Page 34 of Broken Empire
Nothing happened for a moment. Then a gray page appeared on the screen. Dark red font at the top said: ‘MEAT MARKET’. Below that was a small login box.
“This looks like the right place,” I said, pulse quickening.
Before we could do anything, the site suddenly kicked us to a new page. It was gray like the login page with the same dark red font in the middle of the screen.
WHOEVER YOU ARE, YOU DON’T BELONG HERE. GET OUT.
“For fuck’s sake,” Leah muttered. She rapidly typed something and tried to open the login page again, but she was instantly tossed back to the exit page.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“We’ve been IP blocked.”
“Why? Do they know we’re looking into them?”
Leah shook her head. “It’s probably an automated defense thing,” she said. “Sites with illegal activity on them are fiercely guarded. For authorized users only. Their system probably detected an unfamiliar IP address, and when we didn’t log in fast enough, it blocked us.”
“Can you get around it?”
Leah scratched her cheek. “I hope so. One rule hackers live by is: if it’s manmade, it’s flawed. Even if it’s just a tiny flaw, there’s always something. That’s what we look for, because flaws mean vulnerabilities.”
“How long will it take?”
She shrugged. “No idea. But it won’t be quick, so I’m going to need a ton of coffee and snacks. Go and grab me some while I get started.”
We ended up spending most of the night in the library. Leah stayed hunched over her laptop typing rapidly and cursing under her breath while I ran back and forth between our spot and the closest vending machine with coffee refills and sugary snacks.
Just after two in the morning, Leah crowed at her screen and threw her hands up. ““Fuck, yeah!” she said. “I did it. I’m in!”
I sat up straight. “Really?”
“Yup.” She turned the laptop to the side so we could both look at it.
“You’re a genius. How’d you do it?” I asked.
“I’m sort of piggybacking on a real user’s account,” she said. “It’s difficult to explain, but that’s the basic gist. So we could get kicked off at any minute.”
“If the real user logs in, you mean?”
“Yeah. But don’t worry, they won’t know we were on it.”
The screen in front of us was black with a mixture of white, gray, and red text and a photo of a bloodied butcher’s cleaver. A sidebar listed several different options—shows, upcoming auctions, account details, archives, and site settings.
Leah clicked on the ‘upcoming auctions’ link first. A new page instantly loaded with photos, descriptions, dates, and locations.
Chicago – 22-year-old female. White, blonde hair, blue eyes, slim. Auction: 21stDec
Bay Area – 28-year-old female. Black, brunette, green eyes, average build. Auction: TBD, check back for updates soon.
Boston – 30-year-old male. White, black hair, brown eyes. Tall and slim. Auction: 27thDec
“Oh my god,” Leah muttered. “Is this what I think it is?”
“Yeah. They’re selling people.”
She slowly shook her head. “I don’t see Shay anywhere. Even the ones without photos don’t match her description,” she said. “That’s a good sign, right?”
“No. It means she’s probably already been sold.”
