The Dane Commission (The Dane Chronicles)

by Dane, Max

  The next morning Ryan was back at his desk. He had finished documenting his files, and had organized them in a box for delivery if the request came. When he finished, he went over to see what Jim was up to. When he got there Jim was working, but David was gone.

  “Hey Jim, where’s David?”

  Ryan noticed that Jim was typing furiously in machine-gun style bursts.

  He looked very annoyed.

  “Hey Ryan, I didn’t see you there. David is at some meeting with people that Ben brought in this morning. Honestly, I really don’t know what it’s about.”

  “Well, I just came over to say hello, I won’t interrupt you,” Ryan said.

  “Wait, stay. Do you want to see something weird?”

  “Well that’s a loaded question, yes, maybe?”

  Jim reached around Ryan and pulled another chair up to his desk.

  “Have a seat Ryan, and take a look at this,” he said.

  Using his motion sensor interface, Jim waved his hands at the screens above his desk, and cleared away much of the data displayed there. What remained was a long list of commands in date/time order, and 2 or 3 different scripts. Ryan had some light training in scripting computer code, enough to know what he was looking at, albeit not enough to understand the detail.

  “Okay, what’s up?” said Ryan.

  Jim pointed to the list of commands. There were six entries highlighted, and all identical.

  3:01 PM #starEtrySIDnet12B34b61 ‘let Sc3356BBB 9’

  6:01 PM #starEtrySIDnet12B34b61 ‘let Sc3356BBB 9’

  9:01 PM #starEtrySIDnet12B34b61 ‘let Sc3356BBB 9’

  1:01 AM #starEtrySIDnet12B34b61 ‘let Sc3356BBB 9’

  4:01 AM #starEtrySIDnet12B34b61 ‘let Sc3356BBB 9’

  7:01 AM #starEtrySIDnet12B34b61 ‘let Sc3356BBB 9’

  Ryan saw that Jim was staring, totally engrossed.

  “Jim, I don’t understand. Why are these entries important.”

  Jim pushed backwards in his chair, and turned towards Ryan.

  “Someone is playing with me.”

  “What? Slow down, explain.”

  “Ryan, I’ve been looking for whatever program is generating this entry. I noticed it about two weeks ago. It’s a code fragment. Usually, they are generated by accident when systems are integrated. Sometimes there are too many arguments being passed from one program to another, and the result is a truncated string left behind, just like this.”

  Jim pointed to the lines on the screen.

  “When I found this one, I deleted it as we always do.”

  “Ok, so what are these?” Ryan said.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I deleted it, but it came back the next day. Since then I have found and deleted it every day since. In fact, I wrote a monitoring script, uploaded it to the Hospital network servers, and have been trying ever since to identify which program is causing this line to reappear,” said Jim excitedly.

  Not understanding, but trying his best to look thoughtful, Ryan said, “Hmm,” in his best ‘thoughtful voice’. It must’ve worked because Jim kept going.

  “You see, whatever is causing this to appear seems to be eluding my searches. As though it is acting intelligently. I’ve been telling myself that I’m reading too much into it. Then this happened, starting yesterday afternoon, and running through the night.”

  Again, Jim was staring at the entries.

  “Keep going Jim, what happened exactly?”

  “Yesterday, I had a bit of a hangover, and I wasn’t thinking very clearly. I changed my monitor script to have 6 windows of about 10 minutes each. During these 6 windows my monitor program would stop watching.”

  “Why would you do that, Jim? It sounds kind of crazy.”

  “I know, I know. It doesn’t make sense. It was a stupid thing to do.”

  Jim pointed to the entries.

  “But look Ryan. Look what happened.”

  Then he got it.

  Whoever did this, added an entry exactly one minute after each time Jim’s monitor-script stopped watching. It perfectly repeated six times.

  “This is no random act,” said Ryan.

  “That’s what I’m saying,” said Jim.

  “What system is this anyway?”

  “Oh, it’s the security log from the hospital network.”

  “You mean someone is hacking into the hospital network, and playing with you?”

  Now Jim could see that Ryan understood.

  “Well, it’s not someone from the outside. If it was, all kinds of alarms would have gone off. And I have only, just this morning, confirmed that this is anything more than a broken string left behind.”

  “So what's your next move?” asked Ryan.

  It was a good question.

  Jim leaned back and rubbed his eyes.

  “Well, I’ll have to write a report and give it to David, and Ben. I imagine we will run my monitor program twenty-four hours a day from now on.”

  Ryan stood up. “It’s a good find Jim, let me know how it comes out. I like a good mystery too.”

  With barely a nod, Jim said goodbye to Ryan.

  Jim stared at the log entries.

  ‘Man that’s weird,’ thought Jim, ‘I swear it’s taunting me.’

  Upstairs, Dr. Bender visited Jeff in his office. And at that moment he heard something he had never expected to hear from Dr. Bender.

  “Jeff, we are going to get our sperm!”

  “Uh, what?” said Jeff.

  “Our sperm samples from the patients Jeff, we’re going to get them after all.”

  Dr. Bender was clearly excited.

  “I met with the Director of Patient Services, Dorothy Allen, and explained that it would triple our collection and allow us to study the specific state of male fertility across a broad census.”

  “And so she just agreed?”

  “Well, no not exactly. I need you to write some sort of request that will be circulated to all the male patients. We are asking for their sperm. They will agree, and then our population of specimens will start growing.”

  “You want me to write this request?” said Jeff.

  “Yes.”

  “Really.” said Jeff.

  “Yes, and get me your rough draft tomorrow morning,” said Dr. Bender.

  After Bender left, Jeff tried to think of how to word such a request.

  He pulled up a formatted memo template that he used sometimes.

  He wrote, “We would like to thank you for your sperm.”

  Just then two of his grad students walked in and started complaining about some missing supplies. He was glad for the distraction. Getting up he followed them out into the lab, and listened while they pointed at bags of swabs.

  He loved his job.

  Ryan waited the rest of the day, but still received no updates from either Ben, or Dorothy.

  On his way home, Ryan stopped by MegaMart and loaded up his cart with the supplies he had detailed last night. He was looking at his cart, and mentally checking things off.

  Batteries, check.

  Dog food, check.

  Bottled water, 8 cases, check.

  As he was counting cans of fruit, he almost ran directly into David from work. Their carts grazed each other in a mad turn around the end of an aisle. When they recognized each other, they both were startled. Looking at David’s cart, Ryan realized it was a mirror image of his own.

  They were both hoarding supplies.

  Surprised and uncomfortable, David said, “Uh, hi Ryan. How are you?”

  Equally uncomfortable, Ryan said, “Oh uh, fine, just fine.”

  They stood there for a minute or two, looking at each other and trying not to notice the other’s cart. They both knew something they shouldn’t.

  Ryan would have laughed if it had not been so embarrassing.

  David said, “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow at work.”

  “Ok, see you then,” said Ryan.

  Quickly, they sped off in opposite directi
ons.

  As Ryan was checking out, he wondered if this was completely crazy.

  He thought, ‘Maybe, but I have a family. It is necessary.’

  He paid for his things and made his way to the car. When he got home, he hurried to put everything away before Jean and Alex got home. It was important not to scare either of them. Besides this was his paranoia, not theirs, and it might never pan out. Alex was enrolled in Tae Kwon Do for youngsters, and would be there for about another 30 minutes. If he was lucky he could get everything put away, and avoid any uncomfortable questions.

  A short while later, he was just stacking the last of the bottled waters in the utility closet when he heard Jean pull into the garage. When they came inside, Alex was still wearing his gi from class, and waving his arms about in obviously dangerous motions.

  Jean looked tired but happy.

  “Hey there, how are you both doing? How was class today?” he said nonchalantly.

  They told him the highlights, and then went upstairs to get cleaned up. He threw away the last grocery bag he’d been hiding in his pocket, and started to make dinner.

  If there was some sort of announcement about a ‘fertility crisis’, and if it did spark riots or runs on food, the Danes would be ready.

  Ready for about two weeks.

  He was officially in the deep end now.

  CHAPTER 10

  “It is necessary to get a lot of men together, for the show of the thing, otherwise the world will not believe. That is the meaning of committees. But the real work must always be done by one or two men.”

  - Anthony Trollope

  “I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees.”

  - Gilbert K. Chesterton

  It was Friday, the end of another week.

  Ryan got to work and found a message from Ben saying that he needed Ryan to join him for a meeting at 10:30 later this morning. Dorothy Allen would be there, as well as the Facility Director, Dr. Cohen.

  ‘Well this is it,’ he thought, ‘the decision all the way from the top regarding his project.’

  Ryan got some coffee, and went over the details of his project. He wanted to be prepared with a list of ‘next’ steps, if he was actually asked to continue. First, he would want to get some help to compare the treatment errors across all three facilities. Second, he would continue contacting other Facilities, starting with Tokyo, looking for more treatment errors. Lastly, he wanted to know if someone inside the system could be making the treatment changes. He wanted to generate a list of people who had that level of access.

  He had some time to kill before the meeting, so he called Jeff on the televid. He couldn’t forget how crushed Jeff had looked yesterday.

  Jeff was standing at his desk, “Hi Ryan, how are you?”

  “Hey Jeff, I’m fine. Interested in getting something to eat in the cafeteria?”

  Jeff was looking off-screen at a paper or something.

  “You know, I would like that, yes. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”

  Ryan said goodbye, and got up to go. Looking out his window he saw lots of clouds on the horizon. He left his door open, and headed downstairs.

  Waiting in front of the cafeteria, he saw Jeff come walking across the floor.

  They shook hands, and got in line.

  “My boss brought me here yesterday, and I still can’t get over how cool this place is.”

  Jeff laughed, “You know this is the first time I’ve been down here in a year. I like it too, but you get involved in work and forget it’s here.”

  They got some coffee and a few bagels, and found seats looking out over the city.

  “Thanks for breakfast Ryan.”

  “No problem, I wanted to thank you for talking with Jim and I, in my office yesterday.”

  “Thank me? I thought you would want to kick me the next time you saw me.”

  “Well, it’s not your fault Jeff.”

  They both ate in silence for a few minutes.

  ‘The fertility crisis was definitely a conversation killer,’ thought Ryan.

  Changing the subject, Ryan said, “How are things in the lab?”

  “Well, Dr Bender has merged our lab with the Jones’ lab across the hall. Their lab director, Sam Niles, scrutinizes everything I do. It is a war zone with flare-ups all the time.”

  “That’s terrible, have you talked with Bender about it?”

  “Yes, sort of; he’s not interested. He and the rest of the faculty are completely focused on directing the fertility research. Nothing else matters to them.”

  “Has the activity in your area picked up?” said Ryan.

  “Oh, yes. In fact, we are beginning a new project regarding a study of male fertility. Even now, I’m supposed to be writing a request for sperm samples.”

  “What?”

  Laughing Jeff said, “You know that was my exact reaction yesterday when I heard about it.” Jeff finished his bagel and had some more coffee.

  “Actually, Bender met with some lady named Dorothy Allen, and got permission to ask the patients in the hospital for samples,” he said.

  “That’s a lot of samples,” said Ryan.

  “Yes it is. I’m going to need a whole new bank of cryo-freezers to store them, and in the meantime I am supposed to compose a request form that will be delivered to the patients. Bender is waiting for my rough draft right now.”

  Chuckling low, Ryan said, “Good luck with that, my friend.”

  “So how’s your investigation of the treatment errors going?” said Jeff.

  ”Well, I’m meeting with Ben James, and the lady you spoke of, Dorothy Allen. Also somebody named Cohen later this morning,” said Ryan.

  “Wow, Ryan you get around. Dr. Eric Cohen is the Director of this whole IntelliHealth Facility,” Jeff said, “Since the president retired, he has been in charge of everything.”

  “Well, I figure they will either thank me, ask for my files and give me a new assignment, or they will tell me to keep going. My boss says that since the matter extends beyond this facility, it will need to be handled by a different office than his,” said Ryan.

  “That sounds kind of ominous.”

  “Yeah, I’m a little anxious. I don’t really know what to expect.”

  “Don’t worry Ryan, in the scheme of things, this problem is nothing at all. You will be fine.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “Nope. Life sucks. I enjoyed working with you, Ryan.” Jeff was smiling broadly.

  They both started laughing.

  Upstairs, Jim was handing a hardcopy of his report to his team leader, David.

  “What’s this?”

  “Dave, I believe someone is accessing the Hospital Network. The protocol is that I document what I’ve seen, and what I’ve done. Here it is, I’m officially reporting it to you.”

  “Oh man, I am buried right now. Are you sure?” said David.

  “Take a look, I think we need to move on this right now. I want your permission to monitor the Hospital Network for intrusion.”

  “Let me take a look at your report; go ahead and prepare your monitor script. But let me get approval before you activate it.”

  “Sure, thanks Dave.”

  Jim was angry.

  The intruder response to his last network test was intelligent, and intended to get his attention. He didn’t believe that anyone was breaking into the network. The security protocols were in place, and up to date.

  ‘No,’ he thought, ‘this is someone on the inside, fooling around where they shouldn’t be.’

  Well, they had his attention now, and he was going to bring the hammer down.

  He pulled up his monitor script and looked it over.

  It was a good one.

  Once his script registered the entry, it would shake hands with every program, and dance through every firewall until it got all the way to the user. It would identify the user account & address, and return it all to Jim in a fraction
of a heartbeat.

  He also added a little message at the end that would flash on the intruder’s screen, just one word, ‘Busted’. He was ready and could pull the trigger whenever Dave said the word.

  As he was putting his script away, his phone rang.

  It was Theresa, “Jim some delivery guys are here, with some computers. They say they need your help?”

  ‘Loki and Thor!’ he thought.

  In the midst of the network incursion he had forgotten today was Friday, installation day for the twins.

  “No problem, Theresa. Please tell them I will meet them at the dock, and help them to the lab.”

  Quickly switching gears, he put away all the hospital network files, and pulled up the Zimmerman files. He picked up his notes, and headed for one of the freight elevators.

  ‘This is going to be so cool,’ he thought.

  Like a boy with a package in the mailbox, he almost ran to the elevators.

  Across the floor, Ryan was just standing up to go to Ben’s office for his big meeting.

  Gathering his files together in a nice bundle, he walked slowly upstairs.

  He was nervous.