parking lot of Sandy’s Bar & Slots.
“We don’t even have enough money to get home,” said Megan, snuffling in an attempt to not start sobbing again. The two of them sat out of the van’s rear door while Taylor paced around the parking lot on her phone. She’d been trying to wrangle up some funds, any kind of funds, for almost an hour.
“Maybe I could put it on my credit cards,” said Carly, despite not knowing for sure if she could actually do so. Before anything, she wanted to actually say it out loud, to test how it felt and sounded. “But I don’t know . . . I’m almost maxed out.” It sounded horrific.
“Goddamn it,” Megan muttered. “And the fucking cash, too.”
“We’re lucky they left us the instruments.”
Taylor, having finished her phone call, returned to the girls with a blank look on her face.
“Anything?” asked Megan.
“Nothing,” she said, leaning against the van with a sigh. “What about you?”
“The same,” said Megan.
“And you?”
Carly wanted to say no when Taylor asked if she could make any calls. She wanted to lie about her only remaining option, an opportunity to make a quick fifty thousand by doing what she did best. It would be so much easier to stay low-key and broke, to not “get back into it” by whoring herself out for the first time since her mistake with Bryce Johnson. Maybe she would just charge everything to her credit cards. She could always max everything out and then file bankruptcy. That would be playing it safe.
“I don’t know,” said Carly as she scrolled through the names in her phone’s contact list.
“Do you have any ideas at all?” asked Taylor.
Carly looked at her recent call log, scrolling as far back as the previous afternoon when she turned down that suspicious job offer—when she still thought she was employed. “Maybe,” she said.
“Hey,” called a raspy voice from the bar’s rear service door. It was the manager, an ex-biker-looking guy who’d recently been reformed via semi-casual business attire. “Did you girls come to play or what?”
They hadn’t. But they said yes, and went inside and took the stage, and played music while people gambled.
* * *
A s the Dotties mechanically ran through their songs, Carly’s mind drifted further and further away from the music. Away from Sandy’s Bar & Slots, and West Wendover, and the tour. Her mind seamlessly detached itself from her instrument, her fingers now working through the sheer robotics of muscle memory.
Away from the music she’d once loved playing, her thoughts brought her back to another activity that had similarly gone cold—hacking. Was it meant to stay cold forever? Maybe all she’d needed was a few minor catastrophes to help thaw the ice.
It seemed only natural that she’d come crawling back. Hacking had once defined her in a way that music or web programming never could. It had once been a definition that she was comfortable and completely satisfied with, embracing an online persona she’d worked so hard at creating. Cscape, as she was known to fellow hackers, a name that would pop up regularly at the inner sanctums of their dark web meeting places. It was how she met Tansy, a hacker and military whistleblower who, at the time, was rumored to still be on active duty. Who was also rumored to be communicating from one of Saddam Hussein’s secret bunkers. The claims were usually farfetched, like his ability to commandeer a fleet of drones if his unit required air support, or how he’d amassed full hard drives of blackmail-worthy communiqués so they could be used as protection against the crooked upper echelon of military brass.
His war against military corruption was what initially attracted Carly to him, his fight for the little people, who were often the Iraqis themselves. It was a fight that aligned with Carly’s own motivation for hacking and for enacting change—no matter the legality. They worked in this gray zone, the murky realm of
“We don’t even have enough money to get home,” said Megan, snuffling in an attempt to not start sobbing again. The two of them sat out of the van’s rear door while Taylor paced around the parking lot on her phone. She’d been trying to wrangle up some funds, any kind of funds, for almost an hour.
“Maybe I could put it on my credit cards,” said Carly, despite not knowing for sure if she could actually do so. Before anything, she wanted to actually say it out loud, to test how it felt and sounded. “But I don’t know . . . I’m almost maxed out.” It sounded horrific.
“Goddamn it,” Megan muttered. “And the fucking cash, too.”
“We’re lucky they left us the instruments.”
Taylor, having finished her phone call, returned to the girls with a blank look on her face.
“Anything?” asked Megan.
“Nothing,” she said, leaning against the van with a sigh. “What about you?”
“The same,” said Megan.
“And you?”
Carly wanted to say no when Taylor asked if she could make any calls. She wanted to lie about her only remaining option, an opportunity to make a quick fifty thousand by doing what she did best. It would be so much easier to stay low-key and broke, to not “get back into it” by whoring herself out for the first time since her mistake with Bryce Johnson. Maybe she would just charge everything to her credit cards. She could always max everything out and then file bankruptcy. That would be playing it safe.
“I don’t know,” said Carly as she scrolled through the names in her phone’s contact list.
“Do you have any ideas at all?” asked Taylor.
Carly looked at her recent call log, scrolling as far back as the previous afternoon when she turned down that suspicious job offer—when she still thought she was employed. “Maybe,” she said.
“Hey,” called a raspy voice from the bar’s rear service door. It was the manager, an ex-biker-looking guy who’d recently been reformed via semi-casual business attire. “Did you girls come to play or what?”
They hadn’t. But they said yes, and went inside and took the stage, and played music while people gambled.
* * *
A s the Dotties mechanically ran through their songs, Carly’s mind drifted further and further away from the music. Away from Sandy’s Bar & Slots, and West Wendover, and the tour. Her mind seamlessly detached itself from her instrument, her fingers now working through the sheer robotics of muscle memory.
Away from the music she’d once loved playing, her thoughts brought her back to another activity that had similarly gone cold—hacking. Was it meant to stay cold forever? Maybe all she’d needed was a few minor catastrophes to help thaw the ice.
It seemed only natural that she’d come crawling back. Hacking had once defined her in a way that music or web programming never could. It had once been a definition that she was comfortable and completely satisfied with, embracing an online persona she’d worked so hard at creating. Cscape, as she was known to fellow hackers, a name that would pop up regularly at the inner sanctums of their dark web meeting places. It was how she met Tansy, a hacker and military whistleblower who, at the time, was rumored to still be on active duty. Who was also rumored to be communicating from one of Saddam Hussein’s secret bunkers. The claims were usually farfetched, like his ability to commandeer a fleet of drones if his unit required air support, or how he’d amassed full hard drives of blackmail-worthy communiqués so they could be used as protection against the crooked upper echelon of military brass.
His war against military corruption was what initially attracted Carly to him, his fight for the little people, who were often the Iraqis themselves. It was a fight that aligned with Carly’s own motivation for hacking and for enacting change—no matter the legality. They worked in this gray zone, the murky realm of
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