Audio Assault

by Jeff Adams

  Sofia jumped off the stage and headed up the aisle, looking to me as she passed. “Wanna get a drink?” she asked.

  I followed and found Sofia coming from behind the bar with two cans of soda—Coke and Dr Pepper. I met her at a couple of chairs that faced each other.

  “My favorite.” I took the soda and popped the top as we sat. “Thanks.”

  She took a long drink of her Coke Zero. “Can I ask you a question?” Her gaze was intriguingly piercing. In the limited time I’d spent around her so far, I’d seen many moods but not this one.

  “Sure.”

  She leaned forward and further amped her seriousness. “I know you say you did what you did last night because it was what you needed to do. But there was more than that, you were calm and moved exactly like you knew what you were doing. Whereas me, I was scared out of my mind.” She sighed and ran her hand through her long hair. “Don’t get me wrong, the Central Park thing with Dad was scary, but last night it was dark and people chased us. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t see. But somehow there you were, guiding your dad to us and protecting me. Someone you don’t even know.”

  We held each other’s gaze. I couldn’t read her look. A shrug seemed like the best response.

  “I’m not sure I could do that for a stranger.”

  I chose my words carefully just like I do with Eddie. “We’re here to help you guys, and I’ve been asked to lend a hand where I can. Most of that involves the technology. But it also means doing more if necessary. We are here to protect you and your family. It’s that simple.”

  Sofia leaned back, her gaze making me slightly uncomfortable. Why was she scrutinizing me? Did she expect some other answer to miraculously pop out of my mouth?

  “The gun scared me. I have friends who’ve been shot….”

  “I’ve been through some stuff in the last year. And that includes being shot while protecting someone else. It’s made me tougher I guess.”

  She sat back in her chair. “How’d that happen?”

  I recounted the public story around the computer science competition back in the spring. Her mouth dropped open more than once. Maybe it was because the circumstances were unexpected, or she was surprised that I would go to such lengths to protect my classmates.

  “I’ve also had the unfortunate experience of being abducted. I was snatched off my bike in the middle of the day, and it was the scariest thing ever. If I can keep that from happening to anyone else, I’ll do it.”

  “Dude, I had no idea. I’m glad you’re on my side—well our side.”

  “Sofia to the stage please,” a voice called over the theater’s PA system.

  Sofia stood and offered me a hand up. I took it, and she pulled with such force that it brought me up right in front of her, face-to-face, with virtually no space between us. She was stronger than she looked.

  “I was serious when I said that your boyfriend’s very lucky.” Her low, seductive voice reminded me of the girlfriend song Eddie’d played for me.

  “I—”

  “I hope I find someone like you some day.” Her voice bounced back to normal. She let my hand go, grabbed her soda off the table and smiled before she took off into the theater. “It’s good to know great guys like you exist.”

  Chapter Eleven

  THE NEXT morning, I was with Sofia back in the studio as she worked. The live stream had been a huge success with thousands of viewers and positive feedback for the new music. She was in a good mood.

  Meanwhile I focused on my analysis of the distribution system. Glenwood Music had solid technical systems and processes in place. Oliver had surrounded himself with good IT people. Even when I found an exploit, the system would cut my connection before I could do any damage. For employees with access, each action went into the logs for review if needed. The process provided maximum security.

  When the engineer took a break, Sofia came over and sat down. “This weekend I’m shooting segments for a Christmas special. You and Eddie can be my guests.”

  As much as it’d be cool to take Eddie to something like that, I couldn’t say yes without knowing if I’d have work to do. But man it’d be cool if he could visit. I balanced seeing him and work all the time. Maybe—

  “Where’d you go?” Her hand waved in front of my face. “He seemed to love catching rehearsal last night so I thought it’d be cool if you could take him to the taping. Maybe wear that suit from the other night and make a night of it.”

  “Sorry. It’d be super cool to get him down here, but let’s see if we can get the problems solved first. Otherwise, my weekend will be all work. It wouldn’t be fair to bring him for that.”

  She shrugged and nodded. “So hurry up and finish, then,” she said impishly. She bounced and gyrated in what could only be called a happy dance. “Kidding. Back to the grind for both of us. I need to listen to some tracks. You might even like some of these.”

  “What do you mean? I like your music just fine.”

  She snorted, which was the last thing I would’ve ever expected. I didn’t know she had that kind of goofy sound inside her. “I almost believed that. I’ve seen how you look when some of my songs play. I saw you at rehearsal, and I caught you once last night during the show. It’s not really your thing.”

  I needed to make sure I didn’t reveal my thoughts out in the open like that. “I loved what you and your dad did for your mom—and the way it sounded last night with the orchestra was incredible. But yeah most of your other music just doesn’t do it for me.”

  “It’s okay.” She didn’t sound offended. “I know the lane my music’s in. It sells, so that’s good. But I can’t deny there’s a bit of sameness.”

  “And if it makes you happy,” I offered, trying to go for a more upbeat route, “there’s no reason why you should change.”

  “After years of deliberately not collaborating with Dad, writing that song with him was a great experience. The fusion of our styles worked really well. And I’ve got some songs—ones I wrote on my own—that will come out soon that are different.”

  She went over to the console and took a chair next to the engineer. I followed and leaned against the low cabinet behind them.

  “All right,” I said, “play me something you think I’ll like.”

  She grinned. I’d done exactly what she wanted, and she wasn’t hiding her glee about that. She worked the computer that was to one side of the engineer’s console. In a few seconds, sounds of piano, strings, and drums filled the room. As a cello came into the arrangement, I liked it even more.

  “There’s a smile.”

  The melody was really good, and as Sofia sang her voice melded with the music as if she were another instrument. The fusion was beautiful. I could point to a handful of tunes that I had on a playlist for times I needed inspiration. This track would sit well on that list.

  “It’s really good,” I said after the song finished.

  “Gimme your phone, I’ll give you an advance copy.”

  “Cool. Okay.” I pulled my phone from my pocket, set it in safe mode and handed it over. Using a regular iPhone cable, Sofia connected it to the computer and transferred the song via the distribution system.

  “I’m glad you like it.” She passed the phone back to me once the transfer was done. “I’m trying different styles on the next album. Mom’s song will be on that and this will too. Let’s see what you think of this next one.”

  She handed my phone back before pulling up another song on the computer. This song was faster, but it also featured an orchestra.

  My phone screeched with an alert.

  Normally alerts just go to my watch with a vibration, but this was more serious I tapped the onscreen acknowledgment to silence it.

  “What the hell was that?” Sofia asked.

  I accessed the security logs and swiped to get to the details on the alert. “Some sort of a security issue.”

  “What kind of phone is that anyway?”

  “It’s an iPhone,” I
said with a quick grin to Sofia and the engineer who looked ready to bolt if he needed to. “With a few modifications. It is my line of work after all.”

  Sofia came over and tried to look at the screen. I pulled it back from her view. She didn’t argue but sat back in her chair.

  “Do we need to call someone?” the engineer asked. “Are we in danger?”

  “The phone picked up a potential hack.”

  I sent the logs from the phone to my computer, so I could read them more easily. Two events had happened simultaneously. The M4A song file Sofia put on the phone was compromised. The logs also indicated an audio threat of some kind from the sound that played in the studio, which made no sense.

  “What’s happening, man?” Sofia asked after I’d been quiet for a few minutes. “I don’t like the intense look you’ve got.”

  I didn’t look away from the screen. “Give me a minute. This is weird.”

  I was less worried about the infected M4A than I was with the audio alert. A file with malicious code was one thing, but something encoded in the audio was unusual. It was only triggered by the second song.

  “Can you play that song again?” I looked to Sofia.

  “Um, sure. But should we really be listening to music now?”

  I brought my computer to the console and activated its microphone. Unlike my phone, which had Siri always listening, my computer wasn’t set that way.

  “Are you sure?” The engineer looked at me skeptically.

  I nodded as I typed a few keys. “Go ahead.”

  He pushed Play, and it only took a few seconds before the computer and the phone flashed a warning message.

  “You can stop.”

  He turned it off, and the alert disappeared. Going back to the logs, there were no details on what the threat was, only that there was something unknown in the audio.

  “Man, what is it? Talk to us.” Sofia was over my shoulder again, and even though this was technically TOS software, she wouldn’t get any sensitive information looking at the screen.

  “There’s malicious code in the M4A file you put on my phone, but there’s also something in the audio of what you just played.”

  “Is that even possible?”

  How could she ask that? She heard the same alarms I did. And I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.

  “Can I see your phones a second?” I looked between Sofia and the engineer.

  They both looked anxious but handed them over. There was nothing on the devices that looked out of place and even the scan I did with the computer came back clean.

  “You said you were giving me an advance copy, so this isn’t public yet?”

  “A couple radio stations have preview copies to play. It doesn’t go on sale for another few days. This is a new version because I wanted the strings bumped up. You might be the only one that has it.”

  “What version went to the stations?”

  “Yeah,” the engineer said. “Radio has this one.” He clicked on the computer and the song started again. Even I could hear the difference in the strings. No alerts popped up.

  I reached for the connector cable and plugged my phone in. “Send that one to my phone.”

  He nodded as he typed.

  No warnings after the file loaded either. I went into the music player and tapped play. The song started and still no issues. Whatever had been done to alter the file happened after the new copy was made.

  “I need to talk to your dad and my parents.” I closed my laptop and grabbed my pack. “You gonna be okay here?” I asked Sofia. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Oh, I’m coming with you. I want to hear about this.”

  Chapter Twelve

  AFTER I briefed Oliver, Sofia, and my parents, my role on the case expanded. We needed to get to the bottom of what was in this file and why it triggered security measures.

  Until John returned to the Glenwood office, I still needed to keep an eye on Sofia too. I fired up my phone as a secure hotspot to connect to the TOS network and work with Lorenzo.

  Mom, Dad, and I also went on comms to simplify communication. We weren’t leaving them open to all of our chatter, but at least we’d be able to talk easily if we needed to. I wore the contact lenses too because it’d be a good test of the improvements we made in transmitting and recording a computer screen. In earlier versions the text appeared blurry.

  First thing I uploaded to TOS were the files along with my notes.

  Working with audio files was outside my expertise, but sifting through the raw code, compression algorithms, metadata and other file components was fascinating. It was easy to see differences in the files. Some of that was because the song itself changed, but the file was larger too, and that had to be due to the inclusion of code that didn’t belong. I discovered a compact piece of code designed to transmit data. While the transmitter was obvious, how it lifted the data from the device wasn’t. I’d need more time on that.

  The audio component remained a mystery. I’ve never known a TOS phone to go off over a song, even though the phone was always listening. I tasked the TOS team with finding out if there were any similar cases.

  I put my earbuds in and played the file on the laptop. Nothing stood out. I didn’t have any sound tools but the engineer definitely did. Maybe he could discover something.

  When Sofia stopped playing to scribble something on the paper on a music stand in front her, I asked the engineer to call Sofia in.

  She wasted no time. “Did you find something?”

  “There’s a virus buried in the file, but I still can’t account for the audio alert. You mentioned you had the song remastered, but did you hear anything wrong with the new version?”

  “No. Danny, did you?”

  He shook his head. “It sounded like I’d expect once the encryption was added. I finished the mix this morning and submitted it to be mastered. We played that version.”

  “Do you have a copy of the file before you sent it for the mastering?” I asked.

  “Of course. We keep all the source files so we can go back to the raw material if we need to make changes, like adjusting the strings.” Danny used the computer Sofia had used earlier to open up new files. In short order we listened to the song again. This time no alerts occurred.

  “Can you display the soundwaves for both versions?”

  “Sure can. One sec.” Danny worked at the keyboard and also turned on another monitor that was over the console. Two graphs displayed and they were nearly identical. “On top is the original and below is the M4A.”

  “Can one of you—”

  “What is that?” Danny asked before I could finish. “This line.” He stood and pointed out a portion of the pattern. “How is there a straight line that runs through the entire song? Let me see if I can isolate that.”

  Sofia and I looked at each other, and she shrugged. Keys, my former mentor who was killed on a mission earlier this year, would’ve loved this case. She was so into music and would’ve been all over the graphs.

  Danny played the song and removed parts of the tune. As he did, the graphs changed until most of the music was gone, but there was still a line indicating there wasn’t complete silence.

  “I don’t hear anything,” I said after straining to listen.

  Danny grabbed headphones off his console, pushed a couple buttons, and put them on. After a few moments he shook his head and handed them off to Sofia.

  “I can’t hear anything either.”

  We both looked to Sofia.

  “It’s silence.” She removed the headphones and laid them on the console. “If I didn’t know you were playing something, I’d assume you forgot to push the button.”

  “And this isn’t in the original file?”

  “No.” He pointed to the screen again. “You don’t see anything here that represents that line. It must be in a range we can’t hear, but it registers on the graph because it’s actually present.”

  “But how does your phone hear it?”
Sofia asked.

  “Siri, Alexa, all of them, listen to more than what humans can hear as part of speech recognition. Play that”—I pointed at the screen—“over the speakers.”

  It only took a couple of seconds for the phone to react. Danny turned it off as soon as it did.

  “Can you give me a file that has just that on it?” That would give us something to analyze without the rest of the song.

  “Sure, if you think it’ll help I’ll render it now.” Danny typed. “Why would someone add something like this to a song?”

  “I honestly don’t know. This is new to me. We need to keep this quiet for now, so, other than Oliver and my parents, this information can’t leave the room.”

  Sofia and Danny both nodded.

  Just as we wrapped up, some musicians and a couple of Sofia’s friends arrived. I retreated to my corner. Danny loaned me an extra set of headphones, so I could listen more closely while running the analysis. The first thing to do, however, was get in touch with Lorenzo, so I opened a secure text window. I needed a sound expert.

  Hi, Doc. I need to chat when you’re free. Can’t call because can’t identify on the phone right now. Please call when you can.

  I connected to my home computer because I wanted more processing power than I had on the laptop. I put my analysis tools to work to deconstruct the binary code of the file in the hopes it would identify the rest of the virus that I couldn’t see.

  Lorenzo rang my phone.

  “Winger, Dr. Possible here.”

  “Thanks for calling me back, Doc.”

  “You actually caught me away from the computer. What’s up with my celebrity security guru?”

  I groaned.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.” I could hear him grin. “I saw that you uploaded some files. What’d you find?”

  “Yeah. There’s definitely an attack happening here.” I got my earbuds from my pack, so I could plug in and have my hands free for the keyboard. Once I was connected, I caught him up. Some of it I typed in the chat window because I didn’t want to reveal too much since the room had filled up with more of Sofia’s friends.