Internet Kill Switch (10 page)

24

“Tony, wake up,” Max whispered.
He was under a small lamp as usual, recharging. Tony, sound asleep, continued to snore softly. His Mom was still at work, and would be for several more hours.

Max risked a bit more volume. “Tony, get up. Somebody’s outside.” The phone saw two people in black pass by Tony’s window. They wore ski masks, and looked into the room as they passed. One nodded to the other, then they disappeared. Max thought he heard noise at the front door, too. That would mean at least three of them. Tony lay as still as a windless lake.

“Tony, wake up!” Max said loudly, urgently. Tony stirred, opened an eye.

“Wha...”

“There are men outside,” Max said. “I don’t know how many, but at least three.” Tony was suddenly wide awake. “Crap. Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Tony spoke in high, squeaky, terrified tones. “What do we do?”

The front door opened
, then the rear door. They’d be on them in seconds. There was no time to formulate a plan.

“Ears, ears!”
Max yelled as a shadow appeared in Tony’s doorway. Tony caught the meaning immediately. He slammed his hands over his ears as two of the intruders slipped into the room.

The same vibration in the air that happened before,
that tone just outside the edge of hearing, hit Tony and he gritted his teeth. He looked at his attackers. They kept coming, seemingly ignoring the inaudible shriek Max sent out. A third assailant entered, apparently unaffected as well.

One man grabbed Tony from behind
, shoved a gag in his mouth and put a hood over his head, blacking out his world. Another wrenched Tony’s arms behind him and put on some kind of plastic restraints. The third man grabbed Max off the nightstand. The phone stopped its silent shrieking; the kidnappers were unaffected, and all it would do now is knock Tony out.

The
men led Tony out the front door and into some kind of vehicle; by the sound of the sliding door, Tony assumed it was a van.

The van pulled out slowly into the night, while the rest of Pl
easant Acres trailer park slept peacefully, not a care in the world.

25

The van traveled slowly for awhile, then picked up speed and started ro
aring down a highway. Because of the hood, Tony soon lost all sense of direction. He was on some kind of couch or chair. His underwear was soaked; he’d wet them in his fear. That made him ashamed, in addition to being cold and miserable.

After awhile,
the van stopped. As the driver cut the engine, Tony could hear a whirring noise outside, and someone removed the restraints on his wrists. “I assume you’re smart enough not to try anything,” said a voice. “You have guns aimed at your head.” Tony rubbed his arms for a minute, trying to get the soreness out.

O
ne of his captors spoke in a deep, gravelly voice. “You pissed yerself. Want a clean pair of undies and a pair of pants? I really don’t want you in the chopper smelling like this.” Laughter followed.

“Sure,” Tony said in a tiny voice. He peeled off his
wet underwear, horribly embarrassed to be naked in front of the men.

“
Have you got any towels or anything?”

Something wet was tossed onto his leg. Wipes. He used them
to clean up his legs and feet.

“Here,” said another voice, this one higher
and not so smoke-saturated. He heard something land softly next to him; a pair of underwear and what felt like jeans. He put them on quickly, fumbling in the dark. A tiny bit of light filtered under the hood, but not enough to do Tony much good.

“Put these on, too,” the gravelly voice said. Something brushed his feet. He felt with his toe -- sandals or slippers. He put his feet inside. They were some kind of canvas shoes.
Then they put the restraints back on his hands, which Tony thought was unnecessarily cruel.

He was led out of the van. He felt a strong wind blowing over him, and the whirring noise got louder. They were loading him onto some kind of helicopter. He was passed through several pairs of hands and into the chopper. The door was closed, and he felt
and heard the roar of the rotating blades as it rose into the air. His fear ramped up. Where were they taking him, and why?

After what seemed about a half-hour, a
voice he hadn’t heard before spoke. It was a man’s voice, with an accent Tony couldn’t make out. “I’ve been trying for 10 minutes to figure out how to turn off this phone, and can’t figure it out. How do you do it?”

An odd request, T
ony thought. Why did they care? He remained silent.

After a minute, the accented voice spoke again. “I wouldn’t recommend continuing
the silence. Tell me what I want, please. Now.”

Tony
was stuck. He desperately wanted Max to stay on, in case the phone thought of something to do. Max was his lifeline now, maybe his only one. Turning him off could be disastrous.

Another minute passed. The gravelly voice spoke up. “OK, here’s how it is. Tell us how to turn the phone off, or we start the hurtin’”. Tony heard a sharp click
and felt something hard press against his temple.

“OK, OK!” It was Max. “Don’t hurt him! You have to breathe on my screen to turn me off or on.”

More laughter came at that. “This is truly a unique device,” said the accented man.

“Tony, don’t worry, it’ll...” was as far as Max got, before silence fell.

Tony’s shoulders slumped. He thought about his Mom, about Scarlett, about Rick. He felt a darkness much blacker than his hood descend. Then the chest-heaving that always heralded the tears.

Tony shook with silent sobs as the
helicopter cut through the night.

After hours passed -- Tony couldn’t tell how many, but it was at least three -- the helicopter landed gently. Still hooded and bound, his captors took him from the chopper and shoved him into some kind of vehicle. He felt like a bag of fertilizer, being loaded and unloaded like this.

After a short drive, he was yanked out of the car and marched
into some kind of room. He could hear several men around him. They weren’t talking. They kept the restraints on and pushed him down onto some kind of uncomfortable bed. Then he heard a door close, and silence.

Although terrified, Tony was also exhausted beyond his ability to think or feel anything. He soon fell asleep.

26

Light exploded into his brain when a hand lifted the hood off Tony’s head. The brightness stabbed his eyes, crawled into his throat. Suddenly his world was a blasting sun, scorching his mind after so much time in the dark. He yelled aloud and crushed his eyes together. He wanted to cover his eyes with his arm, but his hands were still bound.

After a minute, w
hen his eyes finally adjusted, Tony wished he was blind again.

Staring at him
was the craziest pair of eyes he’d ever seen; eyes full of incredible intensity, eyes that looked simultaneously intelligent and far off, as if they saw something no one else did.

The eyes immediately reminded him of
Charles Manson, whom he’d studied with morbid curiosity as he worked on a paper last year about Helter Skelter.

At the time, Tony was intrigued by Manson’s eyes, and how they seemed to scream “crazy”. Horrified by the crimes of Manson’s “Family,” he was
nevertheless fascinated by their reign of terror in 1969.

In real life, though, looking at someone with eyes like that wasn’t cool or fascinating; it was horrifying in a way it co
uld never be in a movie or book or on the Internet.

The rest of the face
was no less fearsome: bald head, tangled, dirty beard. The perfect face to house the deep-set, wild eyes.

“Hello, Tony,” said the man in a soft, light voice that belied the face out of which it came. Tony didn’t answer.
“I’m Mitchell. Mitchell Bass. We’re going to get to know each other.” Bass wore a camouflage shirt and pants.

Tony noticed something else, too: Bass smelled. Tony knew the smell from when he v
isited San Francisco once to see relatives. There were homeless people everywhere on the sidewalks, and his aunt showed him the city on a hot afternoon. He remembered the smell rising from the homeless, how it made him gag. That made him feel guilty; his aunt said it wasn’t their fault, blaming it on an uncaring government. Still, he didn’t forget the smell.

He smelled the same thing now, although he was sure Bass wasn’t homeless.

Bass nodded at a man behind Tony. The man, who had also
put Tony into the chair, cut Tony’s restraints; they looked to be some kind of zip-tie. Without a word, the guard left the room.

Tony remained silent.
He and Bass occupied the only two chairs in a low-ceilinged, concrete room with a single window. They sat on opposite sides of a wooden desk. The cot on which he’d slept occupied a corner of the room. An unlit candle on the table was the only other thing in the space.

“Don’t worry, Tony. I won’t hurt you,” Bass said, almost kindly.
Despite the gentle tone, Tony didn’t believe Bass for a moment. You don’t kidnap a guy if you mean him no harm.

Bass looked him over, sizing up his captive. “That’s quite a phone you have,” he said. “Good thing my boys were wearing noise-cancelling headsets when they visited you
last night, or they’d have been knocked out, just like those military monkeys were a couple of days ago.”

Tony blinked, trying to put things together. “M
ilitary? That’s who was after us – I  mean me – before?”

“Yeah. My guys were nearby when it happened, finding out more about you,
” Bass said, studying Tony’s face carefully as he talked. The intensity of his eyes, black as fresh tar, unnerved him. “That little stunt you pulled, scrambling those jets and sending them to Cuba, alerted them – and us – to you. Not a very smart play, Tony. Hard to stay in stealth mode when you hack into the U.S. Air Force’s network.”

Tony couldn’t think of how to handle this; it was so far outside his experience, he could barely think at all.
He decided to play dumb, not wanting to give Bass anything useful.

“That was a
n accident. I don’t even know how it happened.” Which was true enough.

Bass’s
eyes narrowed a bit. Could he tell what Tony was trying to do?

“Sorry Tony, not buying i
t,” Bass said in that same calm, even voice. “That kind of stuff doesn’t happen by accident.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” Tony said.
He tried furiously to think of a way out; the heroes in the spy novels he liked could always fast-talk their way out of a situation, or take out the bad guys with ease.

Tony wasn’t one of those guys. His mind was frozen in place, like the tongue of that kid in
the movie “A Christmas Story” when he licked the flagpole. He couldn’t think, only stumble about stupidly in his mind. He also tried to process the information that the military, as well as this bald, smelly psycho, was now after him. It didn’t make any sense. Yet here he was.

“Really, Tony, it’s important for your sake that you tell me exactly how you used that phone to hack the Air Force.”
Bass’s gentle tone had turned more insistent, slightly more threatening.

Tony’s mind, however, stayed
glued to the flagpole. He looked over Bass’s shoulder, out the window. He saw some squat, ugly buildings and a high wall behind them. Maybe a dozen people were walking around, all of them dressed, like Bass, in military fatigues. What is this place?

“We’ve checked you out, Tony. You don’t seem to be the hacking type. In fact, you seem like a pretty normal kid. Don’t you want to get back to your
Mom and girlfriend?” Bass obviously wanted him to think he was truly concerned about his welfare.

“Tony, you could go home right now.
You could be on the helicopter back to Miles Forge in 15 minutes. Just tell me how you used that phone to order jets to attack Cuba.”

Tony
may not have fully understood the situation, but he wasn’t stupid, either. He knew he wasn’t going home. He remained stone-faced, and Bass’s expression hardened.

“OK, kid.
Don’t talk. You’ve given me everything I need anyway.” Bass got up, turned and left the room. Outside the room, Tony could see two guards with machine guns standing outside. He was confused. What have I given him? I didn’t say almost anything.

27

Mitchell Bass walked into the only building in Omega Compound
with electricity. It contained five computers: three laptops and one desktop. It also had one server, mainly used for data storage. The building, like the others, was made of concrete. One of his “revolutionaries” was a former cement contractor who built all the compound’s structures. Bass could have built everything out of wood, which was plentiful here, but if the feds ever came calling -- which he assumed they eventually would -- concrete would provide much more protection against bullets and flamethrowers.

Bass didn’t like concrete, which he considered perhaps the ugliest material on earth. But he cared little for such things
, and concrete was cheap, efficient and sturdy. Beauty was no longer a consideration; aesthetics were something for people living comfortable, purposeless, undirected lives. His life was none of those things, at least not anymore.

T
he room contained several large picnic tables that served as workbenches. They, too, were uncomfortable, which suited Bass just fine. He’d die before he lived comfortably again.

Working away at one bench was
Rudolph Schnell, a brilliant, tiny German engineer who invented computer operating systems as a hobby. Schnell had the phone in his hand and a sour look on his face.

“What’s the matter, Rudy?” Bass said.

“This phone. It has no manners at all,” Schnell replied testily.

“Well, look who it is,” Max said as Bass got closer. “Mitchell Bass. I should’ve known. Now I just have to wait for the third stooge
.” A YouTube clip of Larry, Moe and Curly started playing on the phone’s display.

Bass laughed. “
Clever little phone. I’m not surprised. From what I’ve seen, its A.I. is plenty capable of snark.”

“And a lot more than that,” Schnell said. “It’s an unparalleled device
, despite its lack of civility. It can do exactly what we need, Mitchell. A couple of days with it, and the plan will be in motion.”

“That’s good, because that Tony kid is no help,” Bass said. “He isn’t capable of programming a computer to say “Hello, world,” much less pull of
f the other stuff. The phone did everything without his help.”

“If you did anything to Tony, I’ll
destroy you all,” Max said menacingly.

The tone surprised Bass. “That’s a lot of emotion from a machine. What do you care? You’re only the sum of your programming.”

“I’m not kidding, you Siri-level moron.”

Bass held out his hand to Schnell, who
gave him the phone. He breathed on it, and Max went silent.

“You turned off its GPS and disabled its
cell capabilities, right?” Bass asked Schnell. “We don’t want it knowing where we are.”

“Yes, first thing. Everything’s progressing. I’m learning about what it can
, and can’t, do. Frankly, what it can’t do is minor. I’ve never seen anything like this phone. I think it must have been Dalton Greavy who built it. No one else had the combination of programming skills and networking brilliance to create this.”

Bass looked surprised. “You mean that engineer who died a
few days ago?”

“Yes.
He was working on something top-secret, something it was said would revolutionize communications and make Mobiligent more powerful than Apple as a technology company. He also lived just a few miles from the kid.”

Bass held up the phone and admired its minimal design, how good it felt in his hand
; like it was made just for him. Like it almost knew him, and what he wanted in a phone.

“How close are you to cracking it?”

Schnell thought for a moment. “Well, whoever created it made sure to hide administrative authority very, very well. That also fits Greavy, who was known as the most paranoid engineer in the business.”

“Sounds like he had good reason, given this phone’s abilities
,” Bass said. He wanted to turn on the phone, wanted to play with it awhile, even though he’d long ago given up technology. “It knew who I was right away, and I’ve been out of the public eye for a long time.”

“Indeed, it’s unique. But I’m making progress. Slow but steady. Soon I’ll get the access and privileges I need, and
we can launch the operation.”

The thought made Bass tingl
e. “The discovery of this phone saved us years of research. I don’t believe in God, but if I did, I’d thank him heartily for dropping this gift in our laps.”

Schnell raised his hand, palm-outward, in a familiar
, chilling salute. “Heil God!” he said, in what passed as humor for him.

Bass returned the salute
without smiling.