Authority, page 22
part #2 of The Tracker Sequence Series
I whirled around to find images of glassy-eyed people all over the city with confused people shaking them or backing away. Others ran through the streets like they were being chased by zombies. The scenes moved to looting of storefronts and things being set ablaze in the streets. This wasn’t just Harlow, Mr. Overland, or Dad. It went far beyond that.
I rushed across the room to turn up the volume, but I didn’t need the newscaster to tell me it was the beginning of something much more elaborate. Jeremy didn’t need to ask if Scurry was in custody. It didn’t matter where they were holding Scurry, he was executing his plan and people were paying for it. There was no telling who was next.
As I got the volume turned up, the screen went black. At first, I thought I’d shut it off accidentally, but then white letters appeared across the screen one at a time. I backed away as if it had zapped me. My gaze locked on the sentence displayed.
THIS IS BECAUSE OF KAYA WEISS
Twenty-Six
I couldn’t take my eyes off the picture of me that appeared underneath the white text on the black background. My face stared back, mocking me. Asking what was next. What now? With a few words and a single picture, Scurry had turned the world against me.
I screamed. I don’t know how long it lasted. When my mouth grew dry and no more sound came out, I collapsed to the floor in complete defeat. I couldn’t fight this. There was no way out of this mess. I curled into a ball, never wanting to move again.
Bailen lowered next to me and pulled me into his comforting embrace. Ava and Peyton knelt on the other side, and they collapsed into one giant hug around me.
“What’s going on?” Lydia’s voice rang out from across the room.
I sat up and the others scooted back. I stared at Lydia across the room, the pain seeping out of every pore in my body. Her normally cheery disposition turned grim when she saw what was on the screen. She hadn’t seen the newscast, but it was enough to tell her I was in serious trouble. Crossing the room, she enveloped me in a hug, Bailen and the others piled on again. We sat there unmoving until I stopped shaking.
Scurry was vindictive. He’d offered me up to the angry mob that was sure to ensue after folks lost those around them to this hack. No matter what my next move was, someone was bound to recognize me if I wasn’t careful. It was all part of his master plan: put as much between him and me as possible. Slow me down and prevent me from stopping him.
“What do we do now?” It was a loaded question. There was only one thing to do, and that was to take him down once and for all. A small fire burned in my core. Even if I couldn’t win, I had to go down trying.
“We need to figure out how he’s doing this and end it once and for all,” Bailen said.
“Maybe we should take a look at those files that flooded my tracker when Ava shot Scurry.”
“And all your communications with him. It might provide some clues to his bigger plan and how we can stop him.”
I nodded, unable to say anything else. The fear of my reality had set in.
“I won’t let you face him alone.” Bailen squeezed my shoulder.
“I’ll get back on that USB drive. I was starting to make some progress.” Ava pulled the stick out of her pocket and plugged it into her laptop.
“What USB drive?” Bailen eyed me with concern. “I thought we said no more secrets.”
“Sorry, I tried to tell you, but…” I shrugged apologetically. My cheeks flushed as I remembered what happened after he stopped me from sharing the information. After losing myself for a minute, I looked at Peyton, silently asking for permission that I didn’t need, but she nodded anyway. “I think it came from Jake, but after six months, I’m not sure how he arranged to have it delivered. It arrived at my house that Shabbat you came over. It has a ton of files on it, but they’re all encrypted.”
“Let me take a look.” Bailen reached for a chair, but Peyton grabbed his arm before he got to it.
“The last time I saw that drive, Jake was acting strangely. Not himself, like he hadn’t gotten much sleep. It was eating away at him. He was forgetting things. I thought he was just stressed about finding Kaya, and the whole Ghost agenda. But after everything that’s happened, I think he was under Scurry’s control. He was losing time and memories. I think Scurry made Jake do things…”
Bailen pulled Peyton into a hug and stroked her hair. Surprisingly, she let him do it. I watched the true power and comfort of their bond for the first time since I’d met them. Despite all their strained moments, they still knew they were there for each other, something I truly missed with Jake gone.
When Bailen released her, I asked, “Do you think Jake had something on Scurry, or do you think it was something Scurry made him do?”
Peyton shrugged. “I’m honestly not sure, but either could be helpful in theory. I’m willing to dig deeper if it means we nail this bastard to the wall once and for all.”
“Well, let’s find out.” Bailen extended one hand to Peyton and grabbed a chair with the other. He led her to one side of Ava and then moved a third chair on the other side.
I motioned Lydia over. We both stood behind the group as Ava opened the files that had been unencrypted.
It was picture after picture of people with TRACKERU followed by unique numbers underneath them.
“I’ve seen these before,” I said.
Bailen twisted in his chair. “Where?”
“You’re not going to like this, but on the terminal in Scurry’s server room.” When Bailen and Ava returned confused faces, I added, “The one that blew up when the USB was removed.”
“Sounds like he’s covering his tracks,” Peyton said without turning from the screen. “Which means there’s something in these files he didn’t want anyone to see. Jake must have risked everything to get this data out.”
Ava clicked the next file, and Jake stared back at us with TRACKERU-70285 underneath. This image didn’t say terminated like it had when I saw it in the server room. “Scurry really did this,” I muttered under my breath. But there were so many meanings behind those few words.
Scurry murdered my brother and made it look like an accident. All because Jake was investigating and gathering evidence against him, fighting back until the very end. These files were evidence of the poor souls Scurry had tested his pilot program on. This was what he’d been plotting all along. This was his endgame. I wondered how many others had been killed since he’d started this. How many others had fought back? How many others had paid a price no person should ever have to?
My mind spun so quickly, trying to connect all the dots. There were so many paint splotches that, until now, looked like random drips. Now a picture was starting to form. Before I could finish putting it all together, the words tumbled out of my mouth.
“Jake was part of Scurry’s demented test program. He was acting strange because he was losing time. I saw his poems about caves and darkness, the half-written notes to me trying to explain—”
Bailen rose from his chair and grabbed my shoulders. “Kaya, slow down.”
“No, she’s right. Jake was plagued by this. He was fighting back in the best way he knew how, with his words. I just wish I’d known how much he was carrying with him before I lost him.” Peyton buried her head in her hands as though silently accepting that this was all her fault, even though it wasn’t. Ava pulled her into a side hug and kissed the top of her head.
“But I think it goes far deeper than that,” I said.
“You’re right. The timing of the package can’t be a coincidence,” Lydia said. “Why now? Why six months after he died? Why not right away?”
“He knew this would happen,” I blurted without thinking, but the words were true. “When I first opened that USB, the message was, ‘beware the loophole.’ He was warning us what was coming. Then the tracker messages…”
“The ones from the person who helped you in the tunnels?” Bailen looked at me with concern.
“Yes. I didn’t think they were linked to this, but now I see it’s all connected. It felt like Jake reaching out to me while I was on Scurry’s demented scavenger hunt.”
Peyton lifted her head, her eyes red and cheeks puffy. “But that’s impossible. He’s—”
She couldn’t finish the word, but she didn’t have to. I still struggled to say it too. I knew how she felt. She was just as confused as I was. “I still don’t understand it myself, but when Scurry was messaging me, so was a J.W. with Jake’s exact profile, down to each joke inside it. He was helping me every step of the way, almost like he knew what Scurry was up to. Even the responses had his sense of humor. If it wasn’t him, it was someone who knew him well.”
For the first time, I actually let myself hope for half a second that maybe he wasn’t lost. I didn’t know how that could be possible, but maybe Jake was still with us. Maybe that package had been sent to remind himself of what was coming.
“All right. I’m modifying the plan. Ava, when you’re done reverse engineering the authority protocol on your tracker that kept Scurry from using the loophole, get on those files. Lydia and I will dig into Kaya’s past tracker activity.” Bailen grabbed my hand and led me toward the door, but I stopped dead in my tracks.
“There’s one more thing you all should know before we do that.” I bit my lip, afraid of the can of worms I was about to open. At this point, they needed every weapon and clue available to them.
“When you all were under Scurry’s mind-control, I tried to brute force into his tracker to break the control he had on everyone.”
“That’s my girl!” Bailen raised his hand in the air, but I left it hanging there. His expression turned serious, and his arm fell to his side as he realized I wasn’t gloating and there was more to it.
“I’m not sure it was successful. Ava did the hard work and took him down with an authority weapon.”
A brief look of concern crossed Ava’s face like she still wasn’t sure she’d done the right thing. I gave her a reassuring nod. If she hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here now.
“That electric jolt to Scurry triggered something through the connection I’d established with the brute force code. My tracker was flooded with hundreds of files.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Bailen looked like his favorite computer equipment had just gone on sale.
I swallowed hard, then made eye contact. “After the games Scurry played with me, I have no idea what landmine I’m sitting on. I’m not sure if I came by these files by accident or if it’s another one of his elaborate schemes.”
Bailen exhaled deeply, less of a sigh and more of a resignation. “Sounds like we have a lot of work to do, then.”
“Don’t worry about us. I’ve got a jump on these files. When Peyton and I finish, we’ll meet your downstairs to help with the rest of the data.” Ava didn’t look up from the computer screen. It was clear she had everything under control.
“How’s your coding, Lydia?” Bailen asked with a glint of hope in his eyes.
“I’m better with the mechanical side of things, but I learned a few tricks from robotics that might help.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “And you know I don’t shy away from a challenge.” She laughed.
Her laugh was infectious. I couldn’t help myself. The others joined in. For a second, everything felt normal. When it died down, the room grew quiet and the weight of the disaster unfolding hung in the air. I followed Bailen toward the basement with Lydia on my heels. We were about to dump a whole lot of paint on the canvas, and it was going to take a lot of brushwork before the mysterious picture would take form.
Twenty-Seven
It didn’t take long for me to settle into the chair with wires draped around me. Bailen was at his terminal with Lydia next to him. She had her own setup, complete with several giant monitors.
“This is going to be different from how we’ve done this in the past. I’m going to walk you through your tracker interactions over the last few days and monitor everything in real time. Once we learn everything we can, we will end with those files from Scurry. Sound good?”
I nodded, my mouth too dry to speak. I knew what was on the line. The faster we got this over with, the faster we could find Scurry and stop him.
“I’m going to do some diagnostics as you open files, chat messages, and profiles. I’ll be looking at the data on the surface as well as digging into the source code for any hidden data packets or files you wouldn’t have seen initially.”
I nodded again, too overwhelmed to speak.
Bailen rubbed his hands together, then typed in some commands on his keyboard. “Let’s see what we can uncover.”
My temples buzzed as I wiped my sweaty hands on my pants. “This is going to take a while, isn’t it?”
“It could, but I’ll be here every step of the way. We can take breaks as often as you’d like.” Bailen didn’t have his usual excited-to-play-with-tech expression. It was the most serious I’d seen him, aside from our recent chat that put everything out in the open.
His lack of excitement left a pit in my stomach. It felt different from anything we’d done before. There were so many ways it could go wrong. Each one of them meant we could lose everything. I couldn’t help but miss Jake. I could use some of his humor and reassurance to calm my frazzled nerves.
“Let’s start with Scurry’s messages. Can you open that chat thread?”
I closed my eyes and thought about the thread. It opened before my eyes. “Now what?”
“Just hold there for a minute. I’m going to scan each message for a location, see if he was on the move and search for hints that he might have masked his location when you were interacting. I’m not convinced he’s been in prison this whole time.” He turned to Lydia. “Can you capture the data and look for anomalies, changes in IPs, locations, or generally anything that doesn’t seem to add up?”
Lydia nodded. Her fingers tapped on the keys as the data passed from my tracking chip to their terminals. The discs on my temples hummed louder. They didn’t have the computing power to do a full download of all the data on my tracker, but they could study it for some answers. And the files they couldn’t access or get information on, I’d draw like I had in the past. Whatever it took to find all the clues and put this puzzle together.
I closed my eyes and tried to let the soft buzzing lull me into a sense of calm, but my heart raced too fast for me to relax. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to fully calm down or feel safe again, especially with the world falling apart outside. How long did we have before an angry mob crashed through the front windows of the Coderie?
“Now open the J.W. messages.”
I took a deep breath and allowed myself a brief moment to hope these messages might lead us back to Jake in some way. Then I blinked. The chat messages appeared before me. I read through the messages, reminding myself again how Jake-like they sounded. When I got to the final note, I noticed three dots at the bottom of the message like someone was actively having a conversation.
“Wait,” I said loudly enough to get everyone’s attention but staying as still as possible to not disturb any of my connections. “I think J.W. is reaching out.”
“Now?” Bailen asked.
“Yeah.”
“Change of plans. Lydia, keep an eye on this data that’s compiling. Make sure nothing interrupts the connection.” Bailen bolted across the room. He grabbed two small computer boxes and some wires, then circled back to his terminal and started plugging in the devices. “What’s happening?” he asked as he untangled several cables.
“Nothing yet. Just looks like there’s an incoming message.” The three dots were still there, but nothing had appeared yet. I silently told J.W. to wait another minute so Bailen could set up whatever he needed.
Bailen’s fingers flew over the keyboard with renewed purpose. My heart raced as the seconds ticked on. Bailen’s plan could crumble at any moment. Every lead we lost meant Scurry’s chances of getting away with mind-controlling the world would multiply.
“What’s going on?” Peyton called from across the room.
I peeled open my eyes and found her and Ava headed toward Bailen and Lydia.
“Perfect timing. I could use the extra hands.” Bailen shoved some computer equipment at Ava and Peyton.
“No!” I shouted as the dots disappeared.
“Someone want to fill us in?” Peyton’s sass had returned, almost as if she was someone else, not the vulnerable shell we’d left upstairs. She’d managed to rebuild her walls in such a short time.
“We were looking at the J.W. data,” Bailen said without taking his eyes off the screen.
“And?” Peyton crossed her arms over her chest. Ava rubbed Peyton’s back, but her shoulders didn’t relax. Clearly the USB drive had taken its toll. Maybe her walls still had some cracks in them.
“While Bailen was pulling down data, J.W. was about to reach out. Until the dots went away.”
“Say no more.” Ava stepped up to a third terminal. “The authorities used to have a tracking protocol for incoming messages. Let me try something.” The rhythmic clicking of the keys lulled me into a false sense of security.
“You can pull down an unsent message?” I asked, amazed at the lengths the authorities had gone to monitor trackers and control society.
“Not exactly, but we could often trace them.” When Ava finished typing, she stepped back from the keyboard. “There.” She pointed to something on her screen.
“Care to clue me in here…?” But my voice trailed off because I’d received a message from J.W. I blinked and let it fill my field of vision.
J.W.: Looking for someone?
“Guys… He’s responding.”
“What’s he saying?” Peyton asked with both curiosity and a small hint of something that could only be interpreted as hope.
Everyone was starting to believe in J.W. It was infectious. I didn’t know if I should get their hopes up or not, but at this point I had to be honest. “He asked if we were looking for him. Well, he said it in a more Jake-like way. Should I respond?”
