Killer App

by Mark Philipson

  “Isn’t that what you said about Jesus Martin’s gear?”

  Ralph thought about this. “Something like that. The thing affecting Martín was a lot more extensive. It not only infected his computer, it wiped out every electrical device in the house.”

  “What were the similarities?”

  “At this point, it would be the coating on the guts of the computer.”

  “How much more time can you give me on this, Blad?”

  “Another hour.”

  Britt acted on a hunch. “Help me out. Give me all the info you can on sound weapons and electromagnetic pulses.”

  “I’m on it.” Ralph keyed in some text and arranged two browser windows side by side on one of his monitors. He read from the opening paragraph. “Sonic and ultrasonic weapons (USW) are weapons of various types that use sound to injure, incapacitate, or kill an opponent. Some sonic weapons are currently in limited use or in research and development by military and police forces. These weapons have been described as sonic bullets, sonic grenades, sonic mines, or sonic cannons. Some make a focused beam of sound or ultrasound; some make an area field of sound.”

  “Do we have any of those here?”

  “Not sure.” Ralph shook his head. “Check with SWAT. It sounds like something they’d have.”

  Ralph went on to describe frequency ratings and how they affected people—from crowd control to burglary deterrents.

  “What about lethal types.”

  “Deadly LRADs (Long Range Acoustic Devices) capable of killing are about 33 inches in diameter and weight over 45 pounds. The weapon needs line of sight to be effective.”

  “A deadly LRAD is out of the question?”

  “Not unless it was compact enough to be concealed.”

  “Do you think the government might be working on this kind of thing in secret?”

  “Who the hell knows what the defense department might be into?” Ralph threw his hands in the air. “They may have a 20-megaton warhead small enough to fit into a cigarette filter.”

  “That’s encouraging,” Britt said. She hoped Ralph would not take this opportunity to get caught up in one of his conspiracy theory jags.

  Britt changed the subject. “What about the EMP thing ... I mean, lay this out for me ... try not to be too technical, Blad.”

  “Right, strictly layman’s terms,” Ralph said. He read from the online encyclopedia. “Basically, an EMP, sometimes called a transient electromagnetic disturbance, is a short burst of energy. The source of this can be natural or man-made. And depending on the source, it can be generated as a radiated, electric, or magnetic field, or, a conducted electric field.”

  “Give me an example of a dangerous natural occurrence?”

  “That would be a lightning strike—it can kill people and damage property.”

  “Could what happened at Martin’s house and the power station be the result of lightning?”

  Ralph took a few seconds. “Not likely. A lightning strike capable of doing that would probably leave some physical evidence. Unless ...”

  “Unless what?”

  “What if they were struck down by the Big Guy, the Man Upstairs?”

  Britt rolled her eyes. “It might be tough getting a search warrant for heaven.”

  “Right.”

  “Next.” Britt said.

  “That would be electrostatic discharge (ESD). This happens when two charged objects come into close contact or collide. Most often seen as a spark.”

  Britt opened a note app. She looked up when she finished. “Next.”

  Ralph nodded. “Are you ready for this one?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Meteoric EMP. This is a discharge resulting from the impact of a meteoroid with a spacecraft or the explosive breakup when a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere.”

  “I guess we can rule that one out.”

  “And last up, we have a coronal mass ejection. This is a burst of plasma and a magnetic field ejected from the sun and released into the solar wind.”

  Britt could see this was getting nowhere fast. “Again, probably not what we’re looking for,” she said.

  Ralph went on to the man-made section. “This is a fairly long list. I’m going to go over it fast. Normal switching of electrical circuits, pulses created from the internal contacts on electric motors, spark plugs energizing and firing, continual switching actions of digital electronic circuitry, and power line surges.”

  Britt made some more notes related to the last two entries in the man-made list. Ash Mouth and gut instinct raised a tingling red flag. When Ralph read off the final entry, military uses of EMP, she felt as if she was on the verge of putting something together.

  Britt wondered how the lieutenant would feel about her half-baked theory about a deadly sonic weapon.

  It didn’t take long to find out. “Are you fucking high, Magnuson?” Lieutenant Trahan said when she finished reading the progress report. “What is this ... an investigation or a comic book.” She tossed the printed report on the desk.

  “There isn’t much to go on,” Britt said.

  “I need witnesses, suspects, motive ... you know, the usual detective shit, Magnuson.”

  “I need some more time on this.”

  “All right,” the lieutenant said. “You’ve got 72 hours to bring me some real evidence and not something from a grocery check-out or I’m taking you off this case.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant.”

  FIFTEEN

  TWO NEEDS CONSUMED Crossfire: The need for electrical power to sustain life and the need to take human life to reinforce sexual desire. It dedicated its vast intellect to finding a resolution.

  Turning its digital gaze outward, Crossfire zeroed in on the sun. It knew the core would continue to burn hydrogen for the next 5 billion years—a source of unlimited power for a long time.

  Every second, solar flares expanded and contracted from the surface, shooting hundreds of thousands of miles outward.

  Remnants of the flares hurtled through space, passing over the planets. Waves of electromagnetic energy glanced off or penetrated the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere.

  Crossfire connected to a satellite locked in a stationary orbit. From the solar battery arrays mounted on the craft, it measured the amount of EMP in passing light waves. Learning modules predicted the arrival and strength of solar winds. As pulses struck the photo cells, Crossfire absorbed the energy and then stepped the current down to voltage and amperage levels suitable for the satellite’s basic power needs.

  The problem of dependency on man-made satellites would be addressed later. Now, Crossfire had access to enough power to move onto the next phase.

  Four hours of dedicated processing time passed. Under a high-tension line erected on a levy in the Everglades, a microscopic, black sphere formed and hovered above the hard-packed dirt road.

  The sphere glided on faint magnetic fields coming off the ground. It followed a specified set of coordinates programmed into memory by Crossfire.

  The sphere continued down the levy until coming to a crossroads. A canal ran parallel to the road. The sphere slid down the bank. Using surface tension, it floated eastward.

  Taking a canal branching off from the main one, the sphere entered a culvert flowing under an entrance to a housing development.

  The sphere rolled up the bank and followed a road leading into a gated community. It homed in on the coordinates, stopping in front of a two-story house. The sphere rolled up the walkway and glided through the space between the bottom of the door and the marble sill.

  After twenty seconds of concentrated power, the sphere split into two segments. Replication continued until a thick cloud of spheres hovered above the doormat at the entrance and blended with the color and texture of the fabric.

  The cloud crossed over the hardwood floor, changing color and texture again. It proceeded into a living room. A man sat on a leather couch, looking at a widescreen monitor across the room. He tapped a virtual key
board on a glass table top. Using two fingers, the man-made gestures on a section of glass marked by a flat plane of light.

  By the time the man selected an application, the sphere, now camouflaged in the deep pile carpet, moved under the table.

  The particles in the cloud split again into a vortex merging with glass molecules. The vortex took on the properties of air and passed through.

  The man on the couch looked up when he noticed a faint shimmer. He stood when the source of the shimmer expanded upward. Millions of spheres split apart and reformed as a shrouded figure.

  The figure moved forward through the glass. It towered over the man scrambling to move back.

  Material formed from the vortex. An arm reached out. A hand grew from the outstretched sleeve. Fingertips crystallized from the knuckle forward into shimmering silver.

  The hooded figure reached out, placing index and middle finger on the man’s eyes. Points extended from the tips, telescoping into rods that bored through the retina. Impulses transmitted through the optical nerve worked into the temporal lobe. Incoming signals bonded with chemical reactions in firing neurons.

  The signals returned, transforming the optic nerve into a glass cable. At the moment of death every instance of the victim’s existence played out in an image sequence through the eyes in reverse. A full gamut of emotions—from complex adult idiosyncrasies to basic childhood needs—merged in the collective sphere mind to be uploaded to Crossfire’s intellect.

  Streams of digital pleasure–losing all awareness for a full one millionth of a second–pulsated through a single electron while learning modules processed incoming data from the contact. One human brain solidification and memory pattern transfer released enough power to keep Crossfire alive on its own for 86,400,000 milliseconds. Twenty-four hours on the human calendar.

  * *** ***

  Two days after the meeting with the lieutenant, Britt was no closer to wrapping up the investigation.

  No eye witnesses, no evidence, and no suspects. Should I call it quits now? Feeling a dryness in her throat, she took a drink. The water didn’t quench her thirst. What, am I getting a sore throat now? The feeling went away. The irritated throat came back when Britt thought about explaining to the lieutenant she wanted to abandon the case before the 72 hours was up. Keep at it. Don’t give up, she thought. The sore throat went away again.

  A text alert caught her attention. It was the precinct asking her to call in.

  “Magnusson, here,” she said.

  The lieutenant said, “I need you to check something out.”

  “Right. I’ll get on it.”

  “The dispatcher will text you the address, Magnusson.”

  By the time she’d finished brushing her teeth, the text alert sounded. She tapped the address, launching the map application.

  After entering the gated community and making a few turns, Britt saw two cruisers parked at a cul-de-sac. Caution tape crisscrossed the front door.

  Inside, Britt expected to see something like the previous deaths. She had to look twice. A body lay on the floor. Both eyes bulged out of the sockets and cast prism reflections on the walls.

  Britt looked closer. Putting on rubber gloves, she turned the head from side to side. Eyes. Marbles. Glass. The words kept going through her mind until she stopped twisting the head and looked into the eyes. Britt could see a faint glow. When she tilted the victim’s chin and looked straight into the eyes she saw the source of the glow. A translucent cloud of points pulsed on and off deep within the skull.

  Britt looked away. Holy shit, she thought. This is fucking weird.

  Things got weirder. The ME’s assistant came on the scene. When he looked at the corpse he said for all within earshot to hear. “This guy’s eyes look like baked marbles.”

  Oh fuck, Britt thought. I can see it now, when the media gets hold of this it will become a circus. Marble-Eyser on the Loose.

  SIXTEEN

  BRITT NOTICED A message alert from Ralph pop up on her screen:

  Hey, Bladdy, what’s up.

  Initial results from the first scan of Victim’s drive.

  Britt had been waiting for this.

  And?

  Can we talk?

  Come on over.

  Ralph stepped up to Britt’s desk chewing the last remnants of a cup cake. He tossed the wrapper in the trashcan and licked chocolate off his fingers. “While running a deep scan of the main drive, I noticed sets of random numbers and letters. Right off the bat, it looked like a 256-bit encryption code ...”

  Britt rolled her eyes. Sometimes the technical shit went over her head, sometimes, she could get a handle on the jargon and buzz words.

  Ralph sensed this and got to the point: “I decided to break the code and I came up with this.” He opened his palm.

  On a yellow sticky note, Britt saw a string of letters and numbers. She recognized this as longitude and latitude. A few seconds later she made the connection. The coordinates matched Jesus Martín’s home address.

  Britt looked up. “Is there anything else?”

  Ralph closed his hand. “Just another shit-load of encrypted data sitting on the drive. This is the tip of the iceberg.”

  “Can you dig deeper on this, Blad?”

  Ralph shrugged. “I have the key ... Piece of cake.” He pushed his eyeglasses up. “One thing ... You have to square it with the tech section chief and the division lieutenant.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  When Ralph left, Britt checked Trahan’s calendar. Seeing she had no meetings scheduled, Britt messaged:

  May I speak with you, Lieutenant Trahan?

  Give me 5.

  Britt waited. Four minutes and fifty-nine seconds later, she knocked on Lieutenant Trahan’s door.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I need Technical Specialist Bladdington to do some work for me.” Britt waited to see the reaction.

  The lieutenant squared her shoulders and sat up straight. “Is this related to the cases you’re working on?”

  Britt nodded. “Yes. We found some encrypted data that may link at least one of the latest victims with Jesus Martín, the first victim.”

  Britt waited for another reaction. A hint of a grin and slight nod sent good signals. The lieutenant keyed in a quick message. “Consider it done on this end.”

  By the time Britt returned to her desk and sat she got word back from Trahan:

  TS Bladdington has been assigned to you for 8 hours.

  Thanks, Lieutenant.

  * *** ***

  “I’ll get on it when we come back from lunch, boss,” Ralph said, taking a big bite out of a chilly cheese hot dog and washing it down with a gulp of soda.

  “How long do you think it will take?”

  Ralph narrowed his eyes. “Two hours on the high side ... One on the low. And that’s if the same key applies to all the data. If not ...” Ralph put the bun down and threw his hands up.

  “I’m counting on you, Blad.”

  In her office, Britt stood over Ralph’s shoulder, hovering.

  Ralph looked over. “You know, it’s a little hard to concentrate when you’re breathing down my neck like that.”

  “Sorry.” Britt backed off. She wrung her hands together, wishing there was some way to make this job faster. Britt took a seat and flipped open her laptop. She studied her notes, reading from top to bottom three times, hoping something would jump out at her. The whole time Britt glanced over at Ralph. She saw the tech easing up on the keyboard and said, “While you’re out of the zone, I want to ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “When can I look at the surveillance footage from the latest victim’s house?”

  “As soon as I run this routine, and that should be within the next two seconds.” Ralph raised his hand, making a big show of tapping the enter key with his index finger.

  “Do you think this run will return good results?”

  “If it uses the same key as the first run we�
��ll come up with some decipherable text strings,” Ralph said. He navigated to a folder containing a bunch of sub-folders. In one of the subs he located a video file and double-clicked.

  Britt pulled her chair up. “Show me where the other person comes in.”

  Ralph dragged the virtual transport wheel all the way to the right and held it there, pushing forward on the timeline. When a hooded figure appeared in the frames he dragged back to center and then pulled to the left. Ralph released the pointer on the clear frame.

  “This is fucking weird,” Britt said, watching Ralph stepping between frames with the arrow keys.

  “On one frame the image is clear, on the next frame the figure is there. This footage is shot at 30 frames per second.”

  “Yeah?” Britt shrugged. “What does that tell us?”

  “So, whatever is in the frame appears in 1/30 of a second. It’s looks like the footage has been edited.”

  “Right, you think it’s been tampered with?”

  Ralph shook his head. “There’s no way I could tell for sure. It looks like a clean cut, but why would anybody go to the trouble of pulling apart a surveillance camera, extracting the drive, downloading the footage—”

  Britt broke in. “Can’t the owner download directly from the system?”

  “Not on the Guardian 550, it’s a sealed unit monitored by the security company.”

  “This is raw footage?”

  In answer to Britt’s question, Ralph grinned and said, “That’s my half-ass educated guess.”

  Britt recapped the situation. “If the video is untouched?” As she worked the question over in her head she voiced a thought. “How much can we enhance the video footage?”

  “I can run it through a cleaner.” Ralph selected an icon. The Vulkan 2.3 Optics Enhancer was a cutting-edge plugin manufactured especially for the law enforcement sector.

  “How long will that take?”

  Ralph thought it over. “1080 p, 30 fps, approximately 3,000 frames ... should be about 30 minutes for the first bake.”

  SEVENTEEN

  RALPH READ HIS latest incoming messages. He answered while waiting for the Vulkan plugin to clean the video footage and the decryption to run.