Exploited
Page 42

“Why are you calling me?” I demanded, not taking time for pleasantries. I didn’t ask how she had gotten my number because Rose Norris could find anyone if she wanted to.
“Wow, that was to the point, Han. No ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ Or ‘What have you been up to for the last decade?’ ” Rose asked blandly. Emotionless as always.
“If you wanted to engage in small talk, you would have called a long-ass time ago. Clearly you want something. Or at least want to tell me something. So get on with it.” I abandoned the search for an outfit and went to the kitchen, reaching for the bottle of wine in the cupboard. I was going to need alcohol to talk to Rose. Otherwise I’d end up screaming.
“We’ve never been good at small talk, have we?” she said, then laughed. It made me want to growl in frustration.
“Rose, I’m busy. I have things to do. Tell me what you want to tell me or I’m going to hang up.” We were way past being nice to each other. There was too much history. Too much baggage. She wasn’t the sort of person you put on pretenses with. She’d rip through them each and every time.
“Fine. If you’re going to be like that. There’s a lot of chatter about you lately. Lots of speculation. What’s going on?”
I didn’t need clarification as to what she was talking about. I understood her half sentences and vague questions. Once upon a time I had been fluent in Rose-speak. I guess I still was.
Talking to her brought up memories. Too many of them. And with them came the familiar anger.
After years of radio silence she dared to storm back into my life with too many questions. Too many demands.
I should freeze her out. It was what she deserved.
Yet I couldn’t hang up. Not yet.
Not until I knew why she was there, ready to bulldoze her way into my life after I had decidedly shut her out years ago.
“I don’t want to hear this, Rose,” I muttered, turning on the lights. Drinking wine in the dark was pathetic.
Drinking wine in the dark while talking to my ex-friend was just downright depressing.
“Hannah, listen to me. Someone mentioned you in a group chat today.”
I sighed. Of course. I should have known it had to do with rescuing me, even if I didn’t want it. Or need it. Rose had always liked to imagine herself as my protector. It had chafed then and it chafed now.
“Rose, lots of people talk about me in group chats. What else is new?” I said it without a hint of modesty. Because it was the truth. In the online community Freedom Overdrive was a legend. One I had cultivated carefully over the years.
Rose Norris was the only person in the world who could connect Hannah Whelan to Freedom Overdrive. After all, she was the one who had helped me craft the persona many years ago.
—
“How sad is it that in this day and age, people still fall for the chain-letter shit?” Rose muttered, watching me as I gained access to the hospital payment system.
I found Charlotte’s name and the outstanding balance my mother owed for her continued care. An amount that she would never, in a million years, be able to pay.
“People are stupid.” I frowned and changed the amount to zero.
“Yeah, but so is that,” Rose stated, pointing to the screen.
“What are you talking about?”
Rose had helped me cobble together an email to be blasted to everyone in the finance department of Stanley Graves General Hospital. It was a silly email saying that unless they clicked on the link, bad luck would befall them. Rose and I had giggled like children as we concocted fake anecdotes to convince the receivers that the bogus email was in fact true.
Rose had come up with Gene Taylor (our coding professor’s name), who hadn’t clicked the link and so he had lost his job, his wife left him, and his dog was run over by a Mack truck.
“Poor, poor Gene,” I had sung as she hit send on the email, which contained a piece of malware that, if clicked on, would allow us access to the system from within the hospital.
Most of the people we had sent it to had spammed it.
But it takes only one.
And that one was Candace Sykes. Hospital admin. Head of finance.
And complete moron.
“If you zero out the account, it will raise every red flag in the system. You can’t be obvious, Hannah,” Rose lectured.
“I thought this was to help my mom!” I exclaimed, getting frustrated.
Rose leaned over me and tapped a new number into the account balance. One that was significantly more manageable, but still too much, in my opinion.
“Mom shouldn’t be paying for this at all. Those assholes responsible should be picking up the tab,” I fumed.
“I agree. But getting yourself busted won’t help your mom. So stop being a hothead and think about things rationally.” Rose was calm. She was always calm.
I had gotten to know my roommate pretty well over the last few months. While I still thought she was a bit on the weird side, she was also incredibly smart. And incredibly generous with her knowledge. And not prone to extreme displays of emotion. I could learn a thing or two from her.
I took a deep breath and tried to settle down. “Okay, you’re right. I just wish there was something I could do. Some way to make them pay.”
I got up from Rose’s desk and went to flop down on my bed. The months since my dad and Charlotte’s accident had been a roller coaster. Charlotte was now living in a residential facility full-time. She required around-the-clock medical care, which wasn’t cheap. Dad’s life insurance money was going toward outstanding medical bills and Mom, now living on one income, was having to work a second job to make ends meet.
She was barely holding it together. And I was trying like hell to pick up the pieces. I had started working at a computer store in town and sending most of my paycheck home so that Mom had something extra. She argued that I should keep my money, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I promised her that I would help take care of Charlotte. And I meant it. Mom and I weren’t overly close, but we agreed on doing what was best for Charlotte.
I just needed to figure out how.
Shaving off a few bucks from her hospital bill wasn’t enough.
“Have you ever heard of the Lomaxians?” Rose asked suddenly.
“The Lomaxiwho?”
“The Lomaxians. They’re a hacktivist group that’s been around forever. They take down corrupt corporations and politicians. They blast leaked emails and top-clearance government information. They keep the people informed.”