Proxies, page 4
Jair shook his head. “Thanks, Harpo. Turn them off. Gummo?”
The real Gummo left the stage before the Marx Brothers began making films. He’d been drafted for a war but returned and eventually became a theatrical agent handling, among others, the Marx Brothers. Jair gave him a personality he thought fit his history, but he really had no idea if he had even approximated the reality of the man.
“Processing is continuing on the different target networks. I’ve red-flagged a few items, but I’ve drawn no definite conclusions. I am researching, with Harpo’s assistance, attempting to find a methodology to follow in tracking the origination of the signal. Currently, there is no data to process, and no progress has been made.”
“Thanks, Gummo. Zeppo?”
Zeppo’s straightforward upper-class accent was a relief after the flaws Jair heard in the others. In the films, they played Zeppo as a straight man, the butt of the joke, and occasionally the romantic lead. Jair felt he’d captured the essence of this persona, although his research had shown that Zeppo may have been a deeper, more complex character than he initially seemed.
“No statistically significant trends could be established based on the penetrations of protected systems. Without more information, it is impossible to characterize the goals and motivations of the perpetrator.”
“Thanks. Well, I believe that leaves us precisely nowhere, am I correct? Never mind. Keep on it.” Jair stretched again, trying to ease the remaining kinks out of his back. “Let’s get to work.”
Jair directed the quintet of expert systems like an orchestra conductor, spinning off themes for one to work on while he and the others broke new ground.
His first attempt was to identify the source where the signal entered the system. He stretched and twisted the parameters of transmissions. Could someone have modified existing equipment to get more extended range, perhaps by greater focus of the signal, more efficient anchorage to the gravitational source, or increased efficiency in power consumption? The Brothers spawned search and analysis routines to consider these possibilities while Jair and their central personalities moved on.
Could a talented hacker have entered the network at one of the inhabited systems but somehow disguised his origin? What would make that possible or impossible? He created additional subroutines to find the answers.
Could a well-funded hacker establish a ‘pirate’ station within range of the relay in some unoccupied system and broadcast their hack from this officially non-existent transmitter? What equipment purchases might show up in the commercial network? How much shipping would be necessary? Would such a pirate need to be close? How close? Could they investigate those systems?
He cudgeled his brain for another line of inquiry to determine the source of the signal, then abandoned that for the other side of the puzzle. What had the hacker been after? He began with the known list of servers that appeared to have been hacked. He assigned values to each one in various categories, then sorted and resorted the list based on those figures, trying to pick a place to start. He finally settled on the military servers because they represented a high priority due to the risks involved and had the highest security and required the most skill to crack. If he could figure out how the hacker did that, perhaps the others would fall into place more quickly.
The drawback with investigating the military was they resisted investigation. They would treat his data gathering, probing of their defenses, and general nosiness like preparation for an attack. Depending on the hack’s success, they might not believe him without the now non-existent evidence.
He and Chico made and sorted lists of priorities before calling on Groucho, Zeppo, and Gummo to help generate the requests for sanctioned access to the server’s security data. Jair spent far more time setting specifications on how this task would be performed than he had on any of the pure research subroutines. Expert systems could handle the work faster and more efficiently than any human, but their judgment of human reactions and standards was often flawed. When he was sure he wasn’t destined for prison, he let the brothers start the subroutines processing on their own.
Still, it would be a waste not to investigate as much as possible with the information he already had. After making sure he needed no additional information gathering, he picked at the data included in the download from the relay station. Which military servers were attacked? Were any of the attacks successful? What, if any, data could be identified as coming from that server or the systems behind it?
He continued this through his list, although with many of the others, it was relatively safe to do live investigations and gather data from the network. Processing power was relatively cheap, and any unused capacity for processing was available anywhere in the network without lag time. If not, this day’s work might have bankrupted the company. By the end of the day, he’d worked through about half the list and felt the warm glow of accomplishment overlaid with the brain fog of too much analysis.
He went to stand and realized his back muscles had stiffened as he lay there for so many hours. He pushed against the back of the couch and managed to roll off and land on the floor with a thud. His knees and elbows stung from the impact. An embarrassing series of positions moved him from prone, to hands and knees, and eventually to a wavering but standing position.
As he gently twisted and stretched to restore his circulation and mobility, he considered the expertise necessary to perform this hack. A series of pops along his spine sent small shock waves through his body. To make an undetected and untraceable entrance into the network should be impossible. He had yet to come up with even a theoretical method.
He jogged gently around the room, his joints straining, then loosening as his muscles warmed. The wide variety of targets should have left more evidence, but instead, only scraps remained. Some were designed to withstand infowar attacks, militarized systems expected to hold off advances from other governments. And the attack left no trace. He wasn’t even sure if the systems had noticed. That went beyond skill into genius.
He paused in his warm-up routine.
A genius out on the network, hacking into anything he pleases, and I can’t even tell where the signal originates.
His warm-up left his body pleasantly energized, unlike years ago when he would drag himself out of the office feeling like a crippled old man. Merab taught him to do this. She’d worked with him to find a set of exercises he could use to shake off the hours he spent in a chair or sometimes stretched out on a couch. She’d taught him other things as well. Things he missed practicing with her since they’d argued.
“Katharine, call Merab. I’m going to invite her out for a drink. And I’m going to tell her everything I can about how I feel about her, marriage, and children. And then we’ll tackle the problem just like I did today. We’ll talk about it, and we’ll work it out.” Joy at seeing her again flowed through him.
“I’m very sorry, Jair,” said Katharine. “You won’t be able to invite her out. She’s blocked your calls.” Her voice was gentle. Jair tried to remember what movie she’d used that gentle, soothing voice in. Where had he found that scene?
Realization struck. She wouldn’t talk to him. She refused. He couldn’t explain anything to her, she wouldn’t listen. There would be no quiet drink, no pouring out of his soul, no wrestling with the problems together.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t drink or even pour out his problems to another. If there was no Merab, there weren’t even problems to work on. He could have a drink and have some fun. By himself.
Perhaps not even by himself. Without Merab didn’t have to mean alone.
6
OUT ON THE TOWN
Jair considered heading home to change but instinctively knew inertia would trap him there for the night. Instead, he had Katharine contact a shop he’d shopped at before and display some outfits more suited for an evening out. He called up a mannequin drawn from his measurements and quickly tried out combinations. He found one he liked—deep green backgrounds with shiny, silvery accents and a cut to flatter his physique—and purchased it. The store’s program confirmed they would have it ready for him in fifteen minutes. Not bad time for a computer-cut one-off outfit.
Jair sped through the office shutdown procedure and paused to consider setting additional security now that he had live data. In a hurry, he decided he’d do it tomorrow. He strode down the hallway to the lift and swung out on a stationary grip. With the majority of the occupants leaving the building, many of the moving grips had reversed direction and headed down. He grabbed one, and it dragged him toward the basement.
Once he reached the basement, he headed for the clothing store. Located in a different part of town from his usual bar, he decided to go to a different place instead. He rarely visited it after he met Merab. The venue often filled with people looking for people, people who they might share a drink with or an evening. Since Merab entered his life, this held little allure. But if she wouldn’t even talk to him… perhaps he could find someone who would. He needed a little relaxation after the days of stress aboard the Carrier Wave. He deserved to blow off a little steam.
Jair slapped at the buzz radiating from his wrist. He glanced around and realized he’d already arrived at the clothing shop. He stepped off the moving sidewalk and entered. The store scanned him, and a technological Will-o’-the-wisp waited to guide him to a changing room where his new clothes waited. He shed his outfit and tossed it into a provided container. The shop would deliver it to his apartment automatically.
He dressed and considered the outfit in a mirror, flatscreen, and hologram provided by the changing room. It looked good, maybe better on him than on his mannequin. He nodded, signaled his acceptance by touching the waiting hologram, and strutted as he returned to the street.
Another few minutes brought him to his destination. The Grand Tour affected a sophisticated air with dim lighting and dark, polished wooden surfaces. Without flashing holograms or lighting effects, the music offered was slower than in most places like this. It reminded Jair of the classic dance movies when the waltz was the music of choice. He stepped inside and made his way to the bar. This early, only a smattering of early arrivals dotted the place, some clearly meeting later arrivals, others simply staking out a hunting blind for the prey they expected to arrive. A few, like Jair, seemed only interested in relaxing with a cold drink after a hard day.
The bartender recommended a beer based on a classic English recipe, and Jair, intrigued, agreed. It was less hoppy than his usual but still quite good. He muttered into his wrist to record the name and brewer. Wandering the club, he eventually discovered a quiet corner with a view of the dance floor, easy access to the bar, but no line of sight to the entrance. The hunters claimed those corners, wanting to see their prey as it entered before it lost itself in the camouflaging crowd.
As the night wore on, Jair tried a few other beers but returned to the English brew after each variety. He watched with fascination as people danced. He had never danced well, but icons like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers captured his attention, and he loved to watch others.
The Tour gradually filled as Jair drank and watched. He surprised himself by having a genuinely good time without company or participation. He simply sat at his corner table, sipped at his beer, and watched both novices and experts move around the dance floor together. A particularly skilled couple performed a modern dance nothing like any Fred and Ginger routine he’d ever seen. He stopped watching them when he realized someone had spoken to him. He turned and was treated to a close-up view of well-established cleavage, with remarkably little fabric supporting it. His eyes crossed before rising over the gently rolling hills, traversing sculptured shoulders and neck to finally arrive at a sweet, heart-shaped face.
He blinked blearily and wondered why he had turned to face this vision. She must have made a sound, perhaps spoken, likely to him. His attempt to recall any speech from the last few minutes failed utterly. How to recover this memory? Ah, yes. There was a recovery procedure for this.
“Excuse me?”
There! He had spoken, and both apologized and requested a repetition. As he waited for a reply, his eyes drifted slowly down from her eyes to her nose, then her pretty lips, her delicate chin, her marble neck…
She’d spoken again! He was sure of it. His eye’s slow descent was arrested, and he focused on her mouth. It moved again, and his ears channeled the sound to his brain. After a long pause to buffer the sound and then regard the data in some amazement, he made sense of the words.
“My friend’s table is full. Can I share yours?”
Ah, a request! Unsure of the meaning but still agreeable, he nodded and gestured vaguely. She smiled, white teeth gleaming from between teal lips, and sat down. She had obviously asked to join him, so she must be attracted to him. He smiled back and searched his memory for proper behavior when a girl found him attractive. A long rummage through his sluggish brain found a dusty and disused set of instructions, obviously outdated, but still relevant.
First, buy her a drink. He pointed at her glass, causing it to rock wildly as he misjudged the distance and tapped it hard with his finger. She nodded, and he signaled frantically to the bartender. His steady custom won him a returning wave, and in a few moments, two glasses filled with ice and mysterious liquids. She smiled again and picked up her glass. After a few false starts, he did the same. She carefully tapped her glass to his as he held his rock steady, with his elbow supported by the table. They both drank.
The tangy, fruity, and smoky liquor burned as it worked its way down his throat. It was nothing like the beers he had been drinking all night, and he decided he would immediately have another. He gestured randomly at the bartender again, who nodded and gathered materials for another round.
The girl spoke again, and a quick review of his instructions said he should chat with her. Preferably with wit, charm, and intelligence. He passed this on to his speech center, and it worked independently of his consciousness. Observing from a slight distance, he gathered her name was Adina, and she was put out that her friends had not secured enough space for her to join them. His mouth assured her that their loss was his gain. She thanked him for the drink he purchased her but asked if he wouldn’t prefer to continue with his original drink of choice. He said he was glad to be guided by her taste and discrimination.
As they continued to chat, the independent observer in his brain noted he was doing quite well. The girl—Adina—accepted his flattery and enjoyed his wit. She had even reached out to touch his hand several times as she laughed or smiled. He thought this might be the most successful he had ever been, even including Merab.
The thought of Merab gave him pause. Was he betraying her? Was this wrong?
But she refused to speak with him, blocked all contact. She said herself that a committed relationship didn’t work that way. She left him on his own for the evening and would never ask what he did to fill his time. Even if she did, she couldn’t find out what had gone on. And if she did, would that be such a bad thing? Would he be distraught over it?
Their table was filled with glasses drained of alcohol but still retaining a greater or lesser amount of ice. It became crowded, and his coordination seemed to have suffered as his glass rattled their empties as he sought to set it down. He suggested they find a less crowded table, but the words seemed to twist, and she accepted his invitation to his less crowded apartment. He felt a bit ill and quite dizzy as they rose from the table, and he accepted some support from her as she slipped an arm around his waist and pulled his arm around her shoulders. His hands, cold from the icy glass, felt a shock of heat from her bare shoulder. His fingers tingled as the warmth soaked through his skin.
As they made their way unsteadily to the door, he reveled in their near-telepathic communication of direction and destination. Such a change from the phantom voice he had heard coming from somewhere outside his perceptions. He could imagine the voice coming out of the darkness, somewhere too far away for him to pinpoint. It would call out to him, slipping into his brain like a ghost, and try as he might he would never see it. The door loomed before them.
7
MORNING AFTER
Jair felt rough fabric against his cheek as he woke. Nothing like the silken sheets or the warm flesh he had imagined. He pressed weakly with his hand against the fabric and managed to roll onto his back. Surprisingly none of the sheets or blankets tangled his legs as he rolled. He blinked in the darkened room and felt around him. No one shared the space, and he couldn’t find the edge of the bed.
“Katharine, dim lighting, please.”
The room lights brightened, and shapes appeared. None of them looked like the furnishings of his bedroom. Instead, he picked out the couch and chairs of the living room. He rolled again and enabled himself to reach a chair he used to regain his feet. As he rose, his head pounded and he slumped into it, holding his head and moaning. Looking down revealed he was still wearing the outfit he purchased the night before, even his shoes. He must have passed out in the living room as soon as he got home.
He frowned. He didn’t remember getting home. The last thing he could remember was the arm around his waist and the silken heat of a bare shoulder as they walked toward the door at the Grand Tour. They? Where was the girl—Adina? He had met her last night and they left the bar together. With Herculean effort, he rose to his feet and staggered in a circuit of the apartment. No girls in the living room. None in the bedroom. Bathroom—empty. Kitchen the same.
He ground to a halt and leaned against the clean, cool walls of the kitchen. His head continued to pound. He levered away from the wall and checked the kitchen cupboard where he kept some medications. He popped two painkillers, but there was nothing specific for hangovers. He limped his way to the bathroom and checked there. Nothing.
