by D. B. Goodin
“I have an old friend who works at the FBI. Do you want me to contact him?” Sally asked.
“Really?”
“Let me put you in touch with him. His name is John.”
“Thanks! You are a true friend,” Ellen said.
“Don't mention it. That’s what friends are for.”
Ellen was able to get some food for the family thanks to Nigel’s help. When she got home from work Sunday, she sighed as she looked at the clock. 7:03 p.m., long after Nigel and Ralphie's dinnertime. There was no sign of her boys, but she did find empty pizza boxes in the kitchen trash.
It's just as well, Ellen thought. Ellen was broke, even with Nigel’s gift, but apparently Nigel had more saved so they could get some pizza. Perhaps she’d been too hard on Nigel for wanting to help with the finances.
She also needed to get in touch with her divorce attorney. Rick’s last alimony payment was over a month late! At least he’d been keeping up with child support payments.
Her cell phone rang.
“Is this Ellen? This is Agent Appleton calling. Our mutual friend, Sally, gave me your information.”
“Thanks for calling back.”
“I need some more information from you. I have been tracking a similar case and want to make as many correlations as possible. Can I stop by?”
“Yes, please do. I'm at my wit’s end here,” Ellen said with genuine anguish in her voice.
“I will leave now. Give me thirty minutes.”
Agent Appleton gathered information from Ellen's computer.
“So do you know how my computer got hacked?” Ellen asked.
Agent Appleton looked at her like she was a dullard; his gaze was intimidating to say the least.
“Not yet. I will need to give the information to our forensics guys. It may take a while,” Agent Appleton said.
After the evidence was collected, Ellen showed him to the door, and he promised to be in touch. Ellen had an uneasy feeling about all of this.
Gregor sent an encrypted, high-priority communication to all members of The Collective. He found the true identity of one of the authors of Dark Glider, a frequent poster to many community forums that created cheats for The Colossal Machine.
“The real name of the poster who released the Dark Glider code is Len. He didn't have a last name, but I was able to obtain an address in Los Angeles, California.”
Alexei immediately sent a response: “Please call me on my secure line ASAP.”
When Gregor called Alexei, he sounded far away.
“How did you find the author of Dark Glider?” Alexei demanded.
“He got sloppy. His IP address was logged on one of the Dark Web servers. He must have forgotten to use his VPN, or the connection dropped. I have seen this before with people that think that the MORP browser will completely protect them,” Gregor explained. “I was able to exploit the web server and download the entire connection log to find the IP. Getting the rest of the information was easy.”
“Good work. I will get the team on this.”
The Colossal Machine had been so popular that Pretzelverse Games had barely been able to keep up with maintenance, let alone create an expansion. However, Alexander Vandervoss insisted that one be developed. As a result, the main cadre of developers that led the original team were whisked away to a secret company retreat to develop an expansion for one of the most successful games of all time.
John Appleton read the latest subversive list briefings that were published surrounding any activity in Eastern Europe, where his main focus was Collective activity. A massive multiplayer online game was hardly the focus of his day-to-day work, but he had a personal interest in games or programs that captured the imagination of the general public.
How could a company with a modest development staff release an expansion at this breakneck speed?
As far as John knew, the game had been out for a few months before the expansion was announced at the All Games conference in Southern California. One of the more disturbing aspects of The Colossal Machine’s expansion was integrating DNA samples into the game. One of the previous bulletins published about The Colossal Machine discussed the process in detail:
“Pretzelverse Games has introduced a new feature named P.E.T. 2.0, which stands for Personal Entity Tracker version 2. There is no official explanation of the acronym. Pretzelverse wants to convince pet owners to scan their pet's DNA into The Colossal Machine, to play with their pets in the virtual space. However, test players soon realized that they no longer owned the rights to their pets, their likeness, or even their names. They all became property of Pretzelverse Games.”
The report continued with a highly technical explanation of the FBI’s understanding of the process. John thought scanning and filing DNA was all pretty creepy.
During the beginning of their first break, Sally joined Ellen in the lounge.
“Did John reach out to you?”
“Yes, he came over last night. He said that forensic lab technicians will need to sift through the data on my computer before they can identify the hack.”
“Oh. I don’t know what was involved, but that seems a little extreme,” Sally said. “I had another thought concerning your bank account.”
“Oh?”
“I’m not sure what checking account you have, but the top tier account has certain protections against fraud. The bank calls it zero-liability protection, which means if your account gets hacked and it's not your fault, you will get your money back. It’s worth looking into if you haven’t already,” Sally said.
“Thank you. That’s good to know.”
After her shift ended, Ellen stopped by the bank.
“I’m afraid that protection is not on your account,” Joyce said.
“I have the Checking Premium account that the bank offers. It clearly states in the terms of service that I have this protection,” Ellen said. She’d done her research.
“Let me check with the branch manager. One minute, please.”
Ellen waited for the branch manager with a pang of concern. It was five minutes before closing. They better not even think about throwing her out.
After another ten minutes, Gordon, the branch manager, appeared. Ellen could see that he was scheming against her behind those round glasses.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Watson,” Gordon said. “I reviewed your account history, and you did indeed have the zero-liability protection when you opened the account. However, last spring we modified our portfolio and asked each account holder to affirm their coverages. I regret to inform you that since you failed to reaffirm your coverage, you no longer have this protection.” Gordon gave her a sheepish grin.
“I never received any notice.”
As soon as she uttered the words, she remembered some flyers the bank had sent out. She had thought they were junk mail.
“I assure you that they were sent out. We gave you sixty days to respond. Since you failed in this capacity, we automatically unenrolled you,” Gordon said in a monotonous drone.
Ellen took this as a personal attack.
“You people are incredible. You screw us in every which way with exorbitant fees, then when we need your help, you refuse! You people are fucking incredible,” Ellen screamed.
Other customers were looking at her like she just escaped the nuthouse.
If Gordon was angry, he didn’t show it.
“I’m truly sorry, Mrs. Watson. If you require a loan, I will personally authorize up to ten thousand dollars immediately.”
Ellen began to calm down. She just wanted the nightmare to end.
“Thank you, Gordon, but I’ll decline for now.”
“If you change your mind, the offer stands.”
Viktor enjoyed traveling to the west coast of the United States. He rarely got to see such nice and sunny weather. It took him over twenty hours to make the journey, but it was worth it to see the sun.
Len was at work when he received an alert that he had visitors. His sec
urity system was configured to track all movement around his home and alert him if someone lingered at the door or if a break-in occurred. Len looked at the security app on this phone, but saw no one. He tapped on the icons in the app to view recorded footage. He saw a man wearing a trenchcoat and a large-brimmed hat. It was a sunny but cool day in Los Angeles, and the person didn’t stay long, so Len dismissed the threat.
Len always worked late into the evenings. He rarely took his work home, because if he did, he would risk the source code getting out. As soon as he finished, he headed home.
Len’s front entrance was obscured by several plants and other vegetation. Remembering the alert, he felt a bit uneasy and briefly examined the app, which assured him that his home was safe. According to the app, all of the locks, doors, and windows were secure.
He entered his home and was relieved to find no one lurking in his living or family room. He turned the light on in the kitchen—and found a man sitting at the head of his dining table. He was tall and had a medium build but was not menacing. He was dressed exactly like the man in his security video.
“The boss wants to see you,” Viktor said as he raised a pistol and shot Len in the neck with a dart. Seconds later, Len was out cold.
Viktor rummaged through Len’s pockets, pulled out his wallet, and removed the driver’s license which verified that his first name was Leonard, surname Stanovich. He removed his smartphone and launched the Collective Systems app. He positioned the driver’s license next to Len’s face so both were visible in one frame. Time to transport the luggage.
Chapter 11
Alexander walked into the official research and development corridor of Pretzelverse Games for updates on the pet tracker project. He confronted the first person he saw.
“Hey, who’s in charge here?”
“Who are you?” asked the technician.
“I’m Alexander Vandervoss, your boss!” Alexander snatched a glance of the name tag hanging from the technician’s belt. “So, what do you say, Jackson?”
“Yes, please follow me, Sir!”
Alexander followed the technician down a series of hallways. Each major research area had thick glass walls that stretched from floor to ceiling in most areas. Most of the rooms contained technicians that were dressed in lab coats, and some had bio suits. Jackson abruptly stopped at a door marked, RESTRICTED—AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY, in large red letters.
“Try your badge, Sir.”
Alexander waved his access card; the reader returned a loud audible beep and a red light flashed.
“Wait here, Sir.”
“Why can’t I go in?”
“It’s your own rule, Sir, no tailgating.”
Jackson used his badge to enter the restricted area and left Alexander to his thoughts. Alexander gained a little more respect for Jackson for challenging him to use his badge at the restricted lab. Alexander considered stepping up Security Awareness training.
A few minutes later, a rather tall man in a cowboy hat greeted Alexander in the hallway.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Vandervoss. I’m Ron Allison, head of laboratory control.”
The two men briefly shook hands. Ron motioned for Alexander to follow him.
“I think you might be more comfortable in my office,” Ron said.
Alexander followed Ron down a few more hallways before Alexander entered a very sparse office. Except for several diplomas, Ron had no personal possessions in the office.
“That is quite the accent,” Alexander said. “American south?”
“No, Sir. It is Texan.”
Alexander examined the diplomas and noticed that Ron held a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering from the University of Southern California and a master’s in transgenics from the University of Texas.
“California for undergraduate and Texas for master’s?”
“I’ve been interested in biology since my first frog dissection in junior high. I wanted the best education that I could afford,” Ron said proudly. “I graduated summa cum laude from UCLA, and from there got the attention of other universities around the country. I chose the University of Texas at Austin to be closer to family. I’m originally from Abilene, but I figured Austin was in the same state at least.”
“If that’s the case, how did you make your way to us here in Munich?” Alexander asked.
“My son is stationed in Germany. He brought his family here, so if I want to see him more than once a year… Hey, you didn’t come to have me yammer on about my education. How can I help you?” Ron asked.
Alexander was fascinated by Ron’s background, as he knew few Americans with such dedication to their education, but he did have more important things to do.
“I came down to get a status on the pet tracker.”
“When I saw that press release, I knew there would be trouble.”
“Trouble? Please elaborate,” Alexander said.
“I’m afraid we are still years off from execution of the pet restoration phase of the project. I mean, we have perfected the DNA acquisition process, but the restoration—or ‘cloning’ phase, as some would call it—needs a lot more work. I know the marketing department wants to capitalize on our work because I saw the preliminary marketing materials available on the Verse.”
“Those are in development. You weren’t supposed to see that yet!” Alexander said.
“Well, I think we have a permissions problem. If you don’t want me in something, then I shouldn't have access to it,” Ron said in a matter-of-fact voice. “I check the Verse daily for news about the company. I assumed that is why we have an intranet to begin with.”
“You have a point, Ron, but rumor has it that you have successfully cloned at least one animal.”
“At a great cost.”
“How long did the animal last?”
“Only a few days. Even if we figure out a way to fully restore the animal, the actual cost is prohibitive for the average person.”
“How much?” Alexander demanded.
“Well over $50,000 per animal. It is much safer and more feasible to restore them in a virtual world. That was the original plan,” Ron said. “Cloning in the real world is a more recent development. I had planned to include all of these details in my monthly report, but your personal visit preempted that.”
“I need you to provide daily reports of your progress directly to me from now on!”
“What’s the rush? We are moving as fast as we possibly can with my current staff and funding levels. We will get there in due time.”
“Would it help if I could bring in another geneticist?”
“Yes, but certain tests just take time to complete. Our computers are simply not capable of running any faster.”
“Let me worry about getting you faster equipment. You will have the geneticist by the end of the week,” Alexander said. “Carry on. I will not take any more of your time,” he finished as he left Ron’s office in a hurry, leaving Ron to wonder how it was possible.
Alexei Breven sat in his subterranean office below the cottage. He pulled up The Collective’s problem dashboard, which consisted of a listing of eliminations that were pending. Paid eliminations or threats to business operations had the highest priority. Alexei pressed the intercom button.
“Please send in Ioann.”
A tall, physically-fit, middle-aged man appeared.
“Privyet, Alexei.”
“How are you, my old friend?”
“I’ve been keeping occupied with some freelance work, which has been drying up in recent years. Not many have need for an old fixer like me.”
“Well, I asked you here because I do have need of your services. There is something off about the organization,” Alexei said. “I will pay double your normal rate. I need someone I can trust to take care of some wet work.”
“I’m wrapping up a job now but can be available in a few days. Is that okay?”
“Yes, that should be fine.” Alexei threw a rather large envelope in Ioann�
��s direction. “This is a sign-on bonus. From now on, I’m your only client.”
“Call in the interns,” Alexei barked into the intercom.
Within minutes, Viktor received a call from dispatch.
“What is tollsgate?” the voice of the unknown dispatcher asked.
“It is a bridge,” Viktor replied with the code word of the day.
The dispatcher confirmed that the code was correct, then demanded to know his present location.
“Just left American airspace, approximately 300 miles off the coast of Maine. Estimated arrival time in Minsk is ten hours with the Glider,” Viktor said.
“Establish the Farstahl protocol.”
Viktor had approximately forty-eight hours to initiate the Farstahl protocol before the boss came calling on him. Viktor put down the drink he was enjoying. Time to get to work.
Viktor headed toward the rear of the jumbo jet that was part of The Collective’s private fleet. There were two compartments in the rear of the jet for storage and communications. Viktor opened the storage compartment and saw Len, bound to a sleeping bed. Viktor could never sleep on planes; lying down on them always gave him nausea. He hoped Len was feeling nauseous.
“Enjoying your accommodations, Comrade?” Viktor said with a smile on his face.
“Who are you?” Len demanded.
“I’m the UPS driver, here to deliver a very important package to a very important customer. Now go back to sleep,” Viktor said as he shot Len with another tranquilizer dart.
Viktor made sure that the package was secure, then shut and locked the compartment door. He entered the communications compartment. A barren desk and a seat attached to the floor were the only pieces of furniture. Viktor felt along the side of the desk and found the button that opened the compartment just in front of the desk. Viktor took the laptop out of the compartment, powered it on, and connected it to the nearest satellite. Viktor followed the instructions for the Farstahl protocol, then put the equipment away and returned to his drink.