But wars among the gods happened in a matter of nanoseconds. Within the darkness of the memory inside some server—missile command, power grid, stock exchange, or even an ancient inventory system—the programs slashed and hacked at each other, escalating privileges, modifying stacks, exploiting system vulnerabilities, masking themselves as other programs, overflowing buffers, overwriting memory locations, sabotaging each other like viruses. Maddie was a good enough programmer to at least understand that in such a war, the need to reach over the network for some piece of data could mean a delay of milliseconds—an eternity in the context of the gigahertz clock cycles of modern processors. It made sense that Lowell would want to concentrate most of herself at the scene of the fight.
But that decision would also make her more vulnerable.
<David> Lowell was doing well, and Chanda wasn’t having any more luck breaking in than in his previous attempts. But then Lowell found out that a big chunk of Chanda had already been moved onto the server—she thought he was trying to gain a speed advantage—and she decided this was a chance to cripple him. So instead of being purely defensive, she went on the attack and asked me to block off all communications ports so that he couldn’t escape or get word out. He was trying to send out a bunch of packets, and I captured them, hoping that we could decipher them later and figure out more of what he was trying to do.
“What was that loud noise?” Her mother, in pajamas, said from the door. In her hand was one of the shotguns they owned.
“It was Dad trying to wake me up. Something’s happened.”
Her mother came in and sat down on the bed. She was calm. “The storm we’ve been waiting for?”
“Maybe.”
They turned back to the screen together.
<David> Lowell was ripping out large pieces of Chanda, and he was having a hard time fending her off. She really went for it, pulling in all of our reserve of hoarded exploits onto the server, knowing that if she didn’t destroy all of the pieces of Chanda on the server, she’d have revealed our hand and we’d be at Chanda’s mercy the next time we met. But just as she was about to go for the killing blow, the server was cut off.
Maddie typed frantically.
<Maddie> What do you mean? You shut off all network traffic?
<David> No, someone literally pulled the network cables.
<Maddie> What?
<David> Chanda triggered one of the warning systems that sent the IT staff into high alert. They pulled the network cable as a precaution. Most of Chanda and Lowell were trapped on the server, and I lost my stub and was thrown out.
<Maddie> Did you get back in later to see if Lowell was all right?
<David> Yes, and that was how I discovered that it was a trap. Chanda had been disguising even more of himself on that server than we suspected, and he must have been deliberately showing weakness and offering parts of himself as bait to get Lowell to fully commit herself before triggering the shutoff. After that, he overpowered Lowell and erased all the trapped bits of her.
<Maddie> There must have been backups, right?
<David> Yes, I went to look for them.
“Oh no,” Mom said.
“What?”
Mom put a hand on Maddie’s shoulder. It was a nice feeling to be reminded that she was still a child. These days, too often it had seemed as if Maddie was the only one who understood what was happening.
“It’s an old trick—they used it during the Civil War and the Korean War. It’s like ant bait.”
Maddie thought about the little boxes of poisoned food they left along the foot of the kitchen wall, where ants crawled in and happily carried the food inside back to their colonies so that the poison would accumulate and kill the queen . . .
<Maddie> Stop, Dad! Stop.
<David> Ah, you figured it out, didn’t you? You’re smarter than your old man.
<Maddie> Mom figured it out.
<David> Historians are always more cynical. She’s right. It was yet another trap. While I was congratulating myself on intercepting all Chanda’s attempts to communicate with the network, the packets I captured were a virus, a tracer that I unwittingly ingested. As I went around to check on Lowell’s backups, I revealed their location to Chanda and his allies. They went in after me and finished their attack. Lowell is no more.
<Maddie> I’m sorry, Dad.
<David> She knew the risks. But I haven’t told you the worst. After Chanda killed Lowell on that Indian military server, he waited until communication was restored and did what he always wanted. If you turn on the TV . . .
Maddie and Mom rushed downstairs and turned on the TV. By now, the ruckus they made had awakened Grandma, who grumbled but joined them in front of the big screen.
. . . China and Pakistan denounced the unprovoked Indian attack and launched retaliatory strikes, and it is believed that formal declarations of war will soon follow. The latest estimate of combined civilian casualties on all sides is in the range of two million or more. We have no reason to believe that nuclear weapons were used . . .
. . . We’re waiting for a formal statement by the White House on the latest developments in Asia. Meanwhile, we have reports that missiles apparently originating somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean have struck Havana. We have no confirmation if this is a surprise strike by the United States or some other party . . .
. . . I’m sorry, Jim, we’ve received another breaking news alert in the studio. Russia claims to have shot down multiple NATO drones bearing short-range missiles headed for St. Petersburg. The Kremlin’s statement declares this, I quote, “an American-backed attempt to breach the peace achieved at great cost at the negotiating table in Kiev.” The Russian statement also promises “a forceful and unambiguous response.” NATO forces in Europe have been placed on high alert. There is no formal statement from the White House at this time . . .
Millions of people, Maddie thought. She could not imagine it. On the other side of the globe, one of the gods had unleashed the dogs of war, and millions of people, each with dreams and fears, who ate breakfast and played games and joked with their children, had died. Died.
Maddie ran back upstairs.
<Maddie> You’ve given up?
<David> No. But once Chanda managed to launch those missiles, it was too late. These countries were ready to go at each other’s throats anyway, and all they needed was one spark. All we can do now is to minimize the deaths, but losing Lowell was a big blow, and she showed them all the vulnerabilities we knew. Next time we fight, we’ll be virtually unarmed.