The Liberation Paradox

Lock Down

Sky Meussen 

00:45

(last night)

Sky had just finished his shift in the Paradox Hotel's server room at midnight. He'd gone back to his room on at the other end of the fourteenth floor from the server room. He was tired. He'd just managed to get out of his work clothes and was browsing the headlines on the Gonaways Guardian on his data pad when his phone rang. He was surprised. It was Mr. Miles, Mr. Daniau's right hand man, himself.

"Hello? Mr. Miles?" Sky had answered the phone nervously.

"Sky Meussen? You're the nerd on call tonight, right?"

"Yes, Sir." Sky answered. He didn't get offended at being called "nerd." Mr. Daniau's men used the term so often that it was practically an official job title at this point. Within the organization's culture, "nerd" was simply shorthand to described what Sky and his fellow contractors from Refuge Exnet Security Systems did at the Paradox Hotel

"Good. We've had a security breach in the hotel and Mr. Daniau wants all departments to do a complete security audit starting immediately."

Great. Sky wasn't stupid enough to ask if immediately really meant immediately. Of course it did. So much for sleep. Sky would likely be up the rest of the night running security scans on every one of the googols of files on the servers. "Yes, sir. Let Mr. Daniau know I'll get started on it right away."

"Good." And with that, Mr. Miles hung up without even saying goodbye.

Sky sighed, locked his data pad, changed back into his work clothes, and gathered up his briefcase. While that idiot Marcio slept, Sky would have to pull a thankless all-nighter.

Sky

04:05

It was now a little over three hours now since Sky had started what he had expected to be a pointless and thankless audit of the servers' security. And about one hour since all hell had broken loose with his security scanning protocols. His pointless and thankless task had, in fact, found a security breach. A big one.

Someone had been using a skimmer program to copy Mr. Daniau's accounting records. What's more, whomever had hacked the servers appeared to be an extremely skilled hacker. They had set up a chain of an unknown number of proxies to bounce the data all over the hotel's private network. Each of those proxies was protected by some pretty severe encryption. As far as Sky could tell, the stolen data had bounced off of perhaps dozens of employee cell phones, access terminals, and company data pads. It was going to take forever to break all of that encryption and to track exactly where the data had ultimately ended up.

Sky had run a check of the firewall's log files to see if the data had passed out of the hotel through the firewall. He could find no record of the data having left the hotel and the log files appeared to have been unaltered. Sky felt pretty sure that the stolen accounting data was still somewhere on the hotel's private network, though the thief had done a good job of hiding it. What's more, he felt that if he could find the data, he would find the thief. He suspected that Mr. Daniau would care as much about catching the thief as retrieving the data.

Sky had a vague, unprovable feeling that he already had a primary suspect. As far as he knew, no one in Mr. Daniau's organization had any great deal of skill with computers. That was exactly why he and the rest of the team from Refuge Exnet Security, outside contractors, were here to upgrade their servers for them. But this encryption Sky was looking at was pretty advanced. No one in Mr. Daniau's organization that Sky knew would be able to write encryption like this. Sky doubted if even he himself could do it and his coding skills were far superior to anyone else on the R.E.S. team. Unless someone on his team was playing dumber than they actually were... Isn't that exactly the kind of thing a spy would do?

As soon as Sky had found the breach, he had called Mr. Miles and reported what he'd found. Miles was smarter than the average goon who worked for Mr. Daniau, but not by much. Sky had only needed to explain the situation twice before Mr. Miles indicated that he more-or-less understood and hung up. At first, Sky had wondered if Miles had indeed taken the threat seriously, but about five minutes later, Mr. Daniau himself came into the server room with Mr. Miles close in tow. Sky explained the situation again, this time directly to Mr. Daniau, who understood what he was saying right away.

"Lock down the upper floors," Mr. Daniau said to Miles. "Nobody gets in or out without my say so."

"Yes, sir. Any chance this could be related to the other thing?" Mr. Miles asked his boss.

Mr. Daniau considered that for a moment and then said, "I doubt it, but have the boys bring Stone back in for further questioning, just in case." Sky had no idea what they were talking about, but he was smart enough not to ask.

"Yes, sir," Mr. Miles said and then left to carry out his boss's orders.

Next, Mr. Daniau turned to Sky. "You do the same thing with our private network. Lock it down. Shut down all outside access. The exchange uplink, outside calls, even internal communications. Only keep alive my personal phone and any connections you need to find the stolen data and the son of a bitch who stole it. Above all else, I want the person who stole from me, understand?"

"Yes, Mr. Daniau," Sky responded as he swiveled in his chair to face his data terminal. He got to work carrying out the mobster's orders, shutting down virtually all of the organization's internal network.

There was a moment of tension in the air as Sky worked and the dangerous crime lord watched over his shoulder. Sky felt the question coming before Mr. Daniau even asked it.

"Who do you think might have done this? You must have your suspicions."

Sky stopped and turned back in his chair to address Mr. Daniau directly. "I...I have some ideas, but no solid proof yet. I'm afraid to name any names without proof of wrongdoing, sir."

Mr. Daniau's voice took on an air of authority: "Tell me what you know." This wasn't a suggestion.

What I do know is that if your, um, organization had anyone capable of this level of hacking, I doubt that you would have hired us to upgrade your servers for you."

"Hmm... So you think it may be someone on your own team, then?"

"Possibly..." Sky considered it for a moment. "Probably."

"So that narrows it down to four—no, three people. I doubt you'd have brought this to my attention if you were the spy."

Sky could think of a few reasons why a spy might want to bring attention to his own theft. Primarily if he needed to create a distraction. But he wasn't going to suggest any of that to Mr. Daniau. "Of course not, Mr. Daniau."

Mr. Daniau stared at him intently. The older man held heavy, direct, frighteningly intimate eye contact. Sky felt that the gangster was reading his very soul. This man was no dummy. He knew that Sky's own reporting of the hack didn't fully absolve him of the crime.

At last, Mr. Daniau must have decided that he really was innocent. He placed his hand on Sky's shoulder. "Good job finding this, Sky. Now find me that fucking thief."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Daniau." Sky turned back in his chair and got back to work shutting down the network.