J. J. Hanna © 2024
An alert made my phone ping, drawing my attention from my most recent match in Call of Duty. “Oh hell no,” I muttered. One of my old systems had just gone off. Someone had tracked my IP address. I cursed again as a different team killed me, ruining my chances of winning that round. Then I closed out of the game window and ran a backtrace on that alert.
It wasn’t just someone.
That was the Denver cyber crime division.
I switched over to listen to police scanners in the area. There were a lot of cops talking about random traffic stops, a few responding to domestic disturbances. So far, it didn’t sound like any were on their way here. I took a breath. That was a good sign. They were looking for me. They knew where I lived. That didn’t mean they were coming for me. I ran through the checklist in my head.
First, they would need a warrant. They could only get that if they had enough reason to suspect me of a crime. But what crime would they try to pin on me? I’d covered my tracks. Or Avalon had covered my tracks.
A sinking feeling settled in my stomach. Avalon told me to be here, at home. Avalon had been in charge of hiding the evidence. Avalon had been calling all the shots.
If it was one of my crimes from before I worked with Avalon, I’d probably get a slap on the wrist, maybe a fine or community service. But the job I’d pulled with Avalon was the big times. What if that’s why they’d brought me in? What if I was the fall guy?
I had already hidden the hard drive with any evidence on it. But pinning anything on Avalon was going to be hard. If they did bring me in, I could try to broker a deal to give the police what I had on Avalon—the phone number, the job, the IP address of the guy who had been my partner on the Metgov case. No names. So how did Avalon know mine?
There had to be some record of them online, some way for me to track them down, to gain an advantage so they’d have to protect me. I stretched my neck and rolled out the tension between my shoulderblades. I’m a hacker. All I have to do is hack.
I wished I had more espresso. Unfortunately the old methods would have to do. I went to my fridge and pulled out the two liter bottle of Mountain Dew and then returned to my keyboard. If this was a movie, what followed as my hands flew over the keyboard and I sipped my Mountain Dew straight from the bottle would have been cut into some epic hacking montage. But this wasn’t a movie. So I slogged through hours and hours of code, punching my way through various different levels of security and into police networks. This would do two things for me: (1) It would give me insight into what they knew about me and when I needed to decide whether to stay here or go on the run. And (2) if they had anything on Avalon, it may give me a starting point.
Once I finally got into those systems, it only took me a little while longer to understand the organization system and start reading up on what they knew, what they suspected, what they theorized. I could see the pattern they’d picked up and began running my own analysis, searching for even more occurrences, adding what I knew to the data about how they recruited new hackers. After all, there couldn’t be that many hackers in my general location, and there was definitely a geographic link.
To be operating the way Avalon did, they had to have a significant base of operations somewhere. That base would need fast wifi, strong power, possibly a backup generator. I ran through the things I would wish for in a secret base, what I needed for the best computer to run the things I wanted.
Cross checking the city’s leading wifi companies with those addresses having the largest draws near enough to Metgov and other high profile companies that had been hit gave me a location. And that location gave me a name on the home address.
Unlike the police, I didn’t need a warrant before I could move.
The only proof I needed I could find in the coffee shop’s security system. Two other people had been granted access. The US military office about fifteen minutes up the road, and a burner phone. That burner phone was in the hand of a man I recognized. He’d been behind me in the drive through line before.
I watched the tape, watching him leave the store and head out to his car. Then, using the police database, I ran his plates.
George Lawton. I shook my head, watching his movements through his burner phone. He made a lot of calls on that phone. It took a moment buy I did manage to get those phone logs as well, seeing my own number show up more than a few times. Gotcha.
I began running the other numbers as well, tracking down other members of his network. After all, George had two phones. One was almost all civilians. But the other, the burner phone, had to be almost all his contacts. I scrawled the numbers on a scrap of paper and tucked it into my pocket. Now I had leverage. I glanced at the clock and rubbed my eyes. I needed sleep. I had been going for ten hours, nonstop, after an already stressful day.
But I also needed to guarantee my own protection. The only thing left to do for that was to tell Avalon what I knew, to place my gamble into the mix. But then another old alert I’d set up years ago pinged my phone. There was a new warrant out for my arrest, posted to the Colorado Court Records online database.
I took a breath and dialed the number Avalon had called me from earlier. It rang and went to a generic voicemail. “There’s a warrant posted for me. I can’t stay at my house. You said to await further instruction. I can’t wait any longer. It’s time to put your plan to get me out of this into action, George. Because if the police bring me in, I’ll tell them everything I know about you. Call me back.”
This story, segments of this story, and ideas from this story are not to be duplicated or replicated in any way. This content belongs to J. J. Hanna alone.
Please note: This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real events is unintended by the author.
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J. J. Hanna is a writer and reader from Colorado. She loves suspense stories above all else, and is currently working on a debut novel. When she’s not writing, you can find her making YouTube videos and Online Courses about the publishing industry. Go find her on social media @authorjjhanna and @jjhannaacademy to keep track of her most recent reads, current adventures, and to get the most up-to-date news on all things publishing. She also runs a freelance marketing business to help authors achieve their own goals. Learn more or hire her at Hanna Book Solutions.
J. J. Hanna, Author 