“This looks more promising.” I pull up a thread about remotely deleting videos. The poster is confused about so many things that I read it through three times before deciding it’s legitimate. “Sounds like they want their image scrubbed from CCTV.”
“More like they want someone to erase their Pam and Tommy tape.”
I lift my eyebrow, checking her expression from the corner of my eye. “That’s a blast from the past. How d’you know about that?”
She mugs back at me. “Little thing called TV. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.”
“Yeah. You know, back in my day, we didn’t have Netflix or Hulu or Disney. You had to steal your telly under cover of darkness or wait three years for shows to make it onto free-to-air TV.”
“Back in my day, we had to crank up the generator to get the power to even have a television running,” Leonard chimes in, waggling his eyebrows until Sierra doubles over with laughter. “Kids today, you don’t know how good you’ve got it.”
I turn back to the request. Someone’s jumped on it already, spying a rube. Several someone’s in fact. But that shouldn’t stop Sierra giving it a go. I feel like a proud papa giving her pointers on how to turn her hobby into a money-spinning enterprise.
“The best way to bait your hook is to communicate using their same phrasing and stuff.”
“And stuff?” Sierra shifts around, shaking out her limbs, and I realise we’ve been camped in the den for a few hours. “With that level of precision, how could I go wrong?”
“I’m into computers not linguistics.” I point at the screen. “Like here. Where she’s calling it a tape instead of a recording, even though these days it’s probably been captured on a mobile phone. She’s on apps all the time, judging from her abbreviations.”
“And how d’you know she’s female?”
“Because nobody’s taking secretive footage of teenage boys.”
“It doesn’t say they’re nude or anything.”
“It does if you read it right. She’s young, too, you can get that from her phrasing and maybe…” My words trail off as I track the atrocious spelling. Some words aren’t just the usual misplaced-finger typos, they’re deeper errors. Learning difficulty type errors.
I tab into the source code and read the entries, getting the location. It’s local. Within the McKenzie High zoning.
“What is it?” Sierra asks, peering over my shoulder.
“I think I know this…” There’s a code from the device used and I pull out my phone, searching through back entries, a cautious optimism growing inside me. I’ve been acting as Zach’s personal tech guru for so long that it’s second nature to me to grab his device registrations. The identification code matches to one he bought six months ago.
It’s Em.
“Not this one,” I tell Sierra, trying to keep my voice clean of emotion. “Here’s another one to try.”
“Why not that one?”
I shrug. “There’s something wrong with it,” I lie. “Sometimes you’ll get folks hanging around on here for nefarious purposes. This is probably fine, but I’ve just got a feeling. How about this one? You can set up this prank, yeah?”
She stares at me for a moment longer, her expression troubled, then reads through the new entry. “Sure.” It’s a request to hack into a social media account and upload photographs that have obviously been doctored. “That seems easy enough.”
Leonard soon makes noises to indicate I’m overstaying my welcome. I exchange half a dozen different contacts with Sierra, and we make tentative plans to meet when she’s got the new equipment set up and running.
“Thanks for doing this,” Zach says as he walks me to my car. “Lilac mightn’t show it, but she really appreciates it, too.”
“How’s the application going?” Sierra’s only been in their custody for a few weeks. A review was mandated by the courts and chances are if they survive that one, another will soon follow.
“Dad’s taking care of it.”
It’s impossible to tell from Zach’s expression if that’s legitimate or underhanded. Knowing his dad, it could be either.
I hesitate, weighing up the likely damage if I ask questions, then dismiss the answer because the other option isn’t tenable. “Did you ever take videos of Em?”
My voice is as casual as I can make it, but I know from his reaction I missed the mark.
“No but even If I did, you’re not getting your hands on it. I’ve learned my lesson.” He pauses for so long I’m about to go, then speaks again. “I won’t interfere with what you’re doing but you should know, Em’s more vulnerable than you think.”
