Palm Sunday

by William R. Vitanyi Jr.

  Kayoko closed the spreadsheet and prepared to move on to other work. After all, there was plenty to be done in anticipation of phase two, the so-called alteration. She still passionately disagreed with the idea of manipulating societal patterns, but felt that her position might yet allow her to impact its direction. She had just started to work on creating the matrix for the next profile when Snelling walked into her office.

  “Kayoko, how’s it going?”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “I’m fine. What’s up?”

  “Nothing. I just thought we should have a little chat.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” she said.

  He walked up to her desk and sat on the edge of it, leaning towards her. “Someone was messing with my computer.” He smiled at her.

  “You should lock it up when you leave. That’s what I do.” She nervously glanced away.

  “How’d you know it happened when I was away? Maybe someone hacked into it?”

  “I thought you meant it was at night. That’s when I lock mine up. So what do you want from me? Go tell security about your computer problem.”

  “Don’t you want to know what they were after?”

  “Who?”

  “Whoever broke into my computer,” said Snelling.

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me.” She had to get rid of him.

  “Just some SP files, specifically some outcome simulations I was working on. Fortunately they missed the actual results files.”

  She stared at him, knowing he was lying. “That’s good, Tom. But you should still probably notify security.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary. Whoever was in my computer has a bunch of data that looks real, but it’s really bogus, so they can spin their wheels interpreting it. It’s kind of funny, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, a real hoot. Was there something else you wanted?”

  “Just to see how you’re making out with the preparations for the alteration. How’s the new matrix looking?”

  “It’s a bear. The input is going to be far more complex than we’re used to. I don’t know for sure that we can handle that much data without significantly expanding the upper array bound.”

  “It can be arranged,” said Snelling. “Send me the particulars and I’ll see to it.”

  His voice reminded her of a gooey marshmallow. She hated marshmallows. “It’ll take a couple days to finish the calculations.”

  “Fine. Just don’t go spinning your wheels.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  He stood up from the desk, gave her a final look of appraisal, and left. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to her display, suddenly not so sure of her own conclusions. Could it be that she had taken the wrong file?

  Chapter Seven

  Norbert was deeply immersed in a series of optical loss calculations when Mason entered the computer center. He didn’t hear the first time Mason called his name.

  “Hey,” said Mason. “Are you getting uppity on me?”

  Norbert looked up from his workstation. “Sorry. I guess I was preoccupied.”

  “What are you working on?” Mason had moved closer, trying to see what was on Norbert’s computer screen.

  Norbert reveled in the opportunity to share his world. “I’m estimating how much signal loss to expect when Pampas’s people install the phase two equipment. We want to be within acceptable limits.”

  “Acceptable to whom?” asked Mason.

  Norbert shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. I’m talking about the characteristics of the cable itself–the fiber optic lines that carry the data. Even under normal operating conditions there can be some loss of signal.” Mason was silent, which Norbert interpreted as a lack of comprehension. “The cable carries light through its core, which…”

  “Come on now, Norbert, give me some credit. I know what a fiber optic cable is. But why would there be signal loss?”

  “Lots of reasons. Impurities in the fiber, flaws in the cladding...”

  “What’s that?” asked Mason.

  “Cladding? It’s a mirrored liner that surrounds the core. It reflects light back into the core and prevents it from escaping.”

  “What do your calculations have to do with that?”

  “I want to be sure that we don’t degrade the signal when we place our equipment.”

  “What if we do?” asked Mason.

  Norbert leaned back, his chair creaking. “Hard to say. An interruption at the very least, and at the worst we broadcast the location of one of our insertion points.”

  “I don’t have to tell you that secrecy is paramount,” said Mason.

  “I know,” said Norbert. “And we still have an agency palmtop out there in the hands of a hostile party.”

  Mason waved his hand as if brushing away a fly. “That situation will be addressed. But there is another concern. Closer to home.”

  “Oh?”

  “Tom Snelling reported some irregularities with his computer. I’d like you to run a sweep for any security violations.”

  Norbert shook his head. “There haven’t been any violations. Especially not from the outside, and certainly not that Snelling would have detected.”

  “Just run the sweep,” said Mason. “I believe you, and in all probability it was something that Snelling did himself and forgot about. Just humor me, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay. As soon as I’m done with these calculations.”

  Mason walked away, but turned back as he opened the door. “Keep up the good work, son.”

  Norbert, his mind already back on his numbers, waved over his shoulder as Mason left.

  ***

  After several painstaking hours trying to decipher the last file, Stanley had precious little to show. But there were two tantalizing exceptions. He had been able to uncover another reference to ‘pascua’, and more important, had isolated what seemed to be a partial IP address. He looked excitedly at Slocum, who sat dozing in an overstuffed chair.

  “Slocum.”

  He awoke instantly. “What is it?”

  “What does pascua mean to you?”

  He slumped back into the chair, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Pascua? That was from the first file you downloaded, wasn’t it?”

  “You have a good memory,” said Stanley. “But does it have some significance for the agency? It appeared again in this file.”

  “Doesn’t mean a thing to me, but of course the agency has its fingers in a lot of pies, and they don’t consult me about everything. Not by a long shot. Is that all you found?”

  “I also got a partial Internet address.”

  Slocum looked confused. “I thought you said earlier that what impressed you about the file was the lack of an IP address.”

  Stanley nodded. “That’s true. But what I found isn’t part of the routing instructions. It’s in the body of the message itself.”

  “Maybe it was just information being passed along about someone’s location.”

  “Could be,” said Stanley. “Unfortunately, without the full address I don’t know who that might be.”

  “Are we stuck, then?” asked Slocum.

  Stanley had an idea of how he might coax more information from the file, but he was reluctant to try it. “There might be another approach.”

  “Which is?”

  Stanley had taken his glasses off, and cleaned them as he spoke. “I’d have to use my company’s resources, and I’m not sure if that’s appropriate.”

  Slocum leaned forward. “What are you thinking, man? If you have a way to see what’s in that file, you’d better use it. The folks who own that palm unit make their own rules, and they have their own definition of what’s ‘appropriate’.”

  Stanley was torn between his loyalty to his company and his desperation to solve the mystery of the palmtop. “Maybe you’re right.” He put his glasses on. “I can’t go into details, but a project that I’m involved in at work may help with these downloads.”


  “How so?” asked Slocum.

  “We have some equipment that might be able to analyze the file more thoroughly.” Stanley knew that if anyone at ScanDat knew what he was considering, they would go ballistic.

  “Will it have to wait until tomorrow?”

  Stanley nodded. “I can upload the file from here, but the system at work won’t process it until morning.” He turned back to his monitor. “The transfer should only take a few minutes.”

  With the decision made, Stanley wasted no time. He dialed into his company’s server, entered his account information and password, and then transferred the file. He renamed it so that ScanDat’s system would recognize it as test input. It went off without a hitch.

  “Now what?” asked Slocum.

  “Tomorrow morning the file will automatically be processed. It won’t be recognized, so it will be rejected, but as part of that process it will be analyzed and a log file generated.”

  There was suddenly a loud thump as Bobby rolled off the couch, where he had been sleeping. He stood up and looked around, confused by his surroundings.

  Stanley walked over to him. “It’s okay, Bobby, I’m right here.”

  The boy looked at his father and climbed back onto the couch. “I’m tired.” His eyes closed as he curled up.

  “You want to stay there?” asked Stanley.

  “Yeah.” He was already drifting off.

  Slocum said, “I’ll get a blanket and pillow.” He left the room and came back shortly with the promised items, handing them to Stanley.

  “Thanks.” He placed the pillow under his son’s head and covered him with the blanket.

  “Night, Dad.”

  “Good night, son.” Stanley bent down and kissed him on the forehead.

  Slocum turned away. He had never had a son, and figured he probably never would. But deep inside he yearned for–something. Continuity of his line, perhaps, or maybe it was something deeper, more elemental. He shook his head, clearing away the sentimental thoughts. He motioned for Stanley to join him in the kitchen, where their conversation would not disturb Bobby.

  “You seem to be making progress with the files, but do you think you can come up with a way to hack into the agency’s database?”

  “That’s the ultimate goal,” said Stanley. “But right now we don’t have enough information to even try. After I see the analysis of that file tomorrow we may have something to go on.”

  “Will you have the freedom to do that at work?” asked Slocum.

  “I generally work fairly independently. It shouldn’t be a problem.” He couldn’t have been more wrong.

  ***

  Stanley wanted to get to work early the next morning, but he was late getting Bobby to school, so it was impossible. Katherine and Boyd were both already there when he arrived. Katherine heard him rustling around in his cubicle and walked over.

  “Morning, Stanley.”

  “Hi, Katherine. What’s up?”

  “Not much. Boyd’s onto something.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She gestured with her head towards the computer room, a large glass-enclosed affair. “Apparently something hit the firewall last night. He thinks it might have been a virus. You know Boyd and security. If someone’s trying to break in, it’s no holds barred.”

  She was right. Boyd had been known to trace hostile viruses back to their point of origin, and in at least one case had used the same virus to infect the sender’s computer. He didn’t take credit for that one, not officially, but the grin that he had worn around for two days said it all.

  “I’ll be right back,” said Stanley. He hurried in to see Boyd, and was immediately concerned when he saw the look on his face. “What’s up?”

  “You tell me,” said Boyd.

  “What do you mean?”

  Boyd didn’t look up from the screen as he worked the keyboard. “You’ve been experimenting with the interface, haven’t you?”

  “Not really,” said Stanley. “I sent one file last night, but it wasn’t part of a full regimen.”

  “What kind of file?”

  Now here was a dilemma. Stanley couldn’t tell him what kind of file it was, because that’s what he was trying to find out. And if he didn’t know what kind of file it was, he shouldn’t have sent it into the company’s system.

  “Why, what’s the problem?” Neatly dodged.

  “I asked you what kind of file it is.” As Stanley remained silent, Boyd continued. “The thing is, it’s not acting like anything I’ve ever seen. The inner firewall is, I don’t know, confused.”

  Stanley was alarmed. “Did you say the file made it to the inner firewall?”

  There were two distinct layers of security; the primary firewall protected the company’s regular systems. The inner firewall worked exclusively with the experimental interface they were designing. Stanley had expected that the file would be processed and discarded, not transferred to the inner firewall.

  “Yeah. It was sitting in the buffer when I got in this morning. The security protocol should have booted it right out. Tried to, in fact. But every time it seems to be purged, it…mutates.”

  “Mutates? What do you mean?”

  “The thing changes,” said Boyd. “Name, size, type–it just keeps changing. Like it’s alive, man.” Boyd looked back at the monitor. “See, it just got purged again, then it came back. Damn thing’s resilient.”

  Stanley watched as Boyd fruitlessly tried to disgorge the unwanted visitor. “Boyd, there’s something I have to tell you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The file I sent last night…”

  “Uh huh…”

  “It never should have hit the inner firewall.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Stanley took a deep breath. “I set it to feed to the interface, but it should have kicked out before it got that far.”

  For a moment Boyd just stared at him. “That’s impossible. The interface isn’t configured to pass anything through right now.”

  “That’s what scares me,” said Stanley. “This thing got through.”

  “It’s only a file. It can’t do what you’re suggesting.”

  Stanley pointed at the monitor. “We need to look at that file very closely.”

  Boyd’s next words were chilling. “I don’t know how.”

  They looked helplessly at the console. The intruder disappeared, only to materialize in a different form twenty seconds later.

  Boyd stood up and pushed his chair back. “I’m going to isolate the inner firewall, disconnect it at both ends. We can configure another box to replace this one, but I want this machine off the network until I figure out what’s going on.” He didn’t shut down the computer, but simply unhooked the sets of cables that joined it to their system and the experimental interface. “And don’t think you’re not going to tell me what’s going on.”

  Stanley bent down to help with one of the cables. “I can’t give you all the details right now, because I was doing a favor for a friend.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Boyd. “It’s always that mysterious other person.”

  “No, really. He works for another company and he wanted me to take a look at this file. He wasn’t sure what it was, and neither was I, so I thought I’d let the firewall isolate it.”

  “You figured the log would show basic file information, right?”

  Stanley slowly nodded. “Yes.”

  “Did it?”

  That stopped him. He hadn’t had a chance to check yet. “I don’t know. I came in here as soon as Katherine mentioned there was a problem.”

  “Then let’s have a look.”

  They moved to the main console, and Boyd sat down in front of the display. It was typical that he would place himself in charge.

  “Let’s see.” He scrolled through several pages of log entries. “Nothing in here for last night. In fact, nothing here about any downloads since our test yesterday. That one shows up crystal clear. One binary enco
ded, non-destructive file passed through the interface at two thirty-seven. Since then, nada.”

  Stanley leaned down and looked over Boyd’s shoulder. “That can’t be. If it got through, which it obviously did, there would have to be an entry.”

  “Are you sure you named it correctly?”

  “Boyd…”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. But you can see there’s nothing showing.”

  “This is crazy,” said Stanley, straightening. “The system wouldn’t let it through without logging it.”

  “Hey, don’t whine to me about it. You and your friend are the ones who infected us.”

  “We’re not infected.”

  Boyd looked at Stanley from the corner of his eye. “Then what’s that thing swimming around in my firewall?”

  “Okay, it’s my fault. So I’ll take care of it.”

  “Damn straight you will,” said Boyd. “I don’t have time to go chasing gremlins around the system. Mr. Klugman expects me to focus on the project, and we need that firewall back online. Today.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

  Boyd logged off the system, then got up and left the computer room in a huff. He was upset, Stanley knew, because he couldn’t figure out the bizarre file that had taken up residence in the firewall. At least it had been stopped there. Stanley went for a cup of coffee. It was going to be a long day, and he needed a kick-start.

  ***

  Agent Sharon was not a happy camper. The event had recurred several times, and he knew it was originating from somewhere in the massive fiber bundle near Philadelphia. All he needed now was to install the taps he had requested along the affected segment of the information grid, and the source would eventually be pinpointed. Then had come word from Roberts that there would be no taps.

  “I’m sorry,” said Roberts. “But Legal was adamant. No taps on the Internet without evidence of a crime, or a demonstrable threat to the infrastructure. The risk of exposure is too great.”