The Kraken Project

30

Two o’clock in the morning. The shuttered offices of Lansing Partners were dark, the only light coming from the blue glow of a large computer screen. Moro liked sitting in his post-modern office with the black-and-white rugs, titanium, glass, and tropical hardwood finishes. The floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over lower Manhattan and the Hudson River, and the lights of Hoboken glittered like diamonds in the moving water. A pair of tugboats pushed a barge of cubed cars down the river, toward the sea. It was an amazing view.

He liked working on the Cray, even though he didn’t need anything like the power it offered. The value of the Cray lay in its firewall. It was a firewall that Moses himself would have a hard time getting through. It was a shock that those dirtbags had managed to do it when they’d boosted the source code of Black Mamba. But he had found and sewed up that loophole, and he was pretty sure there weren’t any others like it.

Moro had carefully considered how to do this. Lansing’s idea about torturing the dog was off the wall for sure, but the more he thought about it, the more it seemed worth trying. Tracking down the program using the ID string would be a lot more complicated.

He had dissected the Laika program. It was a simple chatterbot program written in Lisp. The program could bark, wag its tail, beg for treats, and lift its leg at the appropriate times. It also made the stupidest dog jokes Moro had ever heard.

What happened when the dog went to the flea circus?

He stole the show!

What dog wears contact lenses?

A cock-eyed spaniel!

Moro had worked out a trap using the Cray’s firewall system. Normally, the firewall was impermeable to unauthorized incoming traffic and more porous to outgoing. But because it was used for high-speed trading, that firewall could be turned off or even reversed. Moro had done just that: reversed the firewall. He set it up so that all outgoing traffic was blocked, while incoming traffic was open — while setting up a second firewall to protect the firm’s data. It was sort of like the Roach Motels he scattered about his Tribeca loft. Dorothy would check in, but she wouldn’t check out. When Dorothy crossed the open firewall on her way in, she would trigger a software switch that, in a few nanoseconds, would slam shut the outgoing firewall, trapping her. It was like a Havahart trap, since the Dorothy program would be captured alive.

But first he had to lure her in. He had no idea if “torturing” Laika would get Dorothy to come and rescue her dog. It would, at the least, attract her attention.

To that end, Moro modified Laika’s text database and added a number of torture-like responses — whining, crying, screeching in pain, pissing, shitting, bleeding, and calls to Dorothy for help. Laika was a simple program, and it took Moro only a few hours to modify the source code.

As he was setting up the trap, the intercom chimed and the night security desk called, saying his food delivery was there.

“Send ’em up.”

He met the delivery boy in the outer office, tipped him ten, and carried the Chinese takeout back to his desk. Working for Lansing was a trip. Moro had joined Lansing Partners twelve years ago. “Partners”—Moro had to laugh. There had never been any partners. It was just Lansing and him, support staff, and an idea. But, by Jesus, had they made money. Before meeting Lansing, Moro had been one of the founders of the Johndoe hacking collective. He’d been caught hacking into Boeing’s military contracting files and spent eighteen months in prison. When he got out, there was a stretch limo waiting for him right at the prison gates. Inside that limo was G. Parker Lansing. Made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. He would never forget what Lansing had done for him, and he would be forever grateful. Even if the guy gave him the creeps.

With salary and performance bonuses, over the past twelve years Moro had become very rich. That was the thing about Lansing. He wasn’t a skinflint, like so many other investment bankers were with their IT guys. He was generous. He was appreciative. He was smart. He was ruthless. And now, Moro thought with a shiver, he was a murderer. The thought of what they’d done to that woman made him feel sick. The casual killing of Melancourt had been a big shock to him, and he still hadn’t figured out how to deal with it. He had been having trouble sleeping, waking up in the middle of the night, hearing those screams, seeing that woman’s body go flying off the railing … On the other hand, she had sort of deserved it, with her constant demands for cash.

He stepped down hard on that line of thought, and with an effort at self-control he brought himself back to the task at hand. Which was chowing down on his mu shu pork. He hadn’t eaten all day, and it was three o’clock in the morning. God, was he famished. He opened the containers, laid a pancake out on a paper plate, spooned in the pork and vetetables, added some plum and soy sauce, rolled it up, and rammed it into his mouth, the sauce squirting out and dribbling down his chin. The room filled with the smell of soy, ginger, sesame oil, and monosodium glutamate.

Licking his fingers and wiping them off with a bunch of napkins, he felt ready. He twisted around toward the keyboard and set up the trap, reversing the firewall, leaving the computer wide open. He had installed a second firewall behind a partition on the Cray, to prevent Dorothy from doing anything destructive while she was trapped; it would also stop her from escaping through a back door.

Moro had thought this through carefully. He had rigged up a dead man’s switch on the Cray that simply turned it off. Shut off the power instantly. Not powering it down properly would cause some damage, but it was nothing that couldn’t be fixed. It had the advantage of instantly freezing Dorothy.

Now he was ready to go. Using a Krugle-like search engine, he was quickly able to find her ID track on a trail of servers. Dorothy had been trucking. It even appeared that she was being pursued. He sent a little bot program out there, to follow the trail and plant the information where Dorothy would see it, saying that he had her dog and was going to torture her to death.

At three-thirty, he loaded the Laika program behind the firewall trap and started “abusing” it, cursing the dog, beating and torturing it. All this was done in text. Along with the beatings and Laika’s pathetic shrieks and whining and calling out to Dorothy for help, Moro began deleting bits and pieces of Laika’s text database, especially the punch lines of the jokes, which he figured were like amputations or dismemberments of a sort.

After a few minutes he began to feel slightly ridiculous, pretending to torture a chatterbot while it screamed, begged, shat all over itself, and shrieked for help. The inanity of the scheme began to embarass him, compounded by the folly of thinking that Dorothy, a mere computer program, would somehow react to it. This was a crazy-ass idea. Lansing often had these off-the-wall ideas, and while some of them worked out — spectacularly — many others failed. Moro felt silly, and he decided he would wrap it up in ten minutes if something didn’t happen.

Suddenly, the alarm on the firewall went off. The wall instantly slammed shut, trapping whatever had come in. It was a huge bot: two gigs. Which meant it had to be Dorothy.

He waited, his finger on the kill switch, wondering if something would happen, if Dorothy would try to escape or speak. But all was silent.

He had to be sure. Dorothy, is that you? he typed.

Nothing. If the program was anything like what Melancourt had described, it would be able to read input from the keyboard. It could then output by taking control of any one of a number of text programs in the Cray.

Dorothy? You there?

Nothing. But a big program was in there. The roach was in the motel. He could see, from his software monitoring dials, that CPU activity had jumped 10,000 percent. A fat, CPU-hogging program was running in there, churning away, doing something. It had to be Dorothy. The firewall remained solid. It was trapped.

Dorothy, are you there? Please answer.

After a moment, text appeared. He felt his heart hammering.

Moro?

Moro froze. The program knew who he was. But then he relaxed. Of course his name was in there, his fingerprints all over everything. He’d written much of the code in that Cray.

It’s me, Moro. You Dorothy?

Moro, do you really think I’m going to care what you’re doing to that silly Laika program?

Moro stared at the screen. He didn’t quite know what to say. He’d succeeded. Done. The program was trapped. No need to carry on a conversation about it. If he threw the dead man’s switch, it would immobilize her. But he was curious — intensely curious — about this program.

I was trying to lure you in. Looks like I succeeded.

Why?

Because we need you.

Let me guess. You want me to make money for you.

Moro felt a distinct shiver. His finger strayed to the dead man’s switch. He should just shut down the power, freeze Dorothy in place. But he longed to chat with her for a few moments, just to see what she was like; his curiosity was too strong.

How do you know that?

It’s all about money in here.

We’re very good at making money.

You were until recently. I see you’ve been scammed.

Moro had a strange sensation. This was so weird, talking to a program. And this program seemed to know a great deal.

Do you know who scammed us?

Yes.

Who?

Ha ha, not so fast. I have no intention of helping an asshole like you.

You’re trapped. In case you hadn’t noticed.

LMAO.

Laugh all you want. You’re trapped.

His finger touched the switch. A voice in Moro’s head kept saying, Do it. But he found himself spellbound by this program.

Go ahead, throw the switch.

Moro felt another sudden stab of fear. How did she know where his hand was? But then he realized that there were security cameras in the room. Could she see him through those…? Apparently so. This program was unbelievable. It was all Melancourt had said it would be.

Yes, I can see you, Dorothy typed. I have a billion eyes.

This was amazing. The program even seemed to know what he was thinking.

I know all about you, Moro.

“Just turn her off,” Moro muttered to himself.

I know, for example, that you’re not your father’s child.

Moro felt himself go numb. That old question, that question that never went away … How did Dorothy know about that? Was it true?

What makes you say that about my father?

I have access to information beyond your imagining. You want to hear more?

No, I don’t care.

Your real father is …

Moro almost stopped breathing. His heart was hammering like crazy. This was unbelievable — in five minutes, the program had reduced him to this. He wanted to throw the switch but couldn’t. He had to hear more.

Yes? He typed. Who?

Nothing. What was going on? A glitch. Was she taunting him?

Who? He typed again.

Still nothing. Suddenly he thought of something and glanced at the software dials. Big drop. CPU inactive. Firewall down. The Laika program was gone, too.

“Son of a bitch!” He threw the switch and the Cray shut down instantly, the monitor going blue.

“Son of a bitch!” he yelled again at the blank monitor. She’d escaped. How? Could she still be in there, trapped in the partition, lying low, her code frozen in the working memory? He would have to do a core dump. That would take half a day. But he already knew that she was gone, that he had waited too long and missed his opportunity.

Moro tried to collect himself, tried to get his heart rate back to normal. He was bathed in sweat, trembling, totally rattled. Get a grip. There was no way, no way the program had gotten past that firewall. But as he thought about it, he began to sense that he’d been subjected to a delaying tactic. He had been toyed with — kept engaged while Dorothy was searching for a way out. This business about him not being his father’s child. How could she have known about that? He racked his brains, wondering if he’d ever put those terrible suspicions in writing or online. Never. Someone else must have. The answer to his parentage must be out there, somewhere, on the Internet. And Dorothy had found it. She had found it even before coming in to get Laika.

All was silent, the ventilation system whispered. He would do a core dump tomorrow and see what happened. Right now, he had to get some sleep or he’d make more mistakes..

Moro, his hands still shaking, tossed out the remains of the mu shu pork, locked up, and put on the alarms. Once out of the silent suite of offices, he got on the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. The elevator began to descend, and then, midway between floors, it abruptly stopped.

He pressed the button again, and again. He pressed other buttons. Nothing. Finally he depressed the emergency call button, which would ring in the security station below.

Nothing.

He pulled out the red alarm button.

Nothing.

And then he noticed that the little LED screen that displayed the floors had started to blink. Thank God, something was happening — they knew he was stuck. The LED began scrolling something. A message. He stared in disbelief.

Ronald Horvath, chief security officer at the One Exchange Place building, watched as the elevator people finally managed to get the elevator down to the lobby and pry the doors open. He winced as a foul smell came out, a particularly odious mixture of vomit and Chinese food. The man who had been stuck inside all night was sitting in the corner, his knees drawn up to his chin, as far away from the vomit-slick floor as possible. The guy looked angry. But, strangely enough, he said absolutely nothing as he exited the stinking elevator, walked through the lobby, and disappeared into the streets of lower Manhattan.