Emergence (Fox Meridian Book 5)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘It’s an emergent system,’ Fox said. ‘You’ve built something out of very simple components which interact to produce something enormously more complex. At the very least, Terri, you’ve created a new form of life.’

  ‘Just call me Frankenstein. So long as I don’t end up–’

  Kit frowned and broke in urgently. ‘Fox, there is an active security alert.’

  ‘Any details?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Communications with Luna City are currently down.’

  ‘All of them?’ Terri asked. ‘We’ve got two channels. Surface relay and satellite. They shouldn’t both be down.’

  ‘I am connected to the secure network. External communications and most of the work being done to correct the problem are on the… less secure, secure network.’

  Fox raised an eyebrow. ‘Control room?’

  Terri nodded. ‘Control room.’

  ~~~

  Jarvis was already there and gathering what he could on the situation. ‘The satellites are still there and functional,’ he said. ‘We’ve got contact with Far Side Station, but Malapert isn’t responding and we’ve got no comms to Earth or L-one.’

  ‘And the relay system?’ Terri asked.

  ‘Is up, but not behaving properly.’ Jarvis glanced at Fox. ‘As I understand it, it connects straight into the network at Luna City. That’s the MarTech network there, not the general system.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Terri agreed. ‘Even if there’s a problem at Luna or Malapert, we should have connectivity with the Luna City facilities.’

  ‘Well, we do, but it’s like they’ve decided not to talk to–’

  ‘We’re getting activity,’ one of the technicians manning various consoles around the room said. Somehow, his tone suggested that that was not a good thing. Alert indicators began to flash up on various screens. ‘Heavy activity. Denial of service, possible worm infiltration.’

  ‘No way…’ Fox said, frowning.

  ‘Minotaur?’ Jarvis asked. ‘You can’t think– He’s on the run. How can he be attacking here? Why would he attack here?’

  ‘I’d imagine he has a second facility set up somewhere. I’d imagine he doesn’t like MarTech very much. Me in particular. If he could grab the environmental control systems here, he could kill me, us, and maybe even have it put down as an accident. Plus, top-secret facility on the Moon. That’s like hacker bait.’

  ‘Environmental control is all handled on the secure network,’ Terri said. ‘He doesn’t have a hope.’ She was scanning over the displays. ‘Actually, he’s not getting anywhere at all penetrating the outer network. Even our insecure network is military grade.’

  Fox nodded. ‘Can we get a shuttle prepped? I want to go back to Luna City and check on things there. I have a feeling MarTech might get some business hardening the networks.’

  ‘I’ll come–’ Jarvis began.

  ‘No, you stay here. And check a load of weapons out for your security team. It’s just possible this isn’t Minotaur and someone’s launched some sort of attack on lunar facilities. Far Side is pure science and not likely to be high on the list, but this place… Get ready to repel boarders.’

  Luna City.

  Fox was met at the airlock by Lenora Pierce from the Luna City Emergency Response Unit, who was armed and in combat gear. That was not exactly a good sign, but then again, Fox had had to walk from the shuttle to an airlock in the landing bay because the spaceport systems were playing up, which was not a good sign either.

  ‘Pierce,’ Fox said as she lifted her helmet off, ‘long time, no see. How are things with ERU?’

  ‘Right now?’ Pierce asked. ‘Total fucking chaos just like the rest of the place. Flight control are handling incoming ships with portable radios, in case you hadn’t noticed. We’ve been mobilised in case this is a preliminary for some sort of assault and I got sent down here because you said you might have some idea of what’s going on.’ Pierce was just above regulation height for Luna City Security Services, a cute, button-nosed, blue-eyed blonde who, last Fox had heard anyway, was ERU’s technician.

  ‘I might. I need to get to my people here and see if we can confirm it.’

  ‘Then I’m with you.’ Pierce turned, heading for the elevators at the back of the concourse. ‘You getting any of this out at Jenner?’

  ‘We were hit with a DoS and several attempts at viral injection. It was totally failing to penetrate anything and the main network over there isn’t even connected to the outside world.’

  Stepping into an elevator car, Pierce thumbed a button and they were moving. ‘You take security pretty seriously out there.’

  ‘We take security to paranoid levels. Occasionally I think we’re not being paranoid enough, but I probably have a jaundiced view of things.’

  Pierce shrugged. ‘Looks like we could do with a lot more paranoia around here.’

  ~~~

  The first thing Fox and Pierce heard as they walked into the network control room at the MarTech facility was, ‘Got you, you sneaky, malicious prick!’

  ‘That sounded promising,’ Pierce said.

  ‘Unless he’s playing video games,’ Fox replied. They rounded a corner between some racks of equipment to find a tall, thin man with a very pale complexion sitting at a fairly complex console system. ‘Mister Donovan,’ Fox said, ‘I’m hoping that means you’ve got something interesting to tell me.’

  ‘That depends on your definition of interesting, Miss Meridian,’ Donovan replied. ‘I’ve isolated the machine on our network that they managed to get into. Secondary routing node I’ve been trying to get a replacement for for six months. That should stop the forward attacks and get us connectivity with Jenner back.’ His fingers flicked over virtual keyboards Fox could not see and one of the real displays hanging over his desk lit up to show the Jenner control room.

  Jarvis appeared in frame almost immediately. ‘Donovan? What the Hell’s been– Fox, you made it.’

  ‘Just in time to see the amazing Green Machine crack the problem.’

  ‘It was not easy,’ Donovan said. ‘Whoever did this, they’re very good. I’ve been kind of busy, but from what I gather, half the city is going down or suffering intermittent faults.’

  ‘That’s an underestimate,’ Pierce supplied.

  ‘Environment?’ Fox asked.

  ‘A lot of the primary utility systems are on an entirely separate network,’ Donovan said. ‘Limited connectivity and they should have locked down at the first sign of trouble.’

  ‘They did,’ Pierce said. ‘Air, water, and power are good, but communications is basically down all across the city. We’ve got doors that won’t open in various places. Fox can attest to the crappy state of the spaceport. The Malapert comms hub is, well, just offline.’

  ‘Now that I’ve isolated our problem,’ Donovan said, ‘I think I can help with the rest of the network. He’s attacked a bunch of out-of-date router systems left over from the early days of the network. They used to be mandated as standard for everyone connecting to the city network. I relegated ours to backup, so have quite a few commercial groups in the city, but there are plenty still in use, even as primary routers.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain everything we’re seeing.’

  ‘No, he’s using those as a platform to launch worm and virus attacks. He’s got some sort of infomorph running on the router processor which is blasting out infiltration software.’

  ‘Class one?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Doubt it’s anything more complex.’

  ‘Kit will send you some information on some stuff we’ve seen on Earth. I need you to see whether this matches it.’

  ‘You’ve met this bastard before?’

  ‘That’s what I want to find out, but I’m not fond of coincidences and this would be one.’

  Donovan nodded. ‘Peer-to-peer me the data. I still haven’t got everything under control. Once I have, I’ll check out your suspect.’ He went back to his invisible keyboards while Fox backed off a little
to let him work.

  ‘Green Machine?’ Pierce asked quietly.

  ‘His name’s Kermit,’ Fox supplied. ‘Parents can be horribly cruel. However, he was one of the first techs up here because he wanted to escape them and he knows the Luna City backbone better than almost anyone. If he thinks he can help sort out the mess, he means it.’

  ‘Good. I think the NOC personnel are basically fighting fires right now. It’s the staff at Malapert I’m a little worried about. No one’s heard from them since this started.’

  ‘I’ve got a shuttle on the pad with a bored pilot just waiting for an excuse to do something…’

  Malapert Station.

  The facility atop Malapert Mountain had been there for as long as there had been a settlement in Shackleton Crater. One of the first radio telescopes on the Moon had been built there, though that antenna had been repurposed for Earth–Moon communications long ago. Malapert had a uniquely useful location: always visible from Earth and with direct line of sight to Luna City. It was now the primary communications hub for Luna City and the various far-side installations.

  It was not big, but it was constantly manned and entirely self-sufficient. Someone could live up there for as long as they needed to, though the staff tended to cycle through tours of duty. Sure, you could live there, but it was not exactly the entertainment hub of the solar system and you could go stir-crazy having to put up with the same people all the time. Twenty-four people were on-site at any given time, with the occasional added extra when something out-of-band needed doing like extensive equipment upgrades. The latter was rare: a lot of the gear at Malapert dated back to its time as a science outpost.

  ‘Airlock’s not responding,’ Pierce said as she worked on the external panel for said portal while Fox stood guard beside her. They were not expecting trouble, but they were ready for it. ‘I’ll need to run a manual bypass.’

  ‘Not a good sign,’ Fox said.

  ‘No, but at least it’s not open.’

  ‘I am detecting no radio transmissions from within the building,’ Kit said. ‘I have run a number of test signals attempting to contact anyone inside, but there have been no responses. The station’s wireless network should be contactable at this range and appears to be off the air.’

  ‘Not good either,’ Fox said.

  Pierce kept her mouth shut and kept working on the manual control system. A minute or so later, the outer airlock door jerked open a little and she began hauling on the handle. ‘No power to the motors. Okay, that’s not good and I’m starting to have some difficulty being positive, so just don’t say anything.’

  It took a good five minutes to get the outer door closed, the chamber pressurised, and the inner door open, and then they walked out into an empty corridor. Pierce began to reach for her helmet, but Fox stopped her. ‘Check the atmosphere before you crack that. This place is way too quiet.’

  Nodding, Pierce took a reading through her suit systems and waited for the result. ‘Crap. Nitrogen, trace oxygen, trace carbon dioxide. That’s…’ Her gaze scanned the corridor. ‘That’s the fire suppression system, but the bulkhead doors are open. If the system detects a serious fire, it seals the affected area and then saturates it with nitrogen to kill the flames.’

  ‘Uh-huh, but you’d expect no oxygen and a little more CO two, and probably some sign there was a fire. Come on. I don’t think we need guns, but if we’re lucky, we might need a first aid kit.’

  First indications were that they were not going to. The upper part of Malapert Station consisted of two multilayer domes: regolith trapped between concrete and a double layer of metal alloy to provide impact and radiation resistance. The first dome you came to from the landing pads had been used for habitation until underground quarters had been built and the dome had been fitted out for farming. The plants looked to be doing okay for now, but the four staff were not.

  ‘Suffocation,’ Fox said, examining one of the bodies lying amid the rows of hydroponic containers. ‘Inert gas asphyxia. I don’t hear alarms so it’s possible they didn’t even know it was happening.’

  ‘I am going to have nightmares for weeks,’ Pierce said. ‘That’s on my top five list of reasons I’m a moron for living on the Moon.’

  ‘On the list of ways to go, this is one of the least unpleasant.’

  ‘I always wanted to have a heart attack at ninety-two while trying to perform zero-G sex.’

  ‘You haven’t thought that through. Heart attacks hurt like a mother. And you’re really not comfortable with this, are you?’

  ‘The totally inappropriate humour is a giveaway?’

  ‘If you want to go back, I can handle this.’

  ‘Driscoll would probably can my ass. How are you so calm?’

  Fox turned so she could give Pierce a weak smile. ‘Only way I got through some of the stuff I did in the Army was to learn how to turn off my emotions. I’ll be fine until we get back to Luna City, and then I’ll need a drink. And then I’ll probably have a few nightmares myself. Let’s keep going. Maybe someone survived in the other dome or the living quarters.’

  The only people in the other dome were the ones on duty in the main control room. One of them was lying on the floor; the others were still in their seats, sitting at consoles with darkened screens. Dead machines displaying nothing to dead humans.

  ‘They should’ve automated this place years ago,’ Pierce grumbled as Fox led the way to the staircase down. ‘Infomorphs could run the whole deal, no trouble.’

  ‘Well, maybe after this…’

  Four flights down, they walked into a concrete-lined corridor. The facilities were, it appeared, rather utilitarian. There were a couple of rooms off the corridor, a cupboard and a machine room, and then they walked out into a communal area to find four bodies and a man holding a gun.

  ‘Who are you?! What are you doing here?!’ The voice was high-pitched, more of a shriek, and muffled by the air mask the man was wearing. The gun was shaking.

  Fox put her hands up. The gun was a gas-powered needle gun and almost certainly did not have the punch to pierce her suit, but she preferred not to find out whether it could. ‘We’re here to help. This is Senior Officer Pierce, with the Luna City Emergency Response Unit.’

  ‘Sergeant,’ Pierce said. ‘I made Sergeant.’

  ‘Congratulations. I’m Tara Meridian, Palladium Security Solutions. How much air do you have left in that thing? It’s not meant for long-term use.’

  ‘Th-thirty minutes.’

  ‘Right, we need to get you out of here. We’ve got a shuttle on the pad outside. Maybe you could lower the weapon, Mister…’ Fox checked the badge on his jumpsuit and nodded as Kit confirmed the code in it as one of the current staff. ‘Mister Knicklebacker.’

  The gun was, slowly, lowered and Knicklebacker put it down on a table. ‘I think… think I got masks on a couple of them in time. There was no warning. Everything went nuts a-and then people started f-falling over.’

  ‘And you didn’t?’ Pierce asked.

  ‘He’s ex-military,’ Fox said. ‘Right?’ Knicklebacker nodded. ‘His blood’s been altered to hold more oxygen, so he goes down far slower from hypoxia. I have the same adaptation.’

  ‘I suspect he left the Army due to PTSD,’ Kit said into Fox’s head.

  ‘There are four alive,’ Knicklebacker went on. ‘They’ve got a pulse anyway.’ He sagged onto a seat. ‘I should’ve got to m-more. I f-froze.’

  Fox looked at him, knowing she should feel something for him, and probably would later. For right now, if she let herself empathise… ‘I’m going to go up top and contact Luna City. We need a team up here to get this place going again. Pierce, get Knicklebacker to help you get the survivors to the stairs. I’ll get a winch from the shuttle and we can haul them up the stairwell. They’ll be breathing less than he is so we should have a little longer to get them out.’

  ‘Right,’ Pierce said, circling the table to put a hand on Knicklebacker’s shoulder. ‘You up to this?’
/>
  ‘He has to be,’ Fox said, turning on her heel. ‘Otherwise he’s just wasted his time.’

  Jenner Research Station.

  Fox slammed back a tumbler of whiskey, gritted her teeth as the fluid burned down her throat, and reached for the bottle again.

  ‘That bad?’ Jarvis asked.

  ‘Twenty-three dead. Two in a coma. Knicklebacker’s girlfriend is okay. She was with him when they started going down and he got to her first. I think the only reason Pierce is still talking to me is that I almost cried when the girl woke up on the shuttle.’ Fox threw back her second glass and poured a third. ‘And, from what Donovan says, it was technically an accident. Twenty-three stupid deaths because some fucking bastard of a hacker didn’t know the system.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Malapert never really got updated the way Luna City did. They had a lot more of those old routers handling internal traffic. New stuff got patched into the communications system in places, but you’ve got a relatively narrow pipe on the space side of it so they never felt the need to upgrade much. Minotaur’s virus took over damn near everything, so the whole network went down. That cut off the fire sensors from the environmental control system, and it had been programmed to treat the loss of a sensor as an indication of a major fire.’

  ‘What?’ Terri said. ‘That’s…’ She trailed off trying to think of a suitable description.

  ‘Old,’ Fox supplied. ‘It’s an old system without much intelligence. Major fire equals emergency response, so it closed the bulkhead doors and flooded the environment with nitrogen. Except that it thought the fire was everywhere, and the network was fucked so it couldn’t contact the doors. Result? Twenty-three, maybe twenty-five, dead and one ex-soldier whose PTSD is back with a major vengeance.’ Fox took another drink, but at least she had slowed down now. ‘And I didn’t care until Knicklebacker’s girl woke up on the shuttle, and then it smacked me in the face like a fist, and sometimes I really hate my job.’