Barbecued Gators - A Harry Potter/Transformers Fanfic

Chapter Two

Pentagon – National Military Command Centre

The President was secure, that mean he could now deal with the problem that had led to Air Force One making an emergency landing as well as the cause for cutting server hardlines. This was going to be a very long night. "Whoever did this finally managed to infiltrate our defense network, which is what they tried to do in Qatar, only this time it worked."

"What did they get?"

"We still don't know." Damn, this was going to be an even longer night. Shoving his thoughts to the back of his mind, Keller focused back on the issue at hand.

"Tell me about the virus."

"It's a Spider-bot virus. We're not sure what it's going to do, but it may cripple the system." Resisting the urge to curse, Keller asked a question he was already fairly sure of what the answer would be.

"Can we stop it?"

"Every time we try an anti-virus. It adapts and speeds up. It's like it's not a virus anymore. It's become the system." A simple no would have sufficed, but Keller didn't comment as he pondered that. He may not be a computer whiz like the younger generations, but he knew enough to know that viruses were not supposed to be able to do that. He was not going to be getting much sleep.

Walking down the hallway, Maggie caught sight of Keller and knew she needed to share her theory. Seeing the man tapping on the glass, she held up a finger to buy some time. Catching what Brigham was saying, Maggie knew this was the perfect time to make her presence known.

"Obviously the first phase of a major attack against the US. The only countries with this kina of capability are Russia, North Korea, maybe China."

"I'm sorry, that's not correct."

"Excuse me, young lady. I didn't see you standing there. You would be who?" As one of the military officers tried to escort her out of the room, she spoke up and hoped that she would be asked to stay because she was the one to detect the signal.

"I'm just the analyst that detected the hack." As Keller stood up, Maggie knew that it had worked.

"Hold on. It was you? You did it?"

"Her team." No, she had been the one that had found the signal, but her team had helped in finding it. But now wasn't the time to point that out, nor was she a glory hound.

"Sir, I was just trying to say, they hacked your firewall in ten seconds. Okay. Even a supercomputer with a brute force attack would take twenty years to do that." And what she said was true.. Any hacker knew that getting past the firewall undetected was not going to happen. If they were to even manage it, they wouldn't be able to do it in only ten seconds.

"Maybe you can explain, then, how our latest satellite imagery shows North Korea doubling its naval activity."

"Maybe it's a precaution, because isn't that what we're doing?"

Staring at the young blonde woman, Keller found himself inclined to take her seriously. Her response to Brigham had been a logical observation. They themselves were taking every precaution they could until they knew more. It would be stupid of them not to consider the possibility that other countries would take precautionary measures of their own, since it looked like they were preparing to go to war.

"The signal pattern is learning. It's evolving on its own. And you need to move past Fourier transfers, an-and start considering quantum mechanics."

"There is nothing on Earth that complex."

"What about an organism? A living organism? Maybe some kind of DNA-based computer? And I know that that sounds crazy..."

Holding up his hands, Keller interrupted her. "That's enough. That's enough. We have six floors of analysts working on this thing. Now, if you can find proof to back up your theory, I'm gonna be happy to listen to you. But if you don't get a filter on that brain-mouth thing, you're gonna be off the team. You understand?"