by Jacob Gowans
* * * * *
Commander Byron was in his apartment washing dishes when his com beeped. “This is Commander Byron.”
“Hello, Commander Byron,” an unfamiliar voice said. “My name is Doctor Khani Nguyen. I work at the Tensai Research Center. I apologize for calling you so late, but I have some interesting information to share with you about the hardware recovery you made at Commander Wrobel’s home. Can you please come to my office tonight?”
“I can be right down. Give me ten minutes.”
“Call me when you arrive so I can grant you access.”
Byron hurried to change into his Alpha uniform and took a car over to the TRC, or as he had affectionately dubbed it long ago, “The Nerdery.” The joke had always made Emily laugh. Tensais, as smart as they were, often had quirks that made them socially awkward. Recently renovated, the TRC was a technological masterpiece in design—at least, that’s what Byron was told. All he really knew was that the building was the largest on the Alpha campus. Someone had once tried to explain to him what was so great about it, but Byron hadn’t paid attention. He parked his car outside and sent a message to Nguyen, who in return sent a map of her location to his com screen. He followed it until he reached her office.
“Good night, Commander,” she said when he knocked. “Please come in.”
“Er—thanks. Good night to you, too, Doctor Nguyen.”
“You said ten minutes, but it’s been twelve.”
Byron glanced at the time. “My apologies.”
She smiled at him sympathetically. She had a lovely face. In fact, Byron thought she could have been some kind of model if not for her strange hairstyle, badly applied makeup, and drab clothes. “People often say good evening even though it is a fallacy. Evening is technically over at sundown, so I prefer to say ‘good night.’ And call me Khani. The title of Doctor carries too many negative connotations.”
“Certainly. Wonderful.” Byron kept smiling because he could think of no other appropriate way to react. “What did you want to show me?”
She led the commander to her workstation where a massive computer stood. Her desk had four monitors on it: two regular holo screens, and two that seemed to have no projection capability at all.
“I have only seen computers like yours in museums. Why do you have it?”
Khani petted it affectionately. “Yes, the fronting is my design. But don’t be fooled. Behind it is one of the most powerful machines in the world. I styled it that way to remind me how far we’ve come.” She paused to look at it once more. “I am the Chief Computer Security Analyst for the NWG. It’s my job to coordinate the efforts of my staff as we try to detect and exploit the weaknesses in our own networks and data systems.”
“Oh, you are a hacker?”
Khani glanced it him with a touch of annoyance. “A hacker isn’t a term I’m comfortable with being called. As someone whose profession involves delving deeply into computer systems’ securities, I think cracker conveys a more appropriate connotation within my community.”
“That also used to be a racist—”
“If cracker makes you uncomfortable, then I can also be called a white hat.”
Byron nodded. “How about if I just call you Khani, as you suggested? I am interested in seeing the data you collected on Wrobel’s hardware and software. Can you show me that?”
Khani took the seat at her desk and cracked all the knuckles in her fingers, one at a time. “My team discovered that Wrobel inserted a benign code into our systems. The code does nothing except wait for a corresponding piece of hardware to be connected to any computer on the network. Once that happens, it allows a very elaborate rootkit to be deployed.”
“What is a rootkit, if I may ask?”
“A disguise for a compromise in our system. In this case, the compromise appears to be a tunnel. And before you ask me, I’ll go ahead and explain that, too. A tunnel is a system built within a system that acts like an underground passageway, and with a rootkit, the tunnel is almost completely undetectable and able to go as far as the cracker is willing to go. Obviously there are certain places that are more difficult and dangerous to poke your nose into.”
“Like the recent security breach into the NWG Medical Center?” Byron asked.
“They are very likely connected, yes. The problematic side of a tunnel is that it leaves a big mess behind, so the discoverer of the tunnel can usually find out exactly where you’ve been digging. But with the presence of this—quite frankly—brilliant rootkit and the tunnel, we have our hands full trying to figure out what your old boss was doing in our system.”
“He was not my boss.”
Khani shrugged as though that piece of information was irrelevant.
“So what now?”
“We have designed a program that will act as a tunnel flood. Now that we’ve recognized certain points of access, the program will slowly root out all the branches and report back to us what it finds.”
“And how long will that take?”
Khani bobbed her head side to side, thinking. To Byron it looked like she was doing a dance. “Days to weeks. It all depends on the level of sophistication of that rootkit.”
“I hope you have your best minds on this. The importance of the information you gather cannot be overstressed. Particularly when it comes to the safety of our people, including you.”
“Well, even though the CAG put their best minds to the task of creating this problem, I’m sure my team and I can outwit them. We’re only talking about Americans, you know.”
“Yes, I know. I am American.”
Khani diverted her eyes. “Hmmm. That is awkward, isn’t it? I’ll let you know about any updates that concern you.”
“Thank you. Allow me to show myself out.”
* * * * *
Brickert woke up Sammy the next morning with a yell. “Hey! When did you get back?”
Between his nightmares and recent memories, it scared Sammy enough that if he’d had a gun, he might have killed Brickert. He grumbled about getting back late and not sleeping well, but Brickert was persistent in waking him.
“What’s in this box?”
Sammy sat up. “Nothing!” He tried to snatch it from his friend, but Brickert was too fast.
“Is this something for Jeffie? If it is, she’s going to be thrilled. Maybe you already heard, but she’s single again.”
Now Sammy was awake. “Are you joking? How would I have heard? When did this happen?”
“While you were gone. Apparently it wasn’t a good break up because I haven’t seen them speak since.”
“Not speaking to people is typical of Jeffie. So what happened?”
Brickert shrugged. “Is this real?” He picked up the framed award and read it. “It is real! You earned a Medal of Courage on your Beta mission?”
“Brick, relax. It’s not Congressional. Look at it again. Psion Medal of Courage. They give these things out like celery at a camp for fat kids.”
“It’s signed by the President!”
“He pre-signed it. It’s not like he was there when they gave it to me.”
Brickert put the award back on the table as if it was a priceless vase. Sammy rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Get up. Everyone will want to see you.”
Sammy grumbled a little more. “Fine, but don’t tell anyone about the award. I don’t want to talk about the mission.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t.” The tone in Sammy’s voice made it clear that he wasn’t joking.
Brickert nodded. “Got it. Sorry. Have they said when you graduate?”
“Soonish. Like a month or less.”
A cloud of disappointment passed over Brickert’s face. “Are you cool with that? Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“Yes and no. Let’s just forget about it for now. But I am going to miss you.”
In an exaggerated, high-pitched voice, Brickert cried, “I’m going to miss you, too!”
Sammy pushed h
is friend back and they both laughed. After taking showers and getting dressed, they headed upstairs for breakfast.
“Today is Sunday, right?” Sammy asked.
“Yeah. And to catch you up on things, I’m still with Natalia—”
“How’s that going?”
“Good. Jeffie and Strawberry don’t talk anymore because Jeffie called her a very rude name. Then they nearly killed each other.”
“Why? What name?”
“Best you don’t know. But, like I said, Jeffie and Kobe aren’t really talking, either. And since they aren’t talking, Kaden has sort of shunned Jeffie, too.”
“Why?”
“Bros before . . . never mind. I shouldn’t have said that. You should also know that Kawai and Jeffie aren’t on good terms.”
Sammy didn’t need to ask why. “Maybe you should tell me who Jeffie actually is getting along with.”
Everyone in the cafeteria stopped speaking when Sammy entered. Brickert whispered, “Oh, and I’ve become very, very popular lately.”
Sammy suppressed another laugh. He and Brickert sat at a table by themselves. In under a minute, the table filled up with Betas, all of whom had questions about the mission. Sammy tried to answer them to the best of his ability, but much of what they wanted to hear fell under the jurisdiction of classified information. As he spoke, he dug into a bowl of oatmeal, his favorite breakfast. By the time his first bowl was empty, every person in Beta had gathered around to hear him tell about his eight days as an Alpha.
When he saw Jeffie’s face in the group, he stuttered and lost his train of thought. She smiled at him as someone pushed a second bowl of oatmeal in the place of the first. As he went to take a bite, one of the new Betas, a chubby kid whose name Sammy didn’t know, asked, “Did you kill any bad guys?”
The spoon fell from Sammy’s hand and clanked onto the table. Everyone stared at the boy, who immediately realized he had said something terribly foolish.
“Are you kidding me, Gabriel?” Kobe asked. “What the heck goes on in your brain? Does anything work properly in there?”
Sammy got up and walked out, mumbling an excuse as he left. He went to the stairs, not really sure where he was going. All he saw was Havanna Jónsson. When he came to the fifth floor, he chose a sim room and shut the door behind him. After staring at the panel for several seconds, his mind drifting in lost thoughts, he chose a weapons sim to see if that would calm him down. The panel asked him which weapon he wanted to use. Usually, he picked the syshée. The computer knew this and put the choice at the top. Instead Sammy chose something bigger to start with: an RCP-90.
Blowing dozens of targets to millions of pieces felt good. The continuous noise of the gun’s eruption, the vibration of the metal in his hands, and the sheer destruction took the edge off his mind and away from the incident. Next he decided to go with something smaller and work on precision when he heard a knock on the door.
“Sammy?” a muffled voice asked. The door’s thickness made it impossible to know who was there. “Sammy?”
“Go away, please,” he called out.
The next knock sounded more like a dull pounding. “I don’t want to go away.”
It’s Jeffie. Great. She’s not going to give up without a fight.
He let her into the room.
“Hiya,” she said.
“Hiya back.” His response made her smile.
“Sorry about Gabriel.” Her tone was very conversational. “He lacks a filter. Some of the other Betas are working with him on that.”
“Good idea.”
“Yeah, unfortunately, he’s still a dweeb, and the doctor says that can’t be fixed.”
Sammy smirked at her joke. “I missed you, Jeffie.”
She stared at him. Her green eyes were so bright and beautiful. Sammy had difficulty believing someone so radiant could be attracted to him.
“That’s the first thing you say to me?” she asked. “‘I missed you?’”
“Nope. The first thing I said was, ‘Go away.’ Then ‘Hiya back.’ Now I’m saying I missed you, Jeffie.”
Jeffie’s smile grew exponentially. “Say that one more time.”
“Go away.”
They laughed together. Jeffie went to him and hugged him. He hugged her back. “I missed you, too.”
The hug lingered longer than normal. Something touched Sammy deep inside his chest during the embrace.
“I messed up things pretty badly, didn’t I?” Jeffie said. “I should have waited for you to come home from the hospital so we could talk instead of going back to Kobe. I’m sorry. I was dumb and confused. I wasted time that could have been spent with you.”
“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have been so passive about it. I’m sorry. I was dumb and confused, too. I wasted time—”
“Just stop!” She punched him in the ribs playfully and rested her head on his pectoral. Sammy flexed his muscles so she’d be more impressed.
“So how did you manage to piss off everyone at headquarters in the last couple weeks?”
“I went on an estrogen-fueled warpath and destroyed everyone who got in my way.”
“Even Kawai, huh?”
Jeffie pulled away from Sammy, blushing. “I heard that she—I got angry. We’re on speaking terms and all, but things are still chilly between us. This hasn’t been my best year.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
“But I’m really hoping to turn it around before 2087 hits.” She put her hand on Sammy’s cheek. He closed his eyes and leaned forward until his forehead rested on hers. No one had ever touched him so intimately before. Part of him was giddy. Part of him was scared. Her other hand went to his chest, feeling his heart beat rapidly. “Do you want to tell me about what upset you downstairs?”
“I can’t talk about it. Not right now.” They stood in silence for a little while, doing nothing but touching each other in that intimate way, forehead to forehead. “Do you want to tell me why you broke up with Kobe?”
Jeffie broke the contact and sat down on the floor of the sim room. “Yeah. We were on a date and he told me what you told him back when you were in the bathroom in Rio together waiting for the Thirteens.”
Sammy knew exactly what she was talking about.
“Did you mean that, Sammy?”
“Yeah.”
His answer brought a pretty smile to her face. “So then . . . now what?”
“I, uh, I don’t know. I’m leaving soon and . . . we’re not going to see each other for years. For three years.”
“Sure we will. You can come for all the graduations. We can write letters. We—”
“—won’t see each other. It’s that simple.”
“No, it’s not that simple.”
“It is!” he insisted. “Jeffie, we’re kids. Date Kobe. Date Brickert. Date Antonio!”
“Yuck.”
He covered his face as he sighed. “I want to spend more time with you, too, but we can’t do more than that. I made the choice to graduate. Maybe it was shortsighted. Maybe it was the wrong choice, but I made it. I have to stick to it.”
“Tell them you want to wait longer. Ask for more time!”
Words he had spoken long ago popped into Sammy’s mind. I am a servant of the people. My life is not my own. “I can’t.”
He thought Jeffie was going to argue more, but she accepted his response. “Three years. That sounds a lot like forever. But . . . if that’s what it has to be, then I’ll deal with it. I’ll write you, and you’d better not miss a single graduation!” She poked him in the chest forcefully enough that Sammy had to rub the spot afterward.
In her eyes was that fierce look Sammy had seen before. He’s seen it on nights when they were up late talking, when she’d kissed him on the cheek, when she’d finally beaten him in Star Racers, when she won her first Game as honcho. Now he finally knew what it meant.
“I can’t kiss you,” he told her. “I want to, but it’ll make it so much harder for me to leave this place.”
>
The look disappeared from her face. “I didn’t say anything about—” She stopped when he raised his eyebrows at her. “Fine. But we’re hanging out every night until you graduate.”
He pulled her into another hug, this one less tender and more friendly. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
The next day, Major Tawhiri called Sammy into his office and congratulated him on his successful completion of the Psion Panel. Then he informed him that every member of his squadron was expected to make a full recovery.
“You’re still set on September 1st for graduation?” he asked.
Sammy didn’t hesitate. He was sure.
“That Sunday is less than five weeks away. Make the most of your time, buddy.”
Sammy followed the Major’s advice to the best of his ability. He didn’t have to go to instructions or sims, but he went anyway to stay sharp and prepare himself for life as an Alpha. He found himself particularly interested in emergency medical treatment.
He spent every other waking moment with Brickert and Jeffie. He helped Jeffie repair her relationships with Strawberry and Kawai, and eased the tensions with Kobe and Kaden simply by not dating her. For those few blissful weeks, the five recruits—Sammy, Brickert, Jeffie, Natalia, and Kawai—were as inseparable as they’d been several months ago, before Sammy was stranded in Rio. They gamed, they played lots of chess, they joked, they teased Brickert and Natalia whenever they showed too much affection, they talked about the future, and they reminisced about the past. And Sammy truly believed those few weeks were among the best that he could remember.
22.
Graduation
Sunday September 1, 2086
The morning of graduation, Sammy awoke early. Despite staying up late the night before talking to friends, he’d tossed and turned in his sleep, unable to stop thinking about permanent life as an Alpha. His dreams had consisted mostly of fantasies about kissing Jeffie through prison bars. He was never sure which of them was locked up, but the kisses were always wet because Jeffie was crying. At about 0500, he had a lucid moment where he realized he was kissing his pillow and decided it was time to get out of bed.