Terminal Connection (8 page)

“Don’t tell me you believed their story! How the hell do you think anyone could disable the exit button or prevent her from calling you?”

Richard shook his head. He didn’t know.

“Look, if she was attacked, then why did she accept a free month of games? Would you come back here?”

Richard shrugged.

“Listen, we have our own way to deal with characters like this. We will blackball this … Syzygy. That was his alias, right?”

Richard nodded.

“Even the name sounds harmless. Syzygy—now that’s the call sign of a techno nerd if I ever heard one.”

“It’s just not what they taught us in school,” Richard said. Sam got within two inches of Rich’s face.

“Out in the real world things are different. This isn’t a test tube or a textbook. If you turn your back out here, they’ll stab ya. If you stick your head out, they’ll cut it off! If you don’t make the right gesture or say something the wrong way, they’ll kill ya! They play hardball and the rules aren’t written down! Don’t you get it? DARPA makes their money by dragging their feet. I guarantee you that if you contact them they’ll shut us down for good and you’ll be out of a job!”

Richard looked at his feet, and Sam put a supporting arm around him.

“Aw, don’t take it so hard. Everyone makes these mistakes when they are first hired on. Look, the first six months are the hardest. Once you learn the basics, it’s a piece of cake. Just lay low for now. Keep your nose clean.”

“What if this guy finds a place somewhere else on the Internet, a site not on the list? I mean, what if he hurts someone?”

“Now how exactly do you suppose he would do that on the Internet? Think, Rich! This isn’t real! We aren’t really here! What if he hurts someone you say? It can’t happen! You know that; hell, everyone knows that!”

A
llison entered VR and opened a portal to Saint Luke’s hospital in Los Angeles. The Nexus connected with the Internet, wound down the few miles of fiber between Del Mar and Los Angeles.

“Number eighteen,” an invisible voice from the automated nurse announced.

Camille Anderson’s autopsy was popular. Reporters and medical students occupied the other seventeen remotes. A sterile, white room materialized and the pungent smell of formaldehyde hit her. She wrinkled her virtual nose, but could not escape the scent.

In reality Allison remotely controlled the eighteenth monitor, a robotic cam in the room. It twisted and turned and responded to her thoughts. This was her new body. All the while it relayed back sight, hearing, touch, and scent from the robot’s embedded sensors.

Dr. Lundberg stood over the lifeless body of Camille. Neon lines appeared and formed a
3
D grid through Camille’s body. The neon lines formed a virtual heads-up display and directed the doctor to the location of the girl’s organs.

Her index finger transformed into a syringe. Like everyone in the room, the doctor was not there. She remotely controlled a surgical robot called the Guru 1000. When the doctor moved her virtual hand, in the real world the Guru 1000’s robotic arm moved instead of her arm. When she looked down, she would see the corpse through the robot’s eyes. The Guru 1000 became her virtual body.

The doctor specialized in autopsies of people who died from brain disorder or brain trauma. The demand for her services forced the doctor to stay in one location. She performed all her work remotely from San Francisco. A private, high security network fabric linked the RemoteCare hospital chain that had franchises throughout the country and made her work possible. With the hospital’s network and her Nexus Transporter, the doctor could be anywhere in seconds.

“Nurse, what has she determined?” Allison asked.

The invisible, automated nurse spoke. “The liver and kidney show traces of X-flu.”

“Really?” X-flu was a Chinese designed biological weapon, a simple, lethal retrovirus, consisting of RNA surrounded by a protein tube, open at one end. When the microscopic opening of the virus brushed a human cell, the protein sack would constrict and inject its RNA into the cell. The cell would use the virus’s RNA to manufacture new viruses.

After a week, the cell, swollen with a million copies of the virus, would burst open and spread the infection. The Chinese had engineered X-flu to disable and kill its victims over a period of years. It exacted a heavy financial, emotional, and physical toll on its quarry as it destroyed its victim’s organs cell by cell over several months. It was always fatal.

X-flu disguised itself from the body’s immune system by camouflaging itself inside the body. It continually changed its outer protein shell and never stayed in one form long enough for the body to mount an immune response. This property of X-flu confounded the medical community. Three years after its creation, they were still no closer to a cure.

“How was she infected?” Allison asked.

“Probably through her father. He’s a China-vet who died of X-flu complications.”

Was the Nexus off the hook?

A four-foot hologram of Camille’s brain appeared next to the girl’s body. It consisted of a maze of red lines outlining the major structures. The doctor touched regions within the hologram, which glowed green. She probed several more areas and stopped.

“What is it?” Allison asked.

The nurse responded. “Complications from X-flu was not the cause of death. Although she died of a seizure, the doctor cannot find any brain trauma or brain disorders that could have resulted in such a seizure.”

“Is she sure?”

“Of course not. Science has uncovered a lot of how the brain works, but much of its function is still unexplained.”

Thank god for that.

“Hello.”

Allison turned and saw another hovering monitor. “What?”

The monitor transformed into the figure of Vinnie Russo.

She frowned. “What are you doing here?”

Vinnie smiled broadly. “I’m at the crime scene and you’ll never guess who I ran into.”

“Crime scene?” Allison was livid. “I told you to keep your eye on Austin Wheeler!”

“Don’t get your knickers in a bunch. The tap on Nexus Corporation failed. The transmissions are encrypted. The security gurus can break the encryption but not for another couple of hours. In the meantime I thought …”

“You thought wrong! Page me next time. I can help you with the taps.”

Vinnie smirked. “Did you know that Steve blames me for the Nexus release? He wasn’t kept in the loop with Davis’ plan was he?”

“Vinnie, I’m warning you …”

Vinnie stepped forward. He came within inches of her face.

She stumbled back.

“Look, Ms. Hwang. You don’t understand. I’m trying to help, but you’re not making it easy. This game is bigger than you think. If you’re not careful, you could wind up in the crossfire.”

What am I doing?
Allison met his gaze. She stepped into him and pushed him back. The metal bodies of the monitors clanged together.

Vinnie laughed. “Chill, girl.”

“Please stay clear of the other monitors,” the nurse warned.

Allison held his gaze. “I don’t care how much longer you’ve been at DARPA than I, you’re out of line. Consider yourself written up, Mr. Russo. One more crack and I’ll can your ass, with or without Mr. Davis’ approval and with or without your pension. Is that clear?”

Vinnie stared at her.

She refused to look away.

A mechanical whirling noise of the doctor’s robot grabbed Vinnie’s attention. He shrugged and handed her a virtual card.

She took it, but did not drop her gaze. She visualized her eyes like lasers burning through his thick skull.

“If you need to get a hold of me, I’ll be at that number,” he said.

A red light blinked in Allison’s peripheral vision. “I’m being paged.” She slipped his card into her virtual pocket.

Vinnie exited VR.

“Computer, play the message on a private channel,” Allison said.

A hologram of Steve Donovan appeared. “Allison, I’m ready to get started when you are.”

Allison checked the time: 12:11.

“I’m sorry Steve. Time got away from me. I’ll be right there.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. What had Vinnie meant by
bigger than you think
? She shrugged. He could not intimidate her. She would not let him.

V
innie Russo looked around his virtual office, a bare twenty-foot cube with white walls and the words
Linux
®
stenciled in the floor. He hesitated, not sure if it would work.

“
Computer, start the tapper.”

A white sphere the size of his fist appeared in the center of the room. The object rotated and pulsed. Deep rumbling, like the growl of his MV Agusta, shook the space. The fist of light exploded and filed a ten-foot cube with solid white light. He could see nothing inside the opaque cube. The tap had failed.

Vinnie laughed. He hated technology and it hated him. This VR crap never worked when he was around.

Lines of green and purpled swept from left to right across the cube. The corner nearest him became translucent. The other corners showed signs of
thawing
. The translucence spread from the corners of the cube toward the heart of the cube. He blinked and the entire cube became transparent. The image inside was still fuzzy. He could make out two figures, but not who they were. The picture slowly came into focus. He saw Steve and Allison at some virtual site. Vinnie smiled.

The card he had slipped Allison was no ordinary virtual business card. It contained a viral program that created a
3
D, one-way window into Allison’s virtual world. The data was compressed and encrypted. If he were lucky, Steve would not notice.

“Jan?” Steve said.

“Yes?”

“Can you please add the Site Log, Core File, and System Log to the Camille file?”

“The encryption key?” As designed, Jan had forgotten the password. It was too easy for a hacker to extract the password from Jan’s programming or trick the program into giving the password out.

“Sorry, Jan, open with the keyword
patch
.”

“That’s more like it. Now, what can I help you with?”

“Jan, please manifest the Nexus file.”

Allison came and stood next to him.

“The answer is in these logs. I just have to find it,” Steve told her. The Nexus file opened and the spherical orb that Steve had first seen yesterday materialized before them. Camille Anderson’s face reflected off its metallic surface. He touched the orb. A grid, etched in what appeared to be granite, hovered a few feet in front of him.

Allison cringed.

“What’s wrong?”

“If I could make an aesthetic suggestion?”

Steve nodded.

“The granite slabs—you might want to use something more modern.”

“I thought it gave things a sense of character,” Steve said.

She bit her lip. “More a sense of the Flintstones. They’ve been syndicated again, you know.”

“Oh.” Steve felt his face flush back in reality. Buried in his technical work, he was out of touch with social graces.

“What about embossed platinum?” she suggested.

Steve nodded. “Platinum’s good. Jan, please replace the presentation interface’s engraved granite with embossed platinum. Anything else?”

“Jan’s attitude could tone down a notch or two. Her personality is a bit outdated.”

Steve laughed. “Jan, please suppress your personality program.”

“Yes, Steve,” Jan said.

Before them the granite slab transformed into a wall of platinum. The grid’s etched characters filled in and grew into protuberant letters. Allison scanned the grid. The bottom three squares read: Site Log, Core File, and System Log.

“Anything else?” he bowed.

She shook her head.

Steve touched the square with System Log written in it. At a right angle to the grid, a similar wall of platinum materialized. Across its surface were fifty lines of text. Each line had the date and time on the left-hand side followed by an archaic jumble of words.

“What is it?”

“The System Log. It contains a catalog of all the most recent events that were noted by the hundred or so programs running on the Nexus. Each line refers to a single action by a single program.”

“Well, that doesn’t look too difficult.”

Steve pointed to the first line.

Etched across the top of the slab were the words “First 50 lines of 126,000.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry. I know what I’m looking for. At most, it will take me half an hour. The report put her time of death around 3 p.m. the day before yesterday. I’ll start with log entries one hour before that. Jan, create a couple of chairs please and display the System Log starting at 2 p.m. on June the ninth.”

Jan obliged. The top of the log read: Lines 101,950 to 101,999 of 126,000. Steve sat down and scanned the log.

“How does the Nexus do this? I mean everything seems so real, seamless in here.”

“Are you familiar with old movies?” Steve paged forward through the log by pressing a button on the platinum wall.

“Yes.”

“Well, a movie consists of several pictures or frames. When the movie shows twenty-four frames a second, the still images blend and create a fluid image. VR is similar to a movie but not just for sight. VR does the same thing for all the senses.

“Like the movie frames, the sensations are short-lived and last only milliseconds. The VR server sends a stream of sensations as we move and interact in this environment.”

Steve scrolled down the log and stopped. “Nothing,” he murmured.

“I don’t get it. Where does the VR server fit in?”

“Uh, let me give you an example,” Steve said. He pressed an index finger against the Page Down button on the log. “Allison, as I pressed this button Virtual Security’s VR server produced twenty or more sequential virtual frames.

“As I inch my finger forward in here, my brain sends electrical signals destined for my finger. The Nexus intercepts these signals and forwards them to Virtual Security’s VR Server. The server uses these signals to compute my new perspective within here. It generates the tension on my tendons, my view as I look down toward my hand. It even generates the faint breeze I feel when I move my finger forward.

“In an instant these perceptions are returned as electrical signals across the Internet to my Nexus. My Nexus receives these and relays them directly to my brain. I experience these signals as sensations in virtual reality.”

“But how can all that information traverse the Internet in such a short period of time?”

“The server only sends the changes from one frame to the next. Since these frames occur every hundredth of a second, changes between sequential frames are negligible except when you log in or when you portal to a different site. That’s why it takes a few seconds to … to … oh.” Steve stared at the log.

“What is it?” Allison asked.

He jabbed a line of text with his index finger.

06/09/20 15:12:59 THE PROGRAM V-CHIP WAS ABORTED AS REQUESTED BY A REMOTE HOST: ALIAS SYZYGY.

“Someone crashed her Nexus’ V-chip software,” Steve said.

“Why would they do that?” asked Allison.

Steve shook his head. He remembered that at the crime scene he had determined that Camille was using her mother’s alias. By default, the V-chip software was turned off for adults; however, with the V-chip software crashed, this alias would be allowed to be intimate with Camille even if she had used her own alias.

He traced his finger further down the platinum wall and stopped.

06/09/20 15:13:16 THE PROGRAM INTERACTIVE DATABASE REPORTS THE ALIAS SYZYGY DATA IS CORRUPT. (UNIVERSAL NAME SERVICE (UNS) FAILURE—NO NAME, EMAIL ADDRESS, BUSINESS ADDRESS OR PRIVATE ADDRESS RECOVERED.)

“That’s odd,” Steve said. “When a user enters a site, the Nexus rejects any alias that isn’t connected with a real person. It’s not easy to disable that function.”

“So, Syzygy is a hacker,” Allison said. “Any idea of who he is?”

“Or she … you never know in VR. We’ll have to look deeper,” Steve said, advancing the log a few more pages. The symbols, numbers, and letters rippled across the platinum face as he moved the log forward.

“What does this mean?” Allison pointed at a line.

Steve read.

06/09/20 15:14:12 THE PROGRAM SIGNAL AMPLIFIER WAS ABORTED AS REQUESTED BY A REMOTE HOST: ALIAS SYZYGY.

“
I don’t know,” Steve said.
Did Syzygy take down the patch? It couldn’t be.
Steve scanned further down and pointed to another line.

06/09/20 15:14:52 THE PROGRAM BASIC INPUT OUTPUT SYSTEM (BIOS) DETECTED THAT THE NEXUS WAS TURNED ON BUT NOT IN USE.

“Whatever happened with the system, it occurred before that line.”

“Why?”

“Her Nexus failed to register her at all. By that line Camille is dead.”

“Do you think the alias Siz—however it’s pronounced—killed her?” Allison asked.

Steve shook his head. “That’s impossible. The Core File should tell us more. The Core File is why I flew to the crime scene. It’s the only log that cannot be downloaded from the Nexus over the Internet.”

“Jan, describe the sensory contents of Core File.”

“The Core File contains sensory data that passed through the Nexus from 15:13 to 15:15 on June 9.”

From the date and timestamps on System Log entries, Steve knew the Core File started just before Camille met Syzygy. “Good. Jan, can you construct a
3
D video from the data in the Core File?”

“No, the video portion of the Core File is corrupted.”

“Jan, can you extract and play all audio from the Core File?”

“Playing,” Jan said.

They waited.

A metallic grind broke the silence—a closing portal. Sounds of the ocean followed, and a monotone voice spoke.
“It’s called Tianya Haijiao, China’s southern most beach …”
The voice faded, leaving only the sound of the ocean.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“The Core File’s audio must be corrupted as well,” he said.

They listened intently. Steve leaned forward. Allison did the same.

Abruptly, Camille exclaimed,
“This place is so cool! I mean beautiful.”

Although Camille’s voice was soft, melodic, it startled them.

“I think she’s trying to conceal her age,” Allison said.

“Shh. They might name the site,” Steve said.

There was a pause, followed by more sounds of crashing waves.

“Wait! I don’t even know your name!”

“I’m Syzygy.”

“An alias eh? Computer, identify who is using the alias Syzygy. We’ll see who you really are.”

“I’m sorry but there is no information on who is using the alias Syzygy.”

Camille murmured something.

Steve couldn’t make it out. Wet, popping sounds followed.

“What is that?” Steve asked.

Allison smiled. “You don’t recognize it?”

Steve strained his ears. He shook his head.

“They’re kissing!”

Back in reality, his corporeal face reddened. “I knew that.”

Allison laughed.

Camille groaned. A slap followed wrestling sounds. Allison lost her smile.

“Stop it! Wait! Something’s wrong,” Camille said. “V-chip online!”

Allison and Steve exchanged a look.

“Get away from me, you freak!”

“Steve,” Allison said.

Feet slapped wet sand. Camille breathed hard. She was running. A splash. Camille screamed. Gargled and gagged noises replaced her scream as she struggled for breath.

Silence.

Over what felt like several minutes the audio played. Interspersed within the silence Camille mumbled unintelligibility.

Beep.

“Steve, that ends the audio portion of the Core File,” Jan said.

Steve could feel the blood drain from his distant, corporeal body.

“Did he kill her?” Allison asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I never heard of such a thing. It’s impossible. How’d he do that through the Internet?”

“I don’t know!” Steve shouted.

“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re
it
where the Nexus is concerned!”

Steve shook his head. Syzygy took down the patch and V-chip programs. He overloaded the System Amplifier. He attacked Camille and somehow killed her. They were not dealing with a glitch, but a murderer exploiting the glitch. His stomach lurched.

Steve took a deep breath. “I don’t know how he did it, but I have a hunch. We correct bugs as they appear by pushing periodic updates and patches from Nexus Corp. It keeps the customer happy. It’s password protected and the Nexus devices only allow the corporate servers to connect. Syzygy broke the update protocol somehow.”

“Who is he?” Allison asked.

“Let’s take a look. Jan, are any of the video images of the alias Syzygy intact in the Core File?”

“Yes. Do you want me to display one of them?”

Steve nodded. “Yes.”

The hologram of a tall, dark-haired, pale-complexioned man appeared before them. Steve walked around the hologram and peered into the eyes of Syzygy. They were green like his own, but detached, soulless. They held no answers.

“Who the hell are you?” Steve asked.