by Lior Samson
— —
Barbra lay back on the bed, her legs spread, her breathing deep and rhythmic. “I guess you can tell, I missed you. That was …” Her voice trailed off into a low melodic growl.
“Yeah, me too. The weeks of solitary took their toll on me.”
“Maybe we should consider other arrangements, you know. So, what did you do with yourself, stuck in the apartment.”
“Took the problem in hand, as the guys say. And my shower head has a pulse mode that can be really stimulating when you get the speed and temperature just right, if you know what I mean.”
“I do, but Todd long ago bought me an assortment of battery-powered toys, if you know what I mean. However, I wasn’t asking about sex, I was asking about how you kept busy, what you did. Any progress on resolving the mystery? Mysteries?”
Dana hesitated, unsure about how much to share. “I did some hacking. Actually, it felt good to know that I haven’t lost it completely. I mean, there I was, hacking away right under the nose of the police and all. And I made it into one of the major telecoms.”
“So, what did you find?”
“Nothing definitive, maybe some new leads to follow. I’ll let you know.”
Barbra sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. “You know, the company is considering a civil suit against Existendia. And my attorney is recommending a wrongful death suit.”
“How can they do that, if there were no charges?”
“The standard of proof required for civil suits is lower. Preponderance of evidence is enough to rule for the plaintiffs. We might even pool our resources and consolidate the actions.”
“Do you think they’re still using Cole? I mean Existendia. Are they still running the proxy software?”
“I don’t know. Right now it’s in legal limbo. The legal argument is now over who owns the connectome, the model. If this were about DNA, about someone’s genome, it would be different, that’s becoming settled law, but here there are no precedents, no prior court rulings on this. Do you own your personality? Entertainment case law and the so-called right of publicity is not much help here. What about the pattern of your brain, pictures, MRIs? Existendia claims the Drucker proxy is just software, software that they developed and own exclusive rights to. Our attorneys argue that it is personal data that belongs to the estate. This is the sort of thing that could take years to resolve and go all the way to the Supreme Court.”
There was a rat-a-tat on the bedroom door. “Mom, the Wi-Fi is slow as crap again.”
“And what do you want me to do about it, kiddo?”
“Fix it. I mean, like, get the people to come out and crank it up or whatever they do.”
“It’s probably because there’s too many devices streaming too many files at the same time.”
“Hardly. There’s just me and Kevin and Deirdre. We’re just streaming a movie.”
“In the theater?”
“No, like on our phones.”
“So, kiddo, that’s really three simultaneous ultra-hi-def streams.”
“But I thought we had, like, the super fiber-optic service or whatever. It was never a problem before. But lately …”
Dana stood up and reached for her robe. “Do you want me to look into it?” she said to Barbra.
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I don’t mind. Maybe I’ll find something, maybe I won’t. I mean, I’m not a network engineer, but I do know some of this stuff.”
“Sure, go ahead if you don’t mind. I’ll take a shower while you’re channeling my late husband. You’ll find all the house system controls and monitors behind the louvered doors in the main hallway downstairs. I know very little about it except that it’s there, and every once in a while Todd would duck in there to tweak something.”
— —
Dana could hear the water running above as she studied the racks of computers and routers and the array of small monitors in the rather spacious closet. She tapped on a couple of touch screens and swiped through pages of graphs and fluttering numbers. It took a couple of minutes to find something that made sense. The system was not being strained by incoming traffic; it was the outbound stream that was choking the pipe. Something was sucking gigabytes of data out of the house and tying up the optical interface module. Dana watched for a few minutes, then looked around for the right switch and pulled it. From down the hall, three young voices could be heard shouting almost simultaneously, “Hey! What the fuck?”
— —
Barbra was wrapping her hair in a towel when Dana returned to the bedroom. “You’ve got malware,” Dana said. “The house is infected. My guess is that it will probably take real experts to track it down and, hopefully, excise it. I’d suggest calling in the Drucker Unified team. You told me it’s actually their house.”
“How do you know we have a virus?”
“The router activity and the cable box. Basically, I could see the flow of data. A system identified in the home network as OFF2 BACKUP was hogging the cable interface and hosing stuff down the fiber optics. I don’t know what OFF2 BACKUP is, but that was what was being sucked dry.”
“That’s the massive backup system Todd installed for his home office. It would have everything: personal, corporate, private, whatever. Todd was a fanatic about backup. It was a complete history, preserving all originals and all deltas. He didn’t want anything to ever get lost, and he never fully trusted the cloud. When it was installed, it was one of the largest private backup servers of its kind. It’s in the basement, with its own cooling system.”
“Well, somebody is really interested in your late husband and all his doings. Let’s head for the basement and shut down OFF2 BACKUP, then let me look at the house system logs and see if I can recover an IP address where the outgoing traffic was being sent. If we can work this out on our own without bringing in the corporate cavalry, all the better. With so many funky things going on, I’d prefer we tip our hand to as few people as possible.”
— —
Dana came into the kitchen with a smug look on her face, grabbed a carrot stick, and chewed on it as if it were an orange cigar. “So, wanna know what I did? Of course, you do, because I’m a genius, and you admire genius.”
“You are. And I do, oh genius love, want to know what you did.”
“I took a lesson from your late husband, who, it turned out, was—fun fact—actually in the process of trying to scramble his own software connectome model when he was so brutally beaned by a robot. As we later learned, he was setting up a Unix pipeline in the software. Anyway, I put a box between the OFF2 BACKUP and the router. My box—actually my tablet computer—passes inbound traffic unchanged to the server but scrambles outgoing data packets. Then I reconnected the backup server. Someplace in the Netherlands—that’s where the IP address is registered—is still getting gigabytes of data, but it’s garbage. Eventually, somebody will probably actually look at it and make the discovery that they are being had, but, in the meantime, they will think all is still going well again after a short break in service of unknown cause.”
“What about who’s behind the IP address?”
“Don’t know, not yet, but before I put the backup system back online, I dumped the installed software onto a portable drive. I’ll take a look and see whether I can identify the malware and maybe get some clues as to who and why. I’m eager to strike while the trail is still hot, so I’m going to head home where I have a few forensic tools that might help in my digital diggings.”
“I hate to see you leave with half the weekend still ahead.”
“Me too.” She kissed Barbra gently. “But we need to figure this out. Somebody has hacked into your home, Barbra. That’s not something to set aside or ignore.”
— —
It took the rest of the weekend to figure out the malware. When Dana returned, she found Barbra on the deck, contemplating a retreating tide. Barbra turned from the water. Her eyes were red.
“You okay?” Dana asked.
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“Just … just missing him. Funny how it hits at times, other times it’s like Muzak—just there, a melancholy background note. And I was thinking about you and how important you are becoming to me.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Find anything?”
“Well, the malicious code did not have any of the standard signatures that any of my antivirus programs recognized, but I was able to spot it by the instructions that copied blocks of data from the array of disks and sent it on to a communications routine. The target internet address had been hard coded into the program without any attempt to hide it. I haven’t yet been able to find out who it belonged to. I was able to figure out who wrote the malicious software, however. The programmer had left plaintext in the code with his initials.” She paused.
“And?”
“CTD.”
Barbra looked incredulous. “CTD? You’re suggesting Todd wrote the code and planted the virus in his own backup server?”
“Yes, that’s what it looks like. I wanted to tell you this in person. The programmer is identified as CTD. The programming system used to compile the code is licensed to C. T. Drucker. There wasn’t even any attempt to hide details of the origins of the code. I mean, it was his own private system, so what the hell. All the metadata was there: timestamps for compilation, change log, and everything was tagged CTD. If all that is to be believed, the first version was written a couple of years ago and the last revision, a change that enabled remote triggering with a passphrase hardcoded into the software, was made just this summer, also tagged CTD.”
“Do we know when and how the malware was triggered?”
“Yes, the passphrase to trigger the dump operation was received not long after the accident, while Cole was still unconscious. It came by way of the command-and-control server in the Netherlands, but we have no way of knowing where it ultimately originated. The passphrase is interesting. I had to search it up on the internet. KOL HA-OLAM KULO GESHER TSAR MEOD. It means ‘all the world is a narrow bridge.’ It’s Hebrew.”
— 30 —
As dinner turned from a pleasant routine into a rehash of unfinished business, Barbra pressed her palms down on the table. “Dana, I’m telling you—again—I don’t know any Gwen Seabrook. And I don’t understand why you didn’t trust me. I mean, we’re …”
“Because I don’t know who to trust. It’s not about you. I never know who to trust. I trusted my aunt and uncle when I was twelve. Then … Shit, Barbra, there was your personal cell number with multiple calls to Seabrook’s cellphone. What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Ask me about it. That’s what couples do.”
Dana leaned back with surprise and satisfaction melded on her face. “Couple? Really?”
“Why not? We work well together. You tolerate—or ignore—my moods even better than Todd did. And hell, you’re a lot better in bed than he ever was, rest his soul. I’m just glad he’s not here to hear that. And, besides—and this is tough for me to say, but it’s been building for a long time—anyway, I love you. You do realize, I hope, that you are the only woman—other than my trailer-trash mother—that I ever said that to. In her case, it was misplaced and misguided, and I had changed my mind by the time I was twenty-one.”
Dana looked unsure about what to do with Barbra’s declaration. “What about your sister?”
“I don’t think we ever said it. We had an alliance, an alliance against common enemies: my mother, her abusive boyfriends, men in general, but I don’t think either of us would have called it love.” Barbra bit her lower lip. “And here I am, babbling on, feeling more and more foolish and vulnerable by the second. So?”
“What?”
“If I have to ask, then I guess I should already know the answer, and then the answer would not be the one I want to hear.”
“You don’t have to ask, Barbra. I’m just being, well, my well protected self. I love you. There, I said it. I love you, and I want to trust you. Help me in that.”
“Okay, so just tell me the damn number you claim I called.”
Dana pulled out her reporter’s notebook and rattled it off. Barbra entered it into her cellphone. “Mystery solved. It’s in my contacts list as ‘Becca Horses’—the number Todd gave me for the equestrian ranch where Becca was learning dressage.”
“A slip on his part? Maybe Freudian? Okay, so I assume these were calls about Becca.”
“Yeah. That’s the only reason I ever called that number. It never occurred to me that I was always speaking with the proprietress because I had her private number. I just thought it was a smalltime operation and she was answering the phone.”
“All right, one mystery solved. So now, let me tell you about some of the other mysteries. Seabrook was also in contact with Aram Netsky at Existendia … and others. Even more mysterious, she may have been behind the hack into your husband’s Tensora, which could have caused the accident that put him in a coma and led to his paralysis.”
“How do you know this?”
“I don’t. I’m making guesses. I’m pretty sure our Gwen Seabrook was once part of an elite and notorious cadre of computer hackers, and I think I have found evidence—suggestive, not definitive—that she was behind the malware that infected his Tensora and somehow enabled it to be forced off the road. None of this is stuff that would hold up to basic journalism standards, much less stand up in court, but I am pretty sure about the basic story.”
“And what is that story?”
“Gwen Seabrook, collaborating with someone at Existendia, conspired to take out your husband.”
“Do I dare ask why?”
“You dare and you did. Because the outfit was tanking and needed the cash flow turned on by his will and his contract with Existendia to stay in business. Or maybe they wanted his digital proxy. Or both. Even the PR of demonstrating an actual ‘live after death’ digital proxy would be of immeasurable value, to say nothing of the financial particulars of the will and the contract. In short, Coleman Drucker alive was a liability to Existendia; dead, he could be a cash-cow archangel.”
Dana’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and checked the caller ID. Tonika. “Yes?”
“It’s me.”
“Yeah, I know. What’s up?”
“You at your apartment? This is something I probably shouldn’t say over the phone.”
“No, I’m at Barbra’s.”
“Oh shit.”
“What?”
“I should just hang up.” Tonika’s voice was raspy. “If she overhears …”
Dana started to stroll across the room as she lowered her voice. “What is it?
“Serious shit I shouldn’t even be talking about with you, with anybody, really.”
“Okay, don’t panic. Are you sure she shouldn’t also know about whatever this is?”
“Oh, she knows, all right. That’s the problem. None of us were supposed to tell anybody.”
Dana glanced over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of Barbra, head cocked, with a curious, impatient look. “Who is it? You look rattled,” Barbra said in a near whisper.
Dana pressed the phone to her chest. “Ah, a friend in crisis.”
“You want to take it in the other room?”
“It’s all right, I’ll call her back.” She returned the phone to her ear. “Ah, look, er, can I call you back later?”
“Of course, but this is something you should know about. Maybe ask Barbra how the stock is doing. See if she’ll come clean with you. Bye.”
— —
They were on the sofa sipping port after dinner, Dana with her legs draped over Barbra’s lap. “How are things at the office? You still under siege with the merger and extra duties and all?”
“It’s the office, you know.”
“No, I mean, like what’s happening? Anything I should know about?”
“A lot’s happening, not necessarily anything you should know about. Stuff. You know.”
“Am I inside? I mean, am I inside your l
ife?”
“You are. Does that mean everything that happens is going to end up pillow talk. I don’t think so. I know you have a life. I know there’s at least one man in your life. I figure you’ll tell me what you’ll tell me when the time comes. And I thought the whole Gwen Seabrook thing was behind us. I really had nothing to do with her. She was just the horse lady. And, it seems, maybe my husband’s last wild oats. So, what else? Anything else we should be dealing with?”
Dana swung her legs out and sat up. “If we’re in this together, then let’s do it for real, all the way. If it’s each for herself, okay. I have a lot of experience with that. I just want to know.”
“Together, then. I’ll tell you what’s happening at Drucker Unified, but you do have to understand it can’t go beyond this room.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’m more in with you than I ever was with Todd. This is where I want to be—now, tomorrow, whenever.”
Dana turned on the sofa to face Barbra. “Okay, all the cards on the table, right?”
“Right.”
“I’ve been getting help, my own special tactics team. This guy, Geraldo Potts, is just a convenient skill set with special access. Tonika—”
“Not Tonika Warner!”
“Yes. You started it with getting her to work on the SD card from Cole’s Tensora. She’s been helping me, now she seems to have something important to share, but she’s reluctant.”
“I should hope she is. She’s in the inner circle, privy to some seriously sensitive shit.”
“Well, whatever it is, she thinks I need to know. Do I?”
“I suppose. If it’s the same serious shit I’m thinking of.”
“Then spare her having to resolve the whole loyalty issue and just tell me yourself.”
Barbra stood from the sofa and started pacing. “This is tough. Years with Todd taught me to always keep a firewall between corporate crap and personal shit. I’m not used to stepping around all that.”
Dana stood and took her in her arms. “If we’re a team, we’re a team. That was then, and this is us.”