Chapter 26. Target Practice

07/20/07 • -1 min

Read about the Dark Net Target Practice game inspired by this chapter.

At first glance, the rolling green hills, brilliant blue sky and puffy clouds looked reasonably convincing. But the illusion didn’t hold up well under close scrutiny. Everything had the shoddy artificialness of a low budget virtual environment, like an old fashioned sound stage in some epic film from the glory days of Technicolor Hollywood. Max imagined if he were to climb the nearest hill, he would find that the distant horizon where the earth met the sky was nothing more than paint on a rippling canvas backdrop.

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The half dozen creatures frolicking on the artificial turf a few dozen yards away weren’t rendered any better. There was a cat that was apparently made of scraps of paper swept up from the floor of an artist’s studio, a cartoonish dog walking on his hind legs and wearing a red cape, a bearded man with an Elizabethan collar that Max assumed was supposed to evoke Shakespeare, a levitating UFO about the size of a basketball, and a claymation Albert Einstein. The final creature was the most animated of the bunch – it was a twisting, cavorting, spastic paperclip with googly eyes that Max recognized as the annoying office assistant from some ancient word processor program.

“Ready for target practice?” Joel asked as he hefted a rifle to his shoulder and took a bead on the dancing paperclip flitting through a patch of yellow flowers. He squeezed the trigger and fired off a shot that froze the creature in mid frolic.

“That just hangs the process,” said Joel. He tilted the rifle and twisted a knob on the stock. “You can adjust how long you want it to halt with this. Watch him. He’ll get going again in a second.”

After a few moments, the frozen paperclip jerked back into motion just as Joel had predicted.

He flipped the rifle over and pointed to a switch just in front of the trigger guard. “This lets you set it to corrupt the bugger all together. Wanna try it?”

Max shook his head. “After you.”

Joel aimed again and shouted, “Hey dude, it looks like I’m writing an obituary.”

The paperclip bounced spastically. “Would you like help?” it screeched.

“I think I know how to compose this one.”

Joel fired a shot. The grinning paperclip melted into a blob of gray goo that seeped into the grass.

Joel thrust the weapon into Max’s hands.

“Give it a go. It’s fun.”

The faux wood stock was warm and smooth. The rifle had a comfortable heft.

Max set the switch back to the pause position and pointed the gun up to the sky at a cloud that was unconvincingly drifting by. The butt bucked lightly against his shoulder and a jagged portion of the cloud stopped in its place, while the remainder continued on its way. He lowered the rifle toward the ground and pulled the trigger again. A spot on the shimmering grass dimmed a bit.

Finally, he aimed at the claymation Einstein. The first shot went wide right, and the second was too low. The third was dead on, freezing Einstein in place.

“If we’re going in there armed with these,” he said, “I hope you’re not counting on my marksmanship.”

Max turned as he spoke, and Joel leapt back clumsily stumbling on his robes.

“Watch it,” he squeaked. “Don’t point that at me.”

Max lowered the muzzle.

“Excuse me. Is it dangerous to humans?”

“Indeedy,” said Joel. “They tried it on me once. It was only set on pause of course. Have you ever been wrapped in a wet rubber sheet?”

Max admitted that it was not a pleasure he had ever experienced.

“You can imagine what it feels like. Anyway, we’re not relying on your aim. Linda’s a crack shot. She’s the one who popped me. I can tell you, I wasn’t standing still for it. She hit me at fifty meters and a full run.”

The image brought an involuntary smile to Max’s face.

“Besides,” said Joel, “you don’t have to aim very well with these.”

He lifted a portion of his r...

Read about the Dark Net Target Practice game inspired by this chapter.

Listen to the Chapter 26 podcast with roboreader Sangeeta.

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Chapter 25. Weatherman

The hottest part of the day was past, but the evening breeze that alternately lifted the plain white curtains and pressed them flat against the screens in Linda’s cabin was still too warm to be of any comfort.

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Max sat on the edge of the small bed, stripped to his underwear and t-shirt, sweating and waiting for the dinner bell. After dinner, he imagined, he would lie here and wait for breakfast. Then lunch, and then dinner again. Eventually he would become nothing more than a great, fat, sweating lump, venturing out only to eat.

Joel was right – if you’re going to drop out you have to commit to it. This was about as out as he could get.

Although Linda had promised to explain everything to him, the information she’d offered was vague and minimal. She and her compatriots at the Freedom Club, she said, had been keeping an eye on Herman Grunding, as well as Perske and a think tank that Linda called the Jasons. How a bunch of granola munching Luddites in the Pennsylvania Mountains managed that was not something she was willing to go into, just yet anyway.

Max had only come to their attention when he’d logged in as Herman and started raising red flags by lumbering around and asking lots of questions that Herman would surely have known the answers to.

The door opened and the curtains snapped tight against the screens. Linda stepped into the room, leaving the door open behind her.

“Here you are,” she said. “Is everything all right?”

“Sure. Just doing my part. Staying low, dropping out.”

“Had enough of hornworms?”

“Yep,” said Max. “It’s not much of a hobby. The tomatoes are as good as dead anyway. I figure Joel can collect them himself, if he’s hungry.”

Linda shrugged and stood quietly for a while, apparently in search of a reply. When she didn’t find one, she made her way to the bathroom. The water ran briefly in the sink, then she stepped out as she dried her hands on the rough hand towel from the hook next to the bathroom mirror.

“You know,” said Max, “it’s not as exciting being on the lam as I might have imagined.”

“It never is.” She tossed the towel into the bathroom where it landed soundlessly on the tile. “There are,” she said as she crossed the room to sit beside him on the bed, “ways to pass the time.”

“Checkers?”

She placed her hand lightly on his thigh.

“Not board games.”

Max blinked. “It’s very hot, you know.”

Linda plucked at the leg of his boxers.

“It would be cooler without these.”

He reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Thanks, but I don’t think so.”

“Don’t you like me?”

“It’s not that. I have,” he said slowly, “a problem. It’s the drugs, mostly.”

She slid closer to him, pressing her leg against his.

“Are you sure? Have you tried?”

“Of course,” said Max. He stood and stepped away from the bed.

“Would you like to just lie down for a while? Until dinner.”

She pulled her shirt over her head, unbuttoned her shorts and pushed them down to the floor, then stretched out naked on the bed.

“Please?”

Max climbed onto the bed and she snuggled against his side.

“I’m sorry – about your problem,” she whispered.

“So am I.”

He stared at the ceiling as sweat trickled off his brow to the pillow behind his head. When the bell finally rang in the distance he took a shower, dressed in a fresh shirt and overalls, and walked with Linda down to the tent to eat.

***
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“Attention, brothers and sisters,” called a man standing by the fire pit where the Freedom Club members gathered after dinner. He was dressed in robes similar to Joel’s but much cleaner. Even from a distance of twenty feet or more under the dim light of the crackling fire, Max could see that the man had wispy white hair and skin that was dry and loose.

Despite his announcement, the chattering of the crowd subsided only slightly. “Your attention please,” he said more forcefully. “I have a few announcements to make before this evening’s workshop.”

Linda patted Max’s knee and leaned back to rest her elbows on the blanket she had spread across the grass for the two of them. But for the most part, no one else appeared to pay any mind to the host.

“Holy robots,” the man shouted. “People shut up.” The crowd fell silent with the exception of what sounded like a woman softly whimpering.

“Thank you friends. The quicker we get started, the quicke...

Next Episode

Chapter 27. Zero Day

Joel was recovering well after two days. Both his eyes were still blackened from the blow to his face, but Max had restrained himself enough that he hadn’t actually broken Joel’s nose after all. The lunatic had Linda to thank for the last minute mercy. If she hadn’t asked Max to go easy, Joel would have been in much worse shape. Nevertheless, he wore his protective foil cap down low on his brow and kept his distance as Linda and Dr. Murray prepared Max for the trip back to Perske’s corner of the dark net.

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Max stretched out in the lounge chair and Linda placed a pair of headphones over his ears. She swung around a set of goggles mounted at the end of a jointed boom, and positioned them in front of his face. The contraption looked like it had been kluged together with parts scavenged from a dental drill, an optometrist’s testing station, and the guts of a microwave oven.

“If that thing slips,” said Max, “you’ll crush me.”

Linda winked at him and continued about her business, twisting the positioning knobs and lining up the eyepieces. She beckoned Joel to help her. He approached hesitantly, careful to keep Linda between himself and Max.

“Can you see the test pattern?”

Max focused on the image in the lenses.

“Yep, there are the cross hairs. The focus looks about right.”

“And you can still hear me?”

He nodded.

“It’s a little muffled.”

When everything was set, she stepped back to survey the set up, and then climbed into the twin lounge chair nearby.

“Wait,” said Max, “I thought I was going with Joel.”

“No, it’ll just be you and Linda,” said Dr. Murray as he began arranging Linda’s equipment. “May Ted guide and protect the both of you.”

Max lifted the headphones off of his ears.

“I’d really prefer it if he came along instead.”

“You and Linda will make a more cohesive team,” said Dr. Murray. “He’s going to work on finding a vulnerability for us to get you in. That’s really more in keeping with his talents.”

“We’ve worked things out haven’t we Joel? Come on, it’ll be fun”

Joel shook his head in a silent but vigorous negative reply before busying himself at the keyboard and monitor across the room.

Max pushed the goggles to the side.

“What’s the matter?” Linda asked. “Don’t you trust me? Or is it because I’m a girl?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“I’m a much better shot that Joel. Much better than you too, as I’ve heard.”

Max stammered, “This isn’t the way I thought it would go down.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know. It’s just not what I expected. That’s all.”

After a moment, he pulled his goggles back in place.

“I’ll try to adapt.”

Joel made himself small at the terminal. Linda fiddled needlessly with the equipment mounted to her lounge chair.

Dr. Murray broke the awkward silence by describing the zero day exploit. Joel, he explained, was scanning the recent security bulletins for high priority patches and the flaws that they addressed. The inevitable delay between the announcement of a vulnerability and the installation of patches by sysadmins, he said, means that there is almost always a window of opportunity for a fast moving hacker to take advantage of a security flaw. Places like the University, where staff were likely to be less attentive on the weekends, are particularly vulnerable to flaws announced in bulletins released late in the day, at the end of the week, and over holiday breaks.

“In the summer,” said Murray, “they might as well hand us the keys during happy hour on basically any Thursday or Friday you like, Ted willing.” He checked his watch. “It’s five thirty Joel. Anything promising?”

“There are a few possibilities,” Joel mumbled.

“Lets get started,” said Linda. “We’ll hang out on the inside until you find an exploit.”

Dr. Murray placed a hand on each of their shoulders and blessed them and their mission in Ted’s name. He stepped back, flicked the switches on a pair of small vacuum pumps resting by each of their chairs, then opened the valve at the top of an insulated liquid nitrogen canister. Max recognized the hum of a large power supply, but the sound of a rustling wind quickly drowned it out.

He found himself standing at the prow of a large boat, with the deck rocking lazily under his feat and the distant horizon rising and falling with the rhythm of the long, low swells.

Linda squatted nearby, rummaging through an equipment locke...