I’d been on my apartment’s deck writing code when thunder broke my concentration. The wind was picking up, and the steel gray sky was merging with an angry black in the distance. I watched the hazy, undulating curtain of rain approach. The apartment is on a hill facing a court, and I’m on the top floor so my view is above the trees which swayed in the wind. We could use a good storm to blow out the summer heat.
I get so focused when coding that I forget everything. The world falls away, and there’s nothing between me and lines of logic. That kind of focus is dangerous. You don’t see what’s coming at you, and before you know it, you’re in a situation you didn’t want to be in with no way out. That’s how I ended up in prison. I did nine years of a twenty-year sentence.
Across the court are single family homes. They were here before my apartment complex. It’s an old neighborhood. There’s a church two blocks up with an old graveyard in the back. There’s a big tree in the middle, an old knotted oak. Last year, just before Halloween, a man hung himself from that tree. He was there for four days before anyone realized he wasn’t a decoration.
I’m about to head inside my apartment when I spot a half-clothed man climbing out of the back window of a tan house across the street. He’s shirtless and shoeless, everything balled in a wad under his arm. He hops through the yard, trying to put on shoes as he gets away. He sees me watching. I nod a silent discretion. I’m not telling. He nods back, disappears around the corner. At the front of the house, another man in a suit climbs out of a car. He keys the alarm. Heads to the front door.
I don’t know the couple by name. Only by sound. They’d been arguing a lot the last few months. Arguing sometimes turned to shouts that broke the night silence until someone called the police. I never made that call. I keep my nose in my own business.
I head inside just as the rain starts.
Infidelity seems to be the natural evolution of most marriages. My parents had a bitter divorce; both cheated. I wonder if the woman’s husband came home to catch her in the act. Seems like a clichéd life, but at least someone is getting laid.
Julie and I haven’t slept together in nearly two years. We share a bed, we touch, sometimes kiss. She hasn’t been the same since the attack. Maybe she never will be. I love her, love the way she bites her lower lip when she’s thinking, or the way she kisses me lightly on the back of the neck when I’m working and she doesn’t want to disturb me. She’s smart and tender and attentive and all the things I’m not. We’ve been through a lot over the last eight years, and we’ve managed to stay together. She was the only person who would talk to me when I got out of prison. I met her at a library. The conditions of my parole stipulated I couldn’t touch a computer for two years, so I spent all my time reading programming books, database admin guides, computer certification guides. Julie was studying for her CFA.
My laptop dings to catch my attention. It’s a message from Mel. She’s one of my best friends. Technically my employee, but not for much longer. I’m selling the company. Just a few small details and we’ll earn a decent paycheck. There are four of us. Me, Mel, Sam B., and Josh. They’ll earn a million each, and I’ll take three since it’s my company.
I read Mel’s message. She goes by the handle MasterB8. People who don’t know her think she’s a juvenile guy. They got it half right.
MasterB8: Are you merging new code into master?
VNM: Had to fix the pruning.
MasterB8: WTF? It’s fine.
VNM: It was bothering me. The sub-models shouldn’t show aggregates unless the derived values are in excess of the variance.
MasterB8: Lame. What’s the fix?
VNM: Running a new set of predictive models in the background. Before you go off, it’s faster now. It wasn’t multithreaded before.
MasterB8: Whatevs. You see the stuff I sent about REIG?
VNM: No, been busy.
MasterB8: Go look. Then call me.
It must be serious. She never wants to talk. Mel values her privacy in part because she’s been stalked before. The other part is because she took part in what landed me in jail. I never ratted anyone out, though the DA wanted me to. Said it would reduce my sentence. I thought I’d get off. We were just testing out some code, Mel and Sam and I. I’d known Sam since grade school, met Mel playing Everquest. We wanted to see what the upcoming expansion for the game was. I figured out how to access the admin portion of the login. Instead of playing the game, you could see all the details reserved for admin staff. All the players, locations, everything. Mel had the idea of loading our characters up. In the game, you’re supposed to go out and kill monsters to earn treasure. Magic weapons and gold. The game was so popular you could make money by selling the gear on eBay. The plan was to load our characters up with the rarest items, then sell everything. We made almost ten thousand.
Then we got caught. Or rather, I got caught. Cybercrime laws were new, so the judge threw the book at me. Strongest sentence I could get—twenty years. For giving my online character some digital goods. The company that ran Everquest never lost a dime. They were pissed because we figured out how to break in and mess with their game. I served nine years, released on good behavior. Prison was hard. Cybercrime was scary, so I spent my time in solitary. I was in genpop only when the court psychiatrist would check in.
Solitary is hard time. Nothing but you and your thoughts. I could have one book if it was approved, and the only one they’d approve was the bible. You lose all sense of your self in isolation. All sense of time. Meaning. Nothing truly matters after a while. History has a way of shaping you. There’s the truth you tell yourself so you can sleep at night, and then there’s reality, and they aren’t always the same truths. I learned that the hard way.
I look at the notes Mel sent. They came through an encrypted link. A set of files marked Proprietary Information of REIG. I don’t want to know how she got them.
I spend the next few hours reading. It’s the focus problem I have. I barely noticed when Julie came home. Kissed me on the neck. Put a carry-out tray of sushi in front of me.
“Hello!” she said, dragging out the word. “You’re welcome!”
“Oh, hi. Sorry. Thanks.”
“I thought you were done working?”
“We have a few things to do before the final handoff.”
“And then I can quit my job and we can buy a mansion?” Before I respond she cut in, “I wasn’t serious.”
But she was. We’d been arguing about it. Prison taught me to be conservative. I didn’t want us making lifestyle changes. You never know what’s coming, and I wanted to be prepared. I wasn’t even sure we were going to stay together.
But reading what Mel sent changed everything.
“Sure,” I said, and pried open the sushi. Eel roll, avocado roll. All my favorites. I think it was her way of saying she was sorry for last night’s fight. I rarely apologize first. I’m kind of an asshole that way.
“Yeah, right,” she said, and stuffed salmon sushi into her mouth.
“I’m serious. Let’s do it.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, really. What do we have to lose?” Those were her words last night.
Never use someone’s words against them.
She threw her chopsticks at me and spoke around a full mouth. “You’re an asshole.” She got up from the table.
I grabbed her and pulled her close. She resisted, but I needed her to hear what I had to say. “You were right. We’ve earned this. I’m sorry.” She peeled me off and stormed away.
“Fuck you, Alex.”
“Why are you mad? I’m agreeing with you. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“After all the talk about how I need to be rational? How I wasn’t thinking of the big picture? Now you changed your mind?”
I opened my mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words. I didn’t want to involve her. “It makes sense.”
“Bullshit.” She shook her head. “If you’re doing something illegal—”
“It’s not like that.” But it was exactly like that.
She walked towards me, and I thought she was about to give me a hug, but she pushed past, grabbed her sushi and chopsticks. “I don’t want to be around you right now.” She headed upstairs.
I let her go. In therapy, we learned to give each other space to think. She needed lots of time after the attack.
We’d been married for five years when she just disappeared for a week. I was going out of my mind with worry. So were her parents. They blamed me. The ex-con who got her into trouble. We hadn’t been fighting. The last place anyone saw her was Loafers Bar in Edgewood. Bartender said she was with a guy. They drank; she had too much. He helped her to a car. They left. Her car was still in the parking lot. Her cell phone was in the glove box.
For her, it started with an old boyfriend. He just wanted to catch up. She went when she shouldn’t. I didn’t know any of it until after. She met him at the bar, drinks, then she woke up at his place tied to a bed. He kept her there for a week doing unspeakable things. It was the screaming that alerted a neighbor and the police. When she finally came home, nothing was the same. Our lives were stolen by an asshole who earned six years. He’ll be out soon. His life will carry on. Meanwhile, Julie and I are still picking up the pieces. I don’t know why she went. Why she left her phone in her car. Why she didn’t want me to know. I’d just started my company and we were doing well. Maybe I’d been spending all my time working and no time paying attention to the us of my life. It’s my focus problem.
I sat back down at my computer.
What Mel found were plans for REIG to influence the EU in a dozen upcoming elections. All using our code. REIG was Resource Engineering International Group. They were data brokers. Built databases for marketing. Or so they said. Most of their clients were governments, political groups, businesses. Their focus seemed to be policy changes that would benefit big businesses. Want legislation to drill in protected wildlands? REIG could help.
We built a multi-modeling predictive analytic that tracked behavior across social media. The first part is to get to the data. Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook. They don’t let anyone access their user’s data. Our system built aggregates based on advertising. We also built some simple Web games. Want to know your IQ? Try this game! We just need your name, age, education, and income. We get your physical address from your IP—the address your computer uses to access the Internet. We had games for dating (how to find Mr. Right/Ms. Right), pets (What kind of dog are you?), movies, music, just about everything. We started building massive databases of user information. We would sell some of it to commercial companies. Mostly online businesses. Amazon will pay $0.005 per user profile with basic info. That adds up when you have ten million profiles. REIG wanted to buy the company. They wanted our analytics, our data, everything. Six million payout.
Mel had an encrypted conference line. Voice-over-IP. I dialed in.
Josh was in mid-sentence. “…gives a shit. It’s a huge payout.”
Mel said, “Are you fucking kidding me? These people want to profit by splitting up the EU!”
Josh said, “So what? None of us live there.”
Sam said, “Kid has a point.”
“Hey guys,” I said.
“Fuck me sideways, where you been?” Mel said. “Did you read it?”
“I did,” I said.
“And?”
“So what,” I said. Everyone started yelling at once. It took a few minutes for the arguing to die down. I didn’t want to shout in case Julie was asleep. “Guys, come on. The data we have isn’t enough to change elections.”
“No,” Sam said, “but the analytics can be tweaked.”
Mel cut in. “I’m fine if they wanna market edible panties or something, but this is global manipulation.”
“So what!” Josh yelled. “If it’s not us, it’ll be someone else. You wanna lose five years of work because you’re too chicken to sell out?”
And the shouting started again.
I waited. “It’s my company,” I said.
Mel said, “So you’re a fucking dictator? It’s our work.”
“And,” I continued, “we’re going through with the sale. We can’t back out now without paying a penalty.” That was part of the terms of their agreement. REIG had good lawyers. “I have a plan, but I can’t tell any of you about it.” They argued more.
Mel asked if I was going to end up back in jail. I didn’t answer.
It was after midnight when we all hung up.
I went out on the deck. The furniture was wet from the storm. The house across the street was dark. No cars in the driveway. The couple was gone. I sat down. Rainwater soaked through my pants.
Can you still be a good person if you do terrible things?
When I’d gotten off parole, I needed money. I started a website where people could upload nude images of their girlfriends and boyfriends. Usually after a breakup. Revenge porn it was called. If you wanted your pictures removed, you had to pay. I’m not proud of it. If everyone else was doing it, why couldn’t I? When Julie found out it nearly ended us. I took the site down, but other people were running similar sites. A few years later, the Department of Justice started cracking down on revenge porn. It’s extortion. Site owners and admins got jail time. That was trouble I narrowly avoided. I considered myself lucky.
Would I do it over again if I had the chance? When you’re desperate to survive, you do what you can.
My grandfather died a few years ago. I’m still shunned by the family. Piece-of-shit felon they disavow. Julie and I sat at the back of the church during the service. The last person to speak during the eulogy was one of his friends from World War II. My grandfather was a decorated pilot. Medal of honor. He got shot down twice, survived both times. Then his friend talked about the war crimes. What war crimes? I was shocked. My parents never told me. I spoke to this man after the service. I wanted to know what happened. His name was Tony and he was very talkative. The Germans had a habit of gunning down sailors fleeing sinking ships. Guys who were clinging to lifeboats or debris. My grandfather knew some of them. It tore him up. So when the allies sunk the Scharnhorst during the Battle of North Cape, my grandfather strafed the German sailors in the water. Payback. He was brought up on charges by the British. They called it genocide. My grandfather called it sport. Recreational genocide. I can’t imagine him doing something so terrible. He was a kind and loving man, a gentle man. The only one in my family who would still talk to me.
I checked my e-mail. I had a message from Mitchel Davenport, CEO of REIG. He wanted to confirm that I’d be at their office tomorrow afternoon. Final signature.
I’m the only one REIG has ever met. The company didn’t want the talent. They had their own developers. They just wanted the code, the data. I was the only one they knew.
I typed a reply.
Mitchel,
See you tomorrow. Looking forward to it.
Sincerely,
Alex D.
After I sent the message, I logged into our code repository. Our primary algorithm runs as a series of models. It’s called ensemble modeling. It’s a lot like how the weather service predicts the path of hurricanes. One model might get it totally wrong. So you run a bunch of them in parallel and find the average. You can weight the average based on known variables like time of year, temperature, cycle of the moon. Our system works the same way, but with user data.
I look through the code. The model becomes inaccurate if the starting variables are skewed. The pruning I added would fix that. When the models start to skew, it throws out the inaccurate ones and builds new ones with updated data. Otherwise, after a few months, the ability to track and predict is gone.
I deleted the pruning. It only took two lines of code. I dropped the user data. REIG could rebuild the model, but it might take them a few years, and without pruning the models the results would always skew.
I climbed the stairs. Julie was already asleep. I slipped into bed beside her. She grabbed my hand, pulled me closer. “I’m still mad,” she said, “and we’ll talk tomorrow.” I kiss her on the back of the neck.
Maybe this is all we can have. For now, it’s enough.
Jack King has been published in Sanscrit, Sand Hill Review, Blue Lake Review, Forge, Oklahoma Review, Gemini, Epiphany, SENSIAC, ISSA, Info World and The Home of the Brave Anthology and has an upcoming story in Menacing Hedge.
