Brain Jack
by Brian Falkner
Copyright © 2009 by Brian Falkner
All rights reserved.
PROLOGUE
Right now, as you read this prologue, I am sifting through the contents of your computer. Yes, your computer. You. The one holding the book.
I am reading your e-mails, looking at your digital photos and images you have downloaded off the Net, opening your most private documents and having a good read, or a good laugh, depending on the content.
To be honest, most of it is utterly boring. Except for a few files. You know the ones I mean.
I know you don’t believe me, and I prefer it that way, but think about this.
When you bought this book, you used a credit card or a debit card. That created a record in the massive computer systems that the banks use. The systems they claim are impregnable.
But they are on the Net. And nothing is impregnable on the Net.
So I monitor those systems for transactions with the ISBN of this book—that’s the International Standard Book Number. You’ll find it on the publisher’s copyright page. Have a look now. It’s 978-0-375-89323- 0.
When your transaction went through, I got an alert from one of my monitoring programs, and, as I had nothing better to do, I dug a little deeper.
I got the credit card number from the transaction log, and that, with just a quick poke around in the “highly secure” databases of the bank, gave me your home address and telephone number.
I cross-matched that with the Internet service providers in your area to find your broadband connection. Then I checked to see if you have a static IP (that’s the electronic address of your home computer). You don’t, so I raided your ISP’s DHCP server to get your current IF. It didn’t take me long to find out where your computer lives on the Internet.
Your router’s firewall was a joke—and not even a very funny one. The built-in firewall on your PC was another story, though. That held me up for a couple of heartbeats. I had to use your peer-to-peer file-sharing client to slip a Trojan past your security and gain remote-administrator access, shape-shifting a little as I did it so as not to attract attention from your antivirus software. No matter. It took me less than ten minutes from seeing the transaction to obtaining complete access to your hard drive.
So now, while you’re reading this, I’m looking through your computer and having a great old time. You could race over and turn your computer off, but you’d already be too late.
I could delete a few files, but I probably won’t. I could change your passwords and lock you out of your own system, but I can’t be bothered.
And I won’t crash your system or delete the contents of your hard drive or anything like that. I am not malicious or evil, or even particularly bad.
I’ll just quietly leave and erase any trace that I was ever there.
But I know you now. I know who you are. I know where you live. I know what you’ve got. And if the time comes that I need something from you, something that you might or might not want to give up, I’ll be back.
That time is coming. Sooner than you think.
But in the meantime, don’t worry about me.
I’m not worrying about you.
Right now, I’ve got much bigger problems to think about.
1 | DIRTY TRICKS
On Friday, on his way to school, Sam Wilson brought the United States of America to its knees.
He didn’t mean to. He was actually just trying to score a new computer and some other cool stuff, and in any case, the words “to its knees” were the New York Times’, not his—and were way over the top, in Sam’s view. Not as bad, though, as the Washington Post’s. Their headline writers must have been on a coffee binge, because they screamed
National Disaster
in size-40 type when their presses finally came back online.
Anyway, it was only for a few days, and it really wasn’t a disaster at all. At least not compared to what was still to come.
A juddering roar reverberated off the high-rise buildings, and Sam glanced up as the dark shadow of a police Black Hawk slid across the street. His breath caught in his chest for a moment, as if all the oxygen in the street had suddenly disappeared, but the chopper didn’t slow; it was just a routine patrol. It weaved smoothly between the monoliths of uptown Manhattan, a cop with a long rifle spotlighted in the open doorway by a brilliant orange burst of early-morning sun.
He tried to remember a time when armed police in helicopters hadn’t patrolled the city, but he couldn’t. It seemed that it had always been that way. At least since Vegas.
Gray clouds were leaking a dreary, misty drizzle from high over the city, but low on the horizon, there was a long thin gap into which the sun had risen, teasing New York with a short-lived promise of a sunny day.
Sam cut down 44th Street and turned right at 7th Avenue to avoid beggars’ row along Broadway. He took 42nd to Times Square, where the tall video screens flickered intermittently or were silent and dark. The M&M’s screen still worked, although there were several blank spots that were said to be bullet holes.
Forty-second Street station was crowded—jostling, bustling, shortness-of-breath crowded—at this time of the morning, but he was used to that, and the subway was still the fastest and safest way to get around Manhattan.
He got out at Franklin Street station and took Varick Street down to West Broadway. He quickened his step as he passed Gamer Alley. His nose wrinkled involuntarily at some of the odors that hung around the entrance.
Two dogs were fighting on the corner of Thomas and West Broadway but stopped as he approached. He slowed, not comfortable with the narrowing of their eyes or the jelly-strings of drool dripping from their fangs.
One took a step toward him, a low growl in its throat. The other followed, its lips drawing back from its teeth.
Sam took a step backward. The dogs moved closer, haunches high, stalking him. He stumbled backward a few more steps. A police Humvee cruised past, and he half turned toward it, hoping the cops would stop and
