Daemon d-1

by Daniel Suarez

  Vanowen still held a letter in one hand, glaring over his reading glasses. He reluctantly dropped the letter on his otherwise empty desk and removed his glasses. “When you say ‘we,’ I take that to mean ‘you.’” He glanced at his massive watch, tugging a cuff-linked sleeve up to see the face. “I’m heading out to the airfield any minute.”

  There wasn’t any time to finesse it. “We’ve lost administrator rights to our network.”

  This did not have the impact Lindhurst hoped.

  Vanowen shrugged slightly and now looked greatly irritated. “So what the hell do you want me to do about it? You’re the CIO; ride your people until they fix it. Jesus, Garrett.”

  Lindhurst sat down in one of the uncomfortable leather chairs, pulling it right up to the desk. He leaned in close, still clutching the rolled magazine. “Russ, listen to me: we don’t have any control over our databases.”

  “My response is the same. Now would you let me read this letter, please?”

  “WE ARE UNDER ATTACK.”

  That got Vanowen’s attention. “Attack?”

  “Attack. All offices, worldwide. Look, I get in this morning, and I have phone calls from six division heads telling me they can’t log on as admins to our servers. They think it’s a layoff and that they’ve been shut out on purpose.”

  “Were they?”

  “Not by us. Turns out no onecan get an admin logon-not even here in the main office. All systems rebooted last night. And somehow, somebody took over our network. We have only limited rights to it.”

  Now Vanowen looked really angry. He pounded his fist on the desk. “Jesus Christ, Lindhurst! Why the hell wasn’t I told about this sooner? Our clients must be screaming bloody murder.”

  “Hold on a second. Our Web sites are up, and we can access data, no problem. So can our clients. We can even change data, so no one outside Leland knows yet.”

  Confused and getting angrier by the moment, Vanowen gestured, “So what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is that we can’t back up, restore, or change our servers. We can’t even export data.”

  “I may not know much about this stuff, Lindhurst, but I do know we spent thirty million dollars on backup systems. Surely you can take a backup copy and restore it.”

  “That’s just it; our backup SANs are toast. Our off-site replication trashed. The log files were faked. We have no backups newer than four months ago.”

  Vanowen squinted at him. “How is that possible? I spent forty-seven million dollars on IT last year alone. We were supposed to have the most advanced network security money can buy. You assured me of that. You assured the board of that. That’s why we hired you.”

  “I don’t think our systems were breached. Not from the outside. I think it’s an inside job.”

  “Call the FBI.”

  “We can’t do that.”

  “The hell we can’t.”

  “Understand this, Russ: they can flush our entire network down the toilet with a single keystroke-from just about anywhere in the world. This company is hanging by a thread.”

  The room got deathly quiet. Still staring, Vanowen spoke with the sort of calm voice that usually precedes violence. “Explain this to me, Garrett.”

  “It gets much worse.”

  “Worse? How the hell can it get any worse?”

  “Watch.” Garrett motioned for Vanowen to follow him.

  Vanowen’s office was huge, with a double-height ceiling and windows. Several sets of sofas and leather chairs were placed about the room, with a wide plasma-screen television on the far end and a conference table nearby, encircled by chairs. The place was easily a couple thousand square feet.

  Vanowen reluctantly got up from his desk and followed Lindhurst to the plasma screen. Lindhurst was already fiddling with a remote he had picked up from the credenza there.

  Vanowen settled into a conference table chair. “I’ll see that the people behind this go to federal prison for the rest of their lives.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’ll see in a moment.” Lindhurst gestured to the plasma screen. “Have you used this video conferencing system yet? It cost seventy thousand dollars.”

  “Goddamnit, Lindhurst-”

  “Okay, look, this system is jacked into our corporate network. I put something out there that I want you to see.” Lindhurst used the remote to navigate to an intranet Web page, which filled the screen. “I found an e-mail in my inbox this morning. It was from the system administrator-the newsystem administrator. The person who took my rights away. That e-mail contained a hyperlink-which I copied to this network share.” He navigated to another page and clicked a hyperlink. “Here is what I saw…”

  Vanowen looked impatiently at the screen.

  The seventy-inch plasma monitor suddenly went black and after a few moments a whooshing sound effect escorted a whirling logo into the center of the screen. It was a stylized emblem of the words: Daemon Industries LLC.

  A professional-sounding female announcer came on, along with cavorting corporate music. It was like an infomercial or network marketing video. Her voice was cheerful. “Welcome to the Daemon Industries family of companies. In just a moment you’ll hear some of the exciting new opportunities available to you in this fast-growing global organization. An organization to which your company now belongs. But first, a word from our founder…”

  Vanowen frowned. “Lindhurst-”

  “Shh!” He pointed.

  The screen faded in on a man in his mid-thirties. He was sitting in a chair next to a fireplace. The chirpy corporate Muzak continued in the background. Words appeared at the bottom of the screen:

  Matthew A. Sobol, Ph.D.

  Chairman CEO Daemon Industries LLC

  Sobol nodded once in dour greeting.

  Lindhurst hit the PAUSE button on the remote. Sobol froze in mid-nod. “That’s him.”

  “That’s who?” Vanowen squinted at the words on-screen. He turned back to Lindhurst. “Never heard of him. Is this the person who broke into our network?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call the FBI.”

  “Won’t do any good, Russ. Matthew Sobol’s dead.” Lindhurst handed the rolled magazine to Vanowen.

  Vanowen just glanced down at it, then with some reluctance took it. He unrolled it and moved it to arm’s length so he could see the cover with his myopic eyes. The same Matthew Sobol was on the cover of the magazine. It was eight months old. The headline read: Murderer From Beyond the Grave.“That guy?” Vanowen tossed the magazine onto the nearby conference table. “That was a hoax.” He motioned to the plasma screen. “So is this. My kid at USC could probably make this video on his Powerbook.”

  “Russ, someone managed a coordinated global attack that not only stole rights to our worldwide network, but they did it months ago without raising a single alarm. They didn’t leave a trace. Matthew Sobol was one of the few people who could have pulled it off.”

  “You’re frighteningly gullible. Jesus, some hackers got into our network, and they’re trying to put one over on you. Call the FBI.”

  “Russ, no one faked this video. If you listen to him, you’ll see what I mean.” Lindhurst released the PAUSE button.

  Matthew Sobol came back to life on-screen. The infomercial music faded as he finished his nod. “By now you’re beginning to realize that you no longer control your network and that your backups are damaged beyond repair. I am now an integral part of your organization-and have been for several months. Let me assure you that your corporate data is safe, and that sufficient backups exist off-site to provide seamless protection in the event of a natural disaster or other calamity.

  “Before I continue, let me caution you to watch this video in its entirety before contacting your local or federal authorities. This recording contains important information that may affect your decision to involve those entities in this situation.”

  A light m
usical jingle accompanied a twirling inset picture that spun to a stop alongside Sobol’s head. It was a video of Sobol’s mansion roaring in flames.

  Sobol smiled pleasantly. “As you can see, involving the authorities is no guarantee of your safety. Although they would certainly be willing to try again at your location.”

  The inset video image transitioned to a collection of quivering question marks.

  Sobol looked intently into the camera. “But you’re probably wondering just how you got yourselves into this situation. To answer that question, surprisingly, we need to go back hundreds of millions of years to the very origins of life on Earth.”

  The question marks expanded to fill the screen and faded away as the entire screen dissolved to an image of primordial Earth. It was a 3-D computer animation of the ancient seas, teeming with exotic life-razor-toothed fish with whiplike probosces and flitting schools of tiny translucent organisms.s

  Vangelis music rose on the surround-sound speakers. Sobol narrated, “Let me tell you the story of the most successful organism of all time: this is the story of the parasite.”

  On-screen a large, particularly evil-looking fish with twin rows of splayed fangs and a spiked dorsal array glided into view. Just then, a small organism swam for the area just behind the enormous fish’s gills, where it latched on, unnoticed. A dozen others followed it and also latched on.

  Sobol spoke. “Early on, evolution branched into two distinct paths: independent organisms-those that exist on their own in the natural world-and parasites-organisms that live on other organisms. And it was, by far, the parasites that proved the more successful of the two branches. Today, for every independent organism in nature, there exist three parasites.”

  The computer animation transitioned from one eon to the next-from amphibian to reptilian to mammalian-with parasites continuing to evolve along with their hosts, infesting some species, driving them to extinction, while other species evolved means to keep them at bay-at least for a time.

  “These two strains of evolution have been locked in a primordial arms race, constantly evolving to best each other for supremacy of this planet. As parasites evolve to perfect their systems against a species of host, the host evolves to evade their attack. Scientists call this theory of an eternal genetic struggle the Red Queen Hypothesis-a name taken from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.”

  On-screen, the image suddenly changed to an animation of Alice in Wonderland-with the Red Queen running along a hedgerow maze and looking toward little Alice, who struggled to keep up. She was saying: “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”

  The screen changed to a video of a small pond, with snails moving through the mud.

  “Animal behavior has evolved to battle parasites. In fact, we have parasites to thank for the existence of sex. Sex is a costly and time-consuming method of reproduction. Experiments have shown that, in the absence of parasites, species evolve toward parthenogenesis-or cloning-as the reproductive method of choice. In parthenogenesis each individual is able to self-replicate. But this produces almost no genetic variation. In the presence of parasites, cloning, while more energy-efficient, is not a viable reproductive strategy. It presents a stationary genetic target to parasites, who, once introduced into such a system, will quickly dominate it.”

  The screen changed to an animated diagram of twin sets of human DNA strands, which moved as Sobol spoke.

  “Sexual reproduction exists solely as a means to defeat parasites. By mixing male and female genes, sex produces offspring not exactly like either the male or female-making each generation different from the last, and presenting a moving target to intruders intent on compromising this system.

  “Even with this variation, parasites continue to pose a threat…”

  The screen changed to color film footage of native villages with truly hideous parasitic infestations; children with bulging, worm-filled bellies; malaria victims.

  “…and parasitism evolves and moves through anysystem-not just living things. The less variation there is in a system, the more readily parasites will evolve to infest it…”

  The screen showed food-borne illness outbreaks-images of fast-food restaurants. The camera panned to reveal identical restaurants running down the sides of each street, in Dallas, in Denver, in Orlando, in Phoenix…

  “Perfect replication is the enemy of any robust system…”

  Then images of identical rows of computers in a data center, all running the same operating system…

  “Lacking a central nervous system-much less a brain-the parasite is a simple system designed to compromise a very specific target host. The more uniform the host, the more effective the infestation.”

  The screen changed to a video image of a hermit crab moving along the sandy ocean bottom. The camera followed it as Sobol spoke.

  “But if they’re so successful, why haven’t parasites taken over the world? The answer is simple: they have. We just haven’t noticed. That’s because successful parasites don’t kill us; they become part of us, making us perform all the work to keep them alive and help them reproduce…”

  The crab scuttled toward its hole.

  “Sacculina is a parasite that infests saltwater crabs. It burrows into their flesh and extends tendrils into the crab’s bloodstream and brain. It chemically castrates the crab and becomes its new brain-controlling it like a zombie.”

  The screen then showed an image of a Sacculina — infested crab, with the bulging sack of the parasite filling its abdomen.

  “It compels the crab to raise the parasite’s young. It enslaves it.”

  The screen changed to a close-up computer animation. It was a double helix of DNA, with each set of genes showing clearly as rungs on the genetic ladder. The perspective moved along the length of the helix.

  “And so have thousands of parasites done with us. After tens of thousands of years, a parasite becomes so much a part of us that they evolve into sections of our DNA.”

  Certain sections of the DNA were highlighted, one after another.

  “They have so enslaved us that we believe we’re reproducing ourselves, when in reality, we’re reproducing hidden others within us. Forty percent of our genetic code consists of these useless segments of DNA-sections that serve no useful purpose to us. Nearly half the human genome is just the ghostly remnant of parasites.”

  The images of DNA dissolved back to Sobol, sitting in his armchair by the fireplace. “By now, you’ve figured out that my Daemon is your parasite and that you are hopelessly infected. The Daemon will sip your corporate blood, but it will not be fatal. More importantly, the Daemon will keep other parasites out of your system, strengthening your immunity and ensuring that the corporate host continues to survive.”

  The fireplace background dissolved, and Sobol now appeared on a black background. He was more serious.

  “But know this: my Daemon has enlisted humans within your organization. These are hijacked cells in the corporate organism. People who thirst for more power. That’s how the Daemon got in. You have no way of knowing who is responsible. My Daemon can teach almost anyone to defeat network security-especially from an existing network account. The reality is that my Daemon now controls your global IT function. Your business will operate as before, and no one will suspect that there is anything unusual going on-except that perhaps your systems will run better than they did when you were responsible for them.

  “Your natural inclination will be to resist this indignity, of course, and so you will be tempted to contact the authorities. That is your choice-although the moment my Daemon detects such contact, it will wipe your company’s data off the face of the earth. And don’t even think of replicating your databases from scratch with paper files; remember that my Daemon has agents among your staff. You can hide nothing from it. If you start polygraphing or if you lay off everyone, the Daemon will destroy your company. If you attempt to infiltrate an un
dercover operative into your IT department, it will destroy your company. If you attempt to exert control over your IT department or to create a new one, it will destroy your company. In short: if you attempt to do anything other than ignore my Daemon, it will destroy your company.

  “As a financial enterprise wholly reliant upon the trust of your clients, the loss of all your clients’ data will bring ruin upon you. As for insurance: the Daemon will annihilate you whenever you reappear, and it will never stop until both your company and you as individual officers are financially destroyed. Being a nonsentient narrow-AI construct, the Daemon doesn’t give a damn what choice you make. It’s as dumb as Sacculina.” A pause. “And just as effective.”

  The fireplace background reappeared, and Sobol smiled again. “I hope you and my Daemon can peacefully coexist. I think you’ll find that, as the years roll by, you’ll be glad indeed that you didn’t try to defy it-especially as you take market share from those companies that did defy it. So, please, carefully consider your options, and just remember-no matter what you choose-you serve a crucial role in evolution. Even if it’s just as food for the survivors. Thanks for watching.”

  Sobol waved pleasantly as the saccharine corporate Muzak came up, accompanied by fanatical applause. Credits rolled by impossibly fast.

  The female announcer returned. “Don’t touch that dial! In a few moments, you’ll have a chance to see how you can avoid destruction at the hands of the Daemon. And be sure to take the Daemon quiz-”

  Lindhurst hit the STOP button, and the screen went black.

  Vanowen sat there like someone who had just been through electro-shock therapy. His mouth hung open for several moments before he turned dull eyes toward Lindhurst. “It’s really Sobol.”

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

  There were a few moments of silence.

  “We have to call the authorities.”

  “If we call the FBI-and word gets out about this-our investors will bail. And sue.”

  Vanowen nodded. He suddenly frowned, as if remembering to be angry. “Damnit, Lindhurst, what kind of an organization are you running down there? Your systems may be responsible for the destruction of this company-a company with a century of history. When the shit hits the fan, I’m going to point the finger of blame squarely at you, where it belongs, and you can count on that.”