by Joshua Klein
The Chinese had made it easy for him, in a lot of ways. Years ago they'd given Microsoft the finger and implemented a government-mandated OS based on Linux. In typical bureaucratic fashion they included required updates, and also in typical bureaucratic fashion they used an outdated, kludgy technology to do it, requiring that new software be downloaded on a regular basis. The general consensus among Chinese hackers was that it was a method for maintaining constant observation over the public, particularly because a lot of the code made calls back to centralized servers. It didn't matter to Fed. What mattered was that all the computers in China ran the leaked Chrysler-Daimler code in a picture display program that nobody used, but which was run as part of every software update. Picture show apps were a dime a dozen; that the Chinese government had endorsed a particular one for its people didn't mean it was the one they liked, and nobody was going to use an app that showed ads instead of every third picture.
The catch was that China had some heinous outbound/inbound net proxies. They wouldn't do much against his virus, but it would make getting the huge data set it would generate out of China difficult. For a start it would require knowing a whole lot more about their security systems and filters. And then there was the problem of deploying the damn thing…
Fede heaved a sigh and tabbed through his notes. It was there, all right. The virus he was after was there somewhere, nascent, unformed. But it was there.
Fede sighed again and started running agents to get him data on China's content filters.
Chapter 14
Tonx sat in the Chicago O'Hare airport, fingers laced behind his head, bobbing slightly to the new trance tunes Cass had fed his comp before he left. He was excited to meet Poulpe in person; they'd collaborated together at least a dozen times and he had a lot of respect for him. The man was sharp and had consistently surprised him with his insights. That he had put his life in Tonx's hands didn't ease that weight much, Tonx was pleased to discover. He rolled the feeling around his head, took its measure. The next few weeks were going to be big. Tonx smiled, adjusted his sunglasses, watched the scrollbar roll across the bottom of the lenses' edge, and waited.
He'd just hit that alpha state of relaxed wakefulness, that edge of sleep, when the call from Pharoe brought him instantly to anxious consciousness. He wasn't supposed to be getting calls now, here. Something was wrong.
"Hey man, what's up?" he said in forced amicability.
"Oh, you know" said the cool voice on the other end of the line. "Just wondering when you're coming, what with your flight being delayed and all that."
This was bad. Pharoe was paranoid at the best of times; calling to say there was a delay, and on an unencrypted line, meant something had been seriously fucked up.
"As long as the plane's able to fly I'll be there, man. I'll check the schedules and drop you a message" he said.
"No worries, they make them planes tough. I'll be looking for your message. Adios, bro."
"Ciao" Tonx said.
He waited a moment, forced himself to take ten full breaths, cleared his head. First order of business was getting a clear comm channel. He hesitated, then dialed in a call to Fed.
His comm bleeped six times before his brother's sleepy voice fell onto the line. "Hello?" said Fed, "Tonx?"
"You betcha, bro" said Tonx. "Listen, I need you wakey-wakey ASAP, ok? I just realized I missed an important email but I can't get to it from here. Think you can access it for me?"
"What are you talking about?" asked Fed. "You're calling me, aren't you? What's the problem with your connection?"
Tonx cursed his brother's lack of guile, massaged his forehead with his thumb and forefinger.
"Oh, you know me!" he laughed. "I think I hozored my mail client. It's a message from Aunt Penny. Think you can help me out, Fed?"
There was silence on the line for a minute.
"Aunt Penny?" Fede asked.
Tonx pursed his lips, waited, hoped.
"Okay, Tonx. No problem. Ah, do you want me to fix your email client while I'm at it?"
Tonx smiled, closed his eyes. "Yeah, man, that'd be a huge fucking help. You think you can figure a way to get a good connection to me here? I'm at an airport and they don't let you initiate any outbounds except for web traffic."
"No problem" said Fed, his voice warming, the purr of a challenge in his words. "Sit tight. How recently did Aunt Penny message you do you think?"
"Real recently. I'd guess it's the only message I'd have gotten to that account in the last hour or so."
"Okay" said Fed, and hung up.
Tonx sat back, put his hands behind his head, and practiced breathing. Aunt Penny was a codeword they'd used when they were kids, a character from a Penny Arcade game mod they'd both liked. The mod had included some porn skins, and Aunt Penny was the code word they'd used in front of their mother to refer to anything in the game involving downloading or running the mods. It was ancient history, but Fede had remembered and caught on. The boy had promise, Tonx thought. Thank god.
Twenty minutes later Tonx's comm bleeped and he watched a web address scroll by. It was an Angelfire site, a free hosting provider that paid for itself through copious pop-up ads and flashing banners branded across whatever content you put up. The sites they hosted were about as temporary as anything you'd find on the Net, havens for porn and warez. Angelfire admins constantly worked through the content deleting sites that violated their terms of service, frequently enough that most folks ignored stuff hosted there entirely as it was likely gone by the time you'd found the URL. But it was a perfect place to host something like this.
Tonx clicked the link and watched a page expand. The colors were a little washed because his glasses were so lightweight, but it was clear enough for him to see the mauve background and tope ad text flashing across the top of the page. The design screamed amateur and violated every decent web page design rule out there, but before Tonx could read more an alert box appeared asking if he wanted to accept a security certificate from an unknown source. Tonx checked the cert and smiled at its owner, one Mrs. Gabriel Penny. He clicked OK and watched his browser initiate a secure handshake, encrypting the connection. The box disappeared and the page resolved itself. Tonx laughed; the page had two text boxes, one for him to type in and the other for text to appear in, and the boxes were flanked by pixilated topless women gyrating clumsily. It was ancient game art from the mod they'd played - Mrs. Penny at her finest. It also violated Anglefire's terms of service and guaranteed a half-life of about an hour for the page. The whole setup was primitive, but it fit the bill for what Tonx needed, and Fede had put it together fast. Words appeared in the top text box:
<?> Sorry to force text, but the airport only allows secure web sessions. Still had to proxy it through a bank transaction traffic rebounder to get an acceptable route. It's crackable, but they'll need a big data set to do it. I'm limiting us to 11,000 bytes."
Tonx watched as the tiny counter at the bottom of the page iterated to 41, stopped as Fede stopped typing.
Excellent. You get the mail?
<?> Yeah, only one account had a single email arrive in the last hour. Who setup your security? Your cluster's tighter than a pre-teen Moslem. Who said I didn't?
<?> I did, you aren't that good. Here's the mail, from "Pharoe Munch."
The text Fede pasted in appeared in blue, indicated it was copied from another source. Tonx chewed his lip briefly, put his hands in his armpits.
<?> I don't get all that, but it doesn't sound good. And is this shit babelfished? It reads like it's converted from something other than English. Yeah, its spanglish and street slang from down south. I need you to find Cass and get her to contact a guy named Cessus. That's who setup my box's security, he's fucking badass security guy. Watch him - he's crazy. <?> Okay, what do I tell him?
Looks like the Boers got Poulpe locked up tight in some backwater in Florida. Pharoe's boys got a way to jack him, but we need to make sure no data leaks back to his sponsors. The GPS coo
rdinates are in his email.
Tonx thought for a moment, added:
Tell Cessus our man worked for the mouse. He'll go for it. He hates the megacorps big fierce. <?> ??
How long does this channel stay open for? <?> I'd give it another half hour.
Can you relay a command line through this? I need to do some biz. We need a way out of here, assuming we turn up with a live person instead of a corpse. <?> No prob. Call me if you run out of word count and I'll rerun this site somewhere else. Be quick, though - not too many folks transmit that much traffic to their bank, so the Airport will start looking soon. Thanks
The text box cleared and the login for Tonx's account scrolled past. A family of four, both parents wearing matching Coca-Cola corp suits, strolled by carrying an assortment of luggage. Their two boys towed behind in kids' versions of the outfits, the swirling coke label animated and swirling on their backs, laughing and poking at each other with tiny pistols. Tonx started typing.
Chapter 15
Fede couldn't find Cass, and her comm wasn't responding to his pings. He'd gotten what he thought must be a private address for her off the server, but she wasn't responding to that either. Eventually he swore and scrambled into his adjacket, tabbed a security lock onto the OLED and his connection and crawled out of the tent. This wasn't his gig; he didn't do meatspace. Tonx had said something about Boers, which was serious shit. If Boers were involved someone was going to get killed. He swore again as he wandered, blind, through the dark of the dojo. He wasn't supposed to be doing this; he was here to code, not run around finding people. But Tonx was in trouble. He stumbled over his shoes, sat down and fumbled with their ties in the dark. He wasn't used to tying them on; at home he just left them on and took his legs off.
He got the shoes on and went through the door. He wandered through the shop but it was empty, the front locked down tight. The metal grating had a padlock on it, and he wasn't going to waste time searching for a key. Instead he hustled to the private exit and down the long white hall. The door shut behind him with the jangling click-click of wired locks.
He followed the curve of the building, nervous now, unsure what he was going to do or how he would do it. His stomach had started to ache. He'd walked almost a full city block when he came to a turn, recognized a familiar side street and broke into a jog. Seconds later he was banging on the faded blue metal fire door next to the corrugated gate they'd taken the scooter through. It opened a moment later, the tiny Asian guy that'd taken Cass's keys appearing, his face seamed into a scowl. One eye widened when he saw Fed, and he stepped back a little. "Yeah?" he asked.
"I need the bike" said Fed.
The man took off his cap, scratched the back of his head, and studied Fed.
"Anata no baka desu ka?" he asked.
"Shit" breathed Fed. He peered over the man's head into the garage. There in the back of the room was Cass's bike, half-lit under a desk lamp jacked together with duct tape. He pointed.
"That. I need to get a ride on that" he said.
The guy looked back at Fede from where he'd followed the direction of his arm, smiled a crooked smile. Shadows emerged from under some kind of car over to the left, oil-resistant soles scuffing against the concrete. The man turned towards the dark of the garage, called out a string of words Fede would never understand. Fede swore again and pushed his way inside.
The little guy didn't like that, but he didn't touch Fed. A suddenly flurry of voices rang through the garage as he walked quickly towards the bike. He'd almost reached it when a loud pop smacked the air and Fede got the odd feeling that he'd just been shot at. He looked the poster board over the workbench on his right, next to the scooter, and watched a three-inch drill bit droop, then fall clattering to the bench. He turned slowly away from the bench, his hands jumping to his ears.
Two of the little men were standing nearby with a two-foot crowbar and a three-foot wrench, respectively. Over towards the car one of them had just fitted another drill bit into the compressor he'd shot the first one from. He was smiling broadly, clearly pleased at his shot. He'd done this before. The guy Fede had pushed by stood over to Fed's left, out of reach. He held a dented tin can in one hand, and when Fede looked at him he turned his head slightly away and smiled broadly, thick eyebrows rising into a mass of wrinkled forehead. "Yeah?" he asked again.
"Cass. I need to get a hold of Cass" Fede said.
"Cass?" asked the man. He held up his free hand to his head, thumb towards his ear, pinky finger jutting out towards his mouth in a gesture Fed's parents would have made, a sign for old-school voice comm. Fede tapped his ear, shook his head.
"No. No answer. Cass. no. answer."
The guy held his hand out and pretended to type on a computer. Fede gritted his teeth.
"No. No answer that way either." Didn't these guys understand? She'd shut off her comm lines, period.
"Listen, it's im-por-tant. Muy importante. Very important. I need to talk to Cass!"
The Asian guy adjusted his cap and walked a large semicircle around Fed, towards the scooter. He nodded at the guy with the compressor drill and set his cup onto the counter, reached out and gently shook one of the scooter's handlebars.
For a second nothing happened, and then a high-pitched siren howl burst out of the scooter. Fede jumped, scrambling backwards against the counter, his heart in his throat. The little man squinted and shook his head at the noise. It split off a moment later, the guy with the drill yelling and waving his hand at the one who'd touched the scooter. He staggered backwards and started swearing in fluent English as a pale grey smoke came up from the floor where the fluid from the cup had spilled. The counter was obviously immune; the yellow liquid had pooled slightly there, but a charred black smudge was growing where it was dropping onto the floor. Cass's voice came from the belly of the scooter:
"You're fucking with my bike and I'm about half a minute away. I suggest you get the fuck out of there before I show up and cut your head off." Her voice rang with authority and anger, and it took a second for Fede to realize she didn't have a visual.
"Cass, you there?" he asked. There was a pause.
"Feed? Who's fucking with my bike?"
"Me. I couldn't reach you and Tonx needs help ASAP. I need to get to Cessus and was going to borrow your bike."
"Idiot" she said, her voice breaking slightly. "I thought someone was fucking with my fucking bike. Is Wang there?" Fede looked at the four men standing around him, two of them scattering cat litter across the counter and the floor.
"Um, yeah."
She spoke for a minute or two in Chinese, punctuated twice when the guy who'd opened the door made agreeable noises in the bike's direction. She switched to English. "Feed? You know how to drive a scooter?"
"Yeah, of course" he said. He'd ridden scooters before. Old ones. A couple times.
"I'll meet you there, just give me a chance to get some clothes on. Cessus's address is loaded into the helmet. And Feed, don't fuck up my bike. It runs hot, so don't granny it."
The background buzz of the connection clicked off and Wang (Fede assumed it was Wang) handed him the keys. It took him a few moments to figure out how to disconnect the lock, longer to get the helmet off the hook and onto his head. It was tight, crushing his ears, but Fede was grateful to discover a familiar interface appear on the inside of the helmet's faceplate. He wheeled it out the door, turned it on, and saddled up. He managed to get the helmet synced to his map data, the route charting itself to the address Cass had listed under Cessus's name. He slowly twisted the throttle. The bike screamed at him as he edged on the clutch, vibrating angrily. Fed ground his teeth under the helmet, rolled out onto the mostly empty road, tried to take it up to speed. He never got there; the bike wasn't happy at less than full bore, and even at halfway open Fede was lucky not to take out a lamppost. By the time he arrived at Marcus's the bike's heat readout was approaching redline, the aftermarket pipes hazy in the heat radiation. It stank of frying plastic, but he'd made it
.
Fede dismounted, turned to see Marcus filling the doorway, arms folded, eyes glinting in the deep folds of his face.
"Welcome back, Feed" he said, his voice deep. "Cass called. What's the problem?"
"Tell you inside" said Fed, jogging up the stairs and past Marcus. "The bike okay there?"
"It's fine" called a voice from inside. It was the voice Fede had heard when he was here last, from upstairs.
"Cessus" said Fede as he walked in, entered the broad, couch-filled living room. At the far end was a tall black man sprawled out in a gleaming white terrycloth bathrobe, legs spread out in front of him. He had tiny round spectacles perched on the bridge of his long, sharp nose, a huge mane of thick dreadlocks sprouting from his head. In the fingers of one hand he held a tall blue bong, gently considering its gleam in the light. The room was rank with the smell of hash. Fede looked closer, realized his glasses weren't glasses, they were implants. There was nothing connecting the lenses over his nose, and the arms disappeared into the side of his head. As he watched Cessus smiled and revealed a neat row of clean white teeth. The small round lenses in front of his eyes rotated away from his nose, flipping towards the side of his head, sliding slowly into place alongside his temples. He released a huge cloud of smoke, choked, started giggling, stamping his feet as he struggled for breath.
"None other" he choked out, laughing, red eyes peering fiendishly at Fed. "What I can do you for?"
"Shit" breathed Fed.
"Take a seat" said Marcus, guiding him with one huge paw into a couch next to Cessus. He turned to the other man. "We secure here?"
"Sure" said Cessus. "I plugged the holes when you got me up. Costs, but what price liberty?" He smiled again at Fed, winked.
"Okay. Feed, why don't you tell us what Tonx needs. Cass mentioned Boers, which is bad news. What's the situation?"
Fede told them what he knew. Tonx had said to trust them, and he didn't see that he had any other choice.
