by Ted Weber
From behind, Waylee gripped his shoulder. “Can you get around it?”
Charles shook off Waylee’s hand. He ran over to the supervisor’s console and disabled the lock. “Why’d we even bother with this Nick Smith guy? Why not replace the supervisor?”
Pel threw up his arms. “Smith was the only one we could get to.”
Charles brought up the system process list, killed the detection program, and hurried back to Smith’s console. He loaded his pre-written code, called by a shell script that would do four things. First, it would notify their Collective friends to start jamming the incoming message and voice lines and the nearby cell network. To anyone calling in, the lines would seem busy.
Second, it would run a program to intercept any commands from the control studio and quarantine them without sending back any error messages. They’d figure out something was wrong when the commands didn’t work, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it.
A third program would reroute the Super Bowl feed from the control room to storage drives in the server room instead of the Comnet and satellite uplinks. In its place, it would transmit Waylee’s video.
Finally, his script would replace the verification signal from the uplink stations with the control room’s video, not Waylee’s video which was actually being sent out to the world. All he had to do now was check the variable definitions, swiping over the right process names and pathways.
“Second quarter’s started,” Pel said. “We’re behind schedule.”
“What’s the score?”
“No score yet. Can you believe that?”
It took a couple of minutes for Charles to finish modifying his script. “What’s up with the local phones?” he asked Pel.
“That’s Hubert’s job; we can’t access them from here.”
Charles set up a chatbox, disabled the log, and invited Hubert, listed as superuser SU32.
SysAdmin3: Ready?
SU32: This on record?
SysAdmin3: MMDRND
“Inner Circle term,” he told Waylee. “My mama didn’t raise no dummies.”
SU32: What about other admins?
“We got ’em all?” Charles asked Pel.
“The ones in the building, yeah, this is their office.”
SysAdmin3: XO
SU32: All good here. When?
Charles looked at Waylee.
“Let’s do it next commercial break,” she said.
Pel leaned forward. “Ask him what he’s doing.”
Charles typed as fast as he could.
SysAdmin3: Whats yr game?
SU32: Sending worm to building’s unified communications server. Will stop all voice communications, email, everything. Easy-peasy for #1 engineer on campus.
SysAdmin3: Go as soon as the next commercial break starts.
SU32: ok.
SysAdmin3: What about other buildings?
SU32: Can’t access, but doesn’t matter.
Pel edged forward in his seat and turned up the game volume. A receiver for the Dolphins was running down the sideline toward the end zone.
“And Freeman’s got only one man to beat,” the announcer said, “but it looks like the safety’s got a bad angle.”
“That’s right,” the other announcer said. “Freeman burned the defensive back. He went for the interception and got out of position. Freeman could go all the way.”
“He’s at the 20… the 10… Touchdown!”
Charles typed his shell script name at the root prompt, # Touissant
His finger shook, but he didn’t press the enter key. He looked at Waylee. “Want to do the honors?”
Waylee gazed at him. “It’s your program. Your honors.”
As soon as the Dolphins kicked the extra point, Charles tapped the enter key.
Nothing happened. The outgoing feed replayed the touchdown, with the announcers saying what a great play it was and what it would do for momentum. Too early.
Waylee screeched. “Where’s our video?”
Charles checked the system log. His script had been blocked by superuser syssec-d.
Da fuck? They’d taken care of all the humans. The mystery admin must be an AI daemon. He’d have to work fast, before Hubert ran his worm and tipped everyone off.
As an admin, Charles had virtually unlimited power. He tried to kill the syssec-d process.
Insufficient privilege.
It wasn’t just a process, it was his artificial counterpart. He tried to delete the whole account.
Insufficient privilege.
A chatbox popped up.
SysSec-Daemon: What are you doing?
“Who’s that?” Pel said behind him.
No time to explain.
SysAdmin3: Running system updates.
The Super Bowl feed began a car commercial. Hubert would set off his worm now.
One thing about AIs, they lacked imagination. Charles listed syssecd’s activities and found a ‘centralized exceptions’ folder, which contained files and processes exempt from security scanning. The folder was nearly empty. He copied his scripts to a definition file and dumped it in the folder.
“The new Yolo-X is our hottest car ever,” the commercial promised.
Charles ran a configuration process, which would make sure syssec-d read the updated exemptions list. He crossed the fingers of his left hand and hit the up arrow until the prompt returned to # Touissant.
* * *
Waylee
Waylee’s skin burned as Charles tried his program again. “Please work,” she said. Her heart pounded out speedcore thrash beats. Getting shot at, chased out of their house through miles of stormwater pipes, thrown on the FBI’s most wanted list, it couldn’t be for nothing.
The left video, the feed from studio control, continued the car commercial. The two videos on the right, the signal going out to the world, began with a shrill emergency tone, a screen with the presidential seal, and a voice announcing, “This is an emergency message from the President of the United States. We apologize for the interruption. Please stand by. You must take immediate action following the end of this broadcast.”
Waylee grabbed Charles’s arm. “Is it working?”
He nodded.
The screen dissolved to President Rand speaking on the Smithsonian stage. A caption underneath listed the location, date and time. Floating name and affiliation tags followed everyone on camera other than wait staff and Pel.
“It looks like we’ve got more wealth gathered here than the rest of the country put together,” the president said.
Cutaway to assembled guests in tuxedos and evening gowns.
Back to President Rand. “And everyone here has prospered during my first term. Am I right?”
Loud assents from the guests.
“Are you sure people are seeing this?” Waylee asked Charles.
He pointed to the right-most feed. “That’s your video on the uplink verification. So yeah.”
On the screen, Waylee/Estelle asked why ordinary Americans should vote for Rand.
“People are surprisingly easy to influence once you know how their minds work,” his media advisor said.
Luxmore stepped forward. “People are generally stupid. That’s why they need people like us to tell them what to do. Plato’s philosopher-kings, bred and educated to make the right decisions.”
“Exactly,” the president said. “Most people don’t know what’s in their best interest.”
“What about all men and women being created equal?” Waylee/Estelle said. “That governments should consent to the will of the governed?”
The president laughed.
“So MediaCorp persuades the public to support you…”
“Staying on message, we call it. We’re headed toward a world where MediaCorp knows everything about everyone. But we’re on the same side. We help each other out.”
The feed split into three windows, the left-most displaying an email from the president’s media advisor, the middle showing a memo from Medi
aCorp’s news director to their staff, and the right playing the news as broadcast. All three contained the same content. Then it switched to their emails about Justice Consiglio’s sex site visits, with the right window showing him shaking hands with the president.
The president re-appeared. “He can turn anything into a public issue. Name a person alive who doesn’t have skeletons in their closet.”
The video continued, detailing how MediaCorp and the president’s party worked to suppress democracy, and what they planned for the future. At the bottom of the video, a caption invited viewers to virtual links administered by the Collective: “Discover more at /MenOfGold, and discuss at #FooledNoMore.” Bots would swamp attempts to shut the links down or plant misinformation.
Waylee’s stomach knotted with regret. I’m slanting the truth just like MediaCorp.
All she claimed to stand for, freedom to think and decide for oneself, she’d thrown aside as she clung to her quest. She and Bob Luxmore were one and the same, imposing their view of the greater good, manipulating others to fall in line.
But the video was just a wake-up shock. People could examine all the raw material and draw their own conclusions. And hopefully a critical mass would emerge, and bring down the plutocracy. She hugged Charles, then Pel. “I love you.”
“Love you too. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
Charles rolled his seat away from the console and thrust a finger at it. “Owned!”
“Just a sec,” Pel said. “Gotta clean up.” He changed the console login password and the root password, then brought up a file directory. He looked at Waylee and spoke quietly. “If you go unplug all the consoles, we’ll delete the password file. No one will be able to log in.”
“Hell,” Charles said, “just delete all the admin accounts entirely, the ones we can, anyway. That’ll really slow ’em down.”
Waylee left them to it and unplugged the other consoles. Then she peeked into the lounge. The handcuffed techs stared at her and made muffled noises. “Sorry about this,” she told them. “You work for an awful company, that’s why we’re doing this.” She really was sorry. Even for President Rand. But it had to be done.
Waylee hurried out of the office. Pel squirted Gorilla Glue in the entrance lock, then shut it behind them. “They can still get in by breaking a window, but it’ll cost them a couple of minutes.”
They walked, then sprinted, through the blue machine hive. Beyond, freedom awaited.
43
M’patanishi
Dolphins were up 7-0. The Super Bowl coverage broke for a car commercial.
But on the data center camera, which M-pat was using to monitor his friends, Waylee, Pel, and Charles leaned toward their screen. Pel flashed a thumbs up.
“Yo, over here,” Dingo said from his console.
M-pat hurried over.
Dingo’s display showed two camera feeds from the presidential booth. President Rand and a bunch of others stared at the screens above the big window overlooking the stadium. “…People are generally stupid,” CEO Luxmore said on the screen within a screen. “That’s why they need people like us to tell them what to do…”
“We did it, yo!” Dingo jumped up and smacked fists with him.
M-pat lost it. “Fuck yeah, I can’t believe we pulled this motherfuckin’ shit off!” He flashed all the B’more handsigns for solidarity, then actually hugged the motherfucker.
In the display of the president’s suite, a woman asked, “Where is this showing?”
“Just here?” a chubby man said. “Or everywhere?”
“Can’t get through to control,” another woman said, staring at her comlink.
M-pat recognized Luxmore because his big-titty blonde was next to him. “Send everything you’ve got to the MediaCorp campus in Virginia,” the CEO told someone out of view. He stared directly into the nearest lens. “And turn those cameras off.” He yanked his comlink out of a coat pocket. The feeds went dark.
The world’s biggest shitstorm was headed their way. M-pat threw on his data glasses. “DG, call 23.” Pel’s code number.
No connection.
He turned to Dingo. “Hey, I can’t get anything on this.”
Dingo put his glasses on. “Me neither.”
They tried the phones on nearby consoles. No dial tone.
“Whole phone system’s down,” Dingo said.
“No wonder we’re not getting calls now.”
A handheld radio crackled on the supervisor’s console. “A-28 to Nest One.” One of the two guards patrolling the building. A-97 was the other.
M-pat picked up the radio, pushed in a trigger on the side, and lifted it to his lips. “A-28, this is Nest One. Go ahead.” He had heard plenty of radio traffic on police scanner apps, but still had to guess at the lingo.
“Comms are down, other than radio. Can you advise? Over.”
What a dumbass question. “A-28, where are you and A-97?”
“Sixth floor per your instructions. All clear, over.”
“Uh, stay put. I’ll notify dispatch about the comm problem.” He had no intention of actually doing that. “Over.”
“And out?”
“Yeah, yeah, over and out.” Fuck this radio shit.
“Aren’t you supposed to say ‘Roger Wilco’?” Dingo asked.
“Ain’t never heard no cop say motherfuckin’ Roger Wilco. Ain’t you got shit to do?” M-pat brought up the list of radio codes on the console. He called dispatch and used Luke Annlote’s ID and the code for prowlers. “55 to Dispatch, 10-70, multiple suspects near the power plant, Priority 1.” A long broadcast, so he added, “Over.”
“55, 10-4” a male voice acknowledged over the speaker. “What’s your 20?”
They wanna know where I am. “Uh, power plant parking lot.”
“55, stand by.” After a pause, the dispatcher called out five patrol IDs and directed them to the power station on the other side of the campus.
M-pat looked at Dingo. “Time to go.”
“I’ll kind of miss this place.” Dingo gathered his gear together and pocketed the data stick with the stadium booth video.
Not me. M-pat sat back down at his original console. He disabled all the cameras and locks, shutting down all the security systems he could access. He turned off the radio and left it on the console, one less way they could be tracked.
On their way out of the security office, Dingo squirted half a tube of glue in the lock.
Waylee, Pel, and Charles, all wearing data glasses over their masks, emerged from the stairwell door down the hall. They ran toward each other, Waylee holding a hand against her cheek.
Pel knocked fists with Dingo. Waylee squeezed arms around M-pat. “I love you guys.” A big flap of latex drooped from her face, exposing white foam underneath.
M-pat pulled Waylee’s arms off his back. “Better do somethin’ ’bout that mask. Authority’s on the way, y’all.”
The smiles disappeared, replaced by cringing jaws and tense shoulders. He could smell their fear, like cheap beer puked over moldy onions.
“I sent the guards to the power plant,” he said, “but we gotta jet.” If they caught him, he was going back to prison for keeps.
Pel’s eyes widened and he started jogging toward the lobby, waving the others to follow.
M-pat caught up. “Yo, yo. Be cool.” He looked around. “Act like your shift is over. And don’t bunch up.”
Pel’s teeth scraped some of the color off his fake lips. “Waylee said there’s a Watcher outside.”
“You fuckin’ serious?” They had worst-case plans for private drones, but not Watchers.
Waylee tapped a foot. “We should activate the planes.” Her hands shook as she pulled the hand-sized radio out of her big purse. She extended the antenna and flipped the power switch on. The receive light turned green, meaning the satellite repeater in the Mustang trunk was still in range.
* * *
Kiyoko
Huddled in her blanket in th
e back of the moving truck, Kiyoko watched the Super Bowl feed in her immersion helmet. Waylee’s video wrecked the president and MediaCorp for minute after minute. And all the raw material was out there for follow up. I’ve got the most awesome sister ever.
Nyasuke stared at her and meowed.
“I know. I should be there with them.” She prayed to every god she’d ever heard of. “Please bring them all back safely.”
She thought about searching the Comnet for gods she’d left out. Then Waylee’s voice sounded in the helmet speakers. “There’s a Watcher over the campus. Launch the planes.” The connection ended before she could respond.
“VR, Spitfire.” Kiyoko’s helmet view switched to her model fighter plane, a replica British Spitfire from World War II. She lay on a grassy field a few hundred yards from the MediaCorp campus. Three identical drones sat parked next to hers. Pel had procured all four and set up the Comnet connections.
Her wingmates stood by on the Comnet: her BetterWorld dragon friend, Abrasax, and two hackers from the Collective, their avatars an Amazon warrior and a Japanese lolita. Kiyoko messaged them, “To battle we go.”
Her wingmates appeared in 2-D popup windows. “It’s a good day to fly.” “Hoo-ah!” “Kiai!”
Kiyoko reduced the size of her other portals and focused on her Spitfire. Moving her left VR glove, she pushed the virtual throttle forward. “Go!”
Her engine started. The propeller whined and the plane tore across dead grass and bare dirt, bouncing up and down. She fought a surge of nausea.
She pulled back the stick and the plane rose from the ground. The vibrations dwindled and it climbed into the air. I’m flying for real!
The other planes followed on her left and right. Beyond the field, she kept low over treetops and roofs.
Just ahead, she saw the rear section of the MediaCorp campus. A wheel-shaped Watcher hovered overhead, black against the sky and brandishing antennae. No other enemy aircraft, at least for now.
“Spitfire Three, buzz the power plant. Four, take the satellite dishes.” Both targets were well away from the front gate. “Two, you’re with me. We’re taking out that black dragon.”
The Spitfires flew over the MediaCorp fences and climbed. Two security cruisers departed the single-story security headquarters in the center of campus and drove toward the power plant. The two planes piloted by the Amazon and lolita peeled off and headed for their targets, wagging their wings and weaving back and forth.