“He didn’t upload anything,” said Anja, “I was watching the whole time. We’re safe.”
“We’re not even close to safe,” said Marisa, shaking her head and panting. “We’re back to plan A: run.”
NINE
“What happened?” Sahara demanded. “Did you get hurt?”
“Doxed at the very least,” said Marisa. “He knew my name, and if he knows that, he knows everything.” She took a deep breath and pulled away from Omar. “But he’s not what we need to worry about—he was warning me. Autocab, start driving.”
“Where would you like to go?” asked the cab. Its voice was friendly, but there was no real personality behind it.
“I don’t care,” said Marisa, “just drive.”
“Let’s take a tour of the city,” said the autocab. “Would you like me to point out landmarks as we drive?”
“Just shut up and let her talk,” said Anja.
“Marisa,” said Sahara, “calm down. Take a breath, and tell us what happened.”
“A hacker was found dead,” said Marisa. “Have either of you ever heard of someone named eLiza?”
“Of course not,” said Omar.
“She means Anja and me,” said Sahara. “And no, I haven’t.”
“I think maybe?” said Anja. “Nothing big—I probably just saw her name on Lemnisca.te somewhere.”
“That’s where Grendel found her,” said Marisa with a nod. “She was asking about the same Bluescreen code we found, and now she’s dead.” She grabbed Anja’s hands. “She died the same night Bluescreen made you run into traffic, and the same night I posted the code on the darknet. This is not a coincidence.”
“I’m looking her up now,” said Sahara. “Sharing the link to your djinnis.”
An alert from Sahara appeared in Marisa’s vision, and she blinked to open it. The cab seemed to fill with small white squares, each containing a news story or blog post. Marisa blinked on the nearest one, and it unfolded into a small, hovering video screen that only she could see and hear.
“A USC student was found dead in her Jefferson Park apartment early Friday morning,” said the reporter. “Authorities are holding five fellow students for questioning. Officials say that Elizabeth Swaim, twenty-one, was found on the living room floor of her apartment just before six a.m. The woman suffered several stab wounds to her chest and arms, and was pronounced dead on the scene. Neighbor Christopher Lodge told this reporter that Swaim was always a quiet resident, keeping to herself. . . .” Marisa closed the article.
“Elizabeth Swaim?” she asked. “We’re sure that’s the right one?”
“The link I watched said she was a computer science student,” said Anja. “And her death matches what Grendel told you—it sounds like she’s our hacker.”
“Who killed her?” asked Omar. “These links keep saying ‘five fellow college students,’ but we don’t know if they’re suspects or witnesses or what.”
“It’s too early to find that kind of information,” said Sahara. “The police probably haven’t even released it.”
“But they’ve collected it,” said Marisa, sitting up straighter, “and that means we can find it.”
“Jeez, Mari,” said Sahara. “You can’t hack the LAPD.”
“You can absolutely hack the LAPD,” said Omar. “I go to the same school as all these people; I want to know who did this.”
“Saif’s a student there, too,” said Marisa, opening the LAPD website. “Business college or something. Everything keeps tying back to USC.”
“Who’s Saif?” asked Omar.
“My dealer,” said Anja. “You’ve never met him.”
Omar glowered. “I don’t want you to meet him anymore, either.”
“Shut up,” said Marisa. “I’m bringing out the Goblins.” She needed to concentrate; she’d never hacked a government website before, but there was a first time for everything. She opened one of the hidden folders and activated her Goblins—a suite of programs she’d written specifically to help with hacking. Each one of them performed a specialized, automated function to make the process faster and harder to trace.
The first Goblin was a distraction—it went out into the internet, grabbed whatever unprotected computers it could find, and told them all to access the target website over and over again, all at the same time. It didn’t help the hacking process, but it made it easier to cover her tracks later. The second Goblin went to work on the website’s link map, building a visual reference of exactly what the site contained, and how the different sections were connected to each other. This showed her quickly where the login points were, and what security system they used to manage their passwords. “They’re using Longhorn,” she said out loud. “That’s tough, but at least it’s basic.”
“How can it be hard and easy at the same time?” asked Omar.
“It’s like a really tall wall,” said Anja. “It might be hard to climb, but there’s no flying crocodiles to fight off while you do it.”
“Let her work,” said Sahara.