Crash Into Pieces (The Haylie Black Series Book 2)

by Christopher Kerns

  “A complicated thing is just a bunch of easy things, all put together,” Haylie whispered to herself as she inched the tool inward.

  She moved her cheek closer to the door, working her way through the mounting pain—her right wrist was burning from the constant torque—and fighting to maintain her concentration.

  You’re almost there. Don’t … stop … now.

  Checking each of the pins for movement, her tool found one sliding slower than the rest. She smiled, giving the pin a delicate push up as she felt the gritty metallic friction between the two pieces slowly giving way.

  She held her breath, feeling the movement, picturing the pin sliding into place and being careful not to push it too far.

  Click.

  One more to go.

  Haylie turned the tension of the lock clockwise with her right hand and again began searching with the bent hairpin in her left. She found the last remaining rod, bringing her tool underneath its base and pushing gently towards—

  “Keys work too, you know,” a familiar voice rang through the hallway.

  Haylie jumped, startled, as the two mangled hairpins in her hands dropped down to the worn carpet. She could hear the staccato of all five of the lock’s pins clicking firmly back into place, right back where they had started.

  Goddamnit.

  Slumping back onto her hands and throwing a nasty look at the lock, she knew the man standing behind her without even looking. Unfortunately, over the past few months, she had grown to know him all too well.

  “Well, thanks for that,” she said, rubbing her wrists, finally looking up to see Agent Norman Hernandez, FBI, hovering above her. He was wearing his standard-issue charcoal suit, white shirt, no tie, and had an amused smirk plastered across his face.

  “I’ve been working on that lock for fifteen minutes—I almost had it.”

  “Let me guess,” Agent Hernandez said, gesturing at the door. “Your keys are in there?”

  “Of course they are.”

  “I thought college kids were supposed to be smart. You need some help?”

  “No,” Haylie shot back. “I like to do things myself.”

  “Even so, you might want to try learning how to pick locks while keeping your keys in your pocket. Just in case.”

  Haylie glared at him and crossed her arms. “If I had the keys, why would I need to pick the lock?”

  “Sounds like something you’d say. You know you shouldn’t be doing this, right? It’s probably a violation of your parole. I should probably look that up at some point.”

  “Don’t care,” she snapped back.

  “I’m just trying to keep you out of trouble,” Agent Hernandez said. “It is my job, you know. Until both of our lives get back to the way they were.”

  Haylie scoffed. Things will never be the way they were. She thought back eight short months to a different time. She had spent every possible moment online—chatting with friends, writing code, hacking systems, building things. She was a savant when it came to technology—although she’d never use that word herself—and after her brother, Caesar, had disappeared trying to solve a mysterious online puzzle, Haylie had tracked him down by solving each step herself. But the puzzle wasn’t what it had seemed. The truth behind the puzzle, and the group that had created it, ended up dragging her into a worldwide conspiracy: the last thing a seventeen-year-old expects to find on her permanent record.

  Having an FBI agent hang over her every move was just one of the wonderful pieces of her plea bargain. Haylie had agreed to a set of terms that would keep her out of a cell, but the prison she found herself in now might have been worse. She was, as of this morning, eight months into a two-year “no fly zone” for technology, all while starting her first year of college at the University of Texas. If she used a computer, touched a phone, or even clicked a remote control to watch Netflix, that clock would reset. And Agent Hernandez’s job was to stay close by—living just a few rooms down in the dorm—and make sure she stuck to the rules.

  “It doesn’t have to be this hard, you know,” Agent Hernandez said. “You can just read books. Make friends. Enjoy your time off from connectivity—college is supposed to be fun. Don’t be Crash for a while, just be Haylie.”

  After the events in London, Haylie’s hacker screen name—Crash—had been plastered over every magazine cover across the globe. It wasn’t uncommon for students she had never even met to throw her a fist bump with a head-nod, shouting the name at her as she walked right by without a response.

  “Oh, don’t worry, I’m still connected,” Haylie shot back, pointing down to the chunky ankle bracelet strapped around her leg, the small green LED blinking every few seconds, tracking her location.

  “None of this is my fault,” Hernandez said. “You took the deal; with any deal, you have to give something up. I’m just saying you could try to make the most of it. Everything that happened in London with your brother, that was some serious stuff. Give yourself some slack, and don’t force yourself to break into your dorm room every day.”

  “I like solving puzzles,” Haylie grumbled, beginning to work on the lock again. “If I just sit around, I’ll never learn anything. I bet you’re the kind of guy who just had everything handed to you, aren’t you?”

  “Not really,” Hernandez said, thinking about the question. “My parents came to the States with nothing, had to scrape together textbooks from wherever I could get them. Hell, some of them were so old, I wasn’t really sure how World War II ended until I was in my twenties. Helped my mom clean hotel rooms while all the other kids my age were playing video games. I still send them money now, you know.”

  “Okay, fine.”

  “Top of my class at NYU,” Hernandez continued. “Same at the FBI Academy, now that I think about it. That’s not easy when you’re working two jobs—”

  “I said I get it,” Haylie said, twisting her arm to find the right position. “I take it back.”

  “Well, this has been fun, as usual,” Hernandez said, checking his watch. “I’ve got a status call I need to jump on.”

  “Wait, what time is it?”

  “Three fifty,” he said.

  She threw her bent hairpins at the door and cursed. “There’s no way I can pick this lock before class. I’m going to be late again. That’ll be four times this month.” She leaned back against the hallway door. “I’ll get some kind of suspension or whatever they call it around here.”

  “Why are you late so much?” Agent Hernandez asked. “That doesn’t seem like you.”

  Haylie turned to look up at him. “Because I can’t set an alarm on anything, thanks to you. I don’t have a phone. Nothing is pinging me on my laptop, telling me it’s time for class. I can’t even have one of those stupid Casio watches.”

  “You’re a smart girl,” Hernandez said. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. If it helps, I have a key to your room.” He produced a key ring from his pocket, dangling it in his fingertips. “All you have to do is say the word.”

  Haylie stared at the shining key ring, swaying back and forth above her head. Her eyes flicked between Hernandez and the door.

  Just as she took a breath to speak, she heard the lock mechanism click, and the door pull open from the inside. A head popped out, looking over at Agent Hernandez, and then down to Haylie.

  It was Vector, her best friend, with perfect timing, as always. Thank God.

  “Crash, there you are,” Vector said. “We need to get going, you know. Class is about to—” Noticing Agent Hernandez around the corner, he stiffened his posture and his British accent took on a more formal tone. “And a good afternoon to you, Officer Hernandez.”

  “It’s Agent Hernandez,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure you know that. How are you doing today, Liam?”

  Vector winced at the sound of his given name. “Just wonderful, cheers,” he replied and turned back towards Haylie. “Well, let’s get on with it then.”

  “How did you get in there?” Haylie asked, rising to
her feet. “Did you steal my key?”

  “Heavens, no,” Vector said, keeping an eye on Agent Hernandez. “I’m no common thief. Besides, there’s always more than one way in, isn’t that right?”

  “You’d better not tell me how you did it,” Haylie said, sliding into her room and snatching her backpack from her desk chair. “I want to figure it out.”

  “Yes, of course, you like to do things yourself.” Vector looked over to Hernandez as he closed the door firmly behind him. “She likes to do things herself.”

  “Yeah, I kind of pieced that together,” Hernandez said.

  Haylie and Vector trotted down the hall, chuckling, as the double doors slammed behind them.

  CHAPTER TWO

  University of Texas, POB Building Room 2.302

  Austin, TX

  October 23rd, 3:58PM

  Haylie stepped inside the auditorium lobby to a welcomed rush of cold air. The weather in Austin normally cooled by October, but this year, all of Texas was still melting under a heat wave, with temperature and humidity levels scaring the pants off the transplants in the new freshman class.

  “No way,” Haylie said, stopping in her tracks as she read the poster for that afternoon’s seminar. The board showed a picture of one of her favorite local technology CEOs, a woman who ran the most advanced artificial intelligence group in the country. “Guest speaker today?”

  “Yeah, why did you think I wanted to come?” Vector answered. “I don’t usually run across campus for a 4 p.m. class”

  The pair moved down the hall, filtering into the crammed seminar room through a mass of students bottlenecked at the top of the stairs. Haylie bobbed up onto her tiptoes, trying to weave her way through the sea of students to get a better view of the stage below.

  Vector turned to Haylie and motioned for her to follow. They ducked through the crowd, making their way to the seminar seating area where two other students waved their arms, backpacks covering the two seats next to them.

  “Thanks, guys—you’re lifesavers,” Vector said, exchanging fist bumps with the two classmates from their Data Mining class as he and Haylie plopped down.

  “We didn’t think you’d make it in time. This CEO brought her own security, and they’re not messing around—I don’t think they’re going to let stragglers in at all,” said one of the guys, pointing towards the stage.

  Haylie turned to see four men—two in suits, the other two in dress pants and dark pullover sweaters—standing at attention along the front edge of the stage. The men studied the crowd with expressions of dead calm. As the man directly in front of Haylie looked to his left, she could see the transparent plastic earpiece coiled into his left ear. He turned back to look her dead in the eyes, and she quickly flicked her gaze away.

  “I’m so excited to see her speak in person, she’s such a badass,” Haylie said, wringing her hands with excitement. “I can’t believe she’s actually here today.”

  “How did you not know about this?” the student next to her asked. “It’s been up on the class website for a few weeks…” He stopped speaking as he slowly realized what he had just said. “Oh, right.”

  Vector jumped in. “Yeah, I’ve heard she doesn’t do a lot of speaking engagements, but she’ll come here every now and then.”

  “Well, I just hope they give us time for questions,” Haylie said, eager eyes staring up at the podium sitting empty under a spotlight, “I’d love to hear more about their machine learning inputs, and how they plan to train—”

  Before Haylie could finish her sentence, she felt a tap on her left shoulder. She turned and looked up—way up—to see a stone-faced man in a dark suit standing over her.

  “Ma’am. Ms. Black? You’ll need to come with me,” the man said with a stony expression chiseled onto his face.

  “What?” Haylie stared back at him, gears turning in her head. She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms, and looked him up and down. “What are you talking about?”

  “What seems to be the problem here, mate?” Vector asked, leaning in towards the suit.

  Haylie pushed her arm out against Vector, signaling for him to back off. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” She rose from her seat and faced the man square. “What’s your name, handsome?”

  The man took half a step back, now in a staggered stance, arms half-cocked at his sides. A university staffer approached, inserting himself between the man and Haylie with a shaking hand.

  “Ms. Black, if you could please come with me. We’ll talk about this out in the hallway. It’s not a big deal,” the staffer rattled out in a nervous series of breaths.

  “It’s a big deal to me,” Haylie said, raising her voice. “And I don’t want to go outside. I want to stay right here.”

  “That’s the thing, Haylie,” the staffer said with a forced chuckle, gesturing towards the podium on the stage, still sitting empty under the spotlight. “If you stay here, there’s not going to be a seminar.”

  Haylie’s eyes fell to the floor as reality slowly sunk in. She turned to see the entire room—hundreds of students—watching her next move. A wave of silence hit the crowd. She could hear every breath, see every blinking eye. All watching her. Agent Hernandez’s words from earlier that afternoon looped through her mind.

  You took the deal.

  With any deal, you have to give something up.

  She reached down to grab her backpack and rose from her seat, her eyes falling to the floor.

  “Crash,” Vector said, standing and reaching out an arm in her direction. “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, you stay here,” she said, flashing her best fake smile. “I need you to take good notes, ask good questions. I want to hear all about it later, okay? They can’t take that away from me.”

  He descended slowly back into his seat, with eyes that told her that he knew what she really wanted to say.

  “Thanks, Vector.”

  With one last gaze at the empty stage, Haylie threw her backpack over her shoulder. The staffer led her up the stairs, the suit following close behind. She shrugged off his one attempt to take her by the arm, shooting back a look of poison that he wouldn’t forget anytime soon. The crowd at the top of the stairs parted as the three made their way through the double doors and back into the empty hallway. The doors shut behind them.

  Haylie spun on her heels, pointing her finger in the staffer’s face as she felt her temperature rise. “What the hell is going on?” Haylie yelled. “Why’d you have to do that to me in front of everyone?”

  “My client is an important woman,” the guard replied, straightening his jacket. “We don’t need any bad press today. I’d like to ask you to move along.”

  “What kind of bad press?” Haylie said.

  The university staff member jumped in. “Ms. Black … Being seen in the same room as you with cameras around is … a risk. You must know this.”

  “Why don’t we ask her that?” Haylie said, pointing back into the seminar room. “Bring her out here, I want to talk to her. She’ll understand.”

  “Ms. Black, I’m afraid you’re the one who doesn’t understand,” the guard said. “This request came directly from her.”

  Haylie leaned back against the wall as the last trickle of students filed past her and through the doors. After a few seconds of catching her breath, she heard a chorus of muffled applause and cheering as one of her heroes took the stage on the other side of the wall.

  The staffer glanced nervously over his shoulder, fighting for words. “Now, of course, we’ll have a recording of the talk available if you’d like to—”

  “Don’t do me any favors,” Haylie muttered, her head hung low as she paced alone down the hallway. She reached the doors, pushed at the weight of the glass door with her shoulder as a wave of heat hit her in the face.

  She sat down on a bench, staring down at the intersection of asphalt pathways, littered with dried leaves and dead grass, wondering what to do next.

  With any deal, you have
to give something up.

  >>>>>

  The barista pounded his filter, knocking out the puck of spent coffee grounds, and quickly refilled it for another shot of espresso. Haylie leaned against the lacquered wooden bar, staring with dull eyes at the menu looming overhead.

  The options were scratched into three columns of white, slanted chalk text. She mouthed the words without a sound as she waited.

  Espresso. Americano. Macchiato. Cappuccino.

  “You must really like the menu,” the barista said, catching Haylie’s glance out the corner of his eye as he continued working on her drink behind the bar. “Trying to memorize it?”

  “Nothing else to look at,” Haylie responded. “Nothing else to do at all, really.”

  “You’re that girl, aren’t you?” he said, stopping his work for a moment. “The one who saved the world?”

  “People say I look like her,” Haylie shrugged. “I get that a lot.”

  Smiling, the barista handed Haylie’s drink over the bar in a heavy ceramic mug. “I bet you do.”

  Haylie pushed her way up the stairs as she balanced her coffee in her left hand, sliding along the worn railing with her right. Her arm swayed, scraping her knuckles against the brick wall that led up to the coffee shop’s second floor.

  Even the scents of dark roasted beans, crisp sugar and fresh pastries couldn’t cheer her up after the humiliation at the seminar. Haylie spotted a dark chocolate leather couch sitting empty against the wall, far away from the small groups of students sitting huddled at tables.

  She sank into the cushions, kicking her feet up on the table barely large enough to hold the heft of her boots. She twisted to get a view of the old-fashioned clock hanging over her head.