404: A John Decker Thriller

by J. G. Sandom

  “Like Oedipus stabbing his father.”

  “More like murdering God,” she replied. “And we’ve always been concerned about big government. The military. NSA. Skynet in Terminator. The Matrix. In the end, it was just some guy with a Net business that started this thing. Private enterprise. Like Riptide.” She shook her head.

  “Zimmerman developed these personality profiles for two reasons,” she added. “I found out when we were poking around in his house. One, he wanted to build a better ad delivery system, something that would target and personalize ads based on his understanding of each individual, their likes and dislikes, derived from all of his sites. That’s what he was doing for Riptide, building models of people, virtual communities, sim cities, some filled with mock terrorists, a world that they could test their data mining software against to predict who would commit the next terrorist act.

  “And two, he was creating a site called MyCyberAfterlife. A kind of digital heaven where, for a fee, he would put your cyber-doppelgänger when you died so that you could pass on with the comforting knowledge that your other self was taken care of—forever. That you would, in a sense, live forever.”

  “But how is that even possible?” Decker said. “They’re just machines.”

  “What makes us human?” she asked him. “According to the Turing test, if you blindfold yourself and talk via a keyboard to someone and can’t tell if it’s a real person or a machine, the machine is human. There is no distinction. I don’t know how it happened. Folks like Doug Hofstadter suggest that software featuring something called strange loops approximates consciousness. I know Zimmerman was using things like cross-modal Gabor wavelet transforms to—”

  “Cross-modal what?” Decker was lost.

  Lulu sighed. “Remember those kids at the media lab, the ones talking about drones driven by pheromones?”

  “What about them?”

  “Smell is a really weird sense. According to computational neuroscientist Jim Bauer, in order to easily identify smells, the human brain has evolved a very specific neural circuitry which, he believes, formed the original basis of our cerebral cortex, the part of the human brain that plays a key role in memory, thought, language, even consciousness. That which makes us human, in other words.

  “While the cortex features specialized areas for particular sensory systems, such as sight, there are also overlapping regions. They’re called cross-modal areas. When Zimmerman was commissioned to build personality profiles to inhabit his virtual world, he used a kind of programming that leverages a cross-modal approach. And while the entities he created were limited—at least at first, built from only a few hundred thousand data points—the robust nature of the approach enabled them to become more creative, more expressive, more...human, over time.

  “Pull up a photo of Zimmerman,” Decker said.

  “If there is one,” said Lulu. “Remember, he didn’t like to be photographed.” Seconds later, she discovered a picture through Google Images. It was an old Harvard University snapshot of Zimmerman wearing tennis whites and holding a racket.

  Decker gasped. The blond, handsome man in the photo was the same man he had seen in MIT’s Education Arcade. And standing beside him, also in whites, was Rory Woodcock of Allied Data Systems. “That’s him,” Decker said. “That’s the man who was chasing me in Mr. X’s VR world. Matthew Zimmerman?”

  “HAL2,” Lulu said. “That’s what Zimmerman called him. His cyber-doppelgänger. Like HAL, the robot in 2001. All of these mysterious accidents lately—airplane and market crashes, power surges, railroad crossing gates opening out of time—I think they’ve been attempts by HAL2 to probe IP systems. That’s why he’s been hacking defense contractors. Penetration tests, John. And Riptide’s the collection point making it possible. Zimmerman must have left a backdoor in his code.”

  “Tests for what?” Decker asked.

  “For something bigger to come. That’s why, when you stumbled upon those Trojans at Westlake, HAL2 got Ali Hammel to distract you by bombing your house. He knows you.” Lulu paused. “Perhaps, better than you know yourself. The Jihadists were a personalized smokescreen.”

  Decker laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Eight years ago, I spent some time as El Aqrab’s prisoner. Maybe you’ll think that I’m paranoid but—for a while, anyway—I thought I might be the mole at the NCTC. You know...unwittingly. Like The Manchurian Candidate. Brainwashed somehow. A sleeper.”

  “HAL2 seems to be really threatened by you. Personally, I mean...if you can use such a term about a cyber-creation. He went to a lot of trouble to develop those smokescreens and to set you up. I wonder why. What makes you so special? You’re just one of many analysts at the NCTC. More famous, perhaps, because of the El Aqrab incident. But still...”

  “I don’t feel very special. I’m sure it’s just because I happened to be the guy who discovered what he was doing at Westlake.”

  “Maybe.”

  Decker stood up. He walked to the window and looked down at the Common below. A small crowd of children was playing tag, running in and out of the bushes. A woman was walking her dog.

  “Data, bits and bytes,” Decker said without turning. “They used to be my friends. The input I used to determine if a suspect was dangerous, a terrorist or spy.” He turned back to face Lulu. “Now data about me is being used to locate me, to hunt us both down.” He shook his head. “Who’s calling us, then? Who’s our mysterious Mr. X?”

  “I don’t know,” Lulu said. “Before, I thought it was Rutger Braun. Now...I don’t know.” She got up and walked over to Decker. “Perhaps, unlike you, Mr. X wasn’t just visiting The Education Arcade. Perhaps he belongs in that virtual world, like the rest of those people you met there. Someone who died in one of HAL2’s accidents and was recently added, like Mary-Lou Fleming. Or someone programmed into the system from the very beginning, a Riptide original.”

  “And he’s been calling us using some wireless network from cyberspace?”

  “I don’t know. But I do know this.” She reached out and put her hand on his cheek. “We can’t stay here any longer. I’ve tried to cover my tracks but it won’t take very long for HAL2 to discover my snooping. He’ll hunt us down to this terminal.”

  “What are we going to do? Where are we going to go? Where can we go?”

  “You’ve been in law enforcement your whole life,” Lulu said. “Even your Dad was a cop. Not me. I’m usually the one being chased by the cops. I may do some freelance work for the Fort once in a while, as long as it doesn’t violate my conscience, but I grew up outside of the system. Outside the law. While my Dad was busy calculating odds for Chinatown bookies, at thirteen I was fixing stolen PCs, hacking game cheats, re-wiring security systems, cracking code. We can’t do this alone, John. We need help. And since we’re meant to be armed and dangerous, what the fuck? Might as well be.”

  CHAPTER 49

  Saturday, December 14

  It was a surprisingly warm day considering it was less than two weeks before Christmas. Decker stood at the top of the steps of the Four Season’s Hotel, closed his eyes, tipped his head back and reveled in the heat of the sun on his cheeks.

  “Taxi?”

  When he finally opened his eyes again, dark clouds had already rolled in, obscuring the sun. Decker nodded at the young man at the kiosk and pulled out what remained of his billfold. Moments later, he and Lulu scurried into a cab.

  “Essex and Oxford,” said Lulu.

  They headed down Boylston. Neither of them spoke for several minutes. They were both locked in their own thoughts as they stared out the windows—at the holiday shoppers, the college kids, tourists, the bundled-up businessmen in dark coats and dark scarves. The storefronts were decked out for Christmas, dipped in holiday lights, bright balls and tinsel.

  Eventually, Boylston turned into Essex. After a few more blocks, the cab finally pulled over. Decker paid the driver while Lulu held the door open for him.

  “Th
ere’s a pretty good dim sum joint over there,” Lulu said, as he stepped from the cab. “Chau Chow City. You like chicken feet? When this is all over, we should go out for dinner. Or, if you’d like, I can make you some of my world-famous roast pork with red peppers and noodles. It’s got garlic and scallions and ginger. Delicious. My grandmother taught me the recipe.”

  “Where the hell is this place?” Decker said, staring about. He had already spotted two watchers: one minding the street; the other minding the watcher. The neighborhood was clearly under surveillance. But these kids weren’t cops. They were barely in their twenties, with crew cuts or long spiky hair, metal studs, puffy ski jackets and livid tattoos.

  The first year out of the Academy, Decker had spent some time infiltrating the gambling and drug trade run by organized crime in Chicago. Much of it was managed by one gang or another, syndicate surrogates, and he’d been obliged to interpret the tattoos on the skin of many a gang member. They used them to transmit messages: I killed this guy; I’m connected to this; I’m dangerous. Human calligraphy.

  They were obviously gang-bangers, these watchers. Which meant that he and Lulu were near something worth minding.

  Lulu headed down Oxford, toward Beach. It was a cavernous street, narrow and dark, like a canyon. Decker kept his eyes peeled on the windows above them. Again, he could have sworn he saw people staring out at the street, simply watching. A boy. An old woman petting a calico cat. Another tatted-up teenager.

  They had almost made it to the open parking lot on the left when Lulu ducked without warning into an entrance. She knocked on a door and waved half-heartedly at a camera jutting down from the ceiling. There was a buzzing sound and Lulu opened the door.

  The hallway was empty. It led to a stairwell.

  They climbed two stories before Lulu stopped and knocked on a door leading to the second-floor landing. It opened an inch and Decker could see someone peeking out from within. A second later, the door opened to reveal a huge Asian man, the size and shape of a Sumo wrestler. He looked down at Lulu and said something low in Chinese. Decker couldn’t quite make out the words.

  Lulu turned toward Decker. “He’s with me,” she said in Mandarin, with a hint of disgust in her voice. It was as if she were confessing that she’d stepped on something unpleasant and it was now stuck to the sole of her shoe.

  The Sumo wrestler looked him up and down. He had a large red scar above his left eye, Decker noticed. He tried not to stare at it, which, of course, made it even more awkward.

  Finally, with a kind of grunt, the guard let them in. But, as soon as Decker had stepped through the doorway, the guard clamped a ham-hock of a hand on his shoulder, held him fast and swiveled him round.

  “Needs to search us,” said Lulu.

  The guard began patting them down. Once he was satisfied, he motioned them forward again.

  The door at the end of the corridor opened up onto what appeared to be a residential hallway featuring one gray apartment door after another. They made their way to the end of the corridor where another guard searched them again. Then to another stairwell, up two more flights, until they finally arrived at their destination.

  The door at the head of the stairs was guarded by a teenager with an Uzi submachine gun slung over one shoulder. The tattoo of a dragon covered his face. Red and black. Its serpentine head was etched on one of his eyelids. Decker could see it clearly each time the boy blinked. The dragon’s body curled down and around both his nose and his lips, only to circle back at the end so that the very tip of its tail vanished in the teenager’s mouth. Again, Lulu said something in Mandarin that Decker couldn’t quite understand.

  The boy laughed and, for a moment, Decker could see that his tongue had been tattooed as well. The tail of the dragon concluded deep in his mouth, like a fish hook. He opened the door.

  A loft...undecorated...with a poured concrete floor and plain walls painted off-white. One whole side of the loft looked out onto Essex Street but the canyon-like nature of the block afforded no sunlight. The windows might as well have been boarded up for some forthcoming typhoon. The only light in the loft emanated from a series of crackling fluorescents overhead.

  A small group of men was gathered at the far end of the loft. There were five of them. Another pair sat at a table nearby. They seemed to be poring over some papers.

  A boy with another Uzi, jet-black crew cut and a black hollow ear stud—at least an inch wide—appeared at their side. He patted them down one more time before ushering them forward.

  One of the men at the table looked up. “Xin Liu,” he said. He was clearly not happy to see her.

  “Chen Yuan,” she replied.

  When they were halfway across the loft, Lulu tagged Decker’s sleeve. “You hold the tail. I’ll fuck this cat,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “Wait here,” she hissed, moving off.

  Decker held back. He watched with trepidation as Lulu crossed the open space to the table. He felt helpless.

  Decker noted the five young gang-bangers at the head of the loft, gauging each for his unique threat level by the cut of his build, muscle tone, mass and the tilt of his posture.

  He took in the guard by the door, the boy with the Uzi.

  He noticed a fire escape outside one of the windows, the fact that seven of the fluorescent light bulbs were burned out, the irrefutable knowledge that only one of the men at the far end of the room was a notable threat.

  The man at the table, the one whom Lulu had addressed as Chen Yuan.

  He wasn’t a particularly big man. Indeed, he seemed somewhat smaller and slighter than most of the gang members present. And older too, by several years—being in his late twenties, early thirties. His shaved head was scarred in innumerable places, and he had the tattoo of a spider running from the base of his chin down his neck and his chest. His face was unmarked. A large diamond stud gleamed in one earlobe. He smiled again as Lulu approached and Decker noticed his front teeth were covered in gold.

  He was not very big but he was the only one in the room who seemed to be completely unconcerned about his mortality. And, worse, his nonchalance was mixed with a numbing contempt for the living. Killing me would be like crushing a bug, Decker thought. Like a mosquito too loud in the ear.

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve showing your face around here, Xin Liu,” Yuan said in Mandarin. He was wearing a black T-shirt with thin shoulder straps that failed to cover the imbroglio of tattoos peacocking his chest: hand guns and flowers; dragons and tigers; theatre masks and Mandarin glyphs. “You think you can come back here whenever you feel like it?”

  “Need a strap, yo,” she said, looking out of the windows. “Where else am I goin’?” It had started to snow. Huge flakes whistled by on the opposite side of the glass. Dancing, whirling, they fell out of sight, down, down, down to the street. “Nine millimeter Beretta. Forty-four Magnum. Glock 20, too, if you have one. I got paper.”

  Yuan leaned forward. He perched his chin on his wrists, examining her. “Going hunting?”

  “Don’t worry. No one you know,” Lulu said, focusing back on his face. She took a step forward.

  One of the five men beside him slipped a hand in his jacket.

  Yuan extended his wrist as though in a benediction. He smiled like a shark, his eyes crinkled shut, epicanthic, as if covered by membranes.

  Decker found himself taking another step forward.

  “Where you goin’?” said the boy by the door. He lifted the tip of his gun.

  Decker took a step back.

  “Why’d you bring this Gwai Lo around here anyway?” Yuan said, pointing at Decker.

  “Just carrying my cash, Chen. Like a caddie.”

  Yuan laughed, a bright flash of Hyperion gold. He waved a hand and one of the five gang-bangers beside him dashed off to some cases at the rear of the loft. Moments later, he returned carrying firearms.

  Lulu moved forward to inspect them. As she did so, both Yuan and the man next to him tensed
up for a moment, shifting further back from the table. They clearly had a healthy respect for Lulu’s Kung Fu. Perhaps they’d been victims of it at some point in the past.

  That’s when Decker got nervous. Once again, he took a step forward. But, this time, toward the windows.

  “I’m sorry,” said Yuan as Lulu picked up the Glock.

  When she heard this, she froze. Then, slowly, she turned and aimed the gun at Yuan’s face. “Sorry?”

  Decker scanned the room. All eight of the men in the room were armed. And they were all aiming their weapons at Lulu.

  She lowered her weapon, shook her head. “You were always a good businessman. Why, Chen?”

  “Don’t take it personally. I always liked you,” he answered. “But my Uncle, Wen Chu.” Yuan shrugged. “INS issues. They cut me a deal.”

  The door to the stairwell swung open and four men burst in. They wore dark blue windbreakers with the letters FBI in bright yellow stenciled on the front and the rear. Lulu put the Glock back on the table and made her way over to Decker. The first two FBI agents approached them, hand-cuffs in the air.

  “John Decker. You are under arrest,” one of them said. “Please turn around.”

  “Xin Liu—” started the other.

  “Go fuck yourself,” Lulu said.

  “” Decker added, and as everyone gawked at the flawless cut of his accent, he struck.

  His right leg swept out in a roundhouse, catching the FBI agent with the hand-cuffs right in the knee. There was a loud crack and the agent went down, screaming.

  Meanwhile, Lulu issued a snap kick to the groin of the other FBI agent. He grabbed his private parts and she kicked him again, right under the chin. The agent flipped backwards. But, before he had even hit the floor, she was running on top of his chest and his face, flinging herself into the air, then straightening, her leg stiff and her foot catching the boy with the Uzi square in the throat. There was a sickening pop and he flopped to the floor. Lulu picked up the Uzi, turned and faced the men at the rear of the loft.