He put his vape pen down and got up, then pointed to the NASA ground station at White Sands that handled the MICS terminal. “I’ve worked with NASA before and they are a bunch of idiots. All of them. Diversity and legacy hires with no idea how to do ‘space’ in the twenty-first century. Their security is probably atrocious.”
“What are we going to learn there that we haven’t already?” Parkowski argued. “I’ve seen the MICS logs.”
“But I haven’t,” Chang said, “and I’d love to take a look at them.”
“As would I,” DePresti added.
Parkowski shook her head. “I think the first place to look is here,” she said as she pointed at her own freshly-drawn oval. “Panspermia makes video games, they’re not a defense contractor or government agency. They don’t even have the word ‘security’ in their vocabulary.”
“That… that actually makes a lot of sense,” Chang said. “Nintendo got hacked just last year and the source code for a whole bunch of Pokémon games got released out into the wild. They apparently had a repository which was using an old version of version-control software that had an exploit already out and floating around. The software’s developer had patched it, Nintendo just hadn’t bothered to install the fix because they don’t care about security. And that’s Nintendo. I can’t imagine Panspermia is much better.”
“There’s a history of video game companies being hacked,” DePresti continued. “Valve, Microsoft, Sony, EA, Capcom, they’ve all been hacked in the last twenty years or so. I think the number of creative types there fosters a collaborative environment, which is good for development, but not much so for security.”
“Sounds like a weak spot,” Chang said.
Parkowski frowned. “But, do we need to go in person?”
DePresti tilted his head towards her. “What do you mean?”
“I think White Sands is out, at least for now,” the Aering engineer replied. “That’s a multi-day trip, and the other two locations are just a few hours away. But, you said we need to go in person to OuterTek. We don’t to access Panspermia.”
Chang smiled and rocked back and forth slowly. “I like how you think.”
She turned to her boyfriend. “Can you get me into the OuterTek plant, or do I need to wait in the car?”
DePresti thought for a moment. “Shoot, I’m not sure if I can get you in,” he said slowly. “Aering is part of the American Rocket Alliance, OuterTek’s main competitor for government launch contracts, and I doubt they’re just going to let you in. However, their Wi-Fi is notoriously open. I bet if you have a laptop in the parking lot you could get access. I’ll write down the passwords and one of them should work.”
Parkowski shrugged, a painful gesture with her injured shoulder. “Works for me.”
“Great,” Chang said as he clasped his hands together. “It’s about four o’clock now, it’ll take me the better part of today and tomorrow to get everything together. How about we spend tomorrow planning and making sure that we have everything ready, and then you two drive into Hawthorne bright and early?”
DePresti and Parkowski ate a quick dinner of Chang’s leftovers, which were surprisingly good, while he made some phone calls. Chang came back while they were finishing up and doing the dishes in the dilapidated house’s kitchen.
“So, good news first,” he said while getting a frozen dinner out of the refrigerator. “I’ve got a guy who will come and fix up your car. He’ll do all of the work here, no questions asked, as long as he’s paid in cash.”
“How much does he want?” DePresti asked.
“Thousand bucks for labor, plus parts,” Chang replied. “I’ll cover you until you can pay me back.”
“Thanks,” DePresti said with a smile.
“But that’s going to take a while,” Chang said. “Which is the bad news.”
“How long?” Parkowski asked.
“Three to four weeks. Mostly for him to get all of the parts together.”
“Damn,” Parkowski said. “So if the Subaru is out of commission, how do we get back to the city?”
“I’ve got two trucks, you guys can take the Chevy,” Chang responded. “It’s older, and has a lot of miles on it, but works great.”
“What about making sure no one comes looking for us?” Parkowski asked. “I’ve got a week of work before the plant shuts down for the holidays. Plus, if my parents don’t hear from me in the next few days they’re going to start to worry.”
“I’ll get a VOIP line set up via my Brazilian pirate satellite,” he said. “You can make all of your calls through that. It’s completely untraceable unless someone wants to pay a visit to a Sao Paulo ISP.”
“Got it.”
They changed Parkowski’s bandage again, this time a little less painfully, and went to bed.
Parkowski slept well next to DePresti in the guest room downstairs.
The next morning she called in to work. “Rachel, I don’t think I can come in today,” she said when she finally got a hold of her friend. “I heard about Dr. Pham and I just can’t do it. I’ve been a wreck since I heard the news.”
And then some, she thought.
“It’s ok, I’m one of the only people here,” Kim responded. “Dr. Rosen told those of us who came in about it. There’s tape and plastic over everything, Grace, it’s almost like they’re going to shut us down for good.”
“Did he say anything about that?” Parkowski asked.
“No, other than he said that the ACHILLES units were safe and he wasn’t sure when we’d be on the sticks again.”
“Copy. I don’t know when I’m going to be coming back in, probably not before the Christmas shutdown.”
“Got it. I’ll let the leadership team here know. Is everything ok?”
“As good as it can be.”
She then called her mother and told her she wouldn’t be home for Thanksgiving. Her mom was surprised, and a little disappointed.
DePresti did the same with his commander and his parents.
They were now free of any external commitments.
The next morning, they slept in, and then had a quiet brunch.
At noon, Chang brought them the Chevy’s keys and a small bag, which had the flash drive and a pair of burner phones that he had been saving, as well a laptop bag and DePresti’s map that he had bought at the gas station. “Keep them off the internet if you can,” he explained. “They’ve never been connected to anything. The OuterTek network is fine, but don’t do Starbucks or anything like that. They’ll need to be wiped if they’re connected to any public nets.”
“Got it, thanks,” Parkowski said.
He handed her a large, old-looking cell phone as well. “This is a satellite phone. Please try to use it as little as possible, I have to pay an arm and a leg every time a call is made.”
“Got that too.”
Chang nodded and went back inside the house.Parkowski smiled and handed the keys to DePresti. “You drive.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The drive from Barstow back into the city was uneventful.
They didn’t speak much. DePresti focused on the drive while she kept her head on a swivel. She was high alert for a tailing vehicle.
The two of them grabbed fast food for lunch and drove back through Los Angeles County towards El Segundo.
The OuterTek plant was just a few exits east on the 105 freeway from the area around the airport that contained both Los Angeles Space Force Base as well as the Aering plant.
Parkowski had never been to the huge, sprawling facility, but could easily tell where it was from the interstate. A giant, two-hundred-foot-plus rocket, looking more like a smokestack than a launch vehicle, loomed over the complex from its stand just outside the main building. It was the first Shrike 9 that OuterTek had launched and recovered on an autonomous barge off the coast of Florida. Rather than reuse it like they did their other rockets, their founder and CEO, an eccentric South African-born billionaire, had put it on display.