Authors: Michelle Gagnon
He’d heard of them, though. This had to be the other thing everyone murmured about, late at night as they huddled in the dark. The group that was trying to protect street kids: Persefone’s Army. He hadn’t believed in them, either—a bunch of teenagers acting like some modern-day version of Robin Hood? He’d assumed it was just another urban myth.
But here they were. His eyes swept around the group—the three kids who’d been chasing him were standing guard over the guys on the ground. And the girl with them, who was clearly the leader . . .
“You’re Persefone,” Teo said, his voice filled with awe.
The girl gave him a funny look. “Actually, my name’s Noa. You all right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
The kid who had been following him earlier came up and sneered, “You were lucky. Why the hell did you run?”
“I thought—”
“He thought you were chasing him, Turk,” Noa snapped. “You were supposed to stay on your target. What happened?”
Turk hunched his shoulders and mumbled, “Janiqua lost him.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s my fault.” The black girl rolled her eyes. “
You
were supposed to keep up with the target on the train. The hell’d you go, anyway?”
“I didn’t see him get off.” Turk kept his eyes glued to the ground. “’Sides, I knew that dickwad was after the kid, he couldn’t stop staring at him. Even followed him through a few cars.”
“So you lost the guy, but not the kid?” Janiqua snorted. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s what happened,” Turk snarled back, jutting his chin out as he stepped menacingly toward her. Janiqua didn’t give an inch, though—she closed the space between them while reaching into her pocket for something—
Noa quickly intervened, stepping between them. “Enough. We’ll sort it out later. Now get moving, these guys’ll be coming around soon.”
After another long, hard stare, the two of them separated, heading to opposite ends of the camp. Janiqua pulled a plastic cord out of her pocket as she bent over one of the guys, then used it to tie his wrists behind his back. Two other kids helped her.
Teo’s head was spinning—this was all too surreal. There were eight kids total, and they each moved with purpose. On the concrete buttress next to where he kept his sleeping bag, a scrawny black kid was spray painting a logo in red: the letters
P
and
A
, intertwined. The rest of the group hunkered down around the two guys who’d assaulted him, securing their ankles and wrists with impressive alacrity.
Teo suddenly saw the encampment through their eyes—small, cramped, dingy—and felt a twinge of embarrassment.
“Sure you’re all right?” Noa asked, examining him. “You look a little shaky.”
“I’m fine,” he said, fighting to keep the squeak from his voice.
“What’s your name, anyway?”
“T-Teo,” he stammered. “Teo Castillo.”
“Nice to meet you, Teo,” Noa said distractedly, her eyes scanning the clearing. She raised her voice and announced, “We’ll take the blonde.”
Teo realized she was talking about the guy who had first spoken to him. He watched a girl in a black pleather miniskirt and torn fishnet stockings matter-of-factly place a strip of duct tape over the blonde’s mouth. “What did you do to them, anyway?”
“Taser,” Noa explained, holding the remote up. “We don’t like guns.”
“Okay.” He wasn’t a big fan of guns, either. “So are these the guys who have been experimenting on kids?”
She scrutinized him. “You heard about that?”
Teo shrugged. “Yeah. Everyone has.”
“Well, it’s true. Don’t go anywhere alone from here on out. They might still be after you.”
A cold ball of fear formed in Teo’s gut. He glanced back over his shoulder, half expecting to see more huge guys huddled in the bushes. He wondered where everyone else was—had the other kids known, somehow, that these guys were lurking around? And if so, why hadn’t anyone warned him? Suddenly, he felt more alone than ever. “Where are you taking him?”
“Better if you don’t know.” More loudly, Noa added, “Don’t forget the tarp.”
Obediently, a few of them wrapped the first guy up like a burrito in a large blue plastic tarp. Once they had him inside, they lifted him off the ground, spreading his weight between them. Teo watched them march toward the bushes. They were like an army, he realized. Organized, following commands . . . despite their ragged appearance, he was impressed.
A minute later, he found himself alone with Turk, Noa, and the girl in fishnets. She was cute, despite her wild shock of blue hair. She caught him looking at her and raised an eyebrow. Teo flushed and shifted his gaze, examining the ground at his feet.
“The usual with the other one?” Turk asked.
Noa eyed the guy in the ball cap. “Yeah.”
“You want to mess him up first?” Turk asked solicitously, directing the question to Teo.
“What? Uh, no. I’m good.” Teo stared at the man on the ground; Jimmy, the other guy had called him. Jimmy was coming around, his eyes darting frantically from side to side.
“We’ll leave him for your friends, then. I’ll bet they’ll have some fun with you, huh, jerk-off?”
The guy flinched as Turk dealt him a hard kick to the ribs.
“Turk,” Noa warned sharply.
Turk threw her a sneer, then seemed to catch himself. He knelt down to tighten the zip ties another notch. The guy on the ground winced as the narrow bands dug into his wrists. “Just wait,” Turk muttered in a cold, flat voice. “World of hurt coming for you, buddy.”
Teo watched Turk haul Jimmy to his feet and frog-march him to the nearest pillar. Turk held him in place while Fishnets wound duct tape around him, pinning him to the concrete support beam like a trapped moth.
“All right, let’s get out of here.” Noa lifted a small radio to her mouth and said, “Back at the van in five.”
“Copy that,” a voice crackled in response.
And without another word, the three of them headed for the footpath.
Teo stared after them. In less than five minutes, it felt like his whole world had been turned upside down. And now what was he supposed to do? Go Dumpster diving for dinner, then grab a little shut-eye? “Wait!” he called out.
Noa stopped and turned to face him. “What?”
“Take me with you,” he said, surprising himself.
She shook her head. “That’s not how this works, Teo. Sorry.”
“Please,” Teo pleaded. “I can help. Seriously.”
She looked him over skeptically. “You do drugs?”
“No.” He shook his head ferociously. “Never. I don’t drink, either.”
Turk grumbled something, but Noa threw him a look and he shut up. She stared at Teo for a long moment, then nodded brusquely. “Fine. But any trouble and you’re out.”
“Yeah, sure,” Teo said, hurrying to catch up. As he followed Noa through the maze of brush that led to San Bruno Street, he felt something he hadn’t experienced in a long time: hope.
Peter Gregory pulled down the brim of his Red Sox cap as they passed yet another security camera. He stuck close to the office assistant escorting him; the staccato tap of her high heels punctuated the steady chatter she maintained. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to expect a response, aside from an occasional nod and sympathetic grunt. Terri was a moderately attractive woman in her midthirties with brightly hennaed hair, a form-fitting dress, and a gemstone manicure that flashed every time she waved her fingers to illustrate a point. Traces of a repressed Boston accent bubbled out during her diatribe against the gremlins bedeviling their mainframe. “It’s the third time this week the servers have gone down,” she said with another exasperated hand flourish. “Can you believe that? Do you know how embarrassing it is to explain to people that we can’t even send email?”
Peter nodded, trying to look shocked while surreptitiously examining his surroundings. Knowing about the atrocities Pike & Dolan perpetrated, he’d expected their corporate headquarters to look more evil lair-ish. But instead of a shark tank, the lobby sported glossy floor-to-ceiling posters of cheerful people enjoying the company’s many fine products, which ranged from vitamins and shampoo to pharmaceuticals.
The interior offices were even more of a letdown. Clearly Terri took her unofficial role as tour guide seriously; she was especially enthusiastic about a roof garden that offset carbon emissions, and the sustainably harvested bamboo floors. Listening to her prattle on, Peter was tempted to enlighten her about her employer’s off-site facilities, where kidnapped street kids were treated like lab rats. He was willing to bet that none of them featured low VOC paint and solar hot water panels.
“For what we’re paying them,” Terri complained again, “you’d think our in-house IT guys could fix this mess.” Holding a sparkling hand beside her mouth, she lowered her voice and said, “They’ll probably all be fired over this.”
Peter murmured something noncommittal. In spite of everything, he felt a twinge of sympathy for Pike & Dolan’s beleaguered IT department. It wasn’t their fault that the servers had crashed repeatedly after being bricked four months ago. Not only had Peter been the one to brick them, he’d made it his mission to continually develop bigger and better bugs to confound their firewalls.
Then last week, he came up with a way to take things a step further. His goal was to install a sort of Trojan horse known as a “packet sniffer” in Pike & Dolan’s data center; basically, a wire-tap device that eavesdropped on network traffic. But instead of listening in on people’s conversations, this “sniffing” program intercepted passwords and emails, and acquired all the data transmitted throughout the company.
With any luck, that data could finally give Noa and the rest of Persefone’s Army an advantage over the conglomerate.
To gain access to the servers, he was posing as Ted Latham: freelance tech genius for top computer security firm Rocket Science. Ted was also the fictional foster dad that Noa had created to escape the foster care system and earn enough money to support herself.
Peter had been nervous about assuming the identity, especially since he hadn’t cleared it with Noa first. But he was hoping that if things panned out, she’d be happy he took the initiative. At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.
Based on what little Noa had told him, Peter knew that no one at Rocket Science had ever met Ted Latham; all of their business was transacted virtually. The CEO hadn’t even blinked at “Ted’s” rambling email about spending the past several months offline while doing a walkabout. Moreover, when “Ted” offered to step in and handle their most troublesome client, Pike & Dolan, the CEO was beside himself with gratitude.
Peter felt a little badly about the subterfuge, but Rocket Science had enough high-profile clients to weather one failure. And if his plan succeeded, and he gained a window into the inner workings of Pike & Dolan, it would all be worth it.
Hopefully Noa would think so, too. He had the feeling that if she saw him right now, strolling down the corridors of Pike & Dolan in geek business casual, she’d have some choice words for him.
But she’s not here
, he reminded himself, feeling a flare of resentment. In fact, he hadn’t seen her for months; their only contact now was limited to brief online chats.
“Here we are!” Terri announced, waving her key card in front of a wall-mounted panel. The light turned green, and she pushed the door open.
Any halfway decent company recognized the importance of this room: These server towers were the modern-day equivalent of a treasure vault. The air inside was noticeably cooler than the outer hallway; temperature, humidity, and particle filtration were all precisely controlled. Also true to form, it was located in the center of the building, far from exterior walls, elevator banks, and any other sources of potential electrical interference or water damage.
The servers themselves were housed in tight lines of tall gray metal cabinets that resembled the lockers in Peter’s high school. In between the cabinets, metal shelves held rows of what looked like strung-together car batteries, which wasn’t far from the truth; those modules kept the precious servers humming along as they delivered everything from emails to shipping manifests.
Peter’s palms started to sweat. This was way too easy. He’d expected to encounter resistance; heck, he could hardly believe he’d made it past the lobby. And now that he was here, the enormity of the crime he was about to commit hit him hard.
“So?” He turned to find Terri staring at him expectantly. “How do you fix it?”
“Um, I just need to access the servers, to . . . check some things,” he mumbled.
Terri released a world-weary sigh and said, “Obviously. But do you need
me
to do anything?”
“Not really,” he said. “Unless you want to help with the secure socket layers.”
Terri rolled her eyes. “Well, they said to keep an eye on you, but you look harmless enough.” Her eyes trailed over him, apparently confirming her assessment because she chirped, “Anyhoo, I was going to grab a latte. How much time do you need?”
“Not long,” Peter mumbled. “Probably ten minutes.”
Terri smirked. “Fix this in ten minutes and my boss will probably propose to you.”
Peter shrugged, keeping his eyes down.
“All righty then.” Terri sighed, clearly disappointed that her little joke had been wasted on him. “Back in a bit.”
He waited until the door clicked behind her, then went to work. He wasn’t an expert on data centers, but any server should suit his purposes. And for what he intended to do, two minutes would have been more than enough time.
Peter dug into his messenger bag and pulled out a small device. Hurrying deeper into the room, he ducked down the first aisle and quickly counted off rows. He didn’t want to install the device anywhere too obvious, or on a server that was checked routinely. If the IT department was really stressed about their jobs, there was a good chance they spent a lot of time in here trying to resolve the problem. Fortunately for him, the powers that be at Pike & Dolan had assigned Terri to supervise him, rather than one of them. They probably didn’t want the techs to know that there was a bull’s-eye centered on their backs.