Rabid, CH 03 (Patreon)

Child care servers are so easy to get into they should write a comedy about it. ‘How to lose your child in 1 easy step’. It would go to the top of the charts in one season, until people realized it was a reality show, instead of fiction, then… well, I would enjoy that show. 

For now, my problem is that—

I’m out of coffee.

How am I out of coffee?

I reach under the desk and pull the crate on my knees. By weight, I tell the travel mugs in it are mostly empty. Lifting each alters that to completely empty.

It’s not even nine!

Who keeps stealing my coffee?

I bring the crate to the counter and fill the mugs. The worse part is having to wait as the carafe fills each time. The second worse is eyeing the others as they walk by and covet my coffee. They wisely keep their distances.

“Problems at home?” Kat asked, somehow taking the carafe before I reach for it.

“No. What makes you think that?” come on, fill your cup already so I can build up my stash.

“You seem on…” she glances at the crate and it takes all my willpower not to pull it further away. “Edge.”

“I’m not,” I reply.

“So, things are going well between you and your husband?”

“Of course. We’re perfect.”

Her smile is small. “You son, he’s doing okay? Is he liking the new school?”

“He’s not going anymore,” I reply, my tone sharp, and I openly glare when she opens her mouth, so she closes it. 

He puts the carafe back, and I fill a mug with what she left me before starting the machine going for another carafe.

“Maybe I should start charging,” she comments, “with the way you’re going through our coffee.” I have a hundred on the counter before she’s done speaking. “I wasn’t serious.”

I shrug. The carafe is full, and I have mugs to fill. She heads back to her office without taking the bill, so I pocket it. When my crate’s full, I head back to my desk, and there’s a rush for the coffee counter.

Weirdoes.

Where was I? Right.

The problem with the Child Care servers being basically open access is that I’m not the first hacker going through them. I doubt I’m the hundredth, and everyone before me has made a mess of the place. Maybe this is why Child Care Services has so much problems, they can’t access anything because of the chaos in their servers.

Maybe if their IT department was better paid, it wouldn’t be this bad, but government job and all that.

Orban is the first of the two I find in there. Senior supervisor, a few commendations, a few reprimands. Twenty-six years working there. No wonder he ended up selling his services to human traffickers. I couldn’t see myself working for the government for one year without wanting to tear the whole thing down. Last active case he worked was…that’s can’t be right. Six years ago?

Okay, I’d expected him to still be within the service when he hired C, D, &J, since he used case codes that register as real. Maybe he gave himself access to this mess before he left. I’d think he made the mess, but there would have to be a system to it for him to find what he wanted when he needed it. Unless he’s a decent hacker, he’s not finding anything in here.

I download the cases he worked over his career, as well as the case numbers he gave the PIs. Never know where I’ll find a common thread that leads somewhere other than within the mess of a web whoever’s in charged of the ring built.

Sophie Fletcher still works for Child Care, and I easily find one link between her and Orban. He was her direct supervisor when she started. Could be he recruited her, or brought her to the attention of the recruiter, or she found out and, like the good government employee that she’d be, demanded a piece of the action, or else.

Nothing jumps out as I glance through her cases, but I download them, too.

Before I start on looking through the cases, Kat heads in my direction, and I switch screen.

What was I doing for Berner Industries again?

She walks by my desk without looking at me. Thanks lot for breaking my flow.

Ten thirty. I consider my next step the length of a travel mug, then pull up the Berner file. I might as well get some work done before Kat decided not to pull a fake-out and ask for an update.

* * * * *

Okay, this is new.

Orban and Sophie have called the same number a few times a week. I can’t link it to anyone within Child Care or a case they worked on.

The number itself doesn’t give me much. Private, which only lasts until I’ve hacked my way into their provider’s servers and accessed the account, where I discover the owner of the number is a very imaginative, John Smith. The social number comes up as John J. Smith, who died thirteen years ago.

Go doing your due diligence.

Asshole.

I’m trying to find these people, you know. And there you go, letting someone get a number with a fake name. At least there’s an address on the account, and google tell me it’s in Glendale, next to Santa Fe Industrial, in a small commercial plaza. We can check the place out later.

With that basically done, I turn my attention to the work others are doing on my behalf.

The Greater Phoenix Fire Departments don’t know it, but they’re working for me at the moment. My hope is that one of the investigation in the businesses liked to the traffic ring we burned down will reveal something of us.

Well, not that me and Tristan, okay, mainly Tristan, started them. He’s the expert at covering our tracks that way.

None of them will be found to be accidental, not that anyone would believe it anymore, I think. We;re up to what, forty, fifty of them by now? If not for Tristan making sure none of them were started in exactly the same way, there would be news of a serial arsonist all over the place.

Still, when a fire is suspicious, the fire department investigates. Who has something to gain? What do they have to gain? That kind of stuff. If I’m lucky, one common thread will be uncovered between all of them. I’m no longer deluding myself into believing it’s going to land us in the lap of the mysterious head of this snake, but I would love to no longer feel like we’re simply nibbling at its tail.

The newest investigations give me insurance companies, with a couple of repeats again. Some places had records of building code infractions. I’m going to have to match that to what we found in those places. Could be relevant. One comes up with an arrest. I link the name to arsons out of states that are also being investigated. Did Tristan mimic some other arsonist’s work? Or has he done so many variations at this point it was statistically probably one of them matched the work of someone else?

I copy the reports. Tristan will get more out of them than I can, then go over, just in case a detail points in a direction I don’t want them to, and who should I come across in there than Asyr.

I ignore them. Work isn’t the time to engage in a… friendly match of showing them I’m the better hacker. Which I still demonstrate by finishing before they do and leaving without traces.

It’s almost five, so I only refill two travel mugs and go over the reports for the work I did earlier and mark that is just finished before sending it up the company’s reporting chain. Billings, probably.

That leaves me with a few minutes to quietly enjoy my coffee before I get to leave. Kat no longer raises an eyebrow anytime I leave at five, but if I try to sneak out early, she notices. It’s not like ten minutes will make a difference. I’m going to be fighting traffic all the way to tonight’s residence.

My phone alarm vibrates and the empty mug goes into the crate. The other in my hand and I’m heading for the elevator before Kat has a chance to call for me. She might not raise an eyebrow anymore, but that doesn’t mean she won’t decide to call me into the office at the last minute, or past that.

I make it in with three of the others. Two are talking about some show. Computer gets mentioned and I pay attention, then sentient is mentioned and I tune them out. Science fiction isn’t my thing.

We reach the lobby and I nearly spit the coffee I’m sipping. It is a near thing, but only a little of it dribbles down my chin. I wipe it as I watch the guy leaning against the security desk speaking with Karl.

I’m not the only one watching him. He is hot. Ripped, in jeans, a shirt and a light jacket over that. The woman eyes him hungrily. But all I can do is wonder what Tristan’s doing here.

By the time I get myself moving, it’s only the three of us in the lobby.

“And the sergeant was livid,” Karl says with finality.

“And that didn’t get you court marshaled?” Tristan asks. “If I’d had done anything resembling that when I was in the service, it would have been in the brig with me.”

“Hey, Alex,” Karl calls, and Tristan turns, smiling at me. There is no malice in that look, not that it means anything. “You never told me you husband was an army brat.”

“It never came up,” I reply casually. I learned to go along with any story Tristan tells when we haven’t rehearsed it. I can’t even remember what I told him about Tristan, other than he was the hottest guy out there. I know I told him that much.

“Alex knows it’s not something I talk a lot about. Being dishonorably discharged tends to lead to questions I’m tired of answering.”

“Hey, I’ve been where you were,” Karl replies. He taps his arm. “And darker, and yeah, I’d have been in trouble too. Sucks that in this day and age, skin color still marks you as ‘a bad agent’.”

I wrap an arm around Tristan. “Oh, he’s definitely good where it counts.” I look at him, and catch Karl blushing out of the corner of my eye as Tristan leans in to kiss me. It’s almost a chaste kiss, almost, but not quite. I’m panting by the time he releases me, and well. I don’t have to mention the rest of my state, do I?

“I am so lucky,” I say, breathless.

Tristan smiled, then turns to offer his hand to Karl. “It was good to meet another jarhead, Karl. We need to go. Wewords for the sot have a long night ahead of us, if you catch my drift.”

Karl shakes it and nods, looking a little lost. Then we turn and leave.

“Tell me the work can wait,” I say.

“It’s going to wait until I’m done working you. No matter what it wants.”

Yep, I am the luckiest man out there.