Hacked

by Tracy Alexander

My hope that finding Annacando was the answer to a prayer had pretty much disappeared. I considered ending the call but …

  ‘Are you still there, KP?’

  I explained, slowly. Starting with the fact that my real name was Dan Langley, telling her what the bots had been used for (there was a squeak at that point) and ending with the fact that America – her country – wanted me to be taken away from my family.

  ‘You mean extradited?’ she said. How clever was this eleven-year-old who hadn’t wondered what the bots were for?

  ‘Yes, I didn’t say it that way because I didn’t know if you’d understand.’

  ‘I’m top in my class and I’m a Gifted Youth member of American Mensa and I’m going to MIT. My papa is a professor at Harvard and my mom is a psychotherapist.’

  And you need a lesson in modesty, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. All of a sudden I had nothing to say. What did I expect her to do?

  ‘How can I help you, KP?’

  ‘I … I hadn’t really thought it through,’ I said, keen to end the stupid call with the spectacle-wearing-cheesy-grin-full-of-herself-cheerleading American (not that I could see her).

  ‘Do they want to extradite you because they think you knew what Angel was going to do?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘But you didn’t know. Like I didn’t know that my bots were going to stop the subway?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  There was a pause, longer than the lag that you get with long-distance calls, and then Anna said, ‘I get it … you want me to tell someone that I collected the bots in exchange for points, nothing to do with London, and you hacked the drone in exchange for … what did she give you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  ‘That was mean,’ said Anna.

  I had a vision of going to Westminster Magistrate’s Court with a laptop and getting Anna on Skype and having her tell the judge that she infected people’s computers with her ‘My brother poked my eye out’ video to get points and I did it for nothing.

  I heard some shouting in the distance – her end, not mine.

  ‘Catch you later, KP,’ she said. ‘Mom’s calling me for dinner.’

  50

  Saturday arrived, grey, wet and windy. It was sixteen days until E-Day. I had scrambled eggs for breakfast, a rare variation on the Weetabix routine, and went back to bed. Ty arrived, with what looked like English Lit to revise.

  ‘Come on, we’ve got work to do,’ he said to the slit allowing air to reach my duvet-covered head and body.

  I didn’t answer so he tugged a corner, I resisted and there was a short wrestle.

  ‘What’s the point?’ I said.

  ‘The point is that I need good grades. You can go hang.’

  ‘Seriously.’ I sat up, cross-legged. ‘What if they agree to send me to the States?’

  He shrugged. ‘You can’t think like that.’

  I told him about my weird chat across the ocean and now-abandoned plan to rally together Angel’s army, and played him some of AnnaCanDo’s YouTube videos. The highlight was her doing the Cinnamon Challenge and retching. The lowlight, her solving some mathematical thing on an Etch A Sketch. The one with the poked-out eye wasn’t there. We didn’t watch her explanation of Black Holes.

  ‘Kooky,’ he said.

  ‘She’s a cross between a pageant queen and Stephen Hawking.’

  ‘No, more like Barbie and Brian Cox.’

  ‘Seriously, Ty, if she’s anything to go by, the whole lot of us would be extradited as soon as the authorities found out about us.’

  He opened his eyes wide, which made his thin pink scar crinkle.

  ‘You thick idiot,’ he said. ‘Are you sure I got the brain injury and not you?’

  ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘What would happen if the UK asked for your American kiddy to be extradited for her part in Dronejacker’s plan?’

  I caught up. ‘The Americans would refuse. She’s only eleven, and her dad’s a Harvard professor.’

  ‘Getting better by the minute,’ he said. ‘And if they refuse to let her come here, no one’s going to insist you go there. You can’t have one rule for them and another for us. That would make the UK look pathetic.’

  We talked some more – the logic was sound. If a Brit hacking a US system deserved extradition, a Yank hacking a British system deserved the same, especially as they were both part of the same plot.

  Ty’s smile was wider than his face. I could feel mine wasn’t far off. I wanted to run round to Charlie Tate’s office and tell him to do something lawyery, but it was Saturday. I tried his mobile. It was diverted.

  ‘Calm down,’ said Ty. ‘Monday’ll have to do.’

  Ty opened a book and we somehow knuckled down to go through the play that we were going to be quizzed on in the exam on Monday. Gradually, I let the words of the Bard drown out the doubters in my head. Gradually, I started to believe that Anna could be my saviour. That the extradition papers were a step closer to being torn up and thrown away.

  The doorbell rang.

  ‘It’s Ruby,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll get off,’ said Ty. ‘See you Monday?’

  ‘Bright and early.’

  Saturday evening with Ruby and Sunday with the volunteers were the best days I’d had since the episode of Confessional Tourette’s that catapulted me into the limelight. You might not think it could get better than Forgiving Friday when Ruby finally let her heart rule her head, but it did, because this time I had Ruby and I had hope.

  51

  I rang Charlie Tate and arranged to go and meet him in a café after my Monday morning exam – 1.30 in the Boston Tea Party on Park Street. I didn’t tell Mum or Dad about the development but had, briefly, let myself picture Mum’s relief when she realised it was properly over.

  Charlie was there first, sitting on a stool by the window with his shirtsleeves rolled up, and no tie. His trousers looked like they’d been under his pillow.

  ‘Dan!’ He stood up, smiling as usual, and shook my hand. He already had a coffee in front of him, and one for me. (My third ever.)

  I launched straight into the Anaconda/Annacando story, totally confusing him.

  ‘Slow it down, Dan. Remember I’m a mortal, not a savant.’

  It wasn’t much better the second time but he got the basics.

  ‘Anna is eleven, lives nears Boston, we assume, if her father teaches at Harvard, and has admitted to you, verbally, that she helped Angel build a botnet, which may have been used to bring down the London Transport ticketing capability on the day of the threatened drone strike.’

  ‘Yes, but not may, did.’

  He took a sip of coffee. Not quite the excited reaction I’d expected. I spelt it out for him.

  ‘The US will never agree to her extradition, and that means the UK can’t agree to mine or it’ll look pathetic.’ It sounded more convincing when Ty said it.

  ‘Dan, our task is to keep you from being extradited. Incriminating other parties is not our task.’ He was talking agonisingly slowly.

  ‘But if —’

  ‘Hear me out. I can see your thought process, but … where do I start?’ He rubbed his stubble. ‘OK. Anna is in all likelihood below the age of criminal responsibility, and certainly no country would ask to extradite a child of her age. Her verbal confession of guilt to you would be inadmissible. If by a miracle she agreed to admit her part in a court of law, her lack of malicious intent, like yours, is unsubstantiated, which could make your situation worse – perhaps you were working together? To even get to that stage would be impractical in the short, or even medium term. We’re talking two separate investigations, two jurisdictions, two distinctly different criminal acts and, as I’ve explained before, either no evidence or none that can be easily understood. The prospect of a quick and dirty tit for tat, which is I think what you were hoping for, is zero.’

  I didn’t want to hear excuses. I’d given him evidence and he was giving me flannel.


  I raised my voice. ‘I only have two weeks. That’s ten lawyer days.’

  ‘Dan, if … and I don’t expect this to be the case … but if the extradition order is approved, we appeal. You’re not going anywhere in two weeks, or two years. We stick to the plan.’

  Charlie and I shook hands, and I went home. His words might have made sense to him but they didn’t to me. Gary McKinnon had deportation hanging over him for ten years. In ten years I’d be twenty-six, except I wouldn’t. I’d either be dead, or locked up in a mental institution. Anna was in on it, but clearly not a terrorist. There had to be some way that she could help. Hell, maybe she knew the other bot collectors … I hadn’t thought to ask her that. By the time I got back to our empty house I had a list of questions that I should have asked the first time. She was a Gifted Youth, between us there had to be a way.

  I rang her from the house phone to save my credit.

  ‘Hi, this is Anna Rothenberg. We’re hiking and wild camping, so leave a message for me, and I’ll get back to you when we get home from our vacation, assuming we don’t meet any bears!’

  Her jolly message, so at odds with my situation, threw me completely. I ended up pleading.

  ‘… I know if you admit to the botnet you’ll be in trouble, but you’re younger than me so nothing bad’ll happen. And like I said, if you know anyone else who was involved, maybe we could all vouch for each other. I’m really scared, Anna, scared that I’ll be made to leave my family and my friends.’

  And Ruby.

  It was truly pathetic. I flopped onto my bed, face down, and stayed there.

  Without Anna, who might be in Jellystone Park with Yogi until after the hearing for all I knew, my hopes were pinned on Charlie Tate again. That didn’t seem anything like as good as it had before.

  My phone shuddered a few times but I stayed where I was. The pillow got wet so I turned it over.

  ‘Dan? Are you asleep?’

  It was Mum. I moved an arm to indicate that I’d heard but kept my face buried.

  She came and sat on the bed and stroked my hair.

  ‘It’s hard, harder than anything any of us have been through before, but we will make it. We’ll fight and fight. I won’t lose you, Dan.’

  52

  You don’t want a blow by blow of the countdown to E-Day. There was stress, and revision, and in between a few nice bits – sharing a large tub of Ben & Jerry’s Caramel Chew Chew with Ruby, the odd hour gaming round at Joe’s (Ty wouldn’t come because it wasn’t in his revision timetable), watching Michael McIntyre with Dad, sleeping … but everything was tainted by the trip to London, looming over us like the Shard.

  I tried to write a blog, like Ruby suggested, but however I described what I’d done, I sounded guilty. There’s a big difference between a good cause like saving the planet and what I did.

  Saturday night, Dad tried to improve the family mood by taking us to The Cambridge Arms to eat. I resisted the urge to call it my ‘last meal’. Ruby came with us, after ringing her mum and lying about where she was.

  ‘How are you?’ asked the barman.

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  The five of us were sitting reading the menus before we chose the same as normal, when my phone delivered a message. It was Ty.

  where r u

  Cambridge

  be there in 5

  That was when a new set of dominoes started to fall, one by one.

  Ty arrived with his laptop.

  ‘I was going to show the twins Anna doing the cinnamon-eating, but when I put her name into YouTube there was a new one. Look!’

  We crowded round the screen. He pressed play, and nothing happened.

  ‘You need Wi-Fi,’ said Ruby.

  ‘They don’t let you have it,’ said Dad. ‘It’s not a library.’

  ‘Is it something to do with the extradition?’ said Mum.

  Ty’s nod sent Mum up to the bar and in two seconds she had the password.

  Play.

  There was Anna. Blonde, wavy hair, blue eyes, pink lips, tanned face, navy T-shirt. All American, in other words.

  ‘I declare, that everything I’m about to say is true, so help me God.’ She was looking straight at camera with her palm up, like it was a proper oath. ‘I deliberately infected thousands of strangers’ computers for someone I met on the web in exchange for points …’ The story went on, and then got better. ‘Dan Langley, who lives in England, did something for the same stranger, and like me, he didn’t know what she was planning. That stranger was called Dronejacker by the news people. We thought she was called Angel. She was only discovered because Dan tracked her down. Her real identity has been kept secret, even though she is the only criminal.’

  Anna took a sip of water. The short silence made me aware that the whole pub was listening.

  ‘The US Government have asked for Dan to be extradited, but that’s not fair, unless I’m extradited too. Dan and I, who have never met, are not terrorists, we are only guilty of being very good at writing code and very bad at asking the questions we should have. That is not a reason to take a boy away from his sister and Mom and Dad. My parents will see this video and be mad. Please repost before they ask me to take it down, to save Dan Langley.’

  Stunned. I was absolutely stunned. And moved. There was an eruption of cheers and clapping. Mum was teary. Dad was beaming. El was holding onto Ruby. People started to edge over and wish me luck. Another round of drinks came over, free of charge.

  ‘Would you mind playing it again?’ said a woman about Mum’s age who had been sitting the other side of the bar. ‘I didn’t hear the beginning.’

  Ty propped the laptop up on the counter where you order food and put the volume on max.

  Afterwards the same woman got out her phone, and said, ‘Anyone in the room who agrees that Dan’s extradition threat is a disgrace, get sharing, blogging, tweeting, tell people …’

  That was the second domino, falling with a great loud thump.

  53

  We stayed till late, all except Ruby who tried to slip away at nine-thirty but got noticed.

  ‘Do you have to go?’ said Mum. ‘Dan’ll happily walk you home later.’

  ‘Her mum doesn’t know about us,’ I said, to save Ruby having to.

  Ruby looked ashamed.

  ‘Once Dan’s in the clear, I’m sure that will … sort itself out,’ said Mum. She leant over and kissed Ruby’s cheek.

  ‘Mum!’ said El.

  Dad tried to kiss El but she backed away so she was nearly sitting on Ty. All I could hear was laughing.

  As soon as we got home, I went and fetched my laptop and joined Mum and Dad in the kitchen, where El was making hot chocolate for us and coffee for them.

  ‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ I said. They were in a hurry to share the link, convinced the YouTube video would already have loads of views. I let them check the home computer. I was more interested in seeing if I’d had a message from Anna. I found:

  I got your voice message but dont know your cell number – go to www.youtube.com/user/annacando

  I typed: thank you so much

  ‘Dan, come and see.’

  I shifted round a bit.

  It was two hours since we’d seen the video, and four since Anna had posted it. We could hardly expect there to be thousands of hits, and there weren’t. But … Google ‘Save Dan Langley’, and it was a different picture. People – people I didn’t know – were talking about me. Unlike last time, when I was the devil, this time I was David and America was the big bad Goliath and Anna was my fairy godsister. I re-activated my Twitter account and wrote:

  Thanks everyone #saveDanLangley

  The campaign grew in real time as we watched, with hardly any trolls piling in.

  ‘Don’t underestimate the power of a pretty face,’ said Dad.

  ‘Or people’s natural sense of justice,’ said Mum.

  ‘Or how much the British love an underdog.’ Dad winked at me. ‘How’s it feel, Dan?’
<
br />   I didn’t have a word for it.

  ‘Brilliant,’ said El.

  By midnight, Anna’s plea and/or my extradition had been mentioned on human rights’ sites, shared by feminists, on Mumsnet and on /digi/. The fuss only died down as Britain went to bed. About two-thirty we logged the outside world out, but not before I tweeted to Anna.

  @Annacando #AnnaRothenberg I can never thank you enough #saveDanLangley

  It got retweeted right away. People were on my side.

  I hit the pillow and for once I didn’t dream about orange onesies and food in metal trays.

  54

  Sunday – eight days till E-Day.

  Dad went and bought all the papers – just in case. I’d made the Observer. A politician, one in opposition, was ranting about the totally ‘lopsided’ Extradition Act. The article was full of numbers that basically showed that seven Brits get packed off for every one US citizen sent here. Pretty appalling given that there are tons more people living in America than Britain. Dad read the last paragraph out loud:

  ‘All the US Attorney General has to provide, to tear sixteen-year-old Dan Langley away from his family and everything he knows, is an outline of the alleged offence, the punishment specified by statute and an accurate description of Dan himself. If Dan Langley were a US citizen, however, he would have the right to a court hearing in his home country to examine the evidence against him before any warrant was issued. The UK’s National Cyber Crime Unit has questioned Dan Langley and released him without charge, yet he is due to appear at Westminster Magistrate’s Court on 23rd June for an extradition hearing. Does the Home Secretary believe this represents justice for Dan Langley?’

  We ate pain au chocolat while we swapped the latest tweets, mentions and messages. People from school Snapchatted me with ‘Save Dan Langley’ written on their faces, walls, a thigh (that was Soraya). El was hyper – if she couldn’t be famous herself, a famous brother would do.

  ‘Can I make a Twitter account?’ she asked Mum.