“Evening,” Atom says.
The calm in his voice makes Mika swallow visibly. “The…the door…it was locked.”
“Not anymore it isn’t,” Wraith says. “Let’s keep the neighbors mellow, yeah? You don’t make any loud noises to alert them, and we won’t have to kill youorthem.”
Mika’s eyes jump between our faces, as if he’s trying to make sense of what he’s seeing. I know what kind of sight we make; all dressed in black, no identifying club colors, balaclavas pulled over our faces.
“You Mika?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He coughs because the word comes out on a croak. “Who are you?”
“We’re people who’ve heard you’ve been bragging online,” Grudge says.
Mika’s mouth tries for a smirk and fails miserably. “Everybody brags online.”
I nod. “A lot of people do. But not about the FBI sliding into their DMs to set up another hacker.”
“House is empty,” Smoke says as he joins us in the basement.
“I didn’t... Look, it’s not what…”
“Spit it out,” Atom says. “You didn’t do it. It’s not what we think. Blah blah blah. And please, so we don’t die of boredom, at least make it original.”
Mika finally stands to face us. He’s likely five foot seven. Short, compared to the five of us. “Okay. So, it’s probably exactly what you think if you went to the trouble of finding me. And I’m guessing you knowNullTraceor their friends, because only one of them would be able to track me down.”
“Tell us,” Smoke says. “‘Cos I hate guessing.”
“The FBI reached out to me. Told me they knew who I was and what I was capable of doing. But they told me it wasn’t me they were after. They wanted to set up bigger fish. They said the person was a ‘threat actor.’ They said for the sake of national security, they needed a node they can trust.”
“Who was it?” I ask.
“There’s an agent. A guy. Name is Dorian Chase.” Mika says the name with a shiver. “He’s got this thing. He makes you feel like you’re on the same side. He calls people assets, like it’s a compliment. He told me he wanted to keep a former node safe, and to do that, they needed to lure the person out of hiding so they could give them refuge. He told me he wanted a hacker, someone using the namesNullTraceandWren.”
The sound of Wren’s name flips my stomach.
I step forward but am pulled back by Atom. “Easy.”
“You know this person?” Grudge asks while I grind my teeth.
“I know of NullTrace. They’re brilliant at what they do.”
“So, then, why did you brag about setting this up?” Wraith asks. “Makes no fucking sense. And what did you actually set up?”
Mika has the nerve to look offended. “Turns out, I was premature anyway. I found a trace of them, in an employee file at Valentine Security. Figured they’d settled down. Gone straight normal life and shit. I gave Chase the address from their personnel file.”
“Do you know what fucking happened next?” I say, piecing the bits of information I know together.
Mika looks down at his shoes. “Why do you think I invested in new locks for my doors?”
“You know?” Grudge asks me, turning to face me.
“The safe house Wren was staying in was torched.”
Mika looks up. “It must have been the people the FBI wanted to protect them from. Some cartel or something. What if they were watching Chase’s communications? What if my message was what alerted them to where the house was? The FBI doesn’t do shit like that.”
But something in my gut is telling me a different story. I get that people in the FBI lie to get what they need. Maybe it was easier to get someone with Mika’s skills on board to help him find Wren by saying he just wanted to protect them. And yet, everywhere there is trouble, there’s Dorian Chase.
“If they’ve gotten to NullTrace, what if they now know who I am? What if they come for me as a loose end?”
