Insider X (8 page)

11

Tower 9

NA STOOD IN front of Room 6008.  The door, unlike all the other doors in the hallway, was propped open.  A running shoe was wedged between the jamb and door.

She listened, but there was only silence.  No voices talking, no TV playing, nothing at all was coming from the room.  The same had been for the other doors she’d passed in the hall.  No muffled sounds had come from behind those doors, nothing seeped under the cracks.  It was as if she was the only one on this floor.

She looked at the shoe again.  Its rubber tread was worn smooth.  The laces were still tied.  The shoe was one of those knockoffs made to look like an Adidas.  It had similar stripes, but went by a different name:
Adadis
.  Much different name.  :P  Not.

She knew the brand because she had an Adadis pair of shoes just like this one back at her place.  She’d gotten her pair from a pile that had been dumped near an alley where she’d lived at the time.

Such piles appeared sometimes.  In a city of millions, piles like that were usually picked clean rather quickly.  The pile had been full of clothes, most of which were soiled.  The shoes—there were several scattered among the clothes and other random belongings—had been her size.  Na had taken two pair.  The running shoes and a pair of flat sandals.

She’d worn the running shoes everywhere.  Na bent down and looked at the shoe.  It wasn’t just a shoe that looked like hers that was wedged in the door.

It was her shoe.

12

Undisclosed location / Chengdu

PLACE WAS A little more upscale than the usual dives they picked when they got together.  Marks did the visual sweep.  Lip used one of his toys and checked for bugs.

Once they determined the place was clean, they settled in.  Marks found a seat.  Lots of wall-to-wall glass in this particular joint.  Hi-tech looking buildings that seemed to reach the clouds could be seen out the windows.

The owner of this swank apartment, according to Mei, was traveling in Europe.  Mei’s network of diaper dodgers,
Team Freedom
, had found them this meeting spot.  They were good like that.  No reservations needed.  Only recommendation was they not stay too long.  These places tended to get hot after a while, no matter how low the AC was cranked down.

Johnny Two-cakes had wasted no time.  He’d sat down at the dining room table and had gone to work.  He was currently checking out something.

That “something” was what was left of the EMex device that Marks had swiped from his and Lip’s little tour.  Right now the puck was split in two and the innards were spread on the table.  “Hmm,” Johnny Two-cakes said for the umpteenth time.

“So?” Lip said.  “We good?”

“Hmm?” Johnny Two-cakes said, not looking up.

“What are you, napping?” Lip said.  “Are we good?”

Johnny Two-cakes removed the magnifying monocle from his eye and looked up at the three of them.  “In a word?”  He set the monocle down on the table.  “Or should I say three?  I don’t know.”

“What’s the problem?” Marks said.

“This has a different chip,” Johnny Two-cakes said.

“Different how?” Marks said.

“In several ways; pin structure for one,” Johnny Two-cakes said.  “This doesn’t match the specifications we’ve seen.”

“Maybe they changed the design,” Lip said.

“Hmm,” said Johnny Two-cakes.  “Possible.”  He looked at Mei.  “Can you get us inside the manufacturing plant?”

Mei, dressed in a “borrowed” InterContinental Hotel’s concierge outfit, shrugged her shoulders.  “I don’t know.”  She stepped up to the table and picked up the chip.  “Why are you so interested in this chip?”

“That is classified,” Johnny Two-cakes said.

“Okay,” Mei said.  “Then no, I cannot get you inside.” She set down the chip and began to walk off.

Johnny Two-cakes sighed.  “We’re going to need your help, Mei.  Name another price.”

Mei stopped and turned around.  “Okay.  Girl in pink.  I want her.”

“How do you know about her?” Marks said.

“I know everything,” Mei said.

“Like you know about the chip?” Lip said.

Mei looked at Lip with annoyance.  “I knew answer.  I just wanted to see what you would tell me.  Obviously we still don’t have a trusting relationship here.  I am very hurt.”

Lip smirked.  “Okay.  Tell us about the chip.”

“Fine.  It has a hardware backdoor,” Mei said.  “Built into the firmware.  Anything connected to the EMex gets infected with polymorphic malware.”

Lip lost the smirk.

Marks frowned.  “What does all that gibberish mean?”

Lip and Johnny Two-cakes both looked at him.  “Since when do you care about this stuff?” Lip said.

“I don’t,” Marks said.  “But I don’t like being the only guy in the room who doesn’t know what’s going on.  Just caveman it.  Keep it simple.”

Johnny Two-cakes sighed.

“If I hear another sigh,” Marks said.  “I’m going to take it personal.”

Lip looked at Johnny Two-cakes.  “You want me to do it?”

“Yes, why not.  I’m not good at speaking Neanderthal,” Johnny Two-cakes said.

“Okay,” Lip said.  He looked at Marks.  “You understand backdoors in software?”

“Pretend I don’t,” Marks said.

“You’ve got to be kidding me?” Lip said.

“Alright.  I understand backdoors,” Marks said.  “It’s stuff in the code.  Enables ‘script kiddies’, or whatever you call those geeks to hack into stuff.”

“Right,” Lip said.  “With software, backdoors can usually be detected by some means: formatting, antivirus measures, or other tricks you can use.  In short, since it can be detected, it can be removed.  Usually fairly easily, if you know what you’re doing.  That doesn’t hold true for hardware backdoors.  It’s stored in non-volatile memory on the computer chip.  Typically in a bootkit, which fetches malware off the Web—”

Marks held up his hand.  “Stop.  Talking to the hand.”

Lip smirked.  “Okay, Stanley.”

“Who is Stanley?” Mei said.

“Stanley the Caveman,” Lip said.  “It’s Marks’s favorite book.”

“Really?” Mei said.  “I don’t know that book.”

Marks frowned.  “Get on with it.”

“Right,” Lip said.  “Okay.  Caveman language.  So this bootkit looks benign… harmless, but it’s not.  It’s made out of open-source tools… wait… free stuff… you know what I’m talking about.  Fuck!  Can I use any words you don’t know?”

Marks nodded.  “You get three.”

“Okay.  I’m starting over.  So you got this chip and there is what we call a hardware backdoor built into it.  Those two words don’t count by the way.  You boot up, I mean turn on the device, and instead of just turning the device on, it connects to the Internet without you knowing it, and downloads a nasty.  Basically, at that point, it’s the same concept as backdoors in software.  The hacker, white hat or black hat… script kiddies, by the way, are punks, they just read recipes.  So this black hat—that would be a bad guy—now controls what you have.  That ‘polymorphic malware’ Mei mentioned is the same thing as ‘the nasty’, and it evolves, changes so frequently antivirus measures won’t detect it; least not easily.  It’s the latest trend.  We busted Huawei a ways back with their server gear.  They’d built it into their chips and some of their switches and router components; it basically compromised two data centers before we figured it out.  Wiping servers didn’t get rid of it, because it was in the firmware.  Firmware—think ‘software for hardware’—means it’s embedded, it’s not going away.  Well, we’re seeing this stuff more often… anything coming out of China.  They’ve been doing it with electronics, routers, Blu-ray players, phones, laptops, desktops, even toys.  Anything with any type of firmware.  Even in coffee machines.”

“Coffee machines?” Marks said.  “What are they going to do, burn our coffee?”

“Yeah, I didn’t understand that one either, at first,” Lip said.  “But they’re thinking long term here.  They’re just compromising everything that comes out of here.  Including, it appears, their gaming consoles, like EMex.  If it needs a chip, a hardware backdoor gets built in.  It’s a PLA initiative.  Lot of things they could do with this.  They could create ‘bots.  By ‘bots, I’m talking ‘zombies’, compromised devices.  They control whatever you have hooked up to the grid.  Most of it would be through your wireless service, Bluetooth connections, things like that.  So that coffee machine… some of those fancy models you get where you use an app to set what time to brew it?  Well those, believe it or not, have been configured where they can use it to hack into your wireless service in your house and take over your personal computer.”

“I don’t own a computer,” Marks said.

“I know,” Lip said.  “I’m talking about everyone else.  The non-cavemans of the world.”

Mei smirked.  She was looking at something on her phone.

Marks gave her a look.  “You find something funny?”

“I found Stanley the Caveman,” Mei said.  “Okay, Lipster.  Nice brief.  So we going to do business?”

“Girl in pink,” Lip said.  “Why can’t your people pick her up?”

“Too dangerous.  They have her now,” Mei said.

“Who has her?” Marks said.

“PLA.  They’ve taken her to Facility 67096,” Mei said.

Three blank stares.

“Oh.”  Mei giggled.  “You three don’t know about Facility 67096?  Well, that’s where she is.  You get her.  I get you EMex with special chip.”

13

Tower 9

NA PUSHED THE door in slightly and picked up her shoe that had wedged it open.  She stood up, making sure the door didn’t close.

“Hello?”

No one answered.

She looked for a doorbell, but there was none.

“Hello?” she said again, pushing the door open wider.

Still no answer.  She stepped in… into a foyer.  She let go of the door and it closed behind her.

She fingered her shoe nervously.  “Hello, is anyone here?”

She felt a flush of fear.  What was she doing?  She should leave now.  She had her chance.  The men had gone.  She could take the elevator back down.  Or even go down the emergency stairs.  But her feet didn’t flee, instead they stepped tentatively, taking her further into the place.

The foyer led into an apartment.  It was…

Beautiful.

In fact, it was one of the most beautiful apartments she’d ever seen.  Like a dream apartment.  She stopped and stared.  It was decorated in a feminine style with modern furnishings.  There were white leather chairs and a plush white sofa; large art murals of brilliant red roses were on the walls.  On a marble-topped coffee table was a short round vase that contained clipped roses; at least two dozen looked to be in it… they looked real, but she realized they might be made of silk.  She looked… took it all in… it was all so lovely.

There was no one here, though.  The place was empty.  This was very strange.

(?_?)

She decided to explore.

THERE WAS MORE than one room.  She entered a bedroom.  Oh… my.  She put her hand to her mouth.  On an enormous sumptuous white bed were her clothes, just like the shoe that had been wedged in the door. 
Her clothes were here.
  They were folded and in neat piles on the bed.

What was going on here?  How had her stuff gotten here?  First her shoe, and now her clothes.  She walked over to make sure they were hers.  On top of one pile was a bra.  It was one of her lacy pretty ones.  Yes, that was definitely hers.  And there were
her
shirts, dresses, pants, undergarments, almost everything she owned.  She made a mental inventory as she scanned the piles. 
Almost everything she owned was here.

There were a few items missing, she noticed.  Like her pink outfit.  She didn’t see that.  And some other items also looked to be missing.

A sudden chill went up the nape of her neck.  Those men—those men in suits—those grey men—must have gone to where she lived.  They’d been to her place.  These clothes were all in her dresser bureau when she left for work this morning.

What was going on here?  She looked around the room again.  It was someone’s apartment.  More beautiful furniture—all modern—and by the look of it, very expensive, like all the other furniture in this apartment.  There was a large flat screen TV resting on a shiny ebony hutch.  Off to the side, a large chrome-framed mirror overlooked the bed.

She looked at herself in the mirror.  Her face didn’t betray the fear inside her.  She looked okay, in fact.  Her skin looked clean, and her long hair was shiny and healthy looking.  However, the outfit she was wearing was not flattering.  Not at all.  It was made of coarse fabric and was completely shapeless.

It was much different than some of the other clothes on the bed.  Some of those clothes were very nice clothes and when she wore them she felt like a lady of means.  Had she bought them, which she hadn’t, they would have been very expensive to buy.

She wondered what those grey men thought about those clothes?  And what had they thought about her apartment?  It wasn’t an apartment a girl like her should be able to afford.  It was nothing like this place, of course, but it was well beyond what they probably would have expected her to have.

She had her own place.  It was very small, but it was hers.  She didn’t share it with anyone.  There was no way she should be able to afford that place with the job she had.  Instead, if she lived according to her measly paycheck, she should be living in squalor; renting a grimy pallet on a floor somewhere; sharing a disgusting windowless room with fifteen or so others.

She’d done that.  Lived that life.  Never again, though.  She’d escaped that meager existence.  Found ways to live where she could get what she wanted, using her ingenuity and brains—and occasionally, when she had to, using her pretty face.  She didn’t always like the choices she had to make, and the things she had to do at times, but it was infinitely better than the alternative.

All those thoughts now swirled in her head.  Was what she had—her nice clothes, nice things—proof of her crimes?  Of what she’d stolen?  What she’d borrowed?  What she’d done online?  Did they know she was iNsideR;x?  Had they discovered her place wasn’t even in her name?  That her name now wasn’t even hers?

And could they see her now?  Did this place have hidden cameras or recording devices?  Na tried to remain calm.  Don’t tremble.  Don’t let the fear take over.  But the questions she had were sprouting like weeds.

What was going on here?  Whose apartment was this?  Why were her clothes on this bed?  Questions, questions, questions…!

Shhhh.

Calm down, Na.  Take it easy.  Get your thoughts in check.  Everything was going to be okay.

She took a deep breath.  Looked around the room.  It was so nice.  A beautiful place.  It didn’t seem dangerous.  Her eyes went to the closet door.  She took another deep breath.

Okay.
 
She went to the door.  Took hold of the handle.

She slid open the door.

Nothing jumped out.

She exhaled.  Inside was just a closet.  No monsters.

It was a very big closet.  And it held more clothes.  Her pink outfit was there.  It was on a hanger, along with other articles of clothing that weren’t hers.  She immediately focused on the clothes that weren’t hers.  They appeared to be clothes for someone her size.  They looked like uniforms.  There was a red stripe on the sleeves of the jackets.  She pulled one of the jackets out and held it in front of her.  It was tan, except for the stripe, and it definitely was some sort of uniform.  It had pockets.  She tried it on and looked in the mirror.  It fit perfectly.  In fact, she looked smart with it on.

She left the bedroom, keeping the jacket on, and checked out the other rooms again.  She went through the living room, and looked out the glass doors to the balcony.  It was the one place she hadn’t checked, yet. 

She tried the sliding door to see if it would open.  There was some resistance, and at first she thought it was locked, but then there was a slight suction pop and it slid open easily.  She could feel the pressure change as she stepped out onto the balcony.  The wind—there was a sound to it up this high.

It wasn’t windy on the balcony, though.  The balcony was partially sheltered by a wall to her right, and above her head was what looked like the bottom of another balcony.  But she was on the top floor, so it must not be a balcony, but instead some sort of cover.  The balcony had furniture; two chairs and a table.  The railing was made of horizontal tubes of shiny steel.  It felt very open.  Too open at first.  She felt a brief sensation of vertigo.

She normally wasn’t scared of heights, but this was pretty high.  The view… the view was something.  She had never seen a view like this, least not from any apartment.  The only time she’d been up this high, or at least had this sensation of being so high, was when she visited the Giant Buddha in Leshan when she climbed those hundreds of stairs and looked down the cliff face.  She was definitely higher now than she had been then.  This was the 60
^th
floor after all, skipping those 4s or not.

It was scary and liberating, hearing the wind, being this high.  She took in the view.  Her aerie perch made everything miniaturized.  Directly below was what looked like a park surrounded by buildings.  The buildings looked to be part of some sort of business complex; most were similar in shape and height.  About ten stories each, if she had to guess.  In the park were trees, greenery, colored fields, which must be flowers, and bridges that went over water features.  One of the water features looked to be quite large.  A lake.  Or a big pond, at least.

She could see some sort of wall that went around the business complex.  And beyond the wall was open space for a while.  Then some construction sites.  And beyond those she could see more buildings and the Nan; one of the two rivers in Chengdu.  Its green water was moving like a sinuous line in-between those buildings, many of which were probably even taller than the building she was in now.

This, she realized, must be what it was like to be rich.  To be up high.  Have the whole world at your feet.

For a moment, she forgot her own predicament.  She took in the scene below again.  She noticed there were people walking on some of the trails.  They were tiny, like ants.

Ants.

She suddenly felt small again.  Not rich.  And not free.  Why had those men directed her here?  To this empty apartment?

She went back inside, walked through the living room to the foyer.  She tested the front door.  It opened.  It wasn’t locked.

Was she a prisoner now?  Or could she leave?  If she went in the corridor, would the door lock behind her?  She was tempted to walk into the corridor to find out.  But she didn’t want to do that, yet.  Maybe it would lock.  That was probably why her shoe had been wedged in the door.

Maybe this was some sort of test?  To see if she would try and leave?  What would happen to her if she did?

Questions.

>(??????)<

She paused.  Think this through, Na, she told herself.  Best to explore everything before she made a decision.

She went into the kitchen area again.  It was more spacious than any kitchen she had ever been in.  It had two deep sinks, a real fridge, an oven, a set of burners, and a microwave.  A far cry from her place, where her kitchen was the mini fridge in the corner next to a tiny sink.

She opened the fridge.  It was full of various bottled beverages and other items.  Taped on a large bottle of Perrier was a hand-scrawled note that said in English:

Welcome, Na.  How do you like your place?