Chapter Three #2
We hike down a cement ramp to the doors.
The building is elegant, with a huge herringbone-patterned glass facade.
I keep sight of him as he moves into a vast hangar taken over by lush greenery.
Huge plants—soaring palms, thick rubber trees—fill the middle.
A sign indicates a pond with turtles is ahead. It’s like a cavernous greenhouse.
“What is this?” We’re on a walkway between beds of tropical foliage.
Dane looks around like he’s searching for someone or something. “Atocha Station. We’re catching a train to Barcelona.”
“Wait.” I stop. Alarm bells go off in my head. “I don’t know you.”
He stops and gives me a frown, like this doesn’t bother him.
“You know what they say about you, right?” I ask.
Dane purses his lips. “I don’t.”
“According to Eric, you cheat and steal research. And you’re not an academic.”
He sighs impatiently. “We have established that Howland is an asshole.”
“Yes, he’s jealous and petty because you cut him off in a coffee line once or whatever.
But you can see where I might be cautious.
We just met, and suddenly you’re asking me to jump on a train to Barcelona with you.
Telling me, in fact, when I made it clear I wasn’t going to be told by you to do anything. ”
Another sigh, this time with drama. He plants his hands on his hips. “Howland hates me because I tossed his paper out of a session for lacking citations for his claims, and he’s never forgotten it. Look, we can’t stand here. Can we please discuss this on the train? See, I’m asking.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “I just got rid of one slimeball, and I’m not holding auditions for anyone to take his place.”
He gives a third sigh, this time with a beseeching look to the heavens, but I’m pretty sure he knows it’s silly, because there’s a hint of a smile on his lips. “I’ll give you my non-slimeball résumé on the train. I promise.”
“That’s what a slimeball would say.” I hope he catches the seriousness in my tone. I’m not sure I can do the challenge myself, but I’m not sure I need him either.
“Look at it this way,” he says. “I’m not perfect by any means, but there is no way I’d ever speak to a woman the way Eric Howland spoke to you back there.”
I don’t know Dane Seaver. He could say anything. And yet, I believe him.
“Zoe,” he says. “Please. We can’t stay here. Someone will be after us, and soon.”
I stare at him for a long moment. To his credit, he fidgets only once. The only evidence I have of his character is the way he stepped in with Eric and the way he shoved that guy trying to take my guidebook.
Which are probably decent examples.
I think about what it would take to do this challenge myself. I’ve solved the first puzzle, and I have the guidebook. “What do you know about the Enigma Challenge? Who runs it?”
Dane shifts his weight impatiently. “We think it’s a cybercrime group—”
“Oh, fabulous.”
“—but given the nature of how they operate, it’s hard to say who they really are. They call themselves ProtoDark—”
“ProtoDark?” I repeat, incredulous. “Are you sure it’s a hacker group and not a deep-house DJ?”
“Sometimes they spell it with an at sign in place of the a.” A faint hint of amusement lights his eyes.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter.
“As far as I know, what they do ranges from corporate espionage with ransomware to affecting political control. Hacking for hire. Selling information on the dark web. Your usual black hat stuff. The going theory is that they run this challenge to find people with special skill sets that can be an asset.”
The idea of playing a game run by cybercriminals is concerning at best and downright scary at worst. Yes, I could use the prize money and I want to solve the puzzles, but how the hell am I going to compete in a game run by international thugs?
“And this challenge,” he continues, “is highly competitive. Anyone can enter—and many do—but there’s only one person who can kick it off, and that appears to be you. It was a difficult puzzle, by the way.”
“It was a simple substitution cipher.” The satisfaction at how fast I solved it is diminished now that I know who created it. “I—I want to think about this game first. I’m not sure I want to play, if it’s run by these ProtoDark people.”
Dane shakes his head, and there’s something final about it that makes my stomach drop. “If you drop out of the game, you lose. And losing means being deleted.”
“Define deleted,” I say, although I worry now that it’s not just being removed from the game’s roster.
He looks grim, and my unease increases. “If you lose, the people running this will erase your identity. As much of you as possible is stolen or wiped. Bank accounts. Social security number. Credit lines.”
My mouth drops open. “But…surely you can sort it out with your passport and birth certificates.”
“It isn’t just that. Imagine how much hassle it is to try to convince every agency, every bank, every institution, especially with no resources after your bank accounts have been wiped.
And that’s just the beginning. What’s left of you gets corrupted.
Tax fraud, loans, property takeover. Your name suddenly appears on sex offender and no-fly lists.
A corrupted identity is difficult to contest. Yeah, you can fight it, but credit-reporting agencies often don’t believe you.
Some people never recover from a loss like that.
” Dane glances beyond us like he’s impatient to move beyond the walkway.
I stare at the foliage, trying to make sense of the enormity of what I’ve walked into. Being deleted would destroy me. All my research. My degrees. They’re all I have. I’ve worked so hard, and nothing came easy after my parents died.
“Why would anyone want to play a game with those kinds of risks? Why doesn’t the conference put a stop to it? Why didn’t it have a list of the risks clearly posted somewhere?”
He shrugs. “The conference doesn’t run it, and they can’t stop it. ProtoDark isn’t concerned about being legal. People play because the prize is so huge. Can we get to the train, now?”
I shake my head. “I don’t want this.”
He sighs, and while I know he’s impatient to go, it’s a sigh of resignation.
“There’s a woman named Britney Collins. She’s a mathematics professor at Georgetown, or was.
She’s good at programming puzzles. She entered the last challenge and lost. She lost everything. Google her. You won’t find a trace.”
I pull out my phone and have the browser up, ready to type her name, when I pause. “You could have made her up just now, and that’s why she has no online footprint.”
He shakes his head. “There’s an article about her story.”
He’s right: There’s a link to a Washington Post article about Georgetown letting go one of their esteemed professors, Britney Collins, because they could find no record of her credentials after someone raised the alarm.
“Miss Collins falsified her degrees and credentials in order to join the faculty,” said Dr. Amit Singh, Department Chair of Mathematics at Georgetown.
“We’ve found no record whatsoever of her attending a university or obtaining degrees.
As a result, she’s been removed from our faculty and is no longer welcome on campus. ”
Miss Collins denied the allegations. “My students and professors can attest to my enrollment and completion of my PhD program. My colleagues know I’ve been teaching at Georgetown for seven years. A cybercriminal group did this to me.”
A shiver of cold presses down my spine.
“Get on the train and I’ll tell you everything else about the game,” Dane says. “I guarantee you that other players are headed to Barcelona right now since that guidebook is the answer to the first puzzle. And as a bonus, partnering with me will really piss Howland off.”
There’s no denying that other players are probably figuring out the guidebook thing. I sigh and say, “You will tell me absolutely everything.”
In answer, Dane grins. And then he takes off.