly. [ Yes. What’s happening? ]
[ Almost online with a random sentry so u can see the fun. Hang on a sec. ]
Minutes passed agonizingly slowly. Helen’s stomach did flips.
[ Ok we only have so much time b4 the security company overrides us. Plus theres the kill code the owners always have that let’s them shut down a sentry. Im not %100 sure we turned those off yet. ]
Helen clutched her twisting stomach. Security company override? Kill code? Those were two different ways this plan could fail in an instant, neither of which she’d heard anything about. No wonder it had seemed too easy: Cobalt hadn’t told her everything. What else had he left out?
The other, larger window on her screen flickered and then a high-res live-stream video appeared from the perspective of a sentry. The floating robot passed down a hallway in one of the outrageously luxurious mansions Helen had become all too familiar with lately. It glided through a large antechamber decorated with a tree-sized topiary, then into a dining room.
An old, old man was shuffling from the kitchen into the dining room. His back was stooped, with his pants pulled up in the front nearly to his sternum, and his lower lip jutted out like a shelf. He carried a cup of tea with its china saucer. His face was sorrowful.
Helen put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, no,” she breathed. He looked so helpless, so old, so pained.
She typed quickly. [ This guy is so old. We’re going to give him a heart attack! ]
The response was fast. [ Too late. But anyway probaly not. Bet hell be fine. ]
“I am not reassured,” Helen muttered to herself.
The old man finished his tea and set it on the dining table, then opened a drawer in a dining room hutch and took out a hedge clippers and a pair of heavy gardening gloves. He was about to put on the gloves when the sentry glided closer, drawing his attention.
Helen’s script began to play out while she wrung her hands and hoped the old man wouldn’t die on the spot.
Her script satirized the original recording she had first heard at her first robbery, which started, “We apologize, but…”
“… but this is the Robin Hood Thief, and you’re going to make a donation to a charity for me. Right now. Would you please find a phone right now and call your banking professional?”
The old man sputtered a furious protest, moistening his jutting lower lip. “You want me to do what now?”
“You have very little time to locate a phone and call your banking professional. We advise you to move quickly.”
Helen winced a bit at her own wording. This old man shouldn’t move quickly—he might fall and break a hip.
The old man mashed his lips together, then threw the hedge clippers at the sentry.
Helen instinctively flinched.
“How dare you?” he shouted. “Are you there? You Robin Hood Thief? I oughta give you a piece of my mind! You nasty bitch! You fucking cunt!”
Helen recoiled, her eyes wide. The old man didn’t look so pitiable all of a sudden.
“You think we should all pay for your little waifs and serfs! Your wards of the state! Why don’t you go and get them some jobs! Oh, but no, that would require them to get out of bed in the morning and get off their lazy asses and—“
The sentry’s script continued. “Our next action will be unpleasant, and we hate to be ungracious thieves.”
Helen laughed out loud and clamped her hand over her mouth. Her adrenaline was surging.
The old man’s eyes lit up as he remembered something. “Kill command! Kill command delta ninety.”
A pause. The sentry whirred quietly. Helen waited at the edge of her seat, her fists clenched. “Come on, Cobalt,” she whispered.
“We’re very sorry,” the sentry declared, “but that command is not currently available.”
Helen nearly threw a fist of celebration into the air, but managed to jerk it back. She glanced around the coffee shop. No one reacted to the interrupted gesture.
“You lazy, worthless scum of the earth!” the old man raged, his jutting lower lip wet again. “You think you have any right—”
With a series of clicks, the sentry’s three gun turrets rattled out from the casing.
“We will fire upon you in twenty seconds unless you find a phone and call your banking professional. Twenty… Nineteen… Eighteen…”
The old man blanched. He gave the sentry a look of pure hatred and then shuffled toward the kitchen. The sentry followed.
Helen typed quickly into the other window. [ We’re bluffing, right? I told you to make sure no one would get hurt? ]
[ Yea. Just warning shots. ]
The old man picked up his e-paper and tapped the screen. A moment later, he said, “Mr. Pierson, please.”
Five minutes later, with a little guidance from the sentry, a donation o
f two million dollars had been made to today’s charity of choice: Justice for All—where Helen had worked for eleven years.
So her boss’s boss had been a jerk when she needed her job back. It was still a damned worthy charity.
Cobalt typed: [ I just checked in anonmusly. This is what the donations manager lady at Justice for All said: “Yes, in the last few minutes, my notifications system has gone off so many times, I’ve turned it off. We’re receiving three and a half million dollars a minute and it’s going up. Do you have any idea what’s going on??” ]
It lasted six minutes before the security companies managed to shut it down.
Helen and Cobalt exchanged virtual high-fives.
[ Do you mind if I tell the public what we did and give both of our names? ]
[ Nah dude cool with me ]
Helen sent a message to Christian Smith at LSTV: [ The richest of the rich just donated millions of dollars to Justice for All. I had a little something to do with that, along with the hacker Cobalt, and I think it might make a good story. Just fyi. ]
Then Helen closed her clamshell and paid her tab at the coffee shop’s counter.
She walked out floating on air, her back straight, the pain in her thigh present but irrelevant. Now this—this—was what she had hoped for all along. Three and a half million dollars a minute for six minutes. That was twenty-one million dollars. Her grin was so broad, her face hurt. She just wished she could see Oliver’s face when he heard the news.
As she left the coffee shop and limped down the street to her car, she caught a glimpse of her own face—almost—out of the corner of her eye. Actually, lots of images of her face—almost.
The Robin Hood Thief Page 15