by Ryan Notch
“Hey Collin,” shouted Alex from the bathroom. “Tonight we’re gonna get you some girls for reals, bro.”
“Girls are the ones with the purses, right?” he shouted back. It was a running joke between them. At least it was a joke to Collin, though he thought Alex might be serious. It was all so relative. To Alex, who despite being married was a born chaser of tail, Collin was practically a virgin. To the guys down at the University, Collin was a consummate Don Juan.
The truth was somewhere in between. Collin had taught himself how to pick up girls the same way he’d taught himself all his other social skills, by imitating those who did it best. Once you learned the techniques and took fear out of the equation, picking up girls was easy. Everything was easy for Collin.
But he simply couldn’t compete with a guy like Alex. In the words of Rocky’s great coach, he had the talent but not the heart. Alex though, Alex had the heart for it. Alex’s days consisted of work, gym, tan. Not necessarily in that order and sometimes one of the three replaced with haircut. His slicked back hair was bulletproof, his six pack abs always complemented by a mean leather jacket. He looked like he was right out of Grease, except more Italian.
It seemed to Collin that Alex was always trying to help him pick up girls as an outlet for his one and only talent, which was effectively left in the garage like a cherry 1965 Mustang. Ready to drive but nowhere to go.
“Hey Alex, you think there’s gonna be a lot of Guidos down at the club tonight,” asked Collin, using a term that he knew drove Alex crazy.
“I told you bro,” said Alex stepping out from the bathroom momentarily to emphasize his point. “A Guido is a guy who gets too crazy with the Italian thing. Wanting to look good doesn’t make you a Guido.”
Collin looked over at Alex’s green white and red pool cue leaning in the corner and smiled, sharing a look of mischief with Noel.
“Yo Alex,” he replied to the man who had once again disappeared into the bathroom. “I feel like it’s a nature show in that new club you love. Like all the Guidos who somehow ended up in Boston somehow migrated by instinct to that one place. Instead of March of The Penguins it’s like March of The Guidos in there.”
Jack arrived to Alex’s apartment late, but knew Alex would still be getting ready anyway. He knocked and heard Noel shout “it’s open.” He walked in to find Collin at the kitchen table, Noel nearby in the kitchen. He could guess easy enough that Alex would be in the bathroom.
Collin didn’t even wait to say hello before jumping in on him.
“Hey Jack,” Collin said. “You’ve got that British BBC accent, give us some narration to the nature show March of The Guidos.”
Jack, being also fairly entertained by this aspect of American culture, didn’t miss a beat. He spoke in his best documentary voice.
“The North American Guido is an impressive species indeed. Spending many hours preening itself in an attempt to impress the elusive Guidette.”
At this Alex burst out of the bathroom exclaiming, “Why are you kids busting my balls here? Noel, are you just gonna let them do this to me?”
Collin started laughing, which Jack thought was the one window into Collin’s true self. It was absolutely an uncool laugh, the kind you heard at Star Trek conventions but not at sports stadiums. It seems to Jack that Collin couldn’t help it, he just loved making fun of people so much. His whole face lit up with it. Terra had once said to him in private that guys like Collin learned to be good at making fun of people so they could prove how much smarter they were than the tough guys, without getting beat up by them. Jack thought it made sense, like everything Terra said. But in this case he wasn’t so sure. Collin enjoyed making fun of people so much that Jack suspected he was born loving it. Like before he was born he made jokes about his womb. Not for the first time he thought that if Collin wasn’t so funny, people would think he was a complete asshole.
Though Terra’s theory was as good an explanation as any for the friendship of those two, Jack still couldn’t figure it out, and often just chalked it up to something about the diversity of America. Alex and Collin didn’t look alike, talk alike, think alike. With few exceptions they didn’t even seem to enjoy the same things. Alex was definitely a fun and cool guy, but a typical gear head. Girls, sports and cars so ingrained in his mind they would probably show up in an x-ray of his head. Collin, quick and insightful. Charming in a by-the-book way, just as his clothes were stylish in a by-the-book way, but always driving the conversation towards heavier and more thoughtful things. Almost as if he needed the information for something.
Despite their differences, you didn’t have to be around them for more than ten seconds to see they were close friends. Despite seeming to have nothing in common, they always seemed to be on the same wavelength like some friends were. Always a team. Their opposite traits more balancing each other out than conflicting.
Even now it was apparent as Jack watched them. Alex punching the air with nervous energy about tonight. Collin sitting calmly at the kitchen table next to Alex’s very cute wife Noel. Collin watching both Alex and Jack sharply, same as he watched everything. Paying total attention, like a hawk. Or maybe like a vulture...
Lately there was just a hint of something off between Collin and Alex. Not enough for Jack to bring up. As neighbors he liked the guys, but didn’t really feel close enough to either of them to talk about anything too serious or personal. But there was definitely some sort of tension there. He was pretty sure Terra had picked up the same thing, but she was keeping uncharacteristically quiet on the subject.
“Alright boys,” said Alex. “Let’s get this party on the road. You sure you don’t want to come with us babe?”
“No,” sighed Noel. “I’ve got a lot of work to do. Maybe I’ll meet up with you later.” This last part seemed obligatory, since Jack had never actually seen it happen.
“OK, see ya later then,” said Alex. He kissed her at the table while Collin looked demurely away. Collin seemed embarrassed by public displays of affection. Or if you judged by his current expression, maybe even annoyed by them.
“OK Jack,” Alex said as they headed out the door and Collin quietly said see you later to Noel. “You maybe think that accent of yours is gonna get all the ladies numbers tonight, but I’ve been teaching Collin my techniques. And those kids don’t stand a chance against these skills.”
Chapter 14
********************
The night after the incident with Walter and Valentine, Shaw took his pills again. Not all of them, just the tranquillizers that the staff had issued to everyone to calm them down. Enough to hide from his dreams, and to hide from his new reality. He didn’t want to face it, not right then.
He awoke the next day groggy and exhausted and afraid. Afraid to go out and face the situation. And afraid to face the asylum without Walter, his only remaining friend. He laid in bed as long as possible, avoiding the situation. But the orderlies ordered him up for morning pills, and though it was never a request, he could tell they were particularly on edge because of yesterday. Today they intended for there to be no more incidents.
He didn’t have to ask around to get details, all he had to do was listen to his fellow inmates in an impromptu early morning group therapy session. Beyond theories of alien infection or demon possession, the simple reality was Valentine dead, Walter in restraints.
Some of the inmates, including Theresa, had been at the asylum when Walter first arrived. Despite the therapist telling them not to, they talked about aspects of his history that Shaw hadn’t known. Walter had, it seemed, done this before. He had caught his childhood sweetheart having sex with his father. Apparently only the woman had survived, with some impairment.
Part of Shaw wanted to spend the day in bed, or watching TV, or doing anything to avoid this and make it so it wasn’t real. But there was only one place in the asylum where he could get away, where he could be someone other than an inmate. A place where he could escape to something no less terrible,
but which he could at least do something about. He went to the computer lab.
The web crawler had some promising hits, but nothing really definitive. It didn’t matter though, Shaw was no longer interested in looking for proof of what he already knew to be true. He knew what had happened at the university.
Now he wanted to know why.
In his dream Dr. Hemah had talked about his data. In the unpredictable ways of dream logic, Shaw knew exactly what that meant. Specifically, where there might still be a copy of the recorded signal.
The astronomers Brock enlisted for help in the triangulation. If they had progressed in the same rate as the others in the school who heard the signal, and if they had been as curious as Brock had been, they would have recorded their own copy of the signal. The question was, where would it be?
Not under their names, which he checked first. Too many of those, and private databases might not be on the searchable web anyway. Not on the e-zines, which was probably for the best. If the signal got out to the general public, the damage would be unstoppable.
Where the data did seem to be was on the protected archives of the various universities of which they had been a part of. Archives which, Shaw realized after several hours of trying, were not built with a simple protection scheme. Shaw tried what he knew, but ultimately any kind of remote detection was beyond the limited hacking skills that had carried him thus far.
So, what options did that leave? Ask for access? Ask for help? The first one seemed pointless at best and at worst would bring about too many questions. The second one though, Shaw had an unconventional idea for that. Go to the black hats.
Black hats were the generalized name for so-called “bad guy” hackers. The ones that didn’t hack system to better learn computers or for other non-malicious reasons, but to actively and intentionally mess things up. Some had a detailed philosophy of anarchy, some were just assholes. But the best of them were as good as any security designer in the world. Even the White House web page had been hijacked before (in an infamous American vs. Chinese hacker war), and Shaw doubted simple astronomers had that kind of security.
He’d actually had some contact with the black hat community. While designing certain network security protocols he had sought out their roving web sites and discussion boards to find out what security breaches were currently being exploited. He’d even gone so far as to ask them their opinion on how best to block them. This earned him a fairly detailed and massive attack from some (which he had prepared for in advance with dummy accounts and connections) but others had been fairly helpful about it.
It took him a while to find a group of them again. The board he remembered had been shut down, but they had been nice enough to leave clues in the html code of the page for him to follow. The one he found had anonymous account access, for obvious reasons. It even had a live chat room with a few people in it. He had to create a profile name and thought about going with “Shadow Man,” but decided it was too creepy and went with an anagram of his name instead. “Wash”. He began typing in his entreaty, leaving off the few lies he had thought of and going with the truth instead:
WASH: Hello. I need help hacking into a university database.
SPIKE: Learn the ropes just like the rest of us noob
MAD MAX: Fed alert!
WASH: I’m not a fed. It’s just that I need certain information, and don’t have the time or resources here to learn how to hack in. I need someone else to find out how to do it and send the process to me.
SPIKE: You fail noob
MAD MAX: That’s entrapment fed, don’t you know that?
RIDDICK: Seriously kid? Why would we risk ourselves like that for you? You want to steal the grades for the final exam, do it yourself
WASH: Like I said, I can’t do it from where they are keeping me.
MAD MAX: My bullshit meter is going off the chart
RIDDICK: Yeah, sounds fishy. You in jail or something?
WASH: A mental institution
RIDDICK: ….I’m listening
Shaw talked with “Riddick” for about an hour. He explained the computer setup he was using and told him about how he had found the site and his background with other black hats, some of whom Riddick knew. Shaw wouldn’t say who he was exactly, thinking his possibly notoriety with the outside world would make his story seem less plausible. In the end Riddick agreed. As Shaw suspected, the insane asylum aspect of the caper lent a sexiness to it that regular hack jobs lacked. They didn’t know that, like war, asylums only seemed cool and exciting from the outside. They ended the conversation with this exchange:
WASH: How soon do you think you can get the info?
RIDDICK: Don’t know, could be days or weeks
WASH: Please hurry. I’m in a bad situation and I have a feeling things will get worse if unchecked.
MAD MAX: Why don’t you just tell us what the data is?
RIDDICK: He’s got a point. It would probably be easier for me to retrieve it myself and send it to you rather than just breaking a hole in their system and somehow leaving it for you to follow through
WASH: Because what I need is poisonous. I really can’t say more than that.
RIDDICK: Whatever. ttfn
Shaw checked back on the chat room the next day and the day after, both times finding that Riddick was not around. The time spent in between was dull and listless. Without Walter the place was nothing more than a jail, with no parole date set. He heard Walter had been moved from restraints to a padded cell, which was good. Shaw had a vague memory of being in those restraints, of being consumed with claustrophobia brought about by the trapped feeling they provided.
Three days after his first foray with the black hats he found Riddick back in the chat room, along with some of the others from before. His pulse quickened, despite attempts not to get his hopes up. He was careful to phrase his opening as respectfully as he could, knowing these guys liked to play the Jedi Master game and get all the props they could from it.
WASH: Hello Riddick, would it be rude for me to ask?
RIDDICK: Yes it would
MAD MAX: You know some people get paid for their services Wash
WASH: You’re killing me here.
RIDDICK: You? You’re the one who told me he was going to war and it ended up being a preschool.
WASH: Does that mean you got in?
RIDDICK: That place has already been cracked. Turns out a friend of a friend went to that school
WASH: Something tells me you could have done it anyway.
MAD MAX: That’s right Wash, better learn respect
WASH: So educate me Riddick
RIDDICK: It’s easy, listen.
It took a while for Riddick to explain the whole thing, and some cajoling to get him to fill in the parts he kept skipping. It wasn’t as easy as he made it out to be, but it was doable.
WASH: Thanks Riddick, I owe you one.
RIDDICK: Yeah? And how do I collect? Something tells me we won’t be seeing you around these parts anymore.
WASH: For the best that way.
MAD MAX: We know who you are Shaw.
The phrase seemed very creepy when put like that. Was it meant as threat or bragging? In the contextless world of online chat, it was always a guessing game. No point in lying.
WASH: How?
MAD MAX: I few key search words like “computer expert” and “insane asylum” will bring up only a very few useful links even on Google.
WASH: Do me a favor, don’t tell people. If they knew what I was doing with these computers, they’d take them away.
RIDDICK: That would be cruel and unusual even by our standards.
MAD MAX: But what is in those archives you are trying to get to?
WASH: Better you don’t know
RIDDICK: I think I’ll look through them myself. Bet I could find what you’re looking for. Learn the secrets of the only survivor of New Jonestown.
WASH: Listen, because I’m only going to say this once. The file I am looking
for caused the deaths of over 500 people, including several young astronomers from around the world. Everyone who has ever touched it is dead, except me. Stay away from it, I’d hate to lose any more friends. Goodbye.
With that Shaw disconnected rather than wait for a response. Riddick or Mad Max might go after the files anyway, so he set about finding them first. They could break in easier than him, for even with Riddick’s instruction it was going to take Shaw awhile to figure it out. But they didn’t know how the astronomy filing system worked, something Shaw had picked up some knowledge of while mapping the University’s system. They didn’t know what the file would look like, or the date it was created.
The real question was, if the thing was so damn dangerous why was he seeking it out? To destroy it? No, absolutely not. To prove his innocence, his sanity? Not that either, there are some kinds of proof no one believes. All he could think to do was try and analyze it somehow, to try and figure out what it was in the hope that learning more about it would somehow help explain what had happened. What was happening still.
But is that really why?, he wondered. Or is it just like the doctor said, that I’m willing to destroy the car just to find out what’s making the rattling sound?
It took him most of the rest of the afternoon, but he managed to hack his way into the section of the archives he was looking for. It took him another hour to find the file he was looking for, and without the time and name stamp it would have been impossible. He copied it over to his computer, then deleted it from the hacked database.
Bomb disarmed, he thought. More or less anyway.
In truth he was already sending a copy to one of his protected online databases he’d set up years ago. And beyond that he knew it had taken other telescopes to triangulate the signal, and there would be other copies out there. Shaw only hoped that with everyone in the business working on their own theories, no one would ever bother digging up the lost files of the dead astronomers.