part0006

Bekah glanced around the conference table, gauging the temperature of the room. Rahim Zafar, her team leader, nodded reassuringly. She’d half-thought he might begrudge her being here, but he was open and generous to those who reported to him. No professional rivalry. No need to feel threatened by her presence.

Next to him sat Daniel Tripp, lead heuristics researcher and resident expert on machine learning and artificial intelligence. Just ask him, he’ll tell you. Brilliant and self-confident to the point of conceit.

Carrin Bohannon entered and sat across from Bekah, offering a how’s-it-going smile. They were old friends, though recently they’d spent less time together as their interests diverged. Carrin was now the Erkennen Faction’s cybersecurity team leader, while Bekah had kept her programming skillset more generalized.

One seat remained vacant at the round conference table. The first time she’d seen it, Bekah couldn’t help but think of King Arthur’s Round Table. In the spirit of that mythical ruler, Gregor Erkennen liked his department heads to see one another as colleagues on common ground. They were a group of forward thinkers co-equal in the realm of proffering ideas, he liked to say. But when Gregor attended meetings, there was little doubt who wielded the power at the table.

When he walked in, the small talk quieted.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming,” Gregor said in his slight Russian accent. He lowered his frumpy bulk into the fifth chair. “Ms. Franklin, good to see you here.”

“Thank you,” Bekah said. She’d almost called him Gregor. That wouldn’t do in a public setting, despite the longstanding ties between their two families.

“I called you all here to discuss our strategy for defense,” Gregor said. As usual, he wasted little time on polite conversation. “First thoughts?”

“We’re alone out here,” Daniel Tripp observed. His voice held concern, if not panic. “Cut off, helpless.”

“That is not exactly true,” Gregor answered, his cadence careful like a coder’s would be—attentive to syntax and its effect. “Our faction resides on Titan. We have the most advanced technology in the system. We are not helpless.”

Rahim Zafar inhaled a breath, then let it out. Bekah knew what that meant. He was about to politely, professionally disagree.

“You’re right, Regent, of course,” he began. “But we haven’t heard from the fleet since Pallas. Who won that battle? Reports are confused. We know the SSR worms are crawling CorpNet, boring holes in the Company’s virtual infrastructure. They’ve already secured the subspace satellite network and completely control interplanetary communications.”

“They’re winning,” Daniel whispered.

“At the moment,” Gregor acknowledged. “I grant you that.”

“It’s like Pearl Harbor. The First Gulf War. China’s annexation of Hong Kong after the Century Flood.” Rahim ticked off the short history of surprise attacks on his fingers. “Shock and awe that overwhelms.”

“And yet the Japanese did not prevail, despite their early victory at Pearl Harbor,” Gregor said. He offered them all a smile that required more work than it should have. “So there’s still hope. Which is why we have cut ourselves off from CorpNet—to insulate ourselves until Tony Taulke organizes a counteroffensive.”

“Being cut off won’t help us over the long term,” Carrin Bohannon suggested. “Every siege ends eventually, when the besieged starve. And Tony Taulke’s dead.”

Gregor Erkennen made a dangerous sound. “We don’t know that.”

“It’s a double-edged sword, being cut off.” The table turned to Daniel Tripp. “Passively monitoring CorpNet keeps us informed, but we can’t affect anything without actively engaging the network—and the moment we do that, we open ourselves to infiltration by Cassandra’s worms. Every technology, every dataset, every—”

“Cassandra might already have viruses trolling Masada,” Rahim said quietly.

“No,” Gregor said, raising a hand. He seemed very old to Bekah just then, slumped in his chair. Slumped in his confidence. “Our antivirals are patrolling the Masada mainframe now. They’re the most robust security protocols mankind—or womankind—has ever produced, thanks to Carrin. And so far, they’ve found nothing.”

“So far,” Rahim acknowledged. “But to assume we’re not already compromised is to invite disaster.”

The idea that the Syndicate Corporation’s central repository of technological knowledge might already be breached chilled the room. This eventuality was why Viktor Erkennen, Gregor’s father, had established the family faction’s research and development hub on Titan in the early days of SynCorp’s expansion—far beyond easy access, or easy meddling by the other factions. Saturn was the boonies of the solar system.

Gregor let the room breathe. Bekah had seen it before on projects. He was fine with the uncomfortable silence, wanting it to spur his senior staff to offer up constructive suggestions. Daniel flitted his eyes at Bekah like he hoped to crib the answers to an exam. Carrin studied her fingers, which seemed to be typing what she was unwilling to say aloud.

“Ms. Franklin, what do you think?” Gregor asked finally. “You’ve been very quiet.”

Rahim made a soft, amused sound. “She’s always very quiet.”

A nervous, light laughter passed around the table.

Smiling, Bekah glanced around without making eye contact. “I’m just listening,” she said, hoping that would be enough. She hated talking in meetings, especially when Titan’s regent presided.

“I’ve noticed that about you,” Gregor said, not unkindly. The smile on his face was less weary now, more familial and lived in. “But when you speak, you always have something intelligent to say.” His compliment, unexpected in a public setting, seemed to open up a box inside Bekah. She was surprised by the quiet pride she found inside it. “Speak your mind.”

“Come on, Bekah,” Rahim prompted. “Cut through the code.”

Bekah’s expression relaxed. It was what Rahim always said when he wanted her to use her fabled ability to see past the eye-crossing clutter of programming to find an error obscure to everyone else yet obvious to her. He called it using her Oracle’s Oculus.

“Sometimes it’s better to look at what we know first,” she said. “Or at least what we think we know. To keep from building on a foundation of faulty data.”

Gregor nodded. “Start at the beginning, then.”

“The Masada mainframe contains every R&D project we’ve ever conducted,” Bekah said. She ignored Daniel’s and-then-the-dinosaurs-came look of impatience. “If Rahim is right and the SSR has already infected the mainframe, then it’s only a matter of time before they steal everything in it.”

“Even the experimental stuff,” Carrin said. The significance of that was obvious. “The new stunner prototype that penetrates first-generation MESH. The folding-space jumpgate simulation model. The—”

“Yes, that is what is at stake, Carrin,” Gregor said. “But our analytics have found no breach. I’m asking all of you how we can best protect our data.”

“We first have to identify the threat,” Rahim said. “Aberrant code, maybe, newly introduced as a virus.”

“Or code that looks old and legit because its timestamp has been forged,” Daniel added.

“We must assume the firewalls we have in place—sophisticated as they are—will be breached at some point,” Gregor said. “This Cassandra, the leader of the Soldiers of the Solar Revolution—she is the result of human procreation and artificial intelligence. The AI that controlled the New Earthers thirty years ago was destroyed, but not before altering Elise Kisaan’s DNA. Cassandra is the hybrid child resulting from that experimentation.”

“You’re saying we’re not just fighting another group of programmers working for the SSR,” Rahim said. “We’re fighting an artificial intelligence that’s sophisticated enough to gene-splice human DNA?”

“One whose thought-to-action processes aren’t as limited as a human’s,” Gregor said.

“But how can we outthink an AI that can process trillions of operations per second?” Carrin asked.

“We can’t,” Bekah said. “We can’t think faster, so we have to think smarter.”

“What does that mean, though?” Carrin asked.

“It means,” Gregor said, “we have to think beyond the standard anticipate-counter model of viral response.”

“All right, sir,” Rahim allowed in a way that said he was again trying hard to be cordial. “But what does that really mean in practice?”

“Buried treasure,” Bekah said.

Gregor’s head tilted. “Explain, Ms. Franklin.”

“Every viral attack has a purpose,” Bekah said. “To steal data, compromise the data holder … something . Cassandra has secured CorpNet to cement her power by controlling the means of communication with citizens across the system. It makes sense she would target us next.”

“Once she steals the Company’s tech secrets, she can build the next-generation stunner,” Carrin said soberly. “Or the next-generation warship.”

Gregor pursed his lips. “Knowledge is power.”

“But what if our goal weren’t simply to keep Cassandra out,” Bekah continued. “We already agree—it’s almost impossible. Over time, the processing power of her AI brain will breach the best security we can offer—no offense, Carrin. You said it yourself: sieges always end. It’s only a matter of time.”

“So, we should just let her in?” Carrin asked, her security expert’s ethics clearly offended by the idea.

“Not just ,” Bekah said.

The three team leaders around the table shared impatient expressions. Gregor Erkennen seemed intrigued.

“What if we created thousands—millions—of buried treasure sites across a mirrored backup of Masada’s databanks?” Bekah said. “If we can convince Cassandra that the fake mainframe is the real one by fighting hard enough to protect its fake secrets…”

Rahim tapped his finger on the table. “It’s a cool idea, but her attacks could number in the billions. Cassandra can always think faster. We’d never be able to keep up. We’re back to the speed issue again.”

“A Holy Grail,” Gregor said.

“A what?” Daniel asked.

“A Holy Grail. A decoy so convincing, you believe it’s real because you want to believe it’s real.” Gregor leaned forward, his voice alive with the idea. “We already have a backup site for the mainframe at Prometheus Colony, in case of a catastrophic event up here. Let’s invert that reality, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s turn the backup from a perfect replica of the mainframe into a perfectly flawed replica that appears to be the real thing . With thousands of flawed fakes of every technological innovation we’ve ever produced, going back thirty years. No, not thousands, millions of flawed fakes—Holy Grails. And around each one, the highest level of security—the moat of code around the castle, yes?” Gregor’s enthusiasm was shining from his eyes. “We put millions of Holy Grails behind the strongest of castle walls—the toughest, most robust security protocols we can produce. Innovations so well protected, Cassandra will identify each and every one as must-have tech.”

“So you’re suggesting,” Rahim said, “that the AI’s own prioritizing algorithms will sucker her into thinking they’ve found top-level tech behind top-level security. Lead her down rabbit holes.”

“Rabbit holes full of Holy Grails.” Carrin’s earlier incredulity had turned predatory.

The excitement of the idea seemed to pass from person to person.

“Millions of Holy Grails,” Bekah said.

Daniel raised his hand before speaking, as if in school again. “But what about the real data? The actual tech secrets, especially the experimental stuff. How do we protect that?”

“We cut Masada Station off from outside contact,” Gregor said. “The station goes dark and stays dark. Nothing but passive network monitoring. The station will seem abandoned. Cassandra will think we’ve turtled up on Titan to protect our data. And we’ll build a data history showing the station was never anything more than an outpost—that all the real discoveries made in the last thirty years happened at Prometheus. Not up here.”

“So all Cassandra’s efforts will be aimed at Titan,” Carrin said, her tone what a smile must sound like. “And its millions of moats surrounding millions of coded castles with their millions of fake Holy Grail artifacts.”

“We don’t have time to create the tens of billions of yottabytes of code we’d need to pull off such a masquerade,” Gregor said. “So we’ll have to adapt existing code.”

“You mean, use actual discoveries as bait? Even the experimental stuff?” Daniel asked. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Yes, but we can build in critical errors and gaps in the code,” Gregor said. “We hide the new stunner tech, the folding-space gate, and the rest in plain sight. But with the code fatally flawed in such a way that the tech would never work.”

“Turn alphas into gammas,” Rahim said. “Null sets into factorial expansions. Divide by zero now and then. But we have so little time … it would literally take years to do all that.”

The quiet that followed was strange in the wake of the excitement that had permeated the room.

“We write our own worms,” Bekah said.

As one, the table turned to her.

“We fill the Prometheus decoy d-base with our own programming worms specifically aimed at changing equations, cutting lines of code, and blowing out all the performance thresholds,” she said.

Gregor Erkennen pushed his seat away from the table and stood. “We need two teams. We’ll need the vast majority of our staff on Titan, creating the fake mainframe and its security protocols. It doesn’t just have to look good, people. It has to fool the most sophisticated AI that’s ever existed. Cassandra’s worms must be convinced that Prometheus Colony is home to SynCorp’s secrets. And that fake history of the colony itself I mentioned—work schedules, meal orders, the number of times the toilets have flushed—thirty years of data documenting human existence, tied to all of your names, which Cassandra may very well know by now. And another thing—the Prometheus decoy must be entirely detached from Masada. We can’t take a chance on Cassandra finding a back door to the real data—one open data port could compromise everything.” He scanned the table, emphasizing that fact. Then, “I’ll head the Prometheus team myself. A second, smaller team will remain here on Masada Station, monitoring what’s happening and prepared to defend the real treasure chest of SynCorp secrets, should Cassandra discover our ruse. Bekah, I want you leading that team.”

She looked up sharply. “Sir?”

“It’s your insight that helped us determine a viable defense. I want you and your insight here, protecting our most sensitive data.”

“Okay,” she said with an awkward glance at Rahim. To her surprise, he wore a proud expression. He didn’t seem jealous at all.

“We’ll need to fast-evacuate the station to Titan,” Gregor said. “I’ll oversee that effort. Rahim, you’re in charge of setting up the greatest diversion in human history. I want hourly updates on your progress. Local network only. No CorpNet connection.”