After a moment that seemed to last an eternity, a new message appeared on the screen.
LAST AUTHORIZED USER TO SIGN IN: UNREGISTERED
That was impossible…anyone who had a PSE account, especially one used for online activity, required a username and identification number. Jason’s mind flew as the screen blinked in front of him again. He tried wording his command differently.
“Computer, recognize last certified username and ID number to access PSE program XCP310.”
ACTIVE USER UNREGISTERED
“Active?” Jason couldn’t contain the whisper of incredulity that escaped him. There was someone else hacking into his game, while he was still locked up in it?
“To clarify,” he said, his voice rising, “You mean to tell me there’s someone else using my program, right now?”
LAST AUTHORIZED USER TO SIGN IN: UNREGISTERED
“Yeah, yeah, you useless heap of junk. Thanks for the update. Screen for active users and all affiliated details.”
The original message appeared, flashing before his eyes like a red flag before a bull.
ERROR CODE 40023 - UNAUTHORIZED USER COMMAND
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Jason furrowed his brows, itching the stubble on his chin as he ran his hand along it. Who could possibly have access to his room? He was sitting at his computer desk when he started the program. He lived alone in a one bedroom apartment, in a nicer part of town that didn’t experience many breakins. No one else had free access to his place; not even any of his friends had their fingerprints programmed into his home security system.
If there was someone there they weren’t there by invitation. Was there someone there? Someone hovering over his completely vulnerable, and for all appearances unconscious, body? The thought chilled him. He looked around again, as if he could actually see the intruder appear. That idea should be impossible, but it should also be impossible for the computer to lock him out of his own program, as well as for anyone else to be able to access it.
“Hello?” he asked again, nearly shouting into the surrounding darkness. Even the bluish computer towers seemed dimmer, like they were losing battery life. Was that a reflection of his physical state? I hope to god not…
He straightened his shoulders, squaring them like he was facing an opponent. “Is anyone here?” The room full of transparent towers seemed never-ending. There were no exit signs or any breaks in the monotonous scenery in sight.
“Is anyone there?” he asked, this time a little louder. The only response was his echo. Taking in a deep breath, he took a few steps forward. Ripples appeared under his feet on the black surface, like he was walking across water, reflecting back the bluish hue of the dimming computer towers. His boots felt heavy, like stepping through thick mud, as he continued walking down an isle with rows of towers on both sides of him.
He was stuck in the middle of an infinite maze. There was no end and no beginning within the realm of his sight or reason. He turned around quickly, wildly wishing for the heat and crowds of the Rome simulation. At least then, he had something to get his bearings by. But now?
He was, quite literally, lost in thought. Trapped in the recesses of his own mind.
“Hello?” he asked quieter, humbled by the sense that he was completely irrelevant in the midst of a program that didn’t care about his well being.
No response. Perhaps it’s a glitch in the system. It has to be. There’s no intruder. The program doesn’t know what it’s saying anymore. I just managed to accidentally get my hands on a piece of software that’s malfunctioned.
The thought was hardly comforting, but at least it was a problem that he could try to rationally think about. The idea of his body lying completely useless while someone sorted through his things or his mind was too horrifying to try and process.
How am I supposed to get out of this place, wherever it is? How do I get out of my own mind?
He sat contemplating his dilemma, not even realizing that he was sitting until he went to pick at the sole of his shoe. He was just wondering if he could somehow will himself to appear somewhere at the edge of this maze of computer towers, when a sound came from afar, misting down on him like rain.
His heart leapt a beat, just glad that something in the program was finally changing. The noise sounded like static, fading in and out like an old stereo from the days when they’d still used radio waves. Jason followed the noise as best as he could, stopping when it disappeared—and attempting to inch closer when it resurfaced. If nothing else, the sound was acting as a guide to see him through the limitless sea of machines.
As he weaved through the tower rows, he couldn’t help but remember videos that he’d seen in high school of varying experiments. Technicians and scientists had often tested a rat’s ability to navigate a confusing web of twists and turns using senses such as smell and hearing. That was how he felt now. Like a lab rat being watched. Studied. The horrifying thought that maybe he was undergoing that right now passed through his mind.
Still, against his better judgment, he continued to follow the sound. What other option did he have? As he walked, the towers decreased in number, the twinkling lights still blinking softly, but with more blackness between them. Had they already been thinning out like that, or had the appearance of the sound changed the dynamic of the setting around him?
He crept closer to what he deemed to be the source, and the noise became louder, no longer fading in and out, but holding as a continuous buzzing and humming. After another moment, he was shocked to realize that the seemingly incomprehensible static actually contained a faint voice! What was it trying to say?
Hear…you? …son? …if you… The words were still too muffled for Jason to make much out of. Son…as in Jason? Was someone trying to reach out to him? His heart thudded so hard he thought it might fly from his chest. Though he knew he couldn’t have been under for more than a couple of hours, it suddenly felt as though he had been trapped in the black room for years. Hearing anything, even a fuzzy impression of another person’s voice, was welcome music to Jason’s ears.
He tried to decipher the speech, but from where he stood it was difficult. The last of the towers surrounded him, offering him at least some kind of a hiding place. If he stepped out into the semi blackness, closer to the voice, he might risk revealing himself to whoever else might be watching.
Yeah and who’s going to be watching you inside of your own head? He worried that his wary actions weren’t from paranoia, but from a deeper, instinctual sense that was telling him something was wrong. Still, if he stayed hidden forever, he risked never escaping this place.
Every step, every breath felt dangerous, as though Jason were being monitored. The feeling that someone was watching him didn’t dissipate as he neared a patch of darkness that seemed more gray than black, but nothing struck him either.
A male voice was steadily coming through the static, repeating the same sounding syllables over and over again. Saying…what? The closer he got to the static, the air practically humming with the energy of the words, the clearer they became.
“Jason, can you hear me? Jason? Jason, are you there?” The panicked voice repeated itself twice more before a feeling of relief flooded over Jason. This wasn’t a dream, or some figment his mind had conjured up. Someone was reaching out to him…someone was going to help him!
As if his realization was what was needed to clear up the signal all along, the gray space immediately cleared, like fog lifting after the sun rises, and he found himself staring at yet another tower, this one larger and more brightly lit than all of the others combined, seeming to emit more natural light than the harsh glare of the other computers. The man’s voice was coming from the top of the tower, which Jason had to crane his neck to see clearly. An image was coming into focus up on a screen embedded within the large structure.
Jason took several steps back to be able to see the picture clearly. He knew why the voice attached to the face had brought him such relief; he knew the
man that had been calling out.
A man named Clyde, a good man that Jason considered somewhere between a good acquaintance and a friend was looking out into the blackness, his eyes searching as though he were looking for something or someone. He must’ve logged into their shared account within the PSE for when they interacted together, but why wasn’t he full immersed and standing next to Jason? Was there really something that wrong with the computer?
Clyde, a computer programmer, might be one of the only people who could get Jason out of this mess. Jason didn’t even stop to consider how Clyde had found him, or why he might be there. He waved his hands frantically, causing Clyde to look down, adjusting the screen so that they could see each other clearly.
“I didn’t ever think that I’d be saying this to you, but damn, man, you’re a sight for sore eyes! You mind telling me what the hell is going on?”
“Thank god you’re okay! You’ve had everyone scared to death.”
“Again, you want to fill me in on what’s going on? How long have I been stuck in here? Why do you still look so worried? You can see me! Just find a way to get me out of here.” Clyde’s worried expression didn’t change as he opened his mouth to speak.
“Jason, look, we don’t have much time. It’s sheer dumb luck that I was able to find you at all. I was trying to get a hold of you for our dinner plans tonight. When you didn’t call me back I got worried, so I showed up at your door.”
“And?” Jason asked, scared to know the answer. There was no way Clyde could tell him he was bleeding to death or something, could he? He wouldn’t have wasted time trying to hack his way into Jason’s system. He would have just woken Jason up, or taken him to a hospital. Right?
“It was locked and no one answered, although I called a couple of different times. I went back out to see if you had run to the corner store or something, and I noticed there was a black van parked out there. It didn’t exactly look like it belonged, if you know what I mean, and, God, I don’t know how to tell you this without making it sound as bad as it is.”
“Just tell me,” Jason said through gritted teeth.
“There was someone at your window closing your blinds. Obviously not you based on height and stuff. So…I hope you don’t mind, I didn’t know what else to do…I tried hacking into your webcam on your desk.”
It had to have been a handy time to have a hacker as a friend. “What did you see? What were they doing?” Jason’s worst fears had been confirmed. Someone was in the room with him, while his body was unable to protect itself. What did they want?
“I didn’t get very far. The intruder must have noticed the red light come on, the one on the top of the camera. He might have even been looking at it, waiting for someone to try something, because he was in front of the monitor in seconds. He—he told me if I tried anything he would kill you.”
“So what, I’m just abandoned here with some lunatic who is going to do God knows what to me?” Jason’s voice was several octaves higher than usual. He sounded like he was going through puberty again.
“Of course not! I hacked into your virtual reality system, obviously. I did my best to cover my tracks…I’m on an encrypted communications line, so that’s why I might not be coming in clearly.”
“So, in all of this, did you ever bother to figure out, you know, what the hell this guy is doing in my room? What does he want? I don’t have anything…”
“The only thing I can think of is he must have somehow found out about your security clearance level at work.”
Jason paled. He hadn’t considered that someone might be doing this for some reason other than a personal one. Was his job to blame for what was happening to him? “That’s not possible. The only other people who know what our security clearances are, are the same ones who are able to access the same information we can.”
“All I know is he is busy at your desk. He doesn’t know I’m talking to you…he’s too preoccupied trying to run the system without actually being present in the PSE, which I didn’t even know you could do.”
“Fine time to find out,” Jason laughed weakly.
“If he finds out that we’ve been talking…well, we just have to hurry. He’s the one who got you trapped in the system. I don’t know how long he’s been watching you.”
“Who is he? How do you know all this? And how the hell do I get out of here?” The rapid fire questions burst from Jason’s mouth like bullets.
“I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him before at work or around anywhere I hang out, but he must be some kind of computer whiz to be able to break into your system like that. I’ve been trying to monitor what he’s looking for without him noticing I’m watching, but it’s like only being able to peek through the blinds. I just get glimpses of the data…but…I hate to tell you this, but I’m almost sure he’s been searching through your data files. I can’t tell exactly how much he’s accessed.”
Oh god. If this creep had gotten his hands on the data it wasn’t just Jason’s life and money at stake.
Jason had been one of the first of a new line of security within the Elated Trust Community Bank, formerly just Community Trust. There had been too many hackers who had been able to hack into a regular computer, no matter what kind of firewalls the bank put up. When the bank had reopened after a two month shut down to revamp the place, they had rechristened themselves and strengthened their security measures ten-fold. Jason was a part of that new security system.
The idea had started with one of the board members. What if the information wasn’t kept in the bank itself, accessible to anyone smart enough that had an internet connection? The data would be contained within one person, one unknown and uninteresting person of the community that would be put through strenuous tests to make sure that they could be trusted. That person would then be encrypted, through an entirely new system similar to the PSE, all of the bank data stored away in their head for retrieval at a moment’s notice. No one except the bank president would know who the person was. It was a brilliant, and some thought, flawless plan.
So Jason had taken on the responsibility of being a walking safe with encrypted bank account codes and numbers tucked away within a micro neuro-chip that had been carefully placed in the base of his skull. Only the engineers, one doctor, a few programmers, and the CEO of the company knew about it. The CEO was the only member of the team that knew both the identity of the man inserted with a chip and the information contained in it.
The whole shift in policies and renovation of the banking system had occurred after the central system attack six months ago. The debacle had exposed almost ten million accounts to hackers, so his bank was trying to save face, trying a different approach to cyber security. A decentralized system embedded within carefully selected employees, if there were actually any others besides Jason himself.
If successful, data could be spread out among cleared, anonymous individuals. A decentralized, human banking system. Unauthorized attempts at extraction of the data would alert the host of the chip, local authorities, and the bank of an intrusion immediately. The data would be immediately moved to another host via an internet current that was hooked up through the host. The carrier of the chip would remain unharmed, the information painlessly carted away. The suspect would be in custody. They would not be used again as a carrier until the bank deemed it safe.
At least, that was how it had been explained to him in the worst case scenarios part of the presentation.
“So now what?” he asked finally. His brain must have been in shock. His body was no longer responding with a fight or flight response, but a deadening sense of rationality. Clyde’s face looked sympathetic. He wasn’t a carrier himself, but he’d been one of the programmers that had helped to develop the chip. He had been one of the ones presenting the risks to the man who now stood in front of him.
“I have a plan,” Clyde promised. “But you’re going to have to follow it exactly, or we risk being discovered. We don’t have much time. He’s movin
g fast through your files. It’s only a matter of time before he realizes they have already been moved from your computer.”
Clyde had been one of the top programmers working on the transplant of data, the second in command when it came to designing the idea that had been set forth by the board members.
His worst fear about the top secret project, the one thing that they had promised wouldn’t happen for years, if ever, was coming true. It hadn’t taken hackers decades to realize that someone and not something was the safe for information now. And he was being personally targeted for that supposedly untraceable information. He had been hesitant about the experiment when the CEO had first approached him. He hadn’t been able to believe that such technology was possible, much less that he would be one of the pioneers to determine if it would be successful.
He had never imagined that he would be caught up in the progress of a new generation, but that was exactly how the CEO had spun it to him. He hadn’t given Jason the full details of the assignment, not until after Jason had agreed, contracts had been signed, and Jason had been put through some of the most rigorous tests of his life, namely being interrogated by people in the project over and over again. There had been a period where he’d gone two full days without sleep and hadn’t cracked when they’d bombarded him with questions about his mission. At the time, he thought it made him brave.
But nothing could have prepared him to look real danger in the face. No test set up by a bunch of high society executives or programmers like Clyde who often weren’t even comfortable in their own skin, could have shown him what the real, vicious, fear of having your own head hacked into felt like.
Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. The old phrase that his grandmother used to chant at him came floating back through his mind. If he had known what it really felt like to have someone looking around in his head, his body helpless at the desk in his room, would he have still taken on the job for the sake of pride and progress?
Descendants Page 6
