The Meltdown

Writer’s Note: The Meltdown was published originally as a Subscriber Exclusive on February 14, 2018.
“To Marid! Welcome to the team,” declared Tami, raising her glass high. The rest of the crowded table followed suit, “Marid!”

Marid froze for a moment, uncomfortable as the full attention of all his new coworkers homed in on him. Thankfully, the social lubricant he had been plying all night was working its magic and he was able to force out a smile. “To me!”

With a loud cheer, everyone drank to the toast. Tami, taking her role as team leader seriously, drained her cocktail completely. With a flourish, she slammed the empty glass on the table and proudly stuck out her glowing, neon tongue — a side effect from the bar’s drink special, the Wallbanger. The more you drank, the brighter your tongue. Tami had light practically shooting out of her ears by this point.

Looking down at his own dwindling drink, Marid wondered the status of his tongue. They were already four rounds deep and he was well on his way from pleasantly tipsy to full-on pissed. It was hard to believe the bacchanalian revel that surrounded him was the same group who had been hotly debating how to tackle a system’s hierarchy issue at that morning’s stand-up meeting. He had only been in New Babbage less than 48 hours, but it seemed that the warnings he had heard about the place were one hundred percent well deserved. This city liked to party.

On face value alone, he probably should have taken one of the other job offers he’d received. Saga Datasystems had offered him way more money and a ridiculous starting package loaded with perks. The use of the company’s 300i had almost swayed him. And while Fiskers wasn’t going to pay him as much as Saga, if he had taken their offer he would‘ve been basically running his own team. They were kicking off a major new project and had been looking for someone with his specific background to spearhead storage infrastructure.

But then there was what microTech had offered — the chance to work on the single largest information tangle ever created. With an adoption rate of close to 56% of the Human population, more data sailed through the mobiGlas networks in a single day than all transfers of the previous century combined. Basically, his dream job. And so here he was, a brand new microTech data engineer getting drunk for the third time in his life.

The woman sitting next to Marid slapped his shoulder and asked what he wanted to drink next. That afternoon, she had walked him through the custom developer’s GUI that he’d be using to code and shown off the Rory Nova figurine collection that crowded her desk. He couldn’t remember her name. Connie? Katherine? His head was swimming and he suddenly felt too warm. He needed some air. “You know what, next round’s on me,” said Marid, standing up from the table. There were protests, but he silenced them with, “Hey, you said I was part of the team, right?” With that sorted, they quickly shouted their orders at him which he tried his best to memorize.

Before heading to the bar, he walked away from the crowds towards the window that looked out at the frozen wasteland of microTech, the planet. Touching his hand against the cool surface, he felt better almost immediately. Outside, bright lights shone from the city into the snowstorm, creating a dazzling effect against the black night sky. It was a unique experience to have a dense, sweating mass of Humanity on one side of him and the pure isolation of the tundra on the other. It reminded him of working on a project; his mind completely focused on the numbers and code, but part of him still aware of the chaos swirling around him. Apparently, I get poetical when I get drunk, he thought, and laughed. He took a deep breath and staggered back into the crowd.

The bartender greeted Marid with a thousand-credit smile, “You’re new to Wally’s Bar, aren’t you? I’d remember a face as lovely as yours.” Marid flushed, caught off guard by the compliment. Before he could respond, the bartender continued, “I’m buying you a drink to celebrate. What should I make you? I see you tried the Wallbanger already,” he said pointing to Marid’s mouth. “Actually, you know what? I’ve been working on a real special drink.” He leaned across the bar. “If you’re interested, I can hook you up …”

“Easy, Eddie. This one isn’t for you,” directed a voice close by. Marid looked over to see a shock of bright purple hair paired with equally purple eyes as a newcomer took the spot next to him at the bar. The bartender’s demeanor instantly changed. He straightened up and shrugged, “Of course. No worries. I was just messing around.” He walked quickly away to help another customer.

It took a second for Marid’s slowed thoughts to catch up. “Wait! I need to get drinks for my friends.” But the bartender was already out of earshot.

“Looks to me like they’re taken care of.” The stranger pointed over Marid’s shoulder where his coworkers eagerly poured each other shots from a bottle of Soles.

“Huh, guess someone else must’ve ordered.”

“Yeah, part of the magic of Wally’s. Alcohol just sort of happens. I’m Mac, by the way.”

“Marid.”

“Let me guess, if you’re hanging with that crowd, you must work for microTech.”

“Yeah, today was my first day, actually.”

A big smile spread across the stranger’s face. “What! Congrats! That’s so exciting.”

Marid found himself smiling back. He had been so nervous about impressing his coworkers and making a good first impression that it hadn’t really sunk in until Mac had pointed it out, it was really exciting.

“Marid, I would love to get you a drink to celebrate your new job. Of course, if you say yes there’s no obligation to stay and chat with me.” Mac smiled again. “Though, I’d be pretty happy if you did.”

Marid glanced back at his coworkers. Tami was standing at the head of the table with a sim-helmet on, doing what looked like a front stroke as the rest of the group cheered. Just the thought of wading back into the party was exhausting. Really, he should just go to his flat and get some rest before work tomorrow. Another customer pushed to the bar next to him, causing Marid to slide closer to Mac. A warmth spread through him from where their arms touched. Or he could stay and have one more drink.

“Yeah, I’d love a drink.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Quicker than he thought possible, two drinks appeared in front of them. Mac raised a glass. “To your new job.”

Marid never knew he could hate anything as much as he hated the sound of birds chirpings at that very moment. He slowly peeled his eyes open, squinting in the sunlight. As the room came into focus, a whole flock of birds flitted above his bed, singing happily. “Alarm, snooze.”

“Unable to comply. Snooze limit reached,” the hab controls responded cheerfully.

Crap. Marid rolled out of his bed, and stumbled to the alarm off button. As soon as he pressed it, the bird projection mercifully switched off and the lighting dropped to a normal level. Even with the noise gone, his head still ached. In fact, his whole body was aching. Plus, his mouth tasted like a cotton ball soaked in sewer water. Right, this is why I don’t drink. He glanced at the clock and grimaced. So much for making a good impression on his second day at work.

After a long internal debate about whether to get back into bed or not, followed by a quick shower, Marid dug out his sunglasses from an unpacked moving crate and headed to the cafe a few blocks from his hab.

It seemed he wasn’t the only one having a rough morning. The place was packed with bleary eyed people. While he waited in the long line to get an extra large stim-laced coffee, he popped open his mobi. He couldn’t remember coming home last night and was curious to see what his stats were.

For the last couple years, he had gotten in the habit of tracking a bunch of different personal metrics. Some of them the mobi OS tracked by default, like distance traveled and heart rate, but others he had coded himself: pupil dilation, ambient noise levels, how many times he checked his mobi, etc. He scrolled through the night, seeing the numbers fluctuate as his body reacted to various stimuli. That’s odd. According to the data, for an hour last night he had done the exact same thing he had done the previous hour. No discernable change whatsoever.

That shouldn’t be possible.

Even standing still produced quantifiable changes in the data. Something must have gone wrong. He accessed the dev controls and started looking for what could have caused the error. After ensuring that the sensors were all functioning normally, he started to acknowledge the worst of all possibilities.

“Sir? Your order?”

Marid realized that he had been blocking the front of the line. “Sorry.” He stepped out of the way without getting a coffee. The fog from earlier that morning had been cleared by the sinking realization that he had been hacked.

It was cleverly done. No denying that. Even a casual user might notice if there was time missing or erased, but by looping the data from the previous hour the loss blended in almost perfectly. If it wasn’t for Marid’s obsession with data he might not have noticed himself. He dove deeper into his system and opened up an image of the mobi’s memory substrate. Luckily, his guess had been right. Whatever malicious program had been used, it worked by actively overwriting data, not by changing the underlying data itself. He was able to see what memory units had been accessed during the missing hour. Marid knew instantly what the hacker had been after.

His employee key code.

It was a unique identifier that gave him access to the microTech offices and more specifically to his dev processor. Worried about corporate espionage (and apparently rightly so) microTech had set up its development environments in isolated cells. Employees could only access their own sectors unless given active approval by security. So, if someone wanted to access the data engineering teams files, they would need one of those specific key codes.

Not only that, but key codes were hard encoded into the specific person’s mobi. Yesterday, he had sat in the security office having it physically transferred to his unit through a connector cable. For someone to steal one, they had to physically access the mobi.

The drinks. The flirting. The casual enquiries into Madrid’s new job. Mac’s interest in him suddenly made a lot more sense.

His first instinct had been to run back to Wally’s Bar and try to track down Mac, but the logical part of his brain that was still functioning beneath his panic and anger pointed out that the bar wouldn’t be open for another five hours. Hell, Mac probably didn’t even have purple hair and eyes any more. The hacker had most likely chosen the loud coloring as a distraction more than a fashion choice.

No, the right thing to do would be to go report the breach to microTech security.

He corrected his route and headed towards the gleaming headquarters building, the sweeping lines of its unique design rising to meet the curved dome overhead in an impressive display of modern architecture. Hard to believe that when he had woken up his biggest worry was being being late for work. Instead, he was about to cop to being responsible for a major security breach. He would go straight to Tami and let her know everything and then they could initiate a quarantine to close down any vulnerabilities. With the amount of access Marid had on his system, it would be a massive operation. Plus, they would most likely have to go public since direct consumer data was involved. Even with the encryption protocols in place, the raw information stored on microTech’s servers contained billions of transactions and comms that could be used for nefarious credit-making purposes. People used their mobiGlas for almost everything. It would be a publicity nightmare.

“Hello and welcome to microTech, where we work to make each day better,” the perky holographic microTech representative chirped as he entered.

Not Marid. Not after he tells what happened.

Marid had reached the sprawling high tech showroom just outside the main offices. Here, microTech had their latest and greatest offerings on display; from high end mobiGlas models to massive top-of-the-line full immersion simpods.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” As he walked along, the representative floated alongside, ready to assist if he needed anything. Only cutting-edge sales technology for microTech.

It was painful to think about leaving all of this behind. Forget about the fact that getting fired a week into his new job would probably tarnish his reputation enough that other companies wouldn’t want to touch him, it hurt more to know that he would never get to start on all the grand projects he had been planning.

“We have a new line of holo-projectors that you just have to see to believe.”

Marid was about to dismiss the annoyingly chipper representative when a thought occurred to him — he didn’t have any concrete evidence that microTech had been breached yet. All he would do by saying something now was cause a panic. He quickly convinced himself that the prudent thing to do would be to check the system first and see if there was an actual cause for alarm. No point in calling out “fire” if there weren’t any flames, right?

After hours of searching he finally found a discrepancy, but only because he knew there was something to look for. Just like the intrusion on his mobi, this was extremely well done. Mac was turning out to be quite the hacker. There was some satisfaction in knowing that at least he had been conned by someone with considerable skill.

His system had been infected with a classic lawn mower virus, just trimming a little off the top at a time. All together, the data it skimmed looked like nonsense, but there would be a companion program on the other end that could recompile everything into its original form. This version was particularly well done because rather than running in a straight, more traceable line, it jumped around randomly through the data structure. Impressive. And helpful to Marid.

This adjustment meant the virus worked at a much slower rate than typical. Plus, it was hiding its data transmissions by burying miniscule packets inside the normal traffic so that no one would notice the slight bandwidth change. This was a virus designed to work for months, if not years, gathering up everything it could. If he cut it off now, barely any data at all would have been collected from microTech’s servers. Marid began to program a fence that he could use to quarantine the virus.

However, just before he could implement it, there was a knock on his workpod. Marid looked up to see Tami standing at the entrance, sipping from a thermos that read ‘Data Engineers Have The Same Amount of Fun, More Efficiently.’ Smiling he said “Morning, Tami,” as his fingers surreptitiously pressed the hotkeys to minimize the files on his screen.

“Hey, Marid. Just wanted to say that I saw this morning’s logs.”

Marid’s entire body tensed. He would have blurted out everything right then and there if he hadn’t been momentarily paralyzed by fear.

“Can’t believe you came into the office that early this morning. Especially not after the night we had. Happy to know you can hold your own next time we hit the town.”

Marid breathed a sigh of relief. If he didn’t get fired today, he appreciated the irony that Mac using his key code to access the building early this morning might actually win him a few points with his boss. Though, it was strange knowing the hacker had been sitting in this seat just a few hour earlier. “You know what they say, work hard, play hard.”

Tami nodded. “That is pretty much the unofficial motto of microTech. If you have a free minute, I was hoping to walk you through the restructuring effort that I was hoping you’d tackle this week.”

Her doing anything at his workstation was about the last thing he wanted right now. He scrambled for an excuse. “Any way we could do that tomorrow? I would love one more day to really settle in before diving full on into a project.”

“All right, but I fully expect you to be ready to jump into the deep end tomorrow. Also, I really want to go swimming now. Have you been to the Club Olympus? They have an outdoor deck with hot tubs. The cold mixing with the hot. So great. You have to try it.”

“Sounds incredible. For sure, let me know next time you’re going,” said Marid with as much ‘get out of my workpod’ in his voice as he could politely muster.

With Tami gone, he quickly reopened the quarantine protocol and rechecked his work one last time before implementing. Everything looked good. As soon as he enabled it, the virus would be completely cut off and then … And then what?

Would he then tell security what had happened? He would be in more trouble if they found out he waited. Plus, Mac would know that something had happened once the flow of data was interrupted. Who knew what the hacker’s next move would be after that. Marid could send falsified data packets out, but that would only prolong the inevitable. The way he saw it, he had three viable choices.

One, he could go back to his original plan and tell microTech what was happening.

Two, he could find where the data was being sent and attempt to eradicate the security breach at the source.

Three, he could just pretend like he never knew and let the lawn mower keep running.

There was a very strong chance that the first option would result in him being terminated. The second option was considerably more dangerous since there was no telling who or what he might run into, but the chances of him keeping his job were much higher. He would almost certainly keep his job if he went for the third option, at least for a while longer, but now that the Pandora’s box was open, he wasn’t the type of person that could just let the data he was entrusted with continue to be stolen.

Closing the quarantine, Marid opened up a new window to begin tracing where the data packets were being sent.

When his transport shuttle had flown across the tundra two days prior, it had not prepared Marid in any way for how cold it would actually be, standing outside New Babbage’s protective dome. Even though his suit was rated for extreme temperatures, as he stepped from the protective interior of the small ice skiff he had rented the biting cold cut straight to his core. The wind made it even worse. If it wasn’t for the tiny pitons along the sole of his boots gripping the packed snow, he would have been blown away.

It had taken him all afternoon to find the source. Mac had covered the data’s tracks well, bouncing the packets between dozens of spec-hubs. He had almost lost the path when the data was routed through a sim-arcade, but he was able to pick up the trail as the data was piped through a private comm relay transmitting away from the dome. For the last leg of the journey, Marid had to use a narrow-field scanner to physically follow the signal. Making it even more difficult was the fact that the broadcast bursts were few and far between. He would pick up the signal only for a few milliseconds before it would disappear again. In the end, the signal had brought him to this remote stretch of icy nothing.

The snow whipped around him, clogging his mask and making it difficult to see farther than a meter or two. He had briefly made the mistake of using a flashlight, but the snow reflected the light, blinding him. Sweeping the scanner back and forth, Marid homed in on the signal. Standing out here, he understood why the skiff rental company had issued so many warnings and made him sign several releases before leaving the dome. Part of their caution probably had to do with most of their rentals being to weekend warriors looking to do some extreme iceboarding, but there was no denying that microTech was a very inhospitable environment. From where he stood, the near featureless horizon looked the same on all sides. If the skiff lost power for any reason, he would be hopelessly stuck out here.

Suddenly, the scanner jumped from his grip and his hand throbbed from an unseen impact. Groping about, he realized that there was a white comm dish directly in front of him that had blended almost seamlessly with the tundra. Even now, knowing where it was, it was still hard to make out. He bent and found the base of the dish. There, buried under the snow, a thick bundle of cables led away. He followed it best he could, but scraping the snow away with his gloved hands quickly proved painful as the cold ate through his protective layers.

He was almost forced to give up when his hands started to go numb, but he thankfully found where the trunkline terminated just as the feeling totally left his fingers. Hidden by a thin layer of fresh snowfall laid a metal hatch. Marid swept the area clean but couldn’t find an access terminal anywhere. Was it some sort of remote wireless lock? He adjusted the scanner to try to detect a local small wave transmission but found nothing. Desperate, he tried pulling on the hatch. It opened easily, sending Marid flying backwards into the snow. Embarrassed even though there was no one to witness his folly, he brushed himself off and proceeded to climb down the ladder.

Below was a small bunker densely packed with a server array. The heat coming off the racks was intense, but a piping system that ran throughout the bunker used the frigid external temperature as a heatsink for the units. This natural cooling was part of the reason microTech had chosen to purchase this world in the first place. They saved billions in credits every year thanks to the planet’s freezing climate.

Marid headed to the access terminal. Sure enough, he found the compiler program that was the mate to the virus on his system. The data arrived here and was slowly put together. Though there was a massive amount of information in storage here, most of it was still fragmented. The small amount that became viable was transferred off the main server onto a portable drive for collection and analysis. Looking through the records, Marid realized that he was not the first of Mac’s victims. The server was collecting data from most of New Babbage’s biggest tech firms, including at least three separate sources inside microTech itself.

There were schematics from a company developing an improved EVA stabilizer that used a third of the normal fuel. There was internal documentation from Pi-Plum Software discussing their new proprietary compression algorithm. There were even vids showing early levels from an unannounced Star Marine 3. And that was only what had been compiled so far. Who knew what else was lurking in the fragments? He had stumbled onto a treasure trove of stolen information.

Methodically, he went around the bunker and deactivated the cooling system’s emergency redundancies. With each one he turned off, the temperature in the room rose higher. Alarms began to sound, but when the automatic systems tried to prevent disaster by flooding the room with ice water, it was already too late. Marid’s suit sounded a warning of its own; the temperature was reaching a dangerous level. Taking the portable drive with him, he climbed the ladder and closed the hatch once more, finishing the transformation of the bunker into an oven.

Over the next half hour, Marid watched from the skiff as the ice cracked and hot steam vented from below the surface. By now, any piece of tech that had been inside the server room had been turned to slag. The data from microTech was safe.

Of course, once his sabotage was discovered, Mac was going to be angry and desperate. But Marid was counting on that. With microTech’s key codes changed over every month, the hacker only had a limited time to re-access his system and direct the virus to a new output relay before being completely locked out. All Marid had to do was ensure that his trap was ready before then. A simple trace file. He didn’t expect it to take very long to program at all.

He started up the skiff and piloted across the ice back towards New Babbage. He was planning on getting a good night’s sleep before his meeting with Tami in the morning. But then again, he thought, glancing at the drive sitting on the seat next to him, maybe just a little light reading before bed.


END.

"Für Marid! Willkommen im Team", erklärte Tami und hob ihr Glas hoch. Der Rest des überfüllten Tisches folgte dem Beispiel: "Marid!"

Marid erstarrte für einen Moment, unbequem, da die volle Aufmerksamkeit aller seiner neuen Mitarbeiter auf ihn gerichtet war. Glücklicherweise wirkte das soziale Gleitmittel, das er die ganze Nacht angewendet hatte, magisch und er konnte ein Lächeln hervorrufen. "Zu mir!"

Mit einem lauten Jubel tranken alle auf den Toast. Tami, die ihre Rolle als Teamleiterin ernst nahm, leerte ihren Cocktail vollständig. Mit einem Schwung knallte sie das leere Glas auf den Tisch und streckte stolz ihre leuchtende, neonfarbene Zunge aus - ein Nebeneffekt aus dem Getränke-Spezial der Bar, dem Wallbanger. Je mehr du getrunken hast, desto heller ist deine Zunge. Tami hatte an diesem Punkt praktisch Licht aus ihren Ohren geschossen.

Als Marid auf seinen eigenen schwindenden Drink herabblickte, fragte er sich, welchen Status seine Zunge hatte. Sie waren bereits vier Runden tief und er war auf dem besten Weg von angenehm angeheitert zu vollgepisst. Es war schwer zu glauben, dass das bacchanale Vergnügen, das ihn umgab, die gleiche Gruppe war, die auf dem Stand-up-Meeting am Vormittag heiß darüber diskutiert hatte, wie man das Hierarchieproblem eines Systems angehen sollte. Er war nur weniger als 48 Stunden in New Babbage gewesen, aber es schien, dass die Warnungen, die er über den Ort gehört hatte, zu hundert Prozent verdient waren. Diese Stadt feierte gerne.

Allein auf den Nennwert bezogen, hätte er wahrscheinlich eine der anderen Stellenangebote annehmen sollen, die er erhalten hatte. Saga Datasystems hatte ihm viel mehr Geld und ein lächerliches Startpaket voller Vorteile angeboten. Der Einsatz des 300i der Firma hatte ihn fast geschwängert. Und während Fiskers ihn nicht so viel bezahlen wollte wie Saga, hätte er, wenn er ihr Angebot angenommen hätte, im Grunde genommen sein eigenes Team geführt. Sie starteten ein großes neues Projekt und suchten jemanden mit seinem spezifischen Hintergrund für die führende Speicherinfrastruktur.

Aber dann gab es noch das, was microTech geboten hatte - die Möglichkeit, an dem größten jemals geschaffenen Informationsverwirrspiel zu arbeiten. Mit einer Akzeptanzrate von fast 56% der Bevölkerung segelten an einem einzigen Tag mehr Daten durch die mobiGlas-Netzwerke als alle Übertragungen des vergangenen Jahrhunderts zusammen. Im Grunde genommen sein Traumjob. Und so war er hier, ein brandneuer MicroTech-Dateningenieur, der zum dritten Mal in seinem Leben betrunken wurde.

Die Frau, die neben Marid saß, schlug ihm auf die Schulter und fragte, was er als nächstes trinken wolle. An diesem Nachmittag hatte sie ihn durch die GUI des kundenspezifischen Entwicklers geführt, mit der er programmieren würde, und die Rory Nova Figuren-Sammlung gezeigt, die ihren Schreibtisch überfüllte. Er konnte sich nicht an ihren Namen erinnern. Connie? Katherine? Sein Kopf schwamm und er fühlte sich plötzlich zu warm. Er brauchte etwas Luft. "Weißt du was, die nächste Runde geht auf mich", sagte Marid und stand vom Tisch auf. Es gab Proteste, aber er brachte sie zum Schweigen mit: "Hey, du sagtest, ich sei Teil des Teams, richtig?" Damit sortiert, schrieen sie ihm schnell ihre Befehle zu, die er sich nach Kräften zu merken versuchte.

Bevor er sich auf den Weg zur Bar machte, ging er von der Menge weg in Richtung Fenster, das auf die gefrorene Ödnis der MicroTech, des Planeten, hinausblickte. Als er seine Hand gegen die kühle Oberfläche berührte, fühlte er sich fast sofort besser. Draußen strahlten helle Lichter aus der Stadt in den Schneesturm und erzeugten einen schillernden Effekt gegen den schwarzen Nachthimmel. Es war eine einzigartige Erfahrung, eine dichte, schwitzende Masse der Menschheit auf der einen Seite und die reine Isolation der Tundra auf der anderen Seite zu haben. Es erinnerte ihn an die Arbeit an einem Projekt; sein Verstand konzentrierte sich ganz auf die Zahlen und den Code, aber ein Teil von ihm war sich des Chaos bewusst, das um ihn herum wirbelte. Anscheinend werde ich poetisch, wenn ich betrunken werde, dachte er und lachte. Er atmete tief durch und taumelte zurück in die Menge.

Der Barkeeper begrüßte Marid mit einem Lächeln von tausend Credits: "Du bist neu in Wally's Bar, nicht wahr? Ich würde mich an ein so schönes Gesicht wie deins erinnern." Marid errötete, überrascht von dem Kompliment. Bevor er antworten konnte, fuhr der Barkeeper fort: "Ich gebe dir einen Drink zum Feiern aus. Was soll ich aus dir machen? Ich sehe, du hast den Wallbanger schon einmal probiert", sagte er und zeigte auf Marids Mund. "Eigentlich, weißt du was? Ich habe an einem ganz besonderen Getränk gearbeitet." Er lehnte sich über die Bar. "Wenn du interessiert bist, kann ich dir helfen...."

"Ganz ruhig, Eddie. Dieser ist nichts für dich", richtete eine Stimme in der Nähe. Marid blickte hinüber, um einen Schock aus hellviolettem Haar gepaart mit ebenso violetten Augen zu sehen, als ein Neuankömmling den Platz neben sich an der Bar einnahm. Das Verhalten des Barkeepers änderte sich sofort. Er richtete sich auf und zuckte mit den Schultern: "Natürlich. Keine Sorge, keine Sorge. Ich habe nur herumgealbert." Er ging schnell weg, um einem anderen Kunden zu helfen.

Es dauerte eine Sekunde, bis Marids verlangsamte Gedanken auftauchten. "Warte! Ich brauche Drinks für meine Freunde." Aber der Barkeeper war schon außer Hörweite.

"Sieht für mich so aus, als ob man sich um sie kümmert." Der Fremde zeigte über Marids Schulter, wo sich seine Mitarbeiter eifrig gegenseitig Schüsse aus einer Flasche Soles schütteten.

"Huh, ich schätze, jemand anderes muss bestellt haben."

"Ja, ein Teil der Magie von Wally's. Alkohol passiert einfach so. Ich bin übrigens Mac."

" Marid."

"Lass mich raten, wenn du mit dieser Menge rumhängst, musst du für die MicroTech arbeiten."

"Ja, heute war mein erster Tag."

Ein großes Lächeln breitete sich auf dem Gesicht des Fremden aus. "Was! Glückwunsch! Das ist so aufregend."

Marid lächelte zurück. Er war so nervös gewesen, seine Mitarbeiter zu beeindrucken und einen guten ersten Eindruck zu hinterlassen, dass es nicht wirklich eingetreten war, bis Mac es darauf hingewiesen hatte, es war wirklich aufregend.

"Marid, ich würde dir gerne einen Drink holen, um deinen neuen Job zu feiern. Natürlich, wenn du ja sagst, gibt es keine Verpflichtung, zu bleiben und mit mir zu chatten." Mac lächelte wieder. "Aber ich wäre ziemlich glücklich, wenn du es tun würdest."

Marid blickte zurück zu seinen Mitarbeitern. Tami stand mit einem Sim-Helm an der Spitze des Tisches und tat etwas, das wie ein Frontstrich aussah, während der Rest der Gruppe jubelte. Allein der Gedanke, in die Gruppe zurückzukehren, war anstrengend. Wirklich, er sollte einfach in seine Wohnung gehen und sich vor der Arbeit morgen etwas ausruhen. Ein anderer Kunde drückte auf die Bar neben sich, so dass Marid näher an den Mac heranrutschte. Eine Wärme breitete sich durch ihn aus, von wo aus sich ihre Arme berührten. Oder er könnte bleiben und noch einen Drink nehmen.

"Ja, ich hätte gerne einen Drink."

"Ich hatte gehofft, dass du das sagen würdest." Schneller, als er es für möglich hielt, erschienen zwei Getränke vor ihnen. Mac hat ein Glas angehoben. "Auf deinen neuen Job."

Marid wusste nie, dass er etwas so sehr hassen könnte, wie er das Geräusch von Vogelgezwitscher in diesem Moment hasste. Er schälte langsam seine Augen auf und zwinkerte im Sonnenlicht. Als der Raum in den Fokus rückte, flog eine ganze Vogelschar über seinem Bett und sang glücklich. "Alarm, Schlummerfunktion."

"Unfähig zu entsprechen. Die Schlummergrenze wurde erreicht", antwortete die Hab-Kontrolle fröhlich.

Mist. Marid rollte aus seinem Bett und stolperte über den Alarm-Aus-Schalter. Sobald er sie drückte, schaltete sich die Vogelprojektion gnädigerweise aus und die Beleuchtung fiel auf ein normales Niveau. Trotz des Geräuschs schmerzte sein Kopf immer noch. Tatsächlich schmerzte sein ganzer Körper. Außerdem schmeckte sein Mund wie ein mit Kanalwasser getränkter Wattebausch. Richtig, deshalb trinke ich nicht. Er blickte auf die Uhr und grinste. So viel zu einem guten Eindruck an seinem zweiten Arbeitstag.

Nach einer langen internen Debatte darüber, ob er wieder ins Bett gehen sollte oder nicht, gefolgt von einer kurzen Dusche, grub Marid seine Sonnenbrille aus einer ausgepackten, sich bewegenden Kiste aus und machte sich auf den Weg zum Café, ein paar Blocks von seinem Gewand entfernt.

Es schien, dass er nicht der Einzige war, der einen harten Morgen hatte. Der Ort war voll von verschwommenen Augen. Während er in der langen Schlange wartete, um einen extra großen stilgeschnürten Kaffee zu bekommen, sprang er sein Mobi auf. Er konnte sich nicht erinnern, dass er gestern Abend nach Hause gekommen war und war neugierig, was seine Statistiken waren.

In den letzten Jahren hatte er sich angewöhnt, eine Reihe von verschiedenen persönlichen Kennzahlen zu verfolgen. Einige von ihnen das mobi OS, das standardmäßig verfolgt wird, wie Entfernung und Herzfrequenz, aber andere hatte er selbst kodiert: Pupillenerweiterung, Umgebungsgeräusche, wie oft er sein mobi überprüft hat, etc. Er scrollte durch die Nacht und sah die Zahlen schwanken, während sein Körper auf verschiedene Reize reagierte. Das ist merkwürdig. Den Daten zufolge hatte er gestern Abend für eine Stunde genau das Gleiche getan, was er in der vorherigen Stunde getan hatte. Keine erkennbare Veränderung.

Das sollte nicht möglich sein.

Schon im Stillstand kam es zu quantifizierbaren Veränderungen in den Daten. Etwas muss schief gelaufen sein. Er griff auf die Dev-Controls zu und begann nach dem zu suchen, was den Fehler verursacht haben könnte. Nachdem er sichergestellt hatte, dass die Sensoren alle normal funktionierten, begann er, die schlimmste aller Möglichkeiten zu erkennen.

"Sir? Ihre Bestellung?"

Marid erkannte, dass er die Front der Linie blockiert hatte. " Tut mir leid." Er ging aus dem Weg, ohne einen Kaffee zu holen. Der Nebel von früher an diesem Morgen war durch die sinkende Erkenntnis, dass er gehackt worden war, beseitigt worden.

Es war geschickt gemacht. Das lässt sich nicht leugnen. Selbst ein gelegentlicher Benutzer könnte bemerken, ob Zeit fehlte oder gelöscht wurde, aber durch das Schleifen der Daten der vorherigen Stunde fügte sich der Verlust fast perfekt ein. Ohne Marids Besessenheit von Daten hätte er sich vielleicht nicht selbst bemerkt. Er tauchte tiefer in sein System ein und öffnete ein Bild des Speichersubstrats der Mobi. Glücklicherweise war seine Vermutung richtig gewesen. Welches bösartige Programm auch immer verwendet wurde, es funktionierte durch aktives Überschreiben von Daten, nicht durch Ändern der zugrunde liegenden Daten selbst. Er konnte sehen, auf welche Speichereinheiten während der fehlenden Stunde zugegriffen wurde. Marid wusste sofort, worauf der Hacker aus war.

Sein Mitarbeiter-Keycode.

Es war ein eindeutiger Identifikator, der ihm den Zugang zu den microTech-Büros und insbesondere zu seinem Entwicklungsprozessor ermöglichte. Aus Sorge um die Wirtschaftsspionage (und das zu Recht) hatte microTech seine Entwicklungsumgebungen in isolierten Zellen aufgebaut. Mitarbeiter konnten nur dann auf ihre eigenen Bereiche zugreifen, wenn sie keine aktive Zustimmung der Sicherheit erhielten. Wenn also jemand auf die Dateien der Datentechnik-Teams zugreifen möchte, benötigt er einen dieser spezifischen Schlüsselcodes.

Nicht nur das, sondern auch die Schlüsselcodes wurden fest in den Mobi der jeweiligen Person kodiert. Gestern hatte er im Sicherheitsbüro gesessen und es physisch über ein Verbindungskabel auf seine Einheit übertragen. Damit jemand einen stehlen konnte, musste er physisch auf den Mobi zugreifen.

Die Getränke. Das Flirten. Die beiläufigen Ermittlungen über den neuen Job in Madrid. Macs Interesse an ihm machte plötzlich viel mehr Sinn.

Sein erster Instinkt war, zurück zu Wally's Bar zu laufen und zu versuchen, Mac aufzuspüren, aber der logische Teil seines Gehirns, der immer noch unter seiner Panik und Wut funktionierte, wies darauf hin, dass die Bar für weitere fünf Stunden nicht geöffnet sein würde. Zum Teufel, Mac hatte wahrscheinlich nicht einmal mehr lila Haare und Augen. Der Hacker hatte höchstwahrscheinlich die laute Farbgebung als Ablenkung mehr als eine Modewahl gewählt.

Nein, das Richtige wäre, den Verstoß an die microTech security zu melden.

Er korrigierte seine Route und steuerte auf das schimmernde Hauptgebäude zu, dessen geschwungene Linien sich in seinem einzigartigen Design erheben und die geschwungene Kuppel über Kopf in einer beeindruckenden Darstellung der modernen Architektur treffen. Kaum zu glauben, dass, als er aufgewacht war, seine größte Sorge darin bestand, zu spät zur Arbeit zu kommen. Stattdessen war er im Begriff, die Verantwortung für eine größere Sicherheitsverletzung zu übernehmen. Er ging direkt zu Tami und ließ sie alles wissen, und dann konnten sie eine Quarantäne einleiten, um alle Schwachstellen zu schließen. Bei dem Umfang an Zugriff, den Marid auf seinem System hatte, wäre es eine massive Operation. Außerdem müssten sie höchstwahrscheinlich an die Öffentlichkeit gehen, da es sich um direkte Verbraucherdaten handelt. Selbst mit den vorhandenen Verschlüsselungsprotokollen enthielten die auf den Servern der microTech gespeicherten Rohdaten Milliarden von Transaktionen und Kommunikationen, die für schändliche Kreditvergabezwecke verwendet werden konnten. Die Menschen verwendeten ihr mobiGlas für fast alles. Es wäre ein Werbealptraum.

"Hallo und willkommen bei der microTech, wo wir daran arbeiten, jeden Tag besser zu werden", zwitscherte der kecke holographische Vertreter der microTech, als er eintrat.

Nicht Marid. Nicht, nachdem er gesagt hat, was passiert ist.

Marid hatte den weitläufigen High-Tech-Showroom direkt vor den Hauptbüros erreicht. Hier präsentierte microTech ihre neuesten und umfangreichsten Angebote, von hochwertigen mobiGlas-Modellen bis hin zu massiven Top-of-the-Line Full Immersion Simpods.

"Gibt es etwas, bei dem ich dir helfen kann?" Während er entlang ging, schwebte der Vertreter neben ihm und war bereit, ihm zu helfen, wenn er etwas brauchte. Nur modernste Vertriebstechnologie für die microTech.

Es war schmerzhaft, darüber nachzudenken, das alles hinter sich zu lassen. Vergessen Sie die Tatsache, dass eine Woche nach der Entlassung in seinen neuen Job wahrscheinlich seinen Ruf so sehr beschädigen würde, dass andere Unternehmen ihn nicht berühren würden, es tat mehr weh zu wissen, dass er nie mit all den großen Projekten beginnen würde, die er geplant hatte.

"Wir haben eine neue Linie von Holoprojektoren, die man nur sehen muss, um zu glauben."

Marid war im Begriff, den nervtötenden Chipper-Vertreter zu entlassen, als ihm ein Gedanke einfiel - er hatte keine konkreten Beweise dafür, dass microTech bereits verletzt worden war. Alles, was er tun würde, indem er jetzt etwas sagte, war, eine Panik zu verursachen. Er überzeugte sich schnell, dass es klug wäre, zuerst das System zu überprüfen und zu sehen, ob es eine tatsächliche Ursache für den Alarm gibt. Es hat keinen Sinn, "Feuer" zu nennen, wenn es keine Flammen gibt, oder?

Nach stundenlanger Suche fand er schließlich eine Diskrepanz, aber nur, weil er wusste, dass es etwas zu suchen gab. Genau wie das Eindringen in seine Mobi, war das sehr gut gemacht. Mac erwies sich als ein ziemlicher Hacker. Es war eine gewisse Genugtuung zu wissen, dass er zumindest von jemandem mit großem Geschick getäuscht worden war.

Sein System war mit einem klassischen Rasenmäher-Virus infiziert, der immer nur ein wenig von oben nach unten geschnitten wurde. Insgesamt sahen die überflogenen Daten wie Unsinn aus, aber am anderen Ende gab es ein Begleitprogramm, das alles in seine ursprüngliche Form zurückversetzen konnte. Diese Version war besonders gut gelungen, denn anstatt in einer geraden, rückverfolgbaren Linie zu laufen, sprang sie zufällig durch die Datenstruktur. Beeindruckend. Und hilfreich für Marid.

Diese Anpassung bedeutete, dass das Virus mit einer viel langsameren Rate arbeitete als typisch. Außerdem verbarg es seine Datenübertragungen, indem es winzige Pakete innerhalb des normalen Datenverkehrs vergrub, so dass niemand die leichte Bandbreitenänderung bemerkte. Dies war ein Virus, der entwickelt wurde, um monatelang, wenn nicht gar jahrelang zu funktionieren und alles zu sammeln, was er konnte. Wenn er es jetzt unterbricht, wären kaum Daten von den Servern der microTech gesammelt worden. Marid begann, einen Zaun zu programmieren, mit dem er den Virus unter Quarantäne stellen konnte.

Doch kurz bevor er es umsetzen konnte, gab es ein Klopfen an seinem Arbeitsplatz. Marid blickte auf, um Tami am Eingang stehen zu sehen, wie sie an einer Thermoskanne nippte, auf der stand: "Dateningenieure haben die gleiche Menge an Spaß, effizienter. Lächelnd sagte er "Morgen, Tami", als seine Finger heimlich die Hotkeys drückten, um die Dateien auf seinem Bildschirm zu minimieren.

"Hey, Marid. Ich wollte nur sagen, dass ich die Protokolle von heute Morgen gesehen habe."

Marids ganzer Körper verspannte sich. Er hätte alles auf der Stelle und Stelle ausgelöscht, wenn er nicht vorübergehend durch Angst gelähmt gewesen wäre.

"Ich kann nicht glauben, dass du heute Morgen so früh ins Büro gekommen bist. Schon gar nicht nach der Nacht, die wir hatten. Schön zu wissen, dass du dich das nächste Mal behaupten kannst, wenn wir in der Stadt sind."

Marid atmete erleichtert auf. Wenn er heute nicht gefeuert wurde, schätzte er die Ironie, dass Mac mit seinem Schlüsselcode, um heute Morgen früh auf das Gebäude zuzugreifen, tatsächlich ein paar Punkte bei seinem Chef gewinnen könnte. Es war jedoch seltsam zu wissen, dass der Hacker nur wenige Stunden zuvor auf diesem Platz gesessen hatte. "Du weißt, was man sagt, arbeitest hart, spielst hart."

Tami nickte. "Das ist so ziemlich das inoffizielle Motto von microTech. Wenn Sie eine freie Minute haben, hatte ich gehofft, Sie durch die Umstrukturierungsbemühungen zu führen, von denen ich gehofft hatte, dass Sie sie diese Woche in Angriff nehmen würden."

Ihr Tun an seinem Arbeitsplatz war das Letzte, was er im Moment wollte. Er krabbelte nach einer Ausrede. "Gibt es eine Möglichkeit, wie wir das morgen machen können? Ich würde mich noch einen weiteren Tag wünschen, um mich wirklich einzuleben, bevor ich voll in ein Projekt eintauche."

"In Ordnung, aber ich erwarte voll und ganz, dass du bereit bist, morgen ins kalte Wasser zu springen. Außerdem möchte ich jetzt wirklich schwimmen gehen. Warst du im Club Olympus? Sie haben ein Außendeck mit Whirlpools. Die kalte Mischung mit der heißen. So toll. Du musst es versuchen."

"Klingt unglaublich. Sicherlich, lass es mich das nächste Mal wissen, wenn du gehst", sagte Marid mit so viel "Geh aus meinem Arbeitsfeld" in seiner Stimme, wie er höflich aufbringen konnte.

Nachdem Tami weg war, öffnete er schnell das Quarantäneprotokoll wieder und überprüfte seine Arbeit ein letztes Mal, bevor er sie implementierte. Alles sah gut aus. Sobald er es aktiviert hatte, wurde das Virus komplett abgeschaltet und dann.... Und was dann?

Würde er dann dem Sicherheitsdienst sagen, was passiert ist? Er wäre in größeren Schwierigkeiten, wenn sie herausfinden würden, dass er gewartet hat. Außerdem würde Mac wissen, dass etwas passiert ist, wenn der Datenfluss unterbrochen wurde. Wer hätte gedacht, was der nächste Zug des Hackers danach sein würde. Marid könnte gefälschte Datenpakete verschicken, aber das würde das Unvermeidliche nur verlängern. So wie er es sah, hatte er drei Möglichkeiten.

Erstens, er könnte zu seinem ursprünglichen Plan zurückkehren und microTech sagen, was passiert ist.

Zweitens konnte er herausfinden, wohin die Daten gesendet wurden und versuchen, die Sicherheitsverletzung an der Quelle zu beseitigen.

Drittens, er konnte so tun, als wüsste er es nie und ließ den Rasenmäher weiterlaufen.

Es bestand eine sehr große Chance, dass die erste Option zu einer Kündigung führen würde. Die zweite Option war wesentlich gefährlicher, da man nicht sagen konnte, auf wen oder was er treffen würde, aber die Chancen, dass er seinen Job behält, waren viel höher. Er würde seinen Job mit ziemlicher Sicherheit behalten, wenn er sich für die dritte Option entschied, zumindest für eine Weile, aber jetzt, da die Büchse der Pandora geöffnet war, war er nicht die Art von Person, die einfach zulassen konnte, dass die ihm anvertrauten Daten weiterhin gestohlen wurden.

Nach dem Schließen der Quarantäne öffnete Marid ein neues Fenster, um zu verfolgen, wo die Datenpakete gesendet wurden.

Als sein Transporter-Shuttle zwei Tage zuvor über die Tundra geflogen war, hatte er Marid in keiner Weise darauf vorbereitet, wie kalt es tatsächlich sein würde, wenn er vor der Schutzkuppel von New Babbage stand. Obwohl sein Anzug für extreme Temperaturen ausgelegt war, hatte er, als er aus dem schützenden Inneren des kleinen Eisbootes trat, den beißenden kalten Schnitt direkt bis ins Mark gemietet. Der Wind machte es noch schlimmer. Ohne die winzigen Eisen entlang der Sohle seiner Stiefel, die den gepackten Schnee greifen, wäre er weggeblasen worden.

Es hatte den ganzen Nachmittag gedauert, bis er die Quelle gefunden hatte. Mac hatte die Spuren der Daten gut verdeckt und die Pakete zwischen Dutzenden von Spec-Hubs gesprungen. Er hatte fast den Weg verloren, als die Daten durch eine Sim-Arkade geleitet wurden, aber er konnte die Spur aufnehmen, da die Daten durch ein privates Comm-Relais geleitet wurden, das von der Kuppel weg sendet. Für die letzte Etappe der Reise musste Marid einen Engfeldscanner benutzen, um dem Signal physisch zu folgen. Erschwerend kam hinzu, dass die Broadcast-Bursts selten waren. Er würde das Signal nur für ein paar Millisekunden aufnehmen, bevor es wieder verschwinden würde. Am Ende hatte ihn das Signal in diese abgelegene Gegend mit eisigem Nichts gebracht.

Der Schnee peitschte um ihn herum, verstopfte seine Maske und machte es schwierig, weiter als ein oder zwei Meter zu sehen. Er hatte kurz den Fehler gemacht, eine Taschenlampe zu benutzen, aber der Schnee reflektierte das Licht und blendete ihn. Marid fegte den Scanner hin und her und zeigte das Signal an. Als er sich hier hervorhob, verstand er, warum der Bootsverleiher so viele Verwarnungen ausgesprochen hatte und ließ ihn mehrere Freigaben unterschreiben, bevor er die Kuppel verließ. Ein Teil ihrer Vorsicht hatte wahrscheinlich damit zu tun, dass die meisten ihrer Vermietungen an Wochenendkrieger gingen, die extreme Eistürme machen wollten, aber es wurde nicht geleugnet, dass microTech eine sehr unwirtliche Umgebung war. Von dort, wo er stand, sah der fast funktionsarme Horizont von allen Seiten gleich aus. Wenn das Boot aus irgendeinem Grund die Kraft verliert, würde es hoffnungslos hier draußen festsitzen.

Plötzlich sprang der Scanner aus seinem Griff und seine Hand pocht von einem unsichtbaren Aufprall. Als er herumtobte, erkannte er, dass sich direkt vor ihm eine weiße Kommunikationsschüssel befand, die sich fast nahtlos in die Tundra eingefügt hatte. Selbst jetzt, da ich wusste, wo es war, war es immer noch schwer zu erkennen. Er beugte sich und fand die Basis der Schale. Dort, unter dem Schnee vergraben, führte ein dickes Bündel von Kabeln weg. Er folgte ihm so gut er konnte, aber das Wegkratzen des Schnees mit seinen Handschuhen erwies sich schnell als schmerzhaft, als die Kälte durch seine Schutzschichten aß.

Er war fast gezwungen, aufzugeben, als seine Hände taub wurden, aber er fand glücklicherweise dort, wo der Rüssel aufhörte, genauso wie das Gefühl, dass er seine Finger völlig verlassen hatte. Verborgen von einer dünnen Schicht frischen Schneefalls lag eine Metallluke. Marid fegte den Bereich sauber, konnte aber nirgendwo ein Zutrittsterminal finden. War es eine Art drahtloses Fernschloss? Er stellte den Scanner so ein, dass er versuchte, eine lokale Kleinwellenübertragung zu erkennen, fand aber nichts. Verzweifelt versuchte er, die Luke anzuziehen. Es öffnete sich leicht und ließ Marid rückwärts in den Schnee fliegen. Peinlich berührt, obwohl niemand da war, der seine Torheit miterleben konnte, stürzte er sich ab und stieg die Leiter hinunter.

Darunter befand sich ein kleiner Bunker, der dicht mit einem Server-Array gefüllt war. Die Wärme, die von den Racks kam, war intensiv, aber ein Rohrleitungssystem, das durch den Bunker führte, nutzte die kalte Außentemperatur als Kühlkörper für die Einheiten. Diese natürliche Kühlung war einer der Gründe, warum microTech sich für den Kauf dieser Welt entschieden hatte. Dank des eisigen Klimas auf dem Planeten sparten sie jedes Jahr Milliarden an Krediten.

Marid ging zum Zutrittsterminal. Tatsächlich fand er das Compilerprogramm, das der Partner des Virus auf seinem System war. Die Daten kamen hier an und wurden langsam zusammengetragen. Obwohl hier eine riesige Menge an Informationen gespeichert war, war das meiste davon noch fragmentiert. Die kleine Menge, die rentabel wurde, wurde vom Hauptserver auf ein tragbares Laufwerk zur Erfassung und Analyse übertragen. Beim Durchsehen der Aufzeichnungen wurde Marid klar, dass er nicht der erste von Macs Opfern war. Der Server sammelte Daten von den meisten der größten Technologieunternehmen von New Babbage, darunter mindestens drei separate Quellen innerhalb der MicroTech selbst.

Es gab Schaltpläne von einem Unternehmen, das einen verbesserten EVA-Stabilisator entwickelte, der ein Drittel des normalen Kraftstoffs verbrauchte. Es gab eine interne Dokumentation von Pi-Plum Software, in der über den neuen proprietären Komprimierungsalgorithmus diskutiert wurde. Es gab sogar Videos, die frühe Werte von einem unangekündigten Star Marine 3 zeigten. Und das war nur das, was bisher zusammengetragen worden war. Wer hätte gedacht, was noch in den Fragmenten lauert? Er war auf eine Schatzkammer mit gestohlenen Informationen gestoßen.

Methodisch ging er um den Bunker herum und deaktivierte die Notfallredundanzen des Kühlsystems. Mit jedem, den er ausschaltete, stieg die Temperatur im Raum an. Die Alarme begannen zu ertönen, aber als die automatischen Systeme versuchten, eine Katastrophe zu verhindern, indem sie den Raum mit Eiswasser überfluteten, war es schon zu spät. Marids Anzug klang wie eine eigene Warnung; die Temperatur erreichte ein gefährliches Niveau. Er nahm die tragbare Festplatte mit, kletterte auf die Leiter und schloss die Luke erneut und beendete die Umwandlung des Bunkers in einen Ofen.

In der nächsten halben Stunde beobachtete Marid vom Boot aus, wie das Eis rissig wurde und heißer Dampf aus der Tiefe austritt. Inzwischen war jedes Stück Technik, das sich im Serverraum befand, in Schlacke verwandelt worden. Die Daten von microTech waren sicher.

Natürlich, sobald seine Sabotage entdeckt wurde, würde Mac wütend und verzweifelt sein. Aber Marid hatte sich darauf verlassen. Da die Schlüsselcodes von microTech jeden Monat geändert wurden, hatte der Hacker nur eine begrenzte Zeit, um auf sein System zuzugreifen und den Virus auf ein neues Ausgangsrelais zu leiten, bevor er vollständig gesperrt wurde. Alles, was Marid tun musste, war sicherzustellen, dass seine Falle vorher fertig war. Eine einfache Trace-Datei. Er erwartete nicht, dass es sehr lange dauern würde, bis das Programm überhaupt fertig war.

Er startete das Boot und steuerte über das Eis zurück nach New Babbage. Er hatte vor, vor seinem Treffen mit Tami am Morgen eine gute Nachtruhe zu bekommen. Aber andererseits, dachte er und blickte auf die Fahrt, die auf dem Sitz neben ihm saß, vielleicht nur eine kleine leichte Lesung vor dem Schlafengehen.


ENDE.

Writer’s Note: The Meltdown was published originally as a Subscriber Exclusive on February 14, 2018.
“To Marid! Welcome to the team,” declared Tami, raising her glass high. The rest of the crowded table followed suit, “Marid!”

Marid froze for a moment, uncomfortable as the full attention of all his new coworkers homed in on him. Thankfully, the social lubricant he had been plying all night was working its magic and he was able to force out a smile. “To me!”

With a loud cheer, everyone drank to the toast. Tami, taking her role as team leader seriously, drained her cocktail completely. With a flourish, she slammed the empty glass on the table and proudly stuck out her glowing, neon tongue — a side effect from the bar’s drink special, the Wallbanger. The more you drank, the brighter your tongue. Tami had light practically shooting out of her ears by this point.

Looking down at his own dwindling drink, Marid wondered the status of his tongue. They were already four rounds deep and he was well on his way from pleasantly tipsy to full-on pissed. It was hard to believe the bacchanalian revel that surrounded him was the same group who had been hotly debating how to tackle a system’s hierarchy issue at that morning’s stand-up meeting. He had only been in New Babbage less than 48 hours, but it seemed that the warnings he had heard about the place were one hundred percent well deserved. This city liked to party.

On face value alone, he probably should have taken one of the other job offers he’d received. Saga Datasystems had offered him way more money and a ridiculous starting package loaded with perks. The use of the company’s 300i had almost swayed him. And while Fiskers wasn’t going to pay him as much as Saga, if he had taken their offer he would‘ve been basically running his own team. They were kicking off a major new project and had been looking for someone with his specific background to spearhead storage infrastructure.

But then there was what microTech had offered — the chance to work on the single largest information tangle ever created. With an adoption rate of close to 56% of the Human population, more data sailed through the mobiGlas networks in a single day than all transfers of the previous century combined. Basically, his dream job. And so here he was, a brand new microTech data engineer getting drunk for the third time in his life.

The woman sitting next to Marid slapped his shoulder and asked what he wanted to drink next. That afternoon, she had walked him through the custom developer’s GUI that he’d be using to code and shown off the Rory Nova figurine collection that crowded her desk. He couldn’t remember her name. Connie? Katherine? His head was swimming and he suddenly felt too warm. He needed some air. “You know what, next round’s on me,” said Marid, standing up from the table. There were protests, but he silenced them with, “Hey, you said I was part of the team, right?” With that sorted, they quickly shouted their orders at him which he tried his best to memorize.

Before heading to the bar, he walked away from the crowds towards the window that looked out at the frozen wasteland of microTech, the planet. Touching his hand against the cool surface, he felt better almost immediately. Outside, bright lights shone from the city into the snowstorm, creating a dazzling effect against the black night sky. It was a unique experience to have a dense, sweating mass of Humanity on one side of him and the pure isolation of the tundra on the other. It reminded him of working on a project; his mind completely focused on the numbers and code, but part of him still aware of the chaos swirling around him. Apparently, I get poetical when I get drunk, he thought, and laughed. He took a deep breath and staggered back into the crowd.

The bartender greeted Marid with a thousand-credit smile, “You’re new to Wally’s Bar, aren’t you? I’d remember a face as lovely as yours.” Marid flushed, caught off guard by the compliment. Before he could respond, the bartender continued, “I’m buying you a drink to celebrate. What should I make you? I see you tried the Wallbanger already,” he said pointing to Marid’s mouth. “Actually, you know what? I’ve been working on a real special drink.” He leaned across the bar. “If you’re interested, I can hook you up …”

“Easy, Eddie. This one isn’t for you,” directed a voice close by. Marid looked over to see a shock of bright purple hair paired with equally purple eyes as a newcomer took the spot next to him at the bar. The bartender’s demeanor instantly changed. He straightened up and shrugged, “Of course. No worries. I was just messing around.” He walked quickly away to help another customer.

It took a second for Marid’s slowed thoughts to catch up. “Wait! I need to get drinks for my friends.” But the bartender was already out of earshot.

“Looks to me like they’re taken care of.” The stranger pointed over Marid’s shoulder where his coworkers eagerly poured each other shots from a bottle of Soles.

“Huh, guess someone else must’ve ordered.”

“Yeah, part of the magic of Wally’s. Alcohol just sort of happens. I’m Mac, by the way.”

“Marid.”

“Let me guess, if you’re hanging with that crowd, you must work for microTech.”

“Yeah, today was my first day, actually.”

A big smile spread across the stranger’s face. “What! Congrats! That’s so exciting.”

Marid found himself smiling back. He had been so nervous about impressing his coworkers and making a good first impression that it hadn’t really sunk in until Mac had pointed it out, it was really exciting.

“Marid, I would love to get you a drink to celebrate your new job. Of course, if you say yes there’s no obligation to stay and chat with me.” Mac smiled again. “Though, I’d be pretty happy if you did.”

Marid glanced back at his coworkers. Tami was standing at the head of the table with a sim-helmet on, doing what looked like a front stroke as the rest of the group cheered. Just the thought of wading back into the party was exhausting. Really, he should just go to his flat and get some rest before work tomorrow. Another customer pushed to the bar next to him, causing Marid to slide closer to Mac. A warmth spread through him from where their arms touched. Or he could stay and have one more drink.

“Yeah, I’d love a drink.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Quicker than he thought possible, two drinks appeared in front of them. Mac raised a glass. “To your new job.”

Marid never knew he could hate anything as much as he hated the sound of birds chirpings at that very moment. He slowly peeled his eyes open, squinting in the sunlight. As the room came into focus, a whole flock of birds flitted above his bed, singing happily. “Alarm, snooze.”

“Unable to comply. Snooze limit reached,” the hab controls responded cheerfully.

Crap. Marid rolled out of his bed, and stumbled to the alarm off button. As soon as he pressed it, the bird projection mercifully switched off and the lighting dropped to a normal level. Even with the noise gone, his head still ached. In fact, his whole body was aching. Plus, his mouth tasted like a cotton ball soaked in sewer water. Right, this is why I don’t drink. He glanced at the clock and grimaced. So much for making a good impression on his second day at work.

After a long internal debate about whether to get back into bed or not, followed by a quick shower, Marid dug out his sunglasses from an unpacked moving crate and headed to the cafe a few blocks from his hab.

It seemed he wasn’t the only one having a rough morning. The place was packed with bleary eyed people. While he waited in the long line to get an extra large stim-laced coffee, he popped open his mobi. He couldn’t remember coming home last night and was curious to see what his stats were.

For the last couple years, he had gotten in the habit of tracking a bunch of different personal metrics. Some of them the mobi OS tracked by default, like distance traveled and heart rate, but others he had coded himself: pupil dilation, ambient noise levels, how many times he checked his mobi, etc. He scrolled through the night, seeing the numbers fluctuate as his body reacted to various stimuli. That’s odd. According to the data, for an hour last night he had done the exact same thing he had done the previous hour. No discernable change whatsoever.

That shouldn’t be possible.

Even standing still produced quantifiable changes in the data. Something must have gone wrong. He accessed the dev controls and started looking for what could have caused the error. After ensuring that the sensors were all functioning normally, he started to acknowledge the worst of all possibilities.

“Sir? Your order?”

Marid realized that he had been blocking the front of the line. “Sorry.” He stepped out of the way without getting a coffee. The fog from earlier that morning had been cleared by the sinking realization that he had been hacked.

It was cleverly done. No denying that. Even a casual user might notice if there was time missing or erased, but by looping the data from the previous hour the loss blended in almost perfectly. If it wasn’t for Marid’s obsession with data he might not have noticed himself. He dove deeper into his system and opened up an image of the mobi’s memory substrate. Luckily, his guess had been right. Whatever malicious program had been used, it worked by actively overwriting data, not by changing the underlying data itself. He was able to see what memory units had been accessed during the missing hour. Marid knew instantly what the hacker had been after.

His employee key code.

It was a unique identifier that gave him access to the microTech offices and more specifically to his dev processor. Worried about corporate espionage (and apparently rightly so) microTech had set up its development environments in isolated cells. Employees could only access their own sectors unless given active approval by security. So, if someone wanted to access the data engineering teams files, they would need one of those specific key codes.

Not only that, but key codes were hard encoded into the specific person’s mobi. Yesterday, he had sat in the security office having it physically transferred to his unit through a connector cable. For someone to steal one, they had to physically access the mobi.

The drinks. The flirting. The casual enquiries into Madrid’s new job. Mac’s interest in him suddenly made a lot more sense.

His first instinct had been to run back to Wally’s Bar and try to track down Mac, but the logical part of his brain that was still functioning beneath his panic and anger pointed out that the bar wouldn’t be open for another five hours. Hell, Mac probably didn’t even have purple hair and eyes any more. The hacker had most likely chosen the loud coloring as a distraction more than a fashion choice.

No, the right thing to do would be to go report the breach to microTech security.

He corrected his route and headed towards the gleaming headquarters building, the sweeping lines of its unique design rising to meet the curved dome overhead in an impressive display of modern architecture. Hard to believe that when he had woken up his biggest worry was being being late for work. Instead, he was about to cop to being responsible for a major security breach. He would go straight to Tami and let her know everything and then they could initiate a quarantine to close down any vulnerabilities. With the amount of access Marid had on his system, it would be a massive operation. Plus, they would most likely have to go public since direct consumer data was involved. Even with the encryption protocols in place, the raw information stored on microTech’s servers contained billions of transactions and comms that could be used for nefarious credit-making purposes. People used their mobiGlas for almost everything. It would be a publicity nightmare.

“Hello and welcome to microTech, where we work to make each day better,” the perky holographic microTech representative chirped as he entered.

Not Marid. Not after he tells what happened.

Marid had reached the sprawling high tech showroom just outside the main offices. Here, microTech had their latest and greatest offerings on display; from high end mobiGlas models to massive top-of-the-line full immersion simpods.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” As he walked along, the representative floated alongside, ready to assist if he needed anything. Only cutting-edge sales technology for microTech.

It was painful to think about leaving all of this behind. Forget about the fact that getting fired a week into his new job would probably tarnish his reputation enough that other companies wouldn’t want to touch him, it hurt more to know that he would never get to start on all the grand projects he had been planning.

“We have a new line of holo-projectors that you just have to see to believe.”

Marid was about to dismiss the annoyingly chipper representative when a thought occurred to him — he didn’t have any concrete evidence that microTech had been breached yet. All he would do by saying something now was cause a panic. He quickly convinced himself that the prudent thing to do would be to check the system first and see if there was an actual cause for alarm. No point in calling out “fire” if there weren’t any flames, right?

After hours of searching he finally found a discrepancy, but only because he knew there was something to look for. Just like the intrusion on his mobi, this was extremely well done. Mac was turning out to be quite the hacker. There was some satisfaction in knowing that at least he had been conned by someone with considerable skill.

His system had been infected with a classic lawn mower virus, just trimming a little off the top at a time. All together, the data it skimmed looked like nonsense, but there would be a companion program on the other end that could recompile everything into its original form. This version was particularly well done because rather than running in a straight, more traceable line, it jumped around randomly through the data structure. Impressive. And helpful to Marid.

This adjustment meant the virus worked at a much slower rate than typical. Plus, it was hiding its data transmissions by burying miniscule packets inside the normal traffic so that no one would notice the slight bandwidth change. This was a virus designed to work for months, if not years, gathering up everything it could. If he cut it off now, barely any data at all would have been collected from microTech’s servers. Marid began to program a fence that he could use to quarantine the virus.

However, just before he could implement it, there was a knock on his workpod. Marid looked up to see Tami standing at the entrance, sipping from a thermos that read ‘Data Engineers Have The Same Amount of Fun, More Efficiently.’ Smiling he said “Morning, Tami,” as his fingers surreptitiously pressed the hotkeys to minimize the files on his screen.

“Hey, Marid. Just wanted to say that I saw this morning’s logs.”

Marid’s entire body tensed. He would have blurted out everything right then and there if he hadn’t been momentarily paralyzed by fear.

“Can’t believe you came into the office that early this morning. Especially not after the night we had. Happy to know you can hold your own next time we hit the town.”

Marid breathed a sigh of relief. If he didn’t get fired today, he appreciated the irony that Mac using his key code to access the building early this morning might actually win him a few points with his boss. Though, it was strange knowing the hacker had been sitting in this seat just a few hour earlier. “You know what they say, work hard, play hard.”

Tami nodded. “That is pretty much the unofficial motto of microTech. If you have a free minute, I was hoping to walk you through the restructuring effort that I was hoping you’d tackle this week.”

Her doing anything at his workstation was about the last thing he wanted right now. He scrambled for an excuse. “Any way we could do that tomorrow? I would love one more day to really settle in before diving full on into a project.”

“All right, but I fully expect you to be ready to jump into the deep end tomorrow. Also, I really want to go swimming now. Have you been to the Club Olympus? They have an outdoor deck with hot tubs. The cold mixing with the hot. So great. You have to try it.”

“Sounds incredible. For sure, let me know next time you’re going,” said Marid with as much ‘get out of my workpod’ in his voice as he could politely muster.

With Tami gone, he quickly reopened the quarantine protocol and rechecked his work one last time before implementing. Everything looked good. As soon as he enabled it, the virus would be completely cut off and then … And then what?

Would he then tell security what had happened? He would be in more trouble if they found out he waited. Plus, Mac would know that something had happened once the flow of data was interrupted. Who knew what the hacker’s next move would be after that. Marid could send falsified data packets out, but that would only prolong the inevitable. The way he saw it, he had three viable choices.

One, he could go back to his original plan and tell microTech what was happening.

Two, he could find where the data was being sent and attempt to eradicate the security breach at the source.

Three, he could just pretend like he never knew and let the lawn mower keep running.

There was a very strong chance that the first option would result in him being terminated. The second option was considerably more dangerous since there was no telling who or what he might run into, but the chances of him keeping his job were much higher. He would almost certainly keep his job if he went for the third option, at least for a while longer, but now that the Pandora’s box was open, he wasn’t the type of person that could just let the data he was entrusted with continue to be stolen.

Closing the quarantine, Marid opened up a new window to begin tracing where the data packets were being sent.

When his transport shuttle had flown across the tundra two days prior, it had not prepared Marid in any way for how cold it would actually be, standing outside New Babbage’s protective dome. Even though his suit was rated for extreme temperatures, as he stepped from the protective interior of the small ice skiff he had rented the biting cold cut straight to his core. The wind made it even worse. If it wasn’t for the tiny pitons along the sole of his boots gripping the packed snow, he would have been blown away.

It had taken him all afternoon to find the source. Mac had covered the data’s tracks well, bouncing the packets between dozens of spec-hubs. He had almost lost the path when the data was routed through a sim-arcade, but he was able to pick up the trail as the data was piped through a private comm relay transmitting away from the dome. For the last leg of the journey, Marid had to use a narrow-field scanner to physically follow the signal. Making it even more difficult was the fact that the broadcast bursts were few and far between. He would pick up the signal only for a few milliseconds before it would disappear again. In the end, the signal had brought him to this remote stretch of icy nothing.

The snow whipped around him, clogging his mask and making it difficult to see farther than a meter or two. He had briefly made the mistake of using a flashlight, but the snow reflected the light, blinding him. Sweeping the scanner back and forth, Marid homed in on the signal. Standing out here, he understood why the skiff rental company had issued so many warnings and made him sign several releases before leaving the dome. Part of their caution probably had to do with most of their rentals being to weekend warriors looking to do some extreme iceboarding, but there was no denying that microTech was a very inhospitable environment. From where he stood, the near featureless horizon looked the same on all sides. If the skiff lost power for any reason, he would be hopelessly stuck out here.

Suddenly, the scanner jumped from his grip and his hand throbbed from an unseen impact. Groping about, he realized that there was a white comm dish directly in front of him that had blended almost seamlessly with the tundra. Even now, knowing where it was, it was still hard to make out. He bent and found the base of the dish. There, buried under the snow, a thick bundle of cables led away. He followed it best he could, but scraping the snow away with his gloved hands quickly proved painful as the cold ate through his protective layers.

He was almost forced to give up when his hands started to go numb, but he thankfully found where the trunkline terminated just as the feeling totally left his fingers. Hidden by a thin layer of fresh snowfall laid a metal hatch. Marid swept the area clean but couldn’t find an access terminal anywhere. Was it some sort of remote wireless lock? He adjusted the scanner to try to detect a local small wave transmission but found nothing. Desperate, he tried pulling on the hatch. It opened easily, sending Marid flying backwards into the snow. Embarrassed even though there was no one to witness his folly, he brushed himself off and proceeded to climb down the ladder.

Below was a small bunker densely packed with a server array. The heat coming off the racks was intense, but a piping system that ran throughout the bunker used the frigid external temperature as a heatsink for the units. This natural cooling was part of the reason microTech had chosen to purchase this world in the first place. They saved billions in credits every year thanks to the planet’s freezing climate.

Marid headed to the access terminal. Sure enough, he found the compiler program that was the mate to the virus on his system. The data arrived here and was slowly put together. Though there was a massive amount of information in storage here, most of it was still fragmented. The small amount that became viable was transferred off the main server onto a portable drive for collection and analysis. Looking through the records, Marid realized that he was not the first of Mac’s victims. The server was collecting data from most of New Babbage’s biggest tech firms, including at least three separate sources inside microTech itself.

There were schematics from a company developing an improved EVA stabilizer that used a third of the normal fuel. There was internal documentation from Pi-Plum Software discussing their new proprietary compression algorithm. There were even vids showing early levels from an unannounced Star Marine 3. And that was only what had been compiled so far. Who knew what else was lurking in the fragments? He had stumbled onto a treasure trove of stolen information.

Methodically, he went around the bunker and deactivated the cooling system’s emergency redundancies. With each one he turned off, the temperature in the room rose higher. Alarms began to sound, but when the automatic systems tried to prevent disaster by flooding the room with ice water, it was already too late. Marid’s suit sounded a warning of its own; the temperature was reaching a dangerous level. Taking the portable drive with him, he climbed the ladder and closed the hatch once more, finishing the transformation of the bunker into an oven.

Over the next half hour, Marid watched from the skiff as the ice cracked and hot steam vented from below the surface. By now, any piece of tech that had been inside the server room had been turned to slag. The data from microTech was safe.

Of course, once his sabotage was discovered, Mac was going to be angry and desperate. But Marid was counting on that. With microTech’s key codes changed over every month, the hacker only had a limited time to re-access his system and direct the virus to a new output relay before being completely locked out. All Marid had to do was ensure that his trap was ready before then. A simple trace file. He didn’t expect it to take very long to program at all.

He started up the skiff and piloted across the ice back towards New Babbage. He was planning on getting a good night’s sleep before his meeting with Tami in the morning. But then again, he thought, glancing at the drive sitting on the seat next to him, maybe just a little light reading before bed.


END.