Forever Yours
27
The Ides of March
SITTING ON THE COUCH sharing a bowl of popcorn as they watched the game was peaceful and, in some ways, more intimate than going out on a date. In fact, once the popcorn was out of the way, they cuddled together and shared small kisses during interruptions in play. At halftime, they muted the television and the kisses became more intense. For the first time, Henry found his hand pressed against Lisa’s breast and she was happily rubbing his chest as well.
Then she pulled away.
“Uh… Wow! Uh… This isn’t good… to be making out in our common area. It’s too easy to start considering it, like, a free zone. With the office on the fourth floor and both of us having separate spaces, we shouldn’t do this here,” she said.
Henry saw the sense in what she was saying, but was disappointed nonetheless.
“Would you walk me home, Henry?” she asked.
“Sure. We should put away our dishes first,” he said.
They agreed and cleaned up the bowl, pop cans, and the air popper. Then Henry took Lisa’s hand and they walked upstairs to her door on the second floor.
“This has been a really great evening after a stressful day,” he said. “Thank you for going out with me.”
“I really liked it. Henry… the second half of the game has probably started. Would you like to come in and watch it with me? I’ve got a pretty good TV in my sitting room,” she said.
It suddenly became clear to Henry that Lisa was no more eager to end their date sitting on the couch together than he was. He smiled.
“I’d love to.”
Lisa unlocked her door and led Henry into her suite, turning on the TV in her sitting room and then going to a nice reclining loveseat. Henry hadn’t been in her apartment since she moved in back in September. It was very nicely decorated and he could see a few touches he identified as her mother’s. Lisa’s mother had been up to visit the last couple of days of their winter break when Lisa came back from Louisiana.
They sat in the loveseat and put their footrests up as Lisa tuned in the game, which was already halfway through the third quarter. They’d soon returned to kissing and petting while they pretended to pay attention to the game.
When the game ended, both were panting.
“I should go home now,” Henry said. “This has been a great evening, but I don’t want to outstay my welcome—especially since we’re both so tired.”
“Yeah. Thank you,” Lisa answered. “I didn’t want to just kick you out.”
They walked to the door and once it was open and Henry was about to step out, they paused again to kiss deeply.
“I’ll see you soon,” Henry gasped, giving her one more squeeze.
“Soon,” she answered.
He left and she quickly closed the door.
Henry was in the office early Saturday morning with coffee in hand. He focused on scouring the company servers for any sign remaining from the attack. He trusted his optimization software, but there was nothing he trusted more than his own eyes. After several hours sifting through every directory on the server, he was satisfied nothing remained of the attack, including any record that he’d tracked it and countered it.
Then he shifted his attention to the Pythia Speaks server. There wasn’t as much to search on this server, as it was not directly attacked. He guessed that the attack starting when he took Pythia live was a coincidence. There was no sign of the attack on that server but he installed the counterattack software on it anyway.
He was amused to see a fair amount of activity. Over a hundred questions had been asked that day. Pythia was serving up answers in seconds, even with the traffic. Each hit on the page launched an instance of the AI that functioned independently, so the server could handle an unknown number of hits at the same time. Henry estimated the computing power of the server and wondered if he would need to add capacity.
The hits were largely coming from various social media services, where Henry discovered his partners’ threads were suggesting people try the new oracular sayings site. He hadn’t expressly forbidden going public with the site and they needed test data. The AI training method patent had been filed before the site went live. The app itself could be copyrighted within thirty days. He might have some changes to code before then.
His phone chimed and Luke sent him a message.
“We’re all going to the Hound and Ale this evening. Bring Lisa.”
He got the time and sent a message to Lisa, whom he had not seen all day.
“I’m out with friends,” was her reply. “I’ll see you at the restaurant.”
She often came up to the office on the weekend, since that was when the most time was available. But after the previous day, he could easily understand her taking a break. He should have done so himself.
He closed up the office and went to his suite to shower and get ready to go out.
The rest of the weekend raced past. Henry visited his parents and spent most of Sunday studying. He decided to do some of his reading in the living room in hopes that he’d see Lisa happen by, but she didn’t appear. He wondered if she’d gone out again, but didn’t worry about it. He tried to focus on his reading and eventually made himself noodles and went to his room.
Monday morning, Lisa met him over coffee at the breakfast table. They checked in on the rest of their weekend and then headed to the university. That was when things got interesting. Students in the department were discussing the news, something they normally ignored.
“Hey, did you catch what happened?” Josh asked when he saw Henry in the student lounge. He’d been gone all through the spring break, so hadn’t been in to the office.
“No. Did you find a girlfriend?” Henry asked.
“I wish. No. The news from China. There was a bulletin about it on network news last night.”
“I missed that. I haven’t watched TV since Friday night.”
“Beijing says they repelled a US-based cyberattack that threatened its internet integrity. Claims it was an act of US terrorists upset about the tariffs on Chinese imports to the US,” Josh said.
“You think there’s a chance it’s true?” Henry asked.
“Don’t know. I asked Dr. Ionescu about it this morning and he said there would be a department-wide meeting called this afternoon to discuss the claim.”
“I suppose that means we won’t get out until dinner,” Henry said. “Did you try out the new oracle, Pythia Speaks?”
“Yeah. It’s cool. Chastity notified the entire testing network and everyone’s been pounding at it. Only there isn’t really much to test. An input and an output. I think it needs a clock that counts down the time until it answers the question. At the moment, you enter the question, then there’s a wait with just silence.”
“How long does that last?” Henry asked. He thought the answers came pretty quickly when he tried it.
“Ten to fifteen seconds,” Josh said.
“That’s not so bad. I thought you were going to tell me it took ten minutes,” Henry laughed.
“At thirty seconds, I’d have shut it down as unresponsive. Dude, you can’t expect people to wait that long with no response.”
Henry nodded. He’d probably do the same thing. He needed to get with Lisa and have her put a timer in the interface indicating how long it would be before the answer was displayed. At four o’clock, he joined the rest of the AI department in the large lecture hall to find out what was up. Each professor in the department had announced the event in class and told students to share it with others. Over 150 students gathered.
“Students and fellow computer scientists,” Dr. Hendon said when he stepped on the stage, “the news from China that many of you have been discussing since it broke last night is disturbing. I was engaged in the event, and am here to tell you all exactly what happened.”
Henry cringed a little at those words and hoped the department chair was planning to keep his word and not allude to Henry or Open Cloak being involved. He’d dropped the memory chip off on Dr. Hendon’s desk before his first class.
“I was in my office on Friday morning, back early to meet with those advisees I’d been unable to discuss fall registration with. While in a meeting, I was alerted to an attempt to break into the AI lab servers. My examination of the network showed that in addition to being an attack at our research, the lab was also used as a gateway to attack several personal computers and other networks that were connected to ours. Some of you may have noticed an abrupt disconnect from our network Friday a little before noon.”
There were some murmurs in the lecture hall that confirmed students who had been disconnected.
“You should all run a thorough test and examination of your computers to be sure no damage was done or trojan horses slipped in.”
A few students opened laptops right then and began tapping the keys.
“I worked with the AI departments across a dozen universities, all of which were being targeted with the same kind of attack, until we had identified the source of the attack and acted to neutralize it. I will not tell you the exact nature of our neutralization, but it was effective and the attack was stopped. At that point the universities all began scrubbing computers of any possible lingering malware. We all believe we have cleaned our environments over the weekend.”
The students applauded, most still not having figured out the connection with the news stories.
“Chinese authorities have positioned this as them having thwarted an attack on their computers and claiming sources in the US as cyberterrorists. We believe the evidence speaks loudly regarding what really happened, but you can all expect there will be investigations, both by government agents brought to campus, and by hackers investigating the online event, either officially or unofficially. Any of us may be subject to having our computers searched.”
That information made everyone nervous. No one wanted his personal computer subject to search. As Dr. Hendon wrapped up the info-dump, students started scrambling toward the exits. Then Dr. Hendon called their attention once more.
“I understand the intent of everyone leaving this auditorium,” he said. “I will make no comment on it. However, I would highly recommend that you each download and run the Open Cloak Optimizer when you’ve done whatever you intend to do.” Then he turned and left the room.
“We need to make sure everything is scrubbed,” Henry said when he and Lisa were in the car.
“I never thought we’d be subject to a government search on campus,” Lisa said. “None of us actually have the code on our machines, do we?”
“None of you,” Henry replied.
When they arrived home, Lisa pulled prepared dinners from the refrigerator and began heating them. Henry went to the office and attached an external drive to the server. He downloaded all the relevant code for the counterattack software and pocketed the drive. He thought a moment and plugged in another drive to make an additional archival copy, which he encrypted with 128-bit encryption. Then he ordered a complete optimization and backup of the servers both for the company and for Pythia Speaks. As soon as it finished running, he downloaded and erased all code except the released optimization app and the search engine which was in testing. He certainly wouldn’t want a government hacker to be subject to a counterattack. That would come back on him hard. Finally, he optimized the servers again, erasing all trace that other software had once resided on the computers.
Lisa brought him food and went to each of the computers in the office to run the optimizer. Of course, most of them were already current. After they’d finished eating, she went to her office and made sure her own computers were cleaned and optimized.
Henry went to his private study to remove the two unregistered apps from his personal computer and then run the optimizer. He repeated the process of removing all his development and patent work from his personal computers.
He left the new backup with his development on his desk in the office. If the office was invaded, he could point to the disk as his remote storage, used because of the threats to computer security he’d heard of. His ploy was to leave something for investigators to find and hide the backup of the proxy search and counterattack. His extra copy was on a thumb drive which he simply dropped into a pocket for the moment.
In the morning, he told Lisa he had an errand to run before he could go to class and dropped her off at the bus stop. Then he went to the bank as soon as it opened and put the full backup and the disk with the counterattack code in his safe deposit box.
Every unfamiliar face around the department Tuesday was subject to suspicion by the students and they avoided them as much as possible. A man in a military uniform seemed to hang out all day in the student lounge, joining conversations when he could. He acted like a recruiter interested in getting people who were involved in artificial intelligence informed about opportunities in the US Army.
No one considered him a serious investigator as he liberally handed out armed forces recruitment brochures to anyone who would accept them. The really suspicious characters were the ones who buttonholed a student and asked him directly what he was working on and where he was during the attack on servers. No one wanted to talk to those guys, but there were a couple of people who had decided the cute girl who spoke with an accent and professed to be on a two-month study visa was someone worth talking to. She had a valid student ID, so most figured she must be legit.
“I’ve never seen people so tense,” Lisa said. “There were some people who simply responded to every question by saying ‘Is there a reward for that information?’ It was kind of funny.”
“I’m not betting on anything,” Henry sighed as they left the school to drive home. “I never thought this would be such a big issue. I don’t even want to go home, but I’m afraid if I don’t, I’ll find it trashed.”
“I don’t like that feeling. Could you… Would you be interested…” Lisa started. “Henry, let’s eat dinner in my sitting room and watch the news to see if anything significant comes on. You could… We could… make out a little if you’d like.”
“We’re really not going to get anything else done, are we?” Henry laughed. “I need to check on the servers and see if there have been any intrusions. Dinner in half an hour?” he asked. They went into the house and he headed for the stairs.
“Yeah. Come to the kitchen and help me heat up the dinners when you’re through.”
Dinner was served on paper plates and taken to Lisa’s sitting room. They ate while chitchatting about nothing in particular. They did hold each other and kiss a little, but both were too pre-occupied with the general atmosphere at school to get involved in seriously making out.
They took their refuse back to the kitchen and cleaned up, then walked back upstairs to Lisa’s suite.
“Thanks for walking me home, Henry,” she said sweetly. Then she lifted her face to him for a kiss. It wasn’t deep or long, but they smiled at each other as Lisa went into her suite. There was definitely a feeling of impending intimacy.
They’d just finished their coffee and were getting ready to go to class Wednesday morning when the doorbell rang. Lisa caught her breath as Henry motioned her to leave by the back door and gave her his car keys. Then he went to the front door and opened it to find two people in uniform.
Well, at least they weren’t dressed in black with ski masks over their heads. These weren’t police uniforms. Henry identified the man in front as the Army recruiter he’d seen on campus. He didn’t get a good look at the person behind him.
“I didn’t know they were sending recruiters out to people’s homes,” Henry said at once. “I’m not interested in joining up.”
“As you undoubtedly know, neither I nor Captain Bernard are recruiters,” the soldier said. “I’m Colonel Nathan Schwartz. I’m the Pentagon’s Director of Cyber Resilience. This is my assistant, Captain Rebecca Bernard. We are not here in a law enforcement capacity. We are unarmed. What we’d like is a little of your time to discuss a matter of national security.”
“May I see your military ID and proof of citizenship?” Henry asked. It would be just like the Chinese to send an undercover recruit disguised as an army officer, he thought.
“Of course,” Schwartz said. He pulled out a CAC card and his brown passport. Captain Bernard followed suit and Henry recognized her as the exchange student who showed up the previous day. Clever. He checked the ID carefully.
His first inclination was to slam the door in their faces, but he was sure the next visitors wouldn’t be as polite. He carried the ID into the house.
“Please come in. May I offer you any refreshment? Coffee?” Henry asked, holding the door open for them. Maybe it was superstition, but he gauged the intent of his visitors by their willingness to accept refreshments.
“Thank you. Black coffee would be great. Can we sit at the table?” Colonel Schwartz asked.
Henry motioned them to the table and tossed the IDs on it. Captain Bernard opened a briefcase, pulling out a laptop and a sheaf of papers. She settled the computer in front of her and gave the papers to Schwartz.
The Colonel began talking while Henry made coffee, making sure he had Henry’s attention.
“You’re aware of the news stories and the interest various organizations have taken in learning about your school’s involvement over the past five days,” Schwartz said. “You may not be aware of some of the fallout. The Chinese government issued an anti-terrorist warning, claiming US-sponsored terrorists attacked their internet infrastructure and were repelled. That is not actually what happened, as I suspect you know, but won’t ask you to confirm.”
Henry set the coffee mugs on the table for the two army officers and seated himself with a fresh cup. Then he pulled the IDs to him again and quickly snapped photos of them with his phone.
“I saw the news stories and Dr. Hendon addressed the computer science students. He said the actual attack was on ours and several other schools’ AI computer labs and that the university repelled the attack,” Henry faithfully recounted the official view of things.
“That is closer to reality. What few people outside the military know is that we approached an undeclared war with China. In repelling the attack, nearly ten percent of China’s internet capacity was destroyed. Utterly.”
“Oh, shit!” Henry breathed. The gravity of the situation settled fully on him.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
