by M. D. Cooper
PART 2 – THE MATH SORCERER
SEARCHING HIGH AND LOW
STELLAR DATE: 09.09.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Cruithne Station, Night Park
REGION: Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
Sometimes the key to solving a really difficult problem was to not try to solve the problem. At least that’s where Crash had landed after spending several days actively trying to solve the problem through all the usual systematic methods. Sometimes an answer lay in applying known methods in new ways. Sometimes it meant more research into the history of cryptography and mathematics. Some of the best puzzles were really just plays on existing work, and the joy of answering the question came from the story behind the original, often forgotten mathematician.
For the new proof, the answer didn’t appear in any of the archives Crash studied. The Puzzlehead forum immediately filled with debate about the problem. Everyone had been quicker to cooperate this time.
Predictably, the forum quickly aligned itself against Celest. As long as they didn’t know her identity, it was easy to attack her as a wild interloper who was just wasting their time.
Crash listened to their debates and added a few of his own thoughts. He was more guarded than he might usually be in the pursuit of an answer. He was keenly aware that this time, he wanted to be the person to solve the theorem. Again, he wanted the mind behind it to know that the solution had come from him.
Once he was certain the answer wasn’t going to come from the usual methods, Crash decided to stop thinking about it for a little while.
Only he couldn’t. He could do other things while telling himself he wasn’t going to think about it, though this was really just a new way of considering the problem. His friend Fugia Wong would probably tell him he was now attempting random inputs as a vector of attack, but he preferred to call it serendipity.
He left the fountain and flew around the bazaar, watching people walk between the booths. Vendors recognized him as he perched on the edge of their displays and they shouted hello. Once others saw that the bird was really the famous Crash of Night Park, they also called out greetings, testing his Link connection to prove the story was true.
Crash enjoyed their faces as he responded,
A raven hiding on a rooftop behind him sent a wave of gross images after Crash’s greeting, filling the Link channel with maggots and human vomit, then cackled as it flapped away.
He perched on a bit of low-hanging conduit for a while, watching people move between the stalls. Steam rose from several food vendors. He liked that he could imagine the bazaar as something from ancient times before looking more closely to see the tech most vendors were selling.
While most things could be ordered or manufactured, there was a spectacle in wandering the bazaar, looking for those unexpected things that humans enjoyed so much. Crash wondered sometimes if their hope for the unexpected came from a general unhappiness, but he hadn’t explored that idea very much.
This line of thought led him to wonder again if Celest was human or something else. The new problem contained several sections that could have been created by an SAI, but again were combined with human leaps of intuition. There were also references to popular culture combined with historic theorems that had been considered playful at the time. The problem built on these puzzle pieces like a sort of Rube-Goldberg machine, each section its own wobbling tower of uncertainty that opened a gate to the next part of the problem. Several times, he thought he had the correct answer, only to have to go back and start over again.
The forum was a frenzy of angry and awe-filled debate about the new theorem. Some commenters started to wonder if a government intelligence agency was testing them, while others thought they might have attracted the attention of Psion. As usual, others thought one of the Mesh librarians had found a cache of old mathematics and was exploiting the group to flesh out their meta-data, or better, that by actually solving the problems, they would gain prominence among their idiosyncratic members.
Since Crash was friends with Fugia Wong, the de-facto leader of the Data Hoarders who maintained the Mesh data network, he knew this hypothesis was most likely. While the Mesh Hypothesis indicated that there might be multiple authors for any given problem set, he sensed the movement of a singular mind behind the problems. The problems belonged to Celest. There was also the fact that the current theorem referenced popular culture that wasn’t very old. Since the theorem contained multiple steps, it could range from idea to idea, calling on different eras and concepts.
The current problem even contained a model of net from the ancient human game of basketball, which completely stumped the Puzzleheads. They went off in a hundred directions following the game’s rules, players and history.
Watching a little girl tie strings together at the fountain, Crash realized the important aspect of the net wasn’t its use, but its form; the knots were bits of Mayan Quipu. Unraveled, the net became a communication system based on knots and string lengths.
With that knowledge in mind, Crash solved the last part of the puzzle and posted it in the group. The Puzzleheads shouted and laughed and cursed him, then marveled at the puzzle itself, as satisfying the second time through as it had been the first.
In response to Crash’s answer in the forum, Celest’s only response was another puzzle.
LAUNDRY
STELLAR DATE: 09.09.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Cruithne Station, Puzzlehead Forums
REGION: Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
In a non-puzzle section of the Puzzleheads, someone posted a news feed packet on a series of thefts from the local crime syndicate, Rack Thirteen. Crash checked the news feeds, because Rack Thirteen was led by Riggs Zanda—the man who had once been Ngoba Starl’s best friend, and was now his sort-of enemy.
Admittedly, Crash didn’t understand the relationship very well. It wasn’t in a parrot’s nature to hold onto anger for any period of time. Anger was bad for digestion. But the world was also too big for hate. How could he hate anything when there was always a new amazing wonder to draw his attention? The Link made hatred even more inane.
In any case, Riggs and Zanda seemed to both hate and love each other, which made the idea even more abstract to Crash. Like the SAIs, he didn’t see much point in abstractions.
According to the article, word was out that Rack Thirteen had discovered that someone had skimmed a few percent off several of their largest transactions. The syndicate put out a bounty for info on the hacker who’d broken into their internal banking system, anyone who turned over significant intel would get the same amount as a reward.
If Rack Thirteen was willing to spend that much on catching a Cyperpuke, it meant they were in for revenge.
No one had gotten any closer to solving the mystery of Celest. If anything, they were getting tired of her creeping into every discussion on the forum.
Crash moved away from the conversation, checking the other channels for anything interesting.
The timing of the crime, including its leak to the news feeds couldn’t be coincidence. If he had learned anything from Ngoba, it was that little on Cruithne happened without someone intending it. Linking the intentions was part of the ongoing puzzlebox that was the station.
In a few hops, Crash had the station administration’s inquiry into the crime, which included the security tokens for Rack Thirteen’s compromised accounts. Based on the case notes, the station authorities couldn’t believe that the crime syndicate had even shared the compromised codes. They didn’t have the resources or the desire to track the rest of Thirteen’s banking, but it could have been a key to their operations.
Crash did have the motivation. He copied the codes and fed them to his NSAI around Cruithne, who rapidly provided him a list of accounts tied to shipping and ultimately smuggling. As Crash studied the notes he received, he watched two young parrots parodying a mating dance in the lower branches of the fountain tree.
As the parrots mimicked the moves they would use in just a few years to attract a mate, Crash considered the comparison between their furtive head bobs and flapping wings, then noticed a few similar comparisons between Rack Thirteen’s compromised security tokens and Celest’s first puzzle.
At first, he couldn’t believe the congruence was possible. He went through each step of the puzzle, matching it with the gates in the security encryption, and then lined up the second puzzle as well.
The steps fit. The answers he had found were decryption keys for the security tokens. Only, Celest hadn’t started with the tokens…. She had started with their encryption, something that should have taken hundreds of years to crack, and hidden them in the puzzles.
Crash bobbed his head anxiously, fear setting in as he realized that the hacker Rack Thirteen was hunting was him.
LUCRATIVE INTERCEPTION
STELLAR DATE: 09.12.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Cruithne Station, Puzzlehead Forums
REGION: Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
The next puzzle came three days later. The other Puzzleheads jumped on it hungrily, but Crash didn’t look at it right away. He debated telling the others what he had found, but he didn’t see how he could do that without both revealing his true identity and endangering the rest of the Puzzleheads.
Part of the problem with anonymity in the forum was that they couldn’t know if someone from Rack Thirteen, or another who was willing to sell them out for the reward, might be lurking. He didn’t doubt that the human criminals would hunt them all down now that they had the answers, but they would start with him first. If that happened, it would put all the birds in danger. Humans often didn’t understand that he was the only parrot with Link capability.
Eventually, he straightened his feathers and opened the puzzle. Like those before, the theorem had multiple steps, and it consisted of sections from throughout human history. With the knowledge that it was really an abstract security token, Crash cracked it in less than three hours.
He held the answer in his mind, turning it around, trying to decide the best path forward.
He wanted two things: to keep his people safe, but also to know Celest’s identity. He wanted to meet the mind behind these beautiful puzzles. He wanted it even more, now that he understood the mechanism she’d used to create the problems, each one interlocking to unravel the encryption key.
If he confronted her, she might simply disappear and find another way to get her info.
But that was the question. Why make the puzzles at all? If she could create a method to get others to crack her keys, she could certainly do it herself. Did she eventually plan on turning the Puzzleheads over to Rack Thirteen? Was the forum her alibi?
If that was the case, it was doubly important that Crash discover her identity and get her to stop. He had to know who she was for more than selfish reasons.
Her goal was obviously the money. He thought he could maybe use that against her.
With his answer, Crash used the case files from Station Administration to access Rack Thirteen’s banking system. He bounced his access through several layers of obfuscation, then used the key to access their network. He used a different laundering system, which he had learned from Fugia Wong, and sent the funds through a non-profit in the Scattered Disk. The signal alone would take a day to reach its destination. In the meantime, the funds would be locked in escrow, which he could use to verify what he had done to Celest.
Crash closed the connection and then posted in the forum:
The forum, of course, went wild again.
PART 3 – SEARCH THE MESH
ELECTRIC BACKWATER
STELLAR DATE: 09.12.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Cruithne Station, Puzzlehead Forums
REGION: Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
In the news feed forum, an update reported that Rack Thirteen had lost another transaction. All across Cruithne, crews were shaking down every known hacker group. It wouldn’t be long before they found the Puzzleheads and their own hackers started verifying identities. It was time to close shop for a while.
In the main group, a moderator posted a verification key, then closed all channels. Group members could use the key later to prove they had been members of the previous group. Beyond that, the forum was done. However, that didn’t mean it hadn’t already been scraped and its current members compromised. It only meant that anyone hunting them would have to track them one by one.
Crash received a Link connection request bounced from Luna. He knew it would be Celest. He made her wait a few minutes as he stared out at Night Park, reminding himself of everyone he wanted to keep safe. He often saw Rack Thirteen in the park, and he figured it wouldn’t be long before he saw at least a few on patrol. Night Park was neutral territory.
A second request pinged his Link, and he answered this time.
Was that anger in her voice? Crash reminded himself that Celest might not be what he had imagined. She might be a criminal hacker or a collective. She could be from Psion.
she said, her voice softening.
Celest laughed.
Crash clacked his beak, considering what to say.
A force hit Crash’s mind that he had never experienced before. He had always imagined the Link as a doorway between his thoughts and the human world, a barrier he could close at will. As this force hit his mind, he struggled to close the door.
Celest drove wedges into his defenses and pushed. He watched her go after his security tokens, first with brute force, and then throwing information obviously gleaned from the Puzzlehead forum. It was apparent she had been watching them for a long time.
Crash shut her out, then dropped a trace on her signal to follow it back through the Link. As he had hoped, in her rush to answer and then attack him, she hadn’t hidden her steps as well as she might have thought. Fugia Wong was a master at hiding her path across the Link, and Crash had learned from her. Now that Celest was actively attacking him, he could track her back to wherever she called home.
He followed the path to Luna, High Terra, down to Earth, and then back through Cruithne. He wondered if she might actually be on the station, when the signal bounced to the Mars 1 Ring and then on a trajectory that appeared to be Ceres.
Crash felt his heart drop. Was he battling Psion after all?
The last point he tracked was Vesta, the largest asteroid in Sol, and a popular node between Mars and the Jovian Combine. There, she realized he was tracking her, and cut off her attack.
In another millisecond, Celest was gone.
CAT & MOUSE
STELLAR DATE: 09.12.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Cruithne Station, Night Park
REGION: Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
The ravens were laughing when Crash came back to himself. He stretched his neck and looked around, feeling anxious and disoriented. On a conduit high above the dry fountain, a line of ravens cackled and cawed at him, sending images of his stiff form from just minutes before.