Chapter 6: With the Cyber Cops
Alice Jones was still hanging out at the palace. She was not reassigned as part of the security detail, Mac shuddered every time he saw the woman. Her clumsiness was legendary. Every supervisor had been baptized by the young woman. Mac thought it was funny that every time she baptized someone she had an exact copy of the shirt, or dress, that she ruined by coffee or such. It had stopped being funny though when she spilled some ice cream on his young daughter. When it was all said and done Alice handed him three small robots, “Chief you need to sweep your home a couple of times a week for bugs. These little gems were on your girl’s dress.”
After that although he still shuddered when he saw her, he didn’t doubt her intentions. He had taken her down to the range and had her fire her side arm. She put ten rounds onto the target like it was easy. Then she went to the combat range. No one in the history of the protective service had scored better than 80 percent. Alice had gone through the range in record time, and the AI scoring the event and the human range officer couldn’t believe their eyes. Not only had she gotten through it in record time, she didn’t have one wrong target, and all the targets were down. No one in the details had ever gotten through the range without being shot at least twice. He didn’t understand how someone so clumsy could be so effective on the combat range.
For all her clumsiness she was well liked by the principles. The Queen often asked for her when she went walking around the grounds, and she often stood post outside the Wilson quarters. But what surprised him the most was the relationship between her and Georgia. They were almost inseparable. If he didn’t know better he would have sworn they were lovers. But Georgia wasn’t interested in women, and Alice definitely liked men. The two were good at what they did. He was thinking of poaching the young woman from the computer detail and assigning her permanently to the Wilsons, but he also knew she was needed in the detail she was originally assigned to.
Alice was aware of Mac’s concerns and musings. She wished she could tell him what was going on. But she had almost gotten to the bottom of the cyber conspiracy. When she wasn’t standing post in the palace she was deep into the cyber network. She had several conversations with her mother who was chasing down some leads too. There were only two AIs that seemed to be the problem. Yet she couldn’t find them. They were deep into the system somewhere. She was at a loss to explain why she couldn’t find them.
“I don’t know Alice,” Georgia said as she and Alice shared a late night snack. “But if the AIs are really trying to prevent this evacuation, or up to no good you would have thought that they would leave tracks all over the place.”
“They use the net to cover their tracks. Many of them manage the net so it’s easy for them to use a back door for their dealings.” Alice said, “So far it’s not the AIs in government service, the emergency services AI is clean, so is the defense department unit. The banking AI is clean. They can’t hide that well in those systems. Mom made sure I could get into any system I needed to.”
“We’ve checked the big units, what about the smaller units. The units who don’t believe we are going to make sure they get transport to where ever they want to go.” Georgia commented. “It could be a freight dispatcher in Trenaport. It could be a small AI in a podunk town.”
“You may be on to something.” Alice said, “I have found traces of small petty stuff. Those have been investigated and those AI are in the process of being reprogrammed. But they were diversions. There is a big cheese out there and it’s an AI that will not be in a position of power. Hell it could be a library computer.”
“It could be,” Georgia said finishing her coco. “We need to bait them. And there has to be a human component. There has to be a live human somewhere that is helping them. I don’t know what they can get out of it.”
“If we can figure that out, then we can bust this thing wide open.” Alice said. Later as Georgia took her shower, and Alice prepared for bed, both women, the humbot and the human pondered the situation. When Georgia came back into their room, Alice was stretched out on her bed, and about to plug in when Georgia said, “Try the space port tonight. It seems to me that one of the ways to get the AIs off world is to get them through the port. Kellogg had no problem getting through the port security.”
“But I cleared the Port AI.” Alice said.
“No you cleared the port expert system. It’s not an AI but a dumb computer that only looks at the pass port information and biometric scans. When one doesn’t match the other or the name pops up on a flagged name it calls either a cop or the port AI.”
“You’re right.” Alice said unbuttoning her pajama top, as she did, she exposed herself, and Georgia commented, “I sure wish I had you boobs.”
Alice turned to her friend and said, “Yeah; but someone once said centuries ago more than a mouthful is a waste. Besides I wish sometimes mom hadn’t made me so well endowed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Good hunting,” Georgia replied, taking out the book she was reading. She didn’t know how vulnerable Alice was when she was hooked up to the net; but she wasn’t about to fall off to sleep until Alice was unplugged. Their door was locked, and she had set the alarm that she and Alice had made so they were safe from an unusual intrusion. That and the fact that they were in the palace staff quarters no one would knock on their door unless they had to. But she didn’t want to take a chance. She would be a little sleepy in the morning, but she didn’t have to be in the Wilson’s apartment until almost 10 AM. With Bugs lying at her feet on guard also she read most of the night.
Alice, now plugged into the network, was roaming the cyber network. As she left their room she smiled as she saw Georgia check their door, and alarm system, putting a sheet over her to hide the fact that she had computer cable sticking out of her. She felt well protected. Although Alice was never so out of it that she wasn’t aware of her surroundings, she never knew when she might go deep. So deep she lost her self for just long enough to not realize that someone had burst in on them. Georgia would sit up and read until Alice got back and disconnected.
Alice went out to the net and navigated her way to the space port. She had to find a back door into the computer system there. She poked around the edges of the port computer systems. She stepped out briefly and checked in with the fleet dispatch office at Langtree’s Command post, and then checked with DefConnie to see what she had passed through the port. Between Logi, the militia’s logistic AI, and DefConnie she had a good idea of what had been shipped through the port. So she started to check shipping manifests. Checking the actual departure and arrival logs against what went through the port. She found no discrepancies. In some respect she thought they were too clean.
“Kellogg,” she called the ex-company closer, “Can you try to go through port security this time as a closer. I want to watch how the changes are made.”
“Sure,” Kellogg said and set it up. A couple hours later the closer infiltrated the space port. This time he came in as landing craft skipper bringing in a shipment for the Evacuation Command. He was one Latimore Kransk. Krasnk was on the run from the empire. He should have never gotten past the pass port control. Alice was able to follow the entire misdirection. She started back tracking who was spoofing the computers. She had gotten as far as one of the orbital satellites when the trail went cold. She tried to invade the orbital communication system; but was stopped cold. Seeing it was getting late, she decided to give it up.
When she got back to her body she had found Georgia was still awake. She sat up in bed and disconnected.
“The AI is in orbit somewhere.” Alice said, buttoning up her pajama, “I got as far as comtel 5 before I got iced out. I need to get into orbit and have a conversation with that comtel.”
“How,” Georgia asked, “you will need a set of orders to go up there. You got to have them or your cover will be blown.”
“Not only that,” Alice commented, “but I am not c
ertain that my cover with the AIs is not already broken. They know some cybernetic soul is investigating the network. They know I have destroyed some bugs and stuff. I am attached to palace security so they cannot, not know who I am. When mom designed me she didn’t think about putting an electronic signature spoofer in me. So I have a specific electronic signature pattern that I can’t disguise.”
“When is the Marshal next due to go up?” Georgia asked.
“Next week some time,” Alice said interrogating Wilson’s calendar. “He, Qoum, and Bob are inspecting the Weapons barges. It will be ready to begin loading next week.”
“That will work,” Georgia said, “I think Lady Wilson is due to go to her OBYGN next week. So I won’t be able to go with you. But one of the guys will be able to go with you. You make sure they know what’s going on. You know they can be trusted.”
“Maybe,” Alice said killing the light, “See you in the morning.”
Every Last Mother's Child Page 187
