Tuesdays were now Borksday. It was his turn to break into Wally. He prepared carefully, going to the extreme of sleeping for five hours and eating a full meal before starting. Additional snacks and energy drinks were on shelves within reach, and every five hours, a nutritious meal arrived by Roomba. He'd learned that proper preparation, sleep, and diet helped with the marathon hacking session. Every piece of the specialized hardware that he, Zander, and Milo had cobbled together was checked over by Algernon and given a thumbs up before he got started. He started his run at midnight after routing his signal around the world; his first target was one of Omnicorp's security stations, and from there, on to their headquarters.
For a corporation that sold its monitoring expertise and security programs, Omnicorp wasn't hard to break into. He'd done it dozens of times in the past with no problems, and tonight was no different. Once inside, he spent an hour setting up a command post inside their main operations center. Then another hour was spent securing his perimeter. He wasn't the only one surfing through the supposedly secure heart of Omnicorp. He did them the favor of ejecting the riffraff, closing the holes in their security, and having their system file reports about the break-ins. The techs and security team would get a bonus, things would run better for a few weeks, and everyone would be happy. Especially Bork, operating from inside the corporation to try again to break into Wally.
Wally's defenses had multiple layers like an onion. Bork would work through one layer, then moved to another part of the security and attack from another vantage point. He'd been observing patterns, finding seams to slip through and how to disguise himself as part of Wally's security. It was slow, painstaking work, and Bork loved it. The day after Borksday, he would be calm and unworried. It was very therapeutic for him.
As usual, he detected traces of other players, human or mechanical, trying and failing to get past the layers he carefully negotiated. The outer net that Rhebus had designed wasn't complete yet, but it was showing promise, and they'd already been able to trace back some of the corporations or hackers who were getting the furthest. That was something Nina loved: Staying with them and stalking them silently as they retraced their steps. Like Bork, no one attacked directly. It could take her hours to find out where the attempts actually began, but one by one, she was identifying them. The hunters were being hunted and watched. Information was being gathered. It might take a year or two, but eventually they'd know who was behind the attacks on Wally and their reasons.
Bork was happy to leave that to Nina. He wanted to be the first person to go all the way and get into Wally. No one else had gotten as far as he had, and he was determined not to let them get ahead of him. They were family, but some things they all took seriously, and the great competition to hack Wally was one of them. Today's attempt was going better than expected. The work done before led to an insight that let him squeeze past the third layer and begin mapping the fourth. Something was off, though. He began to suspect that he wasn't alone. Someone had slipped in behind him and was following in his footsteps.
He suspected either Milo or Onyx. Onyx was amazing when it came to sleuthing out other hackers and getting close. And Milo was Milo. None of them were quite sure what his limits were yet. He was operating on a higher level than the rest of them now, pushing his overmind further and further. Whichever one of them it was, they were being as careful as they could to not tip him off to their presence, but that created a 'dead spot' that he detected. He was going to enjoy the look on Onyx's face when he told him how clumsy he'd been.
That led to the idea that he'd only found one person. What if he was meant to find them, and a second person was following him? That would be a plan worthy of Milo, and he might even be using Max as his stalking horse. The Roomba's intelligence and independence were growing thanks to the work of Rusty and Milo. Bork slowed his advance to a crawl until he could determine that no one else was inside except for the ghost behind him. Wouldn't it be fun to get past the fifth layer and have one of his family as a witness? Even better if he could leave them behind.
It took another hour of work to find a way through the fourth layer. He'd done it before, but the same method wouldn't always work. Sure enough, the ghost managed to follow him fifteen minutes later. They seemed content to follow and not interfere. He knew they wouldn't. By their rules, that would mean they forfeited their next three days to him. Six hours and seventeen minutes later, he had his doorway into Wally's fifth security layer. It would only be open for a fraction of a second. Enough time for him to slip through and leave his frustrated sibling in the dust.
The moment came, Bork slid in, and the crack was gone. He was looking forward to using the remaining hours to build a backdoor between the fourth and fifth layers for his next attempt. And not something anyone else could use. He'd have to casually mention that to Onyx. They were outside, vainly looking for the way in, but the opening was gone for another nineteen hours. Then, to his amazement, they dropped their attempts to hide and purposefully slammed against the barrier, instantly detected, and brought down all the security Wally could instantly muster. Were they that upset that he'd gotten ahead of them? Bork was burning with anger, but didn't have time for it.
Bork fled, but it was a clumsy attempt with no time to plan. His path back to Omnicorp was compromised, and he'd have to spend his next two Borksdays rebuilding. And worse, Wally would know about the weakness he'd exploited. Once he broke contact, he spent an hour muddying his trail and then logged out of his system. He was appalled at the clumsiness of his sibling and needed desperately to know what the hell they were up to. He stormed through Rhebus, only finding Nina, Onyx, and Algernon. The three of them were playing four-dimensional chess in three dimensions with a dozen three-dimensional sets set up in one of the playrooms. Accessing the turn log, he saw that each one had been taking their turn each minute for over four hours. It hadn't been Onyx then. He went looking for Milo and Zander.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
Zander was with Min and the smaller children, working on dance steps for Rusty's production. Zander had found a desire to do choreography and was often working with the AI. His alibi was airtight, which left Milo as the culprit. Rather than search for him, he asked Rusty.
"Milo? Yes, he's in the kitchen. But be careful, he's pretty upset and stressed out about something."
"Good, he should be." Milo was smart enough to know he wouldn't get away with what he had done, and must have run to Momma hoping for an intervention. A good strategy on his part, as Bork had no intention of taking on Mama if Milo was hiding behind her. He decided to find his brother, glare at him for a few minutes, and leave. To his utter surprise, Milo was ecstatic to see him.
"Bork? Is something wrong? Look, Mama! Bork is upset. He must need my help. Sorry, got to go." He got half a step, tried to dodge and roll, but Mama somehow grabbed him by his tail and pulled him back to her.
"Not so fast, you. We're only halfway through this cooking program. You are going to learn how to cook a proper meal if we have to do it a third time."
Milo's eyes pleaded with Bork for rescue. Bork was undecided. "How long has he been cooking with you, Mama?"
She laughed, "Nearly five hours now. We've done applesauce muffins, mashed potatoes, and he's even learned to make gravy using an instant mix. We've got glazed carrots to do, and then the roast will be out of the oven, and he's going to learn to carve it with a regular knife made out of normal steel. Dinner is about 90 minutes away Bork. Let everyone know."
Bork glared once more at Milo. He wasn't sure yet how he'd done what he did while stuck in the kitchen with Mama, but it all made sense now. He'd wanted Bork to come rescue him and ended his session early. Clever and evil of him, just to get out of cooking. "Sure thing, Mama. I can't wait to eat a meal Milo helped with. Got to go." He left his brother to his fate.
Dinner was interesting. He glared at Milo throughout the meal, never giving him a moment's peace. Milo began to get nervous. Everyone else began to notice what was going on. Big Butch finished his meal, picked up his coffee cup, and looked from Bork to Milo. "Something we need to talk about, boys?"
Bork crossed his arms, "Milo knows what he did."
Milo hung his head. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again. I know how much potatoes and gravy mean to you, and I really tried hard to get the lumps out! But they kept coming back! Every time I found a lump, it was like it made two more lumps!"
Mama patted his head, "It's alright, dear. Practice makes perfect."
Bork was becoming confused, "Potato lumps? That's all you're nervous about?"
"Was there something else?"
Bork looked from one of his siblings to another, including Belinda. Everyone was looking at him with concern. "This is very serious. Did any of you try to hack into Wally today?" All he got were confused looks.
Two thousand miles away, alarms were going off. The techs raced to the observation room and began to trace the problem and deal with it. The source was obvious. Director Seven strode into the room, unhappy. "What the devil is going on? Smoke is pouring out of the vents on the sixth level, and all the toilets in the enlisted quarters are spewing sewage from the sewer pumps running in reverse. Which one of the little monsters is doing it?"
"It's Beta, sir. It's upset. Furious in a way I haven't seen before. We sort of trust Beta to keep the others in line and have been letting it manage some of the maintenance. It bypassed the restraints, turned the ovens in the kitchens to 1100 degrees, burning the food, and then vented the smoke into the ventilation system. Dinner is going to be MREs again, and we'll get janitorial to work on mopping out the barracks. It's handled, sir."
"What's the thing upset about? We let it out today, didn't we?"
"It's screaming that one of the others betrayed it. They're all screaming at each other now, and we had to turn off their speakers and shock them three times to bring them under control. They blame Beta for that."
"Did he accomplish anything on his scouting mission? Why is he so upset?"
"It screwed up, sir. The AI almost caught it. Beta hates punishment. I think it's trying to shift the blame to the others. None of them was allowed any outside access today."
"Wonderful. Give Beta double punishment tonight and again tomorrow. Explain that MREs for dinner and smelling shit are the reasons. Then give the others access to an hour of recreation, but not Beta. Give it solitary for a day. I won't put up with insubordination from these things. How far did it get before it got caught?"
"Beta claims it was nearly into the fifth layer. A huge improvement."
"It is. Cancel the double punishment. Instead, send it back out, but tell Beta that if it can get in and out of the fourth security layer undetected, it gets two hours of solo play in the recreation center. If it doesn't, it gets triple punishment. Carrot and Stick, gentlemen. They might be monsters, but they still respond to pleasure and punishment. Use those two things to bring those things under control. We have a schedule to keep."