At one point, my mother had decided to clean my room down to the plaster. When I got home from school, all my shit was in the driveway, and she was painting the walls.

Clearly, she was in a manic phase. Clearly, she couldn’t be reasoned with. I was supposed to let her do her thing and make sure she was safe.

But yellow?

I’d been powerless then too.

When she spoke about yellow paint day, even years later, my mother said the look I gave her broke through the mania long enough for her to stop painting and move to the next project. It was the only thing she’d ever remembered mid-episode.

“If I was after money, you’d be broke already.”

After Harper said that, I must have given her the same look, and it must have come from the same place of powerlessness. Because I didn’t accept that I was ever helpless, and the existence of a situation where I didn’t have choices or options tasted like a mouthful of dimes dipped in shit. I spit it out.

“When I’m through with you, you’re going to wish you’d killed me.”

I’d broken through her tough-chick performance. She opened her car door and slipped out as if stomping toward the garage was proof of anger, not proof of a defensive position. I got out after her with every intention of driving home some point or another. I’d forgotten what we were talking about, but I was going to hurt her until she cried, and I wasn’t going to give the smallest fuck about her feelings.

Which I did.

But I didn’t.

Maybe a little.

Two steps in front of me, she turned toward me with her finger out as if she had a point to make and I gave a fuck what it was.

Which I did.

But I didn’t.

Not even a little.

“Do it,” I growled. “Sell off my code, and I will come after you until this town is a wasteland. Do you understand me?”

“Fuck you.”

“Do you un—”

“Hey, Harper.” Orrin’s voice cut the wind just as Percy got his nose under my hand.

I petted him without thinking. Orrin pinched a lit cigarette between two grease-streaked fingers. Right behind him stood the guy in his fifties with the yellow polo, chinos, and clean hands. Despite the conservative costuming, he was tattooed with clock gears and pierced, his black hair whirling in the wind. His name, Johnny, and a corporate smile of a logo were embroidered over his left tit.

“Hey, Orrin.” Harper was all perk and smiles, as if we hadn’t spent the last five minutes threatening everything we each held dear. “Hey, Johnny!”

Johnny kissed her cheek, which was more than Orrin had done.

“Mr. Harden,” Orrin said.

“Thanks for working on the car.” I pointed at the Caddy sitting in the garage. “The hood’s still up. Is it working?”

“Just fine.”

“They call you Hard-on in school?” Johnny asked, proving that inside, he was more tattoo than polo.

“Yes. Yes, they did.”

“You punch ‘em? Or did you cry?”

“I fucked their girlfriends.”

With every circuit in my brain, I mustered up the will to not look at Harper to gauge her reaction to what I’d said. I had little to gain from knowing it and everything to gain by acting as if I didn’t care.

Johnny, on the other hand, whooped a laugh of surprise and delight. He stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Same.” I shook his hand.

“Welcome to the Capitol of Crap.” He swung his arms wide. “Citizens too stupid to leave, and those that left are too damn cowardly to stay.”

Orrin shook his head. “Don’t mind him. He—”

“We’re the salt of the earth’s what they say. Them in power, with the money. They stroke us. Jerk us off with some bullshit about how hardworking we are. Tell us we’re the real America. Like we’re stupid. Them fucks set man against man so we can feel like winners, but let me ask you.” He held out his arms and stepped back. “Do I look like a winner to you?”

“Jeeze, Johnny,” Harper interrupted. “Can you—”

“If you want to win something,” I said, “we can get in a fistfight.”

Johnny whooped another laugh, falling into a deep, wet coughing fit. Even Orrin chuckled as we walked back to the garage.

“Well, not too many men alive can shut up old Johnny,” Orrin said. “This is a nice car.” He laid his hand on the chassis. “Regular battery doesn’t fit. I had to order one special, then I called the rental company because they’d shit themselves if they thought an unlicensed guy was touching the engine. Let them know what was happening.”

I turned away from the car. Across the road sat a corrugated tin building with boarded windows and a Restaurant Supplies sign swinging in the wind.

In the foreground, Harper leaned on her car with her arms crossed, talking to Johnny.

“Did they say when the battery was coming?”

“Tomorrow or next day.”

Was that enough time to get Harper to release QI4? It was going to have to be.

“Here.” I reached for my wallet, feeling the little red pebble in my pocket as Percy sniffed my balls.

“Sit,” I said, and he did. “Good boy.”

“Pay me when the work’s done.”

We shook on it, and Percy trotted back to the garage behind Orrin. When I got back to Harper, Johnny was headed for his truck.

“Am I taking you to the airport?” she asked.

This was her way of getting me to go home and tell everyone about Barrington? That was the exact opposite of what I was going to do.

“How do you know I won’t just call the FBI?”

She crossed to the opposite side of the car. “What would all the hackers say if you narked on one of their own?”

“GreyHatC0n’s in eleven days.” I leaned over the roof of the Chevy. “We have a challenge running on day one. It’s worth a lot to me to plug this hole. You could do a bunch of things with that money. Buy furniture for the house.” I squinted at her in the bright sun.

“You think I went to all this trouble to buy a sofa?”

“Get help for your sister.”

Her jaw tightened, and her eyes narrowed. I’d hit a nerve. She went from pensive to sharp in a split second. Behind her, the big dog uhf uhffed.

“Small business loans,” I continued, “scholarships for the kids you were talking about. Supplies for the school. Whatever.”

She leaned over the other side of the roof, tapping the hollow metal. “I know you don’t come from money, Taylor. Not real money.”

“So?”

“Money, real money, is about maintenance.”

“Are you blackmailing me or asking for a job?”

Orrin watched from the office door. Harper gave him a dismissive jerk of her chin. He went inside.

I placed the pebble from the rooftop code on the roof of her car. “This is the same color as what’s on the Caddy. You were with me when the car was vandalized. And maybe this is a town of coders, but it’s not. You wrote on the factory roof. So who fucked up the car?”

“Maybe the hardware store’s got one shade of red.” She didn’t even believe that.

“Sure, Harper. Whatever. Or you can tell me what you want? I’ll give it to you, and you give me my life back. But tell me something I’ll believe.”

She laced her fingers together and tapped the pads of her thumbs. So much of her story was in her hands. The nails were cut short, and she’d taped her fingers again, but now I knew why they were wrapped like a hacker’s.

“If you want me to take you to the airport, I will,” she said.

“If I want you to unlock QI4 first?”

“You’ll have to wait.”

Progress. Too bad it didn’t matter. She was nuts, and I was walking a tightrope with her.