CHAPTER TWO
Callen kept his mind on the buildings, cars, and streetlights as the car sped down the highway. He had his new headphones pressed firmly in his ears. He hadn't wiped the tears from his face, but he had stopped crying, leaving his skin crusty from the tears.
Accompanied by the sad cords of classic rock and metal ballads, his heart hung heavy after leaving Derrick and having the rest of the ward cheer the familiar farewell ritual. From the moment the door closed, he missed the kids in the ward. However, the lonely bedridden image of his best friend, with more tubes and wires stuck under his skin than could be quickly counted, haunted him most.
He wanted to go back, but didn't at the same time. He could visit, but things wouldn't be the same. Familiar faces would vanish with barely a whisper while new ones, with eyes wide with fear, would appear and struggle to accept their death sentences.
The old station wagon whined as his mother pulled the car onto the off ramp marked Marquis Point. The rusty sign was beat from harsh weather. Two of the five lights that illuminated it had long since burned out, a third flickered. Marquis Point was a place where anything could be found; anyone could be forgotten; few would even remember your face, and fewer still would care.
The car bumped and jolted as it hit pothole after pothole as it made its way past abandoned factories and warehouses. The engine creaked when they turned past a leaking stack of sandbags, which were the city's cheep attempt to stem flooding. The car's wheels caused a wave smash against the sandbags as they climbed out of a salty puddle into a residential area that was far from what even the most depraved would consider desirable.
Eve locked the door when the car rolled into the most habitable part of the poor urban town. She got several looks as they passed and placed her hand firmly on a handgun she kept tucked between her seat and the shift stick. The handgun was no slouch. The weapon carried .44 caliber magnum hollow points designed to tear a man in half.
Things were bad here, very bad. With the combination of economic instability and climate change, spots like these were like the Wild West under the artificial glow of the modern world.
A song about fallen angels blared in Callen's ears as his mother parked the car outside a rundown old apartment building. The sign on the building once read 'Silver Grove,' but the 'i' and the two 'r's' Had long since fallen off. There were no plants around except for a few strings of grass growing from cracks in the blacktop. A junky lay mumbling in a mound of rubble with a bottle of cheap liquor.
After climbing out of the car, Eve placed the pistol in her coat pocket, and they walked towards the entrance. She handed Callen the key to the main entrance and stepped behind him to keep her eyes on the street.
She was a cautious woman, and she wasn't about to drop her guard. In the past few years, she had been jumped a few times, and she knew better than to walk around unarmed. Each time she subdued her attackers with anyone being injured, but the last fight would shock even the toughest of soldiers. A gang ambushed her and Ania on the way to the last day of school, and she had no choice but to step into the realm of lethality. Poor Callen had to learn of this attack on the news two weeks ago, but luckily his mother didn't get in any real trouble. Cops in these parts just didn't care when gang bangers die. It saves the city money.
She eyed the bum and a car as it picked up a woman or a man, and drove off towards the hourly motel.
"A wee bit wet tonight, isn't it?" A voice with a dulled Irish accent said. A match flashed in his hand illuminating his short red beard, tiny glasses, and curly red hair. The brim of his soggy green tweed hat kept the rain off just long enough to light his tobacco in his old-fashioned pipe.
"It is." Eve’s shoulders tensed when she saw a tarnished gold-plated magnum tucked into the front of his pants with a green clover in the handle. "I suggest you move along."
Callen pulled the door open and turned back to his mother. Her eyes were fixed on the short man, waiting for him to try something.
The short man chuckled. "Oh, the irony,” He cooed. "Still running in circles, lass?"
"I don't know who you think we are, but get lost,” Eve warned. "Callen, go inside."
In youthful defiance, Callen ignored her.
The short man grinned. "Funny, isn't it? How all manners of beasts are at home in the night?" The short man produced a gold coin as if it were from another world. He flipped it in the air and caught it. "But, then again, you know that better than, perhaps, anyone."
"You have me confused with someone else…” Looking for the slightest movement that would identify the short man as a threat, Eve didn't blink.
He took a draw of his pipe. "No, I'm not mistaken. But, I'll take my leave”, He said after a long puff on his pipe. The water trickled from the brim of his hat onto his face as the creases on his face from his satirical jest faded to an ancient canvas of somberness. "You can't run forever." He looked at the coin and stiffened his jaw. The wind blew, and the water sprayed across all of their faces. The warm glow from the pipe embers went out. "Nothing good rides on these winds." He looked down the street and out over the sandbags towards the sea. "Or these tides..." He chuckled at his wit. "Yes...very dark tides indeed...and it's only a matter of time before the old world comes calling..."
"What?" Callen stepped forward, but the Irishman disappeared into the shadows of the alley from where he came.
"It's nothing, Callen. Go inside." Eve's voice was biting, but it did little to hide the layer of fear in her voice. She backed in, and a bum with the bottle stirred. He mumbled something about filthy spriggans.
The door beeped and they passed the second security door. The rent-a-cop snorted, looked up from the electric glow of a smartphone and looked ravenously at Eve. She shot him a death glare, and the man went back to his device.
"What was that Mom?" Callen asked again, this time more forcefully.
"Nothing...it was just some loon, like everyone else that's out on a night like tonight." Her expression shifted from one of concern to one of a disciplinarian. "And next time I tell you to do something, you do it. Got it? You know where we live." The fear shook into anger as she spoke. Her scolding was much too harsh.
Callen felt himself shake as he felt his mother's anger and disappointment. "I'm sorry."
Eve pulled back as if she realized how she sounded. She relaxed. "I just love you two too much. To lose you now, after all we've been through. I just couldn't bear it."
"I know," Callen said.
They reached the elevator and Ania tapped the button. The elevator dinged open. It smelled like urine and vomit. The children didn't dare touch anything.
Callen spotted three bullet holes. "These new, Mom?" he asked.
"Yeah." She said. "Gunfight in the lobby a few weeks ago. Drugs, I think."
"We gotta get out of here." Callen shook his head. "We have to go someplace better."
"People don't ask questions around these places, Callen. You know we have to stay hidden."
"I know." He sighed. "You had me create us new identities before I started with Dr. James. It's just that it’s horrible here."
"I'm going to need you to do that again tomorrow. The media hid our identities, but there's no way to be sure. We have to move."
"Who are we hiding from, Mom?" Ania asked. "Dad? The Irish guy outside seemed to know us? Who?"
The elevator dinged, and they stepped out into the dim hall. The light in the corner flickered like a strobe. They walked towards their coffin of an apartment passing a room or two that pounded with an angry tribal beat. There were more bullet holes in the walls and Callen stepped around a bloodstain that hadn't been part of the dingy rug last time he was home.
Eve unlocked the door with another key and entered the stale room. She flicked on the light. A cheap chandelier dangled from the ceiling, and a few pieces of old furniture sat in fr
ont of their TV on milk crate. A cockroach skittered under a jury-rigged mess of circuitry lay next to it that Callen built so they could enjoy free TV programs.
Years of neglect had matted the carpets, and Eve had long since given up trying to clean the years of filth from the place. No matter how much she scrubbed, Marquis Point could never be washed off. The dirt became a part of anything and anyone inside of it.
She headed into the kitchen to make dinner while the two children headed down the short hall towards their room.
Two twin beds rested near the walls, a single barred window between them. The room had a few other pieces of furniture including a desk, two chairs, and a table covered in electronic parts. The room looked like an electronic graveyard that Ania or Eve never bothered to straighten because Callen knew exactly where everything was. Neither of them wanted to disturb his inventions.
The walls hung with hand drawn sketches of a variety of superheroes, movie characters, and beasts from mythology. Ania's hand put even the greatest digital artists to shame.
Ania placed her brother's box next to his bed and sat down on hers. They weren't more than three feet apart. "So, how long is it going to take for you to install the new screen?"
"Only an hour or two." He said. "I helped designed it so it will go quick…”
"Mom's taking us shooting tomorrow." She sounded excited, as if shooting was something they both loved doing. "But, then we gotta go to summer camp at the Y."
"Mom said we're moving. So we shouldn't have to be there for too long,” He sighed. "Not looking forward to that."
"Least it's better than school."
"Not by much." Callen sighed.
"Maybe for you. You only get to go to school between remissions and you get those tutors when you're not there."
"Yeah, and everything they teach me I can do in my sleep,” Callen said. "Matt has taught me more than the school could in thirty years."
"Well duh...Matt's one of MIT's top grad students and a chief engineer at Nextigen. So, I guess you're right, considering you're being taught by the best of the best in the top tech company in the world. But still, I just wish we could go to one of those better districts or prep schools when we go back,” Ania said. "Matt told me we would burn through the best schools and probably start college in a year. Then we could get all of us out of places like Marquis Point for good."
"Yeah, I just wish he completed getting me into MIT." Callen sighed. He began rummaging through his box and pulled out his laptop. He placed the computer on his bed and flipped open the screen. He started looking around for something.
"Here," Ania handed him a multi-tool from the table.
“Thanks,” He took the tool and picked up a remote control that was on his desk. “So, Terminator 2, Aliens, or Expendables?”
“Terminator 2,” Ania answered. She looked at their shelf that was full of a variety of DVDs. She grabbed the box and put it into the DVD player.
After starting the movie, Callen began removing the old screen.
"So, what does that thing do?" Ania looked at the new screen.
"It's a specialized sensor screen designed for competitive gaming and will add another method of input for programs I write. I need to figure out how to use these motion sensors and these micro-projectors. If I had the compatible games, I could make a holographic image appear in my hand for my shooters...that, I just may be able to do with a few more pieces of tech...maybe...I could use the 3d glasses...and edit the game's source code..."
"Cool,” She nodded her head. "I don't understand exactly, but making games cooler sounds awesome."
Callen worked for the next few hours getting the device installed. As he worked his imagination wandered and seeds of ideas for new computer programs, malware, and such grew in his head. He had created countless programs, for all sorts of applications.
Callen was a hacker. He had viruses for everything, deleting information, rewriting log files, stealing information and causing system overloads. But, he wasn't the bad kind, at least in his opinion. He took it on himself to attack hackers that preyed on others, and wrote code for tracing, and infecting just about any system. He liked to think of himself as the Batman of cyberspace. He even had a Guy Fawkes mask hanging next to his desk.
Sure, he bent the law, but he never broke it, with the exception of stealing a hand full of IDs from dead people, like his mother asked every time they moved. The few names he stole never hurt anyone, save maybe a government record keeper or two, and he knew his way around cyberspace too well to ever get caught.
"Callen, can you describe the bunny-man again?" Ania asked as she tapped a pencil on her lip. She curled up against the wall with her pad resting on her knees.
"Shut up," Callen said. "Leave me alone." He didn't even bother to look up from his project.
"Don't be Grumpy!" She said. "But, I'm not teasing. Tell me. I'm drawing a comic, and he's gonna be the main character's guardian..."
Callen let out a low growl. "Fine." The bunny man was Callen's imaginary friend from when he was a child; at least that's what the doctors wrote it off as. He had been teased mercilessly when he started elementary school and didn't like talking about it. He knew the bunny-man was real, even if everyone else said he wasn't. The only one to ever say anything one way or the other was his mother. "I don't remember much. Except he was white, copper stains...or tattoos...on his fur, and dark hair on the back of his head, like dreadlocks."
"All right,” Ania began to sketch again.
"And one glowing blue eye. The other...well, I don't remember, but it didn't glow." Callen added, and he went back to work. He screwed the last pieces in place finishing the hardware install. He powered up the computer. The operating system that he, himself, had built began to load. He loved open source programs. He could get software for free, modify it how he wanted, and make completely superior programs, including entire operating systems. "So, what's the comic?" He asked.
"Hmmm?”, it took Ania a second to process his question as she finished a line. "Oh, it's about a cat-girl who can control the four classical Greek elements through speaking to elementals. She has a bunny swordsman that protects her...and teaches her swordsmanship. Mountain gorilla barbarians slaughtered her tribe, and the two are unlikely companions united against a common enemy. They become friends and end up taking down the evil empire in the story. You know the classic story with a sprinkling of ideas from various places."
"Sounds cool." His system finished powering up.
The first thing he did was connect his computer to his wireless router to make sure that everything was working since the last time he was home. The quiet rush of cyberspace washed into his upgraded system.
Unlike the majority of their generation, Callen and Ania didn't have their lives displayed online. However, that wasn't just because of their mother. Callen knew the risks associated with electronic forms of social indulgence and how to keep his sister and him hidden, even if many of their video games required certain online profiles. In cyberspace, he was an undetectable digital ghost that prowled between the layers of computer language and could slip quietly into any system his heart desired to pluck or place anything he wanted without the slightest trace.
He loaded the firmware to run the most complicated aspects of his new piece of equipment. In the blink of an eye, the files loaded and began installing.
Leaving the hospital, no, leaving his best friend to die began to resurface in his consciousness. He swallowed hard as he watched the bar complete, and the new software began running its checks. He instantly thought of the security cameras and knew he could check it out, maybe even catch a glimpse of his friends. Then, he could start his new game.
He paused the movie and activated the new screen. His eyes washed over with light. He felt an itch in his head. He reached to scratch it, but it didn't stop
. So, he ignored it. He was conditioned to ignore even the worst of pain.
He moved his fingers across the keyboard and touch screen dragging, activating, and dropping all kinds of programs as he began working his way into the hospital's main computer system. Everything in the most modern buildings was moving towards computerized integration for things like door locks and temperature controls. Everything was networked, and that meant they were all his, if he wanted them to be.
Static and strange code that he had never seen before began scrolling through the text window as he hacked. Something wasn't right and if felt it grow in the pit of his stomach. He made sure his security programs were all running just in case a virus had infected the hospital's computers. He loaded his favorite rapidly replicating virus that was built to overload an infected system and prepared to fire it if he noticed any threats. He checked for streams of data, and the only one he saw was the strange code in the black and white text box scrolling on his screen.
He tried to access the security cameras, but he got only static. He tried to detect a cell phone, a camera phone or maybe a personal laptop with a webcam, but there was only static. He turned towards his sister. "Something's not right."
"What?" Ania asked. "What'd you do now?"
"I just wanted to check on Derrick." He scratched his head. "The hospital is...well...nothing is working. I can't even pull up a video feed from the security cameras."
"Probably doing maintenance." Ania offered.
Callen shook his head and looked at the gray screen. "Not this at time of day.”
Their mom called from the other room. Dinner was ready. The two children headed into the dreary kitchen and sat down at the slightly rusted old table.
The food was hot and looked delicious. Eve had cooked one of Callen's favorites, chicken, red mashed potatoes, gravy, and garlic green beans. Pulled pork and pizza were his other two favorites.
Eve handed both her children plates and forks. The three of them then began loading their plates like starving wolves. Being a vegetarian, Ania ignored the meat and covered a tofu block with some Asian sauce.
Eve was an awesome cook so Callen couldn't wait to eat. He stuck his fork in his gravy-coated potatoes first and inhaled the delicious aroma.
"Wait," Ania said, just before Callen took a bite. "We have to say grace."
"When did this start?" Callen sounded irritated. "No one ever says that anymore."
"Well, maybe we should start," Ania said. "Mom said Dad used to."
"He left us," Callen said bluntly. "You were too young to remember. He left us when I got sick, and now, we have to hide from him."
"Callen,” Eve said warmly. "Relax, and you know it isn't your father that we are hiding from."
"Then who?"
"Now's not the time."
"Then when?"
"Let your sister say grace."
"Fine."
Ania placed her two hands together and closed her eyes. She whispered The Lord's Prayer and offered thanks for dinner.
Callen coughed and not on purpose. He put his fork down. His head started to pound.
Before Ania said Amen, Eve cut her off. "You okay, Callen?"
"Yeah." Callen struggled to suppress his cough.
"Let's just eat." Ania sighed. She looked sadly at her brother. "I guess God doesn't want our prayers."
After eating, Ania clicked on the TV while Callen helped his mother clear the table. His belly was full, and he had let the misplaced concern about not being able to get into the hospital's system behind. Ania was right. They were probably just doing maintenance.
Callen noticed his sister had clicked on the news as he washed off his plate.
The screen flashed with stories the sad state of the world coated with a heavy dose of celebrity gossip. The picture went static for a second and then the image blinked back. It was an old T.V., so it did that often.
Callen grabbed a glass of water and headed back to his bedroom. He half paid attention to a commercial about electronic prosthetics and pharmaceuticals. When the news came back on, he ignored latest news update about corporate negotiations with the government to purchase bankrupt cities in efforts to combat an exploding national debt. However, the news anchor suddenly swore, and it caught Callen’s attention.
"Wait...what?" The news anchor interrupted. "Hold on...this just in." His startled tone caught Callen's ear. "Breaking news from Boston. St. Luke's children's hospital has just been the victim of a horrific tragedy." The anchor paused and looked off screen as his microphone went mute.
Callen dropped his glass.
"Callen!" Eve yelled from the kitchen, at the sound of the glass getting dropped. "Oh my..." She joined her children in staring at the TV.
Images flashed of police cars, ambulances, and all other sorts of chaos. The camera panned across the side of the hospital, which revealed no structural damage. The flashing blue and red police lights highlighted dark liquid smears on several of the windows. Hazmat tents and heavily armed police were setting up a parameter around the hospital. However, the scene was only visible for a few more blinks of an eye before a static bar rippled across the picture. "Excuse me, the authorities have made their first statement about the tragedy. There was a boiler explosion that took out an entire wing of the hospital." The anchor announced. With a flicker of the TV, the images soon changed to suit the updated report of a gas explosion.
"What?" Ania gasped, noticing the discrepancy in the image. "These images are...doctored...by..." She looked at her brother, but he didn't look away from the picture.
The mood in the apartment sank. Callen didn't know what to do. Memories of the other children waving good-bye and his friend as he lied in his hospital bed flashed before his eyes. They were all gone. He heard his heart beating in his ears, the sounds of his mother and sister's horror or their attempt at comfort blended with the TV. He understood nothing they said. He was somewhere else and soon he fell asleep working on his computer.