Chapter 6: The White Hat I Wear Part 1

"Goliath, Inc."

While rail lines, high-tech trains, sleek aircraft, and floating houses played on separate holo-screens, a female voiceover sang exposition: "Goliath Corp., proudly serving humanity since 2021. Goliath stands at the cutting-edge of innovation through the support of advanced ALI interfacingÑ"

"Skip."

Green Goliath headed several menus, one hologram for each panel. From left to right and left to right, page labels: About, Housing, GTrack, Aerospace, Missions, ALI Implementation, and so forth.

Jessica rolled in her chair, toward the shelves. She pulled a tablet from the row K and hit the desktop. After powering the tablet, an ad popped: 'Back to the Future: The Re-remake now available on Tundra.' She scowled. "Gotta remember to remove that feature," she muttered. In the section labeled Library, she tapped and searched until she found the e-book labeled Essays: First Series; underneath it, RWE. She scrolled with her left hand while the fingers of her right strummed the keyboard.

Typing, typing, typing. Jessica left the Goliath net page and input characters into a command prompt. All nine panels saw lines of green alphanumerics, scrolling like lightning while she read from the e-book and chewed on a slice of mushroom pizza.

Beep.

She looked up. Backspace. She wiped garlic on her uniform before calling the command prompt. On the first three screens, lines and lines of code glimmered off her iris. Several keys later, the computer highlighted particular strands of alphanumerics across all tables in red.

"No way." Away with the screens of code. "Call David from Goliath." The ringtone played over the profile picture of nothing but a green G. During the dial, she turned a knob on the projector.

A man in his thirties appeared before the screen. "Hello," he said collectedly, sandy face and the green hat spelling 'Goliath' on his head of short, brown hair. "Lynx," he continued, "you have something for me?"

"Remember that source code you told me was uncrackable?"

***

Computer Software glimmered after the 7th-floor elevator, a precursor to the rows of holo-terminals operated by white-collar coats. Instructions railed across a memo board, like the subheadings on a news channel, neon green sentenced under one name: Goliath. Paths on either side of the lacquered board led into a circumventing corridor with three adjacent doors. Three signs: a stick figure, a skirted stick figure, and a pointy-eared stick figure, followed by an office with the name David M. Below, Director.

David's office was spacious enough for a sofa by the door. At the opposite end of his abode lay the terminal, where he stared into the live hologram of a lynx cat.

"Five days," said the lynx, the voice of a young Englishman. "I'm sending the functions to you now." Seconds passed before the hologram molded into green line after green line of code, two separate panels, characters on both highlighted in red. "What did you say your bit value was?"

"FiveÑ"

"Five-twelve, right?"

David's jaw fell. "This doesn't make sense."

"Whoever developed this encryption, I hope they didn't expect to hide secrets or anything

"I need to verify this!"

"Be my guest. It's in your email."

Moments of frantic silence passed in which David opened and downloaded Lynx's attachments from his NovaMail account.

Contact: Lynx

Subject: awww shiiiet xoxo

Diagrams crossed the projector as he analyzed the data, total focus in his eyes.

"So, how was your day?" Lynx casually interrupted.

"Productive. Fine. Revelatory."

"That's cool." Meanwhile, on the other side, Jessica sat elbow over her desk, cracking fingers: 1, 2, 3, 4, cracks. Mild boredom played on her face as she watched David's coat crease. "So how was your day, Lynx?" she mumbled. "Oh, well, you know... made some deliveries, spent some time chillin' with Beth, found security vulnerabilities in what is probably signature encryption for essential interfaces like railway, communications, etc. Thanks for asking!"

"How was your day?" said David.

Jessica straightened the dumb look on her face, then sat upright and pressed the mic. "Not bad," she answered.

"I wonder what that means in your line of work."

"It means I'm still Lynx."

David smirked at the screen. Finally, a mathematical algorithm hit the blue of his holographic interface. Then another one appeared beside it, Lynx's data. Both algorithms slid together and merged perfectly, flashing three times.

"By the deities," he said in disbelief. "You actually found vulnerabilities..."

"Is this algorithm pre-alpha or something?" said Jessica.

"Sorry. JustÑI gotta get on this."

"Care to tell me about its application?"

"I think it's in your best interest, and mine, that I don't."

Jessica laughed knowingly, then hit the mic. "Suit yourself."

"Expect payment by tomorrow. I'm glad you came to me with this as fast as you did."

"You know, I don't expect anything."

"Well, Goliath doesn't pay you for your skills as much as your discretion. Although, if you wanted to get paid officially, Spearhead has openings."

Jessica rolled her eyes, contemplating whether or not David was too generous for his own good. She could have found worse, so far as computer software engineers went.

"You know," he continued, "that source code went through several Goliath channels. Nobody could hack it after a month of attempts. You're either very talented or our people very inept... or lazy."

Or worse, Jessica thought. "Maybe I had more to work with. Maybe."

"I must launch a thorough investigation of the program. What operating system do you run?"

"You don't hack and tell," she replied. "Update your hash and you should be fine. Use SHA-5 or something."

"I'll take it up with the top. Should be dealt with quickly, and thanks again."

David's screen went blank, Jess left alone in her chair to silently reflect.

"Ghost Wire Forums. The screen greeted her with a sinister, smiling ghost, followed by a list of threads; from 'How do I escape Ransomware?' to 'Developing ALI Encryption.' Her clicks carried her to an area of the forum titled 'Corporate-Implemented Cryptography,' which displayed an alphabetical list of company names along with the names of supposed ciphers.

Under the Goliath page, she scanned the user comments and scrolled until she found one in the form of a question. It belonged to Lynx. Her comment had received several replies.

Lynx: So aside from activities listed on their website, what espionage might Goliath Inc. be involved in?

NatsuXDragneel: Why would there be other activities?

SwagCipher067: My goliath has its own activities. Come over and I'll show you.

OhShitItsSombra: Wanna see my goliath?

Anonymous: I've got a goliath for you.

Eventually, she found a solid answer: Anonymous: Like many bigwigs, Goliath's CEO is probably nothing more than a spokesperson for Azarean interests. Any of their 'activities' could make them party to aerospace innovation, cyberwarfare applications, and even agricultural development, none of which are listed on their official website... or anywhere else. Furthermore, Goliath is rumored to be developing telecommunications infrastructure in Antarctica at the behest of Spearhead, a subsidiary recognized for its research into laser and plasma technologies. Some say Spearhead is just the government in disguise. Although, no paper trail exists. SO, beware of black sites.

Jessica replied to the reply. "How the hell do you know all this?"

An answer came immediately. You asked, I answered.

"What is the probability of such a thing as a black site?" she asked herself. "What is the probability of shenanigans in Azarean-regulated business? What is the cost of a perfect world?"

The probability of error in human-run applications, at any moment, is 100%. The probability of error in alien-controlled action: unknown; the probability of alien criminality, different but still unknown. Azareans are secretive and have always been an enigma for their closely guarded secrets.

Another thought tackled Jessica. "The chance of David's awareness to foul play: 50/50."