Chapter 3: CONTROL
The school group went inside the gigantic skyscraper. The lobby was very luxurious - the tiles were white, gleaming with cleanliness, and the reception desk was made from a light brown wood that went very well with the interior. Around the reception there were fountains flowing monotonously and calmly, forming the most relaxing harmony. There were robots everywhere. Some cleaned the big windows, others talked to clients and arranged documents, but their main point was obvious - to showcase the company's progress in artificial intelligence.
Arthur was stressed out. He knew if he was caught, he would probably be sent to jail until he is in his late forties. He took a deep breath in and exhaled. It was unlikely for someone to suspect a student of doing anything dangerous, so if he was just careful he wouldn't have any problems.
Arthur's mission was simple - he had to get in, hijack as much data as possible, leave open ports for future hacking, and destroy servers he could. What made this city special was its security system - K.A.O.S(or KEEP ALIVE OPERATING SYSTEM), which was surveilling everything. It had information about every object and every living person's activity. But in our universe, there is no such thing as perfection. This "perfect" system had its weaknesses and a group of hackers under the name "CONTROL" used them to their benefit. K.A.O.S was attacked daily by hackers, but they all couldn't break it in the end, that is what made CONTROL so special and dangerous in the eyes of the government. They found a way to become invisible to the system, untrackable. What concerned the rulers the most was that the number of people in this group was unknown and they had a big influence on the lower sectors of the city, where the law couldn't do them much good.
- Hello students. My name is Stacy Welfare. I am a worker here at SaiNDai and today I will be walking you around our new robot construction facility and our little museum section. What you will be seeing here are actual models of artificial intelligence used in many regions of the city's industry. We don't have much time, so let's get going.
They first went through the museum section. The robots there weren't very impressive - factory robots, maid robots, waitresses, and host robots could be seen everywhere in the city. While Stacy was talking to the students and no one was watching, Arthur took out from his pocket a black little button-like gadget that he had made. While he was holding it in his right hand, he clicked it, and from it, small six legs appeared and started crawling incredibly fast below his clothes. It went down his right leg and started crawling towards the exhibit in front of Arthur. As soon as it reached the exhibit its color changed from black to the color of the surface it was on, so it was impossible for the naked eye to spot it. It drilled its legs, and a message on Arthur's phone appeared. He read it:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPIDER PLUG#1 ACTIVATED AND PLACED - SENDING INFORMATION OF THE ITEM... ITEM: Buttler Robot DESCRIPTION: A robot used for housing purposes. Usually, people in sectors below clearance level 3 buy these. Has a 5-year warranty with one free quality examination every year.
SPIDER PLUG#1 CAN CONNECT PHONE TO NETWORK. ASKING PERMISSION.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Nice. Setting up a bunch more should be enough to have a good connection from home. If only I find the chance to put one on actual server. Then downloading the information and destroying it would be child's play.* Arthur threw the spider plugs while his group was walking around different exhibits, and his phone was nonstop ringing because of the notifications the tiny robots sent.
- Okay boys and girls, I know you have been waiting with excitement for this part of our trip. Remember to not touch anything without my permission and do not take photos while we are in the facility. Also, stay together as a group.
The school group and Stacy went to a big elevator(maybe fifty people could have fit in) and went two levels below the ground, level R. When the elevator doors opened, the group could see a giant labyrinth of packed electronics put on large shelves ready to be picked up by cranes. There were robots flying left and right doing different tasks, people ordering them what to do, and big screens flashing the text K.A.O.S. The school group was in a corridor above the scenery, watching through the windows. The corridor made a quadrant of the ceiling of the huge room like the students were watching some kind of experiment. In the middle of the room was a twenty by twenty meters platform, on which the robots and workers put packages ready to be taken to the real world.
- Okay people - said Stacy - Right now we are the check-in. Our personnel will check you for safety measures, and we can continue our tour to the Sparker and room Zero.
Room Zero. As soon as this word reached Arthur's ears his pulse dropped. This room was the main server room, where they were keeping their supercomputer the size of a statue. If he could only get one of his spider plugs there he could call this mission accomplished. Not only he could get to their main computer, but from it, he could download every data he wanted for this company.
The personnel came into the room with a special robot that looked like a moving box with four wheels and two big blue eyes on a screen. After the robot scanned the kids, his eyes turned green, made a happy gesture, and the robot went back from where it came from. The group went through a censor door and continued their walk in the corridor.
- As you can see we are at the very top of the facility, around a hundred meters in the air. From here there is a view of everything happening in the factory. Unfortunately, we will not go down to the bottom level as there are confidential projects of the company.
As the group continued their journey and Arthur his mission, in another room in the robot facility:
- Sir, we can't locate from where the attacks on our system are happening. We tried our best but to no avail.
- Cut the whining. Your job is to keep the system safe and secure. If you can't do that there is no place for people like you here.
- But, sir, here we are talking about...
- I don't care who did it. These people that call themselves CONTROL must be stopped! I can't stand all this noise, I am going out to breathe some fresh air. When I come back I want the system in perfect shape, if not pack your things and don't return here.
The school group was now to the Spark, a machine that gives birth to the soul of the robots.
- The robot is put below a big machine that generated a special voltage in specific regions of the robot's artificial brain. After that, the machine plugs itself into the middle of the brain and sends our program code that runs the machines. Our programmers spent countless hours making the program, and many of them couldn't live to see their result, but after nearly a century we have a working machine that sparks life in our helping buddies, a revolutionary machine that our great ancestors before the cataclysm did not have - said Stacy as much excited as the students surrounding her. Arthur was amazed no less than everyone else. He didn't know a machine like this existed, and the fact that took nearly a century to be developed made him feel like he was standing in front of humanity's pinnacle of science. Arthur looked around and saw a few robots who waited their turn for the Sparker to bring them to life. He took one spider plug and activated it. It jumped out of his hand onto his shoe and climbed on the robot. But instead of drilling itself into the robot, it sensed something else. The spider plug started crawling towards the Sparker for no reason. Arthur had designed them to crawl in the direction that his phoned gave, like a controller, so behavior like this was unusual. Arthur saw his tiny creation going towards the giant man-built machine full of science and started panicking. He gave commands to the spider to go back to the robot, but it didn't listen. He even ordered it to self-destruct. The spider plug crawled onto the wall, then to the ceiling where the machine was hooked and climbed on it. When it reached its end, where it gave voltage to the robots, Arthur was already pale and his heart was ready to explode. He felt like he was crushing his phone in his pocket. The spider plug turned into the surface color and stopped moving.
- Okay kids, now we are going to the famous room Zero.
Arthur's heart started beating again. Seeing hope again, Arthur rushed to the machine and started clicking on his phone giving commands to the spider.
*Please come down, destroy yourself, whatever, please! I can't leave it there or someone will find it!*
- A pretty interesting machine, right?
Arthur jumped screaming. His heart stopped beating for the second time.
- Sorry, didn't mean to scare you.
The boy put immediately his phone back into his pocket and swallowed heavily.
*Did he see? I am finished. I have to act accordingly.*
- Well yes I found the process of sparking the robots pretty interesting - said Arthur breathing heavily and his voice cracking.
- By your reaction, I guess you recognize me. My team and I developed this machine for about fifty years. Can you believe it? Fifty years. I gave my meaningless life for this creation before us. The limit to humanity's genius right now is before you. A single program that could power up consciousness.
Arthur started to regain himself. He looked at the man next to him. He was old, without much hair, and wore a white coat and normal pants. On his chest, it was written: Doctor Hillman. A bell rang in his head - Karl Hillman, the genius who invented the program that ran all the products of SaiNDai, and the inventor of many new physical laws. A man who had a great influence on the boy, to the point of being a role model for him. Arthur started building his own robot because of this man, who is right now in front of him.
- I-I-I didn't expect to see you here sir. I am very pleased to meet you. I am a big fan. I love all of your work and your speeches against today's system. I even started developing my own robot... - Arthur started ranting things so fast Hillman couldn't understand what he was saying.
- Thank you, l appreciate it - the doctor said laughingly - nowadays, no one respects the ones that put their days into securing human existence. But who am I to complain? Anyway, am I holding you back from your group? You are Arthur, right? They were looking for you.
- Uhh yes - Arthur remembered what Stacy said to them. "Do not touch anything and don't take photos. Also, stay together as a group." He started panicking again - I have to go, sir, otherwise I might have trouble later, but before I go, can I have an autograph? - and Arthur put a notebook out of his bag. The scientist wrote his signature on it, and the boy ran to the group. The doctor was left alone in the room. He leaned against the rail in front of the machine and continued his break from the chaos that was happening to their systems with CONTROL.
Arthur got back to his group. He was totally confused. He didn't know how to feel. All the stress was killing him from the inside. Maybe he took it way too seriously. Maybe it wasn't that serious, and his teenage brain, which was thirsty for adventures, was just adding to the environment.
The group entered room Zero. It was dark, and many monitors were on, showing different data. The room was full of people - programmers, secretaries, bosses, bosses of bosses. They were looking at a very big monitor on the wall, which was flashing in red "DATA BREACH". The whole room looked like it was monitoring a rocket launch, and the people were talking to the team on it - they were arguing and waiting for orders from the one who seemed like the boss around here. Total chaos.
- Did we come at the wrong time?
- No don't worry. This is the perfect time to show the kids how experts deal with problems - said Hillman behind them.
- Doctor Karl Hillman! Are you sure we can stay with you?
- You are allowed as long as you don't disturb our work.
- Kids behave yourselves! This is a one-time offer! Don't miss it!
The group entered and the door behind them was shut. Suddenly everything became much darker, only blue light could be seen from all the monitors. Pure silence. Hillman started giving orders to everyone.
- Didn't I tell you something about the system?
- Sir, we try our best...
- You are fired. Get out of here.
Arthur was shocked by the change of character from the doctor.
*I guess this is how it is in tense situations. As much as we try, we can't act like our usual selves.*
Arthur took out again some of his spider plugs. He activated them and spread them across the room to gain access. When he did that on the big screen flashing red appeared the text "NEW DATA ATTACKS: 4". Arthur knew this would happen. He knew that their systems were good enough to detect his gadgets.
- We are dealing with the famous group CONTROL - said Hillman - specifically the person we are most afraid of. The most famous and successful hacker from them. That bastard.
- You don't mean him, do you?
- ShiruEto.
Everyone was thrilled when he said that. Ironically, the person they were searching for was in the same room as them. The doctor was smarter than he looked, but as long as he didn't know he was in the building it didn't matter. ShiruEto, a silhouette of those who rebel, a savior of the unheard. Arthur, a fourteen-year-old boy, average in statistics, nothing more than a normal person in the city, a teenager, a child. These two personas couldn't be compared.
Arthur's robots didn't attack the system directly. They opened holes in it so that other hackers can attack it. That was his plan, and it was working perfectly. CONTROL was hijacking the data they needed.
- ShiruEto is in the building or he was - said Hillman suddenly.
- How are you so sure sir?
- He has a certain style of doing things. He attacked today. Why? He knew that seventy-four groups of students will come today. Right now, this is the last group in the building so we can call you the seventy-fourth one. He breached every system the same way - with his own robots that he placed on objects that give him access to the system thanks to CONTROL's software. His robots are unusable once they are found. Very smart of him. He used this day because we let a lot of people enter the building.
Arthur was standing there, lifelessly watching him. Everything he deduced was correct, perfect some might say. Perfection. In this universe, there is no such thing as perfection. Someone must have betrayed him. How can he be so sure that this is doing of ShiruEto, unless...
- I am so sure because I found one of his robots on my very own machine. This idiot.
Of course, everything made sense. Arthur couldn't believe his own creation, one tiny robot malfunctioning, could turn upside down his life. Why did it happen? Nothing was wrong, it worked normally. Why at the last moment it decided to go to the Sparker? That didn't matter right now. He didn't know how many groups were allowed to this level. If they were below five he would definitely be caught.
- Down here only half of all groups have been allowed, but the data breaches became more frequent when you came here. Which means...
Arthur felt like he could faint at any moment. He felt like he was in a trap. What did he think, he was going against one of the smartest people and his team. His title as the number one hacker meant nothing. Nothing. His life meant everything. But he wasn't entitled by mistake. He knew he had the ability to become invisible again, but how? He took out his phone and clicked and activated some of his spider plugs. He gained access to the cameras all around the building. He then gave access to the CONTROL servers. Countless hackers suddenly started to connect to SaiNDai's servers. Arthur wrote a simple message to all hackers in CONTROL - HELP.
- Which means that the possibility of ShiruEto still being here is high. Maybe he even is in this room.
Pure silence. No one couldn't make a sound. Fear came. Arthur was standing in the dark with everyone else. His faith was in the other hacker's hands. As much as he was trying to think his brain couldn't think of a way out. Then, something happened.
- What is happening?
All of the screens in the room became blue. The logo of CONTROL appeared. Their entire system crashed, and all electronics went blank and started to restart.
- What is going on?! It's so dark. Why did everything stop working?
Then all computers booted, and their system started normally. K.A.O.S safely restarted the servers and closed all holes in the system.
- CONTROL is everywhere - Hillman said - We were baited - he hit the rail and yelled.
When the security team opened the system, they found countless footage and activity logs of anonymous users. All footage showed a dark silhouette laughing.
- ShiruEto! They used him as bait! It wasn't him. All of CONTROL came this day here.
Then on all screens, different playbacks from the security cameras started playing. On all cameras, a dark silhouette walked around the building and suddenly many people in the giant crowd at the museum section became a silhouette too. All shadows were laughing and pointing at the camera. A synthetic voice started saying:
- WE ARE CONTROL. WE ARE EVERYWHERE. WE WATCH YOU.
The footage suddenly stopped. When they tried to play it again, the file was gone. All security camera logs were corrupted. Hillman lost the lead. He lost his evidence. What only remained was the spider plug he found. Karl stood there watching the screen. CONTROL won.
Arthur couldn't focus, couldn't breathe, couldn't hear. Someone saved him. Someone did hack the cameras and corrupted the footage. Without the footage, they have to check all groups coming here, but this won't do any good. They didn't know how these robots work or at what range could they be controlled. Sure, the data breaches became more frequent when this group came, but that meant nothing.
- ShiruEto, as you all may know, means silhouette in Japanese. What we saw now was ShiruEto laughing at us, or he isn't just one person, but a whole organization - said Hillman - around thirty-six groups have come here today. The data breaches became more frequent with your coming here...
- So you are suspecting us? - said the teacher of the school group.
- I can't make a decision based on that. He could have waited for you to come here so that he could make it like you are the culprit behind all of this. Without footage, we can't check anything. We can't even see when these breaches started happening and trace them back, because CONTROL deleted everything behind them.
Arthur couldn't believe what was happening. He has never felt so much shock in his life. Hillman was right. He was doing these not direct attacks so that CONTROL could take over their system, and before they even suspected anything, the whole system to be filled with untrackable hackers.
-.So no one is suspected. We will just have you checked at the exit just to be sure.
Somehow the investigation from very close to Arthur became very distant. They couldn't track him. Every evidence against him was destroyed.
Arthur used all of his spider plugs, so there was nothing to be worried about during the check at the exit. Just before leaving Hillman grabbed Arthur by the shoulder. The boy froze, he thought he was caught.
- I just wanted to say thank you for helping me find the robot on the Sparker. You were watching at it, and when I took a look I found it. Thank you. You can have the robot, I don't need it.
- But isn't it useful for you?
- It is unusable. I have tried many times. They are just a one-time gadget - Hillman said smilingly. He then put his serious expression back on his face and said - I still think ShiruEto is a person, not a group, but these robots are really what's making things unresolvable today. Perhaps someday I might catch him. I really want to meet him. Anyway, Arthur. I hope we meet again in the close future, maybe when you have graduated from engineering.
- I hope so too sir - Arthur said, but this time his enthusiasm and excitement were missing.
The school group signed a contract saying they won't speak about what happened down at the facility and took the bus home. A long very day passed and somehow it turned out a victory for the young boy Arthur.
*What the hell happened?! I can't believe I am still alive!*
He opened his phone and looked at the data he hijacked. He had work to do. Many of these files were classified and only he had access to them. He could sell them for a lot of money. But what's important is that he is safe now, invisible again.
He looked at his bag. The robot Hillman gave him, the one that started this whole drama, and because of which he was almost caught. Why did it start moving on its own? Arthur connected his phone to it and accessed its data. It was mainly rubbish, nothing special, but one thing caught Arthur's eye, an unknown command started giving orders to the spider plug:
UNKNOWN COMMAND, OVERRIDE ALL: GO TO SUBSTANCE.
Arthur couldn't think of anything, so he just left the robot and enjoyed the ride home.
*What is this command? What does substance mean?*
Arthur entered his room while deep in thought.
- Well anyway this mission was done successfully. I should contact my client - said Arthur to himself.
- Keep quiet I am trying to sleep - said someone on the bottom bed.
*Crap. I forgot about the new roommate!*
Arthur tried to talk to him, but the boy was fast asleep. He decided to not bug him and leave him alone. Arthur put on his pajama and brushed his teeth. As he was climbing on the bunk bed, he saw his roommate's luggage, on the label of which was written: Liam Devon.