Witch's Cottage

Previously: Jeannie and Paco visit Academy Prep.

Photo and Graphic by Annie Wilson

8:55 AM - Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Linden St, Hayes Valley, San Francisco

Mark exited the 80/101 to Octavia St and looped around on Hayes to find parking near Linden and Gough. He’d been to Blue Bottle Coffee’s kiosk¹ before but only on rare occasions. Unfortunately he’d hit the morning rush and ended up pacing in the alley waiting for his pour-over which he knew was an indulgence, but thought he’d have time for it today. At least the banana bread slice they had was deeply spiced and full of walnuts. There was always something satisfying about grinding down a walnut, letting it seep its flavor between your teeth. 

“Mark?” The barista called finally. Mark dodged between an array of hipsters and techies to retrieve his coffee only to dodge an array of unhoused people emerging from their tents at the end of the alley before returning to his SUV. Apparently this was San Francisco’s SoHo: smart shops, exceptional restaurants, art galleries, performing arts venues…and street drugs. But, as a New Yorker, he knew it would be the shops and restaurants that would win out. 

Arriving at the office late he all but leapt up the stairs to the door. It was some good coffee. 

Raj was alone in the conference room tapping away, so he dropped his bad and set himself up next to him. 

“Hey man,” Raj said, pulling his massive headphones down around his neck, “I’m glad you’re here.” 

“Yeah, what’s up? Please tell me you didn’t try that site on your own.” 

“No. I didn’t, but I read the code again and again last night.”

“Raj — I specifically said —” Mark was terse. Was it the coffee or just him? Katie had told him he needed to work on his tone and he thought he was getting better at it, but he was annoyed.

“I DIDN’T TOUCH IT.” Raj said forcefully. Mark stopped and looked at him. Raj stopped typing and turned to look at him. “Look, man, I just read it through again, and there’s something about the code. I didn’t make any attempts, it’s —” Raj shook his head. He looked tired. “It’s just unsettling somehow.”

“What do you mean?” Mark asked quietly. 

“I can’t explain it. Didn’t you read it?” Raj looked at him, pleading. 

“Last night, no, I was —” He was trying to mask the trim in the baby’s room and then fell asleep on the floor, masking tape in hand. 

“—It - it doesn’t matter.” Raj turned back to his screen. “I just think you should look it over, like, in a detailed way. See what you think.” Mark considered him.

“What do you think?” He said it quietly. Raj was scared somehow, and the guy was usually pretty cut and dry about things, especially in his area of expertise. Raj glanced at him. 

“I think — I think there’s something about it that’s fucked up, is what I think?”

“Explain that.” Raj heaved a sigh and turned his laptop to Mark, clicking through different windows to a screen of code. 

“Look at it.”

“Raj — WHAT am I looking at, looking for? Tell me what you’re seeing.”

“I mean…” Raj took a long pause, scrolling through the screen. “I don’t know. It’s like, it’s like the witch’s cottage, you know.” Mark had to chuckle.

“Um - what? What does that mean.”

“It means the WITCH, Mark? Haven’t you ever read Hansel and Gretel? The house was made of candy and cookies, right? But it was a trap, right?”

“Right.”

“That’s what THIS is.” Raj pointed at the screen. Mark looked at the screen and then back at Raj, tilting his head. 

“Tell me.” He said reassuringly. 

“The code, it’s like so simple it’s dumb kind of all over, but then there’s these pockets of advanced security, you know the alarms? The booby traps? It’s like tempting and made to look easy, but it’s not. It’s like the candy is poison. Or it’ll put you to sleep and then you’re being fattened up in a cage, you know “it puts the lotion in the basket” kind of?”

“Okay, it’s too early in the day for a Silence of the Lambs reference. Are you saying whoever this webmaster is has a pit trap someplace?”

“No, dude, c’mon. It’s the CODE. The code has the pit traps. It’s like meant to be enticing, but there’s self-destructs all over. Like, “hey little girl, want some candy?” and then you get the candy and suddenly you’re hanging from the ceiling upside down. It’s all a trap, but they built it like they want people to set it off.”

“If they want people to set it off then it’s probably because they can see who’s coming.”

“Exactly. So, we just…maybe…shouldn’t.”

“Shouldn’t? This is an important key to the case, Raj. You’re saying not to touch it?”

“Don’t touch it. Like, at all. Every test run I’ve done ended in catastrophic failure. I had to keep a clean copy of the code because it wouldn’t take anything. I tried the subtlest things and —”

“Please tell me you didn’t try these on your own.”

“No. Last night I just re-read the code and this morning I tried a few times on a test build.”

“How many times?”

“Three.” Raj looked at him, eyes wide. 

“Okay, where did you approach?” Raj explained which parts of the code he tried working on to gain access, working the pattern at each point where the alarms were set, trying to neutralize them. 

“It’s the same every time.”

“Okay…okay.” Mark heaved a heavy sigh looking over the code screen. “Okay. Why don’t you take a break from this for now, we need to get on the phones. Maybe we’ll learn something from the photos and texts and see where we get. And I’m not saying we won’t come back to this, but we need to do something else for a while — just, regroup, okay? I know you’re taking this personally.” Raj rolled his eyes.

“I mean, this should be easy. It’s a private fucking chatroom.”

“Well, we’re trespassing. Think of it that way and get to work on something else for a while.” Mark’s phone rang before Raj could respond. 

“Hey Jeannie.”

“Are you at the office?” Jeannie asked.

“Yeah, where are you?”

“Paco and I are on the way back, we’ve been at Academy. Are you with Raj? Put me on speaker?” Mark pulled a face and then touched his screen to make the speaker activate.

“Raj, are you there?” Jeannie asked.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Okay, what’s up is don’t touch Pr3pSF.” Raj looked at Mark, eyebrow raised.

“Tell me.”

“We talked to Cliff Rollins who teaches the Myth and Modern Culture class that Alexa was taking and he said that the Academy Headmaster tried to get into the site using an expired email address — like, of someone who’d graduated from the school?”

“Yeah, and?”

“AND, he said the next day all of the school servers crashed completely. Main website, emails, library, school records, everything. He said he thought it was a warning of some kind—” Mark looked at Raj and shook his head slowly.

“Wow. Okay. Thanks Jean.” Mark said. “Raj had kind of come to the same conclusion, but this is important to hear.”

“How did they get everything back online?” Raj asked.

“I — I don’t know, I didn’t ask. But, I’m sure if you wanted to find out, you could call the Headmaster. He could probably fill you in.”

“There’s an idea.” Mark said simply. “You on your way back here?”

“Yes. We have the contents of Alexa’s locker so will be downstairs documenting for evidence.”

“Okay, we’ll see you soon.”

1. After launching in 2002, Blue Bottle opened their first location in 2005 - a kiosk on Linden St in Hayes Valley.