2:03 am The Message

The first message appeared on Lily's phone at 2:03 am. No name and no number. It had just been five words. “Don’t trust the glass door.”

She was half asleep when she stared at the screen on her phone. Her pulse quickened. Her house was silent. The hum of the fridge was gone and the alarm clock plugged in on the side of the bed had stopped. Power outage? She slowly sat up and adjusted her eyes to the dark. The air felt thicker and heavier than normal filled with static. Her phone buzzed again.

“He’s already inside.”

Panic surged through her body. She glanced at the sliding glass door which led to her balcony. The curtains fluttered slightly. She froze. There was no wind and it was not open. Lily backed up to the kitchen. Her hands and fingers shaking as she picked up the heaviest thing she could find, a cast iron skillet. Her phone buzzed again.

“Don’t scream. Don’t run. Wait.”

She almost dropped the phone. Was someone watching her?

“Who are you?” She typed.

No response.

She moved to the front door. It was locked and secure. She checked the peephole and saw nothing. She turned and looked at the balcony door and saw no one. Her phone buzzed again.

“You have 14 minutes. He won’t kill you when he comes. If you give him what he wants. Don’t resist.”

Lily held her breath.

“What does he want?” She typed.

Then a knock on the glass patio door. One knock, then another knock and three slow knocks. She wanted to scream. Instead she ducked behind the couch, heart racing. Her phone buzzed again.

“Look.”

She peeked from behind the couch. A man stood on the other side of the glass door. He was not moving. He was just watching. A ski mask covered his face and in his gloved hand he held a small box and he pointed to the phone.

“He thinks you know.”

She held her breath again.

“Know what?” She typed.

“What your brother did.”

Lily’s stomach dripped. She hadn’t talked to her brother, Mark, in over a year. He worked at some cyber security firm. He never told her anything about his job. He said it was classified what he did. Whatever he had done must have been very, very bad. She typed.

“Where is Mark?”

“Gone.”

Another knock. This time much louder. The latch on the door jiggled. He was trying to get inside. Lily ran to her bedroom. She locked the door and pushed the dresser in front of it. The power was still out and she had no WI-FI. No service. She just had the mysterious message coming through on what she knew was now a burner phone.

“Who are you?” She typed.

“Your only chance.”

He sent a picture to her phone. It had a time stamp of 1:59am and it showed Lily sleeping in her bed. She stared at it. That was five minutes before the first message. Whoever sent it had been in her house.

Her hands shook uncontrollably. She wanted to scream and cry all at the same time. She felt she needed to do something. Her skillet was her only option.

Buzz

“He will leave you alone if he gets the code. Do you have the code?”

“What code?”

“Mark didn’t tell you the code?”

“No.”

“Then you have 8 minutes.”

She stared at the clock on her phone. It said 2:08 am. Outside the bedroom something or someone moved. Slow footsteps and the scrape of a gloved hand against the walls and then silence.

Her phone buzzed again.

“Check the music box.”

She blinked and exhaled. Her Nana’s music box? It was on her bookshelf in the living room. She hesitated. It could be a trap. She could be running towards something horrible and possibly her own worse fate. She didn’t know what to do but she was not going down without a fight. Lily opened the bedroom window but it was too high. She couldn’t jump without breaking something.

Another message.

“Hurry. He’s searching the kitchen.”

Her heart pounded. She slowly unlocked the bedroom door and slowly crept out. The living room was dark except for the glow of her phone screen. She grabbed the music box. It looked normal. It was still old and chipped and the ballerina was still in her ballerina pose on top posed to dance. She opened it and the music played. There was nothing inside, or so she thought. Then she saw it, a small slit beneath the lining. She ripped it open. She saw a small flash drive.

The man at the glass saw her. He started pounding on the door hard. She backed up.

Buzz.

“Throw it on the balcony.”

“No. Tell me who you are first.”

Silence.

She got another picture. It was Mark. He was alive and tied to a steel chair. His hands tied behind his back, mouth gagged with some sort of cloth and his eyes were wide open. Lily could see the fear in his eyes. Lily covered her mouth.

Buzz.

“Throw it now or he dies.”

Her instincts screamed at her not to trust this faceless text. But if Mark was alive…

She walked to the balcony door, unlocked it just enough to toss the drive out and then she slammed it closed.

The man on the other side of the glass door picked it up and put it in his pocket. He gave her a long look through the door and turned and disappeared into the night. Her phone buzzed again.

“You did the right thing.”

The power came back on. The fridge hummed again and the clock came back on. It was 2:14am. She collapsed on the floor.

The next morning she found a package on her porch. There was no return address on the box. Inside was Mark’s cell phone and a note.

“You’re in it now. Be ready.”

Lily stared at the cell phone and the note. Her hands were cold despite the sun which was directly shining on her hands. Every instinct told her to run. But where? Who would even believe any of this? She picked up Mark’s phone and powered it on. Password protected.

She tried his birthday. No luck. She tried their parent’s birthday’s. Still nothing. Then she remembered the name of the only dog they had as kids. Rusty. Unlocked.

The home screen was almost empty except for a secure folder labeled RED. She tapped on it. Password protected again. Her phone buzzed.

“Use 031319.”

March 13th, 2019. The last time Mark was seen. She entered the code. The folder opened. Dozens of documents, a series of names, coordinates, payments and encrypted messages. She didn’t understand any of it. But one thing was certain. Mark had uncovered something powerful and powerful enough to have someone break into her home to get it. The phone buzzed again.

“You have to move. They’ll come for you.”

“Who are you?”

“The last person Mark trusted.”

“Where is he?”

“Gone but alive.”

“What do they want from me?”

“You have access. You’re the fail-safe.”

Lily bolted . She grabbed her backpack and stuffed Mark’s phone and her own inside and threw on her hoodie. She ducked behind an alley and checked her phone.

New Message

“Turn left now.”

Without thinking, she obeyed. A black SUV pulled up beside her. The back door opened. A man with a grey beanie and large black glasses looked out.

“Get in if you want answers.” He said.

“Who are you?” She asked.

“Name’s Ray. I work with Mark. You’re not safe.”

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

Ray held up a photo of her and Mark on the beach when she was ten years old. On the back :

“Lily, my back up plan.”

It was Mark’s handwriting. Lily got in. The SUV pulled off into traffic.

Inside the car, Ray explained. Mark had stumbled onto a covert black market of encrypted data, government, corporations, even private citizens. He found a hidden layer beneath the dark web called Mirenet, a place where secrets were sold like stocks on the stock market. Mark downloaded everything. The flash drive is only a fragment of keys needed to encrypt the entire network. Lily was his insurance policy. Mark had a backdoor to the system using her identity, one only she could access through her voice and fingerprint.

“Why me?” She whispered.

“Because to them you're invisible. No one suspects you. At least not yet.”

Ray handed her a small flash drive.

“Plug this into this laptop.”

Ray handed her a new laptop. “It’ll show you the rest of the map. But once you open it they will come for you.”

“Where are we going?” She asked.

“First we are going to get Mark and then a safe house. But we can’t stay there for long, only a few days at most.”

She looked out of the window. The city became a blur. Her old life, her job, her house was gone and replaced by secrets and danger and people who wanted to kill her and her brother.

Her phone buzzed.

“You’re safe for now. You have 48 hours until the Glass Protocol begins.”

She turned to Ray. “What is the glass protocol?” She asked.

“It means that you and Mark have to disappear forever.”