around him. The UPS showed up clearly, and he ran its signature through a pattern-matching program, comparing it to an equipment database.
“It’s an HVC9001,” Sam said. “It’s got Power Line Networking. I can take this baby out. Kiwi, I need the power back on for a moment. Can you do it?”
“Just say when.”
“Hang on … hang on … Okay, now! Count to three, then shut it off.”
The 9001 had built-in Power Line Networking, enabling it to communicate directly through the power cables. Sam grabbed the latest firmware updates from the HVC download site and modified the code just slightly before updating the firmware on the motherboard.
“Give it ten seconds, then pump it with all the juice you can. I took out the voltage limiter.”
Dodge breathed, “It’ll go sky-high!”
“Gonna give them a mother of a power spike,” Kiwi called out. “In three, two, one—take that, you code suckers!”
The red-hot core at the center of the storm on Sam’s scope blinked once and disappeared. He could just imagine what the overloaded spike of electricity had done to the UPS system without a voltage limiter in place to protect it. At the very least, it would have melted down. With luck there might have been an explosion.
The swarms of predators still circled, but aimlessly, without intelligence behind them to direct them.
“Good work, team,” Dodge said. “Let’s clean this up. I want those predators classified, neutralized, and stuck on a bulletin board in the lunchroom before those filthy geezers can pick themselves up off the floor and try again.”
Sam grinned. He had done well. He knew that. New kid on the block and he had—
A movement caught his eye, and he half turned, just in time to see a black command window appear and disappear on his left-side screen.
“Dodge,” he said in a voice that was not as steady as it should have been.
“What is it, Sam?”
“I think I just got infiltrated.”
“Not possible. Not in here.”
“But—”
Sam was cut off by a shout from the other side of the room.
“I got a blue screen of death over here. What’s going on?”
“Crap! Me too,” Vienna said. “I just got wiped.”
Sam looked around and saw Jaggard sprinting across the room toward them.
“Shut them down!” he shouted. “Shut them down now!”
20 | VICTORIA
Victoria Dean looked again at her radar screen and swore under her breath. There were too many planes and too little time. The computers normally took care of most of the work, but today all their computers were off-line and her head hurt.
“Get them down,” Taylor, her shift supervisor, said again from behind her shoulder. “Every one of them. I want those birds sitting on the ground until we regain control of our own system.”
Taylor, a small gray man in a dark gray suit, wasn’t talking to her directly. He was addressing the room. But he was right by her shoulder, which made her feel as though she was the only one not doing her best to achieve the impossible.
They had 117 planes either on approach or inbound when the computers went haywire. She was responsible for eight of those planes. Over eleven hundred souls.
There had been several moments of panic as some of the planes had obeyed nonsensical messages on their onboard computer systems, fed from the ground, but most pilots had the sense to check with their flight controller first and did not deviate.
The challenge now was to get those planes on the ground using old-fashioned voice instruction. They trained for that, sure, but to actually use it was a whole new ball game.
She pressed the foot switch to activate her radio.
“Singapore SQ12 Airbus inbound, I have you cleared for final approach on runway two-five right; please confirm visual. Over,” she said.
The voice came back in her ear with barely a trace of static and a slight Malaysian accent. “SQ12 on visual approach for runway two-five right. I have a U.S. Airlines Boeing 777 just clearing two-five right for the taxiway. Over.”
“Roger that. The triple seven will be clear before you land. Over.”
“Roger, and thanks for your help, LAX Control. We have a full load. Over.”
“Welcome to LA, SQ12,” Victoria signed off.
“LAX Control, this is Southwest 3567 from Albany, New York. Over.”
Victoria glanced at her charts and her progress strips.
“Southwest 3567, continue your holding pattern. Expect an approach for two-five left, but we got a bunch of internationals waiting, and they’re lower on fuel. Over.”
“LAX Control, this is Southwest 3567. Our UAS just got triggered. Please confirm the reason for this. Over.”
Victoria involuntarily looked out of the windows, scanning the sky for the plane.
“Please repeat your last, Southwest 3567. Over,” she said with a sudden rasp in her voice.
“Southwest 3567 confirming activation of in-flight UAS. We have no reason to believe there are any unfriendlies on board. Please advise if you are aware of a situation. Over.”
“Damn,” she said. “Taylor!”
The UAS, or Uninterruptible Autopilot System, was a federal requirement in all commercial passenger jets that flew over American soil. Developed after the 9/11 attacks, it allowed ground-based flight controllers to assume control of an aircraft, flying and landing the plane using the autopilot and auto-landing system. Once activated, there was no way of retaking control from within the plane.
Taylor was at her right shoulder in a second.
“What have you got, Dean?”
“UAS on Southwest 3567 just got activated. A Boeing 787. Did we do that?”
“Not on my instruction.” He spoke rapidly into a handheld radio. “Are we activating UASs on any of the planes, Simon?”
The voice sounded thin and tinny through the small speaker in the handheld. “Ah, that’s a negative, Taylor. We have been instructed to avoid all computerized systems until further notice.”
“Where are they?” Taylor asked, picking up a pair of binoculars off the desk.
“Southwest 3567, please confirm your course and altitude. Over,” Victoria said.
The reply came immediately, and the captain’s voice was calm, even curious, rather than worried. “This is Southwest 3567. We are currently passing flight level three-two-zero and heading three-zero-zero. Where are you taking us, Control? We don’t have the fuel for a long flight. Over.”
“They’re heading for Santa Barbara, maybe Lompoc Airport,” Victoria said.
“Lompoc is a single-runway commuter airfield. They can’t handle a 787,” Taylor said.
“Well, after that,” Victoria said, “it’s straight out to sea.”
“What the hell is going on?” Taylor asked.
“We got bogeys in the wire,” Dodge shouted. “Inside the building!”
“Shut it down,” Jaggard said calmly. “They’re all over us.”
“We were the target,” Vienna yelled. “Everything else was just a diversion. They were going after us all along. How the hell did they get through our firewalls?”
“Isolate the building,” Jaggard said. “Shut it down and sterilize it. Bring it back up when we’re clear.”
“I’m still okay,” Dodge said. “I’m staying up, see if I can battle it out.”
