Daniel Suarez - Daemon

Merritt nodded slowly. “So, that was the big hurry. You’re hoping to steal this guy’s identity.”

Ross stepped up to examine the rig as well. “We’re hoping for more than that.”

The Chinese scientist approached Philips while holding a thick, pouchlike belt made of stretchable black fabric. The belt had an ornate lion’s-head belt buckle. He offered it to her. “This one’s powered by some sort of fuel cell. We have nothing like it in the equipment collection. The Daemon is rapidly increasing the quality of its manufacturing process.”

Merritt pointed at the belt. “What’s it do?”

Philips took it. “It’s a wearable computer. The brains of those eyeglasses. Uses a satellite or radio uplink to the Net and connects to these glasses wirelessly with 192-bit military-grade encryption. The encryption key appears to reseed every few minutes. Hard as hell to crack.”

“What’s with the lion’s-head buckle?”

The Chinese scientist nodded. “Blued titanium with diamond eyes. Very expensive—possibly indicating high rank. Daemon equipment often has stylistic fetishes. These are no doubt intended to imbue them with perceived mystical qualities.”

Philips grimaced. “Another one of Sobol’s psychological hacks.” She closely examined the sports glasses in the rig. “These look way beyond the capabilities of a portable fab lab. Grown-crystal optics…possibly laser-etched circuitry. Can we identify the factory?”

Another scientist weighed in. “Probably South Korean manufacture. Highest quality.”

“How long until we can get this test started, gentlemen?”

The scientists at the lab benches were making last-minute calibrations to hundreds of knobs and dials on rack-mounted monitoring equipment. One of them turned to Philips. “It will be a few minutes yet, Doctor.”

Ross approached her and pointed to the HUD glasses. “You think this runs off the FOM?”

Philips reacted to Merritt’s quizzical expression. “Jon means the Faction Operations Module, Agent Merritt. It’s how the Daemon coordinates the activities of the humans who work for it. That’s how it infiltrated corporate networks, that’s how it identifies new threats, and that’s how it distributes funds and privileges to its members. Basically, it’s the key to its power. The FOM is a distributed mesh network consisting of tens of thousands of nodes. Each node has a unique encryption key at any given moment. If we can clone these glasses, we might have an opening we can exploit to infiltrate the Daemon’s operations. Possibly to shut it down.”

Merritt nodded. “I’m all for that.”

The Major frowned at Philips. “If the Daemon knows we’re penetrating its defenses, it might lash out and start destroying companies.”

“If we’re careful, it will never know, Major.” She reacted to his grim expression. “Look, Daemon operatives coordinate their activities somehow, and so far we’ve been unable to find even a single e-mail or IM message between them. We’re missing something, and both Jon and I believe that that something is sitting right in front of us. Unless we conduct this test, we’ll have no chance at all of stopping the Daemon.”

“What exactly does this test entail, Doctor?”

Philips pointed at the captured glasses. “We plan on powering up these glasses so we can see what a Daemon operative sees while working on the Daemon’s darknet.”

The Major still looked doubtful. He pointed at the wires and cables running from the glasses and back toward the lab benches. “And this?”

The Chinese scientist stepped in. “Sound and video outputs. We’ll record the images projected onto the heads-up display of the glasses for later analysis. We’ll also project the images onto these monitors, here.”

“Nothing’s hooked into our computer network?”

Philips crossed her arms impatiently. “Major, it’s hooked to a DV camera. A camera whose embedded OS has been cleared of serial numbers. Please give us more credit than that. Now, unless the DOD has any objections, I’d like to conduct this test before the Daemon decides that this operative is KIA.”

The Major took one last look around. He nodded grimly. “Okay, Doctor. Proceed.”

Philips turned to the scientists. “Let’s do it, gentlemen.”

They tripped several switches. “Activating computer fuel cell.”

“The glasses have electrical power.”

Numerous television monitors mounted above the workbench filled with information. The scientists looked pleased. “Good. The computer belt has established a secure link to a nearby WiMax transmitter. Let’s get a fix on its location.”

Another scientist called out, “An encrypted link has been established between the glasses and the computer belt.”

“Retinal scanning in progress. Stand by….”

Philips took a deep breath. “Cross your fingers, people.”

They all stared at the glasses, but nothing obvious was happening. They waited.

The lead scientist smiled and turned toward them. “We’re receiving data. I believe we just fooled the Daemon.”

A cheer went up and high fives were exchanged at the lab benches. The Major was impassive, as always.

Philips, Ross, Merritt, and The Major moved to join the scientists crowding around video monitors. The screens displayed images being beamed onto the lenses of the HUD glasses. The Major squinted. “What are we looking at?”

Philips answered. “It’s a graphical user interface of some type—local time, GPS coordinates, power level, shield…Shield, that’s interesting….”

Ross pointed at the screen. “It looks like one of Sobol’s game interfaces. A menu of options. Like a first-person shooter.”

The Major scowled. “But what’s this tell us?”

Ross read through the visible menus. “There’s no obvious way to navigate the UI. How do they work it?”

The lead scientist nodded. “The glasses have a built-in bone-conduction microphone. Could it be voice-activated?”

“We don’t have a voice pattern for this Daemon operative.”

Philips pointed at a small blue square glowing near the right side of the screen. “What’s this?” Barely legible text appeared just above the box, reading: AAW-9393G28. It was connected to the box by a glowing line.

Ross concentrated on the screen. “I’d say it’s a call-out. Looks like there’s an object still active in our captured equipment collection.”

“You mean like the name call-outs hovering over characters in Sobol’s online games?”

“One way to find out…” Ross approached the armature holding the HUD glasses.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to turn these glasses. If that glowing box moves on-screen as I move the glasses, then we know the glasses are showing us a virtual Daemon object that’s bolted to an external coordinate system—most likely the GPS grid.”

Merritt looked from Philips to Ross. “Why would it create virtual objects on the GPS grid?”

Ross called over from the rig as he turned it. “In Sobol’s online games, players and significant objects in the 3-D environment are denoted by virtual call-outs—pop-up menus that hover in space, providing information. I believe Sobol created the same system using the GPS grid.” He turned to Philips. “How’s that?”

The group looked stunned. “Oh my God…”

“What is it?” Ross moved over to the monitor.

The tiny glowing box paled in significance. Hovering eerily in virtual space beyond the real walls of the lab was a towering red call-out box ringed with a dozen mysterious and dangerous-looking symbols—skulls, X’s, and crosses. Beneath that was a line reading 40—Sorcerer. At the top of the call-out was a rolling row of letters, like tumblers cycling endlessly next to the word Stormbringer.