Code Flicker

by Marlin Seigman

“Sorry, I’ve got a lot on my mind. Let’s get a burger.”

  They went into Johnny’s Vats, ordered a burger and a beer, and sat at a table near a window.

  “Order number 211. My lucky number,” Kat said.

  “I didn’t know you had a lucky number.” Maybe that’s a good sign, he thought.

  “It’s never come up.”

  “That makes sense.”

  Gomez’s flip phone buzzed. Not tonight. He took the phone out and opened it and looked at the text: MAKE CONTACT. It was Evgeny. He would use all caps.

  He sighed and replied: DeSoto’s 1 hr.

  “What’s that about?” Kat asked.

  “Evgeny. He has our next job.”

  “Tonight?”

  “I’m not sure. I meet him in an hour. We’re going to eat some vat-grown meat first.”

  ◆◆◆

  Gomez and Kat sat in the back bar of DeSoto’s when Evgeny and Mr. Li walked in.

  “Gomez,” Evgeny said, pulling a chair out for himself. “And this is?”

  “Kat. She’s part of the team. She was in Berlin.”

  Evgeny smiled. “Ah yes, I remember. You were on comms during the Marzahn mission.”

  “That’s right,” Kat said.

  “I am Li. Pleased to meet you,” Mr. Li said offering his hand to Kat. They shook. “What is your role in the team?” Mr. Li asked with a smile.

  “Security systems and comms,” Kat said. “I’m also good with guns and general ass-kicking.”

  Mr. Li smiled again.

  Jacob’s right, Gomez thought, there is something about this guy that just isn’t right.

  “I guess you have something for us to do?” Gomez asked.

  Mr. Li took an old fashioned flash drive out of his pocket and slid it across the table. “The instructions are on the drive. I believe you have the technology to read the drive?”

  “We are called Retro Media,” Gomez said.

  “So you are,” Mr. Li said.

  Evgeny laughed.

  “Do you want to give me a clue?” Gomez asked.

  “We would prefer to not say much. It’s very sensitive, and we wouldn’t want anyone to overhear. Also, make sure the machine you open the drive with is not connected to the net,” Evgeny said.

  “You’ve got my interest,” Gomez said.

  “It is a hacking job,” Mr. Li said. “There are directions to a safe house in addition to the instructions.”

  “Directions?”

  “None of our operatives will be going with you. The people there are business partners, much like you,” Mr. Li said.

  Gomez didn’t like how this was shaping up. He looked at Kat. The look on her face showed she didn’t like it much either. He turned back to Mr. Li. “And when this is done, they will give us what we need? What you owe us?”

  “They will not have the goods,” Evgeny said. “There will be a meeting in the days following the hack. We need to be sure it is a success.”

  “This is getting a little old, Evgeny. We did that first job for you, and you didn’t deliver. And now we have to wait until days after the added, bullshit job. It stinks.”

  Evgeny shrugged. “There are things beyond my control, old friend. I am simply a pawn in a larger game.”

  “Well, I don’t like being a pawn,” Gomez said. “It makes me not want to play the game. You should know that about me.”

  “I understand your frustration,” Mr. Li said, holding his palms to the ceiling. “Trust me when I tell you, we are going on our orders. The SRS values its business partners. Evgeny and I value you, but our orders are what they are. I would love nothing more than to give you what you have due, but as I said, we are only going on our orders.”

  “You did say that,” Gomez said. He was ready to break the deal off and come up with a new plan to break into Your Better Life. However, he couldn’t make that call alone. Jacob and the others would have to agree. They could always tell the SRS to forget it after they looked at the flash drive and had an idea of what the job entailed.

  “Can we count on you?” Evgeny asked.

  “Last time I checked, I haven’t gone back on my word.”

  Mr. Li smiled again.

  Gomez stared at him, resisting the urge to smash a bottle over his bald head.

  Chapter 24

  “It seems pretty simple,” Jacob said. “Maybe not easy, but simple.”

  Earlier that day, Jacob asked Xia to come to Retro Media, they had a new job from the SRS and would need her help. He told her he didn’t think they could do it without her. Now she knew why. Kat had rigged the mall security system to display the instructions the SRS gave Gomez, and each of the screens showed the document.

  “Maybe not easy? That’s an understatement,” Sandy said.

  “I still think the key is multiple attacks to get the security system’s AI on its heels,” Gomez said.

  “Not to mention the people on their side who’ll be trying to counter us,” Kat said.

  “If we can get past the AI, the people on their side won’t be a problem,” Jacob said.

  “Why hasn’t the SRS done this themselves? They have to have hackers,” Xia said.

  “They have hackers who have tried,” Gomez said, “but the SRS is mostly a ground forces kind of operation. The best Chinese and Russian hackers feel the same way about the SRS that we do and would rather work for their governments or corporations. Regular old crime doesn’t pay as well as state-supported crime.”

  “That makes sense,” Xia said.

  Jacob looked at the displays again. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think we might need the kid’s help.” He looked at Gomez who was already shaking his head.

  “No way,” Gomez said. “I just don’t want him to be a part of this whole thing.”

  “We don’t have to bring him into the whole thing. Just this. We tell him it’s a standalone job,” Jacob said.

  “One more person in there running an attack would be nice,” Kat said.

  Gomez stared at the collection of displays. He closed his eyes and shook his head again. “I don’t like it, but you’re right. That Nazi AI is going to be tough. I’ll go get him, but if anything happens to that kid, I’m going to be pissed.”

  Xia watched as Gomez went to the front of the store, closing the door behind him.

  “Why’s he so protective of Two-Step?” she asked.

  Kat sighed. “The kid reminds him of someone he knew in Berlin.”

  “Knew?”

  “He was killed on a mission Gomez was leading.”

  “Oh.”

  There was a silence that left Xia feeling awkward for asking. She hated situations like this. More to the point, she hated her inability to find the right words to say or the right feelings to feel in situations like this.

  “Anyone up for some food?” Sandy asked, rescuing Xia from the weight of the moment. “I was thinking about some chaat. I could go get some while y’all get Two-Step up to date.”

  “That sounds good,” Kat said.

  “Do you mind if I go with you,” Xia asked. “I could use a walk.”

  ◆◆◆

  The Galleria fascinated Xia. Its people lived in an entirely different economy, one where barter and personal connection held as much weight as corporate credit, one where what you needed was more important than what you wanted, one where community was collateral. The people making up that community were also amazing. Xia had always been a people watcher, but the feast of sights The Galleria offered was not like anything she had seen. The closest thing in her experience was Soweto, but the South African government had turned the township into little more than a theme park for tourists wanting to see how the downtrodden lived. The people in the Soweto shanties received a generous revenue dividend from credits generated by tourism, making it one of the highest non-corporate jobs in the country, and there was a waiting list to participate. But The Galleria and its people were real. It was a kaleidoscope of outcasts, and Xia felt at home here for some r
eason. There was no pretense, no pressure to be anything other than yourself.

  “How long have you lived here?” Xia asked Sandy. They walked down the broken escalator between floors, moving aside to let a group of small children by.

  “In The Galleria? About five years.”

  “What brought you here?”

  “Like most people, I couldn’t play by the rules out there. I got fired from a cybersecurity job before it got started. I used to get upset about that. Now I know all the backhanded shit corporations pull, I’m glad I’m not on their side.”

  Xia nodded. “It seems like it can be a dangerous life, though. Maybe not living here, but all of the other stuff,” she said, gesturing to indicate the events of the last week.

  Sandy shrugged. “It’s interesting.”

  “Is it always this interesting?”

  “You mean the part about hacking the Aryan Brotherhood’s VR sex business for the SRS and plotting to own one of the biggest pharma-tech companies in the world?”

  “Yeah, that part,” Xia said.

  “No. This is some other level shit for us. We’ve worked with the SRS before, but we’ve mostly done small-time hacks for them or set up deals for tech. They’ve upped the game a bit.”

  “Just a bit,” Xia said.

  Sandy put her hand on Xia’s shoulder and guided her to the railing overlooking the garden. “I guess this is a lot to handle your first time on this side of things.”

  “Just a bit,” Xia repeated with a smile.

  Sandy laughed. “Don’t worry. It will all go down the way we want. It always does.”

  “That’s easy to say. I was with Jacob the night he got burned. I left less than ten minutes before the corporate police got there. I’ve been stressed about doing anything not in line with corporate policy ever since. It makes it hard to get to that not worrying place.”

  Sandy gestured at the garden. “Do you know how this works?”

  “What? The Garden? No, I don't.”

  “People plant what they want to plant. People make sure the grow lights are working. People water plants when they need it. People come and harvest when things are ready. People trade for food. No one destroys anything. No one fights over anything. It just works. You know why?”

  Xia watched people working in the garden. “Why?”

  “Because everyone believes and trusts that it will. If someone new comes to The Galleria and tries to get more than they put in, no one trades with them. If someone comes and tries to destroy the garden, the community stops them, and no one trades with them. If no one trades with you here, you can’t make it. You have to decide to be a part of what we have or go somewhere else, and you can’t be a part of it unless you believe and trust that it will work. That’s how I live my life. I believe and trust that everything will work.”

  “Does it?” Xia asked.

  Sandy looked out over the garden, then looked at Xia. “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Whether getting fired from a potentially high paying career is everything working out.”

  “Funny. I don’t know if it helps, but it’s funny.”

  “Let’s get some chaat.”

  Chapter 25

  The ride to the hacker safe house was uncomfortable. All of the backseats of the Retro Media van were taken out and traded long ago, replaced with shelves that ran along the sides of the back compartment. Gomez and Kat were in the front seats, while everyone else made the best of the situation in the back, sitting in a single file in the space between the shelves.

  Outside the city, the ride got worse. The instructions from the SRS had a specific route to follow. The safe house was in Texas City, about 50 miles outside of Houston, but the directions took the van on a roundabout way, down old county roads, roads that were not well maintained and full of potholes. The thin carpet on the floor of the van offered no padding, and Jacob's tailbone was sore by the time they pulled back onto Highway 45, just outside of Texas City.

  The safe house itself was an old, two-story house. Across the street, the faded outline of a cross decorated the brick façade of what used to be a church but now looked like a short-term loan business. Towering over the former church, a large cell tower rose into the night, it’s red lights blinking.

  From the street, the house blended in with the rest of the neighborhood. A lone vehicle sat in the driveway, a late model Chinese sedan. “This is it,” Gomez said. “Instructions say I’m supposed to go up first. I’ll be right back.”

  Gomez got out and went to the door.

  “What’s going on? I can’t see through these shelves,” Two-Step said.

  “Two-Step, none of us can see back here,” Sandy said.

  “He’s at the door talking,” Kat said. “He’s giving the guy the flash drive. The guy went back in and shut the door.”

  Jacob leaned toward the front to get a better view. Gomez was standing at the door, looking at the neighborhood.

  “The guy opened the door,” Kat said. “There’s our signal. Let’s go do this.”

  The inside of the house was a hacker’s dream. Servers and decks took up much of the space, and there was no furniture except chairs at work stations and a table without chairs in the kitchen. Signal scramblers ran along the walls, near the ceiling of each room, making it a bubble no Wi-Fi could get in or out of. There were a few people bent over workstations, oblivious to the others roaming around.

  “I’ll show you where you can work,” the man who let them in said, “but first you’ll have to check all of the gear with me, and you’ll have to use our equipment. You understand I’m sure. Any cybernetics that record or connect to the net?”

  “My left eye,” Gomez said.

  “What’s it designed for?”

  “Zoom, night vision, heat, and recording when I want. I’ll leave that function off and let you check the log when we’re done.”

  “That’s fine. Not like I can take it anyway? Anyone else? Good. Let me get a box for your gear.”

  He came back with a box, and everyone put in their gear. He closed the box and locked it with an electronic lock and gave the key to Gomez.

  “You can take the main bedroom,” he said, pointing upstairs. “It’s at the end of the hall past the bathroom. My name is Monk, and if you need anything, let me know. You can call for me or send someone to get me.”

  “Thanks,” Gomez said.

  “How are we going to get on the net with all of these scramblers?” Two-Step asked.

  Gomez gave Two-Step a look that told him to be quiet.

  “No, that’s cool. I would want to know too,” Monk said. “Always know the highway you’re driving on. We have a fiber cable running under the street to the loan place. Nothing in there but a shit-ton of tech. From there we piggyback on the cell tower. The building is so close to the tower, anything but a precisely targeted scan will only show the cell tower’s connection to the net. There’s a small, dead-end router camouflaged on the roof so the house doesn’t show up as totally dark. That would be suspicious.”

  “Thanks,” Two-Step said. He started to smile at Gomez. The look on Gomez’s face seemed to dare him to say something. Two-Step gave in and started upstairs.

  The room was almost as cramped as the back of the van. Workstations lined the walls and a table in the center of the room held several more. An Italian made ergonomic gaming chair sat at each workstation.

  “This setup sure beats that Tandy I rigged up,” Two-Step said. He sat down. “I’ve always wanted one of these chairs.”

  Jacob took a seat and moved from side to side. “Built for comfort.”

  “And for having your ass in it for a long time,” Sandy said.

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t take too long,” Xia said.

  Everyone except Kat sat down at a station. She would watch over them as they were linked to the net. If anyone in the house came into the room while they were linked, Kat would handle them. She would also be the one to sever everyone’s lin
k if they ran into trouble and needed to be pulled out, and she would be their communication network. The safe house supplied headsets with neuronet amplifiers sending a low-grade signal to everyone’s subdermal chip, allowing her to communicate with them, and them with her.

  “Man, these guys think of everything,” Two-Step said as he picked up one of the headsets and scanned the tattoo on his forearm. “These will take care of the murmurs.”

  “The murmurs?” Xia asked.

  “You know, when you go deep in the link and can’t talk,” Two-Step said. “You sure you’ve done this before?”

  “Yes,” Xia said as she scanned her tattoo. “I just haven’t heard it called that before.”

  “What do you call it?”

  “Not being able to hear someone when I’m linked in.”

  “Everyone ready?” Jacob asked. He wanted to get this done.

  “They’re all set,” Kat said.

  “All right,” Jacob said, “when you get in, go to the server address. I want to make sure we’re all there before we start the attack. The notes the SRS gave us said this server AI has an aggressive defense system, so I don’t want anyone going at it alone.”

  “What does an aggressive defense system do?” Two-Step asked.

  “Some try to fry your brain while you’re linked,” Sandy said.

  “Sorry I asked.”

  “Don’t worry,” Kat said, “that’s why I’m here.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” Jacob said. “Link on Kat’s signal.”

  “Go,” Kat said.

  It was a freeing sensation. Weightless. Bodiless. Floating in code and data. Floating in the limitless expanse of the net. Listing to the music of the net, like the music of the spheres. Jacob never got tired of it.

  He thought the server address and was transported, riding the data stream. When he stopped, the AI defense filled his vision, a huge structure of code with data streams filtering in and out.

  “Everyone good to go?” he asked.

  Everyone responded they were.

  “That’s an impressive defense system,” Gomez said. “Stick with the plan?”

  “Yes. Xia, piggyback on an incoming data stream. Two-Step, use the fake account and false IP address we created. Sandy and Gomez hit it with ping flood attacks. I’ll get the request to end services attack going.”