System Seven (6 page)

The still-distant
place felt large. Somewhere with expanses of land. Textures combined, brown
sugar mixed with black shadows. Thoughts of Africa, complex intelligence, and
design
emanated from the place, almost
individual energies, that of –

You can’t go there
.

He cast around in
sudden darkness for the source of the command. Just above, something formed from the shadows. The head of a tiger
appeared, teeth bared, about to strike. The next instant he was in the
recliner, eyes wide open, heart pounding. The television flickered silent
images. Kaiya stirred on the couch, asleep.

“Shit.”

They are on the ground and in people’s minds.

The vertigo of
uncertainty grew, tinged with fear.

It had been a long
time since the days of exploring. He’d had his own experiences – four authentic
lucid dreams and twice he’d left his body, though only briefly. Dream walkers,
psychics, remote viewing... imagination churned in a silent frenzy. Meaning awaited
assimilation. Intuition’s voice grew garbled and confused, with one exception:
the hacker’s message felt more real after the dream.
What I have sent you could threaten your life.

The laptop sat nearby,
a doorway to something mysterious. Temptation to download the file became a
gravity. He thought of his dad and what
he’d say. If it didn’t piss him off, and if he decided not to make fun of him,
there might be some good advice to be had.

Kaiya stirred again on
the couch. She didn’t like psychic stuff, didn’t like things with poor
definition and no boundaries. Staying inside the box was her style and he’d
learned to appreciate the safety of it. Still...

He glanced at the
television. Police in riot gear moved in to break up a street mob angry at the
loss of a pro baseball game. Blaming the umpires. Ridiculous behavior, a
response way out of proportion to the situation.

The clock showed half
past nine. Curiosity won over. He wrote a quick note for Kaiya and in minutes
was on the freeway headed to his dad’s.

• • •

Brent Bakken’s large
frame turned in the recliner. Concern creased his brow.

“Bit late for a visit
pal, what’s up? Nothing wrong with Kaiya I hope?”

“No, we’re okay,” Austin
said. “I just need your opinion. Some advice.” He set the laptop on the bar and
reached into the fridge for a beer.

“Advice? Okay, I’ve
got plenty of that. What’s up?”

“Well I, uh, received
a gift today with a very... exotic message.”

“What, you need advice
about a sex toy?”

“Nice, dad. No, a
hacker dropped off a file on our network today. An encrypted file with a
message. I got it open and inside was a program. It’s supposed to download an
important file. Like, spooky important.”

His dad’s brows
furrowed again. He paused the TV. “Hold up. You said a hacker? Someone you
know?”

He told him about the
breakin while he uncased the laptop. “The guy at the brewery must’ve given him
my info because he mentions my name in the message.”

“Alright, and what did
the message say? Why my advice?”

He thought about the
hacker’s notes. If he tried reading them aloud, he’d feel foolish.

“Just tell me what you
think, okay?”

His dad nodded, his
good mood dissipating.

He brought up the
initial message from the hacker and the one from inside the encrypted file.
“Read the left one first.” He handed the laptop to his dad and watched his eyes
closely as he read. Twice there was something resembling a reaction, possible
recognition.

His dad looked up at
him. “Here’s what I think. You caught him doing his thing on your network and
it’s his way of getting back at you. If you download that file, who knows where
it’s coming from? Think about it. You might be tunneling a file right from the
Pentagon. They’d trace it back to
you
.
Look at you son, already fascinated. You’ve heard me say it a thousand times. Most mistakes are made without
the right perspective. Don’t let him or anyone screw with your perspective.
It’s everything. Listen to your gut.”

He began to nod when
his dad added, “And if the file is that
important then it could land you in a shitpot of trouble.”

He stared at him. “You
mean it could be real?”

His dad passed the
laptop back with a hint of impatience. “I
mean
it could be a valuable document. Either way, it’s a trap. Delete everything and
you don’t have to worry about it. Pretty obvious. You shouldn’t need my
advice.” He picked up the remote, ready to resume his show.

Austin nodded despite
the subtle criticism. It came down to either being real or being crap.
True, but...
he couldn’t bring himself
to mention the lucid dream, the voice, or the tiger.

“Well I wouldn’t be a
newbie about it. I’ve got an old beater laptop I could use... but you’re right,
it’s probably best to forget it.”

His dad studied him.
“You’re not convinced.”

“Hell, dad, what if...
say it’s real – what if there’s proof of telepathy or cover ups in the file? If
I’m really, really careful, why wouldn’t I check it out? Wouldn’t you want to
know? Or maybe you already do?” Regret trailed the question but it was too
late.

“Jesus, Austin. Still
playing the conspiracy game?”

He couldn’t meet his
dad’s look. His words and tone had said all he needed to know. He closed the
laptop in the awkward silence and cursed himself for coming.

“Look, Austin, I don’t
want to insult you. In fact, I’m trying
not
to. But mind reading? Really? I thought you were done with that stuff.” His
look was of exasperation trying for patience. “Son. You’ve got a hacker in your
network. You should be thinking about covering your ass, not looking for a
sling to hang it in. Right? You’re distracted by the message, which is what any
good hacker does to land the bomb. Perspective, Austin, perspective.”

Good points all, damn
it, but curiosity still raged. Something about his father’s approach to the
whole topic only served to enhance it. If there
were
secrets to defend, pops would definitely go the distance to
redirect him. Twenty-seven years with the agency’s computers... he almost
had
to have heard more about psychic
shit.

If there really were
such a thing.

What a mind fuck.

The garage door
lowered. Driving home he’d made the decision. Controlling an e-bomb was cake on
a beater laptop. He would completely wipe the hard drive afterward. No one
could prove he’d taken the hacker’s files from the office anyway.

Up in the shop he freed
an old IBM ThinkPad from under a stack of hard drives and transferred
everything from the hacker to it. Everything on one box. Easy to wipe.

He drove to Café
Exótico to use its free wifi. In the parking lot the laptop auto-connected due
to an app he’d installed for Kaiya to make it easy to score wifi when she
traveled. He fired up the hacker’s application.

No virus warnings,
nothing special about it. Just a plain login screen.

“Alright then...”

He typed the username
$in$in with a password of 45forgottenNightz%+
.

The screen updated
with the message,

File ID 20281EC93A23::
Access Granted.

Particles:: 40.

Volume/particle:: 1024.

Est. retrieval window::
unavailable {performance permissions lacking, biotch }

Progress:: 1 of 40 {=--------------------------------------------}

It looked like a real
slow download. Doubts about it being worth it surfaced but he ignored them. The
coffee house had its Friday late crowd gathered inside and out on the patio.
Thirty minutes ‘til eleven and closing time, though they typically left the
wifi up all night. He locked up and headed inside to grab a cup.

Twitchy music shot
from oversized speakers mounted in the ductwork ceiling. Pierced and
permanently painted bodies in burnt orange serving smocks waited on the crowd
of twenty-somethings, many equally adorned with metal and ink. Drab in jeans
and his ‘temporarily out of service’ t-shirt with nude arms and non-metallic
face, Austin felt fifty, not twenty-eight. One patron stood ahead of him,
placing her order. From the tables, a small commotion arose.

“Frankieee! The
internet’s down again! Can you fix it, pleeease?”

A gangly dude wearing
all-black with his orange smock shouted back, “Yeah, yeah! In a sec!”

Dang!
He’d have to restart the download somewhere else. Again doubts about
the file being worth the hassle circled. A bronze-haired serving girl appeared.
Four shiny beads lined her lower lip. “What can I get ya?”

“Large frappuccino.
Please.”

“You got it. Three
fiddy.”

Feeling
self-conscious, he paid and stepped to the side. The looks cast about
reinforced the old and out of place feeling. Ridiculous, but there it was.
Subculture, the great divider. A return glance always had them just looking
away, as if anticipating his move.
Every
time
.

He watched the girl
prepare his coffee. Frankie appeared from the back. “Sorry patrons, it’s
down
-down.” The crowd moaned. “Hey, I tried, but it’s toast! Deal widdit!”

Coffee in hand, Austin
pushed the door open and strode into the warm night air. Lights from homes on a
gentle rise drew his attention. Somewhere up there an unsecured network
awaited.

“Crap.”

He sipped his coffee.
The fourth street without an unsecured wifi network. “C’mon... where’s my free
wifi hippies?”

His cell rang – Kaiya,
wondering what he was doing. Without going into much detail, he shared the
advice his dad had offered and the fact he was going to download it anyway.

“He said not to? Why
are you then?”

“Because it’s probably
nothing? Seriously, it’s not a big deal.”

“If it wasn’t, you’d
just delete it. I’m telling you, I don’t like it.”

Of course she was
right but the hacker within wouldn’t let go of the intrigue – of the draw to at
least
look
at it. Worst case he could
reformat the laptop.

“It’s alright, babe.
You know this is my domain. I’m not going to get tricked into anything.
Honestly, it’s a non-issue. Don’t sweat it.” Time to switch topics, she was too
worried. “So tomorrow’s your big presentation, right? You ready for it?”

“Austin. Changing the
subject?”

Easy does it
... “Well, how important is it, really? I’d say your presentation is way
more important. Downtown Hilton and all.”

“It’s just... I don’t
know.”
Softening, good
. “Something
doesn’t feel right. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, okay? As for tomorrow, I’m as
ready as I’ll ever be.” She paused. “I
was
hoping for some good luck mookie tonight, except someone ran out on me.”

The file could wait.
Had to. It would take more than one night to get all the pieces anyway. Quarter
to eleven... he could be there before eleven-thirty.

“I’ll come back, but
don’t you
dare
be wearin’ those thin
black lacy thingies and the silver ankle bracelets. Don’t know what’ll happen
if you are. Just sayin’.”

She growled and hung
up. He held the laptop’s power button until it died and surged towards the
freeway.

• • •

“Grafter’s signing
on.”

With Soldado and
Caldera, Grafter counted as the third administrator required to open
Crosstalk’s personnel file. Viewing of a profile required at least one founder
and two ranking admins. The member received notification of the viewing and
why. It was a hard-coded system that kept everyone honest and insured privacy
for members.

“What’s up guys?” Grafter
joined the chat, his voice slightly garbled due to the heavy encryption in use.

Soldado responded.
“Shit’s whack tonight. Just had a scan of servers starting in L.A. from private
IP blocks. I’m not sure if it’s NSA or not but someone’s gunning for us. Let’s
do this quick. Access the profile screens. Give the reason and submit. Use
‘death verification’, two words, all lowercase.”

On screen, three
authorizations took: the profile became visible to each.

Darren Blythe, nick
name Crosstalk. Twenty-four years old, graduate of Queen Mary’s of London,
joined the Underground when he was a computer specialist for a manufacturing
firm out of Oxfordshire.

“See his self-updates.
Year before last got on with Britain’s Ministry of Defense as a network
analyst. Comfy gig. Lots of inside leads there. No wonder he’s been into big
shit.”

“I’ll run zombies out
for death notices.”

“His pop’s a member of
the House of Lords,” Grafter said.

“Explains the ministry
job. Search submitted via Malaysian nodes. Results will be in Fbox. I think we
should open SlotZero’s file while we’re at it.”