Chapter 32

Williams is a bad guy.

Terror flash freezes my guts. But I have to do something. We only have another hundred yards before we’re parked amongst the dozens of beamers, mercs, and Harleys. I have to keep her talking.

I can’t scramble for my phone or she’ll take it away. Instead I must use my special powers. That is, my complete knowledge of all the icons and keys on my phone. I must mind-meld with it.

“I don’t understand,” I say.

“Right from the first time I met you, Jan,” she says, “I wanted you with us.” She smiles and her eyes glisten in reminiscence. “So much like me, and to think James’s daughter. It was poetic. Just like what you did to that stuck-up banker, Orsen. It’s what convinced the other members to keep working you, to set up a proper test.”

“Test? The McDonald’s franchise—using me to distribute the Zombie Worm anti-virus? You’re Sw1ftM3rcy!”

My jaw must be resting in my lap. But how? My surprise is real, and it’s also a good chance to go for my phone. It’s a matter of a few inches from my hand, being beneath my butt. I do it without moving my elbow or shoulder so Williams doesn’t notice.

“Sw1ftM3rcy, at your service.” Her smile grows conniving. “And I’m sort of like your banker now too. You have a small debt to pay off. Some $185,000?” She chuckles.

I see what she’s doing. She’s recruiting. It’s what Peter had said. MICE. Money, Ideology, Coercion, and Ego. She has me on money. Does she have me on the rest?

“But I didn’t pass that test.”

“Well, you did sort of go bat-crazy, so that’s what we’re here to decide, aren’t we?” Her smile’s back to helpful-supportive mentor smile. The smile I’ve come to depend on, and the smile I want to make happy. “Did you give the cure away on purpose? Or was it due to the illness. Only one of those is the right answer.”

I remain silent, trying for repentant, but really working my phone.

“You know what you did to Orsen was illegal,” she continues. “Blackmailing a bank, accessory after the fact—I can take you in on these. A second offence, you might be tried as an adult. That means jail time.”

There it is—she has me on Coercion. If I don’t cooperate, she’ll charge me with blackmailing and obstructing an investigation. Once I’ve established which end of the phone is up, I very carefully tap what I hope is the Twitter icon and then enter a tweet, #Shadownet Plan go. Williams leak.

“You don’t want to do that,” Williams says with her hand at her holster and staring down toward where I fiddle with my phone.

But I do. I really do. I hit tweet.

“Sorry, force of habit,” I say and hold the power button to shut it down. Otherwise she’d see all my incoming tweets. I feign acquiescence and she holds her hand out, then I place it in her palm.

“Good girl.” She tosses my phone in the drink holder in-between us. “Think about what Sw1ftM3rcy can do, what I can teach you, and what we can achieve. You could be greater than me.”

I swallow.

“My people should talk to your people,” I say.

She pats me on the knee and regards me seriously. “So they should.”

Williams opens her door.

“Wait,” I say.

She pauses as the cold air rushes in.

“How’d you know everything? I had … protection.”

She looks at me and swings the door back shut again.

“Fenwick—” she says.

“Fenwick? The Estonian porn dude?” It’s confirmed and all starting to make sense. No wonder he and his partner got away—Williams never tried to catch him, just went through the motions. Bitchain has been vying to retrieve Assured Destruction and Williams has been here since the beginning. The community service hours were a perfect way to test me, and to potentially recruit another mole on to the force.

What would have happened to me if I hadn’t started the fire in Fenwick’s basement? Or if Peter hadn’t come to save me?

Which reminds me, I am supposed to be here to save him back and every second counts.

“Yes, the porn dude. He was to bring Assured Destruction back.” She grins. “But when you changed our plans, I convinced everyone to groom you. It wasn’t hard. You’d already shown yourself to be fairly gray hat.”

I couldn’t disagree with that. But people change. Decisions are made.

“And when we saw your emails to spammers, we decided to introduce you to Darkslinger.”

“A keylogger,” I say. “You have a keylogger on my network.”

“Fenwick,” she says.

I do have a lot to learn.

“And then when a certain Lolz started asking questions about the wireless keyboard, I knew we had the source of the credit card leak.”

“But why didn’t you stop me? Why take down carders anyways? Aren’t you on the same team?”

“We didn’t stop you because we wanted to see if you could do it. And these were carders trespassing in Bitchain territory. They had to go. Either by your hand or mine.”

“So as a detective in the High Tech Crime Unit …” She’s smiling like a proud parent as I work this through. “You can slam everyone who isn’t part of Bitchain, which makes it look like you’re on the good side while tipping off Bitchain whenever the cops get too close.”

“I’d rather not use terms like good or bad, but that about covers it.”

Something she said before finally makes it through my thick skull. She’d said James. Like she knew my father.

“Um … who was your mentor?” I ask.

Her grin fades. “Your father, Janus. My mentor was your father.”