Hacker's Delight

Adam

"So, who exactly are you, Christopher Kowalczyk?" Oswin asked as Kowalczyk drove them, in his car, to a mysterious and as-yet unspecified destination. He said they had to meet his friends, his team, that they would explain everything, and for some reason Adam Mitchell went along with it. And if that turned out to be a mistake, he did still have cryokinesis and could probably get himself and Oswin out of any scrape. Plus, her cane contained all kinds of secret extras. He deemed that it wasn't a particularly big risk they were taking, in the end. Kowalczyk's car was a 2003 Volkswagen Polo that wasn't really in good nick at all; one of the headlights was smashed and the silver paint was chipping away, a decade of mud caked thickly around the wheel arches. Perhaps he was getting too used to his sports cars, but unfortunately, his sports cars only had two seats. Gone was his enormous Hummer…

"I'm just an intern, really," Chris said, driving them actually into Cambridge, which was slow-going because of all the cyclists. It was a town full of cyclists, cyclists and tiny smart cars and eco-conscious, electric mopeds. Everyone in Cambridge had bikes. It was a point of shame for him, but he couldn't actually ride a bike, he'd never learnt, similar to how Oswin had never learnt how to swim* (though slightly more embarrassing, because at least Oswin had the excuse of coming from somewhere without any bodies of water whatsoever.)

"An intern with a bit of illicit dabbling on the side?" Oswin teased him. She was sitting in the front to make more room for her legs, while Adam was stuck in the back behind her, watching them both carefully in case Chris made any sudden movements. He so rarely got to play the overprotective-boyfriend role, he ought to put his whole heart into it. "What do you do, skim credit cards?" He didn't answer. "Don't worry about compromising your integrity. Adam won't fire you for a few illegal hobbies. Will you, babe?"

"I mean, I'm not sure it would look good for the company if-"

"See? Definitely won't fire you, Mitchell's a good boy," Oswin interrupted him when he was about to say that he would have just-cause to let Kowalczyk go if he found out he was up to no good, which he had suspected from the get-go. Most up-and-coming programmers had done things they weren't proud of – like when he had so famously hacked the US defence system, or when Mark Zuckerberg had (much less impressively, Adam thought) created FaceMash and overloaded the Harvard servers.

"Sure…" he mumbled.

"We're a group," Kowalczyk began, "Called D-Kay. Like decay. We're trying to expose the ways worldwide technology corporations are causing a decay in independency and agency."

"Yeah, fuck the corporations. Isn't that right, baby?" Oswin jibed from the passenger seat, craning her neck to look back at him in all of her smugness.

"You sound like your brother."

"I do sound like my brother…" she mused, "Maybe I'll call him, tell him what I'm up to. Dismantling the capitalist overlords, or whatever it is Fynny cares about these days." She didn't really have a personal stake, or any stake, in these 'politics,' at all. She couldn't care less, he knew, just wanted to irritate him. "So you're a gang of young, upstart hacktivists? How refreshing. Mitchell's old and boring now, he doesn't care about effecting social change at all, do you?"

"I care a lot about it," he said.

"Only if it benefits you."

"Oswin…" he sighed, and she looked at him again, and realised eventually that she was saying things that were perhaps even less tasteful than usual.

"Oh. Sorry…"

"I'll tell you who else you sound like – Thirteen," he said, "You remember when she was staying on our sofa and it was, like, two in the morning and she was watching Snowden and then she wouldn't shut up about the NSA and you had to lock her out?" Oswin laughed.

"I do remember that. Woman is an absolute nightmare."

"I thought you fancy her?"

"She's my sister-in-law," Oswin reminded him, "But the whole forbidden aspect does make her extra-hot. She's like Jenny, but mature. I mean, not mature, but… you know how they categorise cheese? She's practically blue. Or that Italian cheese with all the maggots in it. Casu marzu."

"Since when did you care about cheese?"

"I don't, Sally was texting me about it at four AM, a few weeks ago. We're all lucky that Esther's finally convinced her to start taking her pills again," Oswin sighed. What a bizarre conversation this must be that Kowalczyk was overhearing, but the scenery outside cut it short. Chris was now pulling into the carpark of a storage lot, and Sprite scrambled around in the foot well in front of Adam; he'd been trying to hide ever since Chris interrupted their lunch date, and had so far remained quite anonymous. It was impressive, Adam had to admit.

"Yeah. Wait, what does she need pills for?" he had not really taken in what she had said fully, preoccupied by having to clamber out of the car over the back of the driver's seat to escape the three-door prison. Sprite clung onto his leg and then dropped to the floor, scurrying underneath the car to return to Oswin, on the other side.

"Insomnia. So, uh, your super-cool lair is in a storage unit somewhere?"

"It's actually not so bad. It's a good base of operations. Where would you have it?" Kowalczyk queried as they began to walk, Adam hovering close enough to Oswin so that she could grab him if she were about to fall. Sprite was on her back again.

"Me? Just in my house. Work out better security protocols," she shrugged, "I was locked in an attic all my life, never had to think much about what sort of place is good for what I'm up to."

"Locked in an attic?"

"Babe, are you sure you should be saying all this?" Adam asked as Chris led them past the storage containers.

"You worry too much," she told him, "Trust me, and my new friend Chris. He's your employee."

"Yeah – Chris – when you say you and this 'D-Kay' are attacking tech corporations… were you planning to attack CyTech?"

"I'll be straight with you, it was a possibility."

"So," and here Adam laughed awkwardly, "Why should I trust you? Maybe this is an elaborate hoax, a scheme? Maybe we're in danger? You're actually going to kidnap me and hold me for ransom?"

"We're not going to do that," Chris said, surprised, "You don't trust me? I've told you the truth about everything. And we didn't do anything to CyTech, that's because of you – I said, you're a legend. You inspired me to get into computers. It's this one here." They were outside a storage locker which didn't have a padlock on it, and Kowalczyk dragged open the door to reveal two people sitting in there at computers, a glowing, orange electric heater in the middle of the room, and three servers somehow all wedged in there. The walls were decorated with neon colours and splashes of UV paint, anarchy symbols and the Union Flag hanging upside down at the back of the room, half burned to pieces and soiled with more paint and dirt.

"Chris! What the fuck!?" It was a girl and another boy, and the girl was the one who had just released this exclamation, staring at them, "That's Adam Mitchell! You can't bring him here without any warning!"

"He got our message," Chris said, closing the door of the storage unit tightly behind him. Adam doubted they were as wanted as they seemed to think they were – he had certainly never heard of them, and it was most certainly his business to know about any potential cyber terrorists. "You wanted him to get our message and not show up?"

"It was your idea to send the message," the girl pointed out.

"Sorry," Chris apologised to Adam and Oswin, "This is Frankie. She's paranoid, to say the least. And this is-"

"8-Bit," the other boy spoke for himself.

"That's your name?" Adam asked.

"No," he said.

"Doesn't want you knowing who he is," Chris explained.

"We've both got photographic memories and access to every police database in the world, so I'm sure we can piece your identity together eventually," Oswin said.

"8-Bit," he reiterated. They were kind of extra, as Adam's younger sister would probably say.

"Awesome," Oswin nodded, "Can we, like, get to the bottom of this whole thing, then?"

"Who the fuck are you? We sent him the fucking message," Frankie said sharply.

"Ah, but you didn't bank on him finding a girlfriend, did you?" Oswin said, "I was right there at the time."

"This is Oswin," said Chris, "She says she's a genius."

"I'm the genius," she reiterated, "Basically ever." It was this moment where Sprite chose to make his debut, crawling onto Oswin's shoulder. As expected, he terrified all three of the hackers, and then hid again.

"What the fuck is that thing!?" Frankie exclaimed.

"Has anyone ever told you you swear too much?" Oswin said.

"Fuck you," she said. Adam wondered why she was so angry, but he hoped she didn't get too angry and hit Oswin, or something.

"Seriously, has that been in my car? That centipede-monster?" Chris backed away

"This is my Synthetically Programmed Robotic Insectoid Terrestrial Explorer," Oswin said, reaching around lifting Sprite onto her arm. He was awfully timid. "Or Sprite, as I call him. He's an AI."

"AIs are incredibly dangerous and unstable," 8-Bit said.

"Some of them," Oswin shrugged, "But I think I'm the most dangerous and unstable person I know, and I'm not artificial. Well, actually that's debatable… most of me isn't artificial. Or maybe a tiny part of me. The crazy part, the crazy part is real."

"What is she, your fucking mouth piece? Is she the brains behind CyTech? Do you just stand there?" Frankie turned her harsh questions on Adam, who never really noticed the amount of time he spent standing around and listening and just letting Oswin talk. She did love the sound of her own voice, after all – why else would she be best friends with her own duplicate?

"I, uh… no, she..."

"Hey, don't talk to him like that," Oswin came to his immediate defence, "So what if he's quiet? I love that he's quiet. It makes everything he says even more important. I haven't got anything to do with CyTech, I'm from the future, just like your stupid transponder. We came here to help, but we can always leave."

"Be nice, Frankie," Chris hissed.

"An AI, Chris," 8-Bit repeated anxiously.

"There's nothing wrong with AIs if you respect them," Oswin said.

"They could become all-powerful," 8-Bit argued.

"Anyone can become all-powerful if they lose their restraints," she said coolly.

"Tell them about the transponder," Chris said, taking the device out of his backpack where he had put it. He held it out to Oswin, but it was Sprite who took it in his claws and held it, balancing on her shoulder.

"Sure, if I could just get a chair," Oswin said, "Technically I'm disabled. Or crippled. Or both, I don't know – whatever's politically correct in this delicate decade. I've only got the one leg."

"You can have my chair," Chris obligingly went to wheel it over.

"I like this one, you should give him a promotion," Oswin told Adam.

"Whatever you want," Adam just agreed.

"You're the great Adam Mitchell? The one Chris never shuts up about? The boy-genius? Do you just do whatever she tells you?" Frankie kept on.

"Would you kindly shut the fuck up, please?" Oswin said very loudly. Adam loved that she had said 'would you kindly.'

"So whipped…" Frankie muttered.

"Yeah, so, anyway, the transponder – it's from a spaceship. From the future. A Chula ship. Used to sending messages across space to other transponders, and you've hijacked it and made it send a message across space to Mitchell's private accounts. Where did you find it?"

"In a field," said 8-Bit, "Not far from here. It was interfering with our equipment, and with the phone lines in the area."

"Yeah, they'll do that. Then what? You messed about with it?"

"We used it to break into CyTech, to get a message to Adam Mitchell, because someone came to steal it back," Chris finally revealed.

"Ooh, now things are getting sexy. Someone who?" Oswin was intrigued. She was always at her most inappropriate when she was intrigued.

"Some guy, he took responsibility for this ransomware attack on Silicon Valley two months ago," said 8-Bit, "A very poorly-executed attack, it barely broke the news, the only thing he managed to do was doxx Elon Musk. He thought the signal was something else, he said… 'time agent.'"

"Uh-huh."

"Which we thought sounded stupid," Frankie added.

"Yeah, I always thought it sounded kind of stupid, too. Time Sluts, that's what I think they should have been called. Because all they do is screw time. Screw it right up," Oswin said, which Adam laughed at involuntarily, knowing she was talking specifically about Captain Jack Harkness. Sprite still held the transponder, and Oswin had all eyes on her, like she usually did. Did she crave attention, or just fall right into its arms? He was never quite sure. He wished he could take another photo of her on his phone, like in the canteen, in this moment when she seemed most in her element, almost happy. Beautiful. Frankie was right about him being whipped.

"He came looking for his own transponder he got rid of?" Adam asked, thinking about what was being said.

"It looks that way," said Oswin.

"So he's… stupid?"

"He did seem quite stupid," Frankie nodded, "Said he wanted to shut down Silicon Valley."

"Uh-huh."

"And CyTech," added Chris, "That's what the message meant. If we can exploit Cyborg, so can this guy. And if he did it, if he took down the number one security software in the world? It could be down for only ten minutes and we'd be thrown into total chaos."

"Wouldn't you guys like that?" Oswin asked, "Anarchy?"

"We're not anarchists," said 8-Bit, "We had an anarchist before, but we had to get rid of him."

"Stars!" Oswin suddenly shouted, "I knew I recognised you, you shit-heel. You're name's Jacob Lowe. We've met. We will meet." He looked harrowed by this. Adam knew the name from somewhere distant, but couldn't place it. "Crazy how things work out. I think you'll meet me in three years. When you do, careful not to mention we've met before, though I'm not actually sure I've ever said a word to you. Much too focused on your resident fuckable pathologist, Dr Cohen, to pay attention to the keyboard pigs." Adam realised – Jacob Lowe worked for Undercoll in 2016, he did their computers. Adam had heard Esther mention him before because he wasn't very good at maintaining Undercoll's security algorithms whenever she had to break in, usually at Sally Sparrow's request. "Right, whatever. Babe – tell me what we're going to do next."

"Uh, what?" Adam was surprised, "How should I know?"

"Have a guess, make a suggestion," she shrugged.

"You said most ships have backup transponders because they're important. And this one's still emitting a signal because it keeps beeping…"

"Exactly, we'll just measure the distance between the beeps and do some maths and hey presto. I'm sure I could cobble together a basic teleport relay out of some of this junk – that's Chula ships for you, full of teleports. Teleports and om-comm. Get me a radio and I could probably berate him through the speakers. Given the fact that the Time Agency is meant to be clandestine, their ships have always been very easy to mess with. Maybe that's why they got abolished."

"What is the 'Time Agency'?" Chris asked.

"Nosey gits, that's what. They just travel through time and try to fix mistakes, it never goes well," she sighed, "But this guy obviously isn't a time agent because I don't think he knows how his own ship works. It'll be easy, I'll just get Helix to work it out." She went for her phone.

"You'll get who?" asked 8-Bit.

"Another AI," she answered.

"Another? You said you're the smartest human being who's ever existed. That you could hack into Cyborg without extra technology. And you're getting an AI to do all the hard work for you?" Chris questioned her. She paused.

"I could do it myself," she said, "This is just quicker."

"I said you're too reliant on AI," Adam said quietly next to her.

"What? So now you don't think I could do it either?" she turned on him, "I could easily work that out. All I need is an incredibly precise stop watch. I know all the equations for working out intergalactic distances and orbital coordinates. I could easily work out where this ship is."

"We can get a stop watch," 8-Bit said.

"Time to prove yourself, genius," said Frankie. Adam was just glad that his intelligence wasn't being called into question by these adolescents.

"Fine," Oswin said, "I'll do it. I'm the smartest girl in the universe, after all. Who cares if you're asking me to do something that would take this century's Nasa super computers literally days to work out, in a matter of minutes?"

"You kind of sound scared," Adam teased. Of course he believed in her, he's seen her do much more complicated things than work out space coordinates.

"Me? Scared? I'm not scared of anything. Except myself. And goats."

"Goats?" Frankie asked.

"Multiple traumatic experiences to do with goats, don't ask." Adam hated goats as well. "But fine. I will prove myself to you children, even though I really don't need to and I could just ask the robot, and then you'll see. And then you'll all owe me. You'll owe me blowjobs, every last one of you. Except Mitchell because he's the only person in this room I'm not attracted to. I'll do all that and then… I'll call in a favour, an infinitely more impressive and decidedly shadowy favour. A favour which has got me the most sexually excited I've been in at least ten minutes. Mark my words."