A Little Rebellion Now and Then

If you’re not a liberal at twenty, you have no heart.

If you’re not a conservative at forty, you have no brain.

Winston Churchill

I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

Thomas Jefferson

The page was loading at about one pixel per minute. I kept hammering the mouse button knowing it would do no good, but I needed to punish something. Either I needed a new computer or Google did. Then something weird happened that forced me to stare and blink. A black rectangle opened in the center of the page, and there was something being typed across it. It closed in a second and I didn’t get a chance to see what it said. Finally the page loaded and I had control again. It was definitely a “WTF” moment. Lately I’d been having a lot of them.

I selected and copied the text of an opinion by the Fourth Circuit Court on the president’s latest attempt to sneak another amnesty around Congress, pasted it into a Word document and saved it with the rest of the research I’d been doing for the manuscript I was currently flogging. Then I donned my discipline hat, and focused on the next twenty-five hundred words. At quitting time, I saved it and made a copy on two thumb drives. After that, it was wine time and the FOX news. It was a slow day—only one truck bombing in Baghdad, and not a single beheading.

Roger arrived at six. I let him into the foyer and stood on my toes to kiss him. He was a head taller than me, which is good because I rarely noticed the bald spot on the crown of his head. That, the gray temples and fine crow’s feet, was the only concession to age that he’d made since we met in school. I’m too generous. He may have added a few inches around the midsection, but I’m no one to talk. We hadn’t been together all that time. We were an item for several years, and I fully expected to marry the bastard, but he had this thing about commitment—and other women.

“Help yourself to a drink,” I said.

“I always do.” He poured a generous two fingers of scotch from the decanter, and refreshed my chardonnay. “There’s nothing cooking. Did I forget that it’s my night to cook?”

“No, we’re going out for a change.”

“Okay. Any place special?”

“Not really. We’ll take the trolley to the Gaslight District and pick some place that isn’t crowded.”

“Sounds good. How was your day?”

“Fine, except something weird happened.”

“What’s that?”

I took a sip of wine and thought about how to describe it. “I was waiting for a webpage that was taking forever to load, and a little black window opened in the middle of the screen. Somebody was typing something on it.”

“Probably just an ad loading.”

“No, this was different. What do you call that window where you go to get your IP address?”

“Command prompt?”

“Yeah, that’s it. This looked like the command prompt.”

“And you didn’t open it by mistake?”

“I don’t know how to open it.”

“You didn’t see it before or after that?”

“Nope.”

“Hmm, well, let’s open it and see.” He rose and carried his drink to the computer desk. Without sitting he entered ‘Command prompt’ in the start menu search box, and the little window opened in the center of the screen. Ghostly fingers were typing something after ‘C/Users/Kate>’, but the window closed before either of us could read it. “Well, that was odd.”

“It’s downright spooky. Do you think somebody has hacked my computer?”

“You’ve got anti-malware, don’t you?”

“Of course I do—the best. I subscribe to that Russian outfit.”

“Did you ever give somebody remote access to your computer?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, like when you give the guy in India control of your computer because you can’t figure out how to get something to work.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, my dear, it looks like somebody has access to your computer, and they don’t want you to see what they’re doing.”

That gave me a chill. “That’s pretty creepy. What should I do?”

“Turn it off and don’t use it.”

“You do know that I use that computer to make my living?”

“Hell, Kate, if you never wrote another word in your life, you’d die a rich woman.”

“That’s not the point. I’m a compulsive writer.”

“You’re ’pulsive, all right.”

“What do you mean ’pulsive’?”

“Com, im and re.”

I punched him in the shoulder. “Get out of the way and let me shut it down.” I took the chair and clicked the ‘Start’ button, then the ‘Shutdown’ button. The screen went blue, and the loopy little dots started whirling. A few seconds later, the previous screen refreshed. “Crap,” I said, “I’ll try again.” I got the same result.

“Try the task manager,” Roger said.

“What’s that?”

“Control, alt, delete.”

“Oh, yeah.” The task manager window opened, and I manually closed all the running programs, but the shutdown button never appeared.

He said, “So, push the power button. All your data is saved, and the programs closed.”

I did, and in a moment, the screen went black. “What am I going to do?”

“I’ll make a call in the morning, and get you the number of a guy who can figure it out.”

“Okay, let’s eat.”

After a heavy meal and much wine, we wobbled back to the condo. Roger took me by the elbow and tried to steer me directly into the bedroom. “Whoa, stud, I’m way too full to let you play trampoline tonight. You’ll have to wait until morning.”

“I figured as much. That was your evil plan all along, wasn’t it?”

“Hey, why is there a light in the office?” I looked around the jamb and saw the screen saver on the monitor. “Didn’t I do a hard shutdown?”

“I saw you do it.”

“Well, the frigging thing turned itself back on.”

“Pull the plug, or the damn thing might kill us in our sleep.”

“This is getting scary,” I said, and crawled on my knees under the desk. I groped for the power cord behind the tower and wiggled it until it came free. I listened to the fan whir to a halt. “Okay, the beast is dead.”

“Let’s hope.”

“If it plugs itself back in, I’m going to shoot it.”

“That’s what I’d do. Now, how can you be too full after we walked all the way from the trolley stop—uphill?”

Roger still had the libido he had twenty years ago—or thought he did. He swore he didn’t take pills for it. Me? I was content to surrender to the sexual vacuum of post-menopause, but he would get so morose, I’d have to humor him. “We walked five blocks. Forget it. If you get the geek’s number in the morning, I’ll do you a favor.”

In the morning with the favor behind me, and Roger contented again, he called somebody and wrote a number on the pad by the phone. After he showered and was out the door, I dialed it. A sleepy voice said, “Yeello.”

I said, “Hello, is this the computer service?”

“Who wants to know?”

“My name is Kate Baker. Do you work on computers?”

“Hardware or software?”

“Soft, I guess. I think I’ve been hacked.”

“Hundred dollars an hour. Starts when I leave home. Where are you?”

“Mission Hills.”

“You’re in luck. Only take me an hour to get there. What’s your address?”

I gave him the address, ended the call and made sure my revolver was loaded. An hour later the doorbell rang. He wasn’t as grungy looking as I expected.

He said, “Hi, I’m Nick. You got any coffee?”

“Is espresso okay?”

“Great. Make it a double. Where’s the computer?”

I showed him. “I had to unplug it. It came back on by itself.”

“Huh. Give me a few minutes of quiet.” He began to crawl under the desk.

“I’ll get your coffee.” When I sat the cup by his elbow, he was engrossed in a black screen crowded with white characters. They were gibberish to me. “What’s all that?”

“Shh.” He took a small, noisy sip of the thick coffee, and said, “Have you checked your bank accounts since this happened?”

“Oh, shit. I didn’t think of that.”

“Well, duh. What other reason would somebody want to hack a rich lady who writes dirty books?”

“I don’t write dirty books.”

“Whatever.”

“Get out of the way and let me check my accounts.”

“If they got into your accounts, it’s way too late now. Don’t you have a phone or tablet you can use to check them on?”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll be right back.” I ran to the bedroom and looked at my bank accounts and investments on my phone. Everything was intact.

When I returned to the office and told him, he said, “So, for what other reason would somebody hack you?”

“So, I’m definitely hacked?”

“Yeah, by the best. Maybe to steal your next book?”

“That’s not very likely. I’ve got a copyright.”

“So, if you don’t write porn, what do you call it?”

“Satire.”

“So, who do you make fun of?”

“Anybody who deserves it. Mainly the government.”

“Well, I’d say we’re definitely dealing with a government here.”

“Oh, shit. Whose government?”

“No way to tell. They’re using the TOR browser. IP address is in the middle of the ocean, but if I were to guess, I’d say it’s ours.”

“So, how do I get rid of them?”

Nick sat back and cradled the cup in both hands. He belched lightly, and said, “I don’t think you can.”

I felt a jolt. “What?”

“Look, if you get a new computer, router, IP address, email account, new phone number and change your name, they’ll just find you again. For whatever reason, somebody is watching you.”

“You think my phone’s tapped?”

He made a disgusted face. “Everybody’s phone’s tapped, but somebody is paying attention to you. They’re listening to your calls, reading your email and spying on your browsing habits. You ever look at porn?”

“Hell, no.”

“That probably wouldn’t interest them anyway. What do you do online?”

“I follow political events, and do research for my novels.”

“Well, you got somebody pissed.”

“What do you think they want?”

“I’d say to shut you up.”