by D. B. Goodin
It’s so cold tonight.
Ron avoided several drifts of snow that settled on the garage exterior. This would have been less than a five-minute walk, but the bad weather made things difficult for Ron. After rounding the next corner, he could see the side entrance to the research lab. Snowdrifts made some walkways impassible. Best to stay in the more trafficked areas of the path, Ron thought. He stopped when he got to the entrance. Two sets of doors kept visitors from just entering the lab without authorization. Both doors were wide open, and Ron could see several bodies lying in drying pools of blood. Ron froze. He needed to run, get help, get out of there—
“Don’t move,” a man said from behind him.
Someone grabbed one of his hands. He felt handcuffs pinch his wrists.
“What’s your name?” the man said.
“Ron Allison. I’m the lab manager. Who are you?”
“I’m the guy asking the questions.”
“I’m guessing this isn’t building security,” Ron said.
The man chuckled.
The man’s radio came alive. “Norris, what’s your twenty?” a voice asked.
“I just captured a hostile,” the man replied. “Heading to you now.”
“Building security?”
“Lab manager. I just found your way into that vault.”
“Roger that.”
The radio went dead.
“Mr. Allison,” the man said, “we will walk into the building. Nice and slow. Any sudden moves will be bad for your health. You understand?”
Ron nodded.
“Now, if you would be so kind as to lead me to your lab, we need help unlocking your specimen vault,” Ron’s captor said.
Ron choked up as he walked into his lab. Most of the people lying before him he had worked with for years. He walked around their bodies. The hall before him was even more gruesome.
So much . . . blood, Ron thought.
After what seemed like an eternity, they reached the outside door to the vault. Several men dressed in military fatigues waited. The vault had several scratches on it; it looked like someone had tried to open it with a crowbar. Ron activated the biometric lock, the vault door opened. The room got colder as the containment vault door opened. Norris gestured at another man, who brought a containment box: a vessel designed to hold the precious cargo. Another man pointed his weapon at Ron, who raised his hands.
“Lower your weapon. The boss wants both packages intact,” Norris said.
The lights went out for Ron as someone struck his head from behind.
Chapter 15
Viktor was exhausted from the previous evening’s activities. He didn’t want to, but he answered the phone.
“What is it, boss?” Viktor said in a groggy voice.
“Are you back from the states?” Alexei asked.
“Da!”
“The Munich facility is under assault, so you need to take immediate action to secure the facility,” Alexei said.
“Consider it done.”
Viktor pushed aside his companion from the previous evening’s fun, phone in hand.
“Glad I have Marcus on speed dial!” Viktor said as his companion put a pillow over her head.
“Marcus, I hope you’re in Munich.”
Viktor kept special security teams on standby near every high-value facility. Marcus was an American former marine who was tougher than anyone Viktor had ever known.
“Yes, I’m here,” Marcus said. “What do you need?”
“Check Pretzelverse HQ. It is under attack.”
“Acknowledged.”
Viktor ended the call heard an urgent rapping on his door. He opened it to find a concerned-looking Alexei. Viktor’s female companion made a run for the bathroom.
“I didn’t expect you so soon,” Viktor said.
“I just landed, did you send the team?” Alexei said.
“Da, they are on the way; we wait now.”
“Alexander called me just before I reached out. He is not the most perceptive guy, but something he told me about the guard didn’t sound right.”
“Does Alexander have any fighting experience?” Viktor said.
“No, but he is a hell of a good front man. He does what he is told, and we’ve been able to keep Pretzelverse as a viable legitimate business.”
“I’m sure he’s okay. Anyone handpicked by you is made of hearty stock,” Viktor said as he put a hand on Alexei’s shoulder.
It was rare for Viktor to show any signs of affection. Alexei and Viktor had been friends for years.
Viktor is a tough bastard. He survived the Gulag, Alexei thought.
Forty grueling minutes later, Viktor’s phone rang. It was Marcus.
“What news?”
“It’s not good,” Marcus began. “We have a damn massacre on our hands. Still sorting through the bodies. We have fifty confirmed casualties.”
“Any idea what they were after?” Viktor said.
“I believe it has something to do with what was in the vault. It was tampered with, and the attackers stole whatever was in there. We have little time left. We should notify the German authorities—”
Alexei grabbed the phone from Viktor. “This is Alexei. Have you checked on Alexander?”
There was silence for a long time.
“Sorry,” Marcus said at last. “He didn’t make it.”
Alexei ended the call and handed the phone back to Viktor, who sat down and put his hands in face. Alexei couldn’t believe it. The fabric of both his businesses was unraveling before his eyes.
“Call Ron in. I need to talk with him,” Alexei said.
“I’ve tried, and I can’t reach him,” Viktor said.
“Too much time has passed. Call in the German authorities,” Alexei said.
Viktor nodded and made the arrangements.
Jony returned to his workstation after a small break. Dahlia was seated nearby, she seemed to be reviewing something on her tablet. His monitoring dashboard had turned red.
“Black hosting has gone offline,” Jony said.
“Have you heard from Byron?” Dahlia said.
“He doesn’t have traditional phone coverage. He uses a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to communicate with the outside world. I suspect that connection has been interrupted.”
Dahlia dragged a hand through her hair. “Is it a problem with the service provider?”
“I checked with Black Sea Hosting, and they haven’t reported any outages; however, they did inform me that their CIR has been reached,” Jony said.
“What is a CIR?”
“It is the committed information rate for the network circuit. If that limit is reached, then they have saturated the network capacity. The ISP is investigating.”
“Should we be worried?”
“Not sure yet. There should be no large data sets from us going to that site. It is used to service the facility. The line is a fractional T1, so it doesn’t have a lot of bandwidth, anyway.”
“Make sure we monitor the situation. We may not be able to warn Byron if one of our clients is en route to get their data. Our top-level clients get very grumpy when they don’t have access to their data. That is part of the premium service that we offer,” Dahlia said as she left.
About an hour later, Jony’s phone rang.
“Mr. Clarke, this is Nelson from Black Sea Hosting. We believe that your facility in the Black Sea is experiencing a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack.”
“I thought we had protection against these attacks. Don’t we have your premium service?” Jony said.
“Yes, you do; however, our provider, CloudShield, appears to have taken your site out of band. We are trying to figure out what happened,” Nelson said.
“I suggest that you figure it out posthaste. My boss is threatening to take my head.”
“Understood, Mr. Clarke. We will provide hourly reports.” The call ended.
D will not like this! Jony thought. Time for my investigation.
He tried connecting to the Black Iris hunting bounty boards, but got no response.
This site pays our bills, so I’d better get this working!
Jony logged into his bastion host: a computer with limited, direct access to critical infrastructure.
Jony’s phone rang again; it was from an unknown number.
Best answer it just in case.
“Who is this?” Jony asked.
“Don’t hang up!” A man’s voice said. “Listen to what I have to say before deciding.”
Jony was silent.
“This is Alexei Breven. We met at Phantom Island. We—I mean, the Collective—are under attack, and I don’t think it’s Black Iris.”
“Okay, assuming that I believe you, can you offer any theories?” Jony said.
Alexei told Jony about the incident at the lab and the other disruptions to the Colossal Machine and Collective infrastructure.
“We even have suffered DDOS attacks. Does Black Iris have any problems?” Alexei asked.
Jony’s first reaction was to lie. He had no reason to trust Alexei, but for some reason he sensed that the man was telling the truth.
Still, Jony thought, I have a bad feeling about all this.
“We’ve experienced some DDOS attack at some of our locations,” Jony said.
“At your hub sites?”
“We’re still making that determination.”
“I suspect that we both are being targeted, and you should check all of your critical sites,” Alexei said.
“On it,” Jony said as he hung up.
Jony suddenly had a difficult time breathing; his heart was pounding, and he was starting to hyperventilate.
What’s wrong with me?
He closed his eyes and tried concentrating on his breathing. After several minutes, he could feel his heart rate slow. The anxiety was fading away.
Jony opened his eyes to a frowning Dahlia. “What’s going on? I’ve been waiting for an update.”
He explained the situation to Dahlia, wincing as he mentioned the conversation with Alexei. She appeared stone-faced and said nothing for a long time.
“Do you trust him?”
“Yes, I sense that he is telling the truth. I don’t think he wants to harm us,” Jony said.
In the hospital’s cafeteria, Natasha waited for the coffee machine to brew. The cup dropped just out of range of the pouring spout. Half of the coffee made it into the cup.
“Damn, I hate hospital coffee machines,” Natasha said. She brushed it off, thinking, Time to check on Nigel’s progress. She returned to the empty room where he was staying.
“Find anything interesting off that hard drive dump?” Natasha asked Nigel.
“Yes. The image I captured has got to be from our intruder’s machine. I found exploit code consistent with distributed denial of service attacks. This means that our attacker is relying on the code to enslave several other machines. When the attacker has enough, the payload will be unleashed,” Nigel explained.
“Why would a hacker want to do that?”
“Several reasons, but the most logical conclusion is misdirection. This code is a distraction for a much larger attack.”
Natasha was silent for a long time. When it was clear she wouldn’t say anything, Nigel continued.
“I found something else even more disturbing.”
Natasha seemed to snap out of whatever she was thinking.
“Well, aren’t you going to fill me in?” Natasha asked.
“The other code I’m worried is about is ransomware that targets certain industrial control systems. With this code, an attacker could take out all connected infrastructure for an entire region.”
“Which connected systems?”
“Water, power, and gas, just to name a few,” Nigel said.
“Critical infrastructure should have safeguards,” Natasha said.
“Depends on the country, but many are a click away from extended blackouts. Dangerous in the middle of winter.”
Natasha nodded her understanding.
“I will need more time to analyze all the possible methods, but the code also contains hooks that will allow takeover of artificial intelligence systems. It is an AI stealer,” Nigel said.
“It sounds like the intruder has a lot of ambitious plans.”
“Yup, and I still don’t have any idea who it is or how they intend to use it.”
Natasha’s phone buzzed yet again. She had been ignoring the calls, but they were increasing in frequency.
“Keep working on it, and let me know if you need more help,” Natasha said.
Her phone—the red one—buzzed yet again; Natasha typically only got calls on the red phone when urgent Collective Systems business was necessary. She answered it as she stepped back out into the hallway, leaving Nigel to his work.
“What is your code word?” dispatch asked.
“Niet,” Natasha said.
“Connecting, please hold.”
A new voice came on the line.
“Natasha?”
“Privyet, Alexei!”
“I know you are on holiday, but I need you in the United States,” Alexei said.
“I’m here.”
Alexei was silent for a long moment. “That is serendipitous, because I just arrived.”
“What are you doing here?” Natasha asked. “If you’re calling me, then I assume that circumstances require my presence.”
Alexei paused. “They compromised our Munich location and took the lab manager.”
“Any idea why?” Natasha asked.
“That lab contained our core cloning components. They could also use these cells for other purposes, and the lab manager is key to unlocking all of it.”
“Any leads?”
“None until now. A woman in the employ of the Shadow Dealers has come to us with information pertaining to the Munich attack. I need you to meet me at Tage Manor as soon as you can,” Alexei said.
Nigel looked up as Natasha reentered the room.
“Been doing a little snooping, and reports of several AI break-ins have been reported. Not official reports, but Dark Web chatter,” Nigel said.
“So this confirms your theory about the AI stealer.”
“Yup, a research lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology was compromised. It wasn’t the main lab, but it involved an AI.”
“When can you be ready to travel?” Natasha asked.
“Are we going somewhere?”
“We’ve been summoned to Tage Manor. We will meet Alexei there.”
“Why?”
Natasha updated Nigel on the Pretzelverse break-in and the possible involvement with the Shadow Dealers.
“I will be ready after I check on my mother.”
Chapter 16
Jeremiah held April’s hand as a doctor led Melissa into the chamber.
“Father, when’s the last time you slept?”
Jeremiah looked at his daughter and smiled. He looked sad and tired. The rebirth is almost upon us, he thought.
“Say goodbye to your daughter. It’s time,” Jeremiah whispered to Melissa.
Melissa looked at April. She glanced away, her eyes glistening as the tears flowed. Jeremiah put a hand on her shoulder.
“As soon as we get confirmation, we will transfer April’s consciousness into Delta.” Jeremiah said.
“What’s Delta?” Melissa asked.
Jeremiah smiled. “Come with me, daughter.”
Melissa followed her father out of the circular antechamber and into a featureless hallway. Jeremiah put his hand against a smooth surface on the wall. That section of the wall opened up and revealed a small room with an adjustable table in the middle of it, illuminated by an overhead surgical light. On the table, the lifeless body of a teenage girl appeared. Her eyes stared into space. She had white hair, a pretty face, an almost perfect nose, lips, and other facial features that seemed too exacting to be human.
“Meet Delta, April’s new body
,” Jeremiah said.
Melissa stared at April’s new form. A rush of both excitement and fear washed over her.
“What are you planning, Father?” she asked.
Jeremiah smiled.
“You shall find out in due time, daughter. Just take comfort, because April will usher in a new world order. Shall we discuss over dinner?”
Melissa nodded, then left the room.
Melissa walked toward her father’s office.
What’s Father up to?
Melissa needed to find out what he was hiding. She used his absence as an opportunity to investigate, as preparations occupied her father. Trying to be discreet by avoiding anyone she knew, Melissa unlocked her father’s study. Most of the walls of this circular room were filled, floor to ceiling, with bookshelves. In the center of the room was a round desk with several monitors. She checked the monitors for signs of use. The screens were all locked.
“Hello, Melissa!” a female voice said.
Melissa looked all over but didn’t find anyone.
“Can I help you with something specific?” the voice continued.
“Who’s there?” Melissa asked.
“My name is Leviathan. Your father activated my remaining sensors. I can now monitor the entire complex from the island.”
This must be the AI that Dad was talking about.
“Island? Do you mean the UK?”
“Negative. My physical location is near the island of Príncipe,” Leviathan said.
“Africa?”
“Affirmative!”
“Leviathan, what do you know about April Mason?”
“Born on March 21, 2012, to Melissa Mason, daughter of Jeremiah Mason. Would you like me to elaborate?”
When Melissa asked for more information, she received a brain dump of every detail on April’s life, most of which she already knew. Leviathan dimmed the lights and a three-dimensional representation of her daughter appeared. A pang of guilt hit her, and she regretted not spending more time with April. She didn’t know her daughter, and she was almost eight.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Leviathan asked.
“Yes. Is there any information about Delta?”
