The Last Hack

by Christopher Brookmyre

  We are legion, but only while we are anonymous.

  It is dead on eleven now. I scan the tables carefully, and that’s when I spot it. It’s surprisingly easy to pick out even in this crowd, but a Rubik cube is fairly distinct when everybody else is holding paper cups or sandwiches.

  He is at a table close to the foot of the escalator. I must have walked past him twice. He’s Chinese, around mid-twenties, peroxide blond and, to be honest, a lot better looking than I was expecting. He’s wearing a Team Fortress T-shirt but that’s the only obvious geekwear. He’s slim but muscly: looks like he works out.

  I reach into my rucksack and produce a cube of my own. He hasn’t noticed me: he isn’t anxiously scoping for his visitor, just sitting there and waiting to see what happens. I like that.

  Two gap-yah types with aluminium-framed rucksacks get up from the seats alongside, so I make my move. I place my own cube down on the table and take a seat next to him.

  His eyes light up. I try not to flatter myself: this isn’t about what I look like, but the fact that I showed up at all. (Though I am allowed to tell myself that a smidgen of it is about what I look like.)

  ‘There are no girls on the internet,’ he says.

  ‘I’m really a forty-eight-year-old FBI agent.’

  Neither of us speaks for a while after that. We’re both kind of freaked out that this is happening, but also we’re super conscious that we are on precarious ground. All of the small talk we might normally make when meeting someone is potentially toxic. Where have you come from? What do you do? At this moment, we are each the most dangerous person in the other’s life. And yet we both wanted this. Needed this.

  It was me who asked Stonefish if he’d like to meet, but I’m pretty sure he was trailing the idea. We were the only two people in the IRC channel at the time, and he told me he was going to be in London soon. At first I thought it was another dig, playing on the fact that I’ve admitted where I live, but then I realised where he might be going with it.

  ‘Weird, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘We’ve so much in common, I feel like I know you, yet there’s almost nothing I can think to ask you that I reckon you would answer.’

  ‘Oh, I would answer. But you’ll never know if I’m telling the truth.’

  There is a Chinese flavour to his accent but I’m hearing Manchester in there too.

  ‘There are some things we can deduce though,’ I say. ‘You’re a Brit. That’s why you homed in on Cic bringing politics into the RSGN hack. And I’m guessing you’re not passing through London. You’ve no bag. You live here.’

  ‘It’s a fair cop, guv.’

  ‘Why did you want to meet?’

  ‘You asked me.’

  ‘And you said yes. We’re both taking a big risk here. What makes it worth it for you?’

  ‘It’s not that big a risk. We’ve seen each other’s faces, but you’re black and I’m Chinese, and in both cases they all look the same.’

  He grins as he says this, like he got worried halfway through that I wouldn’t realise he was joking. He speaks fast too, nervous and over-eager. He’s coming over altogether less cool than while he was sitting there in patient silence, but I’m liking him for it.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

  He lifts his head, looks around briefly like he’s checking the entire crowd isn’t earwigging, or maybe for reassurance that we’re still lost in the midst of them. Then he glances at the Rubik cube, and finally back to me.

  ‘It’s the disconnect, I guess, between what we did and seeing everyone’s reactions to it here, IRL. I mean, we did this amazing thing. It’s all over the TV, every newspaper, they’re discussing it in Whitehall, for God’s sake, and there’s nobody I can physically talk to about it. You know?’

  I’m already nodding.

  ‘Do I ever.’

  ‘And I don’t mean I want to celebrate or to crow. It’s just that I feel like there’s an air gap between me keying code into a laptop and seeing headlines about millions being wiped off a share price. This must be what it’s like to be a drone operator. You push a button and somebody dies, but you can’t connect to it so you don’t feel anything.’

  ‘Totally. What’s weird is I don’t get a buzz from seeing the response, like I do when I am actually hacking. It seems so, I dunno, disproportionate. There are all these angry people talking about what they are going to do to us, and to me it’s like they want to give me a speeding ticket for my driving in Grand Theft Auto, or send the cops around because I stabbed somebody in Sacred Reign. And what makes it all the more ridiculous is these ass-clowns think they can cross over into my realm to catch me. I’m like: it’s the internet, you stupid skrubs. Chill.’

  ‘It isn’t only that, though,’ Stonefish says. ‘There’s two sides to the air gap. All the good things I’ve got online are out of reach in the real world. You and the rest of Uninvited, we’re like comrades in arms. We’ve been through so much together, and I feel this connection, but …’

  He winces with frustration, like he can’t find the words. He doesn’t need them, though.

  ‘They’re only names on a screen,’ I say. ‘And you want them to be more than that.’

  He nods. He’s smiling, but it’s as much in relief that someone understands. I know because I’m feeling exactly the same.

  ‘Have you met anyone else?’ he asks.

  ‘No.’

  This is the truth, but what I don’t tell him is that I almost met up with Cicatrix several weeks ago. Cic was the one who asked, and I agreed to it for the same reasons as I’m here today.

  It was his idea to meet in a railway station because it was ‘literally transitory: we could be coming from anywhere’. On that occasion it was Euston, I think because he wanted to imply he would be heading north, maybe even as far as Scotland, and thus blurring the possibilities regarding where he lived. He came up with the Rubik cube thing too, and told me it was how Edward Snowden revealed himself to the Guardian journalists he had agreed to meet in Hong Kong when he first came forward.

  My choice of The Lawn is an improvement on that day, because the place Cic suggested was more enclosed, a coffee shop with one door in and out. I sat there feeling exposed and conspicuous, so I experienced relief rather than disappointment when Cic sent me a message saying that he had chickened out. He was politely apologetic, but I got the impression that having pulled back from the brink once, he wouldn’t be doing it again.

  ‘This was a very dangerous idea,’ he messaged me. ‘And it took coming this far for me to realise how catastrophic it could be. We should both learn our lesson.’

  I couldn’t, though. I tried, but when Stonefish put out feelers, I bit down hard.

  ‘I do live in London,’ Stonefish says. It isn’t the biggest concession but it is symbolic enough. ‘Clapham.’

  ‘Barking.’

  ‘Are you a student?’

  I wince, hope he doesn’t pay it too much heed. There’s a story there I don’t want to tell. A loser’s story.

  ‘Kind of. Sixth form college.’

  He covers his mouth and gives an amused gasp. It’s slightly camp in a way I find irresistible.

  ‘Oh my God. So you’re still at school. If the bank and the government knew that.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I work in IT. Big shock, right? But it’s more controversial than you’d assume, if you knew my parents. Chinese family. I was supposed to go into medicine, but I’ve only ever been interested in computers. Big disgrace. It’s like I ran away to join the circus.’

  He smiles but it’s not a joke. He looks sad.

  ‘They never got me, and now they don’t care.’

  I have to stop myself from saying ‘My mum is in prison.’ The words form in my head and get ascloseasthis to my lips. I want to let him know that I understand where he’s coming from, that we both came here today for the same reasons. I can’t, though. It’s too big a chunk of data, too easy to extrapolate from and to connect to my
real name.

  ‘I’m cripplingly shy,’ I tell him. ‘I feel like the real me is who I am online and this version is a flimsy 2D simulation. Online I feel like I’m capable of anything, whereas out in the world I’m permanently disappointed in myself. Part of me wishes the people who know me could see who I really am, but that’s our curse, isn’t it? We can’t let anyone know.’

  ‘Like superheroes,’ he suggests with a self-conscious giggle.

  ‘Supervillains,’ I correct.

  I expect him to share my evil grin at this, but instead he seems uncomfortable.

  ‘I guess that’s the other reason I wanted to meet,’ he says. ‘Ever since we hit the bank, I’ve been worried, and the pressure keeps building because I can’t talk to anyone about it. It’s so much bigger than anything we’ve done before. You said they’re not able to cross over into our realm, but that’s just it: they don’t need to, because we have to live in theirs.’

  I feel like I’m comforting Lilly after she’s woken up in the night. He’s got the same uncertain expression, the need for reassurance over something not worth the worry. There are no monsters behind the roller blinds, only shadows from passing headlights.

  ‘Don’t sweat it. The police don’t know how to internet. We all wore condoms, right? Right?’

  I emphasise this last, in case he’s about to tell me otherwise. For a second I think of Cic bailing out because he was having issues with his virtual private network, and wonder if Stonefish had a problem too but decided to risk it because he didn’t want to miss out on the op.

  ‘Of course. I’m not reckless. When one sees a lion, one must get into the car. But this is so huge, the feds are going to come after us loaded for bear. LulzSec were all using condoms too, and they got caught.’

  The thought of this gets me in the gut. LulzSec’s virtual private network providers caved in to the authorities and suddenly the feds had logs of everything they had been up to. I flash news images of Jake Davis and Ryan Ackroyd being bundled into police cars, walking into court buildings. But then I realise Stonefish has it backwards, and the fear fades.

  ‘That’s not how they got caught, though. The feds needed to know who LulzSec were before they could go to their VPNs. LulzSec got caught because one of their own guys betrayed them. Sabu rolled to the FBI. That’s not going to happen with us.’

  Once I’ve walked away from Stonefish, it’s like I can’t escape the RSGN hack. As I make my way back down to the District Line, I keep seeing it on Evening Standard front pages clutched by my fellow passengers, and once I have boarded a train, it stares up at me from articles on iPads being scrolled on nearby laps.

  I felt really sad about leaving him, and I had this aching regret that we couldn’t share more information about each other, that we had to be mutually firewalled.

  We sat there in that courtyard a long time. It was simultaneously like a first meeting of minds and a reuniting of old friends, or perhaps comrades. It felt good to reminisce about past adventures – or maybe I should say exploits – as I had never been able to share these experiences aloud before. Now that I have seen his face, it artificially revises my memories, like Lucas CGI-ing young Anakin into Jedi, so that I reimagine past hacks like we were there together. It is an illusion, though. I was with nobody, and what felt like actions were just words on a screen.

  That’s all any of it is.

  It can’t jump the air gap. I am insulated from reality, and for the first time that is making me feel isolated rather than secure.

  A girl I vaguely recognise gets on at Upton Park. I see her on the platform as the train slows to a stop. I think she was in the year above me at school. I doubt she would ever have noticed me, but to my surprise her head lifts in pleased recognition and she heads down the carriage towards where I am sitting.

  Then I realise her eyes are focused past me, on the girl sitting two along. She thumps down into the empty seat between us like it’s her sofa at home, trailing perfume and hairspray.

  The two of them trade greetings and trivial catch-up stuff. I pick up that the new arrival is named Mia while her mate is Julie, and that Mia is an apprentice in a hair salon while Julie is at college doing electrical engineering. The conversation is not exactly riveting, but it still bothers me to think that I’ve got nobody I talk to like that.

  Then Mia takes it up a notch, waving her hand to show that she has remembered big news she can barely contain.

  ‘Oh my God, did you hear about Keisha?’

  ‘What, about the nude selfies? Who didn’t? Evan sent me the link, and he’s in Miami.’

  Julie has dropped her voice to a half-whisper, but it is more a token than a real attempt to avoid being overheard. Her tone indicates simultaneously that this is something she shouldn’t be laughing about and yet something nobody could help but find hilarious. I try to keep my smile on the inside.

  ‘No, no, man,” Mia replies. “She’s in the hospital. She took a bloody overdose.’

  ‘For real?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. It was everyone seeing those pictures. She couldn’t handle it. Tried to off herself.’

  ‘Oh my god, is she gonna be okay?’

  ‘I dunno. She’s in intensive care. Her mum’s in a right state. All I know is Keisha ain’t woke up and they don’t know if she’s gonna.’

  THE CALL

  As always, the clouds of Parlabane’s existential angst are blown away when a fresh wind carries in the scent of a new story.

  He is thinking of heading for bed, feeling the need of an early one after the previous night’s revelries, when his mobile buzzes, accompanied by that most seductive of sights: an unrecognised number.

  He answers tentatively, opting not to confirm who he is until he has established what the call is about.

  ‘Hello?’

  There is a woman’s voice on the other end.

  ‘Is that Jack Parlabane?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘I have information concerning a major data breach. I need to talk to someone about this and I saw your piece on the RSGN thing. Can we meet?’

  She speaks slowly and carefully, as though she is reading a script. He pictures someone nervous about the implications of what she is doing, so it is likely she has written down what she needs to say. His caller display shows that the number wasn’t withheld and that it is a landline, which makes it less likely this is a time-waster.

  ‘A breach from where? What kind of data are we talking about? When did this happen? Has it been covered up?’

  ‘I’m not willing to disclose any of this over the phone. If you are interested, I’m prepared to meet with you alone, somewhere public.’

  Even as she speaks, he is quietly keying the phone number into his laptop as he sits on the sofa. His eyes bulge. It is an internal line from inside 6 Pancras Square: Google’s London HQ.

  ‘I’m interested. Where and when?’

  She tells him nine-thirty at a café close to King’s Cross. A quick check reveals that it is around the corner from where she is calling.

  ‘How did you get this number?’ he asks.

  ‘I will be able to make that clear when we talk in person.’

  And like that, suddenly nothing else matters.

  DANGEROUS CIRCLES

  I collect Lilly from school, unable to lose myself in the moment when she sees me and smiles because all I can think about is Keisha lying in hospital, and Keisha’s mum and the rest of her family worried sick. Lilly must pick up a vibe from me, because she starts to look worried.

  She asks me when Mum’s coming back. She hasn’t done that in a while.

  We pop into the supermarket on the way home. Lilly says she wants pizza but my purse says that’s off the menu. I pick up some potatoes for baking and a tin of beans, trying not to dwell on the irony that I am eating like a student.

  Over dinner I realise Lilly is talking to me and I haven’t been listening. I can’t get Keisha out of my head.

  I don’t get why she
would do this over some stupid photos on the internet. I thought she was tough as leather. I thought she had no weakness. No feelings.

  Lilly pulls a letter from her schoolbag, which is under the kitchen table. I am vaguely aware of having wondered why she left it there. It was to remind herself, apparently.

  ‘It’s about the trip to Chessington World of Adventures,’ she says, beaming from ear to ear. She says it like the letter is telling us she’s won the lottery. I had forgotten about this. Mum signed the form and sent in a deposit months ago.

  Lilly was uncontainable about it. She could talk about nothing else for a fortnight, but as the trip was ages away, it gradually got relegated down her list of thoughts. Now it is right back to the top, and the countdown has only four weeks to run.

  I look at the letter. The outstanding balance is due, and it’s eighty quid.

  Something inside me withers and goes cold. I feel anger towards Mum for putting me in this position, but that’s pointless. I think carefully about how I’m going to phrase it, then brace myself to tell her.

  ‘Lilly, about this trip,’ I begin. She looks at me expectantly, like I’m about to ask what she’s most looking forward to.

  I can’t. I just can’t.

  ‘It’s going to be awesome,’ I tell her.

  Once the dishes are done and Lilly has gone off to read a comic, I check what I’ve got in cash. Forty and some shrapnel. I take out my phone and log on to my bank to check how much is left in the account. All the money Mum transferred before she went inside is in there. On the basis of my seriously pared-back outgoings, I work out how soon I need to find a job and see a wage packet before the situation becomes critical.

  This is going to bring it forward, but that hardly matters. Nothing is going to change the bigger picture, which is that it’s my responsibility to provide for Lilly now. She’s been hurt enough lately without this treat being taken away from her.

  I say to Lilly that I’m nipping out for half an hour. I should be ten minutes tops, but she hates being left in alone, so I always like to be back sooner than I’ve told her. I could take her with me, but she walks so slow that it really would be half an hour. It’s freezing too.