Саймон Морден - Equations of Life

His computer was blinking at him. Even with a new name, he was still an infovore. He had time to look at the news before he started for the airport. He climbed down from his perch and sat cross-legged in front of the keyboard. He flexed his fingers, cracking each joint in turn, and went to see what today had brought.

It had brought chaos. His Tuvalu-based server had been hit by a massive surge in traffic: an old-school Denial of Service attack so huge that he couldn’t get through to change the settings, reset it, or even put it to sleep. He pulled the plug on his connection and worried at his thumb.

He used a commercially available proxy, hiding his identity in amongst a mass of other anonymous browsers, and sniffed around his old local Clapham node. It was down, swamped by a tsunami of data.

He tried to connect with the university as a guest user: the host was unreachable. Several online forums he used to frequent had been rendered unreadable. Yet for the rest of the globe, it was business as usual.

Everywhere that he might have been found had been ruthlessly trashed: no finesse or subtlety, just terabytes of information thrown at any open port to clog them up completely. He was being targeted, quite deliberately.

He leaned back and wondered who might do such a thing.

Oshicora might, but it didn’t seem his style. Marchenkho definitely, but he doubted that the man could use a computer, let alone coordinate something so complicated.

Sorenson: he had no cause to get at Petrovitch, no matter how bat-shit crazy he might be under his veneer of good-ol’-boy charm. And Chain was more careful, more likely to get others to do his work for him. But this was a blocking move, not an attempt to gain intelligence. Whoever it was was trying to prevent him from communicating, from seeing electronically.

So it came down to what they were trying to hide. Even though he would be dead soon, he needed to know. If it was a feint to flush him into the real world…

He knew the number for his hardwired phone extension in the lab. He bought a virtual phone online and called it. It rang for several minutes, but he knew to wait. Eventually Pif answered.

“What? Sorry. Didn’t hear it, then couldn’t find it.” There were sounds of paper sliding to the floor, and muffled cursing. “Who is this?”

“It’s Sam.”

“You have to come in. Now.”

“Is anything wrong? You’re okay?” Petrovitch felt his pulse quicken.

“I’m okay. This note you left me…”

“Believe it or not, there’s something more important than that. Don’t go outside. In fact, call security and have them post a couple of guards at each end of the corridor. Tell them they need guns.”

“What have you done?”

“Pif: Tuesday was even worse than Monday. I have ruined my life so completely, so thoroughly, I can’t come back in. Ever. This is goodbye. But I had to warn you.”

There was almost silence: nothing but the crackles on the line and the sound of her breathing. “Sam, what about the science?”

“Sam will be dead shortly. Before he goes, he wants to say it was brilliant working with you and that he’ll miss you very much.”

“I can’t see any errors in your equation.”

“His equation. Petrovitch’s equation. And unless he’s invented a time machine, he won’t be coming back.”

There was more silence.

“Tell me,” he said, “I haven’t invented a time machine.”

“Not invented, as such. More described how it might be done. It’s the difference between Einstein and the Manhattan Project.” She even giggled.

“Pif, I can’t wait forty years. And this isn’t even why I phoned. Someone is trying to blindside me, presumably before coming after me with a pushka . Promise you’ll stay safe.”

She gave in. The whole tone of her voice changed. “Why, Sam? Why are they doing this to you?”

“Because I’m a bad man. You don’t need to know any more than that. There is one last thing you can do for me, though. Is the university network up or down? It’s isolated itself from the shit-storm that’s being kicked up my side of the node.”

“Up, last time I looked.”

“If I give you my password, can you copy some files to my supervisor?”

“You know I’m not supposed to do that, right?”

“Yeah. Pif: I’m going to be technically dead in a few hours. Violating my terms and conditions of usage isn’t going to bother me.”

“Hang on.” She dropped the phone to the desk and opened several drawers, trying to find her handheld computer. Petrovitch heard it chime as it was turned on, then the phone was scraped up again. “Okay.”

“Log on screen?”

“I’m there.”

“s-a-m-u-i-l-dot-p-e-t-r-o-v-i-c-h.”

“Done.”

“d-four-d-five-c-four-d-x-c-four.”

“I’m in.”

“See the folder called Simulations? Click that and tell me what you see.”

“You’ve got mail, by the way,” said Pif. “Two thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven messages. Since when were you so popular?”

“I’ve been mail-bombed. Everywhere. I don’t know who’s doing it.”

“I’ll take a look.”

“Don’t open the reader! Everything will be loaded with viruses, worms, the works.”

“I opened the reader, Sam.”

“Close it! Close it!”

“It’s all marked up as spam, except the first two. Know anyone called Sonja? She sent you a couple of seriously fat files.”

Petrovitch’s fists were white with frustration. “ Yobany stos, Pif! Close the reader down.”

“I’ve opened the first file. Video. She’s quite pretty, isn’t she?”

He screeched in frustration, imagining the havoc being unleashed on his precious work. “Close. It. Down.”

“You’ll want to listen to this,” said Pif, and held the earpiece close to the loudspeaker on her computer.

“I don’t want to listen to anything. I want you to stop it.” It was too late. Pif couldn’t hear him anymore. What he got instead was:

“… don’t know what to do, I don’t know where to go, I don’t know anyone who can help me. Except you. You have to save me, Sam, because there’s no one else.”

In the quiet that followed, there was nothing but static on the line.

“Pif?”

“Sam?”

“Play it again.”

“I thought you said…”

“Just play it. And get the phone in position before you do.”

A series of clunks, followed by a click. A prelude to: “I hope this is you, Sam. I really hope it’s you. They’ve killed my father. They dragged him away and they shot him. I heard it even though I wasn’t supposed to. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know where to go, I don’t know anyone who can help me. Except you. You have to save me, Sam, because there’s no one else.”

“ Sic sukam sim . Pif, is this for real?”

“I can check the header for the xref and routing, but she looks scared, Sam. Who is she?”

He peeled his glasses off his face and rubbed his hand across his forehead. He was thirsty, hungry, and getting a headache. “Remember that yakuza kid I mentioned? That’s her.”

“Why does she think you can help her?”

“Because, by night, I dress up in skin-tight spandex and fight crime as the Slavic Avenger.” Petrovitch squeezed his temples between thumb and forefinger. “It’s because she’s desperate.”

“Do you want me to play the second message?”

“Only if it says something like ‘Oops, my mistake, everything’s fine and my very-much-alive father’s not coming to kill you.’ ” He stopped abruptly, almost choking on his words. “ Raspizdyai! How stupid can I get? Play the other one. Do it, Pif. Play it.”

He could hear a rhythmic, hollow banging. He knew what that was: someone trying to beat down a door. Over the top of the cacophony was “Get me out of here, I’m begging you, get me out” followed by a series of gunshots and a shriek that was so loud it made the phone howl with feedback.