Double Digit Read online

  Tiki got back the next day right as my family was leaving for the airport. My mom threw her arms around her. “Darling, how is your great-grandmother?”

  “She’s a goner.” Tiki looked around and laughed. “No, sorry, not dead. But she’s gonna be. She’s ninety-eight, and everything’s starting to go, so I’m pretty sure she’ll be done this week.”

  Danny gasped. “Done? Like a turkey?”

  “Sorry, I know it sounds crass, but we’ve got a lot of people on this planet. She’s been here almost ninety-nine years and has done a lot of great stuff. But I mean, let’s keep this system moving, you know? Out with the old, in with the new.” She started unpacking and talking about how much better the weather was in Virginia until my family left.

  “Tiki, are you okay?”

  “I am. I mean, honestly, I love my great-grandmother, but she can’t go on like that with a machine breathing for her. I really hope she goes soon.”

  “I read that ventilators can keep a person alive as long as their . . .” She wasn’t listening to me at all. “Is there something else?”

  She plopped down on her bed, crossing her impossibly long legs beneath her. “It’s Howard. I’m probably just being stupid, but I feel like there’s something going on with him. I can just feel it, you know?”

  Yes, I know, feel it. Please. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, like last night I called him six times and he never picked up. You know how that guy always has his phone at the ready. So this morning he said, ‘Yeah, sorry, babe. I went to bed early.’ He never goes to bed early. Ever.”

  This was hardly a smoking gun, but I was starting to feel more and more relieved. She went on: “And then I called him on my way back from the airport to see if he wanted me to stop by, and he said, ‘No, sorry, babe. I’m turning in early.’ What the hell, right?”

  Anyone without the information that I so unfortunately had would have suggested that maybe he was sick. I decided to feed the beast. “That is weird. What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t imagine he’s . . . I mean, he wouldn’t . . . Let’s check Facebook.” She pulled out her laptop and started banging away.

  “Tiki, if he’s doing something he doesn’t want you to know about, he’s not going to post about it.” Duh.

  “But someone else might have. I just need to see what was happening on campus last night. Someone’s got to have a photo.” It didn’t take long for her to find a photo of Howard dancing with that blond girl at Simmons Hall.

  “Oh,” I offered, sympathetically.

  “It’s not enough.” Tiki was up and pulling at her hair, adjusting the spikes like she was trying to secure a clearer connection to the universe. “I’m not going to go down as the crazy high school girlfriend who overreacted to a photo on freakin’ Facebook. I need proof. I need an eyewitness.”

  Actual real-life eyewitness said, “But there is no eyewitness.”

  We went back and forth like this for a long time before Tiki decided we needed to hack into his Facebook account and read his private messages. “Let’s try the obvi passwords. It used to be Tiki and my birthday. No? Okay, try Tiki is a ten, all one word. No? His dog’s name is Snoopy?” We exhausted everything we could think of—including the name of the girl in the photo.

  “You could just ask him.”

  “I can’t. I don’t want to get into a whole big thing and come out of it seeming crazy because he’s just denying it. He has a way of turning everything around and making me seem like I’m paranoid. I’ll end up apologizing to his cheating ass. This has happened before.”

  I kept trying logical passwords, then adding numbers to the end. It could take a century to crack a code this way, but I was getting hypnotized by it. Snoopy124, Snoopy125. Tiki may have read my mind. “Before you slip into the Digit Zone, why don’t we download one of those brute force programs that go through every possible iteration to crack a password? It can run while we sleep.”

  Scott had showed me one of these programs on that first night in the dorm. They were pretty simple; they just tried various combinations of letters and numbers in an orderly way. Eventually the code would be cracked. They were written in any one of the coding languages I’d been learning in my computer science class: C, LISP, Perl, Java. They were really beautiful languages, some better than others, but they were all like paints that you could use to either create a big red circle or the Mona Lisa. The power was in the mind of the programmer. I’ll admit it: The idea of just pressing Go to run one of these programs left me a little flat. It’s like painting by numbers or making a cake from a box. What’s the point?

  “We could get into a lot of trouble if someone caught us buying one of those programs. How would we explain it? If you’d just give me a little while, I can write one. We’ll run it, get the password, and I’ll erase it. The perfect crime.”

  “You’re going to write a program? Because I’m suspicious of my boyfriend?”

  “No. Of course not.” I could hear how stupid I sounded. “You should probably just talk to him.” I got under my covers and felt a little relieved. I mean, I’m not a hacker, and there’s no reason for me to learn to be one. Just so that I could prove that Tiki’s boyfriend was a scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag1, Scumbag2, Scumbag3. Okay, I had to write that program.

  I opened my laptop in the dark and got to work. I didn’t know exactly what I was doing, of course. I just wrote a little code, ran it, tinkered with it, and started again. And I was done at eight a.m. It wasn’t what they’d call an elegant program, but I’d go back and fix that. Probably before lunch. But it ran, and within twenty minutes, we had his password: Luckydevil. Not for long.

  About a week later, after Tiki had found a ton of flirty messages in Howard’s inbox and dumped him without an apology, I was still writing code. I had my laptop with me everywhere, massaging my program to make it run faster and do more with fewer iterations. I never even intended to use it again, but it was creative and addictive and orderly. I really couldn’t stop. Intervention, anyone?

  I ran pieces of it by Ella and went to Clarke when I got really stuck. They were delighted that they’d brought me into the inner circle of hacking. To them, hacking was more of a lifestyle than a means to an end. Besides the dorm room switch-around, they never benefited from it. The hacking was just about proving they could get in, and then get out. I wanted to show them the whole program, but I wasn’t quite ready to let it loose. Plus the truth is that as much as this was just an exercise for my mind, it was a hacking tool. And I had actually used it to hack. A little.

  “You’re going to have to give this up.” Tiki caught me hunched over my desk at noon on a beautiful fall day. “I want you to delete it.”

  Delete it? Right. It was becoming stronger and better every day.

  “I miss the days when you were heartbroken and mopey. I could really go there with you now. Could you give the hacking a rest?”

  “No.” I didn’t look up.

  “Listen, Thursday night there’s a toga party.”

  I had to look up. “There are really toga parties?”

  “Apparently. They’re for real people, away from their laptops, who want to have a good time. Are you listening?” She swung my chair around so we were eye to eye. “Howard’s going to be there with that girl. And I look really hot in a toga, trust me. You’re going with me. And we’re going to have normal college fun. Clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “No matter what?”

  “I promise.”

  “Now this is going to be epic.” Truer words were never spoken.

  I did as I was told and shut Oscar down before leaving for work on Thursday. (Oh, yeah, Oscar was my pet name for the program. Not that I was going to say it out loud, but when you get sort of attached to something, you develop a certain affection for it. The program was like a tenacious little pug, happily blasting his way through firewalls, wagging his little tail as he went. A perfect Oscar.) After work I’d meet Tiki ba
ck in the dorm to get all toga’d up. This was one of ten things that week that only John would have thought was funny. I composed a clever text and deleted it.

  My promise was nearly derailed by Professor Marcello and his bogus nuclear research lab. He needed information for his Friday morning presentation to the committee that funds his research. (Again, by “research,” I mean his spy novel.) It wasn’t that much work—I just had to take a ton of data and present it in a way that was easier for them to understand. The problem was that it was going to take me forever to get the data. He usually let me know what data he needed a few days in advance, and I would have time to find it online or submit a request to the proper government authority. The government agencies generally approve your request for information within twenty minutes but won’t actually give you the document until six to thirty-six hours later. It was my bad luck that the information I needed was from the U.S. Department of Defense. And that they take forever to deliver documents. Professor Marcello assured me that I’d have what I needed by eleven p.m. on Thursday and could complete my work then. Goodbye, toga party.

  So what was I supposed to do? Really. I already had Oscar running at a pretty advanced level. I’d just have to try a few things to take it up about a hundred notches. I mean, I made a promise and sort of wanted to prove to myself that I could go out and be normal. Who knew, maybe I’d look hot in a toga too? It took a lot longer than I thought to get into the DOD, but by six p.m. Thursday night I had the document I needed. By eight p.m. I was done with my work and back in my room getting decked out in a white sheet. At worst, it was a victimless crime. At best, it was a timing difference.

  SAY NO TO PEP

  DRESSING FOR A TOGA PARTY IS pretty straightforward for anyone who’s ever seen Animal House or has Internet access. The necessary materials are a white sheet and maybe a little ivy for your hair, for extra credit. How hard could this be? Very.

  Tiki was, as promised, seriously hot in her toga and all ready to go by the time I got back to our room. She had a sheet and an ivy crown waiting for me, and I was completely focused on being a good sport. I’d been a drag for the past few weeks, flipping between my obsession with my ex-boyfriend and my obsession with Oscar. But now I was there and I was game. But not for an off-the-shoulder toga.

  “But that’s what a toga is. And you’ll show a little shoulder . . .”

  “Put me in something asymmetrical, and I’ll be showing a little seizure.”

  “Fine.” Tiki made me a two-shouldered toga that draped down the center in a way that I could deal with. But to compensate for the frumpy way my shoulders were covered, she took a pair of scissors to the bottom, turning my toga into a mini. “Nice. Let’s go.”

  The second I walked into the party, I regretted going. I longed to be back at my desk in Marcello’s office waiting for documents and tinkering with Oscar. A toga party, as it turns out, is just Halloween’s Roman sister. And I can’t stand Halloween. All the girls, and a lot of the guys too, took this as an opportunity to show as much skin as possible. I was sure I was the only person in the room wearing a bra. The energy in the room was kicked up about thirty notches from the energy at a normal party, and I blamed the sheets.

  “Digit, you seem like a dud. And I need you to focus. I’m not going to tell you to have fun, but I am going to tell you to act and look like you’re having fun. Howard just walked in right behind you.” She threw her head back laughing, like she’d just heard her first knock-knock joke. “Now you. You laugh too.” I started to laugh a little. “More. I’m funny. Get into it. I’m the life of the freakin’ party.” Tiki was definitely teetering on the brink of wacko. So I started laughing harder and then for real at the insanity of standing there in a mini-sheet pretending to be hilarious.

  “What’s so funny?” Bass was standing there with a girl. Said girl was wearing a seriously slutted-up toga, cut short and barely covering the one obligatory shoulder. Bass was in khakis and a plain white T-shirt. Plain.

  “Where’s your toga?” I felt so stupid. How could he get away with not wearing a toga? It seemed like cheating.

  “I don’t wear sheets. This is Tammy. Tammy, this is Digit and Tiki. They live on my hall.”

  “Hi!” Tammy seemed kind of drunk. Or annoying. Or too perky? Or not quite perky enough? I’m not sure what crime I was trying to pin on her, but I did not like Tammy.

  “We’re going to go dance.” Tiki pulled me over to the other end of the room closer to the band. There were enough people dancing that I could kind of blend in and only partially embarrass myself. It’s funny how in a big crowd no one really sees you at all. We were just one big mass of skin and flowy white cotton, and, well, after a few songs, I decided I kind of liked toga parties. At least it was different from the nightmare I imagined—the one where there’s a big circle of people around me watching me try to bust a move. No one needs to see that. No one.

  The band took a break, and we found Tammy and Bass by the keg. “So, Bass. No guitar tonight?” Tiki poured herself her second beer. I would not have normally mentioned it, except that she drank it like a marathoner on mile twenty-one and immediately poured herself another.

  “No. I’m not playing tonight, just a spectator. Slow down there, Tiki. I don’t want to have to report you.” He was half kidding, but also half not.

  I decided Tammy was actually too perky—that was the problem. She chirped, “Bass, you totally should play tonight! You know, that’s where I met him! A few weeks ago at the coffeehouse, he was playing with his band! What a night! Unforgettable!” Yep, I remember it well. “There they are!”

  Tonight’s band came over, and they all gave Bass that half-handshake, half-hug thing that guys do. Introductions all around while Tiki poured herself another beer without Bass noticing.

  “What’s with you? Slow down,” I mouthed. She nodded her head to the corner of the bar in response. And there was Howard with a third girl. Not blond and not Tiki. A really painfully pretty brunette. “He’s a jerk.”

  “I know. And I’m going to go tell him.”

  “No.” I grabbed her arm. “You’re not.” And that’s when I realized that Tiki was on a path to making bad choices that were going to lead to really, really bad choices.

  I turned to Bass for help, as he was in a position of semi-authority here, but he wasn’t there. The music started up again, and all eyes went back to the stage. The band was gone, and it was just Bass onstage with an acoustic guitar playing the first few bars of “Crash Into Me.” If you looked up “cheap tricks to get girls to swoon” in the dictionary, you would find an audio link to that song. And while I, too, can easily fall victim to such cheap tricks, I was amazed by the mass of girls that made its way closer to the stage, powerless drones. And no offense to Dave Matthews, but if you put that song in the hands of a younger, maybe handsomer guy who has the sense not to wear a toga to a toga party . . . well, it shouldn’t be legal.

  Tammy was front and center. I couldn’t see her face, but I could imagine its perky delight. I pulled Tiki into the crowd, partially to see better and partially to widen the distance between Howard and her. She had filled her cup again and seemed a little wobbly.

  “Tiki, just listen to the music. He’s good, right?”

  “Sure. But let me go back there. I just wanna tell him . . . I hate him so much.”

  “Who doesn’t? Now stay here.” I put my arm around Tiki to keep her stable and close and watched Bass like the rest of the groupies. What was it about a guy on a stage? What was it about a guy with a guitar? Why was he looking right at me? He’s looking right at me. I went completely still and completely flushed. It’s almost like if that person onstage looks directly at you, they are redirecting all the energy they’re getting from the crowd toward you. It felt like a laser to the head. I had to look away.

  And when I did, I noticed that Tiki was gone. She’d slipped out of my grip and was making her way toward Howard. I went after her. “Tiki. Stop. You are going to hate yourself tom
orrow. Do not go talk to him. Let’s dance a little. Then we’ll go home.”

  “No! You can’t stop me. I need to talk to him. I need to tell him how much I hate him . . . And how much I love him . . . and he has to take me back . . .” Oh my god, this is worse than I thought.

  I dragged her, all five feet ten inches of her increasingly wobbly limbs, back toward the stage. I kept one arm around her waist and waved the other at Bass. I caught his eye, and he gave me a little upward nod as he sang. No, I was not saying hi. I ran through a mental list of universal gestures and only came up with the finger across the throat, meaning kill it or death. I combined that with a finger toward Tiki and a nod toward Howard and the brunette. Repeatedly. Until he finally understood and wrapped up the song a few verses early. My apologies to the disappointed girls, but Tiki was getting heavy and it is a pretty long song.

  “Hey, thanks, guys,” he said into the microphone over what should have been enough screams and applause to shake Tiki back into sobriety. No such luck. I held her up while he put down someone’s guitar and jumped off the stage toward me.

  “Is she okay?”

  “God, I’m fine. Just let go of me. I need to talk to Howard.”

  “Got it. Let’s get her out of here. But make it look normal. I don’t want Howard to think she’s a mess.” So in the most dignified way that we knew how, Bass and I each put an arm around Tiki and escorted her past Howard into the night. As we passed the bar, Bass laughed, too loud. “You’re right, this is kind of lame. Where’s the other party?”

  When we got outside, we let Tiki take a break on the grass for a bit. I had a bad feeling about her nice white sheet on that damp grass. And she no longer looked hot at all. We stood and watched as she cried, the streetlight making her look even more tragic than she was. “Okay, I’m fine now, just let me go back in. I’ll be cool. I just want him to know how much I miss him . . .”

  “No chance.” Bass pulled her up and put his arm around her waist and started walking back to the dorm. He turned back to me. “A little help?”