Ten minutes later, I was standing outside Louisa’s door. I knocked, but I didn’t hear any response. I waited a few minutes, knocked a few more times, but heard nothing.
Finally, I tried the handle. The door was unlocked. I pushed it open.
Her living room was chaotic, covered in computer parts, stuff flung all over the place. She was hunched over a computer monitor in the corner of the room wearing enormous headphones. I walked over to her and tried to catch her attention.
Finally, I tossed a balled-up piece of paper at her, hitting her in the back. She nearly jumped out of her seat.
“Oh,” she said when she saw me. “I almost forgot about you.”
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
“Sit.” She nodded at a chair. I pulled it up and sat down next to her.
I couldn’t understand a word of what she was reading on her screen. It was just a black background with green text scrolling past endlessly. She somehow seemed to know what was going on, because every once in a while she would type out a flurry of letters and commands. Every few minutes she stopped the movement and pointed at a word. “What’s this?” she asked.
“Uh,” I said, “I think that’s the word for an albatross.”
“Big bird?”
“Yeah. Sea bird.”
She nodded and went back to the computer.
I didn’t think I’d ever seen someone with such concentration before. It was almost like I wasn’t there at all. She wasn’t distracted by me reading over her shoulder, and she really even hardly seemed to realize I was there at all.
Suddenly she stopped again and pointed. “This?”
“Duck,” I said.
“Duck? Quack quack?”
I nodded seriously. “Quack quack.”
She went back to the computer.
We went like that back and forth for a half hour. I was way too mesmerized by her to really ask what was happening. I got the sense that she was trying to decipher a message of some sort, and a lot of it was in Russian. There was a bunch of computer code, and I couldn’t understand a word of it.
Finally, she sat back in her chair. “Okay. Finished.”
“Finished what?”
She looked at me and suddenly seemed to realize that I had been watching that whole time.
“You don’t know what just happened?”
“No, not at all,” I said, laughing.
“Why didn’t you ask?”
“You looked too serious.”
She nodded. “I was serious.”
“Well, what was it?”
“Kaley, you just witnessed the first skirmish in the war.”
I cocked my head at her and then started laughing. I thought she was joking, but she didn’t smile.
“Okay, you’ll have to explain that.”
“Some Russians were trying to break into our computer systems. They went by weird nicknames. That was what you were translating for me.”
“Ah,” I said. “That makes sense. Those words were mostly slang.”
“Slang for animals?”
“Sure. There’s plenty of that sort of thing in Russian.”
“Well, they were trying to hack us, so I caught them in a little trap and let them play around while I analyzed their movements.”
“Wow,” I said. “You run the network here?”
She shrugged. “Not officially.”
“What?”
“I’m not allowed to be a part of the mafia,” she said. “My father forbade it. He’s stuck in a different time.”
“I can relate to that,” I said softly.
“Yes, I know.” She stretched and rolled her neck. “But I run the system here anyway. I’m good with computers.”
“That’s really amazing,” I said. “Did you win?”
She stared at me. “Of course I won.”
“Oh. Good.”
She turned back to her computer and began typing again, almost as if she had forgotten I was there. I sat and watched her for a minute and then stood up.
“Okay, well, if you don’t need me anymore?”
She didn’t even react.
“Bye, Lou,” I said.
Nothing.
I laughed as I walked away. She was such a strange girl.
But something was bugging me as I left her room. If that really had been the first skirmish, a cyber attack, then the war was real and really happening.
That meant my family was in danger.
I got my cell phone from my pocket and unlocked it. I quickly dialed Soph’s number, leaning up against the wall behind a gaudy statue.
She answered on the second ring. “Kaley? Are you okay?”
“Hi, Soph,” I said. “I’m fine. I called to ask how you’re doing.”
“Oh my god, I’ve been so worried.”
“Why?”
“Your dad’s been going around telling everyone that you were kidnapped, and that the Italians are threatening to hurt you.”
“Shit,” I said. “No, Soph. It’s nothing like that.”
She let out a breath. “I’ve been so worried. I thought something had happened since we last spoke.”
“No, nothing happened. Well, actually, we got the paternity test back. Vince is the real father.”
“That’s great,” she said. “But why does your dad keep saying you’re in danger?”
“Because our two families are going to war.”
“Shit,” she said. “Really?”