Transcript

I was back in Alabama. I hadn’t eaten, had a drink, or gone to the bathroom since Montana, two days ago. Every time I complained, Barry zapped me with a stun gun, and he enjoyed it.

I stopped complaining.

I stopped wondering. At first, I had wondered, ‘did Jenny make the dead drop? Did BossMan95 keep his end of the bargain? Was Teresa okay?’. Now, I was in survival mode. I only wondered if I was about to die.

Back at the end of that dirt road, Barry had zapped me until I told him where the SD card with the cyber weapon was. Honestly, I didn’t care. Jenny, hopefully, delivered the data leading to a COVID cure to Seattle. Hopefully Teresa was okay. Whatever happened to the Styx cyber weapon was irrelevant to me. Screw the CIA for even building it.

We hit Birmingham. I didn’t remember DeKeisha’s address and we didn’t have my phone so I couldn’t check my Uber history. So, we manually retraced my steps, starting with Uhaul. That allowed me to sit in the front seat next to Barry, instead of the trunk, where I’d spent most of the trip.

Finally, we pulled up out front of DeKeisha’s house. What would happen if the SD card was still in DeKeisha’s computer? Barry would kill me for sure, right?

One problem at a time.

I prayed DeKeisha wasn’t home. Maybe she was at work. It was the middle of the day. But, what day was it?

Barry got out the stun gun, pushed it to my chest and said, “Do you need a reminder that you work for me? We get the card, we get out. I don’t want to make a scene, but I will. If it happens quickly, no one gets hurt. I get the card and we’re gone. That’s it. Capice?”

I nodded. Barry pushed the stun gun under my chin and said, “I need to hear you say the word, ‘capice’.”

My throat was dry. I croaked, “Capice.” I absolutely did not want to be stunned again.

Barry pushed me toward the house. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a window. Ugh, I looked like death, lukewarm. I could see the road rash from jumping from a moving vehicle. It had been three days since my last shower. It had been two days of being stun-gunned, starved and punched in the face by a bouncing jack as I rode in the trunk.

Barry shoved me up DeKeisha’s front steps. I rang the doorbell with my shoulder. I heard something inside.

Oh, no.

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DeKeisha was home. This was bad for her. I mean, for Barry it would be prudent that once he had the Cyber Weapon, he would want to clean up any loose ends.

DeKeisha and I were loose ends.

The door unlatched. It opened. DeKeisha.

Before she could say anything, Barry shoved past her. He went to the computer, bent over and looked in the SD card slot.

DeKeisha grabbed the baseball bat by the door. She smartly swung it up on her shoulder and sauntered over to Barry. She looked back at me and smiled. Because of the kind of guy I am, I almost warned Barry. It’s instinct. But, I didn’t.

DeKeisha lifted the bat up, nearly getting it caught in the ceiling fan, and brought it down hard.

Konk.

Barry was out cold.

DeKeisha turned to me. I turned to run, but stopped. Because, out of the corner of my eye, I saw…

My sister.

DeKeisha set down the bat. Jenny, and Teresa ran over to me and hugged me. I was so confused. I mean, Jenny and Teresa were here?

Then, Kevin appeared.

He said, “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

I looked from Jenny to Teresa, then to DeKeisha. They all nodded sympathetically, like I had Alzheimer’s and couldn’t remember anyone. Kevin hobbled over to a Lazy boy chair and sat down.

I asked, “What happened to you? I thought you were dead.”

Kevin said, “Well, Barry tried. But, it was dark. Barry pushed me off a cliff, but it wasn’t as high as it looked. I landed on a ledge about ten feet down.” Kevin pointed at a soft boot cast on his foot and said, “I had to climb back up and walk a mile on a sprained ankle.”

Teresa said, “A lot has changed in the last day and a half. Jenny, the cuffs?”

Jenny moved around behind me, and started shimming my cuffs. I started sobbing. Teresa hugged me. DeKeisha was crying.

When the cuffs were off, I hugged Teresa for the first time in weeks. She looked good. I expected a shell of a person, but she looked good.

DeKeisha brought me lemonade and I sat down.

Barry was lying on DeKeisha’s floor. He was unconscious with knots of clothesline around his ankles and wrists and a knot forming on his head. He was three hundred pounds of ‘too much to move,’ so we just stepped around him.

We sat in the living room. I chugged lemonade with lots of sugar. I ate the peach pie DeKeisha had made that morning.

Jenny said, “Barry is out cold. Everyone remember our plan for when he wakes up?”

Everyone nodded. My head was too full to ask what the plan was.

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I looked around. DeKeisha’s living room was small, and we packed it in. DeKeisha and Kevin sat in chairs. I sat on a sofa, with Teresa on one side, and Jenny on the other.

I felt fuzzy, like the room was spinning. DeKeisha said the lemonade and pie would help rehydrate me and give me energy. It wasn’t working yet.

Teresa said, “So, uh… Well… Jenny, I think you should tell him what happened since Montana.”

It had only been about two and a half days since Montana, but explaining it all was a two hour conversation.

First off, Teresas was fine. I’d spent months worried about her. I committed felonies, many, many felonies, for her. And, not only was she fine. She was never sick.

Teresa said, “Remember when I had central air installed earlier this year? BossMan95 sabotaged my air conditioner. With mercury.”

I shook my head and said, “Mercury is very poisonous.”

Teresa said, “Yes, but this was just a little bit. And, at those low levels, it makes you sick in a way that mimics COVID-19. It’s kind of brilliant, really.”

Jenny said, “It appears BossMan95 wanted to give you ‘incentive.’ Remember, it was after Teresa was sick that he reached out to you.”

I said, “No, he didn’t reach out to me at all. I posted on Dark World forums.”

Jenny said, “He was manipulating you. He must be someone who knows what you’d do. He knew how you’d react.”

I looked at Teresa. I said, “I thought you were going to die. It was horrible.”

Teresa said, “I thought I was going to die, too. It’s no excuse for you to act like this, though.”

I said, “Act like what?”

Teresa said, “Committing crimes. Come on, mom and I raised you better than that.”

I said, “I thought you were going to die!”

Jenny jumped in – “Guys, hey, Sean loves you, Teresa. Teresa, you love Sean. That’s what this is. Love.”

I turned to Jenny. I said, “And, you. I thought our meeting had been a coincidence. But no. You are working for BossMan95, too. You and Kevin, and Barry here. You were against me the whole time. Why should I trust your theories?”

I was looking at Jenny, but it was Kevin who spoke. “BossMan95 hired us for the same goal as you. The night you stole the SD Card, we were helping you.”

I said, “Helping me? Come on. You and Barry -“

Jenny said, “Kevin’s job was slowing Barry down.”

Kevin said, “Our objective was to help you to get the SD Card to BossMan95. Jenny was on a different team inside Gateway. We ran interference.”

I said, “That’s bullshit.”

Kevin said, “It’s not. We were duped into thinking the card you stole was important data on global warming that we believed would finally convince our government of the dire need for change.”

Teresa said, “Sean, this BossMan95 character used a different story for each of you, but all for the same goal. It was all bullshit.”

Jenny said, “He preyed on our hopes. I got confused in Colorado. I started to wonder what was really on that card.”

An uncomfortable silence followed.

Then, Kevin said, “I knew where you were because of Jenny. Yes, we are partners. I didn’t know who might go after you. The Axelrod teams we were on are full of bounty hunters. By what you did, it was easy to team up with Barry. Without my help, he would have found you a dozen times. Easily. He was tracking your location from your cell phone.”

I said, “No way. I disabled the GPS.”

Kevin shook his head sadly, like he had to daily suffer this explanation to fools. He said, “Every carrier tracks your location using their cell towers. There isn’t any GPS involved. Check your user agreement.”

Jenny said, “It’s true. Then, they sell that data to advertisers, so they can target ads to people based on their location. But, there are some middlemen who also purchase the raw data. And they sell it to bounty hunters.”

Kevin said, “Barry’s a security freak. He moonlights for Axelrod, but mostly, he’s a bounty hunter.”

I looked at Barry, unconscious on the floor.

I said, “But, it doesn’t make sense. If you thought it was data about global warming, why didn’t you say so when I talked about Teresa and COVID?”

Jenny said, “Like I said, I got confused about what was really going on. BossMan95 was gaslighting us. There is no COVID-19 data, no environmental data. That was the scam. We helped you steal a Cyber Weapon. That’s what it was. When you examined the files, it just looked like research data. Because, that’s what BossMan95 groomed you to expect. When you showed it to me, it looked the kind of research BossMan95 prepped me to expect.”

I said, “I had Styx the whole time?”

Jenny nodded. “Yup.”

I said, “And, you delivered it to BossMan95?”

Jenny nodded. She said, “Yup. We figured all this out after that, when we located Teresa and pieced it together.”

Teresa said, “Jenny had your phone after you left it on the airplane. I figured out your passcode, and we were able to see your Lyft and Uber history, as well as read all your DMs with BossMan95.”

I sat back, stunned. After a moment I said, “So, you all decided to save me by coming here?”

Jenny nodded. “Yes, we wanted to help you. And, there was one card, left here.”

I said, “If I had Styx all along, then what’s on the card I left here?”

Everyone looked at DeKeisha.

Teresa said, “So, after Jenny dead-dropped the Cyber Weapon, she tracked me down. She wondered if I was really sick. Kevin discovered the mercury poisoning, and we started putting two and two together.”

Kevin said, “Then, I used Barry’s trick on him, and tracked his phone. As soon as it was clear he was heading to Birmingham, we all flew down here to help you and warn DeKeisha.”

Jenny said, “We arrived yesterday. We found the address in your Uber history.”

DeKeisha was fidgeting. She could barely contain herself. She squeaked, “And, we are rich!”

I said, “What, who’s rich?”

Jenny said, “So, BossMan95 only wanted that one SD card. He didn’t care about the others you took. And, we examined the other four and the crap on those, right? So, what do you think could be on the last SD card, that could make us all rich?”

I said, “Another cyber weapon?”

DeKeisha said, “No. Bitcoin!”

Jenny said, “Lots of Bitcoin. Five thousand.”

I said, “Five thousand dollars isn’t much to get excited about.”

DeKeisha said, “Five thousand Bitcoin.”

I said, “Five thousand Bitcoin? Holy shit, that’s… that’s… how much is that?”

DeKeisha pulled out her phone and tapped the screen a few times. She said, “Right now, Bitcoin are worth just over ten thousand dollars each. So, that’s fifty million dollars.”

I said, “Fifty million?”

DeKeisha said, “Fifty million each, if you split it five ways.”

Kevin said, “Jenny let me know about the backpack in Denver. The Dark World forum guys doxxed those four porn card owners, and we asked for help with this card, too. The same guy rented Gateway storage for all of the five cards you stole, not counting the Cyber Weapon. He’s been arrested for the content of those other cards. We didn’t mention this card.”

Teresa said, “After all of this, and considering who the real owner of this Bitcoin is, we’ve decided to keep it. We have the wallets. Kevin cracked the passwords.”

Kevin shrugged but looked pleased with himself. He said, “It was the name of the guy’s Labradoodle. He had an entire social media account dedicated to her.”

Sometime later, when I was a little fuzzy from champagne, Barry stirred. Jenny said, “Okay, he’s waking up. Everyone, remember what to do!”

As Barry began to stir, Kevin said loudly, “So, we’re agreed then? After dark we roll Barry in a carpet, rent a boat at Guntersville Lake, dump him in?”

We all loudly agreed. Barry started to speak, but he was gagged. I leaned down and said, “What was that Barry, I can’t hear you?”

He struggled against the clothesline, but he was tied well.

It was soon dark. We rolled Barry in a carpet from DeKeisha’s son’s room. DeKeisha said, “This carpet is nasty anyway. Been in a teenager’s room for ten years. Time to redecorate. And hey, I got enough money to do it now!”

Teresa smiled and said, “Honey, you have enough money to move now.”

We put Barry in the trunk of his rental car, just like he’d done to me. It was small and he barely fit. He was so heavy, it took all five of us to lift him. He was also fighting gallantly. I mean, tied, gagged, rolled into a nasty old carpet and dropped into the trunk of a rental car rented in his name… From Barry’s perspective, was there more than one thing that we could be up to?

Kevin drove the rental car with Teresa as passenger. And Barry. I guess, technically, Barry was a passenger.

DeKeisha drove her minivan, with me and Jenny.

On the way, Jenny said, “That day in the hotel? I snapped a picture of your tattoo while checking out the injuries on your back. I did an image search on that Dark World Image Search tool, where you can upload an image and it will match it. In that way, I found one of Teresa’s old Instagram posts about this tattoo. She posted that she’d gotten it way back when, and how her brother had a matching one. Boom. I found her. Your story checked out. I started to wonder about the SD card. And, I back tracked down to her high school records, about your mom, and found your real name. Interesting yearbook picture, by the way. Then I started to get confused about that SD card and thought that maybe it really was COVID data.”

I said, “You’re a hacker, aren’t you?”

Jenny smiled and said, “Oh, yeah. My husband and I are a team.”

I said, “You’re married?”

She said, “Yeah, to Kevin.”

I said, “But, we, you and I…in… the shower.”

She said, “Yeah, sex is often an easy way to gain someone’s trust.”

I was shocked silent. After a moment, Jenny said, “What, it’s only okay when James Bond does it? Is that because he’s a man?”

The rest of the two hour drive was awkward. For me. Jenny seemed fine. I’m sure those were the longest two hours of Barry’s life. Finally we arrived, and we plopped Barry down at the edge of the lake, making sure to splash a little water on him.

Kevin limped to the opening at the top of the carpet. He reached in and tugged the gag off of Barry. Kevin said, “Hey Barry, so here’s the deal –.”

Barry screamed bloody murder.

Kevin stood back and let him scream. No one was nearby. We walked a little ways away and chatted about our plans for our money. We laughed. I hugged my sister a million times. We waited.

Finally, Barry had exhausted himself.

Kevin went over crouched down. He said, “Barry, I have a deal for you. We can either push you into that boat” – He motioned toward an imaginary boat. No way Barry could see anything because of the carpet. He continued, “We can push you into that boat, dump you in the water and go home…” Barry started to shout again.

While he did, we continued our discussion about how to obscure the Bitcoin so it wouldn’t be traceable to us when we cashed it in or spent it.

Kevin said, “There’s this thing I looked into this morning while waiting for you and Barry. It’s called Tumbling. You can also exchange it for other anonymous cryptocurrencies, and we can always run it through offshore accounts.”

DeKeisha said, “Like the Cayman Islands?”

Kevin said, “Caymen’s would be good, but until they recover the cyber weapon, it’s probably going to be tough for any of us to fly again.”

DeKeisha said, “My ex-brother-in-law runs a private charter. He does the trip several times a year.”

Kevin said, “Oh, that’s perfect.”

Teresa went back to her minivan to make a couple of calls.

About then Barry quieted down again. Kevin said, “Listen up, okay? I can motor out in that little boat and dump you in the middle of the lake. Or, I can give you one million dollars every year for the next twenty years.”

From the center of the roll of carpet, I heard Barry speak. His voice was dry and scratchy from all the yelling, but he said, “A million dollars?”

Ten minutes later, Barry was out of the carpet and sitting on the edge of the open trunk, drinking some of DeKeisha’s lemonade.

Kevin said, “Let me say it again, just so we are clear. Every year on Halloween, one million dollars in Bitcoin will drop into this account.”

Jenny handed Barry a piece of paper. She said, “Don’t lose it. It’s a Bitcoin paper wallet. We can’t get it back for you if you lose it.”

Barry turned it over in his hands. He said, “So, all I have to do is forget any of this ever happened?”

Kevin said, “Right. You take this to your grave. You won’t tell the FBI anything about us. You won’t try to get any more money, or blackmail us, or talk to us. No Christmas cards, nothing. You see me tied to train tracks and a train barreling toward me, whistle blowing, you just leave me be. Capice?”

Barry said, “When do I get my first million?”

Kevin said, “Barry, I need to hear you say the word ‘capice’.”

Barry croaked, “Fine. Capice. When do I get the first million?”

Jenny said, “The first two million, you mean. “

Barry’s eyes lit up approvingly.

Jenny continued, “The first payment, and a bonus, is already in there. And Barry, we’ve planted some evidence that implicates you in that child porn ring. You’ll never find it, you can’t stop it. If you cross us, a little Kill Switch of our own will detonate and that evidence will be sent all over the place. FBI, Twitter, New York Times. Get me?”

Barry gulped and nodded.

Then Kevin said, “Speaking of the FBI, there is one more condition. You leave this little package with your FBI contact.”

Barry said, “What’s in it?” I have to admit, I was curious, too.

Kevin said, “It’s a little bonus information. You’re gonna look like a hero.”

“A hero?”

Kevin said, “A hero. It’s the information on BossMan95, the man who set all this in motion. Probably the most powerful single man in the world right now. Deliver this package. Get the FBI off of our back. It’s all the information on a man named, uh, Steven Matthews.”

Barry said, “Awesome!”

I said, “Wait a minute. Kevin, you doxxed BossMan95?”

Kevin said, “Yeah, sorry, I thought we mentioned it.”

I said, “BossMan95’s real name is Steven Matthews? Do you know who that is?”

Kevin said, “Should I?”

I said, “Yes. You two are hackers, right? Jenny said so. Stephen Matthews is the hacker named Sindictive.”

Jenny gasped.

I spun around and said, “Teresa, do you still have my phone?” Teresa dug in her purse and pulled it out. I walked away, looking for a phone number I hadn’t called in months. The line rang, then picked up. From the other end, I heard a familiar voice. She said, “What do you want, Distinctive?”

I said, “Exclusivor, we need to talk.”

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Other Music in this episode:

• For Western
• Haunted House
• Suspenseful
• The Fields of Gold
• Dark Lullaby

Transcript

Jenny and I walked into Billings International Airport. It was a nice looking airport, but tiny. Barely an entire terminal. In my wallet, I had one last fake ID, and the single most important SD card.

Jenny and I disagreed about what was on that SD card. I thought it was COVID research data, Jenny thought it was data about Global Warming? She’d been in contact with BossMan95, and we were both confused.

We also both wanted to just get it to a dead drop for BossMan95 ASAP, before we got caught with it.

The night before, we had stashed my backpack at a truckstop in Denver. Jenny placed an anonymous call to the FBI, letting them know about the four SD cards, and who the owner was. The owner was doxxed by work from the members of Dark World forums.

We got into line at security. I didn’t have any bags at all, and Jenny had ditched everything but her purse. We didn’t need much. A two hour direct flight to Seattle and it was all over.

We had the QR codes open on our phones. My stomach felt like it was hosting a butterfly cage match. I was nervous. Come, Sean, you can do this!

There wasn’t much of a line at security. There wasn’t much of a security at all. Think of a big airport’s security. You know, Denver, Chicago, JFK. If that was Big Foot, the security footprint in Billings, Montana was the size of a Newborn.

We queued up with only a few people in front of us. If only I could get through security here, there would be nothing stopping me from delivering the SD card to BossMan95’s secure drop in Seattle. The card, along with the address to the secure drop, was in my wallet. Also in my wallet, my last fake ID.

Did I look like a ‘Horatio Donovan’? Well, my picture was on the ID, and we’d used Horatio’s name to buy the ticket. I crossed my fingers. I’d bought the ID off of a Dark World marketplace vendor.

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Would it work? I’d know in about two minutes.

One of the TSA staff bellowed, “Next!” We shuffled forward. I was third in line. There were two people checking tickets and IDs at the TSA gate. One was a woman whose eyes were wide-open, taking in everything, master of her domain.

“Next!” I was second in line. Wide Open Eyes Agent seemed wide awake, caffeinated, and strict.

The other TSA agent looked massively hung-over. Probably he’d been out the night before, drinking and wondering how he ended up working at TSA when he’d dreamed of what?… Becoming a fire-fighter? Rodeo bull rider? Hang glider? Safari guider?

I had a fifty-fifty chance. It was Miss Strict or Hungover Man.

If I wanted to breeze through security, I definitely hoped to draw Captain Hangover.

Miss Strict bellowed “Next!” and the Captain flinched. Yup, hungover for sure. Miss Strict was probably doing it on purpose. I was now next in line.

If Hungover Man would work a little fucking faster, the guy standing in front of his podium would move on to the conveyor belts, H-man could whisper “Next!” and I’d be his.

On my right, Miss Strict was processing people like a TSA version of Usain Bolt.

Come on, H-man. Faster!

As I waited, I turned to nod to Jenny, to silently wish her good luck, and who did I see?

Kevin. Standing right behind Jenny. Dude pops up more often than a killer in a horror movie! My heart rate tripled.

Shit.

Then I heard, “Next!”

I was up.

But, I didn’t move. I was looking for Barry. Where there was Kevin, there was Barry. But where was he? I heard, “Next!”

I glanced over to see which agent I got. You want to guess?

The strict one, of course. That’s right. Was there any doubt?

Strict One barked, “Ticket and ID!”

The plan had been, if this didn’t work, if I got detained, Jenny wouldn’t try to go through security. She would pivot, walk to the right, I’d drop my wallet and kick it along the floor like a hockey puck. Theoretically, Jenny would take the wallet and run for it. If I was caught, I was trusting Jenny to get that SD card to BossMan95 and help Teresa. At all costs.

But now Kevin stood right behind her in line. If I didn’t make it past security, that plan was shot.

I handed my ticket and ID to Mrs Strict TSA Agent. She looked at the ID, then at me. It was me in the picture. That part was real. The name was real, too. Horatio Donovan. It just wasn’t my name. Mrs Strict TSA shined a light at the ID, holding it at several angles. Then she looked up at me and started to speak. I glanced back to see Jenny, her back turned to me, talking to Kevin, who was facing me. Kevin was talking to Jenny, but he was staring at me.

I shivered.

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I remembered Jenny having a long talk with Cop Dracula, too. And, I woke up in the truck to hear her whispering to Dan. What was she scheming with Kevin? And, how did she know my real name was Sean? There was no way. And, there was no way Kevin would know where I was, except, of course, they had to be working together.

That was it. I was out. I couldn’t trust Jenny. No way.

You know what? There wasn’t much more I could do. If this whole thing was going to fail, it was going to fail and I was going to jail. If it didn’t fail, and I did prevail, and stayed out of jail, I could go to Teresa tell the tale in full detail.

I could tell her in person. Right there with her. Holding her hand. Kissing her big, stupid forehead.

I missed my sister. I could do this. I would see her again before dark. I had to do this.

Mrs Strict said, “Take off your mask and hat.” I complied. She looked from me to the ID and back. Then again. Me, to the ID and back.

I said, “I, uh, shaved since –”

Suddenly, Ms Strict circled something in red pen, she jotted something in blue pen, and handed me back the ID and ticket.

She bellowed, “Next!” Mr Hungover Man flinched. Had I done it? I think I’d – Haha! I did it. I made it!

I looked around and saw Jenny. She gave a scooting motion with her hands. Kevin did, too. They both encouraged me to go.

What. The. Fuck. ?

I didn’t have bags so I put my shoes and wallet into a bin and quickly walked through that scanner thing where they can see through your clothes.

I glanced back. Jenny and Kevin were at the TSA podiums.

The body scanner invaded my privacy.

Kevin and Jenny were unloading their pockets, taking off watches and belts.

I stood at those two yellow footprints, waiting to be cleared of the body scanner.

Once cleared, I snatched my shoes and wallet from the conveyor belt.

I put on my shoes as Kevin, then Jenny, cleared the body scanner.

I jogged to the escalator as they grabbed their belongings.

I ran up the escalator, to the top and …

And I saw Barry. He was blocking my way. Waiting for me. I turned around, but Jenny and Kevin were sprinting up the escalator, carrying their shoes.

Kevin was running right at me. I couldn’t avoid him without running into 300 pound Barry. Jenny was right behind Kevin. Kevin wasn’t huge, but he had a head of steam. He was headed right at me. I closed my eyes and flinched.

Then, I heard… “Oof!”

I opened my eyes. Kevin had missed me and ran right into Barry. Little Kevin had taken down Big Barry.

Jenny grabbed my hand. She said, “Kevin’s got this, let’s go!”

She led me to gate 3. Our flight was already boarding. I looked back, airport security was pulling Kevin off of Barry. Barry was pointing at us and yelling. Kevin was yelling. It was chaos.

Our seats were not together. I sat in the middle. Jenny was at the back. I wanted to ask her what was going on with Kevin, but she was too far away.

I had an aisle seat. I felt vulnerable. Normally I like the aisle, so I can get up to go pee without bothering anyone. But, what I would have given for a window seat where I could slump down, pull my mask up and my hat down and pray for the plane to take off. Or, to taxi. At least to fucking move.

Five minutes. Ten.

Come on, people, let’s go!

We sat there. Fifteen. The other passengers became restless. Twenty minutes. Were these delays normal for small airports?

Then, the door closed and locked. The cabin began to pressurize as the pressure rose from my shoulders. Finally. All that was left was taxiing and then taking off.

But still, we didn’t move. Twenty five, thirty.

Then, the door re-opened and I saw two TSA cops board. Behind them, Big Barry.

I went peacefully. I couldn’t make a scene here, or the plane would never take off. I needed that plane to take off, asap.

They cuffed me right there on the plane. I glanced back at Jenny. With my eyes, I looked at her, then the seat I had been sitting in. I tried to send her telepathic messages. Look at my seat.

Then, they hauled me off. The other passengers didn’t know what was going on, but as I was stepping off the plane, I heard them break out in applause.

But that’s not how I was going down. As soon as we exited the gangway, I ducked my shoulder into the cop in front, and jerked away from the cop behind, and I ran.

It’s hard to run wearing handcuffs. You can’t swing your arms. It’s all shoulders.

I ran through the terminal, down the exit escalator, out into the sunshine and wide open blue sky, where I was tackled.

Barry said, “Gotcha, Numbnuts!”. I lay on the sidewalk, knee in my back, and I heard Jenny’s plane to Seattle take off.

Ten minutes later, I was in a small office-slash-breakroom. It had a couple of vending machines and a kitchenette.

Kevin was already there, handcuffed. Barry was ordering people around. The room I was sitting in desperately needed new vinyl blinds and a paint job. And by the looks of them, the two rent-a-cops there desperately needed ironed shirts and a hand job.

Kevin leaned in and said, “Barry has a fake FBI ID. The local schmocals don’t have a clue.”

Barry looked over and said, “Hey, no talking!”

Barry went back to scheming with the two airport security cops, I whispered, “Hey, man, thanks for trying to help. Sorry I stunned you. You know, back in Atlanta.”

Kevin shifted uncomfortably. He said, “Yeah, that hurt. But, it’s part of the job when you work security.”

I said, “Why did you follow me?”

Kevin said, “I had to keep an eye on Barry. BossMan95’s orders.”

From across the room, Barry bellowed, “I said, no talking!!”

Barry strided over and pulled Kevin up roughly. He pushed him over to a chair in the corner and shoved him into it. He growled, “Shut. Up!”

So BossMan95 was ordering Kevin around, too?

An hour later, Barry and the two airport rent-a-cops led us out to the curb and stood us in front of a cheap rental car. The two cops pushed Kevin and I into the back seat, and Barry squeezed into the driver’s seat. He got out his phone and tapped it a couple of times. He said, “Did you get it?” I heard two dings and both cops looked at their phone screens, smiled like they’d won the lottery and said, “Yes, sir!” They high-fived.

We drove off. It was dusk. Jenny’s plane would soon land in Seattle. Hopefully, she’d check my seat for where I stashed my phone and wallet. Hopefully she’d see the address and instructions for how to dead drop the SD card to BossMan95. Or else, all of this was for nothing.

Less than a mile later, Barry pulled over. He opened Kevin’s door and yanked him out. It was dusk, and I couldn’t quite see what was happening. I could see the lights from the city below. The airport was at the top of a cliff. A couple of minutes later, Barry came back, alone.

He got in. I said, “What did you do to Kevin?”

Barry said, “Fuck off.”

An hour later, we stopped at the end of a tiny, windy dirt road in the middle of nowhere. There was a sign for a wildlife preserve. Barry got out, got me out, got out a stun gun just like the one I hit Kevin with and said, “Now, we’re gonna talk about where you stashed that SD card with the cyber weapon.”

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Transcript

Jenny and I were in an eighteen wheeler with Trucker Dan. Dan was not a fan. Oh, he liked Jenny alright, with her tight jeans and half-buttoned shirt. Her charm – you know, “oh shucks aren’t you just a sweetheart for giving us a ride”.

But Trucker Dan was not a fan of me. Not so much.

I know why, right? I can see it from Dan’s perspective. He stopped to pick up a young woman in distress. Then, I appeared, out from hiding, wearing handcuffs and looking like I’d been in a fight with a lawn-mower.

I couldn’t do much about the cuts and bruises on my face, but Jenny got me out of the cuffs.

She asked Dan for a ball point pen. Dan handed her one from his left breast pocket. She took it apart, flattened the ink tube, then shoved it down the locking mechanism on the cuffs, creating a shim. Then, she pulled on the cuffs and they reversed right open. It was so easy. I was floo red.

For about ten seconds. Then, while I was rubbing my wrists, Dan noticed the red and blue flashing lights behind us.

It was the fuzz. Smokey. Oh, Fantastic. Trucker Dan was being pulled over.

Anyway, after Dan sees the cop, he says, “Well, what in tarnation, I ain’t been pulled over in three years.” See what I’m saying about how he sounds?

Jenny looked at me and then started to speak but Dan cut her off. He said, “Get in the bed in my sleeper, draw the curtain, cover yourself with my pillows and blankets. I’ll get rid of this cop.”

We hadn’t told Dan anything about our predicament, so I didn’t know why he was making us hide. But Jenny smiled and kissed Dan on the cheek. Dan grinned sheepishly. He said, “Don’t worry, I got this.”

We did as Dan said, a few minutes later, we were covered in smelly blankets and pillows, Jenny laying side by side with me. We held hands.

I’m not gonna lie, it was tense. It felt like one of those movies where they’re smuggling someone across the border or something.

The cop asked Dan to step down from the cab. We couldn’t hear their conversation well, but we could peek out the darkened sleeper window. The cop was young, barely more than a kid. We could hear bits and pieces of their conversation. They laughed a couple of times. Kid Cop was saying the usual stuff, like “have you seen these two?” “They stole something dangerous.” “Call me if you have anything to report.” “It’s a matter of national security.”

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It took twenty tense minutes, but then we were on the road again. Jenny was showering Dan with praise, treating him as a hero. Dan was loving it.

I was about to be sick. Because, five miles later….

We entered the Million Dollar Highway, part of Dan’s shortcut to Salt Lake City, where he was hauling some sort of urgent cargo, which he would not divulge. Ever been on the Million Dollar Highway, aka, The Most Fucked Up Road in America? Oh, you’d remember if you had. I couldn’t even look at the road, if you can even call it a road. It was like a parable for how my life was going. Sheer cliff on the right, going straight up. Sheer cliff on the left, going straight down. Windy, with blind curves and rock slides. And not a guardrail in sight.

Jenny was like, “Oh, this is so awesome!” The woman is nuts, I’m telling you. I mean, one side of the painted white line was the road, the other side of the line, where you usually have the shoulder, was a 1000 foot drop.

I wouldn’t want to walk down this road.

We were in a big rig.

How had all this happened? Late last week, it had begun so well… for the first hour. I’d stolen the data I wanted and gotten away, but I got sidetracked after leaping from a perfectly good moving car, losing my backpack in the back of a Uhaul, diverting to Birmingham where I recovered my backpack and first met Jenny. Days ago, Jenny appeared out of nowhere behind me in line for a burrito, across from my motel. Then she was on the bus I was on, saying that she was going to visit a boyfriend she now suddenly no longer cared about. She was techy enough to jailbreak her own phone to run a specialized app. Oh, and she knew how to break out of handcuffs.

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Jenny was now emphasizing Allen every time she spoke to me. Allen, look at that view, Allen, isn’t Dan a sweetheart, Allen… Eh. Look, I told her my name was “Allen” but she had called me by my real name, “Sean.” She wasn’t supposed to know my real name. So… How did she?

I looked toward the front of the cab where Jenny sat with Dan. She was enamoured with the view. And… so was Dan. Several times, Jenny leaned across Dan, trying to get a look at the mountains on the driver’s side, or a rock slide, or a car full of people that died when they had gone over the edge. She kept doing it, leaning across him… look at the waterfall, or ‘oh, wow, I just saw a car wrecked on the valley floor’.

Dan kept sneaking peeks. Not at the mountain peaks, but down Jenny’s sagging shirt.

It was going to get us killed. Dan would be looking down her shirt and driving off a cliff.

That’s what I thought, but, Trucker Dan just kept trucking along, apparently plenty experienced in the art of driving while peeping. While Dan was peeping, I was sleeping.

I woke up about the time we stopped at a Blue Jay’s truck stop in Grand Junction, Colorado. Jenny and Dan were speaking in hushed whispers(?). I guess so they wouldn’t wake me?

The law said Dan could drive eleven of every fourteen hours. He was sitting at ten, while pushing to get to Salt Lake before noon tomorrow. He said he had to take a mandatory break.

Jenny said, “Hey, the sign says they have showers.”

Dan said, “Yup members only. But if you want one, you can take my Blue Jay’s member card to get in.”

Jenny said, “Do you mind?”

Dan said, “Not tall.”

He handed her his member card and told her where to go to get a clean towel. She went to get her bag from the truck, then came back and kissed him on the cheek again, smiled at me, then walked away.

Jenny was just out of ear-shot when Dan turned to me and said, “Hand over that computer weapon.”

I said, “What?”

“The CIA computer weapon you stole. I want it.”

I chuckled and said, “Sorry, man you got the wrong guy.”

Dan reached into his pocket and pulled out… his phone and showed me a picture of me. He flicked the screen, showing a picture of Jenny. He flicked it again, and there was a picture of Jenny and I together on the bus. A passenger must have taken it.

“Highway patrol back there Airdropped me these. I showed them to Jenny. These pictures are all over the news. Cop who stopped me also said a patrolman in New Mexico’s been shot. About twenty miles from where I picked you up.”

I said, “That wasn’t me. It was some other – “

“Some other guy. I know. News is saying that the New Mexico patrolman killed the guy that shot him. They fingerprinted the dead guy. Swedish national. Wearing the uniform of a dead patrolman who was found in Texas. Swedish guy is some sort of notorious hacker. He was after that CIA computer weapon. News said it could be worth billions. News is saying every country on earth wants that weapon.

“News says you have it.”

I thought about what I’d read on the Dark World Forums. Rumors that spies and hackers were all flying to the US to hunt for the Cyber Weapon. It was a game-changer. Whoever controlled the weapon – nicknamed Styx – would have more power than almost any other single person on earth. I looked at Dan and realized he had one hand extended in front of him, palm up. On the other hand,,, he held an adorable little Beretta A21 Bobcat.

He said, “Go ahead and hand it over.”

I glanced around.

Dan said, “No one can see you. And, no one would care if they could. No one gives a shit about a turd like you… in the whole wide world, I bet there are five billion people who your average other person would care about ahead of you…”

Dan rambled on about what a piece of shit I was for a bit, and I started thinking… what the fuck kind of can of worms had I opened? I mean, I was supposed to get hired on as security at Gateway Underground Secure Storage, then during a planned outage and upgrade, I was to steal the SD card that I stole, and steal a few extra cards to confuse the cops. I was to drive to Charlotte, fly to Seattle, hand the card to BossMan95, and be done with this stuff. Days ago. We’d cure Teresa, open-source the drug and a vaccine, and go back to our normal lives.

Instead I felt like a bruised orange. I’d been chased down, locked up, handcuffed, freed, brought down to zero, pulled out, and put back there. Had sex with the girl with the black hair.

My point is, it was supposed to go down smoothly. At no point was I supposed to have a gun pointed at my forehead.

But here I was.

I said, “Dan, what I stole is not a weapon, it’s a cure for my sister, she has –”

Dan said, “A cure? Well now, that sounds like sumtim’ else people will pay big money for. Hand it over.”

I thought, If I can get up in his truck and to my bag, maybe I can grab it and go out the other door and run away.

I said, “Alright, let me get it out of my backpack. It’s up in the truck. You can turn it in to police, get your stupid reward.”

Dan said, “Police? No way, man. I’m selling this motherfucker. Top bid. Iran, China. North Korea. Don’t make no difference. I’m gonna be rich, bitch. Never have to drive another mile.”

I said, “Jesus, Dan. North Korea?”

Dan spat on the ground and said, “Don’t make no difference. America’ll be fine.”

I said, “Dan, listen. America will be fine. We agree there. But, my sister. She’s really sick. I need –”

Dan interrupted. He said, “You need to walk, motherfucker. That way.” He jabbed his gun toward the field.

I tried to act disappointed, but I leapt for joy inside. It had worked! The SD card was in my wallet, not the backpack. I mean, Dumbass Dan can have the other four cards, full of illegal porn. Yeah… maybe I’ll just call in a little tip to the police on Dan’s behalf.

I said, “Okay, I’m walking. I’m walking.” I turned to leave. I admit, I was a little concerned with Dan shooting me in the back. But, the gun looked like it was already getting heavy in his hands, so his accuracy would suck.

I was two steps – TWO steps away, on my way to ditching Dan, finding Jenny and getting the hell outta there, when…

When I heard a voice behind me.

“It’s not in the backpack.”

Jenny? I turned. She was leaning out the window of Dan’s truck.

Jenny. She must have circled around.

She said, “I checked the backpack, it’s not there. He must have it in his wallet.”

I thought, “Backstabbing traitor!”

Dan jabbed the gun and said, “Hand over the wallet, or I will shoot you.”

I handed it to him, then I had an internal dialogue.

The devil on my right shoulder said, “You idiot! No wonder your sister is about to die, she has a worthless asshole for a brother!”

My shoulder angel said, “Sean, just stay alive, if he shoots you, no one can help Teresa. You must stay in the game!”

Devil: “Sure, stay in the game. But, oh yeah, you SUCK at the game. You might as well get shot. Natural selection at it’s finest.”

I sat down. I am a Loser. I mean, what have I done with my life. Nothing. No kids, no house, no legacy. I was kidding myself. All I wanted to do was help Teresa, but look how much of a mess I’d made from that! Not only was she going to die anyway, I’d thrown America into chaos trying to help.

The angel turned on the devil. She said, “You know if he dies, you cease to exist, right?”

My shoulder devil said, “Oh, shit.”

The angel leaned down, put her arm around my neck and whispered in my ear. She said, “Hey, fuck that guy.”

The Devil said, “Hey, are you allowed to cuss?”

The Angel ignored him. She continued, “You love your sister, that’s success. Success is marked by the journey, not the destination. You are enough as you are.”

I slumped down, right there next to Dan’s truck on the edge of the truckstop, blocked from view of the other truckers.

I am enough as I am. I wasn’t going to save Teresa, but I tried. But, was it enough?

I was tired. Was I giving up? I don’t know. I’m sure it looked that way.

Jenny said, “No. No. Don’t do this. Don’t.”

I started to sob.

Jenny yelled, “No, no, no.”

Dan said, “Is he crying? Ohh, is the man-baby…”

Jenny said, “Shutup, Dan. Shut. Up. His sister is sick. She has COVID-19.”

Dan stumbled backwards. He said, “Whoa, shit, and I was in the truck with him for hours!”

Jenny said, “Relax, he hasn’t been around her for weeks.”

Dan said, “Well then, let’s go. Get up, motherfucker. Walk, or I will shoot you.”

Jenny walked over to Dan. She said, “Give me the gun, go get the truck ready.”

Dan eyed her skeptically. Jenny said, “Well, I’ll do it, but I’ve never gassed up an eighteen wheeler. Is that what you want?”

Dan stood still, the wheels turning. Then, he nodded slowly, then faster. He said, “Okay.” He handed her the gun.

Jenny took it and immediately turned on Dan. She said, “Hand me the wallet.”

Dan said, “Oh, come on!”

Jenny, “Wallet!”

Dan handed it to her, seething.

Jenny walked over to me. Keeping the gun trained on Dan, she grabbed my left arm and helped me up.

She handed me back my wallet and said, “I’m sorry. I’ve been in contact with BossMan95 on the Dark World Forums, too. He’s upset with me. I panicked.”

I looked at her and said, “You what?”

“It’s a long story. We can talk later, but right now, we need to go.”

We tied Dan up in his sleeper cab. Might still be there, actually.

Eleven hours later, we’d talked it out and I had slept, off and on. Jenny got us on another truck going East on 70 to Denver, then another north on 25 and two different trucks heading north and west on I-90. If we were being followed, hopefully it was enough to throw them off.

We were in Billings, Montana. And there, on the sandstone cliffs overlooking the city and the Yellowstone River, we walked into the small-town, single terminal airport.

Jenny used her phone to buy us tickets while we rode up on I-25. I had a fake ID. Billings to Seattle was barely a two hour flight. If I got past the paltry security, we were home free, and before nightfall, I would finally see my sister.

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Other Music in this episode:

• For Rock Country
• Dramatic Road Trip
• Dark Acoustic Western Groove

Transcript

Things were grim. I had lied to Jenny, then I had sex with her, then I thought she’d abandoned me, then we had sex again. BossMan95 kept calling and I kept sending it to voicemail. My sister’s condition undoubtedly grew worse by the day. I didn’t even want to know. What else? Oh yeah, I was the center of a major manhunt. And, whomever had found the Cyber Weapon in DeKeisha’s computer, if not DeKeisha herself, was taunting the world with it.

Right now, Jenny and I were on the open road.

We had located a used car lot between Dallas and Fort Worth, got cash from six different ATMs and turned that cash into a maroon 1992 Cadillac Brougham with over three hundred thousand miles on it. The gas mileage sucked, the paint was peeling and the leather seats were crumbling. But the AC blew cold, the ride was smooth, and it was fast.

But not too fast. Inconspicuous. I was driving with inconspicuous speed.

Jenny and I stopped to get lunch at a roadside diner. There were no drive throughs in these small towns and apparently this little town, whatever it was, wasn’t shutting down restaurants for the pandemic.

We entered and waited for a seat. I was clean-shaven, wore empty glasses frames Jenny had found at a dollar store, had a new, blank baseball cap pulled low, a black COVID mask and I didn’t look anyone in the eye. There was zero chance anyone would recognize me.

But, I don’t know. There was a vibe in that place. Like, when you enter a room and suddenly everyone stops talking and you know they were talking about you.

We entered the diner and seated ourselves in a booth and ordered burgers. We were having an argument about Styx, the Cyber Weapon and Cyber War in general.

I was saying, “I figure a Cyber Cold War probably would mimic a real life Cold War with ever-escalating weaponry. Nation-states would have to do anything to keep level, or else risk an attack. There would be alliances, intrigue and backstabbing. And, it would all happen online, in the dark, and the public wouldn’t know a thing.”

Jenny said, “You know what bugs me about technology?”

I said, “What bugs you about technology?”

“I just – I just never know if I’m being secure, or if I’m, you know, one of the idiots that is doing all this dumb shit and is pwned and vulnerable.”

I said, “That’s exactly why I got into cyber security. I mean, I’m not a big-time hacker or anything, but I had to know if I was vulnerable. I can’t fathom how people leave that up to someone else.”

Our food arrived. The TV up in the corner was on. Fox News said the CIA was expecting a ransom demand at any time. On another TV, CNN talking heads bickered about how high the ransom would go. The consensus was it could reach the billions.

Good God Almighty, I really should go back to DeKeisha’s and get that SD card.

Focus. I had to Focus. This was about Teresa, not getting rich.

Suddenly, Jenny slid out from her side of the booth, switched to my side and slid in, so we sat side by side. She leaned over as if to kiss me, but instead whispered, “Sean, this place creeps me out. The guy at the counter in the blue shirt. I swear I’ve seen him before.”

The counter was behind me. I didn’t want to look right away and be all suspicious. Instead, I counted to ten. (One) While I did, I felt… (Two…) uneasy. My stomach was full of butterflies. (3) What was it? Something Jenny had just said? (4) What did Jenny just say?

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I got to ten, then glanced around casually. I said, “I don’t remember seeing him.”

Jenny said, “You barely looked. I think the people at the counter recognize you from the news. Forget the food. Leave some money, let’s go.”

Two minutes later, we were in the car and on the road. We backtracked for a few miles, but we didn’t notice anyone follow us, so we did another u-turn and continued north and west.

We’d begun to relax again about the time we were interrupted by lights in the mirror and a siren surrounding us.

We were being pulled over. For a moment, I thought about running for it, but – advice from the Dark World Forums – you can’t outrun the police band radio. Cops don’t have to chase, they can just radio ahead.

Besides, how could a cop know it was me in this car? There was no way.

I rolled to a stop on the shoulder.

A strangely-dressed highway patrolman stepped out of the vehicle. I rolled down my window and put my hands on the dashboard. Patrolman walked up, said, ‘License and Registration.’

I said, “Did I do something wrong?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t say a thing. Patrolman turned and walked to the back of the Caddy, pulled out his baton, smashed the driver’s side tail light, walked back to me and said, “you have a broken taillight.”

I turned to give Jenny a look that I hoped conveyed, “we are in trouble.” But, the look on her face said she already knew that.

Cop man said, “Step out of the vehicle sir.”

I said, “Because you broke my tail light?”

Cop man put his hand on his sidearm and repeated, ‘Step out of the vehicle, sir!’ His accent was … Strange. Like, a bad actor playing Count Dracula in a B movie. But, this Count Dracula had a gun, so I complied.

Cop Man Count Dracula patted me down, cuffed me, put me in the back of his car.

Now, I realize there was a huge manhunt. I was wanted. I get it. But this particular cop did not seem to be arresting me. He fumbled with the cuffs like they were some sort of post-modern technology, he didn’t read me my rights, didn’t even confirm who I was… didn’t… didn’t (sigh) seem to even be a cop.

Cop Man Dracula put my backpack in the front seat of his car. I couldn’t get to it because of the plexiglass divider. Then he returned to my car, leaned in the passenger window for a long chat with Jenny. I was like, is he going to let her go? They seemed almost friendly. What were they talking about?

Then, Jenny opened the door and got out. Cop Dracula zip-tied her hands together in front of her body, which was weird. He had cuffed me from behind. The cop put her in his car next to me in the back seat.

First thing Jenny said was, “His uniform is way too big for him, and he has a weird accent, like –”

“Dracula.”

“Yeah.”

I said, “What were you talking with him about?” I tried to keep suspicion out of my voice, but I don’t know if I succeeded.

She didn’t answer. Instead, Jenny asked, “Why is he searching the car?”

“He must know about the SD cards.”

She said, “How? He hasn’t even asked us who we are. You never showed him your ID.”

She was right. It was like he already knew who I was.

Does this happen to you? Sometimes, random memories pop into your head at weird times? This particular stretch of road, with a curve ascending a hill, reminded me of this road near the town I grew up in. Most days, a patrolman parked just over the hill and lit up anyone who was even a digit over the speed limit. That reminded me of my mom, who was pulled over about once a month by that cop. Mom died two decades ago. That reminded me of Teresa who had promised Mom she’d raise me.

And she did. Teresa would drop me off at middle school and drive herself to class at the university. Or, maybe she’d pick me up from juvy, take me to court, to my probation officer, to counseling. Later, it was high school, before she’d drive herself to work.

For years she spent whatever time not spent dealing with me, working. By the time she was twenty-five, she was managing a small chain of Pacific Northwest assisted living centers, helping people like our Mom. When the married owners of the chain retired, she took out a massive business loan, bought them out and paid for me to go to college.

Teresa did it all. Except, have a life. She only sometimes partied, rarely dated, never complained.

Now it was my turn. When Teresa got sick several months ago, I quit going to work, desperate to help her. I researched everything, hacked to get data I didn’t understand, fell prey to scammers. So many scams.

Finally, I went to the Dark World forums, just to vent, really. I posted, glad to have it off my chest and then… I got a DM.

This guy reached out after seeing my post. He said he could create a COVID vaccine for me, and a cure for Teresa.

If…

If he had the right information. The user called himself BossMan95. He had well-placed sources that told him some mega-giant pharmaceutical company was sitting on a cure. They had all the research data and information. BossMan95 said he knew where the data was stored. He said it was too secure to hack remotely, but someone might be able to physically walk in, steal it, and walk out.

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I told him I wanted to be that someone.

And, I had been. I had stolen that information. I looked at my backpack on the front seat of the patrol car. The SD card that could save Teresa was in that bag. I could have Fedexed the damn thing to BossMan95 when he asked.

But, no, I can’t trust anyone.

I jerked at the handcuffs, and punched the seat in frustration. Arrggghhhhh!!!

Jenny was right. It was like the highway patrolman had already known who we were. She was right that he didn’t seem to be a cop. She was right that something was going down. Jenny jabbed me in the side and said, “Sean, he’s going to burn your car.”

I looked, and of course. Jenny was right. She was always fucking right.

The patrolman stepped back from my car, pulled out his revolver, got down on a knee, and shot it under my car. Twice. Shot. My. Car. Bang. Bang. Liquid spilled out from underneath. Gasoline. Of course it is. Cop Dracula pulled out a book of matches, and …

And then, another highway patrol car pulled up behind the one we were in.

We sat in the first patrol car. The radio was on. We could hear the police band. It crackled, “Dispatch, this is Arnold. I’m Northbound on 371. Checking out an out of state patrol car making a stop in my county.”

I looked at Jenny and said, “Out of state patrol car? What state are we in?” She looked toward the ceiling of the patrol car, thinking, and said, “Texas?” I said, “Are you sure we’re not in New Mexico?” She shrugged.

The second patrolman, the one just now on the radio who called himself Arnold, got out of his car just as Cop Dracula lit the book of matches. Arnold started to say something, but Cop Dracula tossed the matches and all anybody heard was “Boom!”

Up went my two thousand dollar Caddy.

Jenny yelled, “Holy shit!” I heard Arnold yell as he dove for cover. Arnold popped back up, and started popping off. Bang, bang, bang-bang. He unloaded a clip. Cop Dracula fired back. Bang-bang.

It was surreal. Two cops in an old-West gunfight right in front of us. My poor old Caddy was engulfed in flames. Jenny and I ducked as bullets riddled the patrol car we were in. Bullets hit our windshield. They shattered the passenger rear window.

There was more shooting, yelling, running. I looked up just in time to see Cop Dracula disappear into the thicket on the side of the road. Then, the cop called Arnold gave chase. My Caddy billowed black smoke and Jenny screamed, “Sean, let’s get out of here!”

And it hit me. She’d called me Sean. Just now, but also back at the diner, and yesterday in bed. Jenny knew my real name was Sean, not Allen. But, how? Gunshots rang out from the thicket on the side of the road. Yeah, let’s worry about that later.

Jenny broke her zip-ties using my shoe-laces, then she kicked out the rest of the shattered window on her side. She reached out and grabbed the outside handle and opened the door. She jumped out, slamming the door behind her. She raced around to the other side, got in the driver’s seat, and we tore the fuck out of there.

I looked back and didn’t see either cop. Jenny found the lights and turned them on. She cranked the siren and we flew down the highway.

It was spectacular.

Jenny was a good driver. We were flying around curves, nearly catching air on some of the bumps. We’d done twenty miles in ten minutes and she said, “I can’t find the keys to the cuffs. That patrolman must have them.”

I said, “Forget it. We need to ditch this car!”

A couple of miles later, I spotted a gravel pit by the side of the road. It went by so fast we had to double back. Jenny drove the patrol car around to the back of the pond in the center, got out, let me out, and pushed the car until it started rolling toward the pit of water.

I said, “Oh shit, my backpack!”

Jenny ran with the car, pulled open the front door, and grabbed my backpack just as the car went over the lip and fell into the water ten feet below.

I couldn’t do a thing. My hands were still cuffed behind me. Jenny told me to hide behind a mound of gravel. She rolled up her pant legs, undid a couple of buttons on her shirt, stood in the middle of the road and thumbed down the next passing eighteen wheeler.

The trucker was all smiles… until he saw me, in handcuffs, walk over. Jenny helped me in, and we hit the road.

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Other Music in this episode:

• Suspicious Shadows
• Driving in my Car
• Last Minute New Year Countdown
• Exotic War Drums

Transcript

We were in Dallas. Jenny and me. I was on the run. Jenny was having fun, fangirling this whole cyber weapon story. The thing was, something about her was bugging me.

I put it on the backburner, though, because she’d just saved me from the sharks circling the blood in the water. FBI were the sharks. I was the blood.

Jenny had run into some FBI agents at the bus terminal in Dallas. Instead of leading them to me, and herself to the half-million dollar reward for my arrest, she came got me, and we fled.

I don’t understand how those guys tracked me. What had I done wrong?

According to Jenny: nothing. I had done nothing wrong. She thought it was just pure numbers. Cable news had said it was the biggest manhunt in forty seven years. She pointed out that someone was probably watching every airport and bus depot in the South.

Now, we were opening the door to our motel room. Was it a good idea to get a motel room with this woman I barely knew? No, not at all. It was a terrible idea. And yet, here I was, doing it.

Jenny had said she was going to visit an ex-boyfriend in Denver, to get back the car that he took when he left her. Since she and I had met, both of us had been wearing COVID face coverings, hers a nice lacy pink mask, mine a blue disposable I bought a couple of days ago and should have replaced by now.

Was it a good idea to get a motel room with her? No. But, with the manhunt, what choice did I have? I decided to trust her for now. She’d had a chance to turn me in, but hadn’t. There was a half-million dollar reward for information leading to my arrest. There was a million dollar reward for the return of the cyber weapon I had stolen. It could have all been hers. But she didn’t take it.

Jenny warily pushed open the door to the room we’d gotten, took two glances and said, “Whoa, this is seriously sketchy.”

Since we were on the run, we picked a shady motel a ways from the downtown Greyhound station and took a cab. An actual cab, not Uber, so I could pay cash.

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The room had two beds but Jenny pointed to the far one and said, “Do not go near that one. I can tell from here, it’s nasty. We’ll have to share this bed.” She pointed to the near bed. She was all matter-of-fact, like, “hey, we’ve just met, don’t know each other at all, have no idea what you actually look like due to the masks we’ve worn the whole time, so let’s share a bed.”

Eh, just like college.

Honestly, I didn’t care. I hadn’t slept much for several days. I was so tired even all my anxieties couldn’t keep me awake. Any bed with any body would work. That, and a shower. A long shower. And time to formulate a plan. I needed to get back to Seattle, ASAP. My sister Teresa was sick, and I had the information that could help her. But, due to the manhunt, I couldn’t just fly there. At this point, I couldn’t even take the bus there.

My phone rang. BossMan95, again. I let it ring until Jenny said, “you going to answer that?”

I wanted to talk, but not with Jenny around. So I said, “not right now” and sent it to voicemail. Then I said, “I’m going to grab a shower.”

Jenny grabbed the TV remote, “Hold on. Let’s see what’s the latest.” She clicked on the TV and found CNN. They were talking to some politician about the CIA. The ticker across the bottom scrolled the latest about Styx, and now about how my apparent spotting at a Greyhound bus station was a false alarm.

On the screen, my ever-present picture. Also, my fake name, Allen Parsons, and some of the fake background I’d made up. University of Miami, majored in music, father of three, security guard. So far, I hadn’t been doxxed. But how long would my fake identity hold up?

Then, the news hit the top of the hour, it was time for the headlines. The anchor said, “Our top story this evening: The Cyber Weapon. For more, here’s John Marley in Dallas.”

John came on, standing in front of the bus station we were at an hour ago. John reported that

• The FBI found several people on a Greyhound bus who said I fit the description
• When they entered the bus, they found me missing, pointing to the fact that it was me
• The Cyber Weapon had come online temporarily earlier in the day, and the countdown had started. But, only one hour elapsed before it disappeared and the countdown stopped.
• Wikileaks found leaked memos in their archives. According to what they found, the weapon is a Cyber Kill Switch created by the CIA. After a three day countdown, it detonates; Once it detonates, it will take down key Internet points and infect millions of IoT devices.
• Sources inside the CIA paint a picture of panic because Styx is in the wild. Since Styx checks in with command and control via Tor, no one knows where it is. Cyber Command is trying to trace the route, but haven’t succeeded.
• If the Kill Switch is reset within seventy-two hours, then the Countdown starts over.

Jenny said, “Holy shit” then changed it to Fox News. Same breakdown. MSNBC, same. A graphic in the lower right of the screen showed a countdown timer. It wasn’t moving. It just said, “72:00:00”.

It sat there. Like a lioness in the tall grass, ready to pounce.

I shivered. What would people do if that clock started ticking again?

It felt eerie how this was all because of me. The world was watching with anticipation. “Would Styx come back online? Where was it? Who had it?”

In the whole world, I was probably the only person who knew. My theory was that the weapon was still inserted in DeKeisha’s computer’s SD card slot, but she didn’t realize it. Every time DeKeisha turned on her computer and then off again, it reset the timer.

Jenny sat down next to me. She turned to me and said, “I don’t understand why the CIA would even make a kill switch.”

I said, “From what I’ve read, once it goes off – the CIA says ‘detonates’ – Styx propagates up until it reaches an Internet Exchange point – a node on kind of the backbone of the Internet.”

“Like where a rib bone connects to the backbone?”

I said, “Right, similar to that.”

She said, “So Styx is designed to fry the Internet inside the country or region in which it’s set off?”

I said, “Precisely.”

She said, “So, if we were at war with, say, Iran, the CIA could set up Styx over there and take out their communications? And it’s called a Kill Switch because it’s like those master power buttons at a nuclear plant? It’s a switch that just turns everything off. In this case, it does it by infecting millions of devices that make up the most important skeleton of the Internet?”

I nodded my head. Jenny caught on quick. Too quick. Red Flag.

“I see why they say it’s a weapon. We should report it. It could take out the Internet here!”

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I said, “No, not yet. This distraction helps me.”

“You’re being selfish, this could end the Internet.”

I said, “I’m not doing this for myself, remember? The Internet would come back. My sister won’t.”

I went into the bathroom and started the shower. I started undressing but only got to my mask and shirt before I thought I should take my backpack in. Who knows if Jenny would steal it. And, it’s not like I could tell the cops what she looked like. And, it’s not like I could call the cops at all.

I went back out and Jenny said, “Hey, oh wow, you look different than your picture.”

“Yeah, I shaved my beard.”

“Before you shower, what about those SD cards? You said you had an idea about how to dox the anonymous owners?”

Oh come on. Was I ever going to get to shower?

I said, “Yeah, give me two minutes.” I got out my phone, transcribed the IDs from the three SD cards with the illegal porn into a Dark World Forum post. I wrote: “These are IDs from Gateway Underground, stolen at the same time as Styx. They are full of child and torture porn. Help me dox these assholes. I’ll transfer a thousand Dark World reputation points for each ID doxxed.”

I added the transcribed IDs and added a couple of fake ID numbers as well. I sent the message and Jenny’s phone dinged again, reminding me she was tracking me on Dark World. Now that she knew who I was, would she be the one to dox me?

I stood up to go shower. Jenny said, “We should get some peroxide for those cuts on your neck and shoulder.”

I said, “It’s fine. My hip was bothering me, but it feels better now, too.” Jenny still wore her mask, and I suddenly felt naked without mine.

Jenny said, “Wait, let me get a closer look at this.” She grabbed her phone and turned on the flashlight and examined the middle of my back. I felt her fingers lightly on my skin. I shivered.

I said, “Everything okay?”

She turned off her flashlight and said, “Yeah, I thought I saw something, but it’s fine. What’s this tattoo?”

I said, “When mom died, Teresa and I got the same tattoo. It’s an eagle, Mom’s favorite.”

“What’s it carrying?”

I said, “That’s Bilbo. Mom also loved Tolkien.”

“That’s really cool.”

Then I said, “I’m going to shower.”

I took my backpack into the bathroom, locked the door and got in the shower. In a few minutes, the room was rolling in fog. I let my mind go blank, let the water just run down my back. It felt so good to just … relax…

Then I heard a knock.

Jenny called out, “Hey – I need to pee!”

“Can you wait?”

“You’ve been in there for an hour!”

An hour, damn! I said, “Alright, give me five minutes to dry off!”

She said, “I really need to go.” I heard the door open, and Jenny came in.

But wait, I locked that door.

So… come on… I was naked, my most important possessions were sitting on the bathroom counter in that backpack, and a stranger had just entered the bathroom. Those SD cards, burner phones, my wallet and iPhone. Jenny could grab it all, be out the door, down the steps and into an Uber before I was dressed.

And, that’s if she didn’t take my clothes, too.

I peeked out. Oh, damn. Jenny was sitting on the toilet, her skirt was bunched up, and underwear were around her ankles. She really was … okay…

I pulled back the shower curtain enough to peer at my backpack. I could barely see myself in the fogged up bathroom mirror. She wouldn’t try to grab the bag and run, would she? Well, she could have turned me in so easily, but she didn’t.

But, wait. Maybe she was holding out for the SD card at DeKeisha’s house. If it was really the cyber weapon, that would be another million dollars. Once she got that card, she could turn me and the card in for a cool one point five mil…

The toilet flushed. I tensed. If Jenny tried to grab my backpack on her way out, I’d stick my hand out, hold the door, and prevent her from leaving. I hoped.

Please Jenny, just walk by. Walk by and do not even glance at the backpack, then I’d know I could trust you. Please, don’t even glan –

“Whatcha doin’?” Jenny had pulled back the other end of the shower curtain and had poked her head in. I was so surprised I almost slipped.

“Good God, don’t do that.”

“I just thought… I could use a shower. And, I’m kind of an environmentalist, so I thought we should conserve water.”

Oh, my.

My heart sounded like this:

Jenny was already undressed. She wasn’t wearing anything, not even her mask. She stepped into the shower, stepped into the stream of hot water, stepped up onto her tippy toes and kissed me.

Jenny was breathing hard. She said, “That was terrible. You are awful at this.” She flipped over and suddenly started tickling me, which turned into kissing me, which turned into…

“That was incredible, Allen. For real.” I nodded in agreement.

She’d loudly called “Allen” several times for several reasons, not knowing my real name was Sean and let me tell you, it was weird. Normally that’d piss you off, right? Your partner saying someone else’s name in bed. Except, I was the someone else.

I said, “I can’t believe we broke the headboard.” Jenny giggled. She said, “That happens to me a lot for some reason.”

I smiled. I knew the reason.

We lay in a tangle. I kissed Jenny on the nose. She was gorgeous. I hadn’t seen her without a mask until I had seen her without all of her clothes. What a weird world. Dating and sex in the era of pandemics and masks was weird.

Our bed was soaking. The shower was still running and the entire hotel room was humid. We had started in the shower, finished on the bed and didn’t stop in between.

Jenny moved one of the chunks of the headboard that we had broken, brushed the splinters off the pillow, scooted up to lay her head on my shoulder. She put an arm over my chest. Her leg over my legs.

She kissed my neck and said, “Mmm, Sean, that was nice.”

Damn right that was nice. It’d been months since I’d been with a woman. Lately life had been focused on helping Teresa. Teresa. Shit! What was I doing?!? I hadn’t thought of my sister for hours. Her condition was worsening by the hour, I was on the run, I needed to just get up and get moving. To at least just get up and turn off the shower, to just – just. Just (yawn) a few more minutes.

My eyes snapped open. Where was I? I sat up in a panic.

I was shivering. The bed was wet. I was naked. What happened? Oh, my God, what’d I do? What’d I do?

I looked around. The shower was off. The AC by the window was cranking out gusts of arctic air. Half my body was goosebumps, the other half had shrunk like a frightened turtle.

Jenny was gone.

No! What have I done? What did I do?

I jumped out of bed. My backpack was gone.

No, no, no.

My clothes were gone!

My phone, my wallet.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no!

All gone.

I buried my head in a pillow, and screamed. Why am I so stupid? Why, WHY??? I should have just taken a five minute cold shower and focused on helping Teresa. This is why I should NEVER TRUST ANYONE!

The TV was still on, blaring the news. It said, “several hours ago the Styx countdown had reappeared, reset to 72 hours and started counting down again. Before it got to 71 hours, it reset to 72 hours and disappeared.”

One confused and bemused “expert” – air quotes – pontificated that the thief was taunting the world. I knew that DeKeisha’s ancient computer had probably just blue-screened again. But at this point, who cares? I got royally fucked, fell asleep, got royally screwed, and now, I’m really royally fucked.

Jenny had cleaned me out. How was I going to get out of here. I was going to have to wear bed sheets like a toga. Who would give me a ride? Where would I even go?

“Allen, are you okay?”

My head was buried in a pillow. I hadn’t heard the door.

I thought, “holy shit, Jenny’s back.”

I said, “Holy shit, Jenny, you’re back. What the hell?! Where did you go?”

Jenny set a grocery bag down on the bed, took off her mask and explained she was doing laundry for me, getting a couple of groceries. She said, “I left a note.” She bent over and picked up a piece of paper off the floor. She held it up.

“I needed your backpack to carry your dirty clothes – I laid the note on your chest. Maybe the AC blew it off?” She went over to the AC and pushed a button. It purred to an end. The room became quiet. She said, “Sorry, it was really warm in here when I left. Oh (frowny), you have goosebumps everywhere.” She came over, pushed me down on the bed and said, “let’s warm you up.”

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Other Music in this episode:

• Stomp Rock
• For Yoga
• Dark Orchestral Suspense Cinematic Hits
• Sexy Cool
• The Suspenseful

Transcript

I was up shit crick. I didn’t have a paddle. I didn’t even have a boat. And, it wasn’t so much a crick as a raging, churning, river of sewage.

I was on a Greyhound Bus in the middle of nowhere. It was raining cats and dogs, the bus had pulled over twice because the driver couldn’t see… you know… the road…

Most importantly, I had just finished explaining to Jenny, my neighbor on the bus, the woman who had just seen some very inappropriate and illegal content on my laptop screen, that I was not a pervert who should go to jail.

Holy balls – lightning struck a road sign we were passing just now. That was close. Hopefully that wasn’t a sign that God thought I was a pervert who really should be in jail. Come on, God. You know I’m cool.

Right?

God? (sigh)

In my explanation to Jenny, I was 100% honest. No, really. I mean, the porn shit was definitely not me, and I did tell her all about my heist at Gateway Underground Secure Storage. I stunned Barry, rammed the fence with the first car, ran the road block with the second car, jumped out of the second car, lost my bag, found my bag, Uhaul, I covered it all.

I was 100% honest, but I did leave a few parts out.

The tide turned in my favor, when I told Jenny why I did it: Because my sister is dying of COVID-19. Teresa ran a chain of nursing and assisted living homes and was one of the first to come down with it. She was really sick and of course, the assholes at her insurance company refused coverage. Of course. Not that it mattered. The doctors didn’t know how to treat her anyway.

No, Teresa hadn’t been tested. There are more reliable tests now, but not back then. What we needed was a cure. I explained to Jenny how I posted on Dark World a few months back and got a DM from a guy with the handle BossMan95. I even pulled out my old iPhone with the shattered screen and tried to show Jenny the DMs I’d exchanged with BossMan95.

Jenny absorbed all of that, rapt with attention, captured by the tension. But she said, “That doesn’t explain why you have that shit on your computer.”

I said, “So, BossMan95 and I thought it would confuse the FBI or police detectives or whomever if we took random SD cards, instead of only the one we wanted. We needed to give them more leads to chase. So, we did. And, I was just looking at what we had taken, because apparently, one of them is that Cyber Weapon. I wanted to see what I had taken… and I found that… that….”

I trailed off, I didn’t even want to say it out loud.

So, I had explained all of that to Jenny, and … she bought it!

Let me rephrase that. She believed it. After all, what I said was true. I’d left out a few things, but the stuff I included was factual.

Jenny said, “This is amazing. Here I am just taking the bus to see an old boyfriend in Denver, and this happens to me. It’s so exciting. What are you going to do with this Cyber Weapon… uh, Styx?”

At that moment, there was a “whump” and a “thump thump thump” and the bus was swerving, and crap was flying everywhere. I had my laptop on my lap and a mobile hotspot balanced on my knee and it all went flying. Like a ninja, Jenny snatched my laptop out of the air. We swerved a couple more times, and the bus came to a stop on the side of the highway.

Over the intercom, the driver said, “It appears we have a flat tire. I will go check it out.” Jenny looked at me and giggled. With a flourish, she presented me with my laptop.

A couple of minutes later, the driver, soaked to the skin from all the rain, came back on the bus and announced. “The driver-side front tire is flat. I’ve called for a truck to bring a new one. It will be at least an hour.”

I swore, but Jenny said, “Ooo, this is becoming an adventure. This is a more exciting trip than I thought it would be.” She changed her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. She said, “What are you going to do with the weapon?”

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I whispered back, “I don’t think I actually have it.” I explained about the supposed countdown and how I hadn’t actually done anything.

Jenny’s excitement drooped. She said, “Oh, okay. You think it’s just a coincidence?”

I said, “I guess. Or someone is using my heist as cover for something.”

“Show me the SD cards.”

“Uhhmmm, Okay. I guess.” I dug out my faraday box, opened it, took out the pouch and handed it to her. I took the SD card out of the laptop and handed it to her, too. She said, “This is it? This is what they think is a weapon?”

I said, “The CIA created a software program, that’s all. So, yeah, if I had it, it could be on an SD card as small as that.”

She shook the SD cards out of the pouch onto a blanket spread out on her lap. She said, “There’s only five here. Where’s the sixth one?”

I counted them too. She was right. We got out our phones, turned on the flashlight and looked all around on the floor of the bus.

She said, “Did it get lost when we got the flat and were swerving all over the road?”

I said, “Maybe. I know they were all here when – “

Then, I had a horrible realization. I was looking under the seat in front of me. I stopped and straightened up. I said, “Oh, no.”

Jenny said, “What?”

I said, “Hold on, let me think.”

I thought: “oh, no.” I knew it must be true, but I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want to believe it. Please, please, please! I didn’t do that. Am I that stupid?

Jenny stared toward me, trying to read my reaction, but able to see only a bit of my face. I had a hat pulled low, and a COVID face covering. After waiting a moment, she said, “Tell me.”

I said, “I think I left one of the cards at DeKeisha’s house.”

About this time the truck with our spare tire arrived. We had to get off the bus while the mechanic jacked up the bus and changed the tire. It was still raining cats and dogs, and bats and frogs, and rats and hogs and… I can’t think of any more, but honestly, a fucking SCUBA tank would have been more useful than an umbrella.

Speaking of umbrellas, the mechanic was well-prepared. He had brought twenty umbrellas with him. I shared one with Jenny. I held it up over both of us, and then Jenny squeezed under my arms. She said, “If your arms get tired, you can rest them on my shoulders.”

I didn’t say anything. I needed to focus.

We stood there in the downpour, watching the mechanic, listening to the rain. Jenny smelled good. It was plumeria. It reminded me of Hawaii. When I was in high school, Teresa had paid for me to go to Hawaii with her. She’d just dumped this guy she was engaged to. It was supposed to be their honeymoon. We tried surfing and windsurfing, we snorkeled. We walked the beaches. We talked about life. What we were going to do. Where we were going to go. Teresa had practically raised me after mom died, and this was our moment, the one that glued us together for the twenty years since.

During that trip, we had twice hiked to volcanoes, and both times were caught in downpours just like this one. Plumerias. Hawaii. Teresa. I was going to miss her.

Oh shit, what did I just think?

Just then, Jenny said, “Who’s DeKeisha?”

I shivered. The temperature had dropped dramatically and I was getting wet despite the umbrella. Had I really just thought that I was going to miss Teresa? This effort to help her was not doomed!

Then Jenny said, “Allen?” And, I realized she was talking to me. I’ll never get used to using aliases.

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I said, “DeKeisha’s the woman who had the backpack.” I explained to Jenny about the Uhaul pickup and how I’d left my backpack and how DeKeisha had rented it. How I’d nicked the Uhaul form, found her address, went into her house, used her computer to see what was on those cards. But none of the SD cards worked, and then DeKeisha came into her house, got mad, I ran… and forgot all about that sixth SD card.

Jenny looked at me like I was crazy. She said, “You walked into her house, tasted the food on her stove, food she prepared for her family, and sat down at her computer?”

I… nodded. When you say it that way….

Jenny shook her head and said, “That has to be the Cyber Weapon. DeKeisha found it and activated it.”

I said, “No way, to even view the file names on the SD card I had to patch a reverse engineered version of Virtual Box and create a special VM with a very specific file system type.”

She said, “I don’t understand.”

I said, “It’s like trying to run a Windows program on a Mac computer. It doesn’t work natively.”

She said, “Okay. But, we need to see what’s on the rest of those cards.”

I agreed, and a few minutes later, the tire was changed, they let us back on the bus and the bus got back on the road. I shivered. Jenny shared her blanket with me. She spread it over both of us, snuggled up close and put her right hand on my left leg. I fumbled with my laptop, almost dropped it. Jenny giggled. She was being very forward. In general, I’m all for such behavior, but I had just admitted to criminal behavior, she’d caught me with some very illegal images, and she’d never seen me without my mask. She was nuts.

Anyway, her cuddly mood didn’t last.

There were six SD cards. One was at DeKeisha’s. One was the COVID-19 data. I’d already looked at that one, and one other one. We had three left.

We popped in #4. And… ugh. The fourth card was as bad as the third one. Revolting. I can’t think of any other way to describe it. And, I can’t unwatch it. The images pop into my head all the time now. It sucks.

We checked out the fifth card. Also revolting, but much more gory and violent. Jenny nearly barfed. I needed a shower and… a long talk with God.

After that card, we needed a break. We only had one left to look at. Maybe it was the cyber-weapon, but if not… ugh. I don’t know if I could look at any more. The stuff people hid on the secure servers at Gateway was disturbing.

The bus stopped at a depot in Shreveport and we got off to get some water and use the bathroom.

While we were marching off the bus, Jenny said, “We should tell someone. Like the CIA or whatever. About the weapon, and about these other cards.”

I looked around. There were people pushed in close, like on a subway. I said, “Are you crazy? No way. They can deal with their weapon. They created the damn thing. I’m worried about my sister.”

“But, the Countdown…”

I said, “I don’t have it. Someone else took it. Whenever Gateway has an outage, half the spy agencies on earth attack.” It was an exaggeration, but really, Gateway did need better security.

We finally climbed off the bus. Jenny said, “Promise me, okay. It’s a three day Countdown. That’s what the news said. If the Countdown gets to twelve hours, we have to call someone. Okay?”

I hesitated. She playfully grabbed my shirt like she was bullying me. She pulled me close and said, “Okay, bub?” Then she giggled.

Then she said, “Seriously. Just give me DeKeisha’s address. I’ll even call it in when the time comes.”

First thing I thought: Jenny’s going to try to get the cyber weapon.

I said, “I don’t remember her address.” It was a lie, but suddenly red flags were waving everywhere. I didn’t want to stand there looking guilty, so I walked away.

I think Jenny believed me. I think. Really, I don’t know. We got back on the bus and the bus pulled away. I said, “Let’s go into the restroom and flush them.”

Jenny said, “No, some of that was child pornography. And, and, innocent animals. Who knows who all those men in that grainy video were, but that one video alone had twenty beheadings. It was like a contest.”

“That’s why we need to flush them before someone catches us with them!” I said that last part too loud. Several people turned around in their seats to look at me. I pulled my hat down lower.

Finally, we put the final SD card into my laptop. I looked away, trying steel myself. What fucked-upped-ness would we find on this one? I just wanted to get it over with, but I couldn’t look.

Jenny said, “I’ll do it. If it’s horrible, you don’t have to look. If it’s not horrible, we’ll look through it together. Maybe it’s just some guy’s personal diary or something. Okay, here goes… (loud porn sounds).

Jenny put her hand back on my thigh and said, “Oh, Sean, you really need to look at this.”

Suddenly, the video got really loud. It was a new laptop, so I couldn’t find the sound button. I had to press a function key, hold down shift and click the left – no wait, sorry, I had to click the right arrow key. Jesus. Half the bus turned their heads to look at us, judgmentally. Jenny stared back at them and said, “Oh, sorry, just reviewing the video we made last night.”

They stopped staring. Jenny winked and giggled, then smiled her big smile. Even though she wore a mask, it was obvious she had a great smile.

She leaned in closer, watching the video. It appeared to be just porn. What I mean is, there was a well-endowed man, a couple of women – adult men and women. And, no animals, no men with machete’s slowly hacking people to death. It even had a plot, good lighting, props and a score. I mean of course they scored. But there was also a musical score, other than the sex. Anyway, at the beginning of a couple of them, the people wore clothes. They said some corny lines. They wore bell-bottoms, wide-collar shirts, and they had all the body hair. It was clear this card belonged to someone into classic 70s porn…

And… Jenny was into it. In the video we were watching, the one guy did this one thing, and the woman, she well… Okay, look, you’re just going to have to use your imagination, okay? So, they were doing their thing and Jenny said, “Oh, wow. Damn.” I saw her glance at me out of the corner of her eye, look around at the people seated around us. Then, she reached under the blanket… and… leaned back for a little while… and… use your imagination again.

When the video had clima – culminated, Jenny said, “I’m going to take a nap.” She laid her head on my shoulder. I fell asleep, too.

I woke up when we arrived at yet another bus stop. I wasn’t sure where we were.

Jenny had gotten off. Uh, the bus. I decided to stay and watch our stuff.

I saw her through the raindrop-spotted bus window and it occurred to me that it didn’t fit that Jenny was taking this bus. What was her story? Visiting a boyfriend?

Through the bus window, I saw two two men approached her. Two men in suits. They flashed their wallets. I scanned the rest of the bus terminal. At the other end, I spotted two more men in suits, and with them, Barry and Kevin.

They were having people pull down their mask to get a look at them. At the moment, they were examining an elderly couple. Like, I could disguise myself at a frail old woman half my weight?

I looked back toward Jenny, but she wasn’t there. The agents that approached her were now talking to someone else. Someone else who nodded and pointed toward the back of the bus where I sat.

I shrunk down and started to panic and then, “ahh!” Jenny startled me. She said, “grab your stuff, we need to get off this bus right now!”

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Other Music in this episode:

• Battle of the Gods
• God of War
• Aloha Holidays in Hawaii
• Dream

Transcript

I’m on a Greyhound bus, where there always seems to be at least one someone trying to overcome some sort of demon. Who was the One Someone on this bus? Me? No, it was that woman.

This time, the One Someone sat right next to me. I stared at her. At her reflection. Looking toward the window, appearing to watch the green jungle on the side of the road slip by, on a trip my sister would be glad I went by.

This woman, you remember her? She’s the one that peeked in my room. Followed me to the taqueria. Fixed my collar. Called me mental.

Oh, I’m mental? Me? Hahaha, I’ve gone completely out of my mind??!??
That’s what she thinks, this woman sitting next to me.
The nice young woman in a clean white skirt and shirt
Carrying an expensive bag and purse.
And I’m the one who’s gone berserk?
Well?!?!?

Looking back, yeah, I can see it now. At the time, I was a little on edge, that’s all.

The bus rocked, back and forth, back and forth
As I, of course, I spied on the woman’s reflection
While her reflection stared at her phone
The bus (yawn) rocked and the woman swapped
Between the Fox News app, CNN, Twitter and… I couldn’t believe it
She had the Dark World Forums app
That app required the Tor network
It could only be installed on a jailbroken phone
Most people wouldn’t risk it
For some it’s a one-way ticket to brick it
This shit, I was getting tired of it
I was getting tired, I couldn’t resist it
Tired, my eyes were so heavy…
The bus’ motion…
Tired, like someone slipped me a….
Who was this woman?
Sleeping potion…
Bus in motion…
Like someone slipped me a….
My eyes were heavy…
Heavy, heavy, heavy…
Slipped me… yawn… sleeping potion.

The bus rocked me to sleep, like a baby. I don’t know if you detected the slight edge to my voice before, but man, did I need that nap!

It took a few minutes to wake all the way up enough to look at my phone. We were two hours from Birmingham, the bus’ idling was the loudest sound, we were stopped at some other Greyhound depot in some other town.

Time to get some work done.

I got out my laptop, set up my new wifi hotspot and went to work on figuring out how to read these weird SD cards. Apparently one of them was a Cyber Weapon. One of them was my COVID data. What was on the other four cards?

First, just to confirm, I put one of the SD cards in my new laptop and got the same error message as I had on DeKeisha’s machine. “Unrecognizable drive format.” Next, I searched for how to read a GUSS card. I found nothing, other than that FAQ entry from the Gateway web site, which, I thought was really strange. When was the last time I googled something so obscure there weren’t any answers. 2008?

I logged into the Dark World Forums app and posted “How to read the GUSS SD Card format?” From beside me, the woman’s phone dinged. I glanced over as she checked it. It was a notification from the Dark World Forums app notifying her that someone she was tracking had just posted.

She was tracking me.

A lot of times, a niche post like mine would take days to get a reply, but I had an inbox full of replies in less than 30 minutes. I had become a Dark World Forums celebrity. An account called TheDoxxxer was trying to dox me, and in the meantime, he sure made sure everyone knew my username, dist1nc7ive, was associated with the major theft from Gateway Underground Secure Storage. He was trying to be an asshole, but really, he was being helpful. People wanted to help me.

Having said that, there were hundreds of posts unrelated to my question. Posts from “fans” – air quotes – who saw my post and replied to it. They wrote stuff like, “What are you doing to do with Styx? What does the Styx DO? My favorite Styx song is Mr. Roboto, what is yours?” And I’m all like, “what the fuck are you talking about?”

I had stolen six SD cards. I really only wanted one card, a card with data that could help my sister. The others were to obfuscate which one I really wanted. One of those was apparently some sort of CIA Cyber Weapon. It seemed so stupid. I mean, why would the CIA store such a thing at Gateway instead of on government servers?

Oh, yeah (chuckle). The CIA sucks. Sucks in what way, you ask? Google “Vault 7 breach”. That’s why.

So, in my case, apparently, Wikileaks surfaced some documents leaked to them a year ago by an anonymous contact. The documents described the weapon. The CIA had code-named it Styx.

Yesterday, when the rumors about Styx started, the CIA had released a statement, denying any such thing existed, saying it’s a conspiracy theory, blah, blah. A few hours later the CIA released a statement saying okay, something had been stolen, but it was not a weapon.

Then, within the last twenty minutes, the CIA released a statement saying an advanced cyber weapon they had built had come online and it was weaponized. They said the weapon had begun a countdown.

The Internet went bonkers. A countdown? What kind of countdown? What was it counting down to? I mean… holy fucking fuck, right?

Of course, the CIA refused to say what would happen if the countdown hit zero, but they did offer a million dollar reward for the return of Styx. So, we can assume that if the countdown hit zero, it would be very fucking bad.

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Then, I realized… Oh. My. Lord. I had a million dollars in my backpack. And, that wasn’t even the data I really tried to steal. Just, kind of a bonus.

Or… not. It couldn’t be me. I had been on this bus for the last several hours. I hadn’t done anything to enable any countdown. Gateway feared multiple coordinated break-ins, that’s why they had all that security. Surely someone else had also attacked Gateway at the same time as me. In fact, it’s probably one of the reasons I managed to escape. I couldn’t be the only thief. I was just the only thief in the news. Which, was super bad news. If they caught me, there was no way I could convince them I hadn’t stolen a cyber weapon.

Shit.

Not everyone on Dark World was supportive. Many replies were scathing responses about the Countdown. The most recent post said, “The information on Wikileaks says Styx a kill switch. After the Countdown, Styx will, quote, “detonate and propagate,” end quote. It’s designed to take down the Internet wherever it is launched, stopping at the first major Exchange Point.”

Someone replied to that, writing, “Good job, fucknuts. If it works, you just literally broke the Internet in North America.”

I was like, ‘take a chill pill’ – I knew all the SD cards were in a faraday box in my backpack, riding down the Interstate in a Greyhound. Nothing I possessed was certainly counting down like some lame James Bond movie plot.

Anyway, whatever. The Internet can be a tough place sometimes. I focused on the two legit replies to my post. I recognized the handles, a couple of guys who spent most of their day on Dark World and/or Stack Overflow, competing to increase their reputation. They were neck and neck, each with millions of rep points.

I scanned their answers. Let’s see… Patch Virtual Box… restart… when installing, choose the option that says … Alright, okay… Seemed easy enough.

Then, the woman next to me said, “Oh, you’re following it, too?”

I said, “What?”

She gestured at my phone. She said, “The story about Styx. Can you believe it? A countdown just started!”

I said, “Styx?”

She said, “The Cyber Weapon. The CIA code-named it ‘Styx,’ like the river in Hell … Wikileaks? — Have you been in a cave?”

I said, “Oh. That. Yeah.”

She continued, “It’s so fascinating. The Countdown is at just over seventy hours. I jailbroke my iPhone this morning so I could get the Dark World Forums app and read about it. Everyone there is a hacker. I’m @Jenny92, by the way.” She held out her hand.

A handshake? Who even does that anymore? Instead I waved and said, “Hi, @Jenny92.”

She giggled, “It’s @Jenny92 on Dark World. In real life, I’m just, you know, Jenny.” Even with a mask, I could tell Jenny had a big smile. A big suspicious smile.

I pulled my hat down lower, grateful to be wearing a COVID mask of my own. Jenny was fangirling the Cyber Weapon story and would probably easily recognize me otherwise.

She said, “Hey, jailbreaking my phone hosed my data plan. I’m throttled. What’s your wifi password?” She pointed at the wifi hotspot sitting on my knee.

I said, “Well, the thing is, it’s pay-as-you-go, I don’t have a lot of –”

“I just want to watch the Countdown. Someone created a website for it.”

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I said, “I don’t think so.”

She said, “You don’t have to be an asshole about it.”

I said, “Saying ‘no’ doesn’t make me an asshole. No means no, okay?”

She raised her voice. “You’re pulling the ‘no means no’ card on ME?” Jenny92’s eyes were wide open, her eyebrows narrow, her forehead wrinkled. I doubted she was smiling.

I said, “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Seriously, you misogynistic asshole, if you –”

“Fine, fine. I’m sorry. You can use it.” (silence) “I love God. Period.”

Jenny92 said, “What?”

I said, “It’s ‘I love God.’ With spaces. God is capitalized. Ends in a period.”

She said, “Oh. The password. Okay, thanks!”

Jenny92 connected to my wifi. I angled my laptop away from her just enough so she couldn’t see my screen, but not enough that she’d think I was trying to prevent her from seeing my screen.

I got on the Dark World app again and searched Jenny92. No posts. Dark World was a hacker favorite because it was easy to set up an account and stay anonymous. You could speak freely without worry about being shamed, cancelled or doxxed. It was decentralized. Anyone could own a copy that synced up with other copies throughout the day, backed up by a custom blockchain implementation. No one owned Dark World, and no one could take it down, it was decentralized and demoralizing. It often devolved into a cesspool of bickering, open threats and hate.

Using what I’d learned from those two legit replies to my post, I downloaded a patch for Virtual Box that included an obscure formatting option, downloaded a fresh Debian ISO – that alone took over two hours on my slow-ass hotspot – then installed a new VM using the obscure formatting option, and fired it up.

By this point, Jenny92 appeared to have fallen asleep. I looked at her for a couple of minutes. Her eyes looked closed. Her breathing was steady and consistent. I felt safe in getting out the SD cards.

I opened my faraday box and took out the SD cards. I inserted the COVID-19 card, opened a terminal, typed “cd /media” and hit enter, then typed “ls -la”. Boom. Dot-dat files, dot.db, random stuff I didn’t recognize and didn’t know how to open, blah, blah. But it was the kind of files I expected to see, so, good.

I inserted a different one, typed “ls -la” and boom, it also worked.

This card was a bunch of images in one directory, files with hashed names and a dot-jpg extension. I typed “view” then the first filename I saw, using tab completion to make it easier. I hit enter.

The image opened.

Oh, my good Lord. That’s disgusting. What did I just see? I tried a different filename. Holy shit. This was so bad.

I was deep in thought, thinking about what I was going to do about this, when I heard a voice. An incredulous, shrill voice.

“Oh my fucking God!” Jenny92 was awake. Shit! She saw the image on my screen.

“Is that – was that – what the fuck are you looking at???”

“Nothing, no. I mean, it’s not mine.” I couldn’t believe I had gone off daydreaming with that open on my screen.

Jenny said, “It’s on your fucking laptop, asshole. I’m calling the police –”

“No, wait, I can explain.” Dammit. How was I going to explain? I had to get rid of these SD cards, pronto. The bus window didn’t open. I thought about pushing past her and dumping the cards in the toilet. Or, running to the front of the bus and forcing the driver to open the door.

Jenny92 said, “What could possibly be the explanation for having that shit on your computer?”

She was right. What could I say would excuse it? I didn’t have a lie ready to go for this one. Was there even a lie that would work?

I decided there wasn’t. So, I told Jenny the truth.

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Other Music in this episode:

• Cool Driving Background Rock Groove
• Bounty Hunter

So… where were we? Oh yeah. My sister was on her death bed, and I was trying to secure the cure save her. I had stoled the data I was told was gold, data that if we controlled, we could mold into a cure.

And then I’d lost it.

Now, I was trying to get it back before BossMan95 found out. Before I missed my opportunity to save Teresa, before I got caught.

I spent the previous afternoon and evening researching which Uhaul dealership had the pickup truck where I’d lost my backpack, which contained the SD cards upon which resided the data I needed.

So, which dealership had the truck? None of them. That’s who. The truck had been rented out already. I’d spent most of the day on hold to find that out. Uhaul said I could stop by tomorrow to look for it, though. Sigh.

Now, I was in bed, not sleeping, ’cause that’s the way I roll. I turned on the news.

I don’t remember the exact words, but the anchor said something like, “Action 13 News has just learned the suspect in the Atlanta data heist has stolen what the US State Department is calling a Cyber Weapon. Action 13’s John Terrence Franke has more -“

I sat up. Atlanta data heist? That had to be me, right? A Cyber Weapon? What the fuck is a cyber weapon? I didn’t steal any kind of weapon.

But, sure enough, Action 13 News showed a picture of me. It was the one of me with my beard from my AxelRod Security ID photo. The reporter said they also created a mockup of what I might look like without a beard and they showed that, too. Add a bit of road rash from jumping out of a moving car, and yeah, that was me.

Then they showed some video of Barry. They were asking him questions. Then Kevin. Whoa. Gateway was not keeping this on the downlow.

I grabbed my phone with the shattered screen and opened the Dark World Forums app. The news of the Gateway heist was all over it. One hacker took my ID photo, ran it through facial recognition software stolen from Facebook and pulled up a bunch of social media posts they thought were mine. Thankfully, I’ve never used social media, so most of the pictures were of some other dude.

That dude is going to have a tough week. Yeah, sorry buddy. If life was fair, my sister wouldn’t be dying right now.

This is Kill/Switch Recording Four, I called it “Her Computer”

I watched as B-roll showed helicopter footage of miles of traffic stopped like a parking lot, caused by roadblocks designed to catch me. I saw my crashed car in the ravine at the end of the straightaway. I saw Terrell, my Uber driver from early this morning, shown outside his house, being questioned by police.

The announcer finished the news report. “Anyone who has any information regarding this theft is encouraged to call the FBI Tips hotline, or go online…”

It was the middle of the night, but I had to talk to BossMan95 about it. I absolutely dreaded doing it. BossMan95 had called me many times, messaged me many times, and I had ignored it all. He was going to be pissed.

I opened the Roblox app, started a game, and pulled up the chat. I found BossMan95’s username and typed out a message. I wrote: “I’m all over the news” and sent it.

–

I know I felt like I needed to talk to BossMan95, but when I saw the little dots that meant he was typing his reply, my heart stopped. Eh, I hate this. To occupy my mind, I opened the Dark World Forums app again. I’d know what BossMan95 said soon enough.

On Dark World forums, there were hundreds of posts about the heist. I was shocked. People asking how it had been pulled off? Was it Russians? The over-under on the head of Axelrod Security losing his job was put at 1.5 days. And, one user with the handle TheDoxxxer – “doxxxer” with three exes, of course – had put two and two together, divided by PI, came up with infinity, and somehow already figured out that it was I, me, who had pulled off the heist. I say, “I” but all they really had was my Dark World Forums username. But, TheDoxxxer was already trying to dox me. I prayed I hadn’t made any dumb opsec mistakes.

Dumb opsec mistakes? Like what, you ask? Like, the case of Dread Pirate Roberts.

Dread Pirate Roberts aka Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road, once-upon-a-time, asked a question on Stack Overflow using his real name, by accident. He changed the name one minute later, but it was too late. Several years later, that Stack Overflow post helped lead to his arrest and conviction.

Using the Internet while remaining anonymous is more difficult than it seems. You have to do everything right to stay anonymous, but only one thing to fuck yourself forever. Ulbricht is still in jail.

Did I avoid that kind of mistake? The only way to really know is to wait. If I die before I get doxxed, no, I didn’t make any mistakes.

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–

I still don’t know what BossMan95 sounds like, as we’ve never spoken. But, I always imagine him like Niles from the TV show “Frasier”. Here’s what BossMan95 wrote back: “Where the fuck have you been?!?”

I wrote: “Sorry. Things have gone bad.”

“No shit. You’re all over Dark World forums, and CNN has picked up the story. I’m watching it right now.”

I wrote, “You said the data I stole would barely be missed!”

BossMan95 wrote, “The problem was the extra SD cards you took.” BossMan95 explained that he owned a mole in the FBI. He got a call last night. One of those random cards I had taken was something important. National Security Implications.

I slumped onto my pillows. For God’s sake.

So, back at Gateway Underground Secure Storage when I stole the data we wanted – research about a COVID-19 cure – we decided that stealing other cards at random would help mask our intent, and thus cover our tracks. Cover our tracks least long enough for me to get away. The authorities would have to follow multiple leads, which would buy us time, blah, blah. Technically, the plan worked. The card we really wanted — the digital reams of COVID-19 research data, seemed to be forgotten. Neither BossMan95 nor I had ever even considered that one of those other cards would be a much, much bigger deal.

BossMan95 wrote, “Go to a Fedex drop and mail the SD cards to me. Right now. All of them. It’s important you send me all of them.” He included an address for me to use.

I typed, “I don’t think so. I’d never hear from you again.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“It’s not about trusting you. I’m trying to save my sister’s life. I can’t afford to trust anyone.”

I waited for a reply, but none came. No little dots that meant he was typing. Nothing.

—-

I thought about Ubering to Uhaul, but wanted to save Uber for emergencies. I had seen Terrell, my Uber driver, on the news. Most likely, Uber had flagged my account and card number. Thank God I used a different credit card with a different identity with Lyft, or else they’d have found me by now.

I had two hours before the Uhaul dealership that rented my truck opened. It was all the way across town. I decided to walk.

–

I arrived at Uhaul at 0845 and went directly to lost and found. Nothing. I asked the manager about my backpack. The manager said she didn’t know anything about a backpack. I gave her the plate partial for the truck and she ran it through their computer.

She said, “That truck is still out. The woman came back, paid for a second day. You just missed her.”

Nothing was going right.

I asked the manager for the woman’s address. The manager looked at me like I’d just asked her to unbutton her shirt. She said, “I can’t give you her address. We have privacy laws.” I don’t mean to make the manager sound bitchy. She wasn’t, really. I’m just upset, that’s all. But, ahhh!!

Through the big windows in the front of the store, I saw a plain-looking Ford Taurus arrive. Two guys in dark suits stepped out. Suits in this weather? Gotta be FBI.

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I looked around. The manager was now dealing with some irate customer who had just come in yelling about a dent or something. And I noticed (cue) a pile of duplicate rental contracts behind the counter. I reached over and grabbed them, and went into the restroom. I thumbed through them and found the one matching the partial on the plates from the Uhaul pickup. Yes!

Boom. I had it! Back in business. I am doing this!

The form had the woman’s name, phone number, email and home address. I took it and hid the rest of the forms under the trash can. I opened the restroom door and peeked out. The manager was now talking with the FBI agents out front.

I left by the side door, through the garage where they install hitches. Surely the FBI would figure out what I was searching for in no time. So, here was my thinking: I take an Uber one last time. They were on to me, anyway, so by the time Uber alerted them that I had ordered a ride, I should be long gone.

I waited around the corner. My Uber pulled up three minutes later. I approached cautiously, looking into the window. I got in. We drove off toward the house where, according to the Uhaul form, DeKeisha Broadside lived.

I eyed the Uber driver. He didn’t look like a cop or FBI agent, but what does an undercover cop posing as an Uber driver look like? Just an Uber driver, right? Ten minutes later we pulled up to the address I had given the Uber app. I got out, he drove off. I figured I had, at most, ten minutes.

–

I spotted the Uhaul pickup truck next to the house, full of fence posts and planks. A couple of teenagers and a woman were unloading it. The license plate matched.

I hailed the family from the curb. “Hello! Hey, I rented that truck earlier this week and forgot something!” I came closer. I tried to look friendly. I hoped they’d been too busy working to watch the news.

I slowly walked closer. “I left my backpack in the truck – it’s baby blue, with –”

DeKeisha said, “Oh, yeah, we got that. It’s in the house. I was going to take it back this morning, but I forgot.”

I almost fell to my knees in relief. I said, “I’m in a hurry. Can you go get it?” I glanced down the street, hoping I didn’t see the FBI or police. I expected them at any moment.

Dekeisha, who didn’t know I knew her name, had muddy feet, and she was sweaty and dirty. She said, “I’m busy. It’s on the kitchen counter, right inside the door. Go ahead. You can’t miss it.”

I thanked her and went inside her house.

It was a modest house, a little messy, but there was something simmering on the stove that smelled great. That burrito I’d scraped off the road yesterday was the last thing I’d eaten. My stomach rumbled.

I walked over and lifted up the lid to the pot on the stove. Mmm. Seafood gumbo. Cornbread in a cast iron pan sat on the counter nearby, cooling. I glanced out the window to make sure they weren’t coming in, opened a few drawers, found a big spoon, and tasted the gumbo.

To die for.

Ugh, I was so hungry. But I didn’t have time for this. Inconspicuous. I needed to be inconspicuous. I set the spoon down and spotted my backpack. As I grabbed it, I spotted a desktop computer in the living room. I walked over and looked it over. It had an SD card slot. I moved the mouse. The screen saver went away. The desktop appeared. It was not password protected.

I shouldn’t have done it, I didn’t have time to do it, but I had to know.. What was on these SD cards. A Cyber Weapon? What else had I taken?

I unzipped my backpack, took out my hard-cover faraday box, took the key from my pocket, unlocked it and took out the cards. I inserted the first one into the SD slot.

A message popped up, “unrecognizable drive format.” Hmm. I ejected it, tried another. Same. Third. Same. Four, fifth, sixth. All the same. “Unrecognizable drive format.” Unreadable on this ancient Windows machine.

I could hear DeKeisha outside commanding her sons to put down their phones. I should have just stood up, walked out and left. But, I didn’t.

I opened up Internet Explorer. It loaded soooo slowly. I glanced out the window. No sign of the police.

Oh, this computer was painfully slow. As I waited, I glanced around the desk. There was a mousepad with the faces of those teenagers outside helping her unload the truck. Smiling, and about ten years younger. How old was this computer? Next to the mouse, a stack of bills.

Then, Internet Explorer finally popped up. I typed in DuckDuckGo.com, hit enter, then searched for “Gateway Underground Secure Storage volume format.” I clicked the first link and read an entry from Gateway’s own frequently asked questions.

“Question: What format does Gateway use? Answer: Gateway uses a proprietary disk volume format called GUSS. Built upon the foundation of Linux, GUSS’ encrypted, journaled format, along with our proprietary Linux kernel extension, means that you enjoy a more secure, nearly unhackable experience. Our proprietary drive format is specific to our custom hardware. Files from our devices cannot be viewed on, or copied to, other operating systems.”

Shit, so I needed a specific operating system to even look at the file names? Files couldn’t be copied to other OSes? You gotta be kidding.

sfx Then, I heard the screen door creaking. Someone was coming in the house.

I clicked the corner of the browser to close it. It didn’t respond. It was so slow! I clicked it again. Click, click, click. Come on!! Suddenly, I got the blue screen of death. The computer had crashed.

Eh, Good enough.

“What the fuck are you doing?” It was DeKeisha.

I said, “Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t have. I was, uh, mapping my route – I have to walk, so I was looking for the shortest route.”

DeKeisha looked at me suspiciously.

She said, “How did you know where to find your backpack? Did Uhaul give you my address?”

I said, “Uh, I’m just leaving… gonna leave now… I’m really sorry, DeKeisha, I didn’t mean –”.

“You know my fucking name? Nuh, uh. I think I have a bone to pick with Uhaul. I think you – ” DeKeisha sfx picked up a baseball bat by the front door “– you should be on your way.”

I wholeheartedly agreed with DeKeisha that I should be on my way. And I demonstrated my wholehearted agreement-ness by sprinting out of the house, leaping the three stairs off the porch, reaggravating my sore hip, then limping down the street carrying my backpack and faraday box.

I went up a block, over a block, through an alley. Watched for cops. Nonstop. Waiting for the onslaught. Criss cross, cross walk, so hot, sweat mopped, found a shady tree, finally stopped.

I pulled out my iPhone. The shattered screen was crumbling away but still worked. I called Lyft and got a ride to Best Buy, where I bought a cheap laptop with an SD card slot, a cellular WiFi hotspot, several more cheap pay-as-you go android phones and a new iPhone without a shattered screen.

Then I called a different Lyft and headed back to that Greyhound Bus Station.

It was time to get the fuck outta Dodge.

–

Lyft dropped me off at Greyhound, I paid for a ticket in cash to the next bus going anywhere, boarded ten minutes later, settled into a seat in the last row, put on my menacingly best “do NOT sit next to me” face and was setting up some essentials on the laptop as the bus began to pull away.

Over the intercom, the driver said, “Please be seated, seat belts are required.” I took a deep breath and relaxed.

The last couple of stragglers had boarded and were looking for seats. I sent telepathic messages to stay away from me. A signal saying that, yes, there is an empty seat next to me, but no, do not sit there. Do not sit next – Dammit. A young woman wearing a mask dropped her bag on the floor, kicked it under the seat, and sat down next to me.

She looked over and said, “Oh, great. It’s you again.”

Credits

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Other Music in this episode:

• Hard Rock
• Armed Man, Unarmed Woman
• Ultimate Fighting Sport

Transcript

I was still in Atlanta. Where, at first, my grand plan was a grand slam but God damn, now I was in a massive jam. I’d stolen an SD card full of intellectual property. IP that could save my sister. But, I’d lost it, last I saw it, the card was… in my backpack… and that was… in the back of… a Uhaul truck that… in fact was… heading west to… Birmingham… Uh, Alabama. Not only that. Barry and Kevin were stalking me, BossMan wasn’t talking to me, and my sister was worsening hourly.

My mood was sour. I had given the Uber driver a fake address and he was taking me there. It was a setup. When we got where we were going, I was going to propose a plan.

The driver said, “My name is Terrell. How is your evening going?” Terrell glanced at me in the mirror, saw my bruised and bloodied face and said, “Ooo. Uh, never mind.”

–

While we were driving, I pulled out my only burner phone. I didn’t want to risk being traced, so I could use it once. I told myself it would be worth it. It was only 2230 in Seattle. I wanted to hear Teresa’s voice. She didn’t know where I was, or what I was doing, but I knew she would be worried if I didn’t call.

She answered on the fourth ring, in the middle of a coughing fit.

I said, “Shit, that sounds bad.”

Teresa said, “I feel like I’m drowning. Where are you? Why are you always calling from a different number?”

I said, “I’m still in Charlotte.”

Terrell gave me a funny look, as though telling me, “You know you’re in Atlanta, right?” I waved him off and told Teresa, “The contract is nearly over. I should be home in a few days. When I get home, we’re going to get you fixed up.”

Teresa asked, “Are you wearing a mask?”

“Of course.” I decided I should put on the mask.

Teresa and I talked for a couple more minutes then hung up. I thoroughly wiped my phone with my shirt. When Terrell hit the freeway off-ramp, I rolled down the window and … hesitated… it was my only burner. But, I couldn’t risk it. I tossed the phone into the grass on the side of the road. Terrell said, “What the fuck did you just do?”

I immediately knew I blew it. I needed to be inconspicuous, not memorable. What’s more memorable than someone throwing a perfectly good phone out the window? Come on, man, think!

I looked at him and lied. I said, “I was upset.”

He shook his head and said, “Shit, man, you could have given it to me!” I didn’t tell Terrell what would have happened to him if he was caught with it.

–

A few miles later, Terrell stopped in front of my fake destination. He was now between rides, technically off the clock. I leaned forward, stuck my arm out, and waved fifty twenty-dollar bills in front of him.

I said, “Drive me to Birmingham right now, and these are yours. Thousand bucks.”

Terrell wore a mask, so all I could see were his eyes and eyebrows, but it was enough to know the answer was “yes” before he’d said a word.

–

Two hours later, Terrell and I were on the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama. Terrell dropped me off at the first Uhaul location I could find via Google. It was 0500. Terrell’s eyes and eyebrows said “I’m thrilled you aren’t a serial-killer!” His mouth said, “Thanks for the money!”

I got out. He drove off. I walked around the dealership in the dark.

I assumed the driver I met a couple hours before in the gas station bathroom was going directly to a Uhaul, probably to drop off trucks someone had reserved for first thing in the morning. He said he was going to Birmingham, but, there were dozens of Uhaul locations all over the region and I didn’t know which one. I was going to have to visit them all. Or, get very lucky.

I again examined the photo I had snapped of the Uhaul truck as it had pulled away.

I could make out the last four digits of the license plate. Nowadays having a description of a vehicle and a partial plate number was often enough. I hoped so.

I quickly searched the lot, found nothing, and ordered another Uber. While I was in that Uber, I downloaded the Lyft app so I could alternate rides and maybe hide my trail a bit.

–

I went to one location, then another, and another.
Went over to that one. Nope, backtracked.
At first I’d let the driver go, say “thanks for the ride!” and he’d drive off.
But it was often clear right away that some of the dealerships didn’t have the truck I was looking for.
“Damn, not again!”
Eventually I told my current Lyft driver, ‘I’ll pay you two hundred bucks to just drive me around for two hours? Deal?”
She was like: “Fuck yeah that’s a deal.”
We’d drive up to one (sfx), maybe drive around a bit. Drive off.
Sometimes I’d get out to get a closer look (sfx)
Sometimes it was clear there was no reason to even get out.
One time we passed a dealership that wasn’t even on a map. Not in a map app.
Other’s we didn’t even know how to get to. Like, there were fences and buildings but ahhh…
One place the Lyft driver wasn’t willing to take me.
Google Maps once sent us to Legion Field, original home of the Iron Bowl Football Game.
So, I switched to Apple Maps and it sent us to this statue called the Vulcan.
Which, if you’ve ever been to Birmingham, was, so totally not a Uhaul dealership.
It was so frustrating.

Doing this, we’d searched more than a dozen Uhaul Neighborhood dealers before they opened at 0830.

And oh yeah, by the way. Did you know that Uhaul doesn’t open until eight thirty? That was fuckin’ unbelievable. I always hated Uhaul.

Each search turned up bupkis. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Crap-ola. So I was like, this is over.

–

Finally, exhausted and discouraged, I had the Lyft driver drop me off downtown, and I ordered an Uber to a cheap motel near a Greyhound station. I got a room. I showered, dried off and, at 0900, my head hit the pillow and I was out like a prizefighter punching a lightbulb.

(Yawn) I didn’t wake up until noon, when there was a knock on my door.

–

When I heard the knock at my door, I yelled, “No housekeeping!” I did not need housekeeping, and the fewer people who remembered my face, the better. The banging continued, I yelled again. “No housekeeping! I’m good!” I heard the door unlock. It started to open.

Oh shit, maybe it wasn’t housekeeping.

I jumped up and oh, that hurt. Twelve hours before, I had jumped out of a moving car and I was very stiff. It sucked so much I could barely stand erect. I didn’t make it to the door in time to block it. It swung wide open, fingers banging on the knob.

I’d blown it. There I stood, naked as a jaybird. The door swung wide open and a woman stood there.

–

We stood like that for a moment, the woman and I. I had hoped no one at this motel would notice me. Now, to avoid looking below my waist, this housekeeper was staring at my face. With effort. Behind her, another motel guest, a woman, glanced in my room as she walked by, stopped, did a double take, lingered, giggled and whacked off. Uh, walked off. Sorry.

Housekeeper took out her earbuds, music playing so loudly I could almost feel the bass. I said, “I don’t require housekeeping at this time.” She nodded and started backing out, fighting to hold eye contact.

I said, “Oh, wait. Actually, I could use extra coffee and creamer. If that’s okay.”

The housekeeper reached behind her, felt around her cart, grabbed a handful of creamer and coffee packets, and reached out to hand then to me.

We were too far apart. We couldn’t reach. She took an awkward step closer at the same time I took step closer did. (Sorry, whoops, didn’t mean-). Yeh. Sorry, uh. Yeah.

We kinda ran into each other.

I apologized ten million times.

She looked thoroughly annoyed. She spun around, shook her head sadly and said, “Second time it’s happened today, honey. Second time today.”

–

I was supposed to be in Seattle by now, but I was in Alabama. I knew each hour I was late, the worse Teresa’s condition would get. BossMan95 had a bunch of stats that backed up how quickly we needed to get the data on that SD Card. I didn’t even know where it was right now.

If I didn’t get that data to BossMan95, Teresa would die, and it would be my fault.

I turned on the TV and made coffee. No time for sleep. I needed to track my pack and get it back. I picked up my non-burner iPhone to call the Uhaul Customer Service center at the same time that the phone dinged. It was a message from BossMan95. I was afraid to read it, so I didn’t. I had to focus.

I downloaded a caller ID spoofing app and used my iPhone to make a call. I swore I’d never do that. But, I did.

I dialed the Uhaul 1-800 number where I was almost immediately put on hold.

–

I sat there on hold, thinking about how it had come to this. I crossed a line last night. I committed a felony. Uh, felonies, plural.

In early January, Teresa came home from her job at a nursing home. It was Friday, by Sunday she had a roaring fever, couldn’t taste or smell, and was gasping for breath. Way back then, we didn’t know what she had, and the antibiotics she was given didn’t help at all. She was one of the first coronavirus patients in the United States. She needed a ventilator, but none were available.

In frustration, I posted about it on Dark World Forums and a user with the handle BossMan95 DMed me. He made me an offer.

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–

The gist of the offer was this: BossMan95 had scientists who could create a vaccine and a cure. In exchange, he needed some data that was on an SD card in a locked down secure facility in Georgia. Part of some lab work Johnson & Johnson had created but were sitting on until more people became sick and the demand went up. BossMan95 said the cure should be open source and free for everyone. For Teresa’s sake, I agreed.

–

Most people get off the ventilator by dying, so Teresa has resisted even though I insisted. She may still need it, but I hoped to find the cure before she did. She’s gotten worse every day, but stubborn refusal is Teresa’s default setting. She refused to give up on me when I was a kid, going the extra mile to raise me after Mom died. Stubborn refusal is also how Teresa came to own a string of Pacific Northwest nursing and assisted living homes. Stubborn refusal to let the elderly waste away without love and life.

Now it was my turn for stubborn refusal. It was up to me. I couldn’t waste another hour.

–

By 1400, I had wasted another two hours, on hold with Uhaul, air quotes, “customer service”. While I waited I watched cable news… There’s so much… COVID-19, Trump, Black Live Matter protests, economic collapse, Trump, election, social distancing, something about murder hornets and some guy named Joe Exotic… It was almost as if Teresa would be better off dead.

Oh shit, did I just think that? Two hours of sitting on hold fucks you up. I’m telling you.

So far 2020 was like being on a frail ship at sea with massive rogue waves bearing down from every direction. Society was battered, scattered and in tatters in every way that mattered and I –

Calm down. I get this way sometimes. Focus. Breathe. At least I was not in the news. Hopefully, Gateway Underground Secure Storage didn’t want the bad publicity of yet another massive data breach.

–

Come on Uhaul! You call this customer service? I looked at the time on my phone. I had been waiting for over two hours and fifteen minutes. Crazy.

I peeked out my motel window. There was a Mexican restaurant across the street. My stomach rumbled. Five minutes later, I was still on hold with Uhaul, and in line at Taqueria Jalisco. My stomach gurgled loudly, attracting more attention than I wanted. The woman behind me giggled. I’d heard that giggle before.

Next door to this taqueria was the Greyhound Bus Station. My plan was to find my backpack, come back here and take a Greyhound Bus to anywhere with a small airport with bad security and a flight to Seattle. Something like Jackson, Mississippi or Little Rock, Arkansas.

Was Greyhound safe? I dunno! Major airports were risky, I knew that. Hitchhiking left me too vulnerable. An Amtrak would take a month to travel once around the block.

I was still on hold when I got my Mexican takeout. They wouldn’t let us stay in the restaurant, so I turned around to leave… and nearly ran into the woman who had giggled. She was standing close enough to listen to my thoughts. Hello, social distancing! She and I did that little dance as I tried to get by. She deftly danced left as I awkwardly knockered right, I swore, she was polite; she smiled wide and said “it’s alright.” We stood frozen in line, for a moment in time.

And, her eyes. Blonde hair under a baseball cap, Covid mask, her eyes were the only thing I could see.

I said, “Goblaskjoie.” Or, something like that.

We stood far enough away and she made a point to looking me up and down, and part of the way back up. And, I recognized her. It was the woman walking by my room during the housekeeper incident.

She said, “Your collar is all bent –” then reached out and fixed it. Don’t you think it’s weird when strangers think they can just… touch you. Like, strangers who pat a pregnant lady’s belly. It’s like, boundaries, people. Having said that, she had seen me naked so maybe she no longer considered me a stranger. I dunno.

She fixed my collar. Then, patted my shoulder… her hand lingered. She said, “All fixed” as all the blood rushed to my – Focus. Teresa.

Beneath a mask, her smile went from polite to southern polite. I was gonna need a cold shower.

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Through all of that, I was still on hold with Uhaul! I mean, fuuuuucccckkkkk.

I walked to the crosswalk and my phone buzzed. I looked at the screen. An incoming call: BossMan95’s emergency number. Oh. No. The break-glass, the shit-is-hitting-the-fan number. The “do not call this number unless the world has gone completely in the toilet” phone number. Which, I guess, it had. The world in the toilet.

Needless to say, Boss Man had never actually called me before. In fact, I had only ever messaged with BossMan95. No phone calls, no Zoom, no face-to-face. Never met him. No idea what he looked like or sounded like or if he was a little kid punking the biggest prank ever.

But I had to Focus. Priority was getting that SD card back, and that meant talking to UHaul, if they’d ever answer. I also didn’t want to lie to BossMan95 and the truth was I’d lost the SD card he’d sent me to steal.

BossMan95 hung up before it went to voicemail. I was thinking about all that, and I didn’t notice the stoplight change or the crosswalk go from stop to walk to stop again.

I just stood there like a fool. The midday Summer sun beat down on my neck and back. And… BossMan95 called again. He was upset. I could tell by the angry way the phone rang. I hit “decline” and stayed on the phone with Uhaul. Approaching three hours now. I was gonna need to find a charger.

The giggling woman from the taqueria walked up next to me and said, “Long light?”

I just smiled, which was stupid because I was wearing a mask and she probably couldn’t tell. She said, “Hey, you want to eat in my room?”

Did I want to – um, a million times yes I wanted to!! But, focus. I had to focus on Teresa.

I knew if I stood there any longer, I’d cave and go “eat” this woman. Eat with this woman. I had to focus. So, before the woman could say anything else, I found a gap in traffic, and crossed the road.

Except, I didn’t see this one fast-moving car, obscured by another car in a different lane. I got in the middle of the intersection and “hhhhoooonnnkkk” – Fuck! The woman yelled, “Lookout!”

I dropped my phone. The phone case that was supposed to protect it flew off the moment the phone hit the road. Cars flew by, not stopping at all. I Froggered through into traffic, dodged several cars, picked up my phone, dropped my burrito, out came most of the Spanish rice, (no! Not the rice! It’s my favorite part). I picked it up, danced out of the way of a swerving RV and ran back to the curb.

The same curb I started from.

The curb with the once-giggling woman who had been hitting on me.

I looked at my phone. Fuck. The screen was shattered. The call with Uhaul had dropped.

The woman’s eyes were now alarmed. She said, “Are you mental?”

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Other Music in this episode:

• Cool Driving Background Rock Groove,
• Bounty Hunter

Transcript

I was hobbled, scraped and bruised. Phase two of the plan had some, uh, bumps. Literally. I’d gotten the SD card I needed, I’d gotten out of Gateway’s Supermax-level security, I’d busted a roadblock, and I’d jumped from a moving car.

Yeah. I did that.

Thank God I had read a thread on Dark World Forums about the art of jumping out of a moving vehicle. Dozens of people wrote tips, like:

• wait for the right moment and slow the momentum
• Another posted “slower than 35 matters, faster means broken bones and plaster”
• And, you should land on your back, man, arms in, head up, then roll, or you will be rocked

One guy even posted an infographic. Not kidding. The final tip: ‘Remember the mantra – head, arms and hands totally tucked or you’re totally fucked.’

Hackers are curious people, and, on the Dark World Forums, at least one someone has done at least once everything under the sun, including taking a plunge from a moving car.

I’d done it right, but as one guy posted, ‘you will get hurt, the question is just “how hurt?”‘

I was pretty hurt.

I kept my head down as I limped into a gas station.

Not looking up, the gas station clerk said, “Welcome to Quick and Go!”

I hobbled down an aisle, found a disposable razor, went to the restroom and finished shaving my beard, cutting myself twice. Not that you’d notice. With all the road rash, I looked like I had ten shaving accidents.

Then I pulled out my phone, opened the Dark World Forums app and posted “How to tell if you have a concussion?”

I spent a few minutes dabbing at various cuts and scrapes. My phone notified me that my post had a reply. It was, “If you can think straight enough to wonder if you are concussed, you are not concussed.” Then, another user replied to that, saying, “That’s idiotic.” Then, it descended into a familiar flaming pit of insults. Dark World Forums are a lot like Twitter sometimes.

I thought I might be concussed because thirty minutes before, I had bailed out of a moving car.

I remember opening the door, grabbing my backpack and rolling out. The rest, though, was a blur. So, I had steered toward the left side of the road in order to hit dirt instead of blacktop so I wouldn’t get worked like a bull in a china shop or hurt like being hit by a Mack-truck and flattened like a laptop.

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My car continued on about the length of a football field, it left the road at the next curve and it crashed down a small ravine. Moments later, the two pickup trucks chasing me flew past, too fast to notice me lying pancake-flat in the landscape that I landed, in the dirt beside the road.

I lay in that dirt, taking a moment to inventory my body. I wiggled my toes. I tested my back and legs. Unlike my youth, nowadays my back was the only thing stiff in the morning. I pulled out my iPhone and tapped the screen. A picture of Teresa smiled back at me. The time read 0038. Somehow, the screen was still intact. Not a crack. I rolled on to my stomach and gingerly got to my feet. Everything seemed to work. I felt a trickle down my face. Blood, or sweat?

It tasted like blood.

On the road ahead, I saw that the trucks stopped at my car. I could hear shouts. Hidden by the dark, I staggered across the road, favoring my left hip, dragging my left leg like a mummy. I stumbled through the woods toward a solid yellow sky. Which, I hoped were lights from civilization just beyond these trees.

I picked my way through thorns and brambles for ten minutes before I looked around and… Where was I? Trees fenced me in. I couldn’t see the sky. Oh fantastic. I accidentally splashed into some sort of swamp. I’m gonna have a run-in with a snake, or some hairy tarantula, aren’t I? Wonderful.

What choice did I have? I sloshed my way into the –

Wait, did you hear that? It sounded like something big – Was that an echo of me splashing, or did something else just enter the water? Oh crap, do they have alligators in Georgia? I shivered.

Fuck me. This is why I became an engineer. I don’t do dark forests.

I was lucky. I’d made it out of the woods, made into the gas station, into the bathroom. And now, I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. I was quite the sight.

“God, damn, man. You alright?” A man walked up next to me and started washing his hands.

“Yeah, I uh…” How do you explain that you just jumped out of a moving vehicle on purpose ?

He said, “What happened, you lay down yer motorcycle?”

I started to reply but I realized, oh shit, I need to be inconspicuous. I can’t have memorable run-ins with people like this. Note to self: when making a getaway after committing a string of felonies, blend in.

To the man, I said, “Yeah, right. That’s right. It was a motorcycle.”

The guy turned severe. He said, “wear a helmet next time, dumbass.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I will. A helmet. Yeah. Hey, could you give me a ride?”

“No man, I’m headed out of town. You need an ER.”

“A what?”

He said, “An ER.”

“Oh, E.R. No. No, I’m fine. I’m headed north. How about it?”

“Well, I’m delivering a couple of Uhaul trucks west, to Birmingham, so, sorry.”

I nodded.

He said, “You really should go to the ER.”

“Yeah, good point.”

The man finished up and left. I combed my hair, then went into a stall and changed into the clothes I had saved for my flight from Charlotte to Seattle. I stuffed what was left of my torn Axelrod Security uniform into the trash and covered it with paper towels.

That was one guy I had to worry about. I needed to make sure no one else remembered me.

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I poked my head out the bathroom door, trying to spot any cops or security guards. The Gateway security guys had called the police by now, for sure, but I doubted anyone expected me to be at this particular gas station. I hoped they thought I was laying torn and twisted at the bottom of a pit, thrown from my car when it rolled into the ravine.

I walked out of the bathroom, grabbed a package of Nutter Butters and two ginger ales, paid for everything, including the razor, enduring the stairs of several customers. I wished for a COVID face-covering to hide my cuts and bruises.

The cashier never did look at me.

I exited, deep in thought. Okay, I could Uber to the Atlanta airport, get a rental with one of my burner credit cards… No. The authorities would surely be watching rental car companies. Hmm…

Out of the corner of my eye, right then, I saw a cop car roll up on the gas station.

I looked ’round for a place to run and spotted the man from the bathroom! He was climbing into a Uhaul moving van, towing a Uhaul pickup, atop a Uhaul car carrier. Hmm. “Delivering trucks to Birmingham.” That’s what he’d said. I ran over in a crouch, hopped up on the car carrier and tried to open the pickup passenger door. Locked. Dammit.

On the larger moving van, the tail lights lit bright red. Then, the flash of the white reverse lights. The tail lights dimmed. The van started to move. I trotted along, keeping the truck between me and the cop. I moved in a crouch. Faster, I started jogging. With no time to think, I tossed my backpack in the bed of the pickup. I’d have to stow away in the back. I reached for the tailgate. My plan was to jump in. But, my sore hip crumpled, I slipped and stumbled and tripped and tumbled. I face-planted on the asphalt, ass-over somersault. I looked up in dismay as the Uhaul pulled away.

Nooooo!! I yanked out my phone and snapped a quick picture. Hopefully I got a good shot of the license plates because those SD cards were in that backpack, and that backpack was in that truck and that truck was driving away.

The cop I had spotted had parked his car, waddled into the gas station, grabbed a coffee and a day-old donut. Dammit. He was simply on break, not looking for me at all.

In the distance, the Uhaul entered the on-ramp, heading West with my backpack, with everything I had except my wallet, two phones, a grocery bag with cookies and soda, and the clothes on my back. I had stowed those SD cards in the same locking faraday box where I kept my stash of burner phones and fake IDs. I patted my back pocket and felt the key to the box.

I walked to a dark corner behind the gas station, and sat on a curb. I drank both ginger ales. I ate my cookies. I thought: Okay, no Charlotte. I’m following that Uhaul west. I pulled out my main phone. This phone I used for the Dark World Forums, and for contacting BossMan95. Never to actually, you know, dial a phone number and actually talk to someone.

On this phone, I never made voice calls or sent a regular SMS text. BossMan95 preferred using a variety of difficult-to-trace apps. We had a system. From 0100 to 0300, we used Words With Friends. From three to five, Roblox mobile, and on and on. It was 0115 so I opened Words With Friends. I started a game with a user called “BossMan95”. It was the same handle he used in the Dark World Forums. Bad opsec.

In Words With Friends chat, I typed, “Got the prize. Getaway stymied. Will not make flight. Pivoting. Will keep you posted.” I sent it, time-stamped 0118. I got an immediate reply that said: “Fuck.” Timestamp 0119.

Looking back, I did have a lot of luck that night. I mean, it was a 50/50 operation. Just to successfully stun Barry and get the SD card out of the slot without Kevin, Kumar or Juan noticing was lucky. Making it through the fence, to my second car, and through that roadblock with the two pickups was damn lucky. Outrunning those pickups, bailing out of a moving car with no significant injuries was an I-should-be-in-Las-Vegas-right-now-gambling level of lucky.

I kept my head down as I went back into the gas station to buy a cheap baseball cap. I picked one that was sky blue, mesh, and read Georgia State Panthers. I pulled it low, ordered an Uber, and walked out onto the sidewalk near the road to wait.

Ugh, the exhaust from the traffic was killing me. My coughing fit reminded me of my sister Teresa. Her cough was getting way worse each day. I had to succeed. For her.

After ten minutes, my Uber rolled up. I verified the license plate, opened the door and started to get in. Then I heard, “Hey, Asshat!!”

Barry was behind me. I didn’t even have to look. I climbed in the car, shut the door and yelled at the Uber driver. I said, “Go!”

The driver said, “Hey, brother, here’s the story. Face coverings are mandatory.” Uber driver was going to get me killed.

I looked back. Barry was walk-running across the parking lot. I said, “GO!”

Driver said, “Two bucks, my man.”

Kevin was there, too. I grabbed the mask the driver held up. I said, “Fifty dollar tip if you leave right now.”

The driver wore a mask and all I could see were his surprised eyes. He glanced behind me, noticed Barry and Kevin and, before even looking forward again, floored it.

I looked back. Dbag Barry raised both hands and flipped me off.

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Other Music in this episode: Ultimate Fighting Sport

Transcript

Phase One had been nothing less than an utter… success. It didn’t go perfectly to plan, but perfect plans are only ever perfect, only ever worth-it, if they workout. I was within the margin of error. I’d gotten the SD card I wanted, removed a few random ones to mask which SD card I wanted. Fried the fuck out of Dbag Barry, escaped Gateway’s underground fortress, crashed my car through their massive and tightly built security fence, survived and fled into the woods.

Yeah, Teresa would be proud.

Now I was hurrying to car number two, which was parked a mile through the forest, behind an old trailer park just off the only road.

I picked my way through the woods without the benefit of a flashlight. For the past two weeks I’d come out here and covertly practiced my route each night. I’d marked trees with ultraviolet paint and I cleared a small path.

And I wore night vision goggles.

My pursuers had zero of those advantages, and also, they were trapped inside a fence with enough voltage to incapacitate them like a riddikulus-ly good ‘Stupefy Charm’.

I approached the opening near mi segundo coche but didn’t broach the treeline. I stood close, a ghost among oaks, at most a stone’s throw from car numero dos.

I stood… and studied the night. Was I alone? I could hear shouts behind me. Did I hear dogs? I didn’t know Gateway Underground Secure Storage had bloodhounds. Maybe I was being paranoid? To pacify my mind, satisfy the fear that shivered up my spine, I relaxed my eyes and stared. Peripheral vision detects movement, but I spotted nothing.

I picked my way through the undergrowth to my car, paid for in cash from a Florida used-lot two weeks before.

Unlike the Crown Vic I bulldozed that fence with, this car was not a beater. Though the pushy salesmen tried to get me to go with speed, my insistence was on distance. I needed to get gone, get off this hill, get away from Atlanta, abandon my car at a pay-to-park near the airport in Charlotte, hop a shuttle to my 6am flight, land in Seattle by late morning. I’d have the SD card on BossMan95’s proverbial desk by early afternoon. This time next week, my sister Teresa could be off the ventilator and breathing on her own again.

Maybe she’d even be – No, I couldn’t even hope that she’d be cured that quickly.

I grabbed a duffle bag in the back seat, found the cordless electric razor I had packed and quickly shaved off the beard I’d grown over the last two months as a reverse disguise. I brushed off any small clippings and got into the car.

The car started smoothly, quietly, and I pulled out onto the road. One thing remained. Because I was on a thickly wooded mini-mountain, the only road out was back toward the data center I just robbed. I would pass near the front gates in less than five minutes. As I drove down the windy road, I pulled off my sweater vest embroidered with an “AxelRod Security” patch and shoved it in the duffle bag.

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Then I saw the lights from the roadblock. I thought, ‘Okay, relax. Not totally unexpected.’ I had hoped I would be clear of this forest before Gateway Security had a chance to set up a roadblock, but this is why I was shaving and changing. It’s also why I had the Domino’s pizza sign.

I had only about two months to prepare for this heist, and believe me, I’d never done anything quite like this before. But I also had the help from thousands of hackers on Dark World Forums. Using an app only available for jailbroken iPhones, I posted questions on The Dark World, asking about ideas for this and for that. One post I titled, “How to get by a roadblock?” It was a “just in case” question that had come to me one night while planning. The highest rated reply was: “Steal a Domino’s Pizza car top sign and tell them you are delivering pizza.”

It was genius. I bought a magnetized Domino’s Pizza sign off of some guy on Ebay. Just before I rolled up to the roadblock, I plugged it into my cigarette lighter.

I arrived behind a big Ford F-150, first in line. My headlights reflected in the shiny rear bumper. The Domino’s Pizza sign reflected in their rear window.

I could feel my heart pounding. I took a deep breath and told myself, “Relax, you’re home free after this.”

A guy in a uniform was talking to the driver of the pickup in front of me. I tried to breathe calmly. I told myself to remember my story. Remember the southern accent I had practiced. Y’all… remember to say “y’all.”

The pickup pulled forward, they waved it through a gap in the two trucks forming the roadblock. I rolled forward, window halfway down. Performance time. Enter, stage left. I’m playing to an audience of one man. Oh, no!! I forgot my lines. God dammit, what was my cover story? Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, pizza. Pizza. Relax.

Just before I pulled all the way forward, I glanced at myself in the rearview mirror. Oh, shit! I had completely missed shaving a whole swath of my beard. Okay, just put on your COVID-19 mask… I felt around in the dark. Where was my mask?

Too late.

I stopped next to a white guy lit by the night sky. He had a salt and pepper beard poking out around a mask. He had this drawl. I’ll try to imitate it. It’s like, uh, he asked, he goes, “Where are you headed?”

Of course, I seized up under pressure. So typical. I said, “I’m good – y’all. I mean, uh, what’s happen — I’m delivering – PIZZA!” Oh, my God, why can’t I ad-lib? Ahhh!

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The guy wore a Gateway Underground Secure Storage sweater vest straining it’s limits against his belly. I had just stuffed a similar sweater-vest into the duffle on the seat next to me. All the rent-a-cops providing security at GUSS wore them. If they caught me with my vest, they’d know it was me and I’d be busted. The guy leaned down and said, “Where are you headed?” His breath smelled like salami. I stole another glance in the mirror. The bit of beard I had missed was on the right side of my face, away from the guy. If I just faced forward… maybe he wouldn’t notice.

I said, “Just finished delivering a couple of pizzas.”

He said, “It’s after midnight.”

“Last call, y’all.” Ugh. Don’t force it! Stupid! Stupid!

Behind me, another car pulled up.

Security guy said, “We’re looking for this guy.” He showed me an iPad screen with my picture on it. It was the security badge ID photo of me with my beard.

I said, “Don’t see – haven’t, uhm, seen ’em. Just pizza delivering. I mean, uh -“

Security guy interrupted me. “Look at me.” I remained staring forward at the two pickups blocking the road. The guard shined his flashlight on my head, then pulled down his mask and started to say something.

I ran scenarios in my mind. The car behind me was too close. No way to back out. Going back thataway was a dead end, anyway. I could floor it right now, and maybe squeeze through the gap in the road block, or go around it with a donut, spin away for a moment. But I wouldn’t get far, they know my car and they’d give chase.

Besides, they had radios. One of the many tips I’d gotten from the hackers on Dark World Forums was “never run from the cops! They have guns, tasers, qualified immunity and … radios. You can’t out run a radio.”

I could floor it and go for it, or it could be as easy as me doing what he asked and turning my head and facing this rent-a-cop. He’d then see my weird facial hair, the big chunk of beard I missed while shaving, but what would he do? Would he understand and put two and two together or just wave me past? I decided to take the chance.

Making a break for it, was Plan B.

I turned to him. He shined the light in my face, I put my hands up to shield my eyes. He took a deep breath. He said, “It doesn’t smell like pizza.”

I said, “What?”

He said, “I delivered pizza in college. My car always smelled like garlic, even if I hadn’t worked for a week.”

I said, “Uh, I uh, had my windows down?”

He suddenly stepped back as if to wave me through. Whew. Okay, let’s do this! Charlotte, airport, Seattle, BossMan95, save my sister’s life.

Just then I looked ahead and I saw Barry and Kevin stalking down the road from the front gate, directly to my left.

I started to let off the brake, waiting for the hand signal that says, ‘move along, go ahead, move it.’

Instead, Security guy’s right hand went to his holster, and his left hand to the radio clipped to his shoulder. He squeezed it and said what sounded like, “Got ‘im.”

Security guy said, “Sir, I need you to step out of the car.”

Like hell I was going to step out of the car.

Step on the gas, more like it. I floored it, aimed for the gap. If you could call it that. I was really a crack. I heard a thwack as the two pickups forming the barricade lurched back to close the gap. I got through, zipped past Barry and Kevin on the road! The trucks were tangled with each other. I was a quarter mile away before they fell in behind me, spinning gravel and screeching, joining the race, giving chase.

It’s on. Oh, yeah. Umm, hmm. It is on! Let’s Go.

Honestly, I’m an average driver. I have a good reaction, but never trained in evasive action. I usually go, you know, a couple of miles over the speed limit. Enough to press it a bit, not enough for a cop to bother pulling me over.

Vroom, I veered around a sharp, steep curve, I swerved, I recovered. They knew what car I drove. The paint, the plates, the model, the make. They knew the dent they’d just made in the back. They knew the sign on top. I concluded I was too easily pursued. Screwed, blued and tattooed. I knew dat, I couldn’t afford to drive this rolling billboard. Good Lord. I was an easy score.

The windy, forested road provided a temporary advantage. Those huge pickups would be ravaged and damaged if they even tried to manage the speeds I was mounting on this small mountain.

But, once we were off this road, that advantage was “good riddance.” Instinct said I needed distance this instant if I hoped for further existence.

I got up to an uncomfortable sixty miles per hour. I used both lanes, rolled through crossroads, roared around curves, prayed I wouldn’t meet another car.

Down below, I saw a straightaway and had an idea.

I had to put some space between me and the trucks. I needed to be a couple of curves ahead, or I couldn’t pull off my plan. Down this little mountain we were on, I could see lights as we came upon civilization. Strip malls, gas stations, traffic signals. I pushed it to 65 miles per hour!

No, 65 was way past too fast, I let off the gas before I my last act was to blast past the narrow path. I flew past a sign that said: Speed limit: 25. Good, Lord.

I roared around the final curve and down the straightaway. Headlights from the pickup trucks were two curves behind me. I fumbled for the duffle bag, rolled down the window, and tossed it into the tree line. I looped my arms around the straps of my backpack … everything important was in that baby blue backpack … and … about halfway down the mile-long stretch … I aimed my car for the left ditch … shifted to neutral … slowed the car to what I hoped was an acceptable speed … opened my door … and jumped out.

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Other Music in this episode: Groove Commercial

Transcript

In the midst of the biggest pandemic of my lifetime, and because of it, I was poised to do something I’d never thought I’d do. I had practiced it two dozen times, timed out down to the second. Still, stealing it for real was nerve-wracking.

So much had to go right, but so much more was likely to go wrong. And, I didn’t want to have to hurt Kevin.

I looked over at him. Kevin gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up. Kevin was so psyched we were working this job together. I nodded to him. Gave him a fake smile. I knew after tonight we’d never see each other again, and I thought, “Kevin, I’m so sorry for what I’m about to do.”

Yesterday, we prepped for tonight. The Dry run. Dress Rehearsal. Walk-through. Me, Kevin, Kumar, Juan, our team lead Barry. Dbag Barry.

We were working high-end security for a data center that housed much of the worlds most important anonymous data. Think Swiss Banks, but for intellectual property, big money research, bitcoin wallets or anything illicit you could store on a solid-state computer hard drive.

Yesterday, team leader Barry gathered us together and said, “Alright, Asshats, we drew Area Seven.” He said with a sense of doom, but I already knew which area we would randomly draw. I fixed the drawing. I had to have Area Seven. There was no other point for me to be there, doing this job.

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Barry said, “So, listen up, we have a few No-Nos on this job. No tasers or bullets, obviously. We are paid handsomely to defend this here data with our lives, true, but we only get stun-guns. Don’t like that, turn in your security ID and leave now. No-No number two: Tomorrow is Friday. You arrive Friday at noon, you do not leave until Saturday at noon, following a successful upgrade. It will be a complete lockdown. There will literally be no way to leave. Cell phone signals are jammed. No-No number three…”

Barry looked around at each of us on his team. Kumar and Juan stood on either side of me. Barry settled on Kevin. He said, “Kevin, I’d like you to demonstrate No-No number three. Touch that server rack.”

Kevin said, “Barry, you said to never touch –”

Barry cut him off. “Just touch it, dumbass.”

I said, “Barry, we all know what will happen! We don’t need another demonstration!”

Barry looked at me and said, “Allen, you’ve just elected yourself as Kevin’s replacement.”

For a moment I was like, “Allen? Who is Allen?” That always happened when someone called me by my fake name.

I said, “Fine.” I walked over to the server rack. Kevin looked at me, already wincing. I could tell he was both happy it wasn’t him, but also guilty that I took his place.

I knew it was going hurt, but I also knew I’d live, so I just… did it. I touched it.

I woke up a couple of minutes later. Barry announced, “Okay, numb nuts is awake. Nice screaming, asshat. Like a little girl watching Nightmare on Elm Street. No-No number three: Do not touch the server racks. They are wired with enough voltage to stun your ass for up to two minutes, if you have a good heart.”

That was yesterday. Rehearsal. Today, Barry would get his. Right now, he was counting down, “In five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

We were in Gateway Underground Secure Storage. Everyone called it by it’s acronym, GUSS. GUSS was implementing a planned upgrade. A known outage. Barry’s countdown started the clock. The engineers had thirty minutes to bring a new aisle of servers online, and to upgrade the onsite power generators. Thirty minutes of being naked in a blizzard.

Naked, but not defenseless. That’s where my team came in. My team, and a score of teams just like mine.

I heard over Barry’s walkie-talkie: “We are powered down. T-minus thirty minutes until power-up. Perimeter is secure.”

Barry said, “We are on, gentlemen. Do your job.”

Ever so often, GUSS had to upgrade their servers and security, and that meant an outage. The first time, five years ago, GUSS shut down and were subsequently robbed blind by a hacker-espionage group still unknown to this day. The problem was, Gateway had a global client base and had to announce the outage world-wide so clients could adjust. During an outage four years ago, another attempt was made to steal data, but the attackers “accidentally” died trying to get away. All six of them.

Rumors on the Dark World forums from four years ago stated all kinds of conspiracy theories. None proven as the coroner rubber-stamped the cause of death as heart attacks and the case was quickly closed. I learned as much in my research when I accepted this job, and let’s just say, it was on my mind. Synchronized, coordinated heart failure. Riiigggghhhhtttt.

There hadn’t been an attempt since then. Four years. Until tonight. I needed one SD card. On it, the secret that would save my sister, and make BossMan95 very wealthy.

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I watched Barry stalk the catwalk above us. Our team was the last human line of defense. An isolated generator on Level ten kept the server rack voltage flowing while the actual server power was cut, and that suited me just fine.

I strolled a little too far to my right, out of position. From that catwalk above, Barry yelled, “Allen – you are out of position!” I ignored him. Barry yelled again. Ignore. Again. Ignore.

Then, I heard the rattle of the metal catwalk as Barry hurried down, strutting toward me purposefully. I paced away from him as he walked up. It was just Barry and me in this aisle, this section. I wanted for us to be alone when we got tangled in a tango, and this spot right here was the dance floor.

Barry approached. I slowed my tempo. I heard him behind me. He growled, “Goddammit are you deaf?!?” He grabbed my arm and I spun, knocking him off balance. Barry crumbled into the server rack.

Zap. Crackle. Hahahahahaaaaaaa.

I had practiced this dance, every chance, in advance, until I could pull a bulls-eye on a full-size, full-weight, five-foot-eight dummy, a mannequin. The manner in which I would pin the tail on Barry the Dbag’s Ass.

Barry grabbed my right arm, expecting to pull me around to face him. He pulled, but I didn’t resist. I spun. It was more of a bullfighter move than anything. “Olé!” He hit the server rack and was immediately stunned. The server rack was built to shock for five seconds, then shut down for thirty seconds so as only stun, not kill. Barry hit the rack.

Five, four, three, two, one.

I had thirty seconds, I poked the SD card slot and pulled out the card I needed. Aisle Seven, Section Four, Rack 12, ID 39023354. To cover my tracks, I poked five other cards out of their stot and pocketed them as well.

I thought, “Okay, Teresa, this one’s for you!”

I yelled, “Kevin – Juan – Kumar! Barry’s hurt!”

I almost giggled. Barry would be out cold for about two minutes.

Juan, Kumar and Kevin rushed over and knelt down over Barry. I said, “He tripped or something. Fell into the rack. Oh, man, oh, man. Poor Barry!”

I wondered if I was laying it on too thick? I patted my pocket. These were the only copies of this data. There were no backups because if your data is this valuable, this private, potentially this illegal, having a second copy means having a second massive security plan.

In studying stolen specs for this facility, I understood what would happen next. An alarm would blast. An army of security would leave their post and come straight for this room. They’d start searching for the perp. Ahem. Me. By the time they got here, I hoped to be ten floors up, on the surface.

I knew all this because I met a man who used the handle BossMan95 on the Dark World Forums. BossMan told me everything, sold me on this sting, controlled and pulled the strings. He sent me here to steal this SD card. Pose as a security guard. Said it wouldn’t even be hard.

He’d better be right. If not, it was going to be the world’s shortest getaway.

Barry was down, the team was distracted. I hurried down Aisle Seven, scurried around the end of Section 11, and hoped not to see Kevin as I walked toward the exit. I worried, would my security badge work?

I scanned my badge at the door, listened for the click, opened it and walked out.

As the door closed behind me, I heard Kumar yell – “hey Allen, where are you going?”

I was going… to get the hell out of there. I started down the left hallway. I’d gone two hundred feet when I heard voices in front of me. Dammit. I turned and headed back. I’d have to take the long way.

Just as I passed by the door I had just exited, Kevin came out. He said, “Hey, Allen, Kumar sent me to find out –”

That last part was what Kevin sounded like when I zapped him with the stun-gun. What can I say? I panicked. I didn’t want to use my stun gun on Kevin. In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t. But, look, Kevin would live. If I didn’t do this, my sister would not.

“T-minus eighteen minutes.” The voice came over the loudspeaker, counting us down like the final act of a James Bond movie. I was like, “for real?”

I was behind schedule. I raced around the Gateway Underground Secure Storage facility for over ten minutes. Hallways, elevators, stairs. Wrong turns. I got lost twice. The SD Room was ten stories underground. The elevator took for-eh-ver.

“T-minus seven minutes.” Finally, I got to ground level, the exit, scanned my badge again, praying it still worked, it did, Thank God, and I walked into the wet night air.

Ugh. So humid. As I walked toward my car, I heard a new alarm sounding; the exit had been breached. When I practiced this step, I planned to have ten minutes left to go in the countdown at this point.

“T-minus five minutes.”

Uh, oh.

Ducking a spotlight scanning the fenceline like an old prison movie, I jogged to my car, a big ole 1996 Crown Vic beater I named Vicki. I paid cash for last month. It was not mint. Barry saw me drive up once and spent the next week bullying me for it. But Vicki was perfect. Former police car. Reinforced suspension, high output engine, push bars on the front. I got in and turned the key.

Oh, Come on!

I could see my fellow rent-a-cops leaving the building, fanning out, looking for me. Come on! Flashlights shined, voices shouted, alarms blared. I had not practiced this step. Jesus, why hadn’t I bought a better car?!? Come on, Vicki. Crown Vicki. Queen Vicki. Come on. You useless piece of motherfuhhh – I squeezed the steering wheel and rocked back and forth.

You have got to be kidding me. Breath. Breath. Calm. Happy Place.

I worked for AxelRod Security, LLC. My whole team did. We contracted with Gateway Underground Secure Storage, GUSS, for this weekend. Three grand hazard pay for one night’s work, if all went well. For them. If it went well for me, Axelrod employees would each get half that.

Had GUSS not planned an upgrade where they had to shut down normal security for thirty minutes, I would have never gotten this far. My Axelrod security team was there to make sure what I was doing didn’t happen.

We were twenty-seven minutes into the thirty minute blackout, and I was nearly free. I had to get through the perimeter fence before the upgrade was complete.

Or, else.

And my fucking car wouldn’t –

“T-minus two minutes. Power up in two minutes.”

It started! Hell, yeah!!

Everyone heard my car roar to life. All eyes turned toward me. The perimeter defense – men trusted with actual guns, with actual bullets, automatic weapons, aimed them my way. Strips of traffic spikes lined the entrance. The main gate was already closed and barricades had been erected earlier in the night.

But I wasn’t going out a gate.

I floored it. My tires screeched. I spun toward the darkest corner of the parking lot. The one requirement when I bought this car was that it had airbags and a V8, because I was going to need them. Brakes, I didn’t care about.

I wasn’t going to need brakes.

Thirty miles per hour, 40, 45, 50. Less than a football field to the fence. 60. 70. Nothing in my way, only a long, lonely parking lot. Then, Boom! Foot on the gas, in a blast, so fast.

In a flash, the bumper folded, airbags exploded. In the slowest immediate instant I had ever felt drop, everything instantly accelerated into a slow motion stop.

I had studied the specs and I knew every fourth pole in the fence surrounding this remote GUSS facility was a thirty foot steel I-beam, fifteen feet buried, fifteen feet in the air. Between those steel I-beam pillars were cement reinforced columns. The facility advertised the wire as being kevlar reinforced steel weave, crackling with 6.6 kilovolts of stun-lethal force, and topped by poisoned concertina wire. In other words, they made it like they used to.

The only realistic way through a fence this secure was to bull-doze it. Knock it down. Driving a Caterpillar to work would have aroused suspicion. So, the Crown Vic did fine in a pinch. I rammed Vicki right into the fence… According to plan, it would crash through and I would escape.

According to reality, I crashed my car and was stuck. How long did I sit there, dazed? Pinned to my seat by the twenty five year old airbag that had actually worked.

I was totalled, and the fence was only imperceptibly bent. Shit! I stabbed the airbag with a knife I’d stashed in the console next to me. I got out, and examined the fence. The rest of the security team was running toward me, shouting “Halt”.

As if.

They were five hundred feet away and closing. I had twenty seconds before they swarmed me, and I didn’t know if the fence was active again already. Had it been two minutes already? Shit, shit, shit!

I looked closer at the fence – there was a rift! Just a small break. But it was enough. I grabbed my backpack, opened it and grabbed the grapefruit. I tossed the grapefruit at the fence. The grapefruit would either bounce off harmlessly, if the fence was still being upgraded, or the grapefruit would vaporize, if the fence was active and working.

It bounced. And so did I. I pushed my backpack through, climbed out, got free, and limped away into the forest, leaving a trickle trail of blood and sweat in the oppressive Atlanta humidity.

As I patted my pocket of SD cards, I heard the fence crackle to life. None of the security guys still yelling “halt” would be able to climb through. That would gain me about ten minutes, maybe more. I smiled. Phase one was a success.

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Other Music in this episode: Tango