by Andrew Ives
Languages only compounded the virtual agoraphobia and Karen knew the time had come to give it up. What had once been only a small foray into comms had spiralled into an all-encompassing entity which had become too much for one person to cope with; something far bigger than its constituent parts. 'The world at your fingertips' had truly become a double-edged sword.
Giving up the Net took willpower, especially when daily shopping and occasional work brought her to the same terminal where the Net voices beckoned.
Thankfully, for Karen, the Net became progressively more user-friendly. WIMP systems suddenly made the Net universally accessible, swamping it with kids and other computer-illiterate halfwits. Hardcore users left in their droves, choosing to die Net death rather than cohabit with lamers.
In Karen's mind, the Net died around the same time.
Surfing
Fortunately, Karen had been saved untold time and aggravation by using Harry's 'phone book' rather than her own. Hers stored only outdated business and personal numbers as opposed to Harry's which stored anything and everything of moderate interest. His recent lists named dozens, if not hundreds, of promising and knowledgeable wrongdoers; the kind Karen sought for help in retrieving (or at least sabotaging) the PsiNapse software.
On loading Harry's comms software, the screen became scattered with 'data door' icons, a click of which dialled the respective entry in the phone book. It was visually displeasing to Karen who still longed for the days when you had to at least understand some Unix to use the Net, now a shadow of its former self. If only the Net could be a two-tier system...
Karen handed over controls to Harry explaining the kind of person she was looking for and asked him if he knew anyone fitting that description. Harry rang around, asking his usual circle of friends if they knew anything of the 'Think Plunger' or of anyone who did, to which they were all predictably unhelpful.
Kids with handles like 'Wolfslayer' and 'Phantazm' were always going to be a dead loss. (It is common knowledge that in cyberspace, the more menacing a handle the person possesses, the more likely they are to be a weasel of a kid, allowed only to have plastic scissors and in bed by eight. Real-life menace is inversely proportional to a handle's apparent menace. It was on these strangely logical grounds that Karen signed herself 'Tickled Pink', the most soft and girly name she could think of when she was fifteen. She also found that girls were such a rarity in the far-reaches of cyberspace, advertising the fact opened more doors than it closed.)
It was approaching eight-thirty and Karen was hoping the real hackers would be logged on by now. She had Sedgwick's card details to give out and she wasn't going to give them away lightheartedly. She wanted hard information and these cards were going to buy it.
Harry noticed Karen's confidence in him wane with every failure and it was getting late - 'Wolveriiine' had to be in bed soon.
Harry told Karen she could keep his drive and disks, he wouldn't be needing them tonight and left her to find the contacts herself; exactly as she had hoped. Another nuit blanche began.
Kindred Spirit
Harry's friends' friends' friends had led Karen to some cyberdive where pirated games, hacks, cheats and passwords were exchanged. These items were a form of currency among this underworld community and knowledge was indeed power here. Karen scanned the vastly exaggerated tales of hacking prowess which scattered the board, trying to sieve the truth from the fiction.
Further dial-ups were mentioned and Karen set off on a tour of the most intellectual-sounding sites. Indirectly, these led the way to Captain Snort and ultimately to his acquaintance, Cyclops.
Cyclops was the most promising hacker she had found all night. He boasted of infiltrating one of the more valued scalps - Dreamland. His was the umpteenth claim she had read tonight, but something rang true about his account of his escapades, especially the 'ThinkPlunger.notes' he left as proof. They didn't sound concocted, they spoke of complicated matters he could not have known otherwise.
The time was approaching eleven and she hoped Cyclops hadn't yet logged off. She mailed him, asking for him to elaborate - she may have something he wanted.
Simon Allen had left his modem on, turning his attention to his printer, still churning out lengthy printouts. They were something special, he didn't quite know what but they were definitely special. He wondered whether he did the right thing gloating to his friends immediately, perhaps he should have thought it through more. It was done now.
He had pulled his assembler window over his comms software on the screen and was reading this program while pencilling sparse notes on the printout. They were wild guesses; he was really out of his league with this high-brow stuff.
The computer beeped, interrupting him:
Email from NODE 190994 at 22:58 on 11-12-19. Reply?
Simon pressed 'Y' and was taken to the incoming mail. Knowing the familiar node number to be his local BBS, he was surprised to find a letter from an unknown admirer of his work - or a Dreamland agent?
Cyclops,
Re: Bulletin and ThinkPlunger.notes. I believe you. May have something to interest you in exchange for some information. Urgent!
RSVP, Tickled Pink.
Simon warily replied that it was true, he did hold information on accessing Dreamland's LAN and that he was willing to divulge this at the right price. He played his cards close to his chest, whilst actually willing to swap just about anything. He figured that the more people that knew how to hack Dreamland, the less chance there was of them tracing the break-in to him.
Tickled Pink replied that she had credit card numbers, holding considerable amounts of money and that he could help himself to it if he was willing to take such a risk.
Before long, Cyclops had told her of 'Rumpelstiltskin!' and she likewise had told him of Staffs & Norfolk, 'Sedgwick S,' a 2400Hz alarm clock as voice input and money for the taking. She warned Cyclops to withdraw the remaining money in small amounts so 'as not to arouse suspicion.' In reality, this was so he would make multiple calls, hiding her own illegal withdrawals in that direction.
Simon warned her that Dreamland's files were written by 'serious propellerheads' and that they shouldn't be meddled with lightly.
Each was wary of the other, but as this info-exchange was in both of their interests, whether they were betrayed or not, they both decided to take the chance. They thanked each other and never met again.
Verbatim
Karen couldn't believe just how easy access was to Dreamland; they were accessible by using a mere visitor's ID and a single password. After that, their whole network was available for plundering. (At Psi, they had compartmental, heirarchical, multi-password access when they weren't even susceptible to hacking anyway, being physically isolated from the Net. Everyone worked on a need-to-know basis.)
It seemed as though everyone had pooled their separate files and ideas into one giant partition; as if everyone needed to work together.
After a casual glance around, Karen was astonished to find her work. Although she fully expected it to be around, in some guise or other, under lock and key - she never expected to find it had been copied verbatim, her own sparse comments remaining intact having only been lengthened. There was even a part to one particular routine where she had forgotten to delete a comment after altering the surrounding program, causing some bewilderment to her 'benefactors'. Other larger, more complicated parts were just disabled not deleted - their very existence confirming the whole project's true origins.
It was certainly her work; and more infuriatingly, it was Eric's too. Even Dreamland were probably unaware of PsiNapse's most serious misgivings. Something had to be done.
Deleting and blatantly destroying everything would be just some kind of warning to Dreamland; effectively just 'showing her hand.' Dreamland doubtlessly had backup copies, then they would just change their password and prevent anyone from doing further damage. It would only be a minor setback to them.
Covertly altering a vital piece of code looked a
more sensible avenue of attack - the program was still fresh in her memory and in particular, her array matching algorithm. There was one vital conditional branch command that, if the condition was changed, would cause a jump to a different memory location. There was no telling where this location might be, thus introducing a near-undetectable, major bug which would usually cause a crash. It would take her ages to find such a stubborn bug; these novices would stand no chance.
It was apparent from Harry's magazine that the game was nearing completion, wasting costly time testing would be avoided where possible and this minor alteration should get overlooked. She changed a few more loop counters to make certain and saved the file once more.
She logged off, safe in the knowledge that she had righted this wrong. She could simply come back in a few days time and add to it again if need be.
Harry's comms program exited and just as Karen went to turn the power off, she was momentarily greeted by some cryptic poem.
An instant later, she rocked the power switch and it was gone.
* * *
Crashes
Wednesday morning came as a sudden blow to JJ. When he arrived at his desk, he found a prototype EPROM laying on his mousemat with a yellow Post-It note attached. His hand wavered beside the note as he read:
JJ. Attached EPROM fails almost every time. Symptom seems to be spurious jumping to random destinations. Lucky we found it before running off a couple of thousand copies. Test it thoroughly next time! Downstairs Tech Dept.
This was the kind of start to the day that every programmer dreads; an apparently faultless program coming back bug-ridden, spelling a long dose of heavy-duty disassembling and general aggravation. It always seemed to happen when a program was urgent, never when there was no particular hurry. Intermittent and spurious faults were the most stubborn and laborious to fix too.
'...and a good morning to you!' grumbled JJ under his breath as he violently tore the note off, his spirits having instantly diminished to nil.
Trelheaven would appear soon and JJ knew he had only a hopelessly short time to rectify the problem before another certain grilling. The Deimos game had been completed ages ago - shortly after the Think Plunger's spec was decided on, and every further day delayed was costing Dreamland dearly.
JJ turned on his computer and waited for the assembler to load; a process he had been through innumerable times before with this now irritating program. When faced once more with the familiar code text files, his heart sank. It looked exactly the same as ever.
Jack Frost Nipping At Your Nose
Some distance away, that same December morning was proving far more enjoyable for two teenage truants. Wrapped up to the nines, they trudged through snow and slush, into warm and welcoming electrical retailers - their personal idea of Shangri-La. Seasonal music blared from every available speaker adding to the feeling of home from home.
Simon had gleefully withdrawn everything from Tickled Pink's mystery account (something he had experienced many times before) - every penny of which was now folded in a bundle in his coat pocket. The money had remained in Simon's own account for only a single night and now he intended to spend every bit of it - cash. Credit cards recorded transactions and Simon wanted this hot money's very existence spent as swiftly and quietly as possible.
This particular Wednesday also happened to be a school day; not something Simon or Jeff were worried about - it would be far stranger for them to put in an appearance on a PE day than for them to bunk off. What sensible person wants to play rugby in December, diving in icy slush with gorillas from the year above landing on you? They didn't - especially not when they had free money to blow on shiny new gadgets.
Five minutes later, they emerged together beaming like Cheshire Cats. Jeff held carrier bags in each hand, the headphones draped around his neck announcing delight with his new mini-stereo.
Simon struggled with a huge white box; the strength of such a weedy kid amazingly bolstered by the joy imbued in him by such a valuable and treasured purchase - a Christmas present from Rumpelstiltskin.
They both scuttled homewards through a dark alleyway opposite and onto a departing street train.
Seasonal Hubbub
Karen stood on a chair in her barren lounge, affixing the second end of a lone and sorry-looking paper chain so that it swooped over her television like a sword of Damocles, waiting to set her house alight the moment the adhesive gave way. Realising Stikkitak might not hold the chain as firmly as she would like, she changed her mind and moved the chair around the room. She cursed as she picked the Stikkitak off in microscopic pieces, leaving a greasy blue-grey stain on her otherwise unblemished ceiling.
Christmas was an annoying ritual and she never could understand quite why she put herself through it. Her childhood memories of it overseas were not particularly rosy; her adoptive aunt being even less keen on such commercial festivities. People buying presents they couldn't afford for people who didn't appreciate them seemed widespread lunacy, but despite all her reservations she persevered, like everyone else, year after year.
The phone rang, so she tore the chain down and left it in a tangle on the floor.
It was Wilkins. The camera at his end was turned off, leaving her screen black. She turned hers off too before picking up the handset.
Karen knelt on the arm of her settee, hurriedly sweeping away the paper doily angel and plastic snowmen occupying the seat, so she could sit down and listen more intently.
She put Harry's present, a VR hanggliding game that didn't need Think Plunger, on the floor beside her as Wilkins began to speak.
Incoming Call
"Is that you, Karen?" asked the caller, receiving only a blank screen.
"Yes. I suppose you know about Sedgwick then? I didn't intend for everything to end quite the way it did, but that gun you gave me was..." She answered at length before being interrupted.
"It doesn't matter now. Things don't always go to plan. I understand that our equipment fell into the hands of a third party..?" He paused, prompting Karen to elaborate on the details.
"It seems Sedgwick stole the headset before I had a chance to retrieve it. The night I broke into Psi, I was shot at and realise now in hindsight that it was stolen immediately after I was forced to leave." Karen knew the truth made her sound incompetent, but she said it anyway.
"So the day when I visited, I emailed you from downstairs on the morning the project's termination was announced." She mumbled in affirmation while he continued.
"After we eavesdropped on Sedgwick's mobile phone from outside and became certain then that he was about to breach security, we had to move quickly; so why didn't you steal it that day?" asked Wilkins, somewhat puzzled.
"I had to put up some kind of remonstration as cover. I couldn't just sit there and be fired quietly - I'd have been suspected immediately. Instead I made arrangements so that I could easily break in that night." Karen knew this sounded even worse but persevered all the same.
"When I broke in, it was all going fine when, before I could get to the headset, another burglar arrived causing me to flee. I narrowly escaped empty handed and somehow afterwards, the labs were burnt down. I assumed then that the equipment was destroyed in the fire, but I now know Sedgwick did manage to retrieve it and sold it on to a third party. With the confusion caused by Eric's simultaneous departure, I couldn't understand how Sedgwick could be killed in the fire and steal the hardware. It didn't make sense - until he turned up the other day." Karen felt she had explained her side of the story as well as she could be expected to given the complications she had had to contend with.
"And the money?" asked Wilkins impatiently, by now becoming tired of endless excuses, although he checked that Eric's swipe card had been used by the perpetrator to leave the building and it was logical for her to assume that Eric had been the murderer rather than the victim.
"Like you expected, Sedgwick paid all of it into his account. It appears he did spend some, but at the same time earned about
the same again selling PsiNapse. I withdrew my agreed two-hundred and then used the remainder to buy information." She wondered whether Wilkins knew just how much Sedgwick actually had, but she opted to gamble on lying.
"This led you to Dreamland etc. Have you made absolutely certain that all their code is destroyed? No trace of PsiNapse software should ever survive anywhere outside our hands." Karen was beginning to wonder if Wilkins ever said anything other than ask questions.
"The information I bought was how to access their system, which I managed as anonymously and discretely as possible. I found their whole network extremely open and susceptible to attack. They apparently didn't understand much of the PsiNapse code and so it was an easy matter to introduce several bugs into it without them noticing. I left them a logic bomb and it seems they are already infected with a particularly harmful strain of virus. Not much will survive. With their lax security, It won't be long before everyone on the Net has infiltrated them to some degree; We have no worries on that count." Karen was sure the software was safe.
"So they probably have the hardware intact, but not the software to run on it?" Yet another question.
"Not really. Before leaving work at Psi, I pulled handfuls of wires from our most recent headset and threw it, damaging most of the delicate custom chips; Putting that back together would be harder than starting from scratch." She smiled as she realised she was covered from all angles.
"And Sedgwick is out of the picture too. Good." An uncomfortable silence followed, before he continued.