Chapter 25: Pandemonium in cyberspace

The anticipation had Q grinning as he worked. This was the biggest project he'd ever undertaken. It even involved some elements he'd had to outsource. He had never done that before. But the internet made things so much easier and a bunch of model designers, animators, script writers, set designers, technicians and even actors had secured a very large income this month. Now he was just tying together all the elements that he had developed and gathered in secret. He hadn't told anyone but a lot of the outsourcing he had done while he was supposed to be sleeping. He felt a bit like a child sneaking around but wouldn't have pulled it off so fast if he hadn't. Speed was off the essence if no one was to figure out what he was doing.

He had worked for 24 hours straight gaining some looks from the day crew who hadn't seen him before. Jordan was there but appeared distracted, like he was thinking deeply about something. 009 had explained about Jordan small crisis, caused in part by exhaustion and in part by self-doubt, but said he had talked to him and then send him home for rest. Q wondered how to help Jordan believe in himself. The boy was brilliant in just about everything he did and Q was considering truly taking him under his wings but this one issue was keeping him from offering.

But that was for another day because in about 12 hours he would put his plan into play and then sit back and watch as slowly but steadily pandemonium broke out in cyberspace.

Iris hated slow days. And today definitely was another one in a string of many. There was nothing new to work on. They said the Chinese have a curse. May you live in interesting times. But God, she hoped she would be. Because then this droll staring at code would be over.

She missed Q. The mystery wrapped in an enigma that was her boss. He made things interesting. Always had something new to work on and explore. A new way to make things better. It was more than 5 weeks ago that she saw him. She was worried deep down that something had happened to him but Jordan told her he saw him regularly and that he was doing fine. She trusted in that and just hoped Q would be able to come back to work soon. If only to give her something new to work on.

She looked at the entrance and saw 009 and 001 hanging around outside, looking as if they were just relaxing and talking with one another. The mole had been lying low. It irked her to no end. She had worked so hard to keep the information from leaking and it hadn't, but the double-0's hanging around the department had spooked whoever it was. All her work for nothing. She knew it was not her fault, nor was it theirs. The strategy had been a good one. But it certainly didn't help her current mood.

Jordan wasn't doing much better on the piece of code he'd been working on. Ever since he'd got a day off the day before yesterday, he'd been pensive. She had asked what was up but all she got in reply was that he was thinking on his options. She got that it was hard to decide and a lot depended on it. But she knew Jordan would be brilliant at whatever he decided to do. She'd stuck around some nights to watch him train. He got better and better each night. It was a sight to behold.

"Jordan." Ophelia called from across the room, startling Jordan out of his thoughts. "Come look at this, will you?" Iris wondered what was up. She had to think for a moment to remember Ophelia being assigned monitoring duties. Looking at the ebbs and flows of activity on the internet all day looking for hackers. Bored as she was, she decided to wander over too.

"What the hell." Jordan said and bend in for a closer look. Iris looked over Ophelia's other shoulder. There was a lot of activity going on and for a moment she thought there was a large-scale DDos-attack happening. However, that didn't seem to match what she was seeing. Because there wasn't one target. Instead a lot of smaller targets all over the world seemed to be under attack from a lot of different sources.

"That's odd." She murmured.

"I know, right? It started out so slowly I didn't spot it and it seems to be growing exponentially." Came Ophelia baffled reported.

"Have you identified the targets yet?" Jordan asked.

"What's going on?" Sadler, one of the new idiots called department heads, asked as he walked up to them. Iris grumbled under her breath, while Jordan and Ophelia shared a look, off course the guy had to budge in. He was a disaster, always droning on about how they should behave as professionals. Well she tried to do that but it was like pulling hair with him.

"There's a lot of DDos attacks happening at the moment, sir. But the pattern is odd." Ophelia answered him a bit hesitantly, trying to keep the peace though she was clearly unhappy about it.

"Put it on the big screen." Sadler ordered, surprisingly being all business for a change. Normally he would be faffing about proper chain of command and not coming to him first with problems. No one really listened to it anymore, knowing Q didn't care about such things. This time was different however. A straight forward order. Ophelia complied quickly.

They all gathered in front of the screen studying the pattern. There still weren't any big clusters developing, however the sheer number of attacks was starting to become disturbing.

"If this keeps up, the internet is going to become seriously affected." Andy remarked.

"Can we find out the targets?" Sadler asked.

"We can track the signals but it takes time." Ophelia answered.

"Do it." Sadler ordered. She, Ophelia and Jordan hurried to their computer. The others kept staring at the screen.

"There's got to be a pattern." Iris said as she worked. "There's got to be a quicker way to work out what's going on." She looked up at the screen again trying to find it but she couldn't see it. Frustrated, she wished Justin were here. If there was a pattern in these numbers, Justin would be the one to see it. She looked at her watch, never gladder shift change was in 5 minutes. Already a couple of the night shift were starting to arrive, walking up to the others up front, asking what was going on. Then something on the screen caught Andy's attention.

"Oh my god." He said. She quickly looked up and saw the number of attacks explode suddenly. Some very heavy-duty attacks were happening now.

"Jesus." Andy said. "What the fuck is happening?" Jordan looked up studied it for a moment and grimaced.

"Whatever is going on, the big leagues decided they wanted in on the action." Jordan remarked.

"Okay people, something is clearly up. Let's keep our focus on our own countries. That's what we are here for after all. If it's going to be a while before we know the targets, maybe we can rule out some of the important ones, like banks, hospitals, government agencies, the likes." Wow, Iris thought impressed, that is actually a great idea. A phone call or simply seeing if the website was accessible would easily rule them out. She saw several more people grab a computer.

"Pulling up a list of potential targets." Andy said.

"I've got hospitals." Rose from the night crew shouted.

"Banks." Darnell added.

"I'll take government." A voice just off the big screen said, startling Iris. She had forgotten about the new guy. He had shown up the day before and had kept to himself. Jordan had filled her in on his friend Ormond Grieves who had been listed among the dead until recently and had been working the night-shift until now. She could vaguely remember Ormond from before but had never really interacted with him, or with any of the others before the explosion. God was she glad that was different now.

"What's going on?" A very welcome voice asked.

"Justin." Iris shouted. "Thank god you're here. If anyone can find a pattern, it's you."

"Sure." Justin answered. "A pattern in what?"

"There are attacks going on all over the world, Mr. Remar. If you could find any pattern in these readings it would help us a long way in figuring out what is going on." Sadler told Justin deftly taking control. Why couldn't this guy be like this all the time, Iris wondered. She saw Justin turn to the screen and lose himself in the figures. The whole room was silent except for a lot of typing, all were waiting to see if Justin spotted something. All to soon Justin spoke up.

"There is a pattern, but I don't understand it. It's like they divided the world into zones. There aren't many who cross from one zone to the next. See Europe has a definite zone. And North-America. And Asia. Others are less defined. There are a lot of Australians going to the Asia for example…"

"Game Servers." Jordan breathed. "Everyone, check your favourite game forums. If it's game servers they're hitting, there's got to be a clue there." Iris wasn't much of a gamer so she couldn't contribute much there. Except… Why the heck not?

"The WoW website is offline." Andy reported, who was part of a big clan on World of Warcraft.

"I'm getting a time out reports in Diablo and Paths" Darnell reported

"The old republic has crashed too." Ophelia reported. "Checking reddit next."

"According to PC gamer at 10.37 this morning an update was forced in a lot of games at the same time." Iris read out loud. "There's also chatter on multiple forums about a new white flag found in different games." Her colleagues looked at her. "What? I googled it." She said. "I'm just reading headlines. Most of it is on reddit. Apparently, most games are now off line, including their forums so people gather at the next best thing." The others were still looking at her.

"That was brilliant." Ophelia enthused.

"Thanks love." Iris said a bit shy. She wasn't normally the one with the ideas so unused to the praise.

"Okay, so we aren't compromised. That's good but I still want to find out what's going on." Sadler said as Talbot, the other department idiot came in.

"George." Talbot said. "What have we got?"

"It seems the hacker community doesn't like their games anymore. There are hundreds off attacks going on, on game servers all over the world. We were just figuring out why." Sadler reported.

"They were challenged to do it, Sir." Jordan reported. Apparently, he had been reading the forums at a rapid pace.

"Challenged? By who?" Talbot asked.

Jordan put a picture on the screen of a village square from World of Warcraft which now hosted a flagpole… With a very familiar white flag." Iris gasped.

"GHOST" Jordan answered.