by Adams, M. L.
“You weren’t kidding when you said she took a lot of photos,” she said.
I smiled. “Amanda was crazy about a camera my parents got her for Christmas just before I was diagnosed. It drove me and just about everyone at the hospital crazy. But Amanda isn’t the type to take no for an answer.”
I navigated to a folder labeled CPH and scrolled through several rows of photos. I clicked on a group shot of the hospital staff and it filled the screen. “This one was taken before my surgery.” I pointed at an older man with thinning gray hair. “That’s Dr. Kaiser in the back,” I said. “I still can’t believe he’s dead. I knew the guy pretty well. Although I didn’t particularly like him.”
“He took your leg,” Sarah said, gently patting my knee. “Can’t say I blame you.”
I centered the screen on Carter. Just like I remembered, he stood in the back, trying to go unnoticed. He was tall, wore glasses, and had dark hair and a full beard. He held a clipboard and had on a white CPH medical smock. I zoomed in. Written in script above the chest pocket were the words: DR. ALLEN CARTER.
“Look,” Sarah said, pointing at the photo. “A contractor badge.”
She took control of the laptop and zoomed in on the badge, which was clipped to Carter’s chest pocket. The badge was white and had his photo and name on it. Across the bottom, the word CONTRACTOR appeared in bright red text.
“That’s why we didn’t find much about him in the system,” Sarah said. “He wasn’t a CPH employee.”
“I had no idea,” I said. “I didn’t talk to him much. He was always there, so I just assumed he was one of the doctors.”
“Let’s keep looking,” Sarah said. “Bound to be more photos of him.”
As she flipped to the next photo in the group, something caught my eye.
“Wait, go back,” I said.
“What?”
“Zoom in again. This time on his waist.”
Sarah frowned, but did as I asked. It took me a moment to rationalize what I saw. A second later, my heart froze. Clipped to Carter’s belt, half exposed by the unbuttoned smock, was another plastic badge. Just like the one on his chest, it bore his photo and name. But instead of the word CONTRACTOR, there was a large blue logo.
“He . . . worked for CyberLife?” Sarah asked.
My mouth moved, but no words came out.
“Okay,” she said. “That’s good I guess. We have a lead. But why do you look like you just saw a ghost?”
I licked my lips. “This photo was taken just before my surgery.”
Sarah arched an eyebrow. “So?”
“Months before I met CyberLife.”
Sarah looked back and forth between the photo and me. “You sure?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “I had my surgery, got fitted for a regular prosthetic, and went through three months of chemo. That’s when Dr. Merrick first reached out to my parents.”
I stared at the zoomed-in image of Carter. My memory flashed through my diagnoses, surgery, and chemo treatments several times.
No mistake.
Unless my parents had met CyberLife before and not told me about it, the timing was all wrong.
“Well, it might be nothing,” Sarah said. “Maybe CyberLife was working with the hospital to find a candidate for the pilot program. Maybe they didn’t decide on you until later.”
I took a sip of coffee. “I don’t know, Sarah. Maybe.”
She gently squeezed my knee. “Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “Either way, this is a piece of the puzzle. Now we just have to figure out where it fits. Let’s see what else we can learn about Carter. Sound good?”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” I said.
I stood up and grabbed the two mugs of coffee off the table. As Sarah’s focus turned back to her laptop, I walked to the counter and refilled both of them. A minute later, I sat back down and pressed my back into the soft, overstuffed couch. Sarah had pulled her hair into a ponytail, revealing something on the back of her neck. I sat back up and took a closer look. It was a small tattoo that spelled: Ak1rA
I narrowed my eyes and tried to pronounce the word. “A-keer-a?”
Sarah snapped her head around. “What did you say?”
“Um, not sure,” I said. “Just trying to figure out what your tattoo says.”
She clamped her hand over it. An embarrassed smile formed on her lips. “Oh, that. Um . . . it’s my screen name.”
“Your what?” I asked.
“My screen name. You know, for websites, online games, and stuff. It’s also my hacker handle.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Hacker handle?”
“I know, it sounds geeky,” she said. “But hackers don’t use their real name online for obvious reasons. They use a handle. Ak1rA is mine.”
I stifled a smile. She scowled and punched me in the leg.
“Ouch!” she exclaimed, shaking her hand. “Wrong one.”
We both laughed, and I said, “Yeah, you have to be careful when you do that.”
She flexed her hand several times and then turned back to her laptop.
“So what does it mean?” I asked.
“It was the name of . . .”
When she didn’t finish, I asked, “What?”
She bit her lip. “. . . the name of a video game character I used to play all the time—Akira.”
I grinned.
She scowled.
“I know, I know,” she said. “I’m a geek, what can I say.”
“Nah, it’s cool,” I said.
“No, Ben. It’s definitely not cool.”
“Well, I like it,” I said.
She shook her head. “Thanks. Now stop staring at me. Go get me some more coffee or something.”
“Already did,” I said, pointing at her cup on the table.
She looked down at the full mug. “Sorry. Kinda focused.”
There was no point hovering around her while she worked, so I stood and walked across the small shop to a stack of old books and magazines piled on a table. As I flipped through them, something poked at the back of my mind. The letters A-k-1-r-A didn’t seem familiar. But the way Sarah pronounced it, did.
Akira, with an i.
I walked back to the couch, put my hand on her shoulder, and looked again at her neck.
A-K-1-R-A.
“Ben, seriously? It’s just a tattoo.” She groaned.
For the second time in five minutes, my heart froze. I had seen that word before.
Monday night on Megan’s phone.
Akira
The other text message.
Sarah has known Megan all along.
21
I placed my hand under Sarah’s arm and lifted her up.
“Ben, what the hell?”
“Come on, we need to talk,” I said through clenched teeth. “Now.”
I pulled her toward the front door.
“Okay, jeez,” she said. “That hurts. Let go.”
I let go of her arm, opened the door, and nudged her through. We walked around the corner and into the alley. It was freezing outside and neither of us wore a jacket. I was too angry to care.
Once I was sure we were alone, I turned to face Sarah. I moved in close and she backed up and into the old brick wall. My anger flared. I stared at her, breathing heavily. The cold air froze as it left my mouth and nose.
Sarah swallowed hard. “You’re . . . scaring me, Ben.”
I clenched my jaw, and said, “You lied to me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your tattoo, Sarah.”
“What about it?”
“I’ve seen it before. On Megan’s phone. Just before she died.”
She jerked back, her eyes wide. “Ben, I can . . . explain.”
My heart sank. I had wanted her to deny it. Give me a good excuse. Tell me I had lost my mind.
“I–I did know her,” she said, lips quivering.
“How?” I snapped.
“She . . . she hired me. The same way you
did. But she kept her identity hidden. I didn’t even know her real name until you told me. She used an online screen name. Paragon. I didn’t know that you knew her—or that she had been killed—until you told me.”
My face was inches from Sarah’s. Her eyes darted from me to the ground. She couldn’t hold my gaze.
“Please, Ben,” she said quietly. “You have to believe me.”
I hesitated, then asked, “When did you meet her?”
“Two weeks ago. At the Starbucks by school.”
Sarah’s eyes welled up.
I thought back to our conversation about Megan and the photo I shared with her. Two weeks ago was about right. That’s when I had unexpectedly run into Megan at Starbucks.
Did I tell Sarah when the photo was taken?
I didn’t think so. If she was telling the truth, it explained what Megan had been doing there in the middle of a workday. “Then what,” I said.
Sarah was crying now. “She told me that she developed some software and that her company was trying to steal it from her. They claimed it was theirs and she was angry and thought they were just trying to rip her off. She wanted my help hacking into their server so she could remove the source code to the program.”
“When?”
“When what?”
“When were you supposed to do this?”
Sarah used the back of her hand to wipe the tears from her face. “It was supposed to be next week. But Megan called me early on Monday morning and told me it had to happen right away.”
My last minute appointment . . .
Megan acting strange . . .
The hidden underground laboratory . . .
The fire alarm with no fire trucks . . .
I swallowed hard as the pieces snapped together.
Sarah continued. “I logged in to the network using her VPN credentials. Then I moved the files from a server to some storage device she had on her. That was it. I didn’t hear from her again.”
“Did you know she worked for CyberLife?”
“Yeah, but not until Monday when I logged into the VPN. When you mentioned your leg came from CyberLife, I didn’t think much of it. I mean, half the kids in our school are their customers.”
I nodded.
“Then you showed me the picture of her. That’s when I knew something wasn’t right.”
I flashed back to Wednesday night. Right after I showed her the picture was when she became upset and ran to the bathroom. “Why didn’t you say something?” I pressed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to. I had made my mind up in the bathroom. You’d been so honest with me. I wanted to do the same. But when I came out Sofia was there.” She paused and sniffed a few times. “I–I lost my nerve.”
I exhaled and slowly nodded. Sarah didn’t seem to be lying to me. If she was, she was one hell of an actress. What she said fit with what I had seen from the other side of things. But there was one part that still didn’t make sense.
Why was Megan stealing from CyberLife?
Sarah shivered. She wore only a t-shirt. I pulled my sweatshirt off and placed it over her head. She didn’t resist as I pulled it down over her body. When I finished, she wrapped her arms around me and pushed her head into my chest.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
I stood motionless, hands still clenching the bottom of my sweatshirt. As quickly as the anger came, it faded away. I reached up and placed my arms around Sarah’s back and squeezed.
With her head still on my chest, she whispered, “I should have told you sooner. I’m so sorry about your friend.”
We stood in the cold alley and held each other for several minutes. I was half-frozen, but didn’t care. I wasn’t going to be the one to end it. “So you’re sure Megan was stealing something from CyberLife?” I said. “A software program?”
Sarah shook her head against my chest.
“But you said . . .”
“I know. That’s what she told me. But the files I helped her transfer were too big to be a software program. It was like a terabyte of data. And the data just didn’t look right. Not like any program I’ve seen anyway.”
“What do you think it was?” I asked.
“Not sure. At the time, I thought maybe it was a data archive of some sort. It was certainly large enough to be one.”
I thought back to Monday morning. I had been in the lab with Megan from a little after four to almost eight. During that time, she barely left her laptop and didn’t once leave the room. I pictured the data cable hooked up to my knee.
Since you’re in a hurry, I’ll use the wire, she had said. It transfers data a hundred times faster.
My body started to tremble as a terrifying thought formed in my mind. After a long pause, I asked, “Sarah, what did you copy it to?”
She shrugged. “Not sure. Something with lots of available storage though. And something crazy fast. The transfer only took ten minutes.”
Okay, Benjamin, you’ve got ten minutes. Start talking.
“What time on Monday morning?” I asked.
“I don’t know. 7:15 or 7:30, I guess.”
My breathing grew fast and shallow.
Sarah pulled away. Her eyes were still red and wet.
“Ben?”
“I . . . I know what she copied it to,” I said.
She stared, mouth open. “What?”
“Me.”
22
Back inside the coffee shop, I explained to Sarah how much Dr. Merrick had CyberLife locked down. Not only from the outside going in, but vice versa. Megan once told me it was easier to smuggle in a gun than walk out with a simple flash drive.
“Your system was the perfect hiding place,” Sarah said, nodding. “You’re like some sort of high-tech drug mule. For data.”
“Good one,” I said. “But you’re right. I came and went all the time. Probably never crossed the security team’s mind.”
“So, do you want to find out for sure?” Sarah asked.
“Find what out?”
“If the files I copied for Megan are really on your system.”
“How?”
“We can login and take a look.”
“You want to hack my brain?”
Sarah shrugged. “I guess if you want to put it that way. Yes. But technically it’s not hacking. I have the access credentials from the other day. Unless they’ve changed, of course.”
When I didn’t reply right away, Sarah continued. “Look, I would just poke around a little. See if the files are there. If they are, we know. Right?”
I stared through her and at the wall on the far side of the coffee shop. My sense of feeling overwhelmed was back. My brain tried to process what I had just learned about Megan along with everything else that happened. Just like before, the memory of her sent a dull ache through my stomach. Only this time, it wasn’t just because of her death.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s take a look.” I reached into my wallet and pulled out a plastic card I had carried for years but never used. “Just in case.”
“What’s this?” she asked as she inspected the card.
“It’s CyberLife’s emergency number. If you call it, they’ll send a team out.”
Sarah’s eyes flashed with worry. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all,” she said. “I’m not sure I can even do it.”
“It’ll be fine,” I said. “You know this stuff. And if what you’re saying is true, you’ve already been in my system once. Right?”
“Yeah.”
“Look, worst case, you call the number on the card.”
“No, worst case, I fry your brain.”
Actually, it could be worse than that, I thought, picturing a black helicopter, full of CyberLife security guards and lawyers, landing on the street outside. I decided not to tell Sarah about that one. Instead, I reached out and gently touched her arm. “I trust you.”
She exhaled sharply, looked back at her screen, and fired up the same hacking program she
used at the hospital. “First,” she said. “We need to access your wireless network.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then you get to drop your pants so I can plug into that data port on your knee.”
My face turned red. “Funny,” I said.
She grinned as she entered a series of commands on her laptop. A moment later, she said, “Lucky you. Found it. Looks like Megan didn’t have it locked down. I doubt CyberLife expected anybody to even look for your wireless hotspot, much less find it.”
Sarah opened a new window on her laptop. A 3D version of the CyberLife logo appeared on the screen. She entered the username and password and pressed SUBMIT. The logo disappeared, replaced by a black screen and a single, blinking cursor.
“Still works,” Sarah said. “We’re in.”
Ten minutes later, Sarah jabbed my shoulder with her elbow. “Hey, wake up,” she said. “Found the log.”
I rubbed my face and sat up. “Just resting my eyes,” I said, eyeing the screen, which displayed a garbled wall of text. “What’s that?” I asked.
“That’s the back-end of your operating system. And before you ask, no, it’s not Linux,” she said with a laugh. “This is much more advanced. Though it’s similar enough for me to work my way around.” She tilted her laptop and pointed to a line of text with Monday’s date. Next to it was a list of file names.
“So what does it mean?” I asked.
“It means you’re carrying around a bunch of stolen CyberLife data.”
I lowered my head, fighting despair over what it looked like Megan had done. “Can you tell what it is?”
“Most of what she copied over is encrypted, unreadable without the key. But a few files are just plain text. I’ll take a look through those now.”
I grabbed our two half-empty coffee mugs and strolled back to the counter for another round. As I waited for Ted to refill the mugs, I turned and watched Sarah work. The blue glow from her laptop display cast a faint light on her pretty face. Buried somewhere deep in my gut, I knew it had taken money to get her to help me. But over the previous day and half, I wanted to believe there was more to it. The kiss, the hugs, the going above and beyond what I hired her for.
What she did on the side still didn’t jive with what I saw in her. I was having a hard time working out in my mind that she spent her nights hacking computers. Earlier that morning, Sofia mentioned how nice and sweet Sarah was.