“I’m not allowed to do so with newcomers in the apartment.”
“Right. Give me a sec,” I tell Oli.
There’s a manual input screen in Lex’s office, and I should be able to override Iris’s security protocol. It takes me a few minutes to add Oli to the list of trusted visitors, and when I ask again upon coming back, the hidden door opens.
“Okay, now my mind is fully blown,” Oliver says as the secret room reveals itself.
“Wait until you see the setup.”
I step in first, which triggers the automatic lights, and when Oli joins me, I say, “Welcome to the Lex cave.”
“This is insane… Lex doesn’t do things halfway, does he?”
“Never, no. Should we get into it?”
“Yeah, sure,” he agrees, still gawking at the private server and the desktop arrangement.
Once we’ve rolled the desk chair from Lex’s office to the secret room, we start, both seated side by side. We go through hundreds of scripts, data, software, and entries, figuring out what we’re working with. Since I’m completely oblivious to the world of hacking and what most of it means, Oli gives me some guidance, explaining to me the workings, what some of the code does, how firewalls and heavy security can be broken through… Every time he discovers one of Lex’s clever hacks, he explains its purpose to me, and the deep respect and admiration in his voice are impossible to miss. By the end of our exploration, I already know infinitely more than I did before, a lot of it somewhat making sense now.
After nearly three hours of this, we both need a break. This amount of information is overwhelming to take in, but exhilarating. With everything on Lex’s computer and Oli’s help, I’m pretty sure we can do it in the four months we have until the trial. The question is: how much faster than that can we manage? The sooner Lex is out, the better.
“So?” I ask Oli as I take out a few things from the fridge for us to make ourselves sandwiches.
“It’s—Wow… I knew Lex was a genius, but some of it is just… beyond.”
“Do you think we have enough to pass as Nammota?”
“I’d say yes if it were five, eight years ago. But Lex hasn’t been active as Nammota for so long that most of his work is slightly, if not completely, obsolete. Banks, the government, companies… Cybersecurity is constantly evolving, getting better, harder to break through. What we have is a good start, but it’ll still require a massive amount of work to make it all happen in the end.”
“I’m a quick learner, and you know how good I am at programming. Do you think we can pull it off?”
“We won’t know if we don’t try, will we?”
That’s the spirit…“What do we do first?”
“First, we create your alias. You’ll need a hacking identity if you want to navigate the dark web and find whatever you might need there.”
“What’s yours?”
“The Red Knight.”
“That suits you very well,” I tease. “Can I be… Frexx? With two ‘Xs?’”
“That was fast. What’s it for?”
“Freckles. Lex calls me that, but no one really knows, so it shouldn’t be a problem?”
“No, it’s perfect. And it’s androgynous. Frexx could be literally anyone.”
I nod, happy he approves of my choice. “Okay, what now?”
“Well, for now, we eat. And then, my young Padawan, your teachings begin.”
“Let’s fucking go, then,” I enthusiastically let out.
My eyes are firmly planted on the prize at the finish line. This is a race I intend to win. No matter the cost.
On Monday, after a busy weekend and a night in Lex-scented sheets, I find a psychiatrist who can see me during lunch break. I considered calling Shelly, but I refuse to involve anyone else in this enterprise. Dragging Oli into it was already too much.
