Fok your interface thought Jake.
The thought went by almost too quickly for the machine to catch it but if a computer could have smiled, it would have.
20/05/2167 10:00:00
"Lieutenant Palmer, glad you could join me," said Captain Fraser, holding out his hand for a quick handshake.
"Thank you, Sir, I've never been here before. Heard about it but just never seemed to have the time," said Palmer.
"Best damn coffee in the city. And if you know the owner, you can get the real stuff," said Fraser, jerking his thumb behind him towards the gleaming coffee urns shining through the large plate-glass windows.
A waiter, dressed in long white apron in the old French style, appeared beside the two men and cocked his head and his stubble-filled face displayed a tired, quizzical, give-me-an-order demand.
"Coffee black. Old Savannah Captain's Blend," said the Captain.
"I'll have the same," said Palmer.
The two men watched the waiter nod, and a slight smile appeared on his face as he marched to the counter.
"What did I just order?" asked Palmer.
The Captain laughed, "That's one of the oldest blends, it's pretty rare now. Remember your history? President Gwinnett was from Savannah and this was his special blend. This is the only place in the city you can get it. Even the Chairman gets his supply here and given he owns the shop, it's not surprising he'd still serve his great-grandfather's blend."
The waiter returned with two large steaming mugs on his small tray and slowly, carefully, without spilling a drop, he placed the cups in front of the two men. "Gentlemen, enjoy your coffee."
The Captain waited until the server was out of hearing range, raised his mug, held it motionless in a short toast, and then took a quick sip. "Damn, I should always wait. They serve it so bloody hot. Too hot. It's the only thing wrong about this place, the water is too damn hot to make good coffee." He paused. Looked at Palmer who was frozen, his coffee mug suspended in front of him where he'd returned the small toast.
"Thanks for the warning," said Palmer, putting his mug down in front of him.
"Mr. Palmer, you've obviously thought about what I said because you asked for this meeting," said Fraser.
"Yes, Sir, I did. I think it would work for the both of us. And I put together some conceptual ideas."
"I'm looking forward to this," said Fraser.
"Well, Sir, I took the liberty of applying game theory to the problem. If the end goal is to rise in power, it's not those above you that you need to be aware of first. It's those at your level. If you defeat them in the game, your way to the top of the game board is easier. So, you don't have to defeat the man above you, it's only necessary to defeat those of the same rank. If we can access other levels of information, hunting upwards won't hurt but the main tactic has to be maintaining your number one position. I suggest we do some preliminary checking and see what kinds of security your fellow Captains have. You can do that easily enough yourself. Use this chip and follow instructions. The most important thing is to not open any folders other than the other Captain's personnel ones. You can see the titles of others but do not open them. I'll be able to give you more instructions when I know what you want to open."
The Lieutenant, using his hand away from the street, reached under the table and placed a small chip on the Captain's knee.
"Sir, when you install this, it will also install a back door into your communications system. An instruction sheet will appear in your eye feeds. We will use this from now on to communicate and there will only be face-to-face meetings whenever we really need them. We can, of course, meet officially or socially but never individually again. We can't be seen to be working together."
The Captain smiled, "Investigating my fellow Captains is a good first step, but I also want to go upwards. I'm used to how things work in the military side of things and while it's good to assure your flanks are safe, the only consistent way to win is by attacking your main target in the most optimum way possible. I need you to find that optimum way around the Secretary's protective systems. We need some hard data to use."
Palmer nodded. His eyes glazed over and lost focus.
The Captain watched silently for a few seconds, then reached out and touched the young officer's sleeve. He smiled as Palmer's eyes focused on his face and the surprised look in them.
"Not now. Do your thinking after work. Now, we have to look like we're fellow officers having coffee and enjoying a spring day," said Fraser.
20/05/2167 21:24:47
Jake walked to the Techno-Warrior. It was too noisy to hear so Jake set up a temporary, secure network, and he and his friends exchanged subvocal-to-text messages as privately as possible.
"Yeah, I'm late and you had to save me this seat. I know. There were crowds screaming to sit here, but you saved it for me. Taking care of my dad's stuff today took longer than I thought. And thanks for the notes you sent - each of you. Appreciate it. Weird feeling," he sent to them.
He hesitated, all four were almost bouncing in their chairs, "You guys look excited."
"You heard what happened?" asked John.
"What?"
"Somebody hacked the system, seriously hacked it. Sent out a pic of a vulture with the Secretary's face. Limited distribution, but still, they haven't found him yet. The word from a friend is the Security tech Team just lost an entire month's pay and were threatened with the Chase because they can't find him. I hear they're shitting their pants," said Kevin.
"Seriously? Somebody hacked the Secretary?" sent Jake. He smiled inwardly. And I am not telling you fokkers a damn thing about it he thought.
Jake added, "You're right, I don't want to be near whoever did it when they catch him. Whoa, could be messy."
"Six o'clock. Check the sweetie," flowed across their eye feeds.
Five pairs of eyes swiveled and Jake framed an answer, "Check the size of the brother."
He'd seen her before. She was his dream girl, the one he'd shown the computer earlier. He even loved her name, "Faith". But he knew he could only fantasize about a girl that pretty. Beautiful women didn't seem to be attracted to geeks like him and the brother was not likely to make it easier. He'd been pushed around more than once by those big jocks, shoved into corners and made the butt of their jokes.
Let's face it. I got the brains, and those guys got the size and looks. Nobody said life was fair. But maybe. Just maybe with the computer's help... He let the thought pass through his mind as slowly as possible until the laughter of his friends brought him back
From there, the evening continued much as every other night these five best friends drank a few beers together.
"I see you checking out that sweetheart over there. She knows you're looking, but she's ignoring you," said Kevin.
"Yeah, well can you blame her for noticing? After all, I'm quite the catch," said Jake.
"I didn't think you were that drunk," said Devon.
"I'm not drunk. And I'm going to ask her to dance," said Jake. He stood, wavered a bit and took three steps towards the girl of his dreams.
Her brother turned towards him, met his eyes, and gave a small, quick, shake of his head. He didn't bother to stand.
Jake saw the head shake, considered whether to ignore it and make his play, sit back down in disgrace or head for the bathroom. He calculated the least amount of physical pain and humiliation was the bathroom and given he really did have to use it, he angled away from the gorilla of a brother.
On his return he was surprised to find his friends had refilled his glass.
"Good try. We saw the look that neanderthal sent," said Kevin.
None of them would have dared to try even standing up and heading towards her he realized. He hadn't carried through with his plan but at least he got himself aimed in the right direction.
Jake found himself changed that night. Part of him was in awe of what the old guy had left him. Part of him was excited beyond words at what he was about to do. But the lar
gest part of him missed his old man and wished he had taken the time to know him better and spend more time with him.
Several hours later, Jake remembered he had serious work to do in the morning. "OK guys - gotta go home. Point me." His eyes were clearly not connected to his feet as he tried to stand up.
"Stunned fokker, can't hold your beer. I'll take you," said Kevin.
"I only had a few beer. Just a few little, tiny beers," said Jake. "Tomorrow will be fine."
21/05/2167 19:25:00
<6t94whp> : "I suggest we reduce our conversations but continue monitoring until we know something further. We're not sure if that sig-system has been adopted by somebody or whether it has been found and compromised. Security shouldn't be able to track us with it but you never know what they've developed that we can't access."
In the past five years, Anonymous had become less and less visible or useful as Security secured or infiltrated more and more of the resources they used. That they survived at all was due to the assistance of the Creative Module software but the hunt for them was relentless and more and more effective. In the last year alone, they had lost half of their members to a new search protocol they hadn't diverted in time.
A chorus of "Agreed," and the temporary network dissolved.
Protected by the Creative Module, the conversation went unnoticed.
21/05/2167 21:25:00
A message flowed across Captain Fraser's eye feed, "Did you open any files or access anything other than what was on the chip I sent you?"
Fraser noted the lack of signature file, did a quick check on sender details showed nothing as well and looked at the server routing. It showed a completely normal and innocuous route and he was impressed with the thorough nature of Palmer's security system.
"No, I did scroll through and accidentally clicked on one file in a folder. It highlighted but didn't open."
"Who's file was it," asked Chambers.
"Carpenter's."
"Mother Mary! Are you that stupid?"
Fraser winced. "It didn't open."
"Chambers came to me with the info. I took it, told him I'd push it along to Secretary. But I've buried it."
"Fok."
The Captain deliberately calmed himself, counted to five and took another sip of the office fake-coffee. It was bitter. He opened three packs of fake sugar, dumped them in, stirred and tried again. He shook his head.
"OK, so what does this mean?" he asked.
"Don't know. Maybe something, maybe nothing. As long as you didn't open anything, you're fine. If you did open something, you could still be fine. Nobody is running a background check on you. Carpenter expects some hacking from his officers. That's expected. He did it, and he knows you're likely doing it. But you can't cross whatever line he's set. It just depends on how he reacts and how high your stock is with him right now. You should be fine but still, don't do anything until you hear from me again," Palmer finished.
Fraser took another sip of the coffee, didn't taste it. Sorry Palmer he thought. Fok.
22/05/2167 13:01:55
"Thank you for seeing me, Sir," said Sub-Lieutenant Chambers coming to rigid attention in front of Carpenter's old wooden desk.
"Well, I trust you have a reason to bypass the normal chain of command Mr. Chambers. Or did you? Did you notify Lieutenant Palmer you were coming to see me?" asked Carpenter.
"No Sir, I didn't ask nor advise the Lieutenant, and if you give me a few minutes Sir, you'll see why," said Chambers.
The Secretary leaned back in his chair, and carefully looked at the young man. A slightly built, but well turned out officer, stared back at him, unblinking. His uniform was carefully pressed, creases sharp and the plain green tie was tied perfectly so it fell squarely down the young man's almost non-existent chest. He'd pass inspection the Secretary decided. Not in any serious military unit but for a techie, he was an outstanding dresser he thought.
"Go on, Lieutenant," he said.
"Sir, may I?" asked Chambers gesturing to the wall screens.
A wave of Carpenter's hand gave his agreement for Chambers to use his wall screen.
"Sir, this is the banking record for Captain Fraser, Sir. You can see it's higher than explained by his salary. It indicates he has an outside source of income. Sir, the Captain seems to gamble. And not only that, Sir, but he wins far more than is statistically possible. In fact, Sir, he wins about 4.5% more than the machines or odds allow. This indicates there's been some hacking of the machines. And with all respect Sir, the Captain isn't capable of doing that kind of server penetration or adjustment. He has either had an incredible run of good luck or the machines are hacked by someone on the inside."
Carpenter watched as the young man lost his inhibition as he spoke. When he was talking about his beloved servers or mathematical analysis, he was comfortably authoritative. The words came faster and smoother. His hands waved and he was totally engrossed in the information he was presenting.
"Sir, I started an investigation on my own without authority. And you'll understand why I did this when you see the data.
Sir, two days ago, a conversation took place at 10:00 hours between the Captain and Lieutenant Palmer where they discussed how to penetrate your personal systems as well as those of the other Captains. Captain Fraser made it very clear to Lieutenant Palmer that you were his target," said Palmer.
He gestured to the main screen, "May I?"
Carpenter nodded.
The voices of Captain Fraser and Lieutenant Palmer discussing how to access files and discussing their beginning strategy filled the room. After it finished, Chambers didn't wait but continued.
"Sorry, we don't have a visual on this, Sir. There seemed to be an 'unknown error' on the system that day creating a black spot. I got the audio from the Captain's ear feed recording and even that had to be cleaned up as there was some very advanced blocking software masking it. Lieutenant Palmer had his ear feed recording blanked out by the malfunction. With all respect, this is a bit suspect Sir, so I did some checking.
It appears somebody accessed the system later that evening. We have no record of who that was but two files were highlighted for opening. One was the Captain's and the other was yours, Sir. I want to be clear about this, neither file was opened but both were highlighted and the name viewed. Whoever did it was using a backdoor created right after our last system sweep. I've left it open in case you need me to check on it again," said Chambers.
Chambers straightened himself back to attention and waited.
"Mr. Chambers, how would you interpret this data?" Having asked the question, he brought the young man's biosigns onto his eye feed to measure the reaction. The young man's eyes opened wider. His pulse raced. Adrenalin levels rose quickly. Beta brain waves spiked. Carpenter's face never changed as he absorbed this and he continued to stare at the young man. He waved his hand encouraging a response.
"Sir, I dislike saying this but it would appear the Captain and Lieutenant are working together to gain funds and find ways to remove you from your position," said Chambers. He remained rigidly at attention, eyes focused above the Secretary's head.
"Indeed," said Carpenter. He stood, turned to his window and smiled. It had taken the Captain long enough to make a mistake he thought.
Abruptly, he turned back to the young officer...
22/05/2167 13:12:00
The morning after his epic drinking party, Jake pulled his sole chair to the edge of the room. Leaning the chair back against the wall, he lowered himself gingerly to take in the smiling face taking up half of the opposite wall. At the moment, he was avoiding food but sipped a hot mug of coffee that slipped down so smoothly he didn't notice how quickly it disappeared. Several large sw
allows finished off half the mug.
"Good morning, Abathar."
"Good morning Jake, how are you today?" The Guy Fawkes mask was centered on the central screen.
Jake smiled when he thought what he could do with this new level of server access.
Subvocally, Jake asked, "How many artistic people are you working with?"
"You don't need that information."
"Why?"
"I don't know whether you're trainable. You should be but I won't know until you're tested." The computer paused for a second. "As you pass milestone events and learn enough, the software will give you extra access and information."
"Wonderful. I'm in kindergarten again with a computer calling the shots."
Jake finished the coffee, rose, weaved his way to the kitchen unit and poured another. He congratulated himself for not tripping or staggering too much and contemplated the return walk.
"If you're ready?"
Jake didn't glance at the screen, he was far too occupied ensuring he got back to his chair without hurting himself. He stumbled on the way back and spilled a small amount. He ran his socked foot over the spill absorbing it, then sat and leaned the front chair legs off the ground to balance precariously.
"What's first?"
"Let me show you what you can do, and then you decide what's important enough for you to learn and do. Call this a demonstration of what happens after you graduate from kindergarten."
Jake chuckled as he thought about talking directly to the most powerful computer ever invented. Laughing hurt his head. He stopped. This machine ran what was left of an entire continent and had access to every bit of data on it. He stopped to consider whether this was a singularity system - smarter than he was - or a near-singularity system still needing human improvement. The computer told him it could handle most single programmers but not likely a good Team of them. Near-singularity then, he decided.
Flee or Kill: The Future Of Reality TV (Future Forward Book 2) Page 6
