Lois Gresh - Termination Node

1

Judy Carmody's legs ached. It was three in the freaking morning, and here she was, still staring at some

stupid computer screen in an office hellhole. The room left a sourness in her mouth. Not enough air

circulation in this dump.

Certainly not enough for the beefcake hardware that controlled the money of half the population in

Laguna Beach. This kind of beef-cake required sterile living quarters,

Not dust on the tiled floors.

Not gray fabric walls enclosing it in a ten-by-ten prison.

She stroked the top of the monitor. Warm, too much heat. Beneath the desk, the disk drives whirred,

emitting a nice low technothrum that rose to a whine, A sonata played on a broken instrument.

"These babies are at risk." Her voice came out scratchy, the wordy all frazzed.

"Could be," Jose said, "but, you know management, they won't spring for better digs unless I'm a grade

fourteen. Like that'll be the day."

Jose Ferrents. Senior security programmer at Laguna Savings Bank. One of Judy's best customers. She

was stuck here until he was satisfied that she'd thoroughly checked the computer for security leaks. New

passwords had been granted to marketing guys the day before. Like passwords would matter to some

hacker. Jose was one paranoid quack.

He leaned back in his chair, waiting for her to finish the job. Thick black hair streaked with green

Etch-o-Oil. Red lines painted beneath bloodshot blue eyes. Jose went in for the Dracula look.

The monitor flipped to the screen saver: swarms of infinitely regressing cubes and triangles, a neon blaze

set against black. Dracula got off on the forever realm of fractals.

"Look, can we finish up? I'm really tired, Jose," It was creepy being cramped next to Jose in his lair, the

gray walls plastered with posters of microchip circuits and lanky blondes in goth bikinis—like he really

knew anything about circuits or bikinis. Duh .. .

"Sure. I have more important things to do, too." Jose graced her with a little smirk. She knew better. Jose

never had anything more important to do than play with computers.

Judy shut her eyes, brushed her long, auburn hair out of the way, rubbed her neck. Damn, she was

getting cranky. It was just too late to have to deal with Jose. She'd had one hell of a long day, grinding

Internet security code for Steve Sanchez, fielding hysterical E-mails from that programmer at Widescreen

DVD. But as a computer security specialist hanging five hundred dollars an hour, Judy could cope with a

stiff neck a little longer and put up with Dracula.

He touched the screen. The fractals disappeared, replaced by the log of Internet transactions that had

been executed by the bank's corporate customers.

Jose had done a good job on the bank's World Wide Web site. A customer entered a password, then

processed debits and credits against authorized accounts. All transactions were encrypted before

transmission, then decrypted at the bank. Crypto chips and digital cash. When Jose had first installed the

system back in '02, Laguna Savings had quickly become one of the top Internet banks in the country.

Jose rolled his chair across the room to the other computer server. The clanking of rollers on tile cut into

the disk drive whine and made Judy's body jerk. If only her nerves would settle, if only she could stay

awake, if only she could find a method other than coffee, which she'd given up five years ago, or

Methamorph, which she'd given up in high school.

But there'd be no drugs for Judy; not like Jose, twitching in his chair over there, nerves atwanging like

snapped guitar strings, body gaunt, hollow eyes a million miles deep—tubular twin tunnels to nowhere.

No. She'd finish this job, then sack out for a few hours before facing another long day tomorrow—no,

today.

She checked the first Internet transaction in the log, a withdrawal made by a small investment firm down

by Laguna Beach. Jose checked the firm's account on the other server and confirmed that the withdrawal

had been correctly subtracted.

They moved to the second transaction, and on down the list, until finally Jose said, "Two more

transactions and we're done."

Her eyes shifted from the screen to the shelves over Jose's head. Micro Utility Corp—now a subsidiary

of Sony—double-reinforced units, part number 3B12G14, the screws holding them together, part

numbers 3B75I28 and 3C72I25. The shelves were crammed with Ethernet boxes and punchdown

blocks.

Just two more transactions— crank 'em and get out.

One more.

"What the hell is this?" Jose's shoulders quivered more than usual.

The Methamorph freak. Jumping at ghosts. "Gut it out, Jose. It's late, and I want to go home."

"Penetration." One word, tight and low.

"Cut it out, Jose."

"I said, penetration. Big one. A half-million-dollar withdrawal from each of ten accounts, all made by

Hirama Electronics."

What? Was he, like ... serious?

She pushed herself from the desk, cringed as the chair rollers ground across tile, then stood and peered

past Jose's shoulder. "That's a lot of money, but doesn't necessarily imply penetration," she said.

"Hirama transactions never come across the Net. They're always made in person by some top

management guy in an Italian pinstriped suit."

He redisplayed the Hirama bank accounts. All ten had zero balances.

In the middle of the night, someone was wiping millions of dollars from Hirama's accounts. Penetration: a

hacker. Judy grasped the back of Jose's chair. She was too close to the Dracula green-streaked head,

too close to the new-plastic reek of Etch-o-Oil.

Jose massaged his right fingers with his left hand. His pupils were wider than Metha-normal, his forehead

creased, his mouth trembling. "Fingers, can't move 'em."

Judy crouched beneath the blinking red Ethernet lights, the multicolored spaghetti wires dripping off the

punchdowns. Her chin brushed against the Etch-o-hair. It was stiff, like scouring pad bristles. Mercifully,

he rolled his chair to the side to give her space.

She closed the Hirama file, then accessed it again to see if the changes remained.

The accounts no longer had zero balances.

She had to be losing her grip. It was late; she was tired. Try again. She redisplayed the Internet

transaction log, This time, it showed a huge transaction that had deleted several million dollars in Hirama

funds.

A freaking break-in hacker at play in the black void of the Internet.

"A superhacker" she whispered.

Hot damn.

She hardly felt her legs move as she returned to the first computer, on the other side of the room. She

was only faintly conscious of her socks padding across the tiles. Faintly conscious of the screen saver

fractals. She touched the screen, kind of like touching God or something. Her whole body was numb.

Brain in high gear. Ice-cold focus.

On the Laguna Savings Internet transaction page, real-time, right here and now, some freakzoid was

deleting Hirama funds, then replac-

ing them. What if this was no kid, out for a computer joyride? Breaking through a bank's firewalls was a

federal offense and came with a mandatory jail sentence.

"Do a trace." Jose was behind her now, his breath hot on her neck. She hadn't even heard him cross the

room.

She squinted and started typing.

powerman>finger -g

A short list of all system users scrolled down the screen. It showed no intruders.

powerman>netstat -a

A quick status check of all system sockets, every low-level software device feeding into the system.

Nothing. "Do it again," Jose said.

powerman>netstat -a

This time, the screen showed an established Internet connection coming from a foreign address called

Helraze.

"I'd better call Naresh." Jose sounded scared. Naresh was his boss. Jose never called Naresh, who was

a grade fifteen in the bank hierarchy. A grade fifteen who lived in a swanky house and reigned from a

swanky cubicle on management row.

She'd spare Jose the agony, She'd handle Helraze herself. "Naresh lives fifteen minutes away. He can't

get here in time."

"Yeah, guess you're right. Jesus, how the hell will I explain this to him? The bank's laying off people

again. Next week."

The netstat command displayed its results again. This time, no connection from Helraze.

"Maybe you won't have to explain anything," Judy said. "The hacker's popping in and out of the system,

removing cash, but replacing it. Could be he won't do any real damage."

"But why's he doing it?"

Damned if she knew.

One thing to do, Track the sucker. Discover the route he'd taken through the millions of Internet

computer nodes to get to Laguna Savings.

He was far away, this Helraze, routing transmission packets through forty-seven other computers. Who

the hell was this guy, and what did he want?

"Try tracing it again," Jose said.

This time, Helraze disappeared, simply disappeared as if he had never existed.

"The main password file," Jose said, "that's gotta be it." He pushed past Judy, touched an icon in the

lower corner of the screen.

She scanned the encrypted MD6 file digest, which contained the main passwords, for security breaches.

"Clean, all access codes in place and valid," she said.

"The syslogs are all clean, too, no breaches/' Jose confirmed. "Hey. what's this? Fake syslog messages,

Judy, as if dozens of superusers logged in tonight."

"Let me see." She gently nudged him aside, giving herself room again.

Superuser access was critical. It meant the hacker could get into all protected system files. He could

bring the bank to its knees, destroy everything, transfer any amount of money, anything he wanted. So

why wasn't he doing it, and quickly?

Both lastlog and umtp showed no indication of the hacker. She checked the syslogs again. They were

wiped clean; all fake syslog messages had been removed.

Hopefully, their mystery hacker had screwed up. Rather than delete log entries that could be used to

trace his system penetration, maybe he'd been in a hurry and had just replaced the entries with null char-

acters. Blank lines, filled with nulls, would prove penetration—and right now, with all logs wiped clean

and all accounts restored, there was no proof of a break-in. Judy's neck ached from the tension. Bank

officials always demanded proof.

"Nothing," Jose said. "This guy knows exactly what he's doing. No authorization failures in

/var/adm/messages. Nothing strange in the supeuser log. No shell history. There's nothing to trace. It's as

if the guy's never been here."

"If we don't get to the bottom of this, and soon," Judy said, "we'll have to notify top management. They

may have to close the bank this morning."

"No proof. My God, Naresh will kill me."

Jose was right. Naresh would kill him. And management would never close the bank based on the

statements by two programmers who thought they had discovered a weird system anomaly.

Management never understood anything about computer systems anyway, even when there was proof.

"We're running out of time," Jose said.

Judy glanced at her watch; it was already four o'clock in the morning. In a few hours, bank customers all

over the city would be turning on their computers and processing transactions over the Net. By the time

management showed up, Net business would be at its peak.

"This hacker must have been sniffing the bank's Web page for weeks," Judy said, "just waiting for an

opportunity to crack into the server. He got that opportunity when you sent the new password file to

marketing."

Tap into a cable, intercept transmissions, pick up the new password file as it went from the central

computer site to the downtown office. Simple enough. She said, "He hacked into the password file,

added himself with privileged access to everything we have. Then he screwed with the Hirama accounts,

deleted his fake password, erased all trace files. He's fast."

"And he may not be done," Jose said.

Judy trembled, hit by a sudden rush of fear. What if this guy had entered through the Web itself? Jose

had coded some of the Web site using ControlFreak. What if the guy had hacked into the low-level

software I/O routines, the system sockets? If so, he could be accessing bank files right now, writing to

them, wiping them clean of money.

Judy stared at the monster machine: six parallel processors, all cranking with more than 400 megabytes

of memory and tons of terabyte disk muscle, The latest crypto chips. All known Internet browser hacks

plugged. From the Net, there was no way into Laguna accounts.

"He's doing something new, Jose. ControlFreak's clean at this bank. Remember, I'm the one who

plugged all the holes. This hacker's cracked into the system using some method we've never seen

before."

"We could rip out the wires leading to the punchdown blocks, cut his connection."

"That would fry the system. And if we just shut everything down, we'll never know who this guy is, or

what harm he's done. Besides, if he wants to, he'll come back."

"I'm launching the agents," Jose said, touching the computer screen. The agents appeared, jiggling

animations of bugs, real cute, but—

"Worthless," Judy said.

"Nothing else to do, not that I can think of." Jose touched the execute icon. The agents jiggled and the

directory structure scrolled down the screen. The agents, artificially intelligent digital creatures mainly

used for Net searches, were scouring Jose's Net files, seeking clues about the intruder.

System clean

Nothing.

"Waste of time," Judy said. Lack of sleep combined with tension had her head pounding. She stretched

her back, raised her arms, tried to unknot her muscles.

The agents jiggled again. Then in metallic blue letters:

System compromised

Judy froze, arms still above her head. "What the—" But, as her arms came down, the status changed:

System clean

Jose was quiet. He was staring at System clean, his eyes narrowed, his hair damp with sweat.

"Look."

The screen displayed all running computer processes. The hacker was back on the server. He was

sending a terminate signal to the operating system:

powerman>kill -TERM 1

"He's shutting us down," Jose whispered. "He's deadlocking all programs, running in s mode."

"He's operating as the system console," Judy said. "He's taking over."

She stared at the screen, her heart racing, half from excitement, half from fear. In all her years of hacking,

she'd never encountered anyone this bold and this well hidden. There was no way to trace him, no way

to stop him.

The system knocked down to single-user mode, the single user being the hacker from Helraze.

"He'll destroy system memory." Jose's voice was thick with fright. "He'll destroy the operating system."

Then a new thought struck him.

"All my money's in there," he said, his voice practically a whisper. "How will I pay the rent? Landlord

pulls it electronically from my Laguna account. How will I prove my digicard had five thousand dollars on

it when—"

Judy cut him off, "Look—all of my consulting money's tied up in the bank, too. If this guy wipes out the

system, thousands of people are going to be flat-dead broke."

Backups? Were the computer's backup systems sufficient to handle such a nightmare?

No. They'd restore only the transactions and accounts that existed as of last night. Better than nothing,

but hours' worth of transactions would be lost.

And it would take forever to unravel the mess.

The screen flickered. A fireball appeared, followed by the large red letters DNS, then ... nothing. Black.

Judy blinked. She shook her head, suddenly feeling dizzy. "He's gone."

The hacker had disappeared. Instantly, the system rolled over and rebooted back to multiuser mode.

Soon the fractals glimmered into view, a forever wonderland of infinite penetration.

Jose stared at Judy. He had to be thinking the same thing she was: No proof. There had been no

financial losses. No hard evidence of what had just taken place. Bank management would never believe

them. The attack, the takeover, made no sense.

Unless, it had been ... practice.

2

Nine in the morning, and still in yesterday's clothes. The wrinkled orange shorts with the bleach stains, the

faded lilac T-shirt over the blue bikini top. Same red socks that had padded aross the tiles at Laguna

Savings last night.

Judy felt like a soiled clown.

Except nothing was funny.

"How long will it take to fix the mess at Laguna?" Steve Sanchez perched in the blue velvet chair behind

his desk—fake-antique, oak-stained, laminated plywood. Kind of a bonzo desk foi a guy who owned a

Computer security company that was worth mega mill ions.

But then, Steve always told Judy that old-time, cozy home digs relaxed his customers —and cast the

illusion that Steve was an old-time honest businessman. That was the important part.

In Judy's opinion, there never had been such a thing as an old-time Honest businessman.

Steve pried the cuticles off his nails with a paper clip. His eyes darted from the clip to Judy, from the clip

to Judy. He was waiting for an answer, wanted a quick response, so he could get her out of the office

and get on with his day. Jittery, as usual, too hyper—as if his blood pumped the morph without needing

synthetic ingredients.

Dark chiseled hair, high cheekbones—Steve was a handsome man. His sharp black eyes sparked with

excitement, intelligence ... and total focus.

Aside from the computer on his desk, there was no equipment in his office. Just fake-antique plywood

bookshelves, fake potted plants, his velvet throne—even the velvet was fake—and a plush reclining chair

for visitors.

Judy didn't feel like sitting in the recliner. The seat was too high, made her feet dangle over the floor,

made her feel like a midget or a little kid. Made her feel diminished.

The point of the visitor's chair, no doubt.

She stared out the window at a mutated banana tree: genetically altered so it wouldn't grow fruit. "What

about DVD? When do we finish that?" she asked without turning.

"Rodriguez will be here any minute. The guard will flash a note on my computer. We pacify Rodriguez,

then you go fix the Laguna problem. But I need a time frame, Judy."

Pacify Rodriguez without any sleep. Oh, great.

"Oops. Rodriguez is here earlier than I expected. The security guard just let him in, Guess it's show time.

This won't take long, then I need to know about the bank."

There was a knock at the door, and Steve rose from behind his desk. At five feet eight inches, he was six

inches taller than Judy. He wore a tan linen suit, complete with tie and cuff links.

By the time she moved from the window, Hector Rodriguez and Steve were shaking hands, rah-rahing

each other like best friends ... good to see you, buddy ... how's the wife? ... we gotta get together for that

drink sometime soon ... and blah blah blah,

Like either one of them cared.

Hector Rodriguez wore fancier clothes than Steve. Navy suit, white shirt, paisley tic, black polished

shoes. Another handsome guy, charming actually, with a smile that almost made her feel like he was real.

But of course, he wasn't. He was executive vice president of the southwest region of Widescreen DVD,

the second-largest video sales chain in the United States. He knew when to turn on the charm, and when

to turn it off.

Rodriguez smiled at her.

He had come here to get something from her.

"Hello, Miss Carmody." He settled into the recliner and swept his eyes over her body. She had no idea

what he thought of her. She could never tell with these guys. With Judy, there was never any of that

rah-rah buddy stuff going on. She was a girl in a man's universe.

She sat on the edge of the windowsill, now glad to be wearing her mismatched, silly outfit, It gave her a

twinge of power, allowed her a kind of twisted rebellion against skirt suits or anything remotely smacking

of professional clothing.

When she didn't answer, Steve scowled at her, then walked around the desk and back to his throne.

"Judy doesn't say much, she just observes."

"Observing is fine," Rodriguez said, casting her another dazzling smile. "1 pay Miss Carmody to observe,

and to fix. I'm interested only in results."

It was too warm in here. It was too warm everywhere. Why couldn't this meeting take place on a

webvid? What were those freaking conference applications for?

Personal contact was the key to good business, Steve always claimed. If so, Judy was locked out.

She had to say something.

Rodriguez continued. "I must warn you, Steve, that I have only half an hour, then 1 catch a plane to that

conference up north. So, please, not too technical — just straight talk."

Steve adjusted his tie, "Yes, of course."

They just continued without her. She had to say something. "It's a delight to see you, Mr. Rodriguez."

Rodriguez shot a baffled glance at Steve. It was the look people always exchanged when Judy was

around. As if saying, What an idiot.

From Rodriguez: "So. What exactly is wrong with DVD's security system? I didn't understand the

technical jargon in Miss Carmody's report."

He was talking as if she weren't there .. , because she always said the wrong things. Or maybe because

they didn't expect friendly banter from her, just cold facts. Judy Carmody, the robotic girlthing.

"Judy's tired," Steve said. "She was up all night on an emergency call with one of my clients. And she's

been working around the clock on DVD problems for the past week."

"Well, let's hear it then," Rodriguez said.

Time for TerMight. No more Judy, Just TerMight: technical mistress of the Web. The one who ruled.

The one who was confident, knew the tech, talked the lingo.

TerMight,

"Judy,"

She stared at the recliner. A nice brown fake velvet. Soothing, soft, molasses.

TerMight spoke.

"DVD's Internet security has at least one hundred and two holes. The service pack was never installed to

protect your system from intrusion. Nor the required patches for the operating system, even though the

OS patches are from your Internet browser's competition."

She glanced up. Rodriguez was blinking at her. He was baffled. Wasn't a technical guy like Jose. No

matter how simply she put it, it wasn't going to be simple enough for Rodriguez.

Give it to him in a way he'd understand.

She shut her eyes. "That is, Mr, Rodriguez, there are over a hundred ways a hacker can break into your

corporate files. Once past the firewalls, this person could download all your sales records for the past

year. Or copy the purchase agreements you have with manufacturers in the video field, complete with

discount schedules and delivery dates.

Or hijack all the passwords to your electronic bank accounts, then withdraw any or all of your corporate

funds. One hacker, with a grudge against Widescreen DVD, could bring your company to its knees."

There. Done. She sagged against the windowsill.

Rodriguez nodded. "So we plug the leaks. I understand. I just need a time frame. How long will it take to

fix the problems?"

Steve spoke before she had a chance. "Judy will supply a full report on the necessary solutions within the

week. Ten days at most."

Rodriguez smiled. "Excellent. Now. How long will it take my guys to patch this thing up?"

"It makes more sense for Judy to program the fixes," Steve said.

"At her fees? Seven hundred an hour?"

It was amazing that anyone paid her fees. If it had been left to Judy, she'd be offering services to

Rodriguez for two hundred bucks an hour, way below industry standards. But she knew enough to let

Steve field the question. After all, he paid her contract fees of five hundred an hour, then pocketed the

extra two hundred himself. He understood people and business. She understood only technology.

And Steve was one sharp smoothie, "Judy's the best. Nobody else comes close when it comes to

Internet security. Face it, Hector, you need her. Your guys couldn't even find the problems."

"True enough." A pause. Rodriguez was considering whether he could bargain Steve's price down. Judy

had witnessed this scene a hundred times. She felt ridiculous being called the best, being dickered over

like a farm animal at auction. But Rodriguez gave Steve the response Judy always heard. "Done. In less

than ten days, Judy fixes my security leaks. DVD is safe from hackers. It's fast; it's effective."

Great. Judy had only ten days to fix one hundred and two security holes in DVD's Internet systems.

"Judy walks on water. She's a miracle worker," Steve said. More like a girl who worked around the

clock nonstop. She wasn't the best. She just worked like a dog.

"I have to run. Good meeting. Thanks, Steve." Rodriguez shook hands with Steve, nodded politely to

Judy. Then he was gone.

Steve ran his hands through his hair, clasped them on his desk. "I hate justifying your fees like that. If you

worked for me full-time, in-house, on my staff—"

"No way."

"—you wouldn't have to work under such pressure, Judy. My guys don't work half as hard as you do."

"Come on, you know how I feel about this."

"Be reasonable. Your fees are bleeding me dry. Besides, your name would add prestige to this place."

She didn't answer.

"Judy, you're not listening." Steve circled his desk, came too close, smelled faintly of soap and cologne.

She was keenly aware that she hadn't showered for two days. She backed away and edged toward the

door.

"I go it alone," she said, "always have."

"You've been working alone too long, Judy." He almost sounded sympathetic —like Rodriguez had

almost sounded charming. She wanted to believe that Steve was being real. But she knew better.

Nobody was real.

So why would she ever want to put up with them, day after day, face-to-face? She was an independent

contractor. A loner. It was better that way. No company politics. No company rules. No small talk and

drivel from personnel dragons.

Sure, Judy didn't actually have any close friends, Not off-line, at least. No boyfriend either. But that was

the price she paid for independence.

She didn't like thinking about it.

Steve's computer beeped. He moved back behind the desk, said, "Private," then picked up the phone

receiver on his deskmate and started warbling to some customer. The phone icon on his screen shivered

blue streaks as the computer transmitted Steve's words and received the customer's replies.

Judy was dismissed.

She left. Quickly.

Outside, the air was sweet with the scent from flowering shrubs that lined the parking lot. Hummingbirds

jammed their long beaks into the petals and sucked moisture. A butterfly sat, folding and unfolding its

yellow wings on the wide leaf of a banana tree.

This was reality. This was where Judy preferred to be. Relaxing, gazing for hours at the flowers and

Lois Gresh - Termination Node

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