Part 9 (1/2)

On the other half of the table six devices were in various stages of a.s.sembly. A FedEx carton filled with brightly colored vinyl backpacks stood open at the end of the table. Each pack waiting to be filled.

When Parker thought about those boxes, he smiled.

Maybe it was a revenge thing after all. Just a little. A baseball bat upside the head of the kind of people he fled from when he was nine. Foster parents who think orphan kids are cash cows, dogs to whip, or something to stick their d.i.c.ks into. People like the losers at child welfare who can't think their way around regulations in any way that does real good for the kids in the meat grinder. Politicians who f.u.c.k up the system with regulations because they're in the pockets of landlords, big business, credit card and health care companies.

So, yeah. Revenge, not politics. He didn't want to see the system changed. He wanted to see it burn. Then he wanted to dive into those flames, let them consume him, and vanish into ash and smoke.

That's what Mother Night promised him.

It's what she whispered in his ear that first day.

The whole thing started weirdly. He came home from a day of panhandling at a long traffic light on Sand Hill Lake Road in Orlando and found his door ajar. At the time, he was squatting in a foreclosed house miles away from the tourist areas. The house was in a pretty good neighborhood, but there must have been some kind of legal thing going on about the t.i.tle, because it remained empty for over a year. Parker moved in, sealed some windows with black plastic sheeting to keep light from escaping, had a friend help him move his furniture in, and took possession. He figured he had a month before he would have to move. That timing seemed to work for him. If the place was s.h.i.+ttier, then he might have stayed three months.

But when he came in that day he saw an envelope on the floor. His name was written on it.

Parker wasn't sure how to react to that. Run, or be relieved because this was probably from someone he knew. He slit it open with his knife. Inside was a short letter and a key. And two twenty-dollar bills. Crisp and new. The letter read: Parker ...

You are not in danger. I will never hurt you. This key will open a box at the Your Mailroom office on International Drive. Inside are gifts. If you want to use them to help me, then I welcome you. If you don't want to help me, keep the gifts and use them to find your happiness. You are under no obligation.

I have been where you are. Every night when I close my eyes I can see the monsters and I can hear the echo of my own screams. This country has betrayed its own people. It has a cancer of the soul. The only action is direct action. I am going to cut the heart out of this country. I will light a fire that no one can ignore.

I will do this for you and for me and for all of us.

I cannot do this alone.

It was printed on a computer, but it was hand-signed.

Mother Night That night Parker got some friends and moved his stuff out of there. Over the next few days he began casually pa.s.sing the Your Mailroom place, checking it out. It was one of those stores where you could rent a mailbox. It gave you a mailing address, and it was used by a lot of squatters. Parker never used it, but he knew people who did. He also knew that cops were aware of this, too.

It took almost three weeks of burning curiosity and nearly crippling paranoia before he walked into the mail service store and used the key. He waited for a time when it was busy, when there were a lot of people in there. He slipped in, opened the mailbox, and peered inside. There was a computer case. Old and battered. Parker bit his lip as doubt chewed him. Then he s.n.a.t.c.hed out the bag, slung it over his shoulder, relocked the box, and got out of there.

An hour later, when he was in a quiet, secure place, he opened the bag.

Inside was the MacBook along with all the necessary cables and chargers. Cards for Starbucks, Panera, and other places that had free wi-fi. He later discovered that each card had one hundred dollars on it, and when they got low they were recharged by someone else. There was an envelope in one pocket of the bag that contained thirty twenty-dollar bills. The last parcel included in the bag was a thick stack of CD-ROMs loaded with games. Edgy stuff. Games that challenged him. Parker had played enough stolen games to be very good.

And there was another note.

When you trust me, when you are ready to help me light the fires, send me an e-mail to the address below.

It was signed by Mother Night, and below her name was a Yahoo e-mail address.

All of that was months ago.

Parker had learned to trust Mother Night.

He had learned to love her.

Every night he played the games. The package had included multiple versions of Grand Theft Auto, as well as select versions of G.o.d of War III, Manhunt, Dead Rising, MadWorld, Saints Row 2, Gears of War, Postal 2, Call of Duty, Splatterhouse, and Solder of Fortune. Plus there were other games in there, stored on disks with t.i.tles handwritten on them. Anarchy I through IV, and one highly technical though very difficult strategy game called Burn to s.h.i.+ne, which had one side adventure in which you had to break into a high-security government facility. That one was a real b.i.t.c.h.

Parker later learned that when he played those games his scores were sent to Mother Night. Every time he beat a difficult level on a speedrun, she sent him money and food along with notes of praise.

Those notes were the only praise Parker ever remembered receiving from an adult. If there had been others in his life, the meat grinder had torn them from him.

Mother Night sent him links to videos in which he could see her and hear her. She was beautiful. Asian, like him, but maybe black, too. Or something. Her skin was darker than an Asian's, and she had a lot of piercings, dark gla.s.ses, and a wig. A disguise, but that was okay. That was smart.

Some of those videos had been recorded for him alone, and in those she said his name and spoke as if he were in the same room with her.

At other times the video was clearly intended for multiple viewers. A family. Her family. A family to which he belonged, and wanted to belong. But a family he knew nothing about. Not its faces, not its names, and not its numbers. From the way she spoke, though, Parker had the impression that there were a lot of people out there.

Like him.

At first he was ambivalent about that. Jealous that there were others she cared about. But he knew that was sentimental and stupid. Later he came to appreciate the fact that he had siblings for the first time in his life. Sure, in a way this was another foster family, but before Mother Night he had never felt like he belonged. And he'd never felt like he was understood.

Month after month the videos came, and he quickly discovered that when he went back and tried to view them again, they were gone.

Smart.

So smart.

Then today, a video had just popped up on his computer. On his laptop and, he later learned, on millions of computers, and all over TV and the Net.

Mother Night spoke to the whole world.

However, buried within that global message was one directed only to the members of her family. And to him.

She'd said, ”Mother Night wants to tell all of her children, everyone within the sound of my voice, all of the sleeping dragons waiting to rise-now is the time.”

Those were her words.

He smiled with such deep contentment that it was nearly o.r.g.a.s.mic.

He could almost smell the sulfur on the match as she struck it.

You have to burn to s.h.i.+ne.

Parker got up from his computer, crossed the room to the table, and completed the last few small steps necessary with the waiting devices. Then, still smiling, he began carefully placing each device into a separate backpack.

Chapter Fifteen.

The Hangar Floyd Bennett Field Brooklyn, New York Sunday, August 31, 6:36 a.m.

Nikki Bloomberg was the third most senior member of the DMS computer division. Only Yoda had more seniority, and then of course there was Bug.

Nikki had been part of Bug's team for nearly five years and she loved her job. Even though she worked in a gla.s.s-walled office buried a hundred feet below Floyd Bennett Field, she felt like she was an international woman of mystery. A superspy with superpowers. Working with MindReader had that effect.

Each senior member of the computer team-variously known as Bug's Thugs, the Igors, or the Nerd Herd, depending on who was sending the e-mail-ran a different aspect of the MindReader network. Yoda was head of cyberintrusion, and it was his job to make sure that no opposing system could lock its doors to MindReader. That meant that he had to write code or edit code all day. It wasn't a job Nikki wanted.