Orbital Disruption Page 6

  “Well, we’ll need to make an exception here, I think,” Caroline said to Fred. “I have a PhD in physics and I don’t understand half of what she said - but it sounds pretty damn important.”

  Fred nodded.

  Turning to Marie, Caroline continued. “STETSON is the Strategic Emerging Technology Surveillance and Oversight Network. We’re a loose organization that spans multiple federal agencies and a handful of friendly foreign ones. We coordinate monitoring of new technologies that pose unique risks. Technology evolves too quickly these days for most government bureaucracies to keep up with. STETSON is intentionally small, flat and nimble - we cut out as much bullshit as we can.”

  “Dr. Caroline O’Rourke is the creator and Director of STETSON,” Fred said to Marie when Caroline had finished. He looked back to Caroline and added, “And as I was saying, this sort of situation falls squarely under STETSON’s purview. I’m authorizing Dr. Renault to join your team for the duration.”

  Fred turned to Marie’s boss and added, “I assume that’s ok with you, Mr. McNeil.”

  “Of course, sir,” Stuart answered without even glancing at Marie.

  “Excellent - thank you, Fred,” Caroline interjected. “I want to introduce Dr. Renault to our lead agent in the aerospace sector.” Turning to Marie she continued, “If what you’ve found is even half true then we have a lot of work to do.”

  “Indeed,” Fred agreed. “Indeed.”

  Marie nodded and swallowed, preparing to respond but Fred, Caroline and the other senior staff were already standing up to leave. Her boss gave her a look that was not comforting but he didn’t say anything. He simply got up to follow the brass out of the room.

  “Well, I’m in it now,” Marie thought to herself. “Merde!”

  Ten

  “We have a problem.”

  Ruben St. James looked up from his desk. Anna Ivanov stood in his doorway. His assistant, Barbara, hadn’t announced her visit. Apparently Anna had just walked right past her. It wasn’t the first time but then again, Anna was the sort of person most people would not willingly stand in front of. She wasn’t especially large but she had a way of intimidating others with a mere glance. And that made Anna uniquely useful as Excelsior’s Chief of Security.

  Ruben closed his laptop and waved to Anna.

  “Come in, Anna. And please close the door.”

  Anna closed the door. After an awkward moment Ruben waved his hand in the direction of one of the sturdy leather upholstered chairs on the opposite side of his desk. “Please, sit.”

  After Anna had seated herself, Ruben continued. “What sort of problem do we have?”

  “The serious kind, I think,” Anna replied. Ruben raised an eyebrow.

  “Do you recall that we set certain alarms in our source code repository? Alarms that would be triggered if any of the staff started looking in certain … sensitive areas?”

  Rubens eyes narrowed. “Yes, of course.”

  “An alarm was triggered yesterday. Senior Communications Engineer Morton. He performed a ‘git pull’ from the secure communications library to his workstation.”

  “Well,” Ruben answered after a pause. “Eddie is a Senior Communications Engineer. And we recently lost communications with our primary mission spacecraft. Is it really so suspicious that he’d want to review the code?”

  “I understand, Mr. St. James,” Anna said with just a hint of regret, “that you wish to see the good side in Eddie. He has been here for a long time. Many years. And you think he is loyal.”

  “I take it there’s more,” Ruben prompted.

  “Yes, there is more,” Anna replied. “We saw that Engineer Morton copied the source code to his workstation. But he did not run his code editor. Instead we saw an increase in web traffic. At first we thought maybe he was watching some videos or something. But then we saw that most of the traffic went to an IP address from a local cable company. And the upload traffic was much bigger than the download which is unusual for web browsing on the Internet.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, Mr. St. James,” Anna continued without hesitation, “that Senior Communications Engineer Morton was uploading code to his home computer or possibly someone else’s. The file size matches. Our keylogger records confirm that he initiated the upload. And after the upload was complete, Engineer Morton deleted the local copy from his workstation and attempted to delete our keylogger records.”

  “Shit,” Ruben muttered.

  This was not good. It was perfectly normal to have secure communications software on his spacecraft. But Ruben knew that buried within the library were routines by which hidden instructions could be mixed into routine messages. Instructions that only Ruben, Anna and a handful of others knew existed. And only Ruben understood their true purpose.

  It hadn’t always been like this. Ruben hadn’t set out on this path but he understood the importance of having backup plans. He knew what happened when you let others take advantage of you. He hadn’t wanted things to go this way but this is where his rivals and adversaries had forced him. What they didn’t understand was that Ruben St. James had a spine of steel and would stop at nothing to win. To achieve great things, you had to have vision and determination. Ruben had both and he would win, no matter the cost.

  Anna cleared her throat, forcing Ruben back to the present.

  “This is unacceptable, Anna.” Ruben said firmly. “I need to you to take care of this.”

  Anna paused.

  “Mr. St. James,” she began and made direct eye contact. Ruben shifted uneasily in his chair. “Eddie Morton has already taken our secure communications library. With that and copies of the traffic logs to and from the spacecraft he could present serious evidence.”

  “Yes, Anna. I understand. That’s why I’m asking you to do whatever is necessary to ensure that Eddie is stopped.”

  “That may require extreme measures, Mr. St. James.”

  Ruben thought back to the stories Anna had told him of growing up in a St. Petersburg organized crime family. How she had proven herself ruthless and capable, taking over the family business when her two older brothers were killed by a rival gang. Exacting a bloody revenge before changing her identity and fleeing to the US. He felt a chill in his lower back. But this needed to be done.

  “Whatever is necessary.”

  “Yes sir,” Anna replied and the hint of a smile crossed her face as she stood up, nodded slightly, turned and left Ruben’s office.

  Eleven

  Bootup complete, the mind awoke. To call it a mind was perhaps an exaggeration but not by much. It was far less capable of general reasoning than a human being but it was quite good at the range of tasks for which it was designed. Far better, in fact, than any of the humans it had replaced. But it didn’t think about such things for it lived a focused life. Unlike so many of those it served, it knew its purpose.

  Battery fully charged, charging cable decoupled. Air pressure nominal in all four tires. All fluid levels in normal range and all control systems checked out.

  It could see in all directions in visible light and infrared using a dozen cameras with resolutions exceeding that of a human eye. Its lidar scanner provided it with the precise geometry of the various obstacles around it out to a distance of several hundred meters. Ultrasound sensors gave awareness of the closest objects.

  Finally, after a few moments of searching, it locked on to the faint signals broadcast from several satellites orbiting high overhead. It compared the timestamps encoded in those signals and deduced its location. The mind established a connection with the mobile data network and sent a message to its masters. In response it received an error indicating that it did not possess the appropriate security certificate to connect to the dispatch server. This was unusual and the mind logged this event in its onboard data recorder. But it was not the sort of problem that prevented it from operating. Networks weren’t always reliable so the mind was fully equipped to operate offline. It already had a fare waiting for
it and the locally cached passenger profile had all of the information it needed. Until it received new instructions it would do its best to pick up that fare and deliver him to his destination.

  The mind knew from its satellite navigation sensor that it was currently in an industrial park in Carson, California, not far from the port of Long Beach. It did not wonder how it got there or why it had no memories of trips taken before its bootup. Such things just weren’t important to the mission.

  Lidar and camera data confirmed that it was inside a large structure, probably a warehouse. It had no map of the interior of the warehouse but its visible cameras could see daylight coming through a large open door. It plotted a path between an empty shipping container and an idle forklift and rolled slowly forward. It kept a sharp lookout for pedestrians, a perennial source of uncertainty. This warehouse was apparently devoid of humans today so the extra care was unnecessary.

  In moments it had navigated to the exit of the industrial park and found its way via local roads to the I-405 northbound on-ramp. It tried to provide an update to the dispatch server that it would be able to pick up the fare in about 6 hours but its connection was refused again. No matter. The traffic light turned green, the mind initiated a modest acceleration, drove up the ramp and merged into the morning traffic.

  A few hours later and on the other side of the continent a second mind awoke. This mind was far simpler than the first, largely due to the constraints on weight and power that were imposed by flight. It had a similar objective, though. Carry an object from one point to another.

  The second mind sensed that a small parcel was held tightly in the tray under its belly. The controller had already transmitted the destination address and a route to be followed through the sky. The mind could see its surroundings clearly with its visible light cameras and confirmed there were no obstacles in its immediate vicinity. It applied voltage to the six motors that drove its propellers, adjusted thrust until it was carefully balanced and lifted off the concrete floor. It banked toward the door of the cargo hangar on the periphery of John F Kennedy Airport. Correcting for a gentle breeze, it flew out and angled west. As it crossed over the stagnant water of Bergen Basin it saw a flock of grey objects moving against the background and determined that they were likely pigeons. It adjusted course to avoid the birds and continued on its way.

  “Hey, we’ve got a package incoming!” Molly Owens shouted across Jovian Resources’s office in Brooklyn.

  “Who’s it from?” Dennis Li asked.

  “Um, a company called ‘Marsupial Semiconductors’,” Molly replied. Her voice rose at the end of the sentence, a question implied.

  “I’ve heard of of them, I think, but we’ve never bought their stuff, have we?”

  Dennis stood up at his desk and looked over his array of computer monitors toward the table where Mike Jones and Ricky Sanchez were working. Jovian’s electrical engineer and intern were testing an improved version of the laser communications system that Jovian’s spacecraft used. Optical and electrical components were scattered across the table while Mike and Ricky were hunched over an oscilloscope.

  “Hey, Mike,” Dennis shouted. “Did you order something from Marsupial?”

  Mike looked up from the scope and replied. “No.” After a pause he continued, “Aren’t those the guys who make those accelerometers we looked at a few months ago? Good gear but pricey. We went with the Chinese ones, I thought.”

  “Huh,” Dennis grunted. “Ok, never mind. I need a break anyway.”

  “Thanks, man.” Mike replied and turned back to his work.

  Dennis walked across the office, out the door and started up the stairs. Three flights of stairs later he opened the door to the roof, breathing heavily. He strode out onto the flat rooftop of the building and heard the characteristic whine of a large six-rotor drone.

  “Caution! Please stand back for safety!”

  Dennis stopped. Near the center of the roof was a bright yellow box about a meter wide, a meter long and half a meter high. The top was marked with a complex black and yellow geometric pattern that this service used to mark the “mailboxes” where its drones landed and deposited their payloads.

  The drone was hovering several meters above its designated landing pad when it played its recorded warning again.

  “Caution! Please stand back for safety!”

  “Ok, ok,” Dennis muttered and took a few steps back.

  Satisfied that Dennis was at a safe distance, the drone rapidly descended to the box. Upon making contact, a spring-loaded hatch opened and the drone released the package it was holding. The package slid into the receiving tray inside the mailbox and the hatch swung shut again.

  The drone transmitted a terse message to its controller to indicate that the package had been delivered and received instructions to return to its base. It checked that Dennis was maintaining a safe distance and spun up its rotors again.

  Dennis waited until the drone had risen up into the air and banked back toward the east before opening the little door on the side of the yellow and black mailbox and retrieving the package. It was addressed to Jovian Resources but not to anyone in particular. The return address listed a Drop-N-Ship Logistics location in Sunnyvale, California. Odd but not totally out of the ordinary. Dennis turned back toward the stairwell.

  The first mind accelerated to 120 kilometers per hour, the legal limit for autonomous vehicles on this highway. It transmitted a sequence of messages over short-range radio to the vehicles nearby and received permission to join an impromptu convoy. The mind matched speed with the vehicle at the front of the robotic peloton. Maintaining a careful three-meter spacing at these speeds required reaction times measured in milliseconds - impossible for a human but second nature to the mind that controlled the sky-blue autonomous taxi. It effortlessly negotiated an agreement to share sensor data in real-time with the rest of the convoy, purchased a short-term insurance contract and paid a small fee to the vehicle that was carrying the aerodynamic load of being in the lead.

  The mind settled in to the monotony of long-distance automated highway driving, casually ignoring the southern California countryside that sped past.

  “Hey, what’s in the box?” Ricky asked as Dennis re-entered the office.

  “No clue. Let’s find out,” Dennis replied.

  Picking up a utility knife from the table, Dennis cut the tape holding the small cardboard box closed. He opened the flap and shook the box. An amorphous lump fell out onto the table followed by the clatter of a small hard object that bounced off the table and fell onto the floor.

  Dennis picked up the lump and shook it out.

  “Oh nice, a t-shirt,” Dennis grumbled. It was black and had an angular pink kangaroo on the front and the tagline “What powers your pocket?” On the back was printed “Marsupial Semiconductors” in the same shade of pink.

  “Here, Ricky. You want it?” Dennis asked and tossed the t-shirt to his co-worker.

  Ricky grinned while Dennis reached under the table and picked up a USB flash drive also bearing a pink kangaroo logo.

  “Hey, Tabitha,” Dennis called across the room. “Can you check and see what’s on here?”

  “Sure,” Tabitha replied.

  Dennis tossed the small device to Tabitha who caught it easily.

  “Be careful, we don’t know who it’s from,” Dennis admonished.

  “Um, duh.” Tabitha replied. She walked away from her desk. “That’s why we have the burner PC.”

  “Right,” Dennis nodded and walked over to meet her.

  The “burner” PC was an ancient Dell desktop that had a monitor, mouse and keyboard but no network cables or wifi antenna. Tabitha turned on the PC and monitor and watched as Linux booted up from an even older CD-ROM. A few moments later she logged in and pushed the drive into a USB slot on the front of the chassis. She then typed a few commands.

  “Hmm…” she said. “I don’t see any obvious malware. Just one large encrypted file. That’s odd.”
>
  Dennis looked over her shoulder.

  “Yeah. Odd indeed.”

  Just then a rapid snare drum riff played from Dennis’s jeans. His ringtone descended into a guitar solo as he took his phone from his pocket. The caller was requesting video. Dennis answered in audio only and slipped an earbud into his ear.

  “Hello?” Dennis said as the image resolved.

  It was a man’s face, lit from behind. The man was outdoors and the sun was high. The man adjusted the phone and Dennis recognized his face.

  “Hello Dennis,” Eddie Morton said. “I think you received my package.”

  “Hey, Eddie. That Marsupial stuff is from you? What’s this all about?”

  Eddie looked over his shoulder and then turned back to the camera in his phone.

  “Yes, listen. I don’t have much time and this is really important. There’s a USB drive under the t-shirt. There’s an encrypted file on it. The password is the name of your kid.”

  “What the hell, Eddie? You know I don’t have any kids…”

  “Sorry, gotta go!” Eddie said and ended the call.

  Dennis stood still for a moment and then removed the earbud from his ear.

  “Was that Eddie Morton?” Molly asked.

  “Yeah,” Dennis answered. “And something is up. He went to a lot of trouble to send us some file. And it’s encrypted with the name of my kid.”

  “But you don’t have any kids,” Molly finished. “Eddie knows that.”

  Dennis scratched his head.

  “Well, it looks to be encoded with AES-1024 so we’re not going to be brute forcing it anytime soon,” Tabitha noted.

  “The name of my kid…” Dennis repeated again.

  “You and Eddie worked together for quite a while,” Molly noted. “Did you have any inside jokes about children?”