Techno Crazed (Hacked Investigations) (7 page)

It all seemed unreal. They’d just been talking. Hadn’t the other people at the teahouse noticed anything? What about the commotion she and Ian had had no part in? Why would they blame them for what happened? She sat down on the couch, feeling like nothing made sense anymore.

“Took you long enough, but I knew you’d warm up to the LOVE GNOME!” Bernard scooted closer to her. “Ian, looks like you guys are in deep right now. If I were you, I’d go underground for a while.”

Nodding, Ian pulled the blueprints that they’d retrieved from the senator from his jacket. “We need to hide. It’s only a matter of time before they convince the police that we were involved. We walked along the streets. Traffic cameras might have caught us. Go and pack whatever you have here. You too, Bernard. I’m not leaving you here to kill anyone else.”

Bernard hopped off the couch, humming something about home sweet sewer and went out to his garden. The sound of clanking tools made their relocation more real.

Hannah took a deep breath before what Ian said sank in. They needed to leave or be hunted down.

* * *

Ian cursed himself for being so stupid. Of course, MAX Home Security would toy with them to get them trapped and legally behind bars. Or maybe they really just wanted Hannah and him dead. Senator Kendall’s assault clarified that MAX had known where to find them. They had known Rich was seeing the senator at the teahouse.

And Ian had been stupid enough to figure out enough details to nearly hang themselves while trying to chase after clues.

He had been so careful, living his mediocre life, until Rich blew his cover. Now he would be forced into hiding. Although he had an advantage. Surely MAX didn’t know he had the city blueprints.

He spread them on his desk. Information on the sewers, cabling, communication links, sanitation stations, emergency fill tanks, and maintenance tunnels sat at his fingertips.

He saw Bernard throw his bags on the living room floor and asked the gnome to pack his belongings too. Bernard had helped him move here, so he wasn’t too worried about the gnome damaging anything. Returning his gaze to the map, he started tracing the communication cables, finding and calculating the distances.

The arithmetic processor he’d purchased and had implanted inside his head was enhanced by his technomagic. It kicked in and computed the data when he reached the limits of his mathematical brainpower.

A full sphere of knowledge filled the inside of his skull. Connections to the constructors’ databases, order sheets of materials and various contractor emails opened within seconds. The security measures had been lax and eagerly told him which TCP/IP ports were available, which in turn provided him a list of files through a small vulnerability caused by a null pointer in the right location. Elsewhere, he erased server logs files showing that he’d accessed the computers. The excitement of the minor hack rushed through him, and he felt a sense of pride in his talent and magic.

Slowly, he narrowed down the areas outside of his criteria. Some places had too-thin walls. Others had a high risk of corrosion eating through the seals, letting raw sewage wash over the proposed habitable area. Still more reported massive infestations of mutated rats or flesh-eating insects.

Finally, he found it. A little known maintenance area that had everything they needed. Fresh water the workers had used in showers. Warmth from the city gas network of nearby pipes. Electricity from the nuclear plant’s power lines that had been pulled below the streets to ensure energy to critical places, like hospitals. Irony washed over him at the location of their future hideout; after all, it was directly below the civil engineering section of the city’s public university.

Disconnecting from the spheres of data he’d built in his mind, he felt the toll of his gift. Throbbing pain lanced across his skull. Having the implants made things easier, but the chips now felt like superheated coins pushed against his skull. Agony blurred his vision.

He took a step toward the living room, but his limbs gave out, dropping him to the floor. He rolled into a fetal position, waiting for the anguish to ebb away. He just hoped Hannah was too busy packing her bags to notice. She didn’t need to worry about him.

Slowly the world became steadier, and strength returned to his limbs. He pushed into a standing position and went to the bedroom. He helped Bernard pack his clothes and necessities.

Hannah was waiting for them in the kitchen.

When they left, he closed the door and activated the ward. Part of him felt closed and sealed off now. MAX Home Security had driven him from his home. They were hunted. Anger stirred inside him. This would be the last time he was willing to turn and run. He picked up Bernard and stuffed him into his backpack, leaving a small hole for the gnome to breathe.

It was enough that he lived on the streets now. They didn’t need to draw attention by having a gnome walk down the sidewalk cussing and flipping people off while pushing some to the very edge of road rage. That would have them found before the judge could sign their warrant.

Outside the civil engineering building, a small, gray hatch that looked like a storm sewer entry was unlocked and covered by shrubs, giving them shelter from the parking lots surrounding it to climb down.

Inside, a reinforced concrete tunnel went down for what seemed like five or six stories. The ladder looked extremely sturdy, despite the decades it had been subjugated to corrosive moisture and biting cold weather during the winter.

Reaching the bottom, he turned his flashlight on and shone it along a tunnel leading toward the maintenance area. A few heavy pressure doors had been left open. The walls were sealed with bricks where the original tunnels had been constructed parallel to the massive sewer tunnels and cables. Behind one of them, he heard the sound of rushing liquid, which he prayed was the clean drinking water pumped toward the city instead of the sewer.

Setting his backpack down, Ian let Bernard out. The gnome spewed obscenities about the stink of his bag, and how it felt a little moist, recommending that Ian wash it before using it again. Behind them, Hannah continued climbing down with sure footing even in the dark.

Bernard curiously checked the walls and moved quickly outside of Ian’s field of vision, allowing the gnome’s naturally better eyesight a chance to adjust to the darkness.

“You okay?” Ian asked Hannah, who kept staring around them.

“I’m fine. It’s just a little odd, you know, coming down here.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms.

They made their way past the heavy metallic doors put in place in case the pipes or the walls were to break and flood the area. The maintenance area beyond was clean of vermin and dust. A vent circulated air above them.

The main room was square, able to hold twenty workers and their beds, some which were now abandoned along the walls. A small section in the back was reserved for a bathroom, which Bernard inspected curiously. Overall, the maintenance area was bigger than Ian had thought.

He tossed his backpack into the corner. “I need to go get some tools from the store.” Ian looked over at Bernard. “Take good care of her while I’m gone. No tormenting or pushing her in any way, okay?”

“I’m not going to push her unless she wants me to!” Bernard started pulling his gardening tools from various pockets of his bag.

“You’re going to leave me here? With him?” Hannah’s eyes grew wide.

“You’ll be fine. He’ll be too busy setting up his little garden. Besides, we need the equipment to manage living down here. I’ll be back. I promise.”

CHAPTER NINE

Hannah looked up from the spread bedroll. Ian had been gone for a few hours now, and Bernard was getting more impatient and more demanding for attention. She used the flashlight Ian had left for her sparingly. It was slowly running out of juice. The constant flow of water from the other side of the wall made her drowsy. But she was unwilling to fall asleep near the gnome alone. She stood and stretched to keep herself awake.

A loud bang came from the entryway, followed by another twenty seconds later. From the muttering, she recognized Ian before his flashlight became visible from around a corner.

Ian carried a heavy bag over his shoulder. He dropped it in the corner, and the sound of clanging metallic tools was loud and piercing in their small room. He came closer and pulled her into a hug.

“Where’ve you been?” she asked, walking over to help him with the bag.

“You try carrying all of that through alleys to get here. No car, remember? And I had to keep my eyes open. “ Ian took a good look around the tunnel before closing the door to the maintenance room.

Hannah took out various tools and set them on the ground. A small travel cooking kit, plates, hammers, a blowtorch, and various other items were in the bag.

Bernard came over and stared up at Ian. “What took you so long? And why are you so dirty and tired? Did you drop by the brothel like you normally do after work?” The gnome laughed dirtily.

Ian looked at him. “I missed you too. Now, if you don’t mind, get to work over here. I know you’re no dwarf, but could you get us to the electric wires behind this wall?”

“I’ll do anything for you, especially if IT KILLS YOU!” Bernard yelled and tried to dance away.

Hannah grabbed the gnome and jerked him into the air. “Listen to me, asshole. He carried that stuff here to help us. Get over yourself and get busy.” She dropped Bernard and stumbled against a wall, pressing her hand to her head.

The dark, foreboding sensations that filled her head made her dizzy. Bleakness descended upon her even further. The sound of Bernard laughing faintly penetrated her thoughts.

Ian stepped in front of her. His face looked a little dull, but then again, maybe that was her eyesight. He placed a hand against her shoulder. “Hey, are you okay?”

Warmth seeped into her body again at the feel of his touch. “I don’t know what happened. I guess I let him get to me.”

“Just be careful.” He turned to stare at the chuckling gnome.

Between laughs, Bernard noted how someone had finally had the balls to do that, and that the person who did it, didn’t have balls.

* * *

A few hours of hard work later, they had electricity, hot running water, makeshift beds, and clean air. Various cables ran along the ceiling from exposed circuitry and fiber optics to Ian’s computer, next to the now humming air vent, which freshened the dry air of the room. The maintenance room was still very bare and somewhat cold, but it was better than being hunted.

Hannah sat in front of the small computer center Ian had set up. She was utterly unfamiliar with it. He’d tried to explain something about it being a semi-contextual operating system, and other finer points of it like it being untraceable thanks to him hooking into the now-hijacked city communication network, but she was lost just staring at the screen as information trailed down it, providing statistics across the multiple networks it had been connected to.

The system was very old, yet somehow worked faster than a lot of other machines she had operated. A part of her wondered if Ian had enhanced the circuitry. Typically, she used her computer at its limits, making what Ian had done seem like a small miracle.

Bernard pounded away in a patch of garden he’d created in one of the showers. He had broken the tile on the ground, etching deep lines below and placed some dirt. Already, even in the darkness, his gnomish magic had the plants beginning to grow like they did back in the apartment’s patio with fresh air and sunlight.

They had brought enough food for a few days and had found rations left behind by the maintenance crew. Mostly dehydrated meals and long-term canned meats, but it was food.

Ian lay on his bedroll near the computer center with a cup of instant coffee next to him. He seemed to have calmed down from when they’d started working. Steady lighting shone overhead, and a small corner of the room had been closed off as a bedroom area.

Hannah stared at her list again, trying to fit all the pieces together. It seemed they had been given leads and enough rope to hang themselves by visiting Senator Kendall. The chips they had retrieved from Rich’s body hadn’t been taken when the rest of his identification methods were ruined. The feeling of being set up grew stronger. MAX Home Security had intentionally left those for them to find. Hannah and Ian had walked into a trap. Maybe the senator hadn’t known about the plot, but they were being made into scapegoats to make the security giant look good.

Although being targets for police and all other security services could work for their benefit. Ian had talked about how setting a trap could work both ways. Since they had become political suspects, why not play into that? Other groups would applaud their behavior or try to do it themselves. The idea tempted her, and Ian seemed to have more planned than he let on to, but she wanted to know what it was before they ran into action recklessly.

They had spent hours talking about the best way of getting to MAX Home Security, but they always went back to square one. They needed the senator. But not only was the senator most likely scared of doing anything to help them, but his staff were probably on the lookout and would call the police without hesitation, or worse, shoot them on sight.

Knowing full well that MAX would kill Kendall without hesitation should he speak up, they had to make sure the senator would be safe when he finally stood up against MAX Home Security. But the corporation monitored security cameras and media very thoroughly.

Going over the list of evidence, she noticed something they had overlooked so far. “Hey Ian, we never checked into the person Rich was living with.”

Bernard toddled into the main room at that point. Most of the time, he simply tended his garden and ensured that the plants survived. He perked up. “Yeah, you know, the broad or whatever Rich was shagging! That old perv must have had someone hot under his sheets,” the gnome yelled and went back to gardening. He muttered, “Just because I’m small, doesn’t mean I don’t have sexual prowess to go with the brawn.”