Tag: draft

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Restricted (part three)

Dec searched the room with his eyes, quickly, as if reacting to some kind of training, before replying, quietly. “This was my idea, to meet with you in private. Other people on my team suggested some other forms of persuasion, but I’ve had a lot of luck just being honest with,” the target, he wanted to say, “people of interest. It’s not a list you want to be on. Stumbled across it, I guess, but I can’t protect you from negative outcomes if this thing continues.” The last sentence just kind of hung in the air as they both sipped their coffee. An uncomfortable silence was forming as the seconds ticked by.

“Got any eggs in the fridge?”, Dec asked. Res replied, “coffee and breakfast, yes please!”, as she opened the fridge and started unloading everything she wanted to eat, all raw ingredients. Enough for some Denver omelets, for two hungry and almost hung-over people. “You know,” Dec teased, “this is gonna go straight to your hips.” Res winked and said, “got a problem with that?”. She was keeping it light, although he had lit an ember of fear deep within her heart that she was trying to hide. Dec smiled and set to work, chopping peppers and ham, as Res worked alongside him, helping lay out the frying pan and setting the table with plates and silverware. Neither of them said a word until the omelets were done, acting just like an old married couple. Res couldn’t believe this was real. It was too natural, too easy. But it felt so good. She wished breakfast with Dec would become a regular thing. Would she be enough, without these little secret messages and warnings, to bring him back? As she ate her omelet and sipped her coffee, they made small talk while she pondered the future, and wondered what was so dangerous about them finding essentially nothing. Dec made a damn good breakfast; she was sure of that.

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Restricted (part one)

After returning home, Res got a call on her comms. It was Dec, right on schedule. “Hey Res, just returning your call. What’s up?” He was playing it cool, as if none of this was his idea. “Dec, thanks for calling me back,” Res said, “I think you wanted to meet with a friend.” She lingered on the word friend, and bit her bottom lip, hoping that came out right. Dec didn’t seem to mind as he said, “Yeah, I could meet with a friend. This friend would probably have to come over here though. I’m in for the night but have time for some discussion.” Again, Dec was coming off a little too formal. Res was having trouble reading him, her head swimming in liquor and some ideas starting to bubble up. Meet at his home? She really wanted to, but she wasn’t sure about the circumstances. Still, the idea of pushing forward to explore her fate was too tempting. “Do I need to bring anything with me?”, she asked, probing. “Maybe a toothbrush and some origami paper”, Dec replied dryly. She couldn’t tell if he was joking around or there was something else going on here. “I’ve got a few shots of your favorite whiskey if that’ll seal the deal”, Dec added, trying to tip the scales. He heard some hesitance in her voice, and they weren’t exactly dating, but more liquor would probably loosen her nerves a little. It was a bold ask.

Res hemmed and hawed for a minute, glanced at the clock, and cleared her throat. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to stop by, but what about coming over here?” Dec sensed the mistrust. She had every right to distrust him at this point, and in her own home, she would probably feel safer. “Only if I can borrow your toothbrush,” he said with a half grin. The subtext was clear. Dec wasn’t just planning on stopping by for a nightcap. He was up to something. Res knew exactly what that something was, it wasn’t her first rodeo. “Give me about 15 minutes,” she said, “let me get this place in some kind of order real quick. You know where I live, I assume?” Dec knew, but feigned ignorance, to avoid giving away the plot. “I’m over on Spectre Street, unit 3050. Third floor, top of the stairs,” she said. “See you in 10-15 minutes. Does your roof have a (landing) pad?”, Dec asked. “Yeah, they installed it a few years ago. Nobody uses it, not too many fancy quads flying around this neighborhood. It’s all yours,” Res said, as her anticipation began to increase. How could he afford to fly a quadcopter on his pension? With Dec, it had been one question after another, and she was dying to get some answers.

She took a few minutes to punt her floor clothes into the laundry closet and check her breath. Funky. This called for a mint, but it would just turn her breath into Goldschlager, a peppermint laced liquor. Even brushing her teeth briefly wouldn’t have changed the funk, just mask it for a few minutes, and Dec was bringing whiskey anyway. She rinsed out a couple of shot glasses and checked the fridge for a few beers. Some Jamaican lager, Red Stripe, was about all she had left. It would have to do. Time was running out and she did another once over in the bathroom mirror, just making sure everything was in place. Teeth, check. Lipstick, bright. Nails, glued on. Legs, depilated. Other areas, also depilated. This was as good as she got on short notice. As she left the bathroom and the light automatically faded off, she heard the tell-tale high-pitched whine of a quadcopter landing, above, and the motors spinning down. A few moments later and there was a knock at the door, and she was already standing there. Before she opened the door, she quickly messaged Sheep on her comms.

Got company. Not really sure if it’s good news or bad. Will talk tomorrow. – Res

With the way things worked, from her point of view, if anything bad was going to happen, at least Sheep would be suspicious if she didn’t follow up the next day. Just a precaution. She wanted Dec there.

She waved her hand in front of the door sensor, and two bolts retracted immediately. A third mechanism silently began opening the door, and Dec came into full view. She had forgotten how he absolutely towered over her when they were both standing. Dec cracked a crooked grin, held up the bottle, and said, “nice place. Real nice. Mind if I come in?” Res was still reeling by the absolute size of him, heart pounding in her chest, and stammered, “oh, yeah, of course. Make yourself at home.” She smiled, but it was simultaneously a nervous grin and a hungry, toothy smile. She broke eye contact as Dec made his way into the room. “You live alone here?”, he asked, making small talk. “Most of the time, yes. Sometimes Sheep crashes on the couch. I’ve offered him the second bedroom but he never makes it that far.” Dec got about halfway into the room and motioned, with the bottle, towards the shot glasses in the kitchen. “How about we do a little damage first?”, he asked. Res obediently retrieved the glasses from the sink and placed them carefully on the table, lined up vertically in the center. Dec removed the cork cap and poured two fingers of whiskey each, before re-capping the bottle and placing it on the table. “Chasers?”, he asked, and Res opened the fridge to retrieve the Red Stripe beers, carefully setting them down on opposite sides of the table. Dec took a seat opposite Res and lifted his shot high. “How about a toast? To strangers, to ghosts, to Sheepdog and Res!”. Res dutifully lifted her shot, tapped glasses, and emptied her glass before taking a swig from her Red Stripe. She noticed Dec didn’t touch his beer, yet.

Res was feeling, well, a lot. Dec had walked in like he owned the place and started guiding her around like it was a regular thing. Then again, did it say anything about him, or the kind of soldier he was before? Or did it say something about Res, that she was happy to have company, especially this company? “What was that toast about, honestly?”, Res probed. “Well, I figured it was perfect, for setting the stage here. Hey, do you like music? I swear, I can’t go ten minutes without some background noise. Ears ring most of the time; old injury, and music helps,” he replied. Res looked away and thought for a second, trying to guess his genre. “Iris, play artist Metallica, song, Harvester of Sorrow”, she said to her automation system, and instantly, Metallica was streaming from seemingly everywhere. “Louder,” Dec said. “Iris, increase volume 30 percent.” Now it was rocking as the intro built up tension, primal drums pounding out the beat. Dec was looking directly at Res, eyes half closed, before closing his eyes and doing a little headbang motion to the beat. He didn’t see Res blush for a moment as she tried to keep eye contact. He’s funny, she thought, as she watched him rhythmically bob to the song, and it was undeniable at this point. He will get what he came for; information, or something more…personal. Maybe both. Maybe neither. That toast said just about everything she was worried about and nothing more.

As the song began to end, Dec poured another shot and, noticing Res’ glass was empty, went ahead and poured hers too. This time it was her turn. “A toast, to friends, mysteries, and whatever the hell this whole thing is tonight”. Dec chuckled, tapped glasses, and downed the shot. Now it was time to crack open the beer, that second shot had some heat with it. “Look,” he started, “we can play games for a while. That’s fine by me. I like your place, I like this whiskey, and I’ll be damned if I don’t like Metallica, loud. Most of all, I’m pretty sure, I like you.” Res felt another blush but couldn’t tell if it was the whiskey or his statement. “The feeling is mutual,” she chirped, “but you didn’t just come here to throw back shots with a pretty girl. What’s on your mind?”

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Project Fulcrum

He had done it. Rex leaned back in his Eames recliner, smugly reading over his “test plan” for the future with Frank’s access to the Stitcher organization. It was so clever he couldn’t stop smiling while flipping through the pages and charts. There was just one problem. He had to ensure that it didn’t fall into anyone else’s hands, and if it did, that it wouldn’t make any sense to them.

The plan, at its core, was playing the stock market, systematically, with some variance built in to throw off anyone or anything casually tracking the market. Knowing what they knew, about the AI warning Frank of “bad moves”, it was just a matter of placing the bets and raking in the profits, with an intentional loss from time to time of a few million credits. That would help throw off tracking, as well as serve as a tax shelter from a great deal of profit. Frank and Rex had already performed second-stage testing, to see if the AI could predict short-term losses through a tangle of shell corporations that Frank operated. The results didn’t surprise either of them: 100% success.

Rex dubbed his plan Project Fulcrum, because it gave him the leverage he needed, financially, to complete his own bigger project, without involving shadowy figures that deliver physical violence in the event of a late or missed payment. As far as he was concerned, there were no downsides. Frank and Rex would beat the casino on a regular basis, and eventually Rex’s project would be flush with cash and run to completion. He was reviewing and re-reviewing the plan to ensure that there were no dangling threads. It seemed airtight.

Back to the problem at hand. How to essentially encrypt the plan documents so that they only made sense to he and Frank. Distributing the plan piece by piece was a good start. Embedding those chunks into some other kind of data was another good idea. But reassembling the chunks in the right order was the absolute key to it all, and deserved the most consideration. For this, Rex turned to a DNA lab he had done business with, many years ago. They could create and assemble specific DNA strands to any specification, from nothing; you supplied the code. They could also embed that DNA into other, common strands, and you had to know the specific marker in the sequence to even begin to decode the DNA they had inserted. They would hide their strands specifically in DNA strands where variation was expected to be present; for example, the DNA sequence that determines the pattern of a leopard’s spots. No two were alike, and their location varied, as other sequences in the DNA would essentially point to wherever that gene sequence was located, which was also variable. There were also inactive genes one could hide new sequences, that functionally, did nothing in an organism. Fun fact, most human DNA is inactive, or copies of active sequences, which is why, once the human genome was 100% mapped out, they only found a 2% difference between humans and chimpanzees. In the programming world, this is known as cruft. Layer after layer of band aid coding that accumulated over the evolution of a species, or computer program. Eventually it led to bloat with genomes that were much longer than they actually needed to be, which again was beneficial for anyone trying to hide information in DNA.

Rex would eventually end up visiting the DNA lab, Blue Genes, and coding his creation. It would be an organism. It would grow and change over time. At regular steps of the organism’s growth cycle, it would shed and provide a new piece of the DNA puzzle to the recipient. The initial phase of life, the adjusted sperm and egg, would contain two keys to the DNA sequence lock. They were complimentary and mostly matching.

Rex was creating a snake. From birth, it would continually be fed and nurtured to reach the next growth phase. Once it was fully grown, sampling each of the shed skins would yield the entire plan for Project Fulcrum, so this would take some time. However, they could always accelerate the growth cycle from the beginning by tweaking some growth genes. It just meant that the snake wouldn’t live a long life, but the tradeoff was acceptable. This wasn’t a pet; it was a delivery system. Once the credits were transferred, Blue Genes would create the snake and hand it off to Rex in a plain cardboard box, which he would then hand-deliver to Frank. The instructions were nice and vague. “Here’s your pet snake. Keep him warm and fed, and clean his cage regularly”. Of course, cleaning his cage included carefully collecting pieces of the shed skin, and sending samples back to Blue Genes for analysis, decrypting the next piece of Project Fulcrum. But what about the sequencing numbers that tied it all together? Rex decided he’d deliver those to Frank, as needed, rather than handing them off up front. That would also add an element of randomness to the process to further prevent any kind of casual analysis in case anyone got curious. So that settled it, the plan for delivering the plan was another stroke of Rex genius. Frank just had to keep the snake alive, and with a small army of house staff at his disposal, assigning someone to take great care of his new pet was no more difficult than throwing darts at a target.

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Digital Equipment Corporation (cont.)

His Team Lead confirmed his suspicions. It was Sheepdog that was playing ghost hunter, and he was getting too close, way too fast. Dec respected his tenacity and detective skills, because Dec still had no idea what all the fuss was about. The Team Lead suggested that maybe someone had cracked the mystery of optical camouflage, and was actively using it to avoid video surveillance. This was bad news for a lot of people and organizations that relied on it, including the judges, the courts, the cops, and last but not least, his own employer. The AI didn’t have a single pair of eyes, they had thousands of them, going beyond the visible spectrum into the realm of thermal and night vision. But evidently, this new tech that nobody knows exists, does exist, and nobody has any idea of who is using it.

Splicer had “missing footage” of a person that did use it. Person, or people, or…. they could only speculate. All they really knew was that if Splicer had a blind spot, no one could know. It would ruin their reputation. They weren’t even sure if it was a set of cameras, or satellites, that were somehow faulty or compromised. The stakes had been raised. In the wrong hands, this kind of tech would give a huge advantage to an enemy, a murderer, any kind of opposing force. Yet it was out there, in the wild, known only by the images it didn’t leave behind.

Now, even Dec was starting to feel a little creeped out by the situation. He remembered a few engagements during the war when his crew had been totally blindsided by a column of drones headed straight to their position. The highest tech in the world, and something slipped past all the defenses, electronic and kinetic. The electronic countermeasures failed, satellites were obscured by dust storms, and some spotters were looking the other direction for a little too long. It forced him to accept that even the best equipped, best trained, best protected force known to man still had vulnerabilities. That was usually the way of war; a fast tank must have light armor. Light armor was a tradeoff. Couldn’t survive a direct hit to the turret, but could outrun just about anything else. All those gadgets, all those batteries, satellites, sniper spotters… all it took was a few minutes for it all to break down before the drone swarms arrived. “Stay frosty” was in his vocabulary because nothing was really truly buttoned up on the battlefield. There were just long quiet stretches of time broken up by very loud times, and you had to keep a cool head to know the difference and react when action was required.

This was one of those times that required action.

Dec floated his idea of covertly getting a message to Res, who would then be compelled to contact him directly, for another meeting. Dec would need details, insight, and a little luck. She was already friendly with him, flirty even, so gaining her trust wouldn’t be much trouble. He could casually interrogate her through conversation, if he could get her alone and relaxed. Although she worked with Sheepdog and may know more about this than Dec did, Dec couldn’t ask too many questions or raise her suspicions. Especially since they all knew the reach Splicer had, as an organization, and what it was capable of doing if it felt threatened.

“Tip of the spear”, the Team Lead told him before they wrapped up the call. “You’ve got to be the tip of the spear. We don’t know what’s at stake here, honestly, but if I’m discussing it with you and the rest of the team, clearly, it’s got us all very, very concerned. I trust you’ll carry this out, Dec. Keep most of it under wraps, and get that damned Sheepdog 50 miles from this thing. Whatever you tell Res, don’t tip your hand. We need to reinforce the trust in Splicer, not sow doubt, especially not internally. Everyone believes in what we do here.” Dec wasn’t so sure about that last sentence.

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Resolute (part two)

Res faced a dilemma now. She also began to get a sneaking suspicion of Dec sniffing around. She remembered the elbow grab as if it just happened…the talk near the restrooms. The ghost he mentioned. Now Sheepdog is next, or will she get blamed? What would happen if she did? Another discussion with Dec or something…. worse? Whatever the outcome, she had to get ahead of this whole thing before it spun out of control. She had no choice now, as if she ever did. She had to call Dec and set up a meeting. Suddenly, her comms buzzed. Looking down, she saw a message on the display.

When there’s something strange
In your video footage
Who you gonna call?
DEC OR SHEEP

It was Genesis 15 fucking around. It gave her the creeps not knowing where or how this rogue AI was even hosted or what kind of access it had. She didn’t need this right now. The situation was starting to stress her out and this just added another layer. She replied, bluntly.

Not right now Fifteen.

As if by some prediction algorithm, instantly, upon her hitting send, there was another message from 15.

Fine, be that way. I thought this was starting to get good.

With 15 snooping and interested in whatever it knew, and the pressure building by the second, Res didn’t reply. She dialed Dec and it went to his messages. She left a simple one. “Found a fox. Decided I wanted some origami lessons. I did manage to make a pretty nice origami, a slightly retarded cat, from the pattern. Call me when you get this.” Short, clever, and simple, although a little singsong at the end. He would definitely call her back. Just a matter of time. To kill some time and unwind a little, Res kicked rocks down the sidewalk on the way to Meatspace, where, as usual, K was pushing forward her shot and her beer chaser, right in front of her favorite seat. Standing behind that favorite seat was none other than Beat himself, puffing on a fat cigar. What a coincidence.

Turning to meet her gaze as she approached, Beat said loudly over the music, “What a surprise, molodaya ledi! I thought I was at my favorite bar, but it appears to be yours. That’s quite the VIP treatment,” and he motioned with his cigar towards the shot glass and beer at her spot. “I’m lucky if this bartender notices me in a chicken suit.” K shot a frowning glance at Beat, overhearing this particular phrase, and reached for the pickled egg jar, removing just one egg. “This is for the chicken,” K said directly to Res, “I think he might have dropped it.” Everyone was having a good time busting balls and Beat couldn’t hide his opinion of this exchange under his typically stoic exterior, smiling from ear to ear. “Bawk bawk,” he said, “and I will take another shot of Stoli, if you would be so kind. Mine seems to have a hole in the bottom.” Res busted out laughing at this whole scene, it was too perfect. You couldn’t have scripted this encounter. This is exactly what she needed after her conversation with Sheep. Some levity, some alcohol, and some friendly company.

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Resolute (part one)

After the haircut, the shopping, laundry, and one more downpour, Res wrapped up the weekend. She ran a hot bath and scurried to the mantle to retrieve the fox, undressing one item at a time and tossing each on the floor on the way back to the bathroom. She lived alone, and if she didn’t care, nobody cared about wet clothing littering the floor. Steam was already fogging up the mirror and she glanced at her blurry reflection for a second as she passed it, closing the door behind her to keep the heat in. One foot at a time, she eased into the hot water, while deliberately lowering herself down with her left hand on the edge of the tub. Had to keep the right hand high and dry as she didn’t want a soggy fox. The water was just the right temperature. Within a few minutes as she acclimated to it, she felt her feet start to wrinkle. It was such a specific feeling; she closed her eyes for a moment and leaned into it as she slid deeper under the water’s surface. “I could sleep here,” she thought as she brought her knees above the waterline and watched the steam evaporate from her legs. She turned her attention to the vaguely foxlike origami, squeezed her left hand on the towel to mostly dry it, and carefully unfolded it again. With the heat and the moisture it practically unfolded itself, and there she saw Dec’s message.

I need to see you again. Call me. – DEC

There seemed to be a tone here. Not, I want to see you again. Not, maybe we should meet for drinks. This was something else. That realization was a little disappointing, because she had hoped it would be a little less business and a little more friendly. But here she was, steaming in a hot bath, and the only thing on her mind was Dec, and the stingingly pleasant heat of the tub. It wasn’t a coincidence. Subconsciously, she hated to admit it, but she was alone and lonely at the same time. She wouldn’t mind spending time with someone besides a coworker, and a vet is probably a total mess of a friend, so no, it didn’t make a lot of sense. But many things in life started that way. A bad idea, a risk, a step into the unknown, a leap of faith, a blind date. She realized she was talking herself into it, remembering cheesy maxims like “you fail 100% of the things you never try”.  But was she being commanded to call Dec, or was she tricking herself into thinking it was her idea, and maybe even a good idea? It didn’t matter at this point, she decided to call Dec tomorrow and get it over with, whatever it was. She tossed the paper as far as she could from the tub, and although it flew about as well as half a donut, it landed clear of the drip zone.

She dunked her head under the water briefly to help rinse away the little hair shavings that always seem to stick around after a fresh haircut before going through the rest of the shampoo/conditioner routine. People had told her, many times before, that her hair was so shiny and thick, it must be some ancient beauty routine and if she could just explain it and save the universe. Truth was, Res always had good hair, even as a child. Genes. Being born half Dutch and half Thai was a little fortunate here since she inherited her eyes and hair color from her father and her “shine” from her mother. None of that black on black that, while attractive in its own right, made average Asians look absolutely cloned by comparison. Res felt like some special hybrid that got the best of both worlds, and just enough madness from the Dutch side to enhance her creativity and inquisitive nature. Above all else, she was American; an experiment, in an experiment of a country, which was usually united under the same flag.

Her Dutch father had met her mother on a trip to Bangkok for business, where the airport workers were striking during his scheduled flight back. He meandered through the streets trying to avoid the tourist traps and sex bars, finally stopping off in a coffee shop where he was greeted in perfect English by a stunning woman that looked about 10 years younger than she was. Noticing he was taken aback, she teased him a bit, smiling, saying “I also speak fluent Thai if you prefer, ling khaow”. He didn’t speak much Thai, but he heard a lot of “ling” on a tour of the jungle once, and he knew it meant monkey, or aap in his native tongue. The ridiculousness of the sentence was clever; a little insulting, friendly, and playful, all at the same time. He was immediately charmed. He cracked a smile, tilted his head forward to peer over the top of his sunglasses, and replied simply, “English is fine, but hold the bananas”, in his well-practiced accent.

That was most of the story she had been told; at the very least, her favorite part. It seemed like fate, with a few chances, a few risks taken, working itself into this one-in-a-million chance, complete with aligned stars. The output of which comfortably soaked as the water slowly cooled, and pondered the past and the future. Maybe it was time for her to see what fate had in store, she thought. That cemented her decision to contact Dec the next day. As she began to drain the tub and dry off, she reached for the lotion and slathered it damn near everywhere. The fountain of youth in a bottle, as her mom liked to say. To be honest, neither of them probably even needed a single drop; it was just insurance.

The next day, after a mostly uneventful day at the office, Res stared blankly at her comms device. It was waiting. He was waiting. So what was the hold up? She felt like some step was missing. What was it she was supposed to do besides call Dec and meet with him? An idea slowly formed, a memory of a thought. Sheepdog. She was supposed to talk to Sheep first and check on his progress. He was on to something and it totally slipped her mind. She decided to call Sheep instead.

“Hello? Res?”, Sheep answered immediately, and she could barely hear what had to be background noise as he traveled along on the train. “Yeah, it’s me. I felt like we needed to sync up on what you’ve been chasing down. Any luck?”. Sheep filled her in with most of the details about his ghost hunting trip, careful to not say too much in public but getting the points across. “So basically,” Sheep said, “I think maybe I was in the right place at the right time. Things mostly added up, but I hit a wall. There was a man, the Relaxed Man, wearing some crazy outfit. No, I couldn’t make out his face, that was covered too. But the outfit, the suit, there’s something there.” Res paused for a moment as she soaked up his story. “Optical camo? That’s just a theory. The military has been trying to crack that for 50 years. If anyone has done it…”, and Res trailed off, pondering the implications. A singular individual that cracked the code, figured out the impossible, however unlikely, would change the world, at least for a while. The entire court system was based on video footage. If it wasn’t filmed, it didn’t happen, as far as most judges were concerned. This was dangerous, if true. “Not another word about this to anyone, Sheep. Not like this. Do you know what you could be walking in to? ASE’s have trained on this footage for years, but you’re the only one that has gotten this close.” Sheep was quiet for a moment. He was so dug in to solving a problem, he never stopped to consider the outcomes. The implications, the possibilities. He was beginning to put 2 and 2 together, and he felt a cold sweat begin to form on his palms and forehead. “I…I feel like a fool,” Sheep stammered to break the silence, “how did I not predict this? I missed the forest for the trees. I was right there, right there, and I’m sure the Relaxed Man saw me with the doorman, dressed up in Sendai gear to disguise my identity.”

Res cooly replied, “Well for now, I wouldn’t worry too much, you’re very forgettable. Wearing a service costume added a valuable layer to your little charade. That was smart. Nobody ever remembers people in service gear, it’s almost like optical camo all by itself. Tell me, can you remember the face of the last elevator repairman you walked past? Or the janitor entering the restroom? Sure, you may remember macro details, like if he was tall or short, skinny or fat, but honestly, what about that person’s face?” Sheep silently nodded in agreement. She had a point. Everyone acknowledged the plumber, or the elevator guy, or the electricians, but they never remembered their faces. Strange realization. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, Res, then it’s working. Maybe I was just as anonymous as that man was. A uniform with no face, no identity. The cameras saw, of course, but the people might have ignored me. I know at least one person who intentionally forgot me, and is 100 credits richer as a result.” Res felt her hair stand up on her neck, like a cold breeze suddenly descended on her. “Wait, you bribed the doorman? Oh shit. That could be a problem”, Res said, a little more nervously. “Do you think so? I mean, I feel like I’m in some trouble all of a sudden, are we catching up or are you spooking me for fun?”, Sheep said. “No, I’m not spooking you on purpose. I just feel like when you slid money across his palm, it changed the energy of the whole bit. What kind of service guy, ‘just checking on things’, bribes the doorman for logs and again to forget he was even there? You broke cover…at least with him. I don’t want to continue this over comms. This is serious”, Res said, this time, more seriously. “I hear you,” Sheep said, “loud and clear. I gotta go, my stop is next. Bye.” Before he could end the call, Res already had.

…more later

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Haunted (part two)

While he was busy configuring the next tool, the building attendant from inside the corner building came out to ask him what he was working on. “N-nothing sir, just making sure the surveillance hardware is functioning properly”, said Sheep, forcing eye contact. The doorman replied, “it’s all new, state of the art hardware and I would hate for it to be malfunctioning already. Has something prompted this service check? I haven’t gotten any complaints”. Sheepdog lied, saying, “just because it’s new doesn’t mean it’s perfect. These are all customary precautions, to ensure everything has been configured to spec. We pride ourselves on all our deployments to be operational from the minute we power them up”. The doorman was unusually curious, and asked Sheepdog about his uniform. “I noticed you’re wearing the Sendai corporation color scheme of green and blue. The last Sendai installers wore red and blue. Are you really with Sendai?”, he asked. Sheep was a little nervous but he could bullshit his way through this line of questioning. “Look pal, Sendai provides the uniform and I put it on. Green today, red tomorrow. They didn’t consult me on the color scheme. Did anyone ask you if you prefer navy blue for your wool jacket, or was it just hanging in the closet when you got to the residence one day?” The doorman grinned and nodded; point taken. The corporate overlords never did consult with employees when it came to color schemes, and he assumed it was like that everywhere. That was enough to satisfy his curiosity, and he casually went back into the building, occasionally glancing at Sheep while he worked. But suddenly, Sheep had an idea. He may have built enough rapport with this guy to ask him a few questions and maybe get a glance at his visitor logs.

Sheep packed his gear into his bag and headed inside to talk to the doorman. “Do you keep a log of residents and visitors? We seem to have a small gap in the video surveillance data and someone is missing. It’s nothing criminal, we would just like to check alignment with the surveillance system’s telematics and your hard logs. I’m assuming everyone signs in and out?” Sheep was pushing his luck and he noticed the change on the doorman’s face as the power dynamic shifted. “We do keep logs, and our clientele likes to remain very private.” Sheep slipped him a 50 credit note and said, “I don’t need to know everything, just a tiny sliver of time during a specific date”. The doorman rolled the credit around in his palm before agreeing to let Sheep take a peek at the date and time the visual anomaly happened. “Remember, I never showed you anything. You must have hacked the system by accident while performing your testing”, he said quietly. Sheep quickly looked at the logs for that time frame, and found 5 names which could have been pseudonyms or code names for residents and visitors. Still, he was making progress and he could review the list for a deeper dive later. Bowler Man was not on the list, which made sense because he never actually entered the building. One of the residents that briefly stepped out and returned was recorded as Relaxed Man. Strange name.

Sheep suddenly got lucky. As he was in the doorman’s office, he saw the Bowler Man’s limo arrive at the corner just inside. From where he was standing, he could barely see the back of a resident in an elaborate suit step outside to meet him. Not exactly a flashy suit, but a very intentional suit that he doubted you could pick up off the shelf at any retailer. It was custom, head to toe. As the handshake occurred, the people on the sidewalk stepped around the two men like a river splitting around a large, protruding rock, interrupting the flow. This was consistent with the recording. The resident pivoted on his heels, re-entered the building, and entered a waiting elevator to return him to his floor. And that’s when Sheep noticed. He was wearing a full-face mask that matched the pattern of the suit. Every inch of the resident was obscured by this material, including his shoes. The only bare skin Sheep could see was a brief flash as the man checked his watch while the elevator door closed. He was light skinned, which may rule out others in the logs he had obtained. Just as the doors were closing, a gloved hand shot the gap and opened the doors. “Hey Tony, be sure to log me back in”, he shouted across the lobby to the doorman. The doorman waved and nodded as the elevator doors closed again. Sheepdog felt the man stare at him for a moment before the doors finally closed.

Sheep thanked the doorman again and, with another palmed credit, explained that he would appreciate it If the doorman mostly forgot the details of his visit. Again, the doorman nodded, wished Sheep a good day, and said he wouldn’t expect to see him again, because he never saw him before. Low level people were easy to work, with a few credits, and realized staying tight lipped kept them safe from the wrong kind of attention.  Sheep knew that a record of him entering the building would be in the Splicer archive already, but with his manager’s approval, he could tack on a security tag for that date and time to prevent prying eyes from reviewing the footage too closely. Besides, it was much less interesting than what Sheep was already dealing with, and the mystery was getting thicker.

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Beat the market (part two)

Continued from the bonus in No Mistakes (continued) plus a bonus

One of them, Terry, eagerly spoke up. “You know what? It just might be possible, but only for this customer. We work on audio visual prediction models, which are trained on the customer starting with the engagement, so the models are kinda already there for other types of predictions. It’s just a different dataset. Can we predict if he’ll win the lottery tomorrow? No. Can we predict how much he’ll make this year based on his stock portfolio? Certainly not. The models are geared towards win/loss scenarios, coin tosses, because the customer is either in danger, or not.” “I see”, replied Beat, catching on to Terry’s train of thought, “so” and before he could finish, another lead cut in. “Sorry for interrupting, Beat, but to add to Terry’s thinking here”, said Beth, “we can’t ignore the nature of the AI for this customer. It’s Genesis, remember? It somehow floats around in time, so it can see a little way into the future, making it perfect for predicting financial transactions. If it knew he was betting half his money on a horse race, it could tell him the outcome, in a way. Think of it like a Ouija board. His hands are on the puck, and Genesis could nudge it towards or away from an outcome, but not very far in the future. Too many variables.”

Beat remained silent, in case anyone else wanted to add to the knowledge base forming here. Then he spoke up. “I’m classifying this call. It’s Secret now. While this is good news, it also sounds dangerous. We don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea with this thing. Genesis has been perfect so far, for as long as Frank has relied on it, and us, and the last thing we want to do is abuse an idea, even for testing.”

“Understood, sir. The answer to the customer, then, should be yes, with a document defining what we consider financial security. Lord, I hope the lawyers don’t get ahold of this. They’d have us for breakfast. I’d go as far as recommending a contractual amendment with the customer, because if we don’t put concrete walls around this, we could get absolutely bombed”, said Terry. “If this goes wrong, we’ll get worse than bombed,” Beat said. “Mark my words. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your thoughtful discussion. I’ll take this back to the director.” With that parting comment, the call ended, and Beat called the director again.

“What’s the consensus then?”, the director asked, as he answered the call. “The leads say it’s possible, to a very limited extent. We may be able to prevent the customer from losing his ass on a short-term game of chance, but we don’t have a crystal ball. They recommended—” and Beat was interrupted again. “Please tell me once they got to this point, you classified the conversation. This sounds a little sketchy.”

Beat spoke up after a short sigh. “Yeah, I know. It raised the hair on my neck, too. Of course I classified it as Secret. They weren’t just making affirmations or suggestions but discussing the possibility of implementation. This can be done, on a very limited scale, for this customer, with his assigned AI. We need a contract amendment also; we have no idea if the customer has or will have intentions to, uh, exercise this function. We sure as hell can’t be liable if he does and it fails.” The director replied somewhat slowly, “it seems like a mixed bag then. Additional liability but also additional protection, and a chance to renew his contract early on top of that amendment. The only problem is that the customer tends to brag about his service, so I’ll ensure that this aspect doesn’t leak out.” “Sounds like a plan, authorized to tell the customer yes, then?”, Beat asked. “Yes. You are authorized. Get a transcript of this call from hard copy services, have it classified as Secret, sign off and I’ll get the ball rolling on the contract tomorrow”, the director replied. Sometimes big problems had quick solutions like this, and Beat attributed that to the strength of their AI team leads.

He activated Frank’s secure comms link. Immediately, Frank answered at an uncomfortable volume.

 “Yes yes, this is Frank. You did? I see. Uh huh. Ok. Well, a bit more clarity in the contract would be useful, I would expect an amendment. So to answer my question, the coverage is there? Of course, I have some questions. It’ll be in the amendment? How soon? Tomorrow. Sounds fantastic.” Frank hit the singular button on the comms unit, turned to Rex, and said “it appears that financial security is possible, with some caveats. Guardrails, limitations, whatever you want to call them. They said something about Ouija boards? I’ll know more tomorrow.” Rex’s eyes lit up under the fiberoptic night sky headliner, and he stared at Frank. “How can they do something like that?”, he asked. “I will know more tomorrow. They must revise my contract, but they answered yes, and Splicer isn’t famous for over-selling their product”, Frank said. Rex vigorously shook hands with Frank and asked if the driver could return him home. Frank raised one eyebrow and asked, “But aren’t you hungry?” Rex replied, “I could eat”, which Frank interpreted as, let’s go back to the restaurant and have a nice meal, with this out of the way. That’s exactly what they did, and not another word of this topic was spoken the entire dinner. Frank and Rex parted ways with one word and a handshake. “Tomorrow.”

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Beat, Cops and Robbers Part 6

The saga of Beat’s DAA continues.

You may want to go back to Beat’s part 5 here.

COPERNICUS ACCEPTED. KNOWLEDGE TARGET LINKING…..LINK ESTABLISHED AND ACTIVE BY DEFAULT. COPERNICUS IS ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN RUNNING PROCESSES AND CANNOT BE INTERRUPTED, ONLY OBSERVED. TO REVIEW RUNNING PROCESSES, ENTER PROC. FOR OTHER COMMANDS, ENTER MENU.

Beat entered PROC and reviewed the processes running on Copernicus. All the usual processes were running, none of them stood out. Most were for system maintenance, logging, and higher thinking correlation engines. He decided to poke around in the menus to see if there was more meat.

MENU:

  1. DISCONNECT FROM KT TARGET: COPERNICUS
  2. OBSERVE COPERNICUS
  3. OBSERVE DATA EXTRACTION PROGRESS
  4. OBSERVE CODE INJECTION PROCESS
  5. ABORT AND DISCONNECT

Beat honestly wasn’t much of a hacker but this sure looked like an attack toolkit. He tried item 2.

COPERNICUS OBSERVATION SELECTED….OBSERVATION VR MODE ENGAGED. PLEASE SWITCH TO VR FOR ENHANCED OBSERVATION

Once again Beat was going into VR. He wasn’t the biggest fan and frankly found it tedious when a terminal would suffice, but sometimes unique visual data presentations were best handled in VR. For example, a timeline of events where the user could drill down into event data to learn more. He was hoping this was the case.

As he placed the VR interface on his head, he heard a faint clicking in the background and saw Copernicus’ avatar again, the Greek statue bust wearing the garland. However, the statue seemed to be losing mass somehow. Something was removing parts of the model pixel by pixel, almost as if it were made of sand and being blown away slowly. Beat approached the model from the front; there was no reaction from the model. He truly was an observer and invisible to the AI. With a wave of his hand, he brought up an interaction panel with many choices. He listed the running processes again, hoping he had missed one the first time.

RUNNING PROCESSES IN COPERNICUS

Sqldb_helper
Proc
syslog
con_overlay
backup_dg
framedel
-MORE-

Beat had seen enough and wasn’t familiar with con_overlay. Everything else was old hat and appeared on any AI system. He sorted the list by how much processing power each process was using.

framedel
con_overlay
Sqldb_helper
Proc
syslog
con_overlay
backup_dg

Two little piggies led the pack with con_overlay confirming his suspicion. Now he wanted to learn what was using the most network bandwidth, so he sorted the list by concurrent connections and bandwidth.

backup_dg
con_overlay
Sqldb_helper
Proc
framedel
syslog

Pretty normal for the backup process to use a lot of bandwidth, if it was truly copying data from the AI to a backup. There could be exabytes of data moving across the fiber. However, there was the con_overlay again near the top of the list.

Beat waved his hand to activate the analysis menu. The analysis module helped with analyzing log data and seeing what the system had done in the past. He was presented with a horizontal timeline with dates above and below the timeline. The logs went back a decade, much to his surprise. Government systems were very strict, for legal reasons, about keeping a lot of log data. But a decade seemed excessive. Most data past 7 years was dumped to long term storage and removed from even government systems. But that log depth was only a hindrance because it extended the timeline. Otherwise, Beat didn’t mind that he had too much data to sift through. The forensic process was pretty fast as long as log data was there.

With a twist of one hand after grabbing a random timeline point for a date 3 months prior, the analysis tool displayed a list of options.

ANALYZE LOGS
FILTER LOG DATA
STANDARD REPORTING

He chose to analyze the logs and see what the system would give him next.

LOG ANALYSIS MODULE

PLEASE CHOOSE SYSTEM PROCESSES FOR ANALYSIS

Once again, he was presented with a list of processes. There were hundreds, so he had some filtering work performed, again using the CPU usage and network bandwidth consumption to narrow it down.

It wasn’t what he found, but what he didn’t find that was curious. No con_overlay process anywhere. He even asked Robert, verbally, to verify the existence of con_overlay data in the time frame. Robert confirmed immediately; it simply did not exist in the timeline date he chose. “However,” Robert stated, “the process log data for con_overlay is in the data pool beginning 72 hours ago.” Very helpful. Beat then instructed him to jump to the earliest appearance of con_overlay data, and the timeline advanced to 3 days before today.

Grabbing the timeline point gave him the analysis menu with one additional item.

ANALYZE LOGS
FILTER LOG DATA
STANDARD REPORTING
GAUGE EFFECTIVENESS

Gauge effectiveness? Of what? Seemed like an odd entry to add to this specific date. Naturally Beat chose that option. Suddenly the simulation darkened and a green neon grid stretching to the horizon filled his view, at waist level. 3D bars of different sizes rose vertically up out of the grid and each one could be selected. Two of them were sparking and seemed to be active, but this was supposed to be historical log data. The others varied in brightness, suggesting each entry’s age. Beat pulled the grid towards him so that the sparking bars were directly in front of him. He hovered his hand over the first bar to see the label revealed:

Con_overlay

The process had been alive for at least 3 days now and continued to fill the logs without interruption. Something was very, very busy. Most processes are a one-shot for maintenance that start, do their job, and stop, but this wasn’t one of those. This was live.

A better description was sometimes available by placing both hands cupped around the object, as if shading it from the light on both sides. This was no exception. As he performed this pantomime, the words “Con_overlay” dissolved and were replaced by “Connection Obfuscation Overlay v2.33”. The plot thickened. This process was probably designed to hide communication between the AI and something else. Back into analysis mode, Beat issued another question to Robert. “Robert, is this specific log file encrypted?”. Robert again replied immediately. “No. This appears to be plaintext and machine readable. Would you like me to tail the log and read it to you in real time?” “Of course, please do so”,
Beat said as he contained his enthusiasm.

Robert began rattling off time stamps and activities that the process had been performing, pausing each time a new entry hit the log. There were a ton of very long IPv6 addresses being read aloud along with connections established, new routes being added and old routes being removed, and frequent mentions of some system named DG. Beat asked Robert to rewind to the beginning of the log to get an idea of who or what started it. Robert went back to the initial timestamp of the log: 5/5/xx 13:01pm GMT and read aloud the first few lines.

LOGLINE DELETED
LOGROTATE DENIED
LOGLINE DELETED
BEGINNING PROCESS LOG

Someone had tried to cover their tracks when they initialized the process, but slipped up. The backup_dg process had been nearly as tall as the bar on the grid for con_overlay, meaning it was just as large and possibly the same age. Still, he had no idea how the data bars on the grid were gauging any kind of effectiveness or what that meant. Figuring Robert might know, he simply asked. Robert replied, “This seems to be a correlation engine that compares log streams with set expectations. Effectiveness has a criteria threshold set from 1-5 with 5 being absolutely successful and 1 being complete failure. If you’d like I can draw a trendline across aligned log sets to help”. And with that, more clarity was realized. The grid rearranged the data bars and there was a clear trendline going from zero to 5, over time. The level 5 data bars were positioned at the far right and two were still sparking. “con_overlay” and “backup_dg”. Robert asked Beat if the view was helpful or if he would like to request additional analysis. He seemed to be running code embedded specifically for this purpose. Beat requested additional analysis. The grid rotated up and the data bars became circles of differing sizes based on their size and age, laid out in a spider web. As expected, near the center were two logfiles. “con_overlay” and “backup_dg”.

Beat had almost found the smoking gun, he just had to push a little further to confirm all his suspicions at once. “Robert, are con_overlay and backup_dg the same age?” he queried. Robert replied in the affirmative. “Robert, who accessed this system 72 hours ago?”. Robert paused, then replied, “you did”.

The hair on the back of Beat’s neck stood up. This really rattled him because he believed his credentials were bulletproof and had never seen this happen to any ASE, ever. Someone was trying to make him a fall guy in case anyone took these same steps, which in the event of a disaster, forensics would definitely take these same steps to solve the puzzle. Well, most of them anyway.

“Holy fuck”, Beat said under his breath. He felt the floor drop out from under him as his stomach sank into a pit and his fight or flight reflexes started kicking in. He was truly panicked. Who would do this, why would they do it, and why did another AI lead him down this path? Did Cerberus know before he assisted Beat with gaining access? Would his current level of access throw a flag somewhere and send armed security to his location? But then he had an idea.

“Robert, identify me”. Robert answered, “you are Cerberus, AI CRB3, login ID *unknown*, last logon today at 16:22 GMT”.

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Haunted (part one)

Sheepdog arrived at the office, pretty hungover, and he must have slept hard because one of his eyes seemed to be permanently out of focus for the day. He decided to work through it. After grabbing his first coffee, he dove into his terminal and immediately opened the clip of the Bowler Hat man and the ghost he was meeting with. It didn’t matter which angle he chose, which AI assisted with the reconstruction or image processing, the data for the ghost simply didn’t exist. Res wasn’t in the office today so he had to tackle it alone. It wasn’t that big of a problem because she had already asked the questions he first asked when he stumbled across and essentially became obsessed with solving this mystery. The camera hardware checked out, software was up to date, and he was at an impasse. How do you create data where there is none, or find out what was removed and how?

He checked the time stamp for the footage and made a note of the date and time of day. He searched the Splicer archives for any other instances of the Bowler Hat man in that area and ran into the retention wall, but not before finding a similar clip 2 months prior to what he was looking at. The footage might as well have been identical, because as he loaded the older clips, he had the exact same problem. Limo arrives, Bowler Hat man gets out, shakes hands with nothing, gets back into his car and drives away. Obviously, it was some kind of scheduled transaction, and since he had already identified the man and his car, he knew it was one of their own clients. Frank, a very early adopter. This made Sheepdog even more suspicious. If he was such an old client, and there were at least 2 instances of him meeting a ghost, why didn’t his AI, Genesis, pick up on this and sound the alarm? As far as he knew, AI weren’t breaking rules or forming their own ideas about morality nor bending the rules for their monitoring. How could Genesis not recognize this gap in coverage as a threat? Something was wrong at a fundamental level, he felt. And that sense of dread could easily infect his concepts of how the organization at large was providing the protection these clients were paying for. This sense of dread and unease led him to an unusual request. He needed to conduct field research in that area.

He stepped into the manager’s office and briefly discussed the issue with him. The manager asked Sheepdog what he planned to do, and how he would do it. Sheep outlined a quick plan using on-the-ground testing hardware fitted neatly in a backpack. Your usual radio scanners, frequency detectors, jammers, and other penetration testing tools. He wanted to bring everything he could to the site to test everything, visible and invisible, ruling nothing out. The manager agreed to let him check it out on two conditions.

One, he didn’t raise any suspicions, and two, he wouldn’t interrupt the standard monitoring deployed at the site. Sheepdog agreed and changed into a generic technician’s outfit before cramming his backpack full of specialized hardware. He would leave no stone unturned, and he would do it without the cover of a service vehicle.

Sheep rode the monorail to the intersection, got off and got to work. First, he scanned for any unusual localized radio spectrum frequencies. He was looking for a bubble, something focused and small aimed at the site. Running through radio wave frequency blocks, his device turned up nothing unusual. Going on the offensive, he ran a Sendai 9 attack platform to attempt to interfere with anything wireless in that location. The devices easily routed around the localized attack by performing channel hopping and other defensive measures designed to overcome noise. Nothing was working in Sheep’s toolkit. He thought for sure the brand-new Sendai 9 would have a noticeable impact to all the radio signals floating around in the air within a 30-foot radius, but there seemed to be no service disruptions at all.