Netminder

by Jeff Adams

  As horrible as this plan was, I couldn’t deny it was technically fascinating. It was a horrible plan that I couldn’t help occasionally geeking out on.

  What kind of person was I? I’m not supposed to like any part of this.

  Maybe I didn’t have to come up with an elaborate way to stop it, though. The team here couldn’t figure out how to do this, and while I’ve got skills, I could just be one more smart person who couldn’t crack it.

  “Why do you think I can do this? I understand the idea and the attempts made, but this is significantly big.”

  “Everything we know indicates you’re the guy for this.” Westside walked to one of the tinted windows and looked out. “We’ve reviewed the work and research you’ve done at MIT. We know firsthand how you’ve thwarted us with how you destroyed the network in Denver.” He turned back, and his eyes pierced into me in a way that they hadn’t since I’d arrived. “All signs point to you. You’re going to figure this out.”

  I held his gaze while I sorted out what to say next. This was more than about me getting hurt or even killed, it was about a world full of people.

  “How do I know you’ll keep your word if it turns out I can’t do what you want? Just because you think I can doesn’t mean it’s true.”

  I kept it earnest. Part of me was legit scared that I’d fail, and my friends would be targets.

  “Do you need other people? Tell us who they are. If they’re TOS people, we’ve got most of them and maybe you can persuade them to work with us. If it’s somebody else, we’ll go get them.”

  He wasn’t giving an inch.

  He nodded while looking to the guards at the door. Before I could react, the guards had me zip tied to the chair—arms bound at the wrist and legs just above the ankle. My reflexes were usually better. Maybe I wasn’t fully recovered.

  “What the hell?” Frustration boomed through my voice. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

  “You’re looking for a way out. Your immediate concern should be getting to work.” He went to his laptop clicked a few keys. “Remember, I told you about this?”

  Soft music filled the room from speakers that must be hidden in the ceiling.

  Not this!

  Invisible daggers drove into my brain.

  I closed my eyes against the searing pain and tried to not call out.

  When it didn’t stop, I focused on him as the fury built.

  The ties were tight, but I thrashed anyway. The plastic dug into my bare wrists and hurt. The guards must’ve been holding the chair because I couldn’t rock it.

  The irritation flooding my head intensified. The song wasn’t louder, but the affect increased.

  Every muscle tensed as I tried to break the restraints. My chest tightened, and I gasped for air.

  What the hell is happening?

  The message from Dean and Coach only infuriated me more.

  “Stop.” It came out as a rough growl.

  If I could get loose, I could take them all.

  That would make it stop.

  Westside silenced the music, and I slumped, chin dropping to chest.

  Evil audio. I typed while I looked down so no one would see my eye movements. Explain later.

  The effect hurt far worse than before as did my desire to do some damage. No one else in the room was impacted. No doubt the Blackbird agents were tested to make sure they weren’t susceptible to the sound.

  “Imagine the tone played in the background of your school’s announcements or at a McKinley game,” he said. I looked up to glare at him. “Think of the damage that would be done. Your high school has fifteen hundred and thirty-one students and seventy to ninety staff depending on time of day. Our current data indicates that 22 percent of the people would react accordingly. Three or four minutes and there’d be many injuries and possibly fatalities.”

  He had me more than I’d thought he did. He could go after anyplace or anyone I cared about.

  I hoped I had the smarts to stop this and keep everyone safe.

  “And don’t forget,” he continued, “I can turn this on any time. And if we restrain you, it hurts worse because you can’t release the tension it’s causing.”

  His fingers were poised over the keyboard as we held each other’s gaze.

  “When do we start?” I finally said, sounding confident instead of defeated. I refused to give him defeated.

  “Exactly the spirit we’re looking for. I’ve got a secure workspace put together for you alongside some of the other crew. You won’t be on a terminal with internet access, but we’ve got a test area set up. The team can run tests for you in real time if necessary, but they’ll check your work first.”

  Another nod from Westside had the guards cutting the ties. In the short time I struggled I’d cut into my wrists, and I bled in a couple of spots.

  “You know this isn’t something that’s gonna come together in a day, right?”

  I hoped he had realistic expectations and didn’t think I asked as a way to stall.

  “Yes. We’ve been at this a while and while you’re good, we don’t expect miracles. As long as the reports are that you’re working toward the goal, it’s all good. If it at all appears you’re dragging your feet or trying to double cross us, it’ll get bad fast.” Westside closed his laptop and the others did the same. “We’ll get you started first thing tomorrow. For now you can consider what you’ve seen and get some more rest. The doctor tells me that’s important.”

  I kept hold of the notebook and pen I had, and no one took it from me as I was escorted out.

  Are you okay? I was asked as I went down the hall toward the elevator.

  I responded since no one was looking straight at me: Yeah. Just rattled. You get everything? Review tonight?

  Got it all. Let me know what you want to see. Glad to see you’ve got paper. That should help a lot.

  I’d have to make sure to rest and not spend the whole night analyzing. No way I could afford to get sick again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THE ROOM the guard escorted me to the next morning could’ve belonged on the MIT campus. Many workstations—some people with two or three monitors and computers around them, whiteboards lining the walls and a giant screen up front. People were hard at work when I arrived a little after eight.

  The guard introduced me to a group of four—each of whom had a codename—who had worked on a control mechanism that had limited success in testing. Three women and one guy who said they were grad students at Caltech. They didn’t say anything else about their backgrounds, and they didn’t seem to care about my capabilities. We just dove in.

  I listened closely, asked questions and provided ideas—but looked for loopholes. Anything I could exploit to thwart Westside’s plan.

  I learned more about the others in the room as the morning continued. Somehow Blackbird had convinced a number of people that singular control of the internet was a good thing. There were a couple dozen people in this room, and still others went in and out, seeming to consult before retreating to wherever they worked.

  Some of them seemed convinced this project was important and would be a turning point for the world—some because it would get people off devices, and others wanted to control the flow of information. Two, however, were here for the same reason I was—threats.

  The group ranged in age from midtwenties to midfifties. Apparently, my arrival had been heralded as what the team needed.

  The assembled people reminded me of the research projects I’d been involved with at MIT. It was also a lot like being on a hockey team where we all had the same goal and each brought our particular skill set to help achieve it.

  Only I didn’t want to be on this team.

  I kept my concentration on getting up to speed. Knowing what they were doing would hopefully unlock ideas for how to stop it. Permanently.

  Internet access was limited to certain people, and the room was monitored by several mic’d cameras. Anything discussed about the project took p
lace in this room, or a similar one, and those of us who were here against our will wouldn’t have the chance to be alone together.

  Given the brainpower that I’d met, I returned to the idea that what Westside wanted couldn’t be done.

  Could I actually figure out how to do what he wanted—either solo or with others in the group? Westside said he wasn’t expecting miracles, but I suspected there was a shelf life on how long I could work without results.

  A message from Dean flashed up: We need a better way to communicate.

  He was right. How Dean and Coach made heads or tails out of what they saw was a mystery to me.

  When I was at my workstation alone to review some proposed specifications, a lightning bolt of an idea struck.

  You connected to my phone?

  Dean responded back quick: Yeah. It’s the link to the lenses.

  It took forever to type what I needed to, but there was no choice: I was on security cameras. Find that and tap in. This room has a mic. Do it soon. Phone can’t last much longer.

  A headache started to build from all the eye movement to generate the message.

  The reply came back simply: On it.

  The amount of infrastructure Blackbird managed to set up and the amount of code deployed was staggering. They’d gotten around a lot of security measures. The team had to be larger than the people working in this building. I’d imagine there were operatives at key companies across all levels of the internet.

  In the presentations, they said they believed everything was in place except the central control panel. If I could poke holes in that idea, it might provide more time.

  When I couldn’t sit any longer, I stood and immediately a guard came to me. This happened when any of the captives moved.

  In this case, I required the guard because I needed to go to the restroom.

  So far, they treated me well. It seemed that way for the others who were forced to be here. They’d put the extra furniture in my room. No one harassed me because I needed to step out. They even had snacks and drinks in the workroom.

  This could’ve been a job—except I couldn’t leave the building.

  Holy crap!

  As I exited, a woman I’d swear was Split Screen entered. If she recognized me, she didn’t let on, and I checked my own reaction. Was she with these guys? She didn’t have a guard with her, which meant she wasn’t a captive like I was.

  While I was at hockey camp over the summer, she’d been deployed. As per protocol, I didn’t know what her mission was, but would she have ended up here? TOS had already lost at least one Blackbird embedded agent over the summer. Or was she a Blackbird double agent?

  So many questions. So much didn’t make sense.

  The guard waited outside the single occupancy restroom.

  I discontinued the video feed while I was in the bathroom, but I typed as I took care of business.

  Ask D-Man if he knows the last-known location of Split Screen.

  Before I could send it, the interface shut down.

  Damn.

  Props to the phone. It’d lasted far longer than I thought it could.

  I had no idea if Dean had retrieved what he needed from the phone to get into the security system. Hopefully he’d work some more magic.

  I finished up, so I wasn’t in the bathroom too long. Split Screen and I had to talk. Friend or foe—knowing what to expect from her would be critical.

  Back in the work room, Split Screen conferred with two people that I’d been told were in charge. Wildcat and Cobb looked like they could also be grad students, and they were whip smart in briefing me.

  Split Screen fit right in with them. I’d loved working with her during the Glenwood Music case. She’d been new to the agency then and brilliant. We’d complemented each other well.

  I went back to my desk and discovered a new file had been deposited on the desktop. I didn’t have outbound connectivity, but there was inbound so they could push files to me. If I had anything for them, someone came to enter a password. So far, I hadn’t been able to catch the password or have time to try to hack into the broader network.

  The way that desks were arranged, someone could easily see over my shoulder, so looking for a way to get online wasn’t something I could chance—at least not yet.

  I looked at the new folder, which was labeled Attempted Control Systems from Quarterflash. Inside were several files and a text file called ReadMe. I clicked on that as the obvious place to start.

  Wildcat asked me to assemble the most promising work I’d done on an overall control system. I’d recommend looking at 3JT-X12 first.

  That file name was one Split Screen and I used working previously. She’d picked it because it sounded like a ray gun name from a ’50s sci-fi movie. Hopefully she had information for me.

  It was a well-documented file—something Split Screen excelled at. Documentation was important when collaborating and from what I’d seen so far, not everyone in this group seemed to understand that.

  The program she wrote didn’t seem to have control features but was attempting to catalog everything on the web in an effort to know how large the universe was.

  Interesting approach.

  Almost like a search engine index, only this wasn’t gathering pages but individual IP addresses.

  She’d indicated a couple of subroutines where she was having trouble, so I poured over those.

  There was something here.

  She embedded extra material in the code.

  I didn’t see it at first, but going over the specific area she’d called out I soon found what she’d done.

  I couldn’t write this down, even though I had paper. To leave a trail would be dangerous for both of us. I had to piece together her message in my head. I went back to the top of the section and read through carefully.

  Can’t contact HQ. Not sure why. Rumors are Blackbird struck. Will find a way for us to talk.

  I went over the message again to make sure I’d seen everything.

  With her apparently on the leadership team with Wildcat and Cobb, she might have the leverage to make it so we could talk. I spent the remainder of the day adding details on how I thought she could boost the reliability of the code. I also left a response.

  TOS severely compromised. Ready to talk when you are.

  I went on to review and comment on the rest of the code she’d given me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  BY THE end of the day, it was difficult to think straight after all the information I’d taken in.

  Of course, I knew how the internet worked, and IP addresses ruled all. From a home computer to individual websites to vast server pools, everything had an IP address that was used to route information from one place to another.

  Individual internet service providers all had their own addresses to assign, companies had ones to distribute inside their own networks. But there was no top of the pyramid and over the years the systems had become more robust to prevent failure.

  When you get down to the IP level and tried to catalog, as Blackbird wanted, the complexity became mind-boggling. In Westside’s vision, he’d be able to control connectivity so he could turn off whatever targets—large or small—were desired. That flexibility made the system requirements crazy complicated.

  This team, especially those closest to Westside, believed it possible. Surely, they would’ve spoken up by now if they didn’t think that—unless everyone was too scared of saying so. I hoped Split Screen could eventually shed some light on this.

  An idea I considered sharing with the group involved unleashing a virus that could subvert security and give Blackbird the ability to control internet access of the infected network. The problem would be ensuring its penetration. If Blackbird had agents inside major companies like Google, Facebook, Netflix, and the like, it’d spread across the infrastructure fairly quickly. Other things would be harder, like getting it into utility networks because of the extra security in place. There were other gaps in the pl
an too—getting into countries that heavily restricted the net, like China, or areas where there was already little connectivity.

  I didn’t want to offer any ideas, but I couldn’t risk the consequences. At least while working on the virus I could also design a way for it to take Blackbird out.

  I got up from my desk and a guard came promptly over.

  “Sorry. Standing to stretch and to use the whiteboard.”

  I don’t know what she expected. It’d be silly for me to put up a fight since there were three guards in this room, not to mention the other consequences.

  As I stretched, she went back to the door.

  On the board, I drew some rough schematics of how the internet was connected, and more ideas clicked into place about the pseudo-virus. Cyberterrorists often used viruses that were triggered on a certain day unless you paid them off. That was essentially Blackbird’s plan but on a larger scale.

  As my scribbles took over another whiteboard, Split Screen and two others approached.

  “What are you working on here? I get the small-scale networking diagram, but I can’t decipher the broader purpose.” I didn’t know if Split Screen had been in the field previously, but she was smooth. I’d never needed to take on another persona before, and she did it flawlessly.

  I went through everything, and the trio listened intently. “Is this really possible given the some 340 trillion trillion IP’s just in IPv6 alone?” Split Screen fixed me with a questioning gaze.

  “For IPv6, there’s a trillion in there that you missed. We could just call it 340 undecillion. Regardless, only a small fraction of the addresses are in use.” I couldn’t resist a smile as she nodded. “If we write the scripts correctly, we should be able to send them directly to the addresses we want. The scripts would be designed to have the information required to block the traffic as well as to defend itself and take instruction from us.”

  Split Screen traded nods with her colleagues, and they let me keep talking without questions. “Having the IP mappings you’re already working on will help because if there are specific targets to go after first, we can do that once we test all of this, since it’s only hypothesis right now.”