Chapter 9

Caroline and Oliver track down Daedalus.

Chapter 9

As much as Oliver hated, well, everything, he was surprisingly mildly ok with meeting Caroline at this convention thing. He’d still much rather be at home doing nothing, but this was ok too. This case, or whatever he should call it, felt good. Oliver finally thought he was doing something, something useful, something that might actually be worth a damn. Or maybe he was just happy with the thought of sticking it to Howell. Because, honestly, f**k them. What has that place ever done for anyone?

That place had ruined his life and they deserved everything that was coming to them and he was going to give it to them if he could just find a f*****g parking spot.

Despite this convention being a niche of a niche the parking lot of the Lafayette Hotel was packed, not that there were many spots to being with; it was a smaller family owned hotel, honestly, Oliver was surprised that they had a banquet hall, let alone a ballroom.

Oliver headed in after he found a spot, he ended up having to park in the gas station across the street. It wasn’t free, he had to promise to buy fifty bucks worth of gas every hour. Oliver agreed, assuming that it wouldn’t take long.

The lobby of the Lafayette was packed. The convention was way more popular than even the organizers anticipated, Oliver thought. He scanned the throngs of people looking for Caroline. Oliver thought about texting her, but he didn’t want her to think that he was enjoying this. She’d never let him hear the end of it. Devon should have taken the time before he died to introduce his friends before sending them on a suicide mission. He could see if they could work together, or, at the very least, tolerate each other for longer than ten minutes. Caroline was the kind of person Oliver wouldn’t hold an elevator for, let alone try to take down one of the largest corporations on the planet. She was neat, idealistic, kind, and most of all determined.  Oliver always found it fishy when he met someone who was way too into whatever they were doing, it was as if they knew something he didn’t. He took another look around the room, trying to take in as much detail as possible. What little that wasn’t blocked by a near perpetual wall of bustling people gave way to a rural, quaint, down-home look. It reminded him of a bed and breakfast he went to with Kassidy.

The Lafayette was a strange place esthetically, the bed and breakfast look was nice, but in the middle of a city it looked out of place and it definitely wasn’t big enough for the number of people that were running through it, some of them had to be staying elsewhere, a fact that was undoubtedly pissing off the owners, or more likely the eighty-year-old spinster and her army of cats that were probably trampled to death in the early hours of the mob’s arrival. He managed to find Caroline, it helped that she was the only stationary object in the room besides the furniture. She was standing arms folded in the entryway to the ballroom, which looked to be the hotel’s communal kitchen with all the tables arranged around the perimeter of the room. The excess chairs looked like they had been hastily stacked and shoved into a corner.   

“Where the hell have you been?” she scolded as he approached.

“Relax Caroline,” he said dismissively, “Have you seen this place? It’s f*****g packed. I couldn’t find a parking spot.”

“I want to find this guy before he leaves,” Caroline said.

Oliver craned his neck, to see over the crowd.

“Are…you looking for the guy?” asked Caroline.

“What? No, that would be stupid,” he said defensively, “we don’t even know what he looks like, or if he even is a he. I’m looking for someone who might know.”

“How is that any better? They aren’t going to be wearing a sign. Haven’t you been on an investigation before?”

“No, and I suppose you have.”

“No, but�"“

“But you’ve read books, got it.” Oliver finished dismissively.

“Fine then,” Caroline said, “you take over. Where do you think we should go next?”

Caroline called his bluff, she knew he had no desire to lead anything. He thought the best response would be aloof and douchbaggy, a tried and true option.

“You go ahead,” he said throwing up his hands in defeat, “I want you to get as much practice as you can, Baby Cop.”

Caroline scowled at him. “Let’s go.” 

The two wandered the convention. The tiny dining room was full to bursting with lovers of all things Flash. Every booth was selling variations on the same item. Some drives were made up to look like normal everyday items, another had one based on pop culture, and other booths focused on more esoteric designs. They all ranged in quality and price, but if you wanted a flash drive, you could and probably should go anywhere else. This was a strange place and it smelled vaguely of sweat and plastic. It was like the most boring booth at Comic-Con got big headed and decided to franchise itself.

Oliver watched as Caroline scanned the room. Her eyes narrowed as she took in every detail. She made a few sweeps then locked in on her target. She held out an open hand.

“Give me the drive.” She demanded, not taking eyes off her mark.

Oliver reached into his back pocket for the pack of cigarettes that doubled as the drive’s carrying case.

Without looking she rubbed the drive with her thumb and index finger and made a weird face, then looked at it. “What’s this?” she asked referring to the strip of duct tape wrapped around the body of the drive’s lighter casing.

“It kept falling apart.” Answered Oliver plainly.

“Fine.” Caroline made her way over to the guy she was staring at; he looked to be in his late twenties a bit on the fat side. He was wearing a black t-shirt with “/*Byte Me*/” written on it followed by a block of ones and zeroes below it.

“Hey,” she said with a bright smile, “love the shirt.”

The man looked up from his laptop, “Oh! Hey, thanks. It’s one of my favorites.” He folded his arms and leaned into the table, “Are you new? I haven’t seen you around here before, us Flashers are a tight-knit group and I think I'd remember seeing you.” He gave a wry smile.

 

Oliver said, “That’s an unfortunate name.” as he walked over to Caroline’s side, “that wasn’t the group’s first choice was it?”

“Ow!” Caroline stomped on his foot.

“No, no, we picked it. We’re kind of an ironic group.” Said the guy.

“Really…” said Caroline, “that’s interesting.”

“I don’t think you know what ironic means”

“I’m new to the group myself,” Caroline said, talking over him.

“Hey cool! Glad to welcome you, I’m Lucas.”

“Nice to meet Lucas, name’s Caroline.”

“I’m Oliver,” said Oliver.

“Cool, cool.” responded Lucas nodding with approval, “What can I do for you two?”

Caroline held out the drive, “What can you tell me about this?”

“Whoa!” exclaimed Lucas, “Can I see it?”

“Please,” Caroline said, handing Lucas the drive.

Lucas took the drive and inspected it wide-eyed, “This craftsmanship is exquisite.” He said in awe as he held the drive up to the light, “The detail is amazing! What’s this liquid inside? Is it actual lighter fluid?”

“No idea.”

“It even has actual wear,” Lucas added picking at the tape.

Caroline said, “No, it’s just broken.”

“Oh,” he said deflated, “that’s a bummer.”

Caroline leaned over the table slightly, “Can you tell who made it?” she asked.

Lucas sucked on his teeth, “Dunno,” he said, “Could be anyone here. All I can tell you is that it isn’t one of mine.”

“So you aren’t Daedalus,” Oliver said bluntly. Caroline tried to stomp on his foot again but he said side-stepped her, so she elbowed him in the ribs instead.

“Ow, d****t Caroline!” exclaimed Oliver rubbing his side, “We needed to know.”

“No, you d****t Oliver; haven’t you ever heard of tact?”

Lucas looked at the two of them confused, “What are you guys talking about?”

Caroline sighed, “A mutual friend of ours bought that drive and it’s broken. His birthday’s coming up and we wanted to get it fixed, or, at the very least get him another one from the same place.”

“So what does this have to do with Daedalus?”

“So you do know about Daedalus.” said Oliver in what he thought was a “gotcha” moment.

Caroline interrupted him, “When the drive broke that name was printed on the flash drive’s circuit board. We tried to find the person online, but we didn’t have much luck.”

Lucas looked back at the drive quizzically, “I don’t know him,” he said, “not exactly. No one does.”

“Wonderful!” said Oliver, “What a waste of f*****g time.”

“Y’know,” noted Lucas, “It’s not often we get something made by the Daedalus around here, mind if I call a friend over to check this out?”

“Sure,” Caroline said, “Anything that might help us out.”

“Awesome thanks, Yo! Baker!” shouted Lucas through a cupped hand, “Get over here!” Across the room, a man's head poked out of the crowd like a human gofer. Baker was a lanky guy, noticed Oliver, his skin was pale and he seemed to be a fan of baggy clothes, either that or they didn't make clothing for sentient string beans.  

“Yeah?” said Baker.

“These guys got something here from,” started Lucas but he thought better of it and leaned in to whisper, “they got a drive made by Daedalus.”

Baker’s eye widened, “No way!”

The two took turns marveling at the drive commenting on every facet of its design.

“Guys,” Oliver interjected after he was tired of waiting, “the things still broken. Either of you know where we could find this guy. C’mon this is kind of a big deal.”

Caroline flashed him a deep scowl. “Anything you can tell us would be super helpful, but he is right, time is a factor here.” 

The two exchanged a glance and Lucas spoke up, “Nobody here knows who Daedalus is,” he admitted, “It could be anyone here or none of us. The most we can tell you is that Daedalus is a ‘he’ and he doesn’t like to make his presence known.”

Baker chimed in, “Some people say he’s a hermit, and you have to be ‘in the know’ to meet him. Others say he gets plastic surgery every few years to hide.”

“From who?” asked Caroline.

“From anyone.” offered Lucas, “From everyone, maybe.”

“So all you two know about him is all this conspiratorial bullshit?” interjected Oliver.

“Basically, yeah.” Baker admitted, “He’s kind of a god around here.”

“Wonderful,” Oliver said nonplussed, “told you this was a waste of time Caroline.” 

Someone like Daedalus wouldn’t show up to an event in person, thought Oliver, he was probably some high strung agoraphobic who wouldn’t let his mother into his home until she passed a series of eclectic tests. That’s what these savants are like.

“Well,” said Caroline dejected, “thanks for what info you could give us.”

The pair wandered around the convention for another hour, trying to get as much info on Daedalus as they could, but all they managed to is confirm was his deific status amongst the convention goers.

As they made their way back to the entrance Oliver’s mood softened, Caroline hung her head. “C’mon Caroline,” he said, “let’s go, we should get back to the apartment.” Oliver could see how much this meant to her. He thought about putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder and got halfway to doing, but changed his mind and the two walked out to the parking lot. She said nothing.

The two stood in the parking lot and shared an awkward silence.

“So,” said Oliver with a pause, “do you want to call it for the day?”

Caroline shrugged, “Sure, whatever.”

“Okay.”

They parted ways, Caroline had apparently gotten there much earlier, she had managed to get a spot in the parking lot and close to the entrance no less. Oliver made the slow march to his car. Some small quiet part of him wanted this to work out. That they could walk in and Daedalus would just be there waiting for them, ready to answer all their questions. After that everything would just fall into place: Caroline would get her closure, Archie would be sent to prison and Howell would collapse, but Oliver knew that wasn’t how the world worked. It was going to be a fight the entire way. Then his phone buzzed.

Oliver reached into his pocket to check, it was a text all it said was;

Oliver, don’t freak out.

That’s never a good way to start off a conversation. Oliver didn’t recognize the number, or rather, the string of digits that appeared in place of a name. Far too many to be a phone number. The phone buzzed in his hand.

I know what you’ve been doing.

Okay, thought Oliver, this is definitely getting creepier.

You are looking for me.

Daedalus?

Oliver unlocked his phone and replied, ‘are you Daedalus?’ he typed, but trying to send a message only produced an error, UNABLE TO SEND MESSAGE it said. On cue, his phone buzzed again.

Yeah…you can’t reply, sorry.

This is kind of a one-way thing, for now.

It may look like I’m hiding, but I’m not.

If you want to talk I’m down for it

But you have to find me.

“Goddammit!” groaned and he headed back to Caroline’s car. She was about to leave.

“Caroline!” he shouted, waving his arms to get her attention, “hold up, wait!” He saw her squint at her rearview mirror to validate what she thought she was seeing. Satisfied, she killed her car’s engine and got out “Yeah?” she said confused, “What’s going on?”

“It’s him.” Oliver said breaking into a light jog waving his phone for emphasis, “We’ve got a lead.”

“You mean Daedalus?” asked Caroline, meeting Oliver halfway. “What do you mean? How?”

He showed her the messages from Daedalus, “What are those numbers? It looks too long to be a phone number.”

“Right,” agreed Oliver, “That’s what I thought.”

“So, what is it?”

Oliver looked at the numbers again, they didn’t make any sense, but for some reason, it felt oddly familiar. He rubbed his mouth, “No idea.” he said.

Caroline folded her arms and concentrated on the ground, “What do we know about Daedalus?”

“Not much,” Oliver said, “he’s an indoorsy egomaniac/nerd god.”

“Right, and he said he was willing to meet us and he made the first move in contacting us. So, we can assume that he wants to control the situation. “

“Are you saying that we should wait for him to contact us again?” asked Oliver.

“No,” said Caroline, “He is going to engineer the perfect meeting so that we will be suitably impressed with us meeting him and vice versa.”

Oliver took a deep breath and spun in place, “S**t. So you are saying that this is some sort of test.”

“Probably.”

“D****t. Why can’t things be straightforward?”

Caroline ignored him, Oliver could tell she was on a roll. Man, he thought, when she gets a second wind she really takes it. Caroline checked her phone. “He knows about both of us, but he only decided to contact you, why?”

Olive shrugged, “Maybe he wanted to save minutes.”

“If this is a test and we have to solve it before we can meet him. He had to have given us all the pieces.” Caroline held out her hand, “Let me see your phone again.” Oliver handed it over and Caroline started mashing on the screen.

“Hey, what are you doing?” asked Oliver defensively.

Caroline ignored him. After a second she sucked on her teeth and handed Oliver his phone.

“Damn.”

“What?”

“I tried googling the number and it just gave me an error. I thought it might be an address or a location or something else from the movies, no luck.”

She looked off into the distance, “Why did he message you?” she said to no one in particular.

Caroline turned and face Oliver, “Does that number have any significance to you at all?”

Oliver shrugged.

“Think!” she said, it has to have some importance. Is it a phone number, an address, or some computer…thing.”

That’s when it hit him, he knew what it was it was so obvious, he felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner.

Daedalus must have done some digging before contacting us, he thought.

“I know what the number is!” exclaimed Oliver, “get in the car, you’re driving.”

Caroline didn’t bother questioning and hopped into the front seat. They pulled out of the parking lot and drove off. As they left Oliver vaguely remembered his deal with the gas station owner and didn't care.

The two started driving. Caroline’s car was too old to plug his phone into so all Oliver could do was call out left and right as they went.

“What was the number?” Caroline asked.

“It’s an address, well, an IP address.”

“Yeah...I have no idea what that is.” Caroline admitted.

“It’s basically an address, but for your computer, left,” explained Oliver, staring fixedly at his phone, “it tells whoever, or whatever, is looking it what network is in use,  who is accessing a site and where they are. Daedalus must have done his homework and knew that I would know what the number meant.”

“So you can take that…IP address and take us right to him?” wagered Caroline.

“Sort of,” clarified Oliver, “There can be multiple people with the same IP address if they were using the same network.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“Let’s say you were at a coffee shop and you decided to check Facebook, but you don’t want to waste your data, so you jump on the store’s Wi-Fi with all the other college students, readers, and hopeless writers tapping away at their magnum opus dying for someone to ask them what they’re doing. They are all using the same network. They would all have the same address. Think of it like living in an apartment building, everyone says they live there, but they aren’t the sole occupant of the building.”

“Basically, what you’re saying is that we have a search radius.”

Oliver was almost impressed. He didn’t expect Caroline to catch on that quick.“Right.” confirmed Oliver.

Dutifully, Caroline made a hard right.

“Whoa, what the hell!?” blurted Oliver, clutching his chest.

“What? You said right!”

“I meant correct, s**t, you could give me a little warning!”

Caroline made a few quick turns and got them back on track, “Maybe you should be more careful what you say when you are giving directions.”

“I didn’t think I had to clarify, thought you could pick it up from context clues,” replied Oliver.

“Just tell me where we’re going.” said Caroline in a tone that said, ‘this fight wasn’t over’.

Oliver consulted his laptop which was draped over his lap to make sure he actually knew where they were going. Oliver used a program he had on his laptop to reverse search the IP address but all it spat out was the equivalent street address, no name or hint as to what sat in that spot. In the rush, Oliver punched the address into his phone without looking at what came up. For all he knew they could be driving to an empty field somewhere, but that was a problem for future Oliver and Caroline, maybe they’d be dead by then.

“Well?” barked Caroline, expectantly.

“It looks like we’re heading for the Wide Open Yonder building.”

“Really? The cable company?” Caroline said nonplussed.

Oliver cocked his head, “Apparently. Maybe it’s his job?”

Wide Open Yonder was one of the largest cable providers in the state and like all cable providers, they absolutely sucked.

“Why would someone like Daedalus need a job, shouldn’t he be, like, rich or something?” Caroline asked.

“You’d be surprised at how poor some hackers are unless you become a White Hat and get in bed with a major corporation, you’re pretty much stuck with stealing the bare minimum just too keep the cops out of your hair. You might as well get a minimum wage job and avoid the cops altogether.”

Oliver glanced over at Caroline, she seemed to be processing the information, thinking about her next move. “What should we expect when we get there? Will there be guards? How big is the place? Daedalus is bare minimum a hacker, right? Will we have to worry about cops storming the place the second we walk in, or worse, Howell?”

Oliver thought about it for a minute. “Probably not.” He finally said.

“Probably not?” emphasized Caroline hotly, “That’s the best you can do?”

“About another mile down, then a right.” started Oliver, “As far as we know Daedalus has no idea about Howell, or what we’re doing, he just knows that we’re looking for him, and someone like him wouldn’t risk the cops sniffing around him, even if he makes us look like criminals. The most we have to worry about is our social security number, bank account and all our credit cards getting sold to the highest bidder.”

“That’s not better!” shouted Caroline. Oliver shrugged as his response.

They could see the towering office building coming into view. Wide Open Yonder became the powerhouse that it is overnight and largely by force. Wide Open Yonder started as a humble unassuming cable company built on the idea of “have it your way” entertainment. It was novel, allowing people to choose what channels they wanted to pay for, but tenacity and a good idea couldn’t make up for years of ingrained public obstinacy. Nobody likes their cable company but they’d rather stick with the familiar evil than the new one. Wide Open Yonder was ready to shut its doors when out of nowhere the company’s founder and CEO was ousted and replaced by the current CEO, Milton Saddler.

Saddler was a bit of an unknown to the uninitiated, but among the rich CEOs of the world, he was ruthless. The kind of person for whom the phrase “hostile takeover” was made for. In the months that followed, Wide Open Yonder went through a series of restructurings, mergers, and acquisitions before being bought out themselves. Saddler took the role of CFO and the new television amalgam retained the name Wide Open Yonder. Most recently, the company bought a brand new office building in front of which Oliver and Caroline now stood.

It was a shimmering monolith of corporate excess. The building was featureless except for the company’s massive white logo. It was comprised of the first letter of each word layered on top of each other. Some graphic designer who was paid an obscene amount of money probably thought the logo looked classy, but Oliver always thought it looked like a confused turtle shrugging. Caroline and Oliver stood in the shadow of the building.

Oliver said to Caroline, “So, what’s our next�"“

Then his phone buzzed. This time the name was simply Unknown.

Hey, cool, y’made it!

Caroline said, “Who is it?”

Oliver angled his phone so Caroline could see the screen while he scanned the building’s mirror finish looking for some sign of someone watching them, “It’s him.”

Caroline joined him in his search, “You think he can actually see us?”

“He could be in any one of those windows,” Oliver answered.

“Or, more realistically…” Caroline spun around and looked up into the lens of a security camera hung on top of one of the light poles that lined the parking lot.

The camera did its best “sup” nod followed by Caroline and Oliver’s phones going off in unison.

Yo said Daedalus though his array of electronics.

“Great,” said Oliver flatly to the camera, “now come down here and talk to us.”

There was a pause, then their phone’s buzzed again. Caroline checks it and sighed showing it to Oliver. It was a gif of Newman from Jurassic Park when Samuel L Jackson tried to access the park’s security.

Oliver said, “Very funny.”

Thanks :)

To Oliver, Caroline said, “I’m starting to think Daedalus is kind of a jerk.”

:(

“If you aren’t going to come to us, then what do you want?” Oliver said to Daedalus’ camera.

“Either meet with us or we’ll call the cops.” Caroline said, “We know what you’ve been doing.”

lol

I think we all know you won’t do that, Caroline.

I know what you’re doing as well. Slander goes both ways, Miss Baker.

None of that will be necessary, I want to talk, but you have to find me first.

It’s just a little game I like to play.

“Jesus Christ!” said Oliver exacerbated, “We found you, what more do you want?”

“Uhm,” started Caroline, hesitating, “technically, we didn’t find him. We just know that Daedalus is around here.”

Daedalus responded with a thumbs up emoji.

Oliver acquiesced, “Fine.”

Coolio!

I left some stuff for you by that trash can, you’re going to need it.

The camera turned slowly to the left and pointed at a trash can off in the distance.

Oh! You’ll also need this: 3 R, 5 D.

Have Fun!

Laters.

Oliver scoffed and dropped his phone to his side and said to Caroline, “Can you believe this guy?”

He looked over and Caroline was already halfway to the trash can. He hung his head and rubbed his temples with one hand before jogging after her.

When he arrived Caroline had already retrieved one of those padded manila envelopes and torn it open setting its contents on the can’s lid. The package contained an Ethernet cable about three feet long, a cheap netbook, a thumb drive--this one had a clear shell exposing the board underneath, which was emblazoned with its creator’s name�"a piece of paper on it a with a five by six grid of squares each numbered from zero to twenty-nine, and two Wide Open Yonder employee badges, one for Caroline and another for Oliver.

“Looks like he hacked our social media accounts,” Caroline said holding her badge next to her face. Her ID was a picture of her mid-laugh below it was the name, Wendy Salt: IT Department.

“This is my Facebook profile picture, he must have photoshopped the background out to make it look more legitimate.”

Oliver’s picture was an old one, he had a bright, hopeful smile and a clean-shaven face. His badge bore a fake name too, Barney Maltese: IT Department.

“S**t.” He said.

“What?”

Oliver turned over the ID to show her.

“Yeah, so what, you look happy in the picture. What are you worried that it might ruin your sullen bad boy image” Caroline said sarcastically.

“No, this is the same picture on my Howell ID.”

Caroline’s face went white, “S**t.”

“I know.”

Caroline quickly shook the fear away and said, “We can’t think about that right now, we need to know where Daedalus is holed up. What’s on this drive?”

Oliver grabbed the flash drive and the netbook, Oliver recognized it as one of those knock-off Chrome Books that you could buy for a hundred bucks online from Shenzhen. Despite the shiny metallic look, the laptop was warm, lacking the distinct cold feel of real metal. These computers weren’t known for their power or performance, mostly they were considered dedicated Facebook machines, something for the grandparents to use to make them feel like they were hip with the trends. Daedalus must have done something to it, Oliver thought, otherwise this was just a slightly functional paperweight.

“Just a program called, ‘USE_ME.exe’,” Oliver said.

 “We should probably hold off on that until we figure out what he wants us to do with all this stuff.” Said Caroline.

“Right,” said Oliver, “thoughts?”

Caroline glanced around at the assorted items and said, “Clearly he wants us to break into the building and do…something with the new drive. This looks more like your thing than mine.”

Oliver didn’t say anything and did a cursory check of the netbook, he went through all of the major systems and folders to see if Daedalus hid any cryptic instructions but came up empty.

“Could it have anything to do with the IP address again?” asked Caroline.

“I doubt it, seems too easy to use the same thing twice.” Oliver glance over at Caroline, it looked like she just had one of those lightbulb moments and pulled out her phone. Oliver tried using the lighter drive with the vain hope of it magically repairing itself. It did not. The files were still as jumbled as they were the day before. He looked over at the camera Daedalus was using to see if he was spying. The camera appeared to be slowly oscillating as intended, no hint of it being puppeteered by a technophile. Oliver didn’t think he was the type of guy not to watch people play his games, he must have moved to a less conspicuous type of spying.

“Do you know what this grid is all about? It doesn’t look like a map of the building.” Caroline asked holding the paper out to him, “It looks like he wants us to do something with the twenty square here.”

Oliver looked it over, it was crudely drawn Daedalus might be a semi-skilled engineer but he was definitely not an artist, “Maybe not a normal map,” Oliver rotated the map a few times to see if anything jumped out at him, “it could be a server grid, but why would a cable company have so many?”

“That must be what he wants us to do!” stated Caroline excitedly.

Caroline pointed at the square Daedalus highlighted, “If we get to that server, can you crack it?”

Oliver thought about it for a minute, “I image he thinks I can,” he said grabbing the Ethernet cable, “but we’re going to need to get close.”

“That must be what the badges are for!” Caroline said, “Come on.” She grabbed him by the shoulder of his shirt and started dragging him to the door.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Oliver said digging in his heels, “we can’t just wander in there.”

Caroline looked taken aback, “Of course we can,” she clipped Oliver’s fake ID to his shirt, “That’s what he wants us to do.” She resumed walking to the door.

“What are we going to say? It’s not like they’ll let anyone into the server room, even with badges.” Complained Oliver.

Caroline didn’t turn her head, she was laser-focused on the plan ahead, “I’ll think of something, just let me do the talking this time.”

The bottom level of the building was covered in the same deep black glass with the only thing distinguishing the doors from the remaining exterior were two polished silver handles. The two entered the lobby which was brightly lit, albeit with natural light LEDs. The floor was a sea of sand colored tiles with walls that looked to be a shade lighter than the floor. Sitting in the center of the room, pushed against the wall was semi-circle desk made of some light colored wood that Oliver couldn’t identify, not that he could tell one type of wood from another. Behind the desk sat a bored security guard absentmindedly playing with his phone. Caroline quickly clipped her badge to her belt and made a b-line for the guard. As they got close Oliver could vaguely hear the sounds of birds being flung towards poorly made structures.

“Hi!” Caroline said to the guard.

With what looked like tremendous effort the guard rolled his eyes up to Caroline, Oliver respected that kind of commitment to laziness. He said nothing.

“I’m Wendy, and this is Barney. We’re new here and we heard you were having some computer trouble. We were here a while ago, but it didn’t do the trick. We need to get into the server room, do some�"uhm�"patch work, it’s complicated.”

The guard chewed on the statement for a minute. “Badge.” He demanded at last.

“Sure.” Said Caroline.

He took the badge and scanned the barcode on the bottom, there was a pause followed by a friendly beep. That seemed to satisfy the guard and he gestured for Oliver to hand over his ID as well. He did and was greeted with a friendly beep of his own. Daedalus did a good job with the fakes.

Laboriously, the guard jerked a thumb towards a bank of elevators, “Floor B3,” and went back to his game.

“Have a nice day!” chirped Caroline.

She didn’t get a reply.

The elevators closed and Oliver pressed the button labeled “B3”. They made the journey down as soft jazz played through the speakers.

“That was actually kind of impressive, the way you handled that guy back there,” Oliver said staring at the doors.

“That didn’t sound snide at all, you losing your touch?” asked Caroline.

“Shut up and take the damn compliment,” replied Oliver. 

The doors opened onto the server room and the heat was the first thing to hit him. Oliver perished the thought of how hot the place would be without any cooling system.

“Ugh,” said Caroline with a disgusted face, “What’s that smell?”

The heat made the room muggy and dry at the same time, which could have done the paneled ceiling any favors. With all these machines running at once gave the room the smell of toner. “Alright,” Caroline said, “You’re up.”

Oliver nodded, “We’re going to server twenty, right?”

“Right.”

The walked to the appropriate row and column as they went Oliver noticed the room felt alive while at the same time being completely empty, at least from what they saw, the entire floor hummed with the sound of dozens of fans keeping the servers cool. The room carried over the facades’ aesthetic on the walls with the floor being made of navy colored texture rubber.

The server looked like all the others: a black rectangle covered in multicolored lights blinking seemingly at random. Oliver took a deep breath.

“You do know how to do this, right?” asked Caroline, slightly worried.

“Sure.” and he pulled off the front panel exposing an array of ports, buttons, and wires. A little intimidating, but he blocked that feeling and looked for the Ethernet port and plugged in the netbook Daedalus gave them and a black window opened with a single blinking white cursor waiting for Oliver to give it an order.

“What’s that?” Caroline asked over Oliver’s shoulder.

“It’s command line navigation. You don’t get a pretty interface when you get this deep.”

“Mhm,” said Caroline.

He typed in a quick command, just to see what he could do.

get sys(“status”);

The server prompted him to enter a password. “Thought it wouldn’t be that easy.” He said.

Oliver grabbed the clear drive and plugged it in, say what you want about these cheap computers, they don’t skimp on ports. Another window open showing the single “USE_ME.exe” file, he opened it. The entire screen flashed then only the command line window remained, centered on the screen.

Then starting from the bottom of the screen, various characters and numbers started appearing, just a few at first, then it shifted up a line and a new set of characters appeared. A new line, a new set of symbols. After five or six line Oliver began to recognize it as an image. The pair sat in silence and waited for the whole thing to appear. It turned out to be some sort of man/bird hybrid. It had a human body and bird wings. Finally, below it, it said:

/*ACCESS GRANTED

YOURE DONE HERE*/

Caroline blinked, “That’s it? We’re done.”

She looked around the room for another camera that Daedalus could be watching from, she found one tucked into a corner of the room. “Well,” she said, “where are you?” and waited in vain for her phone to go off.

Oliver stared at the human hybrid on the screen intently. “We’re not done yet.” Called out Oliver.

Caroline turned around, “What do you mean?”

“This image,” Oliver explained, “it’s clearly his calling card, but there could be more too it.” He waved Caroline over and pointed at the image, “See how it’s made up of only letters and numbers?”

“…Yeah.”

“This looks like random nonsense, but it could actually be hexadecimal.”

“And that means?”

“It’s just another way to convert text into something a computer can understand. All we have to do is take it and convert it into plain English.”

Oliver opened up a blank text file and copied the image line-by-line into a single block of text. “All we have to do is feed it into a converter.” He said as he opened a browser window.  A quick Google search provided a suitable translator. Oliver pasted the image text into the “INPUT” window and hit “CONVERT”. The “OUTPUT” displayed the hidden message.

FLOOR 17 DESK 773

“Got him!” Oliver said.

“Where is he?” asked Caroline rushing to catch up to Oliver.

“He’s on floor seventeen.” He said as the elevator door shut behind them.

They ascended in silence, they could feel it, the sense that things might finally be turning around. Their first credible lead was about to pay off. It was one of those moments that you like back on and said, “Wait, what did we just do the server down there?”

Caroline was the one to cement that moment.

Oliver blinked as if just realizing what happened. “Oh s**t, you’re right, I doubt it was just that.”

“You’re telling me you just thought of that now?” shouted Caroline.

“Like you did any better.” retorted Oliver.

“But I’m not the computer expert, you should know these things!”

Oliver held out his hands to try and put a stop the situation, “Fine, whatever, enough. We’re going to be able to ask him in a few minutes. Whatever happened, it’s too late now. He used us now we get to use him.”

The elevator dinged and the doors opened to a vast sea of segmented cubes. Banks and banks of desks, each cube was divided into four cubicles filled with the din of dozens of voices chatting, selling and pretending to look busy. It looked like the used the fancy expensive lights in the lobby. The cheap bulbs filled the room with a dull off-white light and an inescapable hum that drives sane people mad. Spend the money impressing the people who matter, thought Oliver, typical.   

The pale light did very little to liven up the checkered carpet showcasing every shade of grey in the world’s most business casual rainbow. The walls were barely white, somewhere around quarter-ecru.

In other words, it was hell in a fluorescent cage.

Nevertheless, the sudden change in color palate made Oliver and Caroline blink their eyes to adjust.

Oliver said, “The cubicles aren’t number, s**t, how are we going to figure out which desk is his?”

“We have to look for someone that matches the personality we’ve been talking to this entire time,” replied Caroline.

“It’s not that easy,” Oliver said, “anybody can act like a high and mighty a*****e when there’s a screen in front of them. It’s like an impenetrable shield for douchebags.”

“I’m aware,” snapped Caroline, “but I’m not hearing any better ideas out of you and I really want to be done with this nonsense!”

With Oliver following behind he watched as Caroline gave her Wendy Salt persona a workout. She went to each cubicle in succession claiming that she needed to reset everyone’s password. She threw out terms and jargon about trojans, worms, and malware with a clear lack of understanding, which worked because the people she spoke to share in her ignorance.

She approached a tallish African American man with a thick mustache, Oliver thought he looked about fifty-six, fifty-seven.

“Good afternoon,” Caroline said, studying the man’s eyes, “I’m from IT,” she tapped her badge in much the same way a detective would theirs to show the perp that they were in charge without stating as much. “We got word that there’s a bug in the system.”

The man looked annoyed that he was pulled away from what could have been a very lucrative call. “It looks like someone has been using the company computers to go to some less than reputable sites.”

This gave the man pause. His face went red, Caroline’s eyes narrowed. “W-well, did you find out who?” he asked in a gruff warble.

“Not yet,” Caroline said, hands on her hips as she looked around the floor. She’s going to let the guy sweat, Oliver thought, proud, “but we’re getting close. My team had narrowed it down to this floor.”

“Y-you have a team, didn’t know we had that many people down there.” The man sputtered nervously.

Caroline looked at nothing in particular for a second, “There’s a lot the higher-ups don’t share with everyone.”

The man’s chest heaved and Oliver could see the beads of sweat from where he stood. “We just need you to change your password that should be enough to secure your system.”

Caroline moved on and the man let out the longest sign Oliver had ever seen.

A few rows down Caroline stopped at the desk of a woman in her mid-thirties Caroline got five words into her speech before the woman threw her hands off her keyboard.

“Whatever, just do what you gotta do. I don’t give a s**t. I’m going out for a smoke. Just make it work again.”

“We don’t have many rows left,” Oliver said as he saw a lull, “what do you think, have you found him?”

“None of these are the right guys.” Caroline whispered, “But I’ll interview every damn person in the building until I find him.”

Caroline went back to making good on her threat. They ran through two more rows with no sign of Daedalus. Then Caroline stopped on a guy, early twenties, shaggy blonde hair hastily greased back into a style that could be described as “yearning for professionalism”. His white button-up shirt looked hastily ironed and his navy tie had not been untied since he bought it. It was faded and sun-bleached as if it spent most of its time hanging on a rearview mirror. Oliver thought he looked like some intern that got lost in the system and became a full-time employee largely due to a clerical error. From what Oliver could tell, when he wasn’t in his cubicle he was out in the world. His body was tanned and healthy, he was the kind of person who did something with his life.

Oliver hated him.

“Excuse me, sir,” Caroline said, the man looked up at her boggle-eyed, mouth agape.

“Y-yeah.” He said nervously.

“I’m Wendy from IT.” She continued.

The more Oliver stared at him the more he disliked the guy.

“We have reason to believe that the computers on this floor have been infected with a virus.”

“Damn�"er, gosh,” he corrected. “A virus.”

“Yes, we are here to fix it. There is a chance that all of your files have become infected.”

“Really?”

“Have you noticed anything weird with your computer?”

“You know,” Oliver interjected, “Icarus was your kid. You created the labyrinth. A better logo would have been a maze or something.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sorry.” He said.

“What are you doing,” hissed Caroline.

Oliver ignored her, “Kinda lazy if you ask me.”

“Have we met before?” he asked.

“Oh cut the s**t Daedalus, we know who you are. We solved you’re stupid, bullshit games now talk to us!”

The alleged Daedalus looked up at them and his deer-in-the-headlights look slowly morphed into a devious smile, then a chuckle. “Wuzzup!” he said with that three-fingered wave that is meant to look personable and relaxed but always comes off as conceited and smug.

Daedalus kicked his feet up on his next, no small feat considering that the cubicle was about three inches too short. “Glad to see you made it.” He said, “Took you long enough, another twenty minutes and I’d have left for the day.”

Caroline said, “What did you have us do to that server?”

Daedalus gave Caroline a look that would have been better suited for a parent who just saw their kid trying to sneak a cookie, “Oh, a little of this a little of that,” he said, “You didn’t come all this way just to ask me about that, did you?”

Oliver produced the drive from his backpack, “You’re right, we’re much more interested in what you do in your off hours.”

“Awe sweet! My drive, haven’t seen this one in a while,” he took the drive from Oliver and tsk sound with his teeth, “Now why did you have to go and break it?” he shook his head, “No respect for quality craftsmanship.”

“The thing was broken when we go our hands on it,” added Caroline, “For being a quality craftsman you sure can’t build something to last.”

Daedalus waved off Caroline’s comment, “Everything works when it leaves my shop, not my problem what happens to it after that.”

Caroline started to speak but Daedalus interrupted her, “No returns, sorry, have a nice day.”

Oliver said, “We don’t want to return it we want you to fix it.”

Daedalus inspected the shell, “Looks like some glue would do the trick. I think I have some here.” He started rummaging through one of his drawers.

“We don’t give a damn about the case!” shouted Caroline.

“The files are fucked,” continued Oliver, “they’re either locked, corrupted or, most likely, both.”

“You have to help our friend died trying to hide what was on the drive. Clearly you know about us, you know where Oliver works. Whatever’s going down, it’s going down soon and we need what’s on that drive.” finished Caroline.

Daedalus leaned back further in his chair and steepled his fingers making an exaggerated show of thinking. He looked off into the corner of the room, back at them and said, “No.”

“W-what?” said Caroline befuddled.

“Yes, I know what’s going down at Howell. I’d be stupid not to recognize that drive. I made it for Devon. Dude was up my a*s about making this super big drive and hiding it in a lighter, saying it was for insurance or something. The cash was good so I made it. He kept in touch while I was building it, we hit it off, one hacker to another, and he told me what he was doing. He said that Howell was brainwashing people, or something insane like that. He had evidence against them--a lot of it�"and he wanted to know if I wanted in, and I told him what I told you: no.”

“Why?” asked Oliver.

He threw his hands up, “Look, I’m all for this ‘destroy the establishment’ s**t, but Howell’s Howell, man,” he waved his hands around his desk, “there’s a reason I stick to computers and codenames. It’s anonymous, faceless, I can break into the Pentagon and leak terabytes of data from the safety of a Starbucks. I can transfer millions of dollars from offshore accounts while sitting in my underwear. I’m the f*****g digital Robin Hood! But when it comes to Howell, they’ll hunt you down, they’re relentless. The government forgets every four years when they stick a new old white dude in the Oval Office and things go to s**t again. Do you know how long Archie has been in power? That was rhetorical, it’s f*****g forever! He never forgets and when someone wrongs him he takes it personal. That’s why I’m assuming you’re here and not Devon, right, they killed him?”   

“Basically, you’re saying you’re a massive p***y?” Oliver said.

Caroline stepped in, “Daedalus, we’re not asking you to storm the gates with us, you’re right, this isn’t your fight, but it is ours and right now that drive is standing between us and Archie.”

 

 Daedalus shook his head, “Sorry, I can�"“

Oliver grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, spun him and slammed his back against the wall and said, “I am sick and f*****g tired of your bullshit fix the f*****g drive and we’ll leave you alone. Do you think I want to be doing this? Do you think this is how I want my life to go? Let me answer that for you, no, it’s f*****g not. But whether I like it or not Devon roped me into this, he made it my problem and now I’m correcting. You’re in on it too, you were the second you took that job from Devon. As much as you would like for the job to have ended when you got your money, it didn’t. Now Devon’s gone and it’s on us: me, Caroline, and you. Shut your damn mouth and fix the drive!”

Daedalus slumped a little, his head down. Oliver took a look around to make sure that he didn’t get too much attention from the other people in the office. Luckily, they seemed too absorbed in their lives to notice a minor assault.

“I can’t make any promises,” he said quietly.

“That’s fine,” said Caroline quickly, filling the role of good cop, “Just try to get as much as you can back.”

“I’ll take the drive and do what I can, but after I do this, you forget you met me. I’m serious, this s**t isn’t funny, and you will die. I’d say look it up, but Archie’s goons did a damn good job of scrubbing all the records.”

“Fine,” Oliver said.

“Deal.” Agreed Caroline.

“I’ll let you know if I make any progress.”

“One more thing,” Caroline said, “It feels kind of weird calling you ‘Daedalus’ after all this, what’s your real name?”

“It’s Malcolm,” said Daedalus.

“Thanks, Malcolm.” 

Author's Note

Is this chapter too long? I was thinking of breaking it into two chapters