Cyber Rogues (21 page)

“Not just passive wiring either,” Hayes told them. “It’s got its own switching and routing microprocessors built into the connector blocks.” That meant the buildings themselves would constitute functional extensions of the network’s total switching hierarchy. It heralded the day when whole cities could be designed as living cells in the planetary organism, not just as boxes of inanimate steel and concrete through which electronic neural tissue was threaded afterward.

“This is the first line of defense that we expect the system to try,” Hayes went on. “The Datastrip distributes power lines throughout Janus as well as network intelligence. When we start breaking its connections it’ll almost certainly start creating bypass links to neutralize the breaks. With billions of combinations to choose from and thousands of computers available to do the figuring, it ought to have no trouble finding ways through a lot faster than we can block them.” He shrugged. “That, of course, is one of the things we’d very much like to find out more about.”

While Hayes was talking, Dyer studied the expression on Wescott’s face. Frank’s features were blank but his eyes betrayed a lack of conviction. It was the look of somebody in the position of having to listen to a sales pitch on something he’d already made his mind up not to buy. Frank was still convinced that the risks had been outrageously exaggerated, that the whole exercise would prove an expensive and pointless waste of time, and he had said so.

“If you route the primary power of a machine through a manually controlled switch there’s no way in hell it’s gonna stop you from unplugging it,” he had told Dyer and Krantz during a debate shortly after his arrival. “If you decide to throw the switch then that’s the end of it. You don’t need an army and your own private world to prove that. We’ll just wind up looking like the biggest bunch of assholes in the business with millions of dollars gone down the tubes to account for.”

Frank had maintained his stance ever since Dyer’s first trip to Washington with Richter, so his attitude had come as no surprise. At first Krantz had expressed doubts at the wisdom of having Frank along at all, but Dyer defended the choice on the grounds that in science, as with most things, good ideas flourished best on a diet of varied opinions. People who all thought the same way tended to expend a lot of time and energy merely reinforcing one another’s prejudices instead of solving problems. Schroder had agreed with Dyer and in the end Krantz accepted the vote. Dyer had guessed that Frank’s morbid streak would compel him to come along if only to see his prophesies fulfilled, and that was exactly what happened.

“If the system turns out to be incapable of bypassing our attempts to shut it down, then we’ll have won and there’ll be nothing more left to do,” Hayes said. “If that happens we can carry on and upgrade TITAN without any further worries. But if that did happen, I must confess I’d feel very disappointed in it. I’m sure it could do better.” Wescott sniffed pointedly but didn’t take the matter any further. “So now we’ve reached a point, hypothetically, where the system has successfully neutralized the built-in breakpoints that were supposed to guarantee we’d always have final control over it,” Hayes went on. “What do we do then?”

He cast an eye around the group to invite suggestions and began moving slowly toward the end of the lab, where a demonstration of some kind seemed to have been set up. On a bench was a stripped-down electronics mounting box which contained a battery of standard honeycomb blocks—the high-density receptacles used universally for holding the scores and often hundreds of molecular-circuit cartridges that were interconnected to form computers and practically every other kind of complex system. A second bench about ten feet to the right carried a smaller assembly of honeycombs held in a metal frame and coupled to an elaborate mechanism of shafts, cylinders, linkages and motors. Three sections of Janus-style wall module stood edge to edge to provide a backdrop for the display, presumably affording a connection between its two parts via Datastrip.

“Well, if you found you couldn’t control the net, you’d have to start isolating sections of it until it lost integrity,” a short, balding, pink-faced man offered in reply to Hayes’s question. His name was Eric Jassic. He was one of Schroder’s CIM scientists from Washington, a specialist in communications techniques who had made significant contributions to ultra-high-frequency optical multiplexers.

“Why screw around?” Ron demanded. “Just go to where the goddam processors are and unplug ’em there.”

“Very well,” Hayes agreed in a pleasant voice. “Let’s try.” A few heads exchanged quizzical looks as the group formed a loose gaggle between the two benches. Hayes tapped a rapid command into the touchboard of a flatscreen panel hanging on an arm at one end of the left-side bench. At once the mechanism on the other bench came to life, with a flurry of whines, clunks and hisses. After watching it for a few seconds they realized that it was nothing more than an automatic component-forming machine, the kind used in thousands of manufacturing plants around the world. An injection moulder ejected cast blanks at the rate of one every couple of seconds, which then passed through a series of cutting and drilling operations, eventually finding their way through to a spring-loaded magazine in which the finished parts were being stacked. The magazine would normally convey them onward to the next stage of whatever assembly process they were intended for.

“It doesn’t really matter what those widgets are,” Hayes commented cheerfully. “But if you want to know, they’re part of the end-bearing for a room-temperature superconducting clutch. You’re all probably familiar with this kind of machine, at least in principle.” He indicated the right-hand bench with a vague gesture of his arm. Most of them were. It was just one example of many types of general-purpose machining robots in widespread use. Such machines were general-purpose in the sense that they were programmable and could produce a virtually unlimited variety of parts depending on the commands loaded into them. They were descended from the specialized machine tools that had been used for many years in mass-production plants, but were far more versatile. Presumably the small honeycomb next to the machine was the local computer that stored and interpreted the programs.

“The large computer here on the bench is the remote supervisor,” Hayes informed them, tapping his fingers against the larger honeycomb. “It’s coupled into the machine’s own processor in the usual way, except that to make things a little more authentic we’ve used Datastrip à la Janus. The supervisor downline loads the programs of what’s wanted and the local processor does the rest. Also, the supervisor performs remote diagnostics via the link to make sure that all’s going well at the other end. Okay?” Nobody had any queries or comments. Everything that Hayes had described was standard practice. They waited, curious to see what would come next. The machine clunked and whirred, churning out its widgets with obvious contentment.

“If the machine packed up, the normal thing to do would be to get a diagnosis from the supervisor and send someone to fix it,” Hayes continued. “At least, if it happened today it would. But that takes time and people would rather be doing more interesting things, so probably in years to come we wouldn’t bother. What we’ll probably have is something like we’re putting into Janus today.” His eyes twinkled as he looked from face to face around him, as if he were enjoying some joke and were waiting for them to see it. He was evidently amused, but at the same time he seemed to be waiting for a response to some implied challenge that he hadn’t voiced. “Well?” he asked after a while. He caught Dyer’s eye for an instant and winked almost imperceptibly. Dyer had seen this demonstration about a week earlier. He didn’t want to spoil Fred’s fun, so said nothing.

“Aw, quit the fooling around, Fred,” Ron exclaimed at last. “What the hell are you waiting for us to say? Okay, we’re making widgets. So what?”

Hayes couldn’t contain a smile any longer.

“You’re not supposed to say anything,” he replied. “You’re supposed to stop it.”

“Stop what?” Ron looked confused.

“The machine,” Hayes said. “See if you can stop it making widgets. In other words put a fault into it. That’s the game.” Dyer grinned to himself as he saw a crimson tide of exasperation boiling up out of Ron’s collar. Chris was standing next to him, frowning thoughtfully and looking from Hayes to the machine and back again.

“Stuff all this,” Chris said suddenly. He stepped forward and stood in front of the bench. “Just stop it,” he repeated. “That’s all we have to do, right? Any way we like.”

“Yes,” Hayes answered.

“Right.” Chris opened one of the drawers below the edge of the bench, cast a quick look around inside, closed it and tried another one, grunted to himself and lifted out a tray containing tools. He selected a dental probe, put on a pair of binocular magnifiers and leaned forward to peer closely at the face of the honeycomb. “Let’s see now . . .” he mumbled to himself. “There’s a row of oh-eight-sevens here . . . probably the main processor array. Must be part of the guts of it anyhow. Let’s have a go anyway . . .” He probed delicately into the honeycomb and with a smooth practiced motion extracted one of the microcartridges. The widget-maker promptly clunked to a halt. Chris deposited the cartridge carefully on a watchglass and stepped back with a shrug. “One widget whatsit bites the dust,” he announced.

“What’s that supposed to prove?” Ron asked.

“I know him. He’s up to something,” Jassic said. Hayes continued smiling.

A sudden rushing sound, like that of high-velocity ducted air, mixed with a fainter electric whine, came from halfway up the wall to their right, causing all heads to whirl around in unison. The metal racking against the wall there had looked like ordinary storage shelving and nobody had taken much notice of it. But now that their attention was drawn to it, they could see that it was something else. It was an array of open compartments that looked like pigeon holes for mail, except that each was a foot or more square. There must have been at least two dozen compartments. A few were empty but each of the others contained one of an assortment of unidentifiable objects. Some gleamed bright and silvery and were about the shape and size of ordinary toasters; others were dull and cylindrical, while still others suggested nothing familiar at all but with their sprouted tangles of rods, hooks, antennas and claws resembled, if anything, gigantic mutant insects.

The noise was coming from one of these objects. The object that it was coming from was a dull-gray cylinder about six inches across, lying on its side on top of a flat tubular framework that contained a mass of tightly packed gadgetry and wiring. The near end of the cylinder was distinctly insectlike, with a profusion of miniature probes and jointed arms, and a circle of recessed windows that could have been lens apertures.

The whole thing was starting to move.

As they watched speechless, it slid smoothly out of its cell like a metal wasp emerging from its nest, and hung in midair a foot or so in front of the pigeonholes. Then it dropped vertically for a short distance, aligned itself in the direction of the right-hand bench, and began moving at about chest height off the ground. Chris jumped out of the way in sudden alarm.

“It’s okay,” Hayes said with a laugh. “Stay there.”

“Up yours, mate,” Chris breathed shakily.

The wasp homed unerringly on the face of the honeycomb. It extended three of its tiny arms sideways to lock onto the registration pins located at intervals across the face and then, holding itself quite steady in the air, traversed slowly sideways until its axis was aligned with the array element from which Chris had taken the cartridge. Nobody could see quite what happened next because the wasp was flush against the face, but suddenly the widget-maker clicked into life again. The wasp detached itself and turned back to point at its cell. Just as it started moving, Hayes stepped forward and placed himself in the way. The wasp paused for a split second, then made a smooth arc around him, reversed itself back into its cell, and died.

A burst of excited chattering suddenly broke out to greet the performance. There was no need for Hayes to explain what had happened. It didn’t take much thought to see that other wasps, equipped with suitable tools and carrying the right selection of parts, could replace far more things than just electronic microcartridges, provided of course that the equipment being serviced had been designed for it.

“They’re called
drones
,”
Hayes told them. “I’m sure I don’t have to spell out the idea. There’s a whole zoo of them to cover lots of different special functions. Most of the work on them has been done in Japan. This’ll be the first time anybody’s seen ’em outside a few R & D labs. How d’you like ’em?”

“I’m still not sure what it’s supposed to prove,” Frank Wescott said. “What are you trying to tell us . . . that the Janus system will be able to fix itself even if we try deactivating it? I don’t believe it, Fred. All it says is that routine repairs are going to become more automated. Okay, that’s good. But there are still lots of ways I can think of to shut a machine down that things like that couldn’t handle . . . ways that need people.”

He looked across at Dyer. “That’s my whole point, Ray. We can always bust it in ways that only people can fix. As long as that’s true I can’t see what there is to get worried about. I’m sorry, but I just can’t see the point.”

“Go ahead and show us,” Dyer invited. A hush of interest descended on the room. Wescott moved forward to survey the system before him for a few seconds. The widget-maker clacked away happily while its now-full magazine was whipped away and replaced by an empty one.

“Mmm . . .” Wescott said. “The supervisor here runs the diagnostics . . . so the supervisor must be able to figure out the fault to be able to call in the right drone. There must be a comm channel from the supervisor to the drones somehow . . . probably radio via the Datastrip,” He cocked an eye at Hayes. “How’s that? Am I about right?”

“Right on the ball,” Hayes said approvingly.

“And you did say we could try anything we like.”