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tonithegreatSomewhere in suburban Maryland, in the mid 2020s
On sleepless nights it was always easier to remember her renegade days.
Krys tossed and turned all night, her head aching and her dreams cycling between tents on hillsides where pipelines were scheduled to be built and PTA meetings that she was late for.
In the first set of dreams, she felt again in her belly deep excitement at sharing a tent with Aaron that rainy night when she was 18, making love between bursts in the thunderstorm, trying to keep themselves and especially Aaron’s computer and burner phones dry enough to function.
It had been hard not to sit up too high into the ceiling of the little two man tent, not to force the nylon of the ceiling into that of the storm fly, causing leaks to trickle coldly down her back in startling contrast to the heat between the two of them. It had been hard not to distract Aaron later as he went online and hacked his way into the security system the contractors were using on this section of pipeline construction.
He’d managed it finally around 2 AM, disabling their security cameras somehow unnoticeably. Then the two of them and another couple had made a rampage of damage through the construction site, according to premeditated plans, dancing half-disrobed in the continuing rain, stealing bits and disabling equipment in clever ways. Toward the end Aaron had found two tubes of lipstick in the cab of one of the dozers, and he’d used it to scrawl pictures and nonsensical messages in all the dozer windows.
Anarchy As were emblazoned in circles. Stick figures made love in improbable positions in flowery fields. Dollar signs had exes slashed through them. “¡Viva revolucìon!” He had scrawled. “Aarokrys forever!” She’d slapped him playfully for scrawling the message with their names intertwined, but her heart had felt like it expanded to fill her whole rib-cage, and she felt it again in the dream, ready to burst.
In the second set of dreams Krys was back in the now. Her husband was at his soccer league’s yearly tournament, and she was alone. She was alone and she had dressed too casually for a PTA meeting, and she was needlessly worried that the other parents would see her not in business-casual and assume that she didn’t hold a job important enough to excuse her relative absence from PTA meetings generally. She didn’t want to be the mom dropping hints about how busy her work life was, but she felt herself sliding into that mindset. . .
It was a disgusting juxtaposition. Between the rain starting and stopping outside, her heater kicking on and off, and the mixed up dreaming, she felt like she’s barely slept at all. It was a terrible way to start the day, knowing that work was going to be super intense with the new team still in charge and so tight with this new administration.
Krys stood at the kitchen counter with one hand on her forehead and poured a big glass of sweet, cardamom-laced iced coffee into a Margaritaville branded tumbler with a picture of a pirate’s treasure map emblazoned on the side, with the captions “Retirement Plan / Growing Older But Not Up.” The cup was a lie. She worked for the Man now and was comforted by the quarterly earnings statements on her supplemental retirement plan.
Her head was killing her. She’d only had one beer last night and not stayed up late at all, but her sinuses were apparently in complete rebellion. She had to buck up. She’d been selected to help comb through the evidence left in the wake of the last big hacking attempt on one of the defense contractors. She ran her hand through her hair, wondering where her college Aaron was now. She bet he’d be shocked to know that she was in the field of cyber security at all.
They’d both been so full of confidence back then. She wouldn’t have guessed that organic chemistry was about to unravel her dreams of a biology degree- that it would be six long years later before she walked across the stage to receive a degree in computer science. She wondered if Aaron were out there somewhere, selling insurance or property now, or maybe a professor, which was a picture that made her aching face crack into a smile. Then she realized that her kids were going to be late to school if she didn’t get herself out to the car and get the day started for real.
***
Two Weeks Earlier
***
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Thunder crashed loudly enough that the sound penetrated Aaron’s underground apartment. Vancouver, it turned out, was a fairly expensive place to live. But the mostly subterranean nature of Aaron’s converted basement abode suited him. On mornings like this it was cozy with his lamps and monitors glowing. One wouldn’t guess the delightful spaciousness of it’s living area and one bedroom from the size of the passageway down to his door. One also wouldn’t guess how easy it had been for him to co-opt his way into the fibernet cable than ran along the easement between his building and the street.
He did miss having more natural light. But his high narrow windows up by the ceiling let in more light than he had originally guessed they would, even now with rain streaming down them and into the gutter under the stairs. He didn’t live in the sunniest city on the west coast anyway, and that was fine with him. Weather could be dressed for. Humans didn’t melt.
He sipped as his mug of hot tea and smiled at the idea of being a 1337 h4xor who cared about spending time outside in the elements. But the outdoors had always been important to him. It was ecological activism that had brought him to the darkweb in the first place, after all. He looked down at his watch. 9:36 AM and he was just finishing up a particularly inspired bit of program. With any luck, he’d get this finished up and out to his deployment colleagues in time to get some sea kayaking in this evening if the weather cleared up as it was supposed to.
In direct conflict with another stereotype; Aaron was a morning person. A lot his best work came to fruition between 7:00 and 10:00. But he didn’t waste energy bemoaning the fact that everyone’s internal clocks were set differently. He had sympathy for people that didn’t do their best work between nine and five, even if he wasn’t one of them.
What he didn’t have sympathy for was simple greed. It didn’t take that much effort in terms of money added to the bottom line to add some protections for whales and other marine mammals into projects like the one Defensecorp had just completed. But adding those kinds of protections would have eaten into their bottom line just a little too much, apparently. Aaron smiled a tight little smile and cracked his knuckles. He and his colleagues were about to eat into their bottom line significantly. But he wanted to make sure they understood why.
It was time to craft the signature that his work would leave on their servers. The message that the cyber security teams would find when they were cleaning up after the hack. He typed a few lines of code and considered. It didn’t hurt to be a little oblique with these things.
“Cetaceans cannot compensate,” he started, feeling poetic. He knew he wasn’t a very good poet, but if he wasn’t writing code, poetry seemed a better form than prose for this barbaric yawp. He continued:
“Their blood, brains, bile are on your hands
Slaughtered innocents like our future
The world still burns
Aarokrys, Shellaron, Aarocyn: none lasted
And neither will you
But the revolution continues
Love continues
We will prevail”
Not his most inspired piece, he figured. And almost certainly, pieces of it would never be understood by any of it’s readers. Still sometimes one had to employ some creative flourish, if only to flex little used muscles. It did often get lonely fighting the good fight. But it was important to hearken back to inspiration. If he wasn’t doing this for love, what was he doing it for?
_____________________________________
Tonithegreat may have started watching Mr. Roboto this week and been overly inspired. You be the judge. Still only two episodes in, and it is darkly compelling. We’ll see how it continues to unfold. If you enjoyed this entry, please vote for it in the Idol poll! I’ll edit this sig to include the voting link if/when it becomes available.
On sleepless nights it was always easier to remember her renegade days.
Krys tossed and turned all night, her head aching and her dreams cycling between tents on hillsides where pipelines were scheduled to be built and PTA meetings that she was late for.
In the first set of dreams, she felt again in her belly deep excitement at sharing a tent with Aaron that rainy night when she was 18, making love between bursts in the thunderstorm, trying to keep themselves and especially Aaron’s computer and burner phones dry enough to function.
It had been hard not to sit up too high into the ceiling of the little two man tent, not to force the nylon of the ceiling into that of the storm fly, causing leaks to trickle coldly down her back in startling contrast to the heat between the two of them. It had been hard not to distract Aaron later as he went online and hacked his way into the security system the contractors were using on this section of pipeline construction.
He’d managed it finally around 2 AM, disabling their security cameras somehow unnoticeably. Then the two of them and another couple had made a rampage of damage through the construction site, according to premeditated plans, dancing half-disrobed in the continuing rain, stealing bits and disabling equipment in clever ways. Toward the end Aaron had found two tubes of lipstick in the cab of one of the dozers, and he’d used it to scrawl pictures and nonsensical messages in all the dozer windows.
Anarchy As were emblazoned in circles. Stick figures made love in improbable positions in flowery fields. Dollar signs had exes slashed through them. “¡Viva revolucìon!” He had scrawled. “Aarokrys forever!” She’d slapped him playfully for scrawling the message with their names intertwined, but her heart had felt like it expanded to fill her whole rib-cage, and she felt it again in the dream, ready to burst.
In the second set of dreams Krys was back in the now. Her husband was at his soccer league’s yearly tournament, and she was alone. She was alone and she had dressed too casually for a PTA meeting, and she was needlessly worried that the other parents would see her not in business-casual and assume that she didn’t hold a job important enough to excuse her relative absence from PTA meetings generally. She didn’t want to be the mom dropping hints about how busy her work life was, but she felt herself sliding into that mindset. . .
It was a disgusting juxtaposition. Between the rain starting and stopping outside, her heater kicking on and off, and the mixed up dreaming, she felt like she’s barely slept at all. It was a terrible way to start the day, knowing that work was going to be super intense with the new team still in charge and so tight with this new administration.
Krys stood at the kitchen counter with one hand on her forehead and poured a big glass of sweet, cardamom-laced iced coffee into a Margaritaville branded tumbler with a picture of a pirate’s treasure map emblazoned on the side, with the captions “Retirement Plan / Growing Older But Not Up.” The cup was a lie. She worked for the Man now and was comforted by the quarterly earnings statements on her supplemental retirement plan.
Her head was killing her. She’d only had one beer last night and not stayed up late at all, but her sinuses were apparently in complete rebellion. She had to buck up. She’d been selected to help comb through the evidence left in the wake of the last big hacking attempt on one of the defense contractors. She ran her hand through her hair, wondering where her college Aaron was now. She bet he’d be shocked to know that she was in the field of cyber security at all.
They’d both been so full of confidence back then. She wouldn’t have guessed that organic chemistry was about to unravel her dreams of a biology degree- that it would be six long years later before she walked across the stage to receive a degree in computer science. She wondered if Aaron were out there somewhere, selling insurance or property now, or maybe a professor, which was a picture that made her aching face crack into a smile. Then she realized that her kids were going to be late to school if she didn’t get herself out to the car and get the day started for real.
Two Weeks Earlier
***
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Thunder crashed loudly enough that the sound penetrated Aaron’s underground apartment. Vancouver, it turned out, was a fairly expensive place to live. But the mostly subterranean nature of Aaron’s converted basement abode suited him. On mornings like this it was cozy with his lamps and monitors glowing. One wouldn’t guess the delightful spaciousness of it’s living area and one bedroom from the size of the passageway down to his door. One also wouldn’t guess how easy it had been for him to co-opt his way into the fibernet cable than ran along the easement between his building and the street.
He did miss having more natural light. But his high narrow windows up by the ceiling let in more light than he had originally guessed they would, even now with rain streaming down them and into the gutter under the stairs. He didn’t live in the sunniest city on the west coast anyway, and that was fine with him. Weather could be dressed for. Humans didn’t melt.
He sipped as his mug of hot tea and smiled at the idea of being a 1337 h4xor who cared about spending time outside in the elements. But the outdoors had always been important to him. It was ecological activism that had brought him to the darkweb in the first place, after all. He looked down at his watch. 9:36 AM and he was just finishing up a particularly inspired bit of program. With any luck, he’d get this finished up and out to his deployment colleagues in time to get some sea kayaking in this evening if the weather cleared up as it was supposed to.
In direct conflict with another stereotype; Aaron was a morning person. A lot his best work came to fruition between 7:00 and 10:00. But he didn’t waste energy bemoaning the fact that everyone’s internal clocks were set differently. He had sympathy for people that didn’t do their best work between nine and five, even if he wasn’t one of them.
What he didn’t have sympathy for was simple greed. It didn’t take that much effort in terms of money added to the bottom line to add some protections for whales and other marine mammals into projects like the one Defensecorp had just completed. But adding those kinds of protections would have eaten into their bottom line just a little too much, apparently. Aaron smiled a tight little smile and cracked his knuckles. He and his colleagues were about to eat into their bottom line significantly. But he wanted to make sure they understood why.
It was time to craft the signature that his work would leave on their servers. The message that the cyber security teams would find when they were cleaning up after the hack. He typed a few lines of code and considered. It didn’t hurt to be a little oblique with these things.
“Cetaceans cannot compensate,” he started, feeling poetic. He knew he wasn’t a very good poet, but if he wasn’t writing code, poetry seemed a better form than prose for this barbaric yawp. He continued:
“Their blood, brains, bile are on your hands
Slaughtered innocents like our future
The world still burns
Aarokrys, Shellaron, Aarocyn: none lasted
And neither will you
But the revolution continues
Love continues
We will prevail”
Not his most inspired piece, he figured. And almost certainly, pieces of it would never be understood by any of it’s readers. Still sometimes one had to employ some creative flourish, if only to flex little used muscles. It did often get lonely fighting the good fight. But it was important to hearken back to inspiration. If he wasn’t doing this for love, what was he doing it for?
_____________________________________
Tonithegreat may have started watching Mr. Roboto this week and been overly inspired. You be the judge. Still only two episodes in, and it is darkly compelling. We’ll see how it continues to unfold. If you enjoyed this entry, please vote for it in the Idol poll! I’ll edit this sig to include the voting link if/when it becomes available.
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no subject
Date: 2019-01-10 07:14 pm (UTC)I haven't heard of this show - I will google and queue!
no subject
Date: 2019-01-11 02:45 am (UTC)Also, I live in the suburbs of Maryland, so, you had me from the first line there. :)
But this is very intriguing and well-written, and I love how the two parts tie together. I think this is a great take on the topic!
no subject
Date: 2019-01-11 03:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-11 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-12 07:35 am (UTC)It's a mesmerizing show, isn't it? The first season is really, really good. I think you'll like all of the twists in it.
Boy, Krys really IS working for the Man now. Military corporations? It's as if she's forgotten everything that once mattered to her.:(
Though Aaron has changed too little over the same amount of time. And is probably about to be in serious trouble... :O
no subject
Date: 2019-01-13 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-13 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-13 11:43 pm (UTC)Beautifully written--as always! And you mentioned Canada! Yay! :-)