Walter Williams - Deep State

Chatsworth Osborne Jr. says:

If he played Stunrunner, then Great Big Idea might have co-opted him for this game in some way. This might be an attempt to keep the Turkish audience they captured for Stunrunner. Has Slash ever been an actor or worked in video?

Alaydin says:

He’s a computer engineer. He has never been in show business.

Chatsworth Osborne Jr. says:

Can you possibly give us his name? And a way to get ahold of him?

Alaydin says:

I do not want to give away his name without permission.

Chatsworth Osborne Jr. says:

Can you give us email, then?

Alaydin says:

This really is not the same Slash Berzerker. Hes out of the country anyway.

Chatsworth Osborne Jr. says:

Where is he?

Alaydin says:

I think Uzbekistan.

Hanseatic says:

This is beginning to sound suspicious. Maybe he’s been sent out of the country for a reason, like to make it hard for us to locate him.

ReVerb says:

He may be hacking Harry’s accounts from Uzbekistan.

Alaydin says:

Not same guy!

Chatsworth Osborne Jr. says:

Easiest way to prove that is to contact him. He’s the only lead we’ve got.

Alaydin says:

I think you’re crazy, but ok. N.Uruisamoglu@HasekiNetwork.co.tu.

Chatsworth Osborne Jr. says:

Thanks!

“Nicely done, there, Chatsworth,” Dagmar said.

“Sometimes you just have to nag them,” Lincoln said, still bent over his keyboard. The Our Reality Network live feed glimmered in his Elvis glasses.

“I’ve got Haseki Network’s English-language home page,” Richard said. “Offices in Turkey, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and Kyrgyzstan. Mission statement: ‘To provide wireless access where users in the past did not have access to high speed, high performance, networked communications. To provide long range point-to-point and point-to-multipoint wireless connections. To provide a high level of support to our networks and users.’ ”

“Slogan,” Helmuth said, reading over Richard’s shoulder, “ ‘Now Your Community is the Whole World.’ ”

“When these guys are done,” Richard said, “everyone in the ’Stans will be able to receive hot take-out pizza within twenty minutes.”

Helmuth frowned.

“I don’t see the connection between Haseki and the High Zap,” he said. “These guys are a wireless company, not a bunch of spook hackers.”

Lloyd clicked from screen to screen.

“The Turkish pages aren’t quite identical to the English pages,” he said. “There’s a news page in Turkish that mentions that Haseki has completed on schedule a Turkish-inspired, Turkish-engineered secure communications network for the military.”

“Bingo,” said Richard.

“Still not proven,” Helmuth said.

“Slash’s name is Nimet Uruisamoglu,” Lloyd read from the company Web page. “He’s listed as Vice President, Chief Programmer, Director of Operations (Uzbekistan). A recent promotion, apparently.”

Helmuth laughed. “He doesn’t get credit for being Chief Zombie Killer?”

“His talent for slaughtering the undead,” Richard said, “remains unrecognized.”

Dagmar, meanwhile, had called up an email program and had typed in Uruisamoglu’s email address. She paused as she contemplated the subject line.

“He’s about to get hundreds of insane emails from players all over the world,” she said. “How can I make sure that mine is the email he’s going to open?”

“Offer him money in the subject line,” Lincoln suggested. He was still watching the Seagram’s mystery unfold on the live feed.

“If I do that,” Dagmar said, “he’ll think it’s spam.”

“Tell him you want to hire him for a job,” Richard suggested. “Mention Alaydin. Mention stuff from the Haseki Web page.”

“Let me write the message in Turkish,” Ismet said.

“Oh.” Dagmar waved a hand. “Silly of me not to think of that.”

They considered the content, then had Ismet draft an email offering a chance for Uruisamoglu to take a well-paid but mysterious contract in Western Europe, and to call Dagmar on her handheld.

“Send several of them,” Dagmar said, “with somewhat different content. Just in case he skips over the first few.”

“I will,” Ismet said. “But let’s hope he’s not on strike.”

Lincoln turned away from the live feed and turned to Dagmar.

“The Group Mind found Slash Berzerker in about twenty minutes,” he said. “How long did you expect it would take?”

“A couple hours,” Dagmar said. “We got a little bit lucky.”

“Even though I’m a part of it,” Lincoln said, “I’m always surprised how quickly these missions are completed.”

Dagmar smiled. “Things happen fast when you’ve got tens of thousands of little worker bees to do the job for you.”

Lloyd was still looking at his display.

“Uruisamoglu hasn’t exactly been hiding his light under a bushel,” he said. “He’s kind of an IT superstar. I did a search on his name and came up with over a hundred thousand hits.” He gestured toward his display. “He’s an MIT graduate. He’s only twenty-six. He goes to a lot of conventions, gives a lot of speeches. I’ve got the text for a lot of this stuff here.”

“Any of it in English?” Lincoln asked.

“Most of it, in fact.”

“Anything political? Anything to indicate whether or not he supports the junta?”

Lloyd shook his head.

“Not so far,” he said. “But of course he reverse-engineered the Zap for them.”

“It might have been just a job he was paid to do,” Lincoln said. “He might just be a mercenary-which is good, from our point of view.” He looked up. “Just keep looking,” Lincoln said. “We need to know how to approach him.”

He turned to Ismet.

“Ideally,” he said, “I’d like to get a special ops team to just grab him and drag him to whatever American military bases are still in the ’Stans. But it may take too long to put a snatch team together.” He looked at Ismet. “So you’ll have to go in and make the approach.”

Dagmar’s heart gave a lurch.

At least, she thought, Ismet wouldn’t be going into the street fighting in Turkey.

“What are we trying to get him to do?” Ismet asked.

“The fact that he signed his work,” Lincoln said, “suggests that he compiled it himself, using his own personal compiler and algorithm. And the sort of people who compile programs themselves and then stick their own badge on them are very likely the sort of people who might well leave a back door into the program-they don’t code it into a program, because someone might notice; they add the back door when compiling it.”

“Ah.” Ismet nodded. “So I make contact, I get him to alter the Zap-”

“Putting a gun to his head if necessary,” Lincoln said.

Ismet shook his head. “It won’t work,” he said. “I’ll use the gun if I have to, but the fact is that I’m a journalist. He’ll know within ten seconds whether I have the knowledge to follow his work-and then he’ll make an idiot out of me. How am I going to know if he’s doing what I tell him to? Whether I have the gun or not, Slash is the one who will have the advantage.”

Lincoln turned somber. He looked over the others, as if numbering them in his head.

“I’ll go in,” Lloyd said. “I speak Turkish. I’ve shot a pistol once or twice.”

Lincoln looked at him for a moment, then shook his head.

U.S. citizen, Dagmar thought. Lincoln can’t put him in danger. Not without special permission, anyway.

Lincoln rose. “I’ll get busy talking to the good folks in Virginia,” he said. “I want the rest of you to prep for your encounter with Slash. He’s got a lot of speeches and so forth online-read them; try to figure what it is he wants. Try to work out what we can offer him, or pretend to offer him.” He gave the room a lowering look.