CyberStorm Part 3

We headed back in for another load.

December 17.

"COULD YOU GIVE me your credit card?"

"Why?"

"Because mine are all cancelled," replied Lauren angrily.

She'd been the victim of ident.i.ty theft just after Thanksgiving. Someone had started taking out loans in her name, creating hedge accounts with online trading systems. It was a total mess.

"I can give it to you," I answered, "but forget trying to order anything."

We were sitting and having breakfast. I was having some oatmeal, Lauren was drinking coffee and surfing the internet on her laptop, and Luke was back to the fruit-chunks-and-dog game.

Ellarose was burbling away on her play mat on the floor in front of the TV. Where Luke was a bruiser, big for his age, Ellarose was pet.i.te, small for a six-month-old. She didn't have much hair yet, and what she did have seemed to always be sticking out at right angles, like a sandy-colored bird's nest. Her little eyes were constantly watching, wide open, seeing what was going on with the world. We were looking after her for a few hours so Susie could go shopping.

I was staying home for the day. The week before Christmas was completely dead for me business-wise, and it was a good time to catch up on paperwork and expenses. The kitchen counter in front of me was filled with sc.r.a.ps of paper and notes I was trying to organize. Unconsciously, I picked up my smartphone, swiping it to check my social media feeds. Nothing new.

"What do you mean, forget trying to order anything?"

Where I was winding down for the holidays, she was still going full speed and dressed up in a suit for meetings.

"We still have more than a week before Christmas. I'll just get the one-day delivery. Amazon said this year-"

"It's not Amazon."

Picking up the remote from the counter, I turned up the volume on CNN. "FedEx and UPS have ground to a complete standstill today due to what they say is a virus in their logistics shipping software-"

"That's just great." Lauren slapped closed the cover to her laptop.

"-blaming the hacking group Anonymous after they declared their intention to punish shipping companies for halting shipment of flu vaccines into China. Representatives of Anomymous deny the attack, saying they only initiated denial-of-service-"

"So where are you going today?" I asked.

"-projecting hundreds of millions of dollars of lost revenue for this holiday season, driving the economy even further into recession-"

"Meeting some headhunters downtown. Starting some dialogues to see if any low-hanging fruit comes loose."

I forced an encouraging smile. "That's great, honey."

How was it that I'd had to start to lie to her about how I felt?

She'd become withdrawn ever since coming back from Boston, keeping her distance from me. I was trying to give her s.p.a.ce, letting her go through whatever process she had to go through, but it felt like I was losing her. I was behaving as if I didn't care, when every fiber inside me wanted to reach out to her and shake her and ask what the h.e.l.l was happening.

She sighed, glancing toward the TV and then looking back at me. I met her gaze but then dropped my eyes, giving her that s.p.a.ce. Lauren continued to look at me and then leaned down to give Luke a kiss, whispering something in his ear. Quickly, she picked up her laptop and made for the door.

"I'll be back just after lunch," she called over her shoulder.

"See you then," I replied softly to an already closing door.

She didn't even give me a kiss.

I cut up the last pieces of a peach and handed them to Luke. With a naughty grin he grabbed the fruit from me and then squealed with glee as he threw it onto the floor for an appreciative Gorby. For good measure, one of the chunks flew off and landed on the report I was trying to read.

I smiled and wiped off the peach.

"Done with breakfast? Want to play with Ellarose?"

Picking up a napkin, I reached down to wipe his face and then gently lifted him up out of his highchair to deposit him on the ground. He stood unsteadily for a moment, holding onto the legs of my barstool for balance, before rocketing off toward Ellarose in the wobbling-on-the-edge-of-disaster run he'd been working on. Reaching out, he caught onto the front of the couch, stopping himself like an unsteady ice skater.

He looked down at Ellarose and then up at me with a big smile.

Ellarose, for her part, hadn't yet mastered the art of turning onto her stomach. She was only six months old and was lying on her back on her play mat, looking up at Luke with wide eyes. Luke squeaked and plopped down onto his knees to crawl over to her, putting a hand onto her face.

"Careful, Luke, be gentle," I warned.

He looked into Ellarose's eyes and then sat upright next to her, protectively, and looked at the TV.

"The extent of the bird flu outbreak within China is still unclear, but the US State Department has now issued a travel advisory warning against all regions. Combined with a growing anti-China boycotting movement-"

"Crazy world, huh?" I said to Luke, watching him watch the TV. Gorby walked over to curl up behind him.

Returning to my work, I continued reading a report on the potential market for augmented reality on the internet. I'd just been sent a pair of new augmented reality gla.s.ses by one of the big tech companies. It was a technology that fascinated me, and I wanted to get involved in a start-up, but Lauren said it was too risky.

After an hour or so of reading and doing my expenses, I noticed Luke was being awfully quiet. He'd fallen asleep against Gorby.

I yawned.

A nap seemed like a great idea, so I quietly walked over and picked up Ellarose to deposit her in her pack 'n play by the window. Reaching down, I picked up Luke, his sleepy head lolling around like a sack of potatoes, and laid down on the couch, cradling my son on my stomach as I drifted off to sleep.

CNN droned on in the background as I dropped off. "At what point does cyberespionage become cyberattack? With more on this we go to our correspondent..."

A loud banging on the door woke me up. My brain slowly awoke out of its fog, and then there was the banging again.

"I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blooow your door down!"

Luke had drooled all over my T-shirt. My muscles were sluggish from sleep. How long was I out? I groaned as I struggled to sit up, carefully holding onto Luke.

"Yeah, yeah, just a sec," I called out.

Holding Luke in one arm, I got up and ambled toward the door and unlocked it. Chuck burst through holding brown paper bags in both hands.

"Anyone for lunch?" he announced enthusiastically, proceeding to the kitchen counter where he began unpacking.

Luke watched Chuck with half-open eyes. I crossed over to the couch and laid him down, covering him up with a blanket, and then returned to Chuck. By then he'd emptied everything out onto plates.

"Is it lunchtime already?" I asked, rubbing my eyes and stretching. "I was conked out." I yawned. "What is that?"

"Foie gras and French fries, my friend," said Chuck with a smile, waving a baguette around in the air like a magic wand, "and some Creole shrimp in b.u.t.ter dipping sauce."

It was no wonder I was getting fat.

"I can feel my arteries hardening already," I joked.

Reaching around the counter, I slid open a drawer to pull out two forks and handed him one while I dug into the French fries with the other.

"No restaurant stuff this time of year?"

"This is the busiest time of the year," laughed Chuck, picking up a meaty chunk of foie gras from atop the French fries. "But I got stuff to do here."

"More stuff for your doomsday locker?"

He smiled and stuffed the fatty liver into his mouth.

I shook my head. "Do you really believe it's all going to come apart?"

Chuck wiped his greasy lips with the side of one hand. "You really believe it never will?"

"People are always saying the world is ending, but it never does. Society is too far advanced."

"Tell that to the Easter Islanders and Anasazi Indians."

"Those were isolated."

"What about the Romans, then? And tell me we're not isolated on this speck of blue called Earth?"

Picking up a shrimp, I began sh.e.l.ling it.

"I've been researching the cyber world, at your suggestion," said Chuck, "and you're right."

I regretted I'd said anything.

"What's happening now," Chuck whispered conspiratorially, "it makes the Cold War look like an age of transparency and understanding."

"You're being dramatic."

"For nearly all human history, the ability of one country to affect another was based on control of physical territory. Guess what broke that link for the first time?"

"Cyber?" I guessed. Popping the shrimp into my mouth, the rich texture of Cajun spices and b.u.t.ter exploded into my senses. Oh, that's good.

"Nope. s.p.a.ce systems. Ever since Sputnik launched in 1957, outer s.p.a.ce has been the military high-ground, to gather information and project power globally."

"What does that have to do with cyber?"

"Because cyber is the second thing that broke that link. It's replacing s.p.a.ce as the new military high-ground, and for exactly the same reasons-gathering information and influencing events anywhere on the planet."

I thought about that for a moment.

Chuck stuffed a mouthful of greasy fries into his mouth. "And outer s.p.a.ce is already a part of cybers.p.a.ce." He smiled.

"What do you mean?"

"Most s.p.a.ce systems are internet-based. To us, things in s.p.a.ce look far away, but in cybers.p.a.ce, there's no difference."

"So what is the difference, then?"

"The big difference is that while s.p.a.ce requires a ma.s.sive amount of money, all that you need to get into cybers.p.a.ce is a laptop."

Switching from the shrimp to the fries, I hunted for my own chunk of foie gras. "So that has you worried?"

He shook his head. "What's got me worried are those logic bombs in the energy grid you talked about. The Chinese wanted us to find them, so we'd know they could do it. Otherwise, we'd never have spotted them."

"So you're saying the CIA, NSA, all those three-letter agencies you love to hate, none of them would have seen it?" I said skeptically.

He shook his head. "People have this image of cyberwar, and they think of videogames and everything being squeaky clean, but it won't be like that."

"So what will it be like?"

"In 1982 the CIA rigged a logic bomb that blew up a Siberian pipeline-it created an explosion of three kilotons, as much as a small nuclear device. All they did was alter some code from a Canadian company that controlled it, and that was more than thirty years ago. You should see what they can do now."

"That doesn't sound too bad."

"The new cyberweapons of ma.s.s destruction they're building, n.o.body's ever tested them," continued Chuck, his smile gone. "At least with nuclear weapons you know they're scary-Hiroshima, Bikini-but with cyber, n.o.body knows how much damage they'll cause if they let them loose, and they're merrily sticking them into each others' infrastructure like candy canes on a doomsday Christmas tree."

"You really think it's that bad?"

"Do you know that when they set off the atomic bomb for the first time, during the Manhattan Project, the physicists running the show had a bet going whether it would ignite the atmosphere?"

I shook my head.

"Their best guess was fifty-fifty that they'd destroy all life on the planet, but they went ahead anyway. Government planning hasn't changed, my friend. They have no idea what these new weapons they're building might do."

"So there's nowhere to run anymore if things go wrong anyway, is that what you're saying?" I countered. "If it goes down, do you really want to be around to struggle and watch everyone die? I'd prefer a nice quick exit."

"You're being awfully casual." He looked at Luke on the couch. "You wouldn't fight with everything you've got, till your last breath, to protect him?"

I looked at Luke. He was right. I nodded slowly, conceding the point.

"You have too much faith in things always moving forward," he declared. "Since humans began making stuff, we've lost more technologies than we've gained. Society goes backwards from time to time."