She isolated the Bluescreen files and tinkered with them a bit, trying to see if she could understand them, but they were written in Piller, a programming language she was only passingly familiar with. She could follow some of it, but not enough to really figure anything out. After another hour of study, just past three in the morning, she decided to ask for help. It was time to take this to the darknet.
Marisa locked the files down as securely as she could, going so far as to chop the more suspicious-looking ones in half, just to be sure, and copied some representative samples into a plain text file. Then she scrubbed the hotbox as thoroughly as possible, connected a clean drive, and copied the text file over. Working with malware like this always made her feel like she needed a hazmat suit, like in a contagious disease lab, and when she pulled out the thumb drive to transfer the files to her main computer she felt a fleeting, irrational urge to handle it with gloves. She connected to the internet and queried Lemnisca.te, a closed network of semilegal servers that was only accessible by direct link; it was like a separate internet, invitation-only, where the required invitation was being smart enough to find it in the first place. The darknets were the uncharted underbelly of the internet age, equal parts freeing and terrifying, and Marisa always treaded carefully when she ventured into them. There were monsters in the deep, and you never knew who you were going to find.
She opened one of the virus message boards and tapped out a post.
Cantina>>Forum>>Malware>>General
Heartbeat: Weird Djinni Code
Heartbeat: Anybody run across this before, or anything like it? It was trying to interface with my hotbox, but it’s designed for djinnis. I think that’s why the files weren’t recognized, but I’m not sure, because I can’t even tell what they do. Any ideas?
Heartbeat: FileAttach>>detoxdump
She posted the file, disconnected her computer, and finally went to sleep at nearly four in the morning. When she awoke, she found a handful of answers, most of them in English, most of them some variant of Learn Piller N00b! One response stood out, however, poorly translated from Portuguese:
Cantina>>Forum>>Malware>>General>>WeirdDjinniCode
Sobredoxis: Re:Re:Re:Weird Djinni Code
Sobredoxis: stop deleting my posts!! if you do not like, go to screw!! this remembers me of something I saw in Japan one time have you heard Dolly Girls??
Marisa refreshed the page, hoping to find something more recent, but when the page came back the response had disappeared. Someone was deleting Sobredoxis’s answers.
She wondered how many times it had been deleted, and who had done it.
What was really going on here?
SEVEN
You going in to school today?
Sahara’s message popped up in Marisa’s vision while she was downstairs eating breakfast: hot corn tortillas with salt and avocado. Marisa glanced at her abuela, bustling through the kitchen making more tortillas, not paying any attention. Sandro and Gabi and Pati were seated around the table as well, but they were all checking their own djinnis and ignoring her. Sandro looked neatly pressed, like he’d just ironed his shirt a few minutes ago; Gabi wore sweatpants and a T-shirt, almost certainly covering her leotard for first-period ballet. Pati was dressed like Marisa, in a ratty black T-shirt and ripped jeans; Marisa looked closer, seeing something familiar in the clothes, and realized that they didn’t just look like hers, they were hers: old stuff Marisa had worn when she was twelve, pulled out of a storage box somewhere in a back room. Had their mom given those clothes to her, or had Pati simply found them on her own? Marisa suppressed a laugh, and focused back on the message. She blinked once to start a message response to Sahara.
Not our school, she sent. You up for a trip?
You’re killing me, Mari, Sahara sent back. I’m failing three classes.
Marisa took another bite of hot tortilla, and blinked into Sahara’s video feed: she was wearing a pleated skirt and matching jacket in yellow plaid, with a white blouse and knee-high bobby socks—pure traditional, and as immaculate as always. She was sitting in front of a mirror, adding the final touches to her hair and makeup.
I analyzed that Bluescreen drive last night, Marisa wrote back. I think there’s a piece of malware in it, which means this is more than just a VR drug. I want to go see Anja.
Sahara took a while to respond; Marisa watched on the feed as Sahara carefully finished her eyeliner, then set down the pencil and blinked. If Anja knew anything else, she’d have told us by now. That run through the freeway scared her, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Anja scared of anything.
It’s not what she knows, wrote Marisa, it’s what she’s got in her head—hang on, this is her.
A new message popped up in Marisa’s vision, in a second column next to the conversation with Sahara. Guten morgen.
Marisa blinked over to it. I’m on with Sahara right now. Patch you in?
Do it to it.
Marisa glanced at her abuela, needlessly worried that she’d somehow get suspicious of all the secret plotting, but all the old woman did was plop another stack of steaming hot tortillas on the table.