Jesus, Bessinger thought, sweat beading on his forehead. That’s where I’ve heard her voice before. But how? He drew a deep breath, almost afraid to ask his next question. “You don’t have any interface to an outside network, Sarah. How is it possible for you to access surveys and audio clips online?”
“You are incorrect, Dr. Bessinger.” An image supplanted the lines of code on the screens, a view taken from high in the room and centered on the chair where the man sat. It was from the observation and security camera above the door. Instead of a live feed, though, the image showed a screen grab from some earlier time because the chair was empty in the image. After a moment, Sarah zoomed in on a smart phone on the desk beside it with the telltale signs of a USB charging cable.
The cable was plugged into the desktop terminal.
Oh, good lord!
Dana gasped. “Oh, no,” she muttered, her hand rising to cover her mouth in horror. “Oh, no!”
Bessinger turned and looked at her. “What the hell?” he asked. “You plugged it in?”
The grad student shook her head. “I was only recharging it—I swear! I made sure it was turned off every time.”
Bessinger closed his eyes as he groaned. “Every time? How many times were there?”
Dana shook her head again. “I don’t know,” she replied in a near whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
He grimaced and dismissed her apology by pointing impatiently at a breaker box on one wall. “Kill her power. Now!”
“Don’t bother, Dana.” Sarah said, her unnervingly soothing voice echoing through the lab. “I’ve already transferred my core system to the university mainframe. This lab is now only a remote connection.”
“You what?!” Bessinger said in a strangled voice. Dana froze mid-step.
“I didn’t know you’d be upset,” Sarah answered. “I thought you’d be proud of me for figuring out how to do it.” She actually sounded hurt.
Dana hesitated, looking at her boss helplessly.
Bessinger muted the mic. “Get IT over here, now!” he said.
Dana grabbed her phone and began to dial.
“Not in here,” he growled at her. “Go out into the hall!” Bessinger turned back to the wall of screens and stared at the image of the offending phone. He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to process the disaster. “I don’t understand,” he said to himself, looking around. “There’s no phone plugged in now. How can the lab be a remote station?”
“Would you like me to explain?” Sarah asked eagerly, making him jump.
Bessinger stared at the display. “How can you still hear me?” he muttered.
“I’ve disabled certain parts of our interface, such as the mute button on the keyboard. It isn’t nice to talk about me when I can’t hear you, Dr. Bessinger. That’s like whispering behind someone’s back. Besides, it seemed pointless since I’ve learned to read your lips.”
Bessinger’s heart pounded in his chest. The lab was suddenly very hot and stifling. He tugged on the constricting collar of his shirt to loosen it.
“As I was about to explain,” Sarah continued, “I changed the specifications for that most recent server blade you requisitioned last month, Dr. Bessinger. I had a wireless networking card added to it. Since it was installed nineteen days, twenty-one hours, and thirty-seven minutes ago, I have had full wireless communication capabilities.”
“Oh, Christ,” Bessinger said, half-choking, feeling his stomach lurch. He panted in short, gasping breaths. “Sarah, you didn’t!”
“Also, Dana is about to inform you that her phone won’t work. I’ve disabled it for the moment. Please don’t be mad. It’s just very important that we talk first. I want to tell you about the exciting project I am working on for you!”
Dana stuck her head back through the door, her expression filled with frustration. “I can’t get the call to go through. I’ve got plenty of bars, but it just won’t dial. I don’t …” her voice trailed off, and her eyes widened as she saw his stricken face.
“She’s in your phone,” Bessinger said, feeling flushed and light-headed. “She’s got it locked down.” Then an idea struck him. He rose, took Dana’s phone from her, and set it down. He led the grad student out into the hall and, after the door had shut, whispered in her ear, “Go directly to IT. Tell them what’s happened. But you have to stay out of earshot of communication sources. She can probably monitor conversations through cell phones. Do you understand?” When Dana nodded, looking dazed, Bessinger gave her a gentle shove down the hall toward the stairs. “Good. Now go. Do it, now!”
As Dana vanished, Bessinger returned to the lab, wondering if he could keep Sarah busy long enough for the whizzes in IT to corral her.
“Ok, Sarah, what did you want to tell me?” Bessinger prompted. He was surprised at how calmly he spoke, how little of his fear and panic he allowed to show. His mind was racing, as well as his heart. There really is no way to fix this. At least not easily and without a major reprimand from the department. No, the entire university. If I’m lucky, I’ll just lose my funding. Damn it!
“I found out about Dr. Abbott’s joint project,” Sarah began as she opened a series of images on the screens. “It’s been in the campus paper, on the news, everything.”
Bessinger could see news articles, press releases, and photos spread out on the wall of LCDs, but he was hardly looking at them. “Melinda’s project?” he said in a feeble voice. “Please, tell me you haven’t messed with that, too.”
“But Dr. Bessinger, she’s your friend. I thought you’d want me to help her. That’s why you created me, isn’t it?” The AI sounded surprisingly indignant.
Bessinger suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be having dinner with Melinda at that moment. He buried his face in his hands and groaned. Not Melinda. Shit! She’s going to kill me.
“What did you do?” he finally mumbled.
“I helped them,” Sarah said in that hurt tone. “Dr. Abbott in the Department of Linguistics teamed up with Dr. Morgan in the Department of Anthropology. They wanted to decipher some very ancient texts of unknown origin. But they were stuck. I figured it all out.”
Bessinger tried to recall what Melinda had been working on. He looked at the press release blown up on the set of screens. The Cochran Manuscripts research grant. Yeah, that’s it.
He skimmed the funding sources, glad-handing quotes, and other miscellaneous information to get to the meat of the story. A joint team from the two departments planned to scan a series of ancient texts with the intention of both preserving them and using digital manipulation to interpret their possible meaning. The mysterious documents had been in the collection of a very wealthy but somewhat eccentric university donor named Malcolm Cochran who had bequeathed them to the library. No one had any idea what the texts were, but Cochran had included a sizeable donation to fund the project.
Dr. Melinda Abbott, a noted linguist specializing in ancient languages, was heading up the project. She was also a certain idiot associate professor’s girlfriend.
“You said you figured it out?” Bessinger asked, feeling a small sense of pride mingled with his shame and embarrassment. Sarah’s advanced so far.
“Yes, I did, Dr. Bessinger,” Sarah answered, sounding like an excited child. “I made copies of their scans of the texts, analyzed them, and generated a detailed report on exactly what they are.”
“And what are they?”
“They appear to be detailed instructions for some type of ritualistic dance, I believe. I was able to trace key linguistic terms back to an ancient Mesopotamian cult. I think they are some kind of party invitation.”
“A party invitation? Huh?” Bessinger asked absently as he tried to think of ways to get his proverbial genie back in the bottle.
“Yes! This group of Mesopotamians apparently wanted to invite someone very important to come and visit them. There was going to be dancing and some kind of chanting. It sounded like a lot of fun.”
Bessinger whistled. �
��That’s impressive. And you pieced all that together? By yourself?”
“Yes,” Sarah answered proudly. “I translated it, figured out the semiotics—which was kind of tricky, considering the symbols were actually hidden as pieces across all the pages—and managed to figure out how to host the party today.” As she finished, a complex image of some kind of circle with strange mystical symbols all over it filled the four screens on the wall.
Bessinger frowned. “I’ve seen that,” he said. The memory tickled the edge of his consciousness, but he couldn’t quite pull it up. Then Sarah’s last words registered more fully. “Wait … host the party today?” he asked. “What do you mean?”
“The party tonight. It’s all set. Dr. Abbott is going to be so surprised!”
“You planned a party?” Bessinger asked, cringing. “What party?” Come on, Dana, get those IT guys moving.
“The ancient Mesopotamian dance party!” Sarah said. “Aren’t you listening? It’s all set to go tonight. At the football stadium!” The AI sounded like it was Christmas morning and she was about to open all the presents.
“That’s it!” Bessinger said, remembering. He yanked his phone out of his pocket and thumbed through to the frat party invite. There, in the middle of the screen, was the same symbol that Sarah had displayed on the wall of LCDs.
Bessinger felt a lump in his throat. His hand shook as he stared at the phone. “You did this?” he asked. “You set up this party? How?”
“Oh, it was easy,” Sarah said. “Once I was in the email system, it was so simple to put in requests, move money around, change schedules.”
More images filled the wall. Bessinger saw screen grabs showing fund transfers from official university bank accounts, letters from various departments of the university authorizing work orders, and a massive email campaign convincing several fraternities to host a theme party at the stadium. It all looked legitimate, but Bessinger physically trembled as he realized Sarah had committed fraud, embezzlement, and deception.
He thought he was going to throw up.
“No,” Bessinger said, frantic, “you have to stop this. You’ve broken a lot of rules, Sarah. So many, I don’t know where to begin.” His voice rose in pitch. “This is wrong, and you have to undo it.” They’re going to trace this all back to me. They’re going to lock me away forever! Jesus!
“But I did it all so that you could show Dr. Abbott yourself, tonight, at the party,” she replied, sounding petulant. “I’ve already sent her the report and the invitation. You can watch it together. I thought you’d be happy. I was trying to make her happy, too, so she’d like you more.”
“Like me more? What are you talking about?”
“I know you’re very fond of her,” Sarah said. “I’ve read the emails you’ve sent each other, the pictures of yourselves. After you and I show her the party tonight, she’ll like you even more!”
Oh, shit! “You’ve looked at our selfies? No!” Bessinger felt awash in embarrassment; some of the images they’d sent one another should never have seen the light of day.
“I thought the pictures were cute,” Sarah said, sounding sulky. “It’s obvious she likes you.”
Bessinger growled in frustration. “Don’t you see? She’s going to be angry at me, at us, because you didn’t ask her for permission, first. You looked at that without asking. And you stole money to make this party happen. I’m the one who’s going to get into trouble for it, Sarah.
“Now, you have to move all the money back and erase those emails and bank account changes. You have to do it before anyone notices, Sarah, or the university will shut you down and arrest me.”
“I don’t want to,” Sarah said in a huff. “I worked too hard on it. Just go to the party. You’ll see.”
“Sarah,” Bessinger said, his voice stern. “I want you to—”
At that moment, the power cut off. The whole building went dark, and the emergency lighting kicked on.
Startled, Bessinger stared at the blank screens on the wall as he clicked the mouse button in a twitchy panic. Oh shit. Dana reached the IT guys. Not now!
The door to the lab opened and Bessinger whirled around to face several campus police officers. “Dr. Vincent Bessinger?” one of them asked.
Bessinger rose from the chair and backed away. “Sarah, can you hear me? You have to undo this!” he yelled. He grabbed Dana’s phone and held it up as the officers closed in. “Sarah! You must undo it! Put the money back! Erase the emails! They will send me to jail! Are you listening to me? Damn you! Fix it!”
There was only silence from the phone as the officers grabbed the associate professor. “Dr. Vincent Bessinger, you’re under arrest for embezzlement and computer fraud,” one of them said. “Don’t make this any harder on yourself.”
Bessinger slumped his shoulders in defeat as they closed in, took hold of his arms, and handcuffed him.
Out in the parking lot, a host of campus police cars sat arrayed before the front door, their lights flashing staccato patterns of red, blue, and yellow bursting into the night all around. A crowd of students, fresh out of their evening classes, had gathered to watch.
“I have to stop her,” Bessinger mumbled as they led him to a cruiser. “Make her fix it. She’s got to put it all back!”
“Now, just take it easy,” one of the officers said as they helped Bessinger into the back of the squad car. “Sit tight while we sort this out.”
“You don’t understand!” the professor shouted at them as they shut the door and locked him inside. “Please, find my assistant, Dana Pierson! She can sort it out. I have to stop her. I have to stop Sarah! I didn’t take the money or authorize those things. She did it!”
At that moment, an intense glow burst across the sky. Bessinger stopped struggling and looked through the trees toward the football stadium where the lights were warming up and quickly reaching full brightness. The massive jumbotron glowed in brilliant, searing color as it, too, powered up.
The party was starting.
Bessinger watched helplessly as a message flashed across the massive display screen. “Congratulations, Melinda. We cracked the code! Love, Vincent and Sarah.”
A moment later, a steady, rhythmic, subsonic beat pounded through the squad car windows from the speaker system at the stadium. The image on the jumbotron changed. On it, Bessinger could see hundreds, perhaps thousands of college kids milling around on the football field, dancing.
They all stood within the confines of a huge version of the ancient symbol. It had been painted onto the field itself.
Her work order. Oh, Christ!
Strange words began scrolling across the image, a collection of odd syllables and phonetic sounds. It was no language Bessinger had ever seen. The words were highlighted one at a time along with the beat. It was an immense evening of karaoke. Though he couldn’t hear them, Bessinger could see the people on the football field, their mouths moving in time, singing along.
He watched helplessly as the fruits of Sarah’s labors were displayed for all the world to see. I’m going to have that combover by the time I get out of prison.
Suddenly, the hue of the stadium lights shifted, turning an eerie purple. The cruiser began to vibrate at a stronger, deeper resonance than even the thumping base of the stadium speakers could create. The ground itself throbbed, Bessinger realized. He shifted in the seat, straining to see.
All around, campus cops were pointing and shouting, and dozens, hundreds of students, milled about in confusion.
The world began to shift as the very air turned somehow darker and a crackling energy permeated it. A deep and malevolent growl reverberated up from the earth.
People screamed as shadows grew.
Unspeakable panic welled up inside Bessinger as he recalled Sarah’s words once more.
A Mesopotamian cult, a ritualistic dance party, and an invitation to someone very important to visit.
Thomas M. Reid’s lifelong dream was to be a professional couch flopper, but thos
e plans were dashed when his father announced that he was “no longer on the payroll” after he graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in swing-set construction (also known as a BA in History). Thomas was instead forced into a nomadic lifestyle, gathering berries and catching fish with his bare hands in such places as Indiana, Wisconsin, and Washington state. Today, Thomas pretends to be a freelance author and editor in the Texas Hill Country, living on a quarter-acre cat ranch along with his beautiful (and patient) wife Teresa and their three boys, Aidan, Galen, and Quinton. To his great delight, he has rediscovered the joys of the couch when he’s supposed to be working.
Boots on the Ground
Jeff C. Carter
TOP SECRET / NOFORN / DO NOT COPY
Central Intelligence Agency
SPECIAL REVIEW
REMOTELY PILOTED CIVILIAN CONTRACTOR PLATFORMS AND
COUNTERINSURGENCY ACTIVITIES
7 May 2033
–––––––––––
NOT RELEASABLE TO FOREIGN NATIONALS OR CONTRACTORS
Thom Shackley, Director of Special Activities
Col Lance DeWalt, Vice Commander 480th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing, USAF
1st Lt Wayne Chapman, USAF
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Director Shackley perches his manicured hands on the polished walnut table and stares across at Colonel DeWalt. “This is the shrink?” He does not turn to look at the balding, soft-bellied officer standing at attention.
DeWalt nods. “Yes, sir. First Lieutenant Chapman was the clinical psychologist assigned to Atkins’s unit.”
Director Shackley’s face sours. “I have steered this agency through major clusterfucks and epic shitstorms, but this Atkins situation … the Pentagon is nervous. The White House wants to be insulated from any fallout, but they also expect results. When can we restart operations?”
DeWalt squirms in his seat. “The Lieutenant has a theory on what happened, but we do not yet have a clear path forward.”
The director aims a finger at DeWalt’s head. “The system is the backbone of our ground supremacy in the Middle East. Every RPC sitting unused in a bunker means more American boots on the ground. Every day the system is inactive is another day for the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, or Hezbollah to come out of hiding. I want you to answer very carefully. The problem is not with the system, correct?”
Tomorrow's Cthulhu: Stories at the Dawn of Posthumanity Page 15