Chapter 38

I don’t have my phone. I can’t tweet. I might go insane.

My mom lounges in a leather chair. Sure, it’s got a tear in it, but nothing I can’t stitch, and besides, it adds character. Where would Frankenstein be without his stitches?

Karl laughs at a big table. It’s three times the size of our old IKEA table and there’s an eclectic assortment of chairs to seat ten, rather than four. Everyone’s still telling stories about what happened. And it’s funny because we’d been at the cop shop until morning, answering questions. It’s almost noon.

No one has slept and no one really wants to, not yet anyway. Everyone wanted to return to Assured Destruction to congratulate Harry, who sits in another battered armchair, my laptop on the ground at his side. I imagine it smoking. Evidently he kept Celine’s feed going for twenty-two minutes before some dazed publicist was shaken from her bed.

So I was thinking a sort of @Disney Fairytale theme? Celine tweeted. Things really exploded when Disney retweeted that one!

And when they started to tweet that Celine’s account was hacked, Harry managed to kick off one last tweet. Follow @JFlyTrap and all of #Shadownet—before being finally expunged for good.

“You gained over a thousand followers!” Harry says. And it’s funny because not long ago I would have been jumping up and down. Now I just smile.

I ordered my mom to keep Assured Destruction closed today, but she refused and asked Trin if he’d come back, promising to pay him at the end of each day. Business is good. Not good enough to keep something the size of our warehouse afloat, but better than I’ve seen in years. I am pretty sure we owe all of this to the Kickstarter campaign—to Jonny. Jonny, who sits beside me. His cheek and eye socket are swollen; he’ll have a black eye. Our thighs press together and I like the heat of him.

“And then,” Ellie says. “This big huge bear guy—I mean massive—he comes lumbering down the driveway and yells at me—get out of my way. You’ve never seen a guy drop so fast in all your life. Ethan tasered him! Bear guy was suddenly on the ground.”

This makes me laugh harder than everyone else because I saw how Ethan stared after Ellie in the police station. Ethan, now buried under a mountain of paperwork.

No one died. And the gas fire only damaged a few banks of servers. In retrospect, keeping the NOC intact probably did more for the investigation than anything. There’s something to be said for failure. With the servers in the mansion and other Bitchain locations shut down, the scourge of the Zombie Worm is fading.

“One thing I want to know,” I say, turning to Hannah, “is why you decided to go all cosplay and put on the Storm Trooper get up.”

“Are you kidding me?” she says. “Tell me you didn’t want to?”

Everyone laughs.

It’s easier for me to laugh now too. They caught everyone. Everyone I wanted caught. Fenwick, his partner, the mayor, and especially Williams. Hector escaped, but somehow I think he was already living in a prison of his own making. I may never know why he helped me. I think perhaps he wasn’t helping me. He was helping his friend James. Sacrificing himself at the end, even though my dad was already gone.

The only person not here who should be is Peter. My mom wouldn’t talk to him in the van, couldn’t even look at him at the station, not until after his knee gave way and he collapsed. Then I caught the longing stare, her pain.

As I walk to the washroom I bend to tie my shoe, quietly sneaking the laptop from Harry’s side so as not to be too rude when checking email. Sitting on the toilet I boot it up. Of course I have a billion emails, mostly social media notifications. But there are a few strange ones. More than a few actually.

I’d like three pair of your emoticon earrings, <3 and Double Page Down. Can you do an A and an M. My initials. And did you know you can make a sword?! oxx:{}:::::::>

Okay, so that is cool, but it would take a lot of keyboards.

Another order is for a flex circuit necklace and resistor earrings. How much?

In fact there are some thirty requests. Even if I estimate, they amount to a few hundred bucks. Not much, but not bad for a day’s work, especially when the materials cost nothing.

And then, I have it. I throw open the door to the living area and jog out.

“I know what’s going to save Assured Destruction,” I say.

Most of my friends look from the washroom back to me with quizzical looks. “What? I do my best thinking in there,” I say.

“So what is it?” my mom asks.

“I’m a maker,” I reply.

I may be a burgeoning hacker, but I’m also a maker—perhaps even more so. I want to make, and the act of creation, the writing of code, this is what it’s all about for me. Then I show what creations of mine people have been selling on websites. Everyone has more ideas, but my mom starts opening her mouth in dramatic yawns, and my friends take the hint and leave, each giving me a great hug except Jonny. Jonny and I make out in front of my mother’s disapproving wide eyes. It’s embarrassing, sure, but this is overdue. That same lightness of being rushes through me, flushing the lethargy and fatigue for as long as we press together.

When the elevator doors shut on Jonny, I head to the washroom to brush my teeth, pretty certain I can fall asleep despite the energy from the kiss humming in my veins.

“Jan,” Mom calls from her seat. I stop and take a few steps back. Color flushes her cheeks and she’s not staring at me like a pirate anymore. She’s healthier. Not healthy, but better.

“Yep?”

She smiles. “I’m so proud of you.”

“I know,” I say, my voice breaking. “I’m proud of you too.”

She holds out her arms and I bend to reach around her. She clutches me with the fierce strength I remember. The same strength that kicked a criminal out of our house no matter how much she loved him. The same stubbornness that feels she has to do it again.

“I love you,” I say.

“I love you.”

Then she pauses and asks: “Do you miss your father?”

“I’m glad I know what happened,” I say.

“I’m sorry,” she replies.

“No.” I sit back down, letting her run fingers through my hair. “I think you needed to wait until I was ready.”

“I waited too long.”

“About a month,” I say.

“Even I didn’t know the full story, Jan. Not everything.” Tears shimmer in her eyes. I hug her again.

“I miss him sometimes,” she says. “I thought I didn’t, but he’d been a good husband. Until then.”

“He did the right thing,” I say.

“In the end. It was really brave.”

“So did Peter,” I reply.

She clenches her eyes shut. “Yes, he did. In the end.”

When I exit the bathroom after brushing my teeth, my mom’s gone. I know where she went. I’m so tired I want to crash, but there’s one more thing I have to do. I find a bottle of bleach under the kitchen sink.

I dye a white streak in my hair. It’s official. I’m no black hat. I’m not even gray. I’m through and through white hat. I’m my mother’s daughter, and I’m me. Jan Rose. Maker, white-hat hacker.