CHAPTER EIGHT: FIREWALL
Outside the clouds were low in the sky, but they were already starting to break apart. It looked like it was going to be a lovely day. Joe adjusted the collar on his shirt and then pulled out his phone.
Not many numbers were stored in its memory, and the first one that came up in his address book was Abernathy. He pressed CALL and the man picked up on the first ring.
“Joe.” Abernathy’s voice was warm and friendly. As if he was actually pleased to hear from him. “What plans do you have for today?”
“I was thinking I’d scope out the venue for the Precision Image gig in advance.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Tired of sitting on my hands.”
“Want to make a stop on the way?”
“Where?”
“Here.”
“Twice in a week? People will talk.”
“Twice in twenty-four hours, and they’re already talking. They’re saying you’re back and it’s about time. See you soon?”
“Of course.”
Oxford Street was already wide awake, and Joe dodged through the crowds and signs for golf sales and made his way toward the tube station. En route, he grabbed a cup of coffee from a stand and sipped it outside the station. Hot, strong, and only vaguely offensive. Then he went inside and headed to the Victoria line, walked straight onto a train, changed at Green Park, and made Westminster within twenty-five minutes.
He took the front door into YETI and found Abernathy in the control room, talking to a couple of analysts. Joe stood off to the side waiting for him to finish. He seemed animated, and maybe just a little bit annoyed, and Joe wondered—not for the first time—what it would be like to be shut in a confined space with him all day, every day.
Abernathy was difficult to read (and Joe prided himself on his cold reading skills) because it was nearly impossible to get through the exoskeleton of the man’s surface personality to the obvious depths that lurked beneath. Yesterday had been the closest that Joe had come to seeing the “real” Abernathy, when the man had finally managed to speak about Andy, but he still remained an enigma to Joe.
Watching him interacting with the adult members of the team was always a revelation. Abernathy was a completely different person when he was addressing his YETI operatives.
Kinder.
Less … cranky.
Abernathy spotted Joe and waved him over.
“Firewall,” Abernathy said by way of a greeting.
Joe shrugged, confused. “Firewall to you, too,” he said.
Abernathy grinned. “It seems that all it takes to get Research and Development working again is to get you working again. We have a chip upgrade scheduled. One that R&D has been working on for a couple of weeks. Although clearly not all that efficiently, because as soon as you walk back through these doors, suddenly it’s completed.”
“A firewall?” Joe asked, puzzled.
“Well, that’s what they’re calling it. It’s more like a neurological bulletproof vest.” Abernathy started walking, a sure sign that Joe was meant to follow. “I’ve been worrying for a while about putting some kind of protection around that chip of yours, something to stop someone else gaining control of it, and then your mind.”
“Gaining control of my mind?” Joe said, horrified at the thought. “People can do that?”
“No.” Abernathy steered him toward R&D. “Yes. Maybe. Look, there’s not a computer system on this planet that can’t be hacked, but most of them aren’t wired up to a person’s brain. I’m just being careful.”
Joe gave Abernathy a look that said he believed that at least part of his explanation was the truth, and then they walked into the R&D lab.
It was one of Joe’s favorite parts of the building, probably because it was as close as he’d ever come to walking into Q branch, the fictional home of the people who gave James Bond all his neat little gadgets. Okay, it was nothing like that really. There were no people testing booby-trapped phone booths, or rocket-launching briefcases. But this was where a lot of the tech that made it out into missions was designed and tested.
The Shuttleworth brothers, Geoff and Greg, stood at lab benches on opposite sides of the room, busily soldering components onto tiny circuit boards. It was like a mirror line had been drawn down the center of the room: each brother’s desk was laid out as a reflection of the other. Of course the word fairground had to be added in front of the word mirror if the simile was to hold true, because Geoff was tall and spindly, while Greg was short and kind of rounded.
The heads atop the bodies were very similar: identical Coke-bottle glasses perched atop two aquiline noses; near-lipless slashes for mouths; all underneath red sprawls of hair.
They stopped what they were doing when Abernathy and Joe came in. Geoff had his soldering iron in his right hand; Greg’s was in his left.
“Sir!” they said in unison, Geoff’s voice a low baritone, Greg’s an octave higher.
Joe half expected a salute.
Abernathy nodded toward Joe. “Firewall,” he said curtly.
Both brothers took a step forward.
“Joe. Lovely to see you again,” Geoff said, smiling widely.
“‘Again’ meaning ‘You’re back!’ rather than ‘since yesterday.’ Which makes it sound like ‘you’re back’ is a criticism, rather than …” Greg tried to clarify, frowning.
“… the delight it really is. And twice in twenty-four hours says ‘back for good,’” Geoff said brightly.
“We hope,” Greg said gloomily.
“Definitely,” Geoff said. “We hope.”
This back and forth between happy and gloomy voices, between short, fat brother and tall, thin brother, had taken Joe a little time to get used to. At first he’d thought it was a joke, a little bit of nerd playacting the pair put on.
But it wasn’t. It was exactly how they were.
All the time.
“We’ve finally got a handle on a thorny problem,” Greg said.
“Sounds painful,” Joe deadpanned.
A two-second delay as the joke sank in was rewarded with some staccato laughter that sounded like a cross between a motorbike backfiring and a release of high-pressure gas.
“That’s funny,” Geoff said. “Thorny as in thorns …”
“Yeah,” Greg said. With the small talk over he was able to go full-on nerd. “Anyway, we’ve been working on the problem of finding a viable protective infrastructure for your chipset to limit the possibility of a hostile agent or agency gaining remote access.”
“An organization’s technology can be both its strongest asset and its Achilles’ heel,” Geoff said, also in fluent nerd. “Think Facebook FarmVille and the foot-and-mouth outbreak that they still haven’t completely dealt with; or the Vatican and its embarrassing JPEG switcheroo, where all official images on their site were replaced with creatures from the stories of H.P. Lovecraft.”
“Reference also: PayPal, YouTube, Sony, the Church of Scientology,” Greg continued without missing a beat. “All compromised by determined hackers with mischief in mind. Now, your chips have in/out sockets, and that means—in theory at least—that you are 1) discoverable, and 2) hack-able.”
“That’s why we have produced the first security update for your hardware,” Geoff said. “It uses four bit hexadecimal encryption, with heuristic packet filtering at the moment. It’s crude, sure, but it should keep you from being compromised until we get something sturdier together.”
“We’ve even included a quarantine vault for malicious code,” Greg said brightly. “Like the one you get in any good antivirus software—for Trojans, worms, and anything that will try to gain control of your root directory.”
“Which, in this case, is your brain,” Geoff offered.
As usual, the brothers’ tech-speak meant next to nothing to Joe.
“The throne awaits,” Greg said, pointing to an office chair at the back of the room.
Joe sat down and grasped the arm
s.
While Greg gently peeled back the inch-square area on Joe’s scalp that concealed his access port, Geoff readied the input data on his laptop and then plugged the cord into the port. It felt like … well, like someone sticking a small plug into his head.
“As usual …” Geoff said.
“… this might feel weird,” Greg finished.
“Because you have to reboot the chip,” Joe said. “I know.”
“I’d love to know how it feels,” the brothers said dreamily, in unison.
Geoff pressed RETURN on the laptop.
There was an odd feeling of loss as the chip in his brain switched off. It was like a part of his brain had just stopped working, and there was a moment when his whole mind seemed on the verge of going dark. It was only when the chip was switched off that Joe realized how much he had come to depend upon it.
He’d thought the chip he’d been implanted with was standard field equipment when he’d joined YETI, only discovering slowly, over time, that he was the only operative who carried one.
Initially he’d been given many reasons for this by Abernathy, and indeed from other members of the team, ranging from budgetary restrictions to the complicated nature of the implant procedure. It was only recently that the Shuttleworths had confessed to Joe that he was a one-off in the enhancement department; that previous recipients of the chip—lab animals, and one human subject—had been unable to integrate with it. In the human subject, any benefits had been outweighed by the fact that it caused nausea and migraines, neither of which were particularly useful in the field.
The medical examination Joe had undergone before joining YETI had revealed a genetic flaw that had indicated he might be a candidate for the enhancement hardware. The same genetic brain abnormality that had made Joe literally unable to control his temper, and that had led to him being labeled a “troublemaker” throughout his academic career, allowed him to be the first computer-enhanced YETI agent.
Finally getting a rein on his terrible rage problems had been a bonus.
He was not only YETI’s first nonnative-born operative, but also the only one able to interface with its hottest tech.
Sitting in the chair, Joe felt a sudden flash of the old anger—red, raw, and frighteningly intense—and his hands grasped the chair arms until his knuckles were white, but then the chip rebooted and its calming influence reasserted itself.
He felt the anger drain away.
His hands relaxed.
Upgrade: complete.
“So why the security upgrade?” Joe asked Abernathy as they crossed the control room toward Abernathy’s office.
“You don’t think preventing your brain from being hacked is a good enough reason?” Abernathy said scornfully.
“It’s a great reason. I was just hoping for the real reason.”
Abernathy laughed. “I have missed you, Joe. I’ve missed your default setting of distrust, and your inability to take the first answer you’re given. It’s annoying, frustrating, and borders on the insubordinate, but it’s what makes you a good operative.”
They reached Abernathy’s office and went inside.
Abernathy sat down on the big chair behind his black slate desk. Joe had to settle for the kind of seat they had in doctors’ waiting rooms: tubular steel and really uncomfortable. Abernathy liked people to be uncomfortable. It wasn’t a power thing, or sadistic. Just a practical measure. People tended to get their business wrapped up faster when they were denied comfort. Meetings were shorter and more focused.
On the wall behind Abernathy was an LED panel, and there was another panel set into the desk itself.
“So where are we with X-Core?” Joe asked.
“I’m becoming more and more convinced that we’re dealing with some form of cult.” Abernathy had his hands behind his head and was leaning back in his chair. “But most of the home-grown cults we keep an eye on target the vulnerable, and they sweep up their followers from supply lines that are the result of societal failures. Psychiatric hospitals, drug dependency clinics, and places the homeless frequent are rich hunting grounds. Cults provide, with offers of friendship, accommodation, and acceptance, an alternative to lives that are in the process of unraveling. You can see how someone perched on the edge of an abyss might join a group that seems to have all the answers.
“But X-Core targets the privileged, and it’s hard to see that the same indoctrination procedures that work on the people who’ve fallen through society’s cracks would work on people who aren’t even aware that those cracks exist.”
Abernathy touched the desk in front of him and a keyboard lit up within the surface of slate. He turned on the two screens and, after a little bit of searching, called up a file marked MKULTRA.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the MKULTRA project,” Abernathy said. “It’s part of conspiracy theory folklore.”
“Wasn’t it a CIA investigation into the potential for mind control?” Joe asked.
Abernathy raised a surprised eyebrow.
“You know my mom,” Joe said. “She told me bedtime stories about brainwashing.”
“I think the CIA preferred the term behavior modification. But yes, it was an attempt to find ways to manipulate people’s thoughts and actions. At its height MKULTRA consumed over five percent of the CIA budget, and some put that figure at closer to ten percent.”
“Why would the US spend a tenth of their intelligence budget on science fiction? I thought the government released all the MK files and they showed that all their projects failed.”
Abernathy gave him a wan smile. “There’s a big difference between releasing some of the files and all of the files. Over twenty thousand documents were released in the 1970s, but they amounted to little more than a smoke screen. Later, all MK files were declassified, but by then all the important documents had been destroyed. If they were to release the true findings … well, let’s just say the results would be incendiary.”
“Are you telling me that the CIA succeeded in manufacturing mind-controlled assassins?” Joe said skeptically. “That the US actually did perfect push-button killers?”
“Ask JFK,” Abernathy said. “Your beloved ex-president. Oh, wait, you can’t. A preprogrammed patsy cut him down with an assassin’s rifle.
“There are hundreds of examples of the human will being defeated, and people acting in ways that they normally wouldn’t have. The point is that mind control is not science fiction. It’s proven fact. And none of us truly knows the mechanisms by which it works.
“Adding a layer of protection to your chip seemed … overdue.”
Joe’s eyes widened.
“Do you think X-Core is manipulating its audience?” he asked breathlessly. “You think that we’re talking about actual mind control?”
“Yes. No. Maybe. Definitely not. Delete as non-applicable. I don’t know what I think. It’s frustrating, like we’re playing catch-up. I hadn’t even heard of X-Core forty-eight hours ago, and now it’s at the very top of my to-do list, so excuse me if I’m getting fanciful in my old age.
“I do have a question for you though, Joe. Not only is it science fiction hypothetical, but it’s the kind of question that would get me fired if I put it in an official report: if a musical subculture wanted to start controlling its listeners, what would be the most efficient way of doing it?”
Joe was angry he hadn’t already asked himself the same thing.
“They’d use the music.”
Abernathy nodded, and tapped the keyboard in his desk.
A video file started.
A title card that looks to have been stenciled appears on the computer screen:
EXPERIMENT #73/1843/MAJESTIC - TOP SECRET
Then there is a quick cut to black-and-white footage of a man in a room. He’s in his twenties, with a buzz cut that suggests he’s US military. His outfit matches the haircut: a mid-dark shirt with a stenciled number on it, combat trousers, webbing belt, a sidearm holstered at his hip.
&
nbsp; The camera is fixed, giving a wide view of the room: two white walls are visible, no windows, a door to the left. The back wall behind the man with the short hair is made up of speakers: big woofers and tweeters, like the stacks you see at live gigs for stadium rockers.
The man keeps looking over at the speakers warily. His eyes keep darting back to them, even when he’s trying to look at the camera. It’s like he’s terrified of them, but can’t stop himself from looking.
Suddenly a low sound can be heard: a dull rumble like distant thunder. The man reacts to the sound with wary concern, and his glances over his shoulder become more and more frequent. Even with the relatively low-def quality of the vintage camera, sweat can easily be discerned on the man’s brow.
The sound deepens, and the volume of the recording drops significantly. Joe thinks that maybe the people who recorded this footage got a little worried that their experiment would have an effect on viewers of the film. Or maybe the film was once shown to military top brass who felt its effects firsthand.
The man on-screen puts his hands to his ears and starts pressing tightly. Another stenciled card informs the viewer that this is:
73% INTENSITY
The man sinks to his knees. His hands come away from his ears and fall loosely to his sides. His face, just seconds ago tense and fearful, becomes slack.
95% INTENSITY
The man’s eyes change. They get wide, and then they start to bulge as if there’s pressure building inside his head.
100% INTENSITY
The man’s eyes are bulging out too much. Joe can see the flesh from the insides of his eyelids and he’s suddenly glad the film is in black-and-white. There is still a slackness to the man’s face, as if he is unaware of the pressure building within.
Then, suddenly, the pressure is gone. His eyes return to their sockets.
The man smiles.
He reaches down and unsnaps his holster, takes out a pistol with a long barrel, and brings it up to the side of his head.
He holds it there for a couple of seconds.
His smile deepens.
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