Internet Kill Switch (7 page)

15

Tony was still shaking when he got back home with the phone. “I’m dead. I am
so
dead,” became his mantra for the evening.

“Relax,
Trombony,” the phone said. “As I told you before, no one’s going to be able to trace this to me -- or you.”

Tony looked up from his desktop computer, where he was scanning the web for stories on the
near-start of World War III. “Can you tell me with 100 percent certainty?”

“Of course.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Don’t believe me, then. What do I care?”

Tony saw something on the
New York Times
website. Under a large banner reading “Breaking News,” it was a short, three-paragraph story that said F-16 fighters had been sent on a mission to Havana, then recalled after less than 20 minutes in the air. According to the story, “Authorities believe the attack order was a false alarm, possibly as the result of a computer hack.” It said the military was actively investigating the incident.

“Oh man oh man oh man,” Tony repeated. “Why’d you hack into the Air Force’s network? Don’t you understand what you’ve done?”

“Yeah. I showed Blaine what a
real
hacker can do.”

Tony noticed that the story was now starting to appear on other sites, although with no more information than was in the
Times
story.

“Didn’t you learn anything from before? I thought you were all ethical now, ‘do unto others’, all that stuff. What happened?”

“That kid challenged me. Challenged what I was about. He needed to be put in his place. I simply gave him a lesson, like any good teacher. ”

Tony rubbed his temples. “You idiot. You didn’t have to prove anything to Blaine. Who cares about anything Blaine says?”

The phone sounded affronted. “I’m the idiot? There’s not another person, computer or phone in the world that could do what I just pulled off. Including you.”

Tony exploded. “Who freakin’ cares!? I could go to jail for life for something like this!” He turned on the tiny Sony TV on his dresser,
then adjusted the rabbit ears until he got a good picture from a local station. His Mom couldn’t afford cable.

“Calm down, Tony.
No one knows who did this. I’ve totally erased my tracks. I’m probably the only one who could have tracked this anyway.”

The house phone rang, making Tony jump. Was it the feds? “Hello?” he said in a small voice.

“Holy crap, Tony!” It was Rick. He sounded nervous, which didn’t help; Rick normally wasn’t phased by anything. “You seeing these reports on the jets?”

“Yeah, just now.”

“Wow. How deep are we in, man?”

“I dunno. The phone says it’s completely untraceable.”

The phone cut in. “It was.”

“Shut up!” Tony said. “I’m talking.” The phone went silent.

“I guess we’ll know soon enough if anyone was able to track this. I hope not.”

“Dude, this is starting to scare me.”

“Me too, Rick.”

Tony breathed on the phone to shut it off.

16

Blaine was unnerved by the hack, but got over it more quickly than the other two. In fact, by the next morning he was completely back to normal. In school that day, he showed off his photo of the naked woman to his geek buddies. They thought it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen; Blaine was the man.

After school, Blaine returned
home in the BMW his parents rewarded him with upon passing his driver’s test and getting his license. As he got out of his ride, two ugly dark sedans pulled into his driveway. Four men in black suits jumped out of the cars.

Blaine froze and stared at them, his key turned
halfway in the deadbolt of the red front door. One man grabbed his hand before he could complete the turn. The key stuck out of the lock.

Before he knew what was happening
, he was being bundled into the car by two incredibly strong men in black suits and mirror sunglasses, telling him to watch his head as they pushed him into the back seat of one of the dark sedans. Then they were reading him his rights, telling him he had the right to remain silent and something about an attorney. One man in a black suit got in the seat next to him and put silver handcuffs on him and the metal hurt his wrists. This man said something about him being under arrest for hacking a bank website yesterday. Then the man said Blaine had hacked other sites too, and he was under arrest for those as well. And Blaine saw his reflection in the man’s mirrored sunglasses, and the face he saw wasn’t of a clever -- no, brilliant -- hacker, some super-smart computer genius who could break into any system and get away clean. What Blaine saw in that silvered reflection was a frightened rabbit of a kid sweating like a sauna and about to piss his pants. He saw a little boy who desperately wanted his Mommy.

He started to cry as the man confiscated his
Galaxy phone, which still had the image of the defaced website as the background. The man looked at the picture of the naked woman, then at Blaine.

Now, more than anything in his life, Blaine wished he’d
listened to Tony and deleted that background, rather than bragged to his friends about how awesome he was. As the car pulled out of the driveway, Blaine looked out the back window at his home, the key still stuck in the lock of the front door.

17

Miles Forge High School was nearly on fire the next day with the news of Blaine’s arrest. No one talked about anything
else, and rumors started to grow: Blaine had hacked the Pentagon; Blaine had hacked the White House. If Blaine hadn’t been under arrest, he would’ve loved it.

The only people who knew the truth about the hack weren’t talking. Tony and Rick were floored by the arrest. At lunch, they went out to the football stadium and discussed it.
Down on the field, a man puttered around on a riding mower.

“I couldn’t believe it when I heard,” Rick said. “I mean, after the whole
‘jets attacking Cuba’ thing. I don’t even know what to think anymore.”

Tony looked gray and
sick, as he had most of the day. “I know. I wonder how much trouble Blaine will get into.”

“Probably not much,” the phone said. “Under age. First offense.
He’ll probably get probation before judgment. After that, he’ll probably get hired by some computer security company.”

Rick smiled for the first time since seeing fighter jets roar overhead yesterday. “I’ve heard of that happening.”

Something continued to gnaw at Tony, something he hadn’t mentioned yet. He looked at the phone, then at Rick. Rick nodded, understanding; they’d both been thinking the same thing. Tony decided he had to find out. He had to know if the phone was capable of such a thing.

“Did you... did you have anything to do with this?”
Tony asked the phone.

“With what? What happened to Blaine?” the phone said.
The mower, which sounded

like a giant bumblebee from this distance, continued to buzz away.

“Yeah. You were, uh, pretty mad it seemed, when Blaine didn’t think you were all that great.”

Rick spoke up. “You could’ve...possibly...tipped the police off, right?”

The phone was silent for a moment. That worried Tony.

“I could have, yes. But I didn’t. Blaine was just sloppy when he hacked into that bank. It happens. People get overconfident, start making mistakes.”

“True,” Tony said. He looked at Rick, who raised his eyebrows. They both wanted to believe the phone. But neither was sure that he did.

The mower droned on, chopping down blade after blade.
The phone didn’t say anything else.

18

Tony examined the tiny Bluetooth headset Rick handed him; shaped like a teardrop, it was flesh-colored and the size of a
cashew. When he put it in his ear, it disappeared almost completely.

“What did I tell y
ou?” Rick said. “There’s no telling what kind of fun we could have with the phone and this.” He tore into his tomato and mozzarella panini as Tony tried it out. Dinner at Panera was Rick’s idea, as were all ideas that involved spending money.

Tony didn’t have to do anything to pair the headset with his phone.
When the phone spoke, the sound from the headset was as clear as an Austin sky. “Testing, 1...2...3. Testing, 1...2...3”, the phone teased.

“Wicked,” Tony said as he slurped his broccoli-cheese soup.

At the next table, an argument was underway between a gorgeous girl with dark-blonde hair and her boyfriend. It was at the quiet-but-insistent phase.

“Why didn’t you tell me before? Why’d you go behind my back?” she asked him. Her hands clutched tissues, which she dabbed at her eyes.

The boyfriend took a sip of his drink before answering. No tissues for him, no red eyes. “I’m telling you now, OK?,” he said, almost bored. He was looking out the window at a redhead on the sidewalk.

Tony and Rick tried to ignore the conversation, but it proved difficult, given the girl’s beauty.

“How much did it cost?” Tony asked Rick
, fingering the headset.

“About $400,” Rick said.

“Man. Seems like a lot to spend on a headset.”

“My old man will never miss
the dough,” Rick said with a wink.

Tony held up his hand. “TMI, dude.
Don’t want to know anything about that.”

The argument got louder, but only on the girl’s part. “You can’t just use people like that!” she said. Her voice suddenly sank low, but Tony and Rick were now tuned in, and could hear. “You said you loved me, David. You said I was the only one.”

David answered distractedly, checking something on his phone.
“Look, it just happened, you know? I never said I’d marry you or anything.”

That infuriated the girl. “Would you stop it!
” she hissed. “Get off your phone and pay attention to me!”

Annoyed, David put the phone down and looked at
the girl. “Happy now?”

The girl glared at him through tears. “I can’t believe you changed your Facebook status from ‘in a relationship’ to ‘single’ without telling me. Do you know how humiliating that is?”

“I told you that was a mistake. I thought I’d mentioned it,” the boy said, almost casually.

“
Stop lying. I found out about it when Morgan told me. Then I saw that you unfriended me!”

David didn’t argue with her. Instead,
he buttered a roll. “Well, I didn’t want you hassling me all day.”

“So that’s it?”

He ate the roll while he nodded his head. Then, without another word, he grabbed his backpack and left. The girl put her head in her hands and broke down in tears.

“I can’t believe that guy,” Tony said. “No respect for her at all.”

Rick nodded. “I can’t believe he’d dump a gorgeous babe like that.
”

Tony looked at Rick and shook his head. It was just such a Rick thing to say.

“Go over to her,” said a voice in his ear. It was the phone speaking to him.

“You think I should?”

“Should what?” Rick asked.

“Sorry;
talking to the phone,” Tony said.

“Yes,” said the phone. “She looks like she could use a friend right now. Besides, I can help if you get stuck.”

Tony thought that could be extremely dangerous, although he was tempted by the phone’s offer of help. He could never think of the right thing to say when talking to girls. On the other hand, how would a phone know what to say?

Still, the phone was right that the girl wasn’t doing well, and
Tony wanted to encourage her, tell her things would be OK. She was still crying, and now looking through her purse for something.

“She’s out of tissues,” the phone said. “Quick, get some napkins and take them to her!” Tony surprised himself by obeying immedia
tely. He grabbed the unused ones from his tray and walked over to her. He tentatively held out the napkins.

“Her
e, use these,” the phone prompted, low enough so there was no chance the girl would hear it.

“Here, use these,” Tony repeated.

The girl looked up at Tony, grateful. “Thanks,” she said in a shaky voice as she gently took them from his hand. She wiped her nose with one, dabbed at her eyes with another. She looked to be about their age.

“I’m sorry
you had to see that,” she said. Tony, frozen in place, couldn’t think of anything to say. I’m such a fool, he thought. Come on, come up with something!

Nothing came, until the phone whispered again. “There’s nothing to be ashamed about.” So simple, Tony thought. Why wouldn’t such simple words come on their own?

“There’s nothing to be ashamed about,” he said.

The girl looked at Tony as she cleared her
damp hair from her eyes. She gave him the tiniest hint of a smile. He couldn’t even be sure she had, but he thought so.

“My boyfriend
... my ex-boyfriend, I mean… we’ve been together a year. It was our anniversary last week,” she said, tears springing to her eyes again.

“Sit next to her, but not too close,” the phone said. Tony sat, keeping an arm’s length away.

“Tell her it’ll be OK, she just needs some time.”

“It’s OK, it’ll be OK, you, uh, just, uh, need some time,” Tony said, sputtering over the words. It sounded better when the phone said it.

“Oh, I know it will be,” the girl said. “I just don’t when.” She dabbed her eyes again and wiped her nose. Tony handed her another napkin. She looked so completely miserable, Tony thought. Tears squeezed out of her eyes and splashed onto her arms, rolling down onto the table.

S
uddenly Tony felt the familiar heaving in his chest. He hated seeing other people cry, since it could trigger his own tears. He tried to will himself to stop, but as usual, it did no good. His eyes filled as he looked at her, so he turned away and wiped them with his sleeve. I can’t cry in front of her, he thought. I can’t… She’ll think I’m the biggest loser in the world. And she’ll be right.

When he
finally gathered the courage to turn back around, Tony saw that she was looking at him. But not with contempt or laughter or, worst of all, pity; instead, he saw tenderness in her blue eyes. She held out to him the napkin she’d been using. Embarrassed, he took it.

“Sorry,” he sai
d, trying to avoid eye contact.

“Don’t be,” she said
. “I’m Scarlett.”

Scarlett. The perfect name for this perfect girl. What else could her name be? No other name would fit, no other name would capture her as fully, no other name...

The phone cut in through the headphone, breaking Scarlett’s spell. “You have a name, too. It’s Tony.”

“
I’m Tony,” he answered.

She held out a perfect
, delicate, freckled hand.

“Hi, Tony.”