Was someone planning a chlorine gas attack?
I finished patching the remaining cables and began connecting them into the switch. There didn’t appear to be any servers in the rack – just a few big switches that uplinked all the connections elsewhere. All the cables were neatly labelled by room number, with additional cables for hallways and common areas. This gave me an idea.
I pulled a router out of my bag, and patched in one of the cables and my laptop. Sure enough, I hit the IP address the router had assigned to the cable with a web browser, and I was looking at a live video feed from the perspective of a smoke detector inside a hotel room. As I’d suspected, I’d just finished wiring the entire hotel for video in a separate network isolated from the main security feed.
Ethernet cables include four twisted pairs of wires, but you only really need two twisted pairs to make a valid connection. It’s not difficult to make an Ethernet splitter and run two parallel Ethernet connections down the same cable. I had all the hardware I needed. Nearly a week away from the big meeting, there’d still be a good number of open rooms. I consulted my reservations list for a room near mine that would be empty tonight – 228, perfect, just one floor down and one room away.
I put on a fresh pair of rubber gloves to leave no fingerprints on the particular cables I needed to manipulate. I found the Ethernet cable for room 228 and traced it as far back into the wall as I could. I carefully removed the insulation and shielding from the cable to expose the twisted pairs. I isolated the white/orange and orange wire pair and the white/green and green wire pair. Then, I isolated the white/blue and blue wire pair and the white/brown and brown wire pair. I pushed a piece of heat shrink up the wire out of the way, and I spliced in two Ethernet cables, twisting the appropriate wires together. I plugged in my soldering iron and melted a little dab of solder on each twist. I wrapped a few turns of electrical tape around each individual connection, then I pulled the heat shrink over the top of the splice. I hit it with a blast from my heat gun to cover up my handiwork. I now had an extra Ethernet cable. I labeled it “utility,” and plugged it in one of the switches. I removed the rubber gloves and let my sweaty hands cool.
I’d deliberately left the uplink unplugged, so I could be sure the surveillance system was disabled. The hotel security system used obvious cameras, and there weren’t any in the basement. I decided to look around. The acrid smell assaulted my nose as soon as I opened the door of the well-ventilated utility room. I took a closer look at the “pool chemical” storage area. On closer examination, there was a door in the wall. I oriented myself. Odd room number side. First floor. End of the hall. The mysterious room 129.
I heard someone unlock the door to the warehouse. I quickly retreated to the IT room. I busied myself with one last inspection of the panel.
Mr. Humphreys opened the door. “Done yet?”
“Just finishing up,” I explained.
He looked surprised that I was already done, and then he frowned at me. “Power’s out on the uplink.”
“I have a bad connection. I haven’t been able to fix it,” I explained, pointing to the dead light next to the port for room 228. “This end seems fine. It may be a problem on the other end.”
He surveyed my work, grumbling at a few minor cosmetic imperfections, but all the other network activity lights lit right up. “Get up to Room 228 and check it out. We’re supposed to have this online today. It’s urgent.”
“Yes, sir,” I acknowledged, although if it were that urgent, you’d think he’d have been helping me.
Ten minutes later I was in Room 228, duplicating my splitter and connecting it to a wireless router, just like the ones already mounted throughout the hotel. My router wouldn’t connect anyone to the Internet, though, only to the internal surveillance network. I hid the network name, the SSID, on the router, so my backdoor would not easily be discovered.
The rest of the day I spent working with Mr. Humphreys on a similar setup at the Westin near the Convention Center. It seemed all the hotels were being connected in a massive surveillance system in anticipation of the big meeting. We finished up, then Mr. Humphreys directed me to help out in the grunt work with the rest of the interns at the Convention Center. No money was wasted on air conditioning the place for the benefit of us IT minions. We were all tired, dirty, and sweaty from our day’s work crawling around the Convention Center, laying cable, and installing wireless access points.
When we all got back to the hotel, there was a happy hour going on – the hotel was offering nacho chips and beer. The breakfast area was full of well-dressed college students. My grubby jeans and the dirty clothes of the other TAGS interns were out of place among the nicely-creased slacks. There was Amit. We made eye contact, and then we studiously ignored each other. Mr. Humphreys had abandoned us TAGS interns in his haste to head up to his room and get changed. I motioned to Johnny and headed on into the fray. He and the rest of the TAGS intern crew followed my lead.
I got a bunch of curious looks as I broke through the crowd and helped myself to some nachos and a Coke.
“So, what brings y’all here?” I broke into a group that had a number of rather attractive young women. There was a pause as they looked at each other.
“We’re with the Civic Youth,” explained one of the girls.
“Oh is that some kind of church summer camp or what?”
Another girl snorted awkwardly, almost choking on her Coke. I saw Amit hovering a few feet away listening to me.
“We’re learning leadership skills,” the first girl explained haughtily. What are you doing here?”
“Installing IT infrastructure,” I explained.
“Oh,” she said dismissively. “You’re a techie. My father has thousands of techies like you working for him at his bank.” I was no longer of interest.
“Did you get one of your dad’s techies to pick out those shoes?”
“What?” She looked at her feet, and then back at me.
“They look very comfortable. Not at all what I would have expected.” I’d managed to confuse her. She stared blankly at me. “See you around,” I added and left. Amit and I briefly made eye contact. A hint of a grin was on his face.
Meanwhile, Johnny was talking to another group. I took a few steps over to listen.
“I graduated last year,” someone was explaining to him. “I’m an activist. I protest the tyranny of the corporate state.”
“So, you’re unemployed?” Johnny asked. “You don’t actually work anywhere?”
“Work?” he replied contemptuously. “I’m outside the oppressive bourgeoisie system of employment altogether. I’m opposed to the concept of work on many levels. I’d rather die than be ‘employed.’ I’m not going to waste my life lining the pockets of some capitalist fat cat millionaire while I make chump change. No way. I’m not going to become some mindless wage slave and contribute to a fundamentally corrupt and unjust system. I’m a graduate student. I live off my stipend and student loans.”
For once, Johnny was speechless. He gave me a ‘do you believe this guy’ look. I kept a poker face and turned back to keep watching the spectacle.
“I mean, sometimes I feel like just smashing the whole corrupt system,” the young activist continued, “I mean, like, walking in and just shooting everything up! Like in The Matrix, you know what I mean? Doesn’t everyone feel like that sometimes?”
Just then, this older girl – she must have been in her late twenties – in a polka-dot dress with unnaturally bulging eyes grabbed Shoot ‘em Up’s arm at the elbow. He stood in an unnatural stillness. “Get me more soda,” Polka-Dot Lady insisted.
Shoot ‘em Up took her empty cup and vanished without another word.
Weird.
“So you’re some kind of activist, too?” Johnny asked her.
“I suppose you could say that. I’m a cognitive scientist from Harvard, Dr. Alyssa Gottlieb,” she introduced herself. It was creepy the way her eyes bulged out, examining Johnny intently. Someho
w, I was reminded of the guy at Dad’s favorite seafood restaurant back in Knoxville, studying the live lobster tank to pick out Dad’s dinner. “What brings you here?”
“Summer internship at Tolliver Applied Government Solutions in Huntsville, Alabama,” Johnny replied. “I’m a senior in management at Georgia Tech.”
“I’ve heard Georgia Tech considers itself the ‘MIT of the South,’” Dr. Gottlieb smiled.
“We prefer to think of MIT as the ‘Georgia Tech of the North,’” Johnny replied dryly.
“I got my Ph.D. at MIT.” Dr. Gottlieb did not seem amused. “Now I’m a post-doc at Harvard.”
“Why Harvard?”
“You know,” she smiled at him again, “To see how the other half lives.”
“So what does a cognitive scientist do?”
“I nudge people.”
Johnny looked confused. She continued.
“There are an infinite number of ways to interpret complex phenomena,” she lectured as if stating the obvious, “and none of them are canonical. There’s no external objective reality anyone can agree on. It’s only people. It’s only power and dominance, but if you force people, even to do what’s in their best interests, they rebel, because they’re not sophisticated enough to understand what’s best for them. There’s a value-action gap: people’s behavior doesn’t necessarily align with their own best interests. If you don’t believe me, look at all the dumb hicks and rednecks who voted for Bush instead of Gore.”
Johnny was looking at her intently, and I suppose I was, too. Warming to a receptive audience, she expounded further.
“Nudge theory uses indirect suggestions and positive reinforcement to subconsciously persuade people to do the right thing. In my doctoral research, I nudged men to be less messy in the restroom. I painted a tiny image of a fly on the urinal at the spot they needed to aim to avoid splatter. This manipulated them to aim for the spot, minimizing splatter relative to the control urinals.”
“What if the ‘dumb hicks and rednecks’ don’t want to be nudged?” Johnny asked.
“You can’t help but be nudged,” Dr. Gottlieb insisted. “It works on a subconscious level. For instance, we expose the public to images of women in positions of power and authority to break down sexual stereotypes. We depict interracial couples to break down racial stereotypes. We show them same-sex couples to help them get beyond their heteronormativity.”
“Heteronormativity?”
“The archaic belief that people fall into distinct and complementary genders,” Dr. Gottlieb explained. “It’s linked to heterosexism and homophobia.”
“You might persuade or shift some people’s opinions,” Johnny admitted, “but not everyone is going to think the way you want. They’ll tune you out and ignore you.”
“Perhaps,” she smiled smugly, “but with enough people on our side we can overcome the resistance. We just have to show the holdouts we can do whatever we like to them and there’s nothing they can do about it. If businesses won’t promote women to positions of leadership, we force them with mandates and quotas. Racists or homophobes? Make them bake a cake for the people they despise. Force them to violate their religious scruples by making the dictates of their superstitious faith subordinate to the considerations of social justice. Break down their heteronormativity by forcing them to accept the transgendered in their bathrooms. Let them know we can violate their most sacred and sensitive and private moments if we feel like it, and they can’t do a damn thing about it. Break their will. Rub their noses in it. It’s just like housebreaking a puppy. Once it’s obvious that those so-called ‘conservatives’ can’t actually conserve anything, everyone will fall in line.
“Democracy is far too important to be left in the hands of people who can’t be trusted to vote the right way.”
Dr. Gottlieb looked delighted at how obviously appalled Johnny appeared to be.
Just then, Shoot ‘em Up returned and handed her a drink. “I’m a graduate research assistant in psychology,” he bragged. “My professors tell me I’m the most hypnotizable subject they’ve ever come across.”
“How very nice for you,” Johnny offered, taking a step back. “I think I’ll refill my own Coke, now, too.”
I followed him back to the drink bar. “Who are these crazy people?” Johnny muttered, shaking his head.
“The ‘best-and-brightest,’ I’m sure,” I replied. “Coke?”
“Nah,” he grimaced, looking at the line surrounding the drinks. “I just wanted to get away from those creeps. I’ve had enough. I’m a live-and-let-live kind of guy. I just want to stay as far away from them as possible.”
Johnny may not have been interested in ‘social justice,’ but I think he was beginning to realize that didn’t matter. Social justice was interested in him, whether he liked it or not. I excused myself from Johnny, and crossed the lobby to the restroom, hoping Amit would take the opportunity to contact me.
I heard someone come into the restroom behind me and glanced over my shoulder to see Amit approaching. I scanned and confirmed the stalls were empty. Amit stood next to me at the other urinal.
“We’re alone,” I whispered softly.
“Nice neg back there on ‘Comfortable Shoe Girl,’” he whispered back. “What’s up?”
“Thanks. What’s with that creepy research assistant guy?”
“That’s my roommate, Aaron.”
Ouch. I felt sorry for Amit. I flushed the urinal, so the sound would cover what I had to whisper to Amit. “Smoke detectors are wired for video.”
“Figured as much,” he acknowledged softly. “Seen Rob?”
“Not yet. You might be interested to know there’s an Adam Weishaupt with a permanent reservation on room 129. Room gets used a couple dozen times a month. Real suspicious.”
“No way,” Amit snorted. “The Illuminati guy?”
“Same name. Video cuts out every time anyone arrives and uses the reservation to check in. I’m trying to recover some video. Maybe you could hit on the girl at the desk and share hotel stories?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Amit confirmed. My urinal was quiet again, so Amit flushed his and added, “I hear they’re bringing in the Social Justice Warrior crowd from Tech. They’ve asked Madison and me to speak. Cindy Ames is supposed to be there as well. Professor Gomulka will deliver a keynote speech about how those racist reactionaries at Tech derailed ‘our’ social justice convergence of the Schools of Engineering. They’re making a big push to try again next year.”
“Oh, great.” I wasn’t looking forward to fighting them yet again, but after the lessons we’d learned last year, I had confidence we’d be ready. “Gomulka may have other plans, though, for the evening of the opening reception. I hear he’s got a lady friend arriving.”
“Glad that’s on track. Anything else?”
“Nope.” I zipped my pants. “See you around.”
I washed my hands and then walked over to the rest of the TAGS crowd occupying the far corner of the breakfast area, just in time for the hotel manager to shoo us all out into the lobby. What was supposed to be an evening reception and snack bar open for all guests had just become a private event.
We made plans to meet and go out for dinner in thirty minutes, once we all had a chance to change. By the time we reassembled in the lobby, the Civic Youth crowd was gone. The interns piled dangerously into the back of the TAGS van, and I drove us to dinner at a place in the Beach Village near the Convention Center.
After dinner we toured Jekyll Island. I stopped at the Horton House near the north end of the island. The eighteenth-century ruin was in remarkably good condition. The walls were a concrete-like material called “tabby” made from seashells. Come to think of it, many Roman ruins with similar construction lasted thousands of years.
Concrete works well under compression, but cracks easily if you put it under tension. Modern designers embed steel reinforcement bars or “rebar” to give concrete the ability to handle tension, sometimes even emb
edding rods to squeeze the concrete structure so that placing the concrete under “tension” merely reduces the pre-stressed compression.
What destroys most contemporary concrete structures is rusting of the steel rebar put into the concrete to reinforce it. The rust expands and cracks the concrete from within. The modern technique expands the range of application and the performance of concrete structures at the cost of requiring more and better maintenance.
The Horton House stood ready for use – put a roof on it and finish the interior, and it would be all set for occupancy. The three-century-old walls were in great shape. I wished I could spend more time looking for the pit or well that Petrel’s map indicated was on the property, but the other interns were getting restless. We drove south along the eastern shore of Jekyll Island, through the historic district and back to the Beach Village. I dropped them off and drove a mile south down Beachview Drive back to the hotel.
I had work to do.
First, I retrieved the company laptop I’d been using to disk copy the hotel security video hard drive. I set up in the room in view of the video surveillance, and I fired up a routine to click through some of my favorite web pages. I could cover my tracks for an hour or more by just randomly clicking through the links on Drudge or Instapundit. The disk copy process had been running all day, but somehow it had crashed partway through. I worked a bit on the portion I had, but near as I could tell, the security video kept overwriting the disk so there weren’t any abandoned video clips waiting to be recovered.
I set up a secure channel and checked my email. Everything appeared to be on track. Rob had the network tap he promised. The setup looked to be just like the switches I’d specified for him with an extra screen to note which traffic should be copied. The Red Flower Tong promised that “the fortune cookie was on the way.” I passed on the arrival information to Professor Gomulka, “love and kisses, Reka.”
The Brave and the Bold Page 17