She’d been surprised the first time she’d visited Kyle at MCC. Perhaps the consequence of too much television, she’d thought they’d be separated by glass and would have to talk through telephones. She’d been pleased to discover that the inmates were allowed to meet their visitors in a large common room. Sure, the entire time they had four armed guards watching over them, but at least she could sit down with her brother face-to-face.

Ignoring the bitter sludge they called coffee – a mistake from her first visit never again to be repeated – Jordan opted for bottled water from one of the vending machines. She chose a table in front of a window encased by metal bars and took a seat. As she did every week, she tried to mind her own business and avoided paying too much attention to the other visitors waiting at the surrounding tables, assuming they preferred some modicum of privacy as much as she did. Her mind wandered, knowing she had several minutes to wait while Kyle made it past his various security checks before he could be processed through to the visiting room.

Jordo – I fucked up.

Those had been the first words out of Kyle’s mouth when he’d called her that fateful night five months ago. She’d had no clue what he’d done, but in the end it came down to one thing.

“Can you fix it?” she’d asked.

“I dunno,” he’d groaned worriedly. There was a hard thumping sound, which she’d guessed was his head hitting the wall.

“Where are you? I’ll come get you and we’ll figure it out.”

His words were slurred. “Tijuana. Gettin’ verryyy drunk.”

Oh boy. “Kyle. What did you do?”

His voice rose in anger. “I juz shut down Twitter, thaz what I did. The ho damn thing. The hell with Dani.”

Jordan hadn’t caught all of that, but she’d grasped enough to understand that her computer geek of a brother had done something very, very bad because of Daniela, his girlfriend.

Kyle had a knack for attracting the wrong kind of girl – meaning vapid, money-seeking, skanky ones – and, as Jordan ultimately came to find out through her brother’s inebriated ramblings that night, Daniela the Brazilian Victoria’s Secret model ultimately was no exception. They’d met in New York at a gallery exhibition for an artist who was a mutual friend. They dated long distance for six months, a record for Kyle. Then Daniela flew out to LA to shoot a music video – a great opportunity, she’d said, because she wanted to become an actress. Of course she did.

On the second day of the trip, she stopped calling Kyle. Worried, he left messages on her cell phone and at her hotel, with no response. Late on the fourth night, he finally got a reply.

Via Twitter.

@KyleRhodes Sorry not going 2 work out 4 us. Going 2 chill in LA with someone I met. I think U R sweet but U talk too much about computers.

Twenty minutes later, in her next tweet, Daniela posted a link to a video of her in Hollywood making out with movie star Scott Casey in a hot tub.

It was tough to say which bothered Kyle more, the fact that he’d been dumped over Twitter, or the fact that Daniela had no qualms about publicly cuckolding him. Given his wealth and her minor celebrity status, their relationship had been talked about in gossip columns in both New York and Chicago, and had been mentioned several times on TMZ.com.

Kyle worked in technology; he knew it would only be a matter of time before the video of Daniela and the A-list actor went viral and spread everywhere. So he did what any pissed-off, red-blooded computer geek would do after catching his girlfriend giving an underwater blowjob to another man: he hacked into Twitter and deleted both the video and her earlier tweet from the site. Then, raging at the world that had devolved so much in civility that 140-character breakups had become acceptable, he shut down the entire network in a denial-of-service attack that lasted two days.

And so began the Great Twitter Outage of 2011.

The Earth nearly stopped on its axis.

Panic and mayhem ensued as Twitter unsuccessfully attempted to counteract what it deemed the most sophisticated hijacking they’d ever experienced. Meanwhile, the FBI waited for either a ransom demand or political statement from the so-called “Twitter Terrorist.” But neither was forthcoming, as the Twitter Terrorist had no political agenda, already was worth millions, and had most inconveniently taken off to Tijuana, Mexico to get shit-faced drunk on cheap tequila being served by an eight-fingered bartender named Esteban.

Late the second night, after an unpleasant encounter with a cactus to the forehead while bending over to throw up outside Esteban’s bar, Kyle had a moment of semi-clarity. He stumbled to his hotel room and called Jordan, then, realizing the error of his ways, powered up his laptop computer. Determined to right his wrongs, he hacked into Twitter a second time and put a halt to his earlier attack.

Only this time, Kyle wasn’t as careful. Drinking cheap tequila served by an eight-fingered bartender came with its price. And the next day, when a sober and chagrined Kyle flew back to Chicago, he found the FBI waiting on his doorstep.

Despite all the attempts by his lawyers to dissuade him, Kyle steadfastly insisted upon pleading guilty. He’d done the crime, so he would do the time, he said. Jordan had found this to be an admirable sentiment, albeit one that would essentially cost him a year and a half of his life.

The heavy double doors swung open, jolting Jordan back to reality. The very real reality of bulletproof glass, barred windows, and armed guards.

The inmates entered the visiting room single file. Jordan watched as the first two men spotted their families and headed over to nearby tables. Kyle, her computer geek of a brother, was third in line.

His grin was the same every time she came to visit: part embarrassed to see her given the circumstances, and part happy just to see her. He walked over in his orange jumpsuit and blue tennis shoes as she stood up.

“Jordo,” he said, his nickname for her ever since they’d been kids. Having obviously stolen all the tall genes from her upon conception, something she still hadn’t forgiven him for, he leaned down to pull her into a hug. This and another brief embrace at the end of the visit were the only contact permitted.

“I’ve decided that orange becomes you,” Jordan said teasingly.

He chucked her under the chin. “I missed you, too, sis.”

As they took a seat at the table, Jordan saw some of the female visitors not-so-subtly checking Kyle out. In fifth grade, her girlfriends had begun handing her notes to give her brother after school, and the attention hadn’t waned since. Frankly, the whole thing flabbergasted her. It was Kyle.

“Is it as bad out there as they say it is?” he asked. “From my six-inch window, it looks like we got hit with one hell of a storm.”

“It took me nearly an hour to shovel the sidewalk this morning,” Jordan said.

Kyle brushed his neck-length dark blond hair off his face. “See? That’s one of the positives of being in prison. No shoveling.”

Her brother had long ago set the rules regarding their visits. Jokes about being in prison were expected and encouraged, sympathy was not. Which was good for both of them, considering her family had never done particularly well with the mushy and sentimental stuff.

“You live in a penthouse condo and haven’t shoveled snow for years,” she pointed out.

“A deliberate choice I made because of the trauma of my youth,” Kyle said. “Remember how Dad used to make me shovel the whole block every time it snowed? I was eight when he came up with that plan – barely taller than the shovel.”

“And I got to stay inside making hot chocolate with Mom.” Jordan waved off the retort she saw coming. “Hey, it was good for you – it built character.” She paused for a moment, taking in their steel-barred surroundings. “Maybe Dad should’ve made you shovel the next block over, too.”