“No need for a medkit, though,” said Lopez, stepping back into their circle. There was blood on his hands. “Too much iron, too many holes. They’re all dead. Your men and those from Fawkes. The last just bled out.”
They all turned to look out over the bodies scattered around them. Savas grimaced at the sight of the downed FBI agents, and the pools of blood clotting underneath them.
“This bastard is building one hell of a body count.”
Cohen held up the USB stick. “Yeah, and he still thinks he holds all the cards. But not this one. Not anymore. We make it go dark, move to the location, and set up. Then we switch it back on. After all this, is there any doubt?”
Houston smiled. “Moth to the flame.”
SAVAS Deposition 5
MR. SAVAS: Everything was happening at once. We worked to clear the parking level. There wasn’t much point in turning it into a crime scene. The whole planet already was one. The bodies were moved, some of the mess fire-hosed away. Found another van, but that was it for a SWAT presence. We were on our own.
CBD: Who then headed to the warehouse?
MR. SAVAS: Me, agents Cohen and Miller. Lopez and Houston. Finally, the woman. Poison.
CBD: The convicted hacker?
MR. SAVAS: That’s the one. Agents Rideout and Lightfoote stayed behind to handle the digital angle of this.
CBD: How did you prevent Fawkes from tracking you?
MR. SAVAS: Simple. We bagged the stick in a shielding case — no signal in or out. For good measure we brought onboard a jammer. We checked it carefully. It was gagged. We sent out three vans in different directions in case any of his drones were watching. Janitors drove them around the city for a while. Not sure what was the key element, but it worked. We weren’t followed.
CBD: And you know that because?
MR. SAVAS: We’re still alive.
CBD: So it was during this time that agent Lightfoote designed the prototype code that infected the entire internet?
MR. SAVAS: Her immune cells. Yes.
CBD: What does that mean?
MR. SAVAS: Go ask a biologist. I don’t know. [INAUDIBLE] All right, look, the idea is simple, at least. Our bodies have immune cells that recognize different bugs and kill them, right? These cells float around inside us waiting for an infection then do their business. The way Angel explained it, she couldn’t attack the worm directly. It was too distributed or something. All over the place. A hundred million computers. If you don’t get all of them, all the parts, it reinfects and spreads like wildfire again. So, her idea was to mimic the immune system. Design programs that would spread themselves like the worm, copying themselves, hacking into computers. But their purpose wasn’t going to be to fuck things up like Fawkes. Her worms were single-minded in going after his worm. She called them immune cells.
[REDACTED]: Then let me get this straight. Your agent created viral, self-replicating code that would break into computers all around the world, including classified networks, including governmental systems?
MR. SAVAS: It was the only way. Like an infection where you only kill 99 % of the bugs with an antibiotic, it can come roaring back. We had to get close to sterilization.
[REDACTED]: And you gave her permission to release this code?
MR. SAVAS: You bet your ass, I did. I had no idea if it would work. I’m not sure she was confident it could work. But it was sure worth a shot. What was the downside? It fails? Back where we were. We accidentally blow up the internet with her code? Well, that’s where we were already!
CBD: Why did she think it could work?
MR. SAVAS: You know, I’m not a programmer or a biologist. She used the worm she had trapped in-house and some other bits of it she had captured across the net, used that code as some sort of matching-recognition system. All of her immune cells, her worms, were randomized with different bits of the code. They would search for matching elements, worm signatures, on any computer her code infected. Match meant two things. Her code would copy itself like crazy and spread the recognition element, amplifying it. It would also erase the worm on that computer, but not before copying the code of that worm for identification elements to spread. The idea was to find new bits of all the different, variable worms around. Over time it should recognize them all and erase them all. Fawkes’ worms had to sit around and wait for his signal. It wasn’t designed to fight off something like Angel was making. If she did it right, and if we had enough time — if it spread fast enough — we might sterilize enough computers so that whatever final action he was planning would fail.
CBD: Sterilize. How can the computers be sterilized if they are infected with her code?
MR. SAVAS: Okay, sterile as far as the Anonymous signal was concerned.
CBD: The Anonymous signal?
MR. SAVAS: Yeah, what we were calling it, the activation Fawkes was going to send to take down civilization.
[REDACTED]: Sounds very far-fetched.
MR. SAVAS: Does it? You saw what was happening. All the attacks on online systems from finance to manufacturing — did all that not happen? And those were test runs! Used to assess and refine the hammer stroke. It was just a matter of time.
[REDACTED]: Yet now all that remains is a wrecked computer infrastructure the world is trying to patch together again. And your agent’s code is the only thing on every computer! No other malware. Nothing from some imaginary mask-wearing global vigilante named Fawkes. No Anonymous Signal.
MR. SAVAS: So now you’re going to condemn her because she made the damned thing work?
[REDACTED]: She isn’t here, Mr. Savas. Which is damning enough. Last seen in the company of the two most wanted fugitives in this nation, murderous terrorists the likes of which we have never seen before. You are the one who has orchestrated every element of this. It is not Angel Lightfoote who is on trial now. But you.
MR. SAVAS: Unless I tell you where she is, right? If I hand her and her damn file from Fawkes over to you, then you’ll cut me some deal and I walk.
[REDACTED]: You won’t be walking, Mr. Savas. Not from this. But there are sentences and there are sentences.
MR. SAVAS: You idiots. If she took the file, it could be copied a million times by now and in a million hands. The horse is out of the barn. Closing the door won’t matter now.
[REDACTED]: One fire at a time, Mr. Savas. One fire at a time.
52
“Well, hi there, Fawkes!”
Angel stared at the computer screen and smiled. Once again buried in the basement of the Javits Federal Building late in the night. Again the mask of Guy Fawkes stared back at her, floating on the screen in front of her.
But this time, the gloating was gone.
“You fucking cunt!”
She laughed. “Don’t you swing that way, Fawkes? Or can I call you Guy? I thought you liked cunts. I know you liked Poison’s cunt. She says you visited all the time.”
“Fuck you!”
“And your pathetic attempt to grab her was as clumsy as your code, which, by the way, my programs are eating through right now. You notice?”