Freedom Incorporated, Peter Tylee [literature books to read TXT] 📗

next co-ordinators’ meeting.

It took Paul a while to process the idea. “Uh, yes… I suppose that could work.” He flipped open the folder on his lap and scratched away with a chewed pencil, which Jackie thought was unbecoming of the company’s public CEO.

Her temper-thermometer was so hot it was melting. “I’m glad you like the idea,” she said between clenched teeth, as though she had icicles in her veins. Little wonder she didn’t trust herself in the same room as the shareholders. If one of them asked a stupid question she was liable to chew his or her head off, and shareholders always asked the dumbest things.

She was relieved when Paul went to prepare for the meeting, leaving her alone in her big, empty office. Maybe I need a holiday? She promised herself one as soon as she found a solution for her staffing issue, and she jotted in her calendar the date by which she intended to be in her little cabin in the mountains.

*

Thursday, September 16, 2066

UniForce Headquarters

14:48 San Francisco, USA

James felt fresher after his three-hour nap. It’d revitalised his mind, which he now reapplied to the problem. He’d contacted his wife at 7:30 in the morning, the time she normally woke up, and she’d told him he sounded drunk. Tired, yes. Drunk? No. James wished he were. Drunk is more fun. She hadn’t been angry though, which was surprising. He wondered why.

The critter in his network was still there. He was sure of it. The constant blip from his implants warned of the anomaly, but it was nothing his systems could collar. It was unspeakably frustrating and his legs ached from a night of sitting. He was too scared to think about his back, every time he did it sent a spasm of dizzying pain past his lumbar region and into his hips. So he focussed on his network instead, like a dedicated employee. He hoped the overtime would entitle him to something special. Like a week’s vacation, or a bonus. Sure, it was his job to protect the network from outside - and inside - attack. But he was putting in at least 200 percent.

He checked Echelon’s central nervous system, pleased to find it ticking over as usual. It purred in his implant, like the rumble of an idling V8. He remembered the deep-throated growl of powerful engines from his sojourns to the motor show Detroit City put on every December to bask in their glorious history. He’d pestered his wife for three weeks before she’d agreed to go with him, not that she’d appreciated the fine automobile specimens on display.

At least they haven’t gone for Echelon. It provided little comfort, for all he knew they were scheming a way to shatter it now. He’d find them if they tried, but by then it might be too late to prevent the damage. And Echelon was UniForce’s most precious system. He’d naturally be able to repair whatever they did, but his pride would take a beating - and his arse a chewing - if that happened.

He felt godlike, having direct control over the most devastatingly powerful system in the world. And it’s mine… all mine. Sure, he took his orders from above, but they never knew whether he modified their search terms or filtered Echelon’s catches. In a sense he had even more power than the CEO, despite her WEF contacts. Jackie Donald’s pitiful technological experience wasn’t a tenth of what she would need to maintain Echelon. That was why she always ensured James was happy and under control. He snorted. A rogue system administrator could cripple a network-dependant company.

His euphoric feeling of ultimate power brought his arduous years at university into focus. Ever since accepting the position of information technology co-ordinator, life had actually made sense. This is why I studied so hard. And his years of meticulous study enabled him to crack the shell of his current problem. He found evidence to conclude the hacker had penetrated the last barrier. Shit. He’s good. He tracked the entrance hole and sniffed through his roster of logs to see what the intruder had been doing.

But this doesn’t make sense. James screwed his eyes shut in confusion, concentrating harder on the information stream in his head. He spent days hacking in and then stopped as soon as he got inside. It posed a number of troubling questions. Has he gone already? What was he here for? Did he copy files? He initiated a consistency scan of UniForce’s database. It usually took five to ten minutes, depending on network traffic and the current compaction of the database, so he left it running in the background. In the meantime, he began plugging the hole in the network’s inner layer. It wasn’t difficult. He simply shut down an application, restored a file from backup, and then restarted the application. Of course, nothing was ever that easy on a UG7-rated network, not even for the system administrator. There were another six layers to mend, but he intended to save them for later. First he wanted to ascertain how much damage the hacker had inflicted.

Nothing.

The database scan came back clean. No tampering. No copying. A few data accesses, nothing more. It was therefore impossible to determine where the hack had originated. The hacker could have even been somewhere inside the UniForce network, such as a bounty hunter or an assassin using a valid data access code.

The fatigue was getting to him. He needed a decent sleep. Instead, he reached into his top drawer and popped three Xantex-prescribed stimulant tabsules, which he used for short bursts of intense activity. He always kept a water bottle on his desk, one with a cyclist’s cap. He pulled on the plastic nib with his teeth and squirted water into his mouth before tossing the pills to the back of his tongue and swallowing the lot.

Right then, he thought, a manual scan. He searched the logs for suspicious timestamps. Nothing. I need help, he thought with a snort of disgust. Asking his team for assistance would mean leaving his office for the first time in 28 hours, other than for food or urination. His team had the good sense not to disturb him when he’d been slogging away at something important all night.

But then he found something in the last log. That’s strange… It was the in mail system, which wasn’t business-critical and therefore explained why he’d taken so long to examine it. With a surge of excitement and drug-induced energy, he bounded through the network and scanned the mail servers for anything unusual, delving into the logs with a scowl of concentration.

His heart skipped a beat when he dug the hacker’s message out of a backup server that he’d installed to resurrect e-mail for anyone foolish enough to delete important messages.

Oh my god…

He jerked to his feet, desperate to spread the warning and prevent a tragedy. But in his haste, he forgot about his implant and the wires connecting him to the computer snapped taut. The leads wrenched on the fragile plastic socket that surgeons had delicately connected to his brain. It roughly yanked the clip from his head and splintered his mind with an instant migraine. Then the welcome relief of unconsciousness engulfed him and his limp body collapsed to the floor.

*

The Raven snarled menacingly at the cityscape. He glimpsed it matrix-like through the grate against which he was pressing his nose. He was horizontal, tucked into the cramped space between floors, built for laying cable and air-conditioning ducts. The air smelled stale and musty, something that further soured his mood. His target was just below, pottering around his desk - a sheep unaware of the wolf that was stalking it. Or in this case, the Raven.

He laced a hand around his sickle, its razor-sharp blade more than enough to slice a throat from ear to ear. In the Raven’s hands it could lop a target’s head clean off. He’d done that only thrice and each time he’d enjoyed the thud of a human head hitting the ground and watching as the decapitated body twitched in shock before obediently lying down next to it. Why don’t I use the sickle more often? he wondered. The nanotoxin from his Redback didn’t leave such a gory mess, but the result was smelly.

Today he favoured the blade.

The bloodier the better. He needed to compensate for his earlier fear and lashing out at the hapless - but deserving - sheep always made him feel better.

He implored his mystic protector for an omen. A favourable omen. He’d never received an unfavourable omen, but he’d once waited over a month before abandoning hope that his vision would ever come. He was starting to cramp and he wanted the task done. Yet the Raven would never dare renounce his faith by acting without a blessing from the spirits. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.

Just then, a faint tingle started to develop at his temples and he grinned in wicked anticipation of the release that was soon to come. About time too…

*

Paul Savage was muttering the speech repeatedly under his breath, practicing the various nuances he could project with his voice. He wasn’t as stupid as Jackie believed; he knew his forte was appeasing the shareholders. Inwardly he shrugged, it was a job and he was close to retirement. Why should he exert himself when all he had to do was serve his time? His heart palpitated when he remembered that he might end up in a wheelchair before he could enjoy his retirement, but there was a time and a place to contemplate everything and this wasn’t an appropriate moment.

Already his mind was wandering and soon he was gazing out his window at the San Francisco skyline, the speech held limply between thumb and forefinger. So many people. He was tired and looking at the city always made him acutely aware of his age. It was somehow appropriate that he spent his last moments reflecting upon his achievements in life. He didn’t hear the ventilation grate open above his desk and his degraded hearing couldn’t detect the squeak of leather boots as the rogue bounty hunter lowered himself to the ground.

His eyelids opened for the last time and the problems plaguing his inner ear were solved when an icy blade severed his head from his shoulders. The slash was quick and brutal and it was all over before his aging nervous system could send pain signals to his brain for processing. He had just enough time to open his mouth in surprise, though he didn’t understand why he couldn’t draw breath and he had no vocal cords to speak. By the time his head clunked to the carpet and came to rest facedown on the plush woollen fibres, the life in his eyes was gone. His body jerked vertically for two extra seconds before dropping like a sack of potatoes. It twitched on the ground as his heart kept pumping, sending diminishing jets of thick blood squirting across the room. A spray of red on the windows was already oozing to the floor and soaking through the carpet into the underlay. Paul’s skin peeled away from the fatal wound and a cross-section of his spine was a lesson in anatomy for whoever discovered the body. His head - amazingly - escaped most of the gore. It resembled a frightened child, cowering in the corner.

And so Paul Savage met his death the same way he’d bluffed through life - without really knowing it was there. The saddest part was, despite his age, there were many things he would’ve done differently if he’d known the 16th of September 2066 marked his death.

*

The Raven kicked the corpse in the ribs, swearing at it for marring him with blood.