Page 371 of Hell Hath No Fury
There.
Fuck.
Somehow, they’d followed the pings I’d used to mark my IP address to the McDonald’s parking lot.
I shut them out, but it was too late to stop whatever game they were planning.
“’Tis the season,” they replied.
“Black hats aren’t typically so festive.”
“No? What do you know about it? You’re a red hat robin hood, huh? Nice of you to give most of Dermott Herald’s dirty money to the nursing home for his mother. Let me guess, the rest is allocated for some other down on their luck schmucks? A soft heart makes for a nice guy and a very vulnerable hacker.”
“You keep threatening me. Why don’t you just get to the point?”
“Threatening? Boy, if I wanted you scared, I’d do a lot worse than hack a drive-thru. You want answers for all your obvious questions, just follow the obsidian swan.”
Static crackled over the speaker again, before a cheery employee welcomed me to McDonald’s again and asked for my order.
But I wasn’t really listening.
0bs1d14n Sw4n.
Of course, I knew of them.
Most people with an interest in coding or hacking had.
They were one of the most notorious black hat hackers on the western seaboard. They did shit for the worst kind of people for outrageous amounts of money. Last I’d heard, they were working with China.
It wasn’t the first time I caught glimpses of them in the depths of code. A flash of a black swan built into the interface, snuck deep into encrypted software like crumbs left for a naive Hansel and Gretel to follow deeper into the dark web.
And like those unsuspecting children, I’d followed.
From Murphy to Herald, 0bs1d14n Sw4n had led me as if by the hand.
I hadn’t thought it was deliberate, how could it have been?
What would the infamous hacker behemoth want with little old me?
A nineteen-year-old punk with a considerable chip on his sore shoulder?
“What can I get you?” the McD’s employee repeated, still as chipper as one of Santa’s elves.
“A strawberry shake, McChicken burger, and a large order of fries,” I mumbled without thinking.
My mind was on the problem.
Somehow 0bs1d14n Sw4n was involved with Dermott Herald and the Ventura Cartel. Either as part of their organization, in which case, I was absolutelyfucked, or against them.
But even if they were playing cat and mouse with the Mexican cartel, why were they toying with me too? I’d made a quiet name for myself in the last year as a red hat hacker, taking down organizations with a group of other hackers that we all deemed corrupt. I didn’t like working with others, but I needed themat first while I was getting my bearings. Now, I mostly worked alone.
So, how did I factor into this situation?
The only thing that linked any of us was my mum’s murder.
A ripple of apprehension that was part excitement and part anxiety rolled down my spine.
There was only one person I trusted, and even then, I didn’t know their real name or details apart from the fact that she was a woman.
