The Darkfall Switch

by David Lindsley

  ‘He’s just darned ornery at times,’ her husband growled. ‘Teenager stuff, but at times we’ve just not known how to communicate with him. And now, after Worzniak’s visit, he’s just clammed up completely. We can’t get a thing out of him about what’s been going on.’

  ‘He closets himself in his bedroom for hours with his computer,’ Mrs Proctor said, ‘and we sometimes wonder if he gets any sleep. But we can’t persuade him to get more fresh air, to meet other young people.’

  Her husband said, ‘He’s got a circle of pals – well, acquaintances I’d call them, not friends – but they’re all loners like him.’

  His wife looked at Foster earnestly. Her eyes showed her strain and she seemed to be on the verge of tears. ‘Doctor Foster … Dan,’ she said ‘We’re hoping you can tell us what’s going on. Frankly we’re very worried. Luke’s not gotten into any trouble, has he?’

  Foster realized that it was up to him to present the facts now. ‘I’m afraid he’s done something very silly,’ he said, and immediately saw the signs of alarm grow in the Proctors’ faces. ‘I’m really sorry, but there’s no easy way of telling you this, and I’m not going to pull any punches, but I have to have to tell you that Luke’s managed to hack into a computer system in England. A very, very critical system.’

  ‘Oh God!’ the husband said. His words were barely audible. His wife stayed silent, but her face went ashen.

  ‘We’re sure he couldn’t have understood the implications of his actions,’ Foster said, ‘but the results were very serious indeed.’

  ‘Can you tell us how?’ Hilary Proctor asked quietly.

  ‘Yes, I can tell you, but I don’t want to alarm you too much.’

  ‘Never mind us,’ the woman asked, staring intently at Foster. ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘Well, through his actions he managed to shut down a British power station….’

  Cyrus Proctor’s jaw dropped. ‘Not the one a few months ago?’ Seeing Foster’s nod, he added, ‘Oh Christ! I read about it in the Wall Street Journal. It triggered off a blackout of the whole country, didn’t it?’

  ‘No. Not quite the whole country, but certainly a large part of it.’

  ‘Luke couldn’t….’ Hilary Proctor said very quietly, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘He wouldn’t…. How could he do that?’

  ‘I’m afraid he did do it,’ Foster said. ‘And that’s why I’m here. To find out how.’

  There was a long silence while the couple thought about the implications of what Foster had told them. Finally the husband spoke. ‘Are you working for a power company or something?’ he asked.

  ‘No. The British Government. They’ve launched an inquiry and roped me in as an adviser.’

  ‘I see,’ Proctor said. ‘But Luke … how much trouble’s he in?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, if he agrees to help us he’ll get off with just a rap across the knuckles,’ Foster explained, and immediately signs of relief appeared on their faces. The decision to let the boy off lightly was what Forsyth had negotiated with the Americans when they had eventually, and so very reluctantly, condescended to co-operate with the British. He said, ‘Nobody wants a big fuss about it, because….’

  His voice tailed off and Cyrus Proctor shot him a questioning look. ‘Because what?’

  Foster took a deep breath and explained. ‘It’s like this: apparently your son stumbled across a design flaw in the control system. And it’s one that’s still present in many similar systems, right round the world.’

  They looked aghast, and then the husband said, ‘So if the truth came out, somebody could copycat him?’

  ‘Exactly. Until the weakness is removed, power systems in several countries are very vulnerable.’

  ‘So – forgive me for asking – why have you made the trip all the way here from England? Couldn’t somebody here, in this country, have come here? Bawled Luke out? Scared him?’ He thought for a moment before adding, ‘Wasn’t that what Worzniak did?’

  ‘I don’t know what this man Worzniak did, or what he said,’ Foster responded. ‘But scaring Luke’s certainly not my aim.’

  It had been a bitter pill for him to swallow. When he’d found out what had triggered the Queensborough shutdown, every instinct had compelled him to find the boy, grab him by the throat, pin him to the wall and pummel him to the edge of his life, for what he had caused to happen to Fiona. But now he restrained himself and continued, as calmly as possible, ‘Yes, we want him to realize the enormity of what he did; we want him to be so appalled that he never tries it again.

  ‘But most of all we want to find out the details of what he did, so that we can prevent this happening again.’

  ‘Surely you know that already?’ Hilary Proctor asked.

  ‘Not quite all. We know a little, but there are some crucial gaps…. Let me explain.’

  He took a long sip of his malt, settled back in the armchair. ‘It’s like this: the control systems were all supplied by an American company, Powerplant Dynamics, based in Denver, Colorado. It’s a very well-designed computer-control system, and in many ways it’s like lots of similar ones. They’re all built for safety and reliability. It’s a complex system, but it’s still very user-friendly. But … well, it’s just possible that the designers went a step too far.’

  They both raised quizzical eyebrows at him.

  ‘You see, they included in its design a thing called “remote diagnostics”,’ Foster explained. ‘It allows engineers at the design headquarters to carry out checks on an operational system. It’s a bit like a doctor asking a patient to stick out his tongue and say “Aaah”, but from a long way away. They can run tests and see that everything’s working OK. In theory, they could even identify a fault before the people working at the plant knew there was anything wrong.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ Cyrus Proctor asked.

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. At least, in principle. In fact it’s a very good idea, and it’s not even the first time it’s been done. The problem is that in this instance it relies on a link into the system from an ordinary telephone line.’

  Understanding dawned in Proctor’s face. ‘And that’s the point where a hacker can get into the system.’

  ‘Exactly. But even then, there should have been no risk. Perhaps a hacker could get information on the operation of the system, but what use would that be to anybody other than to the designers?’

  Hilary Proctor was quick off the mark. ‘Competitors?’ she asked.

  Foster looked at her with new respect. She had spotted an important possibility. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘In theory, a competitor could get valuable information about the operation of the system. Information that could be exploited. However, the realities of the power market make it doubtful that such an ability could be of any real use, because the market’s too small and specialized. Nevertheless, the designers of the system were determined to take no risks at all, and so they built in a very sophisticated set of checks and safeguards.’

  ‘And still Luke got past them?’ the husband asked.

  From his tone, Foster wondered if the lad’s father might not be in awe, even slightly proud, of his son’s prowess. ‘Yes, he got past them,’ he replied. ‘We reckon we know how he made the initial penetration. There’s no such thing as an unbreakable password system. All that cryptographers can do is to try and make it very time-consuming and difficult to crack the codes. But, well, you know the old tale about monkeys sitting at keyboards….’

  ‘Eventually they’ll write the Bible?’ Cyrus Procter offered.

  ‘Yes. Or the complete works of Shakespeare. But really, that’s not the point that interests us. Breaking into the system is one thing; making it malfunction is another. But what your son did was quite extraordinary. Somehow, he got the system to carry out the very complex and co-ordinated set of actions that’re needed in order to safely shut down an operating power station. That couldn’t happen by accident or coincidence. It had to be a carefully structured a
ttack, and we simply don’t believe that a high-school pupil could possibly have enough knowledge of the intricate operations of a power station, in order to achieve a safe shutdown.’

  The Proctors stared at him in stunned disbelief, so he went on, ‘And that’s why I need to talk to Luke. I’m a powerplant specialist and I want to ask him some questions that might just solve the mystery.’

  ‘OK,’ Cyrus Proctor said. ‘Now I understand.’ Then he nodded to his wife, ‘Will you go get Luke down here, honey?’

  ‘Mrs Proctor,’ Foster interjected, as she started for the door, and she turned to him. ‘Just say I want to talk to him. Don’t tell him anything.’

  She stopped, turned to look at him for a moment and said, ‘I won’t.’

  While she was out of the room, her husband said, ‘I understand people died, Dan.’ His voice was subdued and sombre.

  ‘Yes,’ Foster said. ‘Forty-eight people were killed in the London Underground system when the power went off. Ordinarily, a power blackout would just be, well, inconvenient. Though if you’re in a lift, or if you’re a surgeon mid-way through an operation, you might think it’s more important than that. But in this incident it happened at exactly the same time as another major fault.’

  ‘Luke couldn’t have known about that, surely?’ Proctor protested, a puzzled frown on his face.

  Foster shook his head. ‘No. The other fault was entirely different, and it was quite coincidental. It was an overheated cable that failed. But the two things happening together were more than a delicately balanced power system could handle. And as London dropped off the grid, most of the rest of the national system collapsed. You’ve had the same sort of thing happen here.’

  Proctor nodded. ‘I remember the New York blackout,’ he said, slowly shaking his head as the unpleasant memories came back. ‘I was there at the time. Got trapped in an elevator. It was crazy, just crazy.’

  Foster was about to continue his explanation when Hilary Proctor entered, followed by her pale-faced, gangly son. Dark hair, long and greasy, framed his face, his sweatshirt hung over a thin chest and his jeans were tucked up over grimy trainers. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the floor.

  ‘Luke,’ she said, ‘this is Dr Foster. He’s come all the way from London, England, to talk with us.’

  Foster shook the thin-wristed, weakly proffered hand. It was a limp shake, without any attempt at eye-contact on the boy’s part. ‘Hello, Luke. Can we all sit down?’

  As they took their seats Foster caught a worried look in the boy’s red-rimmed eyes, and wondered what Worzniak had told him, and whether he had primed him for this meeting.

  ‘Luke,’ he said, ‘I presume that Mr Worzniak told you why I’m here.’

  The boy finally lifted his eyes to stare at him sullenly, without giving any indication of whether or not he knew anything, so Foster continued, ‘Well, I’m going to be brutally frank with you. This is not a criminal investigation, but I think you should know that what you did a few days ago could have led you to be subjected to such an investigation.’

  At last he saw a response in the lad’s face. It was rising defiance and he rushed to calm him. Foster needed co-operation, not sullen stonewalling. If he lost Luke’s co-operation now it would end all hopes of finding out what he’d done. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ve come here just to find out a few facts. If you are open and honest with me that’ll be the end of it. Oh, you’ll be asked to give us an undertaking, but that’s all.’

  The boy said nothing, and Foster noticed that he was avoiding looking at his parents. ‘Luke, I’m sure you know we’re aware that you hacked into a computer system the other day.’

  There was still no response, so he expanded, ‘We have a comprehensive track on the actions. So we know that the attack originated from a computer in this house.’

  Now the defiance in the boy’s expression began to develop into something else – defensive anger, perhaps. Foster had to get him on his side, so he decided to try to gain his interest. ‘Look. I’m not really concerned about the fact that you did it,’ he lied, ‘but I need your help. Because there’s something much more important behind what happened.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ the boy asked. It was his first words since he had come into the room and as he spoke them a faint flicker of curiosity showed in his face. Foster allowed himself a small sigh of relief. Did this sign of interest give a hint that the boy was coming round to the idea of co-operating?

  ‘Luke, I’m a powerplant engineer,’ he explained. ‘I specialize in the control systems of power stations. I troubleshoot them.’

  Curiosity gave way to interest, and then became something else: there was now a hint of awe on the boy’s face.

  ‘I’ve had a look at the system you hacked into,’ Foster continued, ‘and I can see how you got in, but what I don’t understand is how you managed to shut the plant down so expertly. And I don’t know how you disabled it afterwards so that it took so long to restart it.’

  ‘I didn’t….’ the boy began. ‘I just hit on something. I invoked….’ His voice suddenly trailed off and his expression turned from awe to worry. He frowned and stared down at his trainers in silence.

  ‘Invoked? You invoked something?’

  In the silence they all stared at him. Eventually his father said, ‘Luke, you have to help Dr Foster.’

  ‘What did you invoke, Luke?’ Foster asked.

  Still nothing.

  Frustration turned to rage. Unbidden, anger began to well up again in Foster. If Luke clammed up now they’d probably never know the truth. He stared at the boy but failed to renew the brief eye contact he had established a moment earlier. ‘Luke,’ he said, trying to contain his rising emotions, ‘partly as a result of what you did, several people were killed.’

  ‘That wasn’t me!’ the boy blurted out. His eyes began to glisten as though he was on the verge of breaking into tears.

  ‘Not completely,’ Foster said, somehow managing to stay calm. ‘There was another, unrelated, incident at the same time. But without your initiating the shutdown the situation could have been contained.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ the boy said. ‘It was tough luck.’

  Foster reeled back as if he had been hit in the face. ‘Tough luck!’ he shouted. ‘People died in the most appalling conditions because of something you did, and you say it’s tough luck!’

  The boy’s response was defiant. ‘Sure! Just tough luck.’

  That reply was more than Foster could stand. ‘You little idiot!’ he shouted, ignoring the parents’ obvious alarm. ‘You just don’t realize, do you? Well, I do.’ He regretted his next words almost as soon as he’d spoken them. ‘Because one of the people who died was somebody I cared about very much.’

  Immediately the atmosphere in the room changed. All three Proctors stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment.

  He calmed down and said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. I shouldn’t have said it.’

  ‘But you did say it, Dan,’ Cyrus Proctor said, his voice very quiet and restrained. ‘You said you knew one of the victims. Who was it?’

  He hesitated, but the truth had to come out now. ‘It was my fiancée.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Hilary Proctor breathed. ‘Oh God, I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘No. I should apologize to you. I shouldn’t have let you know.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it might indicate that I wasn’t being objective. That I might have a personal vendetta against Luke.’

  ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did,’ she said. ‘After a loss like that, when you know the engineering background, who could possibly blame you?’

  He stared at her, while he struggled to suppress his own doubts. ‘That’s it,’ he said finally. ‘It was a terrible coincidence that I, a professional engineer, should have lost somebody because of an engineering incident. But there it is: I’m one of a small handful of experts who could hope to find out what happened. I’m certainly the
one the government would call on, as they did. When they asked me to look into it, I couldn’t refuse.’

  The boy had been staring at him as he spoke, his face stricken. Suddenly he looked at his father, then his mother. He gave a choking gasp and at last the tears started. He flung his arms over his head and rocked back and forth. His mother stood up and reached out to him, but at her first touch he scrambled to his feet and ran from the room. She called after him but it was no use.

  Foster broke the silence. ‘Mr and Mrs Proctor,’ he said, ‘I’m so sorry. That really wasn’t meant to happen. I lost control….’

  Cyrus Procter’s head shook slowly. ‘No. Luke’s attitude there was unforgivable.’ He looked at his wife and said, ‘Honey, will you go and speak with Luke?’

  She nodded and left the room.

  The two men sat in silence. It was a lengthy silence. Eventually Proctor said, ‘How did it happen, Dan? I mean, your fiancée….’ His words tailed off in embarrassment.

  Proctor stared at him in horrified silence as he recounted what had apparently happened at Oxford Circus.

  When he had finished there was a brief silence and then Proctor blurted out the first thing that came to his mind, and he felt it was quite trite even as he spoke the words. ‘What was her name?’

  But Foster was glad of the break. ‘Fiona,’ he replied. ‘We were going to get married next month.’ He paused before continuing on another tack. He had to steer the conversation away from his personal loss. ‘Who can say who’s to blame when these things happen?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, Luke undoubtedly had a part in it, but then there’s a big argument going on about the cable fire. Somebody should have spent some money on dealing with known problems with the power distribution system. People had been worried about the cooling system for years—’

  ‘Cooling system?’ Proctor interjected.

  ‘Yes. The cable was meant to be cooled by a flow of water. When that failed the cable overheated. It’s not the first time it happened, but it was the worst. It blacked out the city. And there was a precedent for that.’