Survival of The Fittest | Book 1 | The Fall

by Fawkes, K. M.

  The Fall

  Survival Of The Fittest Book 1

  K. M. Fawkes

  Copyright 2021 by K. M. Fawkes

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.

  All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  The Fall

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Shallow Graves

  Chapter 1

  K. M. Fawkes Mailing List

  Also by K. M. Fawkes

  The Fall

  Chapter 1

  I walked quickly into the publisher’s office, already knowing that there was going to be trouble—and already planning my excuses. Because I knew exactly what sort of trouble I was in. Sure, I knew my reasons for what I'd been getting up to… but I also knew why whoever had caught me probably had a problem with it.

  What I didn’t know was how they’d caught me. Because I’d thought I was being careful enough to get away with it. And, as stupid as it was—as pointless as it was, when I was probably about to lose my job—that was the part that bothered me most: the idea that I was stupid enough to get caught.The idea that someone else might have been more clever, more crafty, than I had been.

  “Ms. Lopez, thank you for joining me,” Parker Smith said, giving me that look that I hated. He tipped his chin down to let his glasses slide to the end of his nose, so that he could look over the tops of them at you, like he was some sort of hoity-toity law professor or something.

  I rolled my eyes internally. He was not a law professor. He was just the publisher at Ashland Weekly—the local paper of the incredibly tiny town where I'd grown up. It was nothing to brag about.

  But you certainly wouldn’t know that looking at him. Hell, with the airs he put on, you’d think he was the managing editor at the New York Times.

  He wished.

  I sat without saying any of this, though, because honestly, what good would it do me? Letting my mouth run away with me now wasn’t going to do anything to salvage the situation. And as much as I hated it—as much as I didn’t want to stoop that low—some more practical part of me knew that salvaging the situation should really be my top priority here.

  “Mr. Smith,” I said politely, stifling my snarky internal monologue. “You asked to see me?”

  A nod, and then he sat in his own seat, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

  “I did,” he said, his voice firm. “And I suspect you know exactly why you’re here.”

  I did. But I wanted to make him say it. Because I was there for having done something illegal—but the mystery informant must have done something even shadier to catch me. And I wanted to know what that was. I wanted Parker to have to admit that he’d had his own people do something that illegal, just to catch little old me.

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me, sir,” I answered politely. “Is it about a new assignment? Something spicier than how the garbage men are thinking about boycotting the new housing development?”

  As if. Nothing exciting happened in this town. Nothing even remotely worth writing about—even for the local paper, which was where I’d been working since I moved back to this piece-of-shit town in the middle of nowhere, searching for a place to lay low after my last… venture went bad.

  He laughed, but there was no mirth behind it. His mouth didn’t even try to turn up into a smile, and that confirmed my suspicions. Yep, I was definitely here to get fired, then.

  Dammit. Rent was due in two weeks, and this was going to make it seriously hard for me to pay it. I'd been living paycheck to paycheck since coming back to the hellhole that was Ashland and it sure wasn't great, especially now.

  “Not a new assignment, no,” he said, dropping into a poor imitation of a fatherly tone. This was the voice he used when he was trying to give employees unwarranted advice about how they were living their lives. “Actually, I was wondering if you could explain the way you’ve been writing some of your assignments. And why you thought it necessary to go to such extents to find your information.”

  He flipped a stack of papers carelessly onto his desk in my direction and they fanned out on the hard surface, allowing me an easy view of what they held. I glanced down, my eyes scanning them, though I already knew what they would show me. Or, at least, I knew what they would show I had done.

  The real reason I glanced was that I wanted to see how they’d found me out.

  And there, in the black-and-white screenshots of chat rooms, were the answers. I saw the alias I’d been using—JourneyGirl01—and I knew immediately what chat room this was. One of the lighter ones, luckily.

  Well, not so lucky, as it turned out, since that room was easy enough for someone else to follow me into it. The heavier rooms—the ones that could only be found deeper on the dark web—would have had better security. Better walls, to keep the snoopers out, and entrance into the chat only via a recommendation from someone who was already in and verified as legit. And even after that, there were lots of hoops to jump through to maintain your spot—users were under constant scrutiny from other chat members.

  Those were the chats where I got the real scoops. And I didn’t touch them anymore. Because they were trouble, and once you got pulled into them, it was awfully hard to get out.

  This lighter chat room? Well, it was mostly innocent. Mostly. Lots of conspiracy theories. Lots of so-called high-level or national-security information. People who claimed they worked in the White House and knew what was going on behind the curtain. People who claimed the same thing about any other particular government of interest or intrigue. Most of it was complete bullshit.

  Most of it.

  Every once in a while, I'd run into something real—something no one else knew about, at least not yet—and that was exactly what I’d been searching for. Because working at this paper was a fucking drag, and I was fucking over it. That said, it was also the best I had at that moment… well, really the only thing I had, and I’d vowed to make the best of it.

  If Parker wanted the absolute truth, I’d been looking for a lead. Something bigger than this town could have offered, and something that would have given me the start of a column that would blow the socks off everyone at this paper and get me noticed by someone a whole lot bigger.

  Because Michelle Lopez had goals. She had goddamn dreams.

  This thought brought me back to the room, and the sound of those dreams being broken into a million tiny shards and swept right into Parker's trash can under his desk.

  I looked up at Parker, realizing that I’d already taken too long to answer, and pressed my lips together as if I was trying to think.

  “I was looking for something that no one else had seen yet,” I said, trying to play it off like it
was the most natural thing in the world. “Looking for a scoop. Isn’t that what reporters are supposed to do?”

  “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “Reporters who work for papers like the Times or Washington Post. Reporters who are behind enemy lines, maybe, or traveling with the military. Journalists who are actually doing jobs where scoops are necessary or appropriate. That’s never been true at this paper, Ms. Lopez, and I believe we discussed that when I hired you.”

  Right. When he hired me. As if he’d done it out of the goodness of his heart, rather than because my parents—who died when I was very young—had donated money to the local paper in their wills. I didn't know much about my parents, but I did know they'd been born and died in this little town, and valued local businesses…maybe more than their own kid, since they didn't leave me all that much.

  At this moment, I was sure Parker was regretting pity-hiring me, and my mouth twitched at the thought of him being uncomfortable.

  “I didn’t think it was out of line to try to make Ashland Weekly stand out,” I replied. “If I’d been able to find something big, it would have given your paper exactly what it needed to attract more attention. Maybe even attract some bigger fish.”

  He leaned over, singled out a page, and pushed it toward me. I flicked my gaze down to see exactly what Parker was pointing out, and my heart sank a little bit.

  Well, damn.

  Right there was the conversation I'd been hoping to leave behind me. The chat-room evidence of one of my old associates finding me and trying to recruit me for a job that required someone who knew how to get around the firewalls banks put up to protect their financial records.

  My eyes flew back up to Parker.

  “I told him no,” I said quickly, defensively. “I told him to get lost—you can see that right there! If you read the whole conversation, you’ll see that I told him exactly where he could stick that request.”

  Parker leaned back and brought his hands together in front of him, steepling his fingers as if he was actually thinking about it.

  “You did; I’ve seen that much,” he allowed. “The problem is, it wasn't actually someone at Ashland Weekly keeping an eye on you. I’m sure you’ve deduced that we don’t have the manpower for this sort of reconnaissance project. We wouldn’t even know where to start.” He lifted one eyebrow in what might have been humor but probably wasn’t, and continued before I could answer. “As it happens, someone much more important was watching.”

  “Who?” I asked, my voice faint.

  “The FBI. Counterterrorism division,” he replied, his voice blunt and hard.

  Well. That explained how they found me. He was right—part of me had known Parker wouldn’t have that capability. But also, damn. Because that meant the FBI was still on my tail. And that wasn’t something any ex-hacker wanted to hear.

  “But I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said again. “You can see right there that I didn’t do anything wrong. I was just searching for a story.”

  He jerked a hand up, motioning for me to stop right there and keep my mouth shut.

  For the first time in this meeting, I did.

  “You might not have done anything wrong when this… person propositioned you,” he said. “But you were in a chat room you weren’t supposed to be in—one that required bending the rules to find—and, I’m told, one that your parole specifically forbids. It comes too close to your previous activities and is therefore off limits. Or so I’m told.”

  I didn’t answer him, because technically, he was right.

  So yeah, I’d started hacking when I was fourteen, and I’d made a career of doing that for about three years—until I was caught and prosecuted for everything from identity theft to outright fraud. I’d still been a minor at the time, though, so they hadn’t tried me as an adult. They’d tried me as a kid. I'd gotten lucky.

  I spent three years in Juvie—I was lucky, too, not to be transferred to adult prison when I turned eighteen—where I was taught and retaught what was right and what was wrong. Then, I’d been released back into the world, with a whole new set of rules and a bunch of eyes watching me. It was how I’d ended up back here, in Ashland, where I’d lived as a regular old citizen, with firm instructions to stay out of trouble and keep my fingers out of the underground hacking world.

  For the most part, I had. I’d gone to work at the paper and actually been pretty good at it; my hacking background gave me a unique insight into how to do research and turn information into something that no one else could see. But then I’d gotten bored and started thinking that there might be a bigger story out there, something that would really change the world, and…

  Well, here we were. With the FBI’s fingerprints all over the print-out in front of me—which showed my fingerprints all over a chat room I wasn’t supposed to have accessed.

  My heart dropped into my stomach, and then through it, and then right through the chair I was sitting on and onto the floor below me, where it landed with a big, loud splat.

  “So, now what?” I asked quietly.

  Parker shrugged. “I wish I could have protected you, Michelle, I really do. I know your parents, may they rest in peace, would have appreciated you keeping this job. But I’m afraid I can’t shield you from this. The FBI is the one that holds the power here, and they’re very firm on what needs to happen next.”

  I just stared at him. Now that he was saying the words, I was getting my moxie back. My heart was climbing back into its rightful place and I was already thinking about my next move. How was I going to get the money for rent? How was I going to come back from this setback?

  Staring at people, I’ve found, makes them very uncomfortable. And it forces them to get to the point more quickly. People don’t like silence. They try to fill it, even when they shouldn’t. I decided to use that tactic right now, while I had the chance. I needed that last bit of information—and there was a part of me that just wanted to stick it to Parker one last time. Make him give it up by making him squirm.

  He gathered up the papers and patted them against the table, straightening them into one lethal stack. Then, he looked up to meet my gaze.

  “I’m afraid that this is the end of the road. This paper no longer wishes to be associated with you. I recommend you go directly home. The FBI has asked me to let you know that they’ll be in touch.”

  And that, I supposed, was that. I stood up without arguing, gave him my most brilliant, most snarky smile, turned, and walked out of the room without looking back.

  Screw this job. Screw this paper. I would just have to find something else to do with my life.

  Chapter 2

  By the time I got home, of course, a whole lot of my bravado had faded. I’d had plenty of time to think about the fact that I didn’t actually have any plans or many marketable skills, and I’d considered the possibility that Parker would poison the well when it came to me working for other papers and magazines, making my journalistic experience useless.

  I’d also spent about twenty minutes during the bus ride home obsessing about the fact that the FBI had told him they were going to call me. I knew exactly who it would be—Agent Prosser—and my skin crawled at the idea of that man contacting me again. I could remember his lizard-like eyes on me, running up and down my body as if I were little more than a speck of dust. I could remember his dry, unforgiving voice as he recited the rules for my parole.

  I could remember his smirk as he put me on the bus to come home, telling me to be a good little girl so he wouldn’t have to come after me again.

  No, I didn’t want to have to talk to that man again.

  But maybe, if I already had something in the works when he called, I’d be able to push him off my tail. I could tell him that I’d made a mistake, that I’d seen the errors in my ways, and that I was already trying to find another ‘straight’ job. Something that wouldn’t give me access to computers. Something that would keep my sticky fingers out of the dark web.

  I stomped up the stairs to the
door of my tiny apartment, shoved the key in, and threw the door open, torn between the impending doom of the FBI banging on my door and the thought that this could be another fresh start. I’d been good at journalistic work, sure, and I’d loved that it put my writing skills to use. Research was my cup of tea, no mistake, and it had paid the rent well enough. But the lack of real material, the lack of anything interesting to write about, had been a major drawback.

  Or it had, at least, when it came to keeping my brain actively engaged. And that actively engaged part? That was vital to keeping me on the straight and narrow. Bored or unfulfilled meant that I went looking for something to do. And that always led to trouble.

  Hey, at least I was self-aware enough to figure that part out.

  I shut the door behind me, trying to dwell on the positive side. Maybe I’d be able to find something more interesting, something more challenging. A writing job that would actually allow me to use my brain.

  I dropped my bag and the box of random desk stuff that every fired person had to carry on the floor next to the door, knowing I probably wouldn’t touch it again anytime soon, and marched right into the small nook that I’d made into my office space. And though the apartment around me was stripped almost bare of anything normal people would want—I had no TV, I slept on the couch, and the only decoration was a bookshelf filled to overflowing—this nook held everything I needed and could ever want. A state-of-the-art desktop computer, several different external drives for storage that I could grab in a hurry if I needed to get out of town quickly, and a lockable suitcase for the lot of it.