By Susannah Murphine
“What do you want?” The panic in her voice was evident, even though she tried to hide it, and I smirked. I’ve got her.
Wire $2.5 Million to the account I will send you. This is the money you’ve stolen from your employees, and I will make sure it gets back to them. If you do not do this, or you alert the police to this communication, I will make sure that my video gets to the press. Nod if you understand. She nodded so fast it almost made me motion sick. Good. I sent her the account number and released the lock. She pulled the headset away from her eyes and everything went dark. I sat there, patient, until her room came back into view.
“It’s done. You should have the money.” Her voice quavered.
Good. I hope I don’t have to get in touch again.
She shut down her headset and I did the same. Upon coming back to myself, I saw that I was surrounded. Nikt’s best and brightest, including Sean and Dahlia, were gathered around my station. Some had dropped their jaws; others were grinning like Cheshire Cats.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked.
“No one’s ever secured a payment that fast,” Dahlia said, disbelief covering her half-face.
“It was just good timing. I caught her in a, uh, compromising position, and she caved rather than ruin her reputation. People like that usually have obvious pressure points.”
“What’d I tell you, man?” Ed clapped his hand on Sean’s shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll admit, you were right.” Sean slipped him $20. Ed beamed at me.
“Congratulations, Rory. Welcome to Nikt!”
. . .
I drove home, turning over the events of the day in my mind. Was it really worth it to give all of this to the police? Nikt was doing good things, things I believed in. And I belonged there, more than I ever had anywhere else. I couldn’t even sleep, the thoughts running around my mind were so loud. The next morning, I dragged myself to the police station for my scheduled debrief. On the way into the conference room, I snagged a coffee from the breakroom, grimacing at the bitter taste.
“Petrescu. You’re late.” Captain Schmidt glowered at me, and I looked at her with a sneer.
“By two minutes, tops.”
“Whatever,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. “Let’s get on with it. What did you learn?”
This was the time to decide. Do I tell the truth?
“Petrescu!”
“Get off my ass! In case you couldn’t tell, I had a rough night.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to crush the stress. “I didn’t learn much. They didn’t put me on anything right away.” The lie eased the bitterness on my tongue.
“What? I thought you were the best in your field! They’d be mad not to put you to work!”
“They’d also be mad to trust me right off the bat, especially with your last few guys meeting less than pleasant terminations.” The captain buried her head in her hands, breathing heavily. “I know your photos are accurate, if that’s any consolation.” She pointed at the door and grumbled. I took it as a cue to leave and went back to my car, trying not to move too suspiciously. I got in and pulled out of my parking space. Before I could really process where I’d been going, I ended up at the Nikt compound again. The guard came out to meet me.
“I.D., please.” I gave him the card. He looked at a paper in his hand, then back at me. “You’re not scheduled for anything today.”
“I need to talk to Ed. It’s important.” The guard nodded, handing me back my I.D. He picked up a phone in his office. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until he pushed a button and the gate rose, and I let out a sigh of relief. I waved to the guard as I went through. Ed met me out front again.
“Roger said you wanted to see me?”
“Yeah. Is there somewhere private we can talk?” Ed nodded and gestured to a small shed to his right. We stepped in and he closed the door behind us.
“If it’s about who you’re actually working for, I figured it out already.” I opened my mouth to speak, but he interrupted. “Dahlia noticed that you came out of the police station before coming to us on the first day. Honestly, knowing that you’re working with a bunch of hackers, you’d think they’d be a bit more careful about your rendezvous points.” He smirked.
“Is that why you kept trying to drive home the ‘you belong here’ point?”
“Nah. That was genuine.” The smirk softened to a smile. “You’ve got skills, skills we could use. And now, I know you also have resources that we didn’t know we had with Dave and the others.” I must have looked confused, because he chuckled before continuing. “Oh, come on. I thought you were a genius. You can tell us if the police are getting close, warn us off.”
“You want me to be a double agent? Why would you trust me? You know I lied to you.”
“I don’t think you really did. I knew about your working with the police since before yesterday. That’s why I asked the questions I did. I wanted to catch you off-guard, see what you really think. From what I could tell, you were telling me what you really believed, what you wanted to fight for, and we’re the ones who can help you do that. So, will you be my mole?” He extended his hand toward me.
A million scenarios raced through my head. If I did this, I’d be putting myself at even more risk than before. While Nikt definitely had some useful tools, they didn’t have the power to send me back to prison. If I was caught, none of the cops that I’d pissed off would speak up for me. I’d be lucky to make it out of prison again.
On the other hand, if I didn’t do this I would be betraying the younger, idealistic Rory who used to dream about doing something like this. The rich, the cops, the law makers-and-breakers, they didn’t care what happened to their maid or IT person or even business partner if screwing them over meant more money for the already insanely rich. They needed to be held accountable. I needed to help hold them accountable.
“Rory? What do you say?” His hand was still between us. I shook it.
“I’m in.”
. . .
“A social sim program… interesting. What kinda scenarios are we running, Jimbo?” I’d settled in to get the last bit of background on my next target: Jim Taylor, owner of TayloTech. I didn’t want any surprises like the Ashbie encounter, so I found a way to check what kind of programs a target had a habit of running using the backdoor. In addition to shielding my sweet, virgin eyes from some unholy shit, it also gave me a clue as to the nature of my target’s pressure points. “What kind of social scenario is worth nearly 200 hours to try and figure out, dude?” I got the notification that he’d logged into the program again. “Guess it’s time to find out.” I strapped on my headset and navigated to Nikt’s backdoor. When I tried to access it, I was denied. What the… I tried again and was forced out. “Well that’s not good,” I muttered.
I switched my feed to the desktop so I could see what was going on. The backdoor had been boarded up, locked behind a new firewall and passkey.
“Shit!” It was a one-attempt system. If I didn’t have the key right the first time, there was a protocol to send an alarm signal. “What could the passkey be?” I dug through the firewall’s code, trying to find a clue, a calling card, anything that would tell me who had put it in place. “Come on, where’s the signature?” That’s when I saw it: stjärna. Swedish. It had to be him! I found Nikt’s intel on Elway Harisson, flipped to common passwords. “Starlight, Moonmen, lots of space shit in here.” One word, Moonmen, stood out, but I couldn’t figure out why. Where have I heard that before?
Moonmen! That was the book that started all of this! A sci-fi book that Harisson wrote and hated the adaptation of. That’s why Paracosma exists. That’s why there’s so much space shit! I looked back at the passkeys. Some of them were in both Swedish and English, but there was one that didn’t have a Swedish counterpart: Moonmen. One search later, and I had my best guess for the passkey. I entered it into the firewall and held my breath. Månfolk.
ACCESS GRANTED
“Yes!” I grabbed a sticky note and scribbled down what I’d found, sticking it to the door of my cube. I transferred the feed back to my headset and took a breath, readying myself for whatever Jim Taylor was getting up to. I slipped on the headset.
“Daddy, I can’t believe this! Aren’t you the one who keeps saying that your employees are the best kind of people? But now, suddenly, since one of them wants to date me, they’re worse than the scum at the bottom of our lake! So which one is the lie?” I watched the young woman through Jim’s eyes. Even though she was just an A.I. construct, she showed an almost human mix of anger and disappointment.
“Alissa,” he said, “be reasonable! It’s not like he could be any kind of good to you in the long run.” His tone was cautious, as if he hoped this would calm her down.
“And whose fault is that, Daddy? Who gives Allen and all of the other workers too many hours for not enough pay?”
“Sweetheart, it’s not that simple. If I gave him a raise so that he could be good enough for you, I’d have to do the same for all of them! I don’t have the resources for that; it’s just not something I can do, darling.”
There’s my opening! My fingers flew over the keys, taking over the A.I. Alissa just as she started, “But Daddy!” her form stuttered a bit, and then I saw her bearing change. It became more neutral, like a default setting. I cleared my throat.
“Are you sure? Because the funds in all of those offshore accounts would beg to differ, Daddy.” The A.I. construct mimicked my tone perfectly, but kept the voice of his daughter.
“Wh-What is this? Who are you?” Taylor tried to remove the headset, but found it locked on tight. “Do you know who I am? I could destroy you with a snap of my fingers!”
“Yes, Jim Taylor, I know who you are, and I know about your mountain of lies to the IRS. Do you know who I am?”
“Are-are you from Nikt?”
“Bingo, Jimmy.” Now, we begin. “Unless you want the real version of Alissa here to know the real version of you, and just how scummy you actually are, you’re gonna use the money in those offshore accounts to give everyone who works for you not only a living wage, but a living well-above-the-poverty-line wage. If my math is right, and it usually is, that would be about twice what you’re paying them now.”
“And if I refuse?” His voice wavered. “Alissa already hates me. How much worse could you really make things now?”
“Well, I could always throw in some solid prison time once the IRS finds out about your… what’s the term? Creative accounting?” He looked down at the ground, no doubt feeling as unmoored as the body-less version of himself inside the simulator. “Either way, you lose your reputation, trade it in for a rap sheet. Is that something you can do, Jim?” He looked back up into the construct’s eyes, and I resumed her original program for a moment.
“But, Daddy, I’d be perfectly fine making a few sacrifices if it meant that Allen and all of your other employees can have better lives. Please. Be the good man I know you can be.” A single tear ran down her digital cheek, and then I regained control.
“If this A.I.’s programming can be believed, your daughter doesn’t hate you. Yet. That could all change if she found out that you weren’t unable to pay your employees better, just unwilling.” I paused, letting the words sink in. “So? What’s it gonna be?” I heard him take a shaky breath as he looked at the cold, hard face of his daughter.
“Okay. I’ll do it, effective immediately. I’ll get the paperwork started and announce it on the news, probably tomorrow.”
“Okay. Just know, I will be watching. If I don’t see your announcement by the end of the week, the IRS is going to get a very informative call. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good. See you on the news soon, Jimbo!” I signed off, leaving Jim Taylor alone with a facsimile of his family.
. . .
“So, if I’m going to be an effective mole, I need to give the cops something. Otherwise, they’re gonna get a bit suspicious.”
“Right, yeah.” Ed pinched the bridge of his nose “I mean, obviously, nothing about the backdoor.”
“Obviously,” I agreed. “Maybe tell them about some of the people we decided not to target? That way, it’s new information, but doesn’t necessarily help with how we pick the targets.”
“That could work. Especially if you stick with the ‘I’m the new kid and they don’t tell me shit’ angle.”
“Yeah, but that’ll only last for so long. Eventually I won’t be the new kid anymore.”
“Fair.” He scratched at the stubble on his chin. “Let’s worry about burning that bridge when we get closer to it.” He selected a few files. “For now, give ‘em these. They’re the elims from today’s pool of targets. They should at least keep the cops busy for a while.”
“Understood. Anything else before I head out?”
“Not that I can think of. You?”
“Nope.” I stood to leave Ed’s desk, and he stood at the same time.
“Actually, come to think of it, there is something. I’m glad you decided to stay. If you hadn’t, I think we would’ve dropped off in efficiency by an order of magnitude or two.”
“Please. I’m honestly more lucky than good. Like, with Ashbie, if she’d been using any program other than the dirty one, it would’ve been a much harder operation.”
“Ashbie I’ll grant you, but you can’t claim luck with Jim Taylor.”
“It was a good guess.”
“I don’t mean the password. I mean the pressure you put on him.”
“He already had a guilty conscience because of his daughter, though.”
“Yeah, and you thought on your feet to exploit that weakness as soon as you found it! In our research into him we didn’t find anything that would’ve pointed to a strategy like that working. This is why you’re in charge of the backgrounds on targets from now on.”
“Wait, what? Shouldn’t that be something that you bring up with, I dunno, more than just me in the heat of a moment?”
“Not really. It was Sean’s idea, not mine. He brought it up first.”
“Well, okay, but,” I stammered, trying to think up a witty retort.
“Dear God above, woman, will you just take the compliment? We all think you’re good at your job, and that’s why you’re still here. If things hadn’t worked out, if Ashbie had just been a fluke, you would have been out of here, mole or not. But you’re still here. Because you’re good at this. It suits you, just like I knew it would.” Ed poked me in the shoulder, just hard enough for me to know that he’d done it. His eyes shone as he looked down at me. I looked away before they could look too deep.
“Ugh, fine. I guess I’m good at my job or whatever.” My face felt hot. It was probably just a bit of embarrassment at having to accept a compliment…probably…
“Well, it’s a start. I’ll take it for now.” Ed set his hand on the same shoulder he’d poked a moment ago. “Go ahead and get those files downloaded and head home. Tomorrow, we go for the big one.”
