Chapter 10
U.S. Cyber Corps Headquarters
Herndon, Virginia USA
February 9, 2121
0700 hours
Valerie Patrice had just finished presenting her findings from Quantum Mirror to General Pacer (USCINCCYBER). Anson Leeds was there as well. The full nature of the news from Kipwezia weighed heavily on Pacer and his forehead showed it. Angels and swarms of bots from space had somehow infested WorldNet and were coming from the Net into Normal society. Some kind of response would have to be made. Some kind of defensive effort would have to be devised.
“It’s called Cyber Sweep,” Pacer told them. “A combined special forces op, with Quantum Corps and Cyber Corps working together. Needless to say, you’re both part of it.”
Patrice figured it was coming. “What’s our tasking, sir?”
Pacer was noncommittal. “We’ve got authority from UNSAC. I’m not so sure the Secretary-General will sign off on this.”
Leeds wondered. “There are rumors about the S-G.”
“I’ve heard them: ‘Aquino’s an angel, Aquino’s a wimp, Aquino eats babies’. The usual crap. Some it may even be true. But it doesn’t matter. Cyber Sweep may have to be conducted ‘under the radar’, so to speak. And I’ve got to get POTUS to sign off, but that’s a formality. The main thing to assemble a team, put together a TOE and get going.”
“What’s our mission, sir?” Patrice asked.
Pacer sat up straight in his chair and steepled his hands on his desk. “You’re going to sanitize the Net, from the inside.”
Patrice thought she had misheard the General. “I’m sorry, sir but I thought you said—“
Pacer held up a hand. “It’s better if I show you. Leeds here can explain. Follow me.”
They went down to CyberLab, on the second floor.
On first viewing, CyberLab looked like some high school science fair gone wild. The lab was jammed with tables, benches and consoles, with all manner of gear crammed into every available space. Meters, wiring, soldering equipment, half-assembled robot bodies, imagers and display consoles, wristpads in varying states of repair, the entire place was a teen-aged geek’s wet dream come true.
James Tsu was there too, lost among the equipment, peering intently into an imager on one desk. The object of his study could be seen on a larger display nearby. It looked like a miniature locomotive.
Pacer did the introductions. “This is our boy whiz,” he announced. Tsu looked up, smiled enough to show a gap in his front teeth. He pushed a pair of mag specs back onto his forehead. “Just checking out our little project.”
Leeds seemed to have a general idea of what they were looking at. “It’s called a packet sweeper. We’ll be using this guy to do a little recon of the Net.”
Patrice studied the image. The ‘locomotive’ bore a faint resemblance to an early ANAD-style nanobotic device. She mentioned that to Tsu.
“There is some inheritance, yes. It’s basically a packet mobile. The casing is only a few nanometers in length. It contains some rather unique bits of intelligence and executable software. With this little guy, we’ll be able to travel around the Net at will, chase down suspect packets, code, malware, what have you, inspect it, quarantine it and if necessary, alter it.”
Leeds added, “We think MARTOP bots have somehow entered the Net, so the sweeper will enable us to track them down, capture and destroy them. Or at least, render them harmless. These bots are of the same dimensions as the signal waves that already carry packets around the Net. So in a sense, we’ll be using sweepers like this to literally surf the Net.”
Patrice nodded. “Cute. I guess I’m having a little trouble getting my head around the idea that something’s alive and kicking inside the Net. And these sweepers can track them down?”
Leeds said, “Well, strictly speaking, a packet is just a data unit in a network. Physically, the packets are just streams of bits impressed on a signal, a carrier, that travels around the network. The sweeper is an actual nanobotic device, similar in dimension, with embedded logic and controls, that can ride along that bitstream.”
“And these sweepers are to hunt down rogue bots, or bits, or whatever, and capture them?”
“Essentially, yes. Cyber Sweep is first and foremost a reconnaissance mission. We’ve got to find out what’s infesting the Net, what’s causing all these outages, all these effects.”
General Pacer had been following something on his slate. “Hey, guys, check this out: another Special Report from Solnet. Looks like we’ve got company right outside.” He tapped a button and the slate put a larger image of its display on a nearby wall.
Solnet/Omnivision Video Post
@anika.radovich.solnetworldview
February 9, 2121
1200 hours U.T.
SOLNET Special Report:
Cyber Corps Defends the Net?
Anika Radovich pecked at her wristpad and fiddled with the dronecam controls to get the image she wanted for her opening, establishing shot. She stood alongside a busy highway, just outside Herndon, Virginia, directly opposite the glass and steel headquarters building of U.S. Cyber Corps.
“Cam, go up…altitude at least ninety feet…I want to clear those fence towers…there, hold that position. Now zoom in on the front, get that logo in tight…viewers should see the Cyber Corps emblem. Hold that….”
She cleared her throat and then waited impatiently for a convoy of freight lifters to shuttle by. Damn. Finally, the image was clear.
“This is Anika Radovich, reporting from outside U.S. Cyber Corps Headquarters in Herndon, Virginia. We’re here to investigate persistent rumors that the President had just tasked Cyber Corps with a mission to investigate recent serious problems that have been occurring worldwide with WorldNet and Solnet, problems that have led to unprecedented levels of disruption and damage around the world.” She paused, pecked some more on her wristpad, then commanded the dronecam to close on the perimeter of the Cyber Corps compound. The ornithopter chittered and rose on its whirring quadrotors over busy highway traffic to approach the boundary screen that surrounded the Corps command center. Anika knew a security screen of bots protected the complex from nosy reporters like her, but the cam stopped short of contacting the shimmering translucent dome that was the only visible indicator of the botscreen.
No sense frying a perfectly good dronecam, she figured. That would have raised eyebrows on her expense report.
She went on with her intro.
“Recent reports from highly placed sources inside Cyber Corps have indicated strong evidence that the Net has become infected with a new kind of virus, actually not even a virus.
“According to sources this reporter has consulted, the Net has recently become infected with nanobotic swarms of a type and origin unknown. There are also reports, from highly placed sources that must remain anonymous, that Symborg himself, recently released from containment by Quantum Corps, has surfaced inside the new island continent of Kipwezia and has had something to do with these recent virus outbreaks inside the Net.”
Anika stopped, her fingers playing over her wristpad. Now, comes the narrative transition. She tapped an icon on her pad screen and previous footage was instantly added and synched with her report intro. She watched for a few moments, as video scrolled by, showing scene after scene of financial markets in turmoil (she pasted in an interview with Nathaniel Lee at the Hong Kong Exchange here), power grids suffering sporadic, unexplainable outages affecting millions, air traffic control problems causing mid-air collisions, massive highway chain-reaction accidents as autocars were hacked by the million and lost control, scrambled TV and entertainment channels, air defense radars showing bogies approaching where none existed, leading to fruitless scrambles and intercepts, and now the latest: killsats in orbit failing and firing on ground targets without authorization.
Anika watched the images flow by, satisfied that viewers would get
the right impression, the impression she was trying to establish of a world turned upside, chaos everywhere and the authorities helpless before something they couldn’t understand.
She added more intro: “Both Cyber Corps here in America and UNIFORCE itself seem powerless before this threat. To date, there has been no official response from the Secretary-General. Publically, they’re ‘studying’ the problem and will be making recommendations in the near future. Meanwhile, the Net churns and burns….” She had thought up that phrase just this morning, while putting on her makeup…dammit, it was a good one…”But there are responses being formulated even as I speak…sources indicate that Cyber Corps even now is forming up a special task force to combat the infection and clean up the Net. In addition, efforts are underway, in the very complex of buildings behind me, to develop ways of working, communicating, traveling and shopping that don’t even use the Net, incredible as that may sound. It’s called NetPass—“
Anika pasted in more pre-shot footage describing the new program. She kept one eye on what her wristpad was displaying, and another eye on the dronecam, hovering seventy feet above the entrance gate to Cyber Corps. Guards glared up at the device and occasionally took aim with their pulse guns, but the cam was shielded and encrypted to the heavens—Solnet had spent a fortune on that—and it remained doggedly on station, hovering in a tight orbit over the gate. Anika hoped to catch a car entering or leaving the compound. If she could time it right, she could command the dronecam to swoop down on the unsuspecting motorist and get a quick interview or at least some kind of reaction shot. Edit could add effects later.
But Cyber Corps seemed to be buttoned up tight this morning.
Anika decided to add some more words of her own.
“NetPass will be a new world for all of us…having to live and work and conduct our daily activities offline, without the Net. Some communities have even given up motorized transport altogether, using bicycles and horses and wagons to get around, such as this small town in upstate New York—“ she pasted in some more footage. “It almost seems as if the 22nd century is beginning to resemble the 19th century.”
Anika signed off, for the moment, and commanded the dronecam to follow her back to the Solnet van parked a half kilometer down the highway.
Maybe I can get more later today, around shift change time.
Inside the CyberLab room, Patrice, Leeds, Pacer and Tsu had watched her entire report.
Pacer was sour. “We may have a leak, gentlemen. Or that bitch reporter’s just shooting in the dark. I’ll notify Counter-Intel. Either way, we’ve got to get Cyber Sweep underway now, before the panic gets even worse. Leeds and Patrice, come with me. I want to go over the details of your mission.” To James Tsu, CINCCYBER added. “Get that sweeper ready, Tsu. Operations commence at 0000 hours tonight. I want to send our little recon patrol out on his first sweep right from the server node in here.”
Mount Kipwezi,
Kipwezia
February 10, 2121
0130 hours
The Sanctuary Patrol lifter spotted the bateau just after midnight, on a bearing straight out of La Digue Island, the Seychelles. On radar, the flat-bottomed boat appeared to be a fishing scow, trolling the waters off the northwest shores of Kipwezia for wahoo and sailfish, tuna and dorado, nothing unusual, except for one fact. The small craft had nosed closer to shore than any such boat had ever come, triggering auto alarms and inspections by SP’s fleet of robotic drones, which circled the island continent like birds of prey constantly, twenty-four hours a day.
The drone had flagged the bateau as an exception, which triggered an alert onboard the Sanctuary Patrol cutter cruising ten kilometers to the west of the sighting, operating alone in Oscar sector, as per orders. Someone decided a look-see was in order. The cutter launched her embarked lifter for a closer inspection.
Now, the lifter had the bateau in sight, on scope and floodlit with brilliant spotlights sweeping the ocean surface. She hove to, per orders, dropping anchor in the shallow, sandy bottom offshore. Two Patrol troopers exited the lifter aft bay and quickly boosted down to her deck.
There they encountered a single occupant.
He said his name was Noble. The boatman was tall, wiry, sunburned, with curly black hair, probably thirty years of age. He said he was Seychellian fisherman.
“My boat she is taking on water,” he told them, in a thick Creole accent. And there were several centimeters of water sloshing around inside the pilothouse. His nets were torn and ragged as well.
The troopers asked Noble why he was trolling so close to shore, so close to the restricted zone. Didn’t he see the barrier offshore? Didn’t he know what would happen if he ran into it?
Noble had piercing black eyes. He glared back at them, causing both troopers to shift their gaze. “I want to beach my Isabella…re-caulk her. Fix my nets. She’s all I have…the fish they are my life.” He pointed to crates full of iced down tuna already caught.
The troopers scanned Isabella from bow to stern and inspected her nets, her catch, all her rigging and gear. They found nothing. And the small craft was taking on water steadily.
So they let Noble go. They pointed out the direction he was to take.
“Follow this heading. Head for that inlet. We’ll lower the barrier for awhile…but not for long. You be off the beach by sunrise.”
Noble thanked them profusely, a big gleaming white smile splitting that weather-beaten face. The troopers took one last look, then boosted off the deck and rose back to their lifter, still orbiting the area a hundred meters overhead. With a whoosh, the lifter banked and headed back out to sea, to its landing pad on the cutter, just silhouetted in moonlight on the horizon.
Noble headed ashore.
When he approached the shimmering veil that was vast MOBnet surrounding Kipwezia, he slowed momentarily. He steered straight for the edge of the veil, wincing as the prow of Isabella drew closer, but nothing happened. Sanctuary Patrol had weakened the barrier in this one spot and Isabella nosed through with no effect, as if a sheer gauzy curtain had parted in a stiff breeze. Noble looked back after he had transited the barrier. The barrier brightened and closed back, sealing itself tight. The shield was now impenetrable again.
But it didn’t matter. Noble ran his bateau onto the sandy beach and drove her flat-bottomed keel hard ashore. For good measure, he tied a thick rope to a nearby pandanus tree stump, then hopped down onto the sand. He looked up.
Overhead, Mount Kipwezia was blood red through light fog, winking at him like a big eye.
Noble smiled. Immediately, he began deconstructing. No longer a poor Seychellian fisherman in a ramshackle bateau, Symborg now dispersed himself into an amorphous cloud of bots and began drifting up the flanks of Mount Kipwezi, moving higher on trillions of picowatt propulsors.
The climb to the cave entrance would take about four hours.
Inside the cave complex where Config Zero resided, Symborg confronted the great master swarm, now flickering and coruscating like a slow-motion thunderstorm. Config Zero filled the entire cavern. No words were spoken. The two entities communicated by quantum coupler. Symborg was nothing more than an element of Config Zero anyway. The master swarm had created and spalled off a sub-element of itself nearly a decade ago, by the time reckoning of Normals.
The Normals has seen to it that Config Zero was permanently confined to the island continent of Kipwezia, itself a geo-engineered landform broken off from the east African Rift Valley in a massive UN project years before. Disentanglers had been strategically placed to disrupt long-distance communication, even quantum coupler signals off-island. No one wanted Config Zero to transmit or receive anything from the Keeper on Europa, or from anyone else…especially the mythical Old Ones, whom many felt really didn’t exist.
A vast Mobility Obstruction Barrier had been erected around the island to control what got in and out. Sometimes Sanctuary P
atrol, handed the responsibility of maintaining security of the MOBnet by UNIFORCE, let isolated Normals through. That was how Symborg had entered. But it took persistence and good intelligence to do that. And you had to pass the PSV tests…the Physical Security Verification tests. Symborg had long ago mastered that technique to perfection.
Once in close proximity to the master swarm, Symborg provided updated files from the Keeper. Config Zero accepted these files and incorporated them into its memory, overwriting previous instructions. This process took several hours. When it was done, the master swarm had new capabilities, capabilities similar to the Keeper itself.
The Keeper’s commands were clear and unequivocal: resume oversight and execution of the Prime Key.
Config Zero spent four thousand and sixty-five time cycles processing all its new instructions, sorting commands and data updates, developing protocols and modules to guide the changes that were coming. It also had new commands for Symborg. Quantum coupler signals flowed back and forth between Config Zero and the Symborg master bot for hours, as these commands were downloaded and filed. When the download was finished, Symborg knew in detail what would be required of all its subordinate elements, all angels and Assimilationists, that were even now multiplying exponentially across the Earth.
The requirements of the Prime Key were paramount and Symborg could well envision how its implementation would play out. More environmental changes were coming, as the Prime Key dictated what kind of environment must be developed before the Central Entity arrived, a date now less than thirty- four Normal years away. More earth tremors were coming, despite the efforts of U.N. Boundary Patrol to mitigate them. More de-forestation. Desertification. Rising sea levels, temperature increases, atmosphere changes…all things that Normals had been doing to their planet anyway, unwittingly assisting the completion of the Prime Key. Symborg now had updated instructions on how to further these processes and begin re-creating conditions that had once existed before…millions of years before…when the Old Ones had first done their seeding.
Once all updates had been provided and protocols and commands confirmed, Symborg received new directions from Config Zero. Ten hours after he had entered the cave, the Symborg swarm exited the complex and drifted down the windswept mountainside, just as the orange bowl of the sun was peeking over the ocean’s eastern horizon.
The swarm drifted down to the sandy beach where the bateau had been careened and gathered itself into the shape of a man again, a Seychellian fisherman named Noble. Noble untied Isabella and put her out to sea once more, traversing the outer perimeter of the MOBnet barrier without incident. Undoubtedly, the Sanctuary Patrol cutter had spotted his small craft on radar, and lowered the barrier for him.
Symborg smiled at the ease of the deception. Normals thought like Normals. They could not envision the true abilities of a multi-config entity. They never would and once the Prime Key was fully executed, they would be swept from the face of the Earth and the world made new again for the Central Entity to fix the mistake the Normals called Evolution and start over.
Once the bateau had puttered out to sea and crawled over the horizon, the deception was no longer necessary. Symborg let her drift for a few minutes, aware from his own senses and the bateau’s weather radar that a storm front was rapidly approaching from the southwest, a haboob churning up from the Intertropical Convergence Zone. Winds picked up smartly and Isabella rocked and was soon in danger of foundering completely in ten-meter seas.
Symborg didn’t care. Before a giant wave washed over Isabella’s foredeck and completely swamped the boat, he had already deconstructed and assumed his natural amorphous form, a loose swarm of nanobotic mechs.
The formation of bots rose on the first blasts of the approaching cyclone and was quickly flung hundreds of meters into the air. The cyclone would carry the swarm east, toward Mumbai, toward India.
Isabella splintered in the cyclonic fury of the storm and broke apart. She sank without a trace in five thousand meters of water.
Johnny Winger and the Europa Quandary Page 19