Third-Self Thin

I'm where I was twelve hours ago, twelve hours before that, and hope to be in the twelve hours from now. What was the last thing I typed? What did I just read? Is it all in a buffer or cache? Did I back it up or send it to log? Answers to problems I'd love to forget about, for maybe at least a minute.

"Six-fifty."

I barely heard Doreen. I think I catch it on the rebound - I remember hearing it. Sometimes stuff comes across like that when I'm processing or day-dreaming, like deja vu, only punchier. Like tape-delay. Six-fifty. Fuck if I have that much in cash. But there's the tray on the counter with the upside-down cup and the sandwich in the red plastic boat. I've got six in bills plus coin squashed into my right hand by my side, the rest in cards in my pocket I don't want to use. I open my fingers in front of her so the ones blossom like week-old lettuce. I inhale and look up at her with upturned eyes without raising my head. She does the same and exhales for me. Slowly scooping up the cash in her left hand, she twists the tray on the counter around with her right. Atta' girl, Doreen.

I bet she thinks it's because of her that I come to the Southpark Mall Charlotte Food Court. That or the excellent mall food. But she's also probably thinking it's the 'discounts' I get, too. But it really is her I come here for. Monday through Thursday, ten-to-five. But I'm only here maybe once or twice a month and it's probably bad form to get to know her. This place I also enjoy being able to hide away in the corner away from all the damn heat and bugging-me people. Malls suck anyways, but Charlotte sucks more this time of year anymore. Humid, hot. OK, hazy, too. And it isn't even June yet. So I sit here in the corner under the AC vent with, what, a stale turkey-cheese thing and all the cold drink I can drink. Cola, Sprite, seltzer - whatever, it's all free with the cup. At least that's how I do it. And time. I got the whole rest of the day to get away from whatever the hell was yesterday and what's sure to be nagging me tomorrow.

I need to be seriously liquid. I got close to thirty-K from our work holed up in cards and accounts but thirty-ill-gotten-K won't last forever if and when I lose my legal job. Playing poor; maybe I'd last ten months with rent and loans and living. Computer job at RealTech keeps me, well, Real. It keeps me in the books and keeps me moving and for that I'm truly grateful.

Sandwich is sloppy but tasty. Lettuce is too long or big or whatever. It drags the dressing out of the wrap and all over the place. Such bullshit. If I was at home I'd just jam the whole thing in my mouth out of impatient disgust and get it over with - chew like a dog 'till my mouth gets tired of chewing. Not here, though. Gotta finesse it - try to just bite it free while I hang the pathetic mess over the little grease-splotched plastic basket.

From my bent over position, I see what I think is the back of Ben just through the door. At least I think it's him from the back. He can't see me from where I am. He's ridiculously poised and calm and tall but that's not really like him at all. Wears one of those Chinese imperial hair cuts - that pony-tail thing with everything else shaved off. He won't change that even though we got spooked the last skim. It was a richer haul than we were used to but there was a Trojan waiting at the clearing-house server. Turned out OK, I guess. We got the funds. We weren't caught. But protocol says we gotta change up our looks and third-selves. That means hair, typing patterns, give-away clothes. New names complete the package. So Ben's probably not 'Ben' anymore. And who the hell am I now? Oh, yeah. 'Jim'. I'm 'Jim'. Yeah, names matter even in places like this since the People's Identity Protection Act now allows search of publicly-made audio and video records.

He turns, so slowly. His whole body turns when all he has to do is turn like his head and shoulders. His eyes don't move much, either. I'm still bent over, soaking sandwich in hand. Ben finally sees me - at least the squint makes me think so. I freeze as Ben narrows his eyes, sorta looking at me. Oh yeah, the hair. I dyed mine blond last month. I did it myself so it looks like shit. But it looks kinda like me, though, so he squints.

Moving in closer he mouths 'Thom'? I just smirk. What an idiot you would be if I'm not. And since I am you still look like an asshole for asking.

"Yeah, Ben."

"Jim."

"What?"

"I'm 'Jim'."

"What? Wait, I'm 'Jim', Ben."

I put down the turkey sandwich basket thing and roll the side of my hand on the edge to scrape of the oil dressing.

"Fuck. 'Jim'? Well, we both can't be 'Jim'."

"Fuck, no."

"Do we really gotta do that, Thom?"

"Fuck, no."

"Fuck. OK, then."

I reach out my clean left hand to Ben and we backwards shake, left hand to right. A meet like this is rare. I'm in Charlotte pretty often. Not so much for Ben. But we have to swap some goods, talk about upcoming deals and, well, about the fourth. Ben then slides an overloaded, massively wrinkled envelop to me on the red-plastic tabletop.

"Clean cards. Twenty-five and fifty a pop."

"Cool. I'm down to my last, well, sandwich here." I point at it and I swear the damn thing is actually melting. How much liquid can come out of a turkey sandwich?

"Looks like I'm just in time then, Jim. Where to next?" Ben glances to his right then his left. His eyes keep shifting slightly even after his head has stopped moving.

"Yeah, Jim. Swing by Philly then back home. I've got a couple of servers to set up. Done in a few days. You?"

One look at that pack of cash cards and I know I can get some decent food for a little while. I've had it with this lump. I drop it and grab the wadded up napkins around me and squeegee the grease from my fingers.

"I'm headed north, too."

"Home again, Thom?"

I lean in, grab the salt with my left hand and tap away at the table a little with the shaker. Scatter noise to mask conversation.

"Yeah. But while we're here, are we...um...still on to meet the a...the fourth?"

"Yeah. A few minutes. Oughta' be here by now."

Ben twists his whole body to his right to check out the clock. I've known Ben since school. We did some gentle hacks back then and realized not only that we were good, but that we were on to a better way to steal money online. Ben set up this posse thing a couple of years ago. Four hackers living in four different places in the country. All have travel jobs, all have a big, diverse net presence. We use computers all over the country, public and private. One of us sources accounts to skim. Another figures out the hack and collection. A third executes and the fourth retrieves and cleans the trail. That process may take place over a month and cover over two-dozen legal and fake accounts from all over the Internet. We make it look casual – like normal activity from what looks like many individuals. Tracking this by just looking at logs on a hacked server is next to impossible, even for the Feds. At least so far. And we continue to hope so.

So rule is we never actually talk or chat online. We leave each other messages or drafts on shared accounts. We put notes in blogs. We chat by changing personal info in IM apps. We know each other's phrasing and word style and and stick to the plan for the job. Ben, Kar, me - we're the core. Fourth has been hard to find so we haven't had one yet. Makes me wonder why we need one. But Ben found this 'Crey' and wants to bring her on. Name came up a few times in chats. Nothing on a search, nothing hard about this person. That's good. Kar and Ben have had some email drafts with her, though. Today Ben, me and Crey meet then Crey will play cleanup. Ben of course has a whole protocol for this. Planning; that's Ben. Kar is an accounts specialist. Me, I'm hard code and hardware by nature right now playing both collector and clean-up. We are now at the risk-a-real-person-meeting step mostly because we want to thin out my time online. Ben and I have done a meet like this before. That's how found Kar. My job - just shut up and listen and make sure everything seems OK.

Almost on cue walks a geeked femme, about twenty. Pack, sleek case probably with a netbook or pad in hand, looking like she doesn't really know anyone. That's good. Looks like a hacker. Head stops at us - she must have recognized Ben. She walks slowly towards us. I duck my head a little to the right.

"Uh, Jim?"

"Yes."

"Yup."

Her face gets all wrinkly when we both answer. Ben raises his left index finger.

"Ahh, that would be me...Crey?"

"Yeah. Umm...OK."

Crey glances a couple of times towards me with darting eyes as she reaches for the thin aluminum chair between Ben and I.

"Ahh...we're both 'Jim'. Long story. Have a seat, ah...Crey."

Head still hurts. I'm still hungry. I tune out alot of what is going on until I hear something about MAC addresses.

"So, Crey, why not ARP-spoofing? I mean, cafes use it with head-ends so joes can net out and browse..."

"...but that sometimes can be checked by finding the spoof request on backtrace."

She has a little smile on that little round face. Right. Yeah. Good point, Crey.

"So what would you suggest besides forwarding?"

"I would use spoofing before I jacked in, or..."

Crey's eyes roll to the sky. Ben once again raises his left hand, pointer finger extended.

"maybe..."

Crey looks a little lost. A little blank. Just like Ben sometimes. But boy, is Ben focused on her. He looks like he's conducting with that finger.

"maybe...ha"

"maybe hardware...Jim. Hardware hacking, you know, when you replace the...ethernet hardware with a card with a different MAC address."

She's like all tensed - sounds like she's auditioning or something. Christ, Ben. I'm toxic here. I roll my head to the right and spill out of my chair towards a free table. Stomach's a little tight. On my feet I snag some napkins from a big red upright dispenser and blow my nose. Thank God. Think I'll do that a few more times. Bathroom and back, I can see Ben alone again at the table, Crey exiting stage right.

"You OK, Jim?"

"Yeah. You OK, Jim?"

"Hell yes."

Ben shakes his head so his pony-tail thing fwaps the sides of his head. Then he goes blank, staring at the wall or something behind me. He does that. He looks all dead or tranced then begins talking and making you think he's undead. Brain-tasking or something. Maybe ADD or the skids.

"She said she had an angle on bank transfers. I don't know, man. Do we wanna work bank transfers? I mean, PIPA is pretty sophisticated these days. That 2015 court thing said they could put up taps on live federal transfers."

"So, we stay away from live federal transfers, B...Jim."

I glance down at the boat and melted sandwich.

"She OK, Jim?"

"Yeah. Sound OK to you?"

"Guess. Seemed to know her shit."

"Maybe she'll follow up on your transfer later. I'll draft her the specifics."

Ben then gets a call - that screechy riff-rap thing everybody samples. He takes it, because he's not supposed to be alone; not supposed to be here with me, Kar, Crey or anyone. 'Missed calls' show up on logs and make people ask 'why'. Very circumstantial. Ben is really OK. Small-time fence and cracker. Good at skimming IDs from mainly central computers, but in subsidiary offices. Never the corporate headquarters. He worked like I did - grabbing pennies from lots of little accounts and give 'em to some Joe who's ID we borrow. Then maybe buy stuff with the planted credits and ship to a variety of accounts or cards for pickup.

As the moments pass in our little reunion my head begins to pound again. A woman in a couple at another table just talks too loud. Her laugh twinges something odd inside my head, so I have to leave. I snag the fat envelop of plastic joy and give a quick nod to my compadre. I eye that cackling happy bitch on the way out but I don't think she saw me, or cares.

One more night in 'The Davenport'. I'll leave as soon as I'm through. Flight at nine. I jack the WIFI from next-door - 'Ted's Most Excellent Network'. Three users doing what looks like web and chat traffic. My back to a window overlooking a brick wall, I'm lounged in the middle of a sadly weak and formless half-sofa. Workbook out of sleep, I open up my card-hack routine and change the MAC address to one I skimmed here the last time. Doubt that person is here now, anyways. They were checking yahoo mail at the time so I will have to use one of my yahoo accounts. Cross over to Messenger and checked cached chat messages. There, there it is:

"Have to visit Aunt Cici soon. Care for that Mall info?".

Hmm, something at CitiBank. Kar stored the account info at the SkyMall account. Sash-grab the skim. I'll have to transfer it to some anonymous joe's account for pickup. I wipe the incoming message and leave one of my own so they know what I'm doing:

"Time to go to Cici. Mall's fine. Leaving the car at Joe's. Pick it up later.".

I'd prefer to steal from corps or rich-ass billionaires but both have accountants crawling all over accounts looking for every spare cent. So joes it is. We make it look, OK, I make it look like someone added something wrong or fat-fingered a transaction. Most people don't even look their bill. We scope joes who don't have a lot of reversals. We masquerade as inflated charges or extra fees. Feds won't see you if you hide in small-time accounts.

Hack done, I wait a little online. All night I'm up, it seems, in my little hotel room. Eight bucks or so transferred. looks good. I put that terminal screen in the background and leave for a few minutes. When I return - beeping. A zip-mail - a one-line message from a sendmail bounced off a closed mail server. Bogus IP routes the bounce back to me. Looks like spam. Headers say...looks like from Kar. I can log off - the accounts from her side looks clear. Slick chick, she is. It's "Kar" like in "care", but with a "K" like in "Kill". Met her twice. Her thing is accounts and scripting code to divert funds and interested eyes. That kind of shit needs both a keen mind and slow thinking. She's not technic but quick, though. Hot tech fingers blaze through righteous code.

A look at the time and indeed I should log off. Never, NEVER stay in with the same IP and NIC number for longer than, say, forty minutes if your interacting. Home system grabbing a movie - fine. Phone logged into MSN, online and not active - cool. But sending asynchronous bits back and forth for a long while raises eyebrows, we think. If you're legit - fine. If they're turned on to you, Feds can check logs and retrieve the crypts and sigs. That typing-style thing? PIPA allows Feds to monitor public netspace and install code into CPUs. One thing we all suspect is tracking keyboard activity. Not every keystroke but the pattern of typing. I and others don't know if this is actually true but there really is an encrypted string and buffering signature bits transported in the IP stack every forty minutes or so from anything with an IP. We can't decipher them, but like crypted passwords we can grab and copy them. They change all the time but presumably Mister Fed knows who is using what when.

I do the room review through the TV, cash out and head to catch my nine PM to Newark. In the terminal and on the plane I don't go online. I don't need to right now. Let it all sit. Read Sky Mall, play Halo. I don't know - talk to whosever next to me.

I leave Newark's outgoing security center and blow a little cash on a cab. It's like two AM but I'm beat so z's would be a relief. Back to my little shithole where I can gulp food and sleep on the couch. Saturday off. Just then the phone goes off. One, two...sounds like a lot of messages - texts and emails. I finger it to silence in my pocket. After a few more vibes I know something is up. I ask the cabbie to pull over to Starbucks. I can Boingo the WIFI under an anonymous account.

Eight-fifty lighter for coffee and some cake thing in a Starbucks on East Street at, what...twelve-thirty? Messages from Ben and Kar and...deposit accounts? This soon? My face close to my screen. The totals are way too...should have been one-percent of, what, $8,614.78? Eight-sixty or something. It's pulled in...$524.15 split across forty-some accounts? Joe's account is now...fifty-large? From eight to fifty in a night? It's like its a linked account - overdraft or something. Or a hide? Oh shit! What's going on? Wait a minute - what did Kar tap into? She said...

"You OK, man?"

"Wha...?"

I look up from my looking down. It's the coffee guy in that green smock with all the caffeine stains. I slowly let my eyes drift to the thin wire out the back of my computer up to the back of the wireless router. Does he even know...

"You, like, need food or something? We're closing down the grill in ten."

I kick back and wave my right hand a little away from my keyboard.

"No man, I'm OK. I'm cool. Do you do refills?"

"What, on like your coffee?"

"Yeah."

"Well, it's like half-price. Do you want one?"

"What, a refill? Nah. I'm OK."

The kid shrugs and turns to his right to a sorry mess of paper and old cold coffee on the table next door. Yeech! First he picks up the paper cups and walks them to the trash. Back again for the forks and plates that go in the bin at the end of the counter. Our hero returns a third time with his wet towel. One wipe and its all hygienic for the next customer.

I look at my blinking cursor wishing I knew what kind of mess is before me. I start with who or how this happened. We've never been caught like this. WE'VE never been caught like this. I think we're OK now but I wonder if I should just close up now. But we do clean work, this crew...except Crey - I mean, who is she? But then why the fuck would she join us and burn us the same night? Unless she fucked up? But Ben isn't likely to fuck up on a novice. So what's going on? Oh shit. I dunno.

I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm over-caffeinated...

Have to think clearly. Calm down. Messages from Ben and Kar. Wait a minute...if there's something weird with Crey maybe I shouldn't go o Ben – not yet. Kar doesn't know Crey. I can trust her. Risk talking, texting, IMing - whatever. OK, OK. Um...

BBMGlobal is about as public as it gets. Not popular for us but has gobs of traffic. Heavily watched but then one can hide in that crowd.

"If you Care, did Joe's email make sense???"

I sit. I sit and wait. I sit and wait in that cruddy little java bar in Newark in the middle of the night contemplating a half-price caffeine fix while waiting on a live line to my partner in crime. Christ. Come on, Kar. I know you sleep with your Motorola under your head. I know that IF you got all the automails that I got you wouldn't even DREAM of sleeping at a time like this.

Kar, come on.

Blank screen, still. I nudge again. Nothing. Then...an invite to Yahoo over the legit java-bar wireless.

"I care. Joe upset me."

Bright gal. I only got, what, two more messages to send over BB before someone might figure out we're talking over two IMs.

"Is Craving killing us?? I never Been there before."

"Been there done that? Don't know. Head home u. I'm At Lanta. No call"

"Home, then."

I shut down both connections and close up for my trip. Shit. I told her I suspect Crey. She thinks its Ben. A Real-life meet. Wants to meet at my home-away-from-home. Charlotte. Anyone listening in wouldn't know that. She's in Atlanta, no shit, and she's gonna meet me in Charlotte. No calls. Christ, back to the airport. Shit, I hope all this back-tracking won't interest anyone. And on a Friday night, yet!

Since I'm so close to home I hit it for the quickest of micro-showers, fresh clothes and a three-day of meds and supplements. Cab to Newark Liberty with the rest of my cash and hopefully onto the four-ten. This is the life to which I am so well adapted. Basics are netbook, phone and chargers. I always travel with two or three-days worth of clothes and the overnight fixings. Meds, checkbook and cash, too. I'm always wearing a lightweight multi-pocket jacket, full shoes, comfy pocketed pants and a tee and loose shirt. Gear includes cable bag with cables and every connector-converter known to man, extra mem sticks, extra USB NICs and extra batteries. I have a mini-hub, headset and Belkin MicroRouter 450. My computer is the guts of a Donovan 250 UltraLite 6" netbook moved into a Donovan 500 9" case with room for my hardware modifications. Phone is a standard C-Berry Cross-Call on the Amazon backbone and unlimited services. When traveling, everything goes into the pack - a one-sling Ogio with waterproof lining, cut-proof kevlar-ceranimide fabric shell and stowable steel-cable tether.

Free-roaming like I am, cafes are workstations. Restaurant bathrooms are showers. Stalls are changing rooms. A corner sofa in a cafe; a nap-bed. I don't really sleep times like this when I have to be wildly mobile. Hotel rooms are optional but sometimes necessary. WIFIs everywhere but power isn't so available rent-outlets are a valuable find. Food is everywhere so that's not a problem but sometimes plastic and gift cards aren't accepted by the one-off food joint that offers anonymity so I'm always looking for a ATMs. Shit, there's a flow to staying connected to things, especially if you're constantly moving. Phone IS everything, but the browser and screen sucks and it can't crunch or compile code. If I'm on the computer sometimes I re-route the phone's IMs and mail to it if I need to process files or attachments. When it's time to go, sometimes I suspend or hibernate depending on things like power, WIFI and how long I gotta be offline.

Yes, I know we all need that rich, full real life with friends and meaning, but e-world is here to stay. It's the bad part of town we all gotta live in. I'm no data-junkie hard on the skids; eyes and hands fixed to feeds, short-focused and unable to deep-process. I need to work. Most just develop that filtered, back-brain version of themselves that blogs political sentiments and peep-holes the human condition. People like me who actually live off e-world need a third pretense. We're operatives. Vague. Thin. Untraceable. Being a careful fellow means I don't like runs like this online without some forwarding intel. But I gotta ninja the bits we flipped and uncross log-trails in this cato-strastic disaster el-rapido because someone will notice us soon. I'm online for my life. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It's all on the line for us. Online for us. Third-self thin.

I hop to Charlotte under a card I only use for just such emergencies listed under my middle name. I clean up in the dented brushed-metal toilets in Charlotte-Douglass and get to the Southpark Mall on bus by ten AM. Coffee, again, what else, what looks like an actual baked, people-made muffin and a free electric outlet. Kar didn't say when she'd be here so I dig in for the long haul.

The skim should have only lasted twelve hours. It then send reports to four one-time use email accounts. We set them up so they first bounce a few times through accounts owned by some Joes we hacked. The script is still looping, still pulling off funds so we're still gonna get messages for a little while, a trail I don't like. I see my options, our options, slipping away. I don't know what happened, or even if someone is on our trail, yet. I look over my transcripts. No problems. Kar never fucks up. Ben already did his work. So did Crey blow our escape? I haven't answered ANY email from Ben and Kar, but there's nothing queued up from Crey. So odd.

Once an hour I get up and move from to another table. After a little, I sit outside the Food Court watching the entrance then walk in again and settle somewhere else for another hour. I eat more casual, not-really meals. Shit, it's four. After four. The dinner crowd will be here soon. The food joints are all changing shifts. Before me is a little oblong block of lemon cake more oil than lemon. I carefully lift its waxy-stiff wrapper over a blessedly-close barrel-mouthed garbage can. Sayonara, shitty bread thing.

I couldn't have missed Kar. I hope she's coming today and not tonight. I have to long-focus - look at the door, the people. I'm staring at screens too too much today. Who we have? The zombie in the too-big shoes with the laces dragging all over. Some whipped customer. A senior in a paper hat probably stretching social security. A gal with bags - lots of bags. Kid. Kid.

Geeky femme with the pack...

Crey? That's...cant' be. Crey? What the...? Oh shit! Doesn't look like the gal...not dressed like she was...She saw me! I duck to right, shoulder under the table tipping over the half-cup of stale, cool coffee onto my right arm. The table shakes when my ass catches the corner from underneath. In maybe thirty seconds I hear a voice close by.

"Jim?"

"Shit." I move my head nearer the grimy bumpy center post of the little square Food Court table. I say nothing. I shut up.

"Jim? That IS you, isn't it? Jim?"

I press my left temple against the grease-crusted steal upright tube. I feel my hair stick to it a little. From three-quarters upside down I see Geeky girl's Sketchered feet at two-o'clock and her even, thin legs running past seven-o'clock to above the table. Crey. I know the voice.

"Yeah?" I make my way to a normal seated position, arm streaked in clammy coffee, little tiny bumps of embarrassment along the back of my head.

"Thought I could find you here. Are you OK, Jim?" Crey has pulled a long stray braid back behind her ear.

"Um, I know I'm not supposed to talk to you, but I wanted to say 'Hi'. Have you seen Jim...the OTHER Jim"?