Kill Process

by William Hertling

  I drive down the mountain, pulling over briefly near a trailhead to swap the license plates with a spare set and disconnect the speedometer cable where it plugs into the transmission. I lay my flashlight on the ground, trying to aim it toward the license plate. Of course, the beam hits way too low. I grab the flashlight between my teeth, and pick up a nut and wrench in my hand. I fumble and the nut rolls away. Scheisse. Dear universe, I’d like another hand, please, at least for a few minutes. The license plate is easy compared to the speedometer cable. Twenty minutes and plenty of curses later, I’m back on the road and by 3 A.M., in Bend.

  Sam Bekins lives on the outskirts, in a cul-de-sac of identical suburban homes, every third house a mirror image floor plan. He drives a Ford Explorer, his wife drives a Taurus. Both are parked in the driveway. They don’t seem to travel much. I called both Ford dealerships in Bend, and the second had done the service.

  Neither of them work. When I ran a standard financial check a few weeks earlier, I found Sam gets a monthly disability check from the New Hampshire State Police. Forty percent of all women married to police officers are abused. Forty percent!

  Of all groups of victims, the wives of police officers are stuck with the least options. They’re scared to report it, and even the agencies that normally help battered women are hesitant to become involved when a police officer commits the abuse. If the victim does report it, they’re almost never believed. Even when they are believed, neither police nor prosecutors are likely to do anything. They protect one another. Cops are fired for failing a single marijuana test, but remain on the job after battering a spouse.

  Like homelessness, abuse of power in authority is a complex problem without a simple fix. Except in this case. I’m here now.

  Sam’s wife, Kelly, has been in the hospital six times. I know this despite the fact that neither he nor his wife use Tomo. Both of their identical phones came with the Tomo app preinstalled, an arrangement Tomo pays the cellphone providers three bucks per device to ensure. The Tomo service runs in the background, reporting geospatial and other data, even though the user never signed up.

  Some imagine they can avoid us simply by not using Tomo. It’s not that easy. We track the non-users too, in the hopes of figuring out what makes them tick and how to convert them to active users.

  At any rate, I’m here now because Kelly is out of town. She got a text on Monday about a sick relative, flew out on Tuesday, and isn’t expected back until Saturday. I had nothing to do with it, but I’m not going to overlook a gift when it shows up.

  Sam’s in the house alone, which opens up a world of opportunities.

  In a more ideal case, I’d be able to use a remote exploit, but they don’t own any smart appliances directly connected to the Internet I can exploit. They do have a wireless diagnostic interface on their furnace and a local network of connected smart detectors for smoke, fire, and carbon monoxide.

  It’s 3:30 when I pull up in front of their home. Lights are off, as they are for all the neighbors. I pull a clean laptop out of my bag, attach a directional antenna, and brute-force attack the smart detectors.

  It takes six minutes before I’m in, exploiting the lousy random number generator the detector manufacturer uses at the factory, leaving the attack space for encryption keys way smaller than it should be. Once I’m in, I trigger the detectors’ programming mode, a setting normally used only in R&D. All this learned thanks to DEF CON, the annual hackers’ conference, where someone shared this exploit in an after-hours party room. In programming mode, although the LEDs flash, the audible alerts don’t sound. Presumably the firmware developers didn’t want to listen to blaring alarms while they were testing devices.

  Next I go after the installed furnace, a smart device like every household appliance built in the last five years. Although the Bekins household never connected it to the Internet, the embedded computer still runs a hidden wi-fi hotspot to make it easier for service technicians to connect to. With the detectors effectively disabled, I redirect my laptop connection to the furnace, creating a peer-to-peer network with the same directional antenna. The furnace doesn’t possess any protection at all besides the original factory password they’ve never bothered to change. I download a firmware update, and five minutes later, the furnace reboots. I’ve changed the combustion settings, and now the furnace is generating copious quantities of carbon monoxide as it also runs the ventilation fan backwards with the cleaning duct open. These three things should never happen at the same time, but they are now.

  My rough calculations predict the house will hit 600 ppm carbon monoxide, a lethal level, in twenty minutes. After ten, the levels are at 250 ppm. Even if Sam woke now, he’d be too befuddled to rescue himself. At twenty minutes, the levels reach 500 ppm. Not wanting to risk a botched job, I wait a whole hour. The carbon monoxide crosses over 1,000 ppm, and I back out my changes, leaving only the cleaning ducts open.

  Without ever getting out of my car or even cracking the window, my work is done. It’s 4:45. I’ve got two and a half hours of driving to look forward to. Back near Timberline, I’m utterly exhausted and try not to think about the work ahead of me. I refill the gas in Government Camp, then drive up the long, winding road. At the trailhead, I swap out the license plates and reattach the speedometer cable, then drive the last mile to the parking lot.

  The spot where the Jeep was parked when I borrowed it last night is taken. Vision blurred from exhaustion, at first I’m confused. I check my notebook, and I’m right about the spot. I briefly consider moving the other car, but there’s no time now. The sun is coming up, and I’ve got to exit the Jeep before someone spots me. I hope the owner assumes he’s the one who is confused. I park about five spots down, and pray the engine cools down before the owner comes out.

  * * *

  When I wake around noon, I immediately wonder if I succeeded. Of course, there’s no way there could be news available this quickly. So I force myself to pretend everything is normal, and take an actual vacation day. I hike to Mirror Lake, where I gaze at the upside-down reflection of Mount Hood in the water, eat a granola bar, and wish Thomas was with me to share the experience.

  That night, back at my hotel room, I decide to chance a quick check to see if there’s any news. Timberline is remote enough they’ve got only the one Internet connection to the rest of the world, and even the most sophisticated onion routing tricks won’t hide suspicious traffic originating from the mountain.

  I’ve got channels I can use for this, piggybacking a few low-bandwidth bytes here and there on other communications to legitimate websites. It’s enough for me to find and read a short article in the Bend Bulletin, allowing me to determine that Sam Bekins definitely died.

  With that out of the way, a weight lifts off my shoulders. Now I can relax for real.

  CHAPTER 8

  * * *

  I ARRIVE AT the office at 8 A.M. on Monday, rested and out of touch. I intentionally avoided my work email for three days, to make sure the evidence shows I really was on vacation.

  I scan screenfuls of email subject lines. Maybe ten percent are about PrivacyGuard, and my coffee sours my stomach. Skimming a few only reinforces the increased momentum of the project. With disgust, I delete everything in my inbox and empty the deleted items folder.

  For a few seconds, I’m shocked at what I’ve done. There were almost certainly important messages in there, stuff I needed to reply to. It was . . . irresponsible.

  I stare at my completely empty inbox, a blank white screen, and relief floods in. I let out a little nervous giggle.

  It’s clear Tomo is going to hell. The PrivacyGuard stuff is one sign of many. It’s more important than ever to figure out an alternative, a way out of this heinous one-sided power dynamic. With an empty inbox, I’ve got an hour free before the morning planning meeting. Screw work, I’ve got to figure out an alternative to Tomo.

  The empty network problem weighs heavily on my mind. For a new network to blossom, it must somehow overc
ome this barrier, a rare occurrence. When it does happen, as it did with Picaloo, Snapchat, and WhatsApp, it’s usually because of a compelling benefit not offered by Tomo.

  Take Picaloo. Why were they successful? They did photos, Tomo did photos. But Picaloo did photos better. Filters made them look cool. Focusing on only photos reduced the noise and eliminated annoying Candy Crush invites.

  I also can’t overstate the power of children. When a kid is thirteen and their parents are on Tomo, it is not a cool place to hang out with their friends. They’ve got to go somewhere else, and they do, rushing out to new networks where they’re safe from the spying eyes of parents, at least for a little while.

  What happens if a new social network overcomes the empty network problem and thrives? If they grow large enough to matter, Tomo buys them. Or Tomo integrates those features into itself: adding filters, for example.

  In the end, nothing anyone does weakens Tomo. To actually eat into Tomo’s core business, there’s got to be a benefit to switching networks that applies to everyone on Tomo, not only a niche, and not only the few holdouts that aren’t on it. Whatever this new social network is, it must be resistant to a takeover from Tomo or to Tomo copying their features.

  How do you stop a giant who can squash or acquire everything and everyone that stands in its way?

  * * *

  The user experience designers send out draft screenshots for PrivacyGuard this week. I spend half an hour getting angrier, until I remind myself anger without direction is pointless. I need to channel my frustration. I’m torn between tracking down the next person on my list, and working on my Tomo alternative.

  I settle for a bit of both, investigating a guy down in the Bay area, because it’s easy to justify a work trip down there, and then working over an extended lunch hour on my new social network.

  That night at home I’m microwaving a burrito when the smell of cheese and beans suddenly triggers an old memory of eating out with my husband at his favorite Mexican place. My stomach curdles and I dump the food in the garbage, too upset to eat.

  I’m suddenly exhausted and crawl into bed, with my clothes still on. The mistakes I’ve made overwhelm me. Sometimes I feel trapped, doomed to somehow repeat things, no matter how hard I try to fight them.

  I’m wallowing in existential doubt one moment, and the next I sit bolt upright, then nearly fall over myself in my rush to get out of bed.

  Pacing back and forth in my living room, I experience a revelation. What’s true for dysfunctional people is also true for dysfunctional corporations.

  Even if I create a new social network with the explicit goal to do no evil, even if that is structured as a brand new, independent company, there will inevitably come a day when the company will repeat the mistakes of Tomo. If the new social network is so successful it wipes out Tomo (I’m giddy at the thought), then everyone in the world will be locked into this new company, and the barrier to switching yet again would be even higher.

  Then what would protect people’s rights, their privacy, and the ownership of their data?

  What the world needs is not a new social network that concentrates power in a single place, but a design to intrinsically prevent the concentration of power that results in barriers to switching.

  * * *

  When I arrive at the bar, Emily is already halfway done with her drink, a gin martini with one vestigial olive, and she’s obviously tipsy, her voice pitched high as she flirts with the guy next to her who radiates cockiness like a fifty-kilowatt transmitter, from his shiny shirt to his bulging pecs.

  I’m momentarily peeved, until I see she’s got a jacket slung over the barstool on her other side. The seat she’s saved is at the end of the bar, against the wall. Check. It’s within ten feet of the exit, and no chairs in the way. Check. My stump will be on the bar side, where less people will stare. Check.

  I’m reminded again of why Emily is quite possibly the best person in the world.

  I sit and the bartender nods at me, although he walks in the opposite direction, away from me. He’s busy, the after-work crowd hounding him, shouting out requests for drinks. He comes back a scant thirty seconds later carrying a mint julep and sets it in front me.

  “Your friend said you’d want this when you got here.” He smiles, and moves away again.

  Emily gives the guy she’s talking to a peck on the check, does a last teasing flip of her hair, and then turns to me. She leans in close, hugs me and says, “What a jerk!”

  I’m momentarily flustered. Is she talking about me? The bartender? Or the guy she was flirting with and kissed? The latter is the only plausible answer.

  “Why’d you kiss him?”

  “He’s hot and arrogant.”

  “Is that bad or good? Because it sounds bad.”

  “I’m married. I’m not going to date the guy. He’s just fun to flirt with.” She turns and takes a long drink, draining the martini.

  There were guys like that in my distant past, the false confidence they exuded a siren call to some deep flaw in my personality. Rage runs through me, my blood hot and pounding in my ears. I can find out who he is, this prick on the other side of Emily, and I can kill him.

  Something triggers in my mind, and I realize I’m in a danger zone. Ever since my ex-husband, there’s something wrong with me. It’s not only the anxiety and PTSD symptoms, but something different inside that allows, or maybe even requires, me to go out and kill people.

  With the feeling of vertigo over a bottomless chasm, I see that the difference between me and a thug on the street is premeditation, data gathering and analysis. I’m not a random killer. Does that make me better or worse? I’m not sure.

  Either way, it’s terrifying to reach the point where I am now, to know all the time that I can kill people. All that separates anyone from life and death is a few hours of my time in front of a computer.

  I don’t want to be broken, yet I am. I’m only sane to any degree because of my ability to compartmentalize, and the belief I’m doing some good. If I save even one woman, it’s worth everything.

  “You’re in your head again,” Emily said. “Get out of there.”

  Emily recognizes my thousand-yard stare for what it is. She knows nothing of the killing, of course, but she understands my demons.

  She puts a hand on my knee, gentle and kind, telegraphing the touch so I know it’s coming. “Tell me about something, anything.”

  I sip my drink and tell stories about the office, picking the funniest moments of the week, those things I know Emily will laugh at, that I remembered especially to tell her.

  * * *

  When Emily tries to order her fourth gin martini, slurring noticeably, I cut her off.

  “Don’t,” I say. “I need to get up early tomorrow. I want to go in a bit.”

  Emily takes a long moment to process my words. “I don’t want to leave. Come on, have one more.”

  I quit after the first drink. Maybe at a quiet restaurant with Thomas or Emily I might order a second. At a busy place like this, surrounded by unknown quantities, I’m not willing to risk the loss of control associated with a state of actual inebriation. Earlier, I was jealous of her carefree ability. Now, with her judgement eroded, I’m slightly glad I have my limits. Just slightly.

  “Did you drive?”

  She shakes her head. “Uber.”

  “Let’s go,” I say. Suddenly everything feels too loud, too hot, and I want to be gone.

  Emily pauses, then nods. “I’m going to use the ladies’ room.”

  “I’ll wait for you out front.” I sling my bag over my shoulder.

  She nods and leaves.

  I plot my way toward the exit, scanning ahead, not coming within arm’s reach of anyone, keeping an eye on any men too close to my path.

  As I close in on the door, I see a woman in her twenties arguing with the doorman. She tries to grab for her driver’s license, he holds it up high.

  I don’t even need to hear what they’re sayi
ng. The playful smile on his face, the way he leans in, suggests he believes he’s flirting with her. The set of her shoulders tells me she’s angry and afraid and wants out.

  I reach inside my bag.

  He glances at the license again. “Hey, you live in those new apartments off Belmont. My friend lives there.”

  “Can I have my license please?” She still has her hand out, trying to reach her license, but he’s somewhere north of six feet and sitting on a tall barstool, and she’s a few inches over five feet. She glances around for help.

  The problem is the doorman is the authority here. That’s what she wants, somebody who can force this guy who holds her license hostage to give it up, yet the very person she should be able to go to for help is the one causing the problem in the first place. That’s the way it is. I should have been able to count on my husband to protect me, not hurt me.

  “Well, do you live in the apartments or don’t you?”

  It never crosses his mind the last thing she’d want is some asshole in a bar who obviously violates boundaries to know where she lives. But it’s printed right there on her license.

  I will not let this go on. My hands tightens around the stun gun in my bag. Eighteen million volts will lay the asshole on the ground.

  I’m five feet away when he gets off the barstool, and my limbic system remembers he’s not some abstract threat, but a real live man an arm’s reach away. It’s like opening a closet door to find a lion charging right at you. I freeze solid, mid-stride, hand inside my bag wrapped around the stun gun. There’s a roar in my ears and I’m dead stuck.

  The girl looks around for help again, sees me right there, and her eyes plead with me. If the two of us argue with him, her eyes say, surely then he’ll give up the license.

  Yes, I want to say, I’ll help you. This is what I do, after all, I make these situations right. Together we can beat him. But I’m locked inside my body, inside my mind, and although I’ll later have these retroactive thoughts, right now I’m consumed with terror, like imminent death is upon me.