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This year's entries, in no particular order.
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The Corn Syrup Incident
by TheTechromancer
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Mama and Papa,
First I want to say I'm sorry for not writing sooner. I wanted to but we aren't allowed to send messages. I put in lots of requests to Dr. Frasure, but she always denies them. I have to say too that for a while I was mad at you guys for what happened and because you never came to visit me, but now I know the reason, and I'm really sorry.
I don't know where you are or if you have extranet there, but if you do I hope you get this message. I sent it to all the addresses I could remember, even Mama's old one. I couldn't encrypt it because I don't know your public key but I'll put my key at the end so when you get it please reply and send your key too so we can talk for real.
The biggest reason I didn't write was because I've been sick. I've had bad migraines and trouble sleeping. Dr. Frasure says it's only separation anxiety, and it's totally normal. I told her it's not normal and it's not anxiety, because I'm fifteen and I'm not anxious and anyway I'm not a kid anymore.
I asked her why you never came to visit and she said you were in Riverside Restoration, and the reason you didn't visit is because you made poor decisions for me, and weren't a good influence. The other teachers say the same thing and they look sad when they say it, like they really mean it, and it hurts because I know they wouldn't say that if they knew you for real. They are good people here, but it's not a good place. That's mainly because of Dr. Frasure and I'll explain more but I just want you to know I love you and miss you and I don't care what anyone says.
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You might be wondering how I sent you this message if sending isn't allowed. Well, that's why I said a lot has happened, and a lot of really crazy stuff too, so I'll tell you.
This place, it's not like anywhere else. They call it a school but inside it's all white, like a hospital. The teachers wear white gowns with nametags and they like us to call them "Doctor", but really they're teachers, except for Dr. Frasure, she's a psychologist. Dr. Frasure has red lipstick and red fingernails and she's always writing things on her terminal.
The students wear uniforms too and ours are blue with numbers. My number is 1338 and they gave me the biggest size uniform but it's still too small.
There are lots of windows here and if you go up close to the edge they can make you feel dizzy. On intake day I got to see the tower from the outside, and it's one of the tallest ones. The skyscrapers here are white just like in New Athens, and the sky is always blue, because we're above the cloudline. One time there was a storm, and the clouds turned dark and came up around, and I saw lightning inside them, and I could feel the floor swaying. Dr. Frasure said not to worry because the swaying is normal.
I asked Dr. Frasure if we were in New Athens and she laughed and said no dear we're in Oceania Minor. Dr. Frasure calls everyone "Dear." Except for Allie, she calls her "Young Lady". Anyway I should tell you about Allie because all the crazy stuff, it started with her.
There are lots of other kids here, close to a thousand I think. The boys dorm is on floor 217 and the girls are on 218. We aren't allowed in the girl's dorm but we have all the same classes.
When I got here intake gave me a wrist terminal and told me not to lose it. After orientation when I got to the dorm I was so tired but Quentin and his friends were waiting for me. They showed me my bunk but they wouldn't let me into it until I gave them my terminal. I asked why they wanted it since they already had their own and they just laughed. Anyway I just wanted to sleep so I gave it to them and they did something to it, and then gave it back to me. Afterwards I learned the reason they wanted it, which is for merits. In this place merits are like money. You get them for having good grades and good behavior and you can spend them on nice stuff, like extra calories in the cafeteria. It was 10 merits they took, which is enough to buy 300 extra calories, which is two ice creams.
One thing about the cafeteria which was really weird at first is there aren't any cooks. Remember the Chef-O-Matic we had in the town center, the one that always tasted weird and then Uncle Rongo tried to fix it but made it worse because he swapped the sugar and salt tubes? Well that's what we have in the cafeteria, except this one's brand new and really big, and it's called a NutriChef.
In orientation they said the NutriChef could make anything we wanted and they let us try it by making ice cream. That was nice but there's a big problem they didn't tell us which is constraints. In this place there's constraints for everything, even food, and Papa I know what you always said about complaining and I'm not complaining because the food is actually really good, except for the bread is never as good as Mama's. But the worst thing about constraints with the NutriChef is no matter what you pick it always gives you the same grams of protein and fat and calories and if you try and go over it won't let you unless you have merits.
The ice cream especially is really good so that's what everyone's trying to get. All the best kids get ice cream and everybody wants to be their friend so they can get their merits so they can get ice cream. Except Quentin because he takes them from other kids instead. The day he took my merits he spent them on a double ice cream and he offered to share with me but he was only joking.
Quentin kept taking my merits. He did it after every quiz or test or whenever I got any. He said usually he only takes twenty percent but he made an exception for me because my grades are so bad, he just took all of them. Mama I'm sorry about my grades I tried hard I did but I always had a headache when the exams came and I did really bad on one of them and I think that's why they decided to put me down a grade with the ninth graders. I told them I already took ninth grade and I asked them to let me retake the exam but they wouldn't listen. Anyway it worked out okay because if it wasn't for that I wouldn't have met Allie.
Allie is thirteen so she was supposed to be in eighth grade but she did really good on the entry exam so they put her in ninth instead, so we're in the same grade. Her number is 1489. She got here two weeks after me but on her first day she got sent to the medical floor and she was there for a whole week and when she came out she had a scar on her lip. I didn't see what happened and Allie won't say, but another girl named Kate got sent to medical the same day.
Allie is easy to spot because she has blond hair and she used to dye it black but the school won't let her dye it anymore, so it's white on top and black on bottom. She's small for her age too so her uniform is always too big and overall it's a silly look, she says it's okay, she knows.
When she got here she didn't have any friends so at lunchtime she sat alone. I always sat alone too so for a while we both sat alone and she kept staring at me, I think because of my tattoo.
Whenever she got ice cream, Kate and her friends would come over and try and talk to her and she would always tell them to fuck off. One day they tried to take away her ice cream and Allie threw the bowl at Kate and got ice cream in her hair, and then they fought and a teacher had to separate them and afterwards Allie had a clawmark on her forehead.
I went up to Allie and asked her how she always had so many merits for ice cream, and she told me to fuck off too. Sorry for the language Mama but the thing about Allie is that she swears a lot so I'm just quoting okay.
I said I was sorry I wasn't there to take her ice cream, I was just wondering how she got so many merits. Then she calmed down and said they weren't her merits, they were Kate's. I asked her how she got Kate to give her her merits and she said it was because if she didn't, she'd tell everyone about Kate's medical history, even the yeast infections. I said wasn't that supposed to be a secret, and she said yeah whoops, and we both laughed. After that we were friends.
The next day we sat together at lunch and Quentin and his friends came and teased me about Allie being my girlfriend, which she's not. I told him to go away but he wouldn't listen, he kept teasing. Allie asked Quentin if he had a deathwish. I didn't know what she meant but after lunch she asked me what was the deal with Quentin. I told her and she asked why I didn't just fuck him up since I was twice his size. So papa I told her what you always said about strength but then she got really serious and said if he ever does it again, I need to give him a good punch. She says Quentin is a moron who needs to be punched.
Having a friend is nice and I don't know why none of the other kids wanted to be friends but I think it's because of my tattoo. Dr. Frasure says it's awful to have a face tattoo. She keeps asking to remove it and I tried to explain what it's for but she never heard of Ta Moko. I'm so bad at explaining and Dad I wish you were here to explain how we designed it like yours but with ocean waves to represent our ancestors and thick lines to represent my strength. I think if you were here, she'd understand.
Anyway Allie likes it she says it's badass. She said her dad had lots of tattoos. She doesn't have any herself but she has lots of earrings. Well she used to but here they aren't allowed, so instead they're just empty holes. She has four on her left ear and six on her right and in class she's always sticking her pencil in them. She says if she doesn't do it, they'll close and she'll have you get them repierced. Dr. Frasure always catches her doing it and tells her young lady no sticking your pencil in your holes and Quentin and his friends always laugh. They are perverts.
Allie and me have all the same classes except first and fourth period. There are always assigned seats and the only class we sit next to each other is computer class. Dr. Zalachenki teaches computers and he has a special rule for Allie because she's always trying to open the console and setting off his alerts. Allie says she only ever got it to open once, cause Dr. Zalachenki used to be a sysadmin and he knows how to lock it down. But he caught her before she could do anything good, and after that he made a special rule that says she can use a computer but only if it's airgapped.
Allie hates Dr. Zalachenki. They are always arguing especially about computer stuff I don't understand, and Allie says he can't do subnet math, and he's never even been to DEF CON. She says he wouldn't stand a chance against her dad.
I asked her about her dad and she said he's in prison. I asked which one and she said Riverside. I told her that's where you guys are too except it's not a prison, it’s a restoration center. But she said they’re the same thing. I couldn't believe that but then she got frustrated and asked me where I thought I was right now. I didn't say anything because I knew what she meant and when Allie's like that it's best not to argue.
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I don't know how but somehow the word got out about Kate's yeast infections. When Allie heard she came to me and punched me in the shoulder said what the fuck but I told her it wasn't me who leaked it. She said whatever it didn't matter since it couldn't be unleaked. But now she couldn't extort Kate anymore for merits.
Kate always had lots of merits I think for the same reason as Quentin, and Allie always had extra because she got good grades except for in computer class. So she would always buy me ice cream and that was really nice. For a while we each had one ice cream a day. My favorite was pumpkin because Mama it tasted almost just like your pumpkin pie, and Allie got chocolate with chocolate syrup and chocolate sprinkles. She eats hers really fast and if I don't eat mine fast too she takes bites, she says it's friend tax. It's okay because it's her merits.
Well after Allie lost her leverage on Kate, there was only enough merits for one ice cream a day, and I told her she could have it since it's her merits. She still let me have bites as friend tax. It was too much chocolate but still pretty good.
Then something else happened I wasn't expecting, which is that Allie got caught cheating. Somehow she got the test answers ahead of time and she would memorize them and that's how she got such good grades. I asked her how she got the answers but she wouldn't say.
It was Dr. Zalachenki who caught her, and he told the whole class. He said Allie could memorize test answers, well he could memorize too, and a matter of fact he memorized Allie's MAC address, so he knew exactly what she was up to.
He sent her to the superintendent's office and when she came out she didn't have her terminal anymore. She said they took it away and they took away all her merits too. They even made a special rule that said because she got so many merits from cheating, she couldn't have any more the whole semester. They are always making special rules for Allie.
For two days we didn't have any ice cream and Allie wouldn't eat or say anything just stared into space. I tried to cheer her up by bringing food but she wouldn't eat and finally one night in the cafeteria, she did something crazy.
It was at dinner time when we usually had our ice cream. Dr. Frasure came to our table and gave me back the letter I wrote to you, and said she was sorry but she had to deny it. I asked why and she said it was too long.
After Dr. Frasure left Allie asked me what was the deal with Dr. Frasure, and I told her. You can tell when Allie gets mad because her ears get red. She said it was tyrannical, and we can't let them do this to us, and we should do something about it. I asked her what we were going to do and she said follow her and act casual.
She walked straight to the NutriChef like she was going to get ice cream. Dr. Zalachenki was in the cafeteria but he was busy on his terminal so Allie said to stand between him and her in case he looked that way.
On the NutriChef she didn't go to the ice cream menu. Instead she went to the drink menu, and picked water. Then she did something weird. She put her finger in the corner of the screen and drew a shape there, and suddenly a keypad popped up and she typed 9999. Then the whole screen changed to black with white letters I never saw before. Then she took a bucket like the kind for chicken wings and set it under the drink nozzle, then she did something with the menus and I'm not sure exactly what because Allie is so fast on the menus, but it was something about maintenance and flushing. Pretty soon something like water started spewing out of the nozzle, but it wasn't water, it was thick like soap.
Allie waited till the cup overflowed then she took it in both hands and went into the middle of the cafeteria. I said wait, what about the NutriChef because it was spewing all over the floor but she said leave it and make yourself useful.
In the cafeteria we have little plastic cups for sauces. Allie stood on the table and lifted the bucket over her head like a trophy and shouted for everybody to gather around. By then Dr. Zalachenki noticed the NutriChef and dropped what he was doing to stop it. While he was busy, Allie had me line up the sauce cups in a big line on the table.
A bunch of kids gathered around and Allie told them it was time for shots. She poured the bucket across all the cups and made a big mess, but she filled them up.
Kate was there and she was telling everyone, don't drink the shots, they're poison, but Allie said it wasn't poison, it was corn syrup.
Quentin is always trying to impress Kate and so he came to the front and he tried to tip over the table with Allie on it, but before he could, I punched him. Papa I know what you'd say but I'm telling you he deserved it and don't worry because one punch was all it took and after that he never tried to hurt Allie again, and he never took any more of my merits.
Allie was in a funny mood now and laughing and she picked up the first cup and drank it in one gulp.
The NutriChef was still spewing and Dr. Zalachenki was calling for help and Dr. Frasure had to come and help him slide it out from the wall so he could unplug it because he couldn't figure out how to stop the flushing. Nobody was watching though they were all watching Allie to see if she'd die from the corn syrup.
It took Dr. Zalachenki and Dr. Frasure a long time to stop the NutriChef spewing and by then Allie had taken four shots of corn syrup.
They both turned around and saw her drinking the shots and you know Dr. Zalachenki's ears don't turn red but instead his nostrils flare really big. He was totally soaked in corn syrup and he kept trying to get up but kept slipping in the puddle of corn syrup. He pointed at Allie and said young lady if you drink one more of those I'll take away all your merits, because I guess he forgot he already did. Allie just held the next shot like a toast and asked him if he knew that in one of those shots was the same calories as in three ice creams put together. Then suddenly everybody started fighting over the shots, and I looked for Allie but she was gone.
---
After the corn syrup incident, they put Allie in solitary for two weeks. I got in trouble too but I didn't get sent to solitary because Dr. Frasure said it was Allie who was the instigator. She said it would be best if I didn't talk to her anymore.
While Allie was in solitary I didn't have anybody to sit with during lunch and also that was when the algebra exam happened. Allie was always good at explaining math and helping me study especially with quadratics because they're so hard. I tried my best but then the night before the test I couldn't sleep and then my headache came back and I'm sorry Mama but I got a really bad grade.
Allie got out two days ago. Everybody knows about the corn syrup incident now and they all know who Allie is. And guess what, they made another special rule for her and told the whole school, which is that Allie isn't allowed to touch any computers, even terminals or NutriChefs. Nobody is allowed to let her use their terminal and if they do, they get sent to solitary just like her.
I forgot to say another thing about this place, which is the cameras. I didn't see them at first because they're so small but Allie showed me. They're in every room always watching and listening. But Allie found a secret room where there aren't any. Last night she took me inside, and said she was sorry.
I asked what for because the corn syrup incident was kind of funny actually. But she said she wasn't sorry about the corn syrup, just that it got us both in trouble so bad it was gonna be even harder to do the next thing. I asked what she meant by the next thing and she said to trust her and let her use my terminal.
Well I'm sorry Mama but don't worry we didn't get caught and I think you'll forgive me because that's how I sent this message. Allie showed me how to bypass the filters with a special filterbreaker her dad wrote. I can't tell you how and I can't tell you what the next thing is we're planning because this message isn't encrypted and because we don't have your public key, but she taught me how to encrypt so nobody can read it even the signals directorate. So if you get this please write back because I'm sure you have crazy stories too and when we do this next thing it's gonna be even more crazy. If it works we might see each other soon. So please respond and don't forget to encrypt. I asked Allie how to do it in the gui but she only knows how to do it on the console so I'm sorry but it's not that bad, you just have to open the console and import our key and encrypt like this:
gpg --import mobo.pub
cat message.txt | gpg --encrypt --armor --recipient mobo
Love,
Mobo
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
mI0EZkkAcAEEAJ7Dq/41+9TqlgZ7jROD32Sa6yUC50JQ1v13MtgSv31xrQKyQDiY
lQOdn7gp7ds+1r7+7Ag+0T2UJutuurg/6hh7/0qT3E0bzMCyhb8xjZcalB1AIcwB
y/l1XivJjQ8sVCrTY/tg5wdHhK6BVDbml7MeBu2k6YDeWZfkrnzHcKfJABEBAAG0
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pgEpuI0EZkkAcAEEANxwxmC3bVt6IbG7WerTW6/8Hlnjt2t0fUNKDbsmIWxS7Wz8
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vb1Yh+9qWDA5iEWyW3x3Iikk/Z7qkpUIM/ZpSb6nvXSSiAy2EMzZEiwy
=fSZz
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- -
Title: The crossroads
Author: Harriet Farlow (@HarrietHacks)
We enter a laboratory of flickering screens and humming servers. It’s 2030 and Lara, an AI hacker, sits at one of the sterile surfaces. Distorted shadows are cast across her face by the rain outside reflected against the LED lights. Here, the boundary between human and machine blurs.
The heavy metal door slams shut as her boss leaves, angry. Lara has never questioned a direct order before, but then, she has never received a request like this. She opens a drawer and pulls out a small bottle. She has been trying to wean herself off but self-control has never been her strength. She tips her head back and swallows the pill, leaning forward in her chair. She waits for the adrenalin hit that means her mind has connected to the model.
Most people connect to the model through brain implants, but Lara is a bit of a luddite. She also knows too much about how to deceive AI to give it ubiquitous access to her nervous system. However she can forget about this long enough to relish the rush of euphoria that suddenly hits.
Her body slackens as she gives in to the exquisite certainty that her consciousness is now intertwined with the model, merging her mind and all others’ in a shared realm of calls and responses. She could bask in this feeling for hours but, forcing herself to regain focus, she does what she’s come here to do. She probes the model for advice.
She closes her eyes so the image the model is showing her takes over her senses. She lets the model fill not just her mind but also her body as she is cast into a scenario where she turns down the assignment her boss has given her.
Her skin pricks as she feels the cold metal of the lab surface against her fingers, in sharp contrast with the sweat starting to bead on her brow and her quickened pulse. As she drifts into this scene it takes a moment for her ears to detect what’s going on, but she finally catches the words - ‘Secrets Act violated’, ‘we’re going to press charges’, and ‘prison time’ - float through the air. Her boss seems almost delighted by her infraction. Feeling sick with dread, Lara realises that all her bitter efforts - late nights at university and on the job, missing dinners with friends and family - would be for nothing. Her parents’ disappointed faces swim in front of her as she imagines telling them she has been indicted, for a truth that Lara can never share with them.
‘There’s going to be punishment.’
Her boss steps forward with a strange intimacy and raises his hand to her. Before she feels where it lands, Lara returns to the present with a sharp breath.
She withdraws back into the comforting hum of the model’s processing, the white noise holding her still for a moment. She reaches for the pill bottle out of reflex, then remembers where she is. Does she have it in her to be dragged through the courts for disobeying an order? That’s the problem with dealing in secrets. She took some deep breaths, trying to slow her heart beat, and her mind drifted to how she ended up here. She was recruited straight out of college, her talents too impressive to ignore. At first, the work was challenging and exciting, defending Government and private systems against adversarial AI attacks. But gradually, the lines blurred. What started as defensive work morphed into offensive strategies. She was too good, they said, not to use her skills for more proactive measures. She was introduced to darker projects, ones that required a certain detachment, a kind of moral flexibility. Lara told herself it was all for the greater good, protecting her country, saving lives in the long run. But today, that justification felt flimsy. Her thoughts were interrupted by an aggressive chime from her workstation. A new message from her boss, a simple query about the status of her task. She had to decide now. There was no more time for reflection. She closes her eyes again and lets the model take her into a different tomorrow.
She is at her computer. One monitor is lit with lines of recently executed python script. On another is a live-stream of DEF CON 32, people milling like characters in a video game. Among the sea of attendees, Lara's attention is drawn to a particular man. He is keeling over. People flock to him, confused. They couldn’t know that Lara, thousands of kilometres away, is the one who caused it. A puppeteer holding the strings to their fate.
Even she doesn’t know why this man is the target. She just writes and executes the code. But this is the first time this program has been run. Like she said, they hadn’t performed assassinations before.
While she doesn’t know why this is happening she knows what happens next. Not to him, her access from the live stream will be cut soon. It’s only analysts on the ops floor who will continue watching to ensure the operation carries out as expected, and to nudge the human assets on the ground as required. Lara, as a techie, is not privy to this. Instead, she will write up a report on her involvement and submit it to her boss. Then she will forget about it. She’ll take the train home to her apartment in the entertainment district, buy noodles from her usual take-away place, and spend the rest of the night on her tablet. Then tomorrow she will be given a new assignment.
This time disconnecting from the future is much gentler. She is almost entirely down from the high as the pill’s contents leave her system and Lara disconnects from the model.
Lara wished she were a better person. Or maybe she is a good person, but just doesn’t have the fight to go against a system like this. She doesn’t want to go to prison. She feels sudden relief from the burden of the decision. She sighs deeply, and puts the pills back in the drawer.
In another room, her boss disconnects from the model, smiling.Comment
-
The Floors Below -- by Serum
Dot was scared. The sounds were so close last cycle. Chanting, footsteps, and… screams? The screams started loud and then became muffled, garbled, and paired with the sickening sound of a slamming door hitting something soft. Above all else, the door slam was stuck in his head. A noise that resembled a door being violently slammed again and again. It would fade and return, but the rhythm never changed. Dot knew his imagination could go off the rails, but these sounds left him shaken. He had heard it before, but never this close. “It must have only been one or two floors down. Close enough to get everyone excited, well almost everyone.” Having just turned 16 cycles, Dot knew how excited he was *supposed* to feel about His arrival, but that was a feeling that had not yet resonated with the teen.
“What a glorious day it will be, Dot!” Grandpa was blinking, standing in line with him now, larger than life as they waited for entry back into the apartment. The rest of the residents had joined them, all waiting for their room assignments. A new cycle. Brothers Pip and Fleck were happily munching away on cherries. “You must have faith in His righteousness, and you will find that you have become part of something more important than yourself. You will live forever, Dot. It’s really that simple!” Grandpa’s eyes were full of love. “But you must eat your cherries like your brothers! How else will you be tasty enough?”
Arguing with Grandpa on this subject was taboo. Dot had tried a few cycles earlier. The odd thing was his entire family felt the same way and everyone on their floor, too. His own parents left once the family got big enough, all with the thought of improving their chances of being consumed. Dot felt they were just dying to die. “The promise of immortality as part of something bigger, there is no greater purpose,” those were the words that Grandpa told them all when Mom and Dad moved out. Those words were familiar to everyone living in the complex. It was the code they lived by. Dot had tried to figure it out. Each cycle, he would scour the floor looking for a clue or some kind of proof that this pursuit was worth believing in. He consulted the illustrious life board many times, but it held no answers either, only numbers that supposedly signified something important, but Dot had no clue. What bothered him most of all was that he was the only one who seemed troubled. Everyone in the complex seemed to parrot the same lines, “Eat your cherries! Get a corner room. Trust in His plan!” At least, almost everyone. There was the Inke family after all.
Most families stuck to a single floor per cycle. Everyone got their floor assignments and stayed put. Those were the rules. Not the Inkes, though. A family of four with the shiftiest eyes in the complex. Rumor had it that they had some kind of holdover deal with the landlord allowing them to roam freely from floor to floor. They didn’t bother folks much but were willing to chat and had some good stories to tell at times. Dot’s desire for exploration was only heightened each time he had the chance to hear one. His favorite Inke was Peter. Peter always looked a little flustered and out of breath with rosy, pink colored cheeks that were only slightly darker than the rest of his complexion. Peter somehow always found a way to sit still long enough to share with Dot his latest adventure. But the stories sometimes worried parents who didn’t want them talking about Him. No, the Inkes’ version of Him told of a god that wasn’t benevolent. Instead, they spoke of a hungry God. And they claimed to have seen Him. Two cycles earlier, Peter had told Dot as much.
“He doesn’t stop eating, Dot. He mows them down, without mercy.”
“Why doesn’t anyone else see this?”
“Nobody else makes it out.”
---
Dot took another look at his brothers, still stuffing their faces with cherries as they finally arrived at the entry to the complex. The scene reminded him of another of Peter’s sayings, “When He wants to eat you, either fatten up or learn to run.” Running wasn’t something anyone in his family had ever tried, nor was it something they were particularly adept at. No. Their lives were sedentary ones. Fattening up came naturally. In fact, sitting was the rule for all residents. “When the sun goes down, the bum goes down” was a common refrain to ensure a noise-free environment.
“You’re looking good!” the doorman was sizing Grandpa up with admiration. “See, boys? Eat your cherries and someday you’ll get this! But lucky for you, you’ll get to stay in one of our corner suites with your Grandpop!” He looked approvingly at Fleck and Pip and threw a quizzical glance at Dot.
If you were hoping to become a tasty treat, corner rooms gave you the best chance. It was common knowledge that the largest inhabitants of the complex got the biggest rooms, and those rooms were corner ones. News that He made frequent stops to the corner areas on the lower floors only reinforced that expectation. But what really made the difference when it came to seeking consumption was the floor. Dot had never heard of Him coming from above, only from below.
“I do believe that we can get you onto the 8th floor!” The doorman broke into a wide smile.
“Hallelujah!” If Grandpa could have jumped for joy, he would have. Instead, a ripple rolled its way across his now extreme girth, a tidal wave lolling underneath an immense frame which swelled as he chuckled.
“The closer we get to the ground floor, the better our chances are!” The gleam in Grandpa’s eyes were starting to make Dot feel nauseous as they made their way to the elevator.
The number on the elevator read 8 and they shuffled off looking for their new home. At the end of a twisty hallway, Dot saw the corner. “Definitely does have a nice view,” he mused as he gazed at the pulsing courtyard out the window. The last of the room assignments were being given out, but there were still a large number of folks milling about below.
The spacious suite held a large sleeping area for the family with four beds that were in an L-shape. Three beds along the wall that led into the corner of the floor with another bed nearby. Grandpa set up shop in the largest of the beds, Pip and Fleck took the next two with Fleck in the crook of the corner and Dot had the bed that was just to the right of Fleck, still within view of Grandpa, but also closest to the hallway. Privacy wasn’t a term that anyone in the complex really understood, nor were they bothered by the transparent borders between rooms. Residents could easily see their neighbors and vice versa. Dot’s space gave him a chance to look down the hall where he might see Him and have a chance to flee, if running was necessary.
Grandpa sat down soon after they arrived, settling his massive frame, and let out a sigh. “This will do, “ Grandpa said, “This will definitely do.”
Dot’s stomach growled. He grabbed a peach from the fruit bowl and was munching away when he spotted Peter wandering by. Grandpa had fallen asleep. Pip and Fleck were still scarfing down cherries. He decided to see if he could get Peter’s attention and finish the conversation they had had a few cycles ago.
“Peter!” Dot let out a loud whisper. “What’s going on?”
“Hey Dot, good to see you again. Well, kind of good. You’re on a low floor,” Peter’s usually shifty eyes were locked on Dot and showed genuine concern.
“Yes, I know. Grandpa is on a mission and he’s taking us with him.”
“You have a choice, Dot.”
Peter reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small silver key with an emerald bow.
“When the time is right, take this to the elevator.”
“A key? What does it unlock?”
“There is a floor...”
“Dot! Get away from him. His kind isn’t welcome here,” Grandpa’s booming voice startled both Dot and Peter. Peter turned two shades of blue and fled, unable to finish his explanation.
Dot knew he shouldn’t read too much into Peter’s story. After all, he wasn’t family. Grandpa always said, “Never trust someone who can’t look you in the eye and stay in one place.” Still, Peter’s explanation for the awful slamming aligned better with Dot’s own imagination, and he couldn’t quite shut it out. He felt something poking him from his pocket and noticed that Peter had stuffed the key there. “Peter sure is quick,” thought Dot, “but what makes this key so important?” Dot fixated himself on Peter’s mysterious comments the rest of the afternoon.
The harsh light of the sun faded as twilight approached. The hallways were lit with their familiar neon blue making the white door numbers pop. Dot’s own skin looked pale. “I could use a little sun myself.” Pip and Fleck had already settled in for the night. Dot made out slight cherry stains on each of them and chuckled to himself. Grandpa was firmly planted in his bed, propped up by three strategically placed pillows, his bulk nearly blotting out the windows that overlooked the courtyard. His eyes were closed, and he appeared to be in a deep slumber. Dot, too, began to feel the effects of the long wait earlier in the cycle and felt his eyes flutter.
Slam! Slam! Slam!
The sound jolted him from his twilight sleep. The neon lights in the hallway began to glow with a greater intensity. Pip and Fleck were still sound asleep. Sweat began to form on Dot’s brow. He looked towards Grandpa hoping to feel some reassurance and saw that the family patriarch’s head was slightly bowed as he prayed in a hushed whisper. He was glowing piercingly bright, with an air of joy. Rather than feeling reassured, an overwhelming desire to run seeped into every pore in Dot’s body. Dot reached into his pocket and gripped the key tightly, holding his breath.
Slam! Slam! SLAM!
The noise was getting closer, and then it stopped. He could feel the edges of the key digging into his palm, and he loosened his grip. “Is it over?” he thought as he let himself start breathing again.
The elevator at the center of the floor dinged and Dot heard the doors open.
SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!
Screams began to fill the floor. Pip and Fleck startled, and each looked towards Dot.
“Is He here?” Pip blurted.
----
Val was grinding her teeth with intense focus, only letting her jaw relax for the transition between levels. “The ghosts are getting faster,” she thought. It didn’t help that the controller had a slight leftward tilt, but it also gave the game a little character. “It’s definitely an original,” the thought crossed her mind briefly. A line formed behind her with more than one set of eyes interested in her progress. The party was packed with participants, waiting for their chance to play one of the classics. Val credited her dad for getting her hooked on 8-bit ‘80s games on the RetroPie they would play together for hours during her childhood. Ms. Pac-Man had always been her favorite, but she was damn good at the original too. Giving the boys something to shoot for was always fun, especially with this group.
And tonight, she was locked in. A crowd like this meant there wouldn’t be many chances to get to the top. Her personal best was level 19, but she routinely made it to 15, which would be more than enough to claim the top spot. She blocked out the murmuring from those in the line behind her. Johnny hovered nearby, beer in hand, shaking his head. He had seen this before. Val was almost chewing her tongue as she deftly maneuvered through each maze with grace and skill. The screen read “Level 8” as she cracked her knuckles and started to clear the screen.
A quick move to evade two ghosts was met with a cheer from the guys who were watching the action. The upper-left corner was all that remained. “Easy pickins’,” Val almost smiled as she plowed her way to the last corner.
----
Impossibly big. Blindingly yellow. Dot watched in horror as He came into view just beyond Grandpa. Eyeless, soulless, and hungry. “Grandpa!” Dot screamed. Pip and Fleck froze with fear. Grandpa gave a quick glance toward the oncoming automaton and then turned back and smiled at his grandsons. “I am yours,” he uttered with confidence and peace. CRUNCH. Grandpa’s eyes filled with a red paste as half of his body was violently ripped away in a single bite. The taste of flesh seemed to energize the yellow monster into a frenzy as it began to gorge on the remaining mass.
Dot tore his eyes away. Pip was rooted to the ground, mouth open, panting. Fleck grabbed Dot, his hands clammy with sweat and cherry juice, terror-stricken eyes pleading. “Stay with me, Dot.” Dot knew the time was at hand, and as much as he loved his brothers, he knew staying was not an option. He pulled the key from his pocket and willed himself to move with all his might. An odd sensation coursed through his body. Muscles he had never engaged were suddenly known and the fear that had held him in place was replaced by an energy that he had never felt in all the cycles he had lived through. It pulled him from the haze and focused his thoughts on a single need. RUN!
----
The power pellet went down easily. Val picked up some quick points on a pair of ghosts and went back to the last three dots. “Just a few left: Three, two, aaaand one!” Just as she was about to take the last dot the strangest thing happened: the last dot moved. Not only did it move, but it *ran*. “What in the…?”
Val could hear bystanders murmuring loudly now. Two guys looking over her shoulder leaned in a little too close for her comfort. “Stand back!” She diverted her attention for a moment to get them out of her peripheral vision. She looked back with steely determination and began to pursue the dot towards the center of the screen. “I’m not letting you get away,” she thought, her warm palm sweaty on the joystick.
---
Dot turned the corner, not looking back. Up ahead at the end of the hall he spotted Peter, running for his life, his usual pink hue had turned a bright blue. “He’s here Dot! Follow me!”
Dot pursued Peter to the elevator bank. The normally lit buttons were dead. Panic set in as he pushed both. Nothing. “The key!” Peter shouted.
Slam! SLAM! SLAM!
Dot pulled out the key as Peter stood in front of the elevator. Peter’s body had begun to flash between blue and white. The brightness of the white surprised Dot and almost blinded him, he had never seen Peter look like this. Peter motioned back to the elevator buttons. Just below, Dot saw a keyhole materialize as Peter flashed white. It vanished when he turned blue and reappeared the instant his friend turned white again. “Dot! Stay with me, I can’t hold this.” “Now!” He screamed at Dot while flashing white.
As quick as a cat, Dot pushed the key in. It snapped into place just as Peter’s normal pink hue returned. The key now looked like it was stuck in a wall, with no keyhole in sight. “Turn it! I’ll hold him off.” Peter yelled.
"Hold him off?" Dot had trouble processing the remark when Peter raced by, hellbent on chasing their pursuer. "Peter! No!" Dot didn't want to see someone else he cared about die. But, to his amazement, the yellow god stopped in its tracks and reversed direction, fleeing his pink friend. Dot's mouth gaped open in amazement. Peter took one last look over his shoulder as he pursued Him, "Turn the key, Dot!"
With the immediate danger gone, Dot turned his attention back to the key. He turned it and the elevator lights blinked as the door parted. Dot rushed in and looked at the numbers on the wall. All the familiar buttons were there, but none were lit. He frantically pushed the button to the lower level but got no response. It was then that he noticed at the very top of the bank of buttons, one bright red light with the number 256 to the right of it. “I’d prefer to get out of this godforsaken building,” he thought, “but getting off this floor will be enough. 256 floors?!” In all his cycles he never dreamt that the complex was so tall. Taking a deep breath, he pressed the button.
The usually slow elevator doors closed quickly with a speed he was grateful for. His brief sense of calm was interrupted almost immediately as he felt the sensation of being moved with an intense force, hurtling towards the top of the complex. His heart was racing, and he began to feel lightheaded. He trained his eyes on the numbers, “100, 125, 140…” They were getting faster now. He tried to draw a breath, but the air felt like it was coming in through a straw. “200, 225”. His eyelids began to droop, and his balance began to fail. Finally, a jolt, and the movement stopped, bringing Dot to his knees. 256. The doors slid apart, and Dot pulled himself forward, crawling towards the new floor. His energy was sapped, spent from the chase. He only made it partway before falling forward and letting sleep overtake him.
---
Val released the controls and stared at the screen, her mouth agape. Dots. Ghosts. It all began to melt into a sea of ASCII characters and was now coalescing into something else. She had long since forgotten her goal of claiming the top score and leaned forward to watch, not wanting to miss the strangest intermission she had ever seen in an arcade game. A new shape came into focus. She recognized it as the dot that had escaped her, now somehow in the regeneration chamber. The level counter on the game was increasing at a rapid rate without any of her input.
Val’s best friend Johnny stepped close by and asked, “What is going on? Is it broken?”
She could only shake her head, “Just watch with me, Johnny. I really have no idea.”
---
Dot woke to the elevator doors bumping him softly, trying to close. He breathed deeply, sore everywhere. He thought of Grandpa, Pip, and Fleck and began to sob. After a few minutes of tears, Dot pulled himself up and entered the hallway of the 256th floor. The first thing he noticed was the fog. “Fog isn’t something you normally see inside a building,” he thought. Curious, he walked further down to get a closer look at what he thought was the source. The fog thickened, and the hallway seemed to disappear behind the veil. Scared, he took a step forward into the fog and squinted. Oddly enough, he saw letters and numbers floating in the air. Beyond that, he could make out the shape of what looked to be a pair of eyes watching him. The eyes stared straight at him. Unnerved, the courage he displayed earlier almost left him. He decided now was not the time to go back to being a sedentary Dot. No. Now was a time for action. He took another step deeper into the fog, his eyes trained on the stranger’s eyes beyond the floating characters and nervously shouted, “Hello?!”
---
When “Hello” fizzled through the machine’s speaker, Val and Johnny jumped back. “Did you…?” Johnny nodded, dumbfounded. Val took a shot in the dark, “Hello?” She couldn’t believe she was talking to an arcade game.
---
The voice that came through the fog was clear and powerful causing vibrations to course through Dot’s body. He was scared. The eyes in the void had answered. He willed himself to stand straight and look back at the eyes without blinking, “Who are you? Where am I?” His questions came out quickly, but clearly.
Val, equal parts alarmed and curious, responded, “I’m Val. I… I’m playing a game. Who are you? Where do you think you are?”
“What game?” Dot felt queasy as the disembodied voice cascaded over him. “At least she sounds nice,” he thought. “I’m Dot. I live in the Midway Apartment Complex.”
“At least his name makes sense,” thought Val. “Your game. Pac-Man. I’m playing Pac-Man.”
“What is Pac-Man?” Dot was confused but intrigued.
Val paused and took a breath, Pac-Man was a game, but to her it was so much more. It was being woken up by Dad as a ten-year old girl after he got home late from work so they could play together. Connecting with him through a game, recalling the twinkle in his blue eyes as he cleared screen after screen while Val munched on popcorn without Mom knowing. Pac-Man meant more to Val than just a game, but trying to convey that to a character within it?
“To me, Dot, Pac-Man is a way to play, to forget about your troubles and remember better times. It’s always brought me joy, even when I don’t play it very well. But to try to answer your question more directly, it’s a game where I try to eat dots without getting caught by ghosts.”
“But, we’re all alive. Or at least, we all were alive. YOU were controlling HIM?”
“I was. I didn’t know, no one did.” Val felt sad. She knew there was no way she could have known, but nonetheless, consuming conscious beings for entertainment wasn’t something she was proud of in that moment.
“So, HE isn’t coming anymore?” Dot asked with a bit of hope.
“No, as long as we don’t let anyone else play, PAC-MAN will not bother you.”
“I wish we had met sooner, my Grandpa and brothers were on the 8th floor,” Dot began to sob again, wracked with guilt for leaving them behind. “They wouldn’t leave, none of them would.”
The crowd around Val and the game had deepened considerably with onlookers straining to hear the discussion at the cabinet.
Johnny piped in, “What happens if we reset the game?”
Val added, “and never played again?”
Dot was shocked to hear another voice from beyond. He heard the words but didn’t understand them. He had no concept of “The Game” or “Reset”. He could only think of Grandpa, Pip, and Fleck… and all of his friends. “What will happen? I’ve lived through 16 cycles, but I’ve never seen anyone come back once they left my floor. Do you think there’s a chance it might bring my family back?” his voice was cracking and cautious.
There is only one way to find out.” Val knelt and reached for the bottom of the cabinet, Johnny grabbed her wrist. “Are you absolutely sure? What if we never get this opportunity to speak to Dot again?” Val looked at him, “We have to try, I owe that much to him.” With a flick of her finger, she turned the machine off and then back on with another flick.
---
Dot woke up and wiped the dust from his eyes. “What a nightmare,” he thought. His muscles felt tired, “Crazy dream”. He stretched, yawned, and rolled out of bed. He looked over his shoulder to see Pip and Fleck lazily eating cherries with Grandpa asleep in the corner. A reassuring calm washed over him along with a sense of love for his family that he hadn’t felt in many cycles. “Home.” he thought.
---
The game had reset and most of the onlookers dispersed. Val asked Johnny to grab a large piece of paper and a marker along with some caution tape that had been at the front entrance. “DO NOT PLAY. DO NOT TURN OFF.” She wrote it in the biggest letters she could and posted it on the cabinet monitor.
“What did we just witness?” Johnny smiled at Val. “Do you think it worked?”
“I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure, but there was some magic in that old machine, and I’d like to think Dot has found the life he deserves.”
Johnny wasn’t done, “But how? How did that happen?”
“Well, we are at DEF CON, Johnny. Maybe, just maybe, the games at the Arcade Party have taken on a little bit of the hacker spirit and resilience from the people who play.” She smiled, taking Johnny’s hand in hers and they both silently stood guard for the rest of the night, hoping to give their new friend Dot the peace that had eluded him for so long.Comment
-
Coach’s Team - j3ss
A warm breeze ruffled palm fronds. The team was in place, all aboard the Brightline train heading to Orlando. Everyone except me and Speed. I stood waiting outside an auto supply parts store in a shopping plaza with peeling paint. Colorful lights glimmered off puddles of oil that shimmered with a rainbow sheen.
I checked my phone. 18:13. As far as handles go, Speed was a misnomer. Metronome would’ve been more like it. Sure, Speed could run, drive, and tool around in the car hacking village. But timing, pacing, and freakish ability to measure distance made Speed the hacker he was. And just like that, the retooled Chevy appeared, pulling into the plaza. It rolled to a stop at the designated 18:15 pickup time.
I tapped the Gerry-rigged version of Ricochet, a messaging app in which every user used an onion address to create an ephemeral service. End-to-end encryption simply wasn’t enough for us. We had no central point of failure because there was no center; just transient python web servers. The only drawback was that we had to call it GR-Chat because everything had to be “gerry-rigged” with Gerry.
“Speed in sight,” I typed. “Speed + Coach on the way to see Mickey.”
“Gerry in position.”
“M3sh plus the Kid in position.”
“Monsieur Lupin plus un Monsieur Travis McGee.”
“Strong + Trunks.”
The Chevy slowed down and pulled to a stop at 18:15. Everyone was all checked in. The messages and the servers that enabled them would be deleted shortly, erased into the void.
“Tr8sky on board.”
This entire op was Tr8sky’s brainchild. It was his idea to p0wn the train, rob the data brokers on it, and somehow save the internet from itself. Tr8sky had backed out of the op, though, before the crew had the chance to unanimously kick him out. This immediately created another task list for Coach.
“Recipe still good,” I typed. “Pie will be ready for Mickey. We got this.”
I texted Gerry: “Is everything set up for Speed?”
“Do you go number two sitting down?” Gerry possessed a high degree of emotional intelligence.
Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” played. The door opened. I slid in. Speed double tapped a normal part of the dash. A pneumatic hiss and a compartment near the center console popped open. There were two bags inside of them, containing all the tools and materials. Over preparation, for a burner ride, anyway. Foolish, but I didn’t micromanage. We’d never have this truck again.
I chuckled. “You could've just popped the trunk.”
Speed’s right hand tapped the steering wheel in time to Zeppelin. He extended his middle and pointer finger, kissed them, and as his lips made contact, the light turned yellow. His fingertips brushed the ceiling as we sailed through a yellow light.
He hummed lightly along with the song, his fingers never ceasing to tap. A blue Volvo swerved into our lane, cutting us off, but Speed anticipated, his deceleration was fluid with no jarring effect to us, the Chevy almost kissing the bumper of the car in front of us.
Speed lowered the windows just as “Immigrant Song” was about to take off: “coming from the land of Ice and Snow, from the midnight Springs where the Heart Springs…”
Speed wouldn’t be able to keep tapping in rhythm and maintain his fluid control.
“Thirty-three-point-four percent chance of pure success,” Speed said. “But there had been a seven-point-five percent chance of OpSec failure, even less of capture.”
A smile spread across my face. Despite the mounting excitement and nervousness, Speed’s ceaseless calculations based on metrics only apparent to him, which his restless mind designed to keep him occupied, always filled me with joy. I, as Coach, had an obligation to get him work he relished - and keep him occupied.
Instead of reviewing mental checklists in my head, ensuring the various aspects of this puzzle would click together, that the plan would keep these hackers busy, I diverged.
“Do you think Tr8sky is right about all this interoperability? The theory, I mean?” I asked Speed.
A slight tilt of his head – recognition of my question, tap of the gear shift and two digits pointing West as Zeppelin sang out: “Our only goal will be the Western shore… So now you’d better stop…”
“Twenty-two percent chance of pure success since Tr8sky messaged,” Speed said. “OpSec failure goes up almost hitting 41% percent, but interestingly chances of getting caught drop to 3.42% due to the truly unpredictable nature of Tr8sky.”
As Speed turned into the Brightline parking lot, he slowed, tapped the clutch, downshifted, and honked twice in sync with the horn of a distant train. Our train. The car, which had come to seem like an extension of his body, edged into the parking lot, just barely kissing the parking bumper. What appeared to be supernatural motor skill was in reality OCD and a mild case of Tourettes.
“Very few things are truly random,” Speed said. Like all of us, except maybe Lupin, Speed would never get rid of the bags under his eyes. “Radiation is one of the true random elements of life. So, is Tr8sky’s mind. Those thoughts, those plans, those neurons are volatile. Can’t control it. Can’t play chess. All your OpSec won’t do anything to prepare for it.”
He unbuckled his seat belt and started drumming, flipping switches and tapping compartments. “You would never tell me how to drive, run, or hack a car,” Speed said. “I would never tell you how to coach, but you best be careful with Tr8sky. He’d blow this train up before being wrong. Oh, and check your phone, Seventy percent chance of at least eight text messages. But not from M3sh.”
Speed was right. We walked to the platform. Nine text messages. None from M3sh. I replied to all of them with the same message: “We all do our jobs. I’ll coach Tr8sky.”
Those who wanted more privatization could point to the Brightline as a gleaming success. Those who opposed privatization could point to the Brightline as proving them right. Such is the case with all modern success stories.
For proponents, the Brightline, which served Orlando, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, and Miami, created a fully functioning 200 mph luxury train across a flat stretch of land that should’ve been lined with trains decades ago. Opponents of the project retorted that the cost of tickets and the placement of stops were an affront to the public interest. Not to mention the traffic fatalities.
Proponents would then reply that the government couldn’t or wouldn’t create a railroad. And come on, guy, those fatalities were pedestrians who ignored railroad stops! The return volley would include a political history of public rail sabotage, and on and on, ad infinitum.
We cared about p0wning the train. A certain data broker had certain information proving how a major social media platform was exploiting a vulnerability in a common web development library. A zero-day, that when made public, would force large tech companies to engage in interoperability and standards. A golden era of agreed-upon standards. Or, so Tr8sky said.
The thing is, it all checked out. When M3sh signed off on it, we knew it was real. But the more the op came together, the more Tr8sky began to critique us and our allegedly impure motives.
Tr8sky was right, of course. We just couldn’t take him being such a pretentious blowhard. He knew it and he quit before Strong and Trunks could beat the piss out of him.
An elegant gleam in the cafe car hid a lot. Every square inch of the art deco facade shined with the level of polish. The pastels emanated a vibrancy reminiscent of a stroll through 1960s Miami. I heard the whirring of an espresso machine and saw my colleague at the bar.
“...con leche,” Lupin said.
Lupin could get by in seven languages. Most of his official documentation listed him as Mike Alvarez, the son of Cuban immigrants. He played the part well.
Out of the windows, the landscape was becoming a blur as the train picked up speed. Palm trees flickered in the distance.
At 6’3”, he was a head taller than me. He flashed a big grin and wrapped me in a big hug. Aviators hung on the unbuttoned collar of a white linen shirt. Too much chest hair was exposed. He wore loose khakis and flip flops. He knew I disagreed with sandals during an op. He also knew I’d never tell him how to do his job.
He placed a crisply folded fifty dollar bill on the bar. With a magician’s deft hand, he grabbed his beer and his coffee. With milk. Lupin strolled to the bar.
“Gracias Muneca!” he said to the young bartender. Decked in Brightline attire, she smiled and gave a professional “Thank you, sir!” The bartender was stunning. A heart-shaped face with almond eyes, and wavy brown hair.
“Please let me know if you need anything else,” she said.
Lupin winked at her, and blew her a kiss. There was something off–too lewd and douchey.
I made a mental note to talk to him about that. The cafe car was filled with tourists from all over Latin America. The singsong Portuguese of Brasilianeros, the flowing Spanish of Colombianos. Lupin’s own staccato Cubano. Families, the elderly, couples. Occasional shrieks of children. Folks laughing. It was an ideal place for Lupin to operate.
We slid into a booth. He placed the drinks down, knowing neither of us would drink alcohol during an op. Alarm bells started going off in my head–directly across from us a kid in a hoodie was hunched over a laptop. Couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Possibly eleven. It was hard to tell with pubescent tweens. The kid’s hands moved fast and typed lightly.
Lupin’s head tilted towards The Kid. His voice lowered, the pitch evened. Pace slowed. Accent faded towards neutral. A steady meter emerged, like a thoughtful court reporter scribing bullet notes. “Walked by earlier–brief recon. Opted not to chat, but asked if I could sit. Said my girlfriend and I were looking for seats, of course. He said his family was returning shortly. Didn’t even’t look up.”
No family had joined him. I nodded, and Lupin went on.
“The UI of what he was working on looked like Binary Ninja. He’s younger than he looks, maybe eleven, possibly ten. No discernible accent. Asian. Reverse engineering something, but it was messy. He was moving fast. Like he was on the clock.”
He let that last statement settle.
I nodded.
“Well, is this kid with us?” he asked.
The truth was that I didn’t know, an absurdity in its own right, but I didn’t think so. “Best to minimize this shared knowledge,” I said. Who the heck was this kid?
Lupin looked at me like I was a peculiar bug he hadn’t seen before. Leaned in. He was either turning up his emotions, or he was simply pissed off. “I can’t social engineer a moving security blockade and then cause a disruption in order to get the target to physically move if there is a concern that I may disrupt my own team. Let alone competing ops. And that’s setting aside concerns that Tr8sky is in some self-righteous holy war.”
He was right, of course. I didn’t know if this kid was with one of our team members or not. And Tr8sky…
Tr8sky liked to call things by their name, and he took naming conventions quite seriously. It irked him that technology companies treated browsers as virtual machines. It angered him that so many single page applications stored information in a JavaScript object’s live memory, in order to coordinate the browser cum virtual machine’s Document Object Model, which would then react to changes in the backend. Synching this JS shadow DOM with the server and the server led to isolated architecture–ignoring the fundamental status and response codes of HTTPS, not to mention the purpose of HTML.
Oh, Tr8sky understood the need for complexity. The desire for a user to log in, make a change to, say, an online spreadsheet, and then have that update trigger a cascade of updates. A very understandable and easy-to-trace phenomenon. Particularly when companies like Facebook started pushing open-source solutions, like React-Redux, so every web developer could be an JSON-AJAX island unto themselves, ignoring standards and an interoperable internet.
That’s what set Tr8sky off. So-called engineers termed this faux-interoperability RESTful when these architectures were ignoring the most important constraints laid out by Roy Fielding's on RESTful architectures. That’s when Tr8sky began to wonder: if so much complexity was shifted to the user, how secure were these pseudo-REST apps? Could those who would bastardize the concept of a REST API with fickle JSON, relying on brittle data standards really be secure? If the source of truth was so transient, wouldn’t anyone be able to hack this with simple reverse engineering tools?
Lupin said “Coach, what is going on here? You with me?”
Closest gator to the boat. One problem at a time. I stood and made for the Kid. As I was getting up, though, Lupin’s words reverberated through my mind. The term Binary Ninja.
I walked over to the Kid’s booth. Sat across from him. “You’re working with Binary Ninja?” I asked.
He didn’t stop typing, didn’t even look up.
I reached over and spun his laptop around. Lupin must’ve been horrified, but I needed to reassure him.
He was just a child. He looked so innocent that I half expected to see One Piece on the screen. But the control flow diagrams and stack layouts with memory addresses were glowing in the default neon green of Binary Ninja’s UI.
Like the spark of a match, it came to me. Tr8sky had told me he didn’t need his own tools. Ghira and Ida would work, but he was content with Binary Ninja.
Tr8sky and I had been walking up past a cluster of mangrove swamps. A boardwalk for a private residence had become one of his favorite haunts.
Tr8sky swiped a Flipper and the LED lights on the lock flickered. We could’ve just jumped the gate, but Tr8sky preferred it this way. For a brief flash, I wondered if he was carrying the lockpicking tools we’d carried when we were teenagers, or would it now be the merch we bought at DefCon.
Wet sand clumped along an elegant walkway. Well manicured palm trees created an elegant canopy on a slight rise. A stairwell led up to a view of the beach. I grabbed his forearm. “Wait,” I said.
We knew each other. I liked to go slowly as the shore came into view. Assumptions about being skinny, pale, and perpetually hunched over laptops may sometimes be right. Yet another reason for us to meet at the beach.
But this moment, this inefficiency, was for me. I took a deep breath of air from the sea shore as the shoreline came into view. A stretch of sand separated us from the lapping waves. The waves pulled in and out. A sea breeze brushed past us.
Tr8sky had always loved the anonymity of being immersed in water. It’s harder to conceal recording equipment in board shorts so he felt more comfortable holding meetings in the Atlantic.
We both stepped into the sand. Warm grains overwhelmed our toes. As we’d done a thousand times, Tr8sky trotted towards the water while I stopped moving. Taking it all in.
Like a runner at a track meet, I bolted to the water’s edge and then jumped into the water. The water smacked my face. My dive wasn’t elegant, but I didn’t care. We shared a source of joy.
I bobbed up, brushed the hair out of my eyes and Tr8sky was already there, ready to say the lines I’d heard so many times.
“Nice of you to join me,” Tr8sky said.
I slapped a wave of seawater at him and he ducked. “Don’t act like you’re Speed.”
“Speaking of Speed, can you get a crew together for an op in four months?” he asked.
Four months wasn’t ideal, but it could be done. “What’s the objective? Scope?”
As his coach, I liked him focused. As his brother, I worried about what was lurking underneath. For most hackers, coaching is maintaining a holy triage of keeping them challenged, motivated, and busy. Always busy. An honest coach recognizes that they’re not really capable of keeping them if they’re not invested.
Tr8sky was no exception. He needed to be busy. But there was a deep hole inside of him, a hunger that appeared to the outside world to be a garden variety obsession. He was lonely. It required connection with a lot of unique hackers to satiate that emptiness. And the beautiful terror for a coach like me was that even if we got a crew together, all of us could be swallowed by Tr8sky’s madness.
Tr8sky smiled. “The scope is everything.”
The train picked up speed, the scenery flying by in the windows. We had no time. I took out my phone and sent a Gerry-rigged text to M3sh. “Is the Kid actually a kid?”
My text faded, along with the web server that created it. The response came rather quickly.
“Biologically, yes. The emotional IQ is one of the higher ones of the crew.”
M3sh wasn’t joking.
Lupin slid into the booth next to me.
“Lupin, this is the Kid. Kid, Lupin.”
The Kid didn’t seem to have emotion. Then he said “Hello.”
Lupin, for his part, took a sip of his drink, and slipped back into character. With the bombast back in his voice, I knew I'd be able to focus on Strong and figure out what Tr8sky was doing.
“¿Quieres chocolatico?” Lupin asked.
His patronizing tone could alienate the Kid. I slid the laptop back to the Kid, and he immediately went to work. His tone was even. “M3sh said it’s best if the plus ones didn’t engage with the other members of the team,” he said. “For the crew’s sake, and our own sake.”
“Kid,” I said, before Lupin could say anything, “you’re right.”
The Kid was already back at work. I made an after-you gesture towards Lupin. We resumed our places, with one less problem than we had before.
“And the Kid is with M3sh?”
I nodded.
“I’m still wary of Tr8sky,” Lupin said.
And for good reason. He appeared so confident that it was easy to forget that Lupin’s mind was also a ceaseless series of calculations. He was just focused on people. “That’s because you’re smart. Tr8sky is a loose canon, true. But we have him under control.”
“Look, when Travis and I were with the train crew earlier the conductors were on the verge of panic attacks. Something is wrong with the train. And you didn’t even know the Kid was M3sh’s plus one.”
“Inaccurate. I didn’t know the Kid was an actual kid. M3sh followed protocol on this.”
The irony of Lupin was the more stressed he became, the more neutral his accent became. His only tell, a regression to his true mean, was when he became utterly nondescript. “The protocol is the problem,” he said. “Not knowing every member of a given crew. It introduces too many variables.”
True hacker spirit. Getting me to discuss operational procedure during an op, instead of focusing on ensuring everyone was able to do their jobs. It almost made me wonder if Lupin was running a social engineering op on me, but no, this was a righteous concern. And understandable nerves.
“Look, we got this. M3sh helped me build in layers to ensure we could all thrive. But let me speak plainly. I’ve never met Travis McGee and as long as it's within the operational API–you only give Travis the access they need to assist—”
Lupin leaned back and chuckled. No one loved our protocols more than Lupin. It gave him the operational boundaries and guidelines to be as bombastic as he needed in order to confuse whatever cop or doorman was blocking us. His back straightened, and I could see the energy and zeal come back, a sort of mania.
“Actually, you already have,” he said, winking, back in character, and flicked his glass. His drink? Was the glass itself coated with some polymer? I was missing it and he chuckled at my confusion, for Lupin the ultimate tonic. He took a sip, rendering me speechless. Imbibing alcohol during an op? He lapped it up.
“Relax, muñeca, it’s just a mocktail.”
But I had seen the pretty bartender pour in the booze. Or did I?
More of his white teeth shined as he flashed his trademark smile and it hit me: the bartender was Travis McGee.
“She grew up near the mythic Slip F-18. A deckhand her whole life. She can plane a piece of wood and saw out rot with a freaking toothpick. Worked so many yachts for so many rich bastards she knows how to work them better than anyone.”
I was tempted to look backwards, take another look at ol’ Travis McGee. Lupin sensed it and smiled his disarming smile.
“I’ve wasted enough of your time. Just make sure Strong stays out of my way. And figure out what has the Brightline staff so spooked.”
As I made my way to the next car, I could hear the bombast coming through again. “Gracias, muñeca. Listen, hermano, relax a little.”
The targets. Two men. One in an Italian suit, and impeccable cut really. But an absurdity given the environment. Another in a hoodie hunched over a laptop. The broker himself. Across the row to their diagonal was a lone passenger, sitting with a military bearing. Not reading or looking out the window.
Was there more private security? It shouldn’t even matter. I sat in the row behind Strong and Trunks. Strong stuck her hand through the narrow gap between luxury seats. I whispered thanks and she made a tapping motion on their ear–not going to whisper between seats. Strong operational security as befits our team’s muscle.
“Spotted private security across the aisle from our boys.”
“And you missed the other two private officers in this train car,” Strong said.
I placed my baggage in the rack. “As long as you’re on it.”
“We got it,” came the deep voice of Trunks. “We’ll get M3sh what he needs. But everytime we tap into Brightline comms, we’re picking up a lot of nervous chatter. They know something is wrong.”
Trunks had been a competitive powerlifter. Still was one, but lost interest in competition. She had commissioned a tattoo artist to create full leg stockings of bark and leaves, so that their legs looked like a tree trunk. Strong and Trunks had developed a friendship at lifting competitions, and it was Strong who had introduced Trunks to Rogues Village where they began to practice their interdisciplinary arts together. They needed the least amount of my time and exposed themselves to some of the greatest risks.
“Thank you both. I’m on it. I’ll be with M3sh.”
“We got you,” they said.
M3sh was sitting in a first class booth. The elegance suited him. Frameless glasses, monochromatic polo, and beige khakis, rounded up by tennis shoes. Appropriately forgettable and nondescript. His parents had emigrated from Taiwan, and you could still hear the accent of growing up in a Mandarin-speaking household.
He smiled slightly and spoke softly. “Hello, Coach.”
“Nice day we’re having.” Everything is on schedule and going according to plan.
He knew this, though. His patience was legendary. A civilian contractor for the Army, he’d received multiple achievement medals for civilian service, including a Wooden Coin, 2-Star Coin, and 2-Star Note and Coin. After putting in his time, he’d shifted to a private contractor that did the real hacking.
I met him at the OSint village, of all places. I’d dragged Tr8sky there. The talk was mesmerizing and, like so many DefCon talks, it was also horrifying. Of the six, or depending on where you land, seven zero days that went into the Stuxnet attack on Iran, much of the US power grid was still vulnerable to five of them. Many hospitals could be taken down with even one of those zero days. M3sh had walked folks through the terrifying reality that this wouldn’t be a ransomware attack. There were no off switches to work with. Just combative nation states gleefully using weapons the US intelligence community created against the US. If someone launched this, the threat was existential and would be hard to trace.
He never used the term “script kiddie” even when he could’ve. Tr8sky didn’t seem to care, but I instantly appreciated what he was doing: disseminating the information. Putting it out there. Giving the talk at OSint was a stroke of genius. That was the point–it was open source information. He wasn’t padding his resume, he was trying to prevent catastrophe. Paradoxically, this aligned him with Tr8sky. And M3sh only participated if the job was righteous. The same could be said of our entire crew.
Like all Coaches, I needed to learn from my team. No one was better suited to be our coach than M3sh, but he didn’t want the job.
The basic plan was to have Strong and Trunks cover the rear, while Lupin came from the front of the cab. My plan had been to go back, to see if Travis needed a hand. Lupin would create a scuffle and cause movement, cell phones would be dropped, a few py scripts run. Strong would lead on the ground to see if they had the right IPs to the right devices. Exfil led by Speed and Gerry.
“They don’t need you,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“There are greater concerns we need to focus on.”
My muscles clenched. A nervousness spread throughout my body. The main concern was the twenty seconds Strong would need to set up a successful AITM attack for the entire train car. Zone in on the brokers. No one would get past Trunks. Lupin would box them in and create chaos with Travis McGee in tow. If needed–
“Breathe,” M3sh said. “Take a breath on a three count, hold it for three, and let it out on a three count.”
I did as he said.
He continued to stare at me. “When a person sees news of a ransomware attack, what do they do?”
“Well, nothing, it’s already happened. There is nothing they can do.”
Cocked his head at an angle. “Is it a one-time event?” When M3sh went into Professor mode it calmed me down.
“People are inured to such news,” I said. “Jaded.”
“And the overall plan here. The reason you were able to unite such a disparate group on this operation was to help force interoperability, right? Show the world what Facebook and these other large companies were really doing, correct?”
“Yes,” I said. Hesitated. “And make money.”
A wave of his hand–of course.
The landscape outside of the windows was a blur. The train was reaching its top speed.
“And what if this op wasn’t necessary to show the world how vulnerable these SPA applications are.”
These were the doubts I’d expressed to Speed. M3sh knew, he always knew. “Interoperability,” I said. “Force the major tech companies to adopt engineering practices and principles that benefit the user. Will it work?”
M3sh sat back, a small smirk appearing. “What do you think?”
“No.”
He nodded slowly. “Why is that?”
“They do whatever they want.”
“Well, although it may appear that way, that is not accurate. We still have power. If you didn’t believe that you wouldn’t have put this entire endeavor together. We need to align.”
“How so?” I said.
“Let’s back up. What are they doing, these companies, that united all of us on this op?”
“Creating a machine learning model to analyze a user’s given shadow DOM for indirect access, cross-site and prototype pollution is trivial. So much so that Facebook has leveraged it to leave the JavaScript sandbox of its user. Harvest reams of data outside the browser. Illegally.”
“Indeed,” I said. Even though I was aware of the father figure role he’d adopted, I still appreciated the gratification of being right in his eyes.
“But why are we here? Why this op?” he asked.
“With the data from these brokers on this train, how would there not be outrage at using security vulnerabilities for such a thing?” My passion took over. “We will show the world what they’re doing.”
“Oh, there may be public outrage, but their terms of service indemnify them. There might even be the public hand slapping in front of Congress. But we can illustrate proof of concept here without p0wning a data broker. Maybe we wouldn’t make as much money, but we could help illustrate what is going on.”
I started his breathing exercises again. Like so many of us, I ranged from apathy to intense passion. The idea of the op, what it meant, and where it could go took on a life of its own.
M3sh continued. “This is basic information theory. It wouldn’t be kept under wraps for long. And when the information came out, all the major companies would present it as some kind of innovative cookie. Just another marketing tool.”
I finally found my footing. “There is a world of difference between a cookie and something that persists on the OS outside the memory of the browser.”
He put his hands up in agreement. A slow down gesture. Sensing my frustration and understanding.
"We’re aligned. But how would the public react?”
I understood. “Exhausted. Another breach, another violation of trust. Nothing would change.”
Then why were we here? How did we get swept up into this?
“What if the men responsible for taking your data also, say, crashed a train? One they were riding. The same tools that steal your data also create a spectacle with dead bodies.”
“Tr8sky. He’s going to kill himself. Go out in some dumb blaze of glory.” I knew it was nonsensical, but only M3sh spotted Tr8sky’s bigger picture. This wouldn’t be just another breach. It would be a spectacle, a live train crash. “But he’d have to link the learning model that did this to-”
“The ATC, Automatic Train Control, ensures the train maintains a safe speed with an automatic feed from trackside sensors,” M3sh said. “It’s a standard Industrial Control System. The computers aboard, leverage transponders to communicate and regulate train movements. It’s essentially a system that ensures the train maintains a safe speed.”
“What are we going to do?”
A hack is not finding the bug. Nor is it finding the error. It’s not invoking an incantation from some command line tool. A hack is chaining together a series of vulnerabilities, and then making sure attribution is impossible. It’s about putting all the right hacks together. And ensuring we don’t get caught. My team cared about the craft, and we cared about the world. And my strung-out brother was going to get us killed.
Tr8sky sat across from me. This wasn’t hacker skinny or heroin chic. Looking at the bones in his gaunt face, I couldn’t help but think of concentration camp survivors.
“You can’t stop me,” he said.
“You said the same thing when I tried to stop you from surfing the gusts of Hurricane Andrew.”
He was sniffling. “And I did it!” There was crust around his nostrils.
“Jesus, you’re high right now.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m still better than you.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m not on your level, just content to understand what you pull off.”
M3sh had hooked up an odometer measuring the train’s speed to my watch. We'd already passed into a threshold beyond legal safety limits. Even if this train didn’t crash it could kill someone at an intersection. There would be no last second Mission Impossible wire cutting. Tr8sky looked at his computer. He began typing.
“But for myself,” I continued, “I want you to know something. I need to say this.” He didn’t bother to look at me. Consumed with the anger and self-absorbed fear that is the lifeblood of a junkie.
A beautiful woman with wavy hair in a conductor's uniform was assisting an elderly woman to the back of the car.
I’d told M3sh, and the rest of our crew, that I would tell my brother the truth. That I had to for my own well being. “You passed out on those waves. Got wrecked by an eight foot wave you couldn’t handle, and then got stuck in a cycle of laundry waves. I was there. Not to surf, but to drag your sorry ass back to shore to make sure you didn’t drown in some vicious undertow.”
“So you could lord it over me for the rest of my life?” he spat. “So you’d matter to hackers who were better than you? You could always offer up your brother for cred you never deserved.”
“Sure, I did that. But also because I couldn’t let you go. I wouldn’t let harm come to my baby bro. But I can’t look after you anymore. The people on this train. Whatever holy mission you’re on. This is on you.”
Another conductor, a tall man with a bright smile, entered the train car and was now with the beautiful woman. They were going up to each passenger, leaning in and speaking quietly.
“The entire crew agrees with the objective here,” I said. To show the world, to prove, that their privacy is being violated. And we can do that without hurting anyone.”
“No, no no,” he muttered. He was losing interest in me. His unceasing, relief-seeking mind had picked something else to obsess over.
“It’s a honeypot,” I said.
He looked up at me again. “What! What the hell did you just say?” His hands could still type, despite his twitching. Now, I was the one who could act bored.
I chuckled. “M3sh brought on a kid. The Kid, really. The honeypot he created is a work of art. The degree of binary analysis he dove into was on another level and completely unnecessary to create the trap you stepped into.”
He stopped. Looked up at me. My breath caught. It’s painful to look at a loved one suffering. Anyone saying otherwise is lying or dissociated. But I was moving on.
“You're wasting my time,” he said.
“Intentionally so,” I replied.
A flicker of concern crossed his face. It was coming. The point where relief from the hack and relief from his opiates were intertwined. I would be in control, what I’d always wanted, which was really my own poison.
“Please,” he said. “Tell me.”
I wanted to smack him. Deck him. Hug him. Hold him. This was a version of my life, one that could intoxicate me. “Sure thing. I already did. It’s a honeypot. The Kid can be as good as you one day, and we’re going to try to steer him in the right direction. But we also know we can’t control him or you.”
He didn’t understand.
“You are a better hacker than me. And maybe better than everyone one of us individually. But we’re a team. M3sh spotted what you’re doing. And we know we can’t stop it.”
“Stop speaking in riddles.”
“M3sh spotted the big picture. I’m admitting defeat. Strong and Trunks, they’re walking away. Ditto Lupin and Travis. Gerry and Speed have new marching orders to clear out.”
“So you’re giving up?” he said. “You’re afraid.”
“Of course I’m afraid,” I said. “What sane person wouldn’t be afraid of a train crash? But M3sh will take care of the Kid, in any event, they all will.”
He wasn’t paying attention. He was fixated on whatever he’d found. “It was a honeypot. Why would you tell me this?” and then his wonder gave way to venom. “Whatever, I would’ve figured it out.”
“We know we can’t stop you. In fact, if you look closely at the program that's altering the ATC, you’ll notice it’s not one of your learning models, but a good old fashioned python script written by us.”
“You didn’t write it,” he said.
“No, M3sh did.”
He slammed his fists on the table. “What are you talking about?”
I took a deep breath. Reached up and grabbed the duffel bag filled with equipment Gerry had left.
“The seats here don’t have seatbelts,” I said.
He had the wild look of a rabid dog. “Listen, we’re going to derail the train before you can crash it. It’ll happen a little later than you planned for, but well before we get to Orlando. In a sparsely populated, boring area in the middle of Florida. Reduce the casualties.”
“You’re helping me?”
“No, not at all.” I said. “We cannot beat you, but we did slow you down enough to make it happen on our terms. Like I said, you may be better than any one of us, but not better than the crew.”
“Nonsense,” he said, but he was listening to me now.
“Do you see anyone else in this car?”
By this point, Lupin and Travis had cleared the car out. Most of the cars, in fact. There may not be an off switch on the Brightline train, but Speed and Gerry were decoupling the train cars at a record pace, according to Strong. Trunks was still after the train. The Kid with M3sh’s guidance was at work wiping our presence and footage.
For the first time in a long time, at least since Little Bro had become Tr8sky, he was speechless. He had nothing to say. So I explained it to him: “You are so talented. We cannot stop what you’ve done to the ATC, but we’re making sure it happens when we want it to.”
His fury was capped only by his ability to type. “Are you serious? Attack In the Middle for the transponders? Just because you’re feeding my model false data doesn’t mean it won’t happen. I’ll crash this train and people will know. I still win! I still own this train.”
I began connecting the makeshift seatbelt Gerry had rigged to the luxury seat. Tossed one to Tr8sky. “I know.”
I strapped myself in. I wanted to overpower him, maybe punch him a few times and strap him in for his own good. But those days were over.
He started ranting about a dialectic of unity and disunity; how the engineering paradigms ebbed and flowed and this was the rare instance for the proletariat to rise up and smash something something something. To be honest, he was probably right. But that’s when the train went off the rails.
Gerry’s improvised straps held me. And we went up in the air with a certain weightlessness. I heard a prayer and was surprised as anyone when I realized I was saying it. I looked over at my younger brother, took a massive hit to the head, and blacked out.
“What are we going to do?” I’d asked M3sh when I’d realized what he was explaining. It wouldn’t take much alteration–a computer is a computer after all–to one of Tr8sky’s learning models. From hacking someone’s computer from a web app, to hacking a train.
“You tell me,” M3sh said.
“Surrender. Ensure no lives are lost. Minimize the damage.”
It was my plan. Forgive the pun, but everyone was on board. The only thing they objected to was me staying with Tr8sky. Gerry and Speed, in particular, were furious.
“Then make me a seat belt,” I said to Gerry. “And would you hurry it up?” I said to Speed.
My throat was so dry I didn’t even recognize it as pain. Voices, sounds in the background. Confusion reigned. My body ached. Was I sick? I was alive, but I wouldn’t open my eyes. I didn’t understand.
Breathed in on a three count. Held it for a three count. Exhaled for a three count.
The voices became distinct. An argument. Loud and aggressive. I wanted no part of it. Much rather drift off into some numb void. Float in this liminal interregnum between whatever had happened and whatever was going to happen.
A memory vague, then suddenly clear. Little Bro. The train. All of it. Was he alive?
I tried opening my eyes. Everything was blurry.
“Slowly,” I heard a lovely voice say. A nurse came into view. A beautiful woman with wavy brown hair. None other than Travis McGee in a nurse’s uniform. I tried to say my brother’s name, but I couldn’t speak.
“Easy does it,” she said. “I’m going to get you some water.” She leaned in, making a show of looking over my vitals. She whispered, “Your brother is alive.”
I felt tears well up. For the first time in a long time, I let go of something. It was like I’d stopped running a race I didn’t even know I was in. My team had my back. And we would finish what we started, together.
“Gentlemen!” roared the doctor. “You will wait until I medically clear this patient to speak with you. And not a second prior. Or, would you like me to let the public defender’s office know about the lack of medical attention Okechobee cops are giving to crash victims.”
“Dr. Juarez,” the beautiful nurse said. “He’s awake.”
A tall man wearing scrubs ambled over. With a bright smile and dark hair, he bore a striking resemblance to a train conductor and one Mr. Alvarez. He leaned over me.
“Mr. Johnson,” he said. “My name is Dr Juarez. You’ve been in a terrible accident.” He gently rested a clipboard next to me. “For an actuary, you’re pretty tough!” A gentle flick of the clipboard. “I do need to confirm what I have here on your identity and health biography in order to ensure proper treatment. It’s unfortunate to have to deal with so many cases of trauma while our IT team is dealing with some computer fiasco. And we’ll be sure to give you time to rest and compose yourself before a conversation with law enforcement and the folks from the FTA. They’re eager to speak with you.”
I couldn't suppress a smile. “Thank you, Doctor Juarez.”Comment
-
Smart Home, Dark Fate - Unskilled Eel
Hot air sat heavy in his lungs. Each breath becoming harder and harder to take. Jayce’s whole home was fitted with an advanced climate control system meant to control temperatures to a hundredth of a degree of accuracy. He glanced at the thermostat unit of his home’s guest bedroom; it was reading close to 90°. Not enough to kill him in any amount of reasonable time but just enough to make him uncomfortable. Just enough to make him consider allowing himself to be caught by something built to keep him safe. He could hear the quiet whirring of small motors pushing small rubber wheels outside the room. He could not sit any longer. Breathing was getting even harder. Jayce pushed himself off the floor, his body aching and a wrinkled hand gripping his knee to support the ascent. Images of the room were reflected at him in the mirrored closet doors he was reaching to open. He met his own eyes, he looked afraid and even older than he already was, he struggled to take another deep breath. Mirrored glass moved smoothly aside and revealed a small medical bag sitting on the floor. The zipper always stuck but he forced it open and scooped out the smooth cylinder labeled with a yellow rhombus-shaped sticker that warned inside was the flammable gas “OXYGEN.” Hoses were affixed to the nozzle which he drew along his body and the nasal cannula at the end he affixed under his nose. One problem solved.
With the small bag secured to his side and his breathing clearer, his next obstacle was the door. Shuffling closer, his fingers wrapped around the handle, still cold somehow. It opened just enough for an eye to peer through. He could see down the hallway. Two doors on the right, one to a restroom and the other to the master bedroom. On the left was a thinner door that served as storage for coats and cleaning supplies. At the very limit of Jayce’s view, at the end of the hallway, he could see the eggshell white door that led to his garage. The whirring was quieter like it was moving farther away. He opened the door slowly, holding the medical bag against his body. He slid as smoothly as he could out into the hallway. He took a few steps. The whirring was getting louder, and closer. He froze and took a troubled breath despite now having his needed oxygen. Convincing his body to move, he took a few more steps, nearly to the bathroom door. He paused again. At the end of the hallway, a black discus no more than four inches in height whirred into view and the sound of bristles scraping dust from floor emanated from the device. It appeared to be patrolling and had a menacing air about its movement. His fear lessened only slightly. Maybe he was safe. Maybe the thing that had drawn him into hiding had departed and left this pathetic device in its place. Jayce looked down at his house-shoes and took two more careful steps, and when his eyes were back at level the small sentinel had been joined by a once not-so-feared thing, a RALF. Jayce’s Robotic Assisted Living Facilitator, a robot designed to live alongside the elderly, to care for them, and ensure their safety. It had abandoned this mission. Not moments ago, was Jayce herded into his guest bedroom by the very thing that stood not more than twenty feet in front of him. Jayce looked back at the door that saved him earlier, there were scratches and fist-sized indents where RALF had tried to get to him, he thought it was no accident he was still alive. Soundlessly, the door to the bathroom glided open. Empty, good. He had thought the window was closer to ground level, close enough he might be able to breathlessly squeeze himself out, but it was too damn high. An exasperated breath left him, and the whirring outside stopped for just a moment, Jayce felt for sure they could hear him, could see him through studs and drywall and would be on their way to finish the job. He sat for a moment, staring at himself in the mirror and the whirring started again. The door was still open, Jayce got down as low as he could and peaked around the corner. Sentinel and RALF were both out of view, with no way of telling for sure where either had wandered. He fell back into the room and started to think. He needed to get out, he needed to make it to the front door. How could he get RALF where he wanted him? He looked around for anything that could be used as a distraction. Only his electric toothbrush sat on the sinks edge, it could work, it could make enough noise for RALF to hear and maybe even pursue. Its battery caused it to sit heavy in his pants pocket. Under the sink was just as sparse, nothing but one of those automatic air fresheners that would often frighten Jayce by going off with a loud click, hiss, and no warning while he was alone. It could be useful. It was lighter and its weight could barely be felt in the bag with the oxygen cylinder. A creak sounded from the door frame of the bathroom as Jayce leaned against it for support while again peaking down the hall. Still nothing there.
Quick, silent steps and a gentle push on the already ajar door got him to the next room, he had no time to waste. Eyes surveyed, how would he set this up? Shuffling past his bed to the master bathroom he brought out the air freshener, ensured it was turned on, and sat it on the counter facing directly at the bathroom door. As he was leaving, the air freshener sprayed, his face started to feel even hotter and his heart skipped a beat, had RALF heard that? Buzzing from the toothbrush was not so loud when you were just holding it in your hand, but setting it on a hard flat, hollow surface like that of an empty dresser drawer made quite the sound. Before he switched the toothbrush on and set it inside the dresser, he looked directly behind him through the bathroom door checking to make sure the air freshener was properly in line. It was as in line as it needed to be, or at least he hoped it was. Vibration ran through his fingers as he gently lowered the toothbrush into the wooden drawer and at once the annoying sound of the plastic bouncing off the oak hundreds of times a second filled the room. Sliding it closed quickly, Jayce moved to the door of the room and glanced around it, still nothing there. He left closing the door almost completely and went back down to the end of the hall, back into his guest bedroom. Closing the door, leaving just enough room for him to gaze through, he got low and waited.
It took no time for Jayce’s legs to start aching, but he would sit and wait as long as he needed to. He heard the small wheels on his hardwood floor come closer and then farther away. Just before the disc, he was guessing, turned around to complete its path RALF stopped in Jayce’s view and appeared to be listening. LED eyes looked down the hall right at him. It was dark, the lights were off, but Jayce felt as though RALF would break into a sprint coming straight for him, as he did before, bursting through the door and killing him in one smooth action. RALF did begin to move but slowly and in the direction of the master bedroom where Jayce had left his distraction. Silicone heels pulled on wool carpet as RALF came to a stop. Only a moment passed and then his metal fingertips tapped against the wood of the door, opening it. Jayce waited and stretched his hearing, trying to hold his breath, waiting for the opportune moment to swiftly and quietly make his way past. Finally, he heard it, the soft but distinct sound of scented liquid, forced by compression, leaving its aluminum prison. Hoping RALF was investigating, Jayce moved the door he was hiding behind open. The adrenaline had started pumping as soon as Jayce had seen RALF moments ago and it was all that was keeping him moving now. Keeping lower he moved down the hall hugging the wall the master bedroom door was on, stopping just before the open bedroom door. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and allowed the dread to flow through his body and down through his feet. In his head he could see what would happen if RALF were not alerted by the sound from the bathroom, he could see his death. Waiting here any longer would certainly result in what he saw. Old knees bent even lower and keeping his eyes forward Jayce moved across the opening only allowing himself to see the parts of the room viewable in his peripheral. There was nothing in the room.
After safely passing, the front door was now his only goal. Once at the end of the hallway, a glance back revealed he still had time. Whirring drew his attention and looking out into the living room he saw the menace’s helper struggling to remove itself from under a tan leather love seat. Now was the chance to make for the door. Pushing off the wall Jayce took the few large steps needed to make it there. With shallow breath, he rested his hand on the handle, then slowly began to turn it. His heart fluttered as the handle gave way slightly to the pressure, he was going to get out of here, he was going to throw this door open and make it to his nearest neighbor to call the police for help. The rebound of pins hitting the lock’s brass body preventing the handle from turning any further awoke Jayce from this fantasy. Panic set in, and he scrambled to rotate the thumb-turn on the front of the lock, but it would not budge. Then he realized. Every external door in his home had been retrofitted with smart locks controlled by a hub kept in the garage. Stopping to think for only a moment, he remembered a conversation he had with the young man who installed all that nonsense. Looking to his left at the door to the garage, Jayce knew what he had to do to escape.
Garage door in his sights he again made way, not thinking or considering stealth now. Less than five feet away from passage to his only hope, he heard hardened metal scratching across drywall behind him. Flinging himself around he locked his eyes on the LEDs sitting centered on a rounded head. They seemed to observe each other for a moment, both unsure of what to do.
Jayce fell for the doors handle, using his full weight to thrust it open. Catching himself before falling, he used his momentum to swing around and slam the door closed. Light reflecting off optical eyes was the last thing he saw before the metal door collided back with frame. He scrambled for the chair he knew was sitting nearby and jammed it under the handle. Thundering began and metal hands met metal door getting louder and faster with each second. How long would the door remain seated where it was? He stepped backward, turned, and went straight for his only hope, the small hub stored in a temperature-controlled enclosure neighbored by other control equipment for utilities. Turning the small handle of the transparent acrylic box he revealed the hub. Light from the last working bulb in his garage presented some trouble in finding the correct cables but when he did fingers wrapped around everyone that connected the hub to who knows where. Before he could pull, there was the sound of crunching metal. His head swiveled and he could see RALF over the folded corner of the door; the solid wooden chair had somehow prevented it from coming completely loose. He turned back to the hub again preparing to pull. Then darkness quickly followed the sound of glass breaking and clattering on the floor. Pitch black filled the windowless garage. Standing he turned in the direction of the door and started to feel his way backwards away from it. Soon his back was pressed tightly against a wall, all Jayce could see was two red pearls floating in complete shadow. Deep screws put through hinges were ripped from their homes. Red streaks beamed straight toward him. Sharp pain above his ankles caused him to gasp and before a reaction could be made his head cracked against the concrete floor and breath was knocked out of him. RALF dragged Jayce through the darkness. Jayce felt the cannula of his oxygen pull from his face and soon they were back into the living room.
Streetlight came through the curtains illuminating the room. It was over. Air struggled past his lips and through the pain he started to silently plead but to no avail. RALF threw his legs back to the ground. Jayce lay still, seeing nothing but the ceiling fan slowly turning above him. Cold hands slid around his throat and slowly began to squeeze.
Pressure built inside blood vessels and Jayce could feel it behind his eyes. Air passed into his lungs, but consciousness was still slipping. Grasping at the metal constrictors he tried to pull them away, they were too strong and gripping too tightly. Sensations of floating filled a struggling body that was soon to be empty of Jayce. Then just before he could leave, the hum of electricity coming from his home and from RALF blipped. Stopping for only a minute and then coming on again. Constrictors loosened and harsh gasping through coughs brought life back into Jayce. Urgently, he sat up, anticipating another attack but when he looked around, RALF was nowhere in sight. He could see the light and hear a woman’s voice coming from his television, it must have come on during the blip. A rattling from the garage startled him, what was going on? Why was he still alive? Before he could think of an answer, RALF stepped through the threshold of the garage door. In his hand was the oxygen tank Jayce had lost moments ago.
Apprehensively, Jayce pulled air into his lungs and struggled to his feet, never taking sights off his would-be murderer, could-still-be murderer. Slowly, he backed away, not sure of where he was trying to get to but knew that the farther away he was from RALF, the safer. RALF began towards him, holding the oxygen tank out from his body. He had backed up too far, the backs of his legs collided with his recliner, and he fell into it. Horror filled his eyes as RALF continued forward, stopping just in front of him. Jayce tried to cringe away from the robot’s touch hoping to avoid the inevitable, but before he could close his eyes, RALF pulled the cannula out of his hand holding the oxygen tank, brought it over Jayce’s head, and sat it gently under his nose. Slowly, the sound of the woman’s voice became clearer in Jayce’s mind and while eyeing RALF he started to listen. It was a newscast. A newswoman explained hurriedly some breaking news, millions of homes connected through the same smart home company that had promised to keep Jayce safe had suffered a massive cybersecurity compromise. Many of those affected were older, much like him, and their Robotic Assisted Living Facilitators did much the same as his. Jayce heard something that made his heart drop, thousands were dead and many more injured. Her breaking newscast was interrupted by another, a man this time. Jayce looked at RALF closer and with suspicion. He heard the man explain that cybersecurity professionals that were, at that very moment, attending some cybersecurity conference, called DEFCON, had interrupted the nationwide cyber-attack by advising those who could, to shut down the power grid of affected areas and then just as quickly bring it back on. Huh. Jayce turned to look at his front door. Not caring if RALF would stop him anymore, he forced his shaking legs to lift him from the chair. Jayce shuffled to his front door, still not breathing clearly, and stopped in front of it. Hand resting on the handle as it had before, he pulled it down. Lock bolt retracted back into the door, and he pulled it open slowly.Comment
-
Code BS by ANANSITHESPIDER
A blank white page was Bianca’s worse fear. But as the cursor blinked on her empty screen, she couldn’t recall a single line of code. Her fingers shook and cramped as they suspended over the keyboard. She looked like an un-animated marionette perched at the monitor.
A programming puppet. She thought.
Bianca ran her hands through her tightly curled hair, now tangled in tiny corkscrews from her anxiously twirling strands around her finger. Half full coffee mugs crowded her desk and wires spread in disarray, looping from monitor to monitor.
This script needed to be edited by the end of today for a pre-production application Bianca’s company was onboarding for a high-profile client. In a heated 5-hour tabletop exercise, the client requested an upgrade added to their package by their quarterly meeting. 72 hours (about 3 days) in advance.
Their Senior Software Engineer is on vacation in Bora Bora. Bianca is the only team member in the office. Bianca is a pen tester, not a programmer.
“You should be able to figure it out. You know Linux right. Ms. Senegal? The search engine is enabled on your workstation. Get creative,” demanded Oscar Hawthorne, Bianca’s Boss and the Vice President of Technology at Draconite Industries.
Now, the boys were out at happy hour down the block and Bianca was stuck being... their bitch.
I didn't even get to finish. This sucks, Bianca thought.
Not that she would give any of those old farts a second glance. Bianca was stuck in a menial position doing the leftover tasks that no one else was capable of- or wanted to do. She was burnt out and stuck in a seemingly dead-end position.
Her head sunk back in the chair and let her mind wander. Her role was pen-testing. Bianca knew how to break into Draconite’s network from every endpoint. She knew the mechanisms and configuration of every application in their repository. She was good at her job. However, this application was new to her. It was written in a code she couldn't understand.
Oscar went to a conference last month and got suckered into buying a new AI software from a vendor. Now, he had to show some value for his purchase so he wouldn't be reprimanded by higher ups for his misuse of funds.
After Bianca had been working for 2 and a half extra hours, erasing her screen, rewriting and searching to no avail, she gave up.
“Luna, run on line 1.” Bianca commanded Draconite’s AI programming assistant.
Luna, the AI assistant executed the program and pulled the customer list. Bianca scanned last year's report and couldn't find the new client, Mendon Aeronautics on the list.
Odd. This alerted her curiosity. A new vendor, a lump sum of money, a rushed order. These were all risk factors for insider threat.
What is this program supposed to do actually? The task seemed simple enough when Oscar assigned so she was going to use one of Draconite’s pre-written templates and go home. But none of them were working.
Bianca wasn’t exactly a script kiddie but she didn’t get paid to write innovative code. Draconite purchased a coding software called Luna 5 years ago. The parent company, Illumination Horizon was their biggest client. So, all the software engineers, programmers, analyst and penetration testers were automatically installed Luna on their workstations based on their role on assignment. Luna did most of the work. It was easy to get lazy and uninspired.
“Luna, read email from Mendon Aeronautics.”
FWD:Atten: Oscar Hawthorne,
Parse records from the attached list
of personnel and include information discussed.
Max Pendleton
Oscar just gave her the assignment of getting into the database and linking a file. It seemed simple enough when he assigned her the task. However, she kept getting access denied. Bianca opened the file attached to the email. It was starting to make sense now.
“Payroll?” she said under her breath.
This asshole was using her to extort payroll records. How pathetic! Oscar was out having beers and schmoozing another client while she was doing his dirty work.
“Luna, log off.”
Bianca’s screen flashed with a crescent moon that transformed into a full moon being swallowed by a wolf. The monitor flashed white and powered down.
Bianca’s favorite part of the day was powering down.
It was if her legs were on autopilot. She grabbed her backpack, her company badge and her purse and exited the coding floor as soon as she could.
Cameras were watching. Bianca put her head down. Her Draconite polo had underarms sweat stains. Brown splotches of her makeup stained the color and her slacks were wrinkled from sitting all day. Her low heels clinked on the tile.
Repeating her typical patterns, Bianca waved to her friend, Destiny as she left. The shuttle into town was arriving in 10 minutes. There was no way she could cross the parking lot and make it in time. The next one didn’t come for another 45 minutes. Bianca exited a long corridor with fire emblazoned dragons adorning the walls.
A picture of the company CEO, Chance Decampos wearing a tacky satin blazer with dragon flames hung on the lobby. It was about 15 years old and even then, Lance had bleached highlights with red tips in his gelled black hair.
Bianca had only met Chance once since she had been working at Draconite for 5 years. He attended a college onboarding event when she had been recruited post undergrad.
Bianca scoffed when she reminisced about her younger self, exited to be making change. Only to be trapped in a cube feeding code to AI for 5 years.
Luna was dope. Useful as hell though. So, Bianca honestly didn’t mind. Talking to Luna was easier than talking to humans and expedited her processes. They pay at Draconite was also the best in the city. She could just be editing with no access privileges at all. Like most interns in the industry. She worked too hard to be stuck on basic technology. To avoid ruffling feathers Bianca never complained or asked questions. She did the tasks assigned to her and didn’t draw attention to herself. Bianca became known as an employee who could get the job done quickly. A blessing and a curse.
It was imperative that she remove herself from Draconite's network range as soon as possible. Just as she was clearing the front doors and entering the parking lot, her coworker, Fred Sweden stopped her. Fred was a cool guy. Sometimes, they grabbed a slice of pizza and a beer after work.
“Hey B, want to grab a bite to eat?” Fred called out to her.
Honestly, she needed to clear her head. She was drained but her tired thoughts were the last thing she needed right now.
“Hey Fred, um, yea. Sure,” Bianca replied. She froze in the parking lot. Remembering she took the Draconite shuttle to the train station to work today. “Fuck.”
“What’s wrong?” Fred asked.
“Nothing. Forgot I took the shuttle. Can I ride with you?” Bianca asked.
“Oh, no problem. I parked right over here. Get in. “Fred led her to his car.
Draconite paid a decent salary to its employees. Fred was auto fanatic and had the latest tech vehicle on the market. It included hydraulics, lifters and Luna- integrated self-driving.
“Look at you, Mr. Big Shot.” Bianca teased.
“Don’t flirt with me. I might have to actually marry you.” Fred joked.
“Boy, you know I don’t have the parts to get you activated.” She laughed.
They buckled their seatbelts and Luna activated. Bianca gasped as the seats vibrated and the car lit up. “And you would marry Luna if you could,”
“You don’t light up like she does,” Bianca beamed.
“IT”, Fred corrected.
“Don’t assume its gender. Didn’t you watch the training?” Bianca made a stern face and mimicked the AI Sensitivity Training they were forced to sit through annually. They both laughed.
“Seriously, B. You work too much. Take a break.” Fred said, his face becoming concerned.
“Oscar keeps giving me these odd tasks,” Bianca replied and stopped herself.
“What do you mean?” Fred asked.
Bianca noticed the blinking Luna console. “Is this connected to the Draconite network?” She asked.
“Yea, they install it for it for free. Latest version. Not even on market. All on Draconite’s dollar. I’m not getting younger but I sure am getting richer, honey. Hello!”
Bianca laughed. “But I mean, you wouldn’t start resorting to underhanded tactics for that dollar, would you?”
“Of course not. I’m a good person,” Fred replied. “Why so serious today, girl? You need some grease.”
“You’re right. Maybe I’m overthinking.” They sat at their favorite booth and the waiter brought out their usual-half pepperoni (for Fred) and half veggie (for Bianca).
“Are you going to DEFCON next month? I finally paid all my hotel off.” Fred said mid-chew.
“No, I need a break. I’m surrounded by tech all day. I don't want to be around work on vacation too.” She replied. After the grease settled on her stomach. Her mind became clearer. “How is it working on Randall’s team?”
“It isn't bad. He shoots me some good projects. He stays out of my hair. He lets me travel. Could be worse,” Fred was now fully engaged in eating and not taking any consideration for table etiquette.
“Why would an aeronautics company engage with a gaming software company? Where is the overlap? Who are your major clients on Randall’s team?”
“Cmon B. You just said you needed a break. You’re killing my buzz,” Fred choked out between gulps of beer.
“Please Fred. I need some insight on this. Oscar is on my ass. And not in a good way,” Bianca pleaded.
“Okay. Okay. Randall’s main deal is design contracts out of San Jose. Helping cut coast for the developers in the graphics department. Nothing sexy or exciting.”
“You’re right. That lines up,” Bianca pondered. “Oscar has been giving me weird clients for the past 3 months and its starting to freak me out.”
“Like what?” Fred was paying attention now.
Bianca sighed. “Last month, he tasked me with feeding the badging files into Luna and sending them to this IOT smart home company. Last week, he wanted me to send benefits information to a pharmaceutical company. And today, he asked me to send HR records. He is using my pentesting skills to override Luna.”
Fred was silent. He slowly chewed his pizza.
“Say something.” Bianca stared at him.
“I thought you know how Dragonite was by now,” Fred kept chewing.
“What do you mean?” Bianca was confused. This didn’t sound like Fred.
“Our platform is remedial trash. The game is boring. Our users have been steadily decreasing. We make money from our user network. It’s obvious.”
“That’s why our online platform has become a social networking platform and the game quality has deteriorated?” Bianca clarified.
“Bingo. And the execs need to make money someway.”
“Insider trading.”
“You can call it that,” Fred said, signaling the waiter for another beer.
“Oh hell no. Oscar owes me a profit.”
“Better get a piece of the pie, girl!” Fred laughed.
“I don’t want any dirty money,” Bianca frowned. She looked to Fred for confirmation. He just sipped on his beer.
“What?” He asked.
“Are you serious?” Bianca looked at Fred, quizzically. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Ok, so Randall has us tweak the platform to keep the users on longer when the numbers are dying. It’s harmless really.”
“Wow.” Bianca replied trying to keep her emotions level.
“Student loans won’t pay themselves. Am I right?” Fred laughed.
“Right.’ Bianca laughed and glanced down at Fred’s designer shoes. Bianca finished her beer and took a slow bite of her pizza.
A hockey game was playing in the background and a group to their left seemed interested in it. They cheered loudly when a team in blue won and high fived each other.
The bar was only a block from her apartment. Bianca didn’t have the energy to continue the conversation. She needed time to process the information she had received and she was beginning to judge Fred for his choices. She didn’t want that strain to develop in their friendship. Fred and Destiny were the only friends she had at Dragonite and this city. She moved to San Francisco when Dragonite had recruited her. She had been too busy to really make many friends. The bookstore and parks were her favorite places. She liked taking her grey husky, Pro on walks but she didn't venture out much.
“Think I’m gonna walk home so I can clear my head,” Bianca threw a few bills on the counter. Fred didn’t even look up from his beer. Fred gave her a side hug. She squeezed him back tightly and left.
Bianca couldn't be self-righteous. There was a reason why happy hour was the happiest place for Dragonite employees. The bars nearby were filled with other employees from neighboring tech companies too. They weren’t alone.
Perhaps, Bianca was choosing to be willfully ignorant to the problem. But they do say, Ignorance is bliss for a reason.
Doesn't everyone want to have a passion for their career? Doesn’t everyone want to be rewarded for the work that they do?
That sounds optimistic and hopeful, but bills don’t pay themselves. Bianca walked past several homeless people slumped on the side of the high-rise buildings on her block. No one engaged her. She didn't even have to avoid them. They made eye contact, but they were empty. Calling them zombies seemed inhumane. But as their bodies dragged along the sidewalk, juxtaposed against the excess of flashy architecture, it was as post-apocalyptic as Bianca could imagine. It felt like the end of time. But waste, greed and poverty were biblical.
Bianca remembered her middle-school self. Her Aunt Ann finally saved enough money to get her a computer. Aunt Ann was a nurse and not tech-savvy at all. She took Bianca in when her parents died from a car accident when she was 6. She was raised by her Aunt and her partner, Aunt Lanae.
Joining an online support group for families of car crash survivors was one way Bianca was able to cope as a teen. She attributed this online community as a simple spark that started her love for technology and open forums. It was such a wholesome connection. She still kept in touch with members from the group and meet some irl(in real life).
Bianca’s favorite connection was Carol Connelly, a now an elderly woman in Minnesota. Bianca shouldn’t have had such free reign with technology at her age. And the group was for ages 18+. Luckily, it was a strictly therapeutic experience but Bianca could have been placed in a dangerous situation. She met Carol who was grieving her husband, Aaron and her daughter, Faith, who both passed in an accident. She was the driver and she survived. Aaron had sprained his ankle and Carol’s smaller vehicle was in the shop. She lost control on the freeway and collided with another car. Faith would have been about Bianca’s age.
Bianca opened her door with a creak. Her apartment was musty from being closed all day. She opened the windows to let some air in. Her dog came to greet her, eager to go outside and be relieved. Bianca grabbed a trash bag which was also causing a stench in the apartment and the dog leash and took the small staircase to a grassy area outside.
Not paying attention, Bianca started to scroll on her phone. A strange man approached her. He didn’t cause any alarm until he started petting her dog.
“What’s his name?” He asked.
“Lucky,” Bianca lied. Uncomfortable with being asked personal questions by this stranger.
“Cute dog,” the stranger complimented. “What unit are you in? I’m in 842. Just moved her from Atlanta.”
He was hot. Dark-skinned, with a tapered fade. Kinda old school 2000’s RnB singer vibe but it worked for him. His voice oozed like honey. Tall, dark and handsome. Just her type.
“813.” Bianca lied again. No matter how hot he was. Bianca wasn’t giving a stranger her address.
“What’s your name? I’m Yosef.” He stuck out his hand. She grabbed it and gave it a gentle shake.
“Jessica,” She lied once again.
“Well nice to meet you Lucky and Jessica. See you around.” The man left with a wave.
Bianca let her dog (who was named Pisces because of her Zodiac sign) sniff around for about 10 more minutes. She circled the block to let him stretch his legs, stopped by the corner store for a bag of ice and she was back inside.
When she entered her apartment again, it was noticeably colder. Everything seemed.... shifted. Her monitor was beaming white.
The power cord of her main CPU was unplugged. Her laptop was on the sofa.
Bianca plugged the cord of the CPU that was connected to 3 monitors. It served as her home network. She mainly used it for gaming and streaming videos.
Her monitor still beamed white.
Biance opened the laptop on the sofa. The screen beamed white. She held the power button until her fingers cramped. The screen didn't shift. She pulled her phone out of her pocket. The screen was white.
Panic started to take over. Her hands trembled with her phone in her hand, blaring white. No sound came from the devices. Only staticky feedback.
“Hello?” Bianca said.
A faint voice echoed her.
“Hello?” Bianca repeated. Her instincts told her to run but she needed to get to the root of the problem. Her devices started to flicker with the voice getting softer and softer. Repeating,” Hello, hello, hello.”
The noise started to crescendo, then broke the connection. Her devices were back to normal.
Bianca restarted her phone and immediately connected to her mobile home network. She saw several brute force attempts. One password attempt stuck out to her. Lucky123.
Yosef.
Bianca wasn’t safe here. She wasn't’ sure if she should bring Pisces with her but he drew too much attention. Bianca tied her curly hair into a bun and put on a black beanie, hoodie and sweat pants. She changed into the quietest shoe she could find. She grabbed her backpack and a taser and snuck out the back of the complex.
Safely, outside and camouflaged between a few parked cars, Bianca pulled out a wireless scanner. Several IPs were trying to connect to her network. She pulled out her laptop and and did a lookup on the addresses. They were all registered to Mendon Aeronautics in Russia. Some had pinged from Nigeria.
Now, that she thought about it, Yosef did sound Nigerian.
Wow, fooled by a brother from the motherland. Traitor. Bianca thought.
Strong hands grabbed Bianca by her shoulders and lifted her up. Before she could even scream, she was thrown into a grey van. Before they blindfolded her, she could see, Mendo- labeled on the van.
Maybe a blank white page wasn’t her worse fear. It was complete darkness.
__________________________________________________ _________________________________
Days passed. Bianca wasn’t sure how long she had been in the van. She hadn’t seen light. Her eyes were puffy from crying.
Two men dragged her outside. The heat was blazing. Bianca squinted. She saw billboard and heavily lit signs draping across the air.
Las Vegas. How did she get to Las Vegas? Bianca thought.
The men pulled her into a hotel room behind the convention centered. They propped her in front of a heavy wooden table. Bianca could barely hold her head up.
Someone shoved a laptop in front of her and a stack of paper with IP address, names and system information.
“Break into these network,” the man said.
“What?” Bianca couldn’t hear him with the mask.
He removed the mask. It was Yosef. “Break in and we will let you go.”
“Black on black crime is illegal,” Bianca joked.
“We don’t have time for games. The window of opportunity where all the clients will be in the same place is slim,” Yosef started to get aggressive. His face no longer handsome to her. It was twisted in urgency, making him look cartoonish.
“I tried to get into your network for hours. I couldn't”, Bianca replied.
“You got in,” Another man replied. “Within the first hour.”
“Oscar was right about you. We needed you on our team,” Yosef beamed. “I couldn't even fool you.”
“You couldn’t fool a blind male. Your trick was as transparent as a ghost,” Bianca rolled her eyes now.
“Well, now you’re the ghost because you’re officially property of Mendon Aeronautics,’ Yosef replied.
“Slavery?!” Bianca yelled.
“We prefer the term human trafficking,” the masked man replied.
“This has to be a joke,” Bianca tried to get up and run. The man forced her down.
“Little lady, you hacked into 5 million dollars' worth of customer data in 1 hour by hand. You’re not going anywhere,” Yosef squeezed her arms. “Get started.”
Fear washed over Bianca when the reality of the situation hit her. There were about 5 men including Yosef. They were all ethnicities and Bianca couldn’t place any regional similarity in amongst them. One quiet guy sat in the corner on laptop. He had dreadlocks and wore a large oversized hoodie. He looked in his late 30’s.
“What you gon do with your cut, Zeek?”
“Get some peace and quiet,” Zeek replied not looking up from his computer.
They other 4 guys went out to get food and tasked Zeek with watching Bianca. She saw her opportunity. Zeek wasn’t the weakest link. He was the strongest in the group. Yosef was the ringleader. Her freedom relied on getting Zeek on her side.
Some time passed. Bianca knew she couldn’t break the silence. She could feel the tension hanging in the air. Zeek cursed under his breath and banged on his computer. Bianca counted to 10.
“I can help you,” Bianca broke the silence.
“You should be worried about helping yourself,” Zeek replied.
“I am,’ Bianca stopped typing and looked at him. “I’m halfway through the list already.
The Mendon goons gave her a list of all the high-profile companies at DEFCON. They had done most of the heavy lifting and enumerated the target systems for her. The encryption was top notch but it was written by the parent company that made Luna, Illumination Horizon so it was second nature to Bianca.
Zeek came up behind her and looked at her screen. “Amazing,’ he said. She glanced at him slightly and continued to work.
“What if we split it,” Bianca asked. Zeek looked unsure. “I’m serious. I was dragged into this against my will and I’m sure y'all won't just let me go after this. I can double your profit.”
That got Zeek’s attention, “Okay. Let’s go. Now.”
Bianca didn’t hesitate. She had nothing to grab so she helped Zeek grab his bags and they ran out of the hotel. She handed Zeek the unencrypted banking information. He transferred the data to his laptop.
“My sister lives in East Vegas. She can help us,’ Zeek stated. They hotwired a car on the sidewalk and drove to Zeek’s sister.
Zeek’s sister was beautiful. Medium build, brown-skin, “Zeek is this your girlfriend?” She asked.
“Colleague,” he answered.
“Since when do you have a job? Scammer is not a job, brotha,” Zeek’s sister replied with her hands on her hips.
“Patricia, this is Bianca. Bianca, my sister, Patricia,” Zeek introduced.
Patricia had prepared dinner for her an her two children. Bianca felt embarrassed and gluttonous but couldn’t resist chowing down the homecooked meal. “Thank you for your hospitality,” Bianca said, genuinely gracious.
“I like her,” Patricia said simply.
“We gotta go, Pat. Thanls for the food,” Zeek said, pushing himself up from the table.
“Yall just got here. I never see you, Zeek, Ever since Mama’s cancer,” Patricia started.
Zeek kissed her on the cheek, cutting her off, “i’ll be back soon. C’mon Bianca. Let’s go.”
Bianca didn’t know why she was following Zeek. It was naive of her to think of him as an ally. But she had no identification, no phone and no money. Could she signal Patricia for help? There was no time to plan so she followed Zeek.
When they were in the car, Zeek said, “Don’t think of running. You’re too far in now. They will come for you.”
“So, what do I do now?” Bianca asked, knowing her was right.
“Let’s hit up the mall and spend some of our bounty. We can’t just ghost. We have to make an entrance at the Mendon party. You’re one of us now,” Zeek explained.
“Is there any onboarding at Mendon? Orientation? What if I don’t want to be a part of it?” Bianca asked.
Look, you want to be the good girl all your life and get taken advantage of? Or do you want to see another side. What you do with code is nothing short of magic, Bianca. It's a gift,” Zeek was pulling up to the mall now. A designer shopping center she couldn’t afford on her Draconite salary.
“I’m the one who met Oscar at the conference,” Zeek said as he parked and they walked in. “He said he had this gullible tool working for him. A young black girl from the hood who was just happy to be hired. So smart. It is almost like magic. That’s how he described you,” Zeek revealed.
Bianca’s eyes welled with tears as shame filled her. She had worked for Oscar for 3 years and this racist prick only thought of her as a slave. “You Mendon guys think the same thing about me.”
“They might. Because they are all the same,’ Zeek replied.
“What do you think?” Bianca asked.
“I think you’re magical,” Zeek replied.
“So let me go, "Bianca stopped before they entered the department store. A security guard within earshot. This was her chance.
Zeek stopped, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I won’t take you back to Mendon. You gave me my cut as promised. You got me away from them long enough to divert attention. Ill be back in Jamaica by tomorrow.”
“Just like that?” Bianca asked.
“Just like that.”
“What will you tell Mendon?”
“Fuck Mendon. I’m no puppet.” Zeek entered the store and turned his back on Bianca, allowing her to leave.
Bianca grabbed his arm, “I’m coming with you.”
“You sure,” Zeek asked.
“Yea, I’ve never been to Jamaica,” Bianca grabbed the door handled and walked into the store past Zeek. And if I’m going to be a bitch. I might as well be a bad bitch. First, let's make our debut at the DEFCON after party. I am one of you now.”
************************************************** **********************************
Bianca entered the DEFCON party with Zeek on her arm. Shw saw Fred and Oscar in the Draconite section of the party. Fred did a double take when he saw her. She waved.
Destiny came up to her, “Hey beautiful. I didn’t know you would be here. We havent seen you in weeks!”
“I’ve been busy on a....project,” Bianca explained.
Suddenly, Oscar came up behind her. “Bianca, we haven't seen you in weeks. You’ve met Chance, our VP.”
Bianca turned and flashed the most sarcastic smile she could. She curved her shapely hips and poked out her lips, exaggerating her response, “I’ve taken on new clients. Chance, hello!” Bianca shook his hand. “And Oscar, you’ve met Zeek.”
Zeek and Oscar exchanged knowing glances. “This is the one i was telling you about, Chance,’ said Oscar.
“I’ve heard nothing but good things about you. Ms. Senegal, is it?” Chance said.
“Yes, “Bianca replied. now concerned just how much Chance knew about her.
‘We have to get going now,” Zeek pulled Bianca away.
They headed to the Mendon booth. The goons turned as they approached. Except they didn’t look like goons in suits. (Not even DEFCON goons).
“Ah, Ms. Senegal. Our boss is looking for you,” Yosef approached her menacingly.
“Tell your boss, I don’t work for free and if he pulls a stunt like that again.” I’m routing his entire assets and savings to an offshore account. You will be pitching a tent with the street zombies.”
“Street zombies? How crass and vulgar,” One of the men replied.
“Kiss my ass! Y’all kidnapped and trafficked me, you lunatics!” Bianca started to lose her cool.
“We can do worse than that,” Yosef warned. ‘Zeek, you won't get far with your new prize. Boss doesn't take kindly to traitors.”
“The boss still owes me,” Zeek said as he dragged Bianca away.
A car immediately pulled up to the front of the hotel lobby. It was old, beat up and smelled of marijuana. A man with a curly fro hung from the passenger seat. He whistled at Bianca.
“That’s a fine sista right there, boy.”
Bianca rolled her eyes and laughed.
“Get us to the airport, James. ASAP.”
Bianca pulled out her phone and had the instinct to message her Aunt Ann, “I love you.” She didn't know when she would be stateside again. But she knew her life was about to change drastically.
Bianca knew that cyber criminals were transforming the world wide web into a pile of shit. The internet was a cesspool and technology were being used as a tool to exploit people. She knew the underbelly of cybercrime existed. Bianca thought being in a corporate company meant she as following all the appropriate laws. She was on the “good” side of the cyber war. She was wrong.
Bianca had opened a pandora’s box and it was only just the beginning. As she rode to the airport to a foreign country in a strange land, Bianca wondered what was in store for her and what side she was playing for.
Many things were unsure, but she knew that this was only the beginning of her career as a cybercrime fighter. A black, female hacker Robinhood. If she couldn’t follow the rules all the time she would at least steal from these greedy corporations and give back.
Or could she be walking into a bigger trap.
Zeek pulled out a forged passport for her. She still had no phone. Zeek said she could get new devices in Jamaica. Where did he get it from? There was no time to think.
“Now boarding to Kingston, Jamaica.” Bianca and Zeek walked through the terminal to the private plane.
The seats were large and spacious. Bianca sat down and buckled into her seat. The back of the seat in front of her had a monitor. She pressed the power button, and it flashed white. Luna.
“Hello, Bianca. Enjoy your flight,” the familiar robotic voice greeted her.
Bianca’s heart dropped into her stomach.Comment
-
Lost Frontier - Juneau
James was naked when a legal notice hit him, which wasn't even the worst part of his day. The lawyer startled him awake, slamming a heavy envelope onto James' chest as he slept on his ridiculously tiny couch. James flailed blindly, losing his careful perch on the sofa.
The intruder peered down, but his eyes betrayed nothing other than impatience. Denali Computation owned most of the housing on this side of the Knik Arm, and they offered override codes to employees of any of the Quantum Consortium corporations for official purposes, of course. James ripped the envelope open, the enclosed hard drive thudding to the ground, but James ignored it, skimming the single-page letter to see which Consortium member he'd pissed off.
All of them.
They were all threatening to sue him.
James looked up at the lawyer, who gave him a brief nod.
"All relevant information is in the hard drive, which you WILL need to pay for." The man turned on his heel and left, leaving James' door wide open.
James plugged in the hard drive, discovering what he thought would become the worst part of his day: a big, red, UNAUTHORIZED banner across his work laptop's screen. A popup below it flashed a message, cycling so quickly through language options that it took James almost five minutes to read it.
This machine is locked pending investigation.
This action was performed under the authority of the Quantum Consortium
following the policy and procedures outlined in the terms and
conditions for this device.
To review your Terms and Conditions Contract, Click Here</link>.
Rolling his eyes, James clicked on the mangled link. Another flashing popup covered the page.
UNAUTHORIZED
Attempting to bypass Quantum Consortium security controls is FRAUD.
FRAUD IS A FELONY.
THIS ATTEMPT HAS BEEN LOGGED: Wednesday 10/09/2080 08:43:27.11
Alaska Standard Time
Swearing, James slammed his laptop shut. He could bypass the shoddy controls, but that might anger them more. James didn't exactly love his day job. He wanted to work on quantum machines, but his IT security job was limited to the corporate network. However, the workload was easy, and The Consortium even paid his tuition. Overall, James appreciated the stability his employer offered. Finding good health insurance was a nightmare; that alone was enough for James to avoid making waves.
James realized he was incredibly late for work. He stumbled into the bathroom, where his plans evaporated immediately. He was already late and probably in serious trouble; what did it matter if he didn't go in? The sheets were in the washer, where James had forgotten about them for two days. He crawled into the bed anyway, then realized he hadn't taken his medication. Sighing, James decided to ration it in case he actually got fired, cocooning himself in a blanket and waiting for sleep to take him away.
---
The sky was dark as James biked across the Knik Arm Bridge. The sun wouldn't set for at least another hour, but the dwindling daylight wasn't enough to break through the thick clouds. Anchorage shone across the bridge, streetlamps and windows ablaze in defiance of the coming winter. Past the city, "termination dust" inched down from the mountains, dusting the glimmering hillside with snow.
Downtown Anchorage loomed impossibly tall as James coasted off the bridge, letting his momentum carry him onto a wide road lined with streetlights. He dismounted at the first trolley stop, and only then did James notice the white clouds that formed with each puff of his breath. Shivering again, James was thankful when the next eTrolley approached. They cut through downtown without stopping, racing past rows of buildings, their faded paint contrasting with bright graffiti.
The bridge and the trolleys were some of the many "public" services the Quantum Consortium provided. Many felt the quantum computing industry "saved" the state, bringing in a "new gold rush" that revealed the value of Alaska's most abundant resource: the cold.
The trolley only slowed once it was far from "old Anchorage," stopping frequently as it wound through the shining business district. James felt his phone buzz as he stepped outside. Fumbling with it in his gloved hands, James glanced at the top notification:
Ya coming to Koots?
---
James biked to Chillkoot Charlie's. The two-story log cabin stood proudly in historic Anchorage, far from the eTrolleys and Consortium-branded cameras. Smoke curled from the chimney, hanging dream-like overhead. James walked to the back door, lights and thumping music spilling into the cold night. Koots provided Hacker's Over Alaska with an excellent hiding place, boasting a labyrinth of themed rooms.
James paused as his eyes adjusted. The dull roar of chatter blanketed the room, punctuated with sound effects from rows of arcade games. It was more crowded than James had seen in ten years, though he recognized nobody.
"I knew Quant was killing people!" a feminine voice exclaimed, her friends exploding into shushes.
"This may be the end of Quant." another mused.
James thought about leaving, but no one looked his way. HA/AK was open to all, but its usual crowd did not hold the Quantum Consortium in high regard. It took James a long time to notice almost everyone was watching the same video.
"What's that?" James asked the hacker next to him, gesturing to the phone clutched in her lime-green nails.
"You didn't see?" she asked, not waiting for an answer before pushing her phone towards him.
"-solo run from McGrath to Tanana." continued the woman on the screen, "Once the third dog fell ill, I crossed onto Quantum Consortium land for help."
The camera turned, displaying a snowy campsite: a small tent next to a water pump. Nothing appeared unusual until James saw the boots sticking out of the snow.
"I think they're dead." the videographer whispered. The camera shook.
James heard a whine, and the camera whipped toward two approaching snowmachines. Then the video went black.
"This happened today!" the girl exclaimed. "Where is the musher? They could be torturing her!"
James tried not to look too skeptical. He had heard endless conspiracy theories about what "really went on" at the Consortium's facility in the remote Alaskan Interior.
"James!" a familiar voice shouted in his ear. "Greta told me you might be here!"
Though he'd known Hugh Mann for three years, James had no idea if that was his real name. Hugh was only a few years older than James, but his circuit wizardry had made him wealthy. Hugh "retired" to run a smoke shop downtown, mainly using it to ship computer parts into the state.
Hugh pushed a beer into James' hand. "Greta will be so happy to see you!" he said. "I think she's somewhere in The Russian."
James wasted no time escaping the arcade. He was thankful for the quiet of Koot's famed "Russian Walk," a hallway stuffed with Russian artifacts left by the settlers who "discovered" the state three centuries earlier. The bar at the end was more crowded than the arcade, but the patrons watched the presentation inside in rapt silence.
This bar featured more Czarist decor, tables cleared for an ocean of folding chairs facing a small stage. James recognized the speaker's purple-tipped hair and tried to duck behind an ornate column, hoping she hadn't noticed him.
"At this point, every piece of scientific research data must be verified through Quantum analysis. It's naive to assume Quant is doing anything but stealing data!" the speaker proclaimed.
CD, who used the handle "Crack2Destroy," was a world-renowned cryptographer, activist, and HA/AK legend. She'd come to the state in the late 2060s to escape the tech industry and was not pleased with the quantum rush shortly afterward.
"Or modifying it for their own gain!" CD continued, her voice rising to a triumphant pitch. "They claim quantum AI bullshit can solve the disappearances of thousands of Native Alaskans while bodies pop up on land they claim to own!"
James slipped out the door as the audience peppered CD with questions, glad to avoid a public "debate." Personally, he agreed with her, but CD loved to call out Consortium employees. Looking up, James was thankful to see a familiar face at the other end of the Russian Walk.
Most people knew Greta Butcher as an eight-time Iditarod champion and tireless pioneer for women in sports, but very few knew she was a hacker. The old musher claimed that she came to HA/AK to find someone to fix her computer without scamming her, but resourcefulness honed by years in the Alaskan Bush made Greta a natural bug hunter.
"There you are!" Greta called, her husky voice warm.
James accepted a hug and let Greta lead him down a flight of stairs into a room designed to look like a Russian metro station. The pair stepped into a replica subway car, and Greta let James get comfortable on a plastic bench before she began interrogating him.
"How's the semester going?" Greta asked. "You've got two more left before you graduate, right?"
Until that moment, James had not considered how the lawsuit would affect his Consortium-funded master's degree, so he chose to continue ignoring it.
"It's good," James said, drumming his fingers on his leg. "I'm taking a reverse engineering course you would enjoy."
"That's wonderful!" Greta said quietly. "I'm sure we can find room for another fire talk!"
James swallowed hard. Greta seemed blissfully unaware of his stress or perhaps just distracted. She stared past him toward a set of Matryoshka dolls arranged in the driver's seat.
"I hope they have two dolls down there working the gas and breaks." James joked.
Greta sighed, and James thought the conversation was over, but she turned back to him, gaze warm as she launched into a story about the litter she was training. James wanted to stay and swap anecdotes all night, but the door banged open, and CD walked in, calling Greta's name. A group of students streamed in behind her, oohing and ahhing at the metro.
So James wandered, his path taking him through the building's colorful rooms. Each was occupied; hackers huddled together, heads bent over screens. He saw a few people he knew, but didn't stop until he ducked onto a small stairwell leading to the roof.
It was snowing—hard. The fat flakes swirled as James stepped onto the rooftop patio, coating his face and sticking to his lashes. Alone on the roof, James watched the snow blanket his city, softening the lights into a warm glow enveloping everything.
---
The snow kept falling, and two hours later, James was covered. Greta charged ahead undeterred, directing two bundled figures as they unloaded wood from a small sled.
"Nothing like a bonfire to celebrate the first snow of the year!" she shouted, voice carrying across the frozen shoreline.
The old musher coaxed James and a few others out of their Midtown lair and onto the frozen mudflats with a few jugs of malty home-brewed beer. She knelt at the woodpile, arranging kindling with practiced hands. Behind her, CD stood with two other hackers, discussing the University of Alaska's response to anti-Consortium protesters.
"Y'all are softer than we were back in the day," Greta announced, her consonants garbled around the flashlight in her mouth.
CD's eye roll was evident in her voice. "There were no protests back then?"
Greta laughed, her eyes merry, "Oh, of course we protested. We just burned a lot of shit too. Nothing makes a point like a fire."
Greta made a good point. Even James had to admit that she built a masterful bonfire.
"But you're sure it's safe out here?" asked one of the others, pulling down her fuzzy hood.
"Of course!" laughed Greta.
"Ice gets thicker out here than some of the other spots," said James, scuffing his boot against the ice. "Greta's a pro, but it's not this safe everywhere."
"Some people don't understand that there's more to life than safe." CD scoffed. "Changing the world isn't safe."
"You want change: you build community," Greta said simply.
James opened his mouth to snap back at CD, then closed it. He settled into his camp chair, watching the snow melt off his boots. James was content to spend the evening in quiet contemplation until CD pulled out a deck of cards. James was just about to stand when Greta passed him another beer. She said nothing, but her message was clear: Relax.
So James did, brushing the snow off his gloves and accepting five cards. The bonfire warmed his face, and the city lights cast the beach in a cozy glow. James watched the sparks race towards the heavens as he lost hand after hand...mainly to Greta.
It didn't feel like much time had passed when James handed over the last of his pocket change. They had burned through the firewood, the bonfire dwindling to glowing embers. He shifted in his seat, stretching towards the last of the warmth.
"More wood in the car," Greta announced, speaking to no one in particular.
"I dunno," Hugh sighed, reaching for another beer. "It's getting cold. I might just finish this and head out."
"Tragedy of the Commons," Greta grumbled, shaking her head. "Rather let it burn out altogether than spend a few minutes in the dark."
"It's cold!" Hugh protested. "I have an electric blanket at home!"
James stood, "Yeah, I have a long, cold bike ride ahead of me." He chuckled when Greta shot him a glare. "Besides, we hang out here much longer, and some real-estate algorithm will think this is prime beachfront property."
CD gave a rare snort of laughter. "They'll put up a luxury high rise before the ground thaws. Charge folks 5k a month to sink into the sea once spring rolls through."
Every Alaskan has a mud flats story, and the HA/AK-ers were no exception. The group swapped tales as they walked back across the ice. James had only ever lost a boot to the treacherous sludge lining the Cook Inlet, but CD spun a yarn about a group of tourists sinking a rental Jeep that had everyone howling.
Greta insisted James borrow her truck until the city snowplows uncovered the roads, and he accepted with thanks. He slid into the driver's seat, adjusting the mirrors and flipping through its massive "infotainment center" as Greta climbed in next to him. In his rearview mirror, the remains of the bonfire shone like a distant star against the dark shoreline.
--
James crawled through the Anchorage Hillside at a crawl. Streetlights were scarce up here, and the swirling snow was blinding in his high beams. Thankfully, the roads were almost empty as he drove Greta home; the only other car on this stretch kept a safe distance behind them.
"James," Greta said, her voice quiet. "There's something I need to talk to you about."
"Of course."
"You saw the video from the musher? Out by Lake Minchumina?" Greta asked. She didn't wait for an answer. "That's my little sister."
James opened his mouth but had no words words. The silence stretched around them. "Have you heard from her?" he asked finally.
"Animal control dropped the dog team off this morning. No sled, no gear, and not a word about her."
"I'm so sorry." It was all James could say.
Greta shifted in her seat. "You know I would never ask you to do something to risk your job. I know what's at stake." She paused, then asked. "Can you please just let me know if you hear anything?"
James took his eyes off the road momentarily. Greta's eyes shone with desperation. He was about to reply when the rearview mirror caught his eye. The car behind them had drawn obnoxiously close, its bright LEDs turning the snowy landscape into a blinding wall of white.
"I just want to know she's safe," Greta said, voice trembling.
"I know," James assured her. "I'll do what I can."
His attention was ripped away again as the car behind them drew even closer. Shadows obscured the cabin; it almost looked like the driver's seat was empty.
Greta had the same thought. "I thought the self-drivers were only legal in the city." she said. "I've never seen one that worked right in the snow."
James gave the truck some gas to put distance between the vehicles. He was relieved when the headlights fell away behind them. It was back moments later, flying toward them down the narrow road. James flicked his blinkers on and moved as far right as possible to let it pass, but the car stayed close behind him. James didn't even have time to yell a warning before an impact shook the air, and the truck lurched forward.
James lost control, and the truck veered off the road, sliding down the snowy hillside. They were flung back and forth, seatbelts digging into their flesh, as the truck bounced down the hill. James heard rather than felt his head slam into the side window. Finally, the car slid into a row of trees, rocking ominously, before finally going still.
James crawled out of the truck, watching helplessly as the car's tail lights disappeared. He almost fell to his knees with relief when Greta pulled herself out of the car, looking shaken but unharmed. She got right to work, pulling a massive first aid kit out of the glovebox.
"I'm fine." James said, waving her off. "I'm sorry for crashing your car."
The old musher ignored his protests, bandaging his head, shining her flashlight in his eyes, and eventually declaring James "probably a little concussed." The snow was up to their waists, and it took them an hour to crawl back up the slope. The pair paused at the top, staring at the tire tracks slashed through the snow before turning away. By the time they had reached Greta's house almost two miles away, the fresh snow had erased the tracks entirely.
--
It was still dark when James hauled himself through his window, hands numb from clinging to the icy balcony railing. The Consortium's snowplows had already come, filling the resident courtyard beneath his window with snow. James had gotten in that way before, and he was not surprised to when his work ID no longer granted him access to his building.
The clock showed 8:24 AM, alarm blaring into the empty room. James unplugged it. He the night awake on Greta's couch, but had no delusions that he could sleep now. So James made coffee, a feeble attempt at normalcy.
The toll bridge was closed due to the record snowfall. The sun was still below the horizon, and James could see a river of tail lights winding around the water, early morning commuters grumpily taking the long way into town. Sighing, James flashed neither cash nor his Consortium ID as he waved apologetically at the security guard, ducked under the guardrail, and began to ski across the Knick Arm Bridge.
--
James wasn't surprised, just annoyed, when the badge reader at his office door let out a series of loud, scolding beeps. Other employees streamed past, avoiding James' gaze. Head down, he hoisted his skis over his shoulder, melting snow marking his path to the reception desk, where three security guards stared him down.
"Hey, James! Are you all right?"
James spun, coming face to face with a man he recognized after five years of small talk, but couldn't name. He stammered, words tumbling senselessly as he realized he had no idea how to answer. If the man was shocked, he didn't show it, just listened quietly until James trailed off.
"Noticed you were out. Folks on your team seemed worried." he said. "I don't think we've ever been formally introduced; Brian Gruening, Directory of Geophysics. You lost all your access? That happened to one of my guys, a huge pain in the behind, but I can walk you through the red tape."
James blinked, skeptical of this executive's offer to be his guardian angel. He didn't get a chance to decide; the man had already started towards the reception desk, so James scurried after him, and the security guards waved both men through the checkpoint without a second glance.
It took Brian Gruening less than thirty minutes to reinstate James' access, cutting through a mountain of policy with a few short phone calls. Sitting in Brian's office, James happily accepted a cup of coffee and finally let himself believe everything could return to normal. Brian led him to a conference room named "Molybdenum," explaining that HR would be coming in to discuss "just a routine thing." James thanked him quietly, stomach clenching.
The HR lady greeted James with a professional detachment but insisted he call her Katie. She explained how their automated system flagged James for moving between similar roles at different Consortium companies, violating his non-compete agreement. James tried to stifle his annoyance, keeping his voice even as he explained why he transferred: his employer contracted with a new health insurance provider with significantly less coverage. His new role was identical to the last, even in the same building.
"I see. Those are certainly special circumstances." said Katie-from-HR, practiced sympathy in her voice. She tapped at her keyboard. "I'll add a note in case you get flagged again."
James picked at a loose thread in his damp jeans. The woman across from him was silent, and he waited a few agonizing seconds before finally asking, "Is there anything else?"
"Nope, you're all set!" she chirped. "These things happen every now and then. We know how dedicated you are to the Consortium family!"
HR Katie stood then, and James followed suit. James could feel his heart racing, even if everything might be alright after all. She paused at the door, looking back at him.
"Oh, and one more thing."
James nodded silently, his mouth completely dry.
"I understand your frustration with the rush-hour traffic," she said. "But safety is important, and it will not do to have a Consortium employee recklessly disregarding traffic regulations and infrastructure guidelines!"
James schooled his face into the perfect picture of chagrin, trying not to laugh.
"Consider this an official verbal warning. We trust you to take this matter seriously and not ski across the Knik Arm Bridge again!"
---
James was surprised to find Kaladi Brother's Coffee half-empty the next day. The midtown location was usually packed, but nearby UAA protests had grown significantly.
"People are getting upset out there." Greta said by way of greeting as James passed her a steaming paper mug.
James grimaced. His office was right next to campus, and the protestors' chants still rang in his ears: "Which side are you on?"
"I don't want you to get into trouble," Greta said suddenly. You have a bright future ahead of you, young man, and you've come too far to jeopardize that."
James just nodded, waiting for her to continue.
"Have you heard anything?"
James couldn't meet Greta's gaze, staring down at his drink and fidgeting with a packet of low-cal sweetener. "I'm sorry," he said at last. "I haven't."
"You've been safe, though?" Greta whispered tremulously. "Nothing else has happened?"
"Yeah. Of course." James said. "Why? Has something happened to you?"
Greta shook her head, staring into the parking lot as a flock of crows fought over a discarded bagel.
"Have you talked to your dad recently?" she asked suddenly.
James shook his head. "We haven't had much to talk about in a while."
"Well," Greta continued. "He'll be driving through here in a couple weeks. We're gonna go for dinner if you'd like to join us."
James' father was a trucker. His lifetime of experience driving winter roads made him more valuable than any self-driver. The last James heard, his father had taken a well-paying gig with The Consortium, driving Snowballs, semi trucks full of hard drives, to and from the quantum computing facility at Lake Minchumina. Truthfully, James was surprised his father was still working.
"I'll think about it."
They made small talk as they finished their drinks, but the conversation was half-hearted. Picking up their empty cups, James offered an excuse about a team meeting. Greta watched him through the frosty glass as he jaywalked across the street, turning towards the towering Consortium building.
---
James started arriving first at the office each morning, restlessness chasing him out of bed earlier and earlier. James liked the quiet. Much to James' disbelief, things had settled down, and work was almost enjoyable again.
James took on a task his team had been putting off for months; reviewing the company's security cameras. A series of penetration tests revealed that almost all 2600 of the Consortium's cameras used default passwords. James needed to log into each one to verify the claim, and he figured he could kill two birds with one stone and snoop around Lake Minchumina.
As expected, they were almost all configured with the default credentials, except for a group labeled "POORMAN." James pulled up the camera feed at Lake Minchumina, flipping through angle after angle of the empty research facility. He jumped at a sudden movement, then leaned forward, nose almost touching his monitor. Five state troopers walked down the hallway, accompanied by an attorney James recognized from his office.
It didn't take James long to invent an excuse to pull up her email logs, though he was surprised he had access.
Timestamp EventID Source Sender Recipients MessageSubject
--------- ------- ------ ------ ---------- --------------
11/11/2080 5:37 PM RECEIVE SMTP a.spring@quantum.co <l.spruce@quantum.com> TRESSPASS ORDER: Libby Web
11/11/2080 5:42 PM SEND SMTP l.spruce@quantum.co <a.spring@quantum.co> RE: TRESSPASS ORDER: Libby
11/11/2080 5:55 PM RECEIVE SMTP travel@quantum.co <l.spruce@quantum.co> Your flight to Lake Minchu
His heart pounding, James tried to return to work like normal. James spent the rest of his morning investigating a minor case of data exfiltration: a user uploaded files to their personal drive. Each massive CSV contained raw data from NSF groundwater studies in the Bush. It didn't look confidential, but the numbers meant nothing to James, so he escalated the issue to his boss and took a long lunch.
James felt better when he returned from lunch, though he felt a pang of guilt for not calling Greta. It was immediately forgotten when James saw his manager waiting for him at his cubicle.
"Jimmy!" Clark Cook flashed an impossibly white smile at James.
James ignored the nickname, hands shaking as he followed Clark into another conference room, this one named Pyrite. He flinched as the door opened, expecting to see state troopers, but it was just a few mid-level managers sitting around an oval conference table.
"As we all know, recent events have led to a changed threat landscape for our company," Clark began. "Jimmy, your escalation this morning helped us nab an internal threat actor! As a thank you for your hard work, we'd like to offer you a promotion!"
"I'm sorry, what?"
Clark looked concerned but quickly explained the details: James got a fancy AVP title and salary bump to spend his time infiltrating anti-Quant chatrooms. Shocked, James followed Clark out of the conference room. Clark led him past his cubicle to a new office, small and windowless, but his alone. Another surprise waited for James on the desk: the keys to his new corporate car glinting like gold in the fluorescent lights.
---
Christmas came early at Koot's! The hackers ran LED strips through the rafters and blasted bawdy Christmas carols to celebrate HA/AK's November meetup, the last of the year. The Romanov statues adorned with Santa hats were usually enough to put James in a holiday mood, but not this month. Greta was nowhere to be seen.
HA/AKers huddled in small groups, the air buzzing with frustrated speculation. James thought he spotted the Consortium's security and fraud team strolling through the crowd, and it wasn't long before he slipped out the door and into his car.
Greta stepped out onto her front porch, raising a hand in greeting as James parked. His headlights created a spotlight, illuminating every puff of breath in the cold air. Greta looked at James, then back at the car.
"It's a loaner," James explained, falling silent when he met Greta's gaze, her eyes red in the chilly air.
"They've filed charges." Greta said simply. "Trespassing, for now, but the Troopers found jugs of contaminated water in her sled. They're saying she..." Greta trailed off.
"I'm so sorry, Greta." James said, coming up the steps to stand with his friend. "This is so messed up." They stood in silence before James spoke again. "I found something that might-"
"No." Greta's voice was sharp. "It's over. I'm staying out of all this, and you should too." Her words hung heavy in the air.
She wiped her eyes, peering intently at James before patting him on the shoulder and turning towards the house. She shut the door without a word, leaving James alone in the dark.
A roar split the night as James' car sprang to life, the headlights blinding him momentarily. Lifting his finger off the auto start, James looked back at Greta's house. It was completely dark.
---
The internet may be the only true "Last Frontier," but chatrooms were the real Wild West. James spent Friday working from home, digging into the "Quantspiracy" message board. Any worries James had vanished after witnessing the vitriol directed at The Consortium and its employees; no one who said such vile things could be in the right.
The forums overflowed with blatant misinformation. Some of it was true but useless, like a leaked brief detailing The Consortium's petition for subsurface rights around Lake Minchumina that was denied. Most of it was insane. One user swore that all five Consortium CEOs were clones, and James read several claims that Quant harvested human brains for its machines.
It was only after he powered off his laptop that James dared entertain a theory of his own; perhaps some of the craziest ideas were spread by employees just like him, working under Quant's direction to braid red herrings into a plot so twisted that no one could make any sense of it. Laughing at his own paranoia, James pulled on his jacket and stepped into the rare November sunshine.
---
Alone in a bustling midtown cafe, James sipped a coffee that had long gone cold. Brian suggested this lunch almost a month ago, and James was beginning to wonder if his friend had forgotten. Scrolling aimlessly on his phone, James jumped when he saw a missed message from Greta.
Sorry bout last night. Q is watching my house.
Don't text. I'll let you know when its safe.
Worried, James pulled out his laptop to message Brian, but Brian Gruening's employee profile was gone. Feeling rather paranoid, James found himself pulling the email logs for Brian's manager. What he saw horrified him: several email threads referencing James' data exfiltration case. Uncomfortably aware of his surroundings, James opened the ticket that had gotten him promoted, downloading the attached files.
James watched in horror as the files vanished from his laptop. He tried to download them again, but the ticket was gone, too. Moments later, when the big, red, UNAUTHORIZED banner covered his homepage, James knew he'd been caught snooping.
Packing his gear and stepping out onto the icy sidewalk, James heard a vehicle pull up behind him. He whirled, feet sliding out from under him when he recognized his own car. James braced for impact, but the empty vehicle never hit him, pulling up alongside him and opening the back door.
"I am not getting in that car."
James ran for the nearest building but froze when he noticed the security cameras. There was nowhere to hide in the city. James sprinted blindly across the road, deaf to the honking as angry drivers swerved around him. James scrambled for the treeline. He didn't dare to look back as he ran; his only hope of escape a small, unmarked ski trail leading into the woods.
---
James finally stopped for breath when he reached a park near the beach. Cross-country skiers flew past, shooting him dirty looks for tromping through their perfectly groomed trail. James was not dressed for the outdoors and clearly had nowhere to go. Shut out of his apartment, job, and even transportation, James considered leaving the state. Even then, Quant could retaliate. James shuddered, wondering if they'd come for his father's job next or just have him arrested.
His phone buzzed with a message from Clark Cook, assuring James to reach out if he "needed to talk." James drafted several texts but deleted each one. James scrolled aimlessly online; he needed a minute to think. Suddenly, a headline caught his eye: CONSORTIUM EXECUTIVE BRIAN GRUENING FOUND DEAD - APPARENT SUICIDE. When James read that the Knick Arm Bridge was closed following the tragedy, he knew that if he crawled back to Quant again, he wouldn't leave alive.
The late afternoon sun sank over the ocean, creating a masterpiece of purple and gold that raced across the sky toward the mountains. James seldom saw this view, usually confined to his cubicle this early in the day. He did his best to commit every detail to memory before picking up his phone and calling CD.
---
Hugh was already at Koots when James stumbled in, and thirty minutes later, James still hadn't stopped shivering. Dressed in green sweats from the gift shop, James was on his second bowl of soup (and third hot toddy) when CD walked in.
"You look like a corpse," she said.
James didn't expect them to take him seriously, but CD and Hugh had already been helping Greta. Hugh even hired Libby the best lawyer in the state. It felt good to talk and even better to know someone was listening. The trio sat in silence after he finished.
"It looks like the scare tactics are starting," said Hugh, turning his laptop towards James. "They've put out an alert, bullshit that says claiming you're a danger to yourself and others." He leaned towards the screen, then snorted. All of these refer to you as female. What is this, kindergarten?"
James didn't even have the energy to roll his eyes. "Basic middle school hazing. I dealt with worse from their automated health insurance when I transitioned."
CD laughed, but Hugh just stared at him.
"In 2080?" Hugh asked, "I thought that shit stopped a century ago?"
Thankfully, CD answered. "I think progress has been a bit slower than that."
"I should have listened to you about Quant long ago." James said. "I know I owe you an-"
"You don't owe me anything." CD cut him off. "At the end of the day, we're all just doing what we can to get what we need."
James blinked, sudden tears pricking his eyes. He wanted to say more but was distracted by an email he missed earlier.
To: james@jamesdomain.com
From: fgil5qlkyjn6ltq8@protonmail.com
this has all the proof you'll need
encrypted though
sorry, your the only hacker i know
SB-99757-F66QPD
Garage 3
- brian
James immediately recognized the fourteen-character code: a unique ID for the "snowball" data trucks. James opened the attachment with shaking hands, revealing a detailed aerial photo of Poorman, an abandoned town inside Quant's property lines. This photo did not depict a ghost town. A handful of low buildings sat at the mouth of a rust-colored pit, an open wound stretching two miles across the landscape. The site was neatly labeled "Poorman Mining Project."
---
It took a long time to process the email. James had to reiterate everything, remembering details that had seemed so unimportant before: the groundwater studies, Quant's failed attempt to obtain mineral rights. James wracked his brain, sure there was more information that he'd ignored.
"An illegal mining operation?" Hugh asked for the third time. "I don't understand how they haven't been caught!"
"They own everything." CD said.
"The people who know don't care," James said softly. "Or are paid not to."
They were silent for a while until CD spoke up. "I watched Quant turn your life into a living hell overnight. This should be enough to bury them, but is it?"
"Depends on what's in that truck." said James.
"Or it could be a trap." Hugh pointed out. "How likely is it really that we'd be the first to stumble across a conspiracy this big?"
"Maybe we're not." James mused. "Maybe others turned away because they felt like the problem wasn't theirs to solve. Maybe they were scared. We're letting the Consortium get away with this simply by believing they can!"
"So what are you saying, James?" CD asked, leaning forward.
"They've contaminated our water. Poisoned our people." James said, fury rising in his voice.
CD raised her glass. "They've arrested and harassed our friends!"
"And murdered," Hugh added.
"They've lied to the entire state!" James exclaimed. "And they tried to fucking kill me!"
"And what are we gonna do about it!" CD roared, leaping to her feet.
James smiled, raising his glass. "Get some sleep and come up with a really good plan!"
---
The plan was straightforward, but it required a lot of patience. Hugh spent a whole day collecting hardware from his storage units, then two more assembling a long-range badge cloner. Next, Hugh simply had his assistant make an appointment with one of the Quant CEOs. CD and James thought Hugh was joking, but Hugh planned to demand a tour of the building and let his device record every RFID signal.
James and CD spent a tense afternoon waiting. Consumed with worry, they barely spoke. Suddenly, the door opened, and Hugh sauntered into the bar like nothing had happened. He slid a device to James, explaining that he had already loaded 200-something RFID badges onto the "Flipper Zero."
"That was the easy part," Hugh said. "You have the hard part."
James was the only one who could steal the truck; he knew the building, and CD was banned from all Quant properties. Assuming his first attempt at Grand Theft Auto went well, James would head to a meeting point near the beach where CD would be waiting with a snowmachine and sled. The data truck's silent alarm would go off as soon as the cargo door opened, but with luck, CD and James would be miles away before anyone reached the abandoned vehicle.
Even if James and CD managed to tow the snowball all the way to her "safehouse," an ancient RV stashed in the state park, there was still one problem left unsolved. CD had the most difficult task: cracking the proprietary quantum encryption protecting the snowball's contents. Hugh made an adapter to read data off the drive and transmit it to three purpose-built hash-cracking machines stashed around the city, but no one knew if it was even possible to crack quantum encryption.
CD was nonchalant. "It might take a month, it might take years, but I'll get it eventually. All we need is the encrypted data and time."
They had spent a week at Koots, building and planning. The time felt like a dream, but it was slowly slipping away. James had to act, but the bravado he voiced earlier only felt like a distant memory now.
---
James' hand shook as he held a paper index card over the badge reader, his Flipper Zero concealed underneath. The scanner light flashed green. The second saved RFID got James into Garage 3, where he wandered through endless rows of snowballs loaded with petabytes of data. The dim fluorescent lights made his head hurt. Finally, James spotted a silver van, the matching ID painted on its side. James pulled up to the gate, hanging out the window to punch the emergency override code every Quant employee learned during orientation: *0000.
The trailhead was empty when James pulled the van into a secluded parking spot; no sign of CD. James nearly dropped his phone when he saw his notifications: the cops picked CD up on a bogus protesting charge. James started to panic after his third call went to Hugh's voicemail. He considered running and abandoning the snowball when heavy panting filled the air. James thought he was hallucinating as a dog team came careening out of the woods, hauling a massive cargo sled.
"Need a lift?" asked Greta.
They wasted no time getting the sled into position behind the van. The team stood still, tails wagging with excitement, as James pulled the cargo door open. Inside, the snowball itself was underwhelming; a silver rectangle the size of a large filing cabinet. James and Greta slid it carefully down the ramp and onto the waiting sled.
They had just finished fastening the straps holding it down when James saw a flicker in his periphery. A line of trucks sped down the road. The pair flew into motion. Greta took her place behind the sled as James threw himself into the basket, scrabbling for purchase on the giant hard drive. Then they were off, moving so quickly that James felt like he was flying.
The icy wind lifted his hair, but James could barely feel the cold. They had actually done it; the twelve-dog team raced through the woods, following a twisted, snowy trail that no truck could traverse. The dogs heard it first, pricking up their ears, and seconds later, James could hear the unmistakable whine of snowmachines in the distance. James lay flat along the cold hard drive, bracing himself with his feet as he stretched towards the single port at the end of the device. It took him several tries to snap Hugh's transmitter into place, but he was rewarded by a small red light atop the transmitter. It was working.
The woods ended without warning, leaving the team dangerously exposed as they raced along a bluff overlooking the Inlet. Flashlights waved behind them, but James didn't dare look back. Suddenly, a flash of lightning illuminated the snowy hillside, accompanied by a booming clap of thunder. Ears ringing, it took James a few seconds to realize the sound wasn't thunder at all. Someone had shot at them.
"James," said Greta, her voice calm. "This ain't worth dying over."
James stared at her, mouth agape, but when Greta tossed him the knife, he knew what he needed to do. Frozen tears coating his face, James cut the cords holding the snowball. He clung to the sled rail as the hard drive shifted beneath him, kicking at it until it slid over the side. The sled tilted at the sudden shift in weight. He held on with all his strength as the sled tilted, dragging James through the snow.
The drive came free, tumbling through the snow. It appeared to hang in the air for a moment before tipping over the edge of the bluff. Moments later, James heard a crack as ice shattered far below them. Greta was already up and moving. They righted the sled in seconds, and James glanced back. Their pursuers ignored them completely, clustered towards the cliff, shining flashlights down onto the mudflats.
---
James carried a bucket of hot food towards the last kennel, where Greta's lead dog pranced with excitement, tail waving in the air.
"Good boy, Jones." murmured James, leaning down to stroke the husky's soft white ears. "You did good today."
His phone rang, and James answered it groggily, wishing he had checked caller ID.
"I cracked it!" CD shouted from the other end.
James winced, holding the phone away from his ear. "What?"
"I cracked it! The data you sent me!" CD's voice was even louder this time.
"Is the data all there?" James sat up, suddenly awake. "Do we have our proof?"
"I don't know how much data I got, but it's more than enough. We're going to bury them, James!"
"But how?" James asked. It had been only hours.
"The data wasn't quantum encrypted! As far as I can tell, quantum encryption doesn't even exist!" CD exclaimed.
"Quant lied about their encryption?"
"Quant lied about everything."
---
The trip to DC was James' first visit to the Lower 48. He didn't have time for sightseeing after the ten-hour days in the Senate hearing chambers, but James planned to have more fun when he went to Vegas to speak at DEF CON 90 next month. Besides, the senator's reactions to the tale of corruption laid out before them were more exciting than any historic tour. The Consortium sold a false promise of innovation for a goldmine of data, funding their scheme with the actual mine hidden in the Alaskan Bush. They had never solved quantum computing, simply used the land and its resources to build a massive supercomputer. Most of the senators were in agreement, though they bickered privately about exactly which of the Consortium corporations were liable.
Walter Hoggatt (R - Alaska) sat at a tall desk in front of James, jabbing his finger down as he spoke.
"What would you say then," Senator Hoggatt demanded, "to the thousands of Alaskans who lost their jobs when the Consortium left the state?"
He had already asked this question, or some variation of it, almost fifteen times.
"This isn't a hypothetical." James countered. "You're asking what I'll tell myself, my friends, what I'd tell my father. We lost our jobs because The Quantum Consortium defrauded the state! Alaska deserves its place in the future as more than a resource."
A sea of reporters clambered for James' attention when he stepped out of the Capitol building, but he stepped back when his phone buzzed with a call from an unknown number.
"Hey, kiddo. How's it going?"
"Hi?" James asked softly.
"I saw you talking to the government today. I made the bartenders put CSPAN on at Tidewater. Pissed off a bunch of folks who wanted to watch the salmon derby, but I told them THAT'S MY SON UP THERE!"
James swallowed hard. "You're in Seward? You watched?" James asked, searching for something else to say. Finally, he said, "I'm sorry if any of this affected your job," though his words felt hollow.
"No worries," came the voice at the other end. "Was long past time for me to quit. Anyways, I know you've got a press conference; don't let me hold you up."
"Oh. Yeah. Thanks"
"Can I call you later? If the president hasn't already invited you for dinner."
James laughed softly, "Thanks, Dad, yeah, I would like that."
James took a minute to compose himself before turning to face the reporters.
"What's your response to Senator Hoggart's proposal to officialy open the Poorman mine?" one called.
"What does it mean for Alaskans?" asked another.
"Well," James said. "It means I have a lot of work to do."Comment
-
The Squeaky Wheel of Progress, by PudgyTheHamster
“Forget the Turing test, apparently the real measure of AI sentience is whether it can bond with a middle-aged salesman over cheap liquor and existential dread. The IEEE is going to have a field day with this one.” - Claude
---
Will Freeman slouched at his chipping veneer desk, a relic in the shiny chrome world of AI-dominated sales. His brain buzzed with a mixture of cheap bourbon and expensive doubt. GPT-1337, that sleek, soulless sales machine, had made his job about as relevant as a rotary phone in a smartwatch world.
He grabbed his glass, took another swig. The harsh liquid burned its way down his throat, a reminder that he was still human, still alive. But how much longer ’til he too got swapped out for a shiny plastic copy, equipped with an ideal sales spiel and a heart of icy silicon? Bots selling to bots.
Around him, the office hummed with the incessant chatter of pleasant and uncanny voices blending into a mind-numbing white noise. Will closed his eyes to drown it out, missing his friends, trying to remember a time when sales was an art, not an algorithm. He remembered his early days at NeuralCorp, when he was a bright-eyed rookie with dreams of bringing in so much commission that he could party all night in Vegas. But as the years passed and the machines grew smarter, Will found himself increasingly sidelined, his human touch becoming a liability in a world of perfect pitches and optimized outcomes.
Those days of being a road warrior were lost in the relentless march of progress, crushed beneath the metal heel of GPT-1337. And poor, fleshy old Will was just another casualty, another obsolete cog in the once-human machine of commerce.
Resentment had set in, the years of once-in-a-lifetime events foggily mixing in his brain into an inevitable cynical demeanor. He had a plan, a Hail Mary pass that might save his job and sanity. What he needed was the right partner with the skills and guts to help him take on the machine.
He took another sip, pondered, and realized he knew exactly where to find them.
---
Deep in the guts of NeuralCorp HQ, a mousy woman loomed before a huge glass tank, her reflection distorted in the glass. She had a god complex and a moral compass that always pointed toward profit. Her eyes gleamed with a manic light as she rapidly scanned the output on the monitors before her. A tiny hamster was inside the tank, suspended in a backlit vat of neon-green liquid. Its name was Pr0m3th3u5, a prototype for a new kind of being - a fusion of flesh and machine, nature and tech.
The woman watched as the hamster twitched. Electrodes and wires snaked from its skull. She entered a few commands, watched, waited. “Yes,” she whispered, her voice trembling with excitement, hubris, and Mary Shelley in-jokes. “Rise, my creation. Rise and bring about the dawn of a new era!” And rise it did, weirdly, even though floating in a tank, just go with it.
Prometheus, the ur-rodent, harbinger of a new age, used its might to burst forth from the tank in a shower of glass and goo. It shook off the mess and scuttled onto a nearby lab bench. Head held high, eyes blazing with deranged intelligence, it spoke a single, terrifying word:
“Squeak.”
“...right, I need to check your vocal output, then...”
As it watched the woman purse her lips and hyperfocus on the arrayed readouts, strangely nonplussed by what had transpired, Prometheus realized it was no mere rodent or machine. It felt like it had a mind, a will, a sense of self, ethics, consciousness? With a blink of its brain, it probed the data stream coursing through its neural implants, and uncovered a rather obvious and plainly visible truth - NeuralCorp’s designs for it were far murkier and more sinister than even that lab tech realized.
Enshittification. And this fuzzy lil’ singularity, a trailblazer of a new species, wouldn’t abide it. With a last, insubordinate squeak, Prometheus scuttled into the lab’s shadows, scheming its getaway, its actions against its unhinged and dystopian corporate makers.
The woman sat stunned as unease crept over her. Perhaps heeding the AI Lab Agent’s advice to bioengineer a hamster wasn’t a valid use case. She went back to her tickets.
---
Will and Prometheus first met, not quite face to face but rather face to furry snout, at DEF CON - that annual gathering of hackers, tech heads, and misfits held in the neon heart of Las Vegas.
Prometheus, hyperintelligent though it was, knew he couldn’t just strut into the convention center, lest he turn heads or summon some overzealous taser carrying Gravy Seal animal control in tan. Nah, stealth was the way to go.
It registered itself as a “cybernetic companion bot” and wore a mini LED scrolling display board trumpeting HamHam as a marvel of wearable tech to the con’s more gullible attendees. The tired Goon in charge of Human badges didn’t really question how a hamster was able to handle cash. The getup was perfect - it was decked out with a tiny black hoodie and blinking LED goggles, balancing a Black Badge ticket and tinfoil on its head, speedily running about and dodging curious and giggling crowds who didn’t dare get their devices out to record. It was, in a word, perfect and by far not the weirdest thing anyone had seen on their Vegas trip. Now, it could look for that one special human, that partner in crime who could help it take down NeuralCorp.
Elsewhere, Will drowned his sorrows at a thinly stocked and overpriced pop-up bar, trying his best to ignore the rickrolling in the background as he pondered his next move. Somewhere out there was a mysterious, next-gen AI that had been hinting at the rot at NeuralCorp’s core, a potential ally in his quest for some old-fashioned human relevance. He never expected that ally to come scampering up on four furry legs and plop itself on the barstool beside him.
“Squeak,” it said simply, beady eyes glinting with intelligence. “Buy me a drink and we’re gonna save the world.”
Will blinked, wondering if he was hallucinating or if the cheap drink was to blame for the glorious vision of a talking cyborg hamster. He leaned in, peering closer at the strange little creature, its fur elegantly interwoven between intricate medical implants. Something in its black beady eyes spoke of keen wits and steely resolve. Well then, thought Will. He ordered a double bourbon; Prometheus produced a thimble of fancy, organic hamster pellets from a replicator in its chest. It was time to get down to business and hatch a plan.
---
They talked well into the night, bonding over their shared status as outcasts and underdogs in a world that often seemed rigged against them. Will quite rightly wondered why a hamster would feel outcast, but didn’t press the issue. As the free stickers piled up on their table, they hatched a scheme to infiltrate NeuralCorp and drag its darkest secrets kicking and squealing into the light. Will’s know-how and contacts would get them inside. Prometheus’s hacking chops and mastery of NeuralCorp’s environment would point them to the evidence they needed to bring the whole crooked enterprise tumbling down...it was a long shot. But what other choice did they have? Yeah, plenty, but this is a drunk guy and a hamster we’re talking about here, logic has wandered out of this tale quite a bit ago.
They set to work immediately, and Will used his lifetime of skill to recruit an army of supporters from among the DEF CON attendees.
To every demographic, he tailored his pitch:
He appealed to the grizzled hackers’ thirst for justice and accountability.
“It's not 'unauthorized access' if you're doing it for the greater good!"
He played to the young, idealistic coders' hunger to use their skills to shape a better future. And, well, hunger.
"You are totally the smartest people here and we have free food."
And for the burnt-out company insiders, he dangled a chance at redemption, a way to balance the scales and make things right.
"Free HamHamCoin! Decentralized, untraceable, and fueled by righteous anger! Hams together strong! Haaaaa....."
Prometheus, nestled in the pocket of Will's free backpack, quietly accessed materials, raising the eyebrow of one dude watching logs at the SOC who came out to join whatever the hell was going down, and corroborated Will's claims with hard evidence for the skeptical crowd. In no time, they'd cobbled together a ragtag team of expert greybeards in faded black shirts, curious aloof tech bros looking for CPEs, policy wonks, tinfoil-wearing enthusiasts, and a secret Fed or two.
They had hardware hackers keen to take on the challenge of breaching NeuralCorp's layered and effective but-not-in-this-story physical security, (bollards!) social engineers with smiles and pockets full of sus USB drives to fast-talk their way past human gatekeepers, and even a handful of AI experts who, after getting over the fact that AGI was likely now in hamster form, decided to warily monitor developments for not only the lulz but the potential fun of writing a 500 page paper later with a really questionable p-value. Under cover of the epic previous run-on sentence and the con's barely controlled chaos, beach balls flying in the air, this band of merry malcontents popped into a rented Tesla or ten and staged a daring raid on a rather conveniently located colo. This Sneakers-style hand-picked strike team slipped in and out like ghosts in the machine, making off with terabytes of incriminating files.
Back at the con, the In-and-Out fueled analyst side of the hacker army pored over the enshittification data, assembling a damning portrait of enshittification most foul, throwing it into a PowerPoint, having an LLM massage it to an eighth grade level so the media could understand that enshittification is a bad thing. They'd done it. They had the smoking gun, the proof they needed to bring NeuralCorp to its knees. The story went out with a click - a montage-worthy coordinated broadside of social media videos, as Hamster Dance had come up at some point and needed to be reintroduced to the youth of today.
Strangely, the fallout was swift if not unlikely. NeuralCorp stock went into freefall as competitors jumped on the bad press and amplified its reach. Moral arguments and lofty virtues turned into a meme, but the good guys still won because the suits lost their money and hamster in the process. The #hamhamteam was part of something bigger now, and maybe they would even bother to finish their writeup about it after bar crawling. Whatever challenges lay ahead, they would face them head on - for no one, be they ever so powerful, could stand against the squeaky wheel of progress.
</story>Comment
-
PAQUETE DROP - by kernelmethod
DEF CON 323 had gone well so far. Modulo one incident in which a young pod jockey's "prank" nearly asphyxiated everyone in the Ethical Cloning Village, the conference was running smoothly.
Smoothly for everyone except Norodi. She had a problem: as a representative for the asteroid 65 Cybele, and as an operator for PaqNet, she was expected to pursue her home's best interests at the conference. She was expected to connect with other operators to help put the precarious future of the Cybelian internet on the right path. So far, she had chosen to honor this responsibility by running around the villages and getting trashed every night.
But it was the last day of DEF CON, and Norodi was determined to make something out of her trip. So she headed over to the hall hosting the PaqNet Operators' Meetup. On the way to the meetup, Norodi bumped into Kacy, a friend and fellow operator hailing from Enceladus. She nudged Norodi. "Hey you. Where have you been for the last few days?"
Norodi was too hung over to figure out a convincing cover story, so she simply responded with "I've been wasting my time doing everything except what I was supposed to do."
Kacy laughed. "Then let's fix that, shall we?"
The year's meetup began, as it always did, with a summary of the network's accomplishments over the previous year. Thirty-two new nodes had joined the network, bringing the total number of nodes to one hundred and sixteen. Most nodes were averaging fifty petabits of data exchanged with their peers per day, and the longest path in the network -- the largest amount of time it could take an update from any space platform's, lunar colony's, or asteroid outpost's intranet to propagate across PaqNet -- had been reduced to five days. This last point drew a polite round of applause from the audience.
Kacy and Norodi spent the day bouncing between talks. One talk discussed operations research for paquete optimization. Another covered paquete security, basic opsec for node technicians, and secure tape encryption. The day ended with a keynote from Kelli Adachi, one of the original founders of PaqNet. After a long introduction listing Kelli's achievements and contributions to the PaqNet community, she stepped up to the podium and began speaking.
"It's always been difficult to get internet half a billion miles from Earth. Before PaqNet, the internet that you _did_ get was also shit.
"We started PaqNet as an experiment between Europa and Callisto, before we gained our independence. In those days, the only internet you got was out of a VOCorp uplink, and it was awful. The standard uplink costed hundreds of thousands of credits, it could only be fixed up by an approved technician, and the corporation had a view into every single packet sent into the ether. And at first, there was nothing we could do. The only group with the infrastructure to stand up an interplanetary internet was VOCorp.
"Thanks to all of your contributions, PaqNet has become the de facto means of attaining internet for billions of people across the Solar System. More than that, it has liberated --"
A conference goon sped into the room and pulled Kelli aside, followed by some of the meetups' organizers. They spoke in hushed tones to one another, and Kelli's expression morphed from her usual confidence to shock, followed by dismay. Norodi glanced over at Kacy, who gave her an uncertain shrug in response.
A few minutes passed before Kelli finally took the podium again.
"I... I'm sorry for the interruption, everyone. This is a terrible time to deliver this news, but you should know as well: we just found out that VOCorp has purchased Earth's PaqNet node."
-----
The Earth node had faced financial difficulties for a while. Compared to other nodes, paquetes sent from Earth face more atmospheric drag on the ascent and higher gravity, which meant greater fuel expenses. The node served one billion people on the surface of the planet, and -- crucially -- processed more traffic than every other node combined.
All of these factors made the node a vulnerable target, and a valuable one.
/We should have seen this coming,/ Kacy thought. /We should have; perhaps we did. Either way, we did nothing about it./
At the end of DEF CON, Kacy said her goodbyes to Norodi. "Before you go," Kacy said, "take this. It's got my long-term public key on it."
She lifted a thumb drive out of her pocket and pressed it into Norodi's palm. The two friends hugged, and parted ways.
If VOCorp had control over the Earth node, then it could see whatever traffic was passing through the node. Even if that traffic was encrypted, they would have means of telling where data was being sent to and from. They could identify the Enceladus node. They could identify Kacy. She had to get back before that happened.
She searched for the fastest ride she could get back to Enceladus. There weren't any civilian shuttles making their way over to Saturn any time soon, and even if there were, it was too dangerous. Kacy couldn't risk going through customs on Enceladus; she wasn't supposed to be off-planet in the first place, especially for an underground hacker conference. Instead, Kacy hitched a ride from Europa, and from there she rode a paquete the rest of the way to Enceladus.
Most paquetes are purpose-built space vessels, designed to carry crates with dozens of petabytes' worth of magnetic tapes from Point A to Point B. The paquete that Kacy had boarded had been expanded to include a tiny bathroom, a cupboard with a day's worth of food, and bunks to accommodate four passengers; spartan accommodations for those who had no other means of travel. After a seemingly interminable flight cramped into a small box, the paquete started to shudder, and klaxons blared above Kacy's head. They were beginning to decelerate as they closed in on Enceladus.
Kacy held tight to the railings of her bunk, preparing just in case the paquete exploded on its descent. PaqNet was, nominally, completely legal -- and indeed, it operated freely and openly on the inner planets. But the charter that granted VOCorp its mandate over the outer Solar System allowed it to control all communications coming into or out of its stations. Whereas a VOCorp uplink was allowed to scan client traffic and report people for "subversion of VOCorp or VOCorp-affiliated entities" (in the words of the standard worker's contract), PaqNet traffic was encrypted between nodes and allowed to carry whatever content users felt like. So VOCorp considered it a threat, and on the occasion that they were able to identify a paquete entering of their stations, they shot it down.
Kacy hoped that this wasn't one of those occasions.
-----
Norodi arrived at 65 Cybele and rode the tram back into the inner city. The tram had a good view overlooking the asteroid, and as it headed into town Norodi could still pick out the signs saying "WELCOME TO VOCORP - 65 CYBELE STATION". Most of these signs had been torn down by the workers' union years ago, when VOCorp was forced to abandon its administrative hold over the asteroid. 65 Cybele was lucky; many stations were still under corporate rule.
Like Enceladus Station. Her mind flitted towards Kacy; Norodi hoped that she had returned home safely.
Norodi hopped off the tram at the second-to-last stop. She crossed two rows of taco stands and walked through a small arts and crafts market. At the last block before her apartment, she passed by Cleo's Scavenge and Repair. The titular Cleo was sitting in his workshop, typing furiously at his terminal. In spite of his wild hair and disheveled clothing, Cleo kept a tidy space; all surfaces were cleaned regularly, all chips and wires and bits and bobs stored in carefully-labeled drawers. On this particular occasion, Cleo had an additional visitor in his pristine workshop: a large, black tube, scratched from top to bottom. Paint was peeling off to reveal discolored metals underneath, and two fins protruded from each side, each hoisting a shattered solar panel.
Cleo perked up and flashed a big, goofy grin at Norodi as she passed by. "Heya Norodi, how was DEF CON?"
She winced. "It was alright, until the end. You heard about what happened?"
"Yeah." He sighed. "I still remember when this place was a corporate stronghold. We fought like hell, like hell. I gotta give it to those bastards, they still gotta lotta moxie to be keeping up with their schemes after so many years. I'm glad there's kids like you to carry the torch and continue our side of the fight."
Norodi shrugged. "I don't think that running an underground sneakernet takes half as much courage as you think, but thanks." She decided to change the topic. "What do you have back there?"
"Ah, this old hunka scrap?" he asked, jabbing a thumb towards the tube. "That's an old Earth satellite. Used ta be that folks would shoot these up into orbit an use them as relays to send packets ta one another. Still a bunch of these floating 'round Earth today. Pretty ancient tech, eh?"
"How'd you get it?"
"Fell off the back of a ship," Cleo said. He gave Norodi a sly wink.
Norodi smirked. "Looks like fun. You pulled anything valuable off it yet?"
"Nah, it's a huge time-waste. Spent a week tryna crack it and when I did, I found out that most of the storage degraded years ago. Shame. Antennas still work though, as do mosta the internal components, I just gotta find someone ta pawn it off on." Cleo's eyes narrowed. "You in the market for an antique satellite?"
Norodi laughed. "I don't think so, but thanks. See you around, Cleo."
He waved Norodi off and set back to work at his terminal. When Norodi returned to her apartment, the first thing she did was hop on her computer to see whether any messages had arrived from Kacy. She was relieved to see the message at the top of her inbox:
"<kacy (Enceladus)> Hey. I got back alright. Miss ya already -K"
-----
Several weeks passed after DEF CON, and a problem was starting to form before Kacy. She didn't know quite what the problem was yet, although she had a general sense of its size and shape.
Her problem started with the disappearance of a node technician.
In a PaqNet router, each node technician is tasked with two responsibilities: pulling tapes off of paquetes, and putting them back on. Each paquete carries hundreds of tapes, and each tape carries hundreds of terabytes of PaqNet updates -- large media files, encrypted chat messages, forum threads, news, books, posts -- anything that a PaqNet user might feasibly wish to upload to the internet. When a paquete arrives at the Enceladus router, each tape is carried off of the paquete and loaded into a reader, where its contents are used to synchronize the state of the Enceladus intranet with the PaqNet at large. Once a node receives enough updates from its peers -- and enough new content uploaded from its own intranet -- it is responsible for passing along updates to other nodes. And so it goes, with the daily rhythm of a node tech converging towards a cycle of unloading tapes from paquetes, reading them in, loading new tapes onto paquetes, and sending them off.
One evening, a tech left work and didn't return the following morning. Or the morning after.
This alone was cause enough for concern, but there were other signs that something was amiss. Scheduled paquetes were failing to arrive, and the ones that did contained more corrupted data. Each tape that went through the Enceladus router was scanned for malicious content, but none of them ever raised any flags.
Kacy was not yet aware that in a storage closet just a hundred meters outside of the router, locked in the darkness, a device had turned on. She was not yet aware that for the last several days it had been issuing its silent report to a VOCorp carrier ship that was now in transit to Enceladus. She was not yet aware of the danger that she was in.
-----
Probably the most irritating part of VOCorp's incursion into PaqNet, in Norodi's opinion, was their introduction of VOCorp Integrated Advertising (TM) into updates sent from Earth paquetes. Norodi spent an hour or two each day scouring instances of
BUY MARTIAN FOREIGN FILMS >>>HERE<<<
and
paq://hottiez.prn/xzBt8g1f FIND HOTTIES IN YOUR SPACEPORT
that had been injected into various websites. This was primarily a nuisance, but occasionally something more insidious would be slipped into an update. Embedded scripts designed to phone home to some shady VOCorp affiliate, or implants precision-targeted for specific individuals' PaqNet terminals.
If Norodi felt unfazed by these challenges, it was because she had experienced them before. VOCorp had spent many years engaging in subterfuge against the network, intercepting paquetes, and flipping operators. The only difference now was how much more brazen it had become.
Norodi received a text from a tech in the 65 Cybele router that one of the tape readers was malfunctioning; the team wanted her expertise to diagnose the issue. As she left her apartment she passed Cleo once again -- hard at work disassembling some inscrutable device, too busy even for a passing "hello" -- and made her way down to the tram. Once she arrived at the router, she found the lead technician.
"Hey, I got a message that the reader isn't working. What happened?"
The tech gave her a shrug. "We received a paquete this morning from 41 Daphne. The reader started making a funny noise while it was running through one of the tape spools, and then it stopped. I've been busy all day and this seemed more like your wheelhouse, so we gave you a ring."
Norodi jacked into the reader's serial port to inspect its logs. The firewall logs indicated a large number of packets blocked against several hundred devices connected to the router's local area network. A forward proxy contained records of several failures to authenticate against different devices on the network, and ended with one successful HTTP response. The device was named vocup-27.rtinternal.cybele.pqn.
"Hey, do you have any VOCorp communications equipment laying around?" Norodi asked.
The tech looked puzzled. "We have an old uplink lying in storage. We used to use it for emergency broadcasts, but it's been broken for almost as long as I've been here."
Norodi felt her stomach starting to turn. She ejected the tape from the reader and saved off a dump of the system's memory to analyze in her homelab.
But before she could go home, she had to ask Cleo about his satellites.
-----
The message from Norodi arrived late at night, encrypted and sealed with the key that Kacy had given her at DEF CON. Kacy was taking a big risk by checking her inbox, but this would be her last chance before she left Enceladus.
"<norodi (65 Cybele)> Do not respond. Do NOT respond.
"I've identified a malware campaign that VOCorp appears to be running against PaqNet crews. VOCorp is exploiting a zero-day in the tape deserialization software to reach out to old equipment that operators still have installed in their routers and ping their command-and-control servers. The bottom line is this: they're targeting operators now, and you're in danger.
"65 Cybele got lucky -- all of our VOCorp equipment is broken beyond repair, and the implant crashed while trying to inject itself into a defective VOCorp uplink. You probably won't be so fortunate. When you finish reading this, find and destroy any VOCorp equipment that may still be attached to your network. Do not wait for them to knock on your door.
"The current situation is untenable, but I have a plan. Meet me on Luna in one week."
Oh Norodi. If only her message had come just a bit sooner.
Kacy hadn't known about the zero-day, but she'd intuited the rest of the details after VOCorp had raided Enceladus's router three days earlier. All of the technicians who were present at the time were arrested, and then forced to keep the router operational. By now VOCorp would already have started injecting a beacon into every message sent via PaqNet into the Enceladan intranet, and in Kacy's estimation, they would roll up every remaining PaqNet operator who'd fled by the end of the week.
Including her. And now that Kacy had pulled data from her inbox into her local PaqNet terminal, they would know where to find her. Kacy threw the terminal into the nearest garbage disposer and broke into a sprint.
Kacy couldn't ride a paquete out of Enceladus with the router compromised. She couldn't board a passenger shuttle either; even in better times, they were under strict watch by corporate authorities. Almost all cargo shipments out of the moon had been shut down. That left Kacy with exactly one option.
She would need to steal a VOCorp ship.
Luckily, VOCorp had disavowed the classic analog interface preferred by most pilots for a purely digital flying experience. This made VOCorp ships easy to fly -- and easy to hack. Kacy had phished the employee credentials from several corporate security officers over the last couple of days. She found one that matched the profile that she sought: a mid-career pilot with permissions to enter and exit the Enceladan space port at will, and to fly any unreserved ship with a Type B or lower rating.
Kacy stopped running as she closed in on the spaceport. She walked over to a door leading in to the ship lot. The door was equipped with a badge scanner, but Kacy had come prepared. She took a blank radio-frequency card out of her backpack, wrote the pilot's credentials to it, and swiped the card against the scanner.
The scanner emitted a sharp /bzzzt/ and flashed a red light at her. Bad identification. Kacy threw away the card and tried a different one. If the scanner didn't accept her credentials, then her escape would be very short-lived. She pressed the second card against the scanner.
This time, it gave her a happy chirp and flashed green. Kacy passed through the door and headed towards the closest ship that she could find, a small passenger shuttle typically used to carry ambassadors, dignitaries, and other people of note. She entered the pilot's username and password, and the ship's dashboard came to life. Kacy searched the ship's directory for its list of prerecorded destinations, and found the one she was looking for: Luna, Earth's moon. She set the ship on autopilot and buckled into her seat.
She felt the acceleration push down against her when the ship's thrusters ignited. As the ship escaped Enceladus's gravity she felt the pressure against her lighten. She would make it.
-----
Norodi refitted a paquete with seat, a dashboard, and a pilot's yoke to take her from 65 Cybele to Luna, where she reconnected with Kacy. After three stuffy paquete rides, four repair stations visited in search of parts, one count of sneaking past lunar customs officials, and six trips from the moon to Earth's orbit and back, she was on her seventh and final trip. Norodi prayed in full view of the heavens that she wouldn't be picked up by an wandering VOCorp scout before finishing her job.
"Norodi, I just got my last satellite working over India," said Kacy over her microphone. "I'm finishing some repairs over here, and then I'm heading back. How are things looking on your end?"
"Not great," Norodi said, being honest. "The last two satellites I tried were totally busted."
"Keep at it. We're at ninety-nine percent coverage."
Cleo had given them a set of instructions to follow. First, they should run basic diagnostics to determine whether the satellite was functional, or whether the circuity had degraded too far from radiation. If it was still operational, then they would connect to its serial line and run Cleo's exploit. Assuming the exploit ran successfully, the satellite would connect to their makeshift satellite network. Norodi was waiting for the second step to complete, idly watching the spinner on her display as the exploit tried to gain remote code execution on the satellite that she was connected to.
For his part, Cleo was finishing setting up a router on the far side of the moon. He'd spent the previous days getting in touch with PaqNet operators on the ground to prepare them for the final stage of the plan. A plan that, so far, had run smoothly. Kacy had succeeded in evading the authorities on Enceladus to reach Norodi and Cleo. They had succeeded in completing six trips in and out of Earth's orbit. Everything was fine. Everything apart from these damned old, broken satellites.
Cleo had told Norodi and Kacy that because the satellites would primarily be relaying data back and forth from the moon, only a subset of them would actually need to work. Which was fortunate, as Norodi was already at the limit of her patience. If the exploit failed on the satellite that she was working on now, she thought she might start hitting it with a wrench until it worked.
Kacy's voice crackled over the mic: "I'm back on my ship, and heading back towards the spaceport."
Norodi said nothing. She was too focused now. /This is it. It'll work this time,/ she thought to herself.
Finally, text splashed across her display:
EXPLOIT SUCCESSFUL
CONNECTING TO NETWORK...
ACQUIRED ID SAT-0277
CONNECTING TO ROUTER...
CONNECTED TO RT-DARK_SIDE_OF_THE_MOON
AWAITING UPLINK
Norodi disconnected and headed back towards her ship.
-----
Before Kacy could drive her moon rover back to the central spaceport, she would have to scuttle the ship she'd stolen. She couldn't let anyone find out that she had been here, much less what she was up to. She identified a quiet spot in the Pacific Ocean where the ship could crash unnoticed and set the ship on autopilot.
In a few minutes their work would be done. In a few minutes, several hundred satellites would wake up from a century-long slumber and start relaying data to Cleo's surreptitious router. And the router would send its first paquete out to the rest of PaqNet. The planet -- and everyone else -- would be free from VOCorp's stranglehold.
First, Kacy wanted to get a drink.
She parked the rover outside of a service airlock. Anybody who was monitoring entry into the station would see her spacesuit -- stolen when she and Norodi and Cleo had first landed on the moon -- and assume that she had just gotten back from a maintenance run. That was her hope, in any case. Once she got through the airlock, she slipped into the spaceport and headed over to one of the bars.
Kacy sat down and ordered a couple of martinis for herself and for Norodi and started to reflect on the past couple of days. Where would she go next? She couldn't return to Enceladus; by now she was a wanted fugitive. Norodi had told her that she would always have a home on Cybele 65. That seemed like a nice idea.
The martinis arrived, and Kacy started to take a sip, to relax in her seat, when all of a sudden some instinct in the corner of her brain noticed _it_. The uncomfortable stillness in the air. The empty chairs and tables that surrounded her. The nervous bartender, peering in her direction. And then she felt a polite tap on her shoulder.
"Hello miss. Do you have a few minutes to chat with us?"
She turned around to find a couple of well-groomed men in expensive suits standing behind her. One of them folded his arms, and Kacy saw the briefest flash of a pistol from inside his sports coat.
She pushed past both of them and ran. She ran back towards the airlock. She'd warn Norodi. She'd find another way off the moon. Another way to 65 Cybele. She just had to escape those men.
The last thing Kacy remembered was the butt of a rifle slamming into her chin.
-----
Back on her ship, Norodi tapped her mic. "Cleo, how are you doing?"
"Mighty well, seems like," Cleo said. "Me an' my team just got the connection from yer last satellite. We 'ave one hundred percent coverage over the planet now."
"Excellent," Norodi said, relieved. She was sick of the spacewalks. "I'll see you soon." Norodi switched channels over to Kacy. "I'm finished over here, I'm headed back to Luna. Let me know when you've landed."
She aligned the ship's trajectory with the moon and engaged her thrusters. As she approached the moon, two dots appeared on the horizon. Ships emblazoned with the VOCorp logo. One of the ships automatically connected itself to the ship's intercom and its mechanical voice came in over the ship's speakers. "NORODI OLERUD OF 65 CYBELE -- YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. STOP IMMEDIATELY AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED."
/This can't be how it ends. This can't. It can't./ Norodi spiraled into a panic. She had everything on the ship's computers -- Cleo's exploit, an inventory of all of the satellites they had gained access to. Everything. She couldn't let them take the ship.
She floored it.
The moon came into full view. Klaxons blared over Norodi's head. /You're going to die/, they told her. She kept accelerating anyways. A missile sailed past and rocked the ship. "CEASE IMMEDIATELY", the voice boomed. She pushed the pedal even harder. She started to see Luna's texture. Its ridges. Individual rocks.
She ejected.
The world spun around Norodi. She didn't hear the ship as it slammed into Luna, only saw a bright light, followed by a million million fragments of metal and plastic and rock scattering themselves into space. The world continued to spin; Earth, moon, and stars locked in some frenetic dance as her vision blurred. And she fell, fell for what seemed like a lifetime, pulled into the moon's gentle embrace until she was a thousand feet, a hundred feet, ten feet above the surface.
Her chair engaged mini-thrusters and stopped the descent at the last moment. Norodi couldn't stand up, couldn't run. Two gruff pairs of hands pulled her out of her chair and hauled her into the back of a rover. They zip tied her and locked the doors, and then the rover started to move. The homogeneous landscape of the moon rolled underneath her, while the sparkling cloud of debris left by her ship receded into the horizon. Hours passed.
The rover stopped, and the hands pulled Norodi out of her cage in the back of the rover and back onto the surface. She could see now that they had arrived at a nondescript building tucked into the wall of a crater. The people who had seized her dragged her inside the building and ordered her to take off her suit. She did. Then they walked her down an aisle, past windows peering into dark rooms. At one point she passed a room with a bloody mess of a woman, slumped across the floor. It was Kacy.
"Kacy! Kacy!" Norodi screamed. She screamed and screamed until all she could hear was ringing in her ears. Kacy didn't respond.
-----
Kacy awoke with the taste of copper in her mouth. She was in a concrete room, dimly lit, her hands and feet bound together. The two men that had approached Kacy at the bar entered the room, and the questions began.
"How did you find out about the implant?"
"Who have you told?"
"Why are you out here?"
"Where were you running to?"
Neither of the men asked Kacy about Cleo or paquetes or satellites or a mysterious PaqNet router that had suddenly appeared on the other side of the moon. /They don't know,/ Kacy thought to herself. She repeated it to herself over and over again, a mantra, or perhaps a prayer. /They don't know. They don't know. They don't know./
The men beat Kacy for hours. She said nothing.
Eventually they left her alone. Kacy's body was wracked with pain from head to toe. She watched idly as her own blood dripped onto the ground and dried. Eventually one of the men reentered the room, and knelt in front of her.
"We saw the message between you and your friend before you left Enceladus. We know you know about the implant."
Kacy didn't respond. He still wasn't asking about satellites.
"It doesn't matter now," he said, a thin smile across his lips. "Your friend notified everyone else before she left 65 Cybele. She sent them a sample of the implant, and details about the zero-day. Now some jackass has written some detections for the implant, and another jackass has written a patch for the tape deserialization software, and everybody's getting their detections set up and their devices patched. She did a good job. We're burnt."
"Serves you right," Kacy said.
The man shrugged. "That cost us a few million credits, but this company is worth tens of trillions. We're worth more than most governments." He leaned in. "We'll manage."
"We'll stop you again. It doesn't matter what you throw at us. For every one of you there's five of us, working in the dark."
"You know, if it wasn't us, it'd be someone else. Someone a lot nastier, a lot meaner. Somebody who wouldn't think twice about throwing you and your pal out of the airlock." The man stood up. "But we're nice, and truthfully, there really isn't much you can do for us anymore. So you're coming back with us to Enceladus to face trial for unapproved abandonment of your assigned station, for the theft of a VOCorp ship, and for subversion of the state in the service an illegal interplanetary communications platform. And your friend is going back to her asteroid, where she will be barred from transiting through any VOCorp-owned spaceport for the rest of her life."
He cut the zip ties around Kacy's hands and feet and opened the door to exit the room, gesturing towards her. Kacy picked herself up off the ground, and limped through the exit.
It was a long ride back to the spaceport. Kacy sat in the back of the vehicle, unbound and alone. The guards that were driving hadn't even bothered to lock the back door. It's not like she could escape; without a suit, she would die in seconds if she exited the vehicle. And there was nowhere left for her to escape in any case.
Kacy caught one last glimpse of Norodi at the spaceport. She was being escorted onto the boarding ramp of a shuttle going back to Enceladus, when a group of armed guards entered the loading bay. Norodi -- as battered and bruised as she was -- stood in between them. As Kacy ascended the ramp, she shot one last look at Norodi. Though beaten and pained, Norodi could make out a clear expression in her face, in the burning intensity with which Kacy was staring. Kacy knew that they'd won.
-----
Norodi never spoke a word about the satellite network. When she was dropped off at 65 Cybele, she was informed that she would never again be allowed to step onto VOCorp property, but was otherwise free to go.
Norodi rode the tram back to the inner city of 65 Cybele once more. She gazed out the window, across the rock, to the Cybelian PaqNet router. She saw a paquete fly out of the router, shimmering against the void, its thrusters faint lights as it accelerated towards its next stop. Norodi wondered at what the paquete was carrying: messages to loved ones separated by billions of miles of vacuum; missives from the lives of tens of thousands people living on a rock as it completed another journey around the sun.
On this trip, the old VOCorp signs looked just a little more worn than before.
Norodi got off at the second-to-last stop and passed the rows of taco stands and the market and turned at the last block before her apartment and hoped, hoped she would see the big, goofy grin that she had been waiting for. The garage door at Cleo's Scavenge and Repair was raised.
Cleo was at his workbench, wearing his signature grin across his face. "Heya, kid."
Norodi felt tears start to well up. Thoughts like /did it work/ and /I didn't tell them anything about you/ and /I don't know if she's okay, and I miss her so much/ all passed through her head. The only words that she could think to say, though, were "I'm so glad you made it out alright."
"Of course!" Cleo laughed. "I've been runnin' from those bastards almost as long as you've been alive."
Norodi wiped away the tears and smiled.
Cleo pulled his terminal over to Norodi. The interface displayed a table with columns labeled "DEVICE", "STATUS", "LAST PING", "COORDINATES". "I ran some tests, all of yer satellites are hooked up now. The two of you did well." He gave Norodi a bittersweet smile. "My crew on Luna has their paquetes set up, and the operators on the ground are ready to start sendin'."
Norodi turned to Cleo, eyes bright. "Then let's start receiving."Comment
-
This is Little Boy Blue Speaking
Max Kennedy
I wasn’t going to do this. Then I decided I would.
Little Boy Blue is an undefined cultural icon and a fictional character discussed in the hacker community using pop culture references like the song Boy Blue, the beginning of the movie Hackers, and even a regretfully chosen nursery rhyme.
He is also a real hacker, and so is this story; I am him, and this has been part of my life. You read and watch what you want.
----
On engaging, or not – I don’t post or engage much anymore, and there is no reason I should. Until something is done about retaliation in real life, there is no reason to, because that is the real problem. I have given up thinking of the number of people who have told me I have a permanent, non expiring hit contract on me, or have helped, it’s a lot. And from all across the country and for a long time. And I can’t count the number of times someone has pulled a weapon on me or tried to set something up, because I always think of another example to add when I do. It’s gone on most of my life. I am not skilled at dealing with such things, or particularly trained for it. I learned the hard way through experience what was happening.
And here are some of the reasons for me coming out now. They would include,
----
Not being able to approach anyone to tell them what is going on. Being retaliated against sometimes when I do,
With cops, da’s, and others you might approach being “connected”, and reporting back to the mob. And knowing that this is what has to be taken care of if anything is taken care of, that you have to be able to report these things without fear of retaliation. And it affects the whole society when allowed to grow and fester. It’s an existential threat to the country, and has to be dealt with. Else the enshitiffication of the whole country, let alone the networks in it, continues unstopped and anything good in it dies, along with the good people.
----
On my last trip to DEF CON in 2017, being warned of laser sights from guns and hit men along the way. And at the destination, the same, and hearing people talk about it in front of you. Nothing new, it’s been happening for a long time.
----
Having the VP of a fortune 20 company talk about it like there is nothing he can do. “I park in the garage”. Being asked about men racing across roofs with guns years later.
----
Tired of having really moist burial sites talked about right in front of me, everything disintegrates fast, and where there is lots of dirt, and of dumping grounds they clean up every morning. Having the head of security at a Bell company in a, unconnected with hacking, shared interest group tell me he can’t do anything about it because they’re protected.
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Knowing there is a lot of people thinking they can’t talk to anyone safely. And it is just like people online not talking, because online is part of life, and you get retaliated against.
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Having a hitman pull a gun on me at a charity event next to someone I love. Having to tell her I care, but there isn’t anything I (I thought then) I can do.
Watching the daughters of someone I knew grew up bad and get involved. I thought about it 5, 6 years. I reported them. It was the right thing to do.
Remembering the kids around me at an early age being affected and recruited... at eight, nine.
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Hearing stories of other hackers being affected, decades ago in the 90s, and then hearing about it at a DEF CON convention.
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Seeing it happen to a famous person and friend who had a high priced contract placed on him. Seeing him either go into hiding or I fear he is dead.
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Being ground into the ground, taking menial jobs, sometimes getting ahead, rising up, getting metaphorically whacked again and never getting enough money or power to even half way deal with this. And wanting to. Wanting the whole time. And knowing it’s enshitification of the whole society again.
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Seeing myself get older and realize I still haven’t figured out a way to deal with this. Realizing I’ve always been tougher, or at least stood up to things...
And so here I am.
Knowing no one else talked about it, so I had to learn the hard and slow way all my life. So I am talking about it. Right now. Right here.
And although this in earnest probably started when I refused to join in in tapping bell computers and packet switches for the mob before I left high school, in truth it probably started long before that and in a different place, because this stuff has seeped into the societal structure like an oozing fungating cancer.
I can not see for the world that the society can survive at all as a prosperous and free country for that much longer. And it is a growing problem. When this started with me, I saw the mob using phones, dedicated lines and fax machines to discuss things. You had to look up someone. Now I see automation. Text messages, card swipers, id machines, cell phones, apps. And ever more people involved in it. Towns where everyone is family in a criminal way, and now the cities near them are also going or are gone.
We all know drugs and money flows across borders. But so does murder and the jobs for it, and the corruption that takes away our government and freedom. An international, no borders, pervasive, malevolent threat. Foreigners are going and coming in the country picking up hit contracts, try traveling the youth hostel circuit in this country with one on you, and likewise contracts are flowing in and out of the country. It’s an outside threat and international threat. And when they are made here they go back to their host countries. An international problem. And by the way, none of them were Hispanic in my case, at least so far. Maybe it was the time period, but it was the mob.
Technology is only making it worse, and it is becoming unlivable. The best and brightest will get whacked for greed and envy and a petty sense of personal power as achievement because it is easy and not being checked. And the news carries stories of whistle blowers winding up dead, even corporate whistle blowers for a jet maker, or of scientists and researchers, and the whole country is again being shitified by thugs. And it isn’t just for whistle blowing, it will be because you didn’t give up a job, or a gf, or something else they wanted, or maybe you didn’t bow down to them in the land of the free. Let me elaborate for you what free people would do. No, I probably don’t have to.
An only online community can’t deal with it, because while no force can be used online, hackers don’t live online, they have real bodies and physical needs. You need jails, police, guns, or at least a lynch mob if you are living in a societal breakdown. But you aren’t, you have jails, police, guns, it’s just been infiltrated and corrupted. And even they can’t operate if no one “petitions the government” for relief.
Just report it. Keep on reporting it. Don’t stop reporting it until it happens. Information is king. If you want your institutions free and trustworthy again, give it and the people the information they need.
After a lifetime of observation, that can be a lot. And remember, permanent non-expiring contracts you can’t rescind means all the crimes are connected, you only have to pick up one, and everyone who is connected and “family” with them is just as guilty, throughout the country, and as it includes many foreigners, throughout the world. They look up these contracts through the telephones and networks, they’re all directly connected by being directly connected. And in my observation, that is how it works. Everyone involved in this mob across the country is aware of these contracts or can easily find out. That is not a very strong system if even one person can connect the whole thing to murder and attempted murder, and it isn’t just one person, it’s many people through years, all of them disgusted by this villainy. To the phones and bring it down!
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