Demon Download

It was a shame the ossobuco would have to be put off until Ms Juillerat had finished her sandside mission, but Brevet Major General Younger could wait to try out the recipe. He was in the nerve centre of his gleaming, white-surfaced kitchen now, directing the preparation of fillet of sole crepes with lemon-parsley butter. Everything in the room was top-quality GenTech standard, requisitioned through his government contacts. The toasters, blenders, ovens, freezers, creamers, processors, burners and broilers shone like brass buttons. Younger observed his reflections in the row of dangling blades that hung before him like a deadly percussion instrument. Straight-edged, curved, serrated, two-action, spiked and plain knives were there, each in place, each ready for use.

He overrode all the hardware and took a whisk to his batter himself. No machine could get the precise texture he favoured for his crepes. The fish-head, its backbone and tail still attached, stared at him from the work-surface. Fish always looked surprised when you were about to cook them. Younger hadn't served on the roads since his days with the highway patrol in the '60s, but he remembered seeing that expression on men's faces. Just before and after they were shot, they got exactly the same round-eyed look.

He ran his fort like he ran his kitchen, Younger hoped. Eternally vigilant, eternally in a harmonious balance, ready for anything.

His computer-assist menumaster gave him a choice of peppers with this dish. The list of appropriates came up on his terminal screen. He selected cayenne, which ranked fairly low but which he hadn't used recently. He couldn't remember exactly what cayenne pepper tasted like. It was always human touches like that which made for a great dish.

Younger would have preferred to be remembered as a master chef than a master strategist.

The screen disrupted, the ingredients of his dinner giving way to a face. It was Captain Finney, from the Ops Centre. Odd, she had been on duty this morning, it should be her downtime now. Her hair was loose, and her tunic not quite buttoned-up.

'Sir, Cat Finney here. We have a datanet problem. I thnk it requires your attention.'

Younger paused in mid-whisk.

'Surely not.'

Finney paused. 'Lenihan couldn't handle it, and called me back to the console…I was playing squash…'

Younger whisked again.

'Get to it, captain. What's the problem?'

'There's a massive power source somewhere out on the grid. We've not tracked down the precise terminal yet, but it's as if a major system had downloaded somewhere in Arizona. Half the screen burned out at once, and we can't keep track of everything. We've lost contact with a lot of outposts.'

'Where's Vladek?'

'He's here, sir.'

'Put him on.'

Younger set his batter carefully on a neutral surface, and sat down at the console. Vladek Rintoon eased Finney aside. He had hoped to keep the Colonel out of any crises for a while, but there was no avoiding it.

'Your opinion, Vladek?'

Rintoon was flustered. 'I'm not sure, sir.'

'Hostile action?'

'It…could be.'

'Maniax? Some other gangcult?'

'No. The resources used are vast. Only the multinats would have the capability to mount such an action. And they're supposed to be on our side. It's the general datanet that's been hit, not just the Cav links. We'll all suffer if anything goes down.'

'Natural disaster? Act of God? Lightning?'

'We're checking that out. It's a remote possibility, I think.'

There was a commotion in the background as Rintoon was talking. He was having to keep looking over his shoulder. People were shouting at each other. Younger glimpsed Captain Lauderdale and another officer gesturing wildly as they argued in front of a flashing screen.

'Keep discipline there, Vladek.'

Rintoon turned and talked sternly. There was a hush. Lauderdale and the other man, Lenihan, broke apart.

'How badly are we hurting?' Younger asked.

'Difficult to say, sir. What we're losing is input. Finney is shutting down all systems contiguous to those affected. We may be able to seal off our own database that way, but that doesn't tell us any more about the nature of the enemy or the situation in the field. We're just drawing in and readying for a siege. I've alerted Faulcon, Badalamenti, McAuley and Doc King, and they're being recalled to duty.'

'Have you asked around the datanet?'

'Finney has had provisional exchanges with the night operators at GenTech and ITT in Phoenix and the Winter Corporation in Tucson. They've got the same problem, and are trying to put up the same blocks.'

'El Paso?'

'Nothing yet.'

'Well get on it, man, that's the railhead. If El Paso goes down, we'll blank half the United States.'

Finney was talking to Rintoon.

'Sir,' he said, 'we just lost ITT. They've cast us adrift.'

'What?'

'We're it, sir. Phoenix and Tucson cut us loose. The disturbance is in the shared datanet, but it's concentrating on us. The corps are disengaging from the shared line. The private sector is out of it. It's just us now, and the federal information exchange, and the Roman Catholic Church and a few other minor leaguers.'

'The Winter people slammed the door behind them,' said Finney. 'They've blown all the links and burned out their interfaces. They must have had them mined. My guess is that they know something we don't. They just shot sixty or seventy million dollars out the window, and will have incurred more than that in fines for damaging government property and violating interstate information passage laws.'

'Will their action limit the damage? Are we the only people on the line?'

'Temporarily,' snapped Rintoon. 'Arizona is sparsely netted. It's easy to get out of it. But El Paso is a computer interface jungle. It would take years to dismantle all the connections.'

'And what's between the input and El Paso?'

'We are, sir. The only major node between the disturbance and El Paso is us, Fort Apache. We've got to entrench and stop it…'

Finney cut in, '…it's like a tidal wave, building up out there in the desert and coming our way.'

Rintoon said, 'We have to break it.'

'I'm coming right down.'

Finney, headset pressed to her ear, 'here it comes. Computer holocaust. ETA twenty seconds.'

Younger punched the door controls next to the elevator.

'…fifteen…'

Nothing was shaking, there were no alarms.

'…ten…'

Lenihan handed Rintoon a note. The colonel turned to the screen and said, 'we've isolated a point of origin, sir.'

The elevator indicator showed the cage was climbing up towards the kitchen. It seemed to take forever.

'…five…'

'Welcome, Arizona. Say, isn't that where…'

'…three…two…'

The elevator was outside. It pinged like a microwave, and the down arrow lit up.

'…one…'

'…that Swiss woman went?'