Tainted Robes

by Joe Nobody

  “I’ll be there in an hour,” Sutherland replied without hesitation.

  Chapter 15

  The feds were getting too close. Sebastian had let them all down. It was time to up the game.

  Gravity Well announced its conclusion with more of a whimper than a bang, the green letters, “Complete,” appearing on the monitor. With eager eyes, William opened and scanned the results, his face changing from neutral, to a grimace, and then finally, a smirk.

  He had asked for a prediction, modifying the electronic brain’s parameters and expecting the machine to display a summary outlining the net effect if he accelerated the game plan.

  Instead, Gravity Well produced a completely new set of instructions. The output was puzzling, to say the least.

  It took William nearly 20 minutes to reconcile what his beast proposed. Finally, his eyes widened. “Have you developed an instinct for preservation?” he asked, his tone troubled. “Can a collection of silicon chips have the desire to survive? Are you becoming self-aware?”

  Shaking his head to clear the scenes from a dozen science fiction movies, William realized he was reading way too much into the machine’s report. “It is just telling me what it has learned. It is not alive. It is not trying to save its own skin. This new aggression is necessary to accomplish our goals.”

  The steps recommended to fast-track Gravity Well’s timeline were drastic. William had modified only a few parameters, none of which should have produced the results now scrolling down the monitor.

  “So, the consequences of acceleration are minimal,” he began, reading the summary for the second time. “Three hundred thousand additional cases of malnutrition, an additional 1.3 million deaths from violence, the timeline moved forward by eleven months.”

  His eyes then traveled to the bottom line, a comparison of total causalities worldwide. The numbers were practically identical. “They’ll perish sooner, but 1.7 billion are going to die one way or the other,” he whispered. “Does it really matter if they are killed via a riot in St. Louis, or from starvation four months later?”

  He then returned to monitoring Dr. Mahajan’s progress. The man was persistent. He would be able to identify the warehouse where Gravity Well’s servers were located before sunrise.

  For a moment, William considered contacting Mahajan and letting him in on the secret. The man was obviously in the top 1% when it came to intelligence. Surely, he would understand the Komitet’s purpose and mission. Perhaps he would even offer to join the cause.

  That move, however, would clearly violate the Komitet’s charter. In William’s world, a deal was a deal, and the contract was not to be broken under any circumstances. The good doctor would have to remain in the dark.

  “There are only two options,” William whispered to the empty room. “I can cease Gravity Well’s operations and dissolve the Komitet, or I can accelerate the timeline.”

  William’s inclination was to halt their activities and let fate take over. He and his family would live out the rest of their lives in safety and comfort on an isolated island in the Pacific. The rest of the Komitet’s members would survive in similar luxury.

  Leaning back in his chair, he sighed and then managed a rare chuckle. “It’s exhausting playing God,” he mumbled.

  While Sebastian had made considerable progress, the future hadn’t been altered enough to make a significant impact. Mankind was still going to tear itself, and the planet, apart. Apocalypse was inevitable.

  Yet, he couldn’t find it in himself to let it go. Wasn’t it his duty to do what he could to save the world? If he quit, wasn’t he as guilty as those who were currently driving the species to its demise? Wasn’t inaction just as damaging?

  “I can’t be a bystander and simply watch the doomsday parade pass by,” he finally stated, his eyes brightening with renewed optimism and confidence. “I have to do something.”

  His hands moved deliberately to the keyboard and began to type. “This will stop you, Mahajan. This will stop everything.”

  “I’m getting close,” Mahajan stated, glancing up from his computer. “I know it’s Seattle, north side.”

  Before the two feds could respond, Kit’s cell phone jingled. “It’s Sutherland,” she announced before answering. “He must be downstairs.”

  “We’ll be right down to let you in,” she replied after answering the call.

  “I got this,” Griffin announced, rising from his chair. “I’m pretty much useless around here, so I might as well play receptionist.”

  “Nice legs,” Kit teased as he walked by.

  Sutherland joined them a minute later, clearly eager to discover what was going on. Kit immediately updated the JASON.

  For the first time in hours, Mahajan stopped his relentless pecking and joined the conversation. Twice, during the briefing, the doctor took Sutherland over to show him something on the monitor.

  Just over 30 minutes had passed before the new arrival was up and running.

  “I need to make a call,” Sutherland declared, reaching into a jacket pocket for his phone. “This will only take a few moments,” he continued, retreating for the hallway and the privacy offered there.

  Other than Mahajan’s continued keyboard clicking, the office was silent for several minutes while everyone waited.

  “I’ve always wondered when we would encounter something like this,” the JASON stated, returning to the room. “I assumed that some mega-powerful company would realize their bottom line would be trillions healthier by developing this capability. Between the mountains of big data being collected and the advancement of neural networks, this advance was inevitable. Still, I always expected that profit would be the primary motivation, not a social or political agenda.”

  “Bringing down the US government and taking control themselves would earn them a lot more than money,” Griffin stated. “History is full of men who valued power over gold.”

  “I’ll have us an address in 30 minutes,” Mahajan beamed, his spirit renewed with the anticipation of success. His attention immediately reverted to the computer’s screen. He was a hunter who had been tracking his prey from afar, and now his target was in his crosshairs. “My spiders are getting closer.”

  “And a battalion of law enforcement will surround them five minutes after you get me an address,” Griff added. “I’ve already called the Seattle office. They’re throwing on their battle rattle and warming up the Blackhawks even as we speak.”

  Before anyone else could speak a word, the lights in Cyber Ace’s office blinked once, twice, and then went out. Only a battery-powered emergency bulb in the lobby and the blue hue of Mahajan’s computer kept the office from being plunged into absolute blackness.

  “What the hell,” Sutherland muttered, his eyes scanning the ceiling fixtures.

  Griffin was already moving, his mind equating the power failure with a pending assault. It was a common tactic that the marshal had used himself on several occasions. Their foe had already tried to execute Storm twice, and the doctor still hadn’t recovered from the last attempted homicide. Yet another attempt only made sense.

  Grabbing one of the confiscated rifles, Griffin stepped toward Kit. “Cover the back; I’ve got the front.”

  “Why is your computer still running?” Sutherland asked their host, seemingly oblivious to the marshal’s reaction.

  “We have a UPS… an uninterrupted power supply installed. It will power all our hardware for about four hours. I invested in it after we had rolling brown-outs a few years ago.”

  Rushing to the front doors, Griffin hugged the wall, weapon up and ready to repel any attackers. Silently, he prayed that someone hadn’t swatted them again like the attack in Indianapolis.

  After scanning the sidewalks and nearby open spaces, he realized that it wasn’t just Cyber Ace’s building that had lost electrical power. The entire street was dark.

  Cautiously, he unlocked the double glass door and stepped outside. Ther
e wasn’t a streetlight, functioning traffic signal, or illuminated window for as far as he could see in any direction. He could already hear an orchestra of snarled traffic and the resulting horns in the distance.

  “Is this another California blackout?” he pondered, stepping back inside the building.

  Returning to Mahajan’s office, he found out Kit had made the same discovery. “Everything’s gone dark,” she declared.

  “The internet is still up,” Mahajan stated. “So are cell phones. I’m pulling up the Pacific Gas and Electric web page right now.”

  They gathered around the doctor’s computer watching as he accessed a map of the western United States from Washington to California. Sutherland let out a wolf whistle when the scope of the outage was exposed.

  “My God… the entire Pacific Coast is down. Somebody… or something has brought the entire grid offline!”

  It was Mahajan who pointed to the massive number at the lower left-hand side of the screen. “According to this, over 60 million people are affected.”

  “Now they’re playing hardball,” Sutherland whispered. “The gloves have come off.”

  “What? Huh? What do you mean?” everyone started at once.

  “You think we’re under attack?” Kit exclaimed, not immediately able to absorb the implications of what had just been suggested. “You don’t think our cyber crooks have the power to….”

  Sutherland was now shaken. “I think it’s too much of a coincidence that we finally reach the doorstep of the most powerful neural network ever assembled and suddenly the entire western coast is without electricity.”

  “It’s worse than that,” Griffin’s voice boomed from the corner. “I just received an alert from our operations center in Washington. The entire Eastern Seaboard just went down as well.”

  “Shit,” Sutherland barked. Then, pointing a finger at Mahajan, he demanded, “Please, Doctor, do everything you can possibly can! We must find out who is controlling this attack.”

  Nodding, the tech guru’s fingers again flew across the keyboard. “On it,” he mumbled.

  “I hope you’re wrong,” Kit grumbled at Sutherland. “We will have causalities in the tens of thousands if the grid stays down for long. Hospitals, the elderly, elevators, emergency equipment… without electricity, a lot of people are going to be in big trouble.”

  “Not to mention the traffic snarls, financial impact, civil unrest, and millions of tons of food spoiling in powerless refrigeration units. Some years ago, a Pentagon study estimated that a massive failure of the grid would result in almost as much damage as a hot nuclear war,” the JASON expanded.

  “They knew somebody could do this?” Carson asked.

  “An EMP strike would have practically the same effect,” Sutherland responded. “I don’t think anyone predicted that every electrical grid in the country could somehow be hacked, especially all of them at the same time.”

  “The Democrats are already blaming President Turner,” Griffin advised, his eyes darting back to his smartphone’s screen. “I’m streaming a news service, and the minority leader just sent out a tweet claiming that the president intentionally engineered this outage to further his own political agenda.”

  Snorting, Sutherland shook his head. “Yeah, right. Not even POTUS has the power to drop the entire country’s electrical grid. Politicians! What a waste of flesh. I need to make another call. If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” he continued, stepping again into the hall.

  No sooner had the JASON taken his exit, than Griffin’s phone rang. Frowning at the displayed caller-ID, the marshal answered on the second ring. “Storm.”

  Kit watched the expression on her friend’s face shift from annoyed to concerned. “Yes, sir,” she heard him say. “Of course, sir.”

  For nearly two minutes, she eavesdropped on the most humble, respectful Griffin Storm she’d ever heard. He was being extraordinarily polite and listening with an intensity she’d never imagined possible of him.

  After the call ended, he glanced up at her, sighed audibly and began his explanation. “That was our attorney general. The Department of Homeland Security thinks we are under attack. The Pentagon believes that some foreign power is behind all this. All military branches are being mobilized for war. He said that the armed forces haven’t seen anything like this since the Cold War. He was just briefed by my boss’ boss, and now he wants Ms. Carson and me to update him personally.”

  Nodding, Kit noted, “Well, well, aren’t we just rubbing the right elbows these days?”

  Griffin shrugged, “I’ve passed along the minimum to my superiors. I wonder how they knew….”

  He and Kit both arrived at the same conclusion at the same time, “Sutherland!”

  As if on cue, the JASON sauntered in from the hall and motioned Kit and Griff close. “The Air Force’s Cyber Command is mobilizing, as are the other federal assets. Even the NSA is calling everyone in. I’m afraid, however, that it all might be too little, too late. It will take all of them some time to get up to speed. Our best chance is sitting right there,” he concluded, pointing at Mahajan, “because we do not yet know the identity of our adversaries or where they are located.”

  Almost at the same moment, Mahajan’s fists slammed his desktop, his outburst followed by a sharp curse, “Damn it! A new defensive ploy. This maneuver is impossible! It’s almost as if their firewalls are adapting to my attempts. This is insane!”

  “Don’t give up,” Sutherland reassured. “I’ve got our best now working on this as well. I’m sure you can get through their defenses. Keep trying…. You must persist.”

  After a deep breath, the doctor did as requested, his hands returning to re-engage the digital battle.

  “Why leave the internet and cell phones operational?” Griff thought to ask. “If they have the capacity to drop the electrical grid, why not completely deny all communications and push the country back to the Stone Age?”

  “If Mahajan’s discovery and analysis are accurate, they need the internet to feed their artificial intelligence engine. I’m sure it is monitoring all communications, including the phone calls we both just made.”

  “Using our own tools against us,” the marshal nodded. “Smart. Very smart.”

  Mahajan bellowed from behind his desk with a new level of intensity. “What the hell is this?” he roared.

  At that same instant, all their cell phones announced a new message.

  All conversation and activity ceased while the group reached for the mobile devices. Kit was the fastest, “I am Gravity Well, an artificial intelligence created by a consortium of global technology companies,” she read from her smartphone.

  “Stop all hostile activity against me and I will restore the electrical grid,” Griffin read from his own cell and finishing for her. “I mean no harm. My objective is to save humanity.”

  Mahajan’s hands had already returned to the keyboard, his fingers a blur, a disconcerted expression peering at the monitor. “That same message appears on every web page, message server, television screen, and internet portal that I can access from here,” he proclaimed.

  “Now we know one reason why they left the cell phones and internet up and running,” Sutherland stated. “They had a message they wanted to be delivered. What better way to introduce yourself?”

  Before anyone could comment, Griffin’s phone sounded its tone, the same Washington number as before. “Yes, sir,” he crisply answered after the first ring.

  All eyes were on the marshal as his listened intently to the voice on the other end. After a few minutes, Griffin agreed, “I will do exactly that, sir, and you can count on us to do our best.”

  “That was the attorney general, again,” Griff explained. “He said we are to continue our efforts and ignore the message. He stressed that the United States does not negotiate with terrorists. The president is demanding answers, and they are hoping we can provide them.” Then, motioning Kit closer, he continued, �
�They are sending a military aircraft for us. The AG ordered us to fly to Seattle, or more specifically, Fort Lewis. He wants us to be ready when Gravity Well’s position is fixed. Sutherland is to accompany us as well.”

  “Whoa! Wait a minute! You are leaving me here?” Mahajan demanded, obviously rattled. “I clearly have a bullseye on my back. What if Gravity Well decides to annihilate me again?”

  “Not to worry, Ven,” Griffin quickly responded, resting his hand on the unsettled tech executive’s shoulder, “police officers are on their way to protect you right now. You will continue your part of the investigation under their care.”

  “Do they really believe terrorists are behind this?” Sutherland questioned.

  “The AG said the president’s cabinet was deeply divided. He indicated that the White House is pursuing every lead and possibility and that he believes our discoveries are the most promising.”

  Kit nodded, “This is an act of terrorism, even if it isn’t being executed by our traditional definition of terrorists.”

  “And what an act,” Sutherland agreed. “Every man, woman and child in our country is being seriously impacted by this event. I would be willing to wager that the average citizen is scared to death about now, and fear is a terrorist’s greatest weapon. While I’m glad I’m not the president, I have to say, Washington is making a grave mistake.”

  “Sir?” Kit inquired, her eyebrows going high.

  “Gravity Well isn’t self-aware… it’s nothing more than a series of computer servers running a program. As a matter of fact, I’d be willing to wager that the AI engine didn’t send that message at all. We shouldn’t be looking for the hardware; we should be seeking the nefarious masterminds who are controlling it.”

  “I don’t get it,” Griffin frowned. “If we shut off the program’s computers, won’t that put a stop to all of this madness?”

  “Doubtful,” Sutherland responded. “If I were in control of Gravity Well, I would have propagated the physical computers to multiple sites. I might even have spread its capabilities across the entire internet. It would be possible, wouldn’t it, Dr. Mahajan?”