by Jeff Pollard
“I'm not indifferent to that argument, but I think the number of failures and the way in which they've come in opportune pairs is just a little too convenient to blame on randomness.”
“Why does it have to be randomness, maybe the LRF was poorly designed and is now failing all the time. That's not random.”
“Well at the very least, this is a serious possibility that we need to explore,” Weller replies. “This sex thing, you wanted to go back to my place because you think I'm the mole,” Weller finally realizes what this was all about.
“I just told you I don't think there is a mole,” Brittany replies.
“But you were trying to figure out if I was maybe a mole, that's why it had to be my place. You tell me there's a mole and judge my reaction, you try to go to my place, stay around me, make sure I'm not talking to anyone, arranging anything. I mean, I get it, but that's pretty shitty. Earlier, in K's office, were you feeling me out then?”
“No,” Brittany says, “that was before the third failure, nobody thought there was a mole then.”
“What if you're the mole and you wanted me out of Mission Control?”
“Why would I be the mole?”
“Yeah, let's trust the ambitious politician,” Weller replies.
“Fucking in K's office was your idea, you cunt,” Hammersmith shouts. Just then they both realize someone is standing in the doorway.
“Don't let me interrupt,” Sylvia Probst says. “I see you told him, that's a bold strategy, how's that working for you?”
“Brilliantly,” Brittany replies. “What do you have?”
“I got a couple of nerds looking for evidence of hacking,” Sylvia replies.
“You sure you didn't ask the moles to look for themselves?” Weller asks.
“Pretty sure,” Sylvia replies.
“How do you know?” Hammersmith asks.
“I took several of them aside, one at a time, and told them help me nerd-name you're my only hope. And I told them to be suspicious of everyone and trust no one. Basically your standard X-Files Star Wars combo. So there's four of them independently investigating, none of them know there are others looking.”
“The four of them are all going to think the others are acting suspicious,” Weller says.
“So?”
“So you're going to get all of them tattling on each other for acting suspicious.”
“And maybe they find the real hacker,” Sylvia says. “You got a better idea?”
“Kingsley's paranoia is now officially contagious,” Hammersmith says. “I need a drink.”
“I see his alcoholism is contagious too,” Weller replies.
“This is my life,” Hammersmith says.
“She was going to sex me in order to see if my house was suspicious,” Weller says to Probst.
“You were going to honeypot him?” Sylvia asks. “You go girl, and other catch-phrases.”
“You didn't give me very detailed instructions,” Hammersmith replies.
The Next Day
“Should be up and running now,” K says. He's rewritten the code for the Griffin to create a send-only down-link that protects them from any interference from the outside, but still allows Mission Control to see their data.
“Looks good, Griffin,” Yerino calls back from the ground. K sighs, having just spent nineteen hours straight on a coding binge.
“Now you just need to do the same thing for the Pegasus,” Tim says, then pats K on the back sending him floating away.
K pushes against the floor and floats back up to his laptop that's mounted on the side of the capsule and starts adapting his code for the Pegasus computer.
“Take a break K, you don't want to fuck up the coding, we've got plenty of time before we get into lunar orbit.”
“You got it boss,” K says sarcastically and rubs his tired eyes.
“Ground, how is our progress on the search for Spock?” Tim asks, referring to the mole-hunt under way.
“That's a negative, no news on Spock,” Yerino replies.
Hammersmith, Weller, and Probst stand watch behind five software people who are busy combing through data looking for evidence of electronic sabotage. It's been a long day and a half since the search began.
“Can I get a status update?” Sylvia asks. None of the computer people say anything. They have nothing at all to report.
“Maybe we're chasing ghosts,” Hammersmith mutters. “Phantoms of Kingsley's imagination.”
“I might have something here,” Chris, one of the IT people, says quietly, getting no one's attention at all.
“Should we order some dinner?” Weller asks. “Thai?”
“I got...something,” Chris speaks up ever so slightly.
“What?” the nerds flanking him ask and scoot their chairs toward him and look over his shoulders.
“Holy shit, come look at this!” one of his fellow nerds alerts the higher-ups.
“What are we looking at exactly?” Hammersmith asks.
“Somebody is trying to access the guidance computer on Griffin right now,” Chris replies.
“The Griffin, as in the Pegasus 3 mission Griffin, the one with people in it?” Hammersmith asks.
“Yep,” Chris replies.
“K's code worked,” another nerd adds.
“Meaning what?” Hammersmith asks.
“K made it so that if you try to access the Griffin and change anything, it will actually reroute you to one of the Griffin simulators,” Chris says, “So whoever is doing the accessing thinks they are inside on the actual spacecraft but really just toying around with one of the sims downstairs. And his code alerted us to the intrusion.”
“So where's it coming from? Is it from inside the building or is it god damn Siberia?” Sylvia asks.
“Console number 2702,” Chris replies.
“What's that mean?” Hammersmith asks.
“That's a computer in the building,” Chris replies.
“Where?” Sylvia asks. As she waits for an answer, she draws a Walther PPS pistol from a concealed holster at the small of her back, checks the magazine and then replaces it, then puts the gun back in the holster.
“Umm,” Chris says, shocked by the sudden appearance of a gun. “It's on the engineering side,” Chris replies. Another nerd pulls up a schematic showing the layout of the building and the location of the consoles. “Propulsion.”
“Who's computer?” Weller asks, suddenly feeling like he's the one who fucked up.
“Jensen, Elizabeth,” Chris says.
“Sylvia, get your gun,” Weller says dramatically. Hammersmith rolls her eyes and they head out.
“Come on, you too,” Hammersmith says to Chris, “we need a nerd.” All five IT guys stand up. “No not all of you, three stay behind and keep doing this tracking or whatever, you two come with us.
The walk to propulsion is as brisk a walk as possible without breaking into a jog. Weller leads the way, knowing exactly who Elizabeth Jensen is and where she sits. He gets increasingly mad on the way and imagines confronting her and catching her in the act.
When they arrive, Sylvia keeps a hand behind her back, ready to draw.
“Jensen!” Weller shouts from fifty feet away as they close the distance. Elizabeth spins in her chair and is eating a banana.
“Sup boss?” Jensen asks with her mouth full.
“Step away from the computer,” Weller says.
“K,” Jensen says, scooting her chair away from the desk, but continuing to eat her banana. Jensen is a blonde bombshell as far as rocket engineers go and she knows it. In school she had to work hard to overcome the assumptions made about her because of her looks. Now she's a talented engineer that also knows she's probably the sexiest woman in the building. Pair that with a mostly male work-force and you end up with a woman that is in complete control most of the time as men are constantly nervous and trying to impress her. She's seemingly phased by nothing.
Chris gets on her console and begins looking for anything suspicious.
“So...what's up?” Jensen asks. Chris gets out his phone and calls the dork squad back in IT.
“Is he doing anything right now?” Chris asks. He hangs up immediately. “Well it's not her, there's still activity.”
“Well shut it off,” Hammersmith says, reaching for the PC.
“No!” Chris shouts. “If we're gonna figure out who's behind this we can't let them know we're on to them.” Chris starts working away on the computer.
“So what are you doing?” Weller asks.
“Tracing the activity, see that,” he points at the screen.
“I guess,” Weller says.
“That's web traffic going in and out of this computer. He's accessing this computer somehow.”
“I thought these computers weren't online,” Jensen says.
“They're not,” Weller replies while staring Jensen down. Chris gets on his knees to examine the PC. “What do you know about hacking anyway?”
“What like The Matrix?” Jensen asks.
“Don't play dumb. Sylvia, get your gun,” Weller says.
“Gun? I don't know shit about hacking,” Jensen says, remaining cool. Chris crawls under the desk to look at the back of the machine.
“Ah-ha!” He shouts.
“What?” Weller asks. Chris crawls back out.
“Is that your flash drive in the back?” Chris asks.
“I don't think so,” Jensen replies.
“Does anybody have any gloves, latex gloves?” Chris asks.
“Why?” Weller asks.
“I don't want to get my fingerprints on this.”
“There's gotta be a first aid kit somewhere,” Hammersmith says and sets off on a quest for rubber gloves.
“What the hell is going on?” Jensen asks. Chris carefully moves the PC out from under the desk without unplugging anything.
“See that flash drive?”
“Yeah,” Jensen replies.
“It's not a flash drive.” A few minutes later Hammersmith returns with gloves from a first-aid kit. Chris puts on the gloves and then peels the plastic covers off the device revealing the inner-workings. He carefully sets the black plastic molding with the SpacEx logo on the desk. “Do not touch,” he says. “See this here, that's a Wi-Fi adapter that's been added on to this 64 gigabyte stick. This isn't a flash drive, this is a Trojan Horse. These computers aren't on the web, but if you plug one of these in, it looks for wireless internet and presto-chango, you now have access to a secure computer. This is custom made device. If I had to guess, I'd say that whenever it gets plugged in there's some firmware on the device that tries to connect to Wi-Fi, will probably have a program to break through simple Wi-Fi security if there's a password, then once it gets online it sends out a report back to its owner that it's online and now they have access to this computer and whatever network it happens to be on.”
“I swear it's not mine,” Jensen says.
“Who could have put it there?” Weller asks.
“God damn, fucking anybody could have put it there,” Probst says. “Her next-desk neighbor, a janitor, it could be anybody.”
“Which is why I didn't touch it. We can lift prints off this,” Chris says.
“How do you know all this stuff about prints and Trojan Horses?” Weller asks Chris.
“What do you mean?” Chris asks.
“How does one gain this kind of knowledge?” Weller says suspiciously.
“I don't know, reading. What the hell kind of-”
“Okay, enough witch-hunt. How do we get prints?” Sylvia asks.
“Doesn't HR fingerprint for background checks?” Weller says.
“Yeah but that's like, put your finger on this scanner, that's different than lifting a print,” Chris says.
“I know some private detectives,” Hammersmith says. “And in the meantime, lock the building. Nobody in or out.”
“It's Putin,” Kingsley says quietly via the secure radio channel. K can clearly see it's the middle of night in California since the Indian sub-continent is visible in the lit part of the Earth.
“How do you know it's Putin?” Hammersmith asks.
“Call up Kuznetzov, see who he thinks is behind it,” K adds.
“Yeah well of course he's paranoid of Putin,” Hammersmith replies.
“Yeah, because he's been exiled off the planet by him.”
“Well, in any case, some old friends of yours told us how to lift the prints and they're working on that in HR and they're gonna run them through our database, so if there's prints from an employee, there's gonna be a match. If we don't get a match here, we'll send the case along and they'll see if they can turn up any matches. In the meantime, some guy named Chris is doing some counter-espionage.”
“Meaning what?” K asks.
“Something about hiding a Trojan Horse in their Trojan Horse. Like there are packets going back and forth and we can trace that, but if the guy is using a proxy then it'll only point to the proxy, so he's hiding packets in his packets that ride all the way to the end and should report back to us the location of the actual hacker.”
“When will we know?” K asks.
“He's about to do it, that's why I called, hold on,” Hammersmith says. K floats by the window, watching the waning gibbous Earth shrink ever so slowly. The rest of the crew is asleep, zipped up in sleeping bags near the floor of the capsule.
“And thanks for the heads up,” K says sarcastically.
“Sure.”
“I'm talking about Operation Baby on Board,” K replies.
“Babies,” Hammersmith corrects.
“And you kept it a secret.”
“Team Girl, we stick together,” Hammersmith replies.
“When you're not busy stabbing each other in the back.”
“Precisely,” Hammersmith says. “You're not mad are you?”
“Of course not,” Kingsley replies.
“Okay, here we go. He's doing the tracking whatever thing,” Hammersmith says. “He says the first proxy is in Toronto. Okay, then it goes to Miami. Mexico City. London. Madrid. Johannesburg. That's it.”
“It stops in South Africa?” K asks, underwhelmed.
“Yeah.”
“Well it looks like somebody has a sense of humor. That and they anticipated this counter-espionage and were ready with counter-counter-espionage. So get to work on that counter-counter-counter-espionage and let me know if we get a print match.”
“You know this isn't in my job description right?” Brittany asks.
“Neither is having sex in my office.”
“Also true,” Hammersmith says.
“Get to it,” K says and ends the call.
“So that worked well,” Hammersmith says to Chris.
“How do we know he's not in South Africa?” Chris asks.
“That seems pretty obviously to be a joke. Whoever he is, he's ten steps ahead of you. Take the thing out,” Hammersmith says.
“But if we take it out we won't be able to trace him,” Chris objects.
“You just failed to trace him and now he's probably aware that we know about him and if he's ten steps ahead of you, who knows what he's doing. So cut his feed and we'll worry about the trace later.”
“Should we run this by someone else?” Chris asks. “I mean, you could be the spy.”
“Jesus Christ,” Hammersmith says. She kneels and reaches for the drive, gripping it carefully by the edges and extracts it from the slot. “And we checked all the other computers right?”
“Right, we found just one more and it wasn't on a secure computer. So, if these are the only way he has access, he's out now.”
Weller walks up and they can see him coming from a distance over many desks. But they say nothing and keep quiet until he arrives so as not to disturb the dozens of employees nearby that are sleeping under their desks because
of the lockdown. He walks quickly and his eyes tell of an important development. He says nothing, getting closer and closer, closing finally toward Hammersmith and whispering in her ear. “We've got a match.”
“Wake up Sylvia,” Hammersmith says.
Sylvia sleeps sitting upright in a chair at the head of a conference table in a locked room with Ellie Jensen sitting at the other end of the table. They've become great friends in the last few hours as Sylvia has stayed by her side at all times, including escorting her to the bathroom.
Sylvia reaches for her gun before she even knows who's entered the room.
“We've got a match,” Weller says as he flips the lights on and gives Ellie and Sylvia's retinas a nice sear. Weller slips Sylvia a piece of paper with a name and a simple profile on it.
“Do you know anyone named Mark?” Sylvia asks Ellie.
“Umm, yeah! Mark in Marketing. Who can forget Marketing Mark. I think his business card says Marky-Mark The Marketing Mark. Something like that.”
“Why would his fingerprints be on that Trojan Horse?” Sylvia asks.
“Right. I was working with him, he was doing some sprucing up on the website, he wanted some simple schematics,” Ellie says, leading to those 'Eureka/Ah-ha!' glances between Hammersmith, Weller, and Probst. “No not like that. It was just like bare bones, just like a blue background, and all it shows is like the most basic diagram of the Eagle 9, just like the diameter and placement of engines and stuff like that, absolutely nothing of any significance. And so I made a quick little bare-bones diagram for him but I couldn't e-mail it to him so he came by with a flash drive and we transferred it that way.”
“And then it got conveniently left in?” Weller asks.
“I don't know about that.”
“Of course not.”
“Why would he plug it into the back?” Sylvia asks. “There's front ports, why get down on your hands and knees and reach back there?”
“I don't have any idea,” Ellie replies.
“Did he put it in or did you?” Brittany asks.
“I know I didn't put it back there,” Ellie replies.