Ciphers by Matt Rogers (ereader with dictionary .txt) 📕

keyboards intermittently they typed at a speed he could barely comprehend. There was the faintest murmuring between them when they opted to talk to each other, but it was interspersed with long periods of silence and intense focus.

King kept his voice low and said, ‘This is the future, huh?’

‘They’re trying to figure out what’s happening,’ Violetta said. ‘And doing anything they can to prevent it.’

King noticed Slater was equally slack-jawed, even though King was technologically challenged in comparison. Slater said, ‘What are we even needed for these days?’

Violetta said, ‘You’ll see. Follow me.’

She led them to the very end of the room, where partitions squared off a space the size of a respectable corner office. She ushered them inside, where they found a plain desk and four dull office chairs. King took one on the left-hand side, and Slater took the other. Violetta sat across from them, and switched on a weak desk lamp.

King said, ‘So you’ve got an emergency generator, too.’

‘It’s kind of necessary.’

‘You knew this was coming.’

‘Kind of.’

‘How?’

Violetta sighed and interlocked her fingers on the surface of the desk. She said, ‘Can I be honest with you?’

Slater said, ‘We damn well expect you to be.’

She said, ‘An incident of this magnitude has never happened before on this planet. Right now, every software engineer in the country employed by us, as well as a significant portion that aren’t, are trying to work out our options. That includes the NSA, the DIA, feds, the CIA. All of the big ones, and a handful that don’t officially exist, including us.’

‘Okay,’ King said.

‘You don’t seem very concerned.’

‘Are we supposed to be?’

‘I just need to hammer home—’

Slater said, ‘You don’t need to hammer anything home. We’re not amateurs. Maybe something of this magnitude hasn’t happened before, but it’s all the same to us. Every time we’re needed, our life is on the line. That’s the greatest magnitude you can get. So don’t beat around the bush and just tell it like it is, Violetta.’

She said, ‘Okay. This is your official briefing.’

They nodded, one by one.

‘Right now, we don’t know who’s behind this,’ she said. ‘We don’t know what they want. We don’t know who they are. They’re hackers, and they’re rogue. They’re not affiliated with any terrorist organisation. They’ve used malicious code to seize control of every transformer in a number of critical substations. We only realised they were inside once they had complete control. That’s what the computer worm was for. They hoodwinked the engineers at these substations into thinking everything was normal, and—’

Slater said, ‘You mean like draping a veil over the whole thing? Putting up a façade?’

Violetta nodded.

She opened her mouth to continue, but Slater said, ‘Are you getting at what I think you’re getting at?’

She looked at him. ‘Do you know about Iran?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then, yes,’ she said. ‘That’s exactly what I’m getting at.’

‘They did that to us?’

‘It’s not Iran who did it,’ she said. ‘They wouldn’t know how.’

King held up a hand. They both stopped talking. He said, ‘Could you enlighten the pre-schooler in the room, please? I know a lot of what happened in Iran, but I don’t think I’m following what you two are talking about.’

Violetta said, ‘The engineers sitting in the operations centres of our substations didn’t see it. As far as they were concerned, everything was running smoothly. The way these systems stay running smoothly is to have the right balance between the supply and demand of electricity. If that balance is achieved, all is well. But it doesn’t take much to tip the scales.’

‘Surely there are safeguards against that,’ King said. ‘You’re not seriously telling me that it was invisible until—’

‘Yes,’ Violetta said. ‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you.’

King looked across at Slater, but he didn’t seem disbelieving. Far from it. He looked resigned, and beat down, and battered.

Before the operation had even begun.

Violetta said, ‘That’s what the code did. It got into the system, and then parts of it got right to work. Cloaking its very existence. Taking over the electronic readings, and spitting out false feedback. No one knew a thing until they had enough control to lock out the power companies.’

No one spoke.

Violetta said, ‘And then they shut down all five boroughs of New York. With the snap of their fingers.’

King said, ‘This is ridiculous. It sounds like the plot of a sci-fi movie. It’s not that simple. I’m technologically challenged, but you can’t be telling me malicious code can do all of that.’

‘Of course it can,’ Violetta said.

‘How can you be so sure?’

Through clenched teeth, Slater muttered, ‘The U.S. did it first.’

King looked over.

Didn’t speak.

Violetta said, ‘He’s right. It can be done. We’d know.’

King stayed silent.

She said, ‘We did it to Iran.’

27

The gravity of it all compounded Slater’s headache.

Ever since Palantir had gone dark, he’d known about the possibilities of a hostile attack. They’d always been there, floating in the back of his head, whispering sweet nothings to him, trying to convince him that the world as he knew it could very well come crashing down around him. But he’d forced it aside until he met with Violetta, because there was no use fretting over something that might not be real.

But it was very real, and his worst suspicions were confirmed.

He envied King. The man hadn’t put it together yet. He was one of the most intelligent people Slater had met, and he was in no way naive, so Slater didn’t blame him or think he was an idiot. It seemed incomprehensible if you didn’t know the finer details.

Slater, unfortunately, was wise to the finer details.

Across the table, he exchanged a solemn glance with Violetta. Their eyes met for an instant, but they communicated everything.

Who should be the one to tell him?

Slater nodded his head an inch in her direction.

You.

Violetta didn’t react, but her eyes registered the passing of the torch.

King wasn’t an idiot. He noticed.

He said, ‘What?’

She sighed.

Slater said, ‘You’ll be able to explain it better than I will.’

‘Tell me,’ King said.

She said, ‘In 2008 we attacked Iran’s nuclear