Page 36 of Suddenly Desired
“Not you, but your computers,” said Nate.
“That’s impossible,” said Blake. “The hack has to have come from outside. David says he’s looking at Eastern Europe, maybe Russia. Maybe even a fledgling social network looking to take down Heartbook. Maybe even some crazy . . .”
Nate was holding his hand up again, and Blake’s words petered out. Nate wheeled his chair to one side, showing themthe TV-sized flatscreen. On it was a bunch of code, and Ellie scrolled through it. Some of it was familiar PHP and XHP, but most was too advanced for her to make any sense of.
“I got started as soon as I got on the plane,” said Nate. “I still have the old backdoor — Agnes and Maurice never knew about it. The servers record every post, every tiny piece of data entered into Heartbook — even data that you write and delete without posting.”
Blake nodded.
“Each post has a whole tranche of data attached to it. The date, obviously, the IP address, information about the device used to post, plus everything that Heartbook already associates with that information. It knows who you are, where you are,everything.”
“Scary,” said Ellie.
“Seriously scary,” said Nate. “But useful. Look, every single one of those horrific posts on your page came from you.”
Blake leaned in, feeling the colour draining from his face.
“From your phone, from your laptop at work, from your desktop at home. The devices match, the passwords match, the IP addresses match. Most importantly, the dates match. The first post is from eight months ago. The last was yesterday morning.”
“But it’s all fake — the dates have to have been manipulated,” said Blake. Ellie was still holding his hand, and he wasn’t making any effort to pull free.
Nate shook his head. “That’s impossible. Whoever did this was smart. The time stamp on these posts is cast iron — it can’t be changed, not even by somebody with a Heartbook master admin account. They’re real. They were posted in real time over the last few months, but kept private so that nobody could see them. You probably never noticed them because nobody ever commented.”
“And I never really used the site,” said Blake. “It was just for show.”
“Exactly,” said Nate. “They were like bombs which somebody left there, ticking away, and yesterday they set them all to public and lit the fuse. Kaboom.”
Blake pulled free, stood and paced down the office. “So, whoever did this was playing the long game,” he said. “They’ve been planning this for a while. But what about the addresses? They can’t have come from my devices.”
“They did,” said Nate. “I looked at them all. There is no way that information could have been hacked. Somebody used your machines to make these posts. But I did spot something interesting, something weird. Look at this one — uh, hang on.”
He scrolled through the code for a few seconds, then jabbed the screen so hard it wobbled on the desk. “I quote,‘Women should not hold positions of power. It diminishes the integrity of our democracy and undermines everything that generations of great leaders have built. Leadership is, and always has been, a man’s duty.’”
Blake felt his fury rising, hot and unrelenting, as he clenched his fists at his sides. It wasn’t just the humiliation of the fabricated remark, it was the calculated malice behind it — someone working to paint him as a man he wasn’t. The thought twisted like a knife in his gut.
A quick glance at Ellie only stoked the fire. Her eyes burned with a righteous anger, her lips pressed into a tight line. He knew she didn’t believe it, not for a second, and yet someone out there wanted the world to. The injustice of it made his jaw tighten, and the muscles in his arms coiled like springs ready to snap.
“According to our data, you made this comment on the fourth of January this year, at 3.03 p.m., using your mobile from your office.”
Blake chewed over the thought, then looked up, frowning. “But I wasn’t there.”
“You weren’t,” Nate confirmed. “You were with me, in the hospital, waiting for Mom to come out of surgery.”
“That’s right,” said Blake. “I left my phone in the office. I completely forgot to take it because the call for surgery was so quick. I remember thinking I should go back for it, but I didn’t because I wanted to be there when she went in.”
“You were,” said Nate. “And you never left my side. Not for twelve hours.”
The room fell into an uneasy silence as the weight of the information settled over Blake like a fog. He kept his gaze fixed on the floor for a moment, his jaw tight, his breathing steady but shallow.
“That means somebody used my phone,” he said. “While I was with you, somebody went into my office, unlocked my phone, wrote this post and set it to private.”
Nate nodded sadly.
“All of these posts — somebody used my computers, my phone, when I wasn’t in the room.”
Blake sank back into his chair as if the air had been knocked out of him.
Ellie reached for his hand, her fingers instinctively wrapping around his in a firm, grounding grip. She could feel the faint tremor running through him, a physical manifestation of the storm brewing beneath his calm exterior.
