Watch Dogs

by John Shirley

  Pearce got out his phone, quickly went into the ctOS power interface—and turned off the power for the whole block.

  The room went dark—the whole house did too, Pearce assumed. The men in the hall shouted.

  Pearce went to the tall front windows, opened them, kicked out a screen, slid through, and dropped onto the front porch. He glanced around, saw no one on the street. It was pitch dark except for a little light from the next street down. There was shouting from upstairs.

  “Who’s gotta flashlight? One of you assholes find a flashlight!”

  Pearce chuckled to himself and tossed the butcher knife into a drainage grate. Better get out of here fast.

  He crossed to the Ford Explorer, got in, and drove off, not turning on his lights till he was around the corner.

  He hoped Wolfe had taken his advice and gone home.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Should’ve taken Pearce’s advice...

  Wolfe pulled into a random driveway of this suburban neighborhood off the main drag. He killed the engine and got out into the cold night, hearing the sirens keening nearer.

  He glanced up at the lamp posts. There were the ctOS cameras. Chances are his phone had scrambled his appearance—but it hadn’t disguised the car they were looking for.

  Wolfe hurried down the street, looking for a hackable car. There, a Lexus. That’d work.

  He used the proximity sensor when he got near the car, told its doors to unlock. It beeped softly at him and he got in, started it with the phone, backed out, and drove down the street.

  But looking in the rearview he saw gumball lights spinning, a few blocks down. Looked like at least three patrol cars. He heard the sirens, then. For sure they’d gotten a report the SUV was stolen. And the ctOS had probably seen him change cars.

  He could try and outrun them, but that usually didn’t work out, and then trying to operate the PearcePhone while driving—notoriously, a disastrous thing to do in itself.

  He could just pull over, on the theory that they were looking for another vehicle. But they’d have his description and no way they wouldn’t check him out on their way. Especially now that the Chicago cops were hip to guys like Pearce and Wolfe “borrowing” cars, and changing them up.

  He turned at the corner, hoping they’d drive by...but two of them screeched to a halt at the intersection...

  Wolfe pulled over, hoping to bluff this out somehow.

  Then his phone vibrated.

  He pulled it out, as the cops turned in the intersection...

  Steam started rising from a manhole cover—and suddenly it erupted upward, a water main geyser gushing up out it, knocking the steel cover into the front of the oncoming patrol car. The car ground to a halt, its engine totaled. Another manhole blew...and another water main shot its geyser into the sky, deflecting the second cop car. The street was almost submerged in spurting water, churning with steam and flooding.

  Wolfe could just see the outlines of the cops getting out of their cars, baffled, backing away...

  Wolfe answered the phone. “That you, Pearce? You blow up those watermains somehow?”

  “Yep. Got my system monitoring CPD—and Tranter. He called in your car. Said it was probably stolen...And it is stolen. So...I came out to see what I could do. Watched through the cameras, hacked into the hydraulic public works control.”

  “What do I do now?”

  “Get out of that car. Your phone’ll blur the cameras—I’ve reset it to do that at the moment. Head into that alley behind the houses. I’m coming to get you...”

  Wolfe got out of the SUV, ran to the right, into the broad alley between the houses. Dogs barked at him. The lights suddenly dimmed around him—Pearce had blacked the area out.

  A car was turning into the alley up ahead.

  Wolfe stepped out of the way and a black Ford Explorer pulled up. The driver’s side window hummed down.

  “Get in, ya dumbjack, fast!” Pearce shouted.

  Wolfe ran around the Explorer, the door opened and he climbed in.

  Pearce started backing down the alley. He knocked over a couple of garbage cans in the dimness, then they were on the cross street, turning, and racing off toward the Southside of town.

  “Grampus is dead,” Pearce said, the way another guy would say, “It’s raining again.”

  “You killed him?”

  “Yeah. I got in and stabbed him. Quieter.”

  “Pearce,” Wolfe said, looking out the back window, “I thought Somalia was stressful. But you know what? Getting into your scene, in Chicago—that might be worse.”

  “You get used to it,” Pearce said, yawning. “Man I need to go home and lay down.”

  #

  Wolfe was sleeping in on the sofa bed when Pearce called—the PC switched on and he heard Pearce’s voice. “Hey, hotshot. Get your ass up.” Pearce’s face was on the PC monitor.

  Wolfe swung his feet onto the floor. “You bring coffee?”

  “Are you joking?”

  “Naturally. What’s up?” Wolfe got up, and boiled some water in the microwave.

  “I finally got that encrypted message Grampus sent out decrypted...He says—well here, read it...”

  Wolfe hastily dumped some instant coffee in his hot water, swirled it, tasted it, grimaced, drank some more as he went to the PC. He read the decryption Pearce provided in a note window:

  I did my part. I killed Pearce. Tranter might not be convinced of it but I am. No one has proved the vigilante isn’t dead. And what I am saying, boss, is that when the project kills hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people, it’s going to bring the New World Order right down on our asses, the US gov will come for us and they’re not gonna neglect me. They got me on their list. That guy at the Purity talk today was probably some federal agent. Hiding me here from him is only good for so long. I’m gonna need a way out of the country and plenty of money...

  “Holy shit,” Wolfe said.

  “That’s what I said too, coincidentally,” Pearce told him dryly.

  “Maybe millions of people...”

  “Give or take a few hundred thousand. These assholes are either completely delusional—or they’re a serious threat.”

  “We have to tell Homeland Security about this, man. Connect it up with this ‘Purity’ thing for them...”

  “I would. Anonymously. Except that General Van Ness is involved in this and he has deep connections to Homeland Security. And the Dousch Brothers are involved—judging by what you told me when I was driving you back to the safehouse. And the Dousch Brothers have huge influence over media. We need more evidence, not just your word on it. This decryption could be faked up, for all they know. It’s not like the feds are going to listen to you, the guy with a year in the military penitentiary...or me. We also need to know what they’re up to. He doesn’t say how it’s going to happen. And there was no reply to the email. But I have got something else that might bring the whole thing down. If we can get hold of it. My source in DedSec says there’s a big file that could soon be leaked by DedSec, implicating Verrick and Van Ness in the murder of a CIA agent...”

  “A woman named Medina?”

  “I don’t have the agent’s name yet. But that’s probably it. Because you’re in these files too. Only this isn’t happening right this minute—DedSec is going to lengths to try and confirm that the file’s the real deal.”

  “At least they think you’re dead.”

  “Seems like they’re conflicted about that. I know the feeling.”

  “Who did Grampus send that message to?”

  “Haven’t got a name. It’s an email that’s listed as one of about fifty screen names used by Iceberg Investments. But there’s no name associated with it, no matter how I dig—which is freaky in itself. I do know where it was picked up though. A place out in the country...A place belonging to the Blume Corporation. They used it to demonstrate a Blume SmartHouse design.”

  “Who’s staying out there?”

  “To find out, one
of us has to go out there. And the guy who pretends to be my doctor...he did used to be a doctor...he says I’ve gotta to take it easy for a few days. So let’s see. Who does that leave?”

  #

  The text startled Seline. Not the chime that announced it—what startled her was the message.

  She was sitting in a coffee shop, just finishing breakfast, when the text came in. It made her feel glad she was facing the door.

  Hey. We’re feeling very positive about document but someone else feeling negative. Seems like they’re trying to find you. They got worried she gave you something. Am hiding out. Grimmy too. You better. Use special key I gave you. Send inquiries from internet cafés. Never same one twice. Destroy this phone. Watch back. Trying to arrange definitive DS action on this.

  GlowWorm

  Seline felt the hair rising on the back of her neck.

  She glanced up at the windows of the busy café. They were steamed from coffee pots and a bit grimy. She could see only blurry outlines of people passing on the sidewalk—which looked pretty sinister.

  If she read this text right, GlowWorm was saying that whoever had killed her friend Ruth Medina was now looking for Seline Garnera. And they probably weren’t looking for Seline so they could make friends.

  There were more delays on DedSec uploading the material. Maybe because they’d gotten word that Seline was being hunted, and GlowWorm too. So they were being extra careful to cover their asses before uploading.

  Roger Verrick and General Van Ness would be behind this. They probably wondered if Ruth Medina had shared anything from her files on the rip off of all that money in Somalia. And the set-up of a certain Mick Wolfe.

  So they asked themselves, who would it have been?

  “Oh, Ruth Medina? She had only one real friend on the ship...”

  They were looking to clean house, it seemed, by sweeping away Seline Garnera.

  Better get rid of this phone, fast. Apparently she could be traced through it...traced in person.

  Seline got up, put on her coat, grabbed her purse, put some money on the table and hurried to the lady’s room. There she smashed her cell phone between the seat and rim of a toilet, as if the hinged seat were a nutcracker. She took the circuit board out, tossed the rest in the trash. She took the circuit board with her, and left the coffee shop, hurrying out into the sunny but cold November morning. She bought a cigarette lighter in a tobacco shop, and went behind the building. She put the phone’s circuit board on the edge of a trash can, and used the lighter to burn it, holding the flame on it till it melted. Then she tossed it in the trashcan.

  She still had a way to get in touch with GlowWorm. He’d given her a flashdrive to use for contacting him, in exchange for the one she’d made of the Medina files.

  Later. She had to get her luggage and...

  No. She had everything she really needed with her. Three hundred dollars in cash, passport, a small pistol—all in her purse. She’d have to abandon that bag, at least for now. She’d buy new clothes. And maybe a wig. Change her appearance as much as she could.

  Seline walked quickly out of the alley, and onto the street. Now where?

  She just started walking. Random movement seemed best, for now.

  Was the organization hinted at in the file really planning to hunt her down, and kill her?

  She didn’t have any doubt they were capable of it. The file had made it clear they were murderers, completely ruthless, and highly secretive.

  The more she thought about it, the more her stomach tightened.

  They might be watching her right now—through ctOS.

  She saw a store with wigs in the display window. That’d be a start. She’d need new clothes, after that, and dark glasses...

  And then what? She could leave town. But GlowWorm hadn’t recommended that. Maybe for a reason.

  And how would she rent a car, or take a plane or train, without the organization being able to trace her?

  For now, she would stay put in “the city of big shoulders”. Chicago was a big town. And she just might find some more allies here...

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Wolfe could see his own breath shining in the sunlight.

  The sky was blue—ice blue. The sun was in its winter declination, pale and low in the sky, though its light glinted on patches of snow in the meadow.

  He had his hoodie on under his coat, the hood up, but it didn’t do much for the cold stinging his ears.

  Mostly, Wolfe was concentrating on staying alert, watching the sky, and looking for cameras. While they were too far from town for ctOS cameras, the property could well have its own...

  His boots crunched frozen stalks of grass as he skirted the meadow, staying under cover of the trees as much as he could. There wasn’t much foliage in those barren branches to hide him—and when he saw the UAV he had to duck into a denser stand where several trees overlapped.

  The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle—a model similar to those Wolfe had controlled in Somalia—hummed by overhead, a few yards above the treetops, like some runaway from an extraterrestrial mothership. But he knew exactly what model of drone it was—a new, delta-shaped prototype he’d seen being tested on a secret base in Pakistan—and what it was capable of doing. It was smaller than most attack drones, and didn’’t have the elongated, missile-like shape of the Predator. This one was for specialized surveillance and targeting. It was only about twelve feet from snout to tail.

  Were those gun muzzles, projecting at a thirty degree angle from the bottom of the drone? Could be. Wolfe wasn’t certain at this distance.

  Wolfe pressed against the bole of a tree, and waited. Soon enough the drone moved on. That would seem to indicate it hadn’t spotted him...

  But it would see him, when it returned this way, if he weren’t careful.

  Keep moving. Keep watchful.

  Wolfe emerged from the woods into the clearing, but keeping close to the trees—and then he saw the dead deer. It was sprawled awkwardly, with only a few gnaw-marks on it where something had tried to feed in the night and a couple of bullet wounds on its flank and upper spine. Judging from the placement of the wounds, Wolfe figured the thing had been shot from above. From directly overhead.

  He shuddered, imagining himself sighted by the UAV. Followed. Hunted. Shot down that way.

  He hurried to the treeline, and on toward Blume’’s prototype smart house. Wolfe hoped he was going the right direction. The presence of the drone suggested that he wasn’t far away...

  He emerged from a stand of sugar maples, and saw he was just about fifty yards from the edge of a house; it was a spread-out, glassy, angular place, modern architectural-style, one-story. It was exactly where it should be—the smart house—it used a distributed control system, an intelligent network to govern all the devices in the house, right down to door locks, window shutters, lighting, voice activation systems. There were satellite dishes on the roof, and another control antenna, which rotated as Wolfe watched. It was probably there to control the drone.

  A brawny, heavy bellied man in a blue parka walked around the corner of the building, a Mack 10 over one shoulder. He was looking at his cell phone as he walked along. Probably reading a text from someone. The text might be business but more likely he was just doing a shitty job of being a sentry. A Graywater.

  Wolfe waited. The sentry wandered to a corner of the yard and sat down on a wooden bench, still looking into the screen of his phone. Still Wolfe waited.

  Minutes passed. No other sentry showed up.

  Just one sentry outside? Good. Overconfidence, maybe because of the drone. And those security cameras on the corners of the building.

  The presence of a Graywater made Wolfe suspect that Pearce’s info was right—that Verrick or Van Ness or both might well be in that building, right now.

  Tempting to go in there, gun blazing, and kill the sons of bitches, right now. Kill that sentry first, take his Mack 10...

  No. There was a threat to Chicago itself. Maybe to mill
ions of people. If he killed Verrick and Van Ness right now it might precipitate the attack—or send the other perpetrators into deeper cover, where it’d be harder to find out what they were up to. It couldn’t be just Van Ness and Verrick. There had been an auditorium full of “Purity” enthusiasts on 77th Street. And there was Winters to consider...

  Wolfe shook his head. He needed to gather all the information he could get about Purity’s plans...So he had to put some pressure on these guys without killing them.

  Might not be able to get by without killing that Graywater guard, though. He’d been reluctant to kill the Graywater mercs at the auditorium. Then he’d had to kill one. Now, he was a little less reluctant. Funny how that works, he thought.

  He was, by his own estimate, just out of range of the cameras on the house. Getting closer he was going to have to use the background scrambler. The PearcePhone would transmit digital imagery to the cameras that blurred him with the surroundings—but anyone looking closely at the security monitors would see the outline of a man. They wouldn’t know what man, though. And soon they’d know someone was around anyway...

  Wolfe set the scrambler, then moved off along the treeline, till he was behind the sentry. He drew his .45, sprinted across the grass and up to the wrought iron fence; he was just clambering over, when the sentry, alerted by the sound, turned around and gaped at Wolfe.

  “What the f—”

  The sentry was fumbling at his Mack 10 when Wolfe jumped down inside the fence, bringing the barrel of his gun down on the man’s head as he came.

  The gun connected solidly and the Graywater merc went down like a dropped feed sack.

  Wolfe was gratified to see that the man had handcuffs clipped to his belt. He pulled the Mack 10 free, put it over his own shoulder, then retrieved the cuffs. He cuffed one of the big man’s hands behind his back, the other to a post of the fence. Then he rushed to the house, pressing himself to a wall underneath a camera.

  He readied the PearcePhone, and scanned for the home automation server. Pearce had already run a password cracking program. Pearce entered the password, hacked the smart house, and then got a floor plan of the building from the server, indicating people in the rooms. The smart house was doing all his surveillance for him. Each room had a system to pick up voice prompts for the house computer. It could also be used to listen to people talking. Wolfe heard them on the small wireless earpod.