by John Freitas
Mark sat back in his chair causing the ergonomic back to crack loudly. He put a hand on his forehead and stared at the popcorn pattern in the spackle above him. His grandmother’s house had that kind of ceiling. He thought it wasn’t done anymore which probably meant the apartments hadn’t been upgraded in decades. There was probably lead in the pipes slowly killing him and the angry Russians. He thought that spiky pattern would hurt if he hit against it floating off the floor. He planned to be somewhere else doing something else when that happened, but suddenly he was considering a whole new target.
Changing plans this close to execution was stupid, he thought. This was how fools got caught.
“Mark?” John asked in Mark’s ear.
“Just a minute,” Mark said. “I’m thinking.”
“I really need …”
“Just shut up for a moment and let me think,” Mark said. “I have a lot of balls in the air. Don’t say anything for just a moment.”
Mark could hear John breathing through the phone, so he moved it away from his ear. He rubbed his eyes with one hand and then blinked as his computer screen slowly came back into focus.
Was it insanity to change the plan now?
CDR was a hacker’s dream and nightmare. They were ten times tougher to crack than even NSA computers. Unlike the NSA, they would come after hackers, actually catch them, and make an example of them to others. No life in prison for people that messed with CDR. It might just be Internet legend, but scary people believed it and stayed away from CDR.
They were a prize though. They were working in robotics and AI. CDR was making advances in quantum processing. That was just the stuff people knew about.
Stealing gold from the Federal Reserve was a huge deal. Finding out what treasures CDR was hiding and stealing one of them would be epic.
He could go and poke around. Even if he decided the risk was too great, he could still go forward with the Federal Reserve job on the big day. Mark Spencer knew he was pushing his luck and stretching his time and resources thin by even considering this. But it was CDR. Even if he didn’t do anything with them on this opportunity, having a backdoor into their systems might be priceless later.
Like John, he could not afford to pass this up.
What could a place like that want for security upgrades? It boggled the mind.
Mark swallowed and brought the phone back to his ear. “Are you still there, John?”
“I was about to hang up and call you back,” John said. “So?”
“I’ll do it, but you owe me big.”
John let out a sigh that crackled the connection. He said, “Thanks, Mark. You’ll be rewarded well for this, I promise. I’ll e-mail you the details I can. You’ll have to get the rest from them when you show up. I’ll send it all as soon as I hang up.”
Mark hung up first and dropped his phone back on the metal table top next to his monitor. He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back again.
“This is too big,” he said out loud. “Even I can’t pull this off.”
Mark frowned. He was angry at himself for doubting. Everyone had doubted him his entire life and here he was on the home stretch of the biggest move of his life and he was starting to doubt himself. No, he thought. He wouldn’t allow it.
Mark leaned forward. His phone and an icon in the corner of his computer screen indicated he had an e-mail from John’s agency. Mark exited from the Federal Reserve system, but he did not go to the e-mail right away. He was no one’s trained monkey.
Mark searched instead for a particular part he needed for the suit he was building. It was a relatively simple design and concept, but he wasn’t leaving anything to chance.
After all, the job had just gotten so much bigger.
3
“Have a seat, Dr. Kell.”
Thomas Kell looked around the leather furniture and dark wood of the executive suit. With the pristine white of the labs he was used to at CDR, he had trouble processing that this lavish suite was even in the same building.
He cleared his throat and lowered himself onto the center of a long, leather couch. It was too soft. The back was too far away, so he started to lean back, but then gave up and leaned forward again sitting on the front edge of the seat.
Thomas balanced the folders he had brought with him on his knees. He preferred a screen, but the equipment was restricted to the lab, so he had to print out hard copies like it was the 1990’s all over again. He offered to meet with her in the labs, but she insisted that he come up to see her.
Thomas thought about setting the folders on the coffee table between them, but it was decorated with a large porcelain figurine of a shirtless warrior slaying a lion with his bare hands. There was also a china tea set that looked to be just for show and then some sort of silver case with intricate etchings on it.
His folders would clash with the décor, so he kept them balanced on his knees and awaited instructions.
Hazel Conrad sat quite comfortably across from Dr. Kell in one of the bowed back leather chairs. It looked like a throne and Thomas was sure she was sitting a few inches higher than him.
She was wearing a severe dress with a high collar. It was some color between burgundy and copper. Her hair was grey and stacked on her head in tight braids and buns. There was no way that she achieved that look alone. Thomas had trouble remembering going home to sleep or whether he had showered that day. He could not imagine a team of people helping him get ready for a day of work.
Her lipstick and eyebrows looked painted on. They might have been tattooed. The brows look sharp enough to cut glass. Both her eyebrows and her lips looked to be coordinated in color to compliment the unique color of her dress.
He looked her over as he waited uncomfortably for her to address him again after he obeyed her by taking a seat. In the pause, he noticed there was a ticking of a mechanical clock. It reminded him of the clacks he hated on a keyboard. As soon as he heard the sound, he couldn’t unhear it and it was messing with his focus.
He wondered if she had plastic surgery and how many times. Her skin looked pulled tight. He knew she was old. He believed she was the oldest of the current partners. She was the daughter of the original Conrad. She had to be pushing sixty or seventy. She must have had plastic surgery, he decided.
“Dr. Kell, I’d like to congratulate you on your recent breakthrough,” she said. Her voice had a sing song quality. He thought it might have been put on for effect. Some formal tone of a bygone era, he thought. He had not met directly with any of the partners enough to know for sure. He preferred to stay in the labs and deliver electronic reports to project managers.
Thomas cleared his throat and looked down at the folders on his knees. “Which breakthrough do you mean?”
She let out a high laugh. “Very good, Dr. Kell. I like confidence in our prize researchers. Even overconfidence can be useful as long as you keep delivering.”
Thomas blinked and said, “Yes, ma’am.”
He had no idea what she meant. Her comment made him feel like she looked at him like a piece of equipment she had bought to perform a task or like one of the cows on one of her family ranches in Montana or Idaho or wherever it was her family owned half the state.
She said, “I mean, of course, the progress with communicating with the Q1 project.”
Thomas nodded. “Yes, ma’am, we are pleased with the sudden boost in activity. It’s moving quickly toward its full potential finally.”
“Finally, indeed,” Hazel Conrad said. “The partners are ready to move into the next phases and we want to tap you to oversee the entire production.”
“Production?” Thomas narrowed his eyes. He was expecting to be giving reports on the current projects, but this seemed to be turning into something else entirely.
“We are ready to move on the design parameters on Q2 processors and begin application into the android division,” she said.
“Androids, Ms. Conrad?”
“Yes, we believe the second gen
eration will finally give our android designs the autonomy we need to make them broadly economically viable.”
Thomas took a deep breath. “With respect, I’d like to slow down a moment to understand exactly what we are discussing.”
She waved a hand up from the arm of her grand chair in a motion that almost looked like a dance move. “By all means, Doctor.”
He nodded and looked down at the tea set as he spoke. “We are still trying to understand what we have in the first generation, Ms. Conrad. Like you said, our recent breakthrough, though promising, is very recent. Moving forward with Q2 at this point feels very premature to my thinking.”
“I can understand why some would feel that way and see things that way,” she said to him in her sing song tone that suddenly felt mocking. His eyes moved from the tea set to the warrior tearing apart the porcelain lion with his bare hands. She continued. “That’s not how the CDR Group sees things. That is certainly not how we became the innovators that we are today and that is not the vision that will take us into the future. The next generation of our work is far bigger than you or me, Dr. Kell. This is about the next steps for humanity that will change the world for generations long after we are gone and CDR is still carrying on the work of changing the world. It is time for us to move forward. I know that you are the man to see us through this, Dr. Kell.”
“I thank you for your confidence, ma’am.” Thomas looked up from the lion to her face again. Her stare felt too intense like she could see through him. He looked away from her face to the hard coppery buttons on her dress. “I am fully engrossed in the Q1 project right now. I’m not in a position to oversee multiple divisions and still complete the work that needs to be done there.”
“I’m going to say this as nicely as I can.” The sing song of her voice had all but vanished and an edge had replaced it in her tone. “I’m not asking. I’m informing you. You are bound to CDR in your research, so you’re working for us regardless of how this conversation plays out and you’ll be doing that as we direct. We appreciate your work and will continue to support you as you carry out the projects which are in CDR’s best interests. So, you will be overseeing the android design and production of the Q2 projects as you continue to develop Q1 to its full potential. Your work on the first generation will inform the work on the second, so we need you to be involved in both to see them forward.”
“Of course, Ms. Conrad.” Thomas swallowed and said, “You said Q2 projects as in there will be multiple projects?”
“Yes, Dr. Kell, there will be an industrial android division and a domestic companion model. Both will utilize the Q2 processing technology which you and your teams will develop off of what you are learning from the Q1 project. Of course, you will be given a team of the best individuals available in the field for each project you oversee. There will be real time communication and coordination with our production facilities around the world. The project managers will all be answering to you in these projects for the time being instead of the other way around.”
Thomas gripped the folders with both hands until the papers inside crinkled. He could hear the ticking clock again and had to fight the temptation to look around the suite for it. It caused a pulse of pain and light behind his eyes with each tick as he tried to process what she was telling him. He was not prepared for all of this today.
“We’re going to be coordinating work with other facilities?” he asked. “I can’t even take a touch pad out of the lab. How are you going to secure open lines with factories and labs around the world?”
“We will gear up quickly,” she said. “We have a cyber security expert coming in to update all our systems and networks to keep everything encrypted and secure.”
“A contractor?” Thomas asked.
“He has passed our background checks and has the references and skills to do the work quickly and effectively,” she said. “You will be overseeing his work as well.”
Thomas sighed. “The more I have to watch over, the more likely something will be missed.”
“Have faith in yourself,” she said. “I want that overconfidence I saw at the beginning of our meeting – which breakthrough, indeed. Classic stuff, Dr. Kell. Besides, do you want our cyber security contractor setting up the parameters on your working systems without your direction?”
Thomas showed his teeth and shook his head. “No, that would not be good. I take your point, Ms. Conrad. Thank you.”
She stood up. “Well, I’ll let you get back to work again then, Dr. Kell. I know you have a lot to look after.”
He blinked and stood up slowly. Thomas held out the folders in his hand. “Did you want these reports on our progress that you had me prepare, ma’am?”
She looked down at them and shrugged. The motion moved her high collar. “I have learned all I need to know from our meeting. You have your instructions. I don’t need to look at a bunch of charts. I appreciate your thorough work though as always.”
He swallowed and nodded. Thomas turned away with the folders under his arms and walked toward the door. “Thank you, Ms. Conrad.”
“Be sure to shred all of those before you leave the outer office, Dr. Kell.”
He stopped while facing the door, but did not turn around. “Shred them?”
“Yes, go ahead and shred the folders, the papers and everything,” she said to his back. “We can’t have any materials about our work floating loose in the world. There is a large industrial shredder to your right as you step out into the outer office. Feed the folders in one at a time and it will chew them right up. It will be fun.”
Thomas found himself thinking of the image of the warrior killing the lion. “Yes, ma’am.”
He reached down and turned the knob to leave the executive suite.
4
Mark Spencer paused to listen. The hum of the machinery around him almost sounded like crashing waves. He could sleep to the white noise of these supercomputers. He imagined having them stacked in his apartment living room to use for his extra curricular activities. He’d have to take out the floor and take over the Russians’ apartment to make these monoliths fit in there.
CDR had the best of the best and they were working on even greater secrets than these.
He heard no one else in the stacks with him at the moment, so he continued his work. This was tricky because they weren’t letting him bring in his own equipment. He was having to use their devices to create his backdoor and that was a dangerous game indeed even if he wasn’t trying to mess with CDR.
He reached into the open panel and unhooked hard wire connections. Mark plugged into the device CDR had given him for the work. The tablet came up with the server ID and Mark input his temporary security code assigned to him by Calvin Hall, the fellow that read Mark the riot act when he came into the building for the first time.
Mark ran a diagnostic. As the green bars mounted up on the screen indicating everything on the server was functioning, he moved into the backlog sections of the device. A red series of numbers indicated that the server recognized that it had been tapped, so it was automatically isolated and the activity recorded.
“Smart,” Mark whispered.
Mark worked behind the diagnostic and created a clone account and masked it within the device’s operating system. It was like a virus or a Trojan horse whose only job was to hide itself. Easy enough. Then, he went through that account to bypass and redirect the security recording of the server. He watched long enough to realize that the system thought it was still recording, but Mark’s dummy account could operate undetected.
He flipped back to the main screen and saw the diagnostic was almost over. He needed to move fast. He scrolled back through to his other functions and broke out of the server’s lockout. Data began rolling through the screens of his isolated account. He didn’t bother trying to make sense of it yet.
Mark checked the security recording again, but this time from out in the security system itself. The protocols thought they were still recording. A
ll indications were that server was still locked in and there was no breech of the system.
Mark went back to the diagnostic and set it on a loop. The green bars vanished and started ticking back up again. He reprogrammed the device to recognize the loop as a single diagnostic run instead of a repeated one. He then went back out into the security system and hard set the time stamp of the diagnostic so that it would appear upon review that it had only been one run and nothing out of the ordinary occurred during or after it.
Mark smiled. Calvin Hall with his severe scowl and probing eyes would see nothing of what Mark Spencer was really doing. Hall and his men might be looking at the monitors right then and Mark would seem to be doing exactly the job they sent him to do.
“Looks like your probing eyes don’t see as much as you think they do, huh, tough guy?” Mark muttered. “You let me in, didn’t you?”
Mark stopped and listened to the ocean sounds of the servers around him. Still no other activity.
He went back into his ghost account and brought up the black and white squares of the security camera feeds. He worked through floor after floor. They were mostly hallways. The ones in the labs were shutdown. There appeared to be none in the executive offices. Mark started to bring up the lab cameras, but a box for a security key popped up. He decided not to push it.
Mark locked in the camera feeds for the hallway outside the server bank, the feed from the lobby, outside the elevators on his current floor, and outside the main lab where he had seen Dr. Thomas Kell go in after Calvin Hall introduced him as the top project manager and researcher. He was apparently supervising Mark’s work this Kell was. That made him important. He would be giving the specifications on the cyber security and encryption on the global uplinks. That meant Kell was the man dealing with projects all across CDR’s global reach.