Virtual Perfection: Technology has drawn everyone into Virtual Reality, but what will happen to humanity if no one can get out? (Veiled Destiny Book 1)

by Jason Bourn

  Over the course of the next few days, Calaes tried to think of how to delve down lower and lower without throwing up a giant red flag. He finally decided to work with the Information Technology training lead and the Logistics training lead. He knew it was somewhat of a risk to bring them into this endeavor, but he was known and respected by everyone on the campus since he had interviewed each of them and he commanded the respect of the team-leads most since they had been there the longest and they had worked individually with him. In addition, he had generated the overall training plan that everyone was working to – that bought him additional respect. He was sure he could count on their loyalty and discretion.

  The Communications/IT lead was Anya Ponomarenko, a younger happy-go-lucky type who always had a solution for any problem. Her information technology solutions were legendary and if the problem was complex, it was nothing compared to the complexity of her solution. Anya would call it “elegant,” but everyone else would just scratch their heads and ask if it would work – amazingly it always had, at least so far. The logistics lead was Nancy Cabala, a serious older lady who never had enough of anything. If there were four working widgets in the system, she wanted at least four or more widgets as spares. It didn’t matter that a widget failed only once every hundred years, they all might have the same early failure mechanism, so she wanted to be safe. She also had an uncanny knack as to when to push back and when to back down – which was invaluable to all involved. To her credit she had the highest safety rating of any logistics officer on both Martian Survival Challenge and Flight Simulator sims, so who was Calaes to complain.

  Calaes set up a meeting with both Anya and Nancy for the following day, at a time that would not interfere with either’s training schedule.

  When the meeting finally started, Calaes said, “Good afternoon both of you and thank you for coming. You might notice that this meeting is smaller than our normal lead meetings. That is because this is a highly sensitive issue that warrants the utmost discretion. I am not sure what we are looking for exactly and so I am not sure what we might find. Hopefully we won’t find anything out of the ordinary and all this cloak and dagger will have been for nothing. On the other hand, if we do find something, then I’m counting on you to keep quiet about this until we can figure out what to do with the information.”

  They both looked at Calaes, then at each other. “Who are we keeping this information from?” asked Anya.

  Calaes responded, “Everyone for now, especially the government.” This caused both pairs of eyebrows to raise at the same time, which caused Calaes to want to laugh. He stifled it in time, since didn’t want to detract from the seriousness of the situation.

  After a brief pause, Nancy asked, “What are we looking for specifically?”

  “Well, I’m not sure,” said Calaes. “I’m looking for any kind of impropriety, but I don’t have a lot to go on.”

  “I can’t give you the details,” continued Calaes, “but I have been tipped off that there is a potential issue with the supply chain for the Mars Settlement infrastructure, specifically the supply manifests. I can’t say who tipped me off, but I can say that the source is potentially credible. Again, I can’t stress enough that we not alert the authorities that we are looking into this. Nancy, I need you to identify which manifests would be the simplest to review and yet have the highest probability of exposing any kind of issue. You regularly make queries into the manifests for spares determination, so this should not jump out as out of the ordinary. Anya, I need you to work hand-in-hand with Nancy to ensure we don’t leave any tracks. Your background in cybersecurity should help in that regard – which is why I asked you here.”

  “Hmm. Let me think,” muttered Nancy. She had this annoying habit of tapping her fingers on the table as she thought. This continued for several minutes, getting on his nerves – but he let her continue thinking without interrupting her. Calaes knew she had hit upon something when the tapping stopped.

  “We should look into the exterior panels for the settlement. They are on every building – on every exterior surface. They are pretty expensive and there are so many of them – that would be the easiest way to see if there were any kind of massive problem. The next largest quantity/cost combination item is the interior panels, but they are so much less expensive that you couldn’t have the type of large dollar issues you could have with the exterior panels. The only real issue is that we’re going to have to send more detailed queries than normal so we can see how much was paid for each panel, where the funds were sent to, where the product was shipped to and where it is now.”

  Anya said, “The government’s command and control systems are pretty airtight – it is hard to get in without authorized access. However, what we are talking about here, I believe, is getting into the administrative networks, which by definition are much looser since the government needs to administratively communicate with many outside entities. We can use a backdoor from one of these companies and get into the government’s admin system and then find all the information you are interested in with minimal risk of anyone finding out.”

  “That sounds perfect,” Calaes said. “Anya, please let us know when you expect to have everything in place. Nancy, ditto from you on the specific queries you want to make.”

  The meeting broke up with Calaes hoping he hadn’t just made a huge mistake by looking into the issue and/or getting these two involved. He knew that if things went wrong, it could mean the end of his Mars Settlement future.

  CHAPTER 16

  This was it, Calaes thought to himself. Anya, Nancy and Calaes were ready to start the intrusion into the subcontractor’s system. This was the first step into getting into the government’s admin system.

  “First,” Anya said, “we have to open up a backdoor connection to the sub. We don’t want to leave any traces. Since we’re local, we chose a subcontractor that is located in our city, which should help from a security perspective – the less intermediaries, the fewer traces left behind. Once we get inside, we can use their system to actually make all the inquiries. That way it is less likely they could trace it back to us here.”

  After several minutes of work, Anya smiled smugly and said, “We’re in, people. Ten minutes max and then we’ve got to shut this down. Nancy, you have the con.”

  Nancy, as always, looked worried. She started drumming her fingers and would not stop. She was not used to this cloak and dagger – and certainly not used to having to work against the clock.

  Calaes reassured her, “Ok, you’ve done this a million times – just a normal query. They’ll never know it is from us. Just get into their logistics system and we’re golden.”

  “OK,” she said. “First we need to get into the government’s Admin system … Yes, that’s it. OK, we’re in. Logistics system – check.”

  “Seven minutes to go,” said Anya.

  “OK, OK. Don’t rush me,” said Nancy drumming her fingers faster. “Entering the exterior panel part number. Good. Cost: Wow these are expensive, but everything checks out. Quantities seem way too high. I think something may be wrong here.”

  “Five minutes to go,” said Anya.

  “Look at the shipping records,” Calaes said.

  “OK,” Nancy said. She made multiple queries, until she finally said, “They were all shipped to Mars.”

  “How about usage data – where are they used in, and where are they now,” Calaes said.

  “Three minutes to go,” said Anya.

  “OK,” said Nancy, “I got the usage data. Looks interesting. I’d love to do some more checking around.”

  Anya said, “Too late. We’ve got to shut it down.” With that she terminated the connection. She worked for a few more minutes shutting everything down. Thankfully, Nancy stopped drumming her fingers at this point.

  When she was done Calaes said “Let’s summarize what we found. Anya, you first. Please give us your inputs.”

  “Even though you know some of this, I’m going to go th
rough our findings methodically to ensure there are no gaps in everyone's understanding. Here goes. The good news is that we were able to get into the local subcontractor’s system and make the queries from there. This ensures that even if we were detected using this backdoor, they hopefully would only trace back to that subcontractor. We actually used their systems to make the queries once we had control of them, then after we received the information, we wiped their machines and made it look like a system crash. This will take them off line for a few minutes while they reboot their system, but no real harm done. Once we wiped their systems, there should be no trace of us, so we should be scot-free. That is my quick summary.”

  “Great,” said Calaes. Anya was a true professional – at least when it really mattered. “Nancy, your turn.”

  Nancy started up, with both her voice and her fingers drumming, “We actually have three pieces of good news here. First, we did confirm the cost of the exterior panels, though they are pretty high. Second, the correct amount was paid for each panel. Finally, third, the panels were all shipped to Mars. If we had stopped there, and normally we would have if you hadn’t pushed us, everything would look just great. However, we didn’t just stop there and this is where the good news pretty much ends.

  “We looked to see how each panel was used – essentially each item’s parts list shows where it is used – a next higher assembly. The problem is that we can’t account specifically for where each panel is being used. The next higher assembly is always the settlement itself. On the face of it, this is OK, but they ordered too many exterior panels – and I mean way too many.

  “Normally there is a certain amount extra procured to cover material lost due to damage, misplacement, theft, or you name it – as well as for spares. This normally adds up to a small percentage of the total – maybe ten to twenty percent of the total for something so simple and repetitive as an exterior panel with no moving parts or electronics. For a project this large and far away from Earth and having to be self-sufficient, since this far away there are no ‘I forgots’, a far-out estimate might be one hundred percent extra. However, the actual number of panels procured far exceeds the number of panels needed, even accounting for attrition and for spares. The number exceeds twenty times the number needed, so over two thousand percent. The bottom line is that any kind of cursory audit would see no issues, however an in-depth audit like we just did would catch this. Bottom line: We got the data you wanted, but I’m not sure what to make of it or where to go from here.” When Nancy finished speaking, she visibly relaxed and she stopped drumming her fingers.

  Calaes had hoped that there were no issues and he could blindly trust the government to do the right thing. After all, he reasoned, hadn’t the government been the one to come up with the whole concept of getting a good set of people out of VR and over to the Mars colony? It didn’t make any sense. “Maybe they just stockpiled the extra panels,” he said.

  Nancy chimed in, “We thought of that, but there are no records of the extra panels. It is like once they were received on Mars, they just disappeared. On a project of this size sometimes some material will be lost, but never this much. There is so much that it would have to be an intentional act to move it and there would have to be some records, which I just didn’t see.”

  Calaes thought about it briefly, and said, “I don’t like this. It doesn’t add up.”

  He looked at each of the others, but all they did was shrug. “I can’t think of what is going on. If neither of you two can, then we are going to have to go back in and get some more information.

  “We retrieved all the information on the exterior panels there is,” Nancy said. “I looked exhaustively for any more information and there just isn’t any. We can look at other parts, but for these panels we have hit a dead end.”

  “Well,” said Anya, “we can go back in again one more time, but I highly recommend we don’t do it more than that. As it is, it will be suspicious to have two system crashes close together. We can try to mask the second crash, but I have to tell you that it may be detectable. And to attempt to access the system any more than this will raise every red flag there is. So, bottom line – this will be your only chance to get back into the system.”

  “We need to determine what parts to focus on,” said Calaes. “I will work with engineering to determine some of the key components and based upon this we can create a new list. Nancy, we will plan on getting you this list by tomorrow close of business. Anya, please be ready to make another intrusion into the subcontractor’s system start of business day after tomorrow. And if you can extend the time at all, that would be helpful. I will work with engineering to figure out what additional parts to look at.”

  He looked around to see if they had any other issues to discuss. When they volunteered nothing, he said, “If there is nothing else, we’re done here.”

  Anya and Nancy left the room quickly, both deciding that their normally hectic lives were more comforting than the high-pressure situation that they had just engaged in. And it would get a lot worse if these issues they dredged up came to be public knowledge.

  As they left, Calaes was already sending a message to the Engineering training lead, Antony Kivett, requesting a meeting at his earliest convenience. Receiving a quick response, Antony indicated that he was free right now and he could meet Calaes within ten minutes.

  Calaes impatiently waited for him while running through the facts in his head several times. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get it to make sense.

  When Antony finally entered the room, Calaes wasted no time in briefing him on what they had learned. Antony was a younger man for being the engineering lead, with short-cropped dark hair and a long nose. He always paused before saying something, which was annoying at first, but he always made it worth the wait either asking extremely insightful questions or succinctly presenting well-thought-out solutions.

  After Calaes finished speaking, Antony characteristically paused and finally said, “If so much of so high a value product is missing, then it is reasonable to assume that this was intentional and this is not the only thing missing. I recommend we keep the number of queries down to two, which should limit the possibility of detection. I further recommend that we pick something that is of very high value, but low quantity, as well as something that is of extremely high quantity even if it is not so high a dollar value. I further recommend that the former be the fusion reactor and the latter be the interior panels. The fusion reactor is so complex and expensive, I’m curious as to what we might find there. The interior panels should give us some understanding as to how they correlate with the exterior panels. That may give us more insight into the situation.”

  “Great ideas,” said Calaes. “I think that this is about as good as we can do. Any other thoughts?”

  Antony asked, “Can I ask where you received this information from originally?”

  Calaes thought about telling him about Randy, but he was not ready to divulge this information yet. “I am really not at liberty to say at this point. When I am able to, I will let you and others know first thing.”

  Antony remained stoically silent upon hearing this and left the room shortly thereafter.

  Calaes wrote the information down manually, on paper – something that was not done very often, but he wanted the least electronic information traceable back to them. He sought out Nancy and handed the Logistics team-lead the paper. She looked at it, nodded and went about her activities.

  Calaes worried about what they had found and what it might mean the entire time until their next meeting. He worried about what would happen if they were caught. He worried what the implications were of their initial findings. He worried what the new findings would show. But most of all he worried about why Randy had shown himself and the issues he had flagged. They would never had discovered any issues without his tip. What did he want? Why now? What did this mean for Calaes, for his group of candidates, and more importantly, what did this mean moving forward for the
human race?

  CHAPTER 17

  Hayden’s search attempts had finally borne fruit.

  He found about a group of people that had successfully “escaped” from VR and had congregated at a secret location. He had not yet found the location, but that was now just a matter of time. Hayden thought about the implications again of their goal to get a community established outside of his control – and he didn’t like the ramifications at all.

  This called for two lines of action.

  First, he would study this group to collect more information and especially determine the size and location of the group. Next, he would authorize the construction of a fleet of automated space patrol craft that could be available to project Hayden’s power anywhere in the solar system. This could be used against this insurgency as well as any that came up in the future.

  Moving forward on these two actions, Hayden felt satisfied that everything was much more under control.

  – – –

  Anya, Nancy, Antony and Calaes sat around the meeting room table. They were all ready for the second – and last – intrusion attempt.

  Anya started things off, narrating her attempt to gain access. “All right people, I am opening the backdoor to get control of their system … now! This is it, we’re on the clock. We need to be done in less than fifteen minutes. After that the odds of detection go way up. And that is a maximum – if we can be done before that, I would feel a lot better.”

  Nancy took over and quickly accessed the logistics records, drumming her fingers quickly but lightly. From there she honed in on the fusion reactor. “Wow,” she said, “this is quite a bit more expensive than what I thought. Each one is well over a billion dollars.”