Proxies, page 10
“But I want to call Celia first.”
“Celia? Oh, your mother. Of course. I should… Go ahead, I’ll be right back.” She stood and walked out.
Jair fumbled with the unfamiliar equipment and made the connection. Celia’s image appeared above the console. “Hi, Mom.”
“Jair! How nice of you to call.”
“Mom, I need to be quick. There’s been a problem at work, and I need to leave for a while.” He hesitated, unsure how to continue.
“Another business trip? Did you manage to get that pilot you told me about? I hope you two have patched things up.”
“Mom, it’s not a business trip. I found something and my boss doesn’t believe me. He put me on leave of absence. But I have to get to the bottom of this. It’s important. So if you see something about me on the news, understand I had to do it.”
Celia’s eyes widened. “Jair! Are you in trouble?”
“Yes, I’m in trouble. I stole some equipment from work and now I’m stealing a ship. We’ve got to hide out somewhere and figure this out.”
“Stole a ship? Jair, you stop this right now! You are not stealing a ship! I don’t care what kind of trouble you’re in, you can tell me the truth.”
“Mother, I am telling you the truth. The authorities are going to come looking for me, so I have to run. I had to tell you before I left.”
“I have had enough! You are just doing this to avoid responsibility. It’s just a ploy to get out of settling down. You’ve made this whole thing up, just to tell me so I wouldn’t make you… Well, it won’t work. I’m not listening, not another word. When you’re ready to act your age, you can come to me and apologize. Goodbye!”
Jair leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees, and held his head in his hands. “That went well,” he told his feet.
18
FUGITIVES
Jair leaned back and put up his feet after making the last connection. He’d reconnected the communication gear, but only through the proxy. He’d isolated all the ship’s systems, as well as the new equipment they had stolen. He’d left the ship’s databanks and processors separate from the equipment running the Marx Brother’s software.
The Brothers compiled a list of queries to run when they connected to the relay. These passed through the proxy out to the transmitter. The awkward system worked but required much more human intervention than normal. Just when would the roles switch, and people become appendages of the computer systems? Maybe they already had.
He glanced at a clock, calculating the time left before they arrived at the relay station. He’d put movies in the ship’s databank before their last trip, and no one had erased them yet. Could he interest Merab in a movie and lunch? Or would she rather talk? Maybe watching a movie alone was a better option.
When they did talk, she quizzed him on what he’d done to identify his reluctance to settle down. Her determination to pin down his problems made him reluctant to spend much time with her. Being psychoanalyzed by his girlfriend created a lot of tension.
He got up and fixed himself a sandwich, along with some crunchy nibbles he’d never learned the name of. He found a glass and held it under a tap as he gently pulled its handle. Sparkling, golden beer filled it. Still some left from the last trip. To stretch it out as long as possible required careful rationing. One glass a day? Not every day? Hard to tell.
He used his hip to open the galley door and crossed the hall to his room. The bridge door opened and Merab stepped into the hall. She smiled. “Two hours left. Lunch?” She nodded at the plate.
“Yeah.” He couldn’t resist. “And maybe a movie. Join me?” He gestured awkwardly with the plate toward his room.
She cocked an eyebrow at him, considering his offer. “Sure, why not. Make a space while I get some lunch.” Her hand reached for the galley door, but her eyes caught on the glass in his hand. “That some of your nasty, bitter beer?”
“Yeah, but it’s not too nasty.”
“I’ll believe it when I taste it. Save me a sip.” She opened the door and slipped inside.
He spilled a few drops on his hand in his haste to open his cabin door. Parking the food on a shelf, he threw clothes, gadgets, games, and junk around the room, clearing a space for them to sit side-by-side on the couch. He shoved as much of the detritus from the floor into cabinets and called out to the air. “Dim the lights, warm up the projector, and find It Happened One Night.”
The lights dimmed, but then a featureless voice spoke. “I do not understand your instructions. Please repeat.”
Sadness slashed through Jair. He’d installed Katharine’s personality in his apartment years before. His throat tightened and he sniffed and rubbed his eyes quickly so Merab wouldn’t ask why they glistened. This wouldn’t last forever, they’d go home eventually, and Katharine would be waiting. He smiled sickly and pressed the cabinet door firmly closed.
“Load the movie It Happened One Night into the projector memory.”
“Acknowledged.”
He moved his food from the shelf to the now clear tabletop in front of the couch. The door buzzed, and he pressed the control to open it. Merab came in with a small plate of noodles mixed with some colorful vegetables, a glass of water in her other hand. Healthy. If she remembered her threat, he’d eat healthy too, as part of his exercise regimen.
She looked around. “Not bad, you managed to find the floor in just two minutes.” She grinned and set her food next to his. She dropped into the couch and patted the seat next to her. “What are we watching?”
“It Happened One Night. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. And directed by Frank Capra. It’s sweet and funny. I think you’ll like it.”
“Huh. Clark Gable? I’ve seen him in something, haven’t I?”
“Sure, you’ll recognize him. His most famous role was in Gone with The Wind, an early color film. I like the black and white era better.”
“I leave it in your capable hands.” She leaned forward, snuck a glance back at him, and took a quick sip of his beer. She wrinkled her nose but took another. She picked up both their plates and handed the sandwich to him. They ate as the credits rolled and through the opening scene.
When they’d finished eating, and as the film wound its comedic way through the plot, she leaned against him and sighed. He put his arm around her carefully, but she snuggled in, and they watched the rest of the movie in perfect contentment.
After the closing credits, she turned her head, kissed him on the cheek, and stood up. “Can you clean up? I’m going to check the instruments.”
He stacked their plates together and swept a few crumbs from his shirt onto them. The plates and glasses went back to the galley. As soon as they were in the cleaner, he left for the bridge. The door opened on her snapping commands, and he watched colorful displays appear and disappear. She glanced up and pointed to the other seat. He sat and waited for her to finish.
With a last flickering hologram dismissed, she sighed and turned toward him. “There’s nobody else out here, just the relay. I suppose the military could have something lurking, but there’s no way to know. All the same, I’m going to bring us into the system a long way from it. Is that a problem?”
He considered the transmitter they had on board. “No, no problem. We’ve got plenty of range, as long as you aren’t on the other side of the sun or anything.”
She shook her head.
“That’s fine then. We won’t have a light-speed delay. The boys think we can dump our queries on the network in a second or two and get all our data in less than ten.”
She nodded. “And then we scoot. I don’t think anyone knows where we are, but I don’t want to hang around.”
“Fine by me.”
“About two more minutes.”
“Chico, did you hear that?” asked Jair.
“Sure, Boss. I’m alla set.”
Jair settled back in his seat and tried not to fidget. As the clock crept around, he felt the tension in his muscles. For the last ten seconds, Merab asked for a countdown. When it reached “One” he felt the slight shift of the Wittkowsky drive returning them to what the universe considered normal. He hadn’t asked for any kind of update from Chico, and the seconds dragged.
“All done, Boss.”
“Helm, let’s go,” said Merab. Jair felt the Wittkowsky drive get them back underway. He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“That went smoothly.”
“Sure, there was nothing to worry about,” said Merab. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead and stared at her fingers.
“Chico, any problem with the network?”
“No, Boss. We’re checking the proxy data now to make sure there’s nothing sneaky in there.”
“Great. When you’re done, have Zeppo do some analysis and give us a summary. Let me know when he’s ready.”
“Sure, Boss. It’lla take about ten or fifteen minutes.”
Merab’s fingers flicked over the console as she muttered commands to the ship. “Still no signs of pursuit. I think we got away clean.”
“Where do you think we should go next?” asked Jair.
Merab paused before she answered. “At the moment, anywhere away from here. Probably out toward the frontier. I think you’re going to have to figure out where from there.”
“I’m sure we’ll need to contact another relay, but it doesn’t have to be anywhere close. The farther the better?”
“I think so.”
Jair let her work with the ship while he fretted. He didn’t expect any stunning revelations from the first cursory look at the new data, but he wanted to see what, if any, news was related to them.
Chico’s voice broke the silence. “No trouble with the data, Boss. Everything is clean.”
“Great, can Zeppo give us a news summary, or do we have to wait?”
Zeppo spoke up. “I can summarize the news now, Sir, but I will still need some time for the other data summaries.”
“Great, what’s the news say?”
“The government has declared us fugitives from justice. Our alleged crimes include Breaking and Entering, Theft—of the computer equipment—and Grand Theft—of the Carrier Wave—along with Illegal Use of the Network, and Hacking into Governmental Systems.”
They looked at each other. It didn’t help that half of it was true. “Give us more detail on the Hacking charges,” Jair asked.
“In short, they have attributed the original hacking attempt to you, Sir, and are inferring that your investigation was simply a blind to distract attention once it came to light.”
“That means if you continue investigating,” said Merab, “they’ll think you are trying to hide evidence.”
“That’s correct, Ma’am,” said Zeppo. “In fact, my analysis indicates they will suppress further investigation since they’ve identified the culprit. If any further attacks occur, they will be attributed to Jair.”
Jair moaned and held his head in his hands. “Even if I turn myself in, they’ll think I left software agents on the network to create incidents. My motive: to convince people I wasn’t guilty. ‘Look, the attacks are happening even while I’m in jail.’”
Merab pressed another control and rose from her chair. “You should be grateful they think so much of your skills.”
She strode out the door before Jair could offer a suitable comeback.
SUBROUTINE:
WHISPER IN THE DARKNESS
“Bring us down to normal space,” said Captain Fearghus Chidley.
“Yes, Sir,” said Lieutenant Xiloxochitl Morrall.
“Start the scans.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Chidley leaned back in the command chair and covered his eyes. Six months. They’d been out here for six months. A few days of travel time, decelerate into a new system, scan for habitable-planets-mineral-deposits-interesting-solar-spectra-anomalous-signals, dive down for the sun, recharge, and launch out-system. Rinse and repeat.
They discovered a few good planets and several interesting mineral finds, but nothing to appreciably change the statistics of a survey mission. You had to visit a lot of marginal systems before you came across a career enhancing find. Chidley discovered a few of these and moved up from Ensign to Lieutenant to Captain on the strength of them. In theory, he should be able to parley any finds while Captain into a serious promotion—preferably something that didn’t involve actual survey work—but that hadn’t happened yet.
Heartily sick of extended survey missions, entering new systems every week and finding a new variety of minimally useful planets, he was ready for some nice desk work with nightly visits to something cultural—or alcoholic—before retiring to his own bed in a roomy house. The survey ship cabins were very nice for spacecraft, but there wasn’t a lot of room to spread out. Spending months in half a dozen rooms with the same company wore on you.
Not that there was anything wrong with the Lieutenant. Morrall was a good officer, and the survey service had been measuring crew for personal compatibility for centuries. But it really didn’t matter how compatible you were after about three months. You just wanted to see a different face. Any other face. Maybe hold a conversation where you couldn’t guess what the other person would say. If they could hook up to the FTL network it would help a lot, but of course that was the point—they were out here to expand the borders beyond where the network currently extended.
“Sir,” said Morrall.
Chidley flinched and then winced. He’d drifted off again. It happened more often lately. He rubbed his eyes, straightened into a more commanding pose, and looked at Morrall.
“What’s up?”
Morrall gestured to a group of holograms. “I’ve detected a bit of FTL signal.”
“Oh,” said Chidley. “Quite a way out, but you get that sometimes. Some sort of spacial condition lets you pick up relay stations at extreme range.” He tapped a few controls and pulled up an astrographic display. He considered it before putting his finger on their position and tracing back to the nearest system with a relay. “Probably this one. Possible if all you are getting is a trace signal. Good find.”
“Thanks, Sir, but I don’t think that’s the source.”
“Why not?”
“The bearing is about a hundred and fifty degrees off.”
“But that…”
“Puts it only a few degrees off our current course. Yes, Sir. It’s coming from out there.”
“You remember how I told you some things are once-in-a-lifetime finds?”
“Yes, Sir. This is one of those, isn’t it?”
“It sure is.”
19
A VAST CONSPIRACY
The Carrier Wave cruised between stars, changing course and zig-zagging its way from system to system. Merab kept them close to relay stations so they could decelerate and post their conclusions when Jair and the Marx Brothers finished their analysis. Jair made good progress in this isolated environment. He suspected their hacker might have been interfering with his previous attempts, but it seemed most likely his social life and directions from Tomas combined to make him less efficient.
Using the data gathered from the original infiltration and comparing it with the later hacks as he plugged holes and switched encryption gave them an identifiable cyber-signature. They used it to find other instances where the hacker had broken into systems. They identified many and investigated the changes in each.
What they found horrified them.
Governmental survey teams had been redirected. All long-duration surveys now moved in a rough cone pointing toward the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. Surveys in other directions were canceled, and tracing why led back through governmental panels to research team inputs. They included slightly modified data and those changes flowed back through the chain of command to the survey ships themselves.
Jumps in weapons research by the military led back to surprising discoveries based on data that came from experiments and observations slightly modified by the hacker. When research teams hit upon a new capacitor design for missiles, no one questioned why the experiment had not been conducted as originally planned. Instead, they took advantage of their luck and pressed on into further development. Jair now saw this “luck” bore the imprint of the hacker.
Commercial research and development made similar breakthroughs without the dead ends that had typified incremental progress in the sciences. Start-ups based around a single new technology found it surprisingly easy to secure venture capital. Established manufacturers retooled to produce new components faster with money secured from governmental tax breaks and unexplained swings in their stock prices.
Zeppo tracked changes in news and entertainment broadcasts, as they emphasized militaristic and nationalistic values that had gone out of style over the centuries. Of course, these attitudes remained in the public consciousness, but grew unpopular as the dividends of decades of peace flowed through the economy.
Now more commentators of the older, more aggressive type made their way into the public eye, replacing moderates and liberals. They found evidence the hacker arranged retirements or scandals to bring down certain media personalities and promoted others as replacements by manipulating their popularity figures. Directors and producers who proposed productions promoting the military found funding easier to come by.
The discovery of monitoring software scattered throughout the network frightened Jair badly. Their data captures contained only one instance where the program transferred intercepted data to some store. They had yet to find the destination.
Despite their progress in identifying the targets of the attacks, the hacker’s identity remained a mystery. No traces led them back to a source. The attacks appeared to come from nowhere, and any data they might have gathered disappeared as well.
Jair and the brothers compiled their findings into a comprehensive report, cross-referenced and indexed, which they could send back to the authorities. He still worried it would be dismissed as some conspiracy theory to distract from his imputed crimes. But what could he do beyond sending it in and remaining out of reach? Merab could take them to a relay station to check news reports. They could go home once any charges were dismissed.
