“It looks like it’s based on a clock/date value, so we can use this to predict where the thing will be at any given moment.” Kavan rubbed his hands together like a weasel.
“Can you change it?” asked Rallek. “Send the ship wherever we want it to be?”
“That’s more difficult. I don’t think so.” Kavan shook his head. “At least not without a really good chance of being detected. We’d have to bundle it into an update for the production systems, then somehow trick a CSI network person to apply the patch over all the server farms. Far too much effort for no real benefit.”
Fawkes sat up and attacked the file system. “Maybe it’s completely pointless. If I can find the quest files for the contest, we might be able to just jump straight to the endpoint.”
Everyone held their breath as she hunted among file folders. She first tried searching for ‘The Lost Dreadnought,’ the overarching title of the mission tied to the prize money. A nest of files that appeared to be the data from which the live production CSI website fed from contained the leaderboard information… a simple text file the game generated.
“You could light the world on fire by changing a text file,” said Kavan.
She laughed. “Yeah, but I don’t want anyone to know we have this access.”
Other parts of the mission like finding the crashed fighter (Trinary) or dealing with the giant robot in the factory (Research and Development) had sub-mission titles. She couldn’t search for the parts they hadn’t gotten to yet, as she had no idea what they’d been titled.
Nighthawk wandered around the room, fussing with the bookshelves, lamps, and fake plants. Sometimes, he’d mutter ‘bored’ to himself in various pitches.
Fawkes kept hunting, trying a slew of phrases that referenced a phantom ship, a prize, contest, and so on. When frustration mounted, she tried changing the filtering settings to display hidden files. That revealed a folder named ~Armageddon~ which she clicked on as a matter or reflex.
Something with that name had to be worth snooping on.
The topmost file in the sort, aa_readthis.txt, contained a simple message.
“This folder contains the fruits of my final FU to the two bastards. Hopefully, two things have happened. 1) Someone is reading this who possesses a high degree of curiosity and a low degree of love for stab-you-in-the-back corporate weasels. And 2) the little routine I let loose has found dirt worth being shown to someone with high curiosity and little love for stab-you-in-the-back corporate weasels. Do with it as you will, but give them a black eye.”
“Let’s check it out,” said Kavan, still hovering close.
“Are we done yet?” asked Nighthawk. “These quests aren’t doing themselves.”
“Hang on,” said Fawkes. “I think we might’ve just found some real juicy shit.”
“Eww,” said Nighthawk. “That sounds nasty.”
She bowed her head and snickered. “Not literal shit.”
Rallek cracked up loud enough to wake Angel813.
“What time is it?” she yawned.
“10:07 p.m.” Rallek closed the small display window. “Been here about two hours.”
“The silence is so weird,” said Angel813.
Fawkes dove into the files, which contained program modules, design documents, CAD drawings of helmets, and some email chains. She clicked into one email with ‘OMG’ as the subject, and started reading.
With each passing line, her jaw hung open wider. One of the engineers from the hardware team working on the Neurona helmets made an accidental discovery related to the technology that allowed the transmission and reading of information directly into the brain. Evidently, they could ‘prompt’ the brain with stimulus information at a subconscious level and detect locations that responded to it. By reading them, they could effectively query and retrieve information―or in this case, memories. By virtue of this mechanism, CSI had created a way to essentially read the minds of their players based on whatever search criteria they wanted to use.
“Holy shit,” she whispered, paging faster and faster into the email system. “They can hack our brains!”
“What?” Rallek looked up from whatever he’d been distracting himself with. “Are you serious?”
Nighthawk stopped boredom-wandering and stared at her.
“Still reading, hang on.”
More emails, technical white papers, and testing reports showed the company had perfected this application and built it full scale into the Neurona 4 units. CSI had the ability to not only target individual people while they were logged in, and go fishing for whatever memories or information they wanted, they developed an invasive marketing system that could influence behavior like subliminal suggestion taken to an exponential degree.
Fawkes grabbed her face so she didn’t scream. “This is so fucked up…”
“What?” asked Rallek.
“Whoa. They can read our minds,” said Kavan. “Find out what stuff we like and target ads based on that. Or even mine passwords, usernames, private information right out of the brain of anyone wearing a Neurona 4.”
Angel813 whistled. “Damn. Glad I didn’t upgrade then.”
“They can influence us too, like to do things we’d never―” Fawkes shivered as a chill fell over her shoulders. She opened a new window and searched for ‘Steyr.’
In a subfolder of ~Armageddon~, she found more emails, program code, and logs that proved the Gavin Steyr campaign (technically, a super PAC working for him) had paid CSI to prime its players living in New York with the idea to vote for him. Despite that process being prototyped via the Neurona 3 helmets, data corroborated that it had worked, but only at a sixty-two percent uptake rate. Even some staunch opponents who hated the very fiber of Steyr’s being had voted for him and not even realized they’d done so. Their bodies had reacted automatically, obeying the implanted notion.
A lump formed in her throat at the idea someone could make her do something against her will. For an instant, she wanted to fling the helmet off and never go back, but she forced herself to calm down.
“The only way to fight this beast is from inside its belly.” She took a deep breath and kept digging.
Rallek paced around. “These people are selling our innermost thoughts the way corporations used to sell phone numbers or marketing info. That can’t be legal.”
“It’s not illegal until someone makes it illegal.” Kavan nibbled on his fingernails. “Look how long it took them to update the law when the internet happened. Most people wouldn’t even believe something like this is possible, much less actually happening.”
“Right,” said Angel813. “They haven’t made a law against electronic mind reading or control because it’s pure science fiction.”
Fawkes frowned. “Or not. No wonder that pig Steyr won the election. They literally bought it. Goddammit! I might’ve even voted for him and I don’t remember doing that.”
“Ugh.” Angel813 scrunched up her nose. “Isn’t he the guy they caught in a hotel room with like a thirteen-year-old boy?”
“Wasn’t that a girl?” asked Rallek. “And maybe younger than―”
“Don’t wanna hear that,” said Kavan, loud. “Topic change.”
Fawkes glanced at him. He didn’t seem too emotional about it, so she hoped he didn’t have any horrible memories to cope with. “Okay.”
“You all right?” asked Angel813.
“Yeah.” Kavan cast a furtive glance at Nighthawk. “Just not a topic of conversation that belongs in a video game.”
“We’ve gone well past video game here.” Fawkes exhaled hard. “We’re on the moon. This is some serious bullshit. Ooh!” She clicked into a folder named ‘inoculation’ that contained a small module of program code that disabled the thought-mining and influence functionality. “We need this.”
“Yeah. No shit.” Kavan patted her shoulder. “Good find.”
Nighthawk made a sour face at Kavan’s back when he swore.
“So we compile this and our brain
s are safe.” Fawkes sent the modules off to her throwaway email accounts.
Angel813 gnawed on her finger. “Did anyone notice you get in there? If that’s as deep as it sounds like it is, more than our thoughts are going to be in danger if they find out we saw that.”
“Maybe we should get out of here.” Nighthawk headed for the stairs down out of the hidden third story office.
“Gimme a minute.” Fawkes hunched over the keyboard, typing like a fiend. “I can’t just walk away from a gold mine like this. I gotta copy this shit. All of it.”
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” asked Rallek.
She peered up at him past a haze of pink hair. “From a technical standpoint, absolutely. From an ‘I don’t want to get murdered standpoint,’ not so much, but I can’t help it. This is what I do.”
“You think people are going to try to kill you over a contest in a video game?” asked Nighthawk.
“Oh, no… this is way more than that. Some of those documents flirt with the idea of military applications. If the CIA or something gets their hands on this stuff…” She whistled.
Kavan braced a hand on the desk and stood. “How do we know they haven’t?”
Completionist
24
Fawkes knew she’d be up too late tonight, but didn’t care. Not like she’d be able to sleep anyway.
The crew sat around a table in a cantina, still on DB224. This planet had nothing to do with the money mission, so sitting here acted as a distraction for anyone trying to follow their footsteps. That they’d spent hours here would hopefully make people think the next part of the mission was on this planet and they hadn’t been able to find it yet.
A mission share box opened again, from Nighthawk. She sighed and accepted it.
Kavan logged back in, appearing as a wireframe outline of a person for a few seconds, then filling in solid. He’d been the last to log off and on again to reboot the helmet. The software mod that disabled the ‘brain backdoor’ had to go into the helmet itself. Technical documentation in the hidden ~Armageddon~ folder had detailed the process to apply mod code directly to the helmet’s firmware that couldn’t be overridden by a command from a game. This involved uploading the mod to a mini-USB device, and accessing a port at the back of the helmet under a concealed hatch.
The existence of that interface port hadn’t been released to the public. Only CSI engineers and executives knew about it. Granted, telling the universe the helmets had a hidden USB port wouldn’t do much but give her away as having been inside their network. The company could claim they added the port for their technicians to diagnose problems, not for consumer use. Make it sound all innocent and whatnot.
A mission share box opened again, from Nighthawk. She glanced at him, but still accepted it.
“So, we found some serious stuff,” said Fawkes. Since the cantina held no other player characters, only some NPCs, she went over an explanation of what she’d found for ‘those who’d slept through it.’ CSI could steal thoughts and memories straight out of a person’s head or implant suggestions.
“Like, if some car company wanted to know what people wanted most, they could pay CSI to farm that information,” said Fawkes. “Or if they’re scummier, they could pay CSI to give people the sudden urge to go buy a car they choose to make people want.”
“Companies could read the minds of rivals, steal trade secrets,” said Kavan.
“Or get questions before exams,” said Nighthawk.
“Or cheat tests, yeah.” Fawkes chuckled. “But, I think they’d have darker intentions than that.”
“I love these mudslides,” said Angel813. “So good. Just like this place near my old school.”
Fawkes froze, staring at her and the chocolatey drink in her hand. Her mind leapt back to that frightening section of street that reminded her so much of where she almost been date-raped. “Motherfucker…”
Nighthawk cracked up… and shared another quest.
She mashed the decline button.
He leaned back. “Whoa. Sorry.”
Fawkes tucked her hands under her legs to keep them from shaking. “I… They’ve already been reading our minds. This street… I was doing a mission, and this one street looked like a place where something bad happened to me as a kid. So scary… but they did that on purpose! And the sewer full of alien shit! It stank like bad salmon. The worst smell I could remember.”
Nighthawk twisted up his face. “I thought it smelled like puke.”
Kavan grimaced. “Ugh. Now that you mention it, couple years ago, I got food poisoning. Spent three days exploding from both ends. That sewer smelled like a mix of crap and vomit to me.”
“Babe…” Rallek put an arm around her shoulders. “You wanna talk about it? Maybe, uhh, later?”
She nodded. “Maybe.”
“The fries.” Nighthawk stared at his basket of nuggets and fries. “They taste just like the way I love them.”
“Son of a bitch,” muttered Rallek. “This one boss from a solo quest I did last week looked an awful lot like some dude I had issues with in school.”
Angel813 squirmed. “Grabbing bits and pieces of stuff to make the game seem scarier or cooler isn’t quite as messed up as that other stuff you found, but it’s still invasive. There should at least be a warning and an option to turn it off. That could seriously trigger someone who’s been through some bad shit.”
“Yeah,” said Fawkes in a small voice.
Rallek groaned, glancing at a small display screen. “Ugh. Looks like word’s out we’re here. Players are swarming this place looking for the next step of the prize mission.”
“Wouldn’t they have to start at the beginning?” asked Kavan.
“You’d think.” Rallek chuckled.
Angel813 sipped her mudslide. “Might be trying to find information they can sell to someone on that stage. Like, hey I know what to do next. Gimme three hundred bucks and I’ll tell you.”
“People do that?” Nighthawk blinked.
“Some no-lifes in AOO level alts up to sixty and sell the characters,” said Angel813. “Selling information is a lot easier if you can find it.”
Nighthawk shared another quest.
“Dude, what is it with you and these quests?” half-shouted Fawkes.
He shrugged.
“Look, we need to wrap this nasty stuff up in a nice neat little bundle and send it out to the media.” Fawkes looked around at her friends. “We can’t just sit back and let them do this.”
“Never pegged you for lawful good,” said Rallek.
“Huh?” asked Nighthawk.
Fawkes smirked. “I’m not. But I love sticking it to corporations.”
“Wait on that.” Kavan patted her shoulder. “Let’s put this on hold for now until the money’s out of the question.”
“You mean until we win?” asked Nighthawk.
Kavan shrugged. “Until we win or someone else does. I say we keep quiet until we’re not going to screw ourselves. It might be a long shot, but we do have a chance at winning that money. If this blows up now, it could take CSI down with it and there goes the prize.”
“You’re saying a prize is worth more than the power to influence people’s actions on this scale?” Fawkes blinked at him.
“Not worth more, but worth a short delay at least. I’m not saying we never let the cat out of the bag. Just wait for the best time to do it.” Kavan made a finger gun at her. “I dunno about you guys, but I could really use two million bucks.”
“I could agree to that,” said Angel813, “as long as it doesn’t take too long. These people could do a lot of damage.”
“They already have,” muttered Fawkes. “Steyr?”
Angel813 stirred her mudslide. “I’ll agree to a month. If the contest isn’t over by then, we blast to the media.”
Rallek drummed his fingers on the table, creating ripples on the surface of the glowing-green liquid in his fictional cocktail. Dark blue blobs shifted around the base
of the glass. “We also have to consider that ‘going public’ might not do anything. Depends on how connected this is to the three letter agencies. For all we know, the only thing we’ll accomplish is letting them know we have the defense mod, and they’ll change the code to ignore it. For the moment, I like having my brain protected.”
“Okay.” Fawkes absentmindedly scratched at her head. The fringe rat in her screamed to blow this wide open without hesitation, but she couldn’t in good conscience put her crew at risk without their full consent. “We give it at least a month, and see what things look like then?”
“Crap,” whispered Kavan. “Players incoming.”
A flood of around forty characters entered the cantina, mostly human with a handful of other races. Everyone stopped what they were doing, the whole bar quiet (except for the background music) when a Draath with violet stony skin in jet back armor thudded in. He took a seat at a table, further proving this place existed as a computer game. A 900-pound alien made of rock should have crushed the relatively flimsy chair.
Among the crew of the Stormbringer, conversation shifted to Nighthawk attempting to talk everyone into running quests with him on the planet. Angel813 kept bringing up small things she’d seen or experienced in the past that reminded her a lot of her real life. Fawkes figured that because she had the Neurona 3, the game’s ability to read from her was limited, hence drinks, a smell here or there, or music that kinda sounded like her favorite songs.
Sitting on this information felt so wrong, but if anyone got hurt, Fawkes would have the added weight of breaking their trust on top of that. Argh! She sank into a torrent of worry and guilt over the information they’d discovered.
“Why hello there,” cooed a woman’s voice. “What’s your name, handsome?”
Fawkes detangled her brain from her inner argument and peered over and up at a bronze-skinned Niath woman standing by Nighthawk and giving him the ‘I want to devour you’ eyes. So far, most Niath she’d seen had radiated innocence. Not this one. No, this woman radiated the exact opposite in her metal-cupped halter-top, a long loincloth so thin it pushed the character from anime into hentai, and high-heeled armored boots that came up to her thighs.
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