by J Boyd Long
Quentin stretched his arms over his head with a groan, and rubbed the back of his neck as he let the air escape out of his lungs in a deep sigh. The idea that he was in trouble, as if he had done something wrong, continued to nag at him. He hadn’t done anything bad, so why did he feel so guilty and afraid?
“I have no idea. Maybe we don’t do anything. If they think I bought the story about it being a training exercise, then as far as they’re concerned, it’s over, right? I just keep my head down and do my job.”
Eissa slowly turned her head to stare at him. He glanced at her in time to see the shock on her face turn into anger.
“Do your job? You mean, you just found out the company you work for killed two people, and you’re going to just keep on working for them, like that’s okay?”
“Look, I haven’t had much time to figure this out,” Quentin shouted, running his fingers through his closely-cropped hair. Eissa’s challenge made him ashamed of the suggestion, and he scrambled to recover. “It’s not as if shit like this happens to me every day. I don’t have a protocol for this. I’m in new territory.”
His nose was burning, and he knew the tears weren’t far behind. Embarrassed, he scrubbed his eye with his shoulder, hoping that Eissa wouldn’t notice. It was a familiar feeling, one that he’d felt a lot as a kid when his dad yelled at him, or a teacher chastised him in front of the class. The burning sensation receded a bit, and he took a few breaths to calm down.
Eissa let out a sigh, and flopped back on the couch. “I’m sorry. Everything’s upside down and inside out.”
Quentin closed his eyes for a moment, letting the stress melt out of his shoulders. Just having someone to talk this out with made it better, even if it didn’t take the fear away. A problem-solving technique that his therapist had taught him was to clear his mind, and then take a giant mental step back and try to see the situation from a broader perspective. It’s hard to see all sides of a situation from inside it, Quentin. You have to learn to zoom out, and if necessary, zoom out again. Imagine a camera focused on two people in a park. Now, zoom out so you can see the entire park they’re standing in. Now zoom out to the entire city. You see? He pictured the dead men at the protest. What would be the zoom-out picture from that? All the protests from the pipeline project? The oil industry in general?
His eyes popped open. “You know what I just thought about?”
Eissa glanced over at him and raised her eyebrows.
“What if they’ve done this before? I mean, it’s not like that report said, ‘I know this is going to sound crazy, but we had to shoot someone.’ What if I’ve been working for a company that does this stuff all the time? I’ve basically been maintaining the infrastructure that lets them do it.”
“Well, it’s not like you helped them plan it,” Eissa said. “I think at this point your conscience is clear. It’s what you do now that you know that matters.”
“I feel like I was involved. I can’t just walk around knowing about this, even if I never go back there.”
“Well, we know from the report that they have some influence over the police, so it’s not like we can just take this to the cops and report them. And I think you have to go back to work, at least for now. It’ll look suspicious as hell if you don’t, and we need to figure out a plan before you quit, so they don’t come knocking on your door.”
His stomach rolled at the thought. Faking his way through this afternoon was hard enough. Another whole day of that would be impossible. Maybe he could dig around on the network and find some more information to bolster what they had. There were a lot of unanswered questions, starting with Carl Holt, and who DimCorp was. He sat up and pulled the laptop over.
“I just remembered something else. Carl Holt is the head of security for some outfit called DimCorp, which I’ve never heard of. Maybe it’s a consulting company of some kind, or a mercenary security firm or something. Let’s see what we can find on them.”
The search engine came up with no exact matches, so he began experimenting with variations on the spelling. Still nothing.
“Huh,” Quentin grunted. “Whatever DimCorp is, it’s invisible online. That’s really weird.”
Eissa pulled the rubber band from her ponytail with a yawn and combed her fingers through her black shoulder-length hair. “Yeah, that’s shady. Look, dude, I’m crashing. Let’s sleep on this and reconvene tomorrow. Just keep your mouth shut about it at work until we can decide how dangerous this is, and how to get you out of it.”
Quentin stood and stretched, working the kinks out of the protesting muscles in his neck as he rolled his head in a circle.
“Alright, low profile. I’ll figure out a way to do some poking around at work. I know the computer system, and I can cover my tracks. Maybe I can find something about DimCorp on our network.”
Eissa nodded as she climbed to her feet and shuffled towards the hallway.
“Shut the light off, will you? And make sure you lock the door on your way out.”
“Will do,” Quentin said through a yawn of his own. “See you tomorrow.”
◆◆◆
The next morning, Quentin poured a cup of coffee in his Darth Vader mug to keep up appearances, but his stomach was churning too much to even take a sip. It had been a mostly sleepless night, and his nerves were shot. He jumped every time someone walked by his cubicle, sure that security was coming to haul him upstairs to Zimmerman’s office.
The server project folder was open on his desktop, but he didn’t even try to work on it. It was just there for cover, as he began his search of the IBZ network. If he could find some more evidence that Zimmerman and Holt had done illegal things, then he could go to the FBI as a whistleblower, and they would protect him and bring IBZ to justice. That was the best plan he had been able to come up with, as he lay tossing and turning all night.
By midafternoon, Quentin felt like he had found everything he could from his own computer station, and it wasn’t much. The network was huge, but he was sure that he had managed to access everything in it, and there were some things missing. Zimmerman and Holt weren’t showing up as much as they should. There had to be a separate network that they saved things on, like that email.
Richard was back to work, although he hadn’t said anything to Quentin. That was a relief, as Quentin was sure that his face had guilty written all over it. He racked his brain for a way to find the information he needed. The most obvious answer was that he had to get back on Richard’s computer, but how was he going to pull that off?
He stood up slowly and peered over the cubicle wall. At a lanky six feet, two inches tall, he towered over the panels that divided the large room into tiny individual offices, so he hunched over, trying not to draw attention to himself. He looked around the room, searching for Richard’s bald head.
“What’s up, Quentin?” Charlie pushed off his desk and rolled across the adjoining cubicle in his chair, stopping himself with his feet on the wall in front of Quentin. “You’ve been quiet today. Is that server project kicking your ass over there?”
Quentin forced a grin. “Hey, buddy. I’ve been busy, lots of stuff happening.”
“The next Avengers movie is coming out this weekend. Are we going, or what?”
“Hell, yeah. We haven’t missed one yet, not going to start now.” His attempt at being cheerful sounded fraudulent as hell to his own ears, but Charlie didn’t seem to notice.
“It’s your turn to buy dinner.” Charlie grinned, pushing up his glasses. “And don’t you go cheap on me, either.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Quentin glanced around and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Hey, do you know if there’s a separate network for the corporate guys upstairs?”
Charlie’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean the C-Suite people? Yeah, they’re on a whole separate system, why?”
“Shit.” Quentin shook his head. “There’s no way to access something like that from down here, huh?”
“Richard probably can, but not the rest of us
. What are you up to, man? Are you trying to snoop?”
Quentin hesitated. Charlie was his best work friend, but it wouldn’t be right to drag him into this.
“Nah, I just noticed when I was linking the new server to the network drives that there wasn’t much top-floor stuff on there. Just got me wondering, that’s all.” Richard emerged from his office at the far end of the room, and Quentin scrunched down even lower. “Gotta go.”
He dropped back down into his chair. This was turning into a real dilemma. There wasn’t any good way to get back on Richard’s computer. At least, not during working hours…
Goosebumps broke out on his arms. It was a crazy idea, but he couldn’t come up with a better one. He pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to Eissa.
Hey, are you up for a midnight adventure?
She texted back immediately.
This better not have anything to do with your penis. You know I’m allergic to those things.
He snorted with laughter, and glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was walking by his cubicle doorway before texting her back.
Thrill and excitement, yes. Penis, No. Good times? To be determined…
◆◆◆
Crickets, and an occasional car in the distance, were the only sounds as Quentin and Eissa approached the IBZ Energy building. The flashing yellow lights from the lone traffic signal on the corner reflected off the dark wall of glass, as well as a few neon signs from further down the street. It was easily the biggest building in Gainesville, dwarfing everything around it. Quentin marveled at how different everything seemed at night, when no one was here.
His senses were on high alert, and the jitters that made his hands shake were a combination of nerves and excitement, as if he had just slammed several cups of coffee. He slid his ID card into the reader beside the door. The access light turned green, and the lock released with a loud click. He glanced around one last time, then pulled the glass door open and waved Eissa into the lobby. The visitor information desk was deserted, and their footsteps echoed off the high ceiling as they walked across the open space to the elevators.
“I can’t believe we’re breaking into your job,” Eissa whispered. “This is fucking insanity. I can’t believe you talked me into this.”
“We’re not breaking in,” Quentin said, leading the way to the elevators. “I work here. We used my key. If we were breaking in, we’d be climbing through an air duct or something.”
“You know what I mean. We just decided to do it this afternoon. It’s not like we’ve spent months preparing and covering our asses. This is a terrible plan. There is no fucking plan, what am I saying?”
“Just shut it,” Quentin hissed. “I’ve thought it out, and I know how to cover our tracks. Trust me.”
Eissa scowled, shaking her head as they stepped onto the elevator. He pushed the button for the third floor, and the doors closed with a soft swoosh. No one would be here in the middle of the night, but his stomach was still in knots. He glanced down at Eissa. Her face was pale, despite her naturally dark complexion, and the sheen of sweat on her forehead reflected the overhead lights.
A moment later, the doors opened onto a darkened hallway. The red light of the exit sign in front of the stairwell door cast a reflection on the tile floor, and the hum of the water fountain droned in the silence. Quentin walked past the breakroom and pushed through the swinging doors into the main room, with Eissa right behind him.
“That’s my cubicle,” he whispered as they walked by. His nervousness was making him giddy, and he clenched his fists at his sides to keep from swinging his arms around.
“How come we’re not using your computer?” Eissa asked. “Where are we going?”
Quentin chuckled in the darkness. “To Richard’s office. I’ve still got his login information, and he has access to everything that I can’t get to from my computer.”
Richard’s office was at the far end of the room. Quentin stopped in front of the door and inserted his keycard into the reader.
“Your card will get you into your boss’s office?”
“It will now,” Quentin said, a smug grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. The light turned green, and he opened the door. “I’m a computer god, didn’t you know?”
Eissa rolled her eyes. “Give me a break.”
“Yesterday, Richard had my card authorized to open his door. Today, I accessed the IBZ security system and backtracked the activity on my card. I figured out how to authorize my card, and gave myself unlimited access to the entire facility, along with a few other things.”
Eissa raised her eyebrows as Quentin flipped on the light and sat down at Richard’s desk.
“Don’t worry, there aren’t any windows. Nobody can see the light.”
“What were the other things?”
Quentin powered up the computer. “Oh, I learned how to get into the camera system, so I can delete the footage of us being here, how to clear the card-reader log, little things like that.” He winked at her. “Now then, as long as he didn’t change his password this morning, we’re good.”
He entered the password, and bit his lip as it processed. His fingers drummed on the desk. A moment later the desktop screen loaded, and Quentin laughed, clapping his hands. “Shame on you, Richard. Very lazy. We’re in.”
“Nice,” Eissa said. “I gotta say, I’m impressed. This is some real-life James Bond shit. If it wasn’t so scary, it would probably be fun.”
Quentin opened up the network list. Richard’s computer had access to several drives that he couldn’t get into on his own computer. He started with the local drive on Richard’s computer, opening various folders and files that caught his eye, until he ran across one that Richard had obviously named in an effort to make it seem unimportant: Old Utility Bills.
“What a moron,” he muttered. He double-clicked on the folder and tried the encryption key that he had used to open Zimmerman’s email. The folder opened.
“What?” Eissa looked up from her phone.
“Richard tries to hide things by giving them weird names, but they’re encrypted, so they’re obviously important. In his mind, no one would ever bother with them, but he’s so bad at naming them that you can’t miss them. He might as well call them top secret documents or something.”
The folder was a copy of someone’s hard drive. It had a list of folders, documents, photos, videos, emails, project folders, and various programs. He opened the photos folder and glanced through the sub-folders inside. One was called Protesters, and he opened it, his pulse quickening in anticipation.
Hundreds of photos filled the screen. They were from all different places, but almost all of them featured someone getting beaten or shot. Quentin slowly scrolled down the screen in horror. He expected to find that it had happened a few times before, maybe as many as ten times, but this… this was like uncovering a mass grave in the basement. He felt dizzy, as if he might fall out of the chair at any moment.
“Eissa…”
She stood and moved around the desk and bent down beside him, leaning on the arm of his chair.
“Is that-?” Her voice trailed off as comprehension set in.
“It looks like it.” He scrolled down row after row. In some of the photos, the security guards posed with the bodies like big game hunters, holding up the heads of their victims. In others, they were swinging their rifles like baseball bats. The sight of people being bludgeoned to death made Quentin’s skin crawl, and his gorge rose repeatedly. He swallowed hard and scrolled faster. At the bottom of the page was the picture from the pipeline protest with Whitefoot and Bonner’s bodies.
Quentin felt sick to his stomach. The pools of blood, the teeth on the ground, the clearly broken bones, it was all too much. He closed the subfolder and went back to the main folder.
“Let’s search for DimCorp and see what we can find.”
The results filled the screen, and continued to populate for several seconds. Some were mentions in emails, some were
files, and some were folders. He selected a folder called Dimension 165 DimCorp Projects. There were dozens of subfolders inside it with company names, project names, and locations from all over the globe. Some of the names stuck out to him: DimCorp NPG, DimCorp IBZ Energy, DimCorp InterBank.
The nausea was fading, and excitement began to replace it. Interbank was where his checking account was located. Were his bank and his employer somehow connected?
He glanced down the list and picked a file called DimGate Locations. If someone had created a location map of all their crimes, then the homework for the prosecution would be practically done already. The mouse shook on the screen in time with his jittery hands, and he tried to still them as he waited for the file to load.