Crash Into Pieces (The Haylie Black Series Book 2)

by Christopher Kerns

  A philosopher king.

  Anthony made a check of the rest of the crowd in the shop and reached into his pocket, retrieving two scraps of paper. That morning, he had received an email from his source, and the next step on his mission was clear. He brought up a command line window and connected to the target system through an anonymous client:

  torific ssh bglenn22@patriarchWellness.com

  Patriarch Wellness was the largest health care conglomerate in the United States. Their ads were everywhere—TV commercials, billboards, even a big banner outside of Wrigley Field. Money-hungry doctors fueled by greed, that’s all they were.

  The Patriarch system pinged, asking for his password. Anthony smiled as he flattened the second piece of paper on the table. He typed the password with single keystrokes and hovered his finger over the “return” key.

  “Anthony—is that you?” The voice came from Anthony’s left side and his eyes jumped up, staring at the woman standing next to him with a curious smile. “Anthony? From high school? From Payton High?”

  His heart raced as his fingers froze on the keys, his eyes did not know where to go. Slowly pulling the top shell of his laptop down, he forced an awkward, confused push of his eyebrow as he leaned his elbow on the top of the computer.

  Be cool. Be cool.

  “Sorry, I think you must have the wrong person,” he replied, his words tumbling over each other. “My name is Dave. Or David.”

  “Dave or…” The woman looked back at him with a confused smile, stepping forward to get a better view of his face. “It’s me—Margaret Chen … We were in a biology class together? You sat in the back row, right?” She flipped her hair behind her shoulder and laughed. “I can’t believe I still remember that. It’s crazy how the brain works, you know? I mean, I haven’t thought about high school in ages.”

  Anthony gazed back at her with a blank face, hoping he was hiding the growing panic boiling behind his eyes.

  Get rid of her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, crossing his arms over the laptop. “I really don’t know who you are. My name is Dave.” Nodding to himself, he repeated the words again, not knowing what else to do. “I’m Dave.”

  Puzzled, she shifted her weight, tugging at the lapels of her coat. “All right,” she said as she slunk away, mumbling. “If that’s the way it’s going to be. You were always weird, anyway.”

  He watched her make her way to the counter, grab her order, and then walk out the door, her last throwaway words burning in his mind. You were always weird anyway. You were always weird anyway. Anthony clenched his fingers into balled fists, muttering to himself under his breath.

  His eyes flew around the room, jumping from person to person, looking for anything out of the ordinary, anyone looking in his direction. He stretched out his palms flat on the table, feeling the sweat slide across the wood. He closed his eyes to calm himself, but it was no use. His heart was beating like a bass drum—he knew everyone could see it in his throat, in his veins.

  I have been here before; I will be here again.

  I have been here before; I will be here again.

  Locking his vision on the wall directly in front of him, he focused on individual points, one at a time, just like he had been taught. A squeeze bottle of honey, only a third full, sitting on the wooden counter next to the cream.

  I have been here before; I will be here again.

  His heart raced. The three, bright green shelves holding stir sticks and boxes of teas. The small, red metallic trash can with a white plastic bag wrapped haphazardly across its top, the flip-top lid jacked permanently open.

  I have been here before; I will be here again.

  He breathed in and out. In and out.

  You have a job to do. You’re here for a reason.

  He cracked his eyes back open as he felt the rush of anger slip and melt away. It had passed, for now. As bad as it was in the moment, he knew the wave always passed, eventually. But he also knew that it would come back. It always came back.

  He logged in to his laptop again, controlling his breathing and seeing the blinking cursor still active within the Patriarch network, waiting for his command. He hit the “return” key, watching the login sequence process his credentials and giving him a new prompt.

  Last login: Fri Oct 2 19:18:58 from 75.132.267.98

  [bglenn22@webAccess11 ~]$

  His eyes grew wide as he watched the cursor pulse.

  It worked. Of course it did. Of course it did.

  He leaned in and typed out commands to identify his location in the file system. After a few nervous sips of coffee—holding the giant coffee mug with two shaking hands—he turned back to the command line and found what he was looking for, a folder named “customer_records.”

  I was always weird, is that right, Margaret Chen?

  With a few quick keystrokes, he was downloading the entire customer database of the Patriarch network, separated into zipped files grouped by state and region. He sat and drank his coffee, watching the download progress of each climb from zero to one-hundred per cent, then moving on to the next. He watched the other customers, busy with their pathetic lives, sitting within arms-reach of one of the greatest hacks in U.S. history.

  Twenty-five minutes later, the downloads were complete. Eighty-two million customer records, complete with names, addresses, social security numbers, medical histories, and, in some cases, fingerprint data. All of the fields were accurate except for one: the “balance due” field for one Margaret Lindsay Chen of 128 Rosemont Avenue, Chicago IL. That number had been raised to $225,567.

  Some people don’t know when to shut their mouths.

  Anthony shoved the slips of paper back into his pocket. He dove back into the Patriarch network, finding the production files for the central web server. He deleted the index.php file and replaced it with a few new lines of code, uploading a file to the /images/ directory, and then terminating the connection. Navigating quickly to check the PatriarchWellness.com home page, the screen refreshed as a blank white digital slate, showing only a single image with a line of text underneath.

  The image was a distorted photo of a Pinta Island tortoise—the last one in the world before it died a pitiful death—standing at attention. The animal’s head extended from his enormous shell and dull, black, stupid eyes staring straight into the camera as if to say, “There’s nothing I can do.” The words below the photo read:

  The Endling Strikes Again

  He packed his laptop and walked out the door, the chiming bells ringing behind him. He knew he’d never again return to Burby Brothers Coffee in his life.

  Cutting into the parking lot, Anthony huddled into the warmth of his jacket and walked behind a line of cars parked against a brick wall. He stooped down behind the bumper of a dated American hatchback and pulled the scraps of paper with the Patriarch credentials from one pocket and his new book of matches from the other.

  Cupping his hands, he struck a match and touched it to the paper’s edge, watching its tint morph from yellow to black, flaking into ash. Remnants fell to the ground and found gusts of wind, blowing into nothing, never to be seen again.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  NSA Texas Cryptologic Center

  San Antonio, TX

  October 27th, 9:35AM

  Haylie crinkled the sheet of paper in her palm as she walked down the hallway, checking room numbers. She saw a familiar, engraved number on the small plaque to the left of the next door and straightened her jacket.

  This is the place.

  She tried the handle, but it stuck, not giving an inch. She exhaled, looking up to the security camera nestled in the corner, staring down on her like a bird on a wire. She checked the paper again, making sure she was at the right door.

  I guess I’ll just knock?

  As she brought her hand to the door, she heard a loud, metallic thud from the other side, and the door swung inward. Haylie jumped back, her hands extended out.

  “Ms. Black?” a man’
s voice rang out from inside. “Please follow me.”

  Inside, the cramped room held a small desk under a row of windows, the metal mesh inside the glass drawing faint rectangle patterns into the next room. The man, dressed in all black with a neck thicker than your average tree trunk, pointed her towards the log book.

  “I’ll need you to sign the sheet,” he said, gesturing at the clipboard. “Then you can go in. She’s waiting for you.”

  Haylie inspected the list and saw her name and the date already printed at the top, with a long list of blank spaces below. She signed and placed the pen back on the table with a click.

  The man pressed a keycard up to a plate on the door, pulling at the handle and gesturing for Haylie to enter.

  “If you need anything,” he said with a dull tone, “just bang on the window.”

  Just bang on the window? Is he serious?

  As the door shut behind her with a firm thud, she surveyed the room. It held only a long, white table with a pair of metal loops screwed onto the top. Through one of the loops was a pair of handcuffs, attached to a woman sitting patiently, her eyes locked on Haylie. The woman had stringy, long white hair pulled down the sides of her face. She was thin and frail, and her aged skin showed a tired, pale complexion that almost matched her gray prison jumpsuit.

  “Hello,” Haylie said, trying to look like she had done this before. “I’m Haylie.”

  The woman shifted her weight in her chair, tugging gently at her cuffs as she stared back. She looked down at the empty chair sitting across the table.

  Haylie took the hint and slid into the chair, never losing eye contact with the woman.

  “So,” the woman said. The words rumbled with a droll cadence from her lips. “You’re the girl. The one who was in London. The one who calls herself Crash.” She wasn’t asking questions—she had the look of a woman who already knew the answers.

  “Right,” Haylie said. “Crash. That’s my screen name. I’m Haylie. It’s nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

  The woman’s eyes went narrow as she cocked her head with a hint of suspicion, looking over to the door and back to Haylie. “I’m Mary,” she said. “Inmate #45099256 from the Lewisburg Penitentiary.”

  “Lewisburg? Where’s that?”

  “Someplace you don’t want to go,” Mary replied slowly, methodically. “But I’ll admit I don’t have much time to explore the area. Just a ten-by-ten exercise yard for thirty minutes a day. Rain or shine.”

  “I’m sorry,” Haylie said. “I thought I was supposed to be meeting with an NSA analyst?”

  “I’ve been helping the NSA, same as you,” Mary said. “I was the one trailing you yesterday. On the forums.”

  Haylie’s eyes narrowed as she inspected Mary. They had an inmate trailing me? What the hell?

  “Quite a mess you made,” Mary said.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “In London. Quite a mess.”

  Haylie nodded with a nervous laugh. “Right, yes, London. Someone else made the mess, I was just kind of there to clean it up, you know?”

  “Yes, of course,” Mary said leaning back and taking in a deep breath. “Of course. I read about it in the papers—the parts they let me read, anyway.”

  “So,” Haylie said, working to change the subject. “They have you working on this Endling project, too?”

  “They asked for my help, and here I am.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” Haylie said. “Why? Why would you help them?”

  Tilting her neck back and taking in a deep breath, Mary’s eyes moved off Haylie and up to the ceiling. “Because … because,” she whispered. “Because I got to go on a bus ride. And now I have a window and a gray jumpsuit instead of an orange one. This one matches my eyes.” A slow smile crept out of the corners of her mouth.

  Haylie smiled back. “It looks very nice.”

  “I’ve helped them a good deal over the years,” Mary said. “This one is bigger than the others, which I suppose explains all the special treatment, but I’ll pitch in here and there when they don’t have enough techs on staff. It’s kept my coding up to date, and it’s just nice to use a computer now and then. But I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “Is that what you’re in for?” Haylie asked. “Digital crimes?”

  “We didn’t call it digital back in my day, my dear,” Mary said, her eyes locked back on Haylie. “I’m in here because I caused trouble. I was young and stupid at the time, a lot like you.”

  Haylie’s eyes narrowed. “I was smart enough to stay out of jail.”

  “Well then, look at you. The smartest girl in the room. How’s that deal working out for you?”

  Haylie frowned, shaking the comment off. She brought her tone down to a whisper, leaning in towards Mary and away from the security camera in the corner. “How’d you get caught? What were you doing?”

  “Some system cracking, phone hacks, TV broadcasts—that sort of thing. It was a different time … Not everything was connected back then. Less things we could mess with.”

  “Broadcasts?” Haylie asked. “What kind of broadcasts?”

  Smiling and looking down at her handcuffs, Mary slowly rotated her wrists, stretching them, testing the metal. She looked up with a grin.

  “Broadcast signal intrusion,” Mary said. “You ever read about the Chicago TV hack? Twice in the same night, two different channels?”

  Haylie’s jaw dropped. No way. She had read all about the Chicago hacks, or the “Max Headroom hacks,” as they were known. They were two of the great unsolved exploits of the past thirty years, a topic that always got the message boards rolling. Videos of the hack, transferred off of grainy VHS tapes, were available on YouTube and were creepy enough that it took Haylie a few attempts before she could watch them all the way through.

  Haylie’s eyes opened wide. “The first hack was on WGN. The—”

  “The newscast was interrupted by a video feed, a man in a mask and sunglasses,” Mary said. “Ribbed metal sheeting behind him, tilting violently to the right and left. Nothing was said, just the man bobbing and nodding to a beat that wasn’t there, the audio filled with fuzzy static. After twenty seconds of air time the transmission cut out, and went back to the newscast. The sportscaster looked around the studio nervously and said—”

  “ ‘Well, if you’re wondering what just happened, so am I’,” Haylie said in amazement.

  Mary nodded. “Later that night, another attack on another channel. This time the man in the mask had found his voice, yelling insults, using soda cans as props, mocking marketing slogans and humming theme songs.”

  “I thought they never caught the guy who did that?” Haylie said as she hung on Mary’s every word.

  “They didn’t catch any guys,” Mary replied, her smile now joined by a twinkle in her eye. “They caught me.”

  Laughing, Haylie shook her head. “No way.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Mary whispered back, laughing and leaning across the table.

  “But I’ve seen the videos,” Haylie said. “It was a man. The posture, the voice. That was a guy in the mask, right?”

  Nodding, Mary looked past Haylie’s shoulder at the wall behind her. “He was the star,” Mary said with a haze in her eyes. “But I was the brains. The feds found me, but never found out how I did it. I still won’t tell—and that got me an extra ten years.” She turned back to Haylie and her smile returned. “Like I said earlier, I was young and stupid.”

  I can’t believe it—she’s a legend. Haylie looked down to the handcuffs and Mary’s thin wrists, tied to the table like she was some kind of animal.

  “And now, it seems, we’ll be working together,” Mary said.

  “No, I don’t think so. It was nice to meet you, but I’m done with all of this. I’m just going to serve out the rest of my sentence and play solitaire or something.”

  “So young. So stupid. I can see so much of myself in you, Crash.”

  Haylie leaned back, raising an eyebr
ow. “I’m sorry, but you don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.”

  “Oh, darling girl,” Mary said with a sideways grin. “But I do. I do, I do, I do.”

  Haylie pushed the chair back and shot to her feet. “I’m just here to tell you what I know, not to make friends. I don’t need a pen pal.”

  “My dear, you have to start trusting someone. You owe that to yourself, don’t you think? You and me, we’re in this together, like it or not. This is the only chance we’ve got.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Haylie said, standing from the table. “I’m done with all this. You’re smart enough to figure out what I’ve seen. Just do me a favor and make something up to tell Wilcox, will you? Something that convinces the government I’ve been helpful or whatever it is they want.”

  Haylie walked towards the door, looking back at her reflection in the glass. She looked tired. She was tired. Behind her image, she saw Mary’s silhouette—a hood of gray—sitting firm. She extending her arm out towards the glass to knock.

  “There’s been another hack, Haylie,” Mary said. “Patriarch Wellness, the big fancy health insurance company.”

  Haylie froze. She wanted nothing more than to knock on the window, to head back to Austin and forget all about this place. But she couldn’t. She had to know. It was killing her—she couldn’t figure out what the Endling was doing. No money, just data. It was a puzzle she couldn’t crack, and another hack—another clue—might do the trick. She had to ask, no matter how much it bruised her up inside to do it. “What did he take this time?”

  “Data,” Mary said. “Same as the Xasis. Same as the credit card company. Just names and information. No cash transfers, no ransoms—just data.”

  “And the calling card?” Haylie said, half turning back to Mary. “Did he leave—”

  “A tortoise,” Mary said. “The last of its kind. Another endling, Crash. Same as before.”

  Haylie shook her head. “It’s none of my business anymore.”