Dystopia

by Jason Chapman

  ‘What about other social media platforms such as Twitter, YouTube and Instagram any word from them?’

  ‘No word from any other social media sites just yet. Although I have a feeling that others will follow suit. I would be very surprised if the likes of Twitter and YouTube were to remain silent now that Facebook has come out officially and admitted that they have been hacked.’

  ‘Matt Whitby, thanks very much for that report.’

  Covent Garden – London – 11:23pm

  Jack Bishop poured out a glass of malt whiskey and walked through to a spacious living room. He sat down in a large leather armchair and took a sip. The liquid warmed the back of his throat as he closed his eyes reflecting on the day’s events.

  The doorbell sounded.

  Bishop looked at the clock on the wall. He got out of his armchair and made his way to the front door of his flat. He peered through the peephole on his door at three men standing in the corridor. Bishop felt his heartbeat quicken as he recognised the man standing at his front door.

  The doorbell sounded again.

  Bishop opened the door. ‘Charlie.’ He greeted with a forced smile. ‘This is an unexpected surprise.’

  Charlie Osborne stepped through the door without being invited in in. ‘How are things Jackie boy?’ He said with a thick east end Cockney accent.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I would like a little chat.’

  Bishop sensed his heart quicken again. ‘Sure, go into the living room. I’ll pour you a glass of the old stuff.’

  Osborne’s minders remained outside.

  Both men sat down and for a few moments no one spoke. ‘What brings you to my humble abode this time of night?’ Bishop asked sheepishly.

  ‘I think you know Jackie.’

  Bishop nodded. ‘Dystopia.’

  Osborne sipped from his glass. ‘I want to know where I can find them Jackie.’

  ‘That’s the thing, no one knows where they are. This is something totally out of the blue Charlie. We had no idea they were going to strike.’

  ‘Don’t fuck me about Jackie.’

  ‘I’m telling the truth Charlie. I have been up since one o’clock this morning trying to deal with this. There are over one hundred dead. I have been trying to keep the peace, the city is in meltdown.’

  ‘I’m in fucking meltdown!’ Osborne said cutting Bishop off. ‘Every fucking one is in meltdown. These cunts have stolen everyone’s money.’

  ‘What do you mean by everyone?’

  ‘I mean whoever these twats are, they have plundered the back accounts of every fucking dealer, crook and money man in the fucking city. What I want to know is what you are fucking well doing about it.’

  ‘I am working flat out to deal with this Charlie, you have my word.’

  ‘Your word means fuck all at this moment Jackie boy. I want to know where these twats are fucking hiding. I want my fucking money back.’

  ‘Charlie, listen to me very carefully. I do not know who this Dystopia is. I am not lying. I have to deal with the casualties and the dead. I cannot afford to give you the time of day at the moment.’

  Osborne glared at him. ‘I’ve outlasted everyone Jackie, the Fraizers, the Richardson’s and the Krays. I haven’t lasted this long for some dickhead in a hoodie to wipe me fucking clean. There’ll be blood on the streets very soon Jackie if you don’t clear this mess up. The foreign gangs are gearing up for war because they have lost all their money. They’re blaming each other. I can’t keep the peace for long.’

  ‘We are putting together a taskforce to bring in all the known hackers around the city. A team will start raiding homes first thing in the morning.’

  ‘I want the name of every fucking sad twat with a computer who could pull this off.’

  Bishop nodded. ‘Ok, I will get you any list we compile but I’m not promising anything.’

  Osborne looked across at Bishop. ‘Don’t get greedy on me Jackie.’

  ‘I’m not, we have not encountered anything like this before. This Dystopia is something new. I have just chaired a meeting with four premier league shareholders. Dystopia have left the football industry in ruins. They are threatening to wipe out every payday loan company in the country at midnight.’ Bishop gestured to the clock on the wall. ‘You’re not the only victim here.’

  Osborne finished his glass of whiskey and stood up. ‘Ok Jackie boy I believe you.’

  ‘You have to give me a little time Charlie. You have to send the message out to the other gangs that the police will deal with this. You cannot take matters into your own hands. This is not the old days anymore. The media will smell something if you start to kick in doors.’

  Osborne nodded. ‘You have twenty four hours Jackie.’

  ‘Twenty four hours is not long enough.’ Bishop argued. ‘Dystopia hasn’t finished yet. The Met are expecting more attacks. You have to maintain order until we can get a hold on this. Until then you have to let me do my job.’

  Osborne walked through to the front door. He looked around the spacious hallway. ‘Remember who set you up Jackie boy. I can put you fucking down just as easily.’ Osbourne smiled at him. ‘I don’t expect your colleagues would regard you highly if they found out about your culinary tastes.’

  Bishop trembled. ‘I’m grateful for all you have done for me Charlie.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch Jackie boy.’

  Chapter 23

  Day 2

  Sky News – 5:00am

  Tuesday 16th October – 2018

  ‘Good morning, you’re watching Sunrise on Sky news, the headlines this morning.’

  ‘One hundred and fifty two people confirmed dead in yesterday’s terror attacks across London and the rest of the UK.’

  ‘A group calling themselves Dystopia claim responsibility for the atrocities.’

  ‘Bank accounts of all premier league clubs emptied overnight, as well as a number of other accounts connected with football.’

  ‘It is estimated that as many as thirty five thousand people have had the sum of forty thousand pounds paid into their bank accounts. ‘

  ‘All the main payday loan companies have been attacked. Their websites removed from the internet.’

  ‘Both police and security forces are overwhelmed by these spate of attacks.’

  ‘In a fresh statement given out minutes ago, Facebook have admitted their website has been hacked and is now being controlled by Dystopia. All the other social networking sites are expected release statements later on this morning.’

  ‘Chaos at airports across the country and at all ferry ports as the travel ban begins to bite.’

  Downing Street - London – 5:14am

  The Prime Minister took a large swig of strong black coffee, she looked up on hearing a loud knock on the door. ‘Come in!’

  Edwin Fuller and James Prosser entered the office.

  ‘Gentlemen I trust you have something good to tell me this morning.’

  Fuller sat down opposite the Prime Minister. He glanced at a portrait of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

  Mayflower noticed the expression on his face. ‘It’s times like this I wish she were still alive to advise me.’

  ‘I have just spoken to Assistant Commissioner Bishop ma’am. He has organised a taskforce to round up every known hacker in and around London. They have also apprehended a number of people in connection with the attack in the nightclub. Unfortunately one suspect was already dead when police entered a property last night.’

  ‘Do you think any results can be yielded from rounding up a bunch of computer hackers?’

  ‘It’s too early to say.’

  ‘What about the money paid into people’s bank accounts?’ Mayflower asked Prosser.

  ‘I have just held a conference call with four top executives from the UKs largest banks. I’m afraid they are powerless to stop people from accessing the money they have been paid.’ Prosser paused. ‘There have also been a number of foreign accounts emptied.’
<
br />   ‘Belonging to whom?’ Mayflower asked.

  ‘HSBC.’ Prosser replied. ‘These accounts seem to be linked with its branch in South America.’

  ‘Are you talking about the drug money scandal a few years back?’

  Prosser nodded.

  ‘I thought that issues had been dealt with.’

  ‘It’s still an ongoing investigation ma’am.’

  ‘Does this mean Dystopia has taken control of the main banking sites?’

  ‘It’s too early to say. Banking operations seem to be functioning normally apart from people having money dumped into their accounts. The banks top security experts have yet to find any virus that may have caused this. It’s like they’re there, but not there. I have had several phone calls from prominent business people wanting to know what we are doing to halt this attack. It appears that Dystopia has also made good on its promise to wipe out every payday loan company. There is absolutely no trace of these companies anywhere. We could be in for a rough ride over this. Many of these companies will try and claim compensation.’

  Mayflower looked at Fuller. ‘Have there been any attacks similar to the ones yesterday?’

  Fuller shook his head. ‘No, the police are still out in force in central London as well as the rest of the UK. Nothing on a scale of yesterday’s attacks have been reported.’

  ‘I suppose that’s a bit of promising news.’

  ‘There is a lot of damage control to do ma’am. The press are circling, they want you to address the nation. I have also heard from the Palace, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are planning a visit to one of the hospitals currently treating the victims.’

  Mayflower nodded. ‘That should lift the spirits of the people. Nothing like a royal walkabout on these occasions to deflect some of the flack away from us.’ She looked at her watch. ‘In the meantime I have to fly to Brussels later on today to negotiate a deal with European leaders over Brexit.’

  The door opened again and head of MI6 Robert Parsons walked in with another man. ‘Prime Minister, we believe we have a breakthrough.’

  ‘Some good news at last.’ Mayflower answered candidly.

  ‘This is Ian Baldwin.’ Parsons introduced the other man. ‘He’s a senior analyst with the National Security Agency and is part of their European operations.’

  Baldwin extended his hand. ‘A pleasure to meet you madam Prime Minister.’ He said in a thick Texas accent.

  ‘So what exactly have you found?’ Mayflower asked.

  ‘Our teams in the US have been working overnight to try and combat Dystopia. With help from your guys at GCHQ we were able to determine these social media hacks originated from three separate locations.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The first location was pinpointed approximately sixty five miles outside Moscow at a place called Pokrov.’

  ‘So it’s the Russians who are responsible for this mess.’ Mayflower sighed.

  ‘We knew it was only a matter of time.’ Parsons said. ‘After the incident in Salisbury and a worldwide expulsion of Russian diplomats relations have been at an all-time low. Moscow has showed no sign of backing down and have continued to deny any involvement with the attack on Skripal and his daughter. This is despite the fact we have evidence the nerve agent originated from a lab in Russia.’

  ‘I’m afraid it gets worse Prime Minister.’ Baldwin said. ‘The two other locations the attack came from were China and North Korea.’

  Mayflower massaged her forehead. ‘So China, Russia and North Korea are siding with each other now.’

  ‘They have always shared similar interests Prime Minister. For years our security services have been theorising they could launch an attack like this.’ Parsons said. ‘Our security experts believe that this could be the start of something far worse.’

  ‘President Trump is being briefed on the situation as we speak.’ Baldwin added. ‘Because of the five hour time difference he’s not expected to make a statement until 9:00am Washington time.’

  ‘I can understand Russia being a part of this.’ Mayflower said. ‘But why would North Korea risk so much? They have gone out of their way to build good relations with the west. President Trump himself hailed June’s summit in Singapore a monumental success.’

  ‘Why attack just us?’ Fuller questioned. ‘And why target our sporting institutes? Some of the Premier league football teams are owned by Russian Billionaires.’

  ‘What about the other attacks? What caused ordinary people to just lose control yesterday?’ Mayflower asked.

  ‘Our security forces are working hard to discover why those people went berserk.’ Baldwin paused. ‘Look, I know we don’t have all the answers but we are working flat out to find them.’

  ‘Which brings me to my next question.’ Mayflower said. ‘How are they doing this? Our cyber security services have been unable to find any sign of a breech.’

  Baldwin seemed to hesitate before responding. ‘We believe that they are using a virus developed by the NSA in 2002.’

  ‘Bloody fantastic.’ Fuller stated. ‘So the reason we are in this mess is because you lot created yet another genie and now it’s out of the bottle.’

  ‘Exactly how did they get their hands on this virus?’ Mayflower asked.

  ‘We think it was part of the cache of information Edward Snowden stole back in 2013.’

  ‘Here we bloody go, Edward Snowden again!’ Fuller exclaimed.

  ‘After 9/11 the NSA set up a think tank to determine other threats to the United States. One of those scenarios was a brute force hack on our financial holdings. Our analysts theorised that it was possible to create a virus which would be invisible to the world’s best cyber security experts.’

  ‘So you decided to create this virus before anyone else.’ Fuller said.

  Baldwin nodded. ‘By December of 2002 we successfully created a virus that could do anything we wanted it to do. Shut down financial holdings, destroy websites leaving no trace of them on any search engines. Lockdown computerised infrastructure such as gas, oil and power supplies.’

  Mayflower glanced at Fuller. ‘The virus that attacked those NHS trust hospitals last year.’

  ‘The virus used in the attacks last year was an early version of the virus we created. There were several attempts to create the ultimate virus. When our cyber analysts engineered the perfect virus we tested it on a number of systems.’

  ‘What kind of systems?’

  ‘Mainly what we call rogue nation states, like Iran, and North Korea. We successfully hacked the Iranian nuclear weapons program and stopped them from field testing a crude device.’ Baldwin looked at Fuller. ‘I needn’t remind you Prime Minister that the information I am sharing right now is highly classified.’

  ‘Do not take me for a fool Mr Baldwin. I am aware of what we are dealing with here. What I want to know is what are we going to do about this.’

  ‘We hope that we can come up with a solution within the next twenty four hours.’

  ‘Twenty four hours.’ Fuller remarked. ‘Just in case you haven’t been keeping up on current events Mr Baldwin, it has taken less than twelve hours for Dystopia to cause major damage to our most prized sporting institutes. As well as making some thirty five thousand people very happy. On top of that they have decimated every payday loan company in the UK.’

  Mayflower glared at Fuller. ‘Which is nothing compared with the carnage they let loose on the streets yesterday. Let’s not forget that we lost civilian lives. Which far outweighs the financial cost.’

  Baldwin continued. ‘After we had tested the virus we locked it away. Our analysts speculated the likelihood that we would have to use this was virtually zero.’

  ‘So you never developed a kill switch for your little project.’ Fuller concluded.

  ‘No.’ Baldwin admitted.

  ‘Then twenty four hours is a bit optimistic don’t you think.’ Mayflower added.

  ‘I can assure you Prime Minister we have our top people working on this.�
��

  ‘And what do you call this virus you created?’

  ‘We came up with two names. There were those who called it the God Virus. While others referred to it as the Oppenheimer Virus.’

  ‘Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.’ Mayflower quoted.

  ‘You have to understand, in the wake of 9/11 the American people felt vulnerable. Not since the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1941 had we experienced such an attack. President Bush ordered all his security forces to come up with more effective defence strategies. Which is why the NSA set up the taskforce to deal with threats other than a physical attack.’

  ‘So you hid it away.’ Fuller said in a mocking tone. ‘Until Mr Snowden came along and decided to hack your systems and steal this virus.’

  ‘But why wait until now to attack? Why haven’t they done this sooner?’ Mayflower quizzed.

  Baldwin shrugged.

  ‘I think we should make some kind of statement to the press Prime Minister. The sooner people know who’s behind these attacks, the sooner the public will start to settle down.’ Fuller suggested.

  ‘We cannot accuse the Russians of anything until we are it’s certain it’s them.’ Mayflower looked at Baldwin. ‘How confident are you that it’s the Russians, Chinese and North Koreans.’

  ‘We’re about seventy percent certain.’ Baldwin replied.

  ‘I’m sorry Mr Baldwin but seventy percent is not enough to convince me to start pointing fingers. I need more. If we start accusing the Russians of this attack, relations between us will be worse than it was during the cold war.’

  ‘Hopefully our analysts will have something for you soon.’

  ‘The Metropolitan Police are rounding up hackers in and around London this morning. We are hoping someone might have something to tell us. It could give you the thirty percent you need.’

  ‘I don’t think rounding up a bunch of computer nerds will make any difference.’

  ‘Mr Baldwin, a self-taught computer analyst with a passion for surfing stopped a potentially damaging virus last year. I think we can assume that somewhere amongst the geeks we round up is someone who may know how to combat this threat.’ Mayflower pointed out.