Mad Worlds Collide

by Tony Teora

  "General, please refresh my memory. What is Project-Chameleon?"

  "Mr. President, it was in your Presidential Briefing."

  Bush needed to use the toilet but had to word it carefully. "General, please hold for a second." Bush put the phone on hold and ran into the toilet and closed the door. Drank too much damn beer last night. Jeez this doesn’t look good, everyone outside watching my every step! Now my stomach hurts, ah! This shit is going to take time.

  President Bush sat onto the toilet and looked at the telephone on the wall. Might as well use it -- that’s what they put phones in the toilet for!

  President Bush picked up the phone while waiting for nature to take its course. Nature was taking longer after fifty but so did many other things.

  "Hi General, are you still on the line?" asked Bush.

  "Yes, Mr. President." The General heard an echo from the toilet but didn’t say anything.

  "Now that Presidential briefing you’re talking about. Was that in the box I received? The one that had six or so documents, about six inches thick, with four boxes of appendices, was it in that Presidential briefing General?" Bush’s colon opened, and passed gas. Shit, I’d better cover the phone while this one finishes, he thought.

  "Ah, Mr. President I know that was a lot of reading for your first week in office, Sir, but yes it was in those documents, yes. I take it you haven’t read them yet?"

  "Well General, I admit you have me on that one, I scanned through it. How to start and stop a nuclear war was interesting, I do say, and the section on how we caught a few of those little green men and have them on ice is great stuff, but no I don’t particularly remember the Net-Chameleon section. Please, General, spare me the hassles, and tell me why you woke me up at 3:45 a.m.!"

  President Bush let a big loud fart that echoed in the toilet. His stomach felt better but he didn’t have time to cover the phone.

  "Sir, are you OK? I thought I heard something?" inquired the General.

  "No need to worry General, everything is fine here. Now start explaining as my sleeping time is valuable."

  "Yes Mr. President, well the Project Net-Chameleon was put in place by your father’s CIA director, Starper. You see with everyone on the Internet we had our boys write up software that can secretly load onto a person’s personal computer, or better yet, change a web connection--"

  "Do what? Change a web page? You woke me up for that?"

  "Mr. President, please allow me to continue."

  "Continue General, please continue!"

  "Ok, well the guys in Psych created a whole system where we would track e-mail, web sites -- everything on the net and if we decided to target someone we’d send phony e-mail messages, or change their web site stories to ones we modified. We could do all kinds of stuff to basically ruin people. For example, you might never get the e-mail for an interview, or a girlfriend would get different e-mail that her boyfriend had sent, with small but vital changes. We also developed a voice synthesizer that would sound just like a target’s voice, or their husband, wife or lover. We could use this for almost complete control of a subject, we—"

  "I’ve heard enough General, I’ve got it. I’d love to use this during the next election. Hell, we could really get out the message." Bush laughed but his head hurt and he stopped.

  "Well, Mr. President, we have a problem with the system."

  "Well spit it out General. Hold on a second, I’m going to put you on hold again."

  President Bush washed his hands, returned to the study, and picked up the phone. "Please continue General."

  "Well, it seems that the system is hacked. Someone is using Net-Chameleon to do the same things to our agents, Sir. It’s being used against us!"

  "Well, as long as they don’t recount any ballots, I’m sure we can fix the problem. What the hell do we have all those agencies for anyhow? Get fixing General, why call me at 3:45 a.m. for that?"

  "It appears that the same hacker also has control of our computer link to missiles in Yokosuka Japan and Colorado, Sir."

  "Japan? We don’t have any missile silos in Japan, General."

  "Not silos, Sir. They have control of an Aegis Missile cruiser’s computer system on a ship docked in port. We need your permission to go to DEFCON 2"

  "General, don’t take this the wrong way, but I need to think about this. I’ll call you back in a few minutes."

  "I’ll be on the Red line Sir, awaiting your call."

  Bush hung up the phone and hit his stomach with a slapping sound and shook his head. This job is going to put on thirty years for sure. Need to talk to the Defense Secretary Murphy, let him figure this shit out.

  President Bush went into the shower and turned it on hot. In the shower was an intercom. He pushed the button. "Lance, are you out there?"

  "Yes, Mr. President. You OK?"

  "I’m fine, just taking a shower. Have someone go wake up Bud Murphy. Tell him the President wants to see him in thirty minutes"

  "Yes Mr. President."

  President Bush looked at the shower. I wonder if they have cameras in here too? You can’t trust these generals. Pappy always said: watch your ass.

  Chapter 11: Big Blue

  "I also think IBM owes me, and all mankind, a re-match."

  -- Garry Kasparov, the Earth chess champion, on losing to IBM's Deep Blue chess machine.

  Sorting through the main program (if you could call it a program) was challenging for Robert, and virtually impossible for one of lesser talent. The main program was imbedded in a partial semiconductor and biological central processing unit, or CPU. The basic programming code section had been written by at least a thousand MicroIntel programmers over a span of ten years. To get any idea of what was going on required custom software tools. These tools allowed Robert to quickly build complex programs that sorted through the billions of lines of code and other Frankenstein materials mixed in the main memory module. The CPU was a genetically modified material, part living and part electronic. It was the closest thing to a living brain, and with Robert’s DNA it was closer to a real brain than ever.

  The biological part was mostly a CDNA generator. The CDNA programming code, known as computational DNA, was genetically created, and could reproduce itself into a full-blown program. The concept was based on the idea that a single strand of human DNA could create a full clone of that person. One small piece of hair or pinprick of skin, and voila! You could create another perfect duplicate human being. Or so goes the theory. Of course things sometimes thing went FUBAR, or as Robert would say: It’s Fucked Up Beyond All Repair -- FUBAR. Jurassic Park gave a great fictional account of FUBAR. In real cloning DNA code sometimes broke, producing clones with small defects; large ears, missing toes, extra fingers, and in worse cases, the clones were aborted during fetal growth for humane reasons. Robert called them FUBAR clones.

  The UN banned human cloning after countries started cloning soldiers, but the technology fueled the CDNA project funded by MicroIntel. The concept was simple, create a super-intelligent mainframe that would keep track of the Internet’s hardware and produce new CDNA to be passed on to clients. The clients would use a MicroIntel licensed key to activate the CDNA that would in turn produce the 100% completely compatible software and hardware solutions (and money for Gill Applebee and MI) as long as there was no FUBAR.

  Since everything electronic was connected to everything else via the Internet, all MicroIntel needed do was scan a system or network, give the data to the Big Blue server, and when users requested an application, send the custom CDNA code.

  No more bugs, no more need for more programmers; nothing.

  Many private organizations were trying to create a free version of the system, but because Robert did the original research for MI, MicroIntel owned the CDNA patent. Also, creating a non-FUBAR CDNA mainframe cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Some organizations wanted the technology to be owned by governments and given to the public via a small tax. The China-Asia Union (CAU) wanted to purchase th
e software with the source CDNA coding sequence key, but MicroIntel would not budge. If Japan came online this would break the China-Asia Unions grip, and Gill knew this would force the CAU to come on board and make a deal. Gill loved deals. The word deal coming out of Gill’s mouth twisted Robert’s small and large intestines.

  Robert walked past the CDNA mainframe. The Silcon-5 reinforced glass container looked like a large glass propane gas truck tank standing on its side, straight up about ten meters in a clean, quiet, seventy-five degree room. The air circulated through multiple filters, but this was not necessary. The mainframe, once created was not opened. It stood half-alive in its hermetically sealed, reinforced glass container. Inside were billions of CDNA molecules, mixed with adaptive neurons, connected to regular fiber optic connectors, allowing outside access. Purple light flashed through the blue-gray mud. Occasionally streaks of red light indicated a major computation. The US military had rights to use the CDNA server, and did so through eight universities. MicroIntel didn’t balk on reducing the throughput; the system was fast enough to allow everyone on the planet usage and not skip a beat. What mattered was making sure MI got paid for that usage.

  Robert went through the logs and found out that someone had his complete DNA Crypto key. This was virtually impossible as his DNA Crypto key was formed with his own personal DNA plus his own personal keycode.. He changed his pin code weekly so that even if someone had stolen some of his hair, blood or urine to get at his DNA, they would need to know his new password changes. The password changes were done only by Robert himself on secure MI systems.

  This did not make sense.

  Robert found CDNA residual hints that its logs were being erased and changed. This too, was almost impossible. In reconstructing a log Robert discovered three terrible pieces of information. If true, all three meant trouble. The first was that his son and wife were also being targeted with hacker e-mail and correspondence. Did they know? The second was a government back door. Some had speculated on this publicly, but the idea had been officially cancelled because of privacy issues. Gill had mentioned something about tracking terrorists with it, but he’d never followed up, or had he? Only Robert or Gill had the system authority to set up a back door. But there was also one absolutely impossible hacker in the system. The final piece of information was too shocking to consider, yet he had to consider it, but not yet.

  Robert grabbed a yellow glazed donut from a box on his desk and watched the blue-gray mass that looked like a massive whale caught in a Star Trek transporter.

  "Big Blue, you’re fucking up my life," Robert thought. Just as a few streaks of red light flashed in a pattern, the lights stopped. Robert took a bite of the sweet soft glazed donut. It did not matter how much technology man would create, glazed donuts and hot coffee made man happy. Robert was not sure of much, but he was sure about that.

  Big Blue flashed a purple green light in some internal computation. A slave to MI too thought Robert to himself, except that Big Blue did not know he was a slave. Robert knewhe was a slave; in a way it did not matter much in terms of their situation in the galaxy.

  Jimmy walked through the festivals of red and white-tented food stands. He used this portable WebTele to log into a LangMaster translator for Japanese and English. He pulled out his WebTele sunglasses, put them on and clicked a small switch to activate a red light console hidden in the standard looking sunglasses. With his wireless interface he was able to see his surroundings with an overlay of a small computer screen. He turned on the language translator and while viewing the Kanji signs he could see the English translations below. He scanned some of the tents and saw ramen noodles, hot dogs, octopus-fried balls, curry and rice, soda, beer and rice whiskey.

  The rice whiskey required more attention.

  Jimmy walked up to the stand and proceeded to casually order a hot dog and rice whiskey. Jimmy had the WebTele do the order in Japanese. An old Japanese man passed him the food and glass of hot rice whiskey and said in English, "Please have fun, today is relatives day."

  Jimmy looked at a stuffed animal rack and saw a large frog toy, the Frogman Friendly, and pushed a button on its stomach. It started to talk in Japanese. It said, "I am Frogman, do you want to play?" The frog then belched and jumped.

  "He is not as good as an Aibo-3000, but a lot cheaper, " said the shopkeeper. "Would you like to buy a Frogman son?"

  Jimmy looked at the green frog. "No thanks." He proceeded toward a gate into the city. The stuffed animal rack gave him an idea. He found a Kudanshita Aibo 3000 Shop and went inside.

  "Listen Mr. Jimmy, we can not skin the dog and put him on an Aibo-3000. We can put a copy of the dog’s exterior, but not this dog!" said Mr. Fujita, shaking his head. Sitting at the Sony Center for Aibo, Mr. Fujita, the VP of sales, looked at the bloated Yuki held by Jimmy.

  Jimmy spoke, "What’s the big deal? Just skin him and cure him and put him on the Aibo-3000 custom model. It says here in your literature that you can make an Aibo-3000 with a natural look and feel. Can’t you just glue the skin after it’s cured, can’t you?"

  Mr. Fujita hated dealing with foreigners, especially people from the United States. The gaijin always wanted something custom; always had to try and find something not in the catalog, or a color that they didn’t sell.

  "Look Mr. Jimmy, it will cost twice as much to skin that dog then it will to just duplicate its fur and color. Plus, that dog is all blown up, its skin is stretched, and its eyes…plus there’s that smell." Mr. Fujita thought the dog’s eyes looked like grapes that had sat in the sun too long.

  Jimmy looked at Yuki, and agreed with Mr. Fujita. Probably a good synthetic match was better than the real thing in this case. "You sure no one will tell the difference?"

  "As long as you get the right programming, and as long as he doesn’t get run over by a car, no-one will tell the difference, trust me."

  Jimmy looked at the salesmen. "Can you get rid of this dog if I do the deal? You’re right he’s, starting to stink."

  Mr. Fujita nodded in agreement, "Gladly."

  Jimmy smiled. He really wanted to help his Dad and the Aibo-3000 was a start.

  Eddy Flint was finally getting somewhere and he knew it. The Runaway Train game and the hack of the MI-ASS software really lit up Eddy’s life. He would never have crashed the plane, but he loved the game. He could play GameMaster 6 straight for forty-eight hours. Having his friend Robert aboard a plane to share the experience was spiritual. Robert meant a lot to Eddy. Eddy’s best friend used to be Sonny Chang who was sent to Medlock Prison two years ago. Eddy had never met Sonny in a physical sense, and according to Eddy, people who meet never ever actually meet in a physical sense anyhow. He knew that all sensation was just input into one’s brain, and brains never really met physically, so meeting over the Net was as good as meeting in person. For Eddy meeting over the Net was much better.

  The loss of Sonny made Eddy lonely. Loneliness was the sin of existence thought Eddy. To be alone, and to lose a friend created a situation Eddy did not understand. Programming and online friends were Eddy’s life.

  The government had made Sonny an example; 30 years, no parole for hacking into MicoIntel’s Crypto-Code Server. For Eddy, the thirty years was not such a big deal. The big deal was Sonny was not allowed to touch a computer with a Net connection during the 30 years. No e-mail, Vmail, Web Tele -- nothing.

  No contact with Eddy Flint from Sonny Chang -- the loneliness.

  Recently Eddy thought he’d made contact with Sonny, but it was the National Security Agency of the government trying to set him up. Eddy rerouted those communications to the CIA, and wrote a program to make it look like a CIA agent was doing the MI hacking. It took the NSA months to figure out that they’d been duped. To make matters worse, an honest CIA agent was about to be arrested for the Crypto hacking, but Eddy anonymously e-mailed over records to show the rerouted communications. He couldn’t allow an innocent person to take the fall. The NSA was pissed, and so was MI. They put all resource
s onto getting Eddy.

  The Crypto Codes allowed Eddy to continue Sonny’s hacking work, and now Robert was in his domain.

  Eddy kept repeating words to himself. With lots of time on his hands, Eddy focused on his most important characteristics, the need for freedom and to amuse himself. He sang a tune repeating the words:

  Freedom requires risk, prisoners are safe, free men must earn their way…

  Freedom requires brisk men, prisoners are safe, free men must earn their pay…

  Oh to me…to be… is to be Free…

  The first thing a genius needs is to be free… like meeeeee…

  We are as free as and free in exactly the sense that our neuronal processes are free as can beeeeeee…

  Once AD 2100 was installed, all communications would be one, all would be tracked, and the government would know where everyone was at all times. Eddy knew about the military back door and now he was sure Robert knew too. He had to get Robert some new information. Eddy knew about the Zoks. They had tried to hack a system he was hacking into. He knew the Zoks were smart, but he also knew they were not that smart. Eddy wondered about their origin; was it Rumania, Russia or New Jersey? They had a hacking style that had similarities to all those areas. They wanted Big Blue access too. Eddy could not allow that and he would track their location soon.

  Eddy continued his tracking of the Zoks. He wasn’t tired. In his dreams he focused on freedom, something he wanted most in all of life. Eddy could see into the future, or so he thought, if he lived long enough.

  Eddy tried to laugh over the situation but was too focused to pull himself up into that mood. He knew he would laugh soon, but there was very important work to do. Free men must earn their way…humor is the hack into the human spirit…Eddy repeated the words over a thousand times before moving on his next project.