Ramez Naam - Crux

From the air Chen got his first look at Shanghai. Then he understood.

They flew through the urban canyons between lifeless skyscrapers, their escort helicopters flanking them. The city was a wasteland. Where there should have been light, there was darkness. A dim flicker of candles or flashlights shone in some windows. Down below, on the streets, there were fires. The immobile hulks of cars littered the roads. Water flowed around them. Soldiers manned checkpoints, directed spotlights from place to place. As they passed over an expensive block an explosion sounded, and then the sharp report of automatic weapons.

He saw people in the street, a mob of them pressing against a store front. Looters. The mob moved forward, and from the doorway he saw the flare of gunfire.

Then the chopper was past and he lost sight of them.

Face pale, Chen turned to Zhao next to him. “What happened?”

“The most damaging cyber-attack of all time, Professor. It disabled the on-board computers of hundreds of thousands of cars, sent electrical surges that destroyed hundreds of power substations, knocked out the trains, the ferry terminal, the public safety surveillance systems. Even the sewers. The intelligent water routing that separates waste water and rainwater has failed, and so now we have raw sewage flooding the streets.”

Chen couldn’t breathe. Could Su-Yong have done this?

“My daughter?” he asked.

“Safe,” Zhao said. “We have men with her.”

Chen nodded.

“Deaths?” he asked.

“Hundreds so far,” Zhao said. “Car crashes. Fires. We have thousands trapped in subways that are filling up with water. And violence. People know the delivery trucks will not be running tomorrow. So they loot the stores, steal from each other. Billions of yuan of damage, at least.”

Chen watched the wrecked city go by beneath him, numb with shock.

The helicopters flew north and west, towards the outskirts of the city. Chen saw homes ablaze, a mob of looters carrying off goods from an undefended store, an explosion, the flare of more gunfire. Shanghai was in tatters.

They landed at a military airfield. Dachang, he thought. Here there were lights. Zhao hurried them out of the helicopter and to the executive jet waiting on the runway, its chameleonware skin cycled to neutral gray, a red Chinese flag emblazoned on its tail. Chen barely had time to take his seat in the opulent cabin before they were taxiing down the runway, then taking off, a pair of deadly-looking fighter aircraft taking off with them. He watched the fighters out his window for a moment, before they activated their own chameleonware and became faint distortions, then nothing at all.

They landed at a military airfield outside Beijing an hour later. Another helicopter ferried Chen and Zhao into Beijing proper, armed escort choppers flanking them. Chen had time to appreciate the lights of the city, all looking as it should be. Then they were setting down on the roof of the State Security Building, and armed guards were escorting him and Zhao into the elevator.

A last pair of guards frisked him in front of a doorway, and then it opened for them, and suddenly Chen was in the office of Bo Jintao, Minister of State Security, member of the Politburo, and one of the hardest of the hardliners.

“Professor Chen.” The minister was behind his desk, looking at something on his display. There was a man seated in a chair across the desk from him, facing the minister. “You may sit,” the minister said without looking at Chen.

“Thank you, Minister.” Chen crossed the room. As he did the man across from Bo Jintao turned, and Chen recognized him with relief. Sun Liu, Minister of Science and Technology. A progressive. And Chen’s patron.

“Chen,” Sun Liu said in greeting. His face was grave. Chen nodded his head in return, and sat in the other chair. Zhao stayed at the door.

What is going on here?

“You’re aware of the attack on Shanghai,” Bo Jintao spoke, looking at him for the first time. “Could your wife have done it?”

“Minister, I… I’m sure that she would have no reason…”

“ Could she ?” the minister repeated.

Chen swallowed. “If she were connected? Yes. But she’s in isolation, Minister, I don’t see how…”

Zhao spoke. “Could she have left a program behind to do this, Professor?”

Chen blinked. “Why would she want to…”

“You will answer my aide’s question,” Bo Jintao said.

Chen sighed. “Probably. But what would she gain from disrupting Shanghai?”

Zhao replied, “Our analysis shows that the cyber-weapon infiltrated the Secure Computing Center first, searched through vast reams of data, and then attacked the Secure Computing Center’s computers, before going on to disrupt civil systems throughout Shanghai. We believe that the intruder was seeking to free your wife from the Physically Isolated Computing Center, and only attacked Shanghai’s civil systems to cover its tracks when it failed to do so.”

“How did you learn this?” Chen asked, turning to look over his shoulder at the aide.

“Your slate and your phone, Professor,” Zhao said. “They’re how the intruder entered the SCC.”

Chen went white as a sheet. He turned back to Bo Jintao. “Minister Bo! I had nothing to do with this! I assure you, I knew nothing!”

The State Security Minister stared at him impassively. Chen felt the cold dread creeping up his spine. This man had tried to kill him once. He could have him killed now with just a word.

“I believe you, Chen Pang,” the minister said softly. “If I did not, you would not be here now.”

Chen stared at the man as the words sank in. Another reprieve. For how long?

“Zhao, continue,” the minister said.

Zhao spoke again. “We believe that this was an attack created by your wife and left behind as insurance in the case of her disconnection. A bot she created to break her out of her imprisonment.”

Chen shook his head. “It isn’t possible for any software to reconnect her. It requires a physical reconnection of the cable, one thousand meters down.”

“We know that,” Zhao said from behind him, “but she does not. The layout of the PICC has been deliberately left out of any electronic records. She might have believed that a software agent operating outside her cage could break through a software firewall imprisoning her.”

The State Security Minister spoke. “Given the probability, we consider it prudent to order an immediate wipe of the Shu upload from the Quantum Cluster.”

Chen bowed his head. It was the end of his dreams. The Equivalence Theorem. The Nobel Prize. The Fields Medal. The billions in commercial licensing. All of it. He had to try one more time.

“But, Minister, her capabilities, the Ministry of Defense depends on them. It’s not too late. We may still be able to stabilize her personality, a clone, even a prisoner, fitted with an interface…”

“No,” Bo Jintao said curtly. “Defense now tells me that their other quantum clusters, thanks to you , Chen, have all the capabilities they need. My own people say the same.”

Thanks to Su-Yong, Chen thought. Not me. My wife has made herself replaceable .

“The rest was closed months ago,” Bo Jintao said. “She revealed our capabilities in quantum cryptography, proved herself a national security risk. And now she attacks us. It is time to shut her down.”

“Minister Sun.” Chen turned to his patron. “Please…” Please, let me wring one more discovery out of her… You’ll get your piece of it…

Sun Liu spoke at last. “I’m sorry, Chen. I agree with Minister Bo. Your wife has proven too great a risk.”

Chen’s heart fell. He lowered his head in submission and defeat.