Page 34 of Collin: Episodes 13-15
“Yes.” Ash bit his cheek, hands flying over his keyboard. He grabbed his phone. “Call Paulsen.”
Five minutes later, Ash cussed and shut his laptop. “They disconnected. I wasn’t finished.”
“What does that mean?” Alice pushed her hands under her legs, but her knee was bouncing.
Ash rubbed his face. “That I didn’t have enough time to break in and leave something behind that would let me trace their location. I might be able to narrow it down now, and I saved the visuals, but that’s all.
“Well, you could see a window, might that help?”
“Yeah.” Ash opened up the laptop again. “I’ll send it to Paulsen, see if he can get something out of it.”
“It’s not just on you.” Collin twisted around and patted Ash on the knee. “Damian and Eleanor are working the legal end to find her, too.”
“I know.” Ash still sounded defeated.
“Well, they might plug in again soon, and then you can keep going,” Alice said. “I think the fact you can do this at all is amazing. Lots of kids don’t have anyone trying for them like you are.”
Ash shot Alice a cautious look. “You think so?”
“I know so. So, tell me how you started hacking.”
“It’s not just hacking; it’s a lot more…never mind, um…at first I just wanted to know how things worked.” Ash bit his lip. “Do you really want to know?”
Alice grinned, showing teeth. “I asked, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but sometimes people are just being polite.”
“Don’t worry, Ash,” Collin sighed. “Alice will shut you up if she wants to shut you up. How did you end up with computers? I don’t know either.”
Ash glanced at Collin twice and then back down at his closed laptop. “I…well…my teachers kept talking about my records, and my IEP, and my grades, and I wanted to know what they were talking about. It seemed kind of important, but no one would let me read it. So, I asked this older kid who seemed to know a lot. He worked at the gas station where I bought food when, well, that’s not important. I asked this older kid at the gas station about reading my records. And he said that I’d have to break into the school’s computer system because kids don’t have rights to that stuff. So, I asked him how to do that. And he said he didn’t know, but people on the internet did. So, I got a phone off this drunk guy that used to sleep at our house and asked the internet. Took me about six months, and I had to steal a computer, but I read my record. But then there were more things I wanted to know. Like how many other things were people not telling me? And it was fun, the puzzles, you know. All the programs. A lot more interesting than school. And I could just search for video lessons on what we were supposed to learn and look up the tests online, so, my grades were good for the first time. And once I could read my IEP, then I knew what I was supposed to be getting for help. Mostly, I was bored, you know?”
“School was boring?”
“Yeah. The teachers just talked about the same thing and just added a little bit and a little bit. I couldn’t focus. Made me mad. I wanted them to just get to the point. But if I was online, I could just fast-forward the video or make it talk faster if it wasn’t fast enough.”
“What kind of things did you learn? Just school stuff and hacking, or did you use the internet for anything else?”
Ash’s face lit up. “Oh, I learned lots of things. Like chess and Chinese checkers. And the history of Persia because I liked the winged lion men. I wanted them to be real. And cryptids. Cryptids are interesting. I don’t know if I believe in them. Lots of video is faked. Some of it is really weird. And lately, I’ve been learning about private investigations. Paulsen gave me access to his training course. I didn’t even have to break in. He kinda asked me not to. I told him I should, so he could fix any holes in his security, but he said he was trying to keep most people out, not me out. He said he doesn’t have the budget to keep me out. I offered to do it for free, but…anyway. I’m learning about that. And police law. And child law.”
Alice clapped a hand over her mouth. “How fast can you read?”
“Really reading, scanning, or skimming?”
Alice raised both eyebrows. “Really reading and skimming.”
“Somewhere like nine hundred words a minute when reading, but I can’t do that forever—my eyes hurt. And skimming, I don’t know. Depends on how much I find that’s useful. Couple thousand words a minute? But it doesn’t always make sense after, like I don’t really know it, I just know if I want to know it.”
Alice threw her arms around Ash and squeezed. “I’m calling you next time I’m stuck on an essay.”
Ash looked at Collin in open panic. “I don’t know how to write essays!”
Downtown Indianapolis wasn’t a place Collin had ever spent any time, but he had studied the streets for hours working with Veronica and Katharine, and the names and numbers of all the establishments were fixed in his memory. The driver dropped them off on the sidewalk and drove away to find parking.
Holden scanned up and down and nodded to Collin. “Where to, boss?”
“I figured we’d walk around first, then hit up the bar.”
Holden nodded. “After you.”
