Alice had found enough on Logan Schiller in five minutes on God Mode to ruin him.
Logan’s profile photo was of a Mercedes GLS 550, with an old Memorial Day Celebrate the Fallen banner on top; he lived in Willow Glen, in a 4,000-square-foot home purchased in 2015 for $2.8 million. He had 563 friends on Tangerine and was married with two kids, though there were no photos of his wife in public view. But then Alice wasn’t bound by Logan’s privacy limitations, so next she skipped to Carolyn Schiller’s Tangerine page, where she’d been initially nonplussed by a profile photo of Logan’s wife dressed as a fairy queen, her twin daughters as princesses, while a depressed-looking white horse stood between them with a unicorn horn strapped to its head. Carolyn had dozens of photos of Logan—We are SO fortunate to have you, my wild and loving husband, the ultimate father, partner, and provider, she’d written on the latest—though a perusal of their bank documents proved the latter wasn’t technically true. It was actually Carolyn through whom the money flowed, via her father, Tony Lukas, who ran a business subcontracting employees with security clearances to companies bidding on federal work. To assure his only daughter of a lifestyle in which she could continue to purchase from Restoration Hardware at will, Tony had hired his son-in-law into a vice president position.
After a review of Carolyn’s wedding portraits, Alice had then returned to Logan, broadening her search to all online activity. She found he regularly posted on the subreddit TAM - TRUE AMERICAN MALE, which touted its support of the men’s rights movement; he used his Tangerine credentials to log in, with an anonymous screen name: YouGonnaMakeIt. But Alice didn’t linger, as by then she’d discovered his FreeTalk messages with Chloe Kirkpatrick. A junior at Magdalena, Chloe worked part-time at a florist downtown, which was where she and Logan met:
Logan: You thinking about college admissions?
Chloe: Not yet. But it’s all my brother and his friends talk about they’re sooo stressed
Logan: You ever think about internships? We’ve got them at Icon. Looks good on an application
Chloe: LOL I can’t. I’m really bad at computer stuff I’m not a geek but I wish I was
Logan: I’m not a geek either.
Chloe: Geeks are cool
Logan: OK, so maybe I am. Think about the internship. $25 an hour
Chloe: Maybe I could help cook or something
Logan: You and your friends ever drink?
Chloe: Yea sometimes
Logan: You ever need help getting stuff, let me know
Chloe: OK
Logan: What would you think if I said you were sexy?
From his blunt confidence, the bit with the internship, Alice thought Logan must have prior experience—so she’d tunneled further, collecting more girls, prior and present. Navigated to Tangerine Cloud, where Logan kept a folder labeled Trash. From the file type she knew it contained photos, though she hadn’t been able to stomach opening it.
That’d been a month earlier. Since that first sighting at the market, Alice had gone into Logan’s email and FreeTalk a dozen more times. Logan was in regular correspondence with five or six women, all in their early twenties, and given its relative dormancy, Alice thought perhaps his flirtation with Chloe had ceased. But then this morning, Alice had found at the top of Logan’s FreeTalk messages Chloe’s latest reply. And in fact Chloe appeared to have visited the Willow Glen house just last Saturday, while Carolyn was with the children in San Diego. The two had watched a Harry Potter movie and then Logan had given Chloe a $300 Visa gift card, at which point her mother had called twice, totally freaking Chloe out, and then she’d gone home. I know a great hotel in Carmel, Logan wrote to her the next morning, and Chloe sent back a winky face. Fun!
What to do, Alice asked herself. What to do, who to tell. Yes, Chloe was a minor, but nothing physical seemed to have occurred—and also the girl didn’t seem stupid, had in fact demurred at Logan’s multiple attempts to secure a weekend date for the Carmel getaway, all while hinting that she’d like a new iPhone for her upcoming birthday: mine is sooo slow. Alice wondered how User 555 would manage things. What did they do, after they searched for those names? How did they use what they found?
Who is User 555? Alice thought. How do I find you?
Lotus Garden was one of the best restaurants at Tangerine, serving high-end dim sum: barbecue pork buns and shrimp dumplings and delicate mango pudding. Unlike Tangerine’s other restaurants, which ran cafeteria style, Lotus Garden had a set menu: when you entered you marked your dietary preference (everything, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian), and then, minutes later, a platter of bamboo steamers was brought to the table. Everything was supposed to be excellent. Though Alice had never been.
To dine at Lotus Garden required an advance reservation, which Alice never bothered to make; when she did think to try she would log on to the booking site, only to find all the slots already filled. Alice had recently been informed by Sam, however, that Larry ate at Lotus Garden every day: “He’s obsessed,” Sam had confided in his Valley boy drawl, and Alice had taken care to note this, because as of late it had become very difficult to speak with Larry. It was almost as if her seatmate sensed her desire to interact, and in response had begun to minimize his time at his desk; when he was there, he always wore a set of oversize red headphones, which circled his ears like tire rims. Alice stalked the reservation tool until a cancellation appeared at 12:00—she knew Larry liked to leave at 11:45 and return at 1:15, thus extending his lunch an extra half hour—and now she was inside, breezing past the host with her QR code, her triumph complete when she sighted Larry in a booth against the wall.
“How do you find an anonymous user on the network?” Alice asked as she approached, not bothering with pleasantries as she knew Larry didn’t respect those, anyway. On the wall behind his head was an enormous rendition of the Chinese character for “double happiness” in bright gold. “I need their actual identity.”
Larry, who’d been reading on his phone, slammed the device facedown on the table and eyed her with dismay. “You have reservation?”
“Yes.” Alice poured herself a cup of chrysanthemum tea from the metal pot on the table. From behind she could hear groups arriving, giddily chatting—this was how other people managed life, she thought. Making lunch dates, blowing off an extra half hour of work. Taking your pleasures where you could find them, because in the end your happiness was up to you.
“Yuh,” Larry grunted. “I’m expecting friends.” And then crossed his arms and waited for her to leave. He was using her expected politeness toward elders against her, Alice knew. It was a strategy frequently employed by the grandmothers at 99 Ranch as they rammed their carts against her legs to cut in front at the fish counter. Alice looked pointedly at the table, which was small, seating at maximum two. Larry sighed.
She slung her backpack over her chair. “If you really have friends coming, fine. I just need your help for a few seconds.”
“Be. Precise.”
“Ten minutes. Or twenty.”
Larry pressed his lips and craned his neck at the ceiling. “This is not work hour.”
“Technically it is. We’re at Tangerine, aren’t we?”
The food arrived. Alice felt a pang of victory, as the server had clearly assumed they were dining together, having brought two portions. Now she could really stay. “If I want to find someone on the internal network, what can I do?” She poured out more tea, making sure to serve Larry first. “An employee with an anonymous login. I want to know who they are.”
Larry peeled off the chopstick wrapper, viciously rubbing the sticks against each other to remove splinters. “Anonymous employee? You try their username?”
“Yes.” She’d already searched for information on User 555 numerous times, to no avail. They’d firewalled nearly all their activity, including emails and messages. The only data available was their search history; Alice couldn’t decide whether or not this was accidental, like the messy blood splatter of a careless serial killer. “I can’t find anything. The person barely goes online. And when they do, I can’t see any information. Employee ID, name, where they are in the building, nothing.”
Larry spooned a mass of pickled jellyfish into his mouth. Alice stared at the dish, which she had loved as a kid, found disturbing in her teens, and now in her thirties enjoyed again. She knew without trying it that this version wouldn’t compare to June’s. Her mother made a special marinade and always added sesame seeds on top.
Larry continued to chew, his jaws moving like a horse masticating low-quality hay. “You have MAC address?”
MAC address. She should have thought of that. It was the unique identifier assigned to every piece of hardware with a network interface card around the world, anything from phones to printers, an alphanumeric string that looked like this: 00-15-E9-2B-99-3C. If User 555 was using the same laptop or phone to do other work at Tangerine, it might register.
“MAC address difficult to hide,” Larry added. “It hardware. Solid.”
“Can I find that from a prior report?” Alice reached with her chopsticks for a square of turnip cake.
“Yes. If you saved. It’s in the last tab. The one you run, even though you’re not supposed to.”
Startled, Alice dropped her food. She inhaled and directed a measuring look at Larry. “You aren’t going to tell Tara,” she breathed.
Larry’s spindly hand settled on a taro bun. “I eat this.”
“Are you going to tell Tara?”
“Tara,” Larry said, biting down, “is stupid.”
“That’s not very nice.”
His eyes widened. “But she is. I thought you know.”
“I do know.”
“Then why you complain, if it is the truth?”
Alice left this. “You think the information’s there even if the report was run months earlier?”
“Why you ask things you can check yourself?” Larry waved for a refill.
Alice unzipped her bag and took out her laptop. She went to her saved report, the one with Server 251. Maddeningly, the MAC address was there, as Larry had said it would be. “You want to see?” She rotated the screen.
He shook his head, pushing it back. “Why you do this?” he said instead. “Why you want to know?”
Alice paused. She’d already asked herself this same question multiple times, as there seemed few positive outcomes. She would either (a) fail to find User 555’s identity, or (b) find it, and then have to decide whether to expose them, upon which Alice might be fired herself. After using God Mode, however, Alice had to know who User 555 was; she wanted to know what kind of person could wield such a tool, and what happened after. What did you do, with all that power? What could you do?
“I’m just curious,” she said lamely. “They’re up to something weird.”
“You not doing anything bad?”
“No.”
“You need job,” Larry stated, not looking at her.
“Yes, I need job.” She realized she was imitating his accent and stopped. “I’m not doing anything wrong. I’ll be sitting next to you for a long time, okay?” Probably until I die.
Larry’s arm snaked past, reaching for the chili paste by her elbow. “I stay in my business,” he said, as if he’d known she was lying all along.
Alice was eager to run the report when she returned to her desk, but the area was crowded, with little chance for privacy. She made herself do real work instead, crafting two mindless presentations for Tara.
When she arrived home, Alice shouted a cursory greeting before realizing Cheri was out, and hurried into her room. She arranged on her desk her laptop and phone, as well as a slightly bruised banana she’d dropped into her bag on the way out. And then, finally, Alice launched the locator report on User 555. While the report ran she debated thank-you gifts for Larry: a new set of wireless headphones versus the corresponding amount in a gift card to Costco (June and Lincoln, she knew, would prefer the latter).
But the report returned nothing.
Alice stared at her screen for several beats and then got up and went to the kitchen. After retrieving an unopened Toblerone kept hidden for emergencies, she went back to her room, where the blank report greeted her. Depressed, she logged in to God Mode. Logan had little activity for the day, a Visa charge at a gas station, a short message to Chloe on FreeTalk: What’s up? Chloe hadn’t replied, but to be certain, Alice went to Logan’s email—
Ding.
It was the locator report, Alice realized. It had been running in the background.
She left Logan’s profile and went to the window. User 555’s MAC address—their phone or laptop—had been online, though while she was in the kitchen, it had left the network.
Was there anything else? Sometimes there was something, a location in the building, but here she saw only:
Locator Record: Yes
7:45 PM.
It was 8:05 now. Damn. Damn damn damn!
She would stop obsessing and close the report, Alice decided. She would wash the dishes and then finish another presentation for Tara. But she didn’t move.
After two minutes there was another chime. It was the MAC address; the device was on, it was live. Where was it, she had to focus, she had to search while it was still connected . . .
There! It was being used right now, to connect to a printer, Epson-INK 9872. And here at last some good luck, for Tangerine kept a record of everything printed off its network. Selecting the icon, she opened another window, showing a job at 8:08 p.m.
Alice clicked.
The best chicken mushroom casserole you’ve ever made!
Okay guys, I know I said I was going to stop sharing one-pot meals. But this is one of little Mason’s FAVORITE recipes, and it’s so yummy and easy and I’ve had so many requests for recipes that can easily be adapted for vegetarians!
I first came upon this recipe when visiting my friend Harmony in Portland . . .
What the hell? Alice refreshed the page. Next to the list of jobs was a map, showing Epson-INK 9872’s location on the floor.
Alice’s heart began to race. She touched a finger to the screen. Her skin left a faint trail of oil, which she normally hated, but she was not thinking of that now because she realized she knew where Epson-INK 9872 was. Had passed that space many times, when she still worked at FreeTalk. Back then Sean and Johan would go almost daily, and occasionally Alice would be asked to sit in an adjoining room, her laptop primed with backup slides. She would wait, both excited and nervous that she might be called in, though she never was.
Julia Lerner. The printer was in Julia Lerner’s office.