by Nick Thacker
“You need a brisk walk outside, Colson,” Hendricks said from the front of the elevator without turning around. “Chill out. We’re not going to shoot you. If you cooperate.”
“No, I understand. Thank you. This is very overwhelming for me. Just earlier I was meeting with my boss, her boss, and one of our programmers about the anomaly I found in the code —”
Julie, this time, cut him off. “Woah there, buddy,” Julie said. “Slow it down a bit, and start from the beginning.” Ben knew the computer-speak would perk her ears up, so he wasn’t surprised that she stepped into the conversation.
“Um, right. Sorry. You said you guys were here looking for something?”
Julie looked around, but only Hendricks looked back at her. Something in his gaze made Julie pause and consider her words.
“Yes, that’s right. We’re looking for… something.”
Colson nodded, as if the explanation was suitable. “Okay, well, it’s probably the same thing I’ve been working on here. I manage the programmers they hire, mainly checking their code and ensuring it all lines up together and makes sense.”
“Why not just program it all yourself? Then you don’t need as much double-checking?”
“Besides the sheer amount of transcription work there is to do, the company wants to make sure no one has access to all of the different subroutines involved.”
Julie shook her head, as if trying to understand. “But you have access to all the data?”
“Sort of. Most of it, but only for one subroutine. I don’t know what, exactly, the larger project is supposed to be, but I think I might have an idea.”
The elevator dinged once more, a bright ‘7’ lighting up above the door, and Colson waited for it to slide open. He glanced around the cavernous, dimly lit space in front of him, then stepped out.
“What’s that idea?” Julie asked.
“Come on,” Colson said, walking out toward a row of desks along one side of the room. “I’ll show you.”
The group filed out of the elevator and Ben was relieved to realize they were all alone on this level. He followed Colson to one of the desks.
“Okay,” Colson began, “I work — worked — here. Every day, just reading through lines of text the code monkeys upstairs send down. It’s pretty much just me here, though there are a few that come and go, and my boss, Angela, works down the way a bit.”
“Where is she now?” Hendricks asked.
“No idea. Not sure why there’s no one here, actually. Seems a little quiet, even for what I’m used to.”
“Well let’s hurry it up,” Hendricks said. “Sounds like we won’t have this place to ourselves forever, and it’s only a matter of time before more of those rent-a-cops start snooping around.”
Colson turned to Hendricks. “They’re everywhere up here. Not the smartest guys around, but they seem to multiply like rabbits. Something like a 2-to-1 guard-to-employee ratio now, I think a bunch of new ones shipped in day before last. Your problem won’t be in taking out a few of them at a time, like down there, but in handling ten or fifteen at once. Or more.”
“Great,” Reggie said. “A clone army. And a Chinese one. At the same time.”
“A Chinese what?” Colson asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Reggie said. “Tell you what. You fill us in on the technical side of things, and leave the physical stuff to us.”
Colson didn’t even seem to register the insult, so he turned back to his computer workstation and pulled up a file. Rows of multicolored text filled the screen, and Ben felt his eyes going sideways as he tried to make sense of it.
Hendricks, Joshua, Kyle, and Reggie were clearly growing impatient as well, but Mrs. E and Julie leaned in closer.
“Explain it,” Julie said.
“It’s the last snippet from the subroutine we were working on,” Colson said. “I don’t know exactly what it’s supposed to mean, since it’s completely separated from the rest of the files that will eventually be spliced into it, but there is a pretty obvious anomaly in it that I —”
“Right there,” Julie said. She pointed to the screen, and Colson stopped scrolling. “That’s it, right?”
Colson beamed. “Exactly right. It’s encoded text, meant to be an encrypted snippet of code that can’t be understood without the key.”
“So let’s go find the key,” Hendricks said. His eyes darted back and forth, his body clearly on edge.
“That’s not how it works,” Julie said. “There are two layers here, I’d bet. It’s sort of like a binary base64 string, so the actual content it’s masking can be deciphered relatively easily, but it’s the content beneath that layer that’s also been encrypted. And only on the receiving end — the computer, or person, or whatever — can the key be applied to decipher and run the script.”
She looked to Colson for affirmation, and he was smiling widely. “Precisely,” he said. “So I immediately grew curious. We are transcribing content from an original data source, after all, not creating the code. So whoever wrote the script in the first place wanted this section to be hidden, and even then only useful to the final end user.”
Ben squeezed his eyes shut, unable to keep up with the technical jargon. “Okay, so you have a secret code, hidden in plain sight, that you can read but you can’t really understand?”
“No, that’s not accurate,” Colson said. “I can understand it. It only took me a moment to reverse-engineer the transcription encoding.”
He highlighted the lines on the screen, clicked a few buttons, and the script transformed into a different set of characters and numbers. Ben had to admit the code was still nonsense, but it did appear to ‘match’ the rest of the code surrounding it.
“This is the same code, syntactically correct and now written in the same ‘style,’ if you will, as the rest of the document. Notice anything?”
Hendricks let out an audible sigh, but both women were hunched over the tall desk and Ben knew Julie was not going to move until the answer revealed themselves.
Mrs. E and Julie took turns pointing at different strings of letters and words, and Julie spoke first.
“It looks like a callback script,” she said. “We had a few of these written into the code of a website I helped a friend build a year or so ago. Developers don’t want to just give away their code for free, so they make you pay for it, and even then you can’t really ‘see’ the code they used — it’s obfuscated and condensed into a single line or two that ‘phones home’ back to the developer’s website, where the real code is stored. It helps prevent sharing someone else’s work without paying for it.”
Colson was nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes. In that case, yes. And the website still works — the website component you’ve purchased functions correctly, but the code for it isn’t stored on your server, but on the developer’s. It’s an elegant theft-protection mechanism.”
“Sounds anything but elegant,” Reggie said.
“So, you found a callback script,” Julie continued. “That’s odd, but I would hardly call it an anomaly. I guess it depends on where you got the code from originally. You said you’re only transcribing something that already existed in another format?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure what format. Or where we got it.”
“Still, I don’t see the problem.”
Colson rubbed his eyes and closed the program, then turned to the group huddled around him and the desk. Before he could speak, an alarm sounded from a corner of the level, and a computerized female voice broke into the silence.
‘Attention all essential personnel. Please proceed to Level 1 for mandatory evacuation. Takeoff is thirty minutes. This is the final warning.’
The voice repeated the message once more, and Ben looked around at the reactions of the rest of the group. No one spoke, everyone still looking at Colson.
“The problem? You told me you were looking for something here, correct? You didn’t say what it is, but I suspect there’s some sort of AI involv
ed? Artificial Intelligence?”
Ben studied Colson’s bloodshot eyes. The man was outwardly calm, but he seemed to be frantically searching for something in Julie’s expression as he stared at her, waiting. Julie frowned, looking down at the floor.
Suddenly her head shot up and she stared back at Colson. Whispering, her voice shaking, she spoke. “Oh, God. No — there’s no… If they…”
Colson nodded slowly, gravely. “That’s what I’m afraid of as well.”
Ben tried to understand, but he was lost. He had no idea what the pair was discussing, and they hadn’t even slipped into tech-speak again. Julie reached for his hand, then squeezed it as Hendricks walked forward and pushed Colson back.
“Time to go, Colson,” Hendricks said. “We’ve clearly overstayed our welcome, and I have a feeling we’re not invited to the evacuation party. That means we need to get somewhere else before the minions come down to root us out.”
Colson seemed to snap back to attention at the sound of Hendricks’ voice, and he nodded more quickly. “Right, yes. Uh, I don’t know where —”
“Anywhere, Colson. We’ll hear the rest of your story there, but I need you to start moving.”
Colson did as he was told. “Okay, sure. No elevator, they’ll be able to shut it down remotely. This way.”
He turned and walked away with Hendricks at his hip, and Ben followed behind as the group headed for a set of stairs at the opposite end of the hall.
CHAPTER TWENTY-five
The stairs ascended to the next level via two turns, each a set made up of about eight individual stairs. Colson and Hendricks led, followed by his man Ryan Kyle, then Joshua and Mrs. E. Ben was behind Julie, and Reggie was last to ascend the first set of stairs. She felt the strength of the metal beneath her feet and only then considered the infrastructure that surrounded them. While she had certainly been present during their narrow escape from the Chinese, their precarious cliff rappel, and their entrance into the strange Antarctic station, she hadn’t taken the time to think through exactly how this station existed.
Now, thanks to the considerably brighter overhead lighting that illuminated their advance, she took in the details of the station’s architecture. She was still reeling from the shock of Colson’s work, and what he had found in the code, but there wouldn’t be time to fully process the meaning of all of that until later. For now, she decided she would focus her attention on the base itself.
The walls were the most obvious feature. They were covered with thick, bulging packets of liquid, each a dull gray color. Somehow stitched and intertwined together, the overall effect was that she was walking through packaging materials, massive sheets of bubble wrap pressing inward.
She reached out to touch one and confirmed what her eyes were telling her. The bubbles were flat, yet slightly bulging, and had just a little give to them. It wasn’t a hard wall but one with fluidity, like the inside of an asylum’s padded room.
She also realized that the packets of liquid that were stuck to the walls were cooler than the air around her. As she thought through this revelation, it dawned on her that she hadn’t been cold since entering the station.
I’m actually a bit warm, she thought. They must be pumping heat through this place.
“Colson,” she began, “is there HVAC here?”
He nodded as he stopped in the middle section between the two stairwells. “Yes, there is. Well, just heating, to be precise — not much use for A/C, right?”
Colson smiled and waited for a reaction. Julie just stared at him.
“Right, well, ah, there are also a few swamp coolers to increase the humidity as needed, I think.”
He started forward again then caught himself. “Oh, you are probably wondering about the walls. These walls, you might have guessed, are no ordinary walls.”
Colson had clearly found a topic that excited him more than anyone else around him, but Julie knew they were growing impatient with the dramatics. She politely nodded once, but cut him off.
Julie got the feeling she was a character in Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, sitting in a small theater as the tiny sprite of Dr. Hammond explained the theory of dinosaur DNA-harvesting to her, while the real threat lay just outside the building. In their case, Julie knew the threat wasn’t outside at all. “Colson — Jonathan, if I may?” She said. “These walls are fascinating, but maybe just a real quick overview?”
Colson got the point. “Right, yes. Of course. The structural walls are actually pure ice, but the company found the need to supplement the facing to ensure proper insulation of the heat circulating inside, as well as little to no ice melt outside.”
“So these little bubbles are full of water?” Reggie asked.
“Not quite,” Colson said. “They are liquid, but they’re similar to the gel packs that keep the inside of a cooler cold, but opposite. Warm air basically stops at the edge, and the liquid inside each section flows and moves, allowing whatever heat has built up to dissipate or bounce back into the interior.”
“Very interesting,” Hendricks said. “Sounds expensive.”
“On the contrary, it’s quite cheap. Certainly cheaper than erecting solid wood-frame or concrete walls throughout the place then filling it with insulation. This uses the natural support of the ice, but allows the company to create livable conditions within.”
Julie was already examining another feature of the space. “There’s no power, though, if you have bubble walls.”
“Look up,” Colson said. Everyone’s head fell back to stare at the ceiling. There were simple lightweight white panels covering the ceiling, similar to the drop ceilings Julie had seen in just about every office she’d ever worked in. “Those panels reflect heat, and are mounted directly to the ice ‘ceilings’ of each level. There is very little need for additional structural support, even at the centers of each floor, because these horizontal sections of ice are about ten feet thick. Anyway, the power problem is simple: see that black cable over in the corner.”
Now that Colson pointed it out, Julie did see the cable. It was a bundle of wires, six inches thick, that poked out of a hole in the ceiling and traveled downwards along the corner of the stairwell. When it reached the floor, there was a splice of cables that branched out from the main line and led back into the level they had come from, while the rest of the line continued into another hole cut in the floor.
“It’s probably not the best electrical job, but nothing beats thousand-foot-long extension cords,” Colson said with a grin.
“Fair enough,” Hendricks said. “Still, this place is a little unnerving. All the secrecy, all the expense to keep it that way.”
“Can’t forget the body farm downstairs,” Reggie said.
“Are we sure they’re all full of bodies?” Joshua asked.
“Well I wasn’t about to go popping them open,” Reggie said. “So I’m just assuming.”
“Hey,” Hendricks said. “We can play tourist later. Right now we need to get somewhere those guards can’t find us. Colson, where do these stairs go?”
Julie waited for Colson to answer, but he was still frozen on the landing between the sets of stairs.
“Colson?”
“Sorry,” Colson said. “I — well, this goes up one level, to the barracks, where we all sleep.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“It’s just — it’s just that I only now realized that they are evacuating all personnel. That means anyone with an ID badge — one of these — will be able to get a ride out of here.”
“Yes, that is what we all assumed,” Hendricks said. Julie heard whatever patience the man might have had left disappear. “But we don’t have ID badges, do we?”
“Yes — I mean no — but that’s not what I’m worried about. We’re going up, toward ground level, following the evacuation protocol. But we’ll be funneled through the main exit — the only exit, and they’ll immediately know who we are. Right?”
Julie considered this as Cols
on continued.
“They’re already looking for you,” he said, “and they’ll shoot you on sight. But I can’t even get through — I’m supposed to be frozen in some box right now. So what happens when we get up there and run into the rest of the employees and guards?”
Hendricks paused a moment before answering. Instead, it was Joshua who stepped in.
“You said the level we’re going to houses the barracks, correct?”
Colson nodded.
“Okay, and I’m assuming it’s not all one wide-open level? There are at least separate rooms for men and women?”
“Of course,” Colson said. “There are about ten rooms altogether, all spaced around a central lobby and meeting place.”
“Great. Then get us up there. We’ll be better off if we can get into one or two of those rooms, maybe even set up a defensive stance. They’ll have to search them one-by-one, and there might be enough time to —”
“To come up with a better plan than that,” Hendricks said, interrupting. “It’s the best we’ve got, I’ll give you that, but we still need something better.”
Joshua frowned. “You’re the boss, boss,” he muttered under his breath as the group continued up the second set of stairs connecting the two levels.
Julie smiled, knowing that Joshua — beyond frustrated with the power-grabbing going on between the two men — wouldn’t say much more than that. She knew he would keep his mouth shut, not out of fear or respect for Hendricks, but because he was loyal to the team, and keeping them alive was his top priority. He would buckle down, take orders, and fight to the very end, and only then speak his mind about the horrendous way the leadership of this mission had been handled.
Julie watched Joshua’s cheekbones move as he clenched and unclenched his teeth to calm himself down, a tick she’d noticed in Ben as well. Joshua was handsome in a boyish way, with light brown hair that he had allowed to grow down almost to his eyes. He was physically fit, though perhaps a bit on the slender side for her tastes, but she had to admit he was certainly a looker. She’d noticed that Mrs. E had displayed an odd affinity toward the man, which Julie found hilarious, as Julie couldn’t tell if it was a physical attraction or a motherly instinct that had provoked Mrs. E’s feelings.
