Mad Worlds Collide (19 page)

Bush was tired too but knew enough to continue the discussion. He had to be especially tough, as that was the makeup of a Bush, or at least that’s what the campaign ads had said. Bush felt in a weird way that he’d become what his campaign managers had advertised.  He became characteristics he saw in his father as president. It was almost schizophrenic, but power cut away fears like a hot knife cutting butter.  Sometimes deep down Newton W. Bush knew the only reasons he made president were:

1.      He’d graduated law at Yale Law School without getting caught cheating,

2.      his father was richer and a little smarter than Forest Gump, and

3.      The Republicans had spent over four hundred million dollars on Bush name recognition.

Bush sat back staring at the ceiling. The room’s ceiling also had the presidential emblem and this amazed Bush.

Bud looked at Bush annoyed. "Newt…Earth calling Mr. President
…"

"Oh…sorry, I’m a little tired.  Look, I know you want to get back too but we need to be tough," said Bush.

"Tough?"

Bush sat straight. "Yeah, tough. If Schwartz is all fucked up, we tell them. I can’t have some General running around who’s all fucked up."

"Well Newt, we were planning to send him a report later today explaining the situation."

"Reports? You guys sent me enough reports to keep me busy reading for months. Now as president here’s what I’d like to do. First, we’re going to call Schwartz and update that bastard on what’s really going on.  You’re sure you know what’s really going on, right?
 

"We think so, sir."

"Well you better be one hundred per cent sure or we’ll look stupid.  Are you sure?"

"I’m sure."

"Good, so then we’ll call Schwartz and put things straight right away, but first I want to know about this Net-Chameleon project. Something about some Psych Ops being used to take over people’s computers -- now what the hell is that, Bud?"

"Well Newt, it’s a long story."

"I’ve got time.  It’s three hours to my first meeting today." I’ve got to be tough.  We want people to say this Bush is the toughest.

Bud winced. "Well the guys in the CIA and NSA wrote some software to act like a Trojan, and we not talking about condoms."

"A pc Trojan?" asked Bush.

"Yes, it would install on the target’s pc covertly and then track everything. We then used a main server to send in phony web sites like a phony Yahoo or phony news site. Most of the stuff is real news with some of it changed, but just a little. Sometimes we’d send phony e-mails to kidnap people or to screw up an ambassador etc. People would think they’re meeting their friends but they were really meeting agents. Really neat stuff but I personally didn’t like it – I could never look at my pc the same, always wondering if the stuff was real. The Trojan is easy, just a virus we keep updating to make sure no virus software detects it. It’s also morphed like a regular virus, so if detected people think it’s just something else.  Except for a few fringe hacker sites, but no one believes them. We had the agency do a Psych Ops to discredit them too.  Personally I don’t like the program."

"I love it, " said Bush.

"Newt, it’s against the Constitution."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, it’s an illegal search and seizure."

"Yeah, well, I’m sure there’s some loophole. I’d love to use this against the Libyans."

"We are Newt, we use it all over the place. The problem is some hackers are using it too and now we’ve got the shit all over the Net."  Murphy shook his head in frustration.

"If that’s true, maybe Schwartz has got a point.  He said the agency hackers are being targeted."

"Newt, they are but it’s mostly from home computers.  Our internal system uses special hard-coded chips with special encryption.  You need physical access to screw around with those encryption codes."

"Who has access to do that?"

"MicroIntel has a secure server farm in Oregon and with the Justice deal we included some special measures. We are using their Big Blue server with special chips.  It would require the NSA, CIA and MicroIntel’s president Gill Applebee to sign off to change those chips."

"Hum, this is interesting. If Schwartz is convinced of hackers, then he is convinced those chips are compromised, right?"

"That would make sense, sir."

"If we had control of those chips, we could Psych Ops anyone in government, couldn’t we Bud?"

"Yes, that’s the theory. "

"And take over the government, right?"
            "Newt, we have taken over the government. You are the president and we control the military"

"No Bud, you don’t get it. If I let Schwartz go to Defcon-Two, he gets to send out bombers, send troops on alert. With control of Net-Chameleon he could do anything. This is not good. Jesus Christ, Bud, I put him in charge of the CIA and NSA because you said we couldn’t trust those agencies, now didn’t you Bud?"

"Well Newt, I used to be the CIA head working for your father, but the agency seems to have a mind of its own. I thought if we put in a General, someone we could trust to oversee, things would be better."

"I don’t know Bud.  I kind of liked this Net hacker thing but if it’s used against us, hell there’s no way of telling what’s really going on.  You know, Bud when I read the news now I know half of it is bullshit.  But if someone’s in my pc, Jesus!  What am I to believe?  How do you know your e-mails and reports are right Murphy?"

Bud knew Bush’s son was a little over-reactive, but gladly took the Defense Secretary’s position. "Newt, listen for a second. We have actual physical meetings at the Pentagon. We have systems that check for inconsistencies in our data, for data intrusions. We have some of the best people working for us. We’re pretty safe."

"What if those chips are changed Bud?"

"That’s almost impossible, but even if it was done, we have other checks."

"Well, I want to know by Friday how we are going to stop our own hacking software from hacking us, got it Bud?"

"Yes
Mr.President
."

"I told you not to talk like that -- I have twenty or so agents looking for something to do," said Bush smiling.

"Well with all this shit, a bullet is sounding better and better."

"Let’s call Schwartz and get this done. Maybe we can get another hour of sleep before the day starts."

"Sounds good to me," said Bud finishing his coffee.

Date:             February 15, 2021

Place:             Earth

Location:        Tokyo Japan

"The weatherman is the only person who can be wrong every single day and still have their boss tell them ‘see you tomorrow’."
- unknown

Norton sat in his Michigan two-story log cabin home on the couch looking out the window. His seven year-old son Chuck sat near the fireplace resting on a bear rug fighting with his younger brother Mike over a card game. In between the fight they would ask questions about the snow. "Daddy, when is the snow coming? Daddy is the snow starting yet? I think I saw a snowflake Daddy! Daddy, how come we don’t have snow?  You said it was gonna snow Daddy!!

Norton could not answer, and the snow was already three hours late. The F-Caster was usually correct, especially for short-term forecasts, those within a few hours
.
  Screwing up the weather forecast this bad would give Amanda Fletcher the ammunition to get him.  She did not like Michigan or him, and he’d already made the one mistake he’d never make again, dating her. "Never date a co-worker," his father had said.  His father had said it a thousand times, but Norton never listened to his father.  His father had married his own accountant, so what did he know?

Being divorced and also being a man, Norton initially had a liking for the looks of Amanda.  He asked her out but problems started immediately. It was the choice of the restaurant -- he knew it. One wrong move, one bad first impression and blam! They cut your balls off.  He took her out to a local restaurant and she complained to the owner about how the steak was cooked, and then that the steak wasn’t real tenderloin, and that the wine list was too short, only no-name Californian Beringer Merlot and some Australian Jacobs Creek.

Norton tried to get Amanda to relax, but she complained about everything. At the end of the meal she complained more.

"Why should we accept such service?"   she said to Norton.  If we complain maybe the next time they’ll get some real wine. Why not?

Norton looked humble, and drank his wine; he liked the wine. He wanted to tell Amanda that she shouldn’t complain because his parents
owned
the restaurant
.

Norton eventually got this news in to Amanda, but was too late. Amanda had complained to the waiter, and then his mother. Norton’s Mom received an apology, but later privately said to Norton that the woman belonged in New York, and that she had to be stupider than Fred Junket who accidentally blew off one of his nuts hunting for frogs with Jimbo.  How could she not know that the "Norton Steak House" might have something to do with her son, Bob Norton? Norton’s dad liked Amanda but that did not matter. His mother put the kiss of death on the relationship when Amanda complained about the homemade cheesecake that didn’t taste exactly like NY cheesecake.

Anyhow the news was not good for Bob Norton.  The snow was not coming, thanks to Eddy Flint, and the relationship was not coming either, thanks to NY cheesecake.

Robert did not look forward to the meeting with Gill. Gill put a knot in Robert’s stomach that never unwound until he walked Buddy. Inside the kitchen Robert was the first to wake: 6:00 a.m.

Instinctively Robert channeled to the Michigan news. It was almost time for Bob Norton to do the weather.

"And now we move to the evening news and weather."

Out walked Norton in his weather prop, a white polar bear suit.  He waited for Amanda’s cue wearing a polar bear mask that tightly covered his head.

For the first time in years the MicroIntel F-Caster software had totally miscalculated the weather. Not only did it miscalculate amount of snow; there was no snow at all, not even a dusting!  Bob Norton felt embarrassed, just like during dinner at his parents’ restaurant.  He walked onto the set, tried to explain, but couldn’t. The mask was getting hot inside; he needed to finish the weather quickly.  This was Amanda’s chance to get back at Norton for dinner.  His ratings might go down, maybe really go down.  He saw that she was looking forward to it.

Once Amanda finished the evening news, she glowed. Next she would introduce the weather. She couldn’t wait.The euphoria so overwhelmed her that she didn’t consider her listeners. The words might make sense to her, but not to her viewers, and certainly not to Norton, who was in a self-enclosed daze inside the polar bear mask. The bear hat was getting unbearably hot. The faulty F-Caster report filled part of the hot haze of the consciousness that was Norton.

Amanda smiled brightly.   "And now we go to the weather with Bob Norton." She turned to him.  "So Bob, where was that 9 inches you promised me last night?"

Norton stirred. "Excuse me Amanda?"  

Amanda stifled her laughter. "Yeah, you promised me 9 inches last night, where is it?" Norton made the polar bear suit shrug. A male newscaster sitting next to Amanda started to smile.

The Sports reporter giggled, then the crew burst out laughing.

No one could see Norton’s smile inside his mask. He smothered a laugh; it was really hot in the mask. He yelled out, "You wanted 9 inches?"

It finally dawned on Amanda. The whole studio was in an uproar.

She blushed, and shuffled her papers. "Ah forget it Norton, ah….9 inches of ah…snow."

Norton lost it. He laughed so hard that it became hard to breathe. He tried to take off the large bear mask.  It wouldn’t budge. Laughter turned to panic. He started yelling frantically: "Get it off, get it off me now!"

Amanda started sweating. The TV crew looked puzzled. Norton started to run, grabbing his head. He passed out next to the news desk, relaxing peacefully next to Amanda.

The cameraman cut to a commercial.

A support staff pulled off the mask.  A standby nurse applied oxygen to Norton.  The managing director said to Amanda: "You two guys should really try to get along."

Norton’s ratings flew through the roof. He became the number one weatherman in America. There were reports of a movie in the making: Michigan Weatherman: The Whole Nine Inches. The bad news was good news, except for MicroIntel whose stock took a nosedive upon the F-Caster software bug.

Robert Davichi watched Norton pass out on the weather set like a fat bear shot in the ass with a tranquilizer.

Passed out because of a faulty F-Caster report.

Robert’s first big project was the F-Caster weather system. It linked up to 200 special worldwide weather satellites with over 2,500 land-based weather stations. Connected to Big Blue, and with over a hundred trillion calculations per second, the weather reports were perfect for short-term forecasts.  Maybe a miscalculation of an inch here or there, but never nine inches!

The Michigan situation made no sense. Was the pass-out scene all a set-up to distract attention from the mistake? The error meant trouble. Gill would flip. Big Blue and this hacker were causing heaps of trouble, trouble they did not understand.

From upstairs Robert heard footsteps. It was Jimmy.

"Morning Dad," Jimmy went to the GE Fridge and hit a button on his wristwatch. It was a CompuWatch.  "Shutting off food tracking," echoed a sound from the watch.

Robert had not seen the watch do that before.  "What’s that Jimmy? What did you just do?"

"Ah, it’s nothing Dad, Mom’s driving me nuts with this calorie food tracking fridge crap.  I downloaded a GE fridge code-sleeper to my watch; it shuts the GE tracking off."

Robert hated the GE tracking too, but did not know a person could stop it so easily.

"Where did you get the program? They need to hack the GE source code to do that."