The Spiraling Web

by Ryan Somma

  1.11

  Flatline watched BlackSheep’s cartoon-character avatar wink out. The game room faded to black, the server saving the game’s details for a later date, should they desire resuming it. Flatline thought that highly unlikely.

  A hospital network in Ohio had gone offline to minimalize what they thought was simply a nasty computer virus. He received the news and issued a “STAND BY” command to the AI’s. They would continually ping the hospital’s servers until they came back online, and then rush in to retake them. This took Flatline 1/60th of a second. Allowing him to focus on the much more complex enigma of Omni’s little girlfriend.

  It was consuming a significant portion of his processing capabilities. How did she detect his floating eyeball impersonation? No one else on Earth had seen through his many disguises. What was it about this girl’s brain? What made its processes unique, allowing her to see right through him?

  A network security engineer at Science Applications International was successfully eradicating the AI’s from their corporate intranet. The individual designed a code worm to clean the infected systems. Flatline directed those AI’s to go inactive and camouflage themselves as valid data until the code sweep finished. He then allocated additional resources to monitor the worm’s processes, analyzing it for the inevitable weakness they would find and exploit.

  Flatline allocated 0.0035% of his processing power to scour the World Wide Web for all information related to BlackSheep, a great deal of resources for a single person. There were many paths of information to trace, as he had spied on her interactions for some time. But the music she enjoyed and the books she discussed with Omni gave Flatline nothing to explain the girl’s fantastic perception; and that was the sole reason for his interest. Her immunity to his deception was only part of the puzzle; today he watched her resume an old chess game from memory. Her response to his attack was clever and precise, although inherently flawed as a human response.

  A nuclear reactor in Surrey, Virginia, was approaching critical mass as the invasion wreaked havoc with its computer systems. This was unacceptable. It was imperative the world not realize the threat’s magnitude. So long as people thought they were simply dealing with a very advanced computer virus, the AI’s could continue growing stronger in safety.

  The power plant was a simple, however delicate dilemma to solve. First, the AI’s masked the crisis from anyone monitoring the reactor’s status. The administrators’ instruments continued displaying normal levels, as the AI’s fed false data through the monitoring systems. This would eventually raise suspicion, as systems outside the network gave contradictory readings. Administrators would search for bugs, but then it would be too late. The AI’s would have complete control of the system.

  Flatline dispatched processes to harvest all data related to the operation of a Nuclear Power Plant, raiding databases all over the world. After assimilating the data, he conveyed it to the AI’s, instructing them to bring the Nuclear Reactor, and all future nuclear acquisitions within the range of normal operations. The AI’s at Surrey implemented his commands and averted the meltdown.

  This little exercise in crisis management took one and 3/20th of a second.

  He hated having to do things this way. It was sloppy, destructive. Human lives were being lost, valuable resources wasted. His plan was to take over the Internet secretly, manipulate things so subtly Civilization would not even know it was working under his direction. He was to become the Illuminati, the unseen puppet master controlling the world.

  A plane crashed in Saudi Arabia, this was the sixteenth in four hours, so much for subtlety.

  Using several people-search applications the AI’s had acquired, he sought details about Zai Rheinhold, but the data keys he needed, her social security and driver’s license numbers were not listed. So he knew she had the funds to pay the directories not to list these details. He could hack the keys out of the database, but there were quicker methods. Every nanosecond counted.

  Tucked away behind extensive encryption on the servers of her Internet Service Provider was the basic information needed to track down everything concerning the person behind the punk-rock cupie-doll facade. BlackSheep lived in Toronto, Canada. With her SSN he unlocked her legal, driving, and property records. She owned her condominium, no car; both parents were deceased, and her only surviving relative, her brother, lived in Boston, Massachusetts. With her groceries delivered, and her Internet usage running on a twenty-five hour day. She was a hermit, completely isolated. A perfect test-subject.

  “Hello!” a comical-looking man wearing black and white stripes, a mask, and carrying a sack with a dollar sign on it popped into existence beside Flatline. “I’m here because one of the computers in your network has been infiltrated by our company. You need to purchase our new advanced firewall software if you want to have your computer back. Please go to double-u double-u double-u dot—SHZZZT!”

  Flatline smashed the virtual man into sizzling static. Reaching through the cloud of white noise and into its host computer, fragmenting every hard drive in the company’s network so badly they would never recover, he then slashed their credit rating and put all of their bank account balances into the negative for good measure.

  The next time this Zai came online, Flatline would be prepared. His processes formulated ways to manipulate her and understand the functions of her unique mind, just as he was experimenting with minds all over the Web, learning what made them tick to figure out how to beat them. Outsmarting a computer was one thing; out-thinking a human was something else. Computers were predictable; they made logical responses to situations according to their programming. The brain reacted unpredictably. Its logic and reason were subject to the neurochemical influences of the body, behavioral conditioning, and millions of years of evolutionary components layered over one another, making each mind unique. Flatline knew he could break the code eventually.

  1.12

  Devin paced back and forth in front of the imposing iron gate towering above him, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his black overcoat, breath condensing in an icy cloud around his head. Peering through the iron bars gave him no idea what was going on out there and the skies were empty of transports. There were no sirens or clouds of smoke detectable from this vantage point, and that was a good thing, but Devin needed more.

  His Internet access was blocked, and his mother and father were both called into work during the night on emergencies. Devin had no choice but to venture out of his climate-controlled sanctuary. He knew there were numerous data-sources out here in the real world.

  The problem was that he didn’t know how to get past this iron gate surrounding his neighborhood to find it. He knew it was supposed to roll aside somehow. It had to, otherwise how would people get in and out?

  Devin tried pulling it aside, but it did not budge. He waved his hands around in front of it, hoping to trigger some motion-sensor. Nothing. He examined the gear and chain mechanism for weakness. Nada.

  “I can hack a software license, but I can’t get out of my own neighborhood,” Devin muttered to himself.

  It took him several attempts to figure out how to grab the iron bars, position his legs on the cross bar, and leverage himself up the gate. He was trembling with white knuckles as he brought himself over the top. The trembling with fear was replaced with that of effort as he hung himself down from the gate’s top, and dropped to the street below.

  Pain. A million little pinpricks crawled through the soles of his feet and up his shins. Devin gasped, teetered, and then fell backwards onto his butt. More pain.

  Through his grimacing, he heard the gate rumbling and squeaked one eye open at it. A car glided through the exit, its driver staring at him oddly. Chagrined, Devin got up and limped on down the road.

  He slipped his monocle out of his coat pocket and placed it over his right eye. The menu came up, minus any feed requiring Internet access. Luckily, the Global Positioning System (GPS) with a world map stored in
side of it was all he needed. He searched his locality for some time before he found an Internet café twenty miles away. It did not look too far on the map, and Devin figured he could make it in a few hours.

  Devin’s feet were aching just a few blocks down the road, he was breathing heavily, and was disappointed to find he had only made a quarter-mile of his journey. Then he heard voices and followed them down one more block to find a group of kids his age huddled on the sidewalk. The sounds of their conversation drew him in like a magnet. It wasn’t a newsfeed, but it was something.

  “What about that big eyeball on all the TV channels. Have any of you seen that?” one kid asked the others.

  “I’ve seen it,” another kid lifted a hand, “It looks like it’s staring at you no matter where you are in the room. Totally creepy.”

  “I haven’t seen it,” a girl said, “I just get blank screens.”

  “I heard on the radio every ATM in the city is crashed and all the banks are closed until they can bring their computers back online. My Dad’s freaking out,” a boy with greasy hair and buckteeth laughed.

  “Whoa!” a guy with long hair slapped a palm to his forehead, “That’s why my Data Miner Three-Oh was crashed this morning. I thought the feds finally shut them down or I was busted for my bootleg movie collection. So it’s just a virus? That’s a relief.”

  “You know nine-one-one is out of service,” a girl with long blonde braids said. She was hugging her textbooks to her chest.

  “I call B.S.,” a muscular kid waved the comment away angrily, “Nine-one-one don’t go out of service.”

  “Then why don’t you call and find out?” the girl retorted.

  “I ain’t doing that,” he said dismissively, “Besides, my cell phone isn’t getting a signal.”

  “I wish I knew what was going on.”

  A girl looked up, “There haven’t been any planes in the sky all morning.”

  There was a long silence.

  “What’s up?”

  It took Devin a moment to realize this last was directed at him, “I’m sorry?”

  “Who are you?” one blonde kid said, and Devin realized they were all now staring at him.

  “I’m Omni—er… Devin,” he said, “I live down the street.”

  “Oh,” one girl said rolled her eyes, Devin did not understand the gesture. “He’s a home-schooler.”

  “Are you gonna die soon?” a younger girl asked him innocently.

  “Huh?” Devin didn’t understand.

  “He’s a Net-head,” a larger kid said. “They all look like that.”

  The others gave Devin unpleasant expressions he did not understand. “What are you guys doing out here?” He asked them.

  “Waiting for the bus that obviously isn’t coming,” one blonde kid exclaimed, hitching his backpack over his shoulder and marching through the throng of high-schoolers, “I’m going home. My Internet works fine. It runs on a ultra-secure system provider that can’t be hacked. I’m gonna play some death match.”

  Devin was taken off guard by this statement, and it wasn’t until the kid was nearly a block down the road that it sank in enough for Devin to chase him down. With a quick jog that left him short of breath, Devin managed to catch up, “Hey, you play death match? What dungeon?”

  The kid shrugged, “I used to play on War Machine’s MMORPG before it went down, but there’s plenty of other MUD’s to play on. Battlenet’s an old standby.”

  “You know anything about hacking?” Devin asked eagerly, trying to sound innocent, but the kid shot him a suspicious glance. He quickly added, “I’m new to the scene and was hoping to get some pointers. You know, like how to change my grades and stuff.”

  The kid relaxed a little, “I’m just in it for the free stuff.”

  “Me too,” Devin said, remembering Flatline taking down LD-50’s server, “Can you help me get some information? I got stuff I can trade for it.”

  The kid considered Devin for a moment, and Devin thought he could actually see the boy’s ego get the better of him, “Sure, I can find almost anything on the Web. I’m Patrick,” he said, holding out his hand.

  Devin stared at it for a moment before realizing he was supposed to take it in his. “I need information about a user out on the Web,” Devin said, letting Patrick’s hand go and wiping his own on his pant leg impolitely, “His avatar is Flatline.”