Читать книгу The Thousandth Floor - Катарина Макги, Katharine McGee - Страница 17

“WATT!” A TINY pink form barreled down the hallway as he walked inside the next day.

“Hey, Zahra.” Watt laughed, scooping his five-year-old sister into his arms. Her dark curls had something sticky in them, and a costume tiara was perched precariously atop her head. Watt noticed that her pajama pants, which used to drag along the ground, now barely hit mid-calf. He made a mental note to buy her a new set the next time he was paid. Zahra giggled, then wriggled impatiently out of his arms to run back into the living room, where her twin brother, Amir, was building something out of plastifoam blocks.

“Watzahn, is that you?” Watt’s mom called from the kitchen.

“Yeah, Mom?” It was never a good sign when she used his full name.

You might want to change first, Nadia suggested, but Watt was already at the doorway. Shirin hovered over the cook surface, pouring water into an instant noodle dinner. Watt remembered back before the twins were born, when she used to cook elaborate Persian meals from scratch: rich lamb stews and golden flatbreads and rice sprinkled with sumac. Then she’d unexpectedly gotten pregnant and stopped cooking altogether, claiming the smell of spices made her nauseous. But even after the twins were born, the home-cooked Persian meals never came back. There wasn’t enough time anymore.

Shirin pushed the cook-dial to high heat and turned to Watt. “You were at Derrick’s all day?” she asked, with a glance at his rumpled clothes from last night. Watt reddened. Nadia said nothing, but he could practically feel her thinking I told you so.

“Yeah. I stayed at Derrick’s last night,” Watt said to his mom, but she just stared at him blankly. “Today was our last day of summer, and we wanted to try finishing this game …” He trailed off.

It was true, though. He’d barely spent any time at Squid Ink Martini Girl’s last night—Nadia was right, she didn’t have much to say, and he felt somehow foolish for having left the bar with her. He’d ducked out almost immediately to head for Derrick’s. He’d spent the night there, and this morning they’d eaten enormous sandwiches from the bagel shop and watched soccer on the tiny screen in Derrick’s living room. It wasn’t that Watt had been avoiding home, exactly. But Derrick didn’t have two younger siblings who needed constant attention. His parents basically let him do what he wanted, as long as he kept up his grades.

“I could have used your help today,” Shirin went on, sounding more defeated than angry. “The twins had a checkup this afternoon. I had to get Tasha to fill in for me at the center so that I could take them, since I couldn’t find you. I’ll have to work double shifts the rest of the week just to make up the time.”

Watt felt like utter crap. “You could have pinged me,” he said lamely, pretty sure he’d ignored a call at some point last night.

“You were too busy playing that holo game,” his mom snapped, then let out a sigh. “It’s fine. Just get your brother and sister.” She set bowls and spoons on the table as the door opened again, eliciting more excited squeals from Zahra. Moments later Watt’s dad was in the kitchen, a twin on each hip. He usually had to work much later than this—having him home for dinner was practically a special occasion.

“Dinner’s ready, Rashid.” Watt’s mom greeted him with a tired kiss on the cheek.

They all crammed around the small table. Watt shoved the instant noodles and canned vegetables into his mouth without tasting them, not that they had much taste to begin with. He was angry with his mom for making him feel guilty. What was wrong with him occasionally blowing off steam at a midTower bar? Or spending the last day of summer hanging out with his friend?

The moment Zahra yawned, her hands making small fists over her head, Watt stood up as if on cue. “The bedtime monorail is about to leave! All aboard!” he announced, in a too-deep voice.

“Choo choo!” Zahra and Amir attempted a train noise and trotted alongside Watt. The actual monorail was silent, of course, but the twins watched tons of animated train holos and loved making that sound. Watt’s dad smiled, watching them. Shirin pursed her lips and said nothing.

Watt led the twins down a winding imaginary train track to the end of the hall. Their room was tiny, but still bigger than his: this used to be Watt’s room, actually, before they were born and he moved into the office nook. The dim light barely illuminated the bunk beds built into the wall. Watt had repeatedly tried to route more electricity to the twins, but it never seemed to be enough. He had a sinking suspicion that it was his fault, because of all the power-hungry hardware he’d set up in his room.

He helped the twins laser-clean their teeth and tucked them into bed. They didn’t have a room comp down here, of course, but Nadia did the best vitals check she could, watching the twins’ breathing and eye movement. When she’d confirmed they were asleep, Watt shut the door quietly and moved down the hallway to his makeshift bedroom.

He sank gratefully into his ergonomic swivel chair—which he’d lifted from an office space that was about to be foreclosed—and clicked on the high-def screen at his desk, which took up most of the room. His bed was shoved far to the corner, his clothes tucked on hoverbeams up near the ceiling. Nadia didn’t need the screen, of course, since she could project anything directly onto his contacts. But Watt still liked surfing the i-Net this way whenever possible. Even he thought it was weird sometimes, replacing your entire field of vision with the digital overlay.

He flipped through all the messages from the girls he’d met at Pulse last night, then closed out without answering any of them. Instead he logged into H@cker Haus, his favorite dark-web site for postings of “data services” jobs.

Watt’s family always needed money. His parents had moved from Isfahad to New York the year before he was born, when the Tower was new and the whole world was excited about it: before Shanghai and Hong Kong and São Paulo all got their own thousand story megatowers. Watt knew his parents had immigrated for his sake, hoping he would have a chance at a better future.

It hadn’t turned out the way they’d hoped. Back in Iran, Watt’s dad had attended the top mechanical engineering school, and his mom had been studying as a doctor. But Rashid now worked repairing industrial coolant and sewage systems. Shirin had been forced to get a job as a caregiver at a nursing home, just so they could keep their apartment. They never complained, but Watt knew it wasn’t easy on them, working long days hammering machinery and dealing with crotchety old people, then coming downstairs to take care of the family. And no matter how hard they tried, money always seemed to be tight. Especially now that the twins were getting older.

Which was why Watt had started saving for college. Well, for MIT. Their microsystems engineering program was the best in the world—and Watt’s best shot at someday working on one of the few legal quants left, the ones owned by the UN and NASA. He wasn’t applying to any safety schools. His parents worried that his insistence was stubborn and overconfident, but Watt didn’t care; he knew he would get in. The real question was how he would pay for it. He’d been applying to scholarships, and had won a few small grants here and there, but nowhere near enough to pay for four years at an expensive private university.

So Watt had started making money a different way: by venturing to the darker part of the i-Net, and answering ads for what were euphemistically called “information services.” In other words, hacking. Together he and Nadia falsified employment records, changed students’ grades at various school systems, even broke into flicker accounts for people who thought their significant others were cheating. Only once did they try hacking a bank’s security system, and that ended almost immediately, when Nadia detected a virus hurtling toward them and shut herself off.

After that, Watt tried to steer clear of anything too illegal, except of course for the fact of Nadia’s existence. But he took on jobs whenever he could, depositing most of the proceeds in a savings account and giving the rest to his parents. They knew he was good with technology; when he told them the money came from tech support jobs online, they didn’t question it.

He scrolled idly through the H@cker Haus requests, stifling a yawn. As usual, most were too absurd or too illegal for him to take on, but he flagged a few for later review. One in particular caught his eye, asking for information on a missing person. Those were usually easy jobs if the person was still in the country; Nadia had long ago hacked the national security-cam link, and could use facial recognition to find people in a matter of minutes. Curious, Watt read further, an eyebrow raised. It certainly was an unusual request.

The author of the post wanted information on someone who had been missing this past year, but who had since returned. I need to know where he’s been this whole time, and why he came home, the person requested. Sounded easy enough.

Watt immediately composed a reply, introducing himself as Nadia—the name he used for all his hacking jobs, because, well, why not?—and saying that he’d love to help. He leaned back, drumming his fingers on the armrests.

I might be interested, the person who’d written the post replied. But I need proof you can actually do what you say you can do.

Well, well. A newbie. Everyone who repeatedly posted on these forums knew enough about Watt to know he was a professional. He wondered who this person was. “Nadia, can you—”

“Yes,” Nadia answered, knowing his question before he even finished speaking, and hacking into the sender’s security to find the hardware address. “Got her. Here she is.”

On the screen appeared the girl’s feed profile. She was Watt’s age, and lived right here in the Tower, up on the 962nd floor.

What did you have in mind? he answered, a little intrigued.

His name is Atlas Fuller. Tell me something I don’t know about him, and the job is yours.

Nadia found Atlas instantly. He was at home—on the thousandth floor. Watt was stunned. This guy actually lived on the thousandth floor? Not that Watt had given the Tower’s penthouse much thought, but if pressed, he wouldn’t have guessed a teenager lived there. What an idiot, Watt thought, running away when that was your life.

“Can we hack their home comp?” Watt asked Nadia, thinking maybe he could get a snap of Atlas in his bedroom.

But Nadia wasn’t having any luck. “It’s an incredibly sophisticated system,” she told Watt, which he knew meant that it could take weeks. Better to get something now. This job was too good to lose.

His messages, then. That would be easier to hack. Sure enough, Nadia immediately pulled up Atlas’s most recent messages. A few had been sent to guys named Ty and Maxton, and the rest to someone named Avery. None were that exciting. Watt sent them all over anyway.

Moments later the girl’s reply came in.

Congratulations, you’re hired. Now I need you to find as much as you can about what Atlas has been doing the past year.

As you wish, Watt couldn’t help replying.

In addition, the girl went on, ignoring the sarcastic turn of phrase, I’m offering a weekly payment in exchange for constant updates on him—what he’s doing, where he’s going, any information you can provide. This is all for his own safety, she concluded, in an incredibly unconvincing afterthought.

His safety, sure, Watt thought with a laugh. He knew a spurned-lover post when he saw one. This had to be either Atlas’s ex-girlfriend trying to win him back, or a current girlfriend worried about him cheating on her. Either way, the job was a freaking gold mine. Watt had never even seen a request for a hacker on retainer before; most H@cker Haus posts were one-time gigs, because most hacks were, by nature, one-and-dones. This girl wanted to send him weekly payments, just to track her crush’s movements? It was easy money, and he had no intention of messing it up.

“Leda Cole,” Watt said aloud as he pushed SEND, “it’s going to be a real pleasure doing business with you.”