by Barry Lyga
“Bullshit. You designed them to do that. Don’t blame the code; blame yourself,” Bryce spat.
“GIGO,” Cassie whispered. Garbage in. Garbage out.
But who was the garbage? Was she? She swallowed hotly, seeing streaks of TonyStark’s blood splattered against the pavement, a collage of destruction. Was he?
“I designed them when I thought the positive aspects of humanity outweighed the negative ones,” Alexandra countered. Her bottom lip trembled just once, enough for Cassie to notice. “What I failed to factor into my many, many equations was neutrality.”
“Apathy,” Cassie said. Like her, before her father’s death. Before Rowan. Before, before, before.
“Exactly,” Alexandra agreed. She jumped up from her seat and began pacing, her shoulders slouched and neck bent so she didn’t hit her head. “It turned out that a nontrivial percentage of people didn’t want to participate in Hive Justice. They just wanted to watch it. But above all, they didn’t care that the only people who were actively participating were approaching it from the wrong angles. We expected a counterbalance and it never came.”
“Jesus. Did you consult anyone who’d ever worked in fucking retail?” Bryce fumed. “Humanity is filled with people dying to complain. To avenge. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, man.”
“We thought …” Alexandra paused, then collapsed back into her chair.
“Yeah, yeah,” Bryce said. “We all thought.”
“Shut up!” Cassie snapped. “Let her talk. She owes it to us.”
“That’s the thing. It quickly became apparent that the Hive wasn’t going to turn itself around. It wasn’t going to self-correct. So we started experimenting with some tweaks to the code. When it didn’t work, we just thought, well, the human mind … it’s unpredictable, really. It’s not logical. And when you agglomerate a critical mass of them, you throw the rules of logic out the window. Chaos theory takes over. But then …”
Cassie shifted in her uncomfortable seat and, realizing she had been holding her breath, exhaled.
Alexandra continued: “A few weeks ago, I got a note in my personal email directing me to an anonymous site. I had to hack into it, and the back end was … my God, it was beautiful. Just outstanding. Whoever coded this page is damn good. They buried a message so deep in the code that it took me days to find it. And it said … It said that the administration has been manipulating Hive Justice all along. That someone created ghost accounts, hidden from public view but able to alter the Condemn threads as needed. The counterbalance had been manufactured and then misdirected. It was everything I feared, laid out in front of me in a way I couldn’t ignore.”
Bryce’s jaw tensed.
Alexandra noticed.
“The note also led me to a hidden data cache. Evidence, it said. Top-level encryption. But everything else in the email was legit, so I knew whatever was in the cache had to be the real deal. It only gave me one clue: the color is the code.”
“This is crazy,” Bryce said. “You really expect me to believe you built this thing almost single-handedly, but someone else is conveniently misusing it?”
“Believe what you want,” she told him. “All I can say is this: throughout my tenure at the Hive, there have been … inconsistencies. I stayed abreast of them in the beginning, but I got promoted at a fast rate … unprecedented, really. My new work would distract me for weeks or months on end. I stopped looking for the mistakes. I was told to keep focusing on the positive aspects of the Hive, on all the good we were doing.”
“So the system is biased.”
“It was biased from day one,” Alexandra said, a touch of exasperation in her tone. “Humans coded it. Humans implemented it.”
“But you invented it,” Bryce countered, his voice thin and tight, a violin string ready to snap. “You allowed it to be violated. And now we’re in danger. Our friend is dead.”
Alexandra dropped her head. “I know.”
“But why unleash the ghost accounts on me?” Cassie burst out. “I made a dumb joke. Why do they care so much that they’d do this to me?”
Alexandra sighed. “They were looking for a scapegoat. You fit their needs …” she trailed off. “Do you follow politics, Cassie?”
Cassie felt a pang of guilt for not knowing what she was getting at. Then she felt a stifling hot anger — her old friend, rage. She was seventeen. She couldn’t even vote yet. Did she follow politics? Not especially.
“The president is facing the end of his second term and the end of his power — not acceptable to a man like that. He’s out for blood. Willing to try anything. If he thought he could turn this embarrassment, this laughingstock you made of him, into a hook to hang a campaign on —”
“Make him a sympathetic figure instead of a corrupt, all-powerful one …” Bryce added, his fingers drumming together.
“And build on the organic reactions, elevate the negativity …”
Cassie’s head swung between them.
“Turn her into a scapegoat for all that’s wrong with humanity,” Bryce continued, his voice rising. “Make her the bully. A vulgar thing who preys on innocent babies. Someone who spends too much time on the Hive when she should be studying, or at least comforting her widowed mother.”
“And then, while we’re all distracted by how much we hate Cassie, how wrong she is for this society …” Alexandra continued.
“The president gets to become the person who saved us from someone like her. From ourselves.”
“And furthermore leverages the publicity and the acclaim to call a new Constitutional Convention,” Alexandra said quietly.
“Wait, say what?” Bryce’s jaw dropped open.
Constitutional Convention. That Cassie understood. They’d studied it in school. With his party in power at a Constitutional Convention, the president could literally rewrite the country’s fundamental laws and leverage the Hive to have the states ratify his new constitution. At one stroke, every policy he favored could be enacted as the law. Virtually inviolable.
Including the elimination of term limits. He could run for a third, a fourth … And with the Hive Mobs on his side, no one could stop him.
“And I make it all possible,” Cassie said quietly.
“People say nasty shit about the president all day, every day. Why do you think they picked you? The daughter of a controversial hacker?” Alexandra smiled grimly. “The NSA had already been watching you and your mom since he died, looking for anything he left behind. Looking for any excuse to get their fingers in Harlon’s cookie jar. And you just went ahead and raised your hand, giving them the pretext they needed to come in and scoop it all up. Like a lamb eager for slaughter. Two birds with one stone.”
“Watch it,” Bryce warned, stepping close to Cassie.
Ignoring Bryce, Alexandra delivered the final blow: “Your death is an asset to the president, Cassie. It’s the test case that proves the efficacy of Hive Justice and gives him a way to eliminate people who stand up to him. Legally. Permanently. With no blood on his hands.”
Cassie felt herself slide out of her seat, her legs unable to bear weight. Her mind raced, trying to find a word, any word, to describe the tornado of emotions running through it.
Bryce crawled over to her, shaking her shoulders until she met his eyes. “Cass, this is good news.”
“What?” Cassie fought tears again, despair her new default state. “The president personally needs me dead. How is that good news?”
“We know now. We know what they did!” Bryce laughed, an actual laugh Cassie hadn’t ever heard. “There’s a way out. We know what to do. We can find the ghost accounts. Cassie, this is it!”
“You’re making it sound much easier than it actually is,” Alexandra warned him. “Even if you can reverse the numbers programmatically, you’ll need it to spill into organic reversals, too.”
“Don
’t listen to her. You’ll be acquitted, Cassie!”
Free.
Bryce shook her again, only it was more of a hug attempt this time, and Cassie welcomed it, leaning into his neck and closing her eyes. “I’ll get to see my mom again?” Her words were muffled by Bryce’s skin, rough and warm against her cheek.
“You’ll get to live your life again,” Bryce assured her, squeezing her tighter, a brotherly, euphoric embrace. She relaxed into him, letting her limbs settle, trying to catch her breath. The promise of a return to her regular life had knocked the wind out of her.
Alexandra suddenly shushed them, even though no one was saying anything. She held up a hand, her head cocked toward the door. Cassie thought she saw her eyes flash a warning to Bryce.
“What is it?” she whispered. It was, she realized, too quiet. The music in the club had stopped.
It all happened in slow motion — Alexandra’s eyes widening; Bryce releasing Cassie and standing up, knocking over his chair. It tumbled to the floor, taking an eternity to land, to shatter the silence.
Cassie wondered if her heart would leap through her chest and land on the floor next to the chair. Whatever was happening outside, every cell in her body was telling her it was bad news.
In their cramped space, Cassie stared at Alexandra and Bryce, willing them to give her some clue with their eyes, their hands. Sign language, maybe. Anything.
Instead, they just looked at each other, communicating in a way that Cassie couldn’t decipher.
Something was on the tip of her tongue, some dawning realization.
She ran out of time to wait for it. The door burst open.
Someone screamed.
It was, Cassie realized, her own voice.
*
She wasn’t the only one making noise. Outside the door, where there had once been the relentless beat of music, there were more screams. There were crashes as things unseen fell over or were thrown. Within seconds, the noises built until Cassie couldn’t tell if they were real or simply part of a song she’d never heard. Bryce grabbed her, covering her mouth with his hand.
“Shut up! Shut up!” he hissed.
Through tears she managed to find the yawning hole inside her where the scream was escaping and willed herself to close it. It didn’t matter, though. The noises outside the storage space escalated, a rising crescendo.
“The Hive is here,” Alexandra said, and Cassie felt that space open up inside her again. A cavern, really. A sinkhole.
Alexandra punched buttons on her phone and then tucked her laptop into her jacket pocket and added, in an eerily calm tone, “I suggest you run.” Then, in a superhero move Cassie couldn’t appreciate in the moment, she slipped out the door and disappeared into the chaos.
She left the door open.
“Go! Go!” Bryce yelled, his voice muffled amid the screams and — oh, my God, were those gunshots? — from the club. But Cassie was frozen. She looked helplessly at Bryce.
“I can’t move my legs,” she whispered. She couldn’t escape again. She didn’t have it in her.
“You have to run!” Bryce yelled again. “They will kill you before we get a chance to stop all this! Mask up and run!”
Cassie closed her eyes. It was only a matter of seconds before they would find her, she knew. The club couldn’t have that many hiding spaces.
Harlon would make her run, she thought. Her dad would never let her stand still like this, an open target for the very people who had set her up. He’d tell her to go, go, go, to Fuck the Man and make them chase her until time ended, or she died, or they caught her — whichever came first.
But she thought suddenly of the night she’d hit Level 5. Of her mother dragging her out of bed, down the stairs into the car …
Yes, her dad would make her run, but her mother would run with her.
Cassie didn’t have time to take a deep breath, but she did it anyway, and in that space she heard her mother’s voice in her head. It said, I’m here, baby. We have to go now.
Her body responded. She ducked under Bryce’s raised arm and threw herself into the crowd, tugging her mask into place as she did so.
It was dark. The mob must’ve cut the power when they raided the club, and a spatter of flashlights danced across the room, seeking her out. She drove deeper into the crowd, into bodies and noise. Bryce was right behind her, one hand grazing her elbow. The noise was deafening, a steady hum of moans and whimpers punctuated by high-pitched screams of “Help me!” and “What the fuck!” If only people would stop screaming, Cassie thought, she might have a chance to make a plan. Instead, she was moving by instinct, keeping her body low.
A voice, amplified over a loudspeaker, and probably through everyone’s earbuds, if the bodily convulsions were any indication: “Cassie McKinney! Level 6 perpetrator! Hive Justice demands you! Show yourself!”
It was a mistake for them to say her name. Before the announcement had even finished a wave of screams rose up in response. What had been a loud but mostly quiescent crowd, perhaps assuming this was a drug raid or an immersive floor show, was now practically foaming at the mouth, desperate with the knowledge that there was a Level 6 perpetrator in the room, that they could join the mob and be the ones to take her down. Their thirst slammed into Cassie.
She was in the middle of the club floor, still crouched low, keeping one eye on the pattern of flashlights against the walls and another on Bryce, who still crept behind her. He was harder to hide than she was. Norse gods couldn’t stay invisible for long.
Cassie plotted her move. The front door was out, surely; so, too, was the back exit, even though its red EXIT sign seemed to be beckoning her. Those were too obvious. She looked up, through the bodies, to the ceiling. There, about a foot down, was a system of wide, exposed ductwork that looked strong enough to support her. Her idea was a risk, but if she could hoist herself up onto the air ducts, she could crawl along to reach somewhere more private — the bathrooms, maybe, or the kitchen, the back of the bar, wherever — and she could probably climb her way through the building, all with a bird’s-eye view. From up there, she could find her escape route. She thought of Bryce’s words when this all began, during that horrible excursion through the tunnels and up the abandoned hotel to OHM. The higher up we go, the fewer cameras.
And if there wasn’t an escape route? Cassie wouldn’t let that thought linger. She could ride it out up there if she had to. The mob couldn’t stay in the building forever … right?
A fresh wave of yells convinced her to push away the doubts (and there were many) and make a decision. She was out of time. Any second now, people were going to start removing their masks to prove they weren’t Cassie McKinney.
She tugged on Bryce’s fingers, pointed up and yelled — knowing no one could her hear — “I’m going up! I’ll find you when things settle down!” He blinked in confusion, then looked up, realized Cassie’s plan and nodded. He, too, knew they were out of time.
She darted through the crowd on all fours, her body braced against stray kicks and accidental punches. Two people actually stepped on her, and she flinched in agony. She kept her head protected as best she could and continued on, seeking spaces in the darkness, blocking out the noises, the pain. Bruises and sprains would be dealt with later. Just get there, she told herself.
Going by gut instinct, or maybe driven by fate, or finally having some good luck, Cassie touched something other than body parts: a wall.
“Yes!” she whispered, trying to catch her breath, her hands feeling her way along it. Her fingers grasped a hinge — an opening, maybe? Just then another announcement shook the club.
“Stop what you’re doing or face immediate consequences! We are seeking a Level 6 perpetrator. Hive Justice demands it! Everybody freeze!”
Cassie heard the instructions, but her body disobeyed. You could tell a crowd of hundreds to freeze but dozens
of them would still be moving within it, still be fidgeting or thinking the order didn’t apply to them. Her fingers inched along the hinge, finding the opening. Her eyes were adjusting to the dark and shapes started to appear — a set of calves and knees just a few feet away from her; several discarded earbuds; someone’s phone, jostled from a hand, on the ground. Did she dare?
She almost guffawed. That ship had sailed days ago. She slid her hands across the floor, her fingers brushing the aluminum and glass. Centimeter by centimeter, she pulled it toward her, into her pocket. A new phone. Better than the crap in her other pocket.
Now, the door. She couldn’t wait any longer. People were growing restless.
“Show yourself, Cassie!” someone nearby yelled, followed by a chorus of cheers.
“Has Cassie surfaced yet?” someone else yelled, half laughing, answered by waves of giggles and shouts. Cassie’s heart thrummed quickly. Was she a joke now? Was her life a joke?
Would her death be, too?
Behind the fear came fury, fast and threatening, and it made her move ahead. She refused to be a joke. Her fingers danced over the walls, her body following, until she found a handle. She pulled it down, bracing herself for a click or a burst of light to give her away. But the door opened silently, and she slipped into darkness. It was, in retrospect, so easy.
The room had a sliver of a window near the ceiling, letting in a glimmer of moonlight outside the club, just enough for Cassie to make out that this was a bathroom. She blinked and checked under the three stalls. Empty. The silvery ductwork above her glinted. Her height was an advantage as she stood on the rim of the toilet (Don’t look at it, don’t look at it, she told herself), took a deep, courage-filling breath and leaped.
The top of the duct was smooth and slippery; she almost lost her grip but managed to cling by her fingers and then haul herself, bracing her feet against the wall of the stall, walking up until she could throw her leg over.