They were artistic, stylized drawings based on law enforcement’s compiled image of the Robin Hood Thief. About fifty of the large posters looked out from the abandoned building on the other side of the street. They all bore the message, “We love you too, Robin Hood Thief.”
That afternoon, Helen went home and curled up in her bed to watch the news on her e-paper. It was so much fun to see the hack take top billing well into the night. Thousands of victims and their families had made panicked calls immediately afterward: to law enforcement to file charges against the Robin Hood Thief and Cobalt, to the security companies to complain and threaten lawsuits, to the media to demand coverage. The security companies rushed to give press conferences in which they strove to give the appearance of action without actually apologizing or promising anything. Government regulators launched an official investigation.
Of course, MCCTv called it an act of domestic terrorism. Helen hadn’t thought of it that way, but perhaps the shoe fit. She certainly hoped to terrify the Entitled.
She was both amused and dismayed at the parade of public figures and politicians who spoke out to denounce the hack. Come on, she wanted to say. No one got hurt. I just scared them a little.
But on the up side, Helen’s favorite politician, Elaine Decatur, president for one term in the late 2020s, posted on Whatsit, “Radical activists Robin Hood Thief and Cobalt have done what many have only imagined—liberated wealth without spilling a single drop of blood.”
Maybe it wasn’t an endorsement… but it was oh so close.
A few minutes later, Helen’s profile on Whatsit disappeared, deleted again. She rolled her eyes. She’d just make another one.
Around three o’clock, the security companies issued formal apologies and started the recall process. A nationwide recall was unavoidable—not a single affected person wanted a sentry present in their home now, even if it was manually disabled. And their owners soon discovered that they were incredibly difficult to disable. LSTV showed one man who shot, drowned, and electrocuted his sentry to no avail. They’d been made to withstand every conceivable attack from the outside.
Helen made popcorn.
13 Days
On her way to a different library the next day, Helen let her mind wander into a happy daydream—one of her favorites: all the homeless and destitute people in the country with homes of their own.
Not sleep lockers—real homes. Access to everything they needed to be comfortable and functional human beings. Able to bathe, wash their clothes, cook meals. Safe from the elements, safe from other people. Hope of a job. Hope of a future.
Back in the oughts, a couple of cities experimented with giving homes to all the homeless, no questions asked—no requirements that they get off drugs or get into mental health care. They found that addictions and mental health problems fell dramatically.
Naturally, the city council members who championed the policies eventually got voted out and replaced by members whose campaign contributors included prison operators, cigarette manufacturers, security firms, and in one case, a bail bondsmen’s trade group. They ended the programs.
But what if Helen could give the needy homes forever? Homes that legally belonged to them and could never be taken away?
She parked at the library and got set up on a projcom, then typed out a longer note to Cobalt.
Okay, Cobalt, I have another idea. It’s pretty ambitious, although I don’t really know how ambitious. I guess it’s up to you to tell me what’s achievable.
There are millions of people in this country living in the streets or in shacks or tent cities, while millions of houses stand empty only because no one can afford to buy them. That has always made me raving furious. I want to fix it.
The only way I can think to do that with hacking is to wipe out all the mortgage records. As I understand it from my research, if people move into an unoccupied house and there’s no proof that it’s not theirs, then they should eventually be able to claim it. It looks like it’s called adverse possession.
So if we destroy the records, then put out an announcement that all unoccupied homes are up for grabs, we can house practically all of the homeless and destitute people in the country in one fell swoop.
We should warn everyone that it won’t work on occupied houses, though. There will be proof or at least eyewitness testimony about who really lives there. And I don’t want to risk any violence, so I want to warn people away from that.
What do you think? Is it just wishful thinking?
She sat back to wait, but only a few moments passed before she got a reply.
[ Okay so maybe this ones pretty complicated but i bet we can do it. I mean destryoing data is kinda what hackers do, right? ]
[ That’s awesome. Is there anything you can’t do? ]
[ Hahahaha not rly i mean with enuf people and enuf time pretty much anythings possibl. And i have like a ton of new people who want 2 join my posse. i had like 4 before and im intervuing and testing like 20 people who want 2 join. Ur kinda bringing us together u know? That doesnt usually happen. We kinda do our own thing a lot So thats cool. Peace/up ]
A few hours later, Helen parked at the pawn shop and went in on shaking legs—shaking because of her illness and shaking because of anxiety. She didn’t know how Egemon would react to what she had to say, but she was determined to say it anyway.
Egemon was checking out a customer. He welcomed her with a pleased smile, but then he saw her determined expression and took on a quizzical look. “What’s happening?” he asked as the customer scanned her e-paper.
“I’ve just been thinking, that’s all,” she said.
“Uh-oh. That can be serious.” He half-grinned. To the customer, he said, “Have a nice day.”
Helen let the woman exit, then nervously launched into what she’d been pondering for the past few hours. “Have you ever heard the phrase carpe diem, ‘seize the day’? Because tomorrow we die?”
“Yeah, sure, I have heard this.” He took his e-cig out of his pocket and took a drag. He leaned on his elbows on the counter, attentive.
“I started thinking about it today because someone posted an image on my Whatsit profile with it,” Helen said. “I’ve never liked it, not really. I don’t like the emphasis on a single day. It’s always made me feel hopeless. Because what can you actually do in a day? Nothing big, anyway.”
Egemon’s dark eyes glittered with amusement. “Go on,” he said.
She took his easy pleasure in her words as a good sign and forged ahead.
“But when I saw it today, I started thinking about how it relates to what I’ve been doing. You know, everything you’ve helped me with. And I’ve decided I like the idea of seizing eternity. Live like you’re never going to die. Because if you can live forever, then nothing’s impossible, and there’s nothing to be afraid of. There’s nothing you shouldn’t try.”
“I like it,” Egemon said.
“I realized I’ve been doing it all wrong, all this time. All I’ve ever done is struggle to get by. I’ve just focused on the day to day, on survival. Which is exactly the wrong thing to focus on.”
She found herself kicking at the floor like a nervous schoolgirl and made herself stop.
“So, in the spirit of all of that… seizing eternity and all…” She took a deep breath and laughed at herself. He was happy to see her—she could see that—so she didn’t need to be so anxious, and yet she was. “I came to see if your invitation for coffee still stands.”
His face broke into a smile. “All of that for coffee?” he asked teasingly. “Yes, of course. Let me lock up and we will go.”
He came out from behind the counter and winked at her as he passed very near to her.
The way between them was open now, for better or worse, and in that openness, desire suddenly flickered into life. Suddenly, Helen couldn’t take her eyes off his well-muscled body.
Egemon went to the door, changed the sign to say CLOSED, and locked up. Then he turned around and s
aw Helen waiting for him, and something in her gaze stopped him where he stood.
Electricity played in the air between them, the electricity of desire and expectation. Helen was captivated by its charge. She nearly stopped breathing. She wanted his body against hers—now.
And he seemed to know exactly what she wanted.
He came to her quickly and put his lips to hers.
Afterward, they lay with their bodies comfortably intertwined on Egemon’s bed in the back of the shop. Helen felt at ease. He had been a passionate and appreciative lover, and he looked relaxed and comfortable now.
Simply being near him was the most calming and restorative experience she’d had in years. Soothed by his warm animal closeness, her mind was free to tumble through her recent realization.
“This Robin Hood thing,” Helen said thoughtfully to the ceiling, “it’s about looking life and death in the eye and saying ‘I’m in charge. I decide how I’m going to live. Period.’”
“I like where your decisions have brought you,” Egemon said.
She swatted him on the chest and smiled.
“This is the whole point of life, you know that? If we’re given a beautiful sunset and we don’t look at it, we might as well be dead.” She rolled over and admired his strong face, his shadowed eyes. She spoke emphatically. “You are a beautiful sunset. And I want to admire you as long as I can.”
He stroked her hair, his eyes half-closed, his full lips in half-smile. “I had no idea you were so poetic. And morbid.”
She grinned, but she also fretted. Was it right to keep the whole truth from him?
“When I say as long as I can…” She hedged. “I don’t think I should do this for very long.”
“That decision is not so good,” he said with a half-serious frown.
She let out a long breath. She didn’t want to burden him with the truth. “My time is short, okay? I didn’t become the Robin Hood Thief with the expectation of a long life. And I don’t want you to get too attached to me.”
“Are you a puppy? That my father will not let me keep?”
She laughed quietly. “Stop it. I’m being serious.”
“So am I.” He took a long drag from his e-cig. “Listen to yourself. You just said a while ago that you want to seize eternity. Start things as if you will be there to live them out. Why can’t I do that as well? Anyway, no one knows how long we will have to live.”
I do, she thought bitterly. Thirteen days.
He sat up. “Listen. I like you. So, too late. Too bad. You will just have to live with it. Anyway, I will go back to prison in a couple of months. This isn’t long for either of us, right? But for now, I need to go open back up. I will order us something to eat.”
It might have sounded dismissive, but he leaned over and kissed her with such warmth and feeling that it took away her breath and any objection she could have mustered.
12 Days
Helen spent much of the next day with Egemon at the pawn shop, keeping him company while he did business and met with customers—some criminal and some otherwise. She made a game of guessing which was which, and then, after each customer, she asked Egemon whether she was right, and he teased her relentlessly when she was wrong. It felt good to joke and laugh.
He was easy to be with. She wasn’t accustomed to comfortable, casual affection and attention.
When she told him she needed to get back home, he let her go with a firm, warm kiss and a “Good luck.”
It was good, she decided—good to have a friendly face and an occasional refuge from the ongoing crisis of her life, no stress and no strings attached.
KK been looking into it. Its basically a little more complicated than i was thinking. Like actually its impossible on any larger scale. Because heres the thing. The real property deed records are held by the county clerks and theres three thousand and seveenteen of those across the country and they have their data on various server farms or on third party cloud servers and then theres the backups. Theres just
Helen’s heart began a gradual descent toward her stomach, which turned cold. At the same time, frustration tightened her chest. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since Cobalt had assured her that anything was possible.
She read and reread the dismal email on the library projcom, and then another message came through, a longer one:
Sorry. Hit send by accident.
So theres no way we can blow up three thousand and sevetteen courthouses all at the same time. And it has to be the same time or they would jsut call in the cops for wehvever we hadnt hit yet. Plus we would have to get the bank records as well. These huge banks have most of the mortgages and they have databases all over the country holding the morgage records. Lots of backups too.
And we cant get every mortage. I mean there are thousands of small banks that do mortgages. A lot of them have their data on shared servers and it would basically be a terible idea to blow them up because then we blow up a whole bunch of other stuff. Like who knows what. Medical records and stuff.
I dont think we can go after the biggest bank, CoUS. Their security is rly good. Besides if we fail to blow up even one backup and they can restore then we fail %100. So we should try I think three of the large ones that can add up that are more local to Florida. Im guessing u want to do Flrida since u live there.
Hyperius, Delton, and Orange County Bank. If u put em together they have %35 of the mortgages in Orlando. And their total number of server farms and backups for all three banks is eleven from what we can tell so far.
So then my posses thinking we should go after those three banks and then go after just the Orlando county clerks. Thats like nineteen courthouses which is a lot more doable.
The message was so difficult to parse, Helen was forced to read it three times. Then she sat back with a sigh to contemplate what Cobalt had said.
The kid was planning to blow up county courthouses to take out the real property deeds. And the servers for the top three banks. With both, they would take out thirty-five percent of the mortgage records in Orlando, if all went well.
Thirty-five percent of Orlando was a profound disappointment when she was hoping for all the mortgages in the nation.
[ Why are we even talking about blowing up government buildings? I’m sorry, I’m kind of at a loss here, this is so unexpected. I was imagining hacking, not bombing buildings. ]
[ Yeah well what would tyler durden do? ]
Helen stared at the message in confusion.
[ Sorry, what? ]
[ Nevermind Anyway, we cant just delete the data becuz deleted data a lot of times isnt rly deleted. It can be recovered unless u drestoyr the physical hard drives. Thats why we need the Boom Boys. U know abt them right ]
[ Yeah. I read up about you guys. What you did at the courthouse, what was that, a week or two ago? Okay. So we have to blow up … thirty buildings all at the same moment? How are we supposed to pull that off? Have you guys ever done something that big? ]
[ well it cant be soon. Three four days minimum. ]
[ Okay. Well, I told you to let me know what was doable, and if this is it, then so be it. We’re not going to hurt anyone, right? We need to do this at night when no one is there so that no one gets hurt. And make sure debris doesn’t fall on neighboring buildings where there might be people. ]
[ KK yeah peace/up ]
[ Wait. I want to help, too. This is all my idea and I want to take equal responsibility. ]
[ Yeah all rRght. OK u cn blow up the Hyperius building i guess. Peace/up ]
Helen closed the browser with a strange sensation in her chest.
It took a few minutes for it to sink in. The old Helen-of-the-high-road was distant now, an artifact of a life that had already passed away. This Helen, the one with twelve days left to live, was about to blow up buildings.
She’d maybe changed a little in the past few weeks.
She went to see Egemon after that, but she didn’t tell him the plan. Maybe she harbored doubts abo
ut it, or maybe she didn’t want to worry him, or maybe she didn’t want to risk incriminating him… or maybe it was all of the above.
Helen stared at the parking lot around her in utter confusion. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
After spending a few more hours with Egemon, she’d decided to drive home. She’d driven the usual route and entered the gate code and parked in her usual spot in the parking lot near the rusting green dumpsters and gotten out of the car, but something about where she stood was wrong. Something was out of place.
She recognized it here. The sprawling parking lot full of potholes with too few street lights, the dumpsters poorly shielded behind a collapsing fence. That one tree, struggling above asphalt, reaching for the sky, but bent and gnarled since birth. She recognized it.
Except the asphalt was newer than she remembered. That was odd.
David would be inside…
Something snapped tight into focus inside her mind.
David was dead.
She hadn’t lived here in years.
A hot flush came over her as she hurried to get back into her car and drive away with shaking hands.
10 Days
Helen didn’t speak of her episode to Egemon the next day, which she spent at the pawn shop again, but she worried about how her faculties were deteriorating and what that might cost her before the end.
After some thought, she sent Cobalt another message: [ I still want to help with the bank job, but only help. Someone else needs to head it up. I realized I shouldn’t be responsible for too much when I don’t really have this skill set. ]
Cobalt sent back only a simple [ OK ].
That done, Helen’s thoughts turned to her daughter. Mandy had hardly spoken to Helen since the night she’d come home injured and interrupted the make-out session in the hallway. And Helen couldn’t live with the silence and distance anymore. Not with just ten days left.
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