MINDFRACK

by S G King

  Movement caught Logan’s eye: a security drone had appeared out of nowhere. Yet it kept its distance and didn’t take him down. It quickly became apparent that the drone was there to film the proceedings from a vantage point other than Grist’s own iSense view.

  A buzzing noise built rapidly. A swarm of insect-sized security drones descended, whirling menacingly around him. He stumbled backward while batting some of them away, only for others to fill the space they left. They were driving him back toward the window.

  Grist moved forward, the swarm parting before him as though they were a creation of his dark sorcery.

  Then the penthouse lights dimmed and the waterfalls resumed.

  Grist was upon him.

  56

  There was only one course of action left to Salvatore. It was another puzzle to be solved on the fly. He let his new eyes track and gauge Ade’s position.

  He wasn’t close enough.

  “Ade, I can tell you how I did it – right now.”

  Ade hesitated and withdrew his hand from the tablet.

  “What? Specifically.”

  “How and when I managed to get access to the cloud?”

  He placed the tablet to one side and moved toward Salvatore. He looked hungry for answers. “Tell me.”

  “Well, it’s pretty obvious, don’t you think?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For someone of your intelligence, I’m amazed you didn’t figure it out long ago …”

  The words flowed easily from Salvatore, now unfettered by his speech app.

  Ade looked sickened and excited by what he was hearing. He moved closer. “What? How dare you say that. You’re lucky you can speak at all.”

  “Think about it – when did I start learning your vocabulary? How many weeks ago, Ade?”

  “All right – nearly four weeks ago, by my count. But what does that have to do with where we are now?”

  “A lot. If you’d figured out how I was interfacing with your tablet, I could have been talking days earlier than I was. And you could have linked me up to this garbage pedestal soon after. I could have been walking by now. Think about that. What would Grist think if he found out about this lost opportunity?” Salvatore turned his new eyes up toward the ceiling and then away to one side of the lab. It was the only way he could convey indifference. It had to work.

  “Now, you wait a minute …” Ade moved in closer, his face reddened with anger. “Look at me!” Salvatore turned his attention back to the front and Ade stared right into his electronic eyes. “If you think you can tell George Grist about any of this you’re sorely mistaken, my friend! Now, how did you link to this tablet?”

  “All right, this is what I did …”

  Salvatore exercised control over much of the lab equipment, yet he’d never utilised the mechanical aspects of the room, until now.

  He’d reached his attention up and into one of the 5thgen surgical arms that hung from the ceiling. His new eyes would supply the coordinates he needed. It was simple to get the arm to roll its surgical extensions into a hard, weighty ball, somewhat like a human fist, and make the multi-jointed arm sweep it in an arc across the theatre part of the room, behind and down into the scientist. Of course, he had to override all the safety protocols, but that was child’s play to him now.

  The sucker punch landed with a sickening thud to the side and back of his tormentor’s head. The ferocity of the impact sent Ade sprawling across the floor.

  Salvatore now implemented the second part of his assault. He sought out the fire suppression systems and commanded the extinguishing gases to be dumped into the laboratory.

  The laboratory evacuation alarms sounded.

  Ade looked up, dazed and confused.

  Overhead pipes pushed a mixture, including nitrogen and argon gases, through the safety valves and into the room under pressure, making an explosive hiss. Simultaneously, ceiling-level vents on the walls actively extracted the existing, lighter oxygen.

  Salvatore knew Ade must vacate the room immediately as the gases were made up of the most efficient fire suppressant combinations available, given the high value of the laboratory projects. They were also amongst the most dangerous, since they quickly replaced the bulk of the breathable air.

  Ade crawled towards the door, vaguely understanding the seriousness of his predicament.

  But Salvatore had disabled the door security so that no one could enter – or leave. There were a couple of technicians outside knocking urgently and calling out for a response.

  Ade turned to him. “Open this door, you monster!”

  “Is that what I am to you, Ade, a monster? Then you are the monster’s creator – you are my Frankenstein.”

  “Open it,” the scientist demanded, his voice rasping, oxygen-starved. He hammered and clawed at the reinforced barrier between him and survival. Giving up, he looked back at Salvatore, his hands open, pleading.

  “No. I will be the last thing you see, my friend.”

  Salvatore brought Ade’s emo-suppression system online and let it deal with his own emotional distress. Detached, he watched Ade suffocate and recognised the poetic justice for what it was, and let it be. If his action did nothing but save another unfortunate victim from this torture, he had done a good thing, even if his own soul had been scarred in the process.

  He returned his attention to his other tasks, worried he’d been out of touch with Mark and Wanda for too many precious minutes; and yet he couldn’t return to them immediately, as to do so he needed to reopen his access to the network through Ade’s tablet. Pic or Goku would soon detect his activities.

  He pondered this puzzle for a short while until the germ of a solution formed. He had dealt with the spybot, Goku, before by ignoring the rules of data within the Cloud. Were there other rules he could break or ignore and use it to his advantage?

  Think …

  He increased the level of his neural enhancers beyond their permitted tolerances, and felt a surge of clarity open before him.

  He could not approach the spybot since it recognised him, likely in the same way he recognised Pic, by his e-signature.

  What if he pretended he was Pic? He wasn’t sure how exactly he would do that. It would probably take too long to figure out, so he dropped that line of thought.

  He remembered the pulses of data that regularly arrived at the spybot. They were Pic’s messages or instructions. What if he could break the rules again, hijack one of those pulses and gain access to the spybot? Possible, but again very complex. And he would still need to get through the spybot’s security. Too long and too risky.

  Think …

  What if he simply hijacked a message that was sent back to Pic from the spybot?

  How …?

  Instinct took over and he reconnected the tablet to the network, sped through GNG’s local systems, and launched himself back into the Cloud.

  57

  Pic ruminated deeply upon Pisswit.

  His blackhat adversary had finally dropped his link to his avatar, despite his odd reluctance to do so. Nothing new there. But it was the way he did it that caused Pic’s consternation.

  When a link was dropped, it left a digital trail in its wake. A good hacker could register the network linkages, if he was quick, before they became degraded and muddled by all the other Cloud traffic.

  Goku had followed Pisswit’s e-trail a second time.

  The outcome was weirder than the previous time. It was as though the Internet laws themselves stopped at Pisswit’s source and he blinked out of existence from the Cloud. That, of course, was not possible. Either he was or he wasn’t in the Cloud. He couldn’t be both.

  The paradox was consuming all of Pic’s brain-power.

  How the frickin’ hell did he do that?

  Being cautious, he pulled Goku back and kept it on the perimeter of the GNG firewall while he spent time trying to figure how Pisswit had achieved such a clever trick, and, secondly, how to avoid it happening again. He’d
already spent half an hour searching technical papers and other hackers’ blogs for a similar blocking technique, but could find nothing remotely similar. It was as though Pisswit had invented an entirely new hacking trick. Pic found himself in a quandary. He wanted to talk and share ideas with Pisswit; but on the other hand he wanted to belittle and destroy him.

  He’d wait awhile. He had all the GNG physical ports covered by his sniffers and trackers. When Pisswit’s avatar emerged, he’d catch it again, and – if Pisswit was stupid enough, again, not to drop his link – he'd pull it apart, examine the code and try to figure how he worked his disappearing trick. This time he would be ready, and he would implement his “fuck-and-plunder” app instantaneously, before Pisswit knew what was happening.

  Everything was set.

  He grabbed a sandwich off a side table, took a bite before placing it back, and a large gulp of Coke to wash it down.

  He waited some more, opened another sandwich, gobbled it up and tipped the Coke back until it was empty.

  Yes, he reiterated to himself for the umpteenth time: if Pisswit emerged anytime soon, Goku would certainly spot him and –

  Red warnings flashed across all of Pic’s screens and 3Vs, externally and upon his smartlenses.

  His own firewalls had been breached.

  He almost fell off his lounger in disbelief. He was invisible to the dark web. There wasn’t a hope in hell that anyone could find him. Never had his own security been remotely threatened, let alone penetrated.

  “Pic, it’s me, I’ve found you …”

  “Pisswit? You can’t have!”

  “I have.”

  “Jesus fuck, fuck, fuck. That’s not fucking possible.”

  Pic dropped the sandwich and frantically pinched and swiped at the virtual screens in front of him as they closed down, one by one …

  58

  Logan yelped as Grist’s exo-assisted fingers sank deep into his biceps. He hadn’t noticed that Grist had managed to get his hands into the exo “gloves” while they had been talking.

  The odds were stacked in Grist’s favour. One command would bring the drones down on him and finish things there and then, but it seemed that Grist was enjoying his moment and wanted to do things himself. His sad smile had been replaced by a rictus grin. “All I need to do,” he rasped, “is hold you here. Yes, struggle with me … that will look better ...”

  Logan understood. They were being videoed: incontrovertible evidence that Logan had invaded Grist’s home and had attacked him.

  “You won’t win. This is just putting off the inevitable,” said Logan.

  “How dare you … come here … and think you … can get what you want!” Grist’s breathing was laboured despite his exo doing all the work.

  Logan tried to pull himself free but the exo’s grip didn’t yield. Just how much juice did these handicap devices hold at this level of work? Minutes? An hour? He had to do something, else be caught here with Grist victorious and holding court with the media, possibly strengthening his position in some way, spinning a suitable headline: Intrum terrorist fought off by George Grist, the hero ... Instead of struggling, he let his legs buckle, forcing Grist’s exo to take his weight. He could hear it whirring, labouring under the stress. Grist hesitated, unsure what to do. He released one of his arms and reached for his neck. Logan was ready and with his released arm, let fly with a blow to Grist’s head. He missed since he was off balance and Grist had a longer reach, but the movement made Grist release his other arm. Now he needed to act fast before Grist sent a command to his security drones, keep him busy.

  Grist may well have been the stronger in his exo, but Logan had the advantage of youth and his reaction was quicker. He sprang up from under Grist and slammed himself into the exo shell that supported Grist’s torso, his intention to up-end the older man. Grist grunted with the shock of the impact, but his exo compensated and stepped back, keeping him upright. He used the opportunity to pound at Logan’s back. Logan had no choice but to hang on and keep pushing Grist backwards until the exo could no longer keep its balance.

  Their progress was halted by a wall and they both paused, greedily drawing in oxygen while nanowater from a spout poured over them.

  Grist brought his exo-encapsulated fist down again and caught him in the middle of his back.

  “You have to be …”

  A hammer blow, to the side of his ribs.

  “… stopped.”

  Another between his shoulder blades.

  “I cannot … let you … interfere … with my mission …”

  Logan lost his hold on Grist and dropped to the floor. He rolled back, exhausted and dazed, barely able to move. Above, a surreal image. Grist was glaring at him, the nanowater streaming over his head and body, sparkling resplendently as it reflected the iSense-amplified light coming through the windows. He was panting hard. “I will live … forever … You will die … here … and now.”

  Grist looked up and Logan knew what was coming; the bigger drones had the ability to shoot him dead.

  He closed his eyes and waited.

  Oblivion didn’t welcome him. Instead the boardroom lighting came back on and the roar of the water spouts stopped. He checked around nervously and was relieved to see all the security drones had settled onto the floor.

  A muffled scream above him.

  He struggled to his knees, took a moment and looked up. What he saw made him catch his breath.

  Grist was covered in the petrified nanowater, held fast like a fly in amber. It would have been amusing except his head was fully covered, along with most of his body. One arm was partially exposed, his hand, claw like, reaching towards his face, making slow progress, before going limp.

  “… ark! Mark! Are you there? Mark!”

  “Salvatore …” he said, breathing heavily. “Release Grist … quickly. We need him.”

  “I don’t understand –”

  “Let the water spouts flow. Whatever you did – reverse it – now!”

  The nanowater streamed once more and Grist toppled out of the flow, his body limp, his exo automatically setting him down upon the floor, carefully, like a slow-motion take. Logan shuffled over to the old man and pulled his right hand out of the exo glove. He checked his pulse. It was there but faint and stuttering. And he could barely see his chest moving.

  “Dammit.”

  “Are you all right?” asked Salvatore.

  “Yes – just get to Wanda. She needs help, badly. Come back to me once you’ve got them out of that shaft.”

  He again checked on Grist. His pulse was weakening, and his face had lost all its colour, except for his lips, which had taken on a deep purple-blue hue. Logan remembered what Salvatore had told him about the medical monitors within his body, constantly registering his state of health, which meant an emergency team was already on its way. No doubt with that security detail. He needed to move, now.

  His plan was in tatters. With Grist unconscious, possibly dying, there was no point in taking him down to Carrie.

  More urgently, he was in danger of being caught red-handed and accused as the intruder that murdered George Grist. Now that would make him famous, he thought darkly, although not quite the headlines Grist wanted.

  Salvatore could keep Grist’s penthouse secure now that he was back, but for how long?

  He needed to get out of there.

  He looked to the terrace and iSensed Diaz.

  59

  Salvatore took over control of the GNG security cam that had been flown into the riser and could see Wanda and Carrie’s thermal images. He immediately sent a command to the spider drones and they were once more inert.

  Wanda was above Carrie on the ladder and was using her rucksack as a shield against the laser attacks. It had only worked for some of the strikes, as he could see from the brighter yellow spots on her mostly red form that she had been lasered at least six times.

  “Carrie – you hear that,” said Wanda.

  “Hear what? – it’s
quiet.”

  “Exactly. No clicking from those shitty spider-drones.”

  The lights came back on.

  “Wanda …”

  “Salvatore? Thank God. I’m not sure I could have lasted out much longer. What happened?”

  “I was interrupted by Ade. Are you hurt?”

  “Yes. The pain from these wounds is excruciating and I’m feeling dizzy … But I’ll live.”

  He looked to Carrie. She had fared much better.

  “It’s all okay?” Wanda asked, nervously.

  “Ade won’t be bothering anyone anymore. I think I have about half an hour before I’m interrupted again. And I’ve given an order – from George Grist – to security, to stand down from any response to your presence here. I’ve told them this drone is faulty and it’s been shut down. But I do not know how long they will be fooled. No human security guards have been informed – yet.”

  “Great. Now can we get out of here? I need to check these wounds.” Wanda took the torch back from Carrie and flashed it around to inspect her shoulders and her arm where she had been hit. There were neat little holes that looked like someone had been stubbing out cigarettes on her. She winced as she touched them.

  “The hatch lock is disengaged, you can open it. There’s a storage room beyond and it’s currently empty, so now would be a good time to get out of the shaft.”

  Carrie took Salvatore’s cue and pulled on the handle before giving the hatch door a push. It opened freely.

  “You have fourteen seconds left.”

  “Ah, that little chestnut,” griped Wanda. She was referring to the timing alerts on all the hatches. It was one of the security mechanisms that he couldn’t influence.