Soldado considered Grafter’s concerns valid. But killing the file? Not without seeing what it was. He’d re-tool Alcazar to guard against traces and do the same for Magistrate. To help SlotZero, he gave download priority for his accounts. In and out, quick. It was the best he could do at the moment. If need be, it could all be deleted for damage control. He shared his thoughts with the others.
Caldera was insistent about reaching out to Zero.
“I don’t know what you guys are thinking but he’s one of us. He’s on the run. Sitting on our ass doing nothing sucks. What are we if we aren’t brothers by now?”
Silence crackled in the speakers.
“What do you suggest?”
“Look at the file Crosstalk uploaded,” Caldera said. “Might give us an idea of who’s chasing Zero. Maybe we run interference. Maybe get in a few good swipes of our own, ya know?”
Waiting seemed wiser, but the file was the only quick and accurate means of estimating the threat. And it satisfied curiosity. The three agreed to initiate a priority retrieval.
Over the span of two minutes, forty requests went out for data chunks. Processes on over a hundred computers around the world responded, finishing transfers in progress, initiating routing programs to satisfy the retrieval requests. In ten minutes the file was complete, delivered piecemeal by botnets and reassembled on a server in Cairo, Egypt. The hackers handled it via remote sessions to keep it isolated on one server. It opened and revealed two files.
“1024 encryption on the big file. What’s the other one?”
“A doc with the key. 04 marking. Double bolds on the lower text. One sec. Hmmm.... no.” Grafter’s wheels turned. “Got it. Periods minus one.”
Entering the cipher key opened the big file to reveal a video file and a readme.
“Crap.”
Their remote sessions didn’t support video playback or audio.
“What’s the readme say?”
“Eh, yeah. Somethin’s pretty whack,” Caldera said. “Check it yourself. He was wiggin’ out.”
Soldado read Crosstalk’s note several times. “Either it’s a real warning or a real meltdown.” There was no telling until they viewed the video. “Let’s hold off on moving it. We’ll open Zero’s profile as well. He may have updated his aliases.”
SlotZero was in some way linked with Crosstalk’s death, if only by virtue of knowing about it. Grafter raised the point that the two hackers could have had business gone bad. While unpleasant and unlikely, the possibility still existed; big money stressed the best relationships.
They processed the request.
Caldera had never seen Zero’s profile. He read aloud. “Peter Brusse. Age 36 now. Independent computer consultant. Last address an apartment in The Hague. No higher education, only primary school records. Adopted, no living family, no SO’s, nothing. Guy’s a lawn gnome. Let’s run the name and see what comes up.”
The zombie chain came back quickly with the initial results: fugitive wanted for murder in Rotterdam.
“Shit. Maybe he did kill Crosstalk,” Grafter said.
Soldado’s screen lit with alerts. “What the shit–?”
In the space of five seconds, one server was scanned, then three more – all Alcazar servers. He fired the proximity kill script to drop them from rotation and kicked off another script to reseed the transport system.
“Close the docs. Out, quick!” He scrubbed the files on the Cairo server and disconnected. “Holy shit.” He blinked at the screen. “A quarter of Third Legion just went tits up.”
Caldera saw it too and whistled. “Seven thousand non-responding bots. That’s NSA stink right there. This ain’t good. Is not.”
Soldado stared at the screens. Alcazar self-healed, rebuilding lost chunks and distributing them across the remaining servers.
Grafter cleared his throat. “Yeah, um, like I was saying. Maybe we don’t want this shit. I’m not sure Alcazar’s going to hold up. They’re really gunning for this thing.”
Soldado thought of the video file, supposedly Crosstalk’s reason for dying. Like a bag holding a big cat he might not want to let out, it represented layers of complication and threat, both personal and for the Underground. Still, he couldn’t ignore its potential value.
“Don’t assemble the file again. Not a goddamn peep about it either, to anyone. I gotta think about this. Stay tuned.”
• • •
Austin’s BMW raced along a downtown off ramp. Thoughts of Kaiya in black lace danced in his head. He pulled up at the light just as a text message arrived. The ringtone caught him off guard: it was the house security system sending an alert.
SEC BREACH: YARD ZONE 1, 2
Side and back yards. The system would ignore anything smaller than a large dog. He’d check the video log from Kaiya’s place.
Another text message arrived.
SEC ALERT: PRIMARY POWER OUT.
“Damn it.” He imagined someone at the main power box and immediately thought to dial 911 but looked at the laptop and froze.
“No way.” It couldn’t be related. Could it?
He dialed the VoIP backline at the house instead. It answered with a double beep. “Voice authorization. Yankee, golf, tree, niner, whiskey, india.” A triple beep sounded. He replied, “Process sequence.”
“Welcome to the Back Door,” Sam’s synth voice announced. “Code red alerts waiting. Ready.”
The traffic light turned green so he turned left under the freeway and stopped at the curb.
“Security: verify breach.”
“Confirm multiple intruders on grounds. Ready.”
Confirmation meant cameras had plotted movements across the yard. He racked memory for the commands he’d programmed. He hadn’t worked on them in months.
“Security: How many intruders outside?”
“Five intruders. Ready.”
Shit!
“Status: system batteries.”
“System battery power at ninety Five percent. Estimated time remaining is twenty-eight minutes. Ready.”
He remembered writing the battery-saving code. “Command: turn off all emergency lights.”
“All emergency lights are now off. Ready.”
“End connection.”
“Goodbye.”
He punched the accelerator to the floor and launched back onto highway 50 towards home. Another message arrived indicating internal security breaches and people moving around inside the house. That was enough – he dialed 911 to report a burglary in progress. It took a couple of minutes to convince the operator of the situation but was finally told deputies were en route.
“Christ....”
The laptop rested on the seat, now almost alive: a rare, malevolent species that threatened his well-being. If he was right, someone wanted to make sure he didn’t get to the hacker’s file.
Next moves, strategy. Memories of timed games of chess with his dad flashed, some of the most stressful games he’d ever played. If only this were a game.
An idea dawned. At least part of it could be.
He pulled to the side of the freeway, far off the shoulder. From the trunk he removed a sleeping bag from its weatherproof sack and slipped the laptop into it instead. He waited for a gap in traffic and ducked into the heavy brush nearby and worked his way towards the highway sound wall. Near the base of a scrub oak he flicked on a keychain LED light and scraped aside layers of vegetation sediment. He reached loose soil and dug until his fingertips were sore then set the bundled laptop in the shallow hole. Replacing dirt and vegetation, he did his best to make the ground look undisturbed.
Hide and seek.
“Dad?”
Silence. His quick recount of the attempted download and the subsequent intrusion alarms didn’t go over well.
“Austin, head back here to the house.”
“But–”
“Like now, son.”
The speedometer read eighty-six. “Dad, I can’t. I have to meet the police. What’s going on
? What do you know?”
Another longish silence. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Alright, if you–”
The call ended.
“Sheesh. What the hell?”
He made the turn onto his street and dread turned to cold, smooth fear. Placer County sheriff’s cars lined the street in front of his house. A black utility van sat in the driveway. The whine and thump of an approaching helicopter grew louder. It felt bad – so bad he thought of turning around and leaving. Instead, he pulled up at the curb. He hadn’t done anything wrong. Maybe the hackers had, but he hadn’t. Doubt crept in when he saw a deputy on the porch look at him and speak into a radio.
His dad arrived, pulling in just behind him. They both stepped from their cars and the look on his dad’s face rattled him hard. He’d never seen him afraid of anything, ever. Officers emerged from the house and spread out as they crossed the lawn. They each drew their pistols and one called out to put their hands up. His dad shook his head in disgust but complied.
“Lace your fingers behind your head.”
The helicopter arrived, its spotlight bathing the neighborhood to create vivid, flowing shadows. The deputies approached and patted them down. Once cleared, they were allowed to stand at ease. A group of men came from the house. Austin counted five, all wearing blue windbreakers and hats with the letters FBI in yellow.
“What’s this about?” Brent demanded.
One of the agents came forward.
“FBI cyber unit, assisting the State Department. Tracking a group of bad boys. Your son appears to be one of them.”
Brent straightened, suddenly towering. “Let’s see some credentials.”
The man produced a badge. “Agent Morris, Sacramento office.”
“And your warrant?”
“No warrant. Exigent circumstance. This evidence is real easy to destroy. Now if you’ll come inside we’ll have a friendly talk about why we’re here and what we’ve already found. Perhaps we’re mistaken and you’ll be able to enlighten us.”
The agents moved aside, ready to escort. Shadows flowed around them as the helicopter circled. It didn’t feel right but there wasn’t really a choice, so they walked.
“Can they do this? Dad?”
A mixture of fear and anger played across his dad’s face. “I’ll do the talking. Respond only if I say to.”
The agents slowed, trailing behind the entourage. Brent looked back, clearly uneasy. A deputy stood near the front porch.
“Wait. Dad,” Austin slowed as well. “How does he know I’m your son? Do you–”
A brilliant flash lit the night. A bone-jarring concussion knocked them off their feet. The lurch of free fall preceded a sudden darkness.
Time slowed, bogged by silence. His head throbbed and body ached. Swimming dots framed his vision. Black smoke billowed from flames consuming his house. His dad lay motionless nearby. He tried to rise but cried out from pain in his shoulder. He shuffled up onto his knees and hobbled to his dad’s side, frantic to check his pulse. After two unnerving tries, he found one.
A body on the lawn lay unmoving – a deputy. Another officer was also down but pointing and talking to Agent Morris. Two agents covered him and his dad with guns drawn. Burning debris littered the yard.
In the silence, accompanied by the pain and the warm night air, it seemed like a dream. Soon more police appeared, followed by fire trucks and then ambulance after ambulance. The helicopter kept the neighborhood lit and created a surreal stage where the nightmare played out. Was this all about the file? The answer seemed to rise from the flames licking the night sky. They’d destroyed his shop, his computers, and presumably any copies of the hacker’s files.
The laptop. He suppressed the thought, fearful of the agents nearby. They had arranged for all of this in less than a day.
What I have sent you could threaten your life. For that I am sorry.
Sudden nausea set the world spinning. If he’d just done his job and secured the network he wouldn’t have drawn the hacker’s attention.
Instead, there was this.
He nearly threw up at the thought.
• • •
The sleepy village of Oostendorp was a welcome sight in the early morning hours. The dark house yawned light from its garage as it opened. He pulled inside the space, just behind a ‘72 Triumph Spitfire. The garage door lowered and isolation bloomed in the silence. Eyes closed, he breathed deep, thankful for the safe journey.
The house was typical of the block. Narrow and tall with three stories. First floor garage, entry, half bath, and storage. Second floor living area, kitchen, and bath. Master and guest room on the third floor. He walked around the kitchen and plugged things in before storing the food he’d bought. With a bottle of warm ale in hand, he tuned the television to a news channel and collapsed on the couch. It didn’t take long to see his face and his aliases.
“Shit!” A photo of Mrs. Shulz surrounded by her grandkids filled the screen. “You murdering bastards.” He launched from the couch to pace the room. To see it confirmed on the news, to see the familiar light in her eyes–
What had Mrs. Shulz died for? The laptop rested on the kitchen counter. Fifteen pieces of Crosstalk’s file waited, parts of the answer. He took a deep draught of ale and stabbed the remote, killing the images. Thunder cracked and rolled in the distance as if to echo and extend his guilt miles into the night.
Karma. Great forces were at work. Mind readers. If... if real, then it was bigger than him, bigger than Crosstalk or the UG. It was larger than the life he knew or could imagine: the control they would have, by all rights, would be complete. The implications left him feeling small and vulnerable, easily trapped.
Checking himself hard, he drained the bottle and went for another.
“No. Until there is proof – no fear. No fear.”
Crosstalk could have overreacted or been under the influence of a drug or just mentally unstable when he sent the email. The file might only be conventional data, though worthy of the murder and frame job. Governments had such secrets. There was only one way to find out.
Getting to the file fast was key. They had detected his first grab which meant Alcazar was in their sights. The next grab had to be from a roundabout way, fast and furiously. A perfect job for the Asshole Array, his most populated and diverse botnet.
He grabbed the laptop and went to work.
Chapter 4
The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Austin woke with a bone dry mouth and crusty eyes. Sunlight reflected from the white floor and walls. A nurse set breakfast on a tray table. Confusion lingered until he saw beyond her to the uniformed officer holding the door open. The prior night’s madness fell into place.
“My dad. Where’s my dad?”
“That’s a question for the police, I imagine,” the nurse replied. “How are you feeling? Any pain?”
He asked the officer about his dad. He shook his head. “No idea.”
“The pain meds will wear off so let us know if you get too uncomfortable.” She wheeled the food tray into place and worked the bed controls to bring him up. His shoulder protested in a distant way. “Have some breakfast. Your body’s been shocked and needs nourishment.”
“Thank you.” He watched her leave.
The officer closed the door and sat. He glanced at Austin then pulled out his phone to surf.
Staring at the food on his tray then around the room, he felt a razor thin line form between realities. Either it was happening as he thought it was, or it wasn’t. Reactive stress could fragment reality. The hack, the lucid dream, the tiger, and then the police and his house…
He stared out the window and tried grounding himself. A tree’s limbs stretched towards the sky. Curled leaves hung unmoving. The brief cool of morning would give way to another oppressive, hot day. Nature adapted to extremes... and so can
I. I’m part of nature. Whenever things spiraled out of control, a prolonged meditation served him well. Damn good time to give it a go. Anything to calm down and repair perspective, but first things first. He started in on the pancakes and eggs slowly, then scarfed down, hungry as hell.
By the time he cleared his plate things improved somewhat. Clarity was key. Perspective really was everything and the situation now was proof. He had not been careful with it.
The officer continued surfing and avoided eye contact though Austin felt his peripheral watch. It took slow, focused breathing to get into a meditative state. One by one he set aside the troubling thoughts and feelings. Guilt. Panic. Anger. If they returned he set them aside again. A long time passed before they subsided and stress eased. There was only the now and the now finally belonged to him. Like a cloak, he wrapped calm around himself and languished in the isolation it offered.
For a time it seemed sleep might return. Instead, a familiar feeling formed, one from years ago. Small and hesitant at first, it grew. He allowed it, followed it, until a vision began to form. It seemed unlikely it could be forming on its own, but...
He saw the room from a high corner overlooking the bed, a black and white vision running of its own accord. Like a fly on the wall, he saw his body on the bed and the officer in the chair. In the next moment he stood next to the bed, seeing in vivid color.
Not a lucid dream. Not a dream at all. His body lay on the bed but his face was obscured by a familiar white blur: confirmation of an out of body experience.
Unsolicited, fully formed and sustained, the third one of his life.
Fear and elation mixed – this was the other space, the rare and exquisite domain he’d found but lost long ago. Unsure of how or why it had spawned, he immediately thought to look for his dad and passed through the wall into the hallway. People walked by and through him without sensation, just as the floor offered no feeling to his feet nor the walls to his body.
System Seven Page 6