Kill Process (36 page)

Angel> Yes, you.

SysOp> No, a different someone. Department of Motor Vehicles. Purchasing history. Emails. VPN history.

My mind nearly falls out learning that Nathan knows all this. It’s one thing to obtain access to the raw data. That’s relatively easy. You only need either a backdoor into the system, or a user login, or access to someone who has one of those. To know when other people are accessing the data implies something far greater: it means you’ve compromised their system to install these little alerts. Or you’re watching traffic over the network and see the requests as they go over the wire. Or, and this is even crazier, you’ve compromised the watchers themselves: the people and software that exist to detect any compromise in the system.

I wonder whether my relationship with Nathan goes deep enough to ask Nathan how he’s monitoring data access at that level. Then the bigger question hits me.

Angel> Who’s watching me?

SysOp> You tell me.

Argh. That’s just like Nathan to pull his Zen master philosophical bullshit.

There’s really only three basic possibilities. First, the government could be watching me, either because they know of my murders or because my online behaviors triggered counter-terrorist detection algorithms. Second, Tomo is investigating me because of my role in Tapestry. Third, a random hacker is trying to figure out who Angel of Mercy is.

I work my way through the options backwards. The odds of an errant computer jock tracking me down is low, probably the lowest it’s ever been since I’ve kept such a minimal profile for so long. Still, it’s not zero. Sometimes people try to track down old hackers, to figure out if they’ve given up the trade, been caught, or what.

If Tomo was investigating me, they could use an employee to track down my internal data. They might hire someone for a bit of corporate espionage, to access my Tapestry email and files. It would be a little unusual to look up my purchasing history, but maybe they’re blindly trying to discover something compromising they can use as leverage. On the other hand, DMV records would be pretty meaningless. What would they do, blackmail me for a speeding ticket? I’ve heard of people being caught having an affair when they’re pulled over with someone else in the car. It’s a long shot though, and I’m not even married. Maybe it’s Tomo.

The only other option is the government. It seems a little silly. On the one hand, I doubt local police would know what a VPN is, let alone be able to break the encrypted connection to access the underlying data. Not that I’m trying to toot my own horn, but only a federal agency with a three-letter acronym would possess the ability to track me. This hypothetical TLA agency would have access to the centralized intelligence databases created by the NSA. There’d be no reason to pull DMV records or purchasing history because they’d already store that data in their own database. It would be a waste of effort.

Hmm . . .

Angel> Was the first thing pulled the DMV records?

SysOp> :)

Angie> The government then. They fetch the same data over and over again, rather than trusting what’s already stored.

SysOp> Bingo.

Knowing the government was investigating me didn’t make me feel any better.

Angel> Why?

SysOp> That’s not the right question. Think who, not why.

Angel> I don’t want to play your games now.

SysOp> Chill. I promise this is interesting.

If they were on to me for the murders, it would be the FBI.

Angel> FBI?

SysOp> Try again.

If I triggered counter-terrorism detection rules, then the NSA. Or was it DHS? I can never remember who handles that.

Angel> NSA or DHS?

SysOp> Nope.

Well, that was interesting. What was left?

Angel> Secret Service?

SysOp> Now you’re just guessing. Office of Naval Intelligence.

Angel> Joking?

SysOp> Serious. ONI, “America’s premier maritime intelligence service” according to their own site.

What could I have done to merit involvement from Naval Intelligence? Had I killed any sailors or officers? I ran through the last year in my head. I couldn’t remember all the details of every asshole I’ve killed, though I’d surely recall if they were Navy. I stayed clear of military systems because there are too many cyber security grunts guarding against the inevitable Chinese attack to make that worth the risk.

Angel> Any other requests from ONI?

SysOp> Thousands. Here are some interesting ones. Governor Whitmore, who suddenly decided not to run for reelection. Pierre Martin, CTO of the number two French telecom company, fired after a newspaper revealed he spent company funds on prostitutes. And this one: Congresswoman DeWalt, who was investigating black intelligence organizations before she spontaneously dropped it to focus on gun control.

A mushroom cloud of an explosion goes off in my head. Nathan’s found a black agency. I back away from the computer, suddenly nauseous. Public government agencies at least pay lip service to things like laws and people’s rights. The deeper and darker those agencies get, the less such niceties are observed. Nathan’s excited about his discovery, but my life is evaporating before my eyes. I could cease to exist at a moment’s notice.

*     *     *

Nathan and I agree there’s nothing much to do about the government observation, except to be ten times as cautious about my digital tracks.

SysOp> You can’t trust anything, not even your hardware, no matter how well you scrub it.

I’m prepared to hear they’d track my email and web browsing, though I’m surprised Nathan believes they’d compromise my physical devices.

Angel> My phone and computer are always with me.

SysOp> Right now? They’ll track you to the storage facility.

Angel> I bagged them both. EMF-proof.

SysOp> They only need a few seconds. You know about Avogadro and China, right?

Angel> No, what?

SysOp> When an Avogadro Corp employee goes to China, once they come back they take the employee’s phone and laptop and stick them in a giant shredder. The laptops are so thoroughly compromised with malware in software, firmware, and even hardware bugging devices they can’t ever be trusted. The laptops are typically out of employees’ hands for less than ten minutes as they go through customs. If that’s what China can do in ten minutes, what do you think the US government can do while you’re looking the other way?

There’s a chasm in my stomach threatening to swallow me and I can’t help but look behind me even though I’m in a locked cinderblock room at the bottom of a secured storage facility. There’s nobody in the room. Is there someone outside the door? In the parking lot? Someone with a frequency scanner monitoring my transmissions?

Angel> You think I’m being personally monitored? People stalking me?

SysOp> I don’t know. Two weeks ago you weren’t being monitored by the government, and now you are. Does pulling DMV records equal total surveillance? No. But the odds of you being surveilled jumped at least a thousand times higher.

Angel> Wait. Back when I had to get rid of the VW van, someone compromised my onion network. Do you think that was the government that far back?

Long seconds go by, and I wonder if Nathan is going to reply. I place my hand on the keyboard to type.

SysOp> That was me.

Angel> WTF? You claimed to know nothing about it.

SysOp> I thought maybe you needed a nudge.

Angel> You manipulated me?

SysOp> I couldn’t watch you throw your life away killing people.

To say my mind reels doesn’t begin to describe my emotions. I’m like a skyscraper toppling in slow motion after having its foundation washed away by a tsunami.

Angel> You don’t get to decide somebody else’s life.

SysOp> I don’t regret it, and you shouldn’t either. Look what you’ve built since then. Isn’t it all worthwhile? Besides, you spent plenty of time changing other people’s lives.

I rub my head, kneading my skull with my fingers. I . . . I just can’t deal with this right now. I’m not sure whether to feel betrayed or saved. Both are true. Fuck.

Suddenly, I wonder if my connection to Dead Channel is secure. Nathan set up the encryption. It’s running Threefish over Serpent, and even that runs through my onion network, which is Twofish over AES. The keys were generated from space telescope white noise. The whole thing should be secure not merely against the NSA of today, but even the global computing infrastructure of 2045. Yet I’m still looking at text on a screen. If they compromised my hardware, all is mute. The keys, the passwords, all irrelevant. They could intercept my video signal on the way to the display. I can settle up with Nathan9 later. For now, I’ve got to figure out my government problem.

Angel> What do I do?

SysOp> Don’t do anything that would compromise you. Or me, for that matter.

Angel> I need data from Tomo.

SysOp> Not right now.

I consider the company’s money situation.

Angel> I might need to run another financial crack.

SysOp> No way. You’d never see the light of day again. There’s nothing the government goes after harder than anyone who messes with the sheep’s confidence in the financial system.

Angel> Fuck.

SysOp> Be an ordinary person, no more, no less. I’ll keep an eye on your records, and if we go three or four months with no activity, I’ll let you know that it’s safe.

Three or four
months
? I’ll be lucky to keep Tapestry running through the end of this month with the tricks Tomo is pulling.

SysOp> And, I hate to say this, but just in case . . . better not connect to Dead Channel.

Angel> Damn it. You’re my lifeline.

SysOp> I know. I’m sorry, you’re a little too hot right now. We don’t want that kind of attention.

Angel> We’ve been friends for thirty years.

SysOp> We’re still friends, but we’re hackers first. Hackers don’t burn other hackers.

Angel> Fuck you very much.

I disconnect. The goddamn shit. Wait until I need him more than ever, and then cast me out? I’ve done all the field work. Compromised every system at Tomo. Gave him access he never would have gotten otherwise.

I stare at my other computer. It’s done pulling all of Lewis’s records from Tomo. I carefully disconnect it, store all the data on a triple-encrypted file, and shut it down.

A tear falls, lands on the keyboard, and I wipe it away with a shaking hand. I lay my face in my hand.

This is how it ends for hackers. Alone.

I tried to pretend otherwise. I believed I could have a normal life. Marry Thomas, even.

How am I ever going to face him? What’s he going to think when they take me away? He’s going to realize he never knew me, the real me. He’ll believe everything was all a lie, doubt the entire foundation of our relationship. I scream at the walls and pick up the laptop, prepared to smash it against the cinderblock.

Fuck! I don’t even have the money to buy another. I set the laptop down carefully and kick the cardboard boxes in the storage room instead, pounding them with my feet until the room is in shambles.

My chest heaves when I finally give up and lean against the wall.

If the government comes for me, they’re going to stick me in prison. Prison is a locked room. A locked room is unacceptable. The thought makes me shake in fear. If they come for me, I will kill myself. I can’t survive being in a box.

That night, on the way home, I stop about a mile from my house, and park outside a church. It’s a lame excuse if I’m called to account for my whereabouts, but it beats parking at a grocery store. The old church doesn’t have any security cameras, whereas the grocery has plenty, not to mention all the other shoppers with their phones out and about, waving around cellphone cameras without a thought of who might be spying on them. It’s a funny thing, people’s blindness to their cell phone cameras. Maybe one in fifty people are savvy enough to cover their computer webcams so they aren’t spied on, but fewer than one in a thousand take the same precaution with their mobile devices.

At any rate, I park by the church, leave my electronics in the car, then walk a few blocks to the garage I rent where I keep my electronics tools. It’s here where I assembled my homemade onion router hardware, and where I’ve customized endless laptops and other electronics. There’s very little left except a few partially assembled airborne drones and my locked tool chest. I grab a screwdriver out of the tool chest, and undo the cover on the electrical panel. Once open, I remove two screws from the back panel, and the whole box pulls forward. I hold it in place with my stump and feel behind the box for the leather package. I set it on the workbench with a small thump, and screw the electric box back into place.

I unroll the leather until the Glock 26 is revealed. I stare without touching the gun. It seemed like a good idea once, though I was wrong. There was no way I could ever use it to kill any of the abuser bastards I was going after. It was too close, too immediate, too loud, too violent. Pulling the trigger myself was out of the question. It was everything I was not. I would curl up on the floor in a ball before I could ever aim it at someone, and so it was useless to me.

Until now. I know for certain I could shoot myself before I would let myself be imprisoned. Oh, if it came down to that, to the choice between losing my autonomy again or dying, I would not hesitate.

I pick up the gun, feeling the heft of it. After a moment’s hesitation, I turn the muzzle toward my own head and hold it there. A numbness passes through me in a wave, like some part of me is ready to vacate this body. The edge between life and death is imperceptibly thin, only a squeeze of a finger away. I take a shaky breath, lay the gun back down, and begin the tedious process of loading the magazine with one hand.

A
FTER A NIGHT
of more nightmares than any actual rest, I come into the office in the morning like a zombie. When David Schwartz calls, my voice is raspy from lack of sleep.

“I don’t see anything you can exploit in the contract. If you sign, they’re getting control. Don’t sign.”