The Project

by I C Cosmos

  “Oh man,” Omar gasped.

  Collin stared at the screen, poker-faced. “That’s crazy.”

  >> Is that all?

  Walking on water seemed like a piece of cake in comparison, Helen thought. How was she supposed to get the cyber shield up there, let alone make it work?

  >> No. From what I gather, the virus is trigger-happy. It will go off if anything touches it. So your cyber shield should stay miles away from it and focus on blocking the Consortium’s activation signal. And any other incidental signals.

  Helen winced.

  >> How do I get the shield up there?

  >> I’ll give you the hacker’s path and the encryption keys to enter the system.

  >> Can we stop the hacker from getting in?

  >> You can try, but Andreas has everyone fooled. Including the president. They follow his orders.

  Omar snorted. “Can’t we just shut the Consortium down?”

  That sounded like the best idea, Helen thought.

  >> Could we stop the Consortium from sending the activation signal?

  >> If we knew where they’ll send it from. They never mentioned it. I don’t know how to find it.

  >> Do you have the intel to back your story? I hear you, but it’s difficult to believe this is happening.

  >> That’s exactly what they count on. That everyone thinks it’s too crazy to be true. But I have the intel. Will send the link.

  >> OK. So how will you give me the keys?

  >> Tomorrow at the market. We can immediately test that it works.

  >> Why the market?

  >> Invisibility. Look local. You must appear shorter than you are.

  Helen shrugged. This must be a crazy dream. Only it wasn’t. She was fully awake. Driving with Collin and Omar to Santa Cruz, communicating with Nic. Half an hour ago she would have given anything to connect with Nic; now she wasn’t so sure they were getting somewhere.

  On the other hand, this was typical Nic. Unpredictable. Difficult. Thinking about it, she realized he seemed friendlier than usual. It made sense to test the stuff together. She would prefer a private venue, but changing Nic’s mind was like nailing Jell-O to a tree.

  >> How will you look?

  >> Like an old man. Easy to overlook. I’ll give you the details tomorrow morning.

  >> K

  “The market gives me the shivers,” Helen said. “But it’s the only thing we have going.”

  “What if it’s a trap?” Omar asked.

  “I don’t know.” Helen thought about it. What would Nic gain?

  “Let’s wait for the intel he provides. We don’t go on unless it’s solid,” Collin decided.

  “That makes sense,” Helen agreed.

  The Project was hell on wheels, but if she had to take on the Consortium, being in it with Collin was a blessing.

  Santa Cruz, Bolivia

  “The library”

  One day later

  The Consortium’s Bolivian headquarters were an exact replica of the old library in DC. No expense had been spared to make the members feel at home and create the perfect conditions for carrying out the final steps of Operation Total Power.

  It was the most momentous event of their illustrious careers. They were in a celebratory mood, impatiently awaiting the final crowning of their efforts. They had spent the last two days behind their Transparency Stations, scrutinizing the master plan of the operation with a fine-tooth comb.

  Their work was done. The plan was masterful, watertight. Everything was accounted for. Nothing could go wrong.

  They would stop the world, shake it up, and restart it. Under their own rule.

  After a few days of dreadful uncertainty and chaos for everyone but themselves, they would revive the satellites and their functions. They would restore order and pledge to fund the rebuilding efforts. And spread rumors of another impending attack to sow more fear and unrest.

  When the tension became unbearable, the Consortium would claim a major victory and “capture” the “terrorists” who tried to bring the world to an end. No one seeing the pictures of the terrorists and watching the footage of their arrests would ever guess that these “monsters” weren’t of flesh and blood.

  No one would suspect that they were merely personas created by artificial intelligence to attract public fury and divert it like lightning rods while wrapping the Consortium in the bright light of heroism.

  The background and motives of these “traitors” would be fed to the media in a slow drip, each drop of information presenting the Consortium as the uniting power that put an end to terrorism forever.

  If by that time Helen and Nic weren’t yet eliminated and paraded to the public as the masterminds behind the cyberattack, “new facts” would emerge, Helen and Nic’s real pictures would flood the media, and large rewards would be offered to the heroes who’d hunt them down.

  TP would make an irresistible offer to protect anyone who wasn’t a member yet. The price to join would go up every day and would explode when everyone was on board and hooked forever.

  But before the glory could come to full bloom, the Consortium had to take one last vote. Should they launch Total Power during the opening day of the forum as originally planned, or should they launch now as everything was ready to go?

  The vote was unanimous.

  Now.

  There was no need to wait.

  Andreas started the clock.

  Santa Cruz

  “Vanya?” Frank asked.

  They were sitting in a small restaurant near the farmers’ market. Both dressed like locals, they were ready to enter the market unnoticed and intercept Nic and Helen at a second’s notice. They were flying by the seat of their pants, as they didn’t have verifiable intel that either Nic or Helen would show up there. Only Frank’s hunch.

  Vanya was absorbed in whatever he was doing on his phone and didn’t respond. Frank shrugged. He didn’t understand the new generation. They were totally into themselves. Although Vanya was better than most of them. Most of the time.

  He had doctored Frank’s computer and found the offensive files Nic had brought up. Vanya had worked day and night to open the files. So far he had cracked only two of them. It was just the tip of the iceberg, but the content blew Frank away. He had to get inside the remaining files.

  Having the information would not only save Frank’s career but also make him a hero. The material was so explosive, it would take down the Consortium in a flash. And the unpopular president would go down with it because he was undeniably involved in the biggest corruption scandal Frank had ever come across.

  The two open files were enough to shock the world, but not enough to outsmart the Consortium and build a case solid enough to knock out the president’s protectors and enablers. Frank had to get his hands on as many facts as possible. He needed Nic or Helen to unscramble the rest of the files for him.

  Frank hated to be dependent on them. But he couldn’t trust his own people. Even Collin Frey’s reports were worthless lately. Official legalese and nothing actionable.

  At least Vanya managed to track several of Frey’s people and intercept a text about a rendezvous in the market. From what Frank could see, Frey’s team was getting close to the area already. If Nic or Helen showed up, Frank planned on surprising them and scaring the living daylights out of them. And then he’d compel them to crack the files. They owed it to him.

  If they didn’t cooperate, he’d use Frey’s people to arrest them. He was sure he could drum up enough charges to keep them in until the files were unscrambled. His career was on the line, and Frank was ready to fight for it like a lion.

  “Vanya?” he asked again.

  “I got it. I am in,” Vanya said without looking up.

  “You cracked the files?” Frank’s heart fluttered with joy.

  “No. I hacked the hacker. They’re after the sats. We gotta go.” Talking a mile a minute, Vanya pushed his chair back and half ran out of the restaurant.

  “What ar
e you talking about? Which hacker?” Frank asked angrily, barely keeping up with Vanya. Having no access to the files infuriated him beyond measure.

  “A Russian. He bragged on the Russian sites that something big is going down. Warned his friends to get ready for doom. He’s gonna change the codes.”

  “What codes?”

  “The sats’ access codes. We gotta make the rendezvous and tell them.”

  Frank agreed with that. He didn’t know about the Russian and his sats hoax, but the sooner he had the intel from the files, the better.

  Santa Cruz

  Music blaring, people yelling, chickens cackling. Aromas of overripe fruit, deep-frying, and fresh fish hit Helen’s nostrils as she entered the crowded Santa Cruz market. Sweating in her disguise as a Bolivian farmer woman, she scanned the stalls and verified what the aromas told her already. She was on the right track.

  A wide skirt covering her bent knees, a huge sack camouflaging her hunched back, a shiny black wig with an attached bowler hat, and a colorful shawl obscuring most of her face, Helen slowly shuffled toward the meeting point, making herself as short as possible.

  One step at a time. Nothing else exists, just this one step.

  Following the directions burned into her memory, she made it through the electronics department, passed guys sitting on the ground repairing cell phones, turned right along the butchers, and entered a maze of stalls filled with potatoes, pulses, legumes, greens, fruits…

  Helen carefully weaved her way through the thick crowd, trying not to draw attention to herself. Fifty yards to go. She took a deep breath, ignoring the thumping in her chest. A group of tourists was pushing noisily through from the other side, towering above the petite locals and bumping into them in a boorish hunt for photographs, totally oblivious to the curses they left in their wake.

  A smell of ripe cantaloupes wafted through the air. Her destination was near. Avoiding the tourists, Helen squeezed around a stand with hot peppers and sat down on a wooden box next to a pile of melons. She scanned her surroundings. The exit through which she was supposed to leave the market was in a relatively open area to her left. Hopefully a new horde of tourists would give her cover…

  Relief rushed through her when she spotted Nic next to a stall with woven baskets. A baseball cap obscured his face, and a beard covered his chin and throat, but it was unmistakably Nic. He should look like an old man! Helen froze. Something was off.

  Nic, Mr. Invisible, was rushing toward her in full sight. The invisible iron hand strangling Helen’s throat had a heyday. She reached under the long sleeve covering her left hand and rubbed the ring.

  “They changed plans. You have ten minutes. Ring on?” Nic whispered.

  Helen nodded. Ten minutes.

  Nic took a device that looked like a flash drive out of his pocket. “It’s the newest app on your—”

  Helen caught a flash of metal in the corner of her eye and turned toward the market exit. Aviators, black shirt, a gun.

  “Get down!” she yelled.

  Someone pushed Nic to the ground. Shots exploded nearby. The flash drive flew out of Nic’s hand. Helen reached out to catch it, but something pushed her arm back. In horror, she saw the drive sliding toward a water drain covered with a metal grid. Screams resonated through the market hall as people rushed to the exit.

  Nine minutes! Helen’s mind screamed. A melon exploded above her head and covered her in orange slush. A heavy body fell on top of her. Helen hit the ground.

  Someone pressed a flash drive into her hand. “Here. A backup. You have eight minutes. I must go.” Nic was squatting next to her.

  He stood up and took off, splashes of something dark covering his back. Helen flinched, realizing the body on top of her didn’t move.

  “Play dead.” The heavy weight lifted off. Strong hands grabbed her under her arms and dragged her to the back of the melon stall.

  “Are you OK?” Deep, pleasant voice.

  “We have seven minutes at the most.” Helen unrolled her fist and carefully put the flash drive into the deep pocket of her skirt. She sat down on the floor, and her eyes briefly fell on a local crouching under a tarp in the corner of the stall, thumbing his phone. Must be the owner, she thought.

  Ignoring the throbbing in her arm, she took out her phone. 6:07 was flashing on the icon of the new app from Nic. Only six minutes left… One step at a time.

  Absolute calmness took over her.

  Not paying attention to anything around her, Helen opened the app, copied the keys to the satellites into her master bot, and sent it off. She took a deep breath, only now noticing that Collin and Omar were squatting next to her, looking over her shoulders.

  “Wow!” Omar cheered as the first bot reached its destination, followed by several others.

  Helen counted and recounted the arrivals. “It’s only thirty.” She bit her lip.

  “Can you say which one didn’t make it?” Collin asked.

  “Yes.” Helen was scrolling through Nic’s app already. “The last one… Oh my, I hope its key didn’t get cut off,” she said. Even one disabled satellite could cause a lot of trouble. “We have to fetch it from the flash drive again, if we can.”

  3:56

  Omar inspected the drive. “It’s not a flash drive, really.” He turned the drive around and squeezed it between his fingers. A new icon flashed on Helen’s phone.

  “You got it, Omar,” she said.

  The icon stopped flashing. Helen clicked on it, scrolled through the keys, and copied the last one to her bot.

  No landing.

  “Wait,” Collin said. “Copy it again and make sure there isn’t a blank space at the end.”

  “Got it.” Helen caught a movement in the corner of her eye. The stall owner jumped up and moved closer to them. The scarf slipped off his face.

  Helen gasped.

  Santa Cruz

  In a flash Collin and Omar seized the guy in an iron grip.

  “I can help,” he said. American. “I am Vanya, Frank Crawford’s cyber assistant. The keys were changed four minutes to launch. That’s why your last key didn’t go through. I just fetched the new keys. Here,” Vanya said in one breath and put his phone forward. “I can explain everything.” Vanya’s eyes were pleading with them.

  1:59

  “No time for that.” Helen looked at Collin and Omar and gave a small nod.

  “OK,” Collin said.

  “Omar, Vanya, get the keys to me,” Helen asked, her fingers already working on adjusting her bot.

  “I am going to send all new keys to the sat we missed. One by one,” she said to Collin, who was looking over her shoulder again. “We have no time to sort them out.”

  “Everything clean,” Omar said. “I am putting the keys in our dead drop.”

  “K.” Helen copied the keys to the bot and sent it off.

  0:26

  She watched the screen, hardly breathing, her calmness gone.

  “Yes!” Collin and Omar exclaimed in unison. A trace of hope lit up Vanya’s face, his eyes two big question marks.

  “It worked,” Omar confirmed.

  “Fantastic save, Vanya. Thank you,” Helen said. “Let’s pray the shield holds.”

  Thousands of hours of designing, testing, tweaking, and adding new abilities to the shield fused into this one moment and would be put to a supreme test in a matter of seconds. One overlooked error, one slip of a key could result in a fatal failure… Helen held her breath.

  The four of them huddled in the back of the melon stall, their eyes not leaving the screen.

  “Why did they push it up one day?” Omar asked.

  “I don’t know. Didn’t have a chance to find out,” Helen said.

  “The change surprised the hacker too,” Vanya said.

  “How do you know?” Collin asked.

  “He warned his friends—”

  “The first one’s deflected.” Excitement colored Collin’s voice.

  Helen didn’t allow herself to
be optimistic yet. A second attack was stopped by the cyber shield. Then a third, fourth, and fifth. As more came in, they started to count out loud. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Eleven more, please. Helen trembled inside.

  The action stopped. Helen bit her lip, her heart racing. She endured it silently, noticing that Collin, Omar, and Vanya weren’t faring any better.

  “Hold on,” she said, her eyes glued to the phone.

  Then in two spurts more attacks disappeared in the cyber shield. Helen counted and recounted, tears rolling from her eyes uncontrollably.

  “We have them all,” Omar said. “May I?” He gently released Helen’s phone from her shaky fingers and scrolled up and down. “ACE! All thirty-one!”

  They hugged, exhausted and exhilarated.

  “Now we have to get rid of the virus for good,” Helen said, her mind on the next step already.

  “Helen?” Collin studied his fingers, looking shocked. “Oh my God.” He pulled her scarf back, revealing a sleeve soaked in blood. “I am so sorry. I didn’t—” His face showed so much pain. Helen’s heart went out to him.

  “No worries,” she said.

  Omar pulled a first-aid kit from his backpack.

  “I have to cut the sleeve.”

  “Sure.” Helen inspected the wound as he pulled the sleeve down. “See, I told you. More smoke than fire. Just a little UADD scratch.”

  “UADD?”

  “Under Arm Dingle Dangle. Mom always worried about it.” Helen’s voice broke. I avenged them after all. Collin hugged her, holding her close to him. Their eyes locked.

  “Ehm, I have to clean this up,” Omar said.

  “Let me help,” Collin said.

  The single-minded focus that absorbed Helen when she was processing the keys ebbed away, and she took in her surroundings. Collin’s team members guarded the melon stall. Vanya furiously thumbed his phone. Sirens sounded somewhere in a distance, but the market was uncharacteristically quiet.

  The events of the last ten minutes rewound themselves in her mind. They changed plans. Ten minutes. Something metal flashes. Screams. The flash drive sliding toward the water drain. Orange slush. A heavy body… Helen sucked in her breath sharply.