Crash Into Pieces (The Haylie Black Series Book 2)

by Christopher Kerns

  His face was long and thin with a few days’ worth of stubble on his jaw, his hair was styled back and up—he could have been a model in another life. But there was something in his eyes, a sick desperation. His smile wasn’t friendly—it was loaded, cocky. Not a greeting, more of a warning.

  “It’s you,” he said, straightening himself, his restraints tugging him back down. The chains rattled as they went taught. “I knew you’d be next.”

  “Is that right?” Haylie asked. “And how is that?”

  He slunk down into his chair, leaning back to loosen the tension on his wrists. His eyes met Haylie’s.

  How good are those handcuffs, anyway? If he stood up fast enough, could he—

  “You’re Haylie Black—the greatest hacker in the whole wide world,” he said in a mocking, sing-song tone. “The girl we call Crash, the girl next door who just saved the planet—oh, I’m sorry, am I getting all the talking points right?”

  “You forgot criminal,” Haylie said, stone-faced, “depending on whom you talk to these days. Now we know who I am; who are you? And why are you attacking systems all over the country?”

  Shaking his head, the Endling flicked his eyes behind Haylie, to the mirrored glass. He made a few “tsks” as he raised his hands together, waving a single finger back and forth.

  “Don’t ruin our fun with their silly ideas,” he whispered. “Those agents—idiots—they want you to get me comfortable. Talk shop, trick me into giving away the big plot. But then you walk in here and just ask? That’s not how this is supposed to work. You’ve got an agreement with them—to reduce your sentence, is that right? If you get me to talk, you get back online?”

  “I’m tired,” Haylie said. “And you’re busted. I figured we’d just get to the point. They’re going to figure out who you are, so you might as well just—”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. They have me here,” he gestured down at his shackles. “But they don’t know me. I don’t have a criminal record, so there’s no fingerprint information. I don’t carry an ID—just cash, nothing else.”

  “They have your machine—”

  “I’ll miss that laptop. It’s hard to find machines with CD-ROM drives these days, it makes them all heavy. I didn’t actually use the drive, but removing it gave me a lot of space to play with. You can fit a surprising amount of thermite inside that drive bay.”

  “Thermite?”

  “Highly flammable. Add some gunpowder and model rocket igniters, and you can trigger a fire from the twelve-volt line inside the machine with a few keystrokes. Which is what I did when they grabbed me. Computer all gone.”

  Haylie squirmed in her seat, looking to the mirror and seeing only a look of growing desperation on her own face in return.

  You need to get something out of him. He wants to talk. Just get him talking.

  “These hacks you’ve been doing, they’re pretty good,” she said. “Haven’t seen anybody go so wide with an attack pattern, especially not this fast.”

  She could see his body tense up. He finally broke through his caution with a response. “They haven’t been easy.”

  “I know,” she said. “Trust me, I get it. I’m surprised you got as far as you did before being tracked down.” She leaned in across the table, whispering. “But the cool thing was all the different techniques. Jumping from web server exploits to buying stuff from message boards to the OPM thing, which I’m still not sure how you got in.”

  He smiled. “If I told you,” he whispered, “you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “I want to hear all about it,” she said, “before I have to read it in some tell-all book on the bestseller list, you know? I want to hear it from you—when the time is right. But what I can’t figure out is how they’re all connected.”

  The Endling took an excited breath. As he was about to speak, he caught himself. He closed his mouth, keeping his eyes locked on Haylie, and sat up straight in his chair, his hands resting on the table, fingers flexing.

  “I want a deal,” he said. The first of these words he said in Haylie’s direction, but the last was directed at the mirrored glass behind her, spoken loudly enough to fill two rooms.

  “I don’t know anything about that. That’s not why I’m—”

  “You don’t know anything about deals?” he laughed. “Well that’s funny, because the deal I want is exactly the same as yours.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “If you got a deal—the little girl from nowhere USA—I certainly deserve one.”

  Haylie rested into the back of her chair, crossing her arms. “And why is that?”

  “Because I can help,” he said. “I have skills. You just kind of stumbled into your little adventure, running around New York and London and wherever else someone told you to go. Anyone could have done that.”

  “Excuse me?” she said. “Anyone?”

  “You’ve seen what I can do,” he said. “You said it yourself—no one’s done anything like this before. I’m surprised those idiot agents haven’t already begged me to join them.”

  “Maybe you’re not as good as you think,” Haylie said.

  “I don’t have to be that good,” he said. “I just need to be better than you, Crash, which isn’t that hard. You and all your magazine covers and your headlines. Tell me—did you do a press tour? I’m surprised you haven’t done a full makeover yet, or maybe your own reality show? That’s got to be in the works somewhere.”

  “You think I wanted all that press?” Haylie shot back. “I got pulled into something, sure, but I finished the damn job. If you’re such a great hacker, how come you need to run around buying passwords?”

  Haylie heard a noise behind her, a slight, woodpecker-like series of taps at the glass. She took a breath, picturing Wilcox and Hernandez on the other side of the mirror.

  Stay in control, Crash.

  The Endling raised his hands, pointing a finger at Haylie. “You don’t know. You don’t know what it’s like to be shut out, to be great at something when no one will give you a chance. You got your chance, you had the hand of God come down from the heavens and turn you into something bigger than you’ve ever been. But for me, I had to build my own heaven.”

  “By hacking government systems?” she asked. “You think this is going to make people pay attention to you? The world doesn’t work that way.”

  “Oh, so you know about the world now?” he spat back. “Please, tell me all about it. No, you know what, tell me about it in two years when no one remembers your name. Tell me how fair the world is then.”

  “I’ll tell you about fair,” Haylie’s voice began to rise. “I can’t even push an elevator button without getting arrested, does that seem fair? And for what? For doing the right thing?”

  Haylie’s concentration was broken by another series of taps on the glass behind her, this one louder than before, growing towards a full-on knock.

  Shut up, Hernandez.

  “Tell me who’s behind this,” she said. “That’s the only way this gets better for you.”

  “I’m not telling you anything,” he whispered. “I’d rather talk to a whole room of government agents than talk to some celebrity who doesn’t know her way around a command line. You’re. A. Joke.”

  The rage grew inside of her as she felt her face flush red, her hands began pulsing, crawling into fists. She looked up with fire in her eyes to see that the Endling had shut down, his eyes closed, silently mouthing words she couldn’t make out.

  She fought to keep her composure as she looked over at the handcuffs, scratching red rings around his wrists. Suddenly, the weight of her ankle bracelet felt like a lead balloon, pulling her down. She could feel its LED blinking, searing her skin with each burst of light.

  She felt tears gathering in her eyes as she realized that she wouldn’t get help, not today. She wasn’t going to get out.

  “Please,” she whispered. “I need this. I need your help. Why were you collecting data? It doesn’t make any sense
… the pattern. Each system, each user base, they’re all so different. I’ve tried piecing them together, but it gets tangled. I don’t see the connection. How are they connected?”

  The Endling opened his eyes and watched her struggle, seemed to drink it in. To enjoy it, just for a minute. He leaned in across the table and smiled.

  “It’s like a friend told me just the other day,” he said, tilting his head to the side, like a dog looking at a treat. “A complicated thing is just a bunch of simple things, all lined up in a nice, little row.”

  She pushed back in her chair, heart pounding. Her mind raced as she pictured the only other person in the world who had ever said those words to her.

  It can’t be.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Littlefield Hall, University of Texas

  Austin, TX

  October 30th, 11:02PM

  Haylie released the grip on the handle of her duffle bag, letting it fall to the floor. As the door swung closed behind her, the darkness swallowed the room. She blinked a few times to let her eyes adjust, too tired to even walk the few long steps over to the light switch. For now, the darkness would do.

  A complicated thing is just a bunch of simple things, all lined up in a nice, little row.

  She racked her brain, trying to make sense of it all.

  A casino. A healthcare company. A cable company. Government personnel files.

  Big organizations. Data about people.

  Names.

  Social security numbers.

  Addresses.

  Driver’s license data.

  Fingerprints.

  Haylie rubbed her eyes and looked out the window, seeing the late-night crowd below trickling down to groups of two or three, sailing under each light hanging overhead, some leaning in close to each other, others with their hands firmly pulling at their backpack straps. All heading in different directions, coming in and out of the light. Focus.

  What else?

  No money. Just data.

  No ransoms. No messages about morals or corporate greed.

  No demands.

  She slumped sideways on the windowsill, pulling her hair back behind her shoulders with an exhausted breath. She removed her glasses, wiping the lenses with the bottom edge of her t-shirt, clearing the smudges off one at a time. She knew this feeling, she could always tell when she was getting nowhere. She felt like she was spinning. She knew there was something else, something she was missing.

  States—the data came from certain regions. Virginia, Ohio, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania.

  She leaned in towards the window when a slight yellow light caught her eye. It was dancing off the glass—off her side of the glass.

  Turning, Haylie saw a flickering light radiating from her desk, behind the bookcase. She stood and walked towards the light, foot over foot, the details in the room emerging as she approached. As she peered around the bookcase, her eyes grew wide. She saw the desktop covered in a thick fog of yellow light, flickering.

  Something’s on fire.

  She froze, looking down as her hand covered her mouth, gasping for breath.

  It was a birthday cake—a rectangular sheet cake with dark chocolate frosting across the top, with words scrawled in green. But not any words: machine text. The cake was designed to look exactly like a command line window, complete with a rectangular cursor made of frosting and a ‘>>>’ Python prompt, all surrounded by a sea of eighteen electronic candles.

  Oh my God. Tomorrow’s my birthday.

  I forgot my own goddamned birthday.

  She laughed and let out a defeated breath. Over the past few months, with the absence of technology, time had slipped away. Without a watch or a digital clock or a phone, she hardly ever knew the time—let alone the date—anymore. Every once in a while she’d steal a glance at the calendar on her wall or the top of a newspaper in the Student Union, but that was it.

  She pulled this afternoon’s boarding pass out of her pocket and laid it down on the desk, smoothing it and holding it close to the candles to search for the date. ‘OCT 30.’ Tomorrow was Halloween, which meant she was turning eighteen.

  Good lord, this is a new low, even for you.

  Haylie looked next to the cake to see a hand-written note. She plucked it off the desktop and held it up to the electronic candle, the light shining through the paper.

  Happy Birthday, idiot.

  You’re not the only one who learned how to pick locks.

  –Vector

  She chuckled, looking back to the cake, and read each line of pseudo-computer code text written across the rectangle in dark green frosting.

  Happy 18th Birthday

  Now you can vote!

  (Or can you? You’re kind of a felon.)

  Haylie’s smile faded as the words pulsed through her mind. She re-read the text again and again. Her brain began to churn as she processed each word, over and over. There was something there, something that was setting off an alarm in her head.

  Vote.

  Vote.

  Vote.

  Oh no. No no no. It can’t be.

  She scraped her keys off the side table and bolted for the door, headed for Vector’s room at a full sprint.

  >>>>>

  Closing his door behind him, Vector extended a fist for Haylie to bump. “Happy birthday, Crash! What’s the emergency? You saw the cake, right? Brilliant move, I must admit.”

  “No—not that,” Haylie said. “I mean, yes, and thank you. But I think I just figured it out. Something happened in Chicago—I think I just put it all together.”

  “You were in Chicago?”

  “Long story,” she said. “I’m not supposed to tell you any of this. I’m in trouble for even thinking about telling you this.”

  “Go on.”

  She walked him through everything—the hacks, the data, Mary, and what the man sitting across the table had said in Chicago that finally pushed her to stumble her way out of the room in a daze.

  “You think your brother is working with the Endling?” Vector whispered. “Why would he do that? If Caesar wanted data, he wouldn’t have a problem getting it himself. He and his group, they took the code from the Project, they should have access to almost every system in the world.”

  “It makes sense. There’s too much attention on him right now,” Haylie replied, lowering her voice. “Caesar knows that everyone is looking for him. This stuff from Senator Hancock—his agenda to track down hackers. There are too many eyes watching him. If he can pay someone else to do it, it reduces his visibility.”

  “Even if that’s what’s going on, why would he do it? It doesn’t make any sense—Caesar just running around collecting data about people.”

  “Hancock has a good chance of becoming the next president—the polls are tied, right? The election is next week. What do you think my brother could do with millions of lines of personal data between now and then?”

  Vector sat down on the windowsill, his hands rubbing his temples, taking his time. He looked back up to Haylie with a new flash of fear in his eyes.

  “Which regions did you say the data is from?” he asked.

  “Ohio, Florida, New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania. A few other states,” Haylie said, watching for his reaction.

  “Swing states. All of them,” Vector said. “The election is just a week away, and Caesar knows if Hancock is in office, he’ll be done for.”

  Haylie’s mind raced, trying to find another solution that made sense. Something. Anything. But each time, she came back to the same result.

  “My god, Crash,” Vector said. “Caesar’s going to hack the presidential election.”

  “No, he’s not,” Haylie said. “Not if we can stop him.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Vijzelstraat

  Amsterdam

  October 31st, 6:52AM

  Caesar paused, catching himself before he took the first step off the sidewalk and pulled back each side of his hoodie. If the past five hours in A
msterdam had taught him anything, it was that the speeding cars and trucks weren’t the most dangerous part of trying to cross these roads—the real threat was the lane of bicycles flying by at breakneck speeds, just inches from the sidewalk. Just then, a cyclist cruised by with the crunch of tires meeting gravel and pushed a rush of chilled air into Caesar’s face.

  He curved across the avenue and ducked into a sleepy side street. The small sign affixed to the corner of the building across the way read ‘Reguliersdwarsstraat,’ the word straining against each edge for more space.

  I don’t even want to know how they pronounce that.

  Noting the four men sitting at the corner sipping on tall, golden-colored drinks, he made his way down the center of the alley, keeping a loose eye on the locals huddled on doorsteps and benches here and there. He stopped under a tattoo parlor’s awning, turning on his heels to face the other side of the street.

  Across the way was a green door framed in white trim. To the right of the door hung a small, white address marker reading simply ‘74.’ Making one last check for anyone tailing him, Caesar paced across the pavement, extended two fingers, and rang the doorbell. He waited, bouncing on his toes, but heard nothing on the other side.

  C’mon c’mon c’mon. Let’s go.

  After a few more breaths, Caesar heard the hollow rumblings of deadbolts and chains unlatching from the inside. The door cracked open as a mist of citrusy sweetness filled his nostrils, inviting him inside.

  Caesar skipped up a short flight of stairs into a cavernous room. The sunlight became a faint memory as his pupils adjusted, his body feeling the welcome wash of darkness.

  The room was empty except for Sean’s silhouette propped up on a stool at the far end of the bar and a bartender polishing pint glasses. With delicate, rose-colored lamps every few feet, the wooden bar sat under a backlit collection of bottles that were looking down on each seat like spectators at a football game. On the far side of the room were a series of booths, seemingly carved from the side of the left wall, the contents of each hidden by a series of thick arches. The entire place had the warm glow of honey.