Matthew Mather's Compendium, Page 3

I walked in ahead of him while he held the door open. “I guess you’re right. Now what were you talking about?”

  “The news today. Things are getting totally out of hand in China. Have you been watching? More burning flags outside embassies, ransacking American stores. FedEx said they had to stop operations in China, even delivery of vaccines for the bird flu outbreak, and now Anonymous is threatening to attack them in retaliation.”

  Anonymous was the citizen hacktivist group we’d been reading about more and more in the news.

  Reaching the storage locker again, we stacked the water containers. “That why you’re stocking up?” I asked.

  “Just a coincidence, but I also read that cyberattacks on the Department of Defense have stepped up an order of magnitude.” Chuck had been researching the cyberworld ever since I brought it up at the barbecue.

  “DoD’s getting attacked?” I asked, concerned. “Is it serious?”

  “It gets attacked millions of times even on a good day, but now some reports are saying they’re getting more focused. Makes me nervous someone is planning something in meatspace.”

  “Meatspace?”

  “The Internet is in cyberspace, but we”—he paused for effect—“are in meatspace, get it?”

  Opening the back door, we walked back out into the rain.

  “God help us, now you have something new to be paranoid about.”

  Chuck snorted. “Only yourself to blame.”

  We walked back to the garage and found our neighbor Rory talking to one of the men.

  “Thirsty?” laughed Rory. He must have seen us lugging the containers. “What’s all the water for?”

  “Just like to be prepared,” replied Chuck. He nodded at the man Rory was talking to. “Mike, this is Stan. He runs the garage here.”

  I shook Stan’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Not sure how much longer I’ll be running this joint,” said Stan. “The way things are going.”

  “Used to be we had Bob Hope and Johnny Cash,” sympathized Chuck. “Now we have no hope and no cash.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Stan laughed, and all the cabbies around the entrance laughed too.

  “You need any help?” asked Rory.

  “Naw, thanks, man.” Chuck waved a hand at the dozen or so containers. “Not too much left.”

  We headed back in for another load.

  December 17

  “Could you give me your credit card?”

  “Why?”

  “Because mine are all canceled,” replied Lauren angrily.

  She’d been the victim of identity 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 said, “but forget trying to order anything.”

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

  Ellarose burbled away on her play mat on the floor in front of the TV. Where Luke was a bruiser, big for his age, Ellarose was petite, 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 sand-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 business-wise, and it was a good time to catch up on paperwork. The kitchen counter in front of me was filled with scraps 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, Lauren was still going full speed and was dressed up in a suit for interviews. “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 that’s the problem.”

  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 her laptop cover down.

  “—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 since coming back from Boston. I was trying to give her space to go through whatever she needed 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 hell 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 space. Lauren continued to look at me and then leaned down to give Luke a kiss, whispering something in his ear. She picked up her laptop and quickly made for the door. “I’ll be back just after lunch,” she called over her shoulder.

  “See you then,” I replied to an already closing door. She didn’t even give me a kiss.

  I handed the last pieces of peach to Luke. With a grin he grabbed the fruit, then squealed with glee as he threw it onto the floor for an appreciative Gorby. For good measure, one of the chunks flew sideways 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 cleaned his face and then lifted him up out of his high chair to deposit him on the ground. He stood unsteadily for a moment, holding onto the legs of my bar stool for balance, before rocketing off toward Ellarose in the tottering-on-the-edge-of-disaster run he’d been working on. Reaching out, he caught the front of the couch, stopping himself like a wobbly 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 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 up 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. 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.

  I went back to reading a report on the potential market for augmented reality on the Internet. I’d just been sent a pair of new augmented-reality glasses 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 fifteen minutes of reading and doing my expenses, I realized Luke was awfully quiet and looked up to see he’d fallen asleep against Gorby. I yawned. A nap seemed like a great idea, so I deposited Ellarose in her playpen by the window. I picked up Luke, his head lolling around like a sack of potatoes, and lay down on the couch, cradling my son on my stomach as I drifted off to sleep.

  CNN droned on in the b
ackground. “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. As my brain emerged from its fog, a gruff voice joined the banging. “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. How long was I out? I groaned, struggling to sit up, carefully holding Luke. “Yeah, yeah, just a sec,” I called out.

  Holding Luke in one arm, I ambled to 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 returned to the couch and laid him down, covering him with a blanket, and then returned to Chuck. By then he’d emptied everything out onto plates.

  “Is it lunchtime already? I conked out.” I rubbed my eyes and stretched. “What is that?”

  “Foie gras and french fries, my friend.” Chuck waved a baguette around in the air like a magic wand. “And some Creole shrimp in butter dipping sauce.”

  No wonder I was getting fat. “I can feel my arteries hardening already.” 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. “You don’t need to be at the restaurant this time of year?”

  “This is the busiest time of the year.” Chuck picked a meaty chunk of foie gras from atop the french fries. “But I have stuff to do here.”

  “More supplies for your doomsday locker?”

  He grinned 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 groups.”

  “What about the Romans, then? And you’re telling me we’re not isolated on this speck of blue called Earth?”

  Picking up a shrimp, I began shelling it.

  “I’ve been researching the cyberworld, at your suggestion,” said Chuck, “and you’re right.”

  I regretted saying anything.

  “What’s happening now,” he whispered, “makes the Cold War look like an age of transparency and understanding.”

  “You’re being dramatic.”

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

  “Cyber?” I popped the shrimp into my mouth, savoring the rich flavor of Cajun spices and butter. Oh, that’s good.

  “Nope. Space systems. Ever since Sputnik launched in 1957, outer space has been the military high ground.”

  “What does that have to do with cyber?”

  “Because cyber is the second thing that broke it. It’s replacing space as the new military high ground.” Chuck stuffed a mouthful of greasy fries into his mouth. “And outer space is already a part of cyberspace.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Most space systems are Internet-based. To us, things in space look far away, but in cyberspace, there’s no difference.”

  “So what’s the difference?”

  “While space requires a massive amount of money, all that you need to get into cyberspace is a laptop.”

  Switching from the shrimp to the fries, I hunted for a 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 video games 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.”

  Three kilotons? Weren’t nuclear devices in the megaton range? “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

  “That was thirty years ago. The new cyberweapons of mass destruction they’re building, nobody’s ever tested them,” continued Chuck, his smile long gone. “At least with nuclear weapons you know they’re scary—Hiroshima, Bikini—but with cyber, nobody knows how much damage they’ll cause if they let them loose, and they’re merrily sticking them into each other’s 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, and nobody knows what these new toys might do if they unleash them.”

  “So there’s nowhere to run anymore if things go wrong, is that what you’re saying?” I countered. “If something drastic goes down, do you really want to struggle to survive, only to watch everyone die? I’d prefer a nice quick exit.”

  He pointed to Luke on the couch. “You wouldn’t fight with everything you’ve got, till your last breath, to protect him?”

  I looked at Luke. Chuck was right. I nodded, 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.”

  “I’m sure you have examples.” There was no use in trying to slow him down when he was on a roll.

  “On a dig in Pompeii, they found aqueduct technology better than what we’re using today.” Chuck dug into the pile of french fries. “And how they built the pyramids is still lost tech.”

  “Now we’re talking ancient spacemen?”

  “I’m being serious. When Admiral Zheng led his fleet out of Suzhou in China in 1405, he had ships the size of modern aircraft carriers and took nearly thirty thousand troops with him.”

  “Really?”

  “Look it up. Zheng was probably in contact with our West Coast Indians four hundred years before Lewis and Clark brought Sacajawea on holiday there. I’d bet the Chinese were smoking reefers with the Oregon chiefs on ships bigger than modern battle cruisers a hundred years before Columbus ‘discovered’ America. Know how big Columbus’s famous Niña was?”

  I shrugged.

  “Fifty feet, and he had maybe fifty guys with him.”

  “Didn’t he have three boats?”

  Chuck stabbed the fries with his fork. “Before we’d even managed to paddle out of Europe in little buckets, China was already sailing the globe with thirty thousand troops on fleets of aircraft-carrier-sized warships.”

  I stopped eating. “What’s your point? I’m not following.”

  “Just that society goes backwards sometimes, and all this stuff with China—I get the feeling we’re fooling ourselves.”

  “They’re not the enemy?”

  “Just the wrong perspective,” he said. “We’re squaring them up to be the enemy, but mostly because we need an enemy.”

  “So you’re saying you’re wrong about the cyberthreat?”

  “No, but . . .” Chuck
left his fork in the fries and picked up a shrimp with his fingers.

  “But what?”

  “Maybe we’re blinding ourselves to the real enemy.”

  “What enemy is that, my conspiracy-loving friend?” I asked, rolling my eyes, expecting some rhetoric about the CIA or NSA.

  Chuck finished shelling his shrimp and pointed it at me. “Fear. Fear is the real enemy.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Fear and ignorance.”

  I laughed. “With all this stuff you’re stockpiling, aren’t you the one that’s afraid?”

  “Not afraid,” he said deliberately, looking straight into my eyes. “Prepared.”

  Day 1: December 23

  8:55 a.m.

  “It’s two days before Christmas. Isn’t it time to take a break?”

  Lauren frowned at me from across our kitchen counter. “I have to go to this meeting. Richard really went out on a limb to get this guy to talk to me.”

  We had the bedroom door shut, but the screech of Luke crying came through the baby monitor on the counter, cutting her short. She grabbed it and shut it off, just like she’d been shutting me off for the past month.

  I threw my hands in the air. “Well, if Richard set it up, then of course, abandon your family for another day.”

  “Don’t start.” She clenched her jaw. “At least Richard’s trying to help me.”

  Taking a deep breath, I mentally counted to ten. It was almost Christmas, and there was no sense in this argument escalating. Lauren stared at me.

  I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. “I think Luke’s coming down with something. We need to go food shopping for the holidays, and, like I said, I need to finish delivering those client gifts.” My new administrative assistant had forgotten to deliver a dozen of the personalized gifts that we’d created for our clients. She’d missed the ones in Manhattan because they weren’t on the long-distance mailing list. When we discovered the error, she’d been in a rush to get off to her family for the holidays, and with FedEx and UPS down, I’d stupidly offered to deliver them myself.

  Of course, now it was the last minute. Yesterday Luke and I had delivered half of them, running all around Little Italy and Chinatown to some of our smaller start-up partners, but I still had a few left for our bigger clients. Luke had enjoyed the outing—he was a social butterfly and would jabber to everyone we met.