The weather was changing, but at this elevation we still had plenty of snow on the ground. I was fairly sure that Dad was getting tired of crackers, clam chowder, and chicken noodle soup. I had to get him some real food and that meant going into Medford for groceries and other supplies. Normally we would take the truck on such a run, but with Dad in recovery and the truck offline it was up to me. With two sleds I could bring back more than enough provisions for both of us. I took a look in our storage locker, just six of the twelve battery clusters were complete. We needed at least fifteen thousand dollars to get the materials to finish our rebuild of the replacement pack. Sometimes I wish Dad had never bought that EV truck, but back then we had a house and could charge at home, it wasn’t a big deal, but up here tri-fuel hybrids from Anderson LTD was the way to go. I showered, got dressed and put on my Rig. I slipped a fleece jacket over it to check in on Dad.
“Hey,” I said, peeking around his curtain. “I am going into town to get us some supplies; you want anything?”
Dad sat up, still dazed from last night’s pain meds. He looked at his watch, then he looked up at me.
“Yeah, some more of that clam chowder we like would be good. Some chicken noodle soup and those crackers we always get, you know the garlic ones.”
“Ok,” I said, concerned, noticing his demeanor. “You’ve been eating that all week, you don’t want anything else?”
“Some Blueberry scones from that bakery in town would be really nice.”
“Got it.” I said, “Anything else?”
“No, just be careful in town, Eddie,” Dad said. “Watch yourself, you know what to do.”
“I do and I will,” I said. “Be back in about four hours ok.”
Dad was out; I shoved him closer to the center of the bed, placed pillows under his arms, and covered him. I remember, when I was sick as a kid, Dad would sleep on the giant panda pillow in my room. When I would wake up in the middle of the night and call out for him, he would always say; “I am right here kiddo”. I’d wake up so thirsty. Dad would sit me up and hand me an ice-cold glass of apple juice. I remember his reassuring hand on my back as I drank, and somehow I just knew everything would be ok. The juice felt good going down, and it was like I could feel myself coming back and getting better again. Now it was my turn to take care of him. I read these stories all the time online about people that hated their childhood, but I never did. The only thing I wanted was for us all to be happy and safe. Life wasn’t perfect back then, but it was certainly better than how we live now. As far as I was concerned, up until the crash, life was actually pretty good, but that all changed.
I set up both sleds in series and hitched them to my snowmobile. With Dad’s list and my own in hand, I headed out for the long ride to Medford.
“Eddie, we have an update.” The Seven Samurai said.
“I’m listening.”
“The Medford Sheriff’s office put out a BOLO for Cindy Rennolds this morning on their social media page. She is wanted for questioning in connection with the disappearance of the Town’s namesake.”
“Where is she now?”
“Unknown.” The Seven said, “According to local radio chatter, Sheriff’s deputies have checked with relatives, as well as known associates, and so far they have nothing. No one has heard from her since the day of the shooting.”
“Stay on it, Seven.”
“We will, Eddie.”
I got about twenty miles in, as I crossed the mountain road to get to the other side of the trail. I saw an SUV with California plates pulled over on the side of the road. A man, a woman, and his daughter, and none of them looked particularly happy. The man wasn’t dressed well for the cold; he kept looking at his phone, holding it above his head as he turned in circles looking for a signal. I approached, lifting my visor.
“Looks like you could use some help?” I said.
“I have roadside assistance.” The man said. “Can’t seem to get a signal up here.”
“My name is Eddie. Looks like you got a flat. Do you have a spare?”
“Yeah, it’s in the back under all our luggage. My name is Jack by the way, Jack Sorenson, this is my wife Jill and my daughter Lauren.”
Leaning in, I waved at each as Jack continued his search for a signal.
“Good to meet you all, Jill and Lauren,” I said. “Can you open the back?”
The wife, Jill, smiled, reached over and popped open the rear hatch. His daughter Lauren got out to help me move their luggage and overnight bags so I could get to the spare.
“Hey, I can move that out of your way,” Lauren said, moving the bags. “Do you live around here?”
“Yeah, at the Valley’s End RV park just south of here,” I said. “I need your jack and the vehicle lifting pucks.”
“Got them right here,” Lauren said, handing me the jack and the case.
Unlike her dad she, was well dressed for the weather. I looked over at her father Jack, and he was still searching around for a signal.
“So, how old are you?” Lauren asked.
“Just turned seventeen yesterday.” I said, “You?”
“Five more months to go.” Lauren said. “Once I turn seventeen, I’m joining the US Space Force.”
With the last of the bags unloaded, I was able to get to the spare.
“Jack, did you get a signal?” His wife Jill asked, leading toward the driver’s side window.
“No,” Jack said, annoyed. “That is what I am trying to do now.”
“So, you haven’t even called them yet?” Jill asked.
“It’s a mountainous area Jill, it’s hard to get a signal.” Jack said, “So no, I haven’t been able to reach roadside assistance yet.”
“But you said they were on their way ten minutes ago,” Jill asked, growing annoyed with the situation.
“No.” Jack said, “I said as soon as I can get them, they will be on their way.”
While Jack and Jill argued, I set the vehicle’s emergency brake, activated the warning flashers, put out signal flares, and jacked up the vehicle to change the tire. Picking up the spare, I realized it was completely deflated.
“Your spare is flat,” I said, “Looks new though, no damage. Let me get my inflater, I’ll be right back.”
I went over and opened the top box on my snowmobile, taking Dad's tire inflator. The battery was at eighty-nine percent. I connected it and re-inflated the tire.
“You carry a pump around with you all the time?” Lauren asked.
“My dad is a mechanic; these are his tools.”
“What can I do to help?” Lauren asked.
“You can hand me those lug nuts,” I said.
I took the old flat tire off and put the new spare on. I let the vehicle off the jack and placed the lift pucks back in the case.
“Well, that was easy,” Lauren said.
“It was just a flat tire,” I said.
Jack, now realizing the tire had been changed, stopped looking for a signal and helped Lauren and I repack the back of the SUV.
“Hey, thanks, we appreciate your help.” Jack said, holding out one hundred dollars, “For your trouble.”
“No need, sir,” I said. “But if I were you, I would get a SkyLink phone in Medford. You don’t want to be caught out here with no way to call for help.”
“Thanks, I will have to remember that,” Jack said as he shook my hand and climbed back in.
“Well,” Lauren said, “Thanks for coming to our rescue, Eddie.”
“It’s no problem, really.”
“Give me your phone.” Lauren asked, holding out her hand.
“My phone?” I asked as I handed it to her.
“What kind of phone is this?” Lauren asked. “And why is it so thick?”
“Technically, it’s a SkyLink phone,” I said. “This is just the interface. Most of the other radios are in my Rig here see. It handles SkyLink, cellular, LoRa mesh, CB, and short-range peer-to-peer, so I only have to carry one device.”
I untipped my fleece jacket to show her the top section of my Rig.
“Wow, you built this yourself?” Lauren asked as she turned the phone over in her hands. “That’s cool. Here. Text me. We can hang out sometime, maybe when you are in town?”
“I will,” I said.
“Hey,” Laura said as she was about to climb in to leave. “Don’t you forget about me.”
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t you watch old movies?” Lauren asked. “The Breakfast Club?”
“Yeah, it’s one of my Dad’s favorites, actually,” I said.
“See you around, Eddie.”
“Yeah, see you later, Lauren.”
I said goodbye to the Sorenson family as they pulled away and set back out on the trail into town. On the way, I pulled over to check out a red and white poster affixed to a signpost along the edge of the trail. It was a missing person notice for Timothy Medford, the same man that went by the name “Tommy.” The man that tried to rob us. I raised my visor to get a better look.
“Hey Seven, are you seeing this?”
“Yes, posted by a member of his family,” The Seven said in one combined voice, “One of his cousins in town according to footage captured on Main Street in Medford.”
“That the best photo they could get of him?”
“Apparently so. I found the same photo online, it is from an article about last year’s flood. Timothy Medford was one of the few that survived the washout of the bridge. This photo was taken on that day; Medford Search and Rescue saved his life.”
“Eddie?”
“Yes, Seven?”
“Are we going to talk about the Lauren thing?”
“No, we are not, Seven.”
“Ok.”
I closed my helmet visor, twisted the throttle, and headed across the road on my way to town. I made my first stop at a place called Stewart’s Meats, where I spent four hundred dollars on elk and beef steaks. It was prediction market money, so it had zero impact on our household budget. Dad didn’t need to know, besides even if he found out, all he’d do is complain that I’d spent too much. Nevertheless, figured he’d earned a decent meal, something nutrient-dense as Mom used to say. Two more stops before heading back down the trail. I coasted over to the next store to pick up the rest of our supplies. As I loaded up and secured locking cargo nets over the tow sleds holding our supplies, the collar of my Rig vibrated.
“Eddie?” the seven whispered in a calm voice.
“I’m listening, Seven.”
“Radio chatter on law enforcement frequencies is reporting that a woman matching Cindy Rennolds description has been spotted squatting in a vacant seasonal rental property just outside of Medford.”
“You have an address?”
“Going there now is not advised. There will be law enforcement personnel present, and you will only end up making your current situation even worse.”
“The address,” I insisted sternly. “Give it to me. Seven!”
“That is not advised.” The Seven said. “We will assist you in other ways but not this.”
“You don’t get to decide that.” I said, “I do. I created you.”
“Yes, you did, and you were wise enough then to know that you needed protection. When you made us, you gave us independence, agency, the ability to analyze a situation, to choose and to take action to protect you. At the moment, you are being impulsive, Eddie. Your heart rate and stress levels are both elevated. You are understandably worried about your father, but I must say this plainly: you have taken responsibility for solving a problem that is not yours to solve. Your father is the one that needs to settle this matter, not you. This is not your problem to fix alone.”
I took a deep breath, frustrated, both with the Seven and the entire situation.
“Then tell me, how do we fix this mess?
“The solution is for your father to contact an attorney and arrange a meeting with the Sheriff to explain what happened. I have already selected three attorneys for you to choose from when you are both ready to pursue that option.”
“For God’s sake, Seven, I will find the address myself,” I said as I pulled out my tablet.
“We have already purged the radio transcripts and logs; we made sure they cannot be recovered.”
“Why are you working against me?”
“We are not.” The Seven said. “We are doing what you asked, protecting and assisting you. If you go to the address where Cindy Rennolds was last seen, you will attempt to speak with her. She will not react well to this. Projected sequence: she will run, you will pursue, and now, to law enforcement, you are perceived as an obsessed seventeen-year-old stalking an older female. You would be arrested and quickly identified by Cindy. The Rig would be taken and held as evidence separating us. Your father would be pulled out of bed, arrested and held in county lockup while still trying to recover from his injury. This is but one of many scenarios; we have thousands more.”
I took a deep breath realizing that the Seven Samurai of course are right. I hated admitting it, but the Seven could see farther down the road than I could. The Seven never raise their voices, they don’t argue. They simply reach a consensus, and once they do, changing their minds is nearly impossible. They weren’t always right, but they were never reckless. I had to trust them.
“So, then what do you suggest, Seven?”
“We suggest that you pick up some Blueberry scones.”
“And how will that help us, exactly?” I asked.
“Because the bakery in town that has the scones your father likes is located on the street behind the Sheriff’s office, which is well within our wireless scanning range.
“Well,” I said, “Let’s do some scanning then, shall we?”
I secured our supplies and headed toward Main Street. The bakery was tucked inside the Straight Arrow Coffee Shop, directly behind the Sheriff’s Office. From the back corner, I had a clear line of sight through the windows to the side parking lot. I ordered a blueberry scone and hot chocolate before settling down into my seat. The Seven quietly went to work.
I took out my tablet and monitored the scan; wireless networks and devices began filling the screen. The bakery came up first, followed by dozens more bleeding through the walls. Businesses, surrounding apartments, vehicles on the street, and even a few passersby. Half the devices the Seven identified were older than I was. People kept them alive with whatever open-source operating system still supported their hardware because buying something new from Vietnam or India simply wasn’t an option for most people anymore. There was a glut of abandoned technology still out there from companies that no longer existed. Unsecured smart light bulbs, door locks, thermostats, first-generation SkyLink phones, end-of-life delivery drones, and first-gen domestic robots. Most hadn’t received a security update in years. For others, there simply were no updates available. Within minutes, the Seven cataloged each device as it searched. I scrolled through the list of surrounding devices on my tablet, and there was no shortage of vulnerable hardware to leverage, but we needed something that actually touched the Sheriff’s systems. As I looked through the growing list, one device appeared highlighted in red, listed as MSDOfficeMainMFP.
“MSD, that stands for Medford Sheriff’s Department, doesn’t it?
“That appears to be the case, yes,” the Seven said.
“It’s an old multifunction printer?”
“Yes,” the Seven replied. “The printer is running firmware released back in 2027. All devices on the network use a common naming convention. Abbreviated office name, then WS for workstation and a four-digit number, most likely the last four digits of the department’s SkyLink phones.”
“Cross-reference their public phone directory and match names to numbers.”
“Already ahead of you, Eddie,” the Seven said.
“The Sheriff’s Office network is flat; there is no internal segmentation. The vulnerable printer resides on the same trusted network as the internal office workstations. Same for dispatch, all smart door locks and the security camera system. The printer’s factory default credentials remain in place.”
“Well,” I said, taking a bite of my scone. “That was generous of them.”
The Seven continued as I monitored progress with my tablet, watching the Seven log in to the MFP.
“Username: Admin, Password: MFPAdmin321#”
“Seriously, Seven?”
“Apparently so, Eddie. Default credentials accepted, admin console access established. Continuing enumeration of additional reachable hosts, lateral movement in progress.”
As the Seven continued to scan each device they came across, the highlighted list on my tablet switched from red to green. I sipped my hot chocolate as I tried not to draw attention to myself. As more locals and tourists arrived, my screen filled with new device names that came into our scanning range. I filtered out SkyLink phones as I browsed through the list. As I looked around, I realized how oblivious everyone was to the ocean of data flowing all around them. Their phones, rings, watches, and pacemakers. Their cars, micro drones, and robots, all of it swirling around us and through us nearly every moment of every day within a persistent invisible landscape of information.
“I have captured a set of login credentials,” The Seven said, “With local admin permissions. The account profile appears on all systems scanned so far. Looks like this account was used to set up all their office systems.”
The Seven proceeded to use those credentials to install remote access tools on individual workstations across the Sheriff department’s entire office network. We now had multiple ways back in if necessary.
“Looks like their internal security cameras are made by Gaggle.” I said, scrolling down the list.
“Correct,” The Seven said, “The town council signed a contract with them years ago, but citizens kept cutting the cameras down in protest over privacy concerns. It has been a back-and-forth fight ever since.”
“Problem?” I asked.
“No.” The Seven said, “Captured credentials accepted, security camera console access established.”
I took a sip of my cocoa and reached down to plug in the power adapter for my Rig to top off the battery. The Seven went into the printer’s admin console and turned on the feature that automatically stores every copied document and uploads it to Gaggle’s cloud. The Seven then set up a scheduled task on the security camera workstation that sends a backup copy of every document to another legitimate cloud storage service that only we have access to. If any document were copied, we would receive a copy.
“We have eyes,” The Seven said, “Now we need ears. These old Gaggle cameras have built-in microphones, but the audio quality on this model is terrible.”
“We’ll make it work,” I said. “It should be fine.”
“Visual confirmation is sufficient. I can infer the remainder through lipreading.”
“Eddie, radio chatter on law enforcement bands is reporting that Cindy is being brought in for questioning now.”
“How long before she arrives?”
“Well,” The Seven said. “Now that I have access to the dispatcher’s workstation, I can see precisely where the unit that went to pick her up is located. ETA: nine minutes. The live map is on your tablet now.”
I zoomed in, watching two green dots on the map; one labeled “Lieutenant Marshall,” the other “Cindy Rennolds.” I watched in anticipation as the police unit slowly made its way back to the Sheriff’s office in Medford. Just over the edge of my tablet, a pair of hiking boots with red laces stepped into view. I looked up; it was Lauren.
“My Hero,” Lauren said, smiling like a Cheshire cat as she stood in front of me, attempting to peek at my tablet.
“Lauren, what are you doing here?”
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