Chapter 19
The screen flashes with an “ACCESS DENIED” message.
I curse, feeling a giant bruise blooming on my ego. I’m not as good as Aydan, after all. I’ve almost decided this failure is for the better when I spot the problem, fix it and run the program again. After a long, breathless moment, the screen flashes and I’m in.
A week ago, I would have jumped up and cheered or, at least, thrown a fist up in the air. Today, I barely manage a smile. I look around at the patrons and the guy behind the counter, imagining they see the guilt in my expression. I’ve always restricted hacking activities to the comfort of my bedroom, and the targets have invariably been corporations whose CEOs go for coffee runs in private jets. Now, I’m out in the open and invading James’s network. The shame feels like slime on my face. They don’t see it, though. Everyone is too focused on their own devices, most of them just burning neurons in Mr. Zuckerberg’s anti-social media site.
I look back down, wondering what I’ll find. Hopefully some useful information that could give me an opportunity to help. I crack my fingers, ready to begin perusing around, but before I press the first key, random characters pop onto the screen, first slow, then faster and faster, until the entire surface fills with them and, finally, goes blank.
“Shit!” I exclaim.
Heads turn my way. The barista frowns at me, but doesn’t say anything. I bite the end of my thumb and curse again, this time under my breath.
Damn Aydan! Did he just fry the only computer I have?
I press the space bar, expecting the worst: a dead laptop. To my surprise, the screen comes to life again, spelling a message with large letters made out of ASCII characters.
It spells “Caught ya!”
A handle with my H-loop username waits for me to type a message. I stare at it, seething with anger. How the hell did he find out my handle? I’ve never chatted with Aydan, on or off the H-Loop—at least not to my knowledge. I wonder if he was ever part of those forums. Admittedly, I’ve spent endless hours on the H-Loop. That’s where I learned many of my tricks and soon started showing up every script kiddie who dared challenge me. Everyone there works anonymously, so it’s a possibility. I doubt it, though.
One possibility … I was logged in to the H-Loop the time he hacked into my computer at James’s request, when IgNiTe was trying to recruit me. That must have been when he saw my handle, and since “Warrior” is my last name in English, it would have been easy to remember.
After a moment without my response, Aydan types a new message.
That arrogant bastard.
He doesn’t reply. I imagine him typing, then deleting some mean response. Even through messaging, silence feels awkward with him, so I type my cover-up story.
Huh? It’s not like he really wants to hear that my life has gotten worse since last I saw him or that I don’t even have a home to go to anymore. I don’t need his pity.
The cursor just blinks, no answer comes for a moment.
I stare at the words, shocked. He’s sorry? About what? Asking? Never caring before? Aydan never apologizes. I start to wonder if this is even him I’m talking to. I have no response to this, so I backtrack to the one topic that really matters.
That’s how low I’ve fallen. I’m not even welcome at The Tank anymore. Not only that, I have to meet Aydan, of all people. We make arrangements for the next day.
I hate myself for asking, but that’s why I hacked into their system, isn’t it? To find out if there’s anything I could do for the cause. Now that I’ve been found out, though, all I can do is ask because, surely, whatever door Aydan left open for me in their network will be gone after I log out.
My guess is I’ll never hear from them again.
What? He’ll leave this open for me? I frown, confused.
The typing stops. I wait for it to resume, but the cursor flashes on, spelling nothing. Did the connection drop? Someone’s cell phone rings, then another and another. I look up, stare at a mussed-haired guy as he presses an iPhone to his ear. His brow furrows. His eyes dart from side to side as the caller speaks.
“What the hell is that thing?” a guy with blond hair and a dangling earring asks as he stares at his computer monitor.
I look at the other patrons who are also on the phone or laptops. Their eyes are wide and shifting, too. A sense of panic builds in the air like a cloud of steam. In the corner of my eye, I notice activity on my screen. I look down.
My heart beats and beats. I didn’t really need to ask that question. I know what he’s talking about. I’ve been waiting for it, seeing it like a flashing light in the distance, dreading it for weeks.
I have no idea what to type, so I just sit there, staring, the steamy panic that hangs in the room seeping into my bones like the chill of winter. I shiver.
Aydan’s last message sits on the screen for a few seconds. I stare at it as if it were a rare museum piece that got filed away in the wrong exhibit. Words like “please” aren’t in Aydan’s normal vocabulary, not to mention the sentiment behind them. After a moment, the window in which we’ve been chatting goes away, giving me a clear view of my wallpaper: the image of a platinum-colored Vyrus 987 C3 4v road bike.
Numbly, I pull up my browser and click on the news link. If I thought my life had gotten as bad as it possibly could, I was deeply mistaken.