Alternative 3, p.9
Alternative 3, page 9
He ran the gauntlet of carelessly thrown clothes from the night before to the small bathroom, and it wasn’t till he was on his way back that he noticed the envelope under his door. Maybe another note from Gina. He tried to pretend he wasn’t excited about opening it, leaving it on the bedside table for a few minutes while he perused the breakfast room-service menu. But curiosity won over appetite, and it wasn’t long before he was ripping it open. A single page. Typed.
Dear Cyrus the Virus
Congratulations on your achievement yesterday.
You are now eligible to compete in the BlackHat competition.
Please do not discuss this invitation with anyone. The BlackHat competition is for selected competitors only. The prize money is $1 million.
Should you wish to participate in the BlackHat, come to the lobby of the Orion Hotel at 2 p.m. today.
You will be met.
Um, OK. One million, huh? Curtis had to think about that for a bit. A million fucking dollars. If they were asking him, the second place-getter, that probably meant they had asked Prometheus as well. He’d love to have another go at Prometheus, million or no million. But the fact it was called BlackHat, and the secretive note, meant that it was probably an illegal hack. A live one. One in which you could get caught. And imprisoned. High stakes.
But hey, he was in Vegas. And if he hung round here long enough he might be able to see Gina again. Maybe for another night.
Curtis dialled Turk on his mobile, but he wasn’t answering. Turk had probably had a harder night than he had. He left a message, ‘Hi there, SuperCool, this is Cyrus. Great night, feeling lousy this morning. Got an invite to another comp. Big money this time. Might check it out. Give me a ring when you’re back in the land of the living.’ Two o’clock, huh? Curtis looked at the time. Room service, a couple of hours more sleep and an hour in the shower. Plenty of time.
He’d be there.
5
The Orion was a new hotel, not one Curtis had heard of before. He was feeling pretty pleased with himself as he paid the cab driver and wandered though the outer lobby. What was it with hotel developers in Vegas? They were really into big. Probably drove big red convertibles too.
The Orion was a monster. Like a giant alien mothership decked out in neon. Very swish, and probably even more expensive. The lobby was the size of an aircraft hangar, complete with a tropical rainforest and waterfall. Amazing. Curtis looked around for someone. Anyone. But company was limited to hotel workers and large, rich guests. He found a newspaper, ordered a latte at the lobby café, and stretched out in a deep leather seat in the sun. He punched the MP3 player and chose some sounds. Something loud. Time for some Tom Petty. He could wait. They’d have to find him.
They did. At five minutes past two a big guy in a suit tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Mr Cyrus?’
It took Curtis a moment to realise the large guy in the expensive shiny suit was talking to him. ‘Ah, yeah. And you are?’ he said, pulling his headphones off.
‘A friend of someone who is very keen to meet you.’ Very cryptic.
Curtis rose from his seat. ‘OK, then. Let’s go meet him.’ He followed the man to the elevators. The large man didn’t say anything else — just stood there filling up the elevator. Curtis noticed that his shoes and watch were shiny, just like the suit. Even his hair was shiny, pulled back in a tight little ponytail. And his knuckles were shiny too. Shiny with old scars. Uh oh, thought Curtis to himself. Shiny Man must be someone’s bag man.
He watched the elevator floor numbers flick up into the twenties. At 24 the doors opened. Curtis found himself releasing a breath he didn’t realise he was holding, and drew in another deep one once he was out in the corridor.
‘After you!’ Curtis smiled cheekily. But Mr Shiny had left his manners down at the lobby. No smile, no talk, just walk. Eventually he stopped to knock softly on a door, then scanned the corridor before he opened it with his own key. Very mysterious. He held the door open, so Curtis accepted the invitation and walked through to find a hand thrust in his direction. He took it and checked out the guy on the other end.
Tall, very tall. Cheap watch, scuffed shoes and a suit desperately in need of a dry-clean. The goatee and the messy blond ponytail somehow seemed to fit, though.
‘Cyrus! Thanks for accepting the invitation. It’s great to meet you. I was hugely impressed with your efforts yesterday. And congratulations. That was one helluva hack, I’m telling you!’
Very friendly. Maybe just a little too friendly. Curtis’s radar was in overdrive.
Cyrus rescued his hand. ‘Not good enough to win, though.’
‘Yes, yes. Prometheus is something else. Please, come in, have a seat.’ The guy gestured to a giant black leather sofa in the middle of the largest hotel room Curtis had ever seen. The bar alone was bigger than his entire apartment. Curtis remained standing.
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Name’s Oliver Branton. But mostly people call me Ollie.’ Ollie launched himself at a king-size lounger, which threatened to swallow him whole, and again waved his arm in the direction of the sofa. ‘Make yourself comfortable. I’m sure you’re keen to find out about the project. Can I get you a drink?’ he said, waving his arm towards the bar this time. Curtis studied Ollie for a moment, and then shook his head and sat.
‘Look Mr Ollie —’
Ollie looked hurt. ‘Please, just Ollie.’
‘OK, Ollie. I got your note. I’m here. But I haven’t agreed to anything. I’m just curious. It’s in my nature.’ Judging by Ollie’s look, Curtis figured he’d peeled off the first layer of Ollie’s schmooze. In fact it seemed to make him relax. Just a little.
‘Of course. Let’s get down to business, shall we?’ Nothing like a rhetorical question to get the ball rolling. Curtis heard a faint shuffle behind him, and turned to find Mr Shiny sitting in a chair he’d pulled up, his jacket hung over the back. Curtis was surprised he wasn’t packing. Paranoia. He’d seen too many Robert de Niro movies. Focus, Curtis. Ollie began his pitch.
‘I’m one of the original organisers of DefCon. Eight years ago we were about as popular as an A-rab at a KKK convention. The Feds were at war with hackers, and well . . . we had to go underground to survive. All because a few idiots were dumb enough to get caught. But I’m sure you know all about that. Anyway, what started out as DefCon soon became a circus. Now it’s a joke. Most of them are script kiddies who come for the partying. Nothing more than vandals and graffiti artists. A few, like yourself, are serious hackers who come for the prize money. You’re the ones we invented DefCon for. So a few years back, we developed BlackHat. It’s not advertised, and entry is by invitation only. We usually only take the top two. We use the comp to weed out the fakes, and each year we’re approached by various sponsors to put up the prize money. Real money. You with me, Curtis?’
Curtis nodded. ‘I’m with you.’
Ollie nodded back. ‘Good.’ He paused to collect his train of thought. ‘So this year we have a very special sponsor, who’s kindly offered a million bucks to the winner. It’s the most we’ve ever had put up.’
‘What’s the catch?’ Curtis figured there had to be one.
‘Catch?’ Ollie was playing dumb, so Curtis decided to help him out.
‘Well, no sponsor I know of has a million bucks to throw around on testing their software. Maybe the government, but they’re hardly going to let a bunch of nobodies loose on their systems. Financial institutions perhaps. But they’d employ a full-time security tech to monitor and patch it for a fraction of that. So my guess is it’s a live network. Is that the catch?’ Curtis heard Mr Shiny shift in his seat. Still, Ollie didn’t look rattled in the slightest.
‘You’re a bright young man, Cyrus. Let’s just say that before I can tell you anymore about BlackHat, I need to be as sure of your integrity as I am of your intelligence.’ Ollie nodded at Mr Shiny, who thrust a sheet of paper and pen under Curtis’s nose.
‘We can’t go any further unless you agree to sign a confidentiality agreement. I’m sure you’ve signed these things before. Just gives us some security. After all, you could be a Fed, for all I know.’ Curtis had to smile at that. So did Ollie. ‘Have a good read. If you decide you don’t want to sign, you’ll be escorted back to your hotel. This meeting never happened. This conversation never took place. Take your time.’
Wunderbar, thought Curtis. He read the agreement. No letterhead. No company name or file reference. Just a standard, everyday confidentiality agreement not to divulge anything to anyone else. Of course some lawyer had been paid a shitload of money to say that in five long paragraphs, which most spellchecks would highlight as ungrammatically long.
Curtis realised he wasn’t going to find out anymore about BlackHat unless he signed. And he needed to know more before he could make a decision. Even if he bailed, as long as he didn’t reveal the nature of the project, he wasn’t going to be in breach of the contract. He had to wonder, though — if BlackHat involved hacking a live network, which was clearly illegal unless it belonged to the sponsor, just how legally binding was this confidentiality agreement going to be? Still, play the game and learn the rules as you go. That’s Hacking 101. He signed on the dotted line: Cyrus V. Let’s see how legally binding that was.
Curtis lifted the agreement over his shoulder to Mr Shiny. ‘I’d like a copy of that, if you don’t mind,’ he said.
Ollie seemed to relax, and began waving his hands in front of him like an honest politician. ‘So tell me, Cyrus, what would you like to know? I’ll try to answer your questions as fully as possible, within the bounds of my confidentiality agreement, of course.’ Yeah, right.
Curtis focused for a moment. ‘OK, Ollie. For starters, who’s the sponsor?’
Ollie smiled apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not at liberty to reveal the identity of the sponsor.’ Surprise, surprise. ‘But I can tell you that your identity won’t be revealed to the sponsor either. Goes both ways.’ Fair enough.
‘Who’s the target?’ asked Curtis nonchalantly. Ollie was obviously expecting this one, and started waving his hands again on cue.
‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to brief you and Prometheus on the project together. It’s quite detailed, and to be fair to both of you, I’d like to make sure you both get exactly the same information at exactly the same time.’
Made sense, Curtis figured. OK, another question. ‘How long have we got?’
‘As long as it takes. BlackHat is goal-oriented, not time-specific.’ Curtis had to fight back a wry smile. Ollie had missed his calling as a college counsellor. ‘But don’t forget you’re competing against one another. And Prometheus comes with a pretty awesome rep.’ Yeah, yeah. Drop the ‘Survivor’ show-host routine, Ollie.
‘So back to my earlier question. It’s a live network?’
This time Ollie nodded seriously. ‘Yes it is, Cyrus.’ Curtis shifted in his seat and stole a look at Mr Shiny, who was intently picking one of his fingernails. He turned back to Ollie, who was still studying him, waiting for some response to the revelation he was going to be doing something unlawful.
Curtis took his time. This was it. The moment of truth. Everything up until now he could explain away. Terry would give him the benefit of the doubt, in view of his emotional state following Roly’s funeral. He and Turk could head back home and their parole officers would be none the wiser. The thing was, he and Turk would be none the richer. A cool mill. It would turn around his screwed-up life, and he could start over, with a clean slate. Sure it was a risk. But hey, this was Vegas.
‘All right,’ said Curtis slowly. Meaningfully. ‘I’m in.’
Ollie slapped his knees in appreciation and pulled himself out of the sofa. ‘Great!’ Even Mr Shiny looked up, the first sign of interest crossing his prize-fighter face.
Ollie stood, waiting expectantly for Curtis to follow. ‘I know you’re going to do real well, man. Real well!’ Curtis stood to find Ollie’s hand on his shoulder, leading him through the vast hotel room.
‘Let’s get down to business, shall we? I know you’re keen to find out what this is all about, and Prometheus is waiting for us in the boardroom. We’re all keen to get this show on the road!’
If it hadn’t been for Ollie’s schmoozey routine, it would all have been too weird. Somehow, the former hacker turned DefCon organiser and hacking agent made the surreal seem normal. Ollie, Curtis and Mr Shiny followed the ceiling-to-floor windows around the corner of the room to another door, where Ollie proceeded to punch in a security PIN.
OK folks, here we go.
It was another atmosphere entirely inside the room that Ollie so euphemistically called a boardroom. The tasteless trappings of easy Vegas money had been replaced by something Curtis felt more closely resembled digital-corporate cool. The room had probably been designed by an advertising exec with too much money. Dark, with lots of black, dark blues and purples, and a shiny black boardroom table. Mr Shiny would feel right at home in here. Banks of monitors and televisions, all silent and black. But the most striking thing were the chairs. Black elliptical half-spheres, which actually hung from the ceiling. Really out there. So unless the chair was facing you directly, you couldn’t see if anyone was in it, let alone who they were. Maybe that’s how these guys preferred to do business.
Ollie gestured towards one of the spheres. ‘Please, Cyrus. Have a seat and we’ll begin.’ Curtis chose a chair at the back of the table. He had to admit though, it was damn comfortable. He wondered if one of these would fit in his apartment back in the Pitts. Probably not. Oh well.
Ollie had ensconced himself in the chair that the board chairman probably used. Either him or the Mafioso don. He paused, making sure he had Curtis’s full attention.
‘First of all, thank you for agreeing to participate in BlackHat. This is a unique competition, for the best of the best. You two have proven yourselves worthy of that title.’ Curtis did a double take around the darkened room.
Two? Prometheus was in the room with him? He searched each of the spherical chairs, most of which he couldn’t see into, but none of them had moved since he’d entered the room. Curtis’s confusion wasn’t going to stop Ollie’s little routine though.
‘Cyrus, meet Prometheus!’
Curtis was excited. There was no denying that. For the past few years he’d been reading about the exploits of the legendary Prometheus. His hacks weren’t necessarily bad or disruptive. It was just that they were so well executed, and his targets were often high-profile organisations and companies who had a reputation for boasting about their security systems. Like the FBI, the State Department and the Air Force. Risky hacks, you had to admit, but Prometheus had somehow pulled them off without getting caught. And as Prometheus’s reputation had grown, so had his penchant for anonymity. As far as Curtis knew, no one knew what he looked like, or where he worked or lived. The only contact he had with other hackers was via the net. Anonymously.
So here he was in the same room as Prometheus. Now that was something. Maybe it wasn’t worth a million bucks, but even if he lost he might learn something along the way. One of the chairs began to swivel round to face Curtis, and in the darkness he did a double take. A real are-my-eyes-working-properly double take. Because sitting in the chair across the table from him was . . . Gina!
For a moment Curtis’s brain let him down. ‘Gina! What are you doing . . .’ Then the smile from across the table and his own brain caught up with each other. Curtis wasn’t amused.
‘What the fuck is this?’ he said, getting up from his chair. This obviously wasn’t what Ollie had planned and even Mr Shiny was starting to look interested. In the wrong sort of way.
‘What’s the problem, Cyrus?’ asked Ollie.
‘She’s the fucking problem. If that’s Prometheus then I’m the President!’
Ollie was clearly getting rattled by the unexpected turn of events. ‘Cyrus, please sit down! I have every reason to believe the person sitting across from you is, in actual fact, the one and only Prometheus.’
His sentence was punctuated by the ruffle of a shiny suit and the gagging odour of overcooked cologne. Curtis decided to sit, and Gina spoke for the first time since she’d been lying naked in bed with him.
‘I wanted to tell you. You have to believe me, Cyrus.’
Curtis examined her closely, trying to work out two things — whether or not she was telling the truth, and whether or not he still wanted to spend another night with her.
‘You won the comp,’ said Curtis. It was more of a statement than a question.
Gina nodded.
‘So why didn’t you stay to collect your prize money?’ Gina smiled the way women sometimes do when a man asks a dumb question but they don’t want to make him feel dumb with the answer.
‘I’m here for the BlackHat. That was just pocket money compared to this. I was invited to compete, and the comp was the test. Now they know I’m Prometheus, and like you, I’m here to find out why we’re here.’ Made sense, Curtis had to admit. But he couldn’t help feeling bitter. And he was going to enjoy it while it lasted. He decided to ignore her.
Curtis returned to Ollie, who was clearly surprised by his outburst, but looking even more convinced he had the real Prometheus sitting in front of him.
‘I wasn’t aware that you two knew each other . . .’
‘We don’t,’ interrupted Curtis. ‘Just get on with it.’
If Ollie didn’t like being spoken to that way, he didn’t show it. He went right on as though nothing had happened. ‘Now, if we can return to why we’re here. I’m going to show you some video. I should add that what I’m about to show you is not confidential, stolen or in breach of copyright in any way. In fact it is currently available on the net. There are two short clips. They’re black and white, so please excuse the quality.’
While Ollie shuffled about with a remote and aimed it at one of the screens, Curtis turned his attention back to Gina. She seemed so unruffled by the whole thing, staring intently at the monitor, waiting for it to come to life. He couldn’t believe it. And she was so beautiful. He couldn’t help it, but she was.
