Assured Destruction: The Complete Series

by Michael F Stewart

  “What was that place?” I say.

  Jonny just shakes his head. “Group of hermits? Cult?”

  “That recycles like a hundred computers a week?” I ask.

  “Maybe it’s bigger underground.”

  “Maybe,” I swallow. “Our pizza’s going to be cold.”

  “I’m a little queasy actually.”

  “There’s another former customer on the way home,” I say. “Do you mind? Last one, I swear.”

  “As long as I don’t have to go in.”

  A motorcycle, one of those huge ones with chrome and a heavy chop to it, rips past. Neither of us says anything, but we both can guess where it’s headed. I’m trying to remember where else I saw the skull before.

  The next customer in question is in Ottawa’s core. Again, something’s not quite right because we’re passing retail stores, the Rideau Mall, even the Parliament buildings. This isn’t where a big company would have offices requiring Assured Destruction’s services. Turning south, it’s more of the same, but at least we’re into a few office towers.

  “Here it is.” I point at the store beneath the building and double-check the address.

  “I thought you said we were headed to an old customer first?” Jonny asks.

  “I am; we are; this is the address and that’s the right name.”

  “It’s a pizza joint. A ZaZa.”

  “A ZaZa, U Technical, AAA Limited,” I say, rhyming off the different customers. They’re all stupid names but somehow seem linked. I pull over.

  “You said we weren’t going in,” Jonny says as I lower myself to the pavement, leaving the van running.

  “You. You said as long as you don’t have to go in.”

  Jonny doesn’t follow me. The lights are still on in the restaurant, but I startle some kid behind the counter, who tries to hide the comic he was reading.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “What can I get you?” He’s young to be working a restaurant so late and looks the way I sometimes feel when I haven’t seen a customer all day and someone arrives.

  There’s not much to buy. Three remaining slices of pizza bake under heat lamps. The cheese has congealed, as has the grease on the pepperoni.

  “I dunno; it all looks so great.” I try to take the sarcasm from my voice but it’s so hard. “You guys use a lot of computers here?”

  The kid itches at his pimples and glances around. “Um … no.”

  “Used to be a customer of my dad’s,” I say. “Assured Destruction.”

  He shrugs. “I just started. Do you want a slice? I think these are from before lunch. Maybe yesterday … I can try to make you something.”

  I tap the We Deliver—It’s A ZaZa Pizza! sign.

  He flushes. “The guy who trained me said the only delivery we get is like an hour driving to some mansion—told me to close up shop if it happens.”

  I laugh. “Then how would they make any money here?”

  He shrugs his narrow frame. “The mansion tips real good.”

  I raise an eyebrow and peer around with a new eye. I’ve spent enough time trying to save Assured Destruction to learn a bit about business. The rent on a location like this would be pretty high. So how can they survive selling day-old pizza and shutting the store down to deliver? A table leg hangs crooked. Light bulbs are dark in the ceiling. Flypaper in one corner is a black mat of dead bugs. A video camera pans from another corner. I go cold as its lens focuses on me.

  Just then someone pushes in through the door. He stands there at the exit, arms crossed. The leather of his jacket makes cracking sounds as he flexes a bull neck. Brown hair shot with gray is pulled back into a ponytail.

  Now what’re the chances of the same guy showing up here as the one I saw smoking at AAA Limited? And with the same skull emblazoned on his jacket as the one at U Technical?

  Fear prickles between my shoulder blades, causing shudders.

  “I gotta go,” I say. As I turn, I pull the hood of my jacket over my head and tighten the cords so that I look like a worm.

  When I pass, the biker guy says, “Leave it alone, Janus.”

  I halt. Even though a second ago I was freezing, I’m sweating under my hoody. I pull it back and look up at the guy. He’s old to be a meathead. Lines spring from his eyes, his jutting chin clean shaven with a firm, but softening jaw line. The bridge of his nose is off-kilter as if it’s been broken once or twice.

  “How do you know my name?”

  His face twitches. “You leave it alone,” he says.

  “Do you know my father?” I step closer so that I’m under his chin.

  And I think I see his expression fissure, like there’s something he wants to say to me, but can’t.

  “We’re closed for the night.” He opens the door and grabs my elbow, swinging me outside. Pain constricts my breath, and I can’t speak as I hop to stay upright.

  On the sidewalk, I stare back into the store until the clerk is shoved out beside me. The lights turn off.

  “Worst job ever,” the kid says and then walks away.

  When the pain subsides, I cross the street and climb into the van, drawing a deep breath before speaking to Jonny: “It’s a bad place.”

  “Jan, I don’t think you should try any more of these customers.”

  I just nod in total agreement. I shouldn’t. It’s not really about the money, though, is it? A current of excitement lances through me. I’m closer to finding my father than ever.

  Chapter 9

  <> Gumps tweets.

  I drop Jonny off and swing by the hospital. It’s outside of visiting hours but they let me in when I tear up—I know; it’s a gift. And the best part is that Peter’s absent. Sitting alone beside my mom, listening to her breathing, is like a meditation. I lean my head on the mattress and trace my mother’s arm beneath the sheets to hold her hand.

  “What was Dad doing, Mom?” I ask. “Why were you mad at him when he left? Had he cheated on you?”

  In her bed, my mom’s breathing doesn’t even hitch. I remember his departure, even though it was years ago. Dad was screaming. I was at the cash.

  “Your mother’s stooped to blackmail, Jan,” he shouted as he burst from the elevator. He wore a heavy trench coat and a mask of fury. I’m glad I have pictures of him to remind me of better times; otherwise it’s the rage that would have been imprinted on me.

  “Do you wanna know why I’m leaving?” he demanded, and I shrank from him. “Talk to her!” And then he came to his senses. His lip quivered, eyes watered, and he made a choking sound as he enfolded me in his arms. “Always remember, I love you,” he whispered in my ear as if he were telling me a secret. They were the last words he said to me. They’ve kept me searching. Wondering.

  I close my eyes. My mind drifts into a basement filled with fumes and heavy, black smoke. I claw back toward the recollection of my father, but the threads of the memory kindle and are gone, my father with them. I’m ablaze. Fire spreads along my leg and up the side of my arm. My skin is hot, screaming with agony. I struggle but I’m tied to a desk and can’t twist my head. Cold metal presses into the back of neck. The muzzle of a gun.

  Then comes a harsh whisper: Move even a little bit and you’ll eat your brains.

  Something wakes me and I scream.

  “Shush,” comes a voice. But I’m in the apartment and I’m clambering over the back of a predator, both of us vying for the same cold metal gun. His fingertips are so close, and I hammer at his head with my fists, with my forehead.

  “Hey!” comes the voice again, but they’re too late to help me. I make a final effort and my fingers clasp the weapon. The man twists beneath me so that I’m straddling his chest. The gun swings to his face as I pull the trigger—Blam!


  And then I wake.

  No fire. No gun. A nurse shakes my shoulders. At first she nudges gently but then more firmly as time passes and I don’t respond. Her jerks slow when she sees me staring back at her.

  “You were shouting,” she says.

  It’s six-thirty in the morning. Shift change.

  “Sorry,” I say, quaking.

  “This is against hospital rules,” the nurse replies. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  I’m groggy and don’t fully know where I am until I look down and see my mom. Her chest swells with a breath.

  “Thanks for letting me stay,” I say.

  The nurse’s nose lifts, the expression spoiling an otherwise pretty face.

  “Wasn’t me.” She releases my shoulders and goes to work, tying a tourniquet around my mom’s forearm, then sticking in a needle.

  “Hey!” I say. “That’s my mom. She’s sleeping.”

  The nurse tenses, teeth clenching. She has green eyes and red hair with black roots. “And you shouldn’t be here.”

  I stand and wobble with my hands on my mom’s bed for balance. “Aren’t you supposed to serve and protect or do no harm, or something?”

  “Or something,” the nurse answers after scribbling on a chart and then moves to the patient behind the screen, snapping the curtain closed.

  My mom has fallen back to sleep. I lean down and kiss her on the forehead. “See you later, Mom, watch out for that red snapper.”

  Her lips smack.

  Checking a phone for messages is a reflex for me, but sometimes I wish it wasn’t.

  Where r u? Detective Williams has texted. I note three other texts, one with the address of Annie’s Kitchen, followed up by 6 PM tomorrow. And the warning, It could be worse. She’s not my case worker so she doesn’t need to be doing this. She’s trying to help me.

  Part of me wonders if I should tell her about Assured Destruction’s old customers, but what would I say? I’m stalking old customers and they’re telling me to keep away? She’d just tell me to do what I’m told. I recall the look in the ponytail guy’s eyes. He did know my dad. But that makes sense, right? He would be old enough to remember him, and I’d spotted him at two out of three former customers. What confuses me more is Peter’s reaction to the whole former customer thing. This is all connected, somehow.

  It’s still early, but I have time to check out customer number four before classes start.

  I reply to Williams: 10-4.

  I rub my eyes, still trying to get used to winter’s morning darkness and then make my way to the van in the hospital parking lot, crunching through an inch of fresh snow. Sixty-four bucks reads the digital screen of the automated payment machine. There’s no maximum. I reverse and drive over the curb. It seems reasonable; nurse redhead made it very clear; I wasn’t supposed to be here.

  There’s no point in even going home. Trin can open for me. My semi-feral cats will have to hunt for food this morning, but they’ve brought enough dead bird gifts to the back door for me to know they’ll be fine. My only regret is I don’t have a chance to go on Darkslinger, but I can update all the Shadownet profiles from the van. So I drive to the fourth address, our fourth-largest former customer. It’s a ten-minute hike into a residential neighborhood, which is weird … I’ve been here before. It’s like spiders skitter all over me. The dumpster I hid in is gone, but the address is right across from a burnt-out shell of a home. The home of Fenwick, our former employee and the same guy who threatened to kill me if he couldn’t take ownership of Assured Destruction.

  I slump in my seat. It’s a part of the city called Centretown. Here I’m pretty sure half the people spend most of their time shopping for scented candles and highlighting their hair—I could be wrong—and the other half try to keep warm while ensuring their house doesn’t fall down around them. There’s no way this is a business address, nor any sort of customer for Assured Destruction. My eyes scan the house. Since I was here last, someone has built a nice porch that curves out with a hanging loveseat. Snow dusts the dead flowers. I picture ponytail guy lounging in the loveseat, enjoying a book and the smell of his candles.

  “Crap,” I say as I spot the small security camera positioned under the stoop. And pointing right at me. People who keep one usually have something worth protecting.

  Chapter 10

  <> Gumps tweets.

  Right. And that worked out so well for Hansel and Gretel, Heckleena replies.

  I pull away from the creepy former customer number four and head for school despite the early hour. I’m freaked out to think that Fenwick could be a part of this too. Something’s nagging me and I can’t pin it down.

  When I can’t remember something, I massage my head, Tule tweets.

  I wish we had a memory sieve that we could dunk our heads into, Hairy adds.

  I wish I could dunk all your heads into it, Heckleena replies, and hold them there.

  Sitting in the school parking lot, tweeting, is what I need right now. A distraction. Chippy pulls in. I power down the window.

  “Hello, Mr. MacLean, I can take a look at the network now. My server may have the same disease. Maybe I can kill two birds with one stone.”

  His head swivels to me and then nods. “How’s your mother, Miss Rose?”

  “A cross between Sleeping Beauty and a pin cushion,” I say.

  We don’t talk more until we’re in the computer lab, where I see just how slowly the computers are running. Every time Chippy punches a key, it takes a few seconds to register on the screen. Five minutes go by while he logs in as an administrator and brings up the server dashboard. And this is when no other students or teachers are on the network.

  “Okay.” My hands are shaking a little, even though I shouldn’t be nervous. “I guess … uh … let’s see what’s coming in through the ports.”

  He clicks through to the monitoring of the ports and now we can see all the traffic. What’s weird is that there’s so much outbound traffic.

  “It’s not a denial of service attack, right? Or data wouldn’t be flowing out.”

  It’s all encrypted too, which is both suspicious and makes it tough to figure out what’s happening. We can track the IP addresses of some inbound traffic, but the problem is that the server is running so slowly it’s hard to do anything at all.

  “Let’s try a new anti-virus update,” I say. It’s a long shot but maybe the Internet security firms are on top of this. I feel like a surgeon in an operating room. Scalpel. Suction. Nurse, quit poking that patient!

  Nurse Chippy does as he’s told and lets out a long muh when a popup explains that he can’t access the anti-virus updater.

  “So it’s a virus,” I say. Some program’s embedded in the server that’s running an operation and trying to protect itself. That explains the outbound traffic too, because the virus is trying to spread to other computers and servers.

  The next display Chippy brings up is like an X-Ray; it shows all the processes and applications that are running on the server. The goal is to figure out which are virus related and which are not.

  “Sorry, Mr. MacLean, but if they’ve encrypted the traffic, I bet they’re going to have hidden some of their processes.” We don’t need an X-Ray, we need nuclear imaging.

  He grunts.

  “Listen, I’ve got some friends who know a lot more than I do about viruses.”

  It’s sad to see Chippy sit and stare at the screen. I want to help.

  “It’s not only the school, Janus,” he says. “It’s businesses, government, even the traffic lights have malfunctioned.”

  It’s Shadownet too, and I don’t have any answers. Not yet.

  His hand clenches and he tries to update the anti-virus again.

  Suddenly, the in
bound traffic spikes on the servers. Chippy grips the monitor as if there’s something he can do, but I can already tell it’s overloading the system. He can’t even shut it down, it just hangs unresponsive. He pulls the plug.

  “Now that,” I say. “That was a Distributed Denial of Service Attack.” Somebody doesn’t want us messing with their virus.

  Chapter 11

  Tweet failed. That’s the response I receive on the phone when I try to use Twitter. Service is intermittent.

  The school’s network issues don’t just affect computer science classes. No more smartboards or laptops, and Principal Wolzowski’s roaming the halls twice as much—probably because he no longer has access to Facebook.

  It throws everybody off a little. One kid who left school property for lunch said that people are complaining everywhere. At least nobody is pointing the finger at me.

  On the way home the radio host calls it the Zombie Worm. Some speculators are forecasting a technological apocalypse if it cannot be contained. Oddly, Ottawa appears to be the focal point of it all, but it’s spreading. As more computers are infected, they’re propagating the virus by sending off spam emails with embedded links and other forms of attacks. The goal of the virus isn’t clear, but that’s not all that strange. A lot of viruses don’t serve much of a purpose.

  Back at Assured Destruction, I ask Trin to stick around an extra half an hour so that I can try to access Darkslinger and see what’s up.

  I’m online. It’s slow but not as bad as school.

  In the forums, it’s like going from a war zone to a parade. High fives all around. No one is claiming responsibility but it’s clear someone on Darkslinger has been involved. Not everyone is pleased, though. About a third of the comments are warnings from white hats saying that this makes all hackers look bad. And that it’s potentially dangerous. That whatever script kiddie delivered this payload isn’t thinking about the potential impact on emergency services and other vital parts of the city. This whole tech-disaster scenario seems a bit over the top to me, but what do I know?