‘Something must have caught fire again,’ Syler thought faintly. He glanced at his senior staff, all of them equally stunned, then gestured towards the central monitor where the message displayed. “I locked the hacker out. For now.”
“Explain, Perrin.” Oh, good, Boothman was here. That was always a sign that things had well and truly gone to hell.
“Augmented artificial intelligence,” he replied. “Someone has built an AI system capable of not only replicating the skill of the builder to launch multiple simultaneous attacks against a system, but also of adapting to and exploiting loopholes in counter-attacks faster than a human alone could. I shut them out by utilizing the same encryption scheme they used on theirs—an exceptionally long, error prone algorithm password with a single attempt before it boots everyone out of the system en mass. Even an augmented computer isn’t going to guess in one try.” He dropped into his chair heavily. “Whoever built this is—”
“Exceptionally dangerous,” she finished. “How long are we secure using this?”
“Indefinitely, but...”
“But?”
“If even one of us makes an incorrect login attempt at a given time, we shut down the whole system,” Maria cut in. “And that’s assuming no one outside of the agency picks up on the vulnerability to put us in an endless lock out loop by just putting in incorrect passwords.”
“So we’re locked out of our own system,” Boothman concluded, scoffing.
“I can set it so that it only executes if they launch another attack and put the lock out encryption behind the initial login to keep most other parties from noticing,” Syler offered up, “but, yes, if I do and they try again, we’re locked out for the duration.”
The room lapsed into silence, all eyes turned towards the Director. “Start reviewing the logs. No one leaves until we have a plan.”
Twenty-Seven
A plan ended up taking the remainder of the day. The first order of business, inevitably, was carefully applying the lock out encryption only to necessary portions of the system, hopefully minimizing how much of their system was shut down during any follow up attack. While Syler did that, Maria went to work on the partial trace she’d started before she was locked out. Jason and the Colonel retreated to the server rooms, replacing and rewiring equipment that had been lost to the series of targeted power surges, while Miranda was tasked with implementing new firewalls strong enough to keep out all but the hacker behind Pyrona in the event of another attempted breach of their system.
Arthur and Jeanette ensconced themselves in the briefing room, intent on reviewing the case in light of the latest breach. Or to work on damage control. Whatever it was that non-techie staff did to feel useful after a cyber attack, Syler thought.
“Any luck on that trace, Maria?”
She hummed. “Somewhere nearby, within a hundred miles. I got cut off before it could get closer, but I’m pulling data on anyone in that radius with a background in AI programming.”
“Don’t bother,” the Director called, reappearing with Arthur in tow. The man looked mutinous. “We’ve been sent an invitation to meet.”
Syler’s eyebrows went up. “Have we now?”
“Yes, a message was delivered to my personal inbox with an attached flier. A small start up by the name of Pyrona Inc. is going to be hosting a booth at a D.C. tech conference starting tomorrow afternoon. Last minute addition to the roster, apparently.”
“I’ll go, Jeanette,” Arthur immediately cut in. Syler’s brows went up further at his tone. What on earth?
“The invitation was directed towards you, Perrin.”
“Um,” he replied, wrong footed. “When you say directed towards me…?”
“‘As per our recent engagement, I would be delighted to meet to discuss a potential collaboration with Mr. Perrin,’” she replied, quoting from the message on her tablet. “It would seem the attacker was behind our firewalls just long enough to see who forced the shut out. You’ve made an impression by being the first to rebuff this lunatic.”
“And you want me to go?” Syler blinked, tone absolutely disbelieving. “Me?”
The Director scoffed, seating herself at the command desk beside Thompson. “Do I want to send the Deputy Director of Operations into a blind meeting with a cyber terrorist? Of course not. Unfortunately, the bastard has us by the short hairs right now. We need to know who it is, and it’s unlikely he or she will reveal themselves if they’re not absolutely certain it’s you that they’re talking to, much less if we swarm the place with a team of agents.”
Syler winced. “I see your point.”
“You’ll be escorted, of course.” Arthur placed a hand on his shoulder, fixing Jeanette with a stare that dared her to send anyone else.
“Oh for god’s sake. Yes, Dufault, I’ll be assigning a security detail.” She did not, Syler noticed, specify that it would be Arthur. “Now, let’s do some digging on this convention.”
---
Arthur stalked Jeanette back into the briefing room once the operations staff had set to work prepping for Syler’s trip into D.C. the following afternoon. He had absolutely no intention of letting someone else take his handler.
She sat down at the desk, fixing him with an intense look, accessing. “If I do assign you as his escort,” she began, “is that going to be a problem?”
“No more than it was a problem when he was just my handler.”
“That was three months and at least one night of debauchery ago.”
Arthur glared. “Doubting me now, are you?”
“Reminding you that I have eyes, Arthur. I don’t begrudge you caring about him, but it can’t supersede eliminating this hacker.”
“It won’t.”
“Good,” she stated, tone final. “Finding the main player behind Pyrona remains the primary directive. Bringing the Deputy Director back in one piece is a close second. Fail at either of them and I’ll string you up by your balls. Now let’s finalize this piss poor excuse for a plan—”
---
The Colonel escorted Syler into the armory, shutting the door behind them with a resounding clang. “You don’t have to go, you understand?”
The younger man
