The trip from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Salamanca, on New York’s Cattaraugus Reservation, had been uneventful, but for Jennifer it had been part of the descent into hell she’d begun yesterday. Heather had taken over the subspace hacks required to ensure their travel security while Jennifer huddled in a fetal ball in the backseat, alternately sweating her shirt through and shivering hard enough to damage the car’s suspension.
She’d read all about the physical effects of heroin withdrawal, but living it was a different matter. Heather and Mark had repeatedly tried to help, but there wasn’t a damned thing they could do except let her fight her own battle.
Jack had posted encrypted instructions for their rendezvous on the web and Heather had downloaded them. They’d led to a safe house in Salamanca where Heather had used the laptop to remotely open the garage door. Then they’d settled in for the night. If all went well, Jack would arrive sometime in the morning. In the meantime, as Mark and Heather started their planning, Jennifer, plagued by deepening depression, had taken herself to bed.
To have so much power and feel so helpless filled her with self-loathing. Every meditation she tried failed. It was as if all her neural enhancements had amplified her drug experience as well as its accompanying withdrawal.
Maybe she was attacking this all wrong. She knew clinics sometimes used methadone to ease addicts off of heroin, not that she wanted to substitute one drug for another. But maybe there was another way to ease her symptoms. Opiates such as heroin caused the body to release an excess of dopamine. Perhaps if she used her perfect memory of what it had felt like to sink into that opiate haze, she could trigger the same bodily response. The downside was that she’d be putting herself back into the drugged state.
Her self-debate didn’t last long. She needed to feel that feeling one more time. Besides, Mark and Heather needed her mentally sharp in the morning. And if her idea worked, she could gradually wean herself from the need.
Leaning back against the pillows that she’d piled against the bed’s oak headboard, Jennifer pulled forth the memory she wanted. As the lovely rush wiped away all her cares, one last clear thought brought a smile to her lips. Good decision.
Jack dropped the kickstand and stepped off the black motorcycle onto the concrete driveway, pausing in the early morning sunlight to survey the Native American neighborhood that surrounded the safe house. Some people would describe it as sleepy, but dead was the word that came to mind. Fine with him. Sometimes dead was good.
Removing his helmet, Jack walked to the front door, giving it three good raps with his knuckles.
Heather opened the door a crack, then flung it open wide, wrapping her strong, slender arms around Jack’s neck as he lifted her off the ground. As Jennifer reached him he shifted to allow her into the group hug. Seeing Mark’s grin, Jack released the girls and stepped forward to accept Mark’s powerful handshake. Jack felt a warmth that he hadn’t experienced for a long while fill his chest. “Janet told me to give you all a hug for her. Mark’s going to have to wait to collect his in person.”
“That’s OK.” Mark laughed. “I’d rather get it from her anyway.”
“Let’s not keep Jack standing in the driveway all morning,” Jennifer said. “Besides, everything’s a bit less conspicuous inside.”
“Good thinking,” Jack agreed.
Heather led the group into the living room, but Jack carried his satchel to the kitchen table and pulled out manila envelopes labeled HEATHER, MARK, and JENNIFER.
Tossing them on the table, he turned toward Heather. “Do you have some coffee going? We’re all going to need some before we dig into these.”
Heather grabbed the pot as Jennifer set out four cups. Jack accepted the steaming mug and took a seat facing the door, a habit so old he no longer noticed it. As the others settled into their chairs, he leaned back and smiled.
“I know you’re probably all curious about what’s been happening in the outside world while you’ve been locked away, so I’ve prepared a detailed summary as part of your briefing packages.”
Mark opened the envelope’s metal tabs, dumping the contents onto the table in front of him. He glanced at the pile of aerial and satellite photographs attached to the printed reports and let out a low whistle.
Jack continued. “Inside your packets you’ll find copies of reports Janet and I put together on the activities at the Large Hadron Collider site in Switzerland, as well as identities you will be using to individually infiltrate the November Anomaly Project. But before we get started, I need to hear a rundown on your last few weeks as NSA guests at the Ice House.”
For two hours Mark, Jen, and Heather recounted their captivity, as Jack insisted on hearing every detail, up to and including their escape. He showed particular interest in the layout of the lab and workstation from which Heather had retrieved the subspace receiver-transmitter USB devices.
“Sounds like whoever they dug up to replace Dr. David Kurtz is just as good.”
“The nameplate on the workstation read ‘Dr. Eileen Wu.’”
Jack pulled his laptop from the satchel and handed it across the table to Jennifer.
“See what you can dig up on our new friend, Dr. Wu.”
As Jennifer plugged in and fired up the laptop, Jack settled in, once again looking forward to watching her work her magic.
“So how bad is it?” General Balls Wilson directed his attention to Eileen Wu.
“Bad.” She manipulated the mouse, projecting a diagram onto the wall screen. “This shows all the Ice House electronic systems prior to the attack, including wireless devices and approved tablets and Wi-Fi phones.”
She clicked a button and the display changed.
“Now this shows the still-working systems after the gun battle. As you can see, despite all the bullets, explosions, and fire suppression systems engaged, the vast majority of the electronic equipment is still functioning.”
“Why?”
“Because the attackers wanted those systems working. One of their first actions was to kill the lights on sublevels three and four. They killed the lights, but not the power.”
She clicked the button again. “And this shows the systems infected by what I’m calling the Ice worm.”
“I don’t see any difference. Which systems are infected?”
“All of them.”
“All?”
“Every single programmable component, along with any writable memory attached to those systems. And I mean everything, down to programmable calculators, MP3 players, and overhead projectors like this one.”
Balls Wilson stared at her in disbelief. The low murmur that had begun around the table of assembled senior NSA staff became a buzz that was silenced by General Wilson’s glare.
“Do you know who infected my facility?”
“I did.”
The silence hung in the air between them, forcing her to continue.
“When I finally gained access to my lab yesterday, I noticed that two small USB dongles were missing from my test bench. I confirmed that they were the only things taken, then began asking myself why they would take just those dongles. That caused me to go back and review the tests we ran on the two laptops.
“As you recall from my previous briefing, I isolated the first laptop in a Faraday cage, instrumented all the laptop circuit boards to record data flow, switched it on, and bypassed the log-in.
“Exactly one minute later, my instruments began recording unexplained activity on numerous circuits, including the TCP stack. Since the laptop was completely isolated, this didn’t cause me concern. Last night’s events and my subsequent analysis of the original data indicate that my original confidence was a mistake.
“Somehow, without sending any measurable signals, that laptop identified every computing system in the building and infected them with the Ice worm. The worm managed to hide itself, migrating to new systems that were subsequently brought in.”
“Jesus.” Karl Oberstein’s face looked drawn.
“Bert,” General Wilson asked, “do you agree with Dr. Wu’s conclusions?”
Dr. Mathews glanced at his young prodigy, saw no fear in Eileen’s face, and nodded. “I’m afraid I do. I reviewed her data before this meeting.”
“So if it didn’t send out any signals, how did that laptop access all our systems?”
Eileen Wu clicked off the projector and turned to face him. “I don’t know.”
“Gregory.”
“More precisely Heather McFarland and the Smythe twins. The Ripper may have helped on the outside, but you can bet that everything that happened inside the Ice House was orchestrated by those three. Worm or no, their escape was some unbelievable shit.”
General Wilson stared directly into Eileen’s dark eyes. “Could you have pulled it off?”
She shrugged. “The computer stuff, if I knew about the worm. Everything else though, forget about it.”
General Wilson leaned forward. “This isn’t the first time we’ve had data appearing inside TEMPEST-certified systems in the last couple of years. Karl, you and Levi take a look back at some of the old Jonathan Riles files from when he sent Gregory’s team to Los Alamos. Find out what Gregory stumbled onto that enticed him to go rogue.
“Eileen, you make damned sure that worm stays confined to the Ice House.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that, General. But if Gregory’s team has its hands on the kind of technology we think they do, that worm is the least of our worries.”