“It’s not a showstopper,” Sophie said defensively. “It just means I have to tweak the master control signal to account for the differences. I was already narrowing it down when they arrested me. If they’d only listened to me -” She shook her head, frustrated. “All I need is access to some more of their neural networks. With only one I couldn’t afford to take it apart. Give me half a dozen to play with and I’ll have the new signal in an hour. Or get me their source code and I can do it all in simulation in five minutes.”
“All you need is six of their drones,” LoTek repeated incredulously. “Or their source code. Well, that’s not asking much, is it?”
Sophie grimaced. “I fucked up, OK? I made a mistake. What do you want me to say? I know I’m supposed to be smarter than everyone else, but you know what, maybe sometimes I’m not smart enough.” She said it like she was admitting a war crime. “I’m doing the best I can. What more do you want?”
“A little humility, maybe,” Danielle said quietly. “A little humanity.”
Sophie looked at her mystified, as if she had spoken in a foreign language. “What I need is to fix this bug. We need that more than we need to stop the Russians. What they’re doing is just a single instance of the general drone problem. If I can’t fix it… ” She shook her head as if that alternative was unthinkable. “But I can. Honestly, it’s not that big a deal. The new signal will still be somewhere in the mobile-phone spectrum. Once I work it out we just need to get the Americans to give me control of all the USA’s cell towers, and I’ll take down every drone anywhere in cell coverage. We can still solve this problem. We’ve still got time.”
I shook my head, overcome by hope and awe. No one could ever accuse Sophie of not thinking big.
“And how exactly did you expect to convince the US government to give an escaped fugitive control over the country’s entire cellular network?” Jesse asked.
“The fugitive part wasn’t supposed to happen,” Sophie admitted. “But they’re not going to launch the full-scale attack until the G8 meeting. That’s a test to see if we can stop them. We’ve got days yet.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Lisa said darkly. “What do you think the Russkies are going to do after they find out you got busted out of Iraq? After yammering on to your interrogators about how you knew about a massive imminent drone attack and you thought you could still stop it? They might decide to jump the gun and push the button right away, never mind the G8.”
Sophie’s good cheer visibly wilted over the space of about two seconds.
“No, no, no.” I scrambled for a reason that was wrong. “How would they know?”
Lisa rolled her eyes. “Right. It’s not like we’re talking about a huge international intelligence network with a whole herd of moles inside the US government.”
We sat in silence.
“She’s right,” Jesse said. “If I were them, I might hit America right away, never mind the G8. Figure they take a day to find out what happened and make their decision. We have to be ready for them to launch tomorrow.”
“This is not good.” Sophie looked pale, and utterly aghast, as if she was considering the possibility and ramifications of failure for the first time. I wondered if this was what came of spending your life succeeding effortlessly beyond the wildest dreams of others; hubris and feet of clay when you were finally truly put to the test. “If they launch tomorrow then I need both a corrected control signal and the US cell network tonight. Or I won’t be ready to stop them. This is not good.”
Jesse said, “We might be able to get you that last one for free.”
“Access to the entire US cell network?”
“That’s the one.”
“How?”
Jesse looked over at LoTek.
“What can I tell you,” the living legend said drily, “we hackers have always been fascinated by the notion of free phone calls. It’s practically tradition. So I have plenty of fingers in those cellular pies already. Don’t you?”
Sophie shook her head. “I don’t do that any more.”
“No fooling. P2 really is retired. I never believed it. Well, I’m not. Shouldn’t take me more than a couple of hours to let slip my Trojan horses and ride roughshod over the various US cellular networks. Once we’ve established control I doubt we’ll be able to keep it for more than five minutes, but that’s all the time you’ll need, right?”
Sophie nodded.
“James said you think their factory is here in Dubai, correct? That’s why we came here in the first place.” She nodded again. “So if we can find it and get you some free samples, we’ve still got a shot at nipping this in the bud before it goes all mushroom cloud on us. American cell coverage isn’t universal, but it does cover all populated areas. We won’t stop every drone, but we can downgrade the attack from complete apocalypse to something more like the World Trade Center.”
I started to breathe easier. We still had a chance.
Then LoTek continued, “On one condition.”
Sophie blinked. “Excuse me?”
“This master signal by definition can’t stay secret, not if you broadcast it. So I assume it varies over time, keyed on some variable. Clock time?”
Sophie nodded warily. “It’s complicated, but effectively it changes every thirty-seven minutes.”
“Right. So we better establish something right now. I will give you access to the US cell network if and only if you tell us how to calculate that signal. Right now, unless I’m much mistaken, you’re the only one who knows it, and I’m sorry, but that’s too much power in one person’s hands. Either you trade your algorithm for our access, or we do no business at all.”
“Then America goes down in flames.”
The British hacker shrugged casually. “We both know this is much bigger than that.”
They looked at each other coolly.
Long seconds ticked past.
“Wait, what?” I leaned forward. “We’re talking about a massive military attack here, I don’t even know how many innocent lives, worst-case maybe millions, and you two are having some kind of Mexican standoff over a theoretical philosophical point? Are you both fucking crazy?”
He looked at me like I was an insect who needed swatting. “It’s only a standoff if your girlfriend makes it a standoff, mate.”
Sophie said, “I am not giving you that algorithm. End of story.”
Silence hung in the room for a second.
“I don’t understand,” Lisa said, “why you’re even beginning to argue about not doing everything we can to save as many people as we can -“
“We are,” Jesse interrupted. “But we’re worried about tomorrow as much as today. Imagine another decade of miniaturization and Moore’s Law and material advances and economies of scale. You’ll have drones of all sizes, everywhere, doing everything. Drone militaries, drone-based economies. Sophie here wants all of them using her Axon designs so that her handpicked cabal can control them all. Sooner or later that will inevitably turn into 1984 squared. I’d rather see America go down in flames than our entire future as a species.”
“So would I,” Sophie said sharply. “And this Russian attack is nothing compared to what will happen if anyone and everyone can use drones to kill with anonymity and impunity. That will inevitably turn into Somalia squared. No deal.”
Another silence fell.
“Well. Not much point in looking for that factory, then.” LoTek shut the laptop before him with a decisive end-of-discussion flourish. “Fuck it all. What do you say we order some room service and get raging drunk? Cristal and caviar all round! Let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow America burns.”
Chapter 74
“All right, calm down, all of you.” Danielle sounded tired and exasperated, as if she dealt with social eruptions like this more often than anyone should have to. “Everybody take a few deep breaths and a few steps back, OK? Let’s not get lost in any abstract intellectual house of cards.”