“Our biggest potential weapon is their biggest weapon, namely the app and UKCitizensNet,” Smith said finally, breaking the gathering gloom, and turning to a monitor that was scrolling code at an incomprehensible speed.
“What are you saying?” Michael asked, desperate to find something that might offer the chance of avenging Colette and Clare’s death.
Or was he really thinking revenge? His troubled, angry thoughts had become so blurred he could no longer make the distinction between revenge and simple comprehension of the situation.
Smith traced a line up and down the glowing screen as more text and numbers appeared and then disappeared on the screen.
“For months we’ve been trying to hack into the UKCitizensNet system, get into their databases, into their information. If we can get in maybe we can find some piece of evidence to expose them or broadcast our evidence over UKCitizensNet, That would be the ultimate fucking coup, wouldn’t it?”
A ripple of approval spread amongst the four men.
“But you’ve not been able to hack their system yet?”
Green shook his head in extreme annoyance.
“The bastards have rock solid gigabit encryption on their system.”
“Which means what exactly?”
“Which means their network is fucking well protected. We’ve got past several levels of security but never into the system properly, never into his heart. Besides, we’ve had to move about quite a lot. We’ve had to leave equipment in places and the fuckers have found bits of our kit in their pursuit of us.”
Michael tapped the screen that was still carrying on with its operations.
“So what’s this?”
“It’s an encryption-breaker tool. It’s trying to crack their system’s security and punch a big hole in their firewall.”
Michael sighed, sinking back dejectedly on the sofa, briefly cradling his head in his hands.
“We’re not going to be able to prove they killed my wife and daughter, are we?”
Jones placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“They’ve been after us for two years and they haven’t got us yet.”
Michael looked up, tears in his eyes. Horrific images and disturbed memories rushed through his thoughts.
“No, they haven’t got you yet. But look at you, all of you. You look like refugees and your hiding in rotting caravans in the middle of nowhere.”
Jones ignored Michael’s outburst. They’d all felt the same frustrations, the same despair at having their lives stolen.
“Michael, the files you’ve given us also cover data encryption techniques because of the need for security the app would have required if it had ever been developed. So far UKCitizensNet isn’t using this sort of functionality. And we know that SemComNet hasn’t perfected it yet because they want your files. Gigabit encryption is the most advanced there is. These files might just be able to help us crack it.”
“Might? Might? It’s all ‘mights’ and ‘maybes’ with you. Never anything definite or real.”
The tears were now streaming down Michael’s face as he shook his head in frustration.
“Michael, we need to keep these files for a bit longer in order to understand them better. We really can help each other.”
Michael nodded in agreement, wiping away the tears. How had it come to this he thought despairingly? Why did his only hope, if it even was that, lie with four men he didn’t know in a rotting hole in the middle of nowhere?
As he pondered this desperate thought, the monotonous words of UKCitizensNet’s female presenter came back to him. She’d been right, he thought bitterly. It had certainly changed his life forever.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It was gone 10.30pm before Michael finally got back to his quiet house in Hersham. The journey back had only taken just over an hour but it seemed like a tortured eternity as ever more disturbing thoughts raced through his mind.
Everything was still so confused as he attempted to grapple with the magnitude of what faced them. At least after spending several hours with these internet outlaws he no longer doubted their sincerity in wanting to help him, and in turn help themselves. The dejected tiredness etched in their faces was all too genuine.
Despite all the confusion he felt in trying to understand how the app worked, and that his wife was killed because of it, there was one thing he knew for certain. He would have justice for Colette and Clare. One way or another.
He’d already decided in the morning he would ring the insurance brokers and tell them he still wasn’t fit to return. They’d understood so far. A little bit longer shouldn’t be a problem.
Upon returning home he’d taken a long hot bath to ease his aches and pains. If nothing else, he’d wanted to get the damp, rotting smell of those caravans, which seemed to cling to his every pore, washed away.
Yet after his cleansing bath his mind was still an agitated maelstrom of troubled thoughts. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep for several hours despite the crushing weariness he felt.
To compound things he’d spent a full half-hour checking, double-checking and checking again that every door and window was securely locked and bolted. His descent into the same paranoid state as his four allies was a rapid one he thought, peering through the lounge curtains, surveying the length of the quiet street outside.
If they did come for him in the night they weren’t going to find anything. The files were no longer in his possession. He would never reveal their whereabouts, no matter what they did to him. What could they threaten him with anyway? They’d already taken everything from him.
Returning to the lounge Michael slumped into an armchair in just a pair of tatty boxer shorts. Reaching across to the coffee table he picked up the console for his eCitTV unit before switching it on. Within a few seconds cliched dialogue from a trashy American film filled the room. He clicked for another channel, and another, and another. Was there nothing remotely interesting to watch he wondered, as snooker highlights appeared?
Staring blankly at the large eCitTV screen he thought back to what Jones had said to him, how they had to find the weak point in UKCitizensNet’s operations. Without thinking he pressed the ‘Web’ button on his console and the screen seamlessly melted into the familiar red, white and blue UKCitizensNet logo.
The image disappeared to be replaced by UKCitizensNet’s opening menu and he scanned the on-screen content. There had to be a weak point somewhere. Colette and Clare’s memory demanded it.
Trevellion looked up from the memo he was typing as his monitor bleeped an alert. A flashing red message appeared in the application’s window.
‘User [email protected] (IP address 56.24.89.10) has connected to UKCitizensNet’
“About fucking time,” Trevellion muttered under his breath, looking to his office clock.
The time was 11.45pm. He was the only person still in the East Wing of SemComNet’s headquarters, with the exception of the army of security guards.
Sliding his left index finger over the smooth screen he tapped the icon on his desktop he needed for his task.
‘Welcome to Advanced Nano Network Application (ANNA) version 2.01’ the screen informed. Trevellion’s expression broke into a malicious sneer.
Selecting one of the on-screen options the welcoming message disappeared as he retrieved his special file - cr1.ana. Tapping the screen again a fresh dialogue box appeared:
‘Send to: (please enter IP address)’.
Trevellion typed smoothly, watching as 56.24.89.10 appeared on the screen. His lizard-like features, almost indiscernibly, formed a thin smile as his finger glided over the ‘OK’ button.
‘cr1.ana sent to 56.24.89.10. Intranet Relay Chat (IRC) channel now open’
Trevellion leant back in his chair and stretched his tired limbs.
“OK, Michael, it’s time to play.”
Is there no end to the number of online channels of information?
Michael signed in annoyance as another screen
of marketing rhetoric about the benefits of UKCitizensNet whizzed by. Brown called it “brainwashing by saturation of misinformation”. If you were being fed the same marketing drivel day in day out, telling you that you’ve got greater choice, more freedom, and information empowerment, eventually your brain becomes so overloaded and desensitised to it that you end up believing it. And with the public’s insatiable appetite for information the distinction between information and misinformation soon becomes blurred.
His train of thought abruptly halted as a face flashed up on the screen before instantly being replaced by the next UKCitizensNet promotional page.
His jaw dropped a little as he hastily selected the ‘Back’ button on the screen. The previous page of UKCitizensNet dutifully re-appeared. He rubbed his eyes, fighting off the unpleasant idea that was forming. Perhaps he was more tired than he thought? Although he still felt wide-awake.
The second time it happened, he visibly jumped in his seat. This time the face was there longer. Looking at him. Boring into his very soul.
But almost before he could register the image it had gone again. The facade that was UKCitizensNet’s online service returned. He shook his head angrily. UKCitizensNet had never disappeared from the screen in front of him. His mind was playing its familiar tricks on him. Tempting him back to the welcoming arms of despair and tortured oblivion.
As the face appeared again Michael broke into a cold sweat, his breathing became more rapid. And this time it was more than a face. It was the image of an entire woman facing him on the screen. But it couldn’t be. And he knew it couldn’t be. But the face, that beautiful face, it was Colette.
As he slid off the sofa onto his hands and knees, struggling to the eCitTV screen, the image faded again.
“Colette,” he whispered, although barely any sound passed his lips.
Reaching out Michael gently stroked the screen as it melted back into UKCitizensNet.
“Damn you. Why didn’t you take me as well?” he screamed angrily as the UKCitizensNet logo and its annoying little jingle filled the dimly lit room.
Looking away from the image that symbolised the destruction of his life, he hung his head limply, trying to suppress the bloody images threatening his consciousness.
“Michael,” the female voice said.
His blood froze. The distant sounding voice echoed eerily throughout the room. Now he knew he was imagining things.
“Michael,” the voice said again as he snapped his gaze onto the screen.
In front of him was the vision of the woman, standing in a non-descript grey dress. Michael could suppress his tears no longer as he looked into Colette’s beautiful face. She shimmered against the jet-black background of the screen.
“Are you there, Michael?” the ghostly voice asked as he reached out to gingerly touch the screen, afraid the image would fade.
His jaw dropped and he watched dumbstruck as Colette’s lips moved. Those divine lips that he had savoured so often gently spoke.
He closed his eyes as for the first time in two years he heard her voice. Not that he could ever forget how she sounded.
“I’m here,” Michael whispered, the hot tears rolling down his reddened cheeks.
“I’ll always be here, Michael,” the woman’s voice said. “Here to guide you, to show you the way.”
He stroked the screen as Colette’s lips moved smoothly. He was lost to her and lost without her. Lost in every word she uttered as it rekindled a thousand memories, blissful and violent.
“The great dragon was hurled down - that ancient serpent called the Devil or Satan, who leads the world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him,” she said smoothly as Michael looked again at the screen.
There was a brief pause as the woman’s image began to slowly fade, her hand outstretched to him.
“The great dragon was hurled down - that ancient serpent called the Devil or Satan, who leads the world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him,” she repeated as the image flickered.
As Michael touched the screen, teetering on unconsciousness as shock and grief welled up, a shark cracking noise filled the room. Stirred from his wavering position in front of the screen his eyes shot open. His gaze fell upon the familiar UKCitizensNet screen and the last page of online information he’d been reading.
He heard a male teenage voice screaming drunkenly as another stone bounced of his lounge window.
Feeling himself start to hyperventilate he wiped the cold sweat from his face and tried to inhale deeply. The sound of teenage laughter faded as the culprits scurried away.
I imagined it. I must have done.
In the back of his mind he knew what he’d seen, what he’d heard, had to be tricks his imagination was playing on him. He felt a little nausea rise acidly in the back of his throat as he remembered his hallucination of the blood erupting from the screen.
This is just the same. A hallucination. Images brought on by the stress and grief of all I’ve heard and learnt today.
Holding his head in his hands he tried to breathe deeply, fighting the waves of nausea and dizziness threatening to engulf him.
Yet at the back of his mind he could still hear those words. Words that he didn’t know himself, nor have any idea where they had come from.
“The great dragon was hurled down - that ancient serpent called the Devil or Satan, who leads the world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The lift door slid smoothly shut and Trevellion leant towards the retinal scanner on the right wall. Within a few moments a green light bleeped a confirmatory tone and Trevellion pressed the button for the East Wing’s basement, the heart of the R&D laboratories. An impromptu visit downstairs was always a good way to start rumours, even if there wasn’t gossip to be had.
Besides, and this was the best part, it scared the shit out of the programmers and engineers. It was always a good way to get a spurt in productivity and help improve the company’s R&D pipeline.
‘The Pit’, as the labs were affectionately known, consisted of two distinct sections, broken up into specific project groups.
On the one side were the network’s hardware engineers. They maintained the company’s vast equipment infrastructure of high-speed servers, routers, hubs, and of course, the eCitTV unit itself.
On the other side were the programmers and the analysts - the surveillance teams and software people. A mix of staff diagnosing and treating UKCitizensNet software problems, advanced programmers looking to create and perfect the next big-selling application, and the monitors of UKCitizensNet’s online content.
It was the advanced programmers Trevellion wanted to see.
A ripple of acknowledgement quickly spread through The Pit as Trevellion exited the lift, striding purposefully into the busy lab. Computer staff young and old cast nervous glances at Trevellion as his gaze scanned the large open-plan area.
A compliment on your work from Trevellion was always a bonus. But more often than not an interrogation into your role was met by admonishing criticism of your ability. On the odd occasion one of his visits had resulted in staff being sacked because he hadn’t liked what he’d seen. Everyone in the room held their breath.
He walked through the criss-crossed aisles without uttering a word, raising an inquisitive eyebrow in the direction of some project sections.
Reaching the closed door at the back of The Pit, which displayed a small but well-observed sign, ‘Authorised Personnel Only’, he stopped. The fingerprint ID pad quickly verified his identity and the door clicked open.
A collective sigh of relief filled The Pit as Trevellion left the busy lab.
The security door led down a narrow white corridor with individual offices on either side. Each office was assigned an individual confidential project. And each project team had been hand-picked by himself.
Reaching the final door Trevellion slipped into the brightly-lit office. A small man w
ith rounded glasses and a rapidly lengthening widow’s peak looked up from the monitor. Immediately he rose to his feet upon seeing his visitor.
“Where’s Wainwright?” Trevellion asked abruptly, looking round the large office where three other staff were busily typing.
“I think he’s gone to get some coffee, sir,” the man replied, wishing Wainwright had been in the office to meet Trevellion rather than him.
Everyone at SemComNet with the exception of senior management called him ‘sir’. Nobody dared to try and be less formal. Trevellion liked it that way.
As he curled his lip in annoyance at his most important project manager’s absence, the office door swung open. Andrew Wainwright appeared holding two cups of coffee. The second cup had been for Paul Davis who was still standing redundantly opposite Trevellion.
“Coffee?” he said, offering Trevellion the second cup as Davis sank back disappointed into his chair.
As Trevellion took the cup, Wainwright beckoned in the direction of his own desk.
“I was going to call you. I think we may have something.”
Andrew Wainwright was one of the few people at SemComNet who wasn’t completely overawed by Vincent Trevellion’s mere presence. He had worked for the Ministry of Defence previously and had encountered many fearsome characters in his time. Whilst you never really got used to having orders barked at you the whole time, he’d finally reconciled that there was nothing personal in the delivery. You just got on with your job.
A glint of interest sparkled in Trevellion’s dark eyes. Sebastian Tate had been breathing down his neck all week. They needed results.
Quickly typing a few instructions into his computer, the screen rapidly changed, splitting into two sections. On the left was an ordered mass of Java code. On the right was a complicated network diagram of lines and hardware hierarchies within the UKCitizensNet system. Pointing enthusiastically at the screen, Wainwright turned to face Trevellion.
The Codex File (2012) Page 15
