Tracker Hacker

by Jeff Adams

  I pulled my phone and pinged Lorenzo because he wasn’t on video.

  “Winger, I thought you were done for the night. What’s up?”

  I could tell by the sigh that he’d been asleep.

  “Sorry, man. Just haven’t gone to bed yet.”

  “S’okay. What’s up?”

  I told him what I’d figured out. “Are there any of the chips around that interfaced with the controller? I’d love to get one for testing.”

  “I don’t know. That’s before my time. I can ask Red Hat. She’d know for sure. What’re you thinking?”

  “I think they figured all this out using the chip they extracted from that agent. It’s why they’re still able to get people, even though we plugged the hole we found.”

  “Hmm. And she would’ve had one of those chips. Other than that, the chips work exactly like what we use now.”

  “Would that agent have known the IDs of any of the other agents who are missing or off grid?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”

  My mind raced full tilt now. “Even if they don’t, though, they could make guesses on IDs and see what they get. Why the hell weren’t those chips replaced when agent control was decommissioned?” I kinda didn’t mean to say that the last part out loud. Luckily it was just Lorenzo.

  “Good question,” His tone gave away that he’d been thinking the same thing. “I’ll see about getting you one of the original chips ASAP.”

  “If not, maybe we could get Shotgun’s or Snowbird’s removed and upgraded?”

  “On it. I’ll keep you posted.” Lorenzo yelped as a number of alarms went off on his side of the phone. “Dammit. Winger, agents are going off grid, several at a time. We’re losing four a minute.”

  I brought up the tracker interface, and as I watched, the count of active agents decreased by two.

  “How?”

  “Don’t know.” The clicks of his keyboard were almost deafening.

  How could we stop this? The IDs were the key. If you had the IDs, you could take over the signal. You didn’t necessarily know who the agent was, but you’d know where they were.

  “What if we change the IDs?”

  “That’s a few thousand, Winger. We’d never do it fast enough.”

  “Algorithm to change them, make them more complex, letters and numbers. Write off the original IDs to a secure location so we can translate later.”

  I imagined Lorenzo’s scrunched-up thinking face as he considered. Meanwhile my hands danced over my keyboard to write a simple program to do this. I used a varied length sequence, which was also alphanumeric. It would take too long to make the program recognize special characters, but that could be a future upgrade. I planned to write the original IDs into my backup log for now so we’d have the list of the transformations. I could send that securely over to Lorenzo later.

  “Winger. Red Hat here. Doctor Possible added me. Do you think you can get this done?”

  “We’re losing six a minute now, with about one hundred fifty off the grid from this event,” Lorenzo said.

  “Yes, ma’am, I believe so. I’m working on the code now.”

  Silence from her for a moment. “Get the code done and send to Doc and myself. We’ll help test it.”

  “Got it. Stand by.”

  I always typed quickly anyway, but it felt like I’d gone into warp speed. It was simple code, but I needed the algorithm to be tight to make sure there were no obvious patterns in case information got into the wrong hands. We could sort out the usability of the long IDs later but for now, we had to stop the agents being removed from TOS view.

  I added in a secondary algorithm that would create new IDs each day. By the time that started, we’d have a better place to write the secure information translating back to the original IDs.

  I was pissed I didn’t have any Dr Pepper in my fridge. Actually I had nothing in the fridge, because I tended to munch as I worked and I’d been working quite a bit the past couple of days. I should’ve restocked when I made that grocery trip for Mom. I couldn’t even yell downstairs to get something because of the soundproofing in the walls. Oh well. I’d get by.

  Twenty-six minutes later, I sent the code to Lorenzo and Joanna. It looked pretty solid in my own testing.

  “Okay. You’ve got it. See if you can break it.” I filled them in on all the features I put in.

  “I can’t believe you wrote this so fast,” Lorenzo said after a few minutes. “It’s tight. So far my tests look good.”

  “Mine too,” added Red Hat. “How will you apply this?”

  “I’m going to rewrite directly in the database, and I’ll output the translations onto one of my secure servers. Then you tell me where to send it and I’ll upload a copy there. I think it should be a location outside the network where the tracker system is housed.”

  “Agreed,” she said.

  It was quiet as we all continued testing. I was confident in the code and the plan, but I kept testing to make sure it was performing as I expected it to. This had to be it. The takeover had to stop. It was still six per minute, and it was still too many. Hundreds of agents were vulnerable and easy to pick off, kinda like I’d been.

  Less than fifteen minutes later, Lorenzo and Joanna reported they were satisfied with the code. Of course that meant another ninety agents had gone off the grid during their testing. I quickly ran the code on the database, and it transformed the few thousand remaining IDs in just a couple of minutes.

  “Done,” I announced as soon as the completion notification came up.

  “Now we wait and see,” Joanna said.

  While we waited for reports to come in to see if we’d lost more people, I further encrypted the conversion list for safety, because I was going to transfer it over to the TOS servers.

  “So far, so good,” Lorenzo reported. “Couple of minutes with no further loss.”

  “What happens to the ones that went off grid?” I asked.

  “We’re working to get in contact with those agents to find out where they are,” Joanna said, “determine their status, and let them know they may be at risk. We’ll get their trackers replaced as quickly as possible. Also we’ve got an older chip on the way to you, Winger, so you can do further analysis. You’ll have it by morning.”

  “I’ll make it a priority.”

  Checking the map, I saw Mom and John were still in the TOS system. I was glad I stopped the problem before they were lost. I wanted to ask about Dad, but I knew that was inappropriate.

  Once Lorenzo and Joanna were satisfied we’d stopped the takeover, I told them I was signing off. “If anything comes up, though, call.”

  “Thanks, Winger,” Lorenzo said and Joanna echoed him.

  It was quarter to twelve so I had a few minutes before when I wanted to be in bed. I wandered down to Mom’s office and found her and John there, just as they’d been nearly two hours ago.

  Mom saw me before I could speak.

  “Theo? Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. Just been a busy couple hours. Wanted to come down and—well, just to say good night again.”

  Mom got up and came around the desk as I walked toward her. She wrapped me in a hug. Being a mom, she knew I needed it.

  “I know there’s things you can’t talk about. But you’re doing okay, right?”

  I nodded, still enjoying her embrace. “I am. Just some really intense work and….” I didn’t know what I wanted to say.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered, “to need a hug from Mom sometimes. Doesn’t matter how old you are.”

  She kissed the top of my head.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  She let me keep hold as long as I needed. When I finally let go, she gave me one more kiss. I went over to John, feeling a bit silly but going for it anyway.

  “Old times’ sake?” I asked as he looked up from his screen.

  “Of course.” He stood and gave me a bear hug.

  I’d known he wasn’t my real uncle for some
time, but he still seemed like family to me. His sturdy embrace reminded me of Dad’s and that was comforting.

  “I’m here anytime you need me, Theo. For anything.”

  “Thanks.”

  We did a fist bump once we’d released each other.

  “I’m going to call it a night. See you in the morning.”

  “Night, sweetheart,” Mom said.

  “Later, Theo,” John added.

  Going back to my room, my mood was improved. It was silly to want the hugs, but I suspected I was going to sleep better because of them.

  Chapter Eleven

  AFTER PRACTICE I had a secure message on my phone from Mom saying she and Joanna wanted to talk to me. Joanna and Mom? That was a weird combination. The message was from Mom, but I couldn’t remember a time they’d talked to me together. Even if I was working on a mission with Mom and Dad, Lorenzo usually did the tech briefing.

  I hurriedly stripped off the top half of my pads, grabbed my phone from the locker, and went into the hallway. Looking around, I called Mom on her regular line so she could get Joanna and call me back.

  “Theo, hi,” Mom said.

  “I just got out of practice and saw the message.”

  “Can I call you back? I’m in the middle of something here.”

  “Sure can. I’ll keep the phone close.”

  We hung up, and she immediately sent me a secure text telling me she’d get Joanna and call right back.

  While I waited, I looked through my TOS email, and there was nothing out of the ordinary. They’d managed to talk to 223 agents of the nearly 400 who were off-grid. They continued the work to contact the others. Some were on leave, and that occasionally made them more difficult to reach. There were twenty-seven off-grid agents that were of concern.

  The phone vibrated in my hand and I answered immediately.

  “Winger. This is Red Hat.”

  “Winger. This is Snowbird.”

  “Hey.” I sounded upbeat as if I might be talking to a friend. “I’m just off the ice and not able to talk much but wanted to check in.”

  “Understood,” Red Hat said. “Snowbird, I’ll let you take it from here.”

  “Winger, we thought it was important to let you know some news sooner rather than later.” Her breath caught. Mom was upset. What happened? “Defender is missing.”

  I slumped against the wall. My hand holding the phone dropped to my side and bounced off the cinder blocks. My legs threatened to buckle, but I managed to remain standing. I composed myself, walked farther away from the locker room to lessen the chance of someone hearing, and raised the phone again.

  “Sorry.” My voice cracked in the middle of the word, making it sound like a whimper.

  “It’s okay.” I’d never heard Joanna sound upset, which only made this worse. “He’s one of the agents that went off-grid last night in the takeover.”

  “No,” I said softly.

  Even when Dad was in trouble before, TOS had always known where he was. Now he was missing, and it was my fault. I hadn’t moved fast enough.

  “Winger,” Mom said. “Can you skip your afternoon engagements and return to base?”

  Sometimes I hated protocol.

  “I’d rather keep my schedule.”

  “Winger, I….”

  “Please, let me finish. If there’s surveillance on me, which is very possible since they know who I am, I think I should follow my regular schedule so it doesn’t appear anything is amiss.”

  It made sense to me. My old tracker hadn’t left my room since they’d taken it out. What I didn’t know was if there were actual people watching me. As much as getting captured again worried me, I also didn’t want to succumb to fear and just hide. Silence on the other end of the phone said they were struggling with it too.

  “He might be right, Snowbird,” Joanna said.

  “Okay.” Mom struggled with the suggestion. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours, then.”

  I spoke quietly. “Red Hat, I’ll get to work on what you sent as soon as I’m at my station.”

  “Some people here are working on what you mentioned in this morning’s email as well. I’ll make sure they send you any findings, so you have them when you get there.”

  “Thanks. I need to go.”

  “Understood,” Joanna said.

  I disconnected and sent Mom a text on our regular line with no security: Don’t worry. I’ll be home regular time.

  Sorry I’m being such a mom came the reply.

  It’s okay. I understand.

  Coach Daly walked by and must’ve seen the look on my face as I headed to the locker room.

  “Reese?” I stopped and turned back. “You look like you might be sick. You okay?”

  I nodded, but it didn’t feel very convincing. He gazed at me as if he were trying to get a more accurate reading.

  “Hit the showers, maybe that’ll help.”

  “I’m sure it will.”

  So much ran through my head as I got out of the gear, put it away, and entered the showers. If I’d done more, Dad wouldn’t be missing. And what about all those other agents? The ones that TOS couldn’t find were my fault.

  “Hey, man,” Mitch said. “Good stuff today. I’m glad you’re back at full speed.”

  “Me too.” It was hard to keep it together. It felt like my chest might explode. “Looking forward to a kickass game this weekend to make up for last week.”

  Luckily Mitch was nearly finished, so I didn’t have to make a lot of small talk. My mind continued to race. I hadn’t figured out how to trace the trackers that had gone missing. I could see the traffic going back and forth, but I couldn’t figure out how to find the originating computer based on the chips’ return transmission. There had to be a way. It was older tech. I was just missing something.

  Even stranger was that the TOS documentation didn’t mention how the device made and received transmissions. It was as if that information had been deleted. Lorenzo looked in other repositories, but the only documents that he found were the ones I already had.

  As I came out of the locker room, I found Eddie talking to Mitch. Wordlessly I went up to Eddie and wrapped him in a hug. After a grunt of pain, which I felt bad about, he hugged me back.

  “Hey. What’s up?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” I tried to quash the emotions that threatened to escape. “Can’t I just get a hug?”

  “Of course,” he chuckled as I hung on. “It’s just not like you to throw yourself on me like that.”

  “You sure something’s not going on?” Mitch asked. “You seemed off after that call.”

  I let Eddie go and looked at my friends. “It was an update from the cops. They’ve got nothing new. It kinda brought everything back. I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

  Mitch clapped me on the back. “That’s messed-up. How does a van disappear? How does no one see a guy taken off his bike? Is this going to make you switch to a car so you’ll have steel wrapped around you for safety?”

  I laughed. I appreciated how it just popped out because it broke my sadness. Mitch often ragged on me for riding my bike everywhere, given the effort it took and the extra time required. I liked how he was trying to turn this into a procar moment.

  “No way. It’s the best way to travel. I’ve got all the parts, and I’ll fix it up over the next few days so things will be back to normal.”

  “Which is too bad. We’ve had some nice times in cars over the past few days.” Eddie wore a big grin.

  “I’m sure Mitch doesn’t need to hear about that.”

  “What’s to hear?” Mitch asked as we walked toward the lobby. “I’ve had plenty of good times in a car. Eddie makes a good point, Theo. Go with a car and you guys can do that anytime.”

  “Or if I got Eddie on a bike, we could ride to some pretty excellent, secluded places.”

  “We’re not going to win this one,” Eddie said as Mitch rolled his eyes.

  “His loss.” Mitch gestured to me.


  “Mine too,” Eddie sounded a little disappointed. “You have no idea.”

  “And I really don’t need to,” Mitch raised his eyebrows at Eddie. “Okay, I’m outta here. See you guys later.”

  He took off toward his car, and Eddie and I went to mine.

  “Do we have any time before your class to hang out?”

  A quick look at my watch provided the answer. “Sadly not.”

  “Maybe after?”

  “Maybe.” I left it vague and hopefully there’d be no discussion when I said no later. I should’ve just gone home so I could start working again, but I knew going to class was the right choice, even though it was going to be difficult to keep my mind on the lecture. Maybe I’d have an epiphany and the answer to all this would magically drop into my brain during class. It’d happened before and this would be a great day for it to again.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I THINK I may need to launch an intervention.” Eddie fell in step with me in the hallway between first and second period. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like hell.”

  I already knew that. I’d seen myself in the mirror before I came to school. There’d been very little sleep last night. Even though I tried, it didn’t happen. Instead I’d made breakthroughs on how to trace the mind-controlling aspects of the trackers. It was clever how the program accomplished the masking. It took me hours to uncover it, watching how the signals bounced around the internet.

  Around five this morning, I sent Lorenzo all the information so he could run tests on his end to make sure it worked like I thought it did. Even when I lay down, I thought about Dad or had flashbacks from my abduction.

  I tried calling him, both secure and nonsecure. I knew it was stupid, because he wouldn’t pick up for me if he wasn’t picking up for TOS. I did it anyway.

  I knew his phone was in a downtown Denver hotel, but it hadn’t moved in hours. I traced it right after I got home from class yesterday. If TOS figured out I’d done a trace, there’d be trouble. I’d re-designed the phone security system after I’d cracked it originally. However, I’d left a backdoor to my parents’ phones.