CAT AND MOUSE

by Matthew Sorrels

Copyright (c) 1990

Gritty, cold snow came in out of the south, tainting the ground with a kind of dirty, damp death. The sulfur in the air was thick enough to cause shortness of breath. It was not a good week. Blaze shuffled down the snow laden walkway with a weariness that seemed to be the mood of the times. Entering through the glassy front doors to Hitachi, Ltd., he smiled with a kind of childish glee. Unlike most people, Blaze was in love with his work. It was the only reason that he was able to get up in the morning and face the pain of the real world. He was in charge of data security research and development at Hitachi, Ltd. His research team was responsible for the design of most of the systems that guarded computers all over the world. He was an ICE designer, Intrusion Counter measure Electronics. It was perhaps one of the dirtiest jobs around. In order to protect a system you had to be able to understand the slime trying to get in. Blaze was a console jockey, but also a talented and dedicated research software engineer. He walked a line few people could understand -- between the slimy underworld and the corporate zaibatsu.

Of late, a lot of small-time jockeys had been making runs at data banks that should have been impenetrable. And they had been succeeding. They were using some new form of worm. The worm was capable of changing some of the basic rules of the matrix and by doing so confuse any protection system running in that space. It was like fixing the space so that zero equals one, anything that relied on that type of basic logic was toast. Right now his team was working on taking out parts of code from the ICE that relied on matrix operations to try and get around this matrix worm.

Every morning his team assembled in the conference room to discuss what was being done. The smoke filled room reeked of sweat that had been sitting around for days on end. You could taste the caffeine reek in the air. Most of the people in the room hadn't slept in days, and they couldn't count on when they would be allowed to sleep again. Even Blaze hadn't slept, he had been in Osaka trying to find the source of the new worm that was giving him only headaches.

"Ok, I know you're all tired. I want a short report from each of you, then we go home. Can't expect you to work forever.", Blaze said as calmly as his overworked nerves could manage.

"Well, it's a nightmare. There's no way we can remove all the matrix dependencies from any of the Orange or Mandarin defense systems. They have had matrix dependencies reduced, but it's not possible to make them effective and not have them depend on the matrix.", John Yater said from his tilted back chair, eyes half-asleep.

"Yes, I have to agree. It's just not possible. O'Yatish has been working on a new minimal ICE that doesn't need any matrix but he doesn't believe it will hold up to any kind of attack that is worth shit.", Lacy said with an eager excitement. They kind of seemed to say, "Let us go. We can't fix it."

"Ok, that's what I felt was inevitable. Right now security is working with the governments of several nations to try and erase all copies of the worm and eliminate whoever or whatever wrote it. But the leads are slim. Word on the street is that some AI wrote the damn thing and started spreading it around. I am almost willing to buy this, except for the fact that we are the only people with AI's that know about that type of stuff. I hope to God that someone working for us here didn't dream up this thing. I don't think that's likely though. I want you all to go home and get some rest. Come back tomorrow and we will see what we can do."

This wasn't good, Blaze thought. It could only mean big trouble. If an AI did this on its own, it would be in violation of the AI act of 2003. Then on the other hand if an AI didn't do it, someone inside of Hitachi must have had a hand in it. Word on the street was that someone was going to take a run at Hitachi, Ltd. and with this new worm that might even be possible. Blaze spent the rest of the day working the outer matrix defenses and putting everyone on alert. If it was going to happen it would happen soon.

Back home in the gloomy corporate owned apartment. Half-a-bottle of rum later. "Should stay sharp tonight," Blaze whispered into the air, "But I'm in the mood to get a little wired." Blaze popped a sleeping pill before laying down in a fitful doze. About a quarter after three, the console woke him. A level one security breach was in progress. Blaze's dizzy head groggily slapped the electrodes to his body and punched into the matrix. The familiar bright lights of Hitachi, Ltd. surrounding him like an old friend. The never ending red matrix lines, criss-crossing into infinite space. This was home. A kind of adrenaline that you couldn't get with drugs. A fire that singed the soul, ground the will, and blurred the mind. A lifeless form in a sea of egoless dark.

He punched the throttle and zipped within four grids of the break-in. It was a melee of ICE and fire. The worm was re-weaving the space while the ICE was doing its best to attack it. In a rhythmless dance, round and round they went. Behind the worm the data jockey was riding through it all. It would not be long before the worm had cut a hole in the most defensive ICE on Earth. It was almost beautiful, but Blaze wasn't there to admire the art, only to stop it. First he flooded the zone with a new anti-worm that he had dreamed up. To the worm it looked like an infected matrix area, causing the real worm to not work its way into that area. The only difference was that this worm didn't do anything but look like trouble. After doing this, Blaze punched behind the console jockey that was ridding the worm. He hadn't noticed Blaze due to a new cybercloak the guys down in research had come up with. From behind, he flooded the space around the pirate with a nice and neat killer virus. The virus was called Kafka-4. Anything it touched was put on trial and then executed --- no pardons, no appeals. It didn't even give him time to defend himself. He was put out like a dying ember, you could almost hear the scream on the other end when his brain fried.

"Loser," Blaze laughed into the glowing matrix.

Now, it was time to flush the worm. Blaze locked off the space segment and then disconnected it from the matrix. Then he refilled the space with a nice, neat, clean new matrix. Of course this could only be done in places that didn't have anything in it, but it was very effective. Then he reactivated the security ICE for that sector.

Before he punched out he decided to take a spin around this area of the matrix just to be safe, after all he would not be able to sleep after this anyway. He noticed something funny over a few grids; some shiny deep dark ICE surrounding a data core. It shouldn't have been there. None of his people had put it there, it must be something one of the other groups had built. Blaze zipped over it real slow, trying to scan it. It was some of the densest ICE he had ever seen. He instructed the AI that ran his home deck to try and break off a sample and analyze it. The deck's data construct peeled off and tried to attack a corner of the black wall, but it completely vanished while Blaze was watching it. This was something serious, it was not only defensive but offense as well.

"Shit. This deck isn't going to cut that. I'm going to have to go into the lab and try to it there," Blaze swore. It was his only chance against ICE like that. In the lab the console had the use of a couple of custom ICE breaking AI's that could attack the ICE at so many different places at once that what ever controlled the ICE would get overloaded and break down. The deck in his apartment, while one of the finest decks money could buy, was nothing compared to the wrath that the Cryle AI could bring down on a wall of ICE.

The wind whipped across his face as he left his car for the front door. The moon rose above the company in an ominous glow of dark power. Coming into the main lab, Blaze switched on Cryle. Cryle was a special version of the NuralBio AI. It was equipped with a very large database of knowledge about dealing with the net and how data was transferred around. When used properly it was the most effective form of ICE-breaking tool ever created.

"Ok, Cryle. Here's the deal. There is some type of ICE taking up most of quadrant F67M. I didn't put it there. No one on my team put it there. I want to know what it is hiding and why. I tried to do a scan with an extra deck image but it was wiped before it even got close. What ever it is, it is very dense and very offensive. The probe didn't even get close enough to start scanning before it was purged. Do a scan on that sector and tell me what you think. I also want a complete summary of all data that has moved into or out of that sector in the past month."

Blaze could taste this hack in the back of his throat. It had been a long time since something had come along that could give him a real challenge. Most of the systems left in the world Blaze had designed or helped with. This was different. The fear and excitement of a virgin jockey was coursing through his veins.

"Blaze, I am not sure what that thing is, but it sure is weird. There has been no traffic into or out, of that sector ever. I went all the way back to the date that sector was created. Something had to put that ICE there, but it did it some way that doesn't generate data traffic. In any case that is the meanest ICE I have ever seen. You can't even get close enough to find out what it is. It is so dense that I am not sure that it was built to be broken. It looks more like a one way door. What ever was put there ain't coming out and it sure is not going to be friendly when you try coming in. Take my advice, leave it alone." Cryle's voice coming out of the walls shook Blaze out of a trauma glaze.

"Sorry, I can't just let it go. Here is what I want to try. I want you to run at it with the new Russian breaker you've been playing with, while I attack it head on with a matrix bomb. I know it will be impossible to control the deck after the bomb goes off, but, with any luck, we can send in a dumb probe after we punch a hole in it. In this case we are not doing a secret run. If I have to level that entire sector, that ICE is coming down."

"Ok. All systems are go. I am sending in the Russian breaker. It will attack the {0,0,0} end of the ICE in one minute, 25 seconds. Be ready to hit the {1,0,0} end with the matrix bomb when the clock on your deck reaches zero. It will count the seconds down. Because you will be in the matrix at the time the bomb goes off I want you to control the release not some subprocess I spawn off; it is safer. All right?", Cryle's metallic tone echoed.

"Let's do it," he screamed. Blaze's voice was barely audible above the massive AI's humming. He jacked into the matrix about a click away from the center of the ICE and began to run forward filling the space in between with a variety of fast processes that would keep the matrix busy and not allow the ICE any room in which to attack his deck. The clock was counting down. Let than thirty seconds. Twenty. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Release. Blaze released the matrix bomb and filled the entire sector with a mass of random logic.

He was put out like a dying ember, you could almost hear the scream on the other end when his brain fried.

"Loser," some AI laughed from the glowing matrix.

Matthew Sorrels considers himself a modern Existentialist. He has been known to write an infinite amount of rip-off cyberpunk that most people feel is very bad. He is currently a junior at Carnegie Mellon in computer is "Anyone who can write in over 10 computer languages fluently should be allowed to write cyberpunk."

ms90+@andrew.cmu.edu