Terminal Connection

by Needles, Dan

  He shook it.

  “Where are we?” she asked, pushing her hair behind her ears.

  That was a mistake. Before Steve could say anything to stop her, she stumbled as she knocked her Portal Sphere’s headgear askew and turned her view of the room sideways.

  Her arms flailed as she fell. Steve caught her. “Close your eyes.”

  “What? Oh.” She closed her eyes and readjusted her headgear. After a second, she opened them, and Steve helped her to her feet. “Thank you. I guess I developed some bad habits with the Nexus.”

  Steve nodded.

  “Did Austin tell you that I was coming?”

  “You’re here on Austin’s behalf.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Are you an engineer?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “So, what exactly are you here to do?”

  “Uh, to help where I can, cut through the bureaucratic bullshit, stuff like that.”

  Steve sighed. “Do you know anything about the Nexus?”

  Before she could answer, the figure of another woman materialized in front of them. Allison shot him a questioning look.

  “That is my CFO’s idea; an advertisement before we enter the site. It’ll help pay for renovations.”

  The woman had just come out of a shower. Wrapped in a towel, she laid on a bed in front of a laptop computer. She spoke to her husband across the Internet through video conferencing software.

  “I miss you too, dear,” she said.

  A second image materialized in juxtaposition to the first. A man in a business suit hunched over his work computer.

  “Honey! Someone will see you.”

  “Don’t you wish!” She threw her wet hair back and revealed some cleavage.

  “I wish I were home.”

  “Why can’t you come home now? Seattle’s not that far from Portland. You could catch a flight tonight and fly back to Seattle in the morning.”

  “I’m sorry, babe. I can’t. Could we meet online?”

  The woman shook her head. “It’s not the same.” The woman took out a credit card. “You know you left me with your VISA card, John.”

  “Damn! I left home without it?”

  She took the card and ran the edge up her side.

  The man held his breath as he watched the screen.

  “Can you see what I am doing with it?” She pressed the card against her breast.

  The man laughed. “You know I can. I really, really wish you wouldn’t do that!”

  She kissed the screen and smiled. “We’ll be waiting,” she said. She slipped the card beneath the towel.

  The images faded as a voice announced: “VISA, it’s everywhere you want to be.”

  “Ah, who’s this, my friend?”

  Steve turned. Ron stood a few feet away, a smirk painted on his Scandinavian face.

  “What kind of ad was that?” Steve said.

  “You didn’t get it?”

  “Of course I got it, and I want it turned off. No more ads. Okay?”

  Ron bowed. “Anything for you. Care to introduce me to your new girl friend?”

  Allison laughed, and Steve cringed. He was glad that the Nexus could not show him blushing.

  “This is Allison Hwang, an associate. We’ll be working together.”

  “Working. I see.” Ron winked.

  Steve turned to Allison. “May I introduce Ron Fisher, our CFO and my social coordinator?”

  “Charming.” Allison extended her hand to Ron.

  He lifted and kissed her hand, then turned to Steve. “Can I show you something?”

  “Let me guess. Taking the lobby off and then online didn’t clean up the graffiti.”

  Ron shook his head.

  “What graffiti?” Allison asked.

  Ron answered her by transporting them from the holding area into the lobby of Nexus Corporation.

  They did not fade in or step through a portal. Steve stumbled to one side before regaining his feet. He heard Allison gasp.

  “Sorry about that,” Ron said. “I haven’t been able to install the dampening software since the hackers did this.” He pointed to the lobby.

  Steve looked around. Profane phrases and icons covered every inch of the lobby’s cathedral walls.

  “Wow!” Allison scanned the lobby. “Someone really, really hates you guys.”

  “I’m sure it was one of Steve’s fans. Nothing is more pleasing to a hacker than embarrassing the guy who started it all.” Ron winked at Allison. “Don’t worry. This won’t be too difficult for him to fix, right?”

  “That depends. How far are you into the lobby’s set up?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Can we alter anything real, like manipulate machines or change production lines from in here?”

  “Not yet,” Ron said.

  “Then I think we’re fine. It looks like the hacker painted over the existing environment, adding to the database, not modifying it.”

  “Uh, what are you guys talking about?” Allison asked.

  “You don’t know anything about the Nexus, do you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Nexus Corporation lives within a computer, specifically a VR server on the Nexus Corporation’s network. Through the Internet, the VR server feeds each of us a perspective of this lobby as we interact with the environment and each other.

  “The VR server treats the lobby as an amalgamation of objects. Every beam, tile, and panel in here is stored in its database. These objects consist of sight, sound, scent, taste, touch, and gravity components. When the hackers came in and vandalized the lobby, they used tools similar to the ones Ron used to design this place. They added objects. They laid them on top of the existing environment. Every graffiti slogan they sprayed appended an object to the database. If we remove the latest objects from the database, the lobby will be restored to its original form. All we have to do is strip off these new objects the hackers added, while looking for signatures which might point to those who did the hacking.”

  Ron laughed. “Steve, you make it all sound so simple.”

  “Well, it made sense to me,” Allison said.

  Ron raised an eyebrow. “And you’re not his girl?”

  “Mr. Fisher, I’m nobody’s girl.”

  “And feisty, too!”

  Allison shot Steve a look.

  He acknowledged with a nod. “It’ll just take a few minutes to clean this up.” Steve pressed a button on his virtual wrist. A rod of metal, six feet long, appeared in his left hand. As he pointed the rod at one of the walls, the graffiti on the wall disappeared.

  “Cool toy! Let me try that.” Ron reached for the rod.

  “Ron!”

  Allison laughed.

  “Can’t you at least pretend we’re professionals?” Steve whispered to Ron.

  “Sorry, friend!” Ron laughed and backed off.

  It took a few seconds for Steve to finish the task. He stepped back and surveyed the room. Down the center of the white marble floor ran a black marble path bordered by threads of turquoise. The path led to the front desk and hallway beyond. Around the edges of the room, white marble pillars jutted skyward supporting a large, domed ceiling, perhaps eighty feet above them.

  “Wow! Not bad!” Allison said.

  No longer covered by graffiti, Steve saw an exposed stream. It cut through the black marble floor near the wall. He walked to it and knelt down. “Computer, activate the sniffer.”

  The sniffer materialized in front of him. In cyberspace it appeared as a rigid, thin sheet of paper with a long glowing tail attached at its base. He took the tail and placed it in the stream. Blocks, letters, numbers, and various symbols appeared on the paper. They materialized left to right and down the page. When they reached the bottom, a clean sheet of paper appeared on top of the first and filled the page with more symbols. The stack of paper continued to grow, one a second, until he had collected about ten pages. Steve frowned.

  “Well, Ron,” Steve mu
ttered, “I hope these were just juvenile hackers.”

  “What is it?” Ron kneeled next to him.

  “Did you see this?”

  Ron shrugged.

  “This stream represents a segment of the network, the segment that connects the VR server to Nexus Corp’s other computers and the Internet at large. It carries day-to-day operational and financial data. Not all of the data is encrypted. The hackers could have used a sniffer like this to access our company’s data, or worse, to insert a virus. You need to cover or encrypt this data stream ASAP.” Steve stood.

  “Has our data been hacked?” Ron asked.

  Steve shook his head. “No way to tell. With backups, we could compare before and after the attack. The graffiti could be camouflage meant to write over the remnants in memory that would show us what programming tools they used to hack the site or to deliver a virus.”

  Ron frowned. “A virus? Are we infected?”

  “I can’t say. Viruses are very small and easy to hide. I won’t go into detail, but an undetected virus is like a spy in an organization. Once accepted as one of the fold, you can’t find it without making every system, program, and data file a suspect.”

  Ron looked confused.

  “Most viruses do the same three things: infect, multiply, and express. After slipping in, the virus will find a vulnerable computer to infect. On any network, usually at least one insecure system exists that is not password protected. Otherwise, it will try various combinations of usernames and passwords on every system until it gets into a system. Once inside, the virus can use a number of methods to multiply and spread across the entire network. Many protocols allow “trusted” systems to talk to one another. Yet, the virus is harmless until it expresses itself and does its master’s bidding. This could be anything. It could start sprawling more political graffiti. It could secretly transmit company data to a competitor, and it could do this whenever. The environment or a timer could trigger it.”

  “This is worse than the war. At least then I was fighting something tangible—something I could see and touch—something that would bleed,” Ron said.

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

  “Not bad?”

  “This is the worst case scenario. The site is new. I don’t think they did anything. Just cover those data streams and start making backups.”

  “Okay, but I’ll page you if anything comes up.”

  Steve nodded. “Anytime.” He looked around. Allison had wandered across the lobby.

  “So, my friend, who’s the new assistant?” Ron asked.

  Steve tore his gaze away from her. “Will you lay off?”

  “Sorry, friend. When you see others suffer, you appreciate your friends and family more, especially those going through hard times.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know.”

  “Ron, I’m not ready for anyone.”

  “That’s my point. You’ll never be ready. You’ll always be desperate. You need a woman.”

  Steve shook his head.

  Ron cocked an eyebrow. “I’m serious, my friend.”

  “I appreciate your concern. If I need a blind date, you’re the first person I’ll call.”

  “You’re worried about Brooke aren’t you?”

  “Of course. Her mother is dead.”

  “Tamara was also your wife. Sometimes I think Brooke holds you back.”

  “Ron, she’s my daughter.”

  Ron looked over Steve’s shoulder and Steve turned to follow his gaze as Allison approached.

  “Are you boys done?”

  “He’s all yours,” Ron said, and then winked and walked off.

  Steve pulled out the file from Austin. “Is this your work?”

  She nodded.

  “What’s in it?”

  “Information about Camille,” Allison said.

  “I’ll need a few hours to review it. We can get together this afternoon.”

  “Can it wait?” Allison asked crossing her arms.

  “It took less than a year for the first victim. I think the investigation can wait a couple of hours. I’ll need time to review what you sent me. Could we meet around four?”

  “Four it is.” She pressed a button on her wrist. “Hwang News Agency.” A portal opened and she stepped through and disappeared.

  Steve pressed the exit button on his wrist and left VR.

  Ron watched as Steve disappeared from the Nexus lobby. He needed to find out why she was here.

  7

  Pitch black surrounded Allison. From the darkness her mother, Jamie Hwang, shouted, “Action!” A thousand miles ahead the Earth appeared, light radiating from its surface. A metal cylinder replaced Allison’s body, immobilizing her. Staring at the Earth, her perception shifted and she realized she was floating above the Earth as it slowly rotated below.

  “It’s a Japanese KH-15B spy satellite,” the disembodied voice of her mother said.

  Through the satellite’s camera Allison recognized the outline of Hainan Island, surrounded by the South China Sea. Through its metal hull, she felt the bone-chilling cold of space, or at least a token of it. Otherwise, the scene was soundless, scentless, though it had a slight metallic taste.

  “Not sexy enough,” her mother said.

  “You said this piece was finished. Ed needs it now,” Allison demanded.

  “I’m just touching things up, dear. Computer, hold it!”

  The scene froze. Allison scanned the collection of gauges and timers fixed in the lower left corner of her vision. Her mother used these to track and alter the scene.

  “Phil, add some space music.”

  A disembodied voice replied, “Which one do you want? I can …”

  “You’re the expert,” Jamie snapped. “Pick something. Make it foreboding.”

  The space around Allison filled with hundreds of deep rumbles. The individual sounds blended into a single source. Merged together, they felt ominous and deep. A gauge displayed a row of ten bars. The last two spiked up and down in cadence with the rumble.

  “Phil, I don’t like these gauges. I need to see, hear, and taste what my audience does. Understand?”

  The gauges disappeared from Allison’s view.

  “Continue!” Jamie shouted.

  The scene restarted and the satellite zoomed in. The South China Sea expanded below. Within seconds, twelve little dots appeared against the deep-blue ocean canvas. The dots expanded and transformed into a dozen Chinese destroyers, frigates, and support ships. They sailed south in a traditional defensive circle east of Hainan Island and just north of the Paracel Islands. The ship cluster was a battle group of the People’s Liberation Army. In its center was Varyag, the first Chinese aircraft carrier.

  An airplane landed on its deck while another slipped beneath the black top and rolled off a flat elevator. The airplanes looked like toys compared to the carrier. The image lingered for a moment as the subliminal tones faded.

  Jaime spoke, her voice superimposed over the scene. “China’s military flexed its muscles on Saturday in what analysts saw as another warning to Hainan Island and their failure to suppress the students’ protests at Haikou University. Recently, Hainan Island regained its distinction and joined Hong Kong and the other Chinese coastal cities as economic free zones. Since then, islanders have pushed for Hainan’s political autonomy.

  “One week ago, students at the University started their public protest, calling for free elections and requesting that the economic autonomous regions on Hainan be expanded to encompass the entire island.

  “Yesterday, on China’s State television, the Guangzhou Military Command in Southern China gave China’s unofficial response. The Chinese News Agency showed PLA’s Army, Navy, and Air Force units taking part in a combined military exercise off southeastern Hainan near the Paracel Island group. In addition, images of the PLA’s airbases, seaports, and Army bases all around Hainan Island showed the island’s military at high alert. A Chinese analyst, w
ho spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the exercises were obviously aimed at Hainan’s leadership. He went on to say that the Island’s economic freedom was not all that was at stake.

  “Today, at the request of the President, the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Ed Davis, met with the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Shen Guofang, in person. The talk centered on the PLA’s military buildup in the region, which is in violation of the China War Treaty. In a Hwang News Service exclusive, we have both parties here to discuss the tenuous situation.”

  The image of the battle group faded. Allison transitioned back into her body. She sat among an audience of thirty. At the front of the quaint room, Shen Guofang and Ed Davis faced one another across a small table. Etched into the virtual floor was a map of the South China Sea, and Chinese collectibles decorated the walls of the room.

  “Good details,” her mother said.

  Both men had dressed appropriately in conservative western dress—suit and tie. Both were well groomed, but Shen appeared overweight. Perhaps her mother could touch him up a bit.

  Ed Davis’ trim six-and-a-half-foot frame made an impression even sitting down. His salt and pepper hair and groomed goatee completed a distinguished and aristocratic air.

  Allison glanced at the time: 10:27 a.m. PST. That made it 1:27 a.m. in Hong Kong where the VR clip was recorded. She grimaced. The clip was almost three hours old. The story was growing stale and Ed was waiting. “How much longer will this take?”

  “Shh,” whispered Jamie.

  The interviewer spoke. “Good evening, Mr. Shen and Mr. Davis.”

  Ed nodded.

  Shen leaned forward and smiled. “I am greatly honored to be here today.”

  Allison wrinkled her virtual nose as the scent of stale sweat wafted to her from Shen.

  “Now that’s a little detail I can do without!” her mom said. “Freeze for a moment, people.”

  The scene stopped and the gauges reappeared.

  “Can’t you guys do anything about that stench?” Jamie asked.

  Allison saw one of the gauges drop a couple of notches and the air became less thick.