I should’ve turned around the second I arrived. The place, a truck stop on the outskirts of Las Vegas, gives me all the wrong vibes. Only one reason I agreed to show up in person. Well, a big reason, a chance to meet Feral. Can’t pass up the chance to partner up with an epic hacker.
But a hack here, really? In this dump? Doesn’t add up. But I think, hey, why not. Maybe Feral has tapped into some computers tied to their diner’s ordering system, like maybe in the basement or inside a supply closet? Might turn into some kind of genius, if you dare to visualize a little. Who would suspect a hack originating from a truck stop’s diner?
More than that, I can’t turn around. I owe them, Feral and his crew. I know they’re heavy enough to come after me if I stand them up.
But here now, standing in the parking lot and getting a mondo drag of diesel fumes and that other kind of exhaust from the wrong end of the occupants of not one, but two cattle haulers? Man, I should turn around, get in my ultra-compact rental and go back to the casino to burn more of my not so hard earned cash.
Oh, yeah, cash. The cash that’s running out after two long, bad streak nights. The same cash I couldn’t keep alive with a hack on the casino. Yeah, because my hack failed to punch through. Still trying to figure out why. Almost like somebody knew it was coming and cut me off at the pass. Which took me to plan B, this job, to replenish my shrinking pot so I can go back and take another swing at that blackjack table. Where I tell myself I don’t gamble: I just keep it real and random.
I try to inhale as little as possible on my way to the diner’s front door. I don’t get that far. A big burly dude steps up from behind a newspaper dispenser.
“Julian?” he says.
I look around, hoping no one heard him and that my body language will remind him to keep it shut. “No one here by that name.”
“Oh, right.” He gives me a less than convincing apologetic shrug. “You here for the job?”
“Depends.”
He grins ahead of the next part of the pre-agreed verbal handshake. “Didn’t take you for someone with vowel control issues.”
Bowel. The word is bowel. But who knows? Maybe I typo’ed him the wrong message. I was plenty drunk when I banged it out on my keyboard.
Anyway. It’s part of the random fabric, close enough to tell me he’s my contact.
“Phone,” he says.
I fish in my back pocket and take out my smartphone. Without a pause, he snaps off the battery. Boom, like he knows the phone inside out. He drops both pieces into an opaque, bag that glistens with blue metallic coloring.
I straighten up and shoot him my most serious expression. “Lead the way, chief.”
With a quick turn, he lumbers around the diner. The manure smell intensifies, because of course he didn’t think to take us the other way, by the fuel pumps. As I wrinkle my nose I get it, though. Fewer people come around this side, for more than one good reason. He wants to keep it private, and I should, too, gasping and all. Once more I take in shallow, quick breaths and hold them, only to have to take in deeper, longer ones when I run out of oxygen.
I can see our destination now. Words fail me. On the outside, anyway. Because here we go, headed right for… a semi? Nothing fancy or out of the ordinary. Rusted orange, beat up cab on the front end of a dingy white trailer. Well, almost nothing out of the ordinary, except for those two dish antennas atop the trailer’s front end, aiming at the south-eastern sky. Hard to tell from here, but I can almost make out their swivel joints, able to turn and point wherever one needs them.
“Here?” I say.
Index finger to the lips and silent hush. That’s all I get back from burly man.
I stop. “Seriously?”
He grabs me by the arm, and burly man number two pops out of the shadows to welcome me. At this point, I know better than resist. With lips open in an incomplete gasp, I let them drag me around the backside of the trailer. It’s dark here, and I barely see the steps that lead up to a side door. The rest goes by in a blur of blue light, cold air, and the humming of equipment racks.
A female voice greets me with an almost musical, “Mr. Rogers.” She’s coming from around the corner. Stepping out of her office perhaps? “We finally meet.”
“Huh?”
“In here, please.” She signals burly man number one.
Before I get another shove in the back, I step forward. She greets me with a thin hand protruding from a cufflink adorned white sleeve extending from her black suit. Gripping my hand she pulls me toward her and into a square, no more than four by four feet space, seven feet high at most.
I almost ask, but it’s no use. Feral wouldn’t dress in a suit, not even for Halloween. And the less I say, the better. The last few messages back and forth went through a go-between, with no mention of Feral. Whatever I’m into now… Well, I’m hoping Feral doesn’t come up, or else I’ll get to enjoy enemy combatant status.
The door locks behind me with a precise, short snap-click. White fluorescent light bounces off polished aluminum walls, flooring and ceiling. She sits on one chair and gestures for me to take the other.
“Faraday cage,” she says with a circular twirl of the hand.
I nod. I’ve heard about these boxes, designed to keep out—or in—all electronic signals. “But your guy took my phone.”
She winks at me. “Belt and suspenders.”
“OK. I thought I was here for a job.”
“Of course you are.”
I raise my hands. “Hey, man. Look. Maybe I’m not the right guy for it.”
“Why would you say that?”
“A very bad vibe, that’s why.”
“I see. You wouldn’t want to associate with shady, dangerous characters. Of course you wouldn’t.” She reaches into her neat black jacket and pulls out a wallet. With a proud smile, she flips it open. “Name’s Cynthia. I work for the good guys.” Her smile cocks up and to the side.
I go to curse, but somehow keep it in.
She grins. “The good, forgiving guys, that is.”
“Huh?”
“Willing to overlook your indiscretions. Trying to hack a casino’s network to pad your account. Responding to an ad on the bad boys net. God knows what else we’ll find if we keep pulling off your onion skins.”
I stop breathing. My world as I know it is coming to an end. Right here. Or right over there, in the casino’s hotel room where much to my surprise, my hack got busted. Now I know how. The good guys sniffed and snuffed me out.
Her lips crack into a wider smile. I’m sure she intends to come across as reassuring, but doesn’t. “If it helps you any, the job still pays what the ad said.”
I cross my arms. “I’m no longer for hire.”
“Because?”
“You think I’m stupid? This is entrapment, man. You think I’m going to tickle a single key?”
“Mr. Rogers. Think it through. If we wanted to put you away, you’d be away, far away. Or should I say, way under?” She dangles her ID in front of me for a few more seconds before snapping it closed and dropping it back inside her jacket. “The job we have for you is quite legal. Fully sanctioned, quite helpful to us, and hence bound for lots of appreciation and opportunity.”
I release my arms and wave my hands. “I want my lawyer.”
“But I haven’t even read you your rights.” She cocks an eyebrow and twists her lip to the side.
“I’ll be sure to bring that up at my trial.”
She smiles, shakes her head, and leans forward. Her face comes within inches of mine. I can smell her minty breath when she says, “The job is quite simple. We want you to breach one of our systems. A vulnerability assessment.”
“I know my rights.”
With a smile, she leans back in her chair. “Martin said you’d pass.”
“Martin?”
“He said you wouldn’t want to take him on. That you’d feel way over your head.”
“Wait. What Martin?” Though I ask it, something tickling the back of my mind says I already know the answer. And I do.
Her eyes twinkle. “Venture a guess.”
“Martin Spencer.”
“One and only. Former legendary hacker. He put on a white hat, and now heads InfoStream.”
“He wants a face-off?”
She shrugs. “He thinks it’s a waste of time. Well, what he actually said is, you are a waste of time.”
Our surroundings tremble, then lurch forward. I almost ask, but then realize the truck is rolling. Now I want to ask where we’re going, but that would be a waste of time, too.
“Well?” she says.
Well. Nothing’s well about this. They got me. Plus I need the money. Might as well make the most of it, with emphasis on most.
“Sounds like fun.” My stomach, not built for this kind of ride, tells me otherwise. I can rock back and forth all day long on a sail boat or a surf board. But here, without any outside visual cues? I give myself another fifteen minutes before I turn the color that can do photosynthesis.
“Fun?”
“Yeah, fun.”
“Terrific.”
I nod. “Yeah, sure. But my 10K just turned into forty.”
“Certainly.” She gives the whole thing a dismissive wave. “Let’s make it an even fifty.”
Our ride swerves back and forth, goes over a bump, or down a driveway. I can’t tell. My world is rolling and swaying in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. And I’m rolling and swaying with it.
~~~~~~ Read the next chapter…Thank you for reading. To get the full story as a free download, join my mail list…
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