I prayed six times over the next hour. For strength. For more trees. For fewer trees. For better shoes. For a redo of that first morning Quaid and Durwood had showed up on my front porch so I could've gotten us out the door just five minutes earlier and missed them altogether. And finally for my children to live happy, full lives in case I died.
The "mayhem"—that was the perfect word—did not start immediately. After his ominous welcome, Josiah left me to rejoin the head group. They continued their debate, whispering heatedly over Piper's laptop. She and Josiah seemed to be the principals. She grimaced and jabbed out commands; he flailed at the mansion like some mad wizard issuing curses.
When a long black sedan approached, the leaders rushed us all behind the azaleas. I hunched low and waited, tensed, crowded by knees and elbows. The sedan's headlights swiveled and swelled as the car turned the bend ... then disappeared.
My fingers released a clump of grass.
I eavesdropped as much as possible without giving myself away. Others near me were peeking over their phones at the leaders too, going silent when they spoke loudly enough to hear. The argument intensified. Josiah made swoopy gestures around one side of the house. Piper Jackson shook her head vehemently. Hatch stepped between the two, mediating, clapping bear-claw hands over their shoulders.
"Stay simple," I caught Piper saying. "This here's plenty bad."
Josiah urged up by sinewy calves. "Insufficient, P. We're talking atrocities. Atrocities deserve atrocities coming back."
The hacker said more but Josiah didn't hear. He hurtled ahead as though unable to stop his own legs, up the drive, around the side of the mansion. Gone into darkness.
The group waited. A bat flitted overhead, but no one jumped. One of the oblong, pike-mounted cameras whirred; we all squirmed and made skinny to avoid its eye. Besides Hatch, I recognized a few other bloggers with impressive followings—a contributor to Daily Kos, a section editor for HuffPost.
As Josiah's absence stretched on, I began hearing murmurs. One kid stepped outside the taped-off wedge to glimpse around the mansion. At one point, I thought I heard the spring of a kickstand and somebody pedaling off.
Fifteen minutes later, Josiah had not returned. It was 11:10.
A cacophony of phone chimes shattered the quiet. The others looked down at their screens, then back up with cryptic expressions. Had I missed a text? Was I off the list already?
My consternation must have shown. A guy next to me, early 20s with great hair, said, "Twitter."
I swiped until the app appeared, then tapped. josiahTheAvenger had tweeted:
THE TIME OF ATONEMENT HAS ARRIVED. EXQUISITELY, THEY SHALL PAY.
Squinting at my screen, I felt a bone-deep chill. A subscript showed 8,420,199 followers for Josiah's feed. I realized that his message was being read in bars, in suburban bedrooms, in Singapore, in Arizona ... and that whatever "ATONEMENT" Josiah had in mind, I was about to participate in.
The rest of the Mice seemed to be having similar thoughts.
"What's the plan, you heard?" someone said.
"I don't think he wants a plan."
"They know what they're doing. No sweat."
"But what if—"
Piper Jackson's voice cut through the hand-wringing. "Shut up, y'all!"
The chatter stopped.
"You nervous, right? We're all nervous. Suck it up and deal."
YOU ARE READING
Anarchy of the Mice
Aventura"Nibble, nibble. Until the whole sick scam rots through." When anarchist-hackers the Blind Mice begin crippling the country's worst corporations -- the "Despicable Dozen" -- with web and software attacks, the public yawns. When they blip the power g...
