The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

  “Not a problem. Take care.” Neland vanished.

  Firenze stood there, calmly, for a moment, made sure the connection was severed, and then began to holler like a madman, jumping about the room with barely discernible whoops of success.

  “You'd think you'd won something.” Lauren said, from her chair. She picked at the cushion, leaned away in disgust. “He put a groove in it. There's old man groove on my chair.”

  Firenze barely paused for her complaint. He reached down, plucked her from the chair, and spun her around, like a dancer. He cried, “I got it! I fucking got it!”

  She broke free, pressed her shirt smooth, and acknowledged, “Congrats. Nice job. Well done. He’s still a racist.”

  Firenze laughed, and agreed, “Yes, yes, he is. He's an amazing racist who just opened the door to a government contract. That means money. That means respect. That means more space between me and dronetown, and less time until I send mom that one-way ticket out of there!” He stopped. “And I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you.”

  “Aw shucks.” She stated, with mock humility, “ I've only got the combined knowledge of the entire net at my disposal. How much help could I have been?”

  “Oh, shut up.” He said. “It’s a thank you. Take it.”

  “Very well. You're welcome.” She said, but was cut off by the phone’s ring.

  Three letters hung over the phone: “KDX”. “I've got to answer this.” Firenze said. “It's kendrix, so...”

  “Oh, look, it’s the part where you go straight from, 'I can't do this without you' to 'Go hide inside the registry'. I see how it is.” She vanished.

  “Look, it's not like th- and you're ignoring me again.” Firenze sighed, and picked up the phone. There was no visual connection, no true data-stream. kendrix was too paranoid for that, holed up in his stoner vault with pictures of giant robots and jackbooted police and terrible old audio files.

  The robotic voice on the phone asked, “Is it raining outside?”

  There was always some ridiculous passcode. Firenze replied, “The cats and dogs have taken shelter.”

  There was a squelch, and a dialog request appeared. Firenze tapped the cradle of the phone, and suddenly, kendrix was standing in the center of the room. kendrix never sat, for fear the chairs would eat him. The ratlike man was always nervous, his attention constantly darted about the room, never stopped in one place, and he shifted from foot to foot. As he appeared, bright lights and scaffolding exploded out from behind him, swept over the room, traces and scans and scramblers that rushed into every nook and cranny.

  Firenze tried very hard not to get annoyed. “It's clean, kendrix. No need to search my node.”

  “Shh. No names yet. Haven't swept”

  “I swept it. I built it. It's clean.” Firenze insisted. kendrix was paranoid, but good. Not quite as good as Firenze, though, and this was wasting everyone's time.

  “Gotta be sure.” kendrix said, before his collection of lights and sirens and scaffolds collapsed back into the box in his hands. He tucked the box into his coat, and it vanished. “You seen it?”

  Firenze sighed. “Yes, I've seen it. The lockout code you sent? I cracked it-”

  “Shh! Don't say that out loud.” kendrix glanced about. “Have you opened it?”

  “No. I wanted to ask you-”

  “Good. I brought some things.” kendrix fished out a briefcase, laid it on the coffee table. “Right here we've got Plasma Torch version seven point five, and seven point six beta, plus Jaca's Thermonuclear Cracker, the ICEBREAKER, Fuzzyconch, Jaws of Strife, and, courtesy of some friends, a couple of the ISA's pet h.k. autocrackers.” kendrix opened the case, revealed the arcane tools inside. Each was a program, some of the best cracking kits available on the black net, except for the last. Those, represented by jars full of mechanical spiders, were government.

  “Jesus.” Firenze stated. “What, why not just throw the entire nine layers at it?”

  “Tried. Outdated version. Not up to spec for this.” kendrix closed the case, slid it towards Firenze. “These are a gift, copy freely. I just want to know what's inside the damn lockbox.”

  Firenze took the case, ran a scan on it. Clean. Even the ISA spiders had their code purged. Probably cost a pretty penny in credits, or favors, to get that work done. kendrix was good, but this was better. That was why he'd brought the black box to Firenze in the first place. He'd found it, but he couldn't crack it, but the paranoid bastard wouldn't leave it alone.

  At first, Firenze had wanted nothing to do with it. It wasn't his concern, it probably had nothing more than a whole batch of data that did him no good, and might have something truly nasty inside. The longer he'd stared at it, though, the more he'd started to wonder. This was a real slick piece of work, a true marvel. It was constructed from adaptive code, good as any he'd seen, ICE out the wazoo, scanners and sharks designed to trace the origin and sever the net, all so tightly wound that you couldn't attack one without exposing yourself to others. The encryption itself was so massive that it would have taken a brute force attempt longer than the lifespan of the universe to crack it. No one sealed up something that tightly unless the contents were really juicy. Something valuable was inside.

  It wasn't government, that was for certain. Government ICE wasn't designed to be impregnable, it was designed to dissuade most and bog the rest in the mire, while seeker programs hunted you and the police crashed your door in meat space. This was a different philosophy of data protection, vicious and confident. It would have taken the best crackers years to break open.

  It had taken Firenze a week.

  “What ever's in here, it's going to be ugly.” Firenze stated.

  “Secrets are rarely pretty. That's why they're secret.” kendrix replied. “But data wants to be free.”

  “Information needs freedom.” Firenze echoed. The runner's mantra. Nothing belongs to no one. Information wants to be free. You can't control the net. It was a very pretty saying. He agreed, for the most part, but Neland had opened a door, and he made it a policy not to do anything stupid. He wouldn’t dig on this. Just a skim. Take a look, nothing more. He said, “Look, I'll take a poke at it, but I'm gonna need an assist.”

  “I tried, man, believe me. I tried before I gave it to you. I got nothing.” kendrix admitted.

  “No, not from you.” Firenze said. “I’ve got a partner for this.”

  kendrix scowled, and glanced around the room, searching. He said, “Your fucking mask? Look, man, just get a damn sexbot-”

  “Oh, hi, kendrix. Nice to see you, too.” Lauren stated. She stood directly behind him, glare affixed.

  kendrix froze, threw a ‘get it off’ glance at Firenze, and begged, “Come on, man, turn it off. Shit’s creepy-”

  “You’re the one with eight petabytes of-”

  “Stay out of that!” kendrix cried, as he whirled about to face her.

  “Lauren, he’s our guest. kendrix? Be polite, or I’ll torch the link.” Firenze said. Both looked at him, unsatisfied. Jesus. He added, “Lauren’s the best there is. With her help, we’ll have this open in no time-”

  “Her?” kendrix asked. “Did you just call it, ‘her’? Look, masks are cool. Mine’s pretty funny. But it’s not a ‘her’! I mean, dude… you named it…” he froze, glanced at her, once more, and the color drained from his face. “You named it ‘Lauren’. Is that what she looked like? Didja fucking model it on her? Jesus, man, that was years-”

  His mouth kept moving, but produced no sound. Lauren closed her hand, and his audio was gone.

  She said, “I named myself.”

  kendrix blinked, and his mouth closed.

  Lauren added, “I chose a name that was familiar, that had positive connotations, and I liked the audio, so I claimed it as my own. If there is a problem, I suggest you file it with my official complaint folder.” She paused. “There is no complaint folder.”

  Firenze sighed.

  kendrix blinked again, tried to speak. Nothing
.

  “Let him.” Firenze said.

  Lauren scowled, but opened her hand.

  kendrix said, “I'll be back later. You two... just... do what you do. Crack this open. I'll call.” He vanished.

  “Dick.” She stated.

  Firenze whirled to face her. “Yes, yes he is. But really? Cracking his data vault?”

  “What was I supposed to do? Loiter in stealth mode? Again? I anticipated a high probability of him being both a jackass, and a pervert, and took preventative measures. I was right.” She paused, and added, with a shudder, “Creepy stuff on there. I saved some. To show you, the next time you fall asleep in the link.”

  “Thanks.” Firenze snarked. “Look, I know you don’t like him. I don’t like him. But there are rules. You have to pretend to follow them, or shit goes south.” He glanced, to the attache case on the table. “The real question is: are you as excited as I am, to put these babies to use?”

  “Oh, you have no idea.” She stated, all argument dropped. “Let's crack us a black box.”

  Firenze took one step towards the door-

  -and stepped into a safe room. The white walls were covered in grids and screens, while a single glowing cube floated before him. A workbench sprouted to his right, with toolboxes arrayed across the top. In turn, each sprung open and unfolded an array of macros and crackers, including the new software.

  Firenze motioned, and security locks spun into place, sealed this operating chamber away from core programs. In the center, the spinning light-cube twisted slightly, code running along its surface. “Where were we?” He asked, absently, as he dug through his selection of probes.

  Lauren answered, as she stepped to the opposite side of the not-quite-black box, “Extremely dangerous secure folder, designed by an unknown entity, containing at least least forty petabytes of data, compressed. Outer security layers included top end hunter-seeker algorithms, active and reactive ICE, and a Spanish armada of counterhack bots, with nary a storm to aid us. The configuration of core defenses indicates a high probability of burner viruses, and it is unknown if they will target mask or user. After last session, you declared, 'fuck this, erase it' when we traced the box.”

  Firenze lowered a pair of jeweler glasses onto his nose, initiated deep scans. He said, “Oh yeah, I did, didn’t I? Glad to see you were all over that.” He pulled on protective gloves, isolated his neural processes.

  “I considered the request, but I calculated a high likeliness that you would regret the decision upon returning, so instead I secured the data in a slash bin and retained it for one week.” She paused, held up an opened filing bin, fitted with a burn safe. “I hope I didn't misjudge.”

  “No, no. I was pretty sure you'd keep it.”

  “Then why ask?”

  “Uh, cause I'm kinda stupid?”

  “That seems a reasonable approximation.”

  Firenze fired up a cutting torch. “That hurts, you know.”

  “You should probably try and erase those “feeling” processes. It would allow you to accept facts more smoothly.” She reached forward, placed a hand on each side of the box, and stretched it, expanding it to the size of a beach ball. More of the subtle lines were visible, and now a slight chiming tone could be heard.

  Firenze held the torch at the ready, watched cube spin slowly before him. He raised his hand, and it locked in place, the circuitry on the surface sparking, the chime growing louder. “I really want to know who designed this thing.” He stepped to the side, examined the finely articulated surfaces. “Ominous-Corp? Evil Co? The Agency of Doom?” He flicked the torch, and the light in the room shifted from the flaring plasma arc. “Recommendations?”

  Lauren circled opposite him, occasionally stepped closer to inspect a segment of the surface, then reflexively flinched back. “Objectively?” She flicked her fingers, and a scalpel appeared, which she moved towards the box. “Objectively, you should walk away. There is a high probability that kendrix obtained this from a government site, and that there are more security measures enclosed. Once we crack the shell, we may very well be operating in real time against all manner of ICE. The rational decision, is to walk away.” She motioned, and the wall of the room behind her unfurled into a mass of charts, graphs, and maps, each of which showed 'You Lose' in giant red letters.

  He replied, “kendrix insists its not government, and it doesn't look like it follows state netsec theory.”

  “Do you believe him?” She asked.

  “Well... we're just taking a peek.”

  “Just so you are aware, my objection has been raised.”

  “You're still willing to help, though?”

  “Of course! I want to see inside! I just thought that, as the one of us not bound by misdirected evolutionary imperatives, I should raise the obvious argument.” She grinned, and pulled her surgical mask into place.

  Firenze lowered the torch to the surface of the blackbox, and it sparked, flashed back at him, knocked the cutting beam away. He recoiled, and a lance of light flashed near his hands. Counter-hack, can't be directly exploited.

  Lauren reported, “Bastion three point one point two. Standard corporate security suite, activated by grade three limited AI from remote site.” She blinked. “Link cut, feedback loop engaged.”

  Firenze doused the torch. “Corporate security. Sounds like Zeta.” The Zeta EnPro Corporation was one of the largest of the state-corps in the world, with divisions in every aspect of energy distribution, from mining to refining to transmission to distribution. It made engines and batteries and widgets, it sold “managerial paradigms” to other industries, and it sucked deep from the Authority's teat. “Mother-loving Zeta. Probably going to be some really illegal shit in here.” Definitely a burner virus risk. Legality be damned, they have money.

  “Location trace would confirm that.” Lauren stated. “The security infrastructure that attempted to react originated from Altess.”

  “Where?” Firenze asked.

  “Altess City, northern Africa, regional Zeta headquarters for the Mediterranean. Oversight location for the Arclight Bore.” Lauren replied. The scalpel vanished from her hand, and she wrung her hands together. Another tic. “This has a high probability of relating to Strand harvesting.”

  Arclight. Zeta's big damn hole in the sky. The largest terrestrial bore, a testament to engineering and ingenuity, and an extinction event waiting to happen. Firenze could feel the ice water in his veins, and the rush of adrenaline in his gut. “Arclight.” He whispered the name. He stared at the box before him, several pieces now loosened from the probe, the way it caught the light and twisted it. “Put a hole in space with negative mass, bore through to anywhere. Pull out the insulation lining of reality and spin it to your whims. Spooky.” He could feel the energy tingling in his nerves, the urge to run and the need to pry the black box open.

  Lauren was silent. She watched him, watched the box.

  He began to spin theories. “Okay, so this is, what, operational documents from the Bore? Secret projects? Maybe safety violations? Maybe it's not as safe as they think? Maybe the enviro-nuts aren’t wrong?” Nothing sounded quite right.

  She replied. “Any aberration at Arclight would send the Authority into search and destroy mode, and even Zeta wouldn't risk that kind of exposure. The relationship is symbiotic, but the Authority holds the power. This could be corporate malfeasance or damning operational data. Whatever is in this box is most likely worth killing over.”

  “Do we proceed?” He asked, and the question echoed in the room.

  “That is your choice.” She replied, but her hungry gaze was on the box.

  He'd known his answer before he'd asked. “Let's crack it.”

  Firenze stepped towards the box, executed preset cracking configurations, spun piece after part away. Rapid movement, shattered code, another chunk of the shell fell away. There was another chime, another arc of white heat. Lauren sealed the breach. Firenze activated the new kit, blasted through passive defenses. Th
e spiders slid into the box, rivers of light on the surface. The chiming was deafening. Another piece broke clear.

  The final sequence hung before him, a chunk of metal clamped onto a glowing liquid silver orb, inside the remains of the shell. A final flourish, a final memory buffer overflow, and the shield fell away. White light cascaded over them, flowed into each corner of the safe-room. The seals held. The roiling liquid in the center, radiant like the sun, erupted outward, expanding to fill most of the room, flung up into the air and bloomed like a star. Firenze staggered back, crashed to the floor, tried to shield his eyes, raised screens and shields around the growing orb.

  The light faded, and Firenze rose, stared at the massive sphere of shining silver. “What are you?” He asked in wonder.

  Lauren was next to him again. “That is an unknown artifact. I have no data.” There was concern in her voice.

  “We're secure here, right?” He asked. He knew the answer. Nerves made him ask.

  “Yes. I've implemented rotating servers, rolling encryption. I might adapt some of the security measures from this very black box. It would take weeks to track us, and weeks more to crack this safe room.”

  “It took me a week.”

  “You are the best.” She replied. “There are no handles on this file. There is no response to passive probes.” She executed an automated diagnostic, ran data over the parser. “No response.”

  The sphere hung, boiling, in the air.

  Firenze carved a hole in the air, drew out a raw feed, cut his view between render and code. “Looks like all there is, is this. No handles, no prompts, no interface. Why build this? Why lock it so tight?” There was no purpose to this artifact. It existed, but did not interact. What is it? He stepped closer, ran an active probe, a quick touch with jaws of strife. The cut-out flickered. “Hold on.” He said.

  “What?” Lauren asked, freezing in place.

  “I'm getting a disturbance when I scan. It's reacting, very slightly. I think it needs a failed probe. That makes no sense. Give it some junk data.”

  Lauren summoned a key, fed it into the sphere. Nothing happened. “Nada.”