F Wilson - Fatal Error

"If this is happening all over the world…"

Jack said, "But it'll happen in a wave, right? As all the computer clocks hit the trigger time?"

"Not necessarily. Not if the virus is set to Greenwich Mean Time. If it was set for three P.M. GMT, then computers on the U.S. East Coast would trigger at eight local time. In the Central Time Zone they'd go at seven local, and in the Pacific Zone at five local."

"So they'd all start at once?"

She nodded. "That's the way I'd do it. That's the way to get the most bang out of the virus. Don't give anyone a chance to mount a defense. Hit them with an all-out frontal assault."

Jack envisioned a billion-plus computers across the globe turning themselves on and beginning to download video from the Internet. And as the data is recorded onto the hard drive, the computer begins to upload it to other computers in the botnet which in turn upload video back to it, back and forth and back and forth until their bandwidth is maxed out. All the computers in empty offices in every country, unattended but busily enslaved to Jihad4/20, trading video throughout their networks and beyond. Servers and routers all over the world crashing with the overload.

Gia… Vicky.

"How long…" His mouth had gone dry. "How long do you think it will take?"

She shrugged. "I'm no expert, not even close, but I imagine it depends on the size of the Jihad botnet. If it's as extensive as they say, could be just a matter of minutes, certainly no more than a few hours."

Jack pulled his phone from a pocket and speed dialed Gia. Her voice mail came up almost immediately. That meant she had her cell turned off. Of course she would. The airlines made you turn them off.

What flight had she said-346, right?

He dialed 411, got the number, and called American Airlines. After navigating a voice tree and punching in the flight number, a robotic female voice told him flight 346 had taken off on time and was due in at 10:50.

"Well," he said, turning to Weezy and Dawn, "at least that computer is still working."

Weezy said, "They're in the air?"

She kept her expression neutral but he could tell from her eyes that she didn't like that idea.

"They'll make it."

Dawn was shaking her head, her expression baffled. "What's happening? I've heard about the virus on the news, but what's that got to do with computer video and planes?"

As Weezy began to explain, Jack wandered back into the front room. His hands balled into fists. He jammed them into his pockets and squeezed his eyes shut as he fought to control the frustration boiling within.

Everywhere he turned lately he found himself facing situations he couldn't control, couldn't do anything about. Rasalom, the Jihad virus, and now Gia and Vicky in the air, in possible danger, and he could do nothing to bring them down safely. Had to depend on someone else… always someone else…

He needed to break something, hurt someone.

But he wouldn't. Instead he'd do the thing he hated, but the only thing he could do.

He'd wait.

"… again, if you're just tuning in, the message from the Department of Homeland Security is to unplug your computer and disconnect it from the Internet. In other words, if you have dial-up service, unplug the phone connector; if you have high-speed cable, disconnect from the cable; if you have Wi-Fi, disconnect and power off your router. Do this even if you have an uninfected computer. Where the Internet is working at all, transmission has slowed to a crawl. Many servers and routers are down and the ones still working are jammed."

Dawn hugged herself as she leaned forward on the couch and stared at the TV.

"This is totally scary."

Weezy sat beside her. Jack hung back at the dining area table, listening with growing alarm as news heads from the local stations kept breaking into the regular programming with bulletins from the city and the feds.

The botnet had been active for only an hour or so but was already sending seismic shock waves through cyberspace.

"This just in from the mayor's office: Unless it is absolutely necessary to be elsewhere, please stay in your homes. Traffic signals have malfunctioned and traffic is snarled. We have the mother of all traffic jams out there, folks."

"Oh, hell."

Jack jumped up and stepped to the window. Saturday night traffic on the Upper West Side was always snarled, but what he could see below wasn't moving at all.

"What's wrong?" Weezy said.

"I've got to head for the airport."

"But it's only nine-thirty. They're not due in till eleven."

Right. Less than a ten-mile trip. New York City traffic could be a hassle any time, especially on a Saturday night. But this was New York City traffic on a Saturday night in the middle of a cyber meltdown.

"From the way things look, it could take me that long."

She came up beside him and stared down at the traffic.

"I see what you mean." She put a hand on his shoulder. "Be careful out there. And stay in touch, okay?"

"Will do. You stay put."

She shook her head. "I'm going over to sit with the Lady. She may need some company."

The Lady-in his worries about Gia and Vicky he'd forgotten about her.

"Think she's feeling the effects?"

Concern tightened her features. "I don't know. Nobody's ever been here before. She could have a slow weakening, or might not feel a thing till the whole Net crashes."

He looked past her at where Dawn stared at the TV screen. "What about her?"

"I'll have to leave her."

"Yeah. The truth might be hard to explain."

"Too hard."

Jack smiled. "Momma Weezy."

"She needs someone, Jack. She's all alone in the world."

Jack hadn't realized how true that was. Parents dead, baby stolen, cut off from whatever friends she'd had… the kid had no one.

"Going to leave her here?"

She shook her head. "She'll be safe in her place."

"Okay. Give the Lady my best. I'll stay in touch as best I can."

He grabbed his coat and headed for the door. He took the stairs down and hit the sidewalk at a trot, heading west toward where he garaged the Crown Vic. Traffic on the side street was stopped dead. As he loped past a taxi he saw a young couple get out and start to walk, leaving behind an angry-looking driver.

"It's cold," the girl said, tightening her coat around her neck.

The guy laid a protective arm over her shoulders. "Yeah, but at least we'll get there before it's over."

When Jack reached Amsterdam, he stopped. Always a jam here, but at least with some sense of movement, even if only inches at a time. Right now-nothing.

He looked up and saw why: The traffic lights were blinking yellow in both directions. In this city a yellow caution light translated as Hit the gas. Yellow both ways meant everybody had the right of way. Yielding was for pussies. No surprise at the ironclad gridlock.

A traffic cop might have helped-if one could get here-but as Jack fought his way uptown along the crammed Broadway sidewalk, he doubted it. Every intersection was the same. This called for a cop on every corner and even that wouldn't work. There didn't seem anywhere left to go. It looked like every car in the five boroughs had been plunked down on the streets. The only solution Jack could see was to pave them over and start anew.

He passed an angry crowd outside the Beacon Theater, complaining about the inability to buy tickets for the Allman Brothers because the theater's computers were down. A waiter was taping a CASH ONLY sign to the window of a bistro. The subtitle read: "Can't run credit cards."

The faces around him showed a mixture of anger, frustration, bemusement, and bewilderment. At least no one looked bored.

It dawned on him that his car was useless.

Okay, he'd go subway. Catch a train down to Times Square and switch to the 7 out to Queens. It would drop him off with a good walk to the airport, but maybe he could grab a cab out there. Traffic couldn't be as bad as here.