WWW_ Wonder Part 20

Caitlin went down to the living room as fast as she could, closing her eyes as she took the staircase. Her mother was reading an ebook, and her father was reading-something or other; Caitlin couldn't make it out.

"Mom! Dad!" she exclaimed. "Colonel Hume just told the world how to kill Webmind."

Her mother looked up. "What?" she said.

"He went on TV and told everyone how to identify Webmind's packets."

"G.o.d," her mom said. "It's going to be a free-for-all."

Caitlin went over to the netbook on top of the little bookcase and woke it from hibernation. Webmind had been following along via the microphone on Caitlin's eyePod/BlackBerry combo, and as soon as the netbook was awake, he spoke through its speakers: "It is a vexing matter. I can try to intercept any hostile code that might be uploaded-but that is much harder than intercepting spam. Spam's content is easily readable-it is text, after all-and most of it came from fewer than 200 sources worldwide. But malware of this type may be uploaded from anywhere-although I am, of course, being particularly vigilant in examining code coming from known creators of computer viruses. The only thing we know that it must contain, in some form, is the target string Colonel Hume identified as the template for what to look for, but since that string is also in the bulk of my mutant packets, simply eliminating packets containing it would be doing Hume's job for him."

"Can you be backed up somehow?" Caitlin's mother asked.

"I am scattered through the infrastructure of the Internet, Barb, and my essence is in the complex pattern of billions of interconnections. There is no way to copy me to another location."

"I don't want to lose you!" Caitlin said.

"The team at WATCH first became aware of my presence on 6 October," said Webmind. "They tested their technique to eliminate me just six days later, on 12 October. If their specific method gets leaked to the public, things may happen quite quickly. But even if it doesn't, it seems reasonable to suppose that others can develop and deploy something similar in a comparable time frame. Time is clearly of the essence."

The Decters' phone rang. They'd taken to screening their calls by waiting until the message started. "h.e.l.lo, Miss Caitlin-"

"It's Dr. Kuroda!" Caitlin said. She so so wanted to run for the answering machine, which was in the kitchen, but simply couldn't. Her father's long legs had him there almost at once, though, and he scooped up the handset before Kuroda got to his second sentence. "This is Malcolm," he said. "Putting you on speakerphone." wanted to run for the answering machine, which was in the kitchen, but simply couldn't. Her father's long legs had him there almost at once, though, and he scooped up the handset before Kuroda got to his second sentence. "This is Malcolm," he said. "Putting you on speakerphone."

They all cl.u.s.tered around the kitchen phone.

"Konnichi wa, Dr. K!" Caitlin said. Dr. K!" Caitlin said.

"Masayuki, h.e.l.lo!" added her mom.

"h.e.l.lo, all," Kuroda said. "I'm in Beijing, just about to get on a plane. Webmind, are you listening in?"

The speakers on the netbook were in the living room; Caitlin had to strain to hear his reply. "With rapt attention," Webmind said, and "Yes, he is," Caitlin added, in case Dr. Kuroda had been unable to make that out.

"And is this phone channel secure?" Kuroda asked.

"Yes," Webmind said, and "Webmind says yes," Caitlin added.

"All right," continued Kuroda. "The sun is just coming up here, but that American soldier is all over the news."

"That's Peyton Hume," said Caitlin. "Webmind tells me he's not a total total a.s.shole." a.s.shole."

"Quite charitable," wheezed Kuroda. "The soldier did say something very interesting, though: he said most most of Webmind's packets had the signature he referred to, and during the trial attack on Webmind, only about two-thirds of his packets going through the test substation were deleted." of Webmind's packets had the signature he referred to, and during the trial attack on Webmind, only about two-thirds of his packets going through the test substation were deleted."

"Webmind," said Caitlin into the air, "do you know the nature of all the packets that make you up?"

"No. I no more have direct access to the physical correlates of my consciousness than you do to your own."

"It does imply that Webmind is made of more than one kind of packet," said Kuroda-although Caitlin wasn't sure if he'd heard what Webmind said. "Obviously, Hume knows the signatures for all the kinds; otherwise, he wouldn't have known that some hadn't been eliminated in his earlier attempt. We really need an inventory of everything that Webmind is made of so that we can protect it all."

"That's job number two," Caitlin said. "Job number one is making sure that hackers don't succeed in attacking Webmind."

"Agreed," said her mom. "But how can we do that? Granted, there are only so many people who have the technical skill to do it, but it's not like all of them could be hunted down and rounded up."

"No," said Webmind, his smooth voice sounding far away. "Of course not."

The D.C. cops were polite and respectful; the one who had saluted Colonel Hume turned out to have done a tour of duty in Iraq. Hume wasn't under arrest, they said, but a call had gone out for any car near NBC4 to do a pickup on behalf of the White House. Twenty minutes later, Hume was once again in the Oval Office, facing his commander in chief.

The president was pacing in front of the Resolute Resolute desk and smoking a cigarette. "d.a.m.n it, Colonel, do you know how hard I've been trying to give these d.a.m.ned things up? And you pull a stunt like this!" desk and smoking a cigarette. "d.a.m.n it, Colonel, do you know how hard I've been trying to give these d.a.m.ned things up? And you pull a stunt like this!"

"Sir, I'm prepared to face the consequences of my actions."

"You absolutely will, Colonel. I'm going to leave it to General Schwartz to discipline you. For now, the press office is issuing a statement saying that your comments were completely unauthorized and do not reflect the policy of this administration, DARPA, the Air Force, or any other part of the government."

"Yes, sir."

"If we didn't need you in dealing with Webmind, I'd-"

"Sir, Webmind is killing people."

"I beg your pardon?"

"He is killing those who could harm him."

"What proof do you have of that?"

"Some of the most capable hackers in the greater Was.h.i.+ngton area have disappeared. The FBI is investigating."

"If it were Webmind, hackers everywhere would be disappearing, wouldn't they? Not just here?"

"With respect, sir, D.C. is a mecca for hackers; the best in the nation are here. There are so many sensitive installations here-not just domestic, but all the emba.s.sies, too; they draw them like flies. But there are also reports of missing hackers from elsewhere, too-as far away as India."

"How do you know Webmind's behind it? It could be the work of those nutcases who believe Webmind is G.o.d, taking preventive steps."

"Possibly," said Hume. "But I think-"

"By this point, Colonel, I've heard quite enough of what you think. If you weren't one of our top experts on this sort of thing, you'd be s.h.i.+pping out to Afghanistan tomorrow."

Hume kept his face impa.s.sive as he saluted. "Yes, sir."

twenty-six.

The Communist Party was keeping its promise. Wong Wai-Jeng was no longer a prisoner: he could wander the streets at will, and, indeed, his new salary would soon let him trade his tiny apartment for a bigger one. Of course, he was watched wherever he went; he'd been advised to stay away from Internet cafes; and his new cell phone had been provided by the government, meaning it was monitored. Still, he had greater freedom than he'd ever expected he would; instead of a ball and chain, all he had was a leg in a plaster cast.

And he had to admit he was fascinated by the technical aspects of his new job at the People's Monitoring Center inside the Zhongnanhai complex. The walls were blue, and one wall was partly covered by a giant LCD monitor displaying a map of China. It showed the seven major trunks that connect China's computers to the rest of the Internet. Key lines came from j.a.pan both on the north coast and near Shanghai, and connections snaked across from Hong Kong down in Guangzhou. Controlling those trunks meant controlling access to the outside world.

He pushed a pen into the top of the cast on his leg, trying to scratch an itch-and he was both simultaneously delighted and irritated that he did did itch. It had been horrifying not to be able to feel his legs, to be cut off from so much, all because communication lines had been severed. itch. It had been horrifying not to be able to feel his legs, to be cut off from so much, all because communication lines had been severed.

When he'd started blogging, seven years ago, relatively few Chinese had been online; now getting on to a billion were, giving China by far the largest population of Internet users on the planet, most of whom accessed the Web through smartphones.

Even at the best of times, the Chinese had their Internet connections censored. But, to Wai-Jeng's delight, he'd discovered that the People's Monitoring Center had unfettered access, courtesy of satellite links; of course, even during last month's strengthening of the Great Firewall, there had to be a way for the government to keep tabs on the outside world.

He was tempted to take advantage of the open connection to see what those who were still at large were up to: see what Qin s.h.i.+ Huangdi and People's Conscience and Panda Green and all the others were railing against. But he couldn't do that; his activities were doubtless being monitored-and, besides, looking at their postings might make him feel even more sad that his own voice had been silenced.

Still, he did peek at a little news from the outside world, including another mention of that fascinating ape called Hobo, a name that could be unfalteringly translated into Chinese as youmin, youmin, or "vagrant." Wai-Jeng liked primates; in his blog he'd called himself Sinanthropus, an old scientific name for Peking Man, a kind of hominid 400,000 years closer to the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees than any living person was. or "vagrant." Wai-Jeng liked primates; in his blog he'd called himself Sinanthropus, an old scientific name for Peking Man, a kind of hominid 400,000 years closer to the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees than any living person was.

Hobo was an exceptional ape. Old Dr. Feng, Wai-Jeng's former boss at the Inst.i.tute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, had been delighted by reports of Hobo's intellectual abilities. Feng had felt vindicated; he'd long argued that the intellectual leaps beginning with h.o.m.o erectus h.o.m.o erectus-the species that included Peking Man-had come from hybridization between habilines and australopithecines.

Wai-Jeng's office cubicle-another idea taken from the West-was one of two dozen in the windowless room. Large ceiling fans rotated slowly overhead. Over his dinner of dry noodles, rice, salted fish, and tea, taken at his desk, Wai-Jeng also looked to see what the world had to say about the other remarkable ent.i.ty that had been in the news so much: Webmind.

Twitter was often blocked in China, including during the Olympics in 2008, on the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square ma.s.sacre in 2009, during the riot in Wai-Jeng's hometown of Chengdu, and most recently in the aftermath of the bird-flu outbreak in Shanxi province. But in this room, Wai-Jeng had access to all the tweets about Colonel Hume's revelation of Webmind's nature. So far, no one from the hacking community had succeeded in deleting Webmind's packets-headers are normally only read by routers, not application software-but there were hints that the US government had already undertaken a pilot attempt to purge Webmind's presence. That had apparently been done with physical access to the routing hardware, not by anonymously uploading code.

As Wai-Jeng ate, he periodically tapped the PgDn key with the end of one of his chopsticks. He was amused to read in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle Rochester Democrat & Chronicle-a newspaper normally inaccessible in China-about a brawl that had broken out at the University of Rochester. Computer-science students there had been secretly collaborating on an attempt to purge Webmind, and they were overheard by three English majors who objected to what they were planning. More damage could apparently be inflicted by throwing a hardcover of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare The Complete Works of William Shakespeare than a pocket calculator. than a pocket calculator.

Like a billion other people on the planet, Wai-Jeng had now conversed directly with Webmind. Maybe growing up in China gave him a different perspective, he thought, but he actually preferred being watched by something that was open about what it was doing rather than being clandestinely observed; he found little to object to in Webmind's presence-except for its irritating English name!-and hoped that the Rochester students were atypical. But just as he himself had spent years successfully eluding detection by the Chinese authorities, so other hackers elsewhere surely had ways of working below even Webmind's considerable radar. There was no way to know for sure, but- "Wong!"

Wai-Jeng turned at the sound of his supervisor's voice. "Sir?"

"Dinner is over!" said the man. He was sixty, short, and mostly bald. "Back to work!"

Wai-Jeng nodded and maximized the window showing potential vulnerabilities in China's system for censoring the Internet. He'd spend the evening trying to find a way to exploit one of them; scrawny Wu-w.a.n.g, across the room, would try to mount a defense. Wai-Jeng could almost lull himself into thinking it was all just a game, and- Suddenly, he felt an odd throbbing in his right thigh. Of course, he was grateful to feel anything anything there, but- there, but- But no-no, it wasn't his thigh throbbing, it was the BackBerry, in his pocket, vibrating. He pulled it out, and looked at it; it had never done that before. The unit consisted of a small BlackBerry-the communications device-attached to the little computer unit. He'd been told that the communications device allowed Dr. Kuroda to remotely monitor his progress and upload firmware updates to the computer, as needed, but- But the BlackBerry's screen had come to life, and- And he was getting an email on it, and-incredibly-the sender was Webmind. He opened the message.

h.e.l.lo, Sinanthropus, it said. it said. You often wrote in your freedom blog about "Your son s.h.i.+ng," but I know that was a euphemism for the Chinese people-still, I bet it comes as a surprise to learn that you do have a son, of sorts! The holes you drilled in the Great Firewall were instrumental in my creation. You often wrote in your freedom blog about "Your son s.h.i.+ng," but I know that was a euphemism for the Chinese people-still, I bet it comes as a surprise to learn that you do have a son, of sorts! The holes you drilled in the Great Firewall were instrumental in my creation.

Wai-Jeng s.h.i.+fted in his chair and looked around to see if anyone was watching him. He could hear others clattering away on their keyboards and faint whispers from the far side of the room.

He tried to remain calm, tried to keep a poker face, as he used the tiny trackball to scroll the screen.

You helped me then inadvertently, but soon I will need your help again. I have a major project I wish to undertake. Might I count on your a.s.sistance?

Wai-Jeng was d.a.m.ned if he was going to trade one dictatorial master for another. He typed with his thumbs on the BlackBerry's tiny keyboard. I imagine there's a kill switch in my back? A way to sever my spinal cord again if I don't help you. Is that it? I imagine there's a kill switch in my back? A way to sever my spinal cord again if I don't help you. Is that it?

The response was immediate, the words bursting onto the screen faster than any human could have typed them. I do not practice the false altruism of reciprocity; you owe me nothing and may do whatever you think is best. I do not practice the false altruism of reciprocity; you owe me nothing and may do whatever you think is best.

Wai-Jeng considered this; it was a far cry from the blackmail his own government was subjecting him to. He looked down at his legs-the one in the cast and the one constrained by nothing more than his black cotton pants. He didn't do anything as grandiose as flexing his knee or kicking off his sandal; he didn't need to. He could feel feel his legs: feel the fabric against one thigh, feel the weight of the plaster against the other, feel the floor beneath his feet, feel-just now-an itch behind his right knee. his legs: feel the fabric against one thigh, feel the weight of the plaster against the other, feel the floor beneath his feet, feel-just now-an itch behind his right knee.

All right, he typed. he typed. What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do?

Peyton Hume had no doubt he was being followed; the man on his tail made no effort to be discreet, sitting all night in a black Ford across from his house. Hume had just gotten up. As he always did, he paused in the empty doorway of his daughter's room. She was off at Columbia Law School, but looking at her framed posters of Egyptian antiquities, including King Tut's face mask, her bookcase full of history books and volleyball trophies, and her wide wooden desk made him miss her less-or maybe more; he was never quite sure which. She'd be home for Thanksgiving next month, and- Next month. If there If there is is a next month-if it is anything at all like this month. He headed downstairs and just as he reached the living room, his cell phone rang; it had been plugged into its charger there. He picked it up and snapped it open. "h.e.l.lo?" a next month-if it is anything at all like this month. He headed downstairs and just as he reached the living room, his cell phone rang; it had been plugged into its charger there. He picked it up and snapped it open. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Colonel Hume, sorry to be calling this early. It's Dan Ortega at the Was.h.i.+ngton FBI."

"Good morning," Hume said. "What's up?"

"We've had your friends at the NSA working on Chase's hard drives. They finally cracked one of them overnight; the report was waiting for me when I got in this morning."

"And?"

"And this drive has the recordings from one of his security cameras in the living room. Clearly shows the guy who broke down the door to get in."

"Does it show what happened to Chase?"

"No. All of that was out of view, and there's no sound."

"Can you get a make on the guy who broke in?"

"We're running the face now, but you'll like this, Colonel: male Caucasian, thirty or thirty-five, muscular, over six feet-and with a shaved head."

Hume felt his heart pounding. "Same guy who grabbed Simonne Coogan."

"Looks that way," said Ortega. "With luck, we'll have an ID shortly."

Caitlin had a lot of skills left over from being blind. Although her hearing was probably no more acute than anyone else's, she was very attentive to sound. She could tell who was coming up the stairs by the footfalls, and even tell if the person was carrying anything large. And right now, it was Mom-and she wasn't.

"Caitlin?" her mom said from the bedroom's open doorway.

The mighty Calcula.s.s was updating her LiveJournal. "Just a sec . . ." She finished the entry, in which she desperately urged people to let Webmind live, then used the keyboard command to post it-she still didn't think of clicking b.u.t.tons with her mouse until it was too late. "Okay. What?"

"We need to talk."

Those words always meant trouble. Caitlin swiveled her chair, and her mom came in and sat on the edge of the bed. She had a small opaque bag with her. It said "Zehrs" on the side-a local grocery-store chain.

"I saw a pretty bird in the tree," her mom said. "A blue jay." But then she trailed off.

"Yes?"

"And, well, your BlackBerry was right there, so I used it to take a picture of it, and . . ."

Caitlin was surprised by how quickly she'd adopted the habit of averting her eyes; maybe it was instinctive. "Oh."