The Last Hack

by Christopher Brookmyre

  I slip into the office and close the door, noting the name outside: Sophie Oswald, Head of Marketing. I get out my secondary mobile, an old crappy effort with a pay-as-you-go SIM. My proper phone remains in my hip pocket. I call the building’s main number, which gets me through to the switchboard.

  ‘Oh, hi, I’ve been calling Sophie Oswald and I keep getting bounced to voicemail. Do you know if she’s definitely in today?’

  ‘I’ll just find out for you.’

  I am put on hold for a couple of minutes. I hear a phone ring in a nearby room.

  The receptionist comes back on.

  ‘Hello? I’m sorry, Sophie’s out of the office today. She’ll be back in tomorrow. Can I take a message?’

  ‘No, it’s nothing urgent. I’ll call back then.’

  Result.

  I lift the handset on Sophie’s desk and make a quick call to Jack, then I dial Derek Travers’s extension. He picks up on the second ring.

  ‘Oh, hi, Derek, this is Jen from Data Stream. I’m working on the big server refit and I want to check that your computer’s okay and you’re still connected to the network.’

  ‘As far as I can see, yes. No problems to report.’

  I blow out an exaggerated sigh, sounding relieved but a little flustered.

  ‘Thank God for that. We’re having some major issues here and I thought your whole sector might have gone down. You’re on port 3847, aren’t you?’ I ask, plucking the number out of the air.

  ‘I wouldn’t have a clue, to be honest.’

  Good to know.

  ‘Do you mind checking for me?’

  ‘Sure, long as you can tell me where to find it.’

  ‘If you have a look around the back of your PC, where the Ethernet cable plugs in, there should be …’

  ‘There’s a sticker, yeah. It says port 4751.’

  I write down this vital piece of information on my clipboard.

  ‘Well, that explains why you haven’t been affected by any outages yet,’ I reply with a chuckle.

  ‘Am I likely to be?’

  ‘I honestly couldn’t say for sure. But tell you what, if your connectivity goes down, call me right away and I’ll get straight on it.’

  I give him the number of my burner mobile. I make him read it back to me, and he obliges.

  ‘Fingers crossed you won’t need it,’ I tell him.

  I take my laptop out of the bag and connect it to the local network using the cable I have just unplugged from the back of Sophie Oswald’s computer.

  Next I call Ian Nelson, the senior Gatekeeper IT guy who’s not working with the Data Stream crew.

  ‘Is that Ian?’

  ‘Yes. How can I help?’

  ‘It’s Jenny from Data Stream. Sorry to bother you, but Angela’s got her hands full and she said you would oblige. We’re trying to isolate a glitch here. Could you shut off the connection to port 4751 for us please, for five minutes?’

  ‘No problem. Do you want to call me when you want it back up? Or can I suspend it on a timer?’

  ‘Timer’s fine. Give it five minutes.’

  ‘Okay. Shutting it off now.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  Then I wait for my burner to ring. It takes about thirty seconds.

  ‘Hi, is that Jen? Derek again. My computer just went down. Well, not the whole thing, but I’ve lost network access.’

  ‘Sorry, Derek. It’s like pushing down bubbles in wallpaper today. No sooner have we fixed one outage than another problem springs up elsewhere.’

  I keep him talking while I tap away at the keyboard in front of me, even though the PC it’s connected to isn’t switched on. I ‘try’ a few things then ask him to report the results, my series of failures intended to increase his concerns about how long he’s going to be basically paralysed. This ramps up the corresponding relief and gratitude when my stopwatch approaches five minutes and I tell him: ‘Wait, I think I’ve isolated the issue. Yep, here we go. Give it a try now.’

  ‘You’re a life-saver,’ he reports. ‘Thank you.’

  And now comes the clever part.

  ‘Don’t thank me yet. I’m afraid we’re not quite out of the woods. Looks like the outage was caused by a server crash at this end during a routine back-up. I’m running an integrity check on the files to make sure we haven’t lost any data.’

  ‘I’m sorry, what does that all mean in English?’

  ‘Hopefully nothing, but I’m making sure no files have been lost. So far it’s all okay, yep, good, good, good. Seventy per cent. Eighty per cent. Still all fine. Ninety … damn.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ve got one file irreparably corrupted.’

  ‘Irreparably? You mean it’s gone? What was it?’

  ‘No, not gone. This is the back-up server. The original should still be safe. But the problem is that right this second it’s the only copy, so we need to back it up immediately in case anything else goes wrong.’

  ‘Absolutely. How do I do that? Which file is it?’

  ‘It’s called GEM256SY66-SC, from a directory called GEM-SC. Is that important, or can we …’

  ‘Christ, yes, that’s important: that’s really important. It’s the source code version of the management system for a major account. How do I back it up?’

  ‘Well, the automated back-up system is down because everything’s haywire. The simplest way would be for you to send it to me and I can install it on to one of the new servers right away. Can you access the file okay at your end?’

  ‘Yes, I’m looking at it right now. I’m attaching it to an email. What’s your address? Oh, no, hang on, it’s not letting me—’

  ‘That’s because you shouldn’t be emailing source code to an offsite address, even though technically I’d be picking up the email from inside your building.’

  It never hurts your trustworthiness when you’re the one telling them not to do anything that might compromise their security protocols.

  ‘So what do I do?’

  I talk him through it, telling him how to call up a map of all the computers connected to his internal network. I’ve renamed my laptop to appear as ‘DataStreamJen’, and I tell him to look for that.

  ‘Okay, found it. What now?’

  ‘A simple matter of copy and paste.’

  ‘Doing it right away.’

  I see the transfer begin, and check that it’s the right file. It’s almost a gigabyte, so it’s going to take a minute.

  ‘Is it coming through okay?’

  ‘Yes. But don’t shut down anything at your end until it’s complete.’

  ‘I won’t. I really can’t thank you enough.’

  ‘Please, don’t mention it.’

  To anybody. Ever.

  The transfer completes and I disconnect the cable.

  I have just plugged it back into Sophie Oswald’s PC when the office door opens and a woman blocks the doorway, a suspicious look on her face. She knows this room is supposed to be empty. Knackers. Should have gone with the hide-in-plain-sight strategy.

  ‘Who are you? What are you doing in this office?’

  She looks like every school teacher I never liked: someone who lives for catching people out of line. I can tell she’d be disappointed to learn everything was in order.

  ‘I’m just finishing up,’ I say, closing the laptop, which is still showing the folder containing my stolen GEM source code file. ‘I’m with Data Stream.’

  ‘Can I see your visitor pass?’

  I hold up the lanyard, but she barely looks at it.

  ‘No, not your ID, your visitor pass, issued by the front desk.’

  Uh-oh.

  ‘I think I left it downstairs in the Accounts department. I’ve been moving around a lot, working on different systems.’

  My hand reaches into my hip pocket, my fingers fumbling for the switch. Bugger. When I practised this I wasn’t trembling.

  ‘I’m calling Security.’

  Fuck. She’s lifting the handset, ty
ing up the line.

  ‘Hello, Security? Yes, this is Gillian Windham in Marketing. Can you come up to Sophie Oswald’s office immediately.’

  With her standing by the desk, away from the doorway, I think about doing a runner, but I know that would blow everything. Even if I was to get past the security guard who’s already on his way up here, and make it out to the car park, it would alert them that there has been a breach. I have to stay calm, hold my nerve and wait.

  I glance at the phone on the desk.

  ‘Look, I’m done here,’ I say, trying to keep the panic from my voice. I’m pitching for pissed off, like this is an inconvenience I can do without. ‘I can go and get the pass if you like, but I’m actually—’

  ‘We’ll go and get it together: all three of us.’

  I glance again towards the phone. I’m aware she might notice, but I can’t help it.

  I can hear heavy footsteps in the corridor, growing nearer, moving swiftly.

  I’m seconds from this whole thing crashing down upon me.

  The security guard appears in the doorway, brows knitted together quizzically, game face on.

  Before he can ask what this is all about, the phone rings.

  I move to pick it up. I’ve no intention of doing so: I’m just prompting Scowlychops Bitchface to intervene rather than let it ring out on the assumption that it’s for her absent colleague. If it goes to voicemail I’m fuxored.

  She answers.

  ‘Hello, Sophie Oswald’s office?’

  She fixes me with a look that says ‘Don’t you even think of going anywhere’ as she listens to the caller. The security guard remains in the doorway, silently awaiting his instructions. I try not to look scared, but each passing second makes it harder.

  Then her expression becomes a twisted mix of confusion and then disappointment.

  I try to mask my relief as much as I masked my fear.

  Jack is on the other end, giving her the script. In the quiet of the office I can just about hear his side of the conversation, and I’m guessing so can the guard. What I can’t hear, but Gillian definitely must, is the hire car’s stereo playing office background noise.

  ‘Yeah, this is Mark Ferguson at Data Stream,’ Jack tells her. ‘Is Jen Webster still there? Only, she’s left her visitor pass down here in Customer Accounts.’

  ‘Yes, she’s still here.’

  Nicely improvised, I think. The line has been open on my mobile since I speed-dialled him and he’s been listening carefully.

  Gillian hands me the phone as the guard asks her why she summoned him.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she replies irritably. ‘Never mind.’

  ‘Sorry about the delay,’ Jack says very quietly. ‘Receptionist must have been busy. Took ages to answer and transfer me to the right extension.’

  ‘No, thanks for letting me know, Mark. I was about to fetch something from my car too, so I’d have had to call you and get you to bring my pass out to the front desk.’

  I keep talking well after the guard has departed, wittering on about technical stuff, dropping in names of individuals and departments. Gillian hangs around, wanting the satisfaction of at least seeing me vacate her colleague’s office, but nobody escorts me anywhere.

  A minute and a half later I am climbing into the hire car, its engine already running.

  ‘We good?’ Jack asks.

  I nod and he reverses out of the space then proceeds at an easy pace towards the exit.

  Once we are out of sight of the building, I ask him to pull over, which is when I open the passenger door and throw up.

  SINS OF THE PAST

  I am walking through the gates of the prison again, wondering if the next time I do this I won’t have the option to leave.

  Last time I was here, I brought Lilly because it was a Saturday. She was delighted at first but distraught afterwards, as I knew she would be. It was almost a fortnight ago and I haven’t been back since.

  I tell myself I refuse to feel guilty about that, but I still do. I’ve been making excuses, saying I can’t visit because of work. This hasn’t always been true (at least in terms of Urban Picnic – though my other ‘job’ has been keeping me plenty busy too). There were times I could have squeezed in a visit, but I chose not to: partly because I want to drive the point home about the situation Mum has put me in, and partly because I’m still so angry with her. I’m angry about her landing herself in here and I’m angry about everything that happened before, all the things she did that ultimately led to this.

  Despite all that, I feel a desperate need to see her, in case … I don’t know what. I don’t want to name what. I just need to see her, even though she can’t help me.

  I wish I could tell her all my problems, pour my heart out about what I’m afraid of, what I’m mixed up in. I wish she could protect me, put her arms around me and tell me everything’s going to be all right.

  I wish Dad was still here. I wish I was still living in that house we had in Newcastle.

  Dad was an IT consultant, and his home town was the one time he had a contract that kept us in the same place for a few years. Mum had a permanent job then too, before having to become an agency nurse.

  I was nine years old. I got a computer for Christmas. Dad installed a game called Ultimate Spider-Man. I played it while Lilly sat on Mum’s lap and watched, shouting out in delight as she urged me what to do next.

  I’ll never forget that look of wonder and excitement on her face. It was as though the comic strip world had come to life and I was some kind of god to her for being able to grant her wishes in making Spider-Man do what she asked.

  We were all huddled around that monitor, the four of us sharing something joyful. We were a family.

  Then a little later, while Mum was cooking the turkey, Dad showed me how to use a command shell.

  Mum walks into the visiting room, dressed again in shapeless joggers and that horrible faded blue T-shirt. She looks tired, but her face brightens when she sees me. She opens her arms to offer a hug. The huffy part of me wants to keep my distance, but I need this too much. I hold her tight and just about manage not to cry.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ I say, pressing my face into her shoulder.

  ‘I’ve missed you too, girl.’

  She draws back and looks at me.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  I take a seat, wiping my nose with a piece of toilet roll from my pocket. Don’t have the money for proper tissues these days.

  ‘Everything’s wrong, Mum.’

  She has this startled rabbit look, the worst fears running through her mind.

  ‘Is Lilly okay?’

  ‘Lilly’s fine,’ I reassure her, and it’s as I do so that I realise she didn’t ask about Lilly first, or query again why I haven’t brought her.

  ‘I’ll bring her to see you again soon,’ I promise. It comes out before I can think about it.

  ‘Has something happened, Sam? You all right for money?’

  I can’t hide the fact that I’m a mess about something, but neither can I confess what’s really wrong. To give myself cover I tell her about Lush coming around to take the TV and DVD player, and about Ango and Griff strong-arming me at the cash machine.

  Her mouth is hanging like someone switched off the power to her jaw.

  ‘They took our TV? Was Lilly there?’

  ‘No, she was at school, thank God.’

  ‘What about her cartoons?’

  ‘I’ve sorted something out, for now. A portable thing that someone threw out. I knew how to fix it up.’

  She gives me a warning glare.

  ‘A laptop?’

  ‘No,’ I lie.

  She looks exasperated.

  ‘And you just … Why didn’t you do anything?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘You could have called the cops, for one thing. Or at least threatened to. There’s more than one way to stand up for yourself.’

  ‘Call the cops? And say what? Help, office
r, I’m being ripped off by drug dealers claiming back the money my mum owes them. You may remember my mum: she’s in jail for owning a firearm and possession with intent to supply.’

  She has an expression like thunderclouds forming on the horizon. It’s not the standard indignation though, which is usually about deflection. This is something else, something deeper.

  She speaks slowly and quietly, like she’s determined there should be no mistake about what she has to say.

  ‘I don’t fucking owe them money. I’ve had dealings with Lush, but we were square.’

  The way she’s staring at me, I know she’s telling the truth. I realise I’ve been had. They knew she was inside. They knew I was vulnerable, and they knew there would be no come-backs.

  ‘They’re locusts,’ she says, her voice trembling with anger. ‘Christ, Sam, how could you just let them into our home?’

  ‘What else was I gonna do? Fight them off? You’re the one who brought them into our lives. You’re the one who’s left Lilly and me wide open to the likes of Lush because you’re in here for being no better than him.’

  I went in a bit harder than maybe I ought there, but I am furious. She looks wounded, angst-ridden now.

  ‘That’s not true, Sam. I told you, girl: I was set up. Those drugs were planted, and I would never touch a gun, let alone have one in the house with you and Lilly.’

  I can’t hear this.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Mum. How long, eh? When are you gonna take responsibility for yourself?’

  Her eyes are wide and red now, angry and sad at the same time. It would be affecting if I hadn’t seen the show before.

  ‘All I’ve known is responsibility. You don’t know what it is to be bringing up two kids, and one of them … one of them with what Lilly’s got. It was hard enough when Neville was around, but I lost him: my world revolved around that man and I lost him. You don’t know what that’s like.’