by Jamie Davis
The update in her implant pinged her right away with a notification of a change in the security system. Cass waited, sitting on the edge of her bed, fidgeting with her phone as she watched the status bar of her implant’s readout in her mind continue to fill. It showed the program doing its job of resetting the system patch that hid her implants.
After fifteen very long seconds, the program finally finished running and the status bar turned green. Cass let out a sigh. She figured she was going to have to do this at least nightly to make sure she wasn’t detected. She wished she could reach out to contact Derek about it but she didn’t want to risk any unnecessary communications. As paranoid as he was, Derek probably wouldn’t answer any calls from inside one of the enclaves anyway.
Cass lay back in her bed after turning out the lights and stared at the ceiling. She considered the implications of the frequent firewall updates on her ability to remain hidden. Aaron Benson didn’t seem like he was the type to just let this intrusion in his system go without thoroughly investigating it.
As she lay there, Cass wondered who was better: her hacking program installed by a short, little, paranoid, cyber human hiding out in an underground bunker or a short, little, paranoid technophobe hiding out inside a walled enclave. The thought of how similar the two of them were brought an unexpected smile to her face as she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 11
Cass’s fears about another firewall update overnight were confirmed when she woke up the next morning to a chime from her internal notification system. The internal menu featured a red box framing the protocol one file.
She launched the program once again, letting it run through its system check. This time the status bar took much longer to fill and change from red to green. After several long minutes, it did change, though. Cass let out a sigh of relief. The prospect of having to go through this each morning wasn’t appealing to her, but she had no other option.
This was only the first full day inside the enclave. Cass worried that at some point, Mr. Benson would release an update that would make it so she couldn’t come or go from the gated community at all. Passing through the security wards at the outskirts of the compound would inevitably trigger something if her program was not perfectly tuned to the system. She’d have to be extra careful.
Cass reviewed the diagnostics file compiled when the protocol one program ran. Though she didn’t understand much of what it said, she figured out based upon the documentation that updates were pushed out to the firewall first thing in the morning and occasionally just after dinner in the evening.
This information helped Cass to plan her days so that she could be alone in her room to focus on letting the updating program run, so no one would notice her zoning out to pay attention to what was happening inside her cerebral implant. It wasn’t that she couldn’t carry on a conversation with the hacking software running in the background. It was more that she became preoccupied with watching the notifications and queries scroll by as the status bar filled. She hoped it would give her some advance notice if a problem were encountered.
Even with the challenge of making time for updating her implant several times a day, Cass soon found herself in a familiar routine back home. Things seemed to relax a little between Cass and her parents, and she found herself enjoying the closer connection to Elena, as the days went by.
About two weeks after she got home, her father sat down at the family breakfast table and cleared his throat. “I’d like both of you girls to be around for dinner this evening. If you’ve made plans to go out with friends, you’ll have to postpone them. We have a guest over this evening and I’d like him to meet all of you.”
Cass shrugged. She’d been staying close to home and away from most of her friends, since the awkward barbecue party next door at the Glenn’s on her first night.
Elena was another matter. She went out with friends nearly every night, even when she had school the next day. Cass’s sister humphed and muttered something even Cass’s enhanced auditory implant couldn’t decipher.
Her dad put his fork down and stared at his youngest daughter. “What was that, Elena?”
“Nothing, Daddy. I was supposed to meet some friends tonight but I can tell them something came up.”
“Excellent. Mr. Cantwell is a good friend who travels quite a bit in his work for the movement. He doesn’t often get the chance for a nice family meal, and I want him to have the opportunity to get to meet you girls while he’s here.”
Her mom sipped at her tea and said, “It’s been a while since Simon has been in the area. What brings him up this way?”
“He’s handling a special project for Sterling that’s extremely important. He needs to consult with me on a few things before he leaves again to continue following up on them.”
“I’m glad Sterling has so much faith in you.” Her mom turned to her daughters. “Girls, I don’t know if you were aware of it, but Mr. Noble put your father in charge of tracking down the origins of that horrible faked video of those people dying. It’s a huge honor.”
Cass stiffened at the mention of the video. The original recording still sat stored inside her implant’s memory system. She hadn’t been aware her father was in charge of tracking down the recording’s source.
Cass didn’t know how much she worried about being found out, until she realized her hand trembled as she lifted a piece of sausage up to her mouth. She steadied herself and shoved the fork in her mouth, eating the sausage as she put the utensil down and placed her hands in her lap.
Surely she had nothing to worry about. Shelby had promised her she’d anonymized the video stream during the rally, so no one would know the video came from Cass’s ocular implant. There wasn’t a way to track them down, was there?
Cass needed to reach out to Shelby and make sure they were both taking whatever precautions they could to protect themselves from discovery.
Unfortunately, when she excused herself to head up to her room and message her girlfriend, her mother stopped her.
“Cass, while your sister is at school, I’m going to need you to help me get the house in order. It needs a good cleaning and dusting.”
“I was heading up to my room for a bit, Mom. Can it wait?”
“No, there’s a lot to get done before Mr. Cantwell arrives. He’s an essential person in the movement and it’s important we look our best when he arrives.”
Her mom turned to her husband. “When is he expected to get here, dear?”
“Sometime around mid-afternoon. He wasn’t sure when his flight was getting in. He’s got the use of Sterling’s private jet due to the importance of the project.”
“Really, that isn’t something I was aware of. This must be pretty serious business if that’s the case.”
Her father nodded. “It is. This video has the potential to topple the whole movement, Faye. We have to find those who created it, so we can discredit them and force them to own up to what they did.”
Cass’s stomach roiled as the discussion brought back memories she’d tried so hard to keep tamped down in her mind. Before she knew it, she was running for the bathroom in the hallway, overcome by a sudden bout of nausea as images of dying cyber humans filled her mind.
Five minutes later, a tap on the bathroom door made Cass pause as she wiped her mouth with a dampened towel. She stared at her face in the mirror as she asked, “Who is it?”
“Cassie, are you all right?”
It was her mother.
Cass bent down and rinsed her mouth again before answering. “I’m fine, Mom. I must have gotten a bad sausage or something. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. You just turned white as a sheet and rushed from the room. I wasn’t sure if you needed anything.”
“No, I think the worst has passed. I’ll be out to help you clean up in a minute.”
“That’s good. Start in the kitchen with cleaning up breakfast. I’ll help when I get back from dropping your sister at school.”
&nbs
p; Cass waited for her mother to leave with Elena before she came out of the bathroom. She’d been bothered by what she’d seen at the rally before, but never so violently. She hoped this wasn’t something wrong with her implant and its interface with her brain. There was so much she didn’t understand about how it managed her stored memories.
Cass wished she could take the time to talk with Shelby, but her mother would be angry if she weren’t working on the kitchen when she got home in a few minutes. Cass settled for shooting off a quick text message as she got to work on the breakfast dishes.
Shel, my dad said there’s a special project to track down the Saturday Massacre video. I don’t know if there’s anything you can do to protect us on your end but if there is, you’d better do it. I’ll try and call you later when I learn more.
Love, Cass.
It took most of the day to get the house to the point that her mother declared the cleaning done. It turned out to be finished just in time. The doorbell rang fifteen minutes after the work was complete.
Cassie’s father came out of his office off the main hallway and answered the door. Cass overheard a brief conversation with another male voice before the two men disappeared into her father’s office. The new voice tickled a memory in the back of her mind but she couldn’t understand why or place who it was.
Even though her father shut the door to his office, Cass could have dialed her auditory receptors up to pierce the simple wooden framing of their house and listen in. Her mother had other ideas of what she could be doing.
“Cassie, come help me get dinner ready in the kitchen. I might need to send you out to the enclave market for a few last-minute items.”
“Coming, Mom.” Cass glanced at the closed door to her dad’s office as she passed by on the way to the kitchen. She knew they were discussing the video and wanted more than anything to hear what they were saying. Maybe she could find out more during dinner with some careful questions.
Soon dinner was ready and they started laying out food on the table.
“Cassie, go tell your father dinner is ready, please.”
Cass nodded and walked across the hallway to her father’s office door. She was about to rap on it when she overheard a comment from that strangely familiar voice. Once again, Cass tried to remember where she’d heard it before but couldn’t place it.
“… I’m not sure how long it will take, but we’ve started to narrow down the possible sources of the video from the rally.”
Cass’s father answered. “That’s good to know. You have no further information on who it could possibly be?”
“No, but we will. We’ve got our best people on it and they are tracking down every possibility. One potential lead has to do with the body of one of our followers found below the rooftop of a building near City Square. It appears the gentleman fell or was possibly pushed over the edge. The angle from that rooftop matches the recording angle of the video. We’re looking into it.”
Cass froze as she heard the words. They’d figured out where they’d stood when they’d recorded the video. That meant they could potentially track it back to the two of them if someone figured out they were up there. She had to warn Shelby. She might be in danger.
Cass tried to listen to more of the conversation. She was interrupted when Elena came around the corner.
“Hey, what are you doing? Mom told you to come to get Dad and his friend for dinner.”
Without waiting for Cass to reply, Elena nudged in front of her and rapped on the door saying, “Daddy, dinner’s ready.”
“Be right there, sweetie.”
Cass stood semi-frozen by the door, trying to decide what to do next with the information she’d overheard.
Elena stared at her. “What’s come over you, Cass? You look pale as a sheet like you did at breakfast. Are you getting sick or something? Whatever it is, don’t give it to me because I don’t have time to deal with that.”
Cass shook her head. “No, I’m fine. Just probably hungry, that’s all.”
“Good, I don’t want you ruining dinner the way you did when we all had to listen to you barfing while we finished breakfast. Come on. Mom needs help putting the glasses on the table and filling them with water.”
Cass followed her sister as she bounced down the hallway back to the kitchen. As she and Elena finished putting the last of the filled water glasses on the table, her dad entered the dining room followed by a tall gentleman with brown hair. His prominent nose should have made him memorable in Cass’s mind, but she didn’t recognize his face at all. It was strange because she was certain his voice was familiar in some way. Maybe she’d seen him in a news feed interview for the movement or something.
Her dad gestured to the guest. “Faye, Cass, Elena, this is my friend Simon Cantwell. I don’t believe you three have met him before.”
“No, I don’t believe we have, though I’ve heard a great deal about you,” Cass’s mother said. She crossed the room extending her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Simon. Welcome to our home.”
Mr. Cantwell gestured around him. “It’s a very nice home, Faye. I know how hard you work behind the scenes keeping things together so that James can do his important work. All of us appreciate that, though we probably don’t tell you enough on occasions like this.”
“It’s nice to hear, no matter who it comes from,” her mom said as she winked at her husband.
Her father gestured to Cass on the left side of the table. “This is my oldest daughter, Cassie. She recently attended the University in the city this past semester. Given everything that happened there, we are going to be changing her plans moving forward in the spring.”
Cass’s anger rose inside at the statement that she would not be staying at school. This was not the time to argue it, though. She forced a smile and extended her hand in greeting. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Cantwell. I hope you enjoy your dinner with us.”
“I’m sure I will. I travel so much that I rarely get the opportunity to have a true home cooked meal. I’m looking forward to it.”
Her dad turned to his right. “And this other young lady is our youngest daughter, Elena. She is just getting ready to enter high school next year.”
“It’s nice to meet you too, Elena.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Cantwell. It is nice to meet you as well.”
Cass’s father smiled now that the introductions were finished. “Shall we all have a seat?”
Cass took her seat on the far side of the table. Mr. Cantwell and her sister sat across from her, with her mom and dad on either end of the rectangular dining room set. As everyone started to pass the dishes around and began serving up the meal, Cass decided she needed to take a chance and try and get some information out of Mr. Cantwell. She needed to know more regarding the discussion she overheard in her father’s office.
“I couldn’t help but overhear you saying something earlier about a video and rally as Elena and I came to call you for dinner. Are you talking about that horrible video spread around everywhere about what happened at the rally?”
Simon raised his fork to make a point as he said, “What allegedly happened at the rally. And, yes, that is exactly why I’m here. How astute of you.” As he finished speaking, Simon held her gaze for a little longer than was comfortable. Cass looked away first, pretending to be interested in something on her plate. She scooped up some mashed potatoes and shoved the fork in her mouth.
Her dad shot Cass a glance. “Cassidy, you know better than to listen outside my door.”
Cass gulped down the mouthful of food. “It was an accident, Daddy. I was just walking over when I overheard what you both said. I didn’t know if Mr. Cantwell knew I was at the University when that all happened.”
Once again, Simon corrected Cass. “When someone faked a video of something happening, you mean.”
“Of course, yes, that’s what I mean.”
Simon nodded and answered her before her father could object again to her intrusion outsi
de his office. “We’re working to find out who spread that vicious attack on our organization. I was telling your father that we are getting extremely close to narrowing down exactly who is responsible for recording and spreading that vicious video of lies.”
Simon never took his eyes off of Cass as he spoke. A shiver of fear began deep inside her. Was it possible that he already knew it was Shelby and her on that rooftop? She had to believe he’d have told her father if he knew for sure. Perhaps that was why he was here in person. He wanted to talk to her face to face and find out if she knew anything.
Cass forced herself to play it cool. “I’m glad you’re getting to the bottom of it. It really is horrible how things like that spread so quickly outside of the enclave. People out there seem to believe everything they see on the networks.”
Her dad nodded and smiled at Cass’s words. “That is exactly the problem, Cassie. It’s all the more reason we need to get ahead of this and stay on the trail. No matter how many times Sterling denies the video’s veracity to the news media, they still continue to spell out how their experts can find no falsehood in it. Despite the fact there were no bodies in the park and square after the rally, the reporters still insist it’s true. The bodies they did discover have all been tied to drug overdoses and the like in a known user enforcement zone nearby.”
Cass wanted to fight back and argue his points. She could deny everything her father said. She knew the truth. The drug overdose story and the cover-up that came out after the rally infuriated Cass.
The bodies of those killed in the video were all found in a dilapidated home in a rough part of town more than a mile away. Drug paraphernalia was scattered around them, even though all the families denied their loved ones used illicit drugs.
Still, it was a plausible enough explanation that allowed for the press and some of the public to start to doubt the video. It fed on a perception that cyber humans all used drugs and were involved in other dangerous counter-culture things.