The file cabinets were locked and I couldn’t pick them, but there were a few files on the desk. I immediately grabbed them. One was labeled Dongguan Project. Dongguan is an industrial city in southern China. Most Americans have never heard of it despite the fact that it has ten times the population of Boston. This could only mean one thing.…
The folder was empty save for a single floppy disk. It was ancient technology in the United States, but in China some people still stored information on disks for security. The disk itself was black and had no label. I held it up to the light to see if I could make out any writing on it. I knew that whatever was on this disk wasn’t good.
“Good way to hide information.” Rex’s voice startled me.
I turned around to see him standing in the doorway.
“Thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked, eyeing the disk.
I was. And I prayed it had nothing to do with my father.
“You ready?” I asked.
Rex held up his cell.
On the screen was a simple loading bar. It was at two percent.
“WALKABOUT is up and running,” Rex said.
I couldn’t stop smiling.
“You did it, Rex.”
He broke into the world’s biggest grin. So many emotions rolled across his face in a few seconds: excitement, joy, sadness, and then a wash of relief that seemed to relax every muscle in his body.
“I feel like I just walked out of a cave into daylight for the first time in two years,” he said. “Let’s get out of here and find Tunde.”
18.2
Late to the roof, we stumbled, laughing, out onto the pea gravel to find Rosa sitting by herself, reading a chemistry textbook.
We sat down beside her.
“Good read?” I asked, eyeing Rosa’s book.
“Outdated,” she said. “Sort of like comfort food, though. I read through older volumes and find the mistakes. Kills time and makes me happy. It’s kind of like what you guys do with programs and hardware. You know, make them better, make them more efficient.”
“We try.”
“I don’t speak or read Chinese, but I keep up on everything the LODGE does. Everything. I follow all your blogs. You’re huge, Painted Wolf. My favorite part is that you break the law and get away with it. You’re like a desperado.”
“That is not what I am, Rosa,” I clarified.
Her expression made it clear she doubted me.
“I don’t do it for the thrills,” I explained. “I do it because it’s the right thing to do. Most people turn their back to corruption; they assume it’s someone else’s problem. Not me. My parents broke their backs to take us from a rural village to a city. They played by the rules and it worked. People who think they can just take what they want when they have the power make me ill.”
Rosa was slack-jawed. “So you’re really more like a superhero.”
“She totally is.” Rex leaned in. “She wears a costume, doesn’t she?”
Rex ended his sentence with a wink. Rosa loved that.
“I think Painted Wolf is the best superhero name ever, by the way,” she said.
Ambrose appeared seconds later, holding a shoe box in one hand and struggling with four folding chairs. He was strong but ungainly and nearly fell before Rex helped him with the chairs. We set them up and sat.
“Nice up here, right?” Ambrose asked. “Fresh air, good view.”
I looked out over the treetops and immediately felt like I was back home. I’d been on so many rooftops surveilling and setting up cameras that the experience seemed ordinary to me, and I realized I rarely ever took in the view anymore.
“We’ve got big news,” Rex said. “We found the safe.”
Rosa jumped up, did a little happy dance. Ambrose growled appreciatively.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“Across campus,” I said. “Northeastern end, on the fourth floor of the OndScan building. Didn’t see anyone else there, so I think we’re the first.”
“That is so, so awesome. Thank God. Listen, I have a few ideas of what we can do,” Ambrose said, “but I want to hear what you guys are thinking first.”
“I can write the software to crack the firewalls once we’re in the laptop,” Rex said. “But getting into the room is the bigger issue. Unless I’m mistaken, I don’t think any of us can build a machine like Tunde will. I say we focus on something simple. Something easy.”
“Small,” Rosa said. “Covert.”
“The solution to this is going to be a combination of all of our skills,” I said. “It will be more than coding, more than engineering, and more than chemistry. Let the other teams provide us with an entrance. What I’m picturing is more Bruce Lee than Genghis Khan.”
Rosa and Ambrose frowned.
“You know, Bruce Lee? The martial artist? No? Well, the whole concept behind his theory of fighting was that you don’t punch or kick, you defend, you use your opponents’ momentum against them. You use their attack, and their energy, to your own advantage. You move like water.”
“I like the sound of that,” Ambrose said.
“Water adapts,” I continued. “And as it adapts, it changes what it touches. That is how a tiny creek can bring down a mountain. So, thinking that way, what can we use? What can we build?”
“Good news, guys, I already have it.” Ambrose beamed. “If we let the other teams open up the door and get to the safe, then all we’ll need is transportation to get our USB into the safe and then into the laptop. Something … like this.”
Ambrose opened the shoe box. It was filled with soil and decaying leaves. He dug around inside, then pulled out his hand.
In his palm was a large, black beetle.
I’ll admit, I almost jumped.
“It’s a Hercules beetle.” Ambrose smiled. “His name is Charlie.”
“Disgusting! A bug?” Rosa backed away, her tongue out.
Ambrose was offended.
“Charlie’s a beetle,” he corrected.
“What are we supposed to do with that?” Rosa demanded.
“He can carry the USB,” Ambrose said. “This is why I’m here. Win or lose, I’m going to show the world what I can do. What Charlie can do.”
“You’ve trained him?” Rex asked.
A diagram of Charlie
“Yes and no,” Ambrose replied.
Rosa couldn’t take anymore.
“Well, I’m not here for that. I’m here to show up Kenny and hang out with the coolest people on Earth.” She stood, glanced at Rex and me, and then began pacing. “We aren’t going into Zero Hour with a trained bug. That’s just so stupid. I mean, what if Kenny’s machine rolls over Charlie? Or the bug just decides to run and hide? This is never going to work.”
“Of course it will,” Ambrose said, face red and hands shaking. “I’ve spent the last three months working with him, making this a reality. You can’t find anything like this anywhere in the world. The other teams, they’re going to be building machines, spending all their time fabricating. We don’t have to!”
Rosa scoffed. “It’s embarrassing.”
“It is not! I haven’t even told you the rest of—”
“It wouldn’t even matter.”
I had to step between them. Ambrose had the right mind-set. He was ready. I needed to get Rosa in the same mental space. We didn’t have time for sanding too many rough edges. I had to get control of these two and fast. And I knew just the way to do it.
“Listen,” I said to Rosa, “Ambrose’s idea is original. It’s groundbreaking. And even better, it’s already done. You don’t just want to win, right? You want to show up Kenny, you want to show everyone that you’re the best.”
Rosa mulled that over, then nodded her approval.
“You have a point,” she said. “Show us what you’ve got, Ambrose.”
Ambrose took Charlie from the box, eyes locked on Rosa. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny mechanical rig.
It looked like an insect-sized meta
l backpack.
“Charlie’s already been wired,” Ambrose said as he hooked the rig up to Charlie’s carapace. “I installed an implant in his optic node, hooked that up to a microcontroller that I customed for Charlie, and installed an antenna to pick up the signal. Don’t worry, the surgery was supersimple and he made a full recovery.”
“Surgery?” Rosa asked “You did surgery on the bug? Sorry. The beetle?”
Ambrose set Charlie down on the pea gravel. My instinct was to recoil and lift my feet out of the way of the giant bug. But I forced myself to remain calm and not move. I couldn’t fluster the others.
“And,” Ambrose finished, “I can control him with a cell phone.”
He pulled out his cell, opened an application, and began to move a digital joystick around the screen. Charlie moved in whatever direction Ambrose wanted him to go, like an invisible string was pulling him.
I spoke for everyone when I said, “Wo kao!”
19. REX
01 DAY, 15 HOURS, 44 MINUTES UNTIL ZERO HOUR
Thank God for Ambrose and Charlie.
Everything was going perfectly.
WALKABOUT was up and running.…
I had the afternoon of a lifetime with Painted Wolf.…
We didn’t even have to build a machine.…
And now I had a ton of time to help my best friend.…
Could life get any better?
After Ambrose’s presentation, we agreed to meet again after dinner. I was charged with developing the hacking software; Ambrose would work with Rosa to fine-tune Charlie; and Painted Wolf would develop our strategy. That also meant she and I could spend time helping Tunde and figuring out what Kiran was really up to.
After a somewhat awkward group high five, we disbanded.
Painted Wolf wanted to hit the library, track down an older computer with a disk drive, and surreptitiously check out the disk she’d filched from Kiran’s lab. I was going to meet Tunde in our room. I decided to walk her halfway.
It was getting late and the shadows were long.
We were both slaphappy with adrenaline and I spent much of the walk to the library goofing around. For the first time in years, I felt like things were going to be okay. That maybe, just maybe, I didn’t have to work for everything. That just possibly, good things would come my way because there was balance in the universe. It was definitely the thinking of someone very, very tired. We reached the library steps.
“So, we’ll see you after dinner?” I said. “Maybe we can, I don’t know, do something fun later. I’m sure Tunde and I can get the jammer wrapped up in no time. We can just hang out like we’ve always wanted to.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Painted Wolf smiled. “This has only just begun.”
“This, as in…,” I probed, wondering if she meant me and her. The thought made my heart race and sweat break out on the back of my neck.
“The Game, of course,” she clarified.
“Yeah, yeah.” I laughed, embarrassed.
Oh, of course.
An awkward pause followed, both of us looking at our feet.
“I’ll be fine,” Painted Wolf finally said. “Take care of Tunde. I’m worried about him. I’m scared he’s going to be overwhelmed with all this.”
“Tunde’s a trooper,” I said. “He’s got this thing in the bag. Don’t worry, I feel like we’re in great shape. Nothing can go wrong now.”
19.1
I found Tunde on the floor of our dorm room, surrounded by tools and various scraps of metal, staring at the satphone.
“Why aren’t you in your lab?” I asked.
“I cannot think there. Too big. Too clean.”
For Tunde, that made sense.
“He has not called again, but I am scared he might soon,” Tunde said.
“It’s all good,” I said, scooting stuff out of the way to take a seat beside him. “If he calls, you have the phone right here. You won’t miss it. If you need, I can watch it for you while you work and I run some tests of the programming.”
Tunde looked at me, genuine feeling in his eyes.
“Thank you, omo. Truly.”
“No problem,” I said, settling in. “So, what have you done so far?”
Tunde held up a prototype machine. It was caseless, a mass of wires and cables, but even from that I could see it was going to be exactly what the general wanted.
“I made a decision, Rex. I do not believe I should give this man what he is asking for. Not entirely. How could I live with myself if he uses something I have built him for acts of aggression and terror? I would feel the same way as Oppenheimer did when he saw what he had created become an atomic weapon.”
I knew what Tunde was saying was right.
Still, he was playing with fire.
“You might find this funny, but I have become even more inspired by our friend the Wolf. She always fights to do what is right and I want to do that as well. With your help, I will build something that appears to work as well as the general has envisioned it will. But, in fact, it will not work that way. This jammer will not only get the general to leave my village but will also, in some fashion, trick him.”
“Excellent,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “Let’s start.”
“First,” Tunde interrupted, “tell me about the reconnaissance mission. Was it as much a success as you had hoped?”
“Tunde, I have good news,” I said.
“Yes?”
“I got WALKABOUT up and running on the quantum computer.”
“This is incredible!” he said, jumping up. “I am so happy for you. What are we doing sitting here and listening to me worry when we should be celebrating? This is an amazing moment for you, omo. You are going to find your brother!”
“I am,” I said as Tunde dragged me up and hugged me. “It was all worth it.”
“Of course it was worth it! It was all worth it!” Then, switching mental gears, he said, “Now, you and I shall build this jammer.”
Tunde had most of what he needed in his backpack. A lot of it looked like junk and he admitted he’d found it at the junkyard but it was amazing to watch him work with the materials. He was a blur of motion, like sped-up footage of a building under construction. He never paused once; his hands moved like they were autonomous, each doing its own thing.
While he went about building the casing and hardware, I focused on the software. I wasn’t going to be as fast as Tunde, but even I was shocked when he had a finished version in less than two hours.
Diagram of the jammer
“Omo,” he said, “the kind ginger wey I get for engineering no be small!”
And even though I didn’t understand a word of what he’d said, I was certain that the sentiment behind it was true. He loved what he was doing.
It was so good to be there with him.
And it wasn’t just the practical aspects that were impressive. Tunde threw in a few extra bells and whistles to give the jammer a more rugged appearance. He even installed it in a water- and shock-proof case. Given the device’s size, I wasn’t sure how he was going to get it on the plane.
“Just give me another couple of hours,” I told Tunde. “I’ll have the software ready for you in no time.” He slid the jammer under his bed and then grinned. I have never seen a more satisfied smile.
We were interrupted by a sudden, loud knock on the door.
I opened it to find Edith standing there with a severe expression.
“I need to talk to both of you,” she said.
“Okay,” I replied, glancing back at Tunde. “What’s up?”
Edith didn’t blink. “There’s a problem.”
A little thrown off by her demeanor, I asked, “Big problem?”
“You’re both being kicked out.”
19.2
Five minutes later, we were sitting in an office in the student center.
Edith sat across from us and stared us down, hard.
“One of you, maybe both, cheated to
get here.”
Tunde leaned forward, his face a mess of worry and panic. “Please, Edith, I do not know what you are talking about. You cannot send either of us home. I have to be here. I have to compete and win.”
Edith wasn’t fazed. “You cannot compete if you cheated to get here.”
“But we both received invitations to the Game. You saw our names on the list. There must be some confusion. We did nothing wrong.”
“No confusion,” Edith said.
A lump appeared in my throat.
How could they know?
How could I have messed it up?
Worse, what if there were legal ramifications? What if my parents were pulled into it? What if I was sent home and my parents were deported?
I could lose everything.
Edith grabbed a tablet computer, opened a few windows on it, and then slid it across the desk toward us. On the screen there was a security report and lines of highlighted code.
“We noticed the intrusion a couple of days ago during a routine scan. Whoever broke in did an excellent job of covering their tracks. But not good enough. Took a while to sort through all the data, but take a look at the second line of code from the bottom. Do you recognize anything there?”
We both scanned the code on the tablet screen.
The lump in my throat got bigger.
Tunde said, “I do not know what this is.”
“How about you, Rex?” Edith turned to me.
“It’s a log file. Shows activity on the site, movement in and out,” I said.
“And?”
And I knew what I had to do.
I said, “And someone using a LODGE account was on the page.”
Edith sat back in her chair, eyes fixed on mine. Tunde turned to me, his mouth dropped open in shock and disappointment. “Rex?” he asked.
There was no out.
This was it.
I had to face the consequences.
I had to get ahead of this thing before it got worse.
I have to protect my parents.
“I hacked the site,” I said, my voice raw. “Tunde had nothing to do with it. He didn’t know. Neither did Painted Wolf. I need to talk to Kiran.”
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