Down the Brink Page 18

  The sweeping executive order is being issued to address the growing economic and public safety crisis caused by an epidemic of military desertions, resignations by law enforcement officers and prison guards, and the widespread voluntary provision of commercial goods and services for no charge.

  In a statement given earlier today, the President explained the rationale behind the order:

  “It’s time to take bold measures to make our nation safe and prosperous again. America’s military forces are hamstrung by desertions, so much so that we can’t provide the support needed by our allies in conflicts around the globe. Strong, effective enforcement of the law has suffered, as has the smooth running of our state and federal prisons. And donated goods and volunteer services have caused tax revenues to decline so severely that municipalities cannot afford to provide even basic services. These negative trends must end, or America’s economy may never recover.”

  The order takes effect at midnight tonight, and it calls for severe penalties for violations. The minimum prison sentence will be one year. The maximum—even for a first-time offense—will be life.

  Zach dropped his fork and stared, open-mouthed, at the TV screen as the talking heads chatted amongst themselves about the President’s order. Something had to be done about the economy, but this? He was no economist, but he could probably think of a thousand different ways to address the problem, none remotely as draconian.

  GSI must have had a hand in this. They had a lobbying arm like no one else. Rumor had it that if they said to jump, governors only hesitated long enough to ask how high. Must be true. And apparently the influence flowed uphill, all the way to the President. The parties never agreed on shit, yet all the governors could agree on this? No way. Not without money, coercion, or both.

  Zach clapped his hands to his face. He’d only meant to take GSI’s profits down a notch. Seemed simple and righteous enough at the time. He never dreamed changing that module would set off a chain of consequences like this. Consequences, hell. It was a complete catastrophe on every possible level. And it was all his fault.

  He jumped up and started pacing the cramped motel room. He had to do something, but what? If only he could reverse what he’d done—at least things would be back to the status quo. Or not. Too much had happened. Too many variables at play. Even more so than when he inadvertently kicked this all off.

  Was there anything he could do that wouldn’t make things worse?

  Zach pulled into the library’s parking lot and cut the engine. Only an hour left before it closed for the night. He leaned back in his seat and stared at the building, his mind churning. He could still just turn around and leave. And maybe that would be the smartest thing to do. He’d done such a great job the last time he decided to fix things. How could he be sure his plan wouldn’t make things even worse?

  Besides that, he was about to do something he knew had been illegal for several years now. Bad enough to be on MoonPop’s radar for what he’d already done. Now he was about to up the ante. And risk prison.

  Zach took a deep breath and went over everything in his mind one more time. Better get it right, because there’d be no do-overs, no turning back. Earlier, in his motel room, he’d worked through all the possible outcomes he could think of. What if this? What if that? What was the worst outcome imaginable, and how would he deal with it if it happened?

  He could never undo what he’d done to the Payoff module—and everything that flowed from it. But he could take things to a completely different level by blowing the whistle. He still had that power—even if he had to break the law to use it. Expose it all, so everyone would know that MoonPop had been nothing more than a Trojan horse to build the for-profit prison industrial complex and ensure GSI’s central role in the American economy.

  Zach squared his shoulders and yanked the keys from the ignition. If he sat around thinking about it too much longer, he’d change his mind. He locked his car and strode up to the library’s entrance while he still had the nerve.

  Once inside, he took a quick look around, then made straight for the bank of public computers in back, clutching a pen and a notepad and trying to look like just another person wanting to browse online job listings. There were only a couple of other people there, and they didn’t even give him a glance. Good. The less anyone noticed him, the better.

  He didn’t really want to do this in a public place, but he couldn’t risk using his own laptop. His IP address could be traced and they’d probably be able to find his MAC address. Not that they couldn’t trace the IP address to the library, but then they’d have to figure out who was on which PC and when, if they even could. That, and switching off at different libraries, should protect him while he got the word out.

  Zach chose the computer at the far end of the long table and logged on with a fake name. Then he set up a new TwitterChat account under yet another fake name. He glanced at the clock. Forty-five minutes left. He didn’t want to be seen leaving right at closing. Might stand out in someone’s mind. Better get it done in a half hour, max, and get the hell out.

  He hastily sent a series of tweets, sometimes copying and retweeting the same words to pump up the tweet volume in the time he had. Only so many ways to get out his message in a limited number of characters anyway.

  #whistleblow trojan horse code in #moonpop changes behavior, heavy users victims, govt to punish, new law

  #whistleblow #moonpop is secret subsidiary of gsi, for-profit prison company—conspiracy to fill prisons

  Zach hoped he got through to the Twitterverse in time. His changed Payoff module was making people behave in ways likely to get them arrested under the President’s new order. If his tweets could prevent some of those arrests, that would be a good start.

  CHAPTER 49

  First Thursday in May, 2022

  Los Lobos, California

  Roy Benetti barely acknowledged the receptionist’s morning greeting as he made straight for his office. Winters. It had to be him. Who else? That bastard blasted the Twitterverse with secret MoonPop information last night. News about MoonPop always traveled fast. But his hints—fuck, his bald-faced assertions—about MoonPop’s involvement in a conspiracy made word spread unbelievably fast, going viral in mere hours.

  He slammed his office door and snatched up the phone. Up to this point, he’d been fine with putting Jess back on normal duty and just having him keep tabs on Winters’s location. He could live with a malcontent, as long as that’s all he was. Simpler than pursuing him and possibly stirring something up. But after disappearing for months, right out of the blue, he’d gone on the offensive. That changed everything.

  Damaging enough the kid figured out MoonPop’s relationship to GSI, and was blasting it out to the world. But that paled in comparison to what he was saying about the game, calling it a Trojan horse. How the hell did he find that out? Only a few select people knew what the Payoff module really did. Everyone else at MoonPop thought it was nothing more than a telemetry routine.

  Roy had a sickening feeling he’d seriously underestimated the kid. And if his hunch was right, Winters was much more than a malcontent. He was a saboteur.

  “Jess? Did you see those tweets about MoonPop?”

  “Who hasn’t?”

  Roy gritted his teeth. “It has to be Winters. Can you trace them and see?”

  “I could track the IP address that posted them, but only if I had access to TwitterChat’s records. That’s not gonna happen without a warrant. Assuming it’s him, we don’t need them anyway. Unless he ditched his laptop, I know where he is.”

  “Where?”

  “Nampa, Idaho. It’s a little west of Boise. Been there about a month. Longest he’s stayed put anywhere since he took off. Before that, he stayed in small towns all around the western states, but never more than two weeks in any one place.”

  “Wonder why he’s been in Nampa so long.”

  “If I had to guess, I’d figure he needed some money by now. Probably got some sort of job, a
t least for a while.”

  “Okay. I hope you’re right and he didn’t just dump the laptop there. I’ll get back to you when I decide what to do about him.”

  Roy dialed another number, tapping his foot as the phone rang and rang. He had to be there. Where else would he be?

  A clearing of the throat. “Trumbull.”

  “Walt. I need you to check something. Right away.”

  “I’m not—” Labored, shaky breathing.

  “This shouldn’t take long. I’ll make sure your access is active so you can log in remotely. I need you to make sure Payoff_External hasn’t been altered.”

  “Altered? For God’s sake, that module’s locked down as tight as it can be. And hardly anyone knows how to code in BAL-II anyway. Why the hell do you think someone altered it?”

  “Someone knows. And so he must have seen it and been able to understand BAL-II. What’s worse, I have reason to believe he may have tampered with it. Just check it. And let me know ASAP what you find.”

  Roy slammed down the phone and folded his arms across his chest. He should have realized this sooner. Much sooner. Winters had to have altered the module. That would explain everything. The drop in crime, the drop in prison occupancy rates. And now he was telling the world what MoonPop really did and how it tied in to GSI.

  What would he do next?

  Roy made a quick call to IT administration to make sure Trumbull’s account was active, then paced the length of his office, glancing at his desk clock each time he passed by. Nothing else mattered right now but hearing back from Trumbull.

  Walt Trumbull hung up the phone and clung to the edge of the kitchen table while he rode out another wave of pain and dizziness. He didn’t need Benetti haranguing him and imposing this kind of stress on him. Not when even his best days were nothing but misery. Besides, it had to be a false alarm.

  He’d protected the Payoff module with the maximum possible file-level security. No one should be able to get at it, and the way it was managed, no one should even care to. Developers were simply instructed to call it wherever the gameplay accessed a new level. They were told it was a utility module for statistics gathering. Nothing sexy. And the calling routine sheltered them from seeing just how protected Payoff was.

  He stared off into the distance, his eyes unfocused. And that code was solid. They covertly tested it before they put it in production. It did exactly what it was designed to do. Even so, something nagged at him. Why had crime dropped so sharply? Sure as hell wasn’t because people had quit playing the damned game.

  Better get it over with and check on it. That sonofabitch Benetti would hound him every hour until he answered his damned question. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he limped down the hall and into his office. He eased himself into the chair with a groan and wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. Catching his breath, he slid open the desk’s center drawer and peeked at his list of passwords, then logged into MoonPop’s system.

  He got right in, no problem. Not much had changed about how to navigate once inside. It brought back memories—bad memories—about getting involved in the damned project in the first place. It was a perverted use for BAL-II, the behavioral modification programming language he developed. BAL-II should have been used to help people, not twist their minds for profit. But he needed that money for his treatments. He thought it would save his life. He thought it would be worth it.

  Walt shook his head. Not even close. All he’d managed to do was prolong his life into a protracted, pain-filled torment. And he’d created the core programming for a sick, immoral business scheme that did nothing but prey on people, destroy their lives. He never should have taken the bait, never should have used his programming skills the way he had, all so GSI could make obscene profits year after year.

  Maybe this slow, agonizing death was his punishment. Life did have a way of evening things out.

  He located the Payoff_External module. The timestamp and user ID showed it was his version. This had to be a wild goose chase. He sighed and opened the module just so he could satisfy Benetti when he called again. He idly began to scroll through the lines of code. And stopped.

  His heart thumped in his chest like a snared rabbit. It couldn’t be. How did someone open the file at all, let alone do it without updating the timestamp and user ID? But it had been changed. This was not the module he wrote.

  He scrolled down, digesting the code as he went. Someone had gotten in there and made a clumsy attempt at reversing the effects. God knew when. But it would explain the drop in the crime rate. No doubt about it.

  Whoever did this obviously didn’t know BAL-II’s important nuances, but had to be damned smart to have gotten as far as he did. Walt clicked a few keys and navigated to the backup library. It’d be easy enough to restore his prior version. That would shut Benetti up.

  Walt slapped his palms onto his desk and gasped. No backup. He checked a few other places. Nothing. And he’d deleted his copy of the file last year in a fit of disgust.

  He grabbed the phone and called Benetti. Might as well get it over with.

  “I can’t believe it, can’t imagine how, but someone did tamper with the module. Looks like whoever it was wanted to reverse the effects. It’s not done completely properly, but it should be effective for the most part.”

  “Jesus. That explains a lot. Have you restored it yet?”

  “No. Can’t. Where’s the backup? I can’t find it anywhere.”

  “We didn’t keep another copy on our server, just to minimize the chance someone would hack into it. You were supposed to keep the backup.”

  “I…uh…got rid of it a while back. Thought I’d never be involved in this again, and that you’d been keeping it backed up.”

  “Great. You’re the only one qualified to touch the thing, and you didn’t keep a copy. God, this just keeps getting worse!”

  Walt held the phone away from his ear while Benetti let out a string of profanity. A loud one. Once he quieted down, he put the phone back to his ear. “Well, who do you think would have done this?”

  “I’ll deal with that. You just get busy recoding it. Don’t worry about the pay. Just get it done. Now.”

  “No.”

  A pause. “What do you mean, no? Don’t you have a hardcopy of it somewhere you can work from?”

  “No. I don’t. Once I delivered it, I destroyed all the work product. I didn’t want to be reminded of it.”

  “You know how critical this module is. Recode it however you have to. Just get it done. We’ll pay whatever you need.”

  The phone shook in Walt’s trembling hand. It would be so easy to say yes. He could probably do the work, and his medical debt was getting way out of hand. Soon his providers would start turning him away, shunting him off to the kind of places that provided the most minimal, desultory care to the destitute.

  “No. I will not do it. I should never have done it in the first place.”

  Walt hung up, then rubbed his rail-thin upper arms. He suddenly felt cold.

  CHAPTER 50

  First Thursday in May, 2022

  Los Lobos, California

  Sammy hit Save, groaned, and kneaded her screaming trapezoids. Should only have taken a couple of hours to wrap up the changes to that module and ship it off to QA, not all damned day. And she wasn’t even done yet. It still errored out when she ran it. Something was screwed up, and she hadn’t the slightest clue what the problem was. Great. Deadline was tomorrow, close of business. She flopped back in her chair and covered her face with her hands. It wasn’t getting any better. Maybe it never would.

  Ever since Zach…oh, what was the word for it? Resigned? Went away? Vanished into thin air? Yeah, that’s more like it. Ever since then, she couldn’t find the joy in anything. Programming a new feature or a new module used to be fun—so much so, she couldn’t believe she got paid to do it. Now it was about as much fun as washing dishes. If that. At least her dishwashing didn’t error out like her code.

  They�
��d only been together for about a month, officially. But a really intense month. The kind of month that made it feel like they had a future together. If Zach had some family problem he had to tend to, he would have told her. He wouldn’t have just disappeared overnight and then ignored all her attempts to reach him. Unless he was someone other than who she thought.

  Sammy took out her cell and checked for the millionth time to see if he’d answered any of her texts, or if she’d missed a call from him. Nope. Nothing. She shook her head and idly scrolled through her TwitterChat feed. Might help to set aside work for a few minutes and let her mind wander aimlessly. Maybe she’d come back fresher.

  She listlessly flicked through her feed. Most of it was the usual self-promoting bullshit or mindless retweets of mindless tweets. A cute kitten picture would be helpful about now, though. She scrolled on.

  Then stopped when she ran into a slew of tweets about MoonPop. She always kept an eye out for MoonPop-related tweets. She liked to track what people thought of the game, how they talked about it among themselves. She hunched over her cell and started reading.

  What the hell?

  The tweets claimed there was a connection between MoonPop and that prison company, GSI. And Trojan horse code? She scrolled back and took a closer look. All from the same TwitterChat account. Mouth open, she leaned back in her chair. Where would someone get such ideas—and why would they tweet about it?

  It’s either some complete nut making shit up, or someone who’d been on the inside, who knew things. She scowled. Zach used to work for GSI. And whenever the subject came up, he either said something negative or clammed up entirely. If it was him tweeting this stuff, it’d explain a lot of things.

  She hastily tapped out an IM.

  zach, r u out there? r u tweeting about moonpop? plz, plz txt me!

  She turned and stared at her PC as if it were a poisonous snake. If Zach was right, who at MoonPop was behind it and how long had it been going on?