I seek out posts by CrowBar and find several. He’s even commented on some of my iOS code, saying how great it is. On my prior post about the servers being slow is a whole lot of LOL and oh you too, eh? and didn’t you get the memo. Sw1ftM3rcy left an equally weird note. Decision time.
I type a private message to him: Are you doing this? Because it’s a real pain. Don’t you realize that it’s not all some sort of joke?
Don’t you realize how deep this goes? Peter asked me once. What does he know that I don’t? Or is he so desperate to see Assured Destruction fail, he just doesn’t want me tracking down old customers?
I’m about to hit submit, but pause, thinking about something else Peter said: To take my time online. I have all the time in the world. And besides, my initial missive to Sw1ftM3rcy surprises even me. It sounds like something … Jonny would say.
Maybe I am beginning to see how deep this world goes. How much of a real impact the online world has on daily life. There are people at the other end of a cracker’s digital pipe. If I hit submit, only one thing will happen. I’ll be expunged. So what do I want to do? Who do I want to be? White, gray, or black hat?
Over the last couple of months, everything that’s happened to me has been some mistake on my part. Not thinking things through. Assuming too much. Here’s what I know about Sw1ftM3rcy. Time to think.
Sw1ftM3rcy may or may not be the same age as me. He might be a super-cool hacker who sometimes gets mixed up in gray-hat things. Like maybe he’s part of the group Anonymous and leaks secret government documents to the media for a good cause—that’s cool, right? But the reality is, and experience tells me, he’s much more likely to be a middle-aged geek in the Ukraine. What does he want from me? I’m not sure yet. But the forum is as much a social network as it is a place to do business.
I’m not a bad person. I don’t want to be a black hat. But I still sorta like Sw1ftM3rcy and Darkslinger and what they represent. I need more information. If Sw1ftM3rcy is part of the Zombie Worm, then maybe I’ll take him down. If not, well … maybe he’s the cute hacker next door.
I draft a different note. Hey, Sw1ftM3rcy, what do you have in mind? I always need more cash if I can find the time. But this Zombie Worm is killer.
His reply is immediate. IRC same bat time, same bat channel.
I groan. The last time we spoke over IRC, a chat program favored by hackers, the bat time was 3 AM.
Later, I say.
Ha! Now at least I know where you live, he replies, and it’s like my heart stops.
I check for Peter’s armor and find it plugged into the USB port. Then I slap my head. My servers were some of the first hit and the Zombie Worm is Ottawa based. The best hacking solutions are usually the simplest forms of social engineering.
Zombie ate my brain, I reply.
Oh, and I recommend you delete any email you ever saved to draft …
Before I can ask why, the light on his Darkslinger user panel goes from green to red. He’s offline.
Opening my inbox, I send all my draft email to the recycling bin. Over three hundred messages, some go back years. Half-written emails to friends, to my mom. Who knows what havoc Sw1ftM3rcy’s planning. I push away from the desk and resist trying to update Shadownet from the desktop terminals.
After waving goodbye to Trin, I try to update the Assured Destruction website, changing our closing hours, moving it an hour earlier, but give up after hitting refresh for the eleventh time. Instead I change the outdoor sign. I am the boss after all and can do what I like! This will mean I can make it on time to Annie’s Kitchen to help the homeless of Ottawa.
I glance down at my jeans, sniff my armpit, and reel away. I brush the crumbs of lunch off my shirt. I’m filthy and I stink. Maybe I’ll be lucky and they’ll fire me.
Chapter 12
<
I don’t fit in.
Inside Annie’s Kitchen it’s like the Zombie Worm hasn’t even happened. As I take the steps down into the bowels of a church, I enter a new world. I can feel the lack of WiFi. It smells not of body odor, but garlic and tomatoes. Fried onions and mushrooms. If I am honest with myself, it smells of Peter’s amazing cooking. I can taste the spaghetti before I even see it. The sounds are of laughter and movement.
The heat hugs me as I intrude on the swell of humanity chowing down on plate-sized bowls of pasta. Plastic checkered tablecloths line a score of tables, each ringed by eight or ten of the needy. They’re not dressed in torn jeans and stained jackets, though. Most the people dress like it’s a night out on the town. Over half of them are senior citizens, outlived their savings, I guess. Others look like immigrant families who can’t live on minimum wage or are jobless. Sure, there are a few ragged types, but even they’re not what I expect, chatty and grinning.
“You’ve got that lost look.” A heavy woman with big boobs and black hair looks up at me. Yes, she must look up even to me. She’s way short and her stubby arms don’t look long enough to come together in front of her.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ve got some community service.”
“Janice Rose.”
I nod. People are always saying my name wrong.
“Come on into the back; you’re early.” She says this like she’s trying out for an Italian sitcom. Comma ona ina to de backa. You-a early. “We serve two dinners here. Two hundred people every day.”
“Whoa,” I say because I think she’s waiting for it. Her hand is bouncing all over the place and she’s smiling. “Everyone here like you,” she says. “A criminal.”
I blink at that and she slaps me on the back. “Me too. Me too.”
I do a double take when I notice a clutch of rainbow-hued scarves around the back of a guy’s neck. Trin’s here! I don’t know why, but I duck. And Annie pulls me back up.
“No shame,” she says.
Trin sees me right away and waves. I hobble over.
“De food iz so good,” he says.
“This is my new community service placement,” I reply.
“No police?”
“Didn’t work out.” I shrug.
“Meet my … how do you say? … lover.” He places a hand over top of the man’s wrist beside him. It’s so sweet, and I love how he called him lover instead of partner, which always sounds to me like actors in a cowboy movie.
“Enchanté,” Trin’s boyfriend says. The man’s my image of a Canadian. Maybe a bit First Nations, some Asian, a bit European. They should put him on the currency. Cute too with these slim eyes that slouch downward.
“Et vous,” I reply, wishing I’d taken French immersion. Trin seems pleased.
“Dis is my boss,” he announces. And it hits me. Trin’s here at a soup kitchen because he can’t afford dinner. We’ll have enough in the accounts to pay him this month because of my little bank job, but the month after? I may have a secondary reason for investigating my dad’s old business partners, but it doesn’t change the importance of saving Assured Destruction.
The people here aren’t homeless—or at least not the homeless I’d pictured. They’re me. They’re me without Assured Destruction. It’s a very fine line to cross.
Annie draws me into the kitchen by the elbow. All the stainless steel surfaces gleam.
“Junker, this is Janice.” Junker has a dull look. His skinny hands are covered in bandages. “Junker is on chopping.”
“So I see.” I wonder how much of Junker’s hands are in the sauce. “Hi, Junker.” He scratches at a bulb of hair restrained by a hairnet and I wonder what type of felon he is.
Annie hands a hairnet to me and I sigh, tucking my hair up into it. The flesh of her arms waggles as she points at the industrial dishwasher.
“You start on dishes. In a week or two, m
aybe chopping … after I look at your file.”
“Computers,” I say. “I’m here because of computer stuff, nothing to do with knives.”
Junker snorts. “Geek girl.” Then he nicks himself and sucks on the cut.
“And that’s what they call karma,” I say.
Annie guides me to the sink and it’s chock full of burnt pans. “Karma,” I repeat.
“Use a lotta soap.”
I’m going to need a jackhammer. “When does the next shift of grumbling bellies arrive?”
“Guests, Janice,” Annie says.
“Jan-us,” I say.
“Oh, like the Roman god, with one face looking into past and another to future.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about but nod anyway. I had thought I was named Janus because I was born in January.
“Roman geek girl.” Junker laughs.
“Roman geek goddess,” I correct.
Annie chuckles.
A cowbell rings in the dining area.
“Second sitting,” she says.
I have to admit that I’m a bit surprised at what they’re serving: A savory meaty pasta sauce with veggies and some fruit on the side. As the second service ramps up, the place operates like a machine. I’m an important cog, being the dishes, and I barely meet half the volunteers and fellow criminals who plate, serve, clear, scrub, and wipe.
When it’s over I feel … full, and better than I ever felt at the police department.
Chapter 13
<
Skin peels from my hands. I leave the last cauldron to dry in the rack. It’s so big you could cook a toddler in it. The zombie hands are gross, but that’s what happens when you wash dishes for three hours. It was only when I was almost done that Annie suggested I wear rubber gloves. By next month—if I’m good—I graduate to chopping. I’m not excited. I swear Junker almost lost a few fingers tonight and I’m about as coordinated as a spastic hippo.
I’m tired in that good-day’s-work feel, though. It’s nice to be knocking hours off of my community service again too. Annie’s booked me back tomorrow night for another sitting. And you know what’s really cool? There are fringe benefits. It wasn’t until a group of teens walked in that it hit me: I can feed all the international students here! Think of the savings.
“See ya,” I say, waving at Annie who still wipes counters.
“Ciao,” she replies. Junker told me Annie’s been doing this for twenty-four years without a single dollar in payment. My guess is she’s reformed mob, living off the proceeds of her life of crime.
I step into a cold night. The streetlights shimmer. The church lot is devoid of life.
Annie’s Kitchen borders King Edward Avenue—it’s not a neighborhood where you’d choose to raise a family. Clients of a nearby shelter scamper across three lanes of traffic to panhandle from cars stopped at the light. The only businesses doing well here are the Tim Horton’s on the corner and the needle exchange clinic.
Something tells me that after a few more shifts at the kitchen, I won’t have anything to worry about, but for now I pull my jacket tighter to my chin and crutch as quick as I can to the parked van. Fumbling the key FOB, I open the doors and then swoosh inside.
Before I can shut the door, a hand shoves it wide and then pushes me into the passenger seat. The door slams and I shout for help in anguish.
“Hey!” he yells. “Not here to hurt ya.”
I’d be more convinced of that if he weren’t sitting in the driver’s seat of my van. On the FOB, I try for the car alarm, but he snatches the keys away. I quiet for a second; feigning acceptance, I wait for my chance. When he relaxes and drops the hem of my coat, I kick my door open, then dive toward the pavement.
He catches my belt and then my hood. It strangles my scream as he hauls me in, backward, so that I lie on the seat.
“I said,” he says. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
My throat disagrees.
I struggle until I realize I can’t break his grip.
“What is it you want?” he asks, and the question halts my next shout for help because I was wondering the same thing of him. I assumed he wanted my car, my money, or me. Not answers.
“What do you mean?” I ask. My scalp presses at his leg; I’m completely vulnerable. He’s backlit by a streetlight and I squint up at him.
“You visiting our clubhouse, offices …”
It’s the guy from U Technical and A ZaZa. The guy with the ponytail and too-kind eyes for his leg-breaker biceps. His eyes are cold and hard now.
“I’m just looking for business,” I say. “Your … companies … used to bring work to my dad’s business, but we’ve had nothing from you the last few years.”
“Assured Destruction—I heard,” he says, rubbing his grizzled chin. “Well, we’s can’t do business no more.”
“Why not?”
“Just can’t,” he says.
“Do you know my dad?”
“No.” He glances away and I lever myself upright.
“I didn’t even tell you his name.”
“No.” When he turns back to me, there’s this look of pity on his face, a softening of his eyes.
“You’re here to scare me off?” I say.
“It working?”
The guy actually looks hopeful. What happens if he doesn’t stop me?
“A little. Yes. A lot.” And I don’t need to fake the shaking of hands and quaver in my voice.
“Good, don’t want to see no more of yous,” he says and reaches for the door handle.
I’m relieved but also panicked. This guy knows my dad, I’m sure of it. It’s the closest I’ve come to learning where he could be.
“Hey! Wait.” He pauses and glances back. “I want to know more about my dad.”
“Listen, kid, I’m not supposed to be here.”
This is it. This is my chance to track down my father.
“Then why’d you come? Where’s my dad?”
“I knows your dad,” he says and stares down at his hands.
“How? I don’t understand.” And now I have tears threatening because there’s so much anger in me. Anger that my dad never came back. That he doesn’t care. That he doesn’t love me. Mom may not love him anymore, but the day he left I was just another kid whose most important man in her life was her daddy. “Please.”
“Aw, no. No, no, no,” he says.
“Tell me!” And it’s my turn to beat on him. When it’s clear that my fists are doing little more to his shoulder than a decent massage, I curl into a ball. I expect him to leave, but he doesn’t.
“You really want to know, kid?”
I nod into my thighs, unwilling to trust my voice.
“No more visits from you after?” He grips my hair, a full clump of it, and wrenches my head around so that I have to face him. In the action, I see his capacity for causing pain. This is not a nice man.
“Yeah … deal,” I say.
He shuts the door and then reaches for the ignition.
The van starts and my eyes widen. What is happening?
Then he pulls the handle to drive.
“Remember when your dad got this,” he says.
It’s not the first time he’s driven the van. And I realize that this guy really did know my dad. My most fervent wish is about to come true. I’m about to find out about my father.
I’m scared out my skull.
Chapter 14
<
Ponytail snatches the phone from my hands. We’re driving away from
the city.
“Where are you taking me?” I demand.
He’s stony.
We cross over the Ottawa River into Quebec. Its waters swirl and seethe, carving a valley between the provinces. The longer I sit in silence, the more I realize how stupid this is. But this guy knew my father. And I have the sense he knew everything about my father. Maybe he even called him friend. Rings bedeck fingers covered in scabs as if he’s been in a fight recently. A scar puckers up from out of his sideburn. I wring my hands. I should have been texting police instead of tweeting to myself.
In a couple of minutes we pull on to the shoulder of the highway. Is this where the guy shoots me? Or orders me out so he can steal the van? With my ribs and cast, I’m not exactly a force to be reckoned with.
Ponytail glances around the van and finally pulls the wool scarf from around his neck.
“Lean forward; I will blindfold you.”
I shake my head. This is too much.
“Listen, you wanna meet Daddy or what?”
Meet him? I swallow hard—Daddy. I nod. I’ve come this far. There’s no turning back.
“Why can’t you just tell me?” I ask as he wraps the itchy fabric around my head and then jerks it tight. I can’t see a thing.
“You deserve it,” he says. “Every kid does.” His voice rings cold and sarcastic. It chills my soul.
We’re moving again. I try to keep track of the time between turns and which way I lean on each but soon lose my bearings. I’m lost. I wish he hadn’t grabbed my phone. If I had my phone I could take a picture. The phone stores the location of where the picture was taken, so I’d be able to figure out where he took me. Or at least whoever finds the phone would also be able to find my body.
Assured Destruction: The Complete Series Page 37