Good God. Subtle. So damned subtle.
He scanned the whole paragraph and counted ten periods, nine of them bolded. He tried again with the periods included. Like a magical unveiling, the file’s contents were revealed.
“Alrighty then...”
The screen’s light ghosted his face. Two files... an application installer and another readme doc. He checked the readme.
Austin – Install client on notebook. Go mobile to download the file. Be careful they may be on to you right away. I don’t know who they are or what’s in it. See msg below. Just get it and send it out. To who is up to you. Good luck, program. Username: $in$in Password: 45forgottenNightz%+
Below it, a message:
THEY ARE TRACKING ME RIGHT NOW THEY HAVE ME I AM DEAD TONIGHT. THEY ARE ON THE GROUND AND IN PEOPLES MINDS, DON’T LET THEM FIND WHO YOU ARE!! GET THIS AND RUN NOW ZERO RIGHT NOW GO LOW FAST BUT FIND A WAY TO LET IT OUT. LET THEM HAVE IT!! MAKE IT COUNT!!!! I WAS DARREN BLYTHE ENGLAND, HCS. REMEMBER STATEN-GENERAAL.
“What the–?”After the second reading, he realized he was holding his breath. He read it once more before closing out the files.
The whole thing was seductive, designed to attract, lure. Something so important it could threaten his life... on the ground and in people’s minds. It turned uncomfortable, familiar wheels of thought. Only Kaiya wouldn’t like it. Not a bit. He powered off the laptop and set it aside.
Probably a trap. A hoax. It wasn’t real, yet... still it drew him in. The fact that someone had taken the time to set up something so elaborate begged for discovery, just to see where it went. Why bother? He could hear Kaiya’s question. And his dad’s criticism.
“Shit.”
Fatigued from speculation and the long day, he de-stressed with television for another hour. Creating distance from the hacker’s file felt wise. It could wait. Eventually the moving images lulled and became more and more disconnected until sleep crept up. He eased the recliner back and stretched out with his eyes closed.
He woke standing in the apartment. An open window revealed a deep-blue night sky speckled with stars. Who had opened...?
No. It was a fixed-frame window, it couldn’t open.
And he couldn’t sleep standing up. I’m dreaming. I’m lucid.
Recognition and the resulting flush of excitement almost woke him. It wavered, then stabilized. The open window invited him so he floated out and rose as if on a warm current of air. He looked down from high in the night sky. Tiny headlights on the downtown avenues and freeways coursed like electric blood in the city’s veins. All around teemed an ocean of consciousness.
Just to explore that... how cool it would be. But there was something else worth exploring, worth finding – the hacker. With liquid awareness he cast out across the curve of the planet, open to the thought of the hacker. Somewhere out there he lived and maybe dreamed, too. Potential simmered. He focused, extending feelers for the target mind, for the one who had sent the file. Slowly a sense emerged, a sense of a strange.... place. A place of energy that was solid, real, and unique. Curiosity blossomed out behind him in a purple energy trail as he flew eastward in search of it. Higher and higher he soared until the lights of cities sparkled impossibly clear in the distance, hundreds of miles away. Caution resonated deeply, an intention from his logical mind to be careful in the unknown. In that brief reflection a peal of skepticism also sounded and threatened to end the dream, but he held on and continued. The sense of the strange place became stronger spanning eastward over the country. He marveled at the cities lit by the Eastern Interconnect like an electric cobweb. He passed over the coast. Beneath him the dark Atlantic hummed with its own universe of life.
The still-distant place felt large. Somewhere with expanses of land. Textures combined, brown sugar mixed with black shadows. Thoughts of Africa, complex intelligence, and design emanated from the place, almost individual energies, that of –
You can’t go there.
He cast around in sudden darkness for the source of the command. Just above, something formed from the shadows. The head of a tiger appeared, teeth bared, about to strike. The next instant he was in the recliner, eyes wide open, heart pounding. The television flickered silent images. Kaiya stirred on the couch, asleep.
“Shit.”
They are on the ground and in people’s minds.
The vertigo of uncertainty grew, tinged with fear.
It had been a long time since the days of exploring. He’d had his own experiences – four authentic lucid dreams and twice he’d left his body, though only briefly. Dream walkers, psychics, remote viewing... imagination churned in a silent frenzy. Meaning awaited assimilation. Intuition’s voice grew garbled and confused, with one exception: the hacker’s message felt more real after the dream. What I have sent you could threaten your life.
The laptop sat nearby, a doorway to something mysterious. Temptation to download the file became a gravity. He thought of his dad and what he’d say. If it didn’t piss him off, and if he decided not to make fun of him, there might be some good advice to be had.
Kaiya stirred again on the couch. She didn’t like psychic stuff, didn’t like things with poor definition and no boundaries. Staying inside the box was her style and he’d learned to appreciate the safety of it. Still...
He glanced at the television. Police in riot gear moved in to break up a street mob angry at the loss of a pro baseball game. Blaming the umpires. Ridiculous behavior, a response way out of proportion to the situation.
The clock showed half past nine. Curiosity won over. He wrote a quick note for Kaiya and in minutes was on the freeway headed to his dad’s.
• • •
Brent Bakken’s large frame turned in the recliner. Concern creased his brow.
“Bit late for a visit pal, what’s up? Nothing wrong with Kaiya I hope?”
“No, we’re okay,” Austin said. “I just need your opinion. Some advice.” He set the laptop on the bar and reached into the fridge for a beer.
“Advice? Okay, I’ve got plenty of that. What’s up?”
“Well I, uh, received a gift today with a very... exotic message.”
“What, you need advice about a sex toy?”
“Nice, dad. No, a hacker dropped off a file on our network today. An encrypted file with a message. I got it open and inside was a program. It’s supposed to download an important file. Like, spooky important.”
His dad’s brows furrowed again. He paused the TV. “Hold up. You said a hacker? Someone you know?”
He told him about the breakin while he uncased the laptop. “The guy at the brewery must’ve given him my info because he mentions my name in the message.”
“Alright, and what did the message say? Why my advice?”
He thought about the hacker’s notes. If he tried reading them aloud, he’d feel foolish.
“Just tell me what you think, okay?”
His dad nodded, his good mood dissipating.
He brought up the initial message from the hacker and the one from inside the encrypted file. “Read the left one first.” He handed the laptop to his dad and watched his eyes closely as he read. Twice there was something resembling a reaction, possible recognition.
His dad looked up at him. “Here’s what I think. You caught him doing his thing on your network and it’s his way of getting back at you. If you download that file, who knows where it’s coming from? Think about it. You might be tunneling a file right from the Pentagon. They’d trace it back to you. Look at you son, already fascinated. You’ve heard me say it a thousand times. Most mistakes are made without the right perspective. Don’t let him or anyone screw with your perspective. It’s everything. Listen to your gut.”
He began to nod when his dad added, “And if the file is that important then it could land you in a shitpot of trouble.”
He stared at him. “You mean it could be real?”
His dad passed the laptop back with a hint of impatience. “I mean it could be a valua
ble document. Either way, it’s a trap. Delete everything and you don’t have to worry about it. Pretty obvious. You shouldn’t need my advice.” He picked up the remote, ready to resume his show.
Austin nodded despite the subtle criticism. It came down to either being real or being crap. True, but... he couldn’t bring himself to mention the lucid dream, the voice, or the tiger.
“Well I wouldn’t be a newbie about it. I’ve got an old beater laptop I could use... but you’re right, it’s probably best to forget it.”
His dad studied him. “You’re not convinced.”
“Hell, dad, what if... say it’s real – what if there’s proof of telepathy or cover ups in the file? If I’m really, really careful, why wouldn’t I check it out? Wouldn’t you want to know? Or maybe you already do?” Regret trailed the question but it was too late.
“Jesus, Austin. Still playing the conspiracy game?”
He couldn’t meet his dad’s look. His words and tone had said all he needed to know. He closed the laptop in the awkward silence and cursed himself for coming.
“Look, Austin, I don’t want to insult you. In fact, I’m trying not to. But mind reading? Really? I thought you were done with that stuff.” His look was of exasperation trying for patience. “Son. You’ve got a hacker in your network. You should be thinking about covering your ass, not looking for a sling to hang it in. Right? You’re distracted by the message, which is what any good hacker does to land the bomb. Perspective, Austin, perspective.”
Good points all, damn it, but curiosity still raged. Something about his father’s approach to the whole topic only served to enhance it. If there were secrets to defend, pops would definitely go the distance to redirect him. Twenty-seven years with the agency’s computers... he almost had to have heard more about psychic shit.
If there really were such a thing.
What a mind fuck.
The garage door lowered. Driving home he’d made the decision. Controlling an e-bomb was cake on a beater laptop. He would completely wipe the hard drive afterward. No one could prove he’d taken the hacker’s files from the office anyway.
Up in the shop he freed an old IBM ThinkPad from under a stack of hard drives and transferred everything from the hacker to it. Everything on one box. Easy to wipe.
He drove to Café Exótico to use its free wifi. In the parking lot the laptop auto-connected due to an app he’d installed for Kaiya to make it easy to score wifi when she traveled. He fired up the hacker’s application.
No virus warnings, nothing special about it. Just a plain login screen.
“Alright then...”
He typed the username $in$in with a password of 45forgottenNightz%+.
The screen updated with the message,
File ID 20281EC93A23:: Access Granted.
Particles:: 40.
Volume/particle:: 1024.
Est. retrieval window:: unavailable {performance permissions lacking, biotch }
Progress:: 1 of 40 {=--------------------------------------------}
It looked like a real slow download. Doubts about it being worth it surfaced but he ignored them. The coffee house had its Friday late crowd gathered inside and out on the patio. Thirty minutes ‘til eleven and closing time, though they typically left the wifi up all night. He locked up and headed inside to grab a cup.
Twitchy music shot from oversized speakers mounted in the ductwork ceiling. Pierced and permanently painted bodies in burnt orange serving smocks waited on the crowd of twenty-somethings, many equally adorned with metal and ink. Drab in jeans and his ‘temporarily out of service’ t-shirt with nude arms and non-metallic face, Austin felt fifty, not twenty-eight. One patron stood ahead of him, placing her order. From the tables, a small commotion arose.
“Frankieee! The internet’s down again! Can you fix it, pleeease?”
A gangly dude wearing all-black with his orange smock shouted back, “Yeah, yeah! In a sec!”
Dang! He’d have to restart the download somewhere else. Again doubts about the file being worth the hassle circled. A bronze-haired serving girl appeared. Four shiny beads lined her lower lip. “What can I get ya?”
“Large frappuccino. Please.”
“You got it. Three fiddy.”
Feeling self-conscious, he paid and stepped to the side. The looks cast about reinforced the old and out of place feeling. Ridiculous, but there it was. Subculture, the great divider. A return glance always had them just looking away, as if anticipating his move. Every time.
He watched the girl prepare his coffee. Frankie appeared from the back. “Sorry patrons, it’s down-down.” The crowd moaned. “Hey, I tried, but it’s toast! Deal widdit!”
Coffee in hand, Austin pushed the door open and strode into the warm night air. Lights from homes on a gentle rise drew his attention. Somewhere up there an unsecured network awaited.
“Crap.”
He sipped his coffee. The fourth street without an unsecured wifi network. “C’mon... where’s my free wifi hippies?”
His cell rang – Kaiya, wondering what he was doing. Without going into much detail, he shared the advice his dad had offered and the fact he was going to download it anyway.
“He said not to? Why are you then?”
“Because it’s probably nothing? Seriously, it’s not a big deal.”
“If it wasn’t, you’d just delete it. I’m telling you, I don’t like it.”
Of course she was right but the hacker within wouldn’t let go of the intrigue – of the draw to at least look at it. Worst case he could reformat the laptop.
“It’s alright, babe. You know this is my domain. I’m not going to get tricked into anything. Honestly, it’s a non-issue. Don’t sweat it.” Time to switch topics, she was too worried. “So tomorrow’s your big presentation, right? You ready for it?”
“Austin. Changing the subject?”
Easy does it... “Well, how important is it, really? I’d say your presentation is way more important. Downtown Hilton and all.”
“It’s just... I don’t know.” Softening, good. “Something doesn’t feel right. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, okay? As for tomorrow, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.” She paused. “I was hoping for some good luck mookie tonight, except someone ran out on me.”
The file could wait. Had to. It would take more than one night to get all the pieces anyway. Quarter to eleven... he could be there before eleven-thirty.
“I’ll come back, but don’t you dare be wearin’ those thin black lacy thingies and the silver ankle bracelets. Don’t know what’ll happen if you are. Just sayin’.”
She growled and hung up. He held the laptop’s power button until it died and surged towards the freeway.
• • •
“Grafter’s signing on.”
With Soldado and Caldera, Grafter counted as the third administrator required to open Crosstalk’s personnel file. Viewing of a profile required at least one founder and two ranking admins. The member received notification of the viewing and why. It was a hard-coded system that kept everyone honest and insured privacy for members.
“What’s up guys?” Grafter joined the chat, his voice slightly garbled due to the heavy encryption in use.
Soldado responded. “Shit’s whack tonight. Just had a scan of servers starting in L.A. from private IP blocks. I’m not sure if it’s NSA or not but someone’s gunning for us. Let’s do this quick. Access the profile screens. Give the reason and submit. Use ‘death verification’, two words, all lowercase.”
On screen, three authorizations took: the profile became visible to each.
Darren Blythe, nick name Crosstalk. Twenty-four years old, graduate of Queen Mary’s of London, joined the Underground when he was a computer specialist for a manufacturing firm out of Oxfordshire.
“See his self-updates. Year before last got on with Britain’s Ministry of Defense as a network analyst. Comfy gig. Lots of inside leads there. No wonder he’s been into big shit.”
“I
’ll run zombies out for death notices.”
“His pop’s a member of the House of Lords,” Grafter said.
“Explains the ministry job. Search submitted via Malaysian nodes. Results will be in Fbox. I think we should open SlotZero’s file while we’re at it.”
“Why, Caldera?”
“He’s gonna need our help. The more we know...”
The zombie’s search results appeared on Soldado’s screen.
“Bloody hell. Body found in Kingston, London, early morning. Police calling it suicide.”
Silence crackled along the line.
“I bet the noble lord daddy won’t like that one bit,” Grafter said finally. “Wonder if he’ll have it looked into?”
“We could put a bug in his ear,” Caldera suggested. “Give him reason to.”
Soldado and Grafter both said no, not without more information.
Grafter checked on Zero’s last entry point. “An artist’s commune in Munich. Before that, Netherlands, so he’s on the move. Um, shit. He created a sub-account, privileged to Crosstalk’s file, auto-download.”
“Well he’s got to be feeling squirrely by now,” Caldera said. “Waitin’ on us to help him, prolly.”
“I wonder if we really want to get involved with this,” Grafter said.
“What the hell? Just leave him in a lurch?” Caldera asked.
“Talk to me Grafter,” Soldado said.
“Anything we do puts us in their path. One of us is dead already. Murder or not, I think this is too hot. Tracers are up by forty percent in the last two days so NSA may already be trying. Even in Alcazar it had a point of entry so theoretically it could be tracked. I suggest we kill it.”
Files uploaded to Alcazar went up in random-sized chunks, each chunk uniquely encrypted, transported via zombies on the net, and stored on hijacked servers around the world. While in Alcazar’s care, multiple copies of a file’s chunks stayed in motion, endlessly transferred between hundreds of servers via the zombies. To retrieve a file required the custom-made client software and a login. Once requested, the file chunks made their way back to the client, were decrypted and reassembled into the original. It was like tossing an apple into a meat grinder and having it spit back out whole upon request. Though sometimes slow, it served its purpose exceedingly well.
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