Page 117 of The Trust We Broke
“It’s a mobile digital warfare station, be gentle with it,” Wren shouts.
“That sounds way more glamorous and exciting than it being a laptop,” I say.
Wren grins. “It’ssomuch more than a laptop. Wanna see?”
We walk into the living room where there is a large dining table with benches on either side. Catfish points to the cases on the ground. “Good job you came by private jet, because those cases are way over the baggage limit.”
Wren grins and immediately opens one of the cases with a mechanical snap. Inside are neatly organized cables, hard drives, and tools that look half NASA and half magic. Laptops and mini servers.
When they open the second case, the only thing I recognize is a Faraday bag, but that’s it. Everything else is a mystery.
“I don’t know whether to be impressed or terrified,” Catfish says.
Wren is slotting things together. “Why not both?”
“What’s all this?” Catfish reaches out to touch a black box on the table, and Wren whips their hand out to slap him away.
“You want the technical answer or the layperson’s answer?” Wren asks.
I take the out. “For my sake, please start with the layperson’s answer.”
Catfish shrugs. “I could handle the technical answer, but we’ll start basic for Lucy.”
I roll my eyes at him. “There is no way you’d understand the technical answer.”
He grins as he winks at me. “It’s a lie that you can’t be pretty and smart.”
“From the top,” Wren says. “There’s one main laptop. I run everything on it, but each ‘section’ of it is like a different lockedroom. So, if someone gets into one part of it, they can’t get into the rest. This little guy”—they tap a small black gadget—“is my background engine. It’s always on. Runs background attacks, downloads huge data sets and hosts fake websites so I can trap people. Those tools over there come in useful when I want to sneak into a locked network, like a digital locksmith. And the router bounces everything I do through so many locations, it looks like I’m hacking from the Artic Circle. The burner phones are obvious.”
“Color me impressed,” I say.
“You’re a digital assassin,” Catfish notes, his mouth agape.
They pick up a small object that looks like a USB stick married a hand grenade. “Thank you. And this is an EMP keychain. Can scramble all electronics within a five-foot radius. Handy if you need to make a quick exit. But, Lucy, how about we start with the phone you can’t get into.”
33
GRUDGE
“You sure you guys don’t want to stay?” I ask King as he and the others get ready to leave.
He looks over to where Spark is showing pictures of his son to Wraith and Atom, who are both expecting kids of their own next year, and smiles.
“As fun as it would be to stick around,” he says, “the longer we stay here, the higher the risk of people putting two and two together to come up with where we dropped Wren.”
“Who is sh—are they?” I ask, correcting myself.
He turns to face me. “Was wondering when you’d ask.”
“Ask what?”
“This is a big favor. You don’t feel like I’ve told you the whole story. Right?”
I cross my arms, even as I acknowledge it’s an immediately defensive position. “I assume you have your reasons. But I can’t help but feel that you’re hanging me and my guys out in the wind. It’s hard enough to keep people safe when we know who the enemy is. This circus is going to have us doubting everyone.”
King runs a hand through his hair and looks out to our men, then pushes the door to church closed to shut them all out. “If Itell you, you can’t tell your brothers. And if you do, I’ll personally come over here, cut that newly stitched patch off your cut, and excommunicate you from the Outlaws.”
When I was younger, I wanted to be in the club. I wanted it so bad when I’d see my father dressing up like a badass, going off to do whatever it was he had to do. Then, when I was a prospect, I couldn’t wait to be a patched-in member. Then, a titled biker, then, VP, then, president. But what I didn’t know was that I want to be the right-hand man to our national president out west.
