Virus

by Bill Buchanan

  Gonzo threw a switch igniting the flares. “Roger, Scotty. Go.”

  “Two . .. one .. . mark.” She held her breath to steady her aim.

  In one simultaneous motion, Gonzo dropped the shield and depressed the fire button. Suddenly, a gross of small rocket flares erupted across the room toward the control console.

  The sudden brightness caused Scott to flinch as she opened the jet valve on the thruster tank. Steadying her aim, she released the tank evenly, sending it racing down toward the kill switch.

  Nearly as quickly as the thruster was released, PAM’s lasers acquired it and knocked it laterally across the room. But she had gotten close, within six inches of the handle. Scott noticed the thruster tank had been knocked to the left by the laser fire. To compensate, she'd pull her aim six inches to the right. “We’ll hit it next round,” Scott said optimistically. “No doubt about it.”

  Gonzo wasn’t as optimistic but he believed in her. “Give me one minute to reload.” Moments later, his flare rockets were reloaded and he was anxious to try again.

  Scott had her thruster in position, her aim was offset in anticipation of the laser blast. “Release on my mark.”

  “Ready.”

  “Two . .. one . . . mark.”

  The reactor scram happened very suddenly. Accelerating, the thruster tank darted toward the right of the T handle. In the blink of an eye, a laser pounded it as before, deflecting it left. This time the tank clicked home, smashing into the kill switch.

  The darkness which followed offered relief. Together, they’d traveled the final mile; their dangerous work was done. Once Gonzo pulled Scott out of the air duct, they deactivated the black box for the last time.

  Won the Battle, 12/26/2014, 0115 Zulu, 6:15 P.M. Mountain

  Standard Time

  The Control Room,

  Freedom’s Core

  Dimly illuminated, the control room looked desolate. Strapped to his chair behind the silhouette of a communications console, Depack’s lifeless body looked unearthly, oddly dreamlike and frozen in time. Running on limited backup battery power, Centurion was silent, his globe dark.

  Somehow, Gonzo got a few of the lights on after splicing the circuits into the backup power. Once the flickering stopped, he packed his tools and began moving toward Centurion’s corner.

  Across the pyramid-shaped chamber, holding her helmet under her arm, Scott took a deep breath and cautiously surveyed the weapon fixtures fastened on the walls. Motioning for Gonzo to stand fast, she watched and listened intently, uncertain at first. No electrical hums, hydraulic whines, or pneumatic hisses. Good, Scott thought. Perfectly silent. Feeling a twinge of hope, Scott smiled and continued surveying the chamber.

  PAM subsisted off raw electrical power. Once the space station’s electrical power died, PAM lost her stranglehold on Freedom and the DEWSAT armada. She continued to run but ceased to be a threat. Limited battery power kept essential computer functions running, but most of her sensory input and output control circuits were dead, all useless without power. Freedom's four independent power plants had nourished PAM while supplying the muscle behind her strength. Without them, PAM threatened no one.

  PAM saw only darkness now. She could hear, she could speak, but she could not retaliate. Her capacity for reproduction was expended, her programmed survival imperative fulfilled.

  After scanning the indicators on the turret lasers scattered about the chamber, Scott was convinced. Every indicator light was dark. Rendered harmless, PAM could not counterattack. Killing the power eliminated PAM’s option for retaliation, every weapon she once controlled was out of commission.

  Gutting Centurion seemed somehow anticlimactic, almost too easy. Moving toward Gonzo, Scott nodded approval and spoke with the sound of satisfaction in her voice. “PAM’s not about to hurt anyone else.”

  “I’ll say one thing for her,” Gonao said somberly. “She’s a woman who knows what she wants and gets it.”

  “Effective survival quality,” Scott lamented, staring at Depack’s disintegrated face. “Eliminate every threat.” Kneeling by Gonzo, Scott helped him loosen the wing nuts holding Centurion’s maintenance access hatch in place. Despite her determination, she found herself tensing uncontrollably as she removed the hatch, exposing Centurion’s optical computer heart. Her nerves were twitching, strung tight as bowstrings. With the hatch removed, red laser beams radiated out of the sealed optical chamber in all directions, illuminating the control room like hundreds of intensely bright, narrow beam spotlights.

  Standing, Scott faced Centurion’s monitor. The red beams cast an eerie illumination about the chamber. Watching the screen, she saw tiny dust particles glowing as they passed through the red beams. The monitor screen remained black, but Scott knew PAM could hear her. In a cold and forbidding tone, she spoke directly into the microphone by the monitor. “PAM. Any last words?”

  Silence.

  Grabbing the wire cutters from the toolbox, Scott knelt alongside Gonzo. “Let’s get on with it,” she said with a sense of urgency.

  Gonzo agreed and spoke in earnest. “Looks like we won the war.”

  Suddenly, static interference erupted loudly over the speaker.

  Scott shot Gonzo an apprehensive glance then stood facing the dark monitor.

  There was a long pause followed by the faint sound of a monotonous female voice. Lacking in conviction or vigor, PAM spoke a slow succession of words uttered in a single tone. Although her voice possessed the stark quality of emptiness, her words were detached, analytical, and objective. “The scope of your evaluation is in error.”

  “What?” Spinning around, Gonzo’s knee-jerk reaction was instantaneous.

  “You won—the battle.” PAM spoke with quiet authority, her tone conclusive. “And lost—the war.”

  A deep silence permeated the control room. The silence lasted perhaps fifty seconds and was suddenly broken by an abrupt gasping sound. Simultaneously, Scott and Gonzo remembered to breathe. They were immobilized by PAM's words and the strangeness of their situation.

  Gonzo knelt stunned, disbelieving. He did not speak.

  Scott pondered the ramifications of PAM’s words. She felt helpless. She wanted to close out this nightmare once and for all, but she could not forget. She closed her eyes. For a moment, it all seemed like a bad dream. She felt removed, as if she were watching herself from a few feet away. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and found nothing had changed. She became aware that Gonzo was watching her. Gonzo needed her, they needed each other. She had to do something. She closed her eyes again and concentrated on her few precious alternatives. She quickly concluded there was little she could do but demand an explanation or pull the plug. Her eyes opened wide, her stare resolute. Her voice, urgent and barely under control, snapped Gonzo out of his daze. “PAM—clarify lost the war. ”

  Silence.

  Scott felt fatigue in every bone but also knew that in the next few moments she would purge Freedom of this scourge. She had decided, her mind now clear. She was about to do the most important thing she had ever done.

  Looking into the monitor, Scott spoke plainly. Her voice, isolated and perfectly audible, had a loathsome animal-like quality to it. “For you, the war is over.”

  Then it happened very quickly.

  Turning toward Gonzo, she maneuvered her hand across her throat in a slashing motion. Her tone—final. “Kill it.” Primed to pull the plug, Gonzo ham-fisted the emergency power switch and PAM’s laser heartbeat faded to a lifeless black void.

  PART

  11

  EPILOGUE

  THE FOLLOWING TWO

  YEARS IN SUNNARY

  30

  Freedom Commander Major Jay Fayhee and Computer Systems Analyst Captain Depack McKee were buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.

  Memorial services were held in Washington for Lieutenant Colonel William “Wild Bill” Boyd. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously, then was returned home to Mis
sissippi. He was buried on a lush green hillside under a large shady tree overlooking his family's farm. His brothers felt he would have liked it there.

  Colonel Sam Napper was promoted to brigadier general, appointed Mason’s deputy commander for Cheyenne Mountain operations, and awarded responsibility for consolidating CSOC offensive and SDIO defensive operations into a single unified air and space command.

  With the assistance of his family and political connections in Washington, Colonel Wayne Hinson was transferred to the Pentagon, placed in an assignment strategically critical to the national defense, and bumped to the top of the promotions list. All derogatory performance reports from Cheyenne Mountain mysteriously disappeared from Hinson’s personnel records. His self-serving meteoric rise to the top of the ranks never slowed. In Washington’s innermost circles, Hinson was perceived as a man with answers who was going places.

  General Robert Craven retired to his home overlooking the thirteenth fairway at Pebble Beach, but emotionally he never recovered. The staggering loss of life destroyed his spirit, haunting him until death. Nine months following the disaster, Craven was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. His epitaph encapsulated the essence of the man—mover, shaker, visionary.

  Commander Pasha Yakovlev was promoted to colonel and promptly restored to his family living in Star City. After his ribs healed, he was paraded down Red Square and awarded the state’s most coveted medal, the Order of Lenin. Following the Russian celebration, he returned to Washington, D.C., and became the first Russian in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. The inscription read simply:

  For extraordinary service to humanity.

  Memorial services were held in Red Square for Hope computer analyst Boris Ustinov. His wife and children were granted a special exemption by the state to continue living in their Moscow apartment.

  Major Linda Scott, Major Carlos “Gonzo” Gonzalez, and Chief Master Sergeant Andrew “Mac” MacWilliams received the Congressional Medal of Honor citing their extraordinary service for humanity and were automatically placed on the promotions list. In addition, Major Scott received the Distinguished Flying Cross which she now carries in her pocket for luck. After returning from three months’ extended leave, Scott, Mac, and Gonzo were assigned a new XR-30; they named it Hell Fire.

  Freedom was restored to full operational readiness in just under eighteen months. During the first stage of the space station’s repair, Hell Fire was carefully extracted from Freedom's innards like a large piece of shrapnel.

  Following extensive temporary repairs, Hell Fire returned home to Edwards nine months later. With her facelift, and her avionics removed, she made her last flight and retired to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

  Once PAM released her stranglehold on Freedom, combined Saudi-Kuwaiti forces retaliated by launching a devastating, precisely orchestrated stealth cruise missile attack on Iraqi air defenses. Flight paths were programmed such that hundreds of missiles simultaneously pounced on the Iraqi Air Force from every direction. In less than sixty seconds, the war for air superiority was over. With their Air Force smoldering in ruins on the ground and Saudi-Kuwaiti forces flying unopposed overhead, the Iraqi Republican Guard suffered the greatest rout in their history.

  PAM’s origin was never traced. This investigative dead end came as no surprise to the technical experts involved, however the logic of politics decreed this result unacceptable. Consequently, the Allied Forces never retaliated directly, but justice demanded we exchange an eye for an eye, a virus for a virus.

  Trouble was—other countries possessed virus programs far superior to our own. In political and military circles alike, this became known as the PAM process gap. Predictably, the logic of military balance decreed this gap unacceptable as well. Most military and political leaders agreed—something must be done.

  To the astonishment of professional politicians around the globe, the President won reelection vowing to eliminate the PAM process gap and harden our equipments against infection—an eye for an eye.

  General Slim Mason took four weeks’ leave, then returned to Cheyenne Mountain with carte blanche authority from the President to harden the SDI armada against viral infections. After taking responsibility for the multibillion-dollar SDI hardening program, Mason recommended cancellation after only one month of investigation. In his letter of explanation to the President, Mason cited the fact that systems could be designed to protect themselves from careless mistakes, but could not be designed to counteract malice—a wholly accurate technical assessment. Mason’s argument reflected reality, but the political situation demanded action, so the President appointed someone else to the job.

  After receiving revised orders from the President, Mason took charge of the Viral R&D program. Their mission: eliminate the PAM process gap—create a strain of battlefield grade computer virus that could neither be detected nor cured. Six weeks later, Mason recommended cancellation of all Viral R&D. In his second letter of explanation to the President, Mason pointed out that we would be shooting ourselves in the foot. Our brilliant-class weapon systems are more susceptible to viral infections than those of our enemies—the smarter the weapon, the greater the susceptibility to infection. In conclusion. Mason reminded the President of a lesson which struck close to home—to deny nature is to invite disaster. Referencing the Challenger accident report, he quoted Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize-winning member of President Reagan’s accident investigatory commission.

  For a successful technology, reality

  must take precedence over public relations,

  for nature cannot be fooled-

  Shortly afterwards. Mason was stripped of responsibility for Viral R&D. In government technospeak, the Viral R&D program went hyper-black, entered the black world of ul-trasecret' projects and completely disappeared from the books. Privately, Mason felt a profound sense of emptiness, recognizing that the logic of politics and laws of physics would forever be at odds. Man’s struggle is against nature itself.

  As a peace offering, the President assigned Mason responsibility for organizing a new Allied command, one that Mason believed in—the Virtual Disease Control Center (VDCC). Under his leadership, the VDCC emerged as the preeminent authority on computer virus detection and isolation. Although first considered an R&D think tank outside DOD’s operational mainstream, creation of the VDCC proved providential. Twenty-one months after the VDCC was formed by presidential decree, PAM arose once again to test their mettle.

  Perhaps the greatest irony of this man-made calamity was PAM’s prophetic insight. Of the 128 bad seeds planted in Allied computers, ninety-six fell on barren soil and would not run because of antiquated or incompatible computer types. Of the remaining programs, thirty did run but caused only an operational inconvenience. Eventually, the two remaining bad seeds inside Kaliningrad and Cheyenne Mountain ran, took root, and proliferated. PAM’s children had children of their own, infecting hundreds of DOD computers before Mason’s organization could contain their proliferation. By then, it was almost too late.

  Capable of lying dormant for an indefinite period under the harshest conditions, PAM’s children existed only to survive and propagate their own kind. Incapable of remorse, ruthless beyond all imagination, PAM’s beauty lay in the simplicity of her programmed survival imperative.