Springboard

5

Jay Gridley sat in the back of an open-wall ragtop jitney with fifty other passengers; an oppressive, cloying, heat and humidity wrapped the bus like a sodden blanket. Had they been moving, there would at least have been some hot wind, but the vehicle was, like the hundreds of others he could see on the road, jammed to a full stop. Even the people on bicycles and Segways weren’t moving, and the air was as still as a tomb.

Around him, the passengers talked to each other in Malay or Bahasa or English, apparently unaffected by their lack of progress.

Jay shook his head. Whatever VR scenario he conjured, the military’s super-computers were not easy to navigate. The hardware, software, protocols — everything was a pain. Even with full access, delving into these things was as difficult and complex as anything Jay had ever done. The place was a rat’s nest of back alleys and twisted roads, with buildings looming over the narrow streets, far too many people — read information packets — and a host of other complicating factors Jay hadn’t even begun to sort out.

His respect for Major Bretton ratcheted up several notches. If the man could negotiate this mess at all, he was good.

Next to him a local man, probably seventy, and dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt and a sarong, smiled, showing better teeth than Jay expected.

“Selamat. You Thai?” the man asked. His voice was raspy and full of phlegm.

As it happened, that was partially true. “Yes.”

“You have children? I have five — four sons and a daughter, plus nine grandchildren.”

“I have a son. Only one.”

The old man laughed, a cackle. “You young. Plenty of time.”

He pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and offered it to Jay. “Smoke?”

Jay declined.

The old man lit the coffin nail and inhaled deeply. Gray tendrils rose in the hot and still air. The smoking explained the raspy, phlegmy sound to old man’s voice. Even though Jay had created the scenario, he sometimes fell into a kind of schizophrenic state where things for which he was responsible, such as the old man’s voice, came as a surprise to him, as if somebody else had built the program.

“Is it always like this?” Jay asked. He waved to encompass the gridlocked traffic.

The old man shrugged. “This a good day. Some times, much worse.”

Great. Just what he needed to hear.

The old man looked out through the open sides of the jitney. “Rain is coming soon. Cool things off.”

Jay nodded. How bad was it when a tropical storm, with lightning, thunder, and rain blasting down in sheets angled almost horizontal, was something you were looking forward to?

Ick.

This was going to be a long, long day…

The U.S. Air Force was doing a terrific job — the thousands of smart antimine bomblets, TDO-A2s, known unofficially as “garden weasels,” had cleared major pathways in the minefields on the NK side of the wire, so when the new M10A3 gasoline-powered heavy tanks began roaring across the line, they were able to make good speed. The tanks’ 105mm cannons added noise and smoke to the already shrouded battlefield, but the tin can drivers didn’t need to see anything outside their sensor screens — fog, rain, smoke, darkness, none of these were impediments to the electronic gear the heavies carried.

Overhead, the scores of fighters and bombers continued to roar — no need for stealth now — dropping huge pay-loads, ranging from the ten-ton BLU-84a “Big Blue” daisy-cutters that would chop down enemy soldiers like a lawn mower in dry grass, to the GBU-27B smart bombs from the F-111s that could find a chimney and go down it like Santa Claus bringing coal to the bad kids, to the BU- 28 five-thousand-pound bunkerbusters.

That section of North Korea was, for the moment, the most dangerous place on the planet, more so than an active volcano. You might outrun lava. No way could you outrun 20mm machine-gun rounds from a jet fighter chasing you.

Yes, the North Koreans had a huge army, and much armor and all, but with the full force of the United States military brought to bear all at once, there was no way anybody on this planet was going to stop it—

Except that it did stop.

Just like somebody switching off a lamp…

Thorn removed the VR headset and blew out a sigh, still astonished by the power of the simulation. It was as if he had been there, standing just behind the action, hearing and seeing and feeling the thrum of all-out war, smelling the gunpowder and cooked earth…

General Roger Ellis, U.S. Marines, head of Special Projects Command — SpecProjCom — for the Pentagon, and Thorn’s new boss, leaned back in his chair and looked at him.

“Very impressive,” Thorn said.

“Yeah, up until the point that it shut down,” Ellis said. “That simulation took a boatload of expensive log-in time and the lion’s share of attention from a cross-linked pair of supercomputers to run, and somebody killed it like stepping on a fire ant on the sidewalk. It happened yesterday. You can see why the Head of the Joint Chiefs isn’t happy.”

Thorn nodded. Ellis had a Southern twang in his voice. Texas, maybe. “Fire ant” had come out more like “fahr aynit.”

They were in a sim-room adjacent to Ellis’s office at the Pentagon, no windows, a bland space done in the same institutional colors as much of the rest of the place. The building was a maze — you needed the guard/guide they issued you at the door to find your way around, even with the flow charts. As dull an office building as there was, and this a room to doze off in, Thorn thought, though certainly not during a VR ride like the one he had just taken.

Ellis was in his late fifties, but white-haired and with a pale, lined face, looking ten years older than he was. He was in uniform, and one that had been well cut by an attentive tailor to minimize his belly, which, even so, was well on its way to winning the war with his trousers. What Thorn’s grandfather used to call “Dunlap’s Disease”—his belly had done lapped over his belt…

“Of course, the expense doesn’t hold a candle to what a real-world exercise like this would cost — not to mention that we couldn’t hardly practice it against the North Koreans or the Chinese. Still, a million here, a million there, and like Dirksen used to say, pretty soon it starts to add up to real money.”

Ellis looked at Thorn. “This is what you people do, run down computer geeks who screw things up. This was a dangerous security breach. Can you fix this?”

Thorn nodded. “If it can be done, our people can do it. Though you are looking at two different problems here, General. Finding and collecting the party responsible is one; repairing the software is another. My people will look for the hacker, and maybe we can help some with the repairs, but it’s your scenario programmers who will mostly have to resolve that.”

“Commander, I guarantee that if you bring us whoever did this, we’ll get him to tell us everything we need to know to fix it. And then some.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, you got your techno guys on it?”

“My best man is already working with the project liaison. More people will be put on it as soon as they have something to go on.”

Ellis grinned. “Welcome to the Marines, Commander Thorn. Colonel Kent is still in charge of your tactical guys?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell him to drop by and see me when he gets a chance.”

“I will.”

“All right. We have some chain-of-command things to hash out — I’ll have my paper- and electron-pushers contact yours — and some other miscellaneous stuff, but the main thing is, you jump on this problem like ducks on a June bug and catch this sucker. Everything else we’ll work out as we go.”

“Understood, General.”

“Good. Go do it. Keep me posted.”

As the guard escorted Thorn toward the exit, the head of Net Force considered his first interview with his new boss. So far, so good. How long it would be before the other shoe dropped, he’d just have to wait and see.

The temperature was warm enough so that you could take your shirt off and be comfortable, but not so warm that you got too hot just walking around. Maybe around eighty or so. There were some high clouds in the pure blue sky, and a gentle breeze that ruffled the trees a little.

A manicured lawn stretched in front of the cottage, short grass that felt great under bare feet. A white-painted wooden picket fence surrounded the lawn and house. A medium-sized dog, a party-colored mutt, slept in the shade of a big oak tree next to the house, feet twitching as he chased imaginary rabbits in his dreams.

Framed in the big kitchen window, working on lunch, were three gorgeous women: a tall, busty, blonde, wearing a string bikini top; a redhead with hair down to the middle of her back, in a tube-top; and a dark-skinned, curly-haired brunette without any clothes at all covering her perfect breasts. The trio looked out through the window, smiled, and waved.

The hammock was strung between two sycamore trees; next to the hammock was a small table upon which was an ice chest full of bottled beer, an appetizer pizza piled high with three kinds of meat and two cheeses, and a humidor full of good Cuban cigars.

Mounted on the tree above the foot of the hammock was a holoproj set, and the images of the players in the championship American-style football game danced in the shade. Fourth quarter, two minutes to go, and the score was tied, 28–28.

The cheerleaders, young women, all of them flawless — and bare from the waist up — were going wild. Now and again, the camera would show them in slo-mo, so the bouncing was particularly interesting…

Man. Was this heaven, or what?

Bam!

The house, lawn, dog, beer — all of it — vanished. The idyllic scene went black, in the blink of an eye. A moment later, the blackness was replaced by flames, and a scene right out of Dante’s Inferno. Tortured souls writhed in the eternal fires, screams of pain filled the air, and everywhere was smoke and stinking sulfur…

Charles Seurat shook his head. “Quite a shock,” he said.

Georges, the programmer, shook his head. “The kind of man — or sometimes woman — who usually elects this particular cottage scenario is generally working-class, what the Americans call ‘blue-collar,’ and the abrupt shift from paradise to inferno is particularly scary. Most of them have had religious upbringings, and in that teaching, the scenario they picked is not, ah, consistent with Heaven. To have the fantasy replaced with Hell is not only a jolt, it is, on some level, what many of them believe they deserve. Despite our assurances that it was a glitch, and even offers of free time, we have lost customers because of it.”

“How many?”

Georges shrugged. “Hard to say for sure. We know those who complained numbered only in the dozens. How many just dropped their service and left without saying? Who knows? Not everybody responds to the exit survey.”

Seurat shook his head. “And you have not found the source?”

“Just like others. The trail bounces from several satellites and then vanishes. He is very good, this hacker.”

“Well, we ought to have somebody who is better. This kind of attack is unacceptable. One man!”

Georges was quiet, but Seurat sensed that he had something to say. “Yes?”

“Two things, mon capitaine. First, CyberNation is not the only target. We have heard from reliable sources that the United States military’s war scenarios have likewise been attacked with some success.”

“I have heard these rumors. What of them?”

“It means that we may have a common enemy. And thus, perhaps, an enemy of our enemy who might be of some help.”

“And what is the other thing?”

Georges hesitated.

“Go on, spit it out.”

“We cannot assume that our hacker is alone. He may be part of a cabal. Or worse.”

Seurat thought about that for a moment. “Sponsored by a government, you mean.” It was not a question.

“Oui. CyberNation offers a threat to traditional geopolitical entities. If we succeed in our aim—when we succeed in them — our power will rival that of nation states. No one ever gives up that kind of power willingly.”

Seurat nodded. Yes. Georges had a point. A hacker backed by a government would have many more resources than one sitting alone in his room using his personal computer. Now that he thought of it, such a premise made more sense, that the attacks were backed by such resources. But — who? Which country?

The most adept would be, of course, the United States. But if they were being attacked themselves, unless it was a clever feint designed to throw CyberNation off their trail, then that would seem to rule them out. They could be very devious, the Americans, but from what he had heard about the cost to their military due to their computer disruptions, that seemed too steep a price. Even if CyberNation knew the U.S. was responsible, they were in no position to start an all-out computer war.

Not yet.

This needed looking into further. Seurat had contacts in the States, people who ought to be able to find out more. Time to use these contacts. He did not like being a target, no matter who the shooter might be…

Locke sat in his rented truck — one that had been made to look like a plumber’s vehicle — and pretended to write a work order. The front door to CyberNation’s HQ was visible in the truck’s large, outside rearview mirror, and this was what Locke watched while ostensibly filling out the paperwork. The good thing about pretending to be a plumber — and he wore an old coverall with the word plombier stenciled on the back — was that people paid you little attention if your truck sat parked in a neighborhood for hours. With the French, if they saw you sitting in the truck doing nothing, they assumed you were goofing off, and dismissed that with a Gallic shrug. Lazy bâtard, oui?

Locke smiled at the image. He had little French to speak of, enough to have dinner or catch a taxi, and it would not have mattered if he was adept in the language — the French looked down their long noses at everybody who was not them, no matter how well they might speak their tongue. Them and their foolish quest to keep the language pure.

The CyberNation building had been a hive of activity since he had arrived, and the comings and goings of high-level employees had a certain frantic nature that Locke took to mean that Shing’s machinations had, at least to some degree, worked.

Plus he had bribed low-level employees — guards, secretaries, and the man who delivered lunches — and while the precise nature of the problem was not something upon which they could report, they could definitely confirm that something was going on — and that CyberNation’s leaders weren’t happy about it. No, not happy at all.

Locke had reports from the United States that the military had also suffered under Shing’s hand, and he would, in due course, travel there and check it out personally.

He had to give Shing credit, though. So far, it seemed as if he had been able to do everything he had claimed. Of course, that had to continue for the greater plan to unfold properly. If Shing was stopped, there was a backup plan, a more hands-on method that Locke would implement, but he hoped to avoid that. Not because he was worried that it wouldn’t work, but the risks entailed would require time and energy better spent elsewhere.

A policeman walked by on the sidewalk. He looked at the truck.

Locke smiled and nodded at the flick, then went back to his pretend paperwork. He was obviously not pure French to look at, and the policeman apparently did not wish to talk to him and suffer the expected butchery of speech by a low-life foreigner.

Arrogance was a pain, even if it was useful. Locke could hardly wait to get to the U.S. They were so much more easygoing over there.

He caught movement in the mirror. Ah. It was Seurat, the czar of CyberNation, emerging from the building. As he did, a limo pulled up and the Frenchman entered it.

Locked started the truck’s engine. From what he had learned, Seurat was an automobile buff — he liked to drive. That he was not in one of his sports cars probably meant he was, as Locke had also heard, traveling. A fan of fine cars did not leave an expensive vehicle in an airport or train station parking lot exposed to the elements and the possible dings from the carelessly opened doors of other drivers.

Company presidents traveled all the time, and probably this was no more than a business trip; still, given the problems CyberNation was currently facing, it was not a bad idea to at least check it out. Knowledge was indeed power.

The limousine pulled away from the curb, and Locke followed it into the afternoon’s commute.