The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition] Read online

  His apartment was on the second floor and he inserted the key in the deadbolt. He hadn’t even turned the key completely around before the door knob twisted and a massive wall of a man opened the door. He looked like he was cut from rock, six seven, maybe six eight, big, broad shoulders, squared off chin and close-cropped blond hair.

  “Hey, bro! Are you Aeric?” he asked.

  “Uh, yeah. Are you Tyler Nordgren?”

  His new roommate stuck out his hand, “Yup. I go by ‘Ty’ though.”

  Aeric shook it and stepped through the front door. The apartment was nice, not too large, but bigger than he’d been expecting. Ty had obviously already been there for a day or two. Empty beer cans sat on the counter beside the sink and an open pizza box indicated what he’d eaten at some point. “Nice place,” Aeric muttered.

  “Yeah. Sorry about the mess, we don’t have a trash can or recycling bin yet.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. He’d wanted the full college experience, which in his mind didn’t include living like a slob—although the presence of beer was intriguing, Aeric wondered how his underage roommate had gotten it. “That’s okay, I get it. So, which one’s my room?”

  Ty led the way through the living room down the hallway. The bathroom lay straight ahead with a bedroom on either side. “I slept in this one last night,” he said indicating the room on the left. “You can have it if you want to be on the side with the parking lot, though. I don’t really care which one I get.”

  “Oh, uh… I’ll just take this other one. I don’t care either.”

  Tyler helped him unload his car, which was a huge help and cut his trips in half. They cracked a beer and Tyler stood out in the hallway talking while Aeric unpacked his clothes in the closet.

  “So, what position do you play?” Aeric asked as he shook out the t-shirts that his mother had wisely made him leave on their hangers.

  “I’m a first baseman. But since Chase Hunter is only in his second year of eligibility, I may try to transition over to third so I can play this spring.”

  Even though Ty couldn’t see him, he nodded his head. Hunter was a shoo-in for the big leagues. He batted .487 over the course of sixty-three games with 39 home runs as a freshman on the Longhorns run to their national championship last year. The kid was destined to be a star as long as he stayed healthy.

  “What about you?”

  “I play shortstop,” Aeric replied. “Where are you from, man?”

  “Lincoln, Nebraska. You?”

  “Springfield, Missouri. I really don’t care if I ever go back, though. There’s nothing there for me anymore. So, are your parents mad that you came all the way to Texas to play ball instead of going to Nebraska right there in town?”

  “Nah. My dad realizes that my best opportunity to get scouted is at a College World Series winning school like UT. Besides, Austin is a much better fit for me than Lincoln. People don’t approve of me up there.”

  “Well, if you got recruited to play for Texas behind Hunter, you must be pretty good,” Aeric retorted, misunderstanding him.

  “No, I mean they don’t approve of me, of my lifestyle.”

  He popped his head out of the closet so he could see his giant roommate. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m gay, man. They’re not crazy-backwards up there, but people give me a wide berth when I walk by. The LGBT community in Austin is huge and extremely supportive, so I think I’ll fit in better down here.”

  Aeric nodded his head in understanding. There had been a lot of growing pains in his hometown over the years as the population there had slowly accepted the fact that homosexuals were just people and not some abomination that they’d been made out to be by various religious organizations. There were problems every once in a while because some bigot would do something absolutely horrific, but for the most part, the issue had passed the test in the Springfield area. However, too far outside of the city limits and he expected that there were still a lot of problems with acceptance.

  He hadn’t ever considered living with a gay man before. It didn’t matter to him though, who cared who the guy liked? Then, an epiphany struck him. “Have you met any cute girls that want to hang out with you that you could introduce me to yet?”

  Ty smiled at him and flipped him off. “I’ll keep my eye out, bro. I’m starving so I’m gonna order a pizza, what do you like?”

  “Just about anything except anchovies or olives.” And just like that, Tyler’s sexuality wasn’t a big deal. The dude liked beer and pizza, played baseball and looked like he could bench press a truck. What more could he ask for in a teammate?

  TWO

  Aeric dropped his backpack heavily on the floor by his dorm room door. It had been another long day of university-mandated 100-level classes, mostly information that he’d never use. Tyler sat on the couch engrossed in the television while he ate a grilled chicken sandwich. The team trainers had put them both on high-protein, low-pizza diets after they’d each gained several pounds over the course of the summer. Ty’s parents seemed content to fund his unlimited pizza and beer expense account and he always dragged Aeric along. Dieting sucked, but now that the fall semester had begun, they had to get back into baseball shape for the spring.

  “You’re not gonna believe what just happened,” Aeric said.

  “What?” Ty asked around a mouthful of sandwich. It came out sounding more like a cow’s moo than a human’s words and a large piece of bread fell out of his mouth onto the floor.

  “Dude! For a gay guy, you’re the messiest person I’ve ever met,” Aeric teased. “Aren’t you like, supposed to be super clean and smell like roses all the time?”

  Tyler leaned to the side and farted with a laugh. “Man, you set that up perfectly!”

  “Geez… Anyways, some homeless guy was talking on his cell phone and then began begging me for change so he could eat.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “The homeless guy had a cell phone…and was begging me for change,” Aeric prompted.

  The light went off in Tyler’s head and he said, “Oh… You think that he shouldn’t have been begging for money if he can afford a cell phone.”

  “Exactly. I told him that I wasn’t giving him any money if he had enough to pay for a cell phone contract, and then he went on this crazy rant about how I was an over privileged, rich white kid who went to college while he spent his college years fighting in Afghanistan. Like, everybody stopped and stared at me and several people gave me the dirtiest looks—people we go to school with—and then they gave this dude money. Can you believe that? They made it seem like I was the bad guy for telling him that he had to prioritize whether he wanted a cell phone or food.”

  “Pretty typical stuff, man. We’ve talked about how people with money are demonized in my sociology class. You wouldn’t believe how many of the people in our school actually believe that having money is evil.”

  “They’re at a university that charges a shit-ton of money for tuition,” Aeric muttered. “They have money, or student loans, and they talk about how bad money is. Yeah, my freshman psych class has those debates too.”

  “It’s just like all these riots,” Tyler said as he gestured towards the television. “Some of them are about racism, some are about social equality, and others just want to bitch about something near and dear to them and a thousand of their closest friends.”

  Aeric glanced at the TV, “Shit, man. Is there another riot going on?”

  “Yeah, this time it’s in Cincinnati. They’re rioting about the government response to the terrorism threat here in the states.”

  “Geez, what is that, four or five this week?”

  “Well, let’s see,” Ty held up his hand and counted off the massive riots that had swept the country during the last week. “Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta—”

  Aeric interrupted him, “Did they find those news anchors yet?”

  “Nope, the entire tower is just…gone. Fucking terrorists.”

  “Sucks.”


  “Anyways, there was Baltimore, Chicago and now Cincinnati. People are scared of this shit, man.”

  “By rioting about the government’s lack of response to the terrorism, all they’re doing is creating more problems,” Aeric reasoned. “They think that they’re telling our government to crack down on the extremists, but they create more propaganda for the terrorists to use and recruit even more people to their cause.

  “And what about the police state?” he continued. “The government could easily end up with too harsh of a response and we’d end up being like Russia in the nineteen fifties. People were afraid to leave their homes, always wondering if they were gonna get snatched on the street or if the secret police were going to invade their homes. We can’t live like they did.”

  “Whoa! This isn’t your Psychology class,” Ty responded with his hands up and accidentally knocked his plate off his lap. “You’re in la casa de Tyler. I’m not some ditz who thinks that those people out there in the streets who say that they’re protesting for social change are doing anything except causing more problems. I understand that the government’s lack of response could swing quickly to too heavy of a response. It’s the age-old debate about civil liberties versus security. Is there an acceptable middle ground there or do we always have to operate in the extremes?”

  “You’re right,” Aeric admitted. “Sorry, Ty. I’m really freaked out by all of this. I mean, it feels like we’re unraveling at the seams and there’s nothing that we can do about it.”

  “Relax, bro. It’s only going on in the major cities, like in the sixties and seventies. This is just another form of social change. It’ll blow over after cooler heads prevail and everyone calms down.”

  “I don’t know,” Aeric said as he shook his head while he stared at the television. “This feels bigger. The extremists are attacking people who are different than them, everywhere. Paris is a war zone. London has an eight pm curfew… Hell, even Moscow is under siege. It seems like the only place that stuff isn’t happening is in China.”

  Tyler snorted. “Don’t let them fool you. They’ve got massive social problems, too. Their government just goes in and eliminates an entire village if something happens, so we don’t even hear about it. I’ve read about things happening there that make Paris look like an out of control Christmas parade, man. China is an absolute nightmare.”

  Aeric considered his roommate’s words. What the hell was happening all over the world? It was like the simmering pot of racism, social injustice and religious violence had overflowed and spewed out of the pot. He’d watched cautiously as it happened on other continents, but now it had erupted all across the United States and it scared the hell out of him.

  “Are we, like, supposed to go to school or stay home?”

  Tyler looked away from the television and shook his head. “Man, that’s so far away, there’s no way that the school is gonna close over this stuff.”

  “This is a dangerous situation,” Aeric countered.

  “Weren’t the sixties race riots dangerous? What about the war protests and domestic terrorism of the seventies, weren’t those dangerous? The LA Riots, the recent race riots, sporting riots… All of those were dangerous and the country recovered—and I’m pretty sure that school wasn’t canceled for any of those.”

  “I guess one of the coaches would give us a call if we were supposed to stay in the dorm, right?” Aeric asked.

  “Yeah, they would. Besides, Austin is fine. We haven’t had any incidents here.”

  “You’re right. It’s just—”

  He was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. He looked at the screen, it was his father. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Aeric, it’s dad.”

  “I know. You come up in my caller ID.”

  “Well, it could have been your mother.”

  He sighed. “What’s up, dad?”

  “Your mother and I were worried about you and we wanted to check in to see if you were okay.”

  “Yeah, we’re fine. Everything that’s happening is far away from us.”

  “I know, son. Things like this have the potential to get out of hand pretty quickly. I just want you to be safe and make smart decisions.”

  “I will. I won't get involved in anything dangerous. Our coaches are keeping an eye out for everything and will let us know if there's a problem.”

  “Your coaches? Listen, Aeric, it's right to trust your coaches and to listen to their advice. But if things go bad, they're gonna be looking out for themselves and their families, not you. Understand?”

  “Dad, I'm not stupid, I know that they'll be more concerned with their own families. Nothing is happening down here, though. We're fine.”

  “You keep saying that. Promise me that if something seems like it isn't right, you'll leave. Promise me that, okay?”

  “Uh, okay, sure.”

  “Son, this is important to me. Just promise me, please.”

  “Sure. I promise to leave if the situation gets weird.”

  “Gaines don't break their promises, young man. I'm gonna hold you to that.”

  Aeric was starting to get irritated with his dad's overprotectiveness once again. It had settled down over the summer and he'd hoped that the distance away from home had possibly mellowed his parents' attitude towards him, but here it was again. He wasn't even halfway through the fall semester and they were treating him like a child again.

  “Dad, I got it! I’ll avoid any creepy guys in dark alleys. I’ve gotta go or I’m gonna be late for work.”

  “It’s only four o’clock. I thought you didn’t have to be at the camp until six.”

  Aeric muttered a curse under his breath. “Yeah. I usually start at six, but they changed the hours this week and I have to be there at four-thirty.”

  “Hmm, okay. One more thing before I let you go, don’t use your credit card.”

  “What? That’s the only way I can buy groceries, dad.”

  “Well, the damned hackers busted into our bank yesterday. They cleared out our accounts and ran up all of our credit cards. Yours is maxed out too. Just eat in the student cafeteria until we can get this sorted out, okay?”

  Aeric cursed under his breath. Now the goddamned computer hackers were messing with his life. What the hell was wrong with those people? Couldn’t they just work like everyone else instead of stealing people’s identities and stealing their money. “Yeah, sure, I’ll have the lasagna in the cafeteria,” he sneered.

  “Look, son, I know it’s not the healthiest food that you need for baseball, but it’s only a few days. The bank is aware of the charges. Heck, their entire network was hacked and millions of dollars have been stolen. It took me three hours to get through to someone this morning. Everything should be okay in a few days. You’ll probably have a new card mailed to you by the end of the week. I’ll call you and let you know when things are back to normal.

  “Shit—whoops, sorry, dad. I mean, darn. Okay, I’ll make it work down here and see about cashing my check instead of depositing it.”

  “Good idea. You can’t go wrong with cash.”

  “Yeah. Okay, I’ve really gotta go.”

  “Be safe. Alright, son?”

  “Yeah. Sure thing, dad. Bye.”

  He stabbed the button to turn his phone off and Tyler looked over at him. “Your parents are freaking out a little bit, huh?”

  “Yeah, my dad thinks that this is bigger than the news is letting on and now our damned bank got hacked, so I don’t have any money.”

  “Now I know where you get your paranoid streak from,” Ty stated.

  Aeric considered throwing something at the big jock, but he figured that he’d end up getting his ass kicked. “I’m not paranoid. As much as I hate to admit it, my dad’s right. We need to be careful.”

  “No worries, bro. We will be. Man, I could totally go for a beer right now,” he grumbled. “All of your worrying is stressing me out.”

  “I’m down,” Aeric said. “But I don’
t have any money and we’re on that stupid diet.”

  “I’ve got you. Besides, one beer won’t hurt anything. I’ll take your ass to the gym and beat the hell out of you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, one beer sounds good.”

  *****

  They’d called him crazy, a sociopath, even a terrorist. What the fuck did any of those assholes know? He was a brilliant visionary, the mastermind behind the largest planned hack in the history of computing. He’d spent years cultivating his followers, assigning them menial tasks to test their loyalty and now he had a network of more than five hundred experienced hackers who followed his every command as gospel.

  Justin Rustwood’s life had been a series of setbacks and disappointments up until this point. He’d never been particularly good at sports and he had become the target of many practical jokes when his parents forced him to try out for one of his high school teams each year. He developed a deep-seated hatred for the jocks that had constantly made fun of him, beat him up and publicly humiliated the fat kid from Sonora, California.

  After high school, he had surprised his parents by joining the Army as a computer systems specialist. The only thing that he truly excelled at as a kid was computer programming and the Army had trained him to be a computer hacker to defend against the invasive hacking of their computer systems. He became good, very good, and was quickly promoted in the newly formed Army Cyber Command, which promoted soldiers based on their computer skills, not how many stupid push-ups that a meathead could do.

  He’d dropped the baby weight and the Army made sure that he built a lot of muscle, but he still hated the jocks that had ruined his childhood. Even in the CyberCom, the colonels and generals were all infantrymen; stupid, musclebound assholes who tried to attack cyber intrusions like they would an enemy on the battlefield by directing all of their forces to the point of attack. Justin knew better though, he’d begun hacking other networks on his own time, so he knew that for actual cyber-attacks meant to disrupt operations or steal information there were typically multiple points of entry. The main, easily recognizable, yet hard to defeat attack was meant to confuse defenders and pull all of their resources while the real attack was usually a subtle thrust from the side.