Goblinopolis, The Tol Chronicles, Book 1 (10 page)

Carnilox was logging every packet transferred between the intruder’s box and the contest network. He was so engrossed in the intruder’s movements, in fact, that he almost forgot about the contest itself. Shaking himself loose from the hunt for a moment, he set up a quick filter to slow down any attempts by the interloper to interfere with his processes and then sent the winning file over to the judges. This time it worked perfectly. He was so interested in the mystery hacker, however, that he scarcely gave his long-sought success a second thought. A few seconds later the contest was halted by the head judge.

“We have a winner,” the head judge announced.

There was an avian in Tragacanth that lived predominantly in the mountains. It was a largish, solid black species, highly intelligent and tough as nails, but hard to observe due to its solitary and secretive nature. Avianologists had spent years just trying to map out the natural history of this bird, the Northern Boogla, but even today not a great deal was known about it. Local folklore held it in high esteem, though, ascribing to it the qualities of courage, wisdom, stealth, and speed. In the indigenous mythology of Tragacanth the boogla was credited with bringing knowledge and understanding, such as it was, to the goblin race. In these enlightened times, of course, no one but a few eccentrics who adhered to the old ways knew or cared about such things.

All of the keyboards were frozen the moment the contest was declared to be over. The judges would not be announcing the outcome just yet; they had to confer with one another and validate the winner’s efforts. Rexingrasha and Lempo were each convinced they’d triumphed, and grinned knowingly at the crowd, the other contestants, and each other. Both of them were a little disconcerted by the other’s smug expression, but didn’t let it show.

Carnilox was still preoccupied with tracking the intruder. He’d switched over to his own stripped-down keyboard controller in time to evade the net admin’s ‘disable all’ command. There hadn’t been any activity from the intruder’s box for a while. Maybe he had given up, now that the contest was over. The connection was still active, though. On a hunch, Carnilox punched up the sniffer. It was idle at the moment, but as he watched packets began to flow furiously. They were coming from the intruder’s address and targeted the judges’ station. He grabbed a few and perused them in detail. They seemed to be comprised of text, apparently formatted in tables or some other row and column-oriented manner. He ran them through his autoformat utility and gasped involuntarily at the results.

The judges conferred amongst themselves for a few minutes, then reached a unanimous consensus. They were about to announce their decision when their monitors suddenly flickered to life simultaneously. They watched as a transcript of sorts scrolled slowly across the screen. The same transcript was in fact also appearing on all the contestants’ screens, as well as on the huge public screen provided for conveying messages and contest status to the audience.

0992.13: Node RNET_NOC_1 joined partitioned network CONTEST_NET via administrative override. Username:
SILDRAN. Flags: stealth, no_id

0992.36: RNET_NOC_1 issued NET_BLOCK_ALL

0992.98: RNET_NOC_1 issued RCONTROL CONTEST_NODE_1

0993.45: RNET_NOC_1 issued rrun kingmaker.mod -s 145

0993.94: RNET_NOC_1 issued serase –x kingmaker.mod; 34rt67km.temp; yt5e43km.temp

0994.55: RNET_NOC_1 issued rrun scrublogs; serase –x scrublogs

0994.78: RNET_NOC_1 issued rtrans sig.file > CONTEST
_NODE_JUDGES_ALL

0995.02: RNET_NOC_1 issued stop RCONTROL CONTEST
_NODE_1

0995.34: RNET_NOC_1 issued NET_RELEASE_ALL

0996.13: RNET_NOC_1 left CONTEST_NET

# show rtrans queue -t

2 files in queue:

File Name Timestamp Sender

sig.file_11 0993.01 CONTEST_NODE_11

sig.file_2 0993.34 CONTEST_NODE_2

# show users -n CONTEST_NODE_2,CONTEST_
NODE_11

Node User ID

CONTEST_NODE_2 lempo1

CONTEST_NODE_11 carnilox

This public service message brought to you by Boogla. Glory to Tragacanth!

There was absolute silence for about ten seconds, and then a low murmuring began in the crowd, rising rapidly to a regular din. The audience was composed primarily of others in the data handling industry, since not many folks outside this field would be interested in a hack-off, even if it were being conducted for the purpose of choosing a new sovereign. Consequently, enough of them understood the implications of the posted log that public disenchantment with the king hit an all-time high in a matter of two minutes. The public in question, in fact, turned into rather an ugly mob (goblins tend to do that at the drop of a hat; it’s genetic), and stormed the stage, demanding Rexingrasha’s immediate surrender of the crown and/or various body parts.

The situation was deteriorating with each passing moment. The king’s personal guard swept up and surrounded him, weapons drawn, in case the crowd decided to take matters into their own hands. Things were looking grim all around when suddenly the head judge stood up and raised his hands for silence.

“Fellow citizens of Tragacanth: in light of the evidence presented to us by the person who calls himself ‘Boogla,’ the veracity of which the judging panel has independently verified, and in strict adherence to the rules set forth for this competition, we now hereby declare the winner to be contestant number 11: Carnilox of Goblinopolis. Long live the King!”

The crowd murmured their approval, crescendoing into a cheer when Carnilox rose from his seat at the urging of the judges. It was beginning to sink in that he’d won, but something about the whole Boogla episode still had a powerful grip on his mind. He stumbled to the dais at the front of the stage and stared out at the sea of beaming faces. Finally he gathered his wits enough to address them. Fortunately, he’d memorized the canned acceptance speech beforehand, just in case.

“I humbly accept the charge that has been thrust upon me today, and promise that I will rule to the best of my ability, exhibiting neither malice nor undue favor toward any but those who have earned them by their actions. Further, I will devote myself utterly to the defense of Tragacanth against its myriad enemies, and to the betterment of all its citizens, be they rich or poor. This I, Carnilox, do now solemnly affirm and attest.”

It was a speech right out of the public oratory textbooks, and it found wide favor amongst the crowd. Even Rexingrasha grudgingly admitted to himself that it was well executed. That was scarce consolation for his having lost the Royal Diadem to this pathetic little geek, though.

Despite considerable effort on his part, Carnilox, who took the name Haxxos when he ascended the throne of Tragacanth, was never conclusively able to prove the identity of his benefactor ‘Boogla.’ There were numerous theories and conjectures, but no definitive evidence ever surfaced. Boogla was such a superlative hacker that even the Senior Security Analysts at RNOC, the best of the best, were unable to track him. And so Boogla and his exploits passed into legend in the data handling community, the label ‘Boogla’ being applied reverently thereafter to all of the most technically proficient and audacious actions.

Chapter Eight:
Operation Tumble

A
spet knew this history, of course: knew it well. Learning it was required of every child attending school in Tragacanth, and one component of the orientation of attendees of The Seminar was another intensive review. He’d always been fascinated by the stories about Boogla, although in truth he didn’t completely believe them. He knew from experience that legends have a way of expanding to fill the volume available to them, and in a field as esoteric as data handling that was a hefty volume. Still, the legend of Boogla was an inspiring one for someone with his aspirations. Aspet even dreamt one night that Boogla intervened on his behalf during his own challenge to the throne.

The day he finished The Seminar was also the day the messages began. They were cryptic and obscure, at first; even taunting. Despite his considerable prowess at the keyboard, he couldn’t trace where they were coming from past the first couple of hops. The sender was obviously an expert at clandestine communications. He could only assume he’d been singled out for this treatment as a successful alumnus of The Seminar, although that information was supposed to be secret until and unless the student chose to challenge for the crown. Still, someone with the computer acumen of his taunter probably wasn’t seriously put off by the access controls placed on the Seminar attendees’ database.

Aspet decided to ignore the messages initially. They weren’t really threatening or disturbing, just enigmatic. After a few days, though, the tone of the communications began to soften and Aspet felt a trickle of compassion for the anonymous author. He was apparently frustrated by some societal constriction, although he never made it clear what it was, exactly. He was obviously a
very
talented hacker, and despite the fact that it was contrary to his own interests, Aspet couldn’t help replying finally, asking the mystery person why he didn’t compete for the crown himself: he was definitely well-qualified.

There was no direct answer to his question, but from that point on the messages were friendlier: gone was the derisive rhetoric and underlying current of hostility. The mystery correspondent now provided shrewd political insights, valuable snatches of code the like of which Aspet had never before seen, and even the occasional bit of humor, so Aspet replied in kind. After a few more weeks they had developed an online friendship of sorts. Aspet had noticed that his pen pal never signed his messages with any name, so one day he wrote:

“Hey, I’m a little tired of just saying ‘hey.’ What do you want to be called?”

It took much longer than usual for the reply to come back. He hoped he hadn’t inadvertently insulted his new friend. When the response finally did come, it was brief and to the point:

“I am called Boogla.”

Aspet was taken aback for a second or two, but then he chuckled.

“Sure you are, dude. And they call me Mordik, Goblin God of Fertility.”

Still, he had to admit that ‘Boogla’s’ hacking skills were considerable. He’d like to meet the guy, no matter what he called himself. After all, having a rampant ego wasn’t exactly a foreign trait in this arena.

He couldn’t help but be a little sarcastic.

He hoped he wasn’t being too offensive, but surely anyone naming himself after a demigod had to expect this sort of reaction.

There was an even longer pause this time.

B> It is wrong of you to assume that there can be only one named Boogla for all time.

Aspet scratched his head. I guess he had a point there.

He was still considering this exchange humorous, but not quite so humorous as before.

B> Boogla IV, actually. My great grandmother was the original.

Aspet did a double take.

mother
? Are you telling me that Boogla was a
girl
?

B> Indubitably. As have been the other three Booglas since.

Aspet wasn’t handling this well. His hands shook a little as he typed.

you’re
a girl, too?

B> That is indeed what I’m saying. You appear surprised...

He sputtered out loud to himself for a few moments. “Well, I, uh, yeah...I am.”

B> Understood. We’re discouraged from pursuing that goal for our entire lives. Yet some of us, probably many more than you realize, nevertheless feel the pull. Males have no monopoly on technology, no matter what they tell themselves in order to feel superior. It is taught in our circles, in fact, that the very pinnacles of hacking are obtainable only by females; males lack some certain combination of genetics and behavioral conditioning that prevents them from entering into the mental state necessary for the most esoteric work.

Aspet rolled his eyes. This was getting rather ridiculously dogmatic, in his opinion.