The time soon drifted by, the driver bringing them to a careful stop outside the Freie Universität Berlin. Having left her computer phone at home, for fear of it being tracked, she had to pay with cold, hard cash, which she had procured back in a bureau de change in London. Stepping out of the cosy taxi and into the freezing street, Jessica pulled the zip on her coat up to its highest point to keep the sub-zero temperatures at bay.
Now glad of her thick-soled shoes, Jessica crunched through some virgin snow and onto a path treated with brown grit, which had helped melt the tiny ice crystals into a thick slush. Slip-sliding her way along, she found firmer footing when she entered a municipal building. A sign to the library guided her along a wide, carpeted corridor and then back outside into the cold once more. In front of her stood the Philological Library of the university, its black and white chequerboard dome exterior framed by the dark skies behind it. Hurrying along, she was soon inside and knocking off excess snow from her shoes on a thick fuzzy brown doormat.
Not having been to the library before, Jessica was surprised to see the interior layout. A third of the space in the dome was empty while in front of her two, three storey open-tiered floors dominated the rest; almost resembling a giant staircase, it was beautifully designed. Each level had a thick white surround supported by white cylindrical pillars. The stepped floors were also exposed to the dome’s interior and consequently, if you were so inclined, you could quite easily climb unimpeded onto a desk and drop down twenty foot to the wider tier below.
Moving forwards, Jessica passed over a large university emblem woven into the carpet itself and made her way into the right of the two mirror image structures. As she expected, the library was deathly quiet apart from the odd low mutterings and occasional rustle of paper emanating from its patrons. Up on the first floor a few students lined the continuous desk which ran around the outside of the level. Old-fashioned computer terminals interspersed the workspace, while the interior of the floor was lined with what one usually found in a library: books.
Feeling like she blended in well with her bug-eyed animal rucksack, horn-rimmed glasses, bright red hair and copious amounts of makeup, Jessica sauntered across the staircase and up onto the next tier. All the time she kept her eyes peeled for the meaning of the three digits, 3.14; but it soon became apparent that they didn’t fit in with the library’s classification system or the desk numbers either. Her frustration mounting at her lack of progress, she finished her round trip of the third and final floor and then traipsed over to the staircase joining the two tiers and on down into the second structure. Unable to see anything on this side either, Jessica slumped down into a vacant chair and stared out in defeat at the inside of the dome. The desk at which she sat had a computer so, flicking on the screen, she entered the term ‘3.14’ within the library’s in-house system and hit the search button. Ergebnisse: Null displayed on screen, Results: Zero. Wonderful, she thought, I’ve come all this way literally for nothing. Just as she considered her next options and a depressing trip back home, she noticed a small section of underlined text at the top right of the screen, which read, Systeminformationen. Moving the cursor up to the link using the quaint, touchpad interface, she clicked on it. A small drop down box on the screen appeared detailing the computer’s software, processor and hardware specifications. The thing that caught Jessica’s attention, however, was the single line at the bottom, Terminal-Nummer. Next to this were the digits 2.19. Second floor, terminal nineteen! Jumping to her feet and garnering curious stares from some of the students, Jessica trotted back upstairs and went from computer to computer until she had located terminal 3.15. The next station along had to be 3.14 but there was a problem, it was occupied.
‘Entschuldigung,’ Jessica apologised to the slim young man sitting at the desk. ‘Kann ich diesen Computer benutzen?’ she asked him.
‘Use another one,’ he said in German without looking up. ‘There are plenty free.’
‘I have to use that one.’
‘Tough,’ he said, continuing his work.
Not in the mood to take insolence from some obnoxious man-child Jessica leaned over his shoulder and switched off the system’s power supply, sending the screen blank.
‘Oi, what do you think you’re doing!’ he said, finally looking round at her.
Jessica put one foot on the front edge of his swivel chair between his legs and leaned down to look him in the eye. ‘I’m taking this computer,’ she said with a smile and then bracing her right hand on the desk, shoved out with her leg, propelling the surprised student two desks along. Picking up his books and satchel, she strode over to him and dumped them down on his new desk.
‘Danke.’ She gave him a condescending pat on the head. The young man stared at her open-mouthed as she returned to the terminal she had just claimed, dragging another chair behind her to sit on.
Feeling a little too pleased with her acquisition, she turned the terminal back on and waited for it to boot back up. Now that she was on it, she realised there was little difference between it and any of the other computers lining the surrounding desks. Sitting there, she stared at it, unsure of what she should do to attract the attention of the hacker, if indeed this is where she needed to be. She typed her own name in the system and hit search. Nothing. She tried Martin’s name. Again, nothing happened. After entering combinations of her name, profession and Martin’s particulars, she gave up, letting out a loud noise of discontent which earned her a shushing from a librarian who had appeared to put some books back on one of the shelves behind Jessica’s desk. It was at this instant that her luck changed. The computer beeped. A small chat window appeared at the bottom of the screen and text crept across it.
Ms Klein. It’s nice to finally meet you. _
Jessica typed in response: I wouldn’t call this meeting. Where are you?
Close by. I’m sorry about your friend, Martin. He was a good man. _
Yes he was. The best. We must make sure he didn’t die for nothing. We must meet and you need to give me the answers you promised.
Answers? There are only more questions. But I will do my best. I have noticed disturbing trends in the data I work with. Trends I have been following for some years. A mutual friend put Martin in touch with me so that I could attempt to get my findings into the public domain. _
Why didn’t you use someone in Germany?
Too risky, the German Government is stricter than most when it comes to censorship. I had to go outside of the country. I had hoped the BBC would have been strong enough to withstand outside influence. I was wrong. _
You were. Did you see my broadcast?
I did not. There were rumours about it on Deepnet but actual recordings were quickly hunted out by GMRC Hounds and deleted or corrupted. _
What is Deepnet? She waited for the response onscreen.
Deepnet is what people call the hidden web. It has a number of other names Deep Web, Undernet, Invisible Web, Darknet. It is the name given to digital content and traffic that is hidden from mainstream indexers and regular commercial web constructs. Over the years it has evolved into a whole plethora of forms, consisting of many layers, each harder to infiltrate than the one above. _
But the GMRC are able to control Deepnet?
They like to think they can and to an extent they can delve very deep indeed. Anything that enters from the Surface Web is trackable for a time and with the vast resources the GMRC has at its disposal it can send in armies of operators and intelligent spyware, what we hackers call Hounds, to comb the digital verse. Only the very gifted can evade their reach. _
And you are one of these?
No. I only operate in the upper levels of Deepnet. I skim the data and messages left by those who dare to resist the GMRC and global governments; and yet if you know how, and I do, this is enough to find out information otherwise completely hidden from the general populace. The system we are on now is totally independent of the web; nevertheless it is still patrolled by subversive GMRC spyware
programmes, three in fact. Fortunately I have been able to trick them into leaving me alone. _
So what are these trends you have noticed? Jessica typed, unhappy that this hacker seemed to be backing out of their promise to enlighten her with the truth of why journalists were being targeted and murdered.
Movement of resources. Not just your run of the mill government logistics, but relocation on an industrial scale of epic proportions. Foodstuffs, water reserves, oil, gas, you name it, it is being taken from stockpiles allocated for the general populace. The same stockpiles that are needed to see out the after effects from the impact of the asteroid AG5. _
Taken where?
I don’t know, that is the problem. It simply disappears from the records, records that have been very carefully monitored and suppressed. The only reason I noticed it is that I plugged masses of data into a sophisticated programme that hunts out different types of numerical patterns. If I’d looked on a local, or even a national scale, I wouldn’t have seen anything out of the ordinary, but I was looking on a global scale and the patterns are there and they are as stark as the daytime sky is dark. There is no mistake; the world’s resources are being siphoned off at an exponential rate. Within six months half of the stockpiles will be empty; within the next two years, if the speed of the removal continues, they will be completely barren. _
What does that mean?
It means before the world starves to death, it will die of dehydration first. _
‘Dear God,’ Jessica murmured out loud. But why would the GMRC do such a thing? she typed, hitting the Enter key with trepidation.
I’m not sure, that is what terrifies me the most, that and the fact that at least some of the largest governments are in on it. They have to be. WAIT! _
Jessica looked at the last word, her tension increasing. For over a minute no further message appeared and she looked around, feeling more than a little disconcerted by this lapse in the conversation. What’s wrong? she asked the hacker. No reply was forthcoming for another minute and then the screen came to life once more.
I was afraid this might happen. Ms. Klein, you must trust me now. You will find a small transmitter taped to the underside of the desk. Pull it off and place it on your ear. _
Jessica felt underneath the table and found a small object held to the surface with a piece of tape. Peeling it away, she withdrew a small earpiece which she eyed warily before brushing it off and placing it in her right ear.
‘Ms. Klein,’ said a man’s voice in perfect English but with a heavy German accent, ‘my name is Eric. The system we were just conversing on has been compromised. You will need to leave right away. The GMRC will have despatched a team.’
Her voice wavered. ‘A team?’
‘A team of operatives. You must leave now, hurry!’
Jessica sprang up and ran to the staircase. Clattering down the steps, she shouldered her bag, its large googly eyes swaying on her back.
‘I thought the system was secure!’ she said as she rushed out the front of the library.
‘Take a left though the University complex,’ Eric told her. ‘The earpiece has a tracker so I can guide your movements.’
Jessica veered to one side, following his instructions.
‘Apparently there was a fourth GMRC programme embedded within one of the components,’ he continued. ‘Like a sleeper agent, it activated once a set number of key words were strung together. Very clever, it was held within a component I assumed was redundant, but the GMRC must have introduced it to the manufacturer at least fifteen years ago when these computers were manufactured. They have great foresight.’
Jessica jogged down a long corridor, her breathing stretched. ‘You sound like you respect them.’
‘Of course, a healthy admiration of an adversary avoids complacency and aids in identifying their weaknesses and strengths.’
‘Where now?’ she asked, finding herself emerging from the far wing of the main building and out into the night.
‘Cross the road ahead of you and then head diagonally right across the park.’
Jessica angled in the direction he wanted.
‘It would be a good idea to run faster,’ he said.
Not for the first time, Jessica cursed her shoes as she turned a trot into an awkward running lope through the thick snow that blanketed the pitch-black park.
A deep pulsating hum approached from the air off to her right. ‘I think I can hear a helicopter!’
‘That will be the GMRC response team. Don’t worry, you’re almost there.’
‘Almost where?!’ she said, the blackness still all-encompassing in front of her. As she uttered the words, lights blazed out ahead, highlighting the edge of the snow covered park she had just traversed. A door slid open in the side of a beaten up old van and Jessica saw that a young man stood inside it, holding out a hand for her to take. Grabbing it, she was hauled inside before the door closed behind her with a swish and a bang, which vibrated through the floor pan. The youth, for he was barely an adult, jumped into the driver’s seat. Starting the old petrol engine, he shifted the vehicle into gear and floored the accelerator, sending the rear wheels spinning in the snow. The tyres gained traction and they shot forwards, forcing Jessica to brace herself as they did so.
After they reached a steady speed, Jessica squeezed through into the front passenger seat, falling down into it with a great exhalation of breath. The adolescent looked over at her, a broad grin on his young features.
‘Nice run,’ he said, his voice higher pitched and less manly than the one she had been speaking to over the communication device.
She frowned. ‘That was you I was just speaking to?’
‘Yes, I disguised my voice just in case. You can never be too careful when you’re dealing with the GMRC.’
‘You’re just a kid.’ She felt foolish to have been led up the garden path by a person only just out of diapers.
‘I’m nineteen,’ he said, without any hint of taking offence at her comment. ‘We were lucky,’ he continued as he drove past the slow moving traffic which had ventured out in the treacherous conditions. ‘Any longer and they would have caught your heat trail. As it is, they will only find your physical passage and we’ll have been long gone by then. Dummkopfs!’ He gave a whoop of joy.
Jessica blinked in disbelief at his lack of fear at their situation. ‘You do realise we would have been in serious trouble had we been caught?’
Seeing that she was less than impressed by his attitude, Eric became subdued in a belated attempt at mature gravitas. ‘Of course,’ he said, glancing over to her, ‘but I had it under control. I always have redundancies in place. I’m not called das Gespenst for nothing, you know.’
‘The Ghost. Who calls you that?’
‘Well – I do,’ he admitted, ‘but if people knew who I was they would know me as das Gespenst.’ He sat up higher in his chair at the mere mention of the handle he had bestowed upon himself.
Seeing that he set great store by it and deciding not to comment further, Jessica took in his appearance. He wore an old, worn-out, leather biker jacket, black jeans, grubby white trainers that had seen better days and a T-shirt with some obscure words and images adorning it. His short blonde hair stuck up at odd angles and an almost effeminate profile matched his less than masculine voice. Dear God, she thought, what am I doing here? This kid is young enough to be my son, how can he possibly help me against the might of the GMRC?
‘So, where are we heading, Eric?’
He shot her another broad smile. ‘Hauptsitz.’
Headquarters. She groaned inwardly, praying it wasn’t located in his mother’s basement. This definitely wasn’t going as she’d hoped, although what she’d been expecting she wasn’t quite sure. But not this, that was for certain, not a thrill-seeking youth.
‘I like your hair,’ he said, trying to start a conversation as she sat looking out of the window wondering what her next move should be. ‘You look very different from how you do on th
e television.’
‘It’s a disguise.’
‘Ah.’ He tapped his nose and nodded. ‘It is a good one, Jessica; may I call you Jessica?’
Jessica nodded and an uncomfortable silence ensued with Jessica lost in thought until they eventually slowed and came to a stop outside an old warehouse complex. Eric hit a button on his dashboard and a rickety metal shutter wound up from the ground and disappeared above. The van edged inside and came to a halt. Eric whacked on the handbrake, cut the engine and hit the button once more on the dash. Exiting the vehicle, he led Jessica through a cold, empty garage as the external door sank back down behind them. A dim, flickering fluorescent light hung on a wall above an old door that was filled with dents and covered in flaking green paint to reveal a rotting, blackened wood surface beneath. The whole place smelled of damp timber and engine oil. So far Eric’s head office left a lot to be desired.
Taking out a set of jangling keys, the young hacker opened the door and stepped through, with Jessica close behind. Inside, a small elevator took them up three storeys to the top floor. As they emerged from the lift, Jessica was taken aback by the room in front of her. Having expected some filthy damp pit, the spacious, clean open-plan apartment that Eric moved into was a welcome relief. The subdued lighting highlighted a pristine white kitchen off to one side, which was complemented by a luxurious living-cum-dining area in the centre. Over to the right of the high ceilinged room, a ladder led up to a second level, which looked like a bedroom. Underneath, gathering little dust, was a bank of computers and screens, and a mass of cabling and wires which led off in all directions. Setting off the whole scene, a sweeping glass wall provided a spectacular view of the Berlin skyline.
2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) Page 14