“What’s the virus situation looking like?”
“My efforts to influence the software engineers at both antivirus vendors have continued to be beneficial. The size of all Russian botnets in aggregate is now under fifty-thousand computers and falling rapidly. At this rate, it will be neutralized in sixty days.”
Mike thought back to the middle of last year. Software viruses had suddenly become massively more infectious in both computers and phones, swelling the ranks of the Russian botnet to hundreds of millions of computers and causing headaches for individuals and big companies alike. People lost sensitive personal information to the virus, while corporations were routinely blackmailed to pay up or be subject to denial of service attacks by the massive botnets.
ELOPe had first detected the trend as he observed global data traffic patterns and witnessed an increase in coordinated denial of service attacks. That time Mike had suggested going directly after the source, but it was ELOPe who pointed out that it would be less suspicious to gently nudge the antivirus companies in the right direction to make antivirus software more effective.
Which, Mike realized, just pointed out that when it came to who was the best judge of what was and wasn’t suspicious, it was probably ELOPe.
He sighed. It was hard when your buddy was literally thousands of times smarter than you. He wished David could have seen what ELOPe had become.
Three days later, Mrs. Gellender held the first meeting of the computational biology team. Running through the practice problems, Leon had to admit it was fun, despite having to stay late after school and the lingering preoccupation with his uncle. It didn’t hurt that Stephanie, a beautiful and smart nerd from his biology class was also on the team. They had exchanged glances a few times.
When the meeting finally ended, Leon left the building in a hurry. Even Ms. Gellender had been able to tell that Leon was absent-minded, but Leon was sure she could hardly imagine the reality of what he was worried about. The damn Russian mobsters. He had turned down his uncle three more times over the past three days, but he still insisted that Leon must help him.
Outside the main school doors, Leon glanced at the field to his left. He saw the track team running hurdles, while the soccer team practiced in the big field in the middle of the track. Just another normal day for them.
He pulled out a cigarette and made a ritual of lighting it with his Zippo. He turned right, and bumped into a large man.
“Excuse me,” Leon mumbled, and moved to go around the man. Why the hell was the guy so close to him? Leon looked up and saw short gray stubble and sharp facial curves that suggested the man was Russian. Suddenly Leon’s stomach turned over, and his pulse quickened. The man was staring at him.
“Leon Tsarev?” he said in a thick Russian accent.
“Da,” Leon replied automatically in Russian, cursing himself as he said it for not thinking faster on his feet.
“Your Uncle Alexis is in trouble, yes. You will help him. Be good nephew.”
“Just leave me alone!” Leon yelled. He dodged around the man and took off running, tossing his cigarette aside.
Leon ran as fast as he could, glancing back only once to see the imposing figure watching after him. Chest heaving a few blocks later, he raced on, turning onto a side street. No one seemed to be following him. He wondered if someone would be waiting for him by his apartment. How could he get home?
He walked as he slowly regained his breath. Maybe he should stop smoking if he was going to need to run for his life more frequently now. Speaking of near-death experiences, he thought about the fire escape trick he had done with James. That would get him back into his apartment. He paused for a minute. Was he just being paranoid? No, when a Russian mobster sends you emails from the other side of the world and then suddenly people are accosting you in the street, that’s not paranoid.
Looking around for anyone watching, Leon made his way to the apartment building next to his, carefully avoiding any path that would put him within view of his own building’s glass enclosed lobby. He thumbed the RF code breaker app on his phone and held it up to the front door. Newer buildings had increased the code length, so this trick didn’t work on them. But these door locks were at least ten years old. Leon held the phone up to the swipe pad and counted the seconds. At twelve seconds, the door lock clicked, and he pushed the door open.
Leon pushed his blond hair out of his eyes and made his way to the staircase. A few minutes later he emerged at the top of the eight flights of stairs, breathless again, and continued up the smaller staircase to the roof. He opened the access door and looked for something to put in the doorway to keep the door from closing and locking him onto the roof. Then he saw that the doorframe already had duct tape over the hole to prevent the latch bolt from locking the door. He smiled and gently let the door close.
Leaning over the small wall around the roof, he didn’t see anyone suspicious on the ground. A few old ladies pushed their groceries home. At least he didn’t need to fear anyone’s grandma. He walked over to the fire escape and climbed down the roof ladder to the fire escape proper. Once there, he walked down the rusted metal stairs to the seventh floor.
On the seventh floor, as he and James once discovered, the two buildings bulged out for some reason. Maybe it was an example of what was once considered modern design, or maybe the bulge hid some obscure machinery needed for apartment buildings. Whatever the case, it further narrowed the already small gap between the two buildings. The fire escapes were just a few feet apart.
Leon leaned over to look down. Mistake. He quickly looked back across. Only a few feet. He had done this before with James, he reminded himself. He climbed over the short railing, and stood on the outside of the fire escape. He leaned out, but couldn’t quite touch the other fire escape. Well, there was still only one way to do it. He took a deep breath, let go of the railing he was holding, and leaned toward the other side.
His stomach leaped into his throat, but he focused all his attention on grabbing the opposing handrail. With a hard smack into his palms, he grabbed the thin metal strut with both hands. Getting a solid grip, he let his feet fall off the first metal structure, and as his feet swung down towards the new fire escape, he let go and dropped down onto the level below. The sound of his jump rang out through the metal structure.
“I’m getting too old for shit like that,” he mumbled to himself, leaning up against the solid wall of his own apartment building. What had ever made them think to try that in the first place?
He was outside his own kitchen window now. He held his phone up to the magnetic window locks and swiped the display. The window unlocked. Putting his hands flat against the glass he pushed up, and grudgingly it moved. He worked the ancient window up slowly until he could slide through the opening. He slid onto the kitchen floor, and slumped there for a minute, resting.
When his heartbeat had returned to normal, he made his way on tiptoe to the apartment door and looked out the peephole. He could see two people in the hallway. Suits. Long wool coats. Probably Russian. Backing away from the front door as though it was made of explosives that might blow at any instant, Leon made his way to his bedroom. He closed the bedroom door and took a deep sigh.
He didn’t see that he had any choice. Not only was his uncle’s life in danger, but now he had goons after him. He’d never heard of Russian mobsters being particularly kind, and he doubted they’d be nice to him just because he was a kid.
He plopped into his chair and gentled knocked his phone against his desk. The thirty-six inch display lit up and Leon swiped his hands across it, getting ready to compose a message to his uncle.