Hack (19 page)

“He doesn’t look like . . .” Grace said, stopping mid-sentence. “So, what happens now?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to see him is all. I wanted to see him before he went to jail.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I told you.”

“Tell me again.”

“When I was fourteen, I joined a group of computer hackers. Then one of them turned me in. His name is Knight. Now it’s his turn to go to jail.”

“So you’re going to turn him in?”

“No. He’s legit. He operates a company that gets paid to hack into computers.

Can you believe that?”

83

Grace frowned. “So if he hasn’t done anything wrong, how are you going to send him to jail?”

“Back in the office, I installed a program that will make Knight’s computer connect to a bank and transfer a few million dollars to an offshore account that can't be traced back to Knight. Only it can be traced. I made sure of it over a year ago, before Knight had thought of selling me out. And that is how I get to send him to jail.

It’s not a bank at all. It’s an FBI server—what they call a ‘honey pot.’”

“What will the FBI do to him?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know. Will he go to jail?”

“Yeah. For a long time.”

“But you’re no better than him.”

“I never said I was. Knight is a nark. This is him getting narked. You don’t want to know what they do to narks in jail.”

“I want to go home.”

I turned to look at Grace.

“Would you just wait for a few more minutes?”

“No. If I had known this was just a vendetta, I wouldn’t have come. You said you had put your past behind you. You said that you wanted to become a computer programmer.”

“Thanks to Knight, I won’t ever get to be a programmer. Not a serious one, anyway. My record will always be there. No one serious will ever hire me. No government or military, no banks. The only hope I have got is to start a new life.”

“And do you think this will make that better? Will it change anything?”

It seemed logical to me. I was merely making another move in Knight’s game.

Only this was checkmate, and I win the game. I didn’t get what was so hard to understand, but Grace looked away.

My cell phone rang.

“Yeah?”

“Hello, David,” said the voice on the other end of the phone. It was Zaqarwi.

“My friend, the one I told you about. He wants to meet you tonight. Are you still interested?”

“What time?”

“Seven. At the coffee shop.”

“Sure. I’ll be there.”

“Good.”

I put the phone away.

“I have to go back in a few days. That’s the reason that I had to do this now. I just wanted to see Knight for one last time before he gets busted. Then it’s all over, for him. And for me. I finally get to start a normal life. We can be together.”

Just then, Knight reemerged, and this time he was followed by a woman. She was very good looking, and had on an elegant black-and-white checked dress. As she walked, she smiled and talked to the baby she was holding in her arms.

The woman passed the baby to Knight, who strapped the baby into a child restraint seat in the back of the car. I watched as Knight made funny faces at the baby.

Then the woman began to talk to the baby. Peripherally, I saw Grace turn her head to me, but I didn’t look at her.

“David,” Grace said with a puzzled look on her face. “Are you sure?”

“What?” I said blankly.

84

I watched as Knight and his girlfriend paused to kiss. They looked happy, blissfully happy. Then they got in the car, and drove off. From where I was sitting, I could see them smiling and talking.

I didn’t have anything to say. The plan that I had been working on for seven months was nearly done. And my victory was as bitter as a mouth full of ashes.

I turned to look at my own girlfriend, but she wasn’t there. Grace had walked away.

“Grace?”

“Get away from me. You’re a criminal—no better than . . .”

“I'm not a criminal. Would you wait?”

Grace kept walking.

“Grace?”

Grace stopped and turned.

“I don't get it. You have everything, and all you want is to settle some score that’s in the past!”

I didn't get it, either.

“I have everything?” I repeated blankly. “I have nothing. He took everything.

Him and my mother.”

“Your mother? What are you talking about? You are just—get away from me.”

“Tell me what you mean. How do I have everything? Grace, please tell me.”

“You’re smart, hard-working, funny, and cute. But it’s a lie. Why can’t you just be that anyway? Under it all, you’re a decent guy. Do you know how many guys have tried to get into my bedroom? And all you wanted to do was to play on the Internet. I thought you were different. God, I hate you.”

She started walking away again. I had to say something.

“Grace, please, can I ask you something?”

No answer. Surely, she wanted to get away from her horrible life.

“Look, if I . . . if I got some money, and somewhere to live. Would you come with me?”

Grace stopped. She turned her head to look at me, and stared blankly, not understanding.

“What?”

“I have some money stashed away. If I leave here, if I go away to another country, get a house, start working a normal job, would you come with me?”

“That’s crazy. I can’t do that.
You
can’t do that.”

“You could have a normal life. We would have all the money we could want.

Really. You could go to college, or start a business. So could I. We could be happy.”

Grace said nothing. But there was something she wanted to say.

“Your dad. Your real dad. He could come to stay with us.”

Grace sat silently. Her pretty dark eyes looked at me, and never wavered.

“Maybe you should give it more time—”

“No, Grace, it’s now or never. I have to leave. We could go live wherever you want to go. Anywhere. But we have to go within the next few days.”

Grace said nothing. But there was hesitation in her looks. Did I trust Grace? I hardly knew her, but my feelings for her were clear. I wanted to be away from the FBI and their schemes. I wanted to be away from my past. I wanted my own fresh start.

But most of all, I wanted to be with Grace.

We grabbed a taxi, and rode to the station in silence.

85

We sat waiting for the train back to Elmwood. Neither of us said anything.

There was nothing to say.

Across from us was a guy begging for money. I remembered the bum I had seen that morning, the alcoholic guy.

Was that me? Only instead of spending my days inside a bottle, I had crawled into a virtual bottle, and spent my days, weeks, and years there. Was I on a similar path of self-destructive behavior? Was North right? Was I an addict, my programming faulty, stuck in an infinite loop? Would I end up being arrested, charged, and back inside for a ten-year stretch. Twenty years?

I looked at Grace. Grace with her scars, and her criminal parents. Inside the nearby cafeteria, I could see a guy and his girlfriend, waiting for a train, eating lunch and talking. They seemed happy and normal. They weren’t trying to outsmart anyone.

They weren’t trying to change the past.

“Don’t do it, David,” Grace said. “Even if you do win, you’ll still lose. You’re not like them. That’s why I like you. You can’t fool the police. My dad thought that he could do it. But they got him all the same.”

“It’s already done,” I said.

“Where are the FBI, then?”

“It’s . . . I just want to have a normal life. With you. We could watch movies, eat pizza, and go to computer conventions. I just want to be normal. But what Knight did to me—”

“Don’t do it, David. Don’t live in the past. It always catches up with you.”

Even though I had now defeated Knight, it somehow meant nothing to me. But what Grace was saying did.

I used the station’s wireless service—I actually paid, for a change—to remove the Trojan. “It’s done,” I said.

We continued sitting on the platform in the cold morning air, waiting for the train back to Elmwood.

“Could you spare some money, sir?” asked a voice. ‘Sir’—people call you

‘sir’ when you’re wearing a suit.

“No, sorry,” I said.

I looked up. It wasn’t the drunk I had seen before. It was another guy holding a sign that read “I want to work.”

“Is that true?” I said, nodding at the tatty cardboard he was holding.

“Yes. I want to work.”

“Then why don’t you get a job?” It was delivered as blunt as it sounds.

“They took my house,” he said sadly. “They took everything. I just want to get back on my feet. I haven’t touched a drink in a whole month. I lost my wife, my children, everything. I want a fresh start.”

The train was clanking into the station. “Here,” I said as I stood up. I handed him the NeoTek notebook. “Hold this by the bottom.”

I quickly popped it open, and started running a program to scrub away all of my hacking scripts as well as any other traces of my activities on the notebook.

While he was still holding the computer, looking somewhat baffled, I grabbed Grace by the hand and started walking toward the train.

The guy called out, “Hey, mister, your computer!”

“It’s yours now,” I called back to him. “You should get four hundred for that.

Don’t take less than three.”

“But it’s yours!” he protested, not quite believing.

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“I don’t need it anymore.”

Grace and I got on the train.

Back in Elmwood, we grabbed a taxi at the train station.

The taxi stopped at the end of Grace’s street.

“Can I see you tomorrow?” I asked.

“Yes. I’d like that,” she said, moving closer to me.

“I’ll work something out.”

We kissed, for the first time. I then turned and started off back to the bus station, where my old clothes and my old life were waiting for me.

But in a way, I felt like a new life was also waiting for me.

87

I called Hannah.

“Mom, I won’t be in for dinner. I’ve got to meet a friend.”

“Okay, David, but you should eat something.”

“Yeah, I will. I’ll talk to you later.”

I hoped that veiled promise would postpone her curiosity until I got home.

“Well, enjoy yourself.”

“I

will.”

“Call me when you want to come home.”

“I’ll only be a few hours.”

I got out of the cab and walked over to the coffee shop. I looked at my watch.

It was 6:45. I still had fifteen minutes before meeting Zaqarwi and Malik, and I wanted to be alone to think.

Instead of going into the coffee shop, I went into the video store at the entrance, and sat down, my mind whirling with thoughts of Grace, and of the future. I needed to think, but had no time. As soon as Malik made the offer, I would be going home. There would be no chance to do anything.

Was I right to be thinking about going away with Grace? All of a sudden, obstacles and questions started to present themselves.

How serious was Grace? I hadn’t expected her to elope with some man she hardly knew. But I knew that I wanted to be with her. I could work as a programmer; but what would Grace do? And would she be happy doing it?

The biggest question was: would it last? I knew from watching my mother that relationships built rapidly rarely stayed the course. They burned out. Was I making the mistake I had always sought to avoid? But how would that be different if I had money, places to go, things to do, a happy, exciting life? I had my stash, a list of backdoors, user accounts, and systems that I could use to get enough money to live with Grace. I had a way into a bank, but how much money would I steal? And did I want to make a real criminal of myself? I never thought of myself as a criminal; I had never taken any money from anyone. But now I had an impossible situation.

As I sat in the video store, trying to clear my mind, and staring off into the distance, something caught my eye. A car pulled up in front of the entrance, and a guy got out. I recognized Bennell, one of Zaqarwi’s crew. For a moment, he stood looking at the building. Then he looked at his watch. Instead of walking into the coffee shop, he made his way around the side of the building and disappeared out of sight.

I went back out of the bookstore, looking over at the coffee shop as I did, to make sure that Zaqarwi hadn’t seen me. I could afford to be a few minutes late. I quickly made my way to the side of the building, and then suddenly stopped.

The shop had a rear parking lot, and there, leaning into the window of a large black Ford, was Bennell. He was talking to someone. In the dimming light, I couldn’t fully see the driver of the car. He moved behind a row of bushes that lined the sidewalk. I edged slowly closer to the car. The shadows of the twilight were darkening the glass, and though I had edged further, I could still not make out the driver’s face—only the outline of a man.

I moved closer, up to the edge of the bushes. I tried to focus my eyes.

Suddenly, Bennell leaned back, and I saw who he had been talking to. It was Philips.

I pulled back behind the bushes quickly, and tried to stop my heart from banging. What is going on? Was Bennell working for Philips, too? Or was Philips using Bennell to watch me? What was Philips doing here? Whatever it was, it meant 88

trouble for me. It meant that in some way Philips was not on the level. Across the road, three young men in sports clothes were getting into a truck, laughing and talking loudly. Their shirts had football emblems on them. I ran over to the truck.

“I’ll give you fifty dollars for a ride.”

“What?” said one of the men.

“I need a lift. Right now.” I held out the fifty-dollar bill.

One of the men laughed, and said, “Get dead, freak.”

“Wait,” said the driver. “Fifty? Where to?”

I was dropped off at the end of Grace’s block, and I quickly made my way to her house. Grace’s stepfather’s car was in the driveway. I reached for my mobile phone, but suddenly realized that I didn’t even have Grace’s phone number. I felt stupid. How could I have made such a mistake? That’s the first thing that a regular guy does when he meets a girl. But I wasn’t a regular guy. I was anything but regular.