King of Code

by CD Reiss

  “I was going to use a shiny teapot or something. Hack life, Harper. Not just computers.”

  “I’ll make a note.”

  “Yesterday. About Everett.”

  “You apologized already.”

  “It’s a shitty plan. But I understand it. It’s not about money. It’s about maintenance.”

  “Yes.”

  “And also, you’re cute when you lie. Your nose turns up just a little.”

  She tapped my nose from the step above and whispered, “You don’t know the whole plan.”

  I was a pawn in a chess game, and I should have been worried about being used without consent. I should have wondered when I was going to be sacrificed. But I was just curious how much bigger this thing was.

  She wasn’t going to tell me. I would have to play along until I could figure it out myself.

  I unblocked her way, and we went to the kitchen together. Catherine was nowhere in sight, but her presence was felt in the hissing coffee pot and the two mugs she’d left in front of it.

  I picked up the phone receiver.

  Harper ran her finger along my waistband and shifted it down. I was glad she couldn’t see my boner from behind.

  Deeprak was on the phone in two minutes. “What do you have for me, my friend? It’s getting fucked up over here.”

  “What kind of fucked up?”

  An important question since the person holding me hostage was stroking my lower back with her fingernails and it was driving me crazy.

  “Your devil investor’s AWOL. I liked it better when I could see what he was doing.”

  “He’ll be happy when he gets back. You ready for decryption?”

  “Ready.”

  Harper read the characters to me, tracing each one with her finger.

  “124 131 064 040 164 150 145 040 163 160 157 157 156 163.”

  “Done,” she said then whispered, “It’s octal, by the way.”

  “Who’s that with you?” Deeprak asked. “Is that Harper Watson?”

  In other words, are you sleeping with the enemy? Which, technically, I was.

  “Can you just keystroke, please?”

  She continued, and Deeprak read it back, which I repeated back to Harper in the oldest game of telephone. I decoded the octal in the translations.

  I looked over my shoulder as she flipped her hair, inadvertently exposing her ear. I didn’t mind the missing diamond. She looked better without them. More naked.

  “You’re welcome.”

  She smiled. The octal converted into “Thank you for the spoons,” and she was very, very welcome.

  “Yeah, no,” Deeprak said. “I’m getting nothing. Can I have it again?”

  “Can you call it again?” I asked Harper.

  We did it again.

  “No.” Deeprak’s voice was soft with dread. “And I’m getting a new message at the prompt.”

  Standing straighter, I turned to Harper. I must have been pale or something because she put down her coffee cup and grabbed for the phone. I shooed her hand, but she pulled my arm down until our ears shared the receiver.

  “What message?” I said.

  “Enter decryption code to boot OS, colon, backslash, then this: ‘System will lock after two more failed attempts.’ Then the prompt.”

  “No.” Harper snapped the receiver away. “That’s not right. I didn’t put a lock against a brute force attack. I didn’t have to. I’m generating codes on the fly.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Random is built into quantum trinary. Selective decryption is—”

  “It’s you!” Deeprak shouted “Put Taylor on!”

  She gave me the phone. I held it between us so we could both hear.

  “It’s me,” I said.

  “Have you lost it, brother?”

  “I can hear you,” Harper said.

  “She can hear you.”

  “This is bad,” she said with a shaky voice. “I didn’t set that up.”

  “You’ve done enough.” Deeprak sounded as mad as I’d ever heard him sound.

  “Deeps, listen—”

  “Keaton did it,” he and I said at the same time.

  “He’s been hooked up to the sys on his own machine for days.” Deeprak’s cool, sweet charm was dissolving under the stress. Harper leaned away from the phone and crossed her arms, looking into the middle distance and biting her lower lip while Deeprak continued his rant in my ear. “Fucker. Fucking evil-ass motherfucker said he was trying to crack through. He was locking it. Next time, Taylor, get a goddamn bank to invest all right?”

  “Where did he go?” I asked. It was the last calmly thought-out question I had. My last hope that all this was some kind of mistake Keaton could clear up if he was around. Maybe he was developing a workaround and had to put a layer of encryption over the Harperware to finish. Maybe this was simple. Maybe I could just hold the ocean in a five-gallon bucket if I stayed calm.

  “How should I know?” Deeprak’s voice shook. “Jesus. Fucking. Christ.”

  Calm broke under pressure from chaos. Jesus fucking Christ was right. The world went a little whiter, as if it went under an overexposure filter, washing in white and yellow. Details got warmer before my eyes, dissolving into bright fury.

  “Know, Deeprak. Know. Find out. Don’t panic without a reason. Don’t go code black over what you think is happening.”

  I slammed the phone into the cradle. It made a sickly yet satisfying little ring from inside the case. I picked it up and slammed it down again.

  “Taylor?” Harper had her phone clutched to her chest like a buoy on the open sea.

  “What?!”

  “How could he talk to QI4 if it’s not binary?”

  “My guess?” I leaned into her, and she backed up against the doorframe. “He’s hooked up to your fucking poison pill.”

  As she still clutched the phone to her chest, her pupils dilated just a little as if taking in extra information. Or because I cast her in shadow.

  I put my hands up, not touching her, but extending the moment before I did.

  I was so mad at her I couldn’t even think. I was clouded with hot red rage. It latched on to every emotion I already had, all the affection and warmth, filling all the places where I’d let her in. All the empathy I had for her. My anger found purchase on those and grew to infiltrate anything decent.

  Her butter skin. Her lips. Her dark-to-light lashes. Hurt it. I wanted to hurt it so my anger had a place to go. If I didn’t eat her alive, I was going to digest myself in my own acid.

  And that phone to her chest, like a black monolith from deep space. I wanted to rip it away and throw it in the thorn bed then shred both our bodies wading to it. We’d be one thing. A single monster made of anger, blood, and brutality.

  I wasn’t even thinking straight. I’d lost a battle with sense and patience. Logic had jumped to its death rather than be in the same room with what I’d let in.

  The little boat rocking on the flat circle of horizon. The pressure. The physical compression of my infinite speckness. I needed a lifeline to a point in the distance. Any point. I needed to know I wasn’t cut off, because if this went on much longer, I was going to lose my mind.

  “Can you get to him? Keaton? Can you—”

  “Not without my phone.” I put angry emphasis on the last word, filling it with all the blame and regret I could get into one syllable. “Fuck this.”

  I pushed away with the force of everything left in me that was civilized and decent. It wasn’t that hard a push. It had just enough torque to get me away from her, turn me, and propel me toward the back of the house. To the bed of thorns that covered my phone.

  “Taylor?” she called from a miles-long tunnel.

  I heard her but kept my pace to the back of the house, slapping open the screen door and heading into the chilly, humid late morning. The clouds were low and oppressive. I opened the shed, and the stink of mildew and rotting wood hit me square in the face as if it could stop me
. I plucked a pair of rusted, scissor-shaped hedge clippers from a nail on the wall.

  When I turned back to the door and tried to walk out, Harper appeared in a goose-down vest the color of rust.

  I reared back, almost stabbing her. “Jesus! Harper, get out of the way.”

  She moved. “I’m sorry,” she said as I unlocked the blades. “I’m sorry this happened. I’m sorry it was my pill. But let’s figure it out.”

  “Sure.” I gripped the handles, but the hinge was loose and they flopped and waved. “That’s great. Positive attitude. I had it all under control but no fucking problem.” I tried to twist the little screw holding the two halves of the scissors together, but I couldn’t narrow my attention. “Everything. I had everything. Knee-fucking-deep in money. I had the legs of every credit card company wide open, and I walked away to go straight. For this.”

  The nut came off the clippers and the halves split. I caught one as it fell. I held them by the handles like giant pointer fingers. I must have looked like Edward Scissorhands.

  “For this.” I pointed a blade into the horizon. The direction of QI4. “This useless hunk of code. And if you think it’s anything better than useless right now, you’re not thinking. It’s been hacked twice. Twice.”

  I held up both rusted blades at the grey sky, and as if in answer, a rumble of thunder came from far away. A raindrop fell on my forehead.

  “What do you want?” I asked the sky. The wind picked up in answer. “Tell me what you want out of me!”

  “We don’t have long,” Harper said from a million miles away. “Your phone’s going to get wet.”

  Of course. Because everything was fucked up. Because every single lucky break I’d gotten my entire life, from my first steps off the brick stoop when my father caught me before I smacked my head to the sweet parking spot in front of Anglioni’s, was being paid back in spades right now.

  And what had my life been but a series of fucking lucky breaks if I couldn’t tolerate a few bumps in the road?

  It was a lie. All of it was a lie.

  I choked out the shortest expression of what flooded me, throwing the blades into the bushes. First one, then the other, disappeared with a rustle as if swallowed by the ocean.

  “I am worthless.”

  “You’re not,” she protested.

  I didn’t want to hear it. Not a word of it. I hadn’t said it so she could make me feel better. That would have been needy. Taylor Harden was a fuckup and a lie, but he wasn’t needy.

  Harper stepped toward me as if she was going to hug me or some shit.

  I put my hand out like a crossing guard. “Don’t. Don’t get all girly and squishy on me. Don’t expect me to cry on your shoulder while you pat my back and say it’s going to be all right. It’s not going to be all right. I don’t need a fucking hug.”

  She looked at me as if I was made of shit and chicken liver. “I wasn’t going to hug you.”

  This woman.

  “What then?”

  She approached again. Came right up to me. Took half a pause and slapped me in the face. “Snap out of it. Everyone’s worthless. Don’t be such a baby about it.”

  My wrist went to my stung left cheek. I was stunned she’d slapped me and equally surprised that it had worked. The mantra of worthlessness that looped in my head stopped and was replaced with complete attention to the moment. The situation. The stillness of the air. The faraway rush of the polluted river.

  I didn’t know what I looked like to her, but I wasn’t frightening enough to scare her or sad enough to melt her into empathy. She was waiting like a blank page. I could write whatever I wanted. She was doing that for me. Like the slap in the face, her openness was a gift, and I could open it…or not.

  I lived in a world of butting heads and chest-beating, dick-slinging competition.

  And here, Harper had slapped me and left herself exposed. She hadn’t slapped me to win. She was trying to help me.

  “Huh.” My utterance was the breath of a pressurized jar popping open.

  Her eyebrow twitched with curiosity. She was utterly fearless.

  I was so fucking crazy about this girl. I was losing my mind, and I didn’t know how much longer I could fight it. I wanted to save myself, sure. But I wanted to lift her up. Show the world what they’d missed out on. Present her like a jewel in a box then keep her for myself.

  But I had nothing.

  I was a loser.

  That wasn’t going to do her any good, now was it? She deserved better. She needed better. She needed a win, and I was going to get it for her.

  I went back into the shed. Adjusted to the darkness of the places under shelves and behind busted doors. Found another pair of clippers that wouldn’t even open. Tossed them. Found the best tool for the job.

  A chainsaw. The gas gauge was at the quarter-full mark.

  “I’m nobody. I’m just a kid from Jersey.”

  “What are you doing?” Harper asked when I came out.

  I yanked the cord. The engine coughed. “We’ve both been fucked.” Yank. Cough. “And you want Fitz. I can get you Fitz.” Yank. Cough cough. “I’ll suck his dick myself. But you’re not sucking it. Put your last dollar on that.” Yank. Sputter. Cough. “I lost everything. I’m not losing you.”

  Yank. Roar.

  The rain thickened to a fine mist that swirled around the chainsaw blade. Harper had her arms crossed over her tits and her mouth set into a line. I waited a second with the chainsaw held up. She knew what I was going to do, but she didn’t stop me.

  I reached over the little white fence and slashed at the thorn bush bed. Shards of wood flew up, stinging my cheek as I cut away the branches.

  Harper put her hand on my back and pointed at the scraps of tangled shrubbery. She had on gloves and goggles.

  I nodded.

  She reached over the fence and pulled up an armful of bushes. I cut a crooked umbilical cord and she hauled the bunch away before throwing it to the side.

  Space had opened up inside the fence. I stepped over it, into the little circle of dirt, and cut that fucking shit right out of the earth, slicing at the trunks, squinting to protect my eyes. I thought a raindrop fell from my forehead, but when I wiped it away, it was blood.

  Harper barely paused, and I only stopped when I had to get the chainsaw out of the way or risk taking off one of her limbs.

  “I think you have to go a little left.”

  I followed the angle of her arm. “Yeah.”

  I sliced the bushes. We’d gotten about a third of the way to the center of the bed when the thunder was coming less than three seconds after the lightning. The raindrops got fatter. The chainsaw was running on fumes when it hit something hard and snapped the chain. The motor kept on with a whirr.

  “What was that?” I put the chainsaw down and pulled the tangle of branches away from the hard object that had broken the blade. It was a marble tombstone.

  EARL BARRINGTON

  1945 - 2010

  B/LØXD FATHER

  There was nothing notable about the stone except the chips and cracks in the word beloved.

  “Harper?”

  “I forgot to mention.” She was right behind me. “There are gravestones from this point on to the edge of the fence. It’s the family plot.”

  “This your father?” I pointed at the headstone that had broken the chainsaw.

  “The one and only. May he rest in peace. Or not. Whatever. Can we keep going?”

  “Who added the extra carving?”

  “I got a little drunk.” She slid the goggles up to the top of her head. Her hair stuck out from around the elastic like a crown. “He was nice to everyone’s face. Played at being their pal like a phony baloney, and they fell for it. I’m sorry, but they were suckered.” She waved at the factory over the horizon. “Even Catherine. He kept laying people off and dumping the extra work on whoever was left. Long hours. No overtime. They did it with these big proud smiles because they felt like they were special, you k
now? ‘Sure, I’m overworked and got my health insurance cut. And well, of course he fought Fred McGee on his worker’s comp. That’s just business. But I’m special because I got to stay.’ He was a shit. Acted like he was one of the guys. Then he’d throw all his employees a picnic and make it potluck. What a bag of goods.” She kicked the headstone, but the density of the thorns behind it kept it from falling. Not to be thwarted, she rattled her throat and spit on the grave. It dripped then rerouted into the carved letters. “Fuck you. You fooled everyone. You never fooled me.”

  “Don’t hold back, Harper. Tell him how you feel.”

  She slid her goggles back down. “This is why she let the bushes grow. Hiding my vandalism.”

  “I like your vandalism.”

  With a thunder crack, the rain came harder.

  “Shit!” we cried at the same time.

  The phone was going to get drowned. I crouched, bending to see under the bracken. The earth was still dry—but not for long. Harper got to her belly and crawled forward into it.

  “I can see it,” she called.

  I pulled on a thick, thorny joint, opening the tunnel a little wider. She crawled, disappearing to the waist. Thorns grabbed her vest, shredding it. When I wiped my face with my wrist, it came back bloody. Great. I didn’t care if I got a little cut up, but I didn’t want Harper to bleed. Not to get my phone.

  I was about to tell her to forget it. We’d cut back more or tarp the thing and wait for the rain to clear. I wanted the phone, but I didn’t want her to get shredded.

  “Harper?”

  “So close.”

  “Come back.”

  “Almost… ow!”

  That was it. I hooked my hand in her waistband and pulled her out. She slid on the dirt, vest shredding, light as a feather, pants moving below her sexy ass. When her head was free, she twisted and faced the rain.

  My phone was in her bloody hand.

  “Ha! I got it!”

  I pulled her up by the wrists and flung my arms around her, kissing her as if my life depended on it. Her scent mingled with the rain as two parts of the same nourishment. Ozone. Water. A life in latency.

  She put the phone in my front pocket and got her arms around me. The rain fell between us, catching some of the blood from my cut, going into our mouths. It tasted like copper pennies. It tasted like her. She was falling from the sky.