Conscious

by Vic Grout

  “Of course!” Aisha smiled. She was unsure whether he really meant it or was trying to rebuild bridges that were still intact, but she appreciated it. As it happened, Andy was serious and spent much of his later journey home planning an initial draft in his head.

  As they neared the crossing to take them over to the entrance to the tube, the pedestrian light conveniently turned green and they stepped directly into the road, unaware that, in fact, the traffic lights pointing in both directions up and down the street had remained unchanged. A taxi screeched to a halt, horn pumping loudly and the driver shouting crude Highway Code advice from his open window. They flinched like sprinters in starting blocks and ran to the other side, coming to an abrupt, breathless halt once safe on the pavement.

  “Is it just me,” asked Andy, “or are those kinds of thing happening more and more these days?”

  “No, not just you,” agreed Aisha. “I’ve noticed it too.”

  *

  Bob’s journey home was uneventful, but productive. Once on his train, he viewed and deleted most of the evening’s messages on his smart-watch. There was just one that would need attention when he got home. More precisely, it would need a discussion with his wife, which he was not entirely looking forward to. After that, he scanned for news. There were some odd stories about various technology failures around the country: it mostly looked like pranks of some sort. Other than that, the ongoing debate was the rising unemployment rates caused by machine automation: yet more factories in India and China had laid off many tens of thousands of people in favour of robots, causing extensive public unrest. A new, even more virulent and life-threatening, variant of the MRSA bacterium was appearing in hospitals around the world and people were being warned to take extra care. Another terrorist attack had taken place in Rome. Climate-change concerns were still growing with long-term predictions becoming graver.

  Jill opened the door as he arrived. She had been tracking his progress for the past hour. It was almost exactly midnight.

  “How was it?” she enquired.

  He considered briefly. “It was nice,” he said. “I’m not really sure we’re likely to get much actual work done between us but it was great to see everyone together again. We said we’d try again after Christmas so we’ll see. Anyway, I need to talk to you about something.”

  Jill knew exactly what that meant from long experience. “As long as you’re home for Christmas, I’ll live with it!” she grunted.

  “I’ve just had a message from a guy in Zaragoza,” he explained, apologetically. I’ve been working on dates on the way home. I was hoping I could fit it in between Madrid and Cork; that would have been the obvious way to do it, but the flights won’t work out for me and Hattie. I’ll have to spend a day or two there at the end instead. I’ll still be home by the twenty-third.”

  “It’s OK,” she smiled. “We’ll understand. Anyway, you’ll have plenty of time to get some nice Christmas presents!”

  He was not entirely sure she really did understand and the beer was giving him a sense of mild paranoia. “The thing is, I do need to be taking these contracts now,” he said. “I can’t guarantee I’m going to be getting them much longer. There’s going to come a time when other people will be doing what I’m doing and I won’t be in such demand. Then there’ll be competition all over the place and I’ll get undercut – certainly outside the UK. It probably won’t be worth doing these trips soon. I’m just making the most of it.”

  “I said it’s OK!” she insisted, a firmer edge to her voice. “Now, get yourself off to bed, you old sot. Chris and Heather and Ben are going to be here for breakfast tomorrow.” Her severe tone was betrayed by her smile.

  Chapter 4: Weird Stuff

  Bob was usually an early riser – a family trait, it seemed – and, even with no alarm set for the weekend and a mild hangover, he was downstairs by 7am, not much later than usual. Even so, the rest of the family was already busy feeding themselves and each other in the kitchen-diner. It felt colder that it normally did – there must be a window open, he thought absentmindedly. His grandson, Ben, was strapped into his high-chair, looking out over the back garden and Jill, his son Christopher and daughter-in-law Heather were fussing over him and generally getting in each other’s way. Ben, for his part, was altogether more interested in the two dogs playing under the garden spotlights than any amount or variety of food his parents and grandmother could attempt to cajole him with. A broken conversation was taking place about something Bob could not determine. He caught words such as ‘strange’ and ‘no-one seems to know’ once or twice but, before he could get any focus, he drew attention away by entering himself.

  “Hi Grandad,” Heather and Chris chirped in unison. Ben glanced at him briefly but the accompanying gurgle could have been intended for anyone, or anything.

  “Hi guys,” beamed Bob.

  Saturday breakfast, with or without, company was never a grand affair. People grabbed cereal from cupboards; milk and juice from the fridge, and made toast or fried the odd egg or rasher of bacon in a communal pan as and when suited them. The five of them were only eventually seated all together at the table when most had finished eating. A glass jug of coffee was the centrepiece. Ben’s chair had been turned round to face inwards at a particularly inconvenient time for him. It was beginning to brighten outside, bringing into view a world infinitely more interesting than the interior had to offer. He exercised himself by straining to peer over alternate shoulders to recapture sight of the glory that had been stolen from him. Bob felt very content with all this. He knew they were lucky that Chris and Heather lived reasonably close so that family get-togethers such as this happened frequently. He thought of the other members of The Desk; not everyone was so fortunate. His mind wandered back.

  He and Jill had met while he was finishing at university. They were both too young back then (he thought now) but they had ‘got away with it’. They were already engaged when Jill found she was pregnant with Christopher so that rather set things in concrete. As he had to admit, it was not the best recipe for a lasting relationship but sometimes these things were just meant to be. After Chris was born, there never seemed to be the right time for a second child so there never was. No-one really regretted that. Eighteen years later, Chris had outdone his parents by marrying even younger and here they all were.

  “Mum says you’re still in big demand, Dad?” said Chris, through the steam of the coffee cup he had just taken from his lips. (Yes, why was it so cold today?) “Off again, I hear?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” admitted Bob, probably trying to look a little more downcast than he absolutely needed to. “Off on Tuesday. Paris, Darmstadt, Luxembourg, Madrid, Cork and Zaragoza. Not exactly an optimal route but the way it’s worked out unfortunately.”

  “Don’t be daft,” snorted Jill. “You’ll have a whale of a time. Fancy hotels and being taken out to dinner everywhere as usual!” Bob made no attempt to answer this time, merely allowing himself a theatrically reluctant smile of acknowledgement.

  “So is it more of the same, Grandad? More misbehaving computers?” suggested Heather, whilst trying to coax Ben into eating the last piece of toast. She always spoke as if through Ben. Both she and Chris were newly qualified teachers; bright, able and enthusiastic but hardly au fait with the subtleties of network analysis.

  “Indeed,” agreed Bob. “Those naughty computers – well networks!”

  “So what’s it this time, Dad,” asked Chris. “Anything challenging? Anything up to a man of your calibre?” The sarcasm was entirely good-humoured. He admired the work his Dad got involved with, albeit without understanding too much of it.

  “Well, it’s always hard to tell before you turn up somewhere,” said Bob, as much in self-reflection as in direct response. “There’s a couple I can make a fair guess at before I go but, usually, it’s a question of dealing with whatever they throw at you when you get there. The Darmstadt one doesn’t seem to make any sense at all from this side of the water bu
t it’ll probably be simple enough when Hattie and I get to look at it. Anyway, at least I know what type of work it’ll be in the companies. I’ve absolutely no idea what The Commission want me for!”

  “Commission?” Heather enquired. Everyone knew what, or who, Hattie was!

  “The European Commission,” Bob explained. “Basically the guys in charge of the European Union, the EU. Most of my contact with them recently has been through their research funding. I’ve worked on a couple of Framework 6 and Framework 7 projects in the past. The current round is called Horizon 2020 and I’ve already done some work for them as an expert reviewer for the early proposals and now they’ve asked me to do some more. Obviously, the UK vote to leave made no real difference to me in the long run but it’s really hurt people in the universities like Jenny Smith. She and I were thinking about putting a proposal together with some other European partners for a few million Euros – but I won’t be able to do both because there’ll be a conflict of interests. Getting funding isn’t easy but it’s big if you do. Most of the time the EC works out of the Berlaymont in Brussels but they’re spread around in bits all over Europe. Luxembourg’s not unheard of.”

  “So this is about a project?” suggested Chris.

  “No, it can’t be,” said Bob. “There’s nothing currently in the pipeline.” He paused for a moment of reflection. True enough, he had been included in proposals in the past without much prior knowledge but, even if that had happened with H2020, no-one would ever call him in just to talk about that. “No, I think they want to talk to me about something specific. It’s either going to be a technical issue or I’ve done something wrong,” he joked. “I’m hoping it’s the first one!”

  “It’s not going to be to do with this Weird Stuff, is it?” suggested Jill as she picked up Ben’s rejected toast from the floor and threw it to one of the dogs.

  Judging by their smiles, everyone seemed to know what this meant except Bob so he looked suitably quizzical without difficulty. He guessed this was the basis of the conversation he had walked in on but that did not help. Jill continued.

  “You must have noticed over the last few days? Things just behaving oddly? Not working properly? Things going off at the wrong time, displays going funny, automatic systems doing their own thing; that sort of stuff. The newspapers are having great fun with it. There was a piece on Breakfast TV this morning. Apparently #weirdstuff is trending on Twitter.”

  Heather nodded in agreement. “A woman Mummy works with,” through Ben again, “has one of those automatic cat-flaps that only lets in the cat with the right chip. The night before last, it wouldn’t let the cat in. Then, in the middle of the night, it opened up and stayed open. Yesterday morning, she had a kitchen full of cats, who had eaten all the food she’d left out.”

  “Yes, and I’ve just remembered,” murmured Chris, “the man at the garage this morning said one of the fuel pumps was giving away diesel for free for twenty minutes until someone spotted the meter wasn’t running.”

  “Yes, that sort of thing,” agreed Jill. “Burglar alarms going off for no reason, for example. And old Mrs. Harris, down the road, had her telecare system automatically call the support team twice yesterday; she’s only just had it serviced and she was at home both times and the alarm didn’t go off in the house itself. Come to think of it, did you notice the heating wasn’t on this morning? That’s because the timer reset itself last night. That’s always been your trouble, Bob,” she laughed. “Your head’s so full of your technical nonsense, you can’t see what’s in plain sight; everyone else is talking about it!”

  Bob sat open-mouthed for a few moments. Conflicting thoughts fought for attention in his mind. It was going to be a close run thing as to which won the race to be articulated into words. Yes, of course, now that he was forced to think about it, obviously he had noticed a few rather odd things over the past few days; yes, probably more than normal; true, he was inclined to be rather absent-minded – noticing on the periphery but not taking things in. And there had been something in the news the previous night. But, on the other hand, this just had to be coincidence, surely? These things happened. No-one was suggesting a national phenomenon … were they?

  “Well, yes, I suppose I have … Yes, I definitely have,” he almost stuttered. “But things do break and play up from time to time, don’t they? Coincidences happen. This isn’t supposed to be part of a big pattern, is it? How could it be? All these devices do entirely different things; they work in completely different ways; they’re made all over the place by different manufacturers; they’re different technologies entirely; they’re on different systems, different networks; some are barely on networks at all; there’s no connection. How can there be any link in any of this nonsense?” He looked around, honestly expecting, for a moment, an instructive response. All he received were pulled faces and shrugged shoulders.

  “No-one really seems to know, Grandad,” said Heather, from which Bob was almost inclined to infer that no-one cared too much either.

  He politely resisted the urge to jump straight onto his tablet to investigate further but this Weird Stuff effectively dominated the conversation for the next three quarters of an hour. Apparently, there were anecdotes galore across the length and breadth of the country. There seemed to be very little doubt that, if these events had to be put down to a coincidence, it was a coincidence of truly massive proportions. Something had to be going on and he was itching to find out. Eventually, it was time for Heather and Chris to leave. They all finished their second round of coffee and said their fond goodbyes as Ben was being strapped into the car.

  “You’re going to be checking this out right away, aren’t you Dad?” smiled Chris as he climbed into the driver’s seat. It was not hard to see just how intrigued and confused his father was.

  “Got that right!” admitted Bob with a pained expression. “This has really got me thinking; but, but it just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Do you think the Government will be calling you in for advice?”

  Bob considered for a moment. “No, I doubt it,” he said. “Firstly, it just doesn’t seem like a networking problem. I’ve no idea what sort of problem it is but it doesn’t feel like a networking one – certainly not like anything I’ve come across before. Secondly, I’ve never really been very high in the UK Government’s picking list. I go down well in Europe and America but I’ve never seemed to be in much demand in Britain. They probably know how I vote!” he joked.

  *

  Sure enough, the crudest of web searches, as soon as Bob could lay hands on his tablet, revealed the growing extent of the story. Some of the pages were rather slow to download, which he put down to high levels of interest that morning overloading servers. However, it did not take long for the picture to emerge. Whatever the ‘weird stuff’ was, it could not be coincidence. Also, it was immediately apparent that this was not merely a British phenomenon. Stories were flowing in from around the world. Tweets on the #weirdstuff tag poured through in their thousands. Someone had produced an official name; the weird stuff was beginning to be known as Random Failure Syndrome, or RFS. Governments were being pressed for statements. Most seemed reluctant to oblige. No-one was claiming responsibility or even any level of understanding. However, vague suggestions – then actual claims – of cyber-terrorism were beginning to surface. Naturally, those organisations that might well have had any idea about what was going on – the US military were at the top of most people’s list – were remaining tight-lipped. Whether this was a sign of culpability or cluelessness was impossible to determine. Worldwide, a few fatalities – accidents supposedly attributed to RFS – were already being reported, although it was often hard to be sure what was (and was not) the cause. As he scanned the BBC website, a story broke about a passenger plane in difficulty – possibly missing – after ground contact had been lost early that morning.

  Tracing RFS back to its beginnings looked problematic and the attempts were in their early stages. However, there
was a general global impression that the first signs of odd activity – as in something that might reasonably be considered statistically significant – had appeared a week or so previously. Unsurprisingly, the first few days of this had caused merely localised amusement and annoyance in equal measure. It was only in the past forty-eight hours that reports had started to become connected. It was also difficult to tell for certain if the rate of RFS events was changing. Naturally, earlier problems had not been reported as accurately as later ones. However, even taking this into account, it could be that the problem was growing.

  Bob cupped his mouth and chin in his left hand as he flicked through screens with the right. This made no sense. What was happening? How could this RFS be occurring across the globe on such a range of completely unrelated devices? That single thought pounded in his mind. This makes no sense! There was no rational explanation he could muster that would come even close to dealing with it. But happening it clearly was.

  ‘Surely this has to be malicious?’ he eventually muttered to himself, then repeated it from time to time. Somehow, somewhere, somebody had to be responsible for this. Beyond that, he had very little idea. Was it malware? If so, was it hundreds of different types or some astonishing cross-platform variant? Even then, how could that work? Of course, it was an accepted fact in technological research that the military were always far in advance of everyone else and it was generally impossible to know what they were up to. Also, over the past few years, a number of radical groups, even nations, had also shown themselves to be extremely adept at exploiting both emerging technologies and weaknesses within them for their own ends. The terrorism/counter-terrorism battle had moved into cyberspace some time ago.

  But if these were attacks, the question of who might be behind them was of secondary interest to Bob. He was entirely absorbed by the how? The more he considered it, the more impossible it seemed. There was no similarity between the devices that were malfunctioning – other than the fact that they were malfunctioning and nowadays were all part of the global IoE. The more he threw a quarter of a century of networking experience at the question, the more impenetrable it looked.