Source check: Who is available to explain a zero-day exploit?
I glance at Jinx, who’s staring out into space, poking at a bowl of scrambled eggs. Checking out Navarro when she thinks I’m not watching.
Navarro is pacing around, glaring at Jinx for hacking or fixing or whatever she did to the satellite. He’s clearly pissed we didn’t ask for his permission. But we all know he would never have agreed with a plan to leave the bunker. Neither would my dad for that matter.
First Federal Bank is the country’s largest and oldest financial institution. Facing the loss of both its paper and digital records, First Federal has struggled to pay deposits and properly collect payments. Congress has frozen electronic payment processing networks and authorized banks to remain closed if necessary. The situation has triggered widespread panic, including a series of “run on the bank” type altercations that have become increasingly violent.
Source check: The Dallas Herald.
Aha! Take that, Mr. Johnson. I have a citation.
I pull out a piece of folded printer paper. It’s a news report, complete with pictures that show a bloody scene in First Federal’s Houston branch. National Police in body armor are beating back men in jeans and sweaty shirts and pushing against women in housedresses as a mob presses into the interior of the bank lobby. The place was designed to have a charming, country-western vibe to it.
The scene is surreal. A rustic, homey riot.
Yeah, and also this article is more than a month old. I printed it out the last time we stopped at an internet café. My last bit of actual news.
I reread my field report and check out what I’ve got so far.
Seriously, MacKenna. Pull yourself together.
Maybe it was a mistake to use The New York Times Manual of Style. Like, referring to the murderous psychopath as Mr. Tork almost makes me choke on my own spit.
I guess now I should say something about The Spark and the New Depression and how the bad times at the bank had turned a terrible economy into a desperate situation. But there was something wrong with all of this.
Like, it was a story.
But not my story.
My back and shoulders ache. Every afternoon, Navarro puts us through the drills. We run on the beach and load guns and try to karate kick each other. Hey, now I can shoot someone.
But...could I really shoot someone?
I can’t deal with that right now.
I grab the book again, scribble out the sentences with my pen and start a new entry on the back inside cover.
FIELD REPORT #1: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
Quintana Roo, Mexico
It was the afternoon of January 20th and I was living my old boring life in one of the million identical suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, and basically thinking how it brutally sucked that Ammon Carver was gonna be president and that the only upside was that us journalists would have plenty to write about. But really, I thought things would be okay. I mean, all the stuff they told us in school about the power of democracy and the checks and balances of the Federal system had to mean something, right? And my dad had a good job, and we had a nice house.
Maybe The Opposition would screw people over. But deep down inside, I thought I wouldn’t be one of the people.
I know that’s way wrong, and I was trying to do my part. I donated money, and I went to rallies and gave Mr. Johnson, my journalism teacher, all kinds of shit for constantly eighty-sixing my articles about The Spark and canceling my profiles of David Rosenthal.
So there I was, and my biggest problems were really that, since my mom died, my dad worked all the time and my brother, Toby, was away at college. I was stuck at home with Stephanie, a stepmom who looked like she’d been manufactured in some robot dream-wife factory. And Jinx. My stepsister, who couldn’t pry her eyes from her laptop screen.
My new stepfamily was strange. They had been living as preppers in some bizarro basement somewhere. Plus, Jinx’s dad was Maxwell Marshall. THE Maxwell Marshall. Dr. Doomsday himself. The doofus hacker genius who’d used computer skills that almost no one could understand to rig the election for Ammon Carver. Dr. Doomsday was the reason that The Spark lost. The reason that evil Carver was president and not Rosenthal.
The daughter of the man who’d wrecked the whole world carpooled to school with me.
The one good thing was my new little stepbrother, Charles, who was eight but somehow able to figure out how to grow perfect, puffy marigolds in a small greenhouse in his room because he heard me say that it was Mom’s favorite flower.
Anyway, back to January 20th. I was driving home from school with Jinx and Charles. Jinx wanted to stop for potato chips. I mean, almost nobody eats potato chips anymore. They’re terrible for you, heavily taxed and will probably be illegal soon. But we had to stop. At a store that happened to be next door to the First Federal Bank building. That happened to be one of the banks that blew up. Maybe someday I’ll get some e-tablets or at least some notebook paper and I can tell the story of how we almost died. How we went on the run. How we were chased across the desert by The Opposition, the National Police and God knows who else.
But right now.
Right now, if you’re reading this, here’s what you need to know.
My father is Jesen Oscar Novak. He emigrated from Lanvin, Croatia, when he was four years old. He was awarded the Silver Star for heroism in Operation Cedar Hawk. He was proud of being a veteran. He watched more golf than politics on TV. Stephanie used his computer to log in to the mainframe and trigger the explosions that killed more than two thousand people.
My father is absolutely innocent.
I don’t know what history will make of Maxwell Marshall. I guess a lot of that depends on what happens next and who gets to write the history books. However, his finest hour will probably always be unknown. He created a piece of malware designed to destroy bank data, not to help The Opposition with their revolution but to help his children escape to safety. The Opposition believes we have the code that will repair the mainframe computers, and this is the only reason we are still alive. Marshall’s zero-day exploit was an act of love. Not an act of defiance.
Dr. Doomsday loved his family.
Stephanie Novak or Stephanie Marshall or whatever she goes on to call herself is not a history teacher and was never really my father’s wife. I don’t know who or what she is. She took Charles, and I don’t think it’s because she loves him. Sure, he’s her son, but when it’s all said and done, he’s the same as the rest of us. A pawn in her chess game.
Stephanie Novak will probably never get what she deserves.
Gustavo Navarro is for The Opposition. There’s no getting around it. He’s brave and smart and he’s so in love with Jinx that he’d probably jump in front of a train for her. Dr. Doomsday trained him and sent him to help us escape. And he’s good. Maybe even as good as Marshall. But he’s a good guy with bad ideas. And you can’t outrun what you are forever. I think Dr. Doomsday said that in his book.