by Jamie Davis
“I like the sound of that,” Her father said. He reached out and pulled his wife close, leaning down and giving her a kiss. Her mom leaned into the kiss and reached around her husband to pull him closer into the embrace.
Elena mimed sticking her finger down her throat. “Ewww! Seriously, Mom and Dad, stop it.”
Cass nodded. “Yeah, Elena’s right. I can’t even begin to wipe that image out of my head.”
Cass’s mom and dad both laughed as they separated.
“Your father and I have always been close, girls. There’s no reason for you two to be embarrassed when we show affection to each other.”
Elena rolled her eyes. “There’s affection, Mom, and then there are disgusting displays of stuff like that.”
Her dad laughed. “Well, perhaps I should take your mother to our bedroom then.”
All three women in the kitchen shouted at the same time. Her mom laughed as she shook a finger at him then reached over and swatted her husband playfully on the rear end as he hurried from the kitchen, laughing the whole way to his office.
“Seriously, Mom,” Cass said. “That’s just gross.”
“You don’t hear me complaining about you and your friends…” Her mom stopped talking as soon as she realized she was referring to Shelby at this point in Cass’s life. “Never mind. Just remember, I don’t complain about you and your love interests.”
Her mom turned and left the kitchen, her face filled with a complex mix of emotions Cass couldn’t begin to read.
Both Cass and her sister shared a glance.
Elena pursed her lips and shook her head. “That was awkward, Cass. We really have to figure out a way to get them to accept your girlfriend.”
“I’m not sure that’s ever going to be an option, Elena. Especially now with things the way they are with me.” Cass reached up and brushed her cheek with her right hand. She’d been self-conscious about whether the patch was staying sealed in place ever since Elena had seen her face without it.
“Don’t worry, Cass. If things start to show or peel away again, I’ll make sure you know before Mom and Dad see anything. I just hope you remember that I have your back when you need it the most.”
Elena left the room before Cass could respond. She wanted to tell her sister that helping to hide a medically necessary cyber implant was different than covering up for irresponsible behavior with boys who were way too old for a fourteen-year-old girl.
Cass shook her head. She worried this was all going to come to a head at some point and she was going to have to make a difficult decision about what to do about Elena. Cass dried her hands and dropped the towel on the counter. It was time to head up to her room. She wanted to try and see if she could get through the firewall somehow.
Chapter 17
As Cass shut her bedroom door and lay down on her bed, the rest of the house moved on with their normal activities for the day. She could hear her mother vacuuming somewhere in the house as the machine’s hum drifted up to her.
Cass’s father had returned to his office with the door closed. She wasn’t sure where Elena was. She was probably in her room listening to music. Now was the perfect time for Cass to try and get through the firewall again. She needed to do that if she was going to be able to reach out to Shelby.
Shelby had been able to contact her over one of the old closed cell connections, but that was from an anonymous number. Cass couldn’t return that call so she had to make sure she was ready for any further communication that might come in from her girlfriend.
The cell phone call the night before had surprised Cass. She didn’t know her implant carried a chip that accessed that system, given how outdated it was. Nobody used the old cell towers anymore and there’d been talk of tearing them down in most parts of the country. They stayed up and transmitting because there were still some old framework business systems that operated on those carriers.
Cass closed her eyes as she checked the protocol one program in her implant. It was still rimmed in a pulsing red glow. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but it had been that way since the firewall incident the day before. Cass decided to run the program anyway because Derek had assured her it was intuitive and should be able to learn what it needed to spoof the firewall and other security systems.
She opened the folder and ran the system check before engaging the protocol one program and watching it push out from her mind into the surrounding wireless network to do its work.
As soon as the program engaged with the network, a shooting pain lanced through her mind. Without knowing it, Cass cried out at the sudden attack on her implant. Squinting through the pain, she immediately shut down all wireless access. It was almost too late.
Cass woke up a few seconds later. She found herself laying back in her bed with her eyes squeezed shut and her hands pressed into her temples. Cass rubbed the side of her face and tried to stop the pounding, throbbing pain in her head.
“What the hell was that?” she said aloud to herself.
Cass checked her systems and ran a basic diagnostic on her implant, searching for any permanent damage. The protocol one file was now grayed out. She couldn’t access it or open the folder at all now. It was as if it didn’t exist anymore or had been deleted from her system somehow.
Cass wasn’t sure what that meant, but it couldn’t be good. Without that program to rely on, Cass had no access to the outside world beyond what she could get from Elena and her connection to her friend, Cadence.
Cass left her room to head down to Elena’s room. As she approached Elena’s door, the doorbell rang. Cass didn’t hear anyone heading to the door to answer it, so she headed down the stairs to get it herself.
Before she got there, the doorbell rang again, twice this time, close together as if there was a sense of urgency behind it. She opened the door to see Cadence’s father, Mr. Benson, standing there. He had a massive grin on his face.
“Hi, Cass. I was hoping to see if your father was here. I have some news he’ll be pleased to hear.”
“Sure, come on in. He’s in his office, but I’ll get him.”
“That’s great. I’ll wait here.”
Cass started down the hallway but stopped because her father came around the corner in her direction. “Who’s at the door, Cassie?”
“It’s Mr. Benson, Dad. He seems excited about something.”
“Well, let’s see what he wants.”
Cass followed her Dad back to the front door. She planned on tagging along to listen in if she could. Mr. Benson’s arrival right after her catastrophic run-in with the enclave’s network worried her.
Her dad shook Aaron Benson’s hand. “What’s going on, Aaron? You seem excited about something.”
A huge grin spread across the other man’s face. “I got him, James. The bastard tried to hack the system again just a few minutes ago. I’d set up a little trap for them after the last time and they fell for it. Whatever program they were using to hack us is toast. They should’ve used a different one because this time I tracked it back to them.”
“Really? That’s great news. So, who is it?”
“Well, I’m not exactly sure. But here’s the news. It’s not someone outside the enclave. Whoever it is, they’re already inside the walls. On top of that, I got an excellent read on their equipment. They’re not using a tablet or laptop computer, James. My system picked up the unmistakable signature of a medical grade cybernetic implant.”
It was clear from the look on Cass’s father’s face that Aaron Benson had his full attention right now. “I thought our system was supposed to keep people like that out, Aaron. That’s your job isn’t it?”
Mr. Benson’s shoulders sagged a little at the rebuke. “Yeah, I’m sorry. You’re right, of course.” The IT specialist seemed only a bit cowed by the admission. He continued right away, saying, “There is one thing in our favor, Mr. Armstrong. I’m pretty certain I fried their implant. The system I put in place was set up to overload any network device that trie
d using that other foreign program to hack us again. It was set up to send a massive burst of data traffic over the return connection. It should have pretty much shut down any system that was running it. I figure all we have to do is send security around the enclave and check on everyone. All we have to do is look for a person lying catatonic on the ground. Believe me, they’re not getting up and walking around after what I did to them.”
“I guess I should commend you then, Aaron. That sounds like you’ve done good work. Why don’t you go ahead and call out the security team on my say-so? Get them started on a house by house sweep.”
Aaron snapped his shoulders back and started to salute but stopped himself. He smiled and nodded instead. “Got it. I’ll report back when we’re finished. Hopefully, we find the bastard.”
“When you find the person you’re looking for, bring them to me. I want to find out who this interloper is.”
Her dad shut the door as Mr. Benson left and turned back to Cass. “See what these people are capable of, Cassie? They know they’re not welcome here and yet they break in anyway. That’s what you have to watch out for. The Mantle is subverting anyone connected to it. Eventually, subs won’t be able to control themselves and they’ll just do the Mantle’s bidding all the time. That’s what we’re fighting against.”
Cass wanted to say something but didn’t want to get in a fight with him right now. Part of it was because of the massive headache she still had. She also needed to go back up to her room and check on some things. She was worried Mr. Benson was right about what he’d done, even if she wasn’t catatonic on her bedroom floor right now. Maybe that data burst had damaged her implant in some way. She needed to run a full system check and diagnostic analysis.
“Dad, I don’t want to have this talk with you right now. I’m going up to my room. I hope you find whoever it is you’re looking for.”
“We will, Cassie. There’s nowhere they can hide in here. Aaron is very good at what he does. He’ll track them down eventually.”
That was what Cass was afraid of. She started up the stairs as her father returned to his office.
Cass thought about what might happen if they didn’t find the person they were looking for. It only meant Mr. Benson was going to try something else. Cass again wished she could call out through the firewall. She needed to contact Derek and see if there was anything he could do to restore the protocol one file. She would inevitably be discovered without it. There was no way she could turn off her implant entirely because of the medical nature of it. If she did, it would make her comatose and unable to function.
Cass decided she needed to talk to Elena. Maybe her sister could get Cadence to help out somehow. She didn’t want to tell Cadence everything, but maybe Cass could finagle a little lie to get another password or some other way to call out from the younger girl.
Cass tapped on Elena’s door.
“Yes?”
Cass opened it. “Hey, can I come in?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
Cass nodded and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. Elena sat on the floor playing a game or something on her tablet. She took off her headphones. Cass could hear the music playing over the tiny speakers in the earpieces.
“Elena, I wondered if you could get in touch with your friend Cadence again. I’ve got a problem.”
“What is it?”
“Cadence’s father set some kind of trap for me on the enclave’s network. When I opened up to the network a little while ago, something happened and it erased or broke down my hacking program. It’s like I’m blind to the outside world now. I was hoping maybe Cadence would have a way around it.”
“Cass, Cadence is cool and everything, but she’ll never be all right if we tell her about you having that implant. She’ll tell her father right away.”
“Well, maybe we don’t tell her it’s the implant. Maybe we tell her I have some other sort of connected device from college and I want to talk to my girlfriend. Isn’t that what you told her before?”
“It is.” Elena paused for a second and nodded. “That might work. Cadence is super bright in some ways, but not so much in others. I think she might enjoy chatting with us about why you need it, though. She’s a hopeless romantic and reads all sorts of stories like that. She knows about Shelby and she still gave us the password before, so clearly, she’s rooting for you two. Maybe we can use that to get some more access passwords or something out of her.”
“That’s what I was hoping you’d say. When do you think we can get over to see her?”
“Let me reach out to her. I’ll send her a text message and see if she’s available to catch up this morning. Her dad works over at the security office and her mom has a job in town. She’s home all by herself during the day when we’re not at school. Maybe we can go over there for lunch. I’ll see if we can order something from delivery and we can meet at the gate and then take it over to her place.”
“Sounds like a good plan. I’ll even pay for it.”
“Of course, you will. I’m not paying for this. I don’t have that much money anyway.”
Cass smiled. She still had money left over from what her parents sent for her vacation to the islands. She never spent all of it because she spent most of the time in the hospital which was covered by her school health insurance.
After a quick exchange of text messages, the lunch arrangements were made. Cadence seemed excited to have them both come over.
When lunchtime arrived, they used Elena’s tablet to reach out to a sub shop in town and order a pizza, some chicken wings, and some cheesecake for dessert. The delivery places around the enclave sent automated robots out once the food was ready. They weren’t allowed to come into the enclave, but people ordered from them anyway and picked up the food at the front gate.
After they ordered, Elena and Cass set out for the compound’s main entrance. The chilly winter air was almost mitigated by the midday sun as they walked through the enclave.
The automated delivery bike showed up a few minutes after they got to the front gate. It sat idling just outside, waiting for them.
Elena started forward alone to retrieve the food and then stopped and looked back at Cass. “Aren’t you coming to help me?”
“I can’t go out there. If I cross through the perimeter firewall again, the system will alert Mr. Benson. He’ll take one look at the security cameras and they’ll know it’s me for sure.”
Elena nodded and went outside the enclave using a small, manually operated pedestrian gate situated next to the main one for vehicular traffic. She slipped Cass’s credit chip into the reader on the robot delivery vehicle. It was a motorized, three-wheeled tricycle of sorts with a large metal box mounted over the two rear wheels above the motor.
As the delivery bot popped the chip back out to Elena, one of the doors on the side of the box popped open revealing several brown paper bags and a cardboard pizza box inside. Elena slid the box of pizza out, balancing the two bags on top and shut the door. As soon as she closed it, the automated trike sped away.
Elena came back through the gate and handed the pizza box with the bags on top of it to Cass. “Here you go. I figured since I went out and got it, you can carry it.”
“Fair enough.”
Cass and Elena headed back through the enclave’s neighborhoods towards the Benson home. Cass hoped this potential solution worked out or she was as good as caught.
Chapter 18
The two of them headed through the enclave on foot until they got to Cadence’s street. Just as Elena had said, the driveway was empty and there was no garage. The Benson’s two cars were not there and that would give the three girls some privacy as they chatted over lunch.
Cass and Elena walked over to the side of the house and rapped on the kitchen door. Cass saw Cadence through the door’s window. She ran over to them, her face beaming with a big grin.
“Hey ladies, it’s great to see you. I’m so happy you two decided to come over. I was surpris
ed when you called.”
Cadence was short and a little overweight. Her face had a bit of an acne problem, even though such things were typically easy to manage with a little bit of medication nowadays. It might mean her parents were super strict with regards to what kind of technologies they made available for their daughter. Some Sapiens Movement parents had rules that were more stringent than others and considered any type of the new gene manipulation medications off-limits, just like artificial intelligence was for the rest of the community.
Cass smiled as she entered the Benson’s home. “I’m glad you let us come over, Cadence. We need some help with something and figured maybe we could come over and have lunch and chat about it.”
“Absolutely. I’m so excited you’re here. Come on in.”
They followed Cadence into the kitchen with Elena leading the way. The home was a small rancher about half the size of the Armstrong’s two-story house.
Cass set the pizza box and bags down on the kitchen counter. She looked around. “Cadence, do you have plates or something we can eat on?”
“We have paper plates. They’re in that cabinet just in front of you.”
Cass smiled. “Great, why don’t you two get us something to drink. Then we can sit down and chat while we eat.”
Elena and Cadence went to the fridge and pulled out three bottles of soda. Cass found the paper plates and grabbed three of them before bringing them over to a raised portion of the kitchen counter. There were barstools set around it which allowed the three of them to sit and eat right there in the kitchen.
Cadence popped open the pizza box and slid out a slice of the pepperoni pizza inside. “Mmmm, I love Pizza Boy pizza.”
“Me too,” Cass said. “Even in the big city, they don’t make pizza like this. Pizza Boy knows how to make pizza better than anyone else I’ve found.”
Cadence grinned as she finished her first bite. “That’s funny, Cassie. I figured the city would have good pizza, too. You know, it’s kind of cool how you went and lived there like that this year. You must’ve seen a lot of cool stuff.”