"Very." She says it like she's joking, but when I glance down at her, she isn't smiling. Well, I can't see her eyes—they are hidden behind dark tortoiseshell sunglasses—but her lips are a straight line.
A wind tugs at her hair, pulling a few strands loose as we start up the gangway.
Inside the small aircraft, Sanchez takes a seat at one of the four tops, gesturing for me to sit across from her. My guards, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, sit by the entrance. They look like what you'd expect federal agents to look like—suits and ties, mirrored aviators, and strong, clean-shaven jaws. Don't worry, boys, I'm not going to make a run for it.
And no one will come for me as long as everyone sticks to the agreement. My being in Homeland Security custody is not the end of Joyful Justice—everyone knows that. Rachel is perfectly prepared to take over. In fact, she was already performing most of my duties since I took a leave of absence to be with my mom.
My not dying mom. "I'd like to call my mother when we land, if that's possible."
Sanchez looks up from her phone. The sunglasses sit on the table between us now, so I can see those gorgeous eyes again. Sunlight hits them from the side, bringing out the sparks of golden sunset hidden in the dark amber depths. "That can be arranged."
"What did you tell her about my arrest?"
"I have not spoken to your mother," she says it like I'm some kind of an idiot for thinking she had.
"Okay, not you personally, but what is the story you're using? What's the cover? What are you telling my mom and that poor, frightened neighbor who saw me get my ass kicked about why a cadre of cops showed up, chased me down, and beat the ever-loving shit out of me?" Still a little bitter about that? Yup. "Oh, and how she doesn't actually have cancer."
Sanchez frowns. "You were suspected of violating the Computer Crimes Act."
"That's not a violent crime. Why beat me up?"
"You resisted arrest, remember? Snuck out through a tunnel and then made a run for it through the yards of your mother's neighbors. Or should I say, your neighbors." My eyes narrow. Where is this going? "You own the house your mother lives in. Paid off the mortgage and now it's in both your names." A subtle threat…
A smile sneaks across my lips. She looks up at me from under her lashes. "You want me to work with you," I say. "I've agreed to help. I'm not going to piss you off, Consuela." She stiffens a little at the use of her first name. Wonder if she likes to hear me say it the same way I adore hearing her say mine. "I'm going to be perfectly behaved. I promise." Her frown deepens. "You don't believe me?" It's my turn to raise my brows, all innocent, confused prisoner.
"Just seems a little too easy."
I grin. "Easy is my middle name." I glance at the briefcase sitting next to her. "That's not in your files?"
She huffs what could be a laugh, and my grin widens. "I think you've got a good plan," I say with a shrug. "I'm always happy to help try to convince zealots to lay down their weapons."
"You don't consider yourself a zealot?"
"You do?"
"Fanatical and uncompromising in your ideals. I think that sums up you and the rest of the Joyful Justice membership."
"We're not uncompromising," I say with a smile. "We are always looking for solutions."
"Solutions that lead to your outcome."
"Solutions that lead to the best outcome."
"How do you decide what's best?"
I point to the sky as the plane begins to rumble across the tarmac. "From the big man upstairs." She cocks her head, not believing me. I touch my finger to my temple. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes.
"You refer to your brain as God?"
Better than referring to my other head as such. Her eyes narrow as though she's read that thought off my face. "What about you?” I ask. “How do you decide what's right?"
"I don't worry so much about right and wrong. I stick to legal and illegal."
"But that's not what this is about. It's not illegal to be a misogynist rabble-rouser."
"Rabble-rouser? What are you, an eighty-year-old woman?" She's smiling… she's teasing.
The plane speeds up, and the engines whine. "No, I'm just a man," I say as we lift into the air.
She shakes her head. "Well, Dan—"
"The man," I interrupt her.
She has to bite her cheek not to laugh. I'm almost sure of it. We are getting very close to victory.
"I'm not calling you Dan the man."
I shrug. "Your loss."
She clears her throat and sits up straighter. "I'm glad you want to help. I think we can make a real difference." She's earnest now, all teasing gone. We hit a patch of rough air, and the plane jerks. She doesn't flinch. Oh, I like her. Brave, bold, and trying to make the world a better place. I might be in serious trouble here. I may be a frog, enjoying a warming bath, unaware it is going to slowly rise to a deadly boil.
Sanchez pulls out her laptop and opens it. "Okay," she says, "tell me what you're thinking."
"Frogs in big cooking pots."
"Excuse me? What do frogs in cooking pots have to do with changing incels’ minds about women?"
"It’s the slow boil. Everyone wants to be a part of something larger than themselves," I say. "We all want to connect. The irony of social media is that it does the opposite of what it feels like it is doing. You think, I have all these friends, all these connections. But what you actually have is a reality constructed for you by artificial intelligence that is manipulating you in a million different ways. Using your data to change your behavior. These platforms are designed to be addictive. They take all the most potent aspects of casino gambling and propaganda and put it in a device in your pocket. The drinks are not free, but your feed is."
Sanchez nods. "I get all that. I get the power, Dan." She leans forward. "What I want to figure out is how to use it for good."
I can't help the smile that crosses my lips. "You picked the wrong organization to work for, Sanchez." She shakes her head, brushing me off. "The job of Homeland Security isn't to do good; it's to protect the American people at all cost. That's noble in some ways and evil in others." I have a few philosophers I could pull out at this moment, but I won't.
She frowns now. "Let's not have a moral discussion about the role of the US government in world politics please."
"Why? Because you'll lose?"
"Hardly. Because our realities are just too different." Her eyes twinkle with humor, and I can't help but feel a tug in my chest. I clear my throat and sit forward, pulling the laptop closer. "Right, so you want to get to incels and the Her Prophet—"
She interrupts me. "Just the incels."
I look at her and cock an eyebrow. "You don't want to stop the Her Prophet from getting a foothold in young women's minds?" She gives me a dead-eyed stare. "Really? Interesting."
"So how do we reach these young men?" she pushes on.
"First we have to find the ones that are reachable. We have to get in their phones, in their lives. And to do that, we need a quiz, an app, and a game. A game they will like."
"This sounds illegal."
"Read your terms of service closer. It's perfectly legal for my app—which I write the terms of service for—to do whatever the fuck I want."
"You're not serious."
"You came to me for a reason. It is totally illegal to hack into a business and steal their customers’ information, but it is perfectly legal to put anything we want in our terms of service. I'm not going to tell you what I use to scrape data for my own purposes, but I will build something for us to use in this project."
"So that's how you target?"
"It's simple data science. When building an algorithm, you need to create a training set. Before we can sway behavior, we need to get people to answer a 120-question personality quiz."
"How do you get people to do that?"
"I pay them."
"Pay them?"
"Yes, a few dollars. To get paid, they have to download an app and accept the terms
of service. That's when we scrape their profiles and those of all their friends. I'll then use the scraped data from the app to target specific users I think can be persuaded. I can see the profiles of every single person who downloads my apps, as well as all their friends. It's compound math. Combine that with the personality test, and we can start to predict behavior better than most people's mothers."
"I can't believe that's legal."
"Talk to your congressperson." She does a weird half laugh. "What?" Her cheeks brighten in an embarrassed flush. "No, seriously, what?"
She rolls her eyes. "None of your business, Dan. We're not friends. You're an asset."
Gut punch. But that's okay, I'm tough.
"So, once you have their personality tests and profiles, what's next?"
"We will have our ‘training set,’ that's the data in its entirety: the Facebook likes and the personality tests. We can use that data to train my algorithm to look for persuadables—people whose minds we can change. Then we can target them with messages we want by creating Facebook pages and profiles to manipulate them. We can slowly change the nature of their feed and, therefore, change the way they see the world around them.”
"Slowly boil the frog,” she says. I nod. “That's amazing… the possibilities."
"Yes, this is weapons-grade communication." Which is why I will be building self-destruct codes into all my work. "In order to build this for you, I’m going to need access to a computer day and night, as well as a super-fast internet connection." I hold my hand up to halt her protests. "You can watch everything I'm doing. But the way I work, it's all hours and it cannot be throttled. Feel free to check all the logs in the morning. But if you want this done, you'll have to let me work. You came to me for a reason."
She chews on her lip for a moment. "I guess… I'll see what I can do," she promises.
We land at a small airport just outside Washington DC, and Sanchez leaves in a black town car with Tweedledum for some kind of official business, while Tweedledee escorts me to my new living quarters. It's corporate housing at its best with a view of a generic courtyard, the kind of kitchenette one needs if their diet is 90 percent takeout, and carpeting that would probably be as comfortable outside as in.
I flop onto the bed of the studio apartment and throw an arm across my eyes, letting out a deep, pathetic sigh. It's only been a few days—and several of those I was high as a kite—but not having a computer to work on in the evenings will drive me insane if I don't get one soon.
I'm like an addict going through withdrawal. How did people live before the internet? I stand up and pace to the window, pulling the curtains aside. The courtyard is empty at this hour. The building is in walking distance to the Pentagon, so most of the people staying here are probably on assignment there—a fun bunch.
Exercise is the only answer.
I start with pushups, taking in air as I lower my nose almost to the scratchy carpeting before expelling my breath and forcing the floor away. "One," I huff out. "Two." Her eyes are really marvelous. "Three." Intelligent and fierce. "Four." Stop thinking about her. "Five." How am I supposed to do that without any distractions? "Six." Just shut up. "Seven." You shut up. "Eight." Now you're talking to yourself. "Nine." I told you no internet would make you crazy. "Ten." Concentrate on the burn. "Eleven." It's not burning enough. "Twelve." We need more weight. "Thirteen." Don't worry, just keep going. It will start to hurt. "Fourteen." See, now you're feeling it in your triceps. "Fifteen." Shift your hands to diamond position. "Sixteen." I jump my hands together and start over. "One." This is going to be a long-ass assignment.
A knock at the door saves me from my internal dialogue. I check the peephole. Consuela Sanchez stands on the other side; her face is in profile as she chats with Tweedledee.
I open the door, grinning. "Couldn't stay away," I say.
She turns to me, her eyes rolling. "I brought you a book." She holds up a paperback.
"How thoughtful. Won't you come in." I step back, pacing to the kitchen bar.
"I have a dinner, so here." She stands just inside the door, the book outstretched.
"A dinner?" I ask, coming back to her. "Sounds serious. Who’s it with?"
"None of your business."
"Okay. Is it business or pleasure?" I waggle my eyebrows, and she rolls her eyes again. If eye rolls were laughs, I'd be killing it over here.
"Seriously, none of your business."
"Fine." I hold up my hands, still not taking the book from her. "But I'd like to make a plea."
"A plea?"
"For a computer and an internet connection."
"We discussed this earlier. I'm going to work on it." She holds the book out, and I glance down at it.
"One Hundred Years of Solitude? Is this a subtle threat?" I smile at her.
"It's one of my favorites." The thick volume is worn at the edges. It's her copy. She clears her throat. "Do you want it?" Sanchez starts to pull it back.
"Yes." I reach out, taking hold of my side and raising my eyes to meet hers. She blinks once, long and slow, before releasing the book.
"Good night," she says, her voice edged with something… or my imagination is putting something there.
"Good night," I say.
She clears her throat and turns away. "We start work tomorrow, first thing."
"Looking forward to it," I say as she closes the door. And I am.
Chapter Twenty
Sydney
Blue and I get home from our walk, and the tall French doors in my living room are open, the long curtains shifting in the breeze.
I did not leave them open.
We stop in the entryway, and I lay my keys quietly down on the pier table—where I've placed them every time we've come home from our walk for the past two months. We’ve lived an idyllic life in this small village but it appears to be coming to an end.
Blue sniffs the air. His hackles rise, but he does not growl. We don't want them to realize we know they’re here. Adrenaline slowly seeps into my veins. I've missed this. Calm washes over me as I follow Blue's gaze toward the bedroom.
Should I just leave? My hand finds my stomach—bulged with new life. A small movement inside me pulls my attention, but I quickly refocus on the problem at hand.
They may expect me to leave and have a second operative in the hall.
I let the front door close behind us and walk casually to the balcony, as an attacker might anticipate I'd do. Otherwise, why leave the doors open? It's either to scare me away or tempt me in.
I step through the curtains. A long, metal pole sticks out from the next balcony over, a part of the construction project. Reaching out, I take hold of it, pulling it to my side.
It's about six inches shorter than me, the circumference just wide enough for my hand to close around it. It is heavier than my normal fighting staff with ragged, sharp ends, but will do just fine. Blue sits by my side as I take a deep breath. A movement in the living room behind the curtains draws me forward.
I step into the space, the pole held lightly in my right hand.
A man wearing a black balaclava aims his gun at my head. The pistol is silenced, the barrel elongated. He holds it with both hands. His bulky sweatshirt is tight across the bulging muscles of his arms but loose at his stomach. The opening of his mask frames a dark beard and full lips. Balaclava's shoulders are wide, his waist narrow, his worn denim jeans hug his legs all the way down to running shoes. Should have run when he had the chance.
Balaclava's lips begin to tilt up into a smile. I drop low, swing the pole out, and let it slip through my fingers. The long, thin weapon sails through the air inches from the floor.
Blue coils his body, a growl rumbling his chest.
The pole strikes Balaclava's ankle, letting out a soft ring. A church bell outside begins its mid-day tolling as he cries out and begins to fall. He fires on the way down, and the light on the ceiling explodes, raining glass. Blue uncoils, thrusting with his back legs, aiming for Balaclava's gun a
rm, his jaw wide. As they meet midair, Blue latches onto Balaclava's arm and speeds his descent.
The bell tolls a second time.
Balaclava hits the floor with enough force to shake the building. I follow the pole, snatching it up, twirling it around my waist and over my shoulder, using the momentum to strike hard onto Balaclava's gun wrist, close to where Blue's teeth dig into his forearm but a safe distance from the dog's face.
The bell tolls.
Balaclava's hand goes limp, and the gun slips free. I kick it away, so that it skitters toward the curtains, which are still dancing in the wind. A knife glints in Balaclava's free hand. "Off," I command Blue, who leaps back as the man strikes out, hitting empty air instead of Blue's flank.
The bell tolls.
I drag the tip of the pole across the floor, scratching a line in the wood with the sharp edge. It’s now well positioned to strike again, well before he could reach me with his knife. Balaclava's eyes rise to meet mine. "Who sent you?" I ask.
The bell tolls.
His breath comes in deep, heavy pants as he lays on his side, his wounded arm outstretched, the wrist swelling, blood seeping from the holes in his dark sweatshirt. His good arm—the one with the knife—stays tense and ready. Balaclava shifts, as if to stand. I shake my head. He stills.
The bell tolls.
Blue circles to his back, putting himself between the front door and Balaclava. My back is to the French doors leading to the balcony. "Is there someone in the hall?" I ask quietly. Balaclava doesn’t answer. The skin around his eyes is tight—probably from the pain of his injured arm.
The bell tolls.
Balaclava drops the knife; it clatters next to him. He opens his palm, raising his hand, giving up. What should I do with him? "Lie on your stomach, both arms out."
The bell tolls.
Blood smears across the floor as Balaclava retracts his injured arm. His shoulder tenses as his hand disappears under him and he begins to shift his hips to lay on his stomach.
Blue growls a warning. When Balaclava’ hurt hand comes out the other side, he's got a new gun—must have been under his sweatshirt. One quick step and my foot connects with his stomach hard enough to flip him back, so that he lies on his injured arm, trapping the new weapon under him.
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