The Sapporo Outbreak (8 page)

Emboldened by its success, ANONet announced it would continue to fight wherever they saw abuses of freedom and privacy occurring online. The next 18 months saw several ANONet attacks on Wall Street, oil companies and lobbyists. Early public support for ANONet waned as the group continued to release the personal records of public figures. ANONet had been accused of treason for leaking government and corporate secrets online and economic vandalism for releasing versions of popular games stripped of advertising and tracking systems. ANONet had been named by several governments as a threat to national security, and the renowned CEO of WhiteStar Kaito Tanaka had claimed publicly that the organisations had tried and failed on several occasions to attack WhiteStar Corporations systems. Tanaka had gone on to describe ANONet as
a group of deranged cyber-terrorists intent on attacking online consumers around the world
.
 

By 2019, ANONet was considered an organisation that had lost its way, a dark and dangerous group that answered to no one.
 

Despite a massive concerted effort by law enforcement agencies, no member of ANONet had been identified. The group's members were well aware the noose was tightening, and had decided several months ago to disband after one last, piercing strike for online freedom and privacy; a strike against an organisation that recorded, tracked, measured and sold information on over two billion people. A murky, privately held multi-billion dollar organisation that had operations worldwide, reported to no one government and refused to divulge the information it tracked.

WhiteStar Corporation.

#

11pm Tuesday, Seattle Washington (Minus 23 Hours)

Lewis Dodgson carefully trod up the frost-covered wooden stairs and toward his third floor apartment in Roy Street. Next door to a bar popular with the young and educated, and just two blocks from the Seattle Centre in the lively Lower Queen Anne area of Seattle, Washington, it seemed an odd place for an antisocial man like Dodgson to live.
 

As with everything in Dodgson's life, this apartment had been selected very carefully.

Its location meant he could walk to work. For a man who had never learnt to drive and spent 14 hours a day - every day - in the office, that was important. But there was another reason why Dodgson chose the apartment, perched at the top of a carefully renovated green weatherboard house.
 

Privacy.
 

The building next door to Dodgson's apartment was a single story yuppie bar. Modern and lively, its glamorous staff ensured a constant stream of twenty-somethings.
 
All three floors were fully contained apartments, all accessed from an external wooden staircase hidden from street view. It took Dodgson only minutes to work his way through the real estate and government systems, and find that the other two apartments residents had revealed them to be single, frequent travellers with no family in the State of Washington.
 

The apartment building was owned by an overseas investor, as part of a large portfolio of West Coast real estate. A small company in downtown Seattle looked after property management. Dodgson's willingness to pay above the market rate and in advance secured the apartment with no questions asked.

Dodgson could come and go any time of the day or night and go completely unnoticed. No one ever bothered Lewis Dodgson. Hiding in plain sight and moving freely through society's cracks and crevices, he was invisible.

Arriving on the third floor just as the biting winter wind kicked up a notch, Lewis Dodgson hurriedly entered his apartment and slammed the heavy wooden door behind him. The street lighting below reflected off the thick carpet of white snow outside, bathing the apartment in an eery twilight glow. Without pausing to turn on the lights, Dodgson walked through the apartment and past the gleaming stainless steel of his unused kitchen before slowing to a stop in front of an imposing glass-topped desk.
 

The custom-fitted curved steel and glass of the desk followed the arc of the apartment's bay windows perfectly. Three identical semitransparent glass monitors dominated the space, the left and right screens tilted inward slightly. A slightly tilted glass panel sat under the middle monitor, glowing a faint blue in the dark.
 

In one swift practiced movement, Dodgson wheeled the ergonomic white plastic and leather chair from under the desk, twisted it, sat down and wheeled back to his desk. Without pausing, Dodgson used his left and right forefingers to trace a series of elaborate curves onto the glass tablet, ending each with a series of quick taps. The monitors immediately sprang to life, each displaying a pure white screen with a single black cursor pulsing in the model. In a well practiced routine, Dodgson again used his fingers - this time to trace different shapes onto each monitor.

A second later, the entire room lit up, filled with the light emanating from three enormous screens. The left and right screens were filled with grids of large and small boxes, each filled with impenetrable code. The middle screen had only two windows. The first contained a complex throbbing 'spiders web' of threads varying in thickness, colour and the speed with which they 'pulsed'. The other window contained a tiled grid of thumbnail pictures, each showing a different comic strip superhero. Most were framed in a glowing green, and two in a glowing red. As Dodgson watched, the two red frames ('Batman' and 'Silver Surfer') changed to green, and the computer's mid-pacific female voice announced "All participants online."

Dodgson smiled, alternately tapped two fingers on the glass tablet, faced the central monitor and said "Start call."

   
The tiled superhero images shimmered, and in no discernible order the frames changed from green to white and began slowly pulsing. A few seconds later, all tiles were slowly pulsing in unison. All attendees were ready. The meeting of the world's most feared and respected hacker group - 'ANONet' was about to begin.

Later, investigators would pinpoint this as the meeting that started it all. The start of a chain of events that would lead to the greatest peacetime loss of life in human history.

#

Over Denver Colorado (Minus 22 Hours)

Tanaka's personal Gulfstream jet was by any measure, luxurious.

Capable of carrying 30 people in first class comfort, Tanaka had slashed the capacity, replacing the existing first class leather recliner seats with ten enormous fully reclining white leather seats, facing each other in five rows of two. Completing the effect, the far end of the plane housed Tanaka's master suite complete with oversize shower.

Santos and Skinner were ushered into the plane by a beautiful young Japanese hostess, and chose to setup base in the first two seats facing each other as they entered the plane. Clearly a veteran, Hill strode to the farthest two seats, plumped down into the leather and within seconds was back on his cell.

Santos and Skinner were awestruck. The plane had levelled off at 22,000 feet before their whispered guesses about the cost of all the luxury subsided.
 

Polished teak, thick carpet and rows of subtle insight lighting created a warm and intimate ambience. Running along the left hand side of the cabin was a long, deep white leather couch large enough to comfortably fit six people, and opposite the couch were four large padded white leather chairs, paired to face each other over a shiny teak coffee table. At the far end of the cabin Skinner noticed the gleaming polished timber door leading into Tanaka's private room.

After a moment's pause in the conversation, Skinner jumped forward, surprising Santos and causing her to spill wine over the table separating the two chairs.
 

"Sorry Eva - I didn't mean to scare you like that, but I've just remembered something I'd like your thoughts on."

Before Santos could reply, one of the four air stewards whisked in, cleaned the spill and passed a white cotton napkin and a fresh glass of wine. Santos smiled at the steward, and as he moved away beamed at Skinner. "And
that's
why I only ever travel this way. Now - what did you want to talk about?"

Skinner's whispered voice took on a steely edge. "On the way to the airport I had a call from an old friend of mine in Santa Clara. A detective that I worked with two years ago. He was asking for my help on a very unusual murder in Palo Alto."

Santos gently placed her glass of wine down on the coffee table and nodded "Go on."

Skinner relayed most of his conversation with Detective Steve Clark. He then rolled out his flexible tablet computer onto the table separating them and turned the tablet to the side so they could both see. He swiped the screen and then flicked through the forensic report, crime scene pictures and the video of the attack recovered from Sandra Brennan's phone.

Santos reacted calmly to the material, dispassionately. The initial jolt of horror quickly replaced with professional curiosity. After a few short questions to clarify some details, Santos picked up the computer and began silently reading and reviewing all the material. Skinner leaned back in the thick padded leather and waited.
 

Absently Skinner watched as Hill continued to whisper urgently into his cell phone. Extra soundproofing and carefully designed 'white noise' sound system created a feeling of library-like silence in the cabin, and as such Skinner could still hear the faint hum of Hill's conversation despite the distance between them. Skinner could see the tension in Hill as he lowered the phone from his ear and slumped back into his chair. He looked like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
I guess that's what the prospect of making - or losing - billions of dollars can do
, Skinner mused.
 

A few minutes later, Santos rolled up the computer and handed it back to Skinner.
 
Santos locked her gaze on Skinner and in a low firm voice said "Ben, none of this makes sense. Attacks of this ferocity are very rare, and almost always psychotic incidents. Drugs are pretty much always involved - and before it gets to this level there's been earlier signs. And finally, it's not what stable 13-year old straight A-girls do!"

Before Skinner could respond, a voice behind Santos chimed in. "Where exactly did this attack happen Dr Santos?"

Surprised, Santos head swivelled to her right to find the source while Skinner looked up with a start. Hill stood behind Santos, a look of concern on his face. Skinner wondered how much of the conversation he'd heard - from the look on his face he certainly seemed to understand the savage nature of the murder.

Santos looked at the pale young lawyer. He didn't look good. Before she could reply, Skinner leaned forward.

"I'm sorry Alex, but I'm afraid neither Dr Santos or I can talk about this. There's an ongoing investigation, that's all I can tell you."

As he spoke, Skinner watched Hill closely, and saw the frustration briefly sweep across the lawyer's face before he gathered himself and cordially replied, "Yes, yes of course. Doctor - Professor. Please forgive me. Idle curiosity got the better of me I'm afraid."
 

Without waiting for a response, Hill turned and walked back to his seat.

Santos leaned over the table, gesturing for Skinner to move closer until Skinner could feel Santos' breath against his face. Santos whispered, "So Ben ... what in the hell was that all about?"
 

#

Midnight, Seattle Washington (Minus 22 Hours)

"Hi everyone and welcome, wherever you are and
whoever
you are"

Lewis Dodgson spoke with the practiced authority of a man in control. He'd been contacted by ANONet less than two years ago, and in that time had demonstrated time and again to be the very best in a group of brilliant software engineers. Dodgson's unruffled determination and complete conviction in the cause saw the others defer to him. Although it was never said, Dodgson was now considered the group's leader, and the man driving their last, big strike against oppression.

Quickly and efficiently, eleven digitally manipulated voices responded to Dodgson's welcome. There was no small talk. The group understood the need to keep these conversations as brief and to the point as possible. Although extremely sophisticated software hid their tracks, no one underestimated the capabilities of the National Security Agency.

Dodgson continued.

"iSight 2 is a massive multiplayer online game built and operated by WhiteStar Corporation. The current version has well over one billion active players - it's the biggest online game in the world. In one week's time, WhiteStar will release the next version - iSight 3. This latest version is a huge jump forward - the software and hardware are way ahead of anything else out there. iSight3 also tracks every single action and worms its way across every players personal social network. It weaves paid corporate brands into the gaming experience without the player ever realising and, worst of all, all this information is then sold to any advertiser willing to pay. Internal documents show WhiteStar are predicting the new game will attract over two billion users. That's pretty much a third of the planet hooked on this game! One in three people worldwide that WhiteStar will know
everything
about. In short, iSight 3 is the largest assault on individual privacy any company has ever mounted. We
must
do everything possible to prevent it succeeding.

That's the bad news. The good news, as you are all aware, is that WhiteStar has built in elements of Hartec's security software into almost every area of the new game. And that means we have a way in. I know - because I'm the one that built it!"

A ripple of digitised laughter greeted Dodgson's aside.

He continued. "Thanks to the efforts of this group, we have established a reliable way of accessing and modifying the iSight 3 code. In the last few weeks, a few of us have been running small tests in different WhiteStar testing labs around the world, altering game scenarios and virtual personalities. All of these tests have gone undetected. Therefore, having run several small, successful test attacks over the last month, I'd like to formally ask the group to make the last decision we will ever face as AnoNET. As always, we will only proceed if the decision of the group is unanimous. Does everyone understand?"