Hacked (7 page)

Parties are overrated.

This is what happens at a typical Year Eleven gathering at someone’s home:

– parents do not provide alcohol

– people bring alcohol

– people bring weed

– people may bring other drugs

– parents stay upstairs

– people get drunk

– people get stoned

– people are sick

– people snog

– people who are drunk become obnoxious. And pick on people they don’t like that they’re too scared to pick on normally.

‘You shouldn’t hang around with him, Ruby,’ said a little twit in our year, weaving from side to side, his eyes lagging behind like bad dubbing.

‘Who asked you?’ said Ruby.

‘He’s bad news,’ he said, meaning me.

Other little twits gathered behind the weaving twit.

‘We could report you to the police,’ said a voice at the back.

‘Go away,’ I said. ‘And pick on someone your own size.’

It helped that I was taller, and not drunk, and not stoned, and not an idiot.

‘Think you’re something, don’t you?’ said the weaving twit.

‘Come on, Dan,’ said Ruby, tugging my sleeve, ‘let’s go inside.’

We were out on the steps at the front, where we’d spent most of the party. Ruby was obviously thinking that inside we might find friends, or maybe parents. Don’t know. Because I wasn’t about to walk away from a few shrimps. And I didn’t have to, because first little twit, pumped up by vodka and Red Bull or some other make-me-a-maniac-with-zero-judgement drink, took a swipe at me. Now, I’m not a kick-your-head-in type, as I’ve already explained, but he’d wound me up, and he was such a pathetic sight in his skinny trousers and red Converse, that I decked him. No other word for it.

Just his mates to go
, I thought. Seriously, I did. Looking back it was a weird moment – like I was Jason Statham, destined to be able to single-handedly crush a dozen would-be attackers. But, next thing I knew, real life took over and I had a bloody nose, Ruby was shouting, a load of bystanders had joined in and, for the first time in my life, I was in a brawl. A proper no-one-knows-who’s-hitting-who brawl. The outcome of which was that
Amelia’s parents overreacted and called the police, and everyone else either called their parents (the goodies) or scarpered (this group included me, Ruby and Joe). (Ty doesn’t do parties.)

‘Got a death wish?’ said Joe.

‘It wasn’t his fault,’ said Ruby.

‘Nothing ever is,’ said Joe.

I glared at him, terrified that he was about to tell Ruby about the drone.

‘That’s not nice,’ said Ruby. ‘You’re meant to be his friend, Joe.’

Joe made a noise reminiscent of a horse. As we tramped along the streets in the rain towards Ruby’s, Joe gradually gave up the angry-man stuff because he wanted to hear all about the fight.

‘Wish I’d been there at the start,’ he said.

‘Don’t be a jerk,’ said Ruby.

We stopped round the corner from her house, as always. She pecked me on the cheek and we watched her go, waiting a few minutes till she texted to say she was safe inside.

‘We might be talking again,’ said Joe, ‘but you’re still way out of line.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ I said. ‘Maybe Angel played me. But it’s over. I’m not doing anything like that again. OK?’

‘You’d better mean it, Dan.’ He looked pretty menacing under the streetlight.

‘I do.’ And I did.

‘OK. Look, you’d better come back to mine,’ he said.
‘If your mum sees you she’ll flip.’

‘That bad?’

He nodded, a small grin slipping onto his face.

Back at his, he got some antiseptic wipes from a medicine cupboard (in our house the drugs mingle with the groceries, waiting to be overdosed on) and cleaned up my face. It was sore one side of my mouth and under one eye.

‘You’ll do,’ he said eventually. ‘But I think you’d better stay here. Mum and Dad won’t even know – Saturday night’s vodka night.’

‘No, I’m good,’ I said, still, despite everything, keen to go and check online for Angel. Totally feasible that he’d been to a grandparent’s funeral on a Scottish isle with zero internet and just got back …

‘Stay here, Dan. You might have concussion … or something.’

I caved and texted Mum, knowing she’d be asleep but would get it in the morning. I was dropping off, tired and looking forward to oblivion when Joe said, ‘Is it really over? The illegal stuff?’

‘Yes,’ I said, loud and clear.

Joe came home with me in the morning. It was a stroke of genius. With my steady and responsible friend by my side declaring my innocence, any possible blame was kiboshed.

‘I think you need stitches,’ said El.

‘You wish,’ I said.

‘Actually a steri-strip might be an idea,’ said Mum, rifling between the pasta and the self-raising flour.

‘I’ll be off,’ said Joe.

‘Going climbing?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘Got to keep in training if I’m going to get anywhere in the competition.’

Mum and Dad asked him a few questions, clearly impressed.

I finally made it out of the kitchen, intending to go online as normal, but Ty Skyped me to see how I was and remind me that I hadn’t handed in the last chemistry homework, so I chatted to him for a bit. He wanted all the news from the party. I was in the spotlight again, like it or not.

I spent the rest of the afternoon lying on my bed,
half dozing, half going over the chats I’d had with Angel, trying to remember anything that might help me find him. I wished I’d gone volunteering but it was too late by the time Joe and I’d got up. Ruby’d texted me anyway and said she’d come round afterwards.

I replayed the conversation that had led to Angel issuing the challenge. Was it a whim, like I thought, or part of a grand and complicated plan? I remembered explaining how I’d mapped the controls for a satellite camera so I could move it about, and being surprised when Angel was impressed because everyone knows that’s easy. So maybe I was wrong about him being an elite … Maybe he was just a script kiddie … He’d never shared code with me …

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. He was probably twelve years old, and just using other people’s exploits to make a name for himself. Ha! Like I said, there are different types of clever, and chances were Angel was clever at using people. I concluded, once and for all, that Angel never expected me to hack a drone, was surprised when I did, hell, maybe even scared, and definitely wasn’t going to do it himself, just wanted to blag about it.

By the time Ruby came round I was more cheerful than I had been for a week. I’d even done the chemistry homework.

And then she dumped me.

Ruby’s mum had found blood on her shirt. My blood, or maybe one of the twits’. Ruby’s mum had called Amelia’s mum and got a high-frame-rate version including the fight, the police, the damage, the weed, the booze, the vomit. Marvellous. I was firmly on the guard dog’s blacklist.

Ruby said she didn’t want to sneak around behind her mum’s back and it was an important time with exams coming up and, although she really liked me, she didn’t like the Dan that sold stolen credit, and somewhere inside I was that Dan too. She said she was sorry. She looked sorry. She looked gorgeous as well. The red hair behind her ears as always, a bright green woolly scarf, rosy cheeks.

I wasn’t cross. Because I decided as soon as I heard the words that I wasn’t going along with it. It wasn’t like when Soraya did it. The thing with Soraya was about being with a ‘girl’ and all I felt when I saw her with the
X-Factor
boy was miffed. Ruby was like a friend that I wanted to spend all my time with (
and
do the other stuff), and if Ruby arrived the next day arm in arm with
someone else I’d hate it. HATE it. So, somehow or other, I was getting her back.

‘Just going round to Ty’s,’ I shouted.

‘I thought Ruby was here,’ said Dad from the armchair.

‘She had to go. See you.’

I ran, but stopped after about a hundred metres because I was out of breath. A sixteen-year-old boy should probably be able to run without chest pain. Never mind.

Ty’s house is like the council tip. His dad collects everything – tyres, pallets, metal anything, plastic plant pots in their thousands (stored in leaning towers), trolleys, barbecues …

Ty’s dad’s head appeared from behind a pile.

‘Hello, Dan, just sorting out a few things.’ He knows everyone jokes about his hoarding. ‘In you go. And try not to walk into any more doors.’ That was a joke about my face.

I pushed open the front door, shouted, ‘Hello,’ in case anyone was downstairs but went up anyway. Ty had his head in a chemistry book.

‘You don’t look that bad considering.’

‘I can’t smile,’ I said, demonstrating the lack of movement one side of my mouth.

He laughed.

‘You look like a ventriloquist’s dummy.’

‘Cheers.’

‘Hope she’s worth it.’

‘She chucked me actually, that’s why I’m here.’

‘I’m not going out with you,’ he said, backing away.

‘Neither, but you’re Einstein and I’m starting again and I’ve only got a few weeks to get better results than you.’

‘What are you talking about, Dan?’

‘I’m reinventing myself. Ruby doesn’t want a scumbag boyfriend, so he’s history and I’m going to work and get good results. But I’m behind so you’re my tutor.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Absolutely.’

He budged up and we got on with it. He had a system going – read all about the topic, answer the questions in the book, sift through the past papers (all printed off ready), answer all the questions on that topic, check the mark scheme. He knew way more than me but I could see that a few days (or weeks) with Ty and some serious effort and I’d be clutching a fistful of As like him.

When we’d done valences, limestone and mole calculations, he allowed us a break.

‘Do you feel OK?’ I asked. I was on his bed. He was on the desk chair. It had occurred to me that the rigorous revision system was to make up for his brain being shaken.

‘You mean my head?’

I nodded.

‘Mostly. Get a few headaches.’

‘Do you remember anything about it?’

He shook his head. The scar was only just visible
above his eyebrow now.

‘Did you really track the van that hit me?’ he asked.

‘Yes, but it parked in between hundreds of other white vans at a rental place.’

‘Thanks anyway.’

I paused. Not like Ty to condone illegal activities.

‘You wouldn’t be thanking a member of “the criminal underclass”?’

‘That was the old you,’ he said.

I walked home feeling surprisingly good given that I was newly single and wounded. It was five and a half weeks till my first exam. I was going to surprise everyone by getting the sort of grades that make people hate you (more). I could see myself in sixth form, spending my free periods with Ruby – Pay As You Go forgotten, personal statement riddled with noble acts of volunteering and other interests (TBA), bright future guaranteed.

The feeling lasted all week. I caught up on my homework, sat at the front in classes, went to the revision sessions at lunchtime, taught Aiden – who’d developed a crush on me – the whole geography syllabus in the gaps, and studied with Ty in the evenings. I nearly made a timetable, but there are limits! Everyone noticed, from my teachers to my parents to El, who declared me a nerd.

On Friday, the last day of term, Ruby agreed to go to the café with me.

‘Just friends?’ she said.

‘That’s your call,’ I said.

‘Don’t make it difficult, Dan.’

‘I’m not. I meant that I’m here, waiting … working, in fact, so when you decide I
am
perfect boyfriend material, just say.’

I flashed her a huge smile. Not hard to do.

She thumped my arm, and I grabbed her hand on its way back and we walked along like that. Nothing else happened, but I’m a patient sort. And anyway, I had no time for girls – there were Newton’s Laws of Motion to nail.

I strolled home, full of hot chocolate and brownie, looking forward to a couple of weeks off school, and sure of my plan to win back Ruby. The contentment was brief. The butterfly effect was about to produce devastating news. I had fifteen hours until meltdown.

Saturday morning. No need to get up. No need to get up for seventeen days. I opened my eyes, noted the sunlight streaming in through the gap in my blue checked curtains, thought for a while. Random … nothing … scattered …

Get up, Dan. Work to do.

I poured the milk up to the rim of my bowl and dropped in one Weetabix – no splash. I ate it quickly and then dropped in a second. This carried on until the milk to whole-wheat ratio resulted in a dry bowl. Very satisfying. I shoved my glass, bowl and spoon in the dishwasher and went upstairs. Everything nice and normal.

I logged onto Facebook, which I detest, but had started using to promote my new image (to Ruby) through deadly dull exam-based updates like:

is trigonometry any use in the real world?

And:

the environment is always the answer to the animal studies question

They were designed to demonstrate that I was working, whilst not being so goody-goody that they
looked fake. All part of the plan to turn Hacker Boy into Keener.

That’s the thing with my ‘condition’, if I have one. I decide things and then persevere until they happen. Time isn’t a significant factor, neither are obstacles. It’s key for a hacker, because coding is full of blind alleys and dead ends. I’m obsessive, I suppose, but without the anxiety and handwashing. I recommend it.

My last little ritual before I started French revision
– un moment, s’il vous plait
– was to pop onto a forum to check Angel hadn’t reappeared.

My mind was so focused on looking for him that it took a few seconds to catch up with the chat that was going on. And a few seconds more to take it in. Too panicked to read the thread properly I joined in, asking for more information.

what drone are you talking about?
   – I typed.

an unmanned US drone on ops in Germany has disappeared been off the radar for 12 hours

a l33t did it

how?
   – I typed.

they thought it crashed in woods but they didnt find the hardware so now they think it was stolen and the live feed hacked

Despite the paralysis in my brain I could see how a drone, flying on automatic, could be hijacked by a hacker who could send back whatever footage he chose – like a crash.

critical stuff – hacking a feed into the US military and walking off with a drone

is it loaded?
  – I typed.

armed and ready

its carrying Hellfire missiles

how do you know?
   – I typed.

I was willing it to just be talk – script kiddies full of hot air.

everyone knows

only a matter of time and it’ll be on CNN

I stayed logged on but lay down on my bed, eyes closed, and tried to sort through the jumble of thoughts, all scary as hell, that were filling up my head. It took time, minutes, to get the told-you-so voices out of my head – Joe’s ‘You’ve been played’, and Ty whispering, ‘Ever heard of Gary McKinnon?’ As well as the images of Afghan kids being bombed while playing in the street, me being dragged off in handcuffs and Ruby looking at me with utter loathing. Eventually I slowed down my breathing, and got things in order:

– Angel had challenged me to hack a drone

– I’d hacked a surveillance drone

– I’d sent Angel my lines of code so he could, in theory, control a drone (the ‘in theory’ was only in there to make me feel better)

– I didn’t know whether the code could also access a combat drone

– Angel disappeared as soon as he got the code

– so did IRC channel #angeldust

– a combat drone had disappeared from an American base in Germany

– was it Angel?

– who the hell
was
Angel?

For all I knew he was a forty-year-old psychopath, or a religious fundamentalist, or a schizophrenic hearing voices telling him to bomb Simon Cowell. I was fuming at the idea he’d been stringing me along, working me like a puppet. I’m not good at dealing with anger. I needed to do something.

Right.

I went back to my computer and started information-gathering. I followed any current threads that mentioned drones, half of which were about drone strikes, for and against, a quarter were about toy drones, research drones, drone capability, and the rest were about the missing one. I left messages for Angel anywhere I ever remembered meeting him. Mum called me for lunch. Lunch! There was no way I could swallow bread when I might be responsible for … a drone strike … and carnage.

There was no way round it – why steal a Predator unless you plan to use it?

‘Dan! Come on, I’ve made sausage sandwiches for my hardworking boy.’

I went to the bathroom and splashed water on my face, took some deep breaths, stared at myself in the mirror and tried to make a normal face, worried that the feeling inside me would show on the outside. Fear.
Dread. Disgust. Terror. Guilt.

‘Dan!’

I had to go.

‘Sorry,’ I said, forcing a smile as I slid into my chair and smothering my sandwich in tomato sauce to help the lumps go down.

‘How’s it going?’ asked Mum.

‘Good.’

The four of us sat round the table eating, with Radio 4 in the background. El gave a blow-by-blow account of her friend’s latest YouTube video – she has her own channel called WhatBetsyDoes, full of cake-making and face-painting. I attacked the lunch as though I was ravenous, desperate to get away from the family meal.

I needed someone to talk to. Ruby was out of the question, so it was Ty or Joe. They’d both flip, but Joe would be less likely to drag me to the police station to confess. (And Ty only knew half the story.)

It might be hard to believe I ever went near a drone without thinking about what I was doing, but there’s always more than one way of looking at things.

A kid kicks a football up in the air again and again, twenty … thirty … forty times … desperate to keep the ball from touching the ground. A free diver holds his breath for … twenty minutes. Actually, I’ve thought of a better example – there are people that can recite Pi to thousands of decimal places.

And my point is?

These things are
point-less
. Ball skills are useful but … let it drop occasionally … it makes no difference. Not breathing is stupid, and gives you brain damage. You can look Pi up and read it to one million digits. So why do people do these things? Answer – because they can.

To follow the argument through, a hacker might wonder whether a drone is hackable. No ulterior motive. No agenda. Simply to see if he can.

Trying to justify my actions wasn’t helping. I ran faster.

Joe was on his back, shooting the ceiling, like last time.

‘Stop for a bit, will you?’

‘Why would I want to do that?’ he said.

‘Because I need to tell you something.’

I turned on the light, which took away his screen.

‘Girl trouble?’

‘If only.’

I told him what they were saying online. I’m not sure what reaction I expected but it wasn’t laughter.

‘It’s not funny, Joe.’

‘It is. It’s funny that you think you’ve infiltrated the CIA or whoever owns the drones and Angel’s up there flying one right now about to bomb … the White House.’

‘He might be.’

‘Dan, even if you really did get control of a drone,
like you say you did, by now they’ll have patched up whatever the hole was. You’re a nothing, messing about in your bedroom. This is the US Army we’re talking about. If a drone’s gone missing, they’ll find it. You’re an idiot, but that’s all. Chill!’

‘
You
weren’t exactly “chilled” when I told you what I’d done.’

‘That’s because
someone
needs to try and keep you out of trouble,’ he said, rolling his eyes, ‘or one day you’ll majorly mess up, and they’ll
lock
you up. But it’s not that day yet.’

I wanted to believe him. Maybe I had completely overreacted …

‘You said it was a spy drone you hacked, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘One with a camera?’

I nodded.

‘And a drone with missiles has gone missing?’

More nodding.

‘Nothing to do with you, then. Come on, let’s play,’ he said, chucking me a controller.

I settled down on a beanbag like before and, as the action started, I felt myself relax. Joe was right. What were the chances that Angel was a terrorist? Tiny. He set me the challenge because we were talking about drones, and we were talking about drones because I’d hacked the satellite. No one made me do that. Stupid Dan. Everyone knows the internet is full of lies. There probably wasn’t a Predator drone on the loose at all.

I stayed for an hour before heading home to
immerse my head in French –
bon idée
. Dad was in the kitchen, scribbling the answers in the crossword. He’d finished the Sudoku.

‘Just the man I need,’ he said. ‘Seven across …’

His voice was drowned by the sound of a helicopter passing over. There are often police flying about, chasing stolen cars on their way back to the Southmead Estate.

‘That’ll be the missing drone,’ said Dad, clearly joking.

‘What missing drone?’ I asked, instantly sweaty.

‘It was on the news.’ Dad nodded towards the radio. ‘The Americans have “mislaid” a Predator somewhere in Germany. The Secretary of State for Defence was on, no less. Cyber criminals, they reckon. That’s the trouble with relying on technology instead of people.’

He went back to the crossword.