by D. B. Goodin
“That rate of progress is not acceptable. We need to try more advanced methods,” Jeremiah said.
“What does that mean?” Jet said.
“It means that your work is finished here,” Jeremiah said.
“I can go home?” Jet said with some excitement in her voice.
“Not yet. We need to ask just one more favor.”
“What is it?”
“A subversive group called Black Iris has been attacking us, and we need your help in shutting it down,” Jeremiah said.
“Why should I help you?” Jet said.
“Because they want to hurt April. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to her, would you?”
“No!”
“Then, we need your help.”
Jet gave Jeremiah a sullen nod as she put away her VR gear.
April screamed.
“Jet! Where are you? A Dark Denizen is biting me.”
Jet put on her gear in record time, then jacked into the world of the Colossal Machine. As she entered, she saw several creatures surrounding April. They looked like dogs, but had the heads of other animals. One had the head of a pig, and another had a misshapen parrot head. Jet cast a shield spell on April. The Dark Denizens turned on Jet.
“You . . . awk . . . have no chance of saving . . . awk . . . her,” the parrot-headed thing said.
The pig-headed Dark Denizen leaped into the air, and Jet raised her staff. Lightning shot out and hit the pig-headed creature on the snout, making it squeal in agony. The parrot creature threw a barrage of claws at Jet. She was able to deflect most of them, but one impaled in her side. She lost over half her health.
I cannot take any more hits from these things. I need to cast something quick!
The parrot creature was preparing for another attack.
“Un-Por-Vet-Hem,” Jet said as she cast the “mass hemorrhage” spell.
The creatures started bleeding. The parrot creature tried to say something, but Jet just heard a gurgling sound. The pig-faced creature’s face imploded. April ran to her. Jet noticed that she had several nasty cuts and bites, and she was poisoned and losing health.
Damn, these creatures had leech!
Jet healed April. It was a low-level spell, and it didn’t require mana.
“Are you able to teleport us?” Jet asked.
April opened a portal back to her microcosm.
“We are safe now. We should log out,” Jet said.
“That was quite the battle, little one!” Jeremiah said to April as she took off her VR gear.
“Jet saved me. I don’t know what I was thinking, going in without her. Next time, I will be more prepared,” April said.
“I’m afraid that the next level of training has nothing to do with the Colossal Machine,” Jeremiah said.
“Well, we can play after we complete our work,” April said.
“We’ll see. Jet’s new assignment will keep her busy for a while.”
“But . . . Grandpa!”
April stamped her foot on the ground and threw the VR headset at Jeremiah. Dr. Ash moved in and injected something into the back of her neck. April fell to the ground like a stone. Jet snatched April before she hit the floor.
“Let go!” Dr. Ash said.
Jet held April close. “No, I’m not letting you take her.”
“Now, Jet, I know you don’t want to hurt her. Please let us take her. It’s for her own good,” Jeremiah said.
Jet backed up. April was heavy, but Jet held fast. “I’m not done training her.” Her vision blurred, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I thought we would have more time.”
Dr. Ash put a hand on Jet’s shoulder. “I understand, dear, but April has outgrown these . . . games.”
Jeremiah grabbed April. Jet’s grip was like a vise. “Ash, a little help here, please.”
Dr. Ash grabbed both of Jet’s hands from behind. That was all the leverage Jeremiah needed. He carried April away. Jet turned around and struck Dr. Ash in the jaw.
Dr. Ash grimaced. She looked horrendous with blood dripping from her mouth. “I suppose I deserved that.”
Dr. Ash walked away, leaving Jet to her thoughts.
Chapter 24
Nigel and Natasha returned to Tage Manor’s dining hall, which had been transformed into a makeshift war room. Jony and Hunter were working together in one group, and Dahlia and Alexei were in another. Melissa kept her distance from everyone from Black Iris. She was sitting with Mr. Tage.
“Alexei, can we have a moment?” Natasha said.
Dahlia gave Natasha a suspicious look.
Alexei nodded. “We’ve been going at this for a while, so let’s take a five-minute break,” Alexei said.
“Is something wrong?” Dahlia asked.
“No—we just need to discuss something with Alexei. In private,” Natasha said.
“Fine,” Dahlia said as she left.
“What’s the matter?” Alexei asked as he looked for anyone within listening range.
Nigel explained the situation about Jet’s disappearance and Dahlia’s involvement.
“Show me what you have.”
Nigel opened his computer and showed him the details.
“Your evidence is not as compelling as you might think. There is a connection to Black Iris, but the Sultan is hardly definitive proof. I’m sorry, Nigel, but you have no smoking gun here,” Alexei said.
Nigel gave Alexei a sullen look.
“Perhaps it is best if I approach Dahlia with this information. I can’t promise that she will help, but maybe . . .” Alexei said.
“Okay—please let me know if you find anything. I fear for her . . . safety,” Nigel said.
“In the meantime, I suggest that you help out here Nigel. We are trying to figure out where Jeremiah is keeping this rogue AI. I heard something from Jony and Hunter’s table about hacking, so see if you can lend a hand,” Alexei said.
Natasha grabbed Alexei’s arm, and then whispered in his ear.
“Oh . . . shit, on second thought, perhaps you can work with Melissa instead,” Alexei said.
Nigel gave Alexei a critical look.
“Why can’t I work with Jony and Hunter?” Nigel demanded.
“Natasha reminded me that Melissa might have additional information on Jeremiah’s facility. She said something about solving cryptographic puzzles earlier. I think your time is better spent with her . . . for now,” Alexei said.
Nigel considered this for a moment. “That makes sense,” he said, “but at some point I will need to work with those guys.” He got up and walked over to join Melissa, she was alone.
When Nigel was out of earshot, Natasha punched Alexei.
“Ouch! What was that for?” Alexei yelped.
“For almost starting another incident. Have you seen the way Hunter has been looking at Nigel? You also forgot that he was responsible for his throat problem,” Natasha said.
“Sorry, that was my bad.”
“It will be more than that if Nigel finds out the truth.”
“Am I interrupting anything?” Dahlia entering the room.
Natasha jumped.
How long had she been there? Natasha wondered.
“No, we were just finishing up. I believe that Alexei has something to ask you,” Natasha said as she walked away.
Dahlia gave Alexei a questioning stare. “Tell me what?”
Alexei explained the situation to Dahlia.
“What do you want me to do about it? I think we have a more pressing matter than to look for a teenager’s girlfriend,” Dahlia said.
“The kid believes that there may be a connection to Jeremiah somehow,” Alexei lied.
Dahlia looked at Nigel and Melissa, who seemed to be deep in collaboration.
“He is working with Melissa to confirm it now. I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt—at least until we know. I would like to see if this pans out, wouldn’t you?” Alexei said.
Dahlia’s expression contorted into a sneer. “This is more th
an we bargained for. I don’t see how this helps our cause.”
“I think it’s worth looking into.”
“Fine. I will help you. Only because of our . . . history. I’m not doing it for him.”
Alexei smiled, and Dahlia seemed to soften somewhat.
“What is your connection with this Sultan guy?” Alexei asked.
“He has an ongoing business relationship with Black Iris. We provide a service that he needs, and in exchange, he provides the funds to help keep Black Iris in business,” Dahlia said.
“Nigel uncovered some direct communication between you and the Sultan concerning someone called the Taker. Is there any way you can verify this with the Sultan?”
“If I call him, will you drop the matter?” Dahlia said.
“I will, unless you find something.”
“Give me all the details. I will contact him.”
“Hey, Alexei suggested that we work together. Is that okay?” Nigel said, approaching Melissa in the war room.
Melissa looked up through swollen eyes. Her face looked like someone had used it to tenderize a side of beef. Despite her injuries, she was beautiful. Nigel opened his laptop and got to work sorting through all the files he had on the mysterious hacker; he hadn’t had time to examine the images he’d gathered from the intruder’s system. Nigel write-protected the memory image first because it was much smaller. He had a set of scripts already set up, so with little effort, he could pull common information out of memory.
Nigel had a knack for solving any kind of computer puzzle, and a memory image was like a puzzle. He did this by finding basic information about his adversary; for instance, knowing the operating system was valuable because it gave him knowledge about certain tools that came with—or could be run on—a particular computer. He kicked off the discovery script.
“What are you doing?” Melissa asked.
“I got this memory image from a hacker who I suspect is behind the attacks against the Collective and Black Iris. I’m trying to find out how advanced the hacker is by running my discovery script,” Nigel said.
“How can you tell that by looking at their computer?” Melissa asked with genuine interest.
“If the attacker is less experienced, they will rely on tools built by others. My discovery script knows about these tools and will alert me to them. However, if this script doesn’t list any results, then that is my first clue to detecting how advanced they are. Think of it like a thermometer: the hotter the temperature, the more dangerous the adversary.”
“If you find nothing, what is the next step?”
“Then it will take a little more effort. I will run other scripts to check for things, like network addresses, code fragments, or anything that could identify the intruder. The idea is to discover the hacker’s intent or motive, which will provide more clues. It is an iterative, time-consuming process—”
“Nigel, sorry for interrupting, but I need you to give Dahlia the information that we discussed,” Alexei said, approaching him.
Nigel nodded as he brought up another window on his laptop. He gathered the information and sent it to Dahlia via an encrypted message. As he finished, a loud beep alerted him that the script results were in. He examined the results. None of the tools he was looking for matched.
“Well, I guess this guy is smarter than I thought,” Nigel said.
Melissa watched with interest.
Nigel ran additional search commands on the system logs that he gathered for additional clues. He gathered the time zone information from the attacking system: GMT + 3.
Why is that familiar? Nigel thought.
The results of the deep file analysis came up with some internet relay chat (IRC) activity. While it encrypted the contents of those logs, he allocated a few of his system threads to work on decrypting them as he worked on other areas of the memory and disk. He recovered about five images using his slack space scripts.
Probably porn!
“I have to open these files. They might contain some explicit content, so please turn away if you are offended,” Nigel said to Melissa.
“That’s okay, I have a thick skin,” she replied.
Nigel opened them one at a time. The first image contained the exterior of a modern-looking building. Nigel checked the file for anything hidden.
“What are you doing there?” Melissa asked. “I saw you open the file—then you used another tool and made the image look like an X-ray.”
“I’m looking for hidden messages. The process is called steganography. Hackers often hide secrets such as messages or even parts of encryption keys inside ordinary files like pictures. It’s like hiding something in plain sight.”
“Wow, I had no idea!” Melissa said.
Nigel repeated the process for the remaining pictures. The last one made Nigel gasp. This looks like . . . Milford.
It was a grainy surveillance picture of a picnic table behind some buildings. He could make out three people in the images. He enhanced the images as best he could. He could make out three shapes: two male and a female.
Looks like our meeting spot.
It was their picnic table, which meant that this laptop was Gregor’s!
Nigel checked the decryption process for the chat logs: 11 percent decrypted and still counting. Nigel found terminal logs with a cache of network packet trace files. He needed more processing power, as the encryption was taking over half of what his laptop could provide.
Time to use Milford High’s lab again.
Nigel stopped the decryption process and opened a secure tunnel to the Milford Lab servers. Uploading files required additional authentication, so he grabbed his phone. He froze when he saw the pop-up message on the lock screen.
One new voice mail message from unknown.
Does my antenna work again?
He dialed the number and listened. It was a message from Jet!
Afterwards, Nigel held his breath as he approached Natasha. He just handed her the phone. She gave him a thoughtful look, and then tapped “play” on the voice message. Her eyes widened as she listened.
“She’s alive, and with Jeremiah?” Natasha said.
“Yes, and that’s not all. The hacker’s computer belongs to Gregor!”
Alexei and Dahlia came over.
“What’s all the excitement about?” Alexei asked.
Nigel relayed all the details.
“Let me see if I have this right. Your girlfriend is with Jeremiah?” Alexei said.
Nigel played the voice message back with the speaker on.
“That makes no sense. It sounded like she’d just had a friendly chat with the bloke,” Dahlia said.
“No, she was calling to verify Nigel’s involvement,” Natasha said.
“With what?” Dahlia asked.
“He must have told her a lie. That’s the only explanation,” Natasha said.
“Right! And he gave her a phone to call Nigel?” Dahlia said.
“You’re right, something doesn’t add up here,” Alexei said.
“Never mind about that. I have actionable data off Gregor’s laptop,” Nigel said.
“I just need to upload the chat logs I found to a more powerful server. My laptop isn’t powerful enough,” Nigel said.
“You’re welcome to use any of our servers,” Alexei said.
“With all of the network latency outside the region, I would utilize my lab computer at Milford High School. It should be able to crack these messages in less than an hour.”
“Make it happen,” Alexei said.
Nigel ran back to his laptop.
Chapter 25
April awoke strapped to the chair that Delta was born into. They wrapped several screens around her.
“Good—you’re awake,” Ash said.
April tried to look but couldn’t turn her head. “What do you want?” she asked.
“First, we need to see what you know about interfacing with neural networks,” the woman’s voice droned on.
; April squirmed in the chair, trying to break free. “Why are you doing this . . . What did I do wrong?”
April heard sounds of . . . preparation: the shuffling of feet, and the slight tap of instruments against the metal of an equipment tray. The tears of fearful anticipation were coming . . . she couldn’t stop it. She wept uncontrollably.
“Are you done with your tantrum?” the voice said.
Ash came into April’s view. She spoke as if April wasn’t there.
“Delta 51 shows signs of enhanced learning capability, but the influence of the girl known as Jet has compromised her reasoning ability. As a result, it has affected her learning potential,” Ash told Jeremiah, who appeared at her side.
Ash forcibly opened each of April’s eyelids; the assault of light caused her pupils to constrict.
“Pupil response normal, vitals elevated. Subject is fit. Leviathan has backed up and passed Delta 51 for disposition voidance,” Ash said.
Ash attached several electrodes to April’s head, wrists, and neck.
“Isolating prefrontal cortex region. Preparing to stimulate executive functions,” Ash said.
“Will she remember any of this?” Jeremiah asked.
“Hard to say, but she might keep some fragments. Shall we proceed?”
Jeremiah gave Ash a nod. Something about his demeanor gave Ash pause.
“Do it already!” Jeremiah snapped.
“Lev, proceed with the transformation.”
“Ash, I’m detecting increased activity in the prefrontal cortex region. Proceeding now may produce unexpected consequences. Do you accept the risks?” Leviathan asked.
“We should run more—” Ash began.
“Proceed, Leviathan,” Jeremiah said, cutting her off.
April opened her eyes, blinking through the tears. One of her head restraints snapped. She turned her head to face Jeremiah.
“Grandfather, stop!”
The lights dimmed as a jolt of electricity coursed through April, and her body convulsed violently. Her tongue slipped out, and Dr. Ash shoved a mouth guard in before April could bite it off. This process went on for several seconds, and then stopped. April didn’t move; the machines connected to her small body showed no activity.
