Maxwell Huxley's Demon (12 page)

“
OK
—Walker , get connected and release the latest code, then I need you to seed some electrons for me.”

“Where?
”
Walker asks .

“
Canadian Airways , flight bookings . . .
While you do that I’ll work on bank machine s . W
e need cash.
”

“
OK
. . .
I can do the flight thing, but do you know how hard it’s going to be to get into the bank machines ?
How are we going to do this?
”

“Like usual, ” Max says.
“W
e’ll walk right in the front door and seed an electron and proton pair directly in to a bank machine.
I’ll just ignore the whole supporting network for now and make the bill transport engage when we need it .
It will only be hard to get our platform injected into the bank machines the first time. Once we infect a machine, getting into the rest of the network will be easy .
And once I’m in a machine, m aking the bill transport activate is just like flipping a light switch.
”

---

Pirelli w aits in a diner for Hastings.
Of course Hastings has to make him wait just long enough to be irritating .
Hastings finally ent ers the diner wearing that stupid Fedora of his.
He walks over and drops down heavily into the booth across from Pirelli, spilling Pirelli’s beer.
“
Nice, Hastings .
” Pirelli signals the waitress .
She comes over with a cloth.

“Hello Pirelli . . . so you lost four kids, nine-year-old s I hear.” Hastings order s beer .
“You eating? Or eaten?” Without waiting for an answer , Hastings orders a club sandwich.

“They’re not lost; they’re still trapped in the wilderness.
It’ll only be hours before they wander into a hospital in one of three towns. Prince Rupert, Terrace, or Prince George.”

“Nine-year-olds . . . how did they avoid capture . . . advanced scootering ?” Hasting raises his glass for a toast. “Here’s to working in a rain forest again . . .
eight degrees, grey , and wet.”

“To being grown men who babysit, ”
Pirelli answers.

Hastings ’
phone chimes . He reads a text. “
Bad timing, we’ll have to have the beer another time.
” He hands the phone to Pirelli.
Pirelli reads that the kids are booked as unaccompanied children on a flight leaving Prince Rupert in three hours.

Moments later two black CTS
’s are hurtling toward Prince Rupert.

---

After about an hour Virginia and Naomi return with a cane for Ma x. “I hope this will work. I t’s all we could find to steal form the hospital.
” With help from the girls , Max gets out of the v an. Leaning heavily on the cane and using all his effort , Max move s forward slowly.

“I’ll be fine with this, thanks,” says Max.
I’ll pass out if we walk too far.

Horace arrives back with the p izza. “Dinner time.”

Over pizza Horace agrees to take them across to the island airport via ferry.

“
Horace , uhm, I have a question for you?” Max says.

Horace raises an eyebrow.
“Yes.
”

“Why are you being so nice to us?”

“Odd question,” says Horace . “Why am I being nice? I think . . . it’s because I am nice . . . and you look like you need a leg up right now.”

“
One more thing.”
Max shifts nervously, not sure what to believe.
“C
an we borrow your ban k card?” Max puts on his best trust-me look.

“Uhm . . . I’m thinking no—why do you need it, beyond the obvious reason of stealing my money.”

“We don’t need you r money; we just nee d a card to put in the machine.
After that we can get some cash, but not from your account.”

“From whose account then ?”

“No one ’
s, ” Max answers.

Horace takes out his card. “I’m not liking the sound of this. I don’t mind living in a van down by the river, but I don’t want to go to jail.”

“No jail. Your card is perfect. Chip and contactless. We program it. Then all you have to do is use it like normal.”

---

Back from the bank machine, Walker hands a wad of cash over to Max .

“Shall we get going to the airport then ?”
Horace asks .

“Let’s go.”
Max says .

In the back of the van Naomi closely inspects the bills. “For some reason I thought money was smaller and thinner. T
his is crisp and colourful. You ever held a bill before . . .” The four of the m pass around twenty dollar bills like they are alien technology.

---

Trap Max and you pass, lose Max and be Processed.
I have to admit this is motivating.
Keith examines the executables that MGA passed to him.
Nothing stellar here. Just hacking code to break into the school ’
s security system s . I thought Walker was better than this.

OK
, good for them for getting out.
T
hey’
ve lasted longer than I ever did , but their code is nothing special. There is nothing I can do with this.
O
ut for this long they should be down off the mountain by now . If I were them I’d split up and e ach take a different route to . . .
Vancou ver and then regroup. But they’
re not me.
Where will they go?

Find them ? This is my exam.
These are the facts I have. Max is weak. Virginia p rotects him. Naomi is an empath.
Ooooh whipty -do. S
he can sense if I’m annoyed or not. Walker – Walker isn’t good at anything as far as I can tell.

Keith leans back from his interactive desktop closing the apps he was running . The backlight from the desktop provides enough light for him to see in the empty classroom. He discovered that the scanners started opening for him in the evenings. Meaning he has access to the classrooms and labs after hours.

Clearly the world is full of followers and leaders. Why do people follow Max? They chose him over me, so I am my own team. Efficient. Focussed. Driven.
Go back to my training.
Step one when tracking an enemy, target their resources. They will need food, rest , money, transportation, information.
Information. Everyone wants information. I know what Max will come looking for. I have that information already. How can I use that against MGA and Max?

Keith opens a mindmap drawing program and brainstorms what he knows so far.
Team, intelligence, strength, endurance, and . . . and unknown. What is Naomi? The wildcard.
I’ve heard MGA value s empaths more than all others here; I guess I should know why.

Transpor tation. This one is easy. They’
re not a strong team. They’ll book a flight; it’s the soft route to Vancouver.

Rest and food boil down to needing money.
They need it and have access to none. I kno w how soon they’ll need it.
I was out there before. You can’t do anything o utside these walls without it . Max will get money .

Stick to the basics. Follow the money.

Chapter 12
–Ferries

Max and
Walker keep c oding together in the back seat of the v an as they approach the ferry terminal.

Walker leans against Max.
“Hey Max, you know how they say the b ank network is disconnected from the Internet ?
Well, when I fed that hack of ours into the ban k machine , I thought it would be an isolated strain of co de.
But look , I can see its foo tprint n eutrons spread through the rest of the Internet already. So somewhere the bank machines connect to the Internet .
I just finished maki ng the bank machines reset their counts to adjust for what we take out. W
hat are you doing?”

“Breaking into as many cell phone carriers as I can.
Soon we’ll be able to use our SI M
card with a shifting SIM ID
.
The best part is I made a reflector and I’m unleashing it on the carriers .”
Max answers.

“Nice . . .
every call will bounce through different phone numbers .
”

“
Not just every call . . . e very packet.”
Max explains .
“I’m using The G
rind against them . The tactic used by every multi-player online game ever made. Hide it well but make the players grind until they give you money just to avoid a bit of the grind. After they pay you , grind them down again.
Tracking us will be so tedious it will wear the analysts down. They’ll be so bored, they’ll make mistakes , and they won’t try hard for long.
”

The van jerks to a stop, sputters, and let s out a large puff of black smoke .
Horace faces the kids, “We’re here.”

They all pile out of the v an and Naomi hug s Horace . “Thank you so much, really . . .
thank you.”

The y walk away from Horace . Naomi in front, Max hobbling with his can e , Walker and Virginia behind.
Horace smacks his chest with a fist, “
Qapla ',” he says to them.

Outside the walk-on passengers’
entry , Max’s thoughts wander; he makes a mental note to talk to Walker about the period ic table. Halfway paying attention to his thoughts, Max watches some kids in front of him.
They are a bit bigger than us .
Looking at the two boys he realizes he need s to get new clothes.
He and his group are filthy . The two girls in the group of kids make Virginia and Naomi look even worse . F
ind time to buy clothes.

Four kids . . .
Max signals to Virginia. “
Go ask those kids in front of us for a favour?
Tell them we’
re making a movie , and we need to see them wave from the Port H
ardy ferry as it leaves—offer them this.” Max hands Virginia $100.
“Wait, here’s $
4
00 more. A sk them if we could trade some clothes with them, something that makes them look a bit like us.”

Max watches Virginia talk to the kids . S
he gets a lot of condesc ending looks until the cash comes out, then it’s all smiles and thank—
you ’
s .
The two groups exchange jackets .

The ramp splits , one way leads to the Digby Island ferr y, the other to the Port Hardy Ferry , which leaves just minutes before the Digby Island ferry.
The two groups of kids take separate fork s .

---

Still in wireless range , Max updates the banking hack so no card is required.
Now they just need to enter a code.
The code will do a few things: produce $1000 cash, erase the snippet of video log when they use d the machine, and adjust the cash levels so the money balances out. Somewhere up the line , $1000 will be missing but someone or some thing else will take the blame.
He updates and releases the code via his tablet .

Max leans against Virg inia, reads three words of his current book , and falls asleep.

From the Digby Island ferry, Walker watches t wo black CTS
’s race to make the ferry.
H
e nudges Naomi.
“W
ho do you think that is?”

---

Pirelli and Hastings get on board late , after forcing the ferry workers to delay departure for a minute.
They both leap from their cars , leaving them park ed haphazardly. Ignoring the protests of other passengers, Pirelli and Hastings sprint to the stairs.
“Protocol says we start at the lower decks,” pants Pirelli.

“If I was nine,” Hastings replies. “
I’d run straight to the top . . . and hid e in a bin or something . . . they’
re just kids.”

In order to get to the upper decks , Hastings and Pirelli must use the outdoor stairs .
A second ferry blasts it s horn , causing Pirelli to look across the water .
Two ferries departing at the same time, busy night.
In the gathering dusk, Pirelli sees people on deck of the oth er ferry.

Sprinting to catch up with Hastings, some movement on the other ferry catches his eye. Some kids waving. Four kids. Two boys. Two girls. Pirelli stops running.
“Hastings!” he says . “Look.”

Hastings looks where he is pointing and flushes with anger. “Seriously . . .
”

“They are just kids , right ?
”
s ays Pirelli .

Hastings kicks over a garbage can , spilling its contents on the deck.
“Stop laughing and get this boat back to the dock . . . now!”
Hastings gets on his cell and barks orders about a helicopter.