Sixty-Three

Early, way too early, on the morning of April 19, 1775, a group of wannabe soldiers stood around on the Lexington town green waiting to confront troops, fellow citizens of the British Empire, who had come to take away their guns. The battle, such as it was, went as poorly as encounters between armed troops and angry citizens always go. From the Boston Massacre to Kent State, hair-trigger tension and the slip of a finger have the same result. Five killed at the Boston Massacre, four at Kent State, and eight at Lexington Green.

The difference was that Lexington launched a war. We don’t talk about the Lexington Massacre. Instead we talk about the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and how those battles triggered enough rage across the Colonies to drive a revolution, the Revolution, the birth of the United States.

Today, in Boston, we celebrate Patriots’ Day with reenactments (at the same cock-crowing early hour), pancake breakfasts, and the Boston Marathon. At the moment, I was celebrating Patriots’ Day by tapping at my tablet, drinking a cup of coffee, and enjoying a hangover-free brain.

About twenty-five miles west, the elite women marathon runners were starting their race toward Boston. I, on the other hand, was engaged in no such healthy behavior. I was poking through Twitter trying to make sense of Catherine’s comments last night. I wasn’t a troll. Was I?

The picture of Dorothy, Russell, Earl, E, and me continued to make its rounds in the darker corners of the conversation. The picture had been turned into a meme, with One Down Three to Go superimposed over the shot in Impact font. Bets were being made as to who’d be next.

Not surprisingly, Epomis (E), NotAGirl (Dorothy) and Eliza (Russell) had gone to ground, after Eliza had gotten into an all-caps shouting match over whether Tron (Earl) had gotten what he deserved because of his life ruins. The conversation ended with the tweet from my online doppelganger:

@TuckerInB0ston: I guess you’re next, Eliza. #TuckerGate

I’d had enough of Twitter for a lifetime. I turned on the TV, watched as the women ran down Route 135 in Hopkinton. They’d just started. Then, sitting in front of the TV, I checked out the results of my password cracking. The results were acutely disappointing. Worst passwords ever.

Xiong’s password was xiongspassword. The username sarah had opted for the ever popular qwerty1234, and roger had showed his team spirit with GoRedSox! At least he had thrown in some capitals and special characters. These passwords were cute, adorable even. But the password for farli told the whole story: di3hack3rsdi3!!

I flipped open my phone, called Mel.

“Meet me at Xiong’s.”

“Why?”

“Our killer works there.”

I threw on clothes, ran downstairs, debated Uber vs Zipcar. Tried the Uber app; the city was already at peak demand. Patriots’ Day traffic would have the Uber drivers milling about like ants in a smashed colony. Better to drive myself.

A half hour later, I was sitting on the hood of a Zipcar Honda Civic named Zesty in front of Xiong Distribution.

Mel pulled alongside me. “What’s up?”

Mel unlocked the front door. We stopped at the front desk with its crappy PC and I logged into the server as farli using the di3hack3rsdi3!! password. Started poking around, but didn’t have to poke far. A folder of pictures sat on farli’s desktop. The first was a picture of five people in front of my house. A picture without an X over any of us.

Mel said, “The original.”

“Yeah.”

Ten other pictures filled the folder. Pictures of headless bodies: Peter and Earl.

“These are also originals,” said Mel. “These shots aren’t out there.”

One picture was different than the others, a Photoshopped merging of Peter’s head and Earl’s head into a meme with Latin on the bottom.

Dies ultimus.

“Who dies?” I asked.

“It’s Latin,” said Mel. “Dies is ‘the day.’”

“Ultimus?”

“The last day?” she guessed.

“Oh no.”

I jumped into the browser, started to type 4chan.org. The browser had been there before, filling in the URL for me. I hit return. The meme sat at the top of the page. Anonymous comments scrolling down as the 4chan denizens tried to decipher it.

“They’re all targets,” I said.

“You too,” said Mel.

“I’m not worried about me. I know where I am.” I dialed a number on my phone.

Dorothy picked up. “Can you get out of the house today?” I said quickly. “Go see the marathon or something?”

“No,” said Dorothy. “My aunt and I are watching it on TV.”

“Don’t show her 4chan, and don’t let anyone in.”

“What’s on 4chan?”

“I gotta go.” I dialed Russell. “Did you see 4chan?”

“No,” said Russell. “But there’s a new picture on Twitter.”

“Dies ultimus?”

“That’s the one.”

“Stay inside,” I said. “I’ll try to get the four of us to a safe place. Don’t let anyone in.”

“What am I supposed to do inside?”

“Seriously? You have a computer and a ballgame starting at eleven. Figure it out.”

Hung up, called E. It rang. It rang some more. It rang a little bit more and went to a voicemail message that repeated the number back to me.

I texted E: We need to talk.

No answer.

I had a bad feeling.

“C’mon,” I said to Mel. “We’ve got to get to E’s house.”

“Do you think … ?”

I didn’t answer, just moved.