In Too Deep

Chapter 7

At lunch I join MJ and Logan in line for the salad bar, relieved I don’t have to navigate the cafeteria on my own. I’m pleasantly surprised to see the salad bar is much more than limp iceberg lettuce and baby carrots.

After loading up our trays, we grab ice water infused with cucumber slices, and settle at a table in the corner.

I grab a stray soybean that’s slid off my plate and pop it into my mouth. “So where were you guys last night?”

Logan suppresses a laugh.

MJ kicks him under the table and the laugh dies on his lips.

“I went to get a piercing,” MJ says in her confident throaty tone I’ve grown to like the sound of.

I scan the parts of her I can see. She doesn’t even have earrings in. I raise my eyebrows. “Well…Did you chicken out?”

Logan chokes on a bite of grilled salmon.

MJ rolls her eyes. Clearly there’s something I’m missing. “I put some icing on the cupcake,” she says.

“Huh?”

Logan, barely able to contain his composure, swallows a cherry tomato whole. “She put some bling on the bikini biscuit,” he says with a smirk.

My brain catches up with their imagery. I feel the heat traveling up my neck, coloring my cheeks. “Oh. Um…that’s…” No amount of etiquette conversations with my mother have prepared me for this moment.

“It’s okay.” MJ says. “You don’t have to approve. Logan doesn’t.”

“I told her not to do it,” he says.

“That’s because you’re afraid of vaginas.”

“I’m not afraid,” he says, but I can’t help but notice he cringes at the word. I’ve wondered about his sexuality, and it seems I’m no closer to learning the truth.

MJ straightens her shoulders. “Listen, I’m comfortable with my body and I’ll celebrate it however I choose.”

I like her enthusiasm. My body doesn’t incite the same type of response in me, but hey, good for her. “If you have that level of self-love, more power to ya.” I raise my ice water to her in a mock toast.

She nods, raising a mushroom speared on her fork and bites off the tip.

Logan goes pale.

After lunch we head into our Global Studies class. There’s one large square table in the center of the room with ten chairs. Looks like there will be no sitting in the back row going unnoticed as I try to get my bearings.

I follow Logan and MJ to take a seat, but as I slide a chair out from the table, the instructor approaches me. “Taylor?”

I nod.

“Tate.” She offers her hand.

I was expecting Mrs. …. something. She’s fairly young for a teacher, probably in her early twenties. Her hair is blonde with a few pink highlights and styled into a shaggy pixie cut. On anyone else, it’d be horrendous, but she’s tiny with delicate features, and somehow it suits her.

“Hi.”

“Go ahead and have a seat. You’re going to like it here.” She smiles warmly. She heads back to the front of the room without explaining anything else or providing me with the course materials.

Tate’s lecture today is on fascism in emerging nations and the tactics for disabling this type of regime. I’m so far out of my league that I understand only every fourth word. Things like: the, was, if. This feels more like advanced military training than a high school class, but the students around me hang on her every word, offering bits of color to the conversation, talking concepts out together, and occasionally asking Tate for an explanation.

I’m too easily distracted by the large windows, through which bright afternoon sunshine pours through, warming up the room. At home, I’d be counting down the days until summer break. But here, school runs year round, with just a two-week summer break in July, two months from now.

I see a body fall past the window and leap from my chair. All eyes in the room dart to me, like I’m the crazy one. Didn’t they see that? Logan leans toward me, placing his hand on my forearm, urging me back into my seat. “It’s just the second years rappelling off the roof.”

Oh, right. Like that’s normal. I carefully return his easy smile, and slip into my chair.

The two hour class goes by quickly, and for the most part, it keeps my interest. I even answered a question toward the end of Tate’s lecture. She was discussing the Entanglement Theory, which says of the threads that connect everything together, one object cannot be fully described without considering the other. Meaning it’s impossible to view a country’s religious beliefs, political system, or economy apart from one another. They are all connected. She asks the class what to do when you are faced with a complex problem consisting of many entangled pieces.

I think about how I approach the computer programming problems I solve. “You pick one main objective. And then you break the problem into as many small pieces as you can.” I speak without raising my hand, as the others have been doing. “And work backwards, solving for each small piece one at a time.”

“Very good, Taylor.”

Simplifying and breaking down complex problems were things I understood. Maybe I could keep up here by applying the things I knew from computer programming, hacking – a side of myself I’d always had to keep hidden in my old life. It was strange to be able to embrace it for the first time.

My dad’s a computer programmer, and from the time I was little, I worked alongside him writing code, helping him to test and debug software. I liked it so much that he taught me other computer languages, like Python, Lisp, and Java. I was well on my way to becoming a skilled computer programmer by age thirteen. And then I taught myself Unix. And because most of the Internet runs on Unix, it opened up a whole new world to me – Internet hacking. I never set out to do anything malicious, I enjoyed the challenge of reading the code, modifying it, building things, learning to break into things. It was fun testing the limits and doing things no one else could. And now that I’m here, it’s strange that all that will actually be encouraged. I still haven’t wrapped my head around it.

When Tate dismisses us, Logan walks me to my next class, leading me upstairs. With the tiny number of students here, even in between classes, the halls are deserted.

Through my conversation with Logan, I discover that my scholarship is a farce. Everyone here receives a scholarship. You can’t apply to Wilbrook. We were all hand-selected from across the country, with one thing in common – we each had a talent Wil-Tech wanted.

I head inside the computer lab, where McAllister is waiting for me, the light from a monitor casting an eerie glow on his face.

“How’s your first day going?” he says without looking up.

He’s trying to make small talk, to be polite, but on him it seems so out of character that I’m not sure how to answer. “It’s been fine.” I sit down at the table beside him.

He nods once, his mouth pressed into a hard line and meets my eyes. “I’ll be directly overseeing your independent study.”

I wait for him to explain.

“I will provide you your assignments. They are to stay between you and me. Understand?”

I nod.

“Each will be different. They may take one day, they make take several weeks. You’ll supply me with a report when you complete the assignment, before you receive your next one.”

“Okay.” I continue to study him. He looks older than he probably is. There are soft lines edging his eyes and forehead, like he’s spent many years dealing with the stress of running this company and academy. I take stock of his posture. It’s too stiff, his dark hair threaded with gray strands at the temples, no wedding ring. But he’s attractive and commanding in his own way. He also scares the living daylights out of me for some unknown reason.

“You’ll begin by gathering intelligence. The assignments I’ll give you are actual cases that we are actively working on at Wil-Tech. The work you do will aid our agents.”

I’m surprised at how much confidence he has in me. He slides a manila folder across the table toward me.

“This is the information we’ve gathered so far.”

I flip open the folder and a grainy black and white photo of a man with slicked back hair and dark eyes stares back at me.

“Ivan Kazcyk is a known assassin.”

A chill runs up my spine sending tingles along the back of my neck. I look up from the file and study McAllister’s eyes. They are hard and unfeeling. I swallow a lump in my throat, wondering what type of work I’m about to get involved in. This doesn’t feel real.

I shuffle through the pages and reports behind the photo.

“You’ll have time to review this later, but your assignment is here.” He places an envelope on the table in front of me.

I pick up the sealed envelope. McAllister stands to leave. “When’s the assignment due?” I ask as he turns to leave.

Without turning back, he says, “I expect it’ll take you a few days to complete, no more.”

Once he’s gone, I slip my finger under the flap and tear into the envelope. Inside is a single sheet of paper, with a brief typed message. I can’t help but notice, it isn’t addressed to anyone, there’s no date and no name signed at the bottom. It strikes me as odd. The instructions are simple and as I read them, I hear McAllister’s voice in my head.

He wants me to uncover who Ivan Kazcyk is working for. He’s a former Russian mafia leader and known assassin trying to purchase twelve million dollars’ worth of explosives and rumored to be involved with some Middle Eastern business men. I’m supposed to find out who is involved and what they want with the explosives.

How am I supposed to solve this? I reread the note again. I have no idea where to start.

I glance around at the computer lab, wondering if I have this all to myself. It’s an awesome set up –three desktop computers, with large HD monitors, and a MacBook Pro that is a definite upgrade from the laptop in my bag. I select the MacBook and get started.

I spend the first thirty minutes exploring the network setup at the academy. I download a free open source network mapping system. It’ll tell me what hosts are available on the network, what operating systems they’re running and what types of firewalls are in place. I can already tell the network security here is much better than what I’m used to at my old school. This is going to be fun. I feel the familiar buzz of excitement as my fingers dance over the keys.

After I get the lay of the networks, I search for information about Ivan Kazcyk. I pick up his trail in a database used by the British military. I guess McAllister isn’t the only one interested in this guy. The site I’m on is an official military database, housing confidential records. I pull back, my fingers hesitating over the keys. This is bigger than any hack I’ve done before, probably against the law, and I’m torn about what to do. If I refuse the assignment, I’ll get sent home, like I’ve wanted all along. But something tugs inside me urging me on, to see if I can do this, to prove to myself that I do belong here. And if my assignments are going to be help capture dangerous criminals, really how could I say no?

And then there’s the whole avoiding going home to face my ex thing. Piper might hate me for it, but the idea of staying here a bit longer, avoiding seeing Wes and working on my hacking skills appeals to me.

I flip open the folder again, and glance down at his photo. I’m sure hacking into a British site wouldn’t be against US law. And besides, I’m just gathering information. My general rule of thumb is that if I’m capable of getting in, they practically deserve to be hacked.

I hear someone approach and look up to see Colt. He’s leaning casually against the doorframe and watching me with a crooked smile.