by Jeff Adams
The silence meant Lorenzo didn’t like the answer.
“No.” He spoke quietly. “Once active, the only way they can be deactivated is to remove them.”
“I see. I’ll call you back in a few.”
I hung up. These chips were clearly not designed with the idea that something could go wrong. And mind control? As much as I believed in what technology could do, it was difficult to grasp TOS had used something like that.
I pulled into the garage, and momentarily I was thrilled to see parts had arrived and were stacked next to the bike. The feeling was short-lived, though, because it was a reminder of what had happened.
I put the groceries away as I called out to Mom. She responded from the office, and when I got there, I found Dad!
Dad was home and sitting at his desk like he should be. Why didn’t she tell me that on the phone? I would’ve said to hell with the ruse of going to the store.
As I crossed the room, he stood, and I restrained myself from running to him. Instead it felt like I was walking through quicksand, because it took forever to reach him for a massive hug. Most guys, and most dads for that matter, wouldn’t hold a hug this long, but he’d always given hugs that comforted and calmed. For most kids, I think, those kinds of hugs came from their mom. For me it was Dad.
“We’ll let you two talk,” Mom said when I finally released him. “Victor, we’ll be ready for the briefing when you are.” Dad nodded and Mom and John took their laptops and left the office. Mom shut the door behind her.
“I didn’t know you were coming home today.” I sat on the corner of the desk as he settled back in his chair.
“I’ve been reassigned to work on the tracker issue and coming home was on the way to the next place. And I wanted to keep my promise to be home, even though it’s not for as long as I’d hoped.” He looked at me for a moment. “How are you?”
“Okayish.” I half shrugged. “Slept better last night than I have since it happened. Your tricks really worked.”
“Good.” While he smiled, concern etched his face. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get back sooner.”
“It’s fine. You’ve got saving-the-world stuff to do.”
We both laughed a little. It’d been a long time since I’d used that phrase. Once I knew their secret and they could be more up front with me, we sometimes referred to the trips as saving-the-world stuff.
“Are there any leads?” I asked.
“Yes. Some solid intel came in earlier today. It looks like Blackbird is behind it, and we think we’ve located their base of operations. I’m going in to help the team further investigate to make sure.”
“Blackbird?”
He nodded. “It’s an organization we routinely come up against. A truly nasty bunch that goes to great lengths to get what they want. This time they’re going directly after our agents en masse. Speaking of, someone’s coming to the house to remove your chip. You’ll be untrackable within the next couple of hours.”
“That’s awesome.” It was a huge relief that this thing was going to get out of my neck. “Am I getting another one?”
“Not right away. Until this is over and the system is secure, you’re not going to be trackable. Your mom and I were very clear with Raptor that we weren’t going to have you exposed like that.”
“Can you and Mom get yours taken out?”
He shook his head. “Not right now.” The look on my face spoke for me because he continued before I said anything. “I know. We’ll all be upgraded as soon as possible. There’s a shortage of the newer chips, and they’re replacing the ones for agents on the most sensitive missions first.”
“This isn’t a sensitive mission?” It felt weird questioning Dad like this, although I supposed in this case I was really questioning Defender. “You’re going into the middle of it.”
“You’ll just have to trust me when I say there are things going on that are even more important.”
It was tough to swallow, but I knew Dad was telling me as much as he could. As a tech, even when I was working on a specific mission, I only knew what I needed to in order to manage my specific objectives. I nodded because it was all I could do.
“I know Red Hat is counting on you to help on the tech side.” He diverted the topic slightly. “I’ve made it clear that if you need to stop for any reason, that you must be allowed to.”
Lorenzo hadn’t said Red Hat had instructions. Maybe they had just come down and he was waiting for me to get here before updating me.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I know you think that. Look after yourself, and I don’t mean just physically. Give yourself the okay to freak out if you need to. You may not be able to talk to me, but Mom and John can listen and connect you with others if necessary.”
“Yeah, Mom’s already told me that, and she’s been great.” I paused and just looked at Dad. “Thanks.”
I don’t know how Dad did what he did, always able to calm me down. I hoped I’d have that skill when I had kids.
“I should get back. I’ve got a lot of stuff to brief your mom and John on since they’re providing support.”
I nodded. “And I need to see what Lorenzo has for me.”
“I’ll check in later.” He stood and gave me a quick embrace.
Before I got to the door, I stopped and turned back. Dad looked up, waiting for me to speak. I wanted to ask if we, TOS, were the good guys. It was a question that had been floating in my head a lot during the past few days, because I wasn’t sure I knew. I thought we did. Dad would give me a straight answer if I asked, but it wasn’t really the right time.
“Theo?” Dad asked.
I shook my head. “It’s nothing. We’ll talk later.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
“Yeah.”
He went back to his screen, and this time I left. Mom and John both looked concerned when I poked my head into the kitchen to let them know they could go back into the office. I’d seen Mom’s expression a lot over the years. She’s a mom after all. John was usually calm and cool, though, so to see him rattled was unsettling.
“I’ll be upstairs. And I’m good.” I smiled at her, trying to head off the question I knew was coming.
She nodded and tried to smile.
It’d been a while since we were all working on the same thing. Usually I enjoyed the collaboration, but I didn’t like seeing my parents stressed like this. I suspected it was because I was more involved than usual.
Upstairs I fired up my equipment. As soon as I was online, Lorenzo rang me on the video link.
“We’re locking the system down. We’ve seen a few different accesses this afternoon from Denver by agents who shouldn’t be there or even allowed into the system. Once we do this, only IT is going to have clearance.”
“Makes sense.” I got myself comfortable at the desk. “I’ll see if I can trace where in Denver the log-ins came from.”
“Actually we’d like for you to look at the mind-control aspect. I sent you the details we have. From a gadget standpoint, you’re one of the best we’ve got.”
“I’ll get on that.”
This was one of my favorite things, and it was going to be kinda cool to dig into something I’d never seen before. While security and staying ahead of hackers was cool, working on gadgets was awesome. Over the years, I’d upgraded TOS phones to do things no other phone could, not just in terms of security for regular calls but also turning it into a long-range listening device, a keypad hacker, portable motion sensor, and my proudest achievement, an app that could take over a car’s computer, allowing it to be driven from the phone.
Some of it was via apps and some of it was modifying the device itself. TOS had an incredible ability to get the necessary components. I suspected they had an in with the manufacturers.
We left the video channel open so we could talk as needed. I imagined Lorenzo had many such conversations going at this point as he directed people all over the world on various aspects of this fix.
>
I pored over the notes about the mind-control function of the chips. It seemed older chips didn’t just sit innocuously in the neck. They had a small fiber that connected to the nervous system. This hadn’t been part of the chips for seven years. Once they abandoned the idea of using them to control agents, they stopped making the trackers with the fiber connection.
I took the test chip from the drawer and, sure enough, there was no indication of a fiber connection. The chip was essentially a smooth, plastic bean, made out of a substance the body shouldn’t reject, much like the polymer for replacement knees.
Given when I was chipped, I wouldn’t have this fiber. John, Mom, and Dad would. I wanted to see one of those, or at least test it. As I read through the notes, more of the tech revealed itself. A small pulse of electricity sent whatever commands someone typed into the control console. It was possible to intensify the pulse for maximum effectiveness because people sometimes reacted differently to the control. Some people needed a stronger pulse to accept the command. Some needed lesser strength to avoid side effects like seizures.
This was unbelievable. The notes didn’t cover how to stop it if someone was under the influence. Apparently no one thought this would be abused because only the upper reaches of the organization were authorized to activate it. The idea was to remove the fear factor for agents by planting the command in their heads so they would do it as if they’d come up with it. With the commands, they wouldn’t question what they were to do. What I couldn’t figure out was why the agent in Montreal couldn’t remember what he did. There was nothing about wiping memory. Unless there was an order to forget.
I wanted to test this. None of these notes discussed where the commands were input. Was there something separate? Something no longer in the control panel? It would make sense to remove it when the program was terminated.
I spun around to my computer that was hooked up to the tracker system, and logged out of the interface. I went into the root directory to look for more clues. There were hundreds of file folders and, of course, nothing was obviously what I was looking for. I jumped over to the main repository of tech documents. I wanted the flowchart for the interface, which had to be in here.
The most recent flowchart was dated four and a half years ago. It was exactly what I needed. It showed several modules grayed out, including agent control. Going back to the code currently in place for the tracker system, I didn’t find any of the subfolders for anything that had been decommissioned.
The code wasn’t in the system, and yet it appeared that it was still being used.
“Hey, Doc?” I waited for him to look at the screen before I continued. “When code is decommissioned, where does it go?”
“We never throw anything out. I’ll chat you a path to the code junkyard. Whatever you’re looking for has got to be in there.”
“Thanks.”
The path appeared on my chat screen.
I muted myself again and used the information. There were lots of folders in there, but thanks to the alphabetic listing, I found agent control right away. I reviewed the contents, and it seemed like a complete, ready-to-run module. According to the docs, I could reintegrate this with just a couple of keystrokes. I liked the elegant way the code could be added and removed, very plug-and-play, to make it easy.
I unmuted my mic and called out to Lorenzo again. “I want to reintegrate this to the system for a few minutes and test it out. Do you see any issues with that?”
He thought for a moment, scrunching his forehead as he did so. “Should be fine. We’ve got the tracker system restricted to just a handful of log-ins now. I’d recommend removing it as soon as possible.”
“Agreed. I just want to try it out and see what kind of calls it makes. I’ll let you know.”
“I’ll let Red Hat know you’re doing it.”
I nodded and muted him again.
It took just minutes to bring the code back into the main tracker system and start it up. Agent Control showed on the main-menu interface as if it’d never been removed.
According to the documentation, all I had to do was enter the agent ID I wanted to control and then type the commands.
Typing was so old school. Why not voice commands?
Anyway. I plugged in John’s ID.
He wasn’t going to appreciate this, but I needed to see what would happen.
What could I have him do? It had to be something so random that it couldn’t be anything but this.
The perfect thing snapped into my head.
I typed in the command and then went into the hallway to listen. Before I got to the stairs, I could hear him shouting the first lines from Ragtime.
Remarkable. And crazy that he actually knew those lines.
Mom kept asking him what he was doing. Just as she was getting hysterical, he stopped and apologized. The confusion in his voice was unmistakable.
“Sorry,” I called down. “I was testing something, and it was better to not give you any warning.”
John and Mom appeared in the foyer. John scowled at me. He was either pissed, freaked, or both.
“What was that?” he asked.
I thought about what I could say. Was this classified tech even though it was decommissioned? “I’m not sure I can talk about it. It won’t happen again.”
I slipped back into my room and closed the door before they could say anything else.
“Doc, that agent control works. It’s freaky.” I went through the steps to remove it from the tracker interface.
“What did you do?”
“Made Shotgun recite some American lit.”
“Wow,” Lorenzo said. “Even while we were talking about it, mind control didn’t really seem possible. You just proved it, though.”
“Right? If I hadn’t seen it work just now, I’m not sure I’d have taken it seriously, even though I’ve read the documents.” I paused as I finished typing some system commands. “I’ve removed the code so no one can use it. I’m going to review the logs and see how the commands are transmitted. We might be able to use that info to help find who’s behind this. If we can’t zero in on them taking over chips, maybe we can locate them when they’re sending these control signals out.”
“Yes!” Lorenzo shouted and then flinched. “That’s a great idea.”
“Kinda scary since it means they’ll actually have to be controlling people, but it might be a way to track them. Or maybe even shut the other system down. I have to get some homework done. I’ll be online later.”
“Catch you later.” Lorenzo disconnected our call.
“Will do.”
I hated that there were times when I had to step away from TOS work. Keeping up my schoolwork was one of the requirements my parents had for allowing me to have this job and sometimes it got in the way.
Chapter Ten
I STAYED home to do the homework even though I really wanted to go to Eddie’s. It was the right choice, though, since a doctor came over and removed my chip. I had a bandage that I was going to pass off as covering an area where my helmet chafed me.
Once I’d done as much school stuff as I needed to, I headed downstairs to check in.
“How’s it going?”
“We’ve almost got everything done that the field team requested.” Mom looked up at me and smiled. “How was homework?”
“Good. I got ahead on a couple of things to free up time for me to work on the tracker issue. I’m going to look into some ideas I had while I was working on the math assignment.”
“Don’t stay up too late. You still need your rest.”
I smiled at her. “I’ll be in bed by midnight. I promise.”
“Night, honey,” she said.
“Sleep well.” John briefly looked at me. At least he didn’t seem to be holding a grudge for the impromptu performance I made him do earlier.
Once in my room, I flopped down in my chair, and studied the screens. Of particular interest was the information I’d pulled from the transmiss
ion logs when I sent the control commands to John. It had bounced around the Wi-Fi and cell networks for a couple of seconds before it locked on to him. Cross-referencing the last few pings his chip had made before I sent the command, it looked like the system used the last known location to send it. It was a pretty good way to do it since the chips reported back often.
Could I send a command outside the system? It would explain a lot if that were the case.
I went into the hallway and called downstairs, “John?”
“Yeah?” he yelled back.
“I need another quick test.”
“Okay.” He was in the foyer. “What do I need to do?”
“Just hang out right there.”
I plucked the command code out of the log file and went to the command prompt on one of the PCs. I gave the instruction to send the string of information, which would blast it off my secure Wi-Fi into the world.
I went to look down to John.
It took a few seconds, but he spoke the passage over again.
Damn. That wasn’t secure at all.
“Is that it?” he asked.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“I ’spose I should be thankful you’re not making me do something embarrassing.” He went back to the office.
In my room I reviewed the documentation. How were the messages encrypted? Digging through the less-than-organized information, I found that it was a pretty simple bit of cryptography, at least by today’s standards. When the system was built, it was probably as good as it got. But with today’s advances in technology, the algorithm was easy to hack. Of course the encryption had never been updated because the project had been terminated.
I wondered….
I pulled up the engine I’d developed last year as an MIT project and ran the command line through it. In less than a minute it was decrypted. I saw the exact words of my command for John, along with other details like his ID number.
If someone knew this existed, it wouldn’t be that hard to write commands and blast them out without using the actual interface. If someone had a chip, and someone certainly did given the agent they’d found with the chip removed, could you reverse engineer the mind control program?