The Silence of Six (8 page)

In his ear, Max heard a synthetic voice—actually,
two
voices, only slightly out of sync with each other, and eerily similar to Evan’s filtered voice in his video.

“Hello, Five-oh-three,” DoubleThink said.

Max picked up his cell phone and once again pretended to be carrying on a conversation with someone while speaking to DoubleThink through the microphone in the cord of his earbuds.

“Hi,” Max said. “Why do you want to talk?”

The concierge shot him an annoyed look. Max might have been wearing out his welcome.

“To see if I can trust you.”

“You can trust me. I was Evan’s best friend. You’re the one using a voice filter.”

“I know Evan vouched for you, but I still don’t know if I can trust you not to do something stupid.”

Max’s face burned. “I’m not a noob.”

“Pause your ego, hotshot. I’m trying to help. You have to start being more careful. Don’t reveal anything to the group. I think one of them is working with the enemy.”

“Who’s the enemy?”

“That’s the other thing we need to figure out.”

While he carried on the conversation with DoubleThink, Max kept an eye on the ongoing text chat.

Kill_Screen:
More worrying that one or more of us is probably already working with the Feds. . . 

0MN1:
If a hacker was busted the news would be all over it. They love to brag.

Plan(et)9:
YEAH! Maybe they got to L0NELY, Infiltraitor, and @sskicker!

Edifice:
Unless they’re dead. Then we’d never know unless we find out who they are IRL.

0MN1:
Told you—I doxxed ‘em. No sign of anything bad. They’re fine. . . 

Edifice:
Then why won’t you tell us who they are so we can stop worrying?

0MN1:
For the same reason I won’t say who *you* are, Ed.

DoubleThink:
I bet they just got scared and went into hiding like 503-ERROR did.

0MN1:
Exactly, DT.

“Hey! Why are you giving me such a hard time in the chat room? Are you on my side or not?” he asked.

“I’m on Evan’s side,” DoubleThink said.

DoubleThink:
No offense, 503! Just making a point.

“Happy now?” DoubleThink asked.

“Thanks. How are you doing that? Saying one thing while typing another at the same time?”

“I’m not called DoubleThink for nothing.”

“I only left because I thought if I kept hacking, I would get in too deep one day.”

“You were scared.”

“Okay, sure. So what? I was scared.”

“Hey, you were right to be, as it turns out,” DoubleThink said. “I’d get out too if I could. Do you think there’s a chance that’s what Evan’s doing?”

“I wish he were, but I don’t think the FBI would say he’d committed suicide for no reason.” Max didn’t want to share why he was so certain that Evan was dead—not yet.

“They could have captured him. Saying he’s dead would let them get away with silencing him too, if that’s what they’re doing. Evan was working on something major.”

“Do you think he was talking about those three hackers in his video?” Max asked.

“He was kind of obsessed with their disappearances. It’s weird enough that it happened to three members of Dramatis Personai. Now four.”

“I keep trying to understand why Evan would kill himself. He wouldn’t do it if the others had been arrested or gone into hiding. But
murder
. . . . Could they have been killed?”

“That’s a bit dramatic,” DoubleThink said. “That’s not how the Feds work. And why wouldn’t Evan just say that instead of this ‘silenced’ business?”

“Because people would dismiss the idea immediately, like you are. He obviously wanted someone to investigate this, but he was speaking in code to be sure it was the right someone. We don’t know who or what Evan was trying to expose, but it seems to have something to do with Senator Tooms or Governor Lovett, and whatever ‘the silence of six’ refers to.”

“You can silence people without killing them. Quite effectively, in fact. It happens every day. All you have to do is make them afraid. Maybe that’s what this is. Making examples of people like Sabu and Manning hasn’t worked—it just gives hacktivists like us something to rally around. But you put someone in prison, and you keep it quiet from the media, and no one knows what happened. Anything we imagine is probably worse than the reality. And pretty soon the rest of the group stops taking risks, because the unknown is scarier than the truth.”

All of that sounded reasonable, except Max had seen Evan die. He didn’t know for sure that the other “offline” hackers were dead, or were connected to Evan’s message at all, but it had to be more than a coincidence. The truth had to be pretty freaking awful if Evan would rather take his own life than suffer the same fate.

503-ERROR:
If you know anything that can help us figure this out, 0MN1, you should share it.

0MN1:
We might know more if we had the rest of that video.

“Seriously, drop this for now, okay? We don’t know who’s involved yet,” DoubleThink said.

“How do I know you aren’t working with the ‘enemy’?” Max said. “Maybe that’s why you’re called DoubleThink.”

“Good. You should question everything and everyone. Maybe I’m not wasting my time with you after all.”

“Yeah? Well . . . your robot voice is creeping me out. And you haven’t answered my question.”

“We all have to trust someone,” DoubleThink said.

“You just said the opposite a second ago,” Max said.

“DoubleThink, remember?”

“Right. But believing two opposite things at once is also called ‘insanity.’ You saying you’re the exception to the rule?”

“Questioning people’s motives doesn’t mean you can’t trust them. You can always trust them to do what’s best for themselves, and you can use that.”

“And what do you want?” Max asked.

“I want to help Evan,” DoubleThink said.

0MN1:
Someone at that school must have recorded it on a phone.

PHYREWALL:
Word is everyone’s phones were confiscated and wiped. Tell me that isn’t suspicious.

“Tell him you’ll work on it. Then log out,” DoubleThink said. “We have our own plans to make.”

503-ERROR:
Good idea. I’ll try to dig something up. Gotta go for now.

print*is*dead:
good to have you back / you should come to haxx0rade nxt wk /it’s gonna be epic

Panjea had recently announced their first annual Haxx0rade for the end of October, a combination hackathon and costume party. They were inviting hackers from all over the world to work in their San Francisco headquarters, developing their own apps for Panjea over a twenty-four-hour period.

503-ERROR:
I’ll see, but I doubt it. SF’s a long way for me to travel.

0MN1:
Hope you can make it. Keep us posted if you learn anything else.

ZeroKal:
Hasta la vista

Max signed off.

“Well, that was fun,” DoubleThink said. “We have to meet. In person.”

“Whoa. I don’t know who you are. What can you say in person that you can’t say here?”

“Um, everything? I don’t trust talking about this online any more than we have to. Evan sent me something that you need to see.”

Evan had sent DoubleThink a message too?

Max felt a mix of relief and jealousy. It was good to know he wasn’t alone in this, but he’d felt a twisted sort of pride that Evan had chosen him. What if Max were just one of several people he’d reached out to?

Of course all that mattered was finding out what Evan had died for.

“What is it?” Max asked.

“You’ll see it when I see you.”

If DoubleThink wanted to trick Max into the open, this was the way to do it.

“That’s a big risk.”

“For both of us.”

“Still. You have to give me more than that,” Max said.

“If I wanted to turn you in to the Feds, they would already have you surrounded, Maxwell.”

It took a moment for it to sink in that DoubleThink had used his real name—sort of. No one actually called him Maxwell.

It also came as a shock to hear his name after just half an hour online. Despite his long absence, being 503-ERROR seemed to come more naturally to him than being Max, the popular kid at Granville High. It took effort to be one of the guys on the soccer team and Courtney’s boyfriend. He doubted she would ever understand this part of his life—which meant she’d never really understand him.

“How do you know my name?” Max asked.

“Evan. He wanted me to contact you if anything happened to him. I just hope I don’t regret it.”

Max took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s meet. But in a public place, and I’ll come to you,” Max said. “Where is that?”

A short pause. “Seattle.”

“Oh.” That was a long way from Granville, especially without a car.

“Why don’t we meet halfway? There’s a Denny’s just off Interstate five in Roseburg, Oregon,” DoubleThink said.

“You want to meet at a Denny’s?” That was always Evan’s favorite spot to work.

“You don’t like Denny’s?” DoubleThink asked.

“It’s fine,” Max said.

“They have good pancakes and they’re open twenty-four hours.”

“Sold.”

Max googled it. The map showed the diner was almost exactly halfway between Granville and Seattle.

“Um. Evan told you where I am?” Max asked.

“No, you just did. I knew where Evan lived, and I guessed you might be close by.” DoubleThink said.

Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to meet DoubleThink after all. He knew way more than he should about Max. But Max didn’t have any better leads at the moment, and it would be good to get out of town for a little while.

“Okay, fine. When?” Max said.

“Dawn tomorrow.”

“Are we going to duel? Why such a hurry?”

“Just having this makes me nervous. The sooner I pass it off to you, the better.”

And the sooner Max could get to the bottom of this, and hopefully back to his life.

“The thing is, I had to abandon my car today when some shady guys came after me,” Max said. “I’ll have to take a bus or train, if they even go to Roseburg.”

“There’s a Greyhound station, but that will take you too long. Just get a new car.”

“For six hundred dollars?”

“That shouldn’t be any problem for you,” DoubleThink said. “Wink, wink.”

How much had Evan told this guy about their past hacks?

“I don’t do that anymore,” Max said.

Max heard a garbled digital sound that he eventually identified as DoubleThink snorting.

“I don’t care how you do it, just get to that diner by seven thirty tomorrow morning,” DoubleThink said.

“I hope you’re for real.”

“I don’t go into meatspace for just anyone. The only hacker who knows what I look like in real life is Evan.”

“Then I’m honored.”

“You should be. But, like I said, I’m doing this for him. As for whether or not you can trust me. . .”

A link popped into Max’s chat window.

“It’s okay,” DoubleThink said. “That link is totally safe.”

“Uh huh. You just sent me a link to prove I could trust you, but I have to trust you in order to follow it.”

“Just click it.”

Max did. A video window opened. When the image cleared up, he saw black and white surveillance footage of a familiar hotel lobby. He looked around. It was definitely the lobby of the Gateway Suites. And when he spotted the figure sitting in the corner of the image on a computer, he knew he was viewing a live security feed of himself.

“No way,” Max said. “How did you. . .”

“It doesn’t take a genius to realize that you’d favor free public Wi-Fi networks to get online to avoid being located. Lots of supposedly private security cameras all over the world have been hacked. Breaking into new ones is a hobby of mine, but ironically, this one was powned by Evan first.

“I just scanned the ones in your area for anyone using Tor on the same network. And here we are. Or rather, there you are. Try to be more careful. At least avoid cameras, unless you enjoy being the star of your own reality show. You should also try to disguise yourself to prevent face recognition.”

“Oh my God,” Max said.

“So now you see the urgency,” DoubleThink said. “The FBI could find you the same way, especially if they do have hackers working for them. And if you logged in to one of your personal accounts, even while running Tor, they could twig to your location a lot sooner.”

“Oh,” Max said. “That’s stupid. Of course I’d never do that.” Not again, anyway.

The phone at the concierge desk rang and he turned his head to hear a little better.

“Why yes, there is.” From his peripheral vision, it seemed as if the concierge was looking straight at him. “I thought so. Yes, sir. Understood. I’ll do my best.”

“You look nervous,” DoubleThink said.

“I think I’d better go.”

“Yeah, I think so. See you soon, Five-Oh-Three.” DoubleThink signed off.

Max shuddered as he looked at the security feed again, thinking about all the cameras in the mall that had been tracking his movements that morning. The grainy video reminded him of those found footage movies; typically, this was what you saw just before something horrible happened. A monster attack, a paranormal event . . . or maybe a raid from the Feds.

He certainly hoped that Evan’s mysterious friend was trying to help. If DoubleThink or Dramatis Personai at large was playing him, Max’s skills were no match for theirs. He could lose everything by going to this meeting; it could be the government luring him in and entrapping him. But he knew he had to go. He’d just have to take whatever precautions he could.

Max closed the laptop and slipped it into his bag, resisting the urge to glance over at the concierge, whom he suspected was now closely watching his every move. He stretched his neck and massaged his left shoulder; he certainly hadn’t missed this part of his old life in front of a computer. Spending all his time in the virtual world had had very real consequences in the physical one.

He stood and headed for the exit. By now the Feds could be on their way here—or outside already. Another reason to get as far away as possible. Oregon was as good a place as any. But he needed a way to get there, and all things considered, public transportation was too risky right now. It was time to put his dormant hacking skills to a real test.