by D S Kane
CHAPTER 38
December 10, 10:35 p.m.
Swiftshadow safe house, Washington DC
“Calm down, Cassandra. Tell me exactly what happened, to the best of your recollection.” Jon held her shoulders steady.
Cassie whimpered, unable to control herself. She tried to settle down, but couldn’t. “Ann just fell over and went into convulsions, right after I used the command to turn off her Bug-Lok. She’s been like this since then, since 9:52. I tried to wake her, but nothing has changed.”
Jon examined Ann’s face. When he pulled her eyes open, they rolled to the top of her eyelids. “So her convulsions lasted about three minutes and then she became unresponsive. That’s when you called Drapoff?”
Cassie nodded. “He said he’d ask Morse to get him the real specs. The unredacted specs. He said it might take several hours.”
Jon nodded. “We need to talk with the CypherGhost.” He marched into the bedroom where the woman still lay cuffed naked to the bed, her arms and legs spread-eagled.
The CypherGhost asked, “Has it started?”
Jon’s brows wrinkled. “Huh?”
“Has she started to convulse?”
Jon felt malice heat his face. “You had something to do with what happened to Ann?”
She nodded. “I placed fifty units of Bug-Lok into her coffee this morning. Two creates a feeling of static in the senses. Three creates confusion. Four makes someone lose consciousness. Fifty, well, fifty either kills you or unlocks more of your brain than almost anyone can handle. She’ll probably die. But in the unlikely event that she doesn’t, uh, no one knows what she might become. We were hoping she could become the black swan. Hoping she can save us all.”
Jon felt two emotions at war with each other. He was ready to strangle the CypherGhost. But what if Ann really can handle the massive overdose? What if a Bug-Lok overdose actually can push someone’s abilities to think and control their mind better than the rest of humanity?
* * *
Ann felt lost and constrained. She was semiconscious but not in control of her body or her mind. She felt cut off from her mind, like it was trying to flee her body, heading in many directions at once. She tried to exert control, but to little effect. She thought, Focus! Try to follow just one direction of thought, follow it through where it leads me. Ah, it wants to leave my head, leave my body. It’s wanting to use the wireless network. Now, I’m out in the internet. I can see hundreds of other users working away. I see a person’s identity as they read their email. Damn! This could be useful.
She forced herself to return back to within her own mind. It was hard to do. But once she was finally successful, she pushed along with another current, and now she had control of two threads, both outside her head. Ann wondered if she could do three at once. She failed again and again, able only to slink along a single thread. She stopped trying to focus and let herself float out in many directions. At first nothing happened. But then, slowly, she did it! In a few minutes she had ten threads under control. She tried to send a message to one of the people whose emails she’d read. From the keyboard at the user, she could tell the person was replying, and read their message: “Who the fuck are you? How’d you get into my computer?”
She could feel the wall of pain building up again. She found three Bug-Lok units misbehaving and commanded, XOFF. Each blinked out and the pain subsided.
She felt weak from her efforts.
Could she become conscious again?
She focused on the real world. Tried to connect with her senses.
* * *
Cassie watched Ann’s eyes shudder, then open. “Ann, can you hear me? You’ve been out for nearly three hours.”
Ann nodded. “Yeah. But I think I can control this. Let me tell you what I’ve found.” Her voice was faint, just above a hoarse whisper. Cassie placed her ear closer to Ann’s mouth. “I was able to exit myself. I went out using WiFi and all over the internet. Visited computers, saw what their users are doing, what their messages contain. And I was able to do it with nearly thirty simultaneous operators. Nearly thirty Bug-Loks, all operating in my head and under my control. Probably can do that when I’m conscious. But what happens when the Bug-Loks expire, stop working, and are gone from me? Dunno.”
Cassie moved away, so Ann could see the shock on her face. “Sweetie, I’m so sorry. This was stupid. Dangerous. You might have died.”
Ann nodded. “Yes. Of course you’re right. But I didn’t die.” She thought for a second. “And I’m back with useful skills and knowledge.” She closed her eyes. “I feel tired and hungry. Food first, then nap. Help me up, Mom.”
Cassie helped Ann stagger into the kitchen and seat herself at the table. She took a selection of food from the fridge and placed it on the table.
Cassie watched Ann devour everything, fast. Turkey slices, potato salad, hard-boiled eggs. Egg rolls. Lobster sung. Fried rice. Cherry pie. Then Ann padded off to Cassie and Lee’s bed. She pulled the covers up to her neck and within a minute, Cassie could hear her snoring.
Cassie walked into Ann and the CypherGhost’s room. She put her face inches away from the CypherGhost’s face. “Jon told me what you’d said. So, you admit that you administered a lethal dose of Bug-Lok to my daughter. Give me one reason why I should let you live.”
“While your daughter was busy conquering the internet using only her powers of focus, I was doing the same thing. I took fifty units when I gave her fifty. We’re both alive and well. Between the two of us, we could change everything. So I may still be of use to you as well. Killing me would be a waste.”
“And what would we have you do? How could we know what you’ve really done? We know we can’t trust you.”
“I am a true revolutionary. I AM the the CypherGhost. That label represents me and everything I strive for. There are many like me, in the Free Hacker Society. We protect you from those who want to steal you blind. I am bound by the highest morality. Truth. Honesty. Equality.”
“You are full of crap. You’ll do whatever it takes to achieve your goals, and no one really knows what they are. No one really knows your allegiance.”
“Ask your daughter. She was all over my files. She knows me now. Better than anyone else ever could. She’ll tell you the truth.”
Cassie had no reply. She left the bedroom and walked to the kitchen. She’d have to wait until Ann was once again awake before she could ask the questions that felt like a bonfire erupting inside her.
CHAPTER 39
December 11, 7:22 a.m.
Starborne Security Corporation,
2301 K Street, Washington DC
Walter Fergusson closed the door to his office and hung up his cashmere winter coat and his brown fedora. The sun had just risen and rosy pink clouds were turning an ominous gray outside his window. He punched a number into his cellphone’s screen. “Sir, it’s Fergusson. Something unanticipated has happened. I need guidance.” Fergusson listened to his handler, then thought about every word he wished to say, to ensure he didn’t give away more that he should. “According to the CypherGhost, Ann Sashakovich lived through the process. Dunno how that happened. And from what I can tell, now that she’s out there, she may be able to backtrace me. Backtrace us. All of us. What do you advise?”
The handler spoke at length, and Fergusson could feel the building rage inside him, carefully hidden, yet still there.
“Not easy to do that now. We could backtrace the safe house’s location. Might take several hours. But any armed mission would have to be conducted after nightfall, and by that time it might be too late. As I see it, having one of our mercs take an OD of Bug-Lok might more likely kill the merc than it would enable the creation of yet another super-hacker. None of ours have enough hacking skills.” Once again, the handler spoke, but this time the voice was loud and strident.
“Right. Then I’ll see if I can find a merc with those skills and get them operational as soon as possible.” He heard a final click as his handler terminated the
call.
Fergusson dropped his cellphone into his pocket. His own anger mounted, and he knew it was clouding his judgment. His job had just gone from difficult to nearly impossible. What had started out as a well-planned mission, with large probability of success, had spiraled down into a blind Hail Mary play. He scanned through page after page of names and phone numbers of mercenaries, looking for one whose listing of specialties included anything remotely related to computer hacking.
* * *
Lying on the bed, Ann dreamed she was taking a final exam in Computer Programming 101 at Stanford, but she’d run out of time before she could answer the only question: “Who are you now?” The exam proctor smiled at her as he collected her exam booklet. Her booklet was empty. No words on the page. The proctor said, “Good answer.” The dream ended with her consciousness ripping through internet messages, trying to find a path back to the person controlling the CypherGhost. But, this didn’t at all feel like a dream. In fact, she finally realized, it was not a dream.
Every message within the CypherGhost’s computer MAC address led to a stream of false locations. She kept hunting. It has to be here! Somewhere! As she searched, she highlighted MACs showing promise, grayed out those that led nowhere.
In front of her, within her mind, she saw the CypherGhost. The woman messaged, “You can bind me into a bed, but my mind is as free as yours. Would you like my help?”
Ann messaged back, “Can’t trust you. You’re full of deceit. When you speak, you lie.”
The CypherGhost: “I’ll open my mind to you. Search through and see what you can find.”
Ann: “You can do that?”
The CypherGhost: “Let’s give it a try. Come here.”
Ann tried to touch the CypherGhost’s mindglow location. Nothing. “Doesn’t work.”
The CypherGhost nodded. Her mindglow grew brighter. “Okay. Try again.”
Ann tried again and a portion of the data in the CypherGhost’s mindset flipped open like the pages of an ebook. She rifled through page after page, looking at emails and social media posts. At first the messages appeared to be innocuous, but then she saw code words and began to understand the true nature of the messages.
Ann: “You told me you worked for a hacker group. These appear to come from a mercenary organization.”
The CypherGhost: “I’m actually not sure any more. I thought Free Hacker Society was working for a more just world for hackers. Now I think I was deceived. Now you see how difficult it is to truly know the players. I’m pretty sure my handler is just an independent operator. I was recruited by him, and he said he was the head of FHS. Similar to Anonymous. But now, I doubt he told me the truth. His handler is who we both want to find. And that one will be even harder to backtrace.”
Ann thought this over. “Okay, I’ll give you a chance. So, let’s get started. Give me the dates and times of every contact where you received new orders or passed recent status to or from your own handler.”
The CypherGhost’s mind-pages flipped into Ann’s mind. She scanned them, looking for something to indicate more clearly who and where the handler was.
And there was something significant.
The handler’s physical locations when posting any message were all inside the Beltway, and when she backtraced the handler’s MAC, this time it was always the same. She then accessed the handler’s MAC directly. An apartment on Massachusetts Avenue. In an apartment very close to where they’d found the repeater.
There was a name: Walter Fergusson. Ann used the internet to find Fergusson’s employer and job title: CEO of Starborne Security Corporation, 2301 K Street, Washington DC. Down the street from the Swiftshadow Group. She nodded. “I’ve found your handler’s identity. Fergusson. It wasn’t that difficult for me. How come you didn’t know this?”
The CypherGhost said “What?”
Ann posted the pages back to the CypherGhost. “Look. I found these.”
“Holy bullcrap. These were in my mind?”
Ann realized that she had been reading from the CypherGhost’s unconscious. Things her own mind had hidden from her. “Okay, now I get it. Don’t worry, it makes sense to me now.” Ann posted an email to the Drafts folder at the Swiftshadow Group’s website and sent an instant message to Cassie’s cellphone. Now, if anything happened to Ann, Cassie could pick up the pieces. Now to see where Fergusson’s own handler lives.
* * *
Fergusson held his cellphone in a death grip. “I’m contacting you for a mission we need completed urgently. Are you available?”
Avery Crenshaw, a freelance female merc specializing in computer hacking and countersurveillance, said, “First, tell me who you are, the mission’s duration, and what it pays.”
“No. You tell me if your hacking skills are current.”
“Yeah. Current. And yeah. Available for the next two weeks.”
“It won’t take that long. The mission might last three days at the most. And there is some risk of death. Interested?”
“How much cashish?”
“Ten thousand Euros signing bonus, and three thousand Euros per day.”
“So far, so good. Tell me what you want me to do that’s so dangerous.”
“We want you to test a hacking nanodevice. It must be ingested.”
“Are you bat-shit crazy? You want me to eat something to test it? Sorry, no can do.” She terminated the call.
Fergusson cursed silently. He had three more candidates, but they were less suited to what he had on his task list. If he’d believed in a god, any god, he’d have said a prayer before calling the second possible hacker mercenary.
But this one also declined. What do I do if none of them will accept the assignment? He punched in a number and spoke to his target for under a minute. And, true to form, the third mercenary also declined.
Now his options were much more limited. He’d previously decided he didn’t want anyone who could be traced back to him.
But this was now an options-limited, more-close-to-him world. Freelance mercs weren’t going to do the work. He couldn’t use anyone at Starborne Security Corporation. They all knew him and there was no way to control the assignment, or even just maintain his cover.
He gritted his teeth, realizing that he was, in fact, the only one left as a test subject.
If the test failed, he’d be dead.
But if he didn’t do anything, his client, whom he’d never met and who paid him with large deposits of cash into his corporate bank account, well, his client would kill him.
Either way, death.
His only chance to live was to ingest fifty Bug-Loks and pray he could manage to control them. He’d never ingested a single Bug-Lok device before. And now, fifty? Walter Fergusson headed back to his corner office from the company café, a bottle of water in one hand, a small cellophane packet in his other hand.
He didn’t have much time left.
* * *
Ann had found the location of Walter Fergusson. According to his last four cellphone calls, his current location was his office across the street, and he was probably still there.
She’d need to have Jon and Avram do the field work. Ann sent Avram, Jon, and Cassie an email using the Swiftshadow Group’s website Drafts folder, reporting her status and what she saw as the next step in the process of finding the real culprit behind the pending coup.
And time was running out.
In just a few seconds, Cassie replied by text message: “I’m with Jon and Avram now. We’re in the logistics bay, arming for the trip. Give us ten minutes. I’ll be in touch.”
Ann faced the CypherGhost’s mindglow. “Okay, for now. Maybe I can trust you. Let me think about it.”
Ann’s dream ended and she woke, refreshed.
CHAPTER 40
December 11, 3:02 p.m.
Starborne Security Corporation,
2301 K Street, Washington DC
Walter Fergusson felt a grinding wall of pain in every cell of his body, as if an explosio
n had slowly started to destroy his flesh and bones. His fingers were on fire, and the fire climbed up his arms to his chest, up his neck to his head. He could smell smoke as if the fire were real. The heat melted his eyes and tongue, and then his head grew soft. His consciousness began to swirl away, bit by bit, as the flames and smoke became what he’d been only seconds before. He thought, I must have fallen to the floor. I’m barely conscious, but I have no way to tell where I am. It’s like being paralyzed, immobilized in a dark prison cell. He was choking on the smoke.
His vision dimmed, then vanished. He tried to fight his way back to consciousness, but it didn’t work. And with every passing moment, he felt weaker. He was losing the energy to even breathe. Fergusson spiraled into a panic. He knew that Ann had managed to break through something similar to his situation and enter the internet. Maybe he could, too. He tried to focus on his task, but found his strength fading ever faster.
Soon, he was unable feel anything but burning, twisting flame. Then he realized his heart had stopped beating. Fergusson didn’t have the strength to fight his impending death. The pain he felt, intense though it was, began to waver. In one final flash, his consciousness blew away like a fleck of dust on the wind.
* * *
Avram was in the lead when the trio walked into the offices on the twenty-third floor of 2301 K Street. The office staff didn’t seem alarmed at three people wearing Kevlar armor with United Nations emblazoned on their vests. Avram stated that they had an appointment with Walter Fergusson, and asked the receptionist where his office was. The receptionist pointed to the northeast corner of the building. The trio marched down the hall, knocked, and opened the door. Fergusson’s body was on the floor by the window. Froth dripped from his gaping mouth. His skin was charred and blackened. Cassie screamed, “Medic!” and several workers ran to where they stood.
One of the office staff bent over Fergusson. “He’s not breathing. No heartbeat. Hurry with the 911 call.”
Avram and Jon exchanged looks. Cassie realized that they’d been through so many battles in the past, they had a secret language with glances for words. She shrugged her shoulders while looking at Avram. The shrug meant, What now?