The Silence of Six (7 page)

A message from 0MN1 flashed on the screen:
Who are u?

I’m 503-ERROR
, Max typed.

Kill_Screen:
the real deal???

503-ERROR:
Of course I would say I was, even if I wasn’t.

0MN1:
Where have you been?

503-ERROR:
I needed to take a break for a while.

He didn’t mention that he’d never intended to come back.

Kill_Screen:
why are you back now?

503-ERROR:
I’m trying to figure out what STOP was up to.

0MN1:
I thought u 2 used to be buddies?

503-ERROR:
We were. But we haven’t been in contact for a while.

print*is*dead:
That could have been anyone behind the mask.

Kill_Screen:
Shut it.

0MN1:
When wass the last time u talkd, 503?

Crap
. Max could lie now, but if he decided to trust them he wouldn’t be able to ask for their help deciphering the text message later. They would refuse, and they might lock him out. Or worse, they could turn against him and make him another one of their targets.

If Evan had trusted them, maybe Max could too. And if they weren’t trustworthy, there wasn’t much they could do without Max’s cooperation.

But something made him hold back from telling them everything just yet.

503-ERROR:
Few months ago.

Had it really been that long? He’d been so busy with soccer practice over the summer. Then school had started, and they’d been in separate classes. And Max had started dating Courtney.

Max waited for a response. The others were probably discussing all this in another private chat room and posting the news for others.

0MN1:
Suspishius that your hear, now, after all this time. If u want us to believe, tell us something about STOP. Something real!

Max was asking a lot by coming here. If he wanted their help, he had to give them a reason to trust him, and show that he trusted them. He didn’t want to tip his hand about seeing Evan’s suicide just yet, though, because that would give them too much information about his own identity.

What if he told them something that they didn’t know the Feds already knew? It was just a matter of time before the FBI had to share more information about the case, including STOP’s identity. If it came from Max first, it might buy him some credibility.

503-ERROR:
STOP and I sometimes talked IRL. His name was Evan Baxter.

It couldn’t hurt Evan anymore to admit their connection in real life, but it still felt like a betrayal.

Another long pause—so long that Max had to check to make sure he was still connected to the internet and the program hadn’t frozen.

Finally, nine chat responses appeared on-screen simultaneously in one block of text, as if sent by one user—which shouldn’t even be possible.

0MN1:
Hi, I’m Dramatis Personai

Kill_Screen:
Hi, I’m Dramatis Personai

Edifice:
Hi, I’m Dramatis Personai

print*is*dead:
Hi, I’m Dramatis Personai

DoubleThink:
Hi, I’m Dramatis Personai

GroundSloth:
Hi, I’m Dramatis Personai

Plan(et)9:
Hi, I’m Dramatis Personai

PHYREWALL:
Hi, I’m Dramatis Personai

ZeroKal:
Hi, I’m Dramatis Personai

No way.

7

Max stared at the green
text that filled hisblack screen:

Hi, I’m Dramatis Personai

503-ERROR:
Oh shit.

Evan really had been in Dramatis Personai.

print*is*dead:
LOL

503-ERROR:
I can’t believe I’m talking to Dramatis Personai. You guys are legendary!

Edifice:
Now that you know our handles, we’ll have to kill you.

DoubleThink:
Seriously, this is a mistake. We shouldn’t trust him. Why would he give up STOP’s name like that?

PHYREWALL:
Assuming it’s legit.

Kill_Screen:
Why should we trust *you*, DT?

DoubleThink:
I was here before you, KS.

print*is*dead:
I remember 503 / He’s a good guy

503-ERROR:
Thanks, print*is*dead.

Max’s surroundings dropped away as his focus narrowed to the rhythm of fingers on keys and the glowing fifteen-inch window into a digital world that often felt more immediate than his “real” life.

In high school, everything you said and did had consequences, and everyone had their own expectations and agendas. He spent most of his time there worrying about what others thought of him. People were sometimes turned off by interactions with strangers or shocked at how blatantly people acted in chat rooms, but their conversations were just unfiltered. Despite their layers of anonymity, hackers were refreshingly transparent. Usually, at least.

DoubleThink:
Where’s 503-ERROR been all this time? Like 0MN1 said: Why come back now, when the Feds are looking for info on STOP?

Edifice:
He may not even be 503 anymore.

That comment struck a little close to home. Max hadn’t thought of himself as 503-ERROR in a long time, but it was coming back to him, with startling ease.

Kill_Screen:
Where you been, dawg?

503-ERROR:
I had to lay low for a while. Had things to sort out. You know.

0MN1:
Chill, guys. He knew STOP irl.

Max had interacted with a few members of this group before, so they knew how far back he and Evan went. He wondered if they secretly had been in Dramatis Personai even then, or if they’d also been recruited with Evan in the last year.

To think: If Max had stayed in this world a little longer, they might have invited him into the group too. Could he have passed up that opportunity? Joining Dramatis Personai meant you had leveled up as a hacker. You could have a bigger influence on the world and do something that mattered. But being part of it also came with greater personal risk, as Evan had probably learned.

503-ERROR:
We talked sometimes on the phone. Never met in person.

This was an old lie. He and Evan had always been careful to act like they only knew each other through faceless communications, and rarely revealed any truthful information about their lives. If someone pieced together enough small, seemingly harmless personal details about you, they could figure out who you were. It was doubly dangerous for Max and Evan to be friends, because identifying one of them would inevitably lead to the other.

That was what had happened with the FBI in less than twelve hours: from the time Evan entered their radar at the debate to the agents who tracked him down the next morning at Bean Up.

Kill_Screen:
then we have one up on you. we all met STOP once IRL

They had met Evan?

503-ERROR:
When was that?

0MN1:
@ Hackers Gonna Hack – you shoulda been there!

Max and Evan had planned to go to the annual gathering of hackers, but the conference had been scheduled for the last week in August, when soccer season started, so Max had begged off. He had assumed Evan would skip it rather than go without him.

PHYREWALL:
We knew STOP, but even we didn’t know his name.

Kill_Screen:
that doesn’t prove they were friends or that we can trust 503. if anything, the opposite.

503-ERROR:
I’m just trying to do the same thing you are—figure out what happened to STOP. Knowing his name helps, right?

0MN1:
STOP’s video was intense, huh?

503-ERROR:
Definitely.

0MN1:
Thanx for the tip. I’m doxxing Evan Baxter now. Can u give us more 2 go on?

0MN1’s attempts to research Evan’s identity wouldn’t turn up anything that Max didn’t already know. Evan had been obsessively cautious with his identity, up until the end. Giving up his secrecy in such a reckless, public way was almost as shocking as giving up his life. It could have been a sign of mental instability. That might be enough for the media to feel satisfied by his motives, but Max believed there was more to it.

503-ERROR:
I wish I did. Had he been planning that for a while?

print*is*dead:
STOP talked about this debate for weeks / he told everyone to watch and spread the word / he signed out a few minutes before he hacked the video feed / didn’t know it was for the last time :(

Kill_Screen:
the video’s on youtube! most of it. someone commented that he shot himself. that part was cut out.

PHYREWALL:
I saw that. It was posted by “AHS_Student.” He said STOP used a gun.

503-ERROR:
God.

Plan(et)9:
The video and those comments were DELETED. But there are SCREENCAPS.

The chat program
dinged
as a link came through to Max’s computer. It only identified the sender as “Dramatis Personai.” Wasn’t he already talking to them?

Max clicked on the link and returned to the chat while his browser loaded the page. Everything was a little slower through Tor.

Edifice:
Coverup! It’s surprising there aren’t more posts from kids at the school. Like, how do you get teenagers to ~not~ post notes on Panjea when something happens?

Plan(et)9:
I saw a picture with a FRAME that wasn’t in the released vid. STOP’s mask’s half off.

Plan(et)9 posted a bitmap image of the projector screen on the stage at Granville High. The picture was blurry, showing Evan reaching off-screen for the gun. It gave Max a chill to see it again. It had to have come from one of the kids at his school, probably around the fifth or sixth row on the left side of the auditorium. Max saved the image to his desktop.

503-ERROR:
What do you make of this “Silence of 6” thing? Any guesses what STOP meant by that?

print*is*dead:
I bet it has to do with the others who went offline. . . 

ZeroKal:
muy suspicious

GroundSloth:
This again? STFU. 3 missing + STOP isn’t 6, idjit. And quit the Spanglish ZeroK. We get that you’re Latino, or want us to think you are.

503-ERROR:
Hold on, 3 people are missing? Recently?

print*is*dead:
3 of us

Max felt a rush. Three members of Dramatis Personai disappearing went beyond suspicious. This could be a clue to what Evan had been talking about.

GroundSloth:
Unverified.

ZeroKal:
Already been over that, *amigo*. Read the threads. It don’t make no sense.

GroundSloth:
People have just been leaving lately. It happens. Right, 503-ERROR?

0MN1:
503, did STOP send you anything before his broadcast?

Max froze. How could 0MN1 know about the text message?

If anyone could help Max crack Evan’s code, it was these guys. But Max wasn’t ready to share it with people he didn’t trust, especially not when any one of them could be logging the chat or have someone looking over his shoulder.

Max turned around, suddenly nervous about being watched. Two elderly women were now sitting on the far end of the lobby holding paper cups of coffee from the complimentary station in the corner. They didn’t look like secret agents spying on him, but one of them did give him the once-over as she took a sip from her cup.

Max’s earbuds dinged again. A small window popped up on his screen. Max clicked on it and found himself in another private chat room named “doubleplusungood.” DoubleThink was the only user inside. Curious, Max logged in.

DoubleThink >> 503-ERROR:
Do *not* share what Evan sent you with DP. Especially not with 0MN1.

It took Max a moment to realize DoubleThink had said “Evan” instead of STOP. He leaned closer to the screen.

503-ERROR >> DoubleThink:
He didn’t send me anything.

DoubleThink >> 503-ERROR:
;) He didn’t send me anything either. Better write back to 0MN1 before he thinks something’s up.

503-ERROR >> DoubleThink:
What’s the deal with 0MN1? Can we trust him?

DoubleThink >> 503-ERROR:
Evan didn’t trust him, so I don’t either. Not sure why.

Max switched back over to the group chat.

0MN1:
Hello? You disappearring on us again, 503?

503-ERROR:
Sorry, spotty signal here. I didn’t get anything from STOP. Like I said, we hadn’t been in contact much since I went dark.

0MN1:
OK. Did *anyone* get anything, or did STOP say anything unusual?

Boy, this guy was pushy.

503-ERROR:
What do you think he had, 0MN1?

0MN1:
STOP said he was working on something BIG. . . 

Something worth dying for?

0MN1:
. . . He wanted my help. Said he was gonna send me some ‘insurance’ in case anything happened to him, but I was offline most of yesterday. I thought maybe he got it out to someone else he trusted.

503-ERROR:
I don’t know anything else. I didn’t even know STOP was part of DP :-/

DoubleThink:
You must not have been that close to him after all. This was his life. We’re his family.

That stung, mostly because Max couldn’t deny it. Evan wouldn’t have kept this part of his life from Max if he had shown any interest. It was Evan’s way to respect Max’s decision to cut off ties with this world, and to keep Max out of it for his own protection. So if Evan had decided to drag him back into it after all, it must be serious.

DoubleThink’s last message had been in the group chat instead of in their private room, so it had to be for the benefit of the others. To throw them off?

Kill_Screen:
i bet STOP was flipped. He probably informed on the others to the FBI and the guilt got to him. And now ‘503-ERROR’ is here to pick up where he left off. Are you a puppet, 503?

Ding.

DoubleThink >> 503-ERROR:
We have to talk. Let’s go to voice.

print*is*dead:
or maybe the fbi killed him / we won’t know what happened until we see the whole vid

Another link appeared in the chat room, from an unidentified source. Max clicked on it, thinking it was another picture from the video. It launched a new tab in his browser and a dialog box appeared with a warning:
This program is requesting control of webcam and speakers.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Max said. Someone was trying to clickjack his webcam.

Max had already taped over the webcam and changed his computer’s security settings to notify him of attempts to control hardware, so this was no threat. But it told him that someone wanted to know what he looked like or get a glimpse of his location. The simple hack was way too amateur for anyone in Dramatis Personai, but who else would be interested in him? It was too soon for the government to have tracked him down. Or so he hoped.

Max left the dialog box open without clicking Cancel, so whoever it was wouldn’t know he was wise to the attempt.

503-ERROR >> DoubleThink:
Is this you trying to get access to my camera?

DoubleThink >> 503-ERROR:
Pffpt! If I was, you wouldn’t know it. But it isn’t me. You took care of it?

503-ERROR >> DoubleThink:
Yeah, I got it. I’m surprised/insulted they thought it would work.

DoubleThink >> 503-ERROR:
Someone must know more than he’s saying.

Max switched back to the group chat.

503-ERROR:
So who were the others? What happened?

Going to voice with DoubleThink would at least cut down on the likelihood of Max typing in the wrong window. He initiated a voice chat.

0MN1:
No 1 knows for sure. they just went away.

print*is*dead:
they go by L0NELYB0Y, Infiltraitor, and @sskicker / if they were arrested, they didn’t expose us at least.

Kill_Screen:
which probably means they weren’t arrested. . . 

0MN1:
Oh? Would you turn us in to save yourself?

Kill_Screen:
in a heartbeat

print*is*dead:
maybe they turned each other in / they disappeared one at a time / like a horror movie

GroundSloth:
As far as we *know* they didn’t turn us in. But we should move servers again in case we’re already being monitored. Like I’ve been saying for *months*.