Crow - The Awakening (18 page)

Putting the empty mug down, Steven sat back, contemplating the project's implications. Whatever it was that they were not supposed to discover is surely going to be a smoking gun pointing to whoever it was that didn't want them to see it. All he had to do was drill down. He had watched the videos of his parents a great many times in the last couple of years and identified much of the equipment they used and tried to create his own versions of the equipment to hopefully replicate their experiments. As a result he had ended up studying computer and scientific engineering in college, which has provided the perfect cover for his experiments.

Twice a week he went to Seattle for onsite classes and the rest of the classes were done online. His godparents really hated the idea of him going out of town for their fear of him being discovered by the mysterious bad people they were hiding from, but he had done his best to keep a low profile, even ensuring that his work was relatively mediocre so he stayed well within the pack of peers. He was able to stay at the mansion Brandon's parents owned, which reduced the chance of exposure significantly. Their mansion was a heavily secured fortress that gave Steven an extra layer of protection that his godparents appreciated. Still, this particular project may set him apart because of the innovations he had designed into it, but he couldn't avoid it. His search was hitting a rock wall and he desperately needed another breakthrough.

The bell on the library door chimed and Steven leaned over and peeked out of his little corner of the computer shop to see who it was. He was eagerly expecting a package from a prototyping manufacturer. And there it was. Dmitri signed for it and brought it back to him. "More toys for you." He grinned. Just one of many packages that Steven has received here over the years. Steven bounced in his chair as Dmitri handed it to him.

"Ooh, goody." Steven eagerly cut it open and looked inside. Several dozen large but nondescript flashdrives were neatly packed in bubble wrap. Grinning, he took one and plugged it into his laptop. He hit a combination of keys and almost immediately a command line window popped up on his screen showing a virtual system booting up. The booting of the flashdrive computer happened so quickly he almost missed it. Steven logged into it and was presented with a simple command prompt. After he typed a few commands in, he had the flashdrive virtual computer connected to his new search server in the tree house. "It works! Way cool, Dmitri."

"Do I want to know what they are?" Dmitri raised an eyebrow as he looked over Steven's shoulder. The boy had moved way beyond his own capabilities now and often was showing him new things.

"Eh. Probably not." Steven looked back at Dmitri. There were still many details of what he was doing that Dmitri was better off not knowing. If he knew how deep he had dug into the systems of the world's governments he probably would have a fit.

He pocketed a few of the flashdrives. For anyone not aware of what they were, they were simple high capacity flashdrives that functioned much like any other. For him, they were powerful multicore computers with a full copy of his own operating system running on them and all his hacking tools at his fingertips, no matter what computer he was on. These would come in useful when he went to Seattle for his classes, allowing him to access his search results from any of the terminals he happened to be at. These flashdrive computers would give him far better mobilization capabilities than his laptop and make any computer he could plug into a potential search terminal for his life-long project. He only needed one of them, but the manufacturer's prototyping production had a minimum order so he went with that instead. That meant a lot of flashdrives that he'd have to sequester somewhere.

Laurence frowned at the latest output from the search for the hacker. While his main mission with the agency where he was posing as a computer expert was to spy on them and mislead them from the search, his own attempts to identify the Ghost were still ending up going nowhere. He was getting more and more sophisticated, this Ghost that both of his bosses were looking for. Nevertheless, he was seeing subtle patterns in the hacking activities. Some files were very specific, far less generic than the usual fair. At one time Laurence was able to track down several video files that the mysterious hacker had accessed, but they disappeared as quickly as he found them, leaving no trace whatsoever. He threw up his hands and sat back in the chair. It was like someone was leading the hacker and then cleaning up behind him. But if the hacker was leaving few traces, the other party was leaving absolutely none. He bit his lip as he tried to use his advanced tools to look under the hood. But every time he got close, he was diverted.

The good news was, if his search was ending up in such futility, those he was tasked to mislead were even farther off base. There were few he worked with that were better at digital subterfuge than he was, and most certainly none in his undercover position. It was imperative to his mission that they not get close. He jumped when Bill knocked on his cubicle and walked in, looking over his shoulder. "We got a new hit. Several, actually." Bill put a tablet on Laurence's desk and swiped his finger on it. Laurence saw a window pop up on his workstation, detailing the latest hacks.

"DARPA again?" Laurence looked closer. Cutting edge technology research databases from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency have been accessed with complete impunity. The signature was the same as all the other attacks. No remote evidence whatsoever. For all intents and purposes, to access what was accessed the hacker had to have been at one of the server's terminals directly in the facility, but he knew better than to assume that by now. The footprint was the same as all the others, clearly the work of the Ghost.

In this attack, advanced quantum research including microscopes and even theoretical research for creating quantum computing chips were accessed. "What are they up to?" He was puzzled. "This is all technology sector espionage. Not weapons." Bill nodded. With the absolute free access the hacker had, he had to admit that he was extremely relieved that more malicious technology has yet to be compromised. However, what has been accessed was dangerous enough. "Any one of a number of nations could be behind this," Laurence mused, as much to himself as to Bill. "Quantum computing capabilities in foreign targeting systems could prove disastrous." Laurence was perplexed. "With that kind of unfettered access, I'm surprised that the weapons tech has been ignored. We need to widen the parameters of our honeypot."

"It gets worse." Bill swiped the tablet again and another window popped up on Laurence's computer.

"More tech hacks. What is the significance?" It looks like a couple of defense contractors were also compromised. Advanced designs in nano computers were extracted from these systems. It was still nothing catastrophic but something that fit better in the realm of corporate espionage. "Could this be all for profit?"

Bill sat on the desk. "That's not the scary part, Laurence. Those systems are not connected to any external network."

Laurence looked at him, too stunned to respond. Bill nodded. "These systems are on their own network and are completely dark. No remote access whatsoever."

"Local access?"

"We cleared everyone. Laurence, every terminal is covered. No one at the location accessed those servers." Bill crossed his arms. "It gets worse."

Laurence looked at him.

"The servers shut down when they detected the incursion." Bill stopped.

"Okay?"

"Laurence, the files were still accessed. After the shutdown."

"So our Ghost is some sort of magician?" Laurence scratched his head, trying to digest this new bit of information. Bill shrugged. "We need a hardware audit of those systems. I want to know if it's possible that a networking device could have been snuck in there."

"The systems are physically inspected twice a week. I'll get the logs and pass them on to you." Bill picked up his tablet and walked out.

Laurence sat there pondering the implications. If nothing else, this was proof of alien incursion. There was nothing they had that had the ability to draw data from unpowered systems remotely. The urgency of his mission just ratcheted up a significant notch. What were they trying to find and for what purpose? Was this a direct threat or surveillance activity? The questions started racking up. He had to report these new developments to his boss.

Dmitri had stepped out, leaving Steven alone to continue his work on the microscope project. The scanning took a long time and he was finally drilling down through several atomic levels. That part was working and Steven was ecstatic. The results were fascinating. He had activated the atomic ablation that removed a layer of atoms at a time as it scanned each layer, creating an internal profile of the structure of the substrate on an atomic level. What he found was a strange matrix that appeared to encompass something that the scanner wasn't detecting, but was definitely affecting the atomic structure.

There were elements in the substrate that didn't appear to be on the Periodic Table and Steven scratched his head, trying to riddle the significance of that out. New elements were remarkable enough, but to see them actively applied in the computing technology hinted at purposeful designer elements. He knew of no one who could casually create new elements like that. Most of the known elements were formed within the massive explosions of stars and were ubiquitous across all the visible universe. These new elements were definitely not natural.

The result was like bubbles in the structure, melding known and unknown elements to form cages for something that even his microscope couldn't detect. "Another form of matter?" Steven asked himself. He sat back, thinking. Positrons would be detectable and the substrate would have a very specific structure in order to contain them successfully. Dark matter was another option, even though the most advanced files he accessed had only fleeting references to it on a theoretical level. No one really knew what dark matter was, even though it was supposed to be all around us.

He took another tact. He produced schematics of the chip he was scanning and matched it up with the output of the microscope, examining how the matrix connected up to the actual circuits that are deposited on the substrate. The pattern jumped out at him clearly. "Wow!" He was awed by the sophistication, yet the abstract simplicity, of it. There was circuitry within the substrate represented by the voids created by the matrix of known and designer matter and it accessed the actual lithographed circuitry at very regular points.

Already Steven's mind was working on ways to access these points from the software level. Chips are shipped with microcode that dictated how the hardware was accessed by the software, effectively blocking any attempt to get through to the surreptitious circuitry below the chips. However, his latest batch of nano computers had custom microcode Steven wrote himself that contained no such limitation. His server laptop at the tree house has similarly customized chips, too. Now that he knew what to look for, it was time for a trip to the tree house.

As he was packing up, Dmitri walked in. Steven grinned excitedly at him. "Hey! Look at this!" Steven put his stuff down and turned the monitor back on and stepped aside to give Dmitri a better view.

Dmitri put his reading glasses on and peered at the images on the screen. The software had created a 3D representation of the atomic structure and he sat down and rotated it around with the mouse. "That's by design."

"Yep." Steven grinned.

"Steven, I don't recognize those elements." Dmitri's eyebrows furrowed. "And the structure isn't crystalline or a natural flaw. Someone made that." He frowned at the screen as he zoomed it out, and looked at Steven's circuitry overlay. "Oh, Lord, look at those junctures." Dmitri pointed and followed the circuitry from juncture to juncture with his finger.

Steven was gushing with pride. He discovered that and could barely contain his enthusiasm. "That is in a random chip we yanked out of one of your junk computers!" He was giddy. "Do you know what that means? I bet we could pull any chip from any computer and find the same thing! I am sure I can access it from the software side too."

Dmitri stopped and sat back, the ramifications of that starting to dawn on him. "Steven, I'm not sure it's safe to pursue this."

Steven deflated somewhat, his excitement seeping away. "Why?"

Dmitri looked at him over his glasses. "I've been involved in clandestine computing for a very long time before coming here to America, and I've never seen anything as sophisticated or as ubiquitous as this." He waved at the screen for emphasis.

"It's not like I'm going to write a report or anything. I just want to see how far this goes," Steven protested.

"Problems always find you if you know something you are not supposed to. Your parents learned that the hard way." He frowned, clearly disturbed by the discovery.

Steven was expecting a big slap on the back. He sighed and sat down. "Dmitri, this is important to me. Maybe it could answer why my parents were taken," he implored. He would have never gotten this far without his mentor's help. Going it alone seemed impossible to him.

"I think we now know the why. We should really stop or we may be next." He turned off the computer and powered down the microscope. Steven's heart sank on the finality of that. "Steven, it might already be too late. I know you're disappointed, but I've met your parents. They were really good. Better even than you, I'd wager. But someone out there was better. You're good too, but what you are up against could be way more dangerous than you're expecting. I would rather have you without answers than have answers without you." Dmitri put his hand on Steven's shoulder. "But it was an important discovery. We just have to let this one go."

"Yeah, I guess so." Steven pouted, feeling fifteen again. He grabbed up his books and laptop and headed for the door. "I'll see you tomorrow then."

Dmitri waved, hoping that Steven will take his advice and steer clear of this, but fearing that he won't. He was well familiar with Steven's stubborn streak and limitless capacity for pushing beyond the limits. He feared that this could all end in catastrophe and was at a loss as to how to prevent it. Pandora's box had been opened.