The Eidolon

by Libby McGugan

  “This is the CERN site in Switzerland. Twenty-seven kilometres of the collider crossing the Franco-Swiss border, buried one hundred meters underground.” She reaches her hands into the image and opens them, like she’s parting the air in front of her. The fields and buildings stretch towards us, honing in on a large rectangular building.

  “Touch sensitive holography?”

  She nods and spreads the air under her hands again, until the image becomes an underground chasm the size of a cathedral. Men in hard hats and safety suits are working in the chasm, some of them on a crane that reaches up to a huge flanged metal tunnel.

  “ATLAS,” I say.

  “You need to familiarise yourself with the physical layout of the site, but you’re job will be focused on vulnerability analysis of the programs running the accelerator and ATLAS detector. You can access any files you need on your console.”

  I take a seat at the unmanned station, feeling numb. “We’ll arrange exploitation once you come up with a way forward.” Dana leans in towards me. “For this to work, we need the solution to be subtle, untraceable and permanent.”

  She straightens up and pulls out another health fag. “If you need anything, let me know. Lambert will keep you right on any technical issues. I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Luke Lambert.” The young guy sitting next to me extends a hand. His accent is American and he looks fresh out of college. Blond hair sweeps across his forehead so that I can’t see his right eye, and he has a bad dose of acne.

  I shake his hand. “What do you do, Luke?”

  “I’m working on privilege escalation, to allow us to release the malware through the Grid. But we all do a bit of everything – encryption breaking, analysis, looking out for security holes we can use.”

  “Which site are you using for Grid access?”

  “We have a route into the University of Surrey. Jo Trench over in C section is managing that.”

  “So why do you need me to release the malware from inside CERN?”

  “Surrey’s a user account. We’re working on upgrading it to superuser access, but Dana thinks we won’t crack it in time.”

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s a headache, alright, but we’ll get it. Now that you’re here, we can concentrate on figuring out which part of the system to break. We’ve been analysing the software that triggers the hydrogen release into the source chamber, but so far we’ve drawn a blank.” He grins. “But I love a challenge.”

  I turn to my console. “They’re using Scientific Linux 6?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is that what you use here?”

  “No. We use Linux 6. You want a coffee? You’ve got a lot to read through.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” I stare after him as he leaves the Hub and wonder if this is a game to him.

  I create a password for the console and pull up the data. Luke returns with two coffees and a cup of water. He waters the plant and brushes some soil off its leaves.

  “Thanks. How long have you been here?”

  “Eighteen months. Bishop found me in my final year at Harvard. It was too good an opportunity to miss. Who needs a bit of paper when they give you an offer like this one?”

  “Do you have any doubts about what we’re doing here?”

  “Listen, man,ORB doesn’t make mistakes. I’ve been here long enough to know that they get their facts straight. So when they say there’s a real threat from the LHC, you’d better believe there is one. Don’t sweat it. You’re doing the right thing.”

  I turn back to the console, and swallow the sick feeling in my throat. Nothing is certain, not even death. My dad, Elliot Strong, is testament to that.

  FIVE EMPTY CUPS sit on my desk and I’ve missed two meals so far. I’m not hungry. Bishop has been back four times and I’ve nothing to tell her. I wonder how he would do it. How would he find the loophole? I imagine, for a moment, what it would be like to have him here, working it out together. Father and son. A shared purpose, healing all those years of absence. It could be almost as though he never left.

  “Come on, man,take a break.” Luke places another mug and a packet of sandwiches on the desk.

  “There’s no way. Everything’s watertight,” I say without looking up.

  “If you’d spent millions of pounds and years of work developing something like this, damn sure you’d make it watertight. But there’s always a way.”

  I sit back and press my eyes. There’s a dull pressure inside them, like they’ve become too big for their sockets. “There’s got to be something simpler.”

  “We considered another magnet quench,” says Luke, taking a bite from his bagel.

  “That won’t do it. Quenches are fairly routine in accelerators. They’d be onto it in no time.”

  “That’s what we thought.”

  “What’s your progress, gentlemen?” Dana Bishop strides into the Hub.

  “Not much.”

  She walks towards me. Her voice is soft. “You know what’s at stake here. We need you to deliver.”

  “The man’s fragged, Dana. It’s ten-thirty. He needs a break. Let him watch some TV or something.”

  Dana frowns at Luke as he takes a swig of Coke. “Alright. Get some rest. Come back when you’re fresh.”

  “She’s a bitch when she’s stressed,” says Luke after Dana leaves. He gets to his feet. “Come on. You need some sleep.”

  MY ROOM IS clean and functional, but airless. There aren’t any windows. What did I expect in a bunker? It has light walls and light sheets on the bed. A large flat screen hangs on the far wall and displays a succession of pictures which fade from one to the other – deserted beaches and palm trees, high green mountains, waterfalls with accompanying sounds of birdsong and water babbling over rocks. Mind-soothing crap. It doesn’t make up for the fact that there aren’t any windows. I push a button on the black box lying on the bed and the pictures vanish, leaving me staring at a blank screen. Fumbling inside my rucksack, I pull out my phone charger. No windows, but plenty of wall sockets, at least. I plug in the phone and it pings its appreciation. I lie back on the bed and look up at the ceiling.

  What the hell am I doing?

  I try to push the thought from my mind.

  SOME TIME LATER, I wake with my face crumpled against the pillow, drooling. I sit up through a thick fog of fatigue and balance on the edge of a bed for a moment as the surroundings filter back to me. That’s right. Inside a room in a bunker. I pick up my phone and it reads two-thirty-three am. I lie down again and close my eyes until the thoughts start. What if I can’t find a weakness in time? What then?

  Fuck it. I get up and stumble to the bathroom, run the cold tap and splash icy water on my face, then dry it with a fluffy white towel. Better. I pick up the phone again and walk around the room, holding it at various angles to try to find a signal, to listen to Cora’s message. Nothing. With all this technology, you’d think they’d have access to a bloody mobile signal. My head’s too busy to go back to bed, so I get dressed.

  I open the door, stepping into the deserted corridor, but something makes me freeze. I stand there, knowing that I don’t want to turn round, but not knowing why. Slowly, I force myself to respond.

  To my right, at the end of the corridor, is a woman. Lean, fair hair flowing to her shoulders, loose white clothes and no shoes. Sarah.

  Jesus Christ, am I still asleep?

  I stare at her and she stares back, before turning and walking away, glancing back once as if I should be following.

  She leads me out of the accommodation block to the far end of D Sector, turning into a deserted corridor. I follow. She’s waiting by a partition marked AREA 9 RESTRICTED, her hand resting on the glass. It slides open. I stand there for a moment, blinking. I must be dreaming this.

  I follow. The corridor stretches out in front of me, dark grey walls dimly lit by sickly yellow light panels in the ceiling. She moves towards a thick metal door near the end of the corridor. I’ve only taken a few
steps when something makes me freeze. What is that?

  Something like the rustle of leaves in an autumn breeze. I creep forward and the sound evolves. Whispers. I pause again and they die away. Another step, and they return. Sarah glances back, then turns and walks through the door. There’s a chill in the air that makes the hairs on my scalp prickle. I move towards the door as the whispers crescendo. A sudden clang makes me jump. The handle of the door swings downwards. A gust of cool, blue mist sprays from the seams of the door as it swings open, and the whispers swell. I back away, but not before I catch a glimpse of what’s inside. Something is swirling inside a huge cylindrical tank: a pillar of grey mist, spinning slowly on its axis. What the hell is... A shadow obscures the view. A man in scrubs and a facemask stops in front of me. He pulls the mask down as the door closes behind him. Frowning, his face ashen above his grey beard. “What the hell are you doing here?” he barks.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, backing down the corridor. “I was...” I hold up the phone. “I’m looking for a signal.”

  His eyes flash and the remaining colour drains from his chalky face. “Can’t you read? This area’s restricted!”

  “Did you see a woman down here? Blonde, slim?”

  He takes a step towards me. “Did you hear me? Get out!”

  “Okay. Okay.” I turn, my pace quickening. I punch the release button and the partition slides open. I don’t stop until I reach my room.

  I DON’T KNOW if I slept again, or if I never woke up in the first place, but when I get to the Hub at seven, I have a headache. Dana is studying the hologram, arms folded, her right thumb twitching on the end of a health fag. I consider asking her if they have a doctor I can see, to give me some of those stress pills I should have taken. Maybe later.

  “Morning, Robert,” she says. “Let’s see if we can wrap this up today.”

  Luke catches my eye.

  I settle into my seat and begin again.

  WHEN SHE COMES back at midday, I’m holding my forehead with my fingertips. “What have you got, Robert?”

  I don’t look up. “Nothing yet.”

  She sighs. “This whole project is riding on you, you know that? We need something.”

  I get to my feet. “Yeah? Well maybe you should find someone else. I’m telling you I can’t find a weakness. The systems are too tight.”

  “Someone else?” The pitch of her voice is rising. “The clock’s ticking, Robert. Who the hell else are we going to find at this stage?” She tosses her fag in the bin and storms out. “I need a real fucking cigarette.”

  Lambert blows air out from his cheeks. “You made her drop a bitch bomb. Come on. Let’s get some food.”

  “SO WHAT OTHER projects go on here?” I ask, as we stand in the queue in D Sector canteen.

  Luke refills his coffee mug and shovels some chips onto his plate. “I know they do some development work. Vaccinations and shit. They only tell us what we need to know.”

  “Do you know what they’re working on in the restricted area?”

  He laughs. “Which one? Most of this place is restricted.”

  “Area 9.”

  “No idea.”

  My head still hurts. “What if we can’t do this, Luke? What if we can’t stop the launch?”

  He looks suddenly older. “That’s not an option, man. Not with this.”

  Behind the counter there’s a persistent beeping, the alarm from a fridge door that’s been left open too long. The chubby chef waddles over and kicks it shut, silencing the beeps. The embryo of an idea flickers somewhere in that scene.

  Luke’s watching me. “What is it?” he says.

  I blink, then grasp the coffee cup from his hand. “Come with me.”

  “What have you got?” he says as we get back to the Hub.

  “Have you looked at the safety systems?”

  “Which one? What are you thinking?”

  “We need to change tack. The firewalls for the launch software are too tight. A quench on its own won’t be enough, but what if we combined it with malware that disabled the Quench Protection System?”

  Lambert smiles at his console as Dana appears at the door. “Do you have something?” she asks.

  “The launch software is too well protected – we’re just wasting time,” I say. “The accelerator runs on superconducting magnets, cooled to cryogenic temperatures. The wires are tiny filaments, sensitive to any changes in current and temperature, and they’re surrounded by liquid helium. If we change the operating temperatures or current, the wires will fracture and dump the liquid helium into the chamber.

  Dana frowns. “We’ve already discussed this one, Lambert. You said they were prepared for a quench.”

  “Not if we alter the safety parameters in the Quench Protection System,” I say. “They won’t notice there’s a problem until the structural damage has been done. Quenches are commonplace, but widespread structural damage from multiple simultaneous quenches means rebuilding most of it.”

  Dana Bishop smiles. “Come with me.”

  SHE OPENS A security partition in a quiet corridor of A Sector and leads me to the last door. She turns to me before we enter. “He can be a little weird. Don’t take it personally.”

  Inside is a large room. The hum of extractor fans comes from the ceiling between white neon panels. Two large white semicircular desks take up most of the space, lined with banks of computer consoles. Inside the circle sits a man in a black baseball cap.

  He doesn’t look up from his console. Dana taps him on the shoulder and he spins round slowly on his swivel chair, pulling the earphones from his ears. He stares up at her through small round shades, his head inclined to one side, unsmiling. He has a matching omega sign on his black baseball cap and tee shirt, sallow skin and dark hair. Beside him is a fruit bowl piled high with cola bottle sweets.

  “Robert, this is Mr Y. Mr Y is one of the most gifted programmers on the planet. If you tell him your idea, he’ll find a way to make it happen.”

  Mr Y studies me, bouncing gently as he leans back on his chair, and reaches for the bowl of cola bottles. He pushes a handful into his mouth.

  “Robert has identified a potential weakness in the CERN system.” Mr Y doesn’t look at her as she speaks, but just sits there, watching me, chewing. “I’ll leave you two to chat.” I hear the swish of the door closing.

  Mr Y takes a deep breath and leans over to pull another chair from the semicircular desk opposite. He gestures for me to sit down.

  “So, eh...”

  He raises a finger, silencing me, then turns and taps on the keys of his computer, breaking only to grasp another handful of sweets. The software I’d been examining downstairs appears on the screen.

  He turns to me. “So what’s your plan?” His voice is soft, an American accent with a hint of something far-eastern.

  “I need a two-layered virus that will alter the parameters of the superconductor and silence the Quench Protection System alarm.”

  “A man-in-the-middle attack. Are you sure it’s a virus you want?”

  “I need something that attaches itself to an existing program. Something that will evade detection once it’s in there.”

  “We can do that with a good worm. A rootkit, periodically moving and changing its name to avoid detection. What’s your trigger?”

  “The launch of the particles from the source chamber.”

  He nods.“Where do you plan to release your worm?”

  My worm? I shift uncomfortably in my seat.

  “The Operator’s Room in the Computer Centre.”

  He turns back to the screen, scrolling through data.

  “Linux 6 Scientific and YUM. And you want in to the Quench Protection System...” He studies the screen, chewing on more cola sweets. I scan the room. There’s a life-size standee of a busty, scantily-clad woman next to a wall-mounted digital display showing time zones across the globe. My foot catches against something under the desk, and I glance down to see a large clear tank. Somethin
g is sliding across the bottom, a slither of gold and black. A snake. I stare at Mr Y. Weird doesn’t come close.

  “What’s the cut-off temperature for the magnets?”

  “Nine point six degrees Kelvin, maximum.”

  “And the current?”

  “Two thousand amps.”

  He continues to study the screen. After a long silence, he sits back. “I’ll get you your worm. You’ll have admin access from the Operator’s room, but you’ll need five to seven minutes there to upload the file. Have you thought of a name for your worm?”

  It’s not my worm. “No.”

  “You need a name.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s cool to name your worm.” I want to laugh, but he says it seriously, almost reverently.

  His gaze wanders to the ceiling as he chews on another handful of sweets. “How about... Kali.”

  “Kali?”

  “The Hindu Goddess. It means she who destroys.”

  “Oh.”

  He turns back to the screen.

  “What’s the hardware for carrying it?” I ask.

  He holds up a USB flash drive without looking at me.

  “That’s it?”

  “D’you know the US Department of Defence banned the use of these little numbers because malware was spreading like the common cold? We did a lot of damage with them. It doesn’t look like much, but it can spoil your day. Enough to wipe out an entire databank.” He punches in a code on a small number pad on the desk, and the drawer to his right clicks and slides open. It’s stacked with upright USB drives in foam bases. Next to each drive is a small label with a code in black typeface. “There’s more destructive power in this drawer than there is in the entire US air force.”

  “Did you create all of these?”

  He smiles.

  “Wow. You must have made a few waves in your time.”

  He nods, looking smug, and picks through the drives, handling each one like it’s made of thin glass.

  “This one, for instance...” He picks up a stick from the third row. “This one shut down the International Monetary Fund for thirty-six hours. And this one... this one wiped out the software of a leading Canadian bank, just with an email. They had to replace the entire mainframe – the whole lot. It took them thirteen months to get back on their feet. It’s a one-way ticket.” He shakes his head. “Masterstroke.”