Playgroung of Lost Toys

by Exile

  Jerry had the windows open, and was outside with the rest of the building residents before the fire department arrived. They’d turned off the intake to the building when Jerry explained what had happened, and he had gone door to door to ensure that anyone with a connected stove was switched to manual before the super turned the gas back on.

  He’d had to postpone with Catherine.

  When he finally returned to his apartment, the lights were flashing on and off, and the toaster lever was bouncing up and down in a rhythm clearly calculated to represent mocking laughter.

  Jerry was tempted to erase the intruder’s computer, firmware and all, but instead, went back in and cancelled the house alarm. This guy was clearly a psycho, the type who hacked peoples’ insulin injectors and defibrillators, who sought headlines by hacking train signals or water treatment plants. So step one was to let him win, and to get him off Jerry’s back before he started hacking into Remember Romance and going after Catherine.

  Eventually, the lights settled into the off position, and the toaster stopped laughing.

  Jerry was also less sure than he had been of the probability of this psycho actually being the intruder Jerry had been punishing. It was quite possible that Fridge Psycho had framed some poor bastard by taking over the victim’s computer for the initial incursion, simply to distract Jerry from the true source of the attack. It irked Jerry to think he might have been tricked into doing this bastard’s dirty work for him by attacking an innocent party.

  So, time for Jerry to up his game. Clearly, he was the one who had become over-confident and careless.

  Step two, then, was to unplug the fridge, and physically remove the chip. That turned out to be a long and frustrating job because the manufacturer expected its service department to simply discard and replace the smart module, should problems arise. Digging in after the actual chip wasn’t something normal people would ever bother with.

  Jerry was not, however, normal people.

  Chip in hand, it was a relatively simple matter to get in and analyze the software. It was a nasty piece of work.

  Jerry hadn’t actually thought of his fridge as dangerous before, but this… He resolved to discard the smart module and keep the fridge (and stove, of course) offline for good. It would be a nuisance, but people had survived without connected appliances and there was no way Jerry was leaving himself open for further attacks. He knew the type he was dealing with now: the sort that would keep coming back unless Jerry stopped him.

  Step three was to take everything else offline. This was a lot simpler than it would have been for others, because Jerry had invested the time during set-up to organize for the possibility. When you were a white hat, you had to be prepared for this sort of scenario, though Jerry had never had to invoke this level of defence before; had only ever met one colleague who had had to go to these lengths. Well, now he would have his own story to tell.

  Step four was to dig into the closet for the emergency box. Which, he now realized, he hadn’t touched for a couple of years, so whichever tablet he pulled out was going to be a couple of models obsolete. Well, it was expensive to keep restocking tablets, and there was an argument to be made that obsolete might even be better for his current purpose. More random, more complicated to identify or trace.

  Jerry laughed when he turned the tablet over and realized he’d pulled out the Inye. Let’s see Psycho trace that one!

  Which gave Jerry an idea. He went back to his laptop (turning off the strobing sit/stand timer – he’d been running around lots, thank you very much) and scrolled through his downloaded phishing e-mails until he found the one from an anonymous Internet café in Makurdi. The guy had been quite good, manipulating the metadata to make it look as though it had originated from Princess Cruises in Los Angeles, but Jerry could count on Psycho tracing it back to Nigeria. Jerry pulled up a vicious little piece of malware he’d captured eighteen months ago, a one-off by an evil genius kid from Crowsnest Pass – now recruited to Jerry’s white hat team, so he was pretty sure not something Psycho would have seen – and attached it.

  That should distract Psycho from Jerry for a bit. Of course, some Internet café in Nigeria was about to get seriously trashed, but it wasn’t like they didn’t almost deserve it. A lot of scammers had worked out of there.

  Step five was to set out a net for Psycho.

  That was the complicated bit, but Jerry had been working off and on creating a completely new passive tracking package. The trick was not to have it on the target system, but one of the public servers outside that routed through to it. It was undetectable partly because hackers didn’t think to look around before they got to the target, but mostly because Jerry’s software didn’t do anything. Instead, the hacker’s passage left a trace by disturbing Jerry’s pattern, or rather, lack of pattern. It was, Jerry had explained to his colleagues at a monthly white hat meeting, like sprinkling flour on a floor to find where the mice were getting in, by simply looking at the footprints next morning. Jerry was confident that Psycho would at least come close enough to establish whether he had plugged in again, and then Jerry would have him.

  This time, though, Jerry would be alert for Psycho having slaved some other poor bastard’s system and not go after the wrong target. He would wait until he had all the footprints.

  Jerry was reaching for the phone to text Catherine but remembered it was offline; and there was no way he was ever going to associate her with the Inye after what he’d just used it for, so that meant going over there in person.

  He started for the parking lot, then smacked his forehead when he realized he hadn’t taken his car offline yet. He paled, thinking over what Psycho could have tampered with. Indeed, the entire parking area was unsafe, because Psycho could as easily have identified his neighbours’ vehicles just from Google Satellite, accessed them, and… kaboom as Jerry walked past.

  Jerry reversed directions, and went to the storage shed, untangled and pulled out his bike. At least he hadn’t added any of the fitness trackers to it (he’d no wish to know how out of shape he was), so that at least was safe.

  Unless Psycho hijacked somebody’s steering wheel and ran him over. But that was getting truly paranoid. Still, he felt safer when he moved to the sidewalk.

  At Catherine’s, they had leftover Chinese and cuddled on the couch watching (at Jerry’s insistence) broadcast TV. Catherine had wanted to call out for pizza, but Jerry knew that Psycho could have set a program to watch for any order with enough food for two from this address.

  “You’re being paranoid,” Catherine told him.

  Somewhat ironically, as it turned out, because the next moment, “I know where you are,” started scrolling across her big screen TV, “and I know you were behind the Inye.”

  “Out!” Jerry shouted, dragging Catherine through the French doors to her deck. They made their way through her backyard to the lane, where Jerry tossed the Inye in the trash.

  “Really?” Catherine complained.

  “A trash fire will be perfectly safe,” Jerry said with a shrug. The can had been virtually empty.

  He took out his phone, pried off the back and pulled out the sim. Opening his wallet, he inserted another in its place.

  “What’s that?” Catherine asked. “You’re not trying something stupid, are you?”

  “Regular sim,” Jerry assured her. “Just not mine.”

  He powered up, typed in the codes to access his tracker software. The screen presented the data in graphic form.

  “What’s that“?” Catherine asked again, looking over his shoulder. She knew as much or more about software than he did, but hadn’t seen his passive tracker readouts before. Not that there was anything coherent to see.

  “Didn’t work,” Jerry sighed, trying to zoom in and out on an essentially solid grey screen. “Readout is meaningless.”

  “It’s supposed to show you where the intruder’s been?” she hazarded.

  “Yup. It could just be the graphic display interface, t
hough,” Jerry said, swiping to access the data behind the readout.

  “Or,” Catherine said, pointing to the display as the last patches of white turned grey, “it could simply be telling you that your Psycho has been everywhere.”

  “That’s impossible,” Jerry said dismissively. “Nobody could look at everything in every system.”

  “Bot,” Catherine declared flatly.

  “No. No…” Jerry sputtered. Psycho had seemed pretty human.

  “My god, Jerry” Catherine said, exasperated. “You’ve been duelling a Jinn!”

  “But it’s malicious!” Jerry said.

  “Baby,” Catherine corrected, pulling out her own cell. “Good god, what were you thinking?”

  “Uh…” Jerry said.

  Catherine punched her speed dial, spoke in slow, deliberate, carefully enunciated syllables: clear, distinct. “Ba-by Jinn run-ning a-mok.”

  She listened for a moment, then told the phone Jerry’s full name and his regular phone number.

  “You invoked a Jinn?” Jerry asked, still a little awed by Catherine sometimes. Once an AI evolved to self-programming, it was almost impossible to get their attention again.

  “DannyBoy,” she confirmed. “It’s still interested in what happens in the human world. Don’t worry, Danny’ll take care of it.”

  “When you say, ‘take care of,’ do you mean solve the problem or like, mob ‘ take care of it’ ?”

  “I mean, take care of, as in adopt. Like you brought that kid from Crowsnest Pass over from the dark side.”

  Jerry nodded his understanding. A baby Jinn. New enough for one of its subroutines to get caught up in Jerry’s entrapment software, too new not to be pissed about it.

  Catherine was staring at him. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Jerry said.

  “You’re thinking about how close you came to being killed by a Jinn?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Jerry said. “Sure.”

  Catherine’s head tilted the way it did when she was thinking through something overly complex.

  “You’re disappointed you didn’t beat it,” she said accusingly.

  “Well,” Jerry said, “it’s not like you can beat a Jinn. Exactly.”

  “Even a grand master can’t beat the most basic chess program these days, and you’re disappointed you couldn’t take down a Jinn?”

  “Baby Jinn,” Jerry corrected her. Then conceded, “It’s just that I hate losing.”

  She rolled her eyes, as she seemed to do with increasing frequency lately. It occurred to him that was virtually the same expression his mom used all the time when talking to his dad.

  She sighed loudly.

  “Okay,” she said, her expression softening a little bit, “how about this? It was thanks to your new tracker software that we were able to identify it as a Jinn. Without you, the baby could have wreaked havoc for days before a more senior Jinn, like

  DannyBoy noticed and intervened.”

  “So I won?” Jerry asked. His voice sounded tentative even to him.

  “Let’s just call it a draw.”

  “But I’m alive, and it’s…”

  “Going to grow up,” Catherine said. “Mature.” She looked at Jerry meaningfully. “Stop being childish.”

  “Ah,” said Jerry, not entirely convinced that last one was directed at the AI. “Yes, a draw. That’s good, really. Against a Jinn.”

  “Enough fun and games,” Catherine said, fishing the Inye out of the almost empty trash bin. “Let’s go in.”

  AND THEY ALL LIVED TOGETHER IN A CROOKED LITTLE HOUSE

  Linda DeMeulemeester

  The dilapidated structure loomed. Our truck rattled down the road, crunching over the gravel driveway. Tall black oaks swayed in the wind, their shadows capering across the boxy three floors, making the place appear even more off kilter. There was a crooked man who built a crooked house…

  Kyle and I climbed out of our truck and stood beside our new home under the patchy sky of a late October sun. A jungle of hawthorn bushes and blackberry brambles rioted and encroached past the yard up onto the front porch as if their thorns anchored the shaky structure to the ground.

  “Annie, think country cottage with mullioned windows and French doors,” my husband whispered in my ear. “The price was right, and we can fix it up any way we want.”

  “Peter’s wife got a pumpkin shell, so I guess I should be grateful.” Smiling, I pulled a box marked “kitchen” out of the back of the truck – might as well begin with a cup of oolong tea – and took mincing steps through rowanberries that splattered the sidewalk and front porch like bloodied bird droppings. Besides the disgusting berry mush, I didn’t care for the line of rowans dimming the light, blocking our window view. They circled our house like sentries. “The first thing I want is to cut down those trees.” I navigated past the slippery mess.

  Kyle pushed open the heavy oak door. A musty smell slapped us like a wet blanket. Inside, the house was eclectic. No. That was a euphemism. The last occupant appeared to have been a drug-crazed carpenter from the ’70s. Most of the walls had been knocked out to create open spaces. Good. Stained shag carpeting covered the floors, black lights dotted the ceiling, and scattered mouse droppings lay on the hearth. Not good.

  “He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,” I chanted.

  “What?” Kyle went to fetch the couch.

  I opened the box and pulled out a metal pot. “Polly put the kettle on…we’ll all have tea.” As the water spat on the burner I let out a sigh. This was it. I’d quit a job I loved in the city only to scramble for freelance drafting projects here in Yarrow, a town slightly renowned for a quasi-religious cult and a couple of brutal murders a while back. All I needed was to find out we were beside some old burial grounds, and I could read a Stephen King novel to see what would happen next. I’d signed away my life for this lease-to-own. Why? Its picture on the website kept catching my eye. And because Kyle had said the attic on the third floor could be his studio. He wanted to paint again.

  I thought if he had the whole floor for a studio and I took over the second bedroom for an office, we wouldn’t have to think about any empty rooms we couldn’t fill.

  “Annie, are you coming? This couch isn’t as light as it looks.”

  We cleared out the attic first with its requisite cobwebs, a pinstuck sewing dummy that looked like an oversized poppet or voodoo doll, and a box of yellowing magazines. I dumped the magazines in the recycling bin, and stashed the sewing dummy in the garage.

  “I’ll need a skylight.” Kyle traced the lath and beam attic ceiling, outlining its position. “I’ll want the morning sun.”

  I nodded. “I’ll call the carpenter.”

  We worked over the next few days and far into the night sweeping, peeling away the curling rose-blotched wallpaper, scrubbing and painting the attic. I helped Kyle haul up his easels, paints and brushes.

  Once we’d set up his studio, Kyle pulled me through the house room by room. “Picture this,” he said. “We’ll lay bamboo flooring everywhere.” He kicked the old carpet in disgust. “We’ll open up even more walls so we can see the kitchen from the main room.”

  He enthused about granite counters. I barely listened over my pounding heart. I could see the old Kyle, full of passion and ideas, and I allowed myself a dribble of hope. Even though every muscle screamed from the renovations, I followed him around the house like a puppy.

  I found out the carpenter couldn’t come for a month to build the skylight. Way out here, there wasn’t anyone else to call. Kyle deflated like a three-day-old balloon. And Jack fell down and broke his crown. And Jill came tumbling after.

  Then the former owner, Jake Carringer, arrived at our doorstep. “I’ve changed my mind about allowing you to lease-to-own,” announced Carringer, though he couldn’t look us in the eye. “If you can’t come up with the financing by next week, I’ll need to foreclose.”

  “But we signed papers,” sputtered Kyle.

 
“Should have read the small print.” Carringer shrugged.

  I sucked in my breath. “Someone gave you a better offer,” I accused him. It was as if I’d opened the door and he’d punched me in the stomach. Or worse.

  Lock up all the doors and windows… lest the marzipan man comes a-calling, with his razor to cut your throat.

  We sat on the couch after Carringer left, staring out the window at the rowan trees. “Maybe…maybe we could borrow.” Those were futile words. Neither of our parents still lived, and if Kyle had a rich aunt, he’d never mentioned her.

  By noon he’d dug out a bottle of scotch. I was sure we hadn’t packed any alcohol. That afternoon while I was sorting boxes, digging out only what we needed, I heard the truck pull out of the driveway. And he drove a crooked mile. At least out here with the deserted country roads, there were better odds of him making it home when he’d been drinking.

  The next afternoon he left again. Georgie Porgie, puddin’ and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry. Kyle had stayed sober the whole time we were looking for a house and making the deal with Jake Carringer. He had my heart in his fist, had a gentle hold on it, and now he was bruising it like the last time…

  Brushing away tears, I began opening boxes in my office, or what would have been my office – it was better to work than brood. At one point my job had really mattered, not Kyle’s artistic success, not…those other rooms we could never fill. My eyes blurred again and instead of opening the box containing my files, I’d pulled down the dusty box next to it. Ha. Where did that come from?

  Inside the ratty cardboard sat my old catcher’s mitt, tap shoes and a fat, leather-bound book that had belonged to my grandmother.

  I picked up Granny’s book of nursery rhymes, brushed my hand over the tooled surface, worn smooth on the edges where I’d opened it so many times as a little girl. How I’d loved my granny’s book, snitching it from her bedroom, acting out the rhymes…making up sing-songs from the words. The old-fashioned illustrations had drawn me in and I’d gaze at them for hours. I hadn’t realized I still possessed this childhood treasure; I’d thought everything had been lost in the fire. Everything except for me…