Returning to Zero (Mick O'Malley Series Book 2)

by Alan B. Johnston

  With Gunter’s help, they uncovered about six lengths of aluminum pipe. Mick found some emery cloth in the shack and set about carefully cleaning the ends, buffing them until they were shiny. He then started joining them together, creating a single six meter-long tent pole.

  Next, he moved into the shack and scraped up the wax on the bench, piling it up in a cooking pan. He showed Gunter how to take apart the ancient power supply and remove the foil shielding over a number of components. He peeled carefully, trying not to tear, then laid out the strips flat.

  When he had half of a pan full, Mick took the wax and warmed it over the embers of their neglected fire, just as the first spits of rain began to fall. The sky flashed continually to the south.

  Once the wax was liquid, he moved back into the shack and got out the glass jugs. Mick put on the gloves, and began dipping the strips of foil in the wax, then pressing the foil to the inside of the jug so it stuck. Once the inside was covered, he moved to the outside, and stuck the foil to the glass.

  “Have you ever made these before?” Gunter asked, skeptically. Mick glared at him.

  “I need some good copper pieces and that spool of wire.” he replied, pointing.

  Have I made a Leyden jar before? Of course I have!

  Mick wedged the strip of copper inside the jar so that it made contact with the inner foil lining. He did the same with the other two jars.

  He searched around and found a rusty blade that he used to cut short lengths of the wire and strip the insulation from the last few centimeters. Then he cut a few more strips and completely removed the insulation. He wrapped the stripped wire around the outside of the jar, pinning the copper wire to the foil. He twisted the wire together, then inserted a nail in it, and began twisting the nail which tightened the wire, pressing the wire into the foil. He then secured the nail with another loop of wire.

  Mick connected the three jars together in parallel. He arranged the three in a way that they were all facing the same way, and stood next to each other. The word used by Benjamin Franklin to describe this arrangement was ‘battery’, which was borrowed from centuries-old artillery terminology, and meant a number of guns aligned and used in unison.

  The final step was to connect the wire from the outside of the ‘battery’ to one metal rod, which Mick drove deep into the earth. Fortunately, the sandy earth put up little resistance. He ran the other wire, which was connected to the interior of the jars, from the shack about fifteen meters away, getting completely soaked in the process.

  “Gunter?” Mick asked, picking up the rod.

  “This is insane,” Gunter mumbled, but came out into the storm and helped erect the pole. With much pushing, twisting, and swearing, using all their weight they secured the pole. It stuck up high into the air, much higher than any of the surrounding bushes or small trees.

  “Now we wait!”

  They retreated to their tent, and repositioned it so that the opening faced the rod about fifty meters away. They stripped off their wet clothes and quickly warmed up as the thunderstorm raged around them. Fortunately, the wind was not strong, and the tower only slightly swayed.

  The frequency of lightening flashes increased, and soon Mick could see the forked plasma slicing across the sky.

  Come on, come on, just one strike!

  Then, the flashes started tapering off, and the thunder seemed to be getting further away. Mick swore under his breath—maybe this wasn’t going to work after all.

  Just as this thought went through his mind, a blinding flash illuminated the whole area, and a deafening “crack” sounded. Mick fell backwards, seemingly from the force of the strike, but probably just from his tense nerves.

  When he sat up, he couldn’t see anything for a moment, and his ears rang. Then, he saw another flash, and then some yellow-orange light flickered.

  Fire!

  Chapter 1E.

  “Gunter, quick!” Mick shouted as he sprinted out of the tent towards the shack. He kicked in the door and could see molten metal all around, and a pile of oily rags licked by growing flames. He looked at the Leyden jars, which had tipped over but otherwise looked intact. All the copper wire had vaporized.

  He carefully went over and gingerly touched a jar. He had expected it to be hot, but it was not. He picked it up, being careful not to touch the copper bar electrode sticking out of the mouth of the jar. He carried it out of the shack and placed it at Gunter’s feet.

  “See if you can do something about the fire while I get the jars,” he shouted. He had the second one out of the shack while Gunter tried to dump sand on the fire, but the fire continued to spread. Mick got the third one out and shouted to Gunter who came out of the shed, his eyes swollen and his hand black with soot. There was no way they could put out the fire, so they sat and watched it for a moment. Then he remembered…

  The components!

  Mick dashed back to the shed and opened the door, and was hit with a wave of heat and flame. He saw the pile of salvaged electronic components, and his blade on the floor, and grabbed for them. He felt the burn as he closed his hand around them, but kept gripping, and a moment later he was clear of the shack. He dropped the pile and shook his hands in pain, dropping to his knees. The rain stopped, but the fire burned.

  “That was an incredibly stupid thing to do!” Gunter admonished Mick, as he opened a First Aid kit and put burn cream on Mick’s fingers and palm on his left hand.

  “Ow!” Mick wailed, but the pain started to go away. He could see blisters starting to form, and wondered how they would feel with salt water on them when they were on the ship. “What… is… the… time?” he managed.

  “After midnight. Plenty of time,” Gunter replied. “Can you be sure they are charged?” he asked, looking at the jars.

  Mick had been thinking of that. One way to tell would be to touch a jar, but such a shock could be lethal, so they would just have to wait.

  “Not until… discharge… them,” he replied. He had read of many of the early experiments with high voltage—they had all been performed using lightning-charged Leyden jars—the predecessor to the electronic capacitor. In theory, the lightning strike had stored large amounts of electric charge in the layers of foil, lined up as opposite positive and negative charges on either side of the glass dielectric. “In… little… while,” he replied. Gunter slapped his back.

  “Sure, mate. Rest for a bit.”

  Running out of fuel, the fire was burning itself out, with large sparks wafting into the sky which still flashed and boomed in the distance.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to wait a little longer?” Gunter asked an hour later.

  “No, I’m good. I’m dying to know,” Mick replied. He had been thinking hard for the past hour on how to perform the final step. He had failed to anticipate the pyrotechnics and subsequent fire—he couldn’t afford to miss something else, or else it would all be for nothing.

  He had wired up a new circuit, connecting all the power resistors that Gunter had managed to remove from the old power supply in a series configuration. In theory, they should drop the Leyden jar voltage enough to safely charge his mobile battery.

  Or perhaps it will be vaporized.

  He knew he would most likely only get one shot at this—the chances of one of the resistors overheating was high, and he had calculated that he needed all of them.

  He had built a primitive blade switch to activate the circuit. It allowed him to operate it with a two meter piece of driftwood that he hoped was sufficiently dried out to be non-conductive.

  The connection to his mobile battery had been difficult. He had melted a lead fishing sinker and dripped the molten metal onto the battery terminal to temporarily solder it together. It was time to find out.

  “Mick, before you do this, I wanted you to know that—”

  “Shut up, Gunter!” Mick replied, and threw the switch. Much to his surprise, there was no flash, not much of a spark, and no smoke and fire. Instead, a yellow LED light blinked
for a few seconds on his mobile, then a green light came on solid. Surprised, Mick struggled to open the switch but eventually shut it down.

  He bent down, wet his finger, then touched it to the battery case. It didn’t sizzle, indicating it wasn’t hot. He touched it again—it was warm, but not burning. He powered up the device and was rewarded with a full battery indication!

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” he shouted, the pain in his hand momentarily forgotten.

  “Fantastic! Well done!”

  The last hour passed quickly. Mick and Gunter struck the tent and hid it along with the other borrowed camping gear in a hole where Krishna would collect it.

  As 3am came close, they hiked the short distance down to the beach and began scanning the horizon for ships. They could see a few large tankers in the distance.

  The storm had blown away completely and the stars shone brightly over the Taiwan Straight.

  Mick fired up his mobile and activated a peer-to-peer mesh network on the correct frequency band and waited.

  Normal range on this band was only a few kilometers, but over water with no obstructions, it probably reached much further. A few minutes after the hour, his mobile made a connection with another computer. A text file was transferred which read simply:

  What is the name of our mutual friend?

  Mick edited the file adding Krishna’s name and waited. Suddenly, a light appeared off the coast, which bobbed and appeared to move towards them. Mick figured they were tracking his wireless signal, as they had no other lights or illumination, yet the ship was headed straight towards them.

  Only in the last few meters did he hear the electric motor mounted on the transom of the canoe and could see the single occupant. He grinned a friendly welcome, and his teeth seemed to glow brighter than the small light on the bow.

  “Hi!” Mick called out quietly, waving.

  “Hi, hi!” came the reply, equally quiet.

  The canoe came to a halt on the beach, and Mick and Gunter splashed through the shallow water to meet it. They loaded their packs and Gunter climbed aboard. There wasn’t much room, but the sea was flat and the wind minimal. Mick walked the bow of the canoe around so that it was facing out to sea again. With a single motion he climbed aboard and gave the canoe a shove. The electric motor buzzed to life and they started making way.

  Mick glanced back to the shore. He could still make out the glow of the embers of the shack. He wondered if Krishna would be angry at its accidental destruction—the way Krishna spoke about the shack hinted that he was fond of it.

  As they headed out further, he started to see additional lights of the island. It was amazing how this particular spot was shrouded in darkness.

  Mick turned and glanced over to Gunter who was not enjoying the trip much, grimly clutching his backpack. He looked off into the distance for the ship, but could still see nothing. Then, he began to see something, or at least he began to see a place where the horizon and sky seemed to be blocked—it was still complete blackness.

  The blackness definitely was taking on the shape of a ship, which seemed to have sails. Mick smiled to himself, realizing what it was.

  A junk!

  The canoe shut off its bow light and circled around the stern of the traditional Chinese vessel. Mick could just make out the three masts with furled sails on each. On the other side was a small rope ladder along the wooden hull. A face peered over the side and a hand waved. Mick retrieved the bow line and held it up in a question. Both the skipper and the man on the ship nodded, so he tossed the end up to the man who caught it and made it fast. Mick looked at Gunter who looked back at him.

  “After you,” Gunter said. Mick grabbed his pack, and hoisted it over his head where it was snatched out of his hands. Then he grabbed the rope ladder and climbed.

  With two feet on the deck, he glanced around, and spotted the captain approaching. Gunter appeared over the rail a moment later. Captain Han appeared, nodded, then looked to the man next to him who spoke to them.

  “Welcome!” the man said. Mick nodded and waited for more to be said. More than a few seconds passed, then he continued. “We saw a fire a few hours earlier.”

  “Ah, yes. That was us—sorry about that.” Mick replied.

  “We almost aborted, but it seems to have gone unnoticed, so we continued. You are very lucky. I’ll show you to your cabin.”

  Mick and Gunter followed the man, presumably the first mate. Mick had named them man in his head Guido, simply because his internal narrator needed a name. Guido moved swiftly down two levels and across a lower deck—Mick and Gunter had a hard time keeping up. At what had to be the bilge level, Guido lifted a hatch and pointed.

  “Here’s where you’ll be when we get inside Chinese territorial waters. You can stay on deck if you wear a hat and raincoat. Stay far from the rail as these waters are full of rogue waves that you’ll never spot until they wash you overboard.”

  “Understood,” Mick replied, trying to avoid activating his sense of smell. Guido left them alone.

  “This is just great. I really have to hand it to you—you know how to travel in style,” Gunter began. Mick raised his hands in mock submission, and Gunter stopped. “How long?” he asked.

  “Shouldn’t be more than a dozen hours, unless we have to take a circuitous route.”

  “Good! I’m going up on deck.”

  Up on deck, they surveyed the ocean, almost completely black with only starlight for illumination. Mick pulled out some dried squid from his pocket and offered it to Gunter who refused. Mick chewed slowly and let his mind relax for the first time that evening.

  He wondered what plan Guido had for getting him ashore in China. Once there, he would again make use of his RAPtOR contacts and make it to the next step. He was feeling anxious, and he knew it wasn’t just because of NØviz. There was someone else he knew who was also heading to Shanghai that he was distinctly not looking forward to meeting.

  Chapter 1F.

  From the Privacy and Other Mirages Blog:

  Can I use crypto-currencies to have privacy in my finances?

  Crypto-currencies have become popular lately. They do provide an alternative way to pay for things on the Internet or to transfer money between individuals. It is more private than paying using a credit card or online payment services. And it is more private than bank wire transfers. However, in another way, crypto-currencies are the opposite of private-—let me explain.

  Conventional currencies are backed by a country or a bank--the issuer. Crypto-currencies are not backed by anything, except math. There is no centralized control point. In many ways, crypto-currencies are more like a commodity, such as gold or silver. The algorithms associated with crypto-currencies ensure that there is a predictable supply, which makes them different from conventional currencies, whose supply is often managed to control inflation or exchange rates with other currencies.

  In particular with crypto-currencies, there is no centralized source for transaction validations. Instead, there is a peer-to-peer network that performs calculations on behalf of all users of the crypto-currency to validate transactions. This produces effectively a public register of all crypto-currency transactions, known as the block chain. As such, no crypto-currency transactions are private, as they are stored all over the Internet and available to anyone who wants to query them. However, the names of the people involved in the transactions aren’t in the register, but their public keys are visible.

  Crypto-currencies use a public/private key pair to generate digital signatures. This key pair is associated with a piece of software known as a wallet. If it becomes known that you use a particular crypto-currency wallet, then all of your transactions made using that wallet will be known.

  So, does crypto-currency provide privacy? The answer is a definite yes and no! ;-)

  Chapter 2Ø.

  Ja2 I hate when I can’t communicate with someone because of language barriers. Where’s my #babelfish or #universaltranslator?

  The train slow
ly came to a halt at the Leningradsky Railway Station, brakes squealing, and whistles blowing.

  Jasinski got up immediately, packing her bags and organizing, while NØviz sat silently.

  “Come on, let’s go!” she said impatiently.

  “Rush, rush, rush,” he complained. “It has taken us three days to get here—why the rush now?” Jasinski shot him a glare, but knew from experience that it would do no good.

  It had been over three days since they departed Berlin. Their ultimate destination was still far away, but arriving in Moskva was a major milestone.

  Jasinski did not really understand why NØviz wanted to fly out of Russia instead of Deutschland. NØviz wouldn’t explain, and ultimately she just had to follow if she wanted to stay with him.

  She was sure that Mick would get her communication and would be on his way as well—somehow. She smiled to herself at his name. He would make it there, that crazy guy. She was actually much more worried about their own travels.

  NØviz might be an excellent exploit writer and hacker, but his personal security left a lot to be desired. As unbelievable as it sounded, he used unencrypted mail, spoke openly on his mobile phone, and didn’t always use VPN encryption or traffic obfuscation in his browsing. How was it that he hadn’t been caught by Cloud 8++? Or by the FSB—Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, the Russian intelligence agency?

  He was certainly an interesting guy to hang around with. He was deeply cynical about the world, suspicious of everything and everyone. She knew a few conspiracy theory groups that he would fit right into.

  Once the aisle outside the compartment emptied out, NØviz stood and began organizing his stuff. A few minutes later, Jasinski followed him down the compartment and out onto the platform.

  NØviz said they had some time to kill, and he asked Jasinski what she wanted to see. She didn’t hesitate in saying the Kremlin. She was impressed by the towering red walls and turrets. Jasinski’s reading of the history of walls for the defense of Moskva seemed to indicate that they had been less than effective. But this didn’t stop the walls being built and rebuilt over time. The walls were also used for burial of honored dead, such as the crew of the doomed Soyuz 11 spacecraft who had perished when their capsule depressurized during re-entry in 1971.