Brett turned the camera toward himself, bathing his bloodshot eyes in a faint light from the phone’s control pad. He narrated between sniffles, his voice quavering, “It looks like the doctor’s coming out—”
Off-screen, a loud click and the sound of footsteps could be heard. The camera spun around as Brett pointed it at a tall man in a blue surgical gown. He had already removed the apron he had worn during the procedure, and as he reached upward to pull his mask away from his face, revealing a middle-aged man with a chiseled jaw, high cheekbones, and deep blue eyes that seemed to glow as they reflected the phone’s glow, he asked, “Inspector Crabtree?”
The camera jiggled as Brett nodded, “Yes, sir.”
The doctor measured his words carefully, “I believe the operation was successful.”
There was a quick succession of claps from a handful of audience members, along with a smattering of cheers. Others in the room who had daily experience with trauma and death knew that the surgeon’s words carried unspoken caveats, and they remained silent, their eyes glued to the screen.
Brett asked the doctor, “What else can you tell me—us?”
The doctor pointed at the camera, and said, as kindly as anyone could have managed, “I’m afraid I can’t discuss the patient on camera. Privacy laws.”
Brett looked into the phone again and said, as a tear rolled from his left eye and down his cheek, “I’ll be here with Wen Jing as long as I can. I’ll spread the word when I have news. Thanks, everyone, for being there for her.” The video window on the electronic whiteboard closed, throwing the room into deeper darkness.
Alana sat, silent and motionless, and a full ten seconds had passed before Inspector Washington’s voice boomed, “Lights, on.”
Absent shadows, Alana could see that there were a dozen people in the situation room, including all of the detectives on her team, whose chairs were arranged in a loosely defined semi-circle around the screen. The others in the back turned and began to file out, each expressing to the others their concerns and good wishes for Wendy.
Alana stood and walked to the front of the room. She assumed a rigid, military posture, about-faced, locked her hands behind her back, and addressed her team, “Every one of you has done yeoman’s work this week. You solved the case. You identified the culprit. I have never been more proud of a group of policemen than I am of you. Our prime suspect has apparently fled the country, so our job was incomplete this time. I am going to have another briefing tomorrow morning at ten-hundred hours. By then, I should know what the exact status of the task force will be.”
Alana surveyed the audience. Washington was leaning back in his chair, with his arms crossed, but he was attentive, focused on Alana. Alvarez was leaning forward, his chin resting on his fists, which in turn rested on his elbows. Taggart was looking at the monitor, glassy eyed, probably from fatigue, but some of the reflection was from tears that had not yet fallen; he wiped his face with his shirtsleeve, and a faint trail of moisture transferred to the white cloth. Rhys was perfectly postured in his chair, facing Alana with a poker face; if he was harboring any feelings right now, Alana could not divine them. The empty chair that Brett had been favoring during the time he was on the task force, by pure coincidence, was facing away from Alana.
Alana said, “For everyone who knew Wendy Lin... I’m sorry. You’re all dismissed for now.”
Everyone except Rhys filed out of the room, wearily, sometimes slouching as they walked, picking up their suit jackets from the rack as they left, and simply draping them over their shoulders instead of wearing them. Any victory they might have scored had clearly been zeroed-out by Wen Jing’s injury. When the door closed, Alana finally relaxed. If she was still biological, she was certain that she would have collapsed into a heap.
Rhys said, “I should have seen it coming—anticipated it. Warned you about it. I just didn’t want to believe hacking was possible.”
Alana said, “It’s completely my fault. I should—”
Rhys tried to interrupt, “Alana, you—”
Alana snapped, “Shut up, Ben! Let me finish!”
A genuine look of shock crossed Rhys’ face, but he shut up.
“When we set up the sting, my first instinct was to seat Brett in the booth next to Wendy, just in case there was even the remotest possibility that this could happen. I... know how much she means to him. That’s why I didn’t do it. I was afraid that he might do something to give away the game before we jumped Chu. My second instinct was to get a robot double to take Wendy’s place, but I didn’t think we had time. I made those decisions. Bad decisions. Even more bad decisions.”
Before either of the detectives could say another word, the door opened again, and Srinivas strode in, triumphantly declaring, “Case solved!”
Alana stepped over to Rhys and sat down beside him. As Srinivas took center stage, Alana whispered furtively into Rhys’ ear, “Sorry.”
Srinivas started manipulating data on the whiteboard with speed and precision unlike anyone Alana or Rhys had ever seen before. In seconds, an array of information windows had been opened, each containing some piece of whatever was on the cyberforensics department lead’s mind.
Srinivas pointed to the top-left window, some kind of text file composed of random characters, or possibly some form of computer code, “This is where Chu logged into your brain with administrator access.”
Alana balked, “How in hell did he do that?”
“He simply called your Vira number. As to how he got that, I have no idea. But he did. The instant his computer shook hands with your transponder, he had access.”
Even Rhys was perplexed, “That’s all it took?”
“Not all,” Srinivas said, pointing another log file written in computer-code gibberish, “Here is where he submitted the password that gave him administrator access. This password is a two-hundred and sixty-four bit, and it seems to be tied to a function that’s buried in your firmware—something I was not aware existed.”
Alana said, “Since when do I have a password?”
Srinivas seemed to become even more animated with each question for which he had an answer. He pointed to another window whose contents meant nothing to either Alana or Brett. “I tried to use this password on several dummy subprocessors in the lab, and it failed every time. However, the system firmware returned an error message telling me that my password was incorrect. That told me that it was a valid password string, just not the right one. With your permission, I’d like to try using it on you again.”
Alana erupted, “What? Hell, no! And if you can do that, what’s to keep Chu from doing it to me again?”
Srinivas interlaced his fingers, “First, your transponder is still deactivated, so he can’t contact you without plugging in. Second, if my theory is correct, it won’t work again. If that’s true, then we’re dealing with a synchronized encryption key.” He glanced over his shoulder at the whiteboard, “Based on my analysis of all this other data, I suspect that someone has installed an undocumented access portal within your firmware.”
Alana was somehow able to become even more annoyed, “In English, please?”
Srinu pondered the question before replying, “Ha! I have the perfect double-entendre for you! Louis Chu has entered your backdoor.”
Rhys snickered, and Alana smacked his wrist. A short argument followed, with Srinivas eventually convincing Alana to become his guinea pig because of the potentially catastrophic risk to the entire world’s cybernetic population of approximately thirty-five million retirees if he was correct. Ten minutes later, the trio had moved from the situation room to a disused eight-meter-square backroom hidden within the bowels of the cyberforensics lab. With Alana’s reluctant permission, Srinivas pulled her interface cable from the nape of her neck and plugged it into Srinivas’ handheld computer. He made three horizontal swipes of his finger across the screen, followed by one vertical, and then declared, “I was right. It’s random.”
Alana looked at Srinivas,
“That’s it?”
“I told you it was simple.”
“How did this backdoor get there? It wasn’t that baseball application I downloaded last Sunday was it?”
Srinivas shook his head, “No, this is in your firmware. Someone placed it there when they designed the subprocessor.”
Rhys asked, “Let me clarify. You said that you tested this against several other subprocessors and, for lack of a better phrase, they tested positive?”
Srinivas reversed the pitch of his head in one motion, changing his shake to a nod, “Yes.”
“Meaning that all cyborgs on the planet might have this ‘backdoor.’”
“Yes.”
Alana said, “Meaning that if Zumpco added this backdoor deliberately, it’s the scandal of the decade. Why in the world would they make themselves—indeed, us—vulnerable to something like this?”
Rhys said, “I smell Security Division. That might be what Derringer meant when he mentioned that Zumpco slogan about being saved. He might not have been threatening us, he might have been warning us to get saved, in his own way.”
Srinivas scratched his chin, “Updating firmware has to be done in a shop, that’s one thing I’m still sure about. They might be quietly removing the backdoor when they do regular updates. If they don’t announce it, there is no mass-panic, and if no one finds out, the problem goes away.”
Rhys concluded, “Which explains why SD jumped all over this case from the very start. They knew about it all along. Somehow, Louis Chu got hold of their encryption key and started using it to kidnap cyborgs.”
Alana continued the line of thought, “Which some as yet unidentified foreign entity wanted to steal. To copy the organic brain technology, you think?”
Rhys said, “If it was to disrupt the world’s retiree population, they could have done it overnight, caused mass havoc. Imagine what could happen if thirty-million superhuman cyborgs suddenly went haywire.”
Alana said, “It would make Pearl Harbor and the World Trade Center attack look like a smack on the wrist. You’re right. They must have had a different motive. Most likely, money. I’m betting corporate espionage with the help of First Secretary Chu, who recruited his cousin to do it. Louis Chu didn’t need to be a computer genius. They just needed someone who could move under the radar within the Republic, who had the skill and drive to organize it all. Someone loyal. A family member.”
Rhys asked, “Why the baseball killings? Why take that risk?”
“When we busted up the chop shop, it stopped the plan. Chu had already done his job, and would have already planned to flee the country. It was his last act of revenge for his sister’s rape. He gave her enough money to live out her life in relative comfort. He took care of her when even when her parents didn’t. Veedock was a pawn, a tool of convenience.”
Srinivas added, his tone losing its enthusiastic edge, “How does a man like that, who cares about his sister, do what he did to poor Wendy?”
Alana said, “We’re just speculating at this point. We might be completely wrong. Srinu, is there any way you can prove our theory about SD and Zumpco patching the firmware? Something that rises to the level of admissible evidence?”
Srinu said, “Yes. Go to the shopital and get saved. Then come back here. Then let me try the password on you again. If it doesn’t return an error message, then I’ll know they changed the firmware. Can you do that tonight?”
Alana said, “As a police officer, I can jump the queue and request a priority save. Will you still be awake in about six hours?”
Srinivas said, yawning, “No, but I can bring a cot in here and take a nap. Wake me up when you’re ready.”
Alana and Rhys left the lab. Alana went directly for the elevators, but Rhys remained behind. He yelled, “I’m going to visit Wendy—see how she and Crabtree are doing. Will you be okay alone?”
Alana turned around and kept walking backwards as she replied, “Tell Brett... No, I’ll tell him when I see him.”
Five hours later, after passing her brain integrity scan, Alana was officially saved again, with a brand new timestamp on her record and her recent memories in the bank. She hurried back to the lab and prodded Srinivas awake. Even knowing that her transponder was disabled, she was afraid to use her Vira at all after being taken over earlier. Srinu ran the same test he had performed earlier, and his suspicions were confirmed. He said, “Madam, your security vulnerabilities have been patched.”
Alana was making a point of recording the conversation for use by the DA, “It’s no longer a theory, then? Someone designed a security hole in cyborgs, and that’s how Chu took control of me and the other retirees?”
“Yes.”
“I just hope this can wait until morning.”
Srinivas yawned again, “It is morning.”
“Then I just hope this can wait until dawn. I’m going to go hibernate in my office for a few hours—try to work out in my mind how best to handle this. Srinu, I know that it can’t show on the outside, but I’m devastated over what happened to Wendy. It was my fault.”
Srinivas nodded in agreement, “Yes, it probably was, but I also have some responsibility. Without evidence to back it up, I denied the hacker theory. But as I learned from the Dharmaśāstra of Manu, you were acting with the goals of the puruṣārtha of dharma—law, duty, ethics. I may feel the urge to scream at you for bringing harm to young Wendy, but I can’t, because you were doing what you thought was right. To move closer to perfection, you first need a reference point. Recognizing that you are not perfect is the first step you take.”
Alana quipped, “In America, we say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” She returned to her office, set her alarm for six o’clock, deliberately left her senses fully active, and quickly entered a troubled sleep.
Saturday, 15 July, 10:00
Alana stood once again before her audience in her daily briefing, but this morning, Superintendent Ruiz from Central was present, seated next to Chief Bennett. Neither of them looked particularly happy that Alana’s team had solved the mysteries surrounding their case. Brett was conspicuously absent.
Alana began, “Good morning, everyone. At Chief Bennett’s order, our notes and evidence concerning Louis Chu are being turned over to Security Division.”
The reaction of the audience was not friendly upon hearing that news, but no one uttered more than a moan, groan, except for Inspector Washington, who audibly broke wind, prompting Ruiz to glare in his direction.
Alana continued, “As I was expecting, we’ll all be moving over to help DI Alvarez and Srinu finish cleaning up the chop-shop mess. After I write the final report on our work, I’ll be joining you.” She made eye contact with everyone as she finished with, “There’s nothing else I can say that I haven’t already told you. Alvarez, you’re in charge. Dismissed.”
The audience stood, lethargically, except for the Chief, the Superintendent, and Rhys. Alana nodded to Ben, and then toward the door. Rhys took the hint and joined the rest of the detectives as they left the room.
Ruiz stood and walked to the head of the room, gesturing to the chairs, “Please take a seat, Inspector Graves. This should only take a minute.”
Alana parked herself next to Chief Bennett, whose breathing seemed uncharacteristically labored to Alana. Her previous suspicion that the Chief might be contemplating his retirement from the police force owing to some kind of physical condition was reinforced.
Ruiz said, “This is a giant pain-in-the-ass. Security Division has issued a formal gag order to us regarding this case. Graves, I read your preliminary report from this morning. I don’t need to mention that there were several issues I had with your handling of the case, not the least of which was the improper use of a lab asset in the field.”
Alana put any thoughts of how she might handle a promotion to Station Chief back in their box and fastened the latch. The rest of the meeting went as she had expected. Her department’s investigation was shelved, except for identifying
victims.
She did learn something more about the case that she had not had time to ferret out on her own, notably, that First Secretary Chu had been recalled to China on Tuesday afternoon, and their prime suspect, Louis Chu, was tagged in a surveillance camera boarding a jet with his uncle, having passed through airport security under diplomatic pretenses. He had been days ahead of their investigation, and all Alana had accomplished was getting Wendy hospitalized.
Saturday, 15 July, 18:09
Alana returned to her home for the first time in days. Roscoe, her robotic, gray tabby, greeted her by rubbing against her leg as she came through the door, and she punted him into the living room as she had done every time she had encountered him during the last month. As the cat flew up the stairs to hide under her bed, she said, “I need to re-gift that thing.”
She scarcely had time to hang her mackintosh in her foyer before there was a knock on the door. She forewent any precautions, being simply too mentally weary to care what happened. The worst thing that could happen would be that an assassin could hard-kill her, in which case, she would be resurrected with a save from earlier this morning, and she could forget the dressing-down she received from her boss’ boss.
When she opened the door, Brett Crabtree was standing before her. He looked remarkably well, as if he had showered and changed recently. She looked past him to the foot of her driveway, and a black sedan was parked there. She recognized the driver. It was Security Division Special Agent Jack Derringer. His window was down, and his arm was resting atop the door. He tapped away at it impatiently.
Brett wasted no time, “Ma’am, I stopped by to let you know I’m resigning from the police force, effective this morning.”
“Brett—”
“I spoke at length with Agent Derringer this morning, while I was at the hospital. I’m rejoining SD.”
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