System Seven (11 page)

Once again the
pendulum of inevitability cut the air. Despite fear, an intense draw to know
more pulsed, increasing the gravity first formed by the hacker’s files. The
veil of life’s mystery seemed to have a break here, with these people, under
these circumstances.

Edward set his glass
aside, clearing his throat. “I sense your interest. Time is exceedingly short
and there is a process to determine if you are eligible. As with all
substantial opportunity, there will come a point at which you must decline or
commit. We operate fundamentally like a family if that helps tune your
perceptions. Above all else, understand this: if you tried to betray us, even
once, you would forfeit your life. Become unreliable by choice and your reality
would devolve into something less desirable in corresponding degrees. This is
not a job offer. This is a life choice.” He paused and the x-ray feeling
lingered. As if sensing Austin’s fear, he continued in a softer voice. “You
have gifts that will go undeveloped if you turn away now. Gifts that this world
needs more of, now more than ever. Cicero reminds us, ‘What one has, one ought
to use, and whatever he does he should do with all his might’. You have
something. Something to use that the future needs.”

The Vicodin thundered,
creating a dreamlike state. So much to consider. His dad, Kaiya, career, home,
his dreams, everything and everyone.
Yet,
s
o much already altered
.

Alone, there were no
guarantees, just a system poised to ruin him.

He countered. “There’s
also a proverb that says drink nothing without seeing it, sign nothing without
reading it. What does your group do? What does it stand for?”

Edward leveled his
gaze. “What we ‘do’ is try to guide humanity’s evolution. Protect the species,
you might say. Some would protest our methods. I can only say you would be
joining the more benevolent of the two groups.” A moment later, he added, “And
that there are no other greater powers on earth.”

On earth.
The words lingered.

Edward was an
impressive speaker, but the last was powerful on its own. Daffy Duck could have
spoken the words and the enormity of the truth would have conveyed itself, lisp
and all.

There wasn’t really a
choice and he knew it. Joining them would provide tools to defend himself and
the others. His moral compass would dictate his actions, what he would become.
The moment offered both relief and intense anxiety.

“I want to continue
but only if I can protect my family. Kaiya and my dad, at least. I have to.”

“As expected.” Edward
nodded. “We’ll discuss the art of the possible in that regard. For the moment,
you need to get some rest.”

You may have your suspicions, your fears, you may even
believe there is something, somewhere, terribly, drastically wrong, but because
someone else is in charge, because there is a part of the system above you
which you don’t know, you don’t question it, you even distrust your own doubts.
-Graham Swift

“Kaiya? Could you come
up to Mr. Nelson’s office?”

What now?
The morning’s presentation had gone poorly. Distracted by the situation
developing, she’d lacked charisma and her timing was dismal. By most any
standard it had been a disaster. Surely he understood...

“Yes, I’ll be right
up.” She straightened her skirt and headed for the CEO’s office.

The receptionist waved
her in. She entered and saw a man with Mr. Nelson. Rugged with trim gray
sideburns and a weathered face, he wore jeans and a baseball cap.

“Kaiya, this gentleman
is from the Central Intelligence Agency. He allowed me to verify his status so
he’s the real deal. He wants to speak with you alone regarding Austin. Are you
comfortable with that?”

Her mind whirled. “Did
Brent send you?”

“I’m involved at his
request, yes.” He stepped forward to shake her hand. “Mac Payant. Special Agent
from the NorCal office. Brent and I go way back. We need to talk about Austin.”

She turned to her
boss. “I’ll be fine Mr. Nelson, and I’m sorry for all this. I really am.”

“No worries, Kaiya,
I’ll be just outside with Pam if you need me.”

She listened in
disbelief as Agent Payant detailed everything that had happened at the hospital
since she left, up to the current multiagency search for Austin.

“You’re serious?” She
looked at the agent in disbelief. “He snuck out in the middle of the night? On
his own?”

“He had a helper, but
he acted on his own, yes.”

“A helper? This is
nuts, you know. It really is. Austin’s not a hacker, I can promise you that.
He’s being framed.” She stood and paced to the window. “This smells of a cover-up.
Someone knows what’s in the file. Something damaging to the President’s
reputation or to the government. Do you know what it is?”

“I don’t know anything
about it,” Agent Payant said. “And I don’t blame you for being suspicious. I
am, too. But until we understand who we’re dealing with, you may be danger. My
director approved protective custody for you at my request. I could insure your
safety and that’s something I know Brent and Austin would want. It’s your
choice.”

Anxiety slewed into
fright. “Why would he run? That’s not like him.”

“He’s scared. Someone
convinced him he was safer with them. Kaiya, this is already an extraordinary
situation. People want him back in custody. My gut says you could be used to
make that happen.”

“The FBI? You’re
saying they’re a threat?”

Mac shook his head.
“I’m saying you may be used in ways you wouldn’t like and by people we don’t
know. Look, Brent is family. Trust or don’t. The safe facility is less than an
hour from here, if you accept.”

“What if Austin tries
to reach me?”

“Has he called?”

“No.”

“Then assume he doesn’t
have the option to. You have your phone if he does.”

“And my job?” she
asked. “Just walk away from it?”

“It should only be
temporary.”

Should be.
She looked at the agent, then to the window and the tree-lined street
outside. “This is really happening, isn’t it? And no one knows why.” Options
cancelled themselves out in review, leaving just one. “Okay, let’s go. Before the building blows up
or something. And please find Austin. You have to. You just have to.”

• • •

Late afternoon under
skies darkened by storm clouds, Johan struggled against a wave of sleepiness.
He brewed coffee and slid open windows, angling blinds as Max Dosch wasn’t fit
to be seen yet. The makeup should already have been on but he was too absorbed
in setting the stage for the file grab.

Soldado would have him
shot for exposing Alcazar to such a grab. It couldn’t be helped – it was the most secure quick-and-dirty method he
could design. Using a high-caliber worm virus as a core engine, he had spent hours
coding intricate modifications, testing carefully, all in an effort to secure
Crosstalk’s file without being traced. The Asshole Array botnet, fueled by this
engine, would hum a complex tune of deception and trickery, nabbing and
delivering the chunks from around the world. No system on earth should be able
to track the action inside the storm that he was about to let loose. It would
be over almost before it began.

One last roundabout
check showed the file still intact within Alcazar’s bowels.

“Slagen. Alleen
slagen.”
Just succeed
.

On the web site for a
restaurant in Prague, a string of twenty-eight characters appeared at the
bottom of the ‘About Us’ page. The font color, same as the background, made
them invisible to the human eye.

Thirty seconds later,
the addition served as a trigger for the launch. One zombie checked in as
designed then communicated to sixty others that communicated with sixty
additional zombies, who in turn each reached another sixty until a minute later
over one and a half million computers achieved the same state of readiness. The
Asshole Array was online.

Ten seconds passed;
each computer began talking with addresses across the planet, a cacophony of
ordinary communication except for the very few that made the quick grabs from
Alcazar. Weather reports, site searches, YouTube streams, news sites – over
twenty-five million packets per second – and of those, a few thousand contained
bits of Crosstalk’s file. The tiny stolen pieces crossed the botnet, each
changing hands hundreds of times in a complex shell game. The botnet’s fervor
escalated and peaked twenty seconds later in a storm of traffic that registered
on traffic monitoring sites around the world. Ten seconds later it slowly began
diminishing, the work accomplished.

In a little over a
minute and a half, he had taken the remaining twenty-five chunks from
Alcazar.

He wasted no time
copying all forty chunks to a memory stick. During the copy, the control panel
for the botnet turned red, indicating massive loss of communication. From a
million and a half online computers to eight hundred thousand in just seconds.
He stared in disbelief. More than half the botnet had fallen.

Cold dread replaced
the excitement of a moment ago. Someone’s system had tracked over
half a million
transfer bots in their
morphing dance across protocols and ports, mapping them along the way,
including the fake destinations – and then silenced each of them. In seconds.

“Fuck fuck
fuck
. Okay Crosstalk, what did you get me
into?”

He set down a bottle
of ale and brought up the Alcazar client. The local import of the forty chunks
ran smoothly. Assembled, they formed a video file eighteen minutes long.

“This better be big,
man. Very damned big.”

He pressed play.

“Madness.”

Thunder followed his
words, rattling the glass in the cupboards. The clock on the wall showed
nine-thirty.

Nature unleashed her
fury over Oostendorp. Rain poured in windblown sheets to create cascading
rivers from the rooftops. Trees lashed the side of the house. It was the kind
of storm that made people huddle indoors and wonder why God was so angry.

Johan knew. What he’d
seen was unholy. Eighteen potent minutes that confirmed the existence of a
shadow world government beyond any doubt. What it could do and how long it had
been doing it made him as angry as the storm.

He shuddered at the
scale suggested. The deceit, lies, and control – the
knowledge
– all used for enslavement and the cause of needless
suffering across time. Wars, religions, disease, and ignorance were all
conditions gestated by those who would have and keep ultimate power. The long
threads of their plans made the world’s history look organic, natural, yet
there was precious little that wasn’t orchestrated or caused by this authority.

The imbalance of karma
struck his soul like a hot brand.

Dubbed the ‘Comannda’
by the narrator, their early understanding of the mind had exposed the raw nature
of reality and gained them the keys to mankind’s future. Consciousness could be
directed beyond the body and with that knowledge they had perfected new arts –
remote viewing, dream control, and telepathy – using them with great effect
throughout time. To keep control of humanity, they had only to keep people
distracted from understanding their own minds.

As proof, the video
contained unredacted communiques, secret video clips, and still photos
documenting the planning and manipulations that brought about some of the most
horrific results of the twentieth century. Engineered illness and wars allowed
for population control, economic development, and to keep fear at ‘effective
levels’. Distraction was paramount and served to keep unification from
occurring. Should the majority learn how manipulated their lives really were,
control would dissolve and their global empire would crumble.

Most jarring was a
clip of John F. Kennedy in a conversation about the controlling entity he
referred to as ‘the firm’. Its plans had become so damaging and morally
repugnant that the elite could no longer allow it to operate as it had. It was
time to reveal their existence and dismantle their structure. Discussion
centered on the methods to do so and the inherent obstacles in each. A central
base was mentioned but the location was unknown. The overlaid text indicated a
date of October 1963, just one month before his assassination.

The last part of the
video described an artificially intelligent surveillance system encircling the
globe, embedded in digital systems down to the personal computer and cell
phone. Such an advanced AI explained perfectly the botnet’s extraordinary
demise. Only a system like that could have executed the traces. By the third
viewing, careful contemplation resolved skepticism.

It fit
.

The insanity of man’s
history was suddenly understandable under the framework provided. The video
birthed belief via the gaps it closed. It challenged doubt and churned fear
like a mill.

“Where did you get
this, Crosstalk? Jesus.”

He pulled the last
bottle of ale from the fridge, struggling for calm. This was more than just
greedy governments and corporations. Much more. Anxiety rose to a pitch. Fear burned
in the moment, there in the kitchen, because he no longer felt alone with his
thoughts.

“Christ.” No wonder
someone didn’t want the file getting out.

He uncapped the bottle
and slapped the opener on the counter. Where was skepticism? It couldn’t all be
true. He chugged half the bottle in a single go, unable to stop thinking of the
video, of the images, and of the narrator’s voice. Rising panic threatened to
break like flood waters; the very air about him held depths, possibility.

“Gah!”

Overwhelmed, he
struggled against a bizarre feeling of being incredibly small and of being
connected
to everything. Thoughts
flowed, highly exposed. Something in the video had triggered hellacious
feelings of paranoia. Like a beacon just above the ordinary, it began to feel
as though the entire world could hear and feel his thoughts. The video
described how the Comannda tracked people in
Raon
, the field of the physical, through vibes. If true, his
unbalance was surely a deviation in that field. The sensation of
others
dawned and grew stronger with every breath.

They
were getting closer.

“A trap. A fucking
trap.” Crosstalk hadn’t gone crazy –
he’d
just been caught
.

He strode to the
liqueur cabinet, tore the cap from a bottle of Vodka and drank deeply. Bearing
down, he fought to ditch the feeling. He tried keeping control by summoning
strong memories. Morning. Breakfast. Three scrambled eggs, two halves of
toast... the shapes, the colors, the smell. He’d shaken the peppershaker four,
maybe five times?
What was it?
He
recalled the rhythm. Definitely five shakes. Five simple, careless shakes in
time. Pain. He’d bitten his tongue. A powerful, engaging memory he’d blocked
but which now served well. He thought of anything and everything that occurred
before watching the video.

Focused on a recessed
ceiling light, he drank vodka from the bottle. When his throat burned and
stomach protested, he stoked his hash pipe and pulled from it deeply, again and
again. Still
they
came, mosquitoes of
possibility, closer every time, searching. His thoughts were the flashes of
light attracting them. What would happen when they arrived wasn’t clear but
fear went ahead of the thought, which meant everything.

What he sought hit him
in a lurching wave, a sudden rising disintegration as he sank to the floor. To
watch the threatening thoughts dissolve and float around him, to have his own
center back, felt divine. The pipe fell to the hardwood, spilling ash. Thunder
crashed and rolled, now muted and inconsequential. Exhaustion added its part
and soon the
others
faded in the haze
of altered consciousness. He languished in the drifting safety it provided. A
despairing thought came and went but left its mark:
there could be no karmic correction for this
.