DEF CON 30 Short Story Writing Contest https://media.defcon.org/ 2nd Place Winner! Title: Homecoming Author: Caroline Lombard Date: 06/14/2022 [START] Looking out across the vast expanse of desert before me, the highway through the Mojave felt endless. Miles of flat land with the occasional brush to break up the monotony, all backed up by a mountain range in the distance. It looked far different from the lush green of the Pacific coast I was used to. The old Pontiac had somehow made it this far. She was a bit of a franken-car put together from the pieces of this and that. Of cars whose time had long come. Mostly maroon in color save for the green passenger door and the bit of orange rust along the right side. Borrowed from our uncle Gene, it was a marvel she even made it over the pass to bring us into this desert. She was a good pony I thought, closing my eyes, and resting my head against the window. As my brother Frank and our friend Coyote spoke in the front, I began to tune them out and my thoughts returned to you. That nauseating feeling came up again. I remembered how the echo of your laughter flowed through the forested path between home and the convenience store everyone affectionately called the Rez mart just the week before. It felt like a different life. --- “Sucks they were out of chicken wings,” you complained. “Yeah, well that’s what we get for going right after lunch.” I mused. “Seems like everyone… snatched them right up!” With those words you made a quick grab of the bag chips in my hand and ran off with them. “Hey!” I shouted as you ran further down the path laughing while I trialed behind. I was no matched for a former all-star track athlete like you. If only I had known tragedy was stalking us like a hunter in those woods. --- That evening you brought over Louie, all bundled up in his cradleboard for me to watch. Even though he was already asleep you cooed and talked to him anyways. I could see in the warmth of your eyes how precious he was to you. Passing him into my arms the glass beads on the fringe of the cradleboard swayed and clinked together but he didn’t stir one bit. “Well I better get headed out. Sun is setting and I want to get over to the ceremony grounds before its completely dark.” You said. “Yeah, its all good. Have fun.” I replied. “Telala,” you said, goodbye in our way. “Telala”. The ceremony grounds aren’t what most people think. The only ceremony happening there is drinking and bullshitting around a bon fire in the woods. The name is more of a sarcastic moniker. Everyone thinks Natives are all kinds of spiritual and what not. Yeah, we have ceremony and our traditions but not everything has a deep sense of meaning. Calling some random spot in the forest the ‘ceremony grounds’ was our way of making fun of that I guess. --- When the sun slipped through the blinds the next morning, I awoke to find the couch empty where you should have been. The blankets I brought out were still neatly folded and placed to one side. Figuring you must have gone elsewhere for the night I set about making a bottle for Louie. As I fed him, I noticed the messages on my phone from you. 1:44 AM: “Clarence is such an ass. I don’t even know why I bother with him” 1:50 AM: “He kissed Rita and tried to say he thought she was me” 1:50 AM: “Yeah right, just drunk off his ass and we all know how Rita is.” 2:01 AM “I’m just going to catch a ride back with someone else.” Figuring you must be sleeping it off somewhere else, it wasn’t until the afternoon when I tried to call you. Multiple calls just rang through to voicemail. Each time I heard the start of your voicemail greeting, a feeling of nausea would grow. I called Clifton, and Poppy. I called Ma Etta. I called your dad. I even called Pete, my ex just in case. No one from last night seemed to know where you went after that fight with Clarence. They all said they tried to get you to stay. Coyote said he tried to talk to you away from everyone else, but you ran off. That was the last they saw of you. ---- “Thanks for reporting this to us but there isn’t a whole lot we can do right now about it.” “That’s it? When are you guys going to look for her?” I asked impatiently. “It’s only been a few hours. You know how she is, I am sure you will see her later tonight.” The tribal police officer replied. “Of course I know how she is, she’s a good mom. She wouldn’t be gone this long from Louie!”. “Sadie…Calm down.” Frank said as he placed his hand on my shoulder in a bid to get me to quiet down. I turned to look at him and little Louie in his arms. Seeing your sweet baby’s face and not knowing where you were caused my stomach to turn. He needed his mom. He couldn’t go through life with the same aching pain I had. Then came the hot tears of fear and frustration streaming down my face. I turned back to the police officer and said, “Well if you’re not going to do anything I will. I’ll go look for her myself!” --- With a few hours before the sun would begin to set, I managed to gather a group of friends, cousins little and big, and some other relatives to search along the path to the ceremony grounds for any sign of you. We spread out and searched the green of the forest for anything that stood out, like that yellow hoodie you always wore or your pink sneakers… “I found something!” shouted my little cousin Illianna. “What is it?” I said as I ran over to her. It was your purse laying under some fern leaves. I placed a bit of tobacco down before picking up the purse. “Maybe she dropped it,” Alicia said. “Maybe…” I said as I looked through its contents. There it was, your iPhone 8, with missed calls and messages from everyone. That nauseating feeling grew stronger in me. I thought to myself, where are you? --- I was no stranger to vanishing acts. My own mother coming in and out of my life on a whim. I don’t think having children was her thing. She’d come back to the rez between jobs back in the city. She’d stay for as long as she or my dad could stand each other. I wanted to hate her, but I couldn’t. I knew she was broken long before I was born, at least that is what my dad said to me when I was little. At least I had you Margaret. An older cousin turned fill in mom. --- “Can you please look at her phone or something?” I asked the tribal police officer as I placed it on the counter. “Um…” “Please, maybe it can tell us who she talked to last or where she was headed?” I begged. “Look we don’t really do that here and besides it still hasn’t been 24 hours yet. Are you sure she hasn’t gone to Gooch’s house?” He said handing the phone back to me. “Gooch!? You know she broke up with Gooch right?” Apparently, this bit of rez gossip hadn’t made it to this part of the rez yet. “What about getting the feds involved? Don’t they have tools or something that can get into it?” Frank asked. “The FBI only handles major crimes like rape and murder on reservations. Margaret is an adult and there is no sign to indicate anything of that nature has happened to her. If you find anything else or she doesn’t turn up in a few days, come back.” “Absolutely useless.” I muttered under my breath. Frustrated, I walked out of the tribal police station again. Frank put his arm around me as I began to cry. I tried again to unlock your phone but the pin I entered didn’t work. I knew this phone was the key to finding out what happened. I just needed to get in somehow. --- As the days passed and you still didn’t come home, rumors began to spread around the rez about what happened to you. Some said you ran off with that one rich guy who sat at your table all the time at the casino where you’re a dealer. Others said Gooch did something to you because you broke up with him. Still others thought maybe you became disoriented in the woods and hurt yourself in some sort of accident. None of those theories sat right with me. That rich guy? He still came to the rez like nothing happened. Gooch? Wasn’t he working his shift at the water plant that night? As for the getting lost theory, Margaret you knew those woods so well. No way you’d get lost. --- The woods and those trees were our sanctuary, our playground. The woods provided a respite from the fights and drunken nonsense of the adults at home. A place where no one yelled at us or bothered us. We’d race each other along the trail to the river to see who would get there first. We’d see who could climb highest in the trees without a care for whether the branches could hold our weight or not. Even at night we continued our fun, playing hide in the seek in the dark with only the moonlight to guide us. It wasn’t all play though. Sometimes it was serious work being in those woods. When the aunties and grandmas taught us the proper way of gathering. How to identify the plants and berries we could use and for what purpose. They taught us how the woods could provide and how we could offer tobacco and other traditional medicines to show gratitude. They taught us to always ask permission from our forest relatives before we took things for our own use. We could identify and follow the deer trails. We knew all the short cuts. We could crisscross between trails and beat our other cousins to the other end of the forest. I refused to believe you got lost in these woods, our woods. --- Thinking about this while sitting outside the clinic, Silas stopped by to ask if I was ok. “Hey sorry to hear about Margaret.” he said. “Yeah…” I said solemnly. “I don’t believe the rumors that she got lost,” he began, “She went hunting with my son Wendel once. She showed him a few places even he didn’t know.” “Exactly, there’s just no way.” I replied shaking my head. “Your mom’s brother Joe said you guys found Margaret’s purse. Is that true?” he asked. “Yeah, and her phone…Hey wait, since you work with computers, do you know how I can get into it?” I said as I pulled out the phone and turned it over in my hand. I just knew it contained the information I needed to help find you. Silas was our tribal Systems Administrator. He supported our tribal government administration IT systems. I thought since he had been working with computers since he was young, he might know a thing or two about unlocking phones and stuff. “Oh… no not really. Although I think I might know what you can do.” He replied. It was in this conversation with Silas that I first learned about Def Con. A yearly ‘hacking’ conference held in Las Vegas since the early nineties, it was known for hosting a wide variety of individuals ranging from journalists and federal agents to hobbyists and security professionals. Supposedly it’s the place to be if you’re looking for answers on how to hack into things, things like an iPhone 8. Silas thought I could find someone there who could help me get into the phone and retrieve data from it, so that is where I was headed. Each year had a theme. This year’s theme? ‘Hacker Homecoming’. --- Homecoming indeed I thought as the Pontiac drove past the flashing lights of the Las Vegas strip. --- Margaret, I will find out what happened and I bring you home. --- [Dedicated to all Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, may you come home. #MMIW #MMIM] [END]