New York (Monday) 9:00 am
Early in the morning, as every other New Yorker, Steven was driving to his job as usual.
He worked at a Department of Technical Support for an Internet service provider.
It looked like an average day, heavy traffic, cold coffee, a slight threat of rain.....
But today Steven didn't suspect that his day was about to become unusual.
He parked his car at an office building and took the elevator to 7th floor. This place was home of one of the many Internet service providers in the country.
Although he was running a little late he couldn't help to buy a jelly donut at the cafeteria before coming up. As he walked toward the door of his company, people greeted him on the way. This is, because Steven is well known for being skilled in fixing any problem regarding computers. If nobody could solve the problem Steven would, and with what ease!!.
He sat down at his cubicle and switched on his terminal. He waited until all programs were loaded and then he logged on to company's core server. He munched at the jelly donut as he waited and after a few minutes the typical day became hell.
He looked up at the screen, it was displaying below the blinking message of "connecting..," the words "Server Busy". He turned around; the phone was ringing.
- Technical support, this is Steven, How may I help you? – Said Steven in a pleasant tone of voice.
The person at the other side of the line explained that he could not access his connection and that the computer displayed the message at startup that said "Server Busy"
- Ok, then, I'll try to solve the problem in the next 10 minutes, keep calm. – He said to the customer and then he hanged up.
"Typical..." He thought, "Then I'll change the IP Address", and so he did and tried again.
The message "Server busy" appeared again. At the same time, his phone line was jammed with calls. All the intercom lamps lit up and began blinking. Steven tried to answer each and every one but they just kept coming.
He tried the new connection to no avail. He frenetically punched the keys of his keyboard and clicked with the mouse button to try to reach the solution but still the server was busy.
"I'll see how many packs of data are being transferred. This could give me the reason for this message"
He typed some commands with his keyboard and he got the result he wanted. He stared at the screen in disbelief.
"It's a huge number!!! Somebody must be hacking in" he thought as a man coming from his supervisor office ca holding a cordless phone in his hands.
- Steven, somebody wants to talk to you. – Said the man handing over the phone.
- Who is it? – Said Steven upset for the interruption.
- The FCC.
- What?! – Said Steven turning pale.
Japan. Sunday (midnight)
At a luxurious apartment in the district of Shibuya a phone was ringing. The man who was sitting close to the fireplace answered without rush.
- This is Yamaki.
- Sir? – Said a woman's voice at the other side of the line. – Sorry for waking you up at this hour.
- I was awake. – He replied rudely
- Anyway, we have a situation here. We need you here.
- Like the last time....?
- It started out that way, but now it's getting worse.
- Set everything up, I am on my way. – He said hanging up and quickly he put on his jacket and walked into the street.
Rosa looked up at the ceiling covered with thousands of glass panels that formed a dome in the place she was at.
She remembered when she was hired for this job. She was approached about a year ago by this mysterious blonde man with sunglasses as she was walking out from the office she was working in. This man said that he knew about her abilities with electronic equipment and computers and needed her help to set up a system in a new building belonging to the government.
She didn't hesitate when he offered a generous paycheck in exchange for her services, however, she didn't realize at that time that the price to pay was absolute discretion of the matter. He couldn't even tell her mother about what was going on.
She was remembering something else, when the elevator door opened and out came this blonde man with sunglasses and black suit.
- You came quickly. – She said as he stepped in.
- Light traffic at this hour. –He replied in sarcasm. – Ok what's the situation.
- It started as the last time. Interference with regular data transference, huge movement of unknown data from one address to another and then we detected a huge bulk of information in the Internet clogging all server access.
- Has it moved somewhere?
- No, It has remained there for the past half hour. We thought it was going to go away but then we got reports of network failure all over the world. Banking systems down in Bangkok, Traffic control system problems in Pekin, unauthorized access to a military server in Canada and interference of network operation in educational and government services in the United States.
- Is Chen working on this information? –Asked Yamaki as he sat at one of the control panel desks next to an intercom.
- He is way ahead now. – She replied pressing the button of the intercom.
- Chen? How far have you got?
- Not much. I have tried to download all that data to print it out but it's heavily encrypted. –He replied.
- Have you printed anything yet? –Asked Yamaki
- About a hundred pages in the last 20 minutes and it just keeps coming.
- Any clue of who might be doing all this?
- Not yet, I'll have to read this print outs to let you know.
- Ok. Keep me posted. –Said Yamaki pressing the intercom button.
- You got another call. –Said Rosa pointing at the intercom.
Yamaki pressed the button for the outcall line.
- Hello. Yamaki? – Said the voice of a man at the other side of the line.
- Hello. I am aware of the situation Sir.
- Have you found out anything?
- Not yet, my best scientists are working on it.
- This time is serious. You have to get to the bottom of this because people on this side are already uneasy with this and remember; if I get screwed you get screwed too. Remember that the anomaly came originally from a Japanese server.
- I am aware of that. I'll let you know if I find anything. – Yamaki replied hanging up. He was quite nervous now.
" This is not the first time it happened. In fact, this anomalies in the network had been going on for three years now." Yamaki thought as he remembered when he was approached by a man at a park bench. At that time, he was working for the governor's office. The man told him that he was aware of his abilities and leadership and needed his help in setting up a network surveillance system. This system was state of the art and worked parallel to the known Internet network so potentially it was very hard to tap into it.
- Who was it? –Asked Rosa.
- It was the director of CIA. I told him we were onto the situation.
- I'll go back to my post monitoring any change in position of that data.
- Ok. Let me know if you find anything else. –Said Yamaki pulling a lighter from his coat and he began clicking the lid closing it and opening it.
"I'll get to the bottom of this" he thought as he continued clicking the lid of his lighter.