Disclaimer: Zootopia stories, characters, settings, and properties belong to the Walt Disney Co. This story is written under Fair Use Copyright laws.
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The Fire Triangle
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Part Two:
Oxidizer
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Chapter 6—The Children's Crusade
(Continued...Part 6)
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"Rioting is a childish way of trying to be a man, but it takes time to rise out of the hell of hatred and frustration and accept that to be a man you don't have to riot."
Abraham Maslow
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Monday, 05:47, Zootopia Museum of Natural History, Savanna Central Plaza
"Uh-huh...just like I thought."
Conor was hunched over his prize laptop, propped open on the coffee table before him. Said table was a wee bit low for his species, ditto for the chair in which he was seated. Combined with the surrounding dimness, it gave him the appearance of a monk, working by candlelight, in a scriptorium.
That was Erin Hopps's impression of him at least and now she moved behind the hunkering young silver fox, peering over his shoulder at the screen below.
What she saw required no interpretation. There, on the Zootopia Museum of Natural History Webpage, was a message in big, red text.
DUE TO UNFORESEEN EVENTS, THE MUSEUM WILL REMAIN CLOSED FOR AN INDEFINITE PERIOD OF TIME. WE WILL GIVE NOTICE OF A POSSIBLE REOPENING DATE WHEN WE HAVE MORE INFORMATION.
PATRONS ARE ADVISED TO PLEASE CHECK BACK WITH US PERIODICALLY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE.
And below that, in smaller text, another message:
All Museum Fursonell and Employees are advised not to come in to work for the next two days.
All doors and entrances will remain locked for the duration and no access will be granted to any museum fursonell; please do not attempt to retrieve any fursonal items from the premises before that time.
We appreciate your cooperation.
The note concluded with a pair of illegible signatures.
Erin studied it for a second and then took in a breath between her teeth. "If no one else can get in, how are we supposed to get out?" She wondered for a second if the police already knew they were in here.
Conor turned and looked up at her narrowly, as if to say, 'What do you mean 'WE' rabbit?' And then he smiled and flipped a paw, "Ahhh we got IN when the place was supposed to be locked up, right? I wouldn't worry too much about it." But then his mouth stretched downward in a classic fox grimace. "Ahhh, they'll have to let SOMEBODY in before then; a place this big isn't gonna maintain itself." He stroked his muzzle for a second. "We should be okay until dark though."
"Dark?" The young doe bunny's ears were standing up and her nose was twitching feverishly.
"Yeah, dark," her companion answered, pointing to the time signature on the laptop. "Sun's been up for almost 15 minutes now. And I do NOT wanna make any moves in daylight—not unless I have to," he said this, and then added as an afterthought. "Anyway, even if someone does decide to show up, there'll be plenty of warning." His certainty sounded more than a little forced—and Erin had also caught his use of the singular 'I' rather than 'we'.
She knew better than to bring that up, too...and so she turned back to the subject they'd been discussing before he'd brought out the laptop.
"You said you thought you could get away with that loanshaaa—ahhh, lending business. Oh-kayyy, but how?" He had never gone into detail on the subject.
Conor sighed, it seemed to deflate him just a little, and then he turned to face her; rueful, but still able to meet her gaze.
"Well, when you look at our plan on paper, our plan was stinkin' foolproof. Like I said, we weren't hacking into the banks' computers, only some of their employees' home set-ups; way easier to get into without being spotted than a bank's database. And even if those King John jerks had managed to figure out we'd hacked 'em—which, believe me, they weren't going to—what were they gonna do, call the cops? Yeah, right..." He made that thumb-and-little finger gesture again. "'Hello, ZPD? This is Potter Sleezeball from the King John Gang. Yes, well...some lowlife hacked into our ripoff scheme. Can you send somebody over right away? Oh, good; thank you.'"
He pretended to disconnect, while Erin curled up into a fit of giggles.
The fox in the chair facing her didn't seem to think it was all that funny. If anything his outlook had change from biting to bitter.
"Yeah, yeah...the perfect setup. But there was just one, teeny-weeny little thing we forgot about, bunny girl—Wells Furgo."
Erin wanted to groan; there he went, talking in riddles again—and there went her nose and ears...again. "Wells...Furgo. That's another bank right?" They didn't have any branches in Bunnyburrow, but she seemed to recall hearing something about that particular institution on the news. When was that, a year ago?
In point of fact, it was two years...as Conor now swiftly confirmed.
"Yep that's right. Coupla years back, they got socked with a $3 Billion Smacker fine; the biggest penalty ever laid on a bank...up until then, that is."
"Whoa," Erin felt her ears stand up again; okay, that was impressive. "What'd they do?"
"Nothing...not the guys in charge anyway," Conor was waving a finger, "It was a group of employees, scheming behind their bosses' backs, same as the King John Gang. What they did was open a truckload of savings and credit card accounts for a whole bunch of different mammals—without their knowledge or consent. I'm not exactly sure how it worked, but it cost a lot of honest mammals a lot of money."
"Okay," Erin nodded, still slightly confused, "but if Wells Furgo's employees were running that scam behind their back, why did they end up getting fined?"
Her fox-companion's demeanor became almost scholarly for a moment.
"Because of something called due diligence; basically, it means that if you hire a guy, you're responsible for keeping an eye on his activities. I forget the exact details, but it doesn't matter. The important thing is, THAT'S what caused our lending business to go south on us—and here's how it happened. One of the guys in the King John Gang got greedy and started skimming off some of the businesses they'd grabbed. When his partners found out, they tried to put out a contract on him." He paused for a second, sniggering and grinning sardonically. "Like THESE jerks were ever gonna pull that off! Total amateurs, buncha soft-pawed suits; they had no idea what they were doing. The first guys they hired to do the job just took the money and split." He growled and turned serious again. "But then it really hit the stinkin' fan. The bum they'd tried to have whacked found out about the contract and just totally lost it. He went running to the bank president and told him everything, gave up every other member of the gang...anything to save his own tail."
"Wha...?" Erin was more confused than ever, "Why didn't he go to the police?"
For once, Conor was every bit as puzzled as her. "Your guess is as good as mine, bunny-girl. But what happened next was this; the bank prez went into a huddle with the other boss bankers that had guys in the King John Gang...and they decided that what happened to Wells Furgo was NOT gonna happen to them. To make a long story short, they stonewalled it. They fired the King John guys of course, but didn't turn 'em over to the law—with the understanding that the ONLY way they weren't going to jail was if they kept their mouths shut. Then they had all of the gang member's computers, tablets, and cell-phones confiscated—whether or not they were company issue. Anything that might have had data relating to that lending scam got taken, and you better not complain if you don't wanna spend the next ten years in the slam." He sighed and pounded lightly on the chair arm. "And that was when our troubles started; the banks' cyber-security guys were way sharper than the King John Gang. It took 'em less than a day to figure out those machines had been hacked—and when the bosses got the word, they had the mother of all freak-outs."
"No kidding," This time, Erin didn't need to be enlightened. "Bad enough for them if the law managed to get wind of the King John Gang—but if it came out that they'd had known about those jerks and covered it up...whoa, they'd really be up the creek."
"Without a paddle OR a canoe," Conor grinned again and cocked a finger; he seemed pleased that she had figured it out on her own. But then his expression hardened once more. "So, basically the next thing they did was double down. They whitewashed the files from the King John guys' computers, deleted every reference to that loan-scam, and then uploaded 'em into their databases and had the original machines destroyed. And then they called the cops. 'Help, police, we've been hacked!' I-I think you can guess how that worked out, Erin."
Yes, she could...and it had ultimately led them both to this office in the bowels of the Natural History Museum. However, there were still one or two gaps in the narrative that needed to be filled in.
"Why didn't you just quit when you found out?"
Conor sighed and then yawned. He'd been up since 1:00 AM, and was beginning to look the part. (Come to think of it, she'd had even less sleep than him.)
"Because we didn't find out until AFTER I got busted." He regarded the floor, looking disgusted with himself. "Like I just said, those banker-guys were a lot smarter than the jerks in the King John Gang. They kept all their communications with the ZPD and the Attorney General off line; handled everything face-to-face." He pretended to throw an invisible stone. "Believe me Erin, if we'd known what they were up to, we'd have let that Ian Shortal guy keep the rest of his money. As it is, he was gonna be our last client anyway; once we were done with him, no more loans.
Erin almost asked him why, but instead opted to once again flex her powers of deduction.
"Let me guess; you didn't know the bankers were talking to the ZPD, but you did know that they'd shut down the King John Gang; am I right?"
"Yep, exactly that," Conor almost smiled, "There went our source of potential borrowers, so after we were done with Mr. Shortal, there was no point in carrying on any more." His head tilted and his amber eyes narrowed slightly; and then he cocked a finger. "And now let me make a guess. Your next question was going to be, why didn't we blow the whistle on those banker bums, right? Yeah-h-h, I thought so, and the answer to that is another question. Who you gonna believe over here, John Q. Banker, Mister All-Around Fine Upstanding Citizen—or some fox-punk hacker with the cops already looking for him?"
There was no trace of irony in his voice, no animosity...but Erin felt as if she'd taken another hit to the gut.
Maybe so, but it didn't stop her from picking up the thread.
"And you couldn't have done it anyway, not without giving yourself away to, uh...that other uh, outfit, looking for you."
This time, the silver-fox in the other chair was unable to keep from a genuine smile.
"Hey, smart bunny over here. Right again Erin, and the part that really bugs me is that siccing the cops on us was completely unnecessary. After I made that final pickup, those banker guys were never gonna hear from me—or my partner—ever again. For sure we weren't planning to try and blackmail anybody." He let out a combination of a grumble and a weary sigh. "I think that's what scared those suits more than anything else. Wasn't gonna happen, though—we were done; outta there. If I'd managed to make that pick up at the beach without being spotted, the ZPD wouldn't have heard from me again either."
Erin watched him for a second with her nose twitching. Did he sound proud...or frustrated? Or was it a mixture of both? But now the question that had been germinating in her mind ever since their arrival here was sprouting through to the surface. Ohhh, she was going to have to handle this as carefully as if she were tip-toeing through a minefield, toting a jug of nitroglycerine.
"Conor...I know you didn't do it, but I need to hear you say it. Please tell me you had nothing to do with that cyberattack last night."
She expected anger at worst, a terse understanding at best. What she never expected was a bait and switch.
"Yeah, Snowdrop....as matter of fact I did." And then, just before her paws were able to reach her mouth, he added, with a wink, "Me and my partner were the ones that stopped it."
Ooooo...she almost slapped him again, but then realized something. If he really had helped put an end to that cyberattack...well, then he had every right to take offense at her question. Except...just a carrot-pickin' minute!
"Wait a minute, what did you do?"
"Uploaded a kill code to the servers," he said. He was trying to sound flippant, but there was a nervous undercurrent to his voice—as if he was feeling guilty for that little flim-flam just now. "It's standard procedure in shutting down a cyberattack. Soon as we took those bad-boys off line, the system reverted to manual, and the cops were able to take control again."
If he was expecting a show of gratitude...or at least a little understanding, he was in for a rude awakening. If that was true, then it also meant...
"WHAT? You mean, you're the reason I almost got stuck inside that jail with Craig looking for me?"
"Not true." the young doe-bunny's inner voice reminded her archly. The renegade young coyote had somehow managed to make it out ahead of her. In light of that fact, it would have been better if the door had closed before she could get to it.
Erin remembered, but she didn't care. She was tired and sore and needed a punching bag...and Conor was the only thing handy.
He was also feeling not even the slightest bit guilty for his actions...his next words notwithstanding.
"Sorry, bunny-girl but I had to do it. Those hacker-guys were onto me and they were trying to boot my bushy, black tail out of the mainframe." By way of illustration, he held up a thumb and forefinger with barely a sliver of light between them, "They were that close to getting rid of me when I pulled the plug. It was either shut down then, or else watch 'em hit the ZPD with a ransomware attack. That's where..."
"I know what a ransomware attack is!" Erin snapped at him—mostly to cover for her own creeping guilt. Conor had only done what was right and she had no cause to take her near miss out on him—especially since it had been a miss.
She needed a change of subject and she needed it fast. Luckily, he had already given her an opening.
"Okay," she said, "In that case, do you have any idea who the real hacker was?"
"Hackers," he corrected, "My partner's pretty sure there was more than one of them...and the more I think about it, the more I agree with him. There had to be at least two; probably more like three, or maybe even four of those cyberpunks." The disdain in his voice could not have been clearer.
"Okay, fine, more than one hacker," Erin ventured cautiously... as if she was stepping out onto what might or might not be thin ice; he still hadn't answered her question. "Do you have any idea who they were?"
"No," Conor's head-shake was as solid as a monolith and as bitter as old coffee grounds, "I only WISH I did. I'd of doxed those punks so stinkin' fast; they'd be in custody like ten minutes ago."
That was enough to make the young doe-bunny's ears stand up again, albeit this time for a slightly different reason.
"Wha...? I thought you had a problem with snitches."
"I do," Conor admitted, and then brushed it aside like a patch of lint. "But I draw the line at lowlifes that try to hurt other mammals just for kicks—especially the kind that are gonna keep on laying down the hurt, unless they get caught."
Now Erin's ears were really standing tall. "Y-You really think they'll strike again?" It was something she hadn't considered.
The young fox yawned and rubbed the back of his neck. "Not for a while, no...not if they got half a brain between them. But eventually, yeah, they'll hit Zootopia again." He swiveled in his chair to face her. "You understand Erin, this is all strictly a gut feeling...but it's a really, REALLY strong one."
"Uh huh," the young white furred bunny could only nod cautiously. She too had always made a point of trusting her instincts.
Just then, a noise like a hotel's desk-bell went pinging through the office. Erin looked around for an anxious second before realizing it was coming from Conor's laptop. And sweet cheez' n' crackers, what the heck kind of computer WAS that thing? It looked like it could stop .44 magnum slug at point blank range.
"What's that ringing all about, fox?"
He turned and reached for the laptop's track-pad. "Hourly alarm, it just turned straight-up six." He clicked, scrolled, and clicked again. "Let's check in with ZNN and see how bad things are out there."
That was pretty much the last thing Erin wanted to know at this particular moment, but she understood the importance...and, in any case, it couldn't be avoided.
"You'll think there'll be anything about it on the news this early?" Even to her that sounded weak, but Conor only waved a paw.
"After what I saw last night, I'd be surprised if they haven't been running coverage on that cyberattack and/or riot for the last three hours...on EVERY stinkin' cable news channel and newsfeed."
So saying, he moved the cursor and clicked twice, bringing up the ZNN web-page. Just as he had predicted, the cover was devoted entirely to one subject—and the headline was as strident as an air-raid siren:
Night Of Terror In Savanna Central
Directly below the header was a swirling, overhead live-camera feed of Savanna Central Plaza, presumably by way of a news helicopter.
It was enough to bring Erin's paws flying straight up to her face.
"Oh Sweet cheez n'..." Her words ended in a choking sob.
"I know right," Conor muttered grimly, never taking his eyes off the screen.
Savanna Central Plaza looked like a cross between a war zone and an abandoned refugee camp; mounds of trash; heaps of rubble, and scorched earth everywhere. Benches had been pulled up; tram shelters had been pulled down. The trees surrounding the Plaza Pond had been reduced to nothing but charred stumps. The fountain at its center, strangely enough, was still working, sending merry jets of water into the air at ten second intervals, in an ironic counterpoint to the surrounding carnage.
But the most stomach-wrenching thing of all was the burned-out Armored Fursonell Carrier, marooned halfway between the pond and the entrance to Precinct One. There was practically nothing left of the rear section; and what little remained looked...melted?
It was too much even for Conor to handle. "How the heck did they manage THAT?" he gekkered, speaking in a breathless rhetorical gasp, "Those bad boys are supposed to be stinkin' diesel powered!"
Erin wondered how the heck he could have known that, but kept the question to herself. It would be another one of those 'things he couldn't talk about,' she was all but certain of it.
On the screen the overhead view of The Plaza had mercifully vanished, replaced by a pair of ZNN co-anchors, Peter Moosebridge and Fabienne Growley, at the moment engaged in a conversation of some kind...or so it appeared; the sound was currently muted.
Conor quickly corrected that oversight, just in time to hear the snow-leopardess make an announcement.
"For more on that, we go to Zootopia City Councilmember Claudia Nizhang."
The face of a weary-looking red panda appeared on an inset screen behind the two anchor-mammals. Erin had no idea who she was but Conor...
He was sitting up straight staring raptly at the screen with his ears on full alert, and...his lips were moving; what was he saying?
Well, whatever it was, one thing was abundantly clear. He didn't just recognize that red panda, he knew her from somewhere.
Fabienne Growley, meanwhile, was speaking to her.
"Councilmember Nizhang, good morning."
"Good morning Fabienne, Peter," she responded curtly, obviously in no mood for small talk.
"It's a sad day for Zootopia Councilmember," Moosebridge said, making the obligatory generic observation.
"A very sad day," the red panda echoed, adding harshly, "and the day's only just getting started."
"Councilmember," It was Fabienne Growley, "As I understand it, when you served with the Zoo York City Police Department, your area of expertise was cybercrime."
Claudia brushed with her finger at a cheek tuft. "Yes, that's correct,"
"Yes," the snow-leopard regarded her teleprompter for a moment, "We heard just now from ZPD Chief Bogo, saying that he believes Conor Lewis was behind the cyberattack on Precinct-1. For those who don't remember..."
That brought the fox-kid in question flying out of his seat like a bottle rocket. "Wait...WHAT? Where's he get that stuff, the big, stinkin' lummox!"
"Shhhh!" Erin knew it was useless to shush him, but tried anyway; she wanted to hear this.
"What is your take on that?" Fabienne queried, completing the question.
Claudia shifted in her seat before answering.
"While I have only the highest regard for Chief Bogo—I consider him to be an exemplary leader, and an all-around good cop—I must respectfully disagree with him on this point. While whoever carried out this horrendous act may well have been inspired by the actions of young Mr. Lewis, I do not believe that he, himself, had anything to do with it."
"Darn right I didn't," Conor snarled, under his breath.
"Why do you think so, Councilmember?" It was Peter Moosebridge. "According to what the Chief told us, only a few moments ago, young Mister Lewis allegedly threatened the ZPD with," he consulted his earpiece, "'Something you don't want to THINK about' if his demands weren't..."
There was more, but it was cut off by Erin's cry of dismay.
"You DIDN'T...!"
She had jumped back a good two feet, gaping in horror at the silver fox seated in front of her.
He responded by turning towards her again, hugging his elbows as if a chill had just blown through the room. "Ahhh, I may have gotten a-a-a...a little bit carried away there."
"A little bit carried AWAY?" Erin was shaking her head, completely incredulous. "Are you serious, Charcoal Boy? That's like Aaron Purr saying 'Whoops, my aim was just a little bit off.'"
Conor growled and turned back to the laptop screen. "Can we talk about it later? I wanna hear this."
Erin almost reached for the chair to spin him around to face but then stopped when she remembered something. She was standing behind him...and you never wanted to grab this fox-kid from behind.
It turned out to be a wise move in more ways than one; on the screen Claudia was gesturing with a paw.
"That may have been so, but keep in mind that we're more than eleven hours away from that deadline—and three hours away from when the courts open. That's important because securing the release of those four young mammals could only have been accomplished with an order from a magistrate. And Conor Lewis would certainly know that; he made his escape from ZPD Youth Detention using a fake judge's order. That's reason number one why I don't think he did it."
"And...the second reason?" Fabienne Growley's tail was twitching back and forth.
In response Claudia's face turned stone-cold serious.
"You've seen what the inside of the youth jail looked like this morning. You saw those ambulances leaving the Plaza—so you know that cyberattack put a lot of young mammals in jeopardy...including those four whose release the Lewis boy was demanding." She shook her head, "I think a kid smart enough to con his way out of jail like that would also be smart enough to know what could happen to his friends if someone hit Precinct-1 with a cyberattack. Again, with all due respect to Chief Bogo, I do not believe Mr. Lewis was responsible for this."
Chancing a look in the fugitive young silver fox's direction, Erin noted that he looked, 'as smug as a bug in rug,' as her mother might have put it.
In the meantime, Peter Moosebridge had moved on to a different subject.
"Councilmember, if I may; speaking as an expert on cybersecurity, do you have any idea as to how this attack might have been carried out?"
Claudia shifted uneasily in her chair again, while Erin peered closely with a twitching nose, "Cybersecurity...seriously?" That red panda bore about as much resemblance to a computer nerd as a bodyguard does to a ballerina.
"Only one of the best darn cybercops, ever," Conor muttered, seemingly to himself, "That's what Kieran thought, and believe me, it took a lot to impress that..." He stopped abruptly, looking embarrassed and waving a hasty paw, "Never mind, it's not important."
Too late; Erin had already decided that she would mind, because it was important—but not now, when they were done watching the news.
On the laptop screen, Claudia Nizhang was speaking again—this time a little more hesitantly.
"Well, that gets kind of technical Peter...and there's still a lot we don't know. All I can tell you right now is that the attack was very similar to the Buxnet attack of ten years ago...though obviously using more advanced software."
"Buxnet," Fabienne's tail was clocking again. "Wasn't that an attack initiated by the federal government on a nuke facility?"
"Yes," Claudia nodded, "on Iram, to be exact; carried out by the NSA. It was the first known cyberattack aimed specifically at damaging hardware—in this case the centrifuges used to convert Uranium into fissionable material."
"Hang on a second," Peter Moosebridge's snout appeared to be jumping up and down, "Are you suggesting that this attack may have been carried out using classified software?"
Conor rolled his eyes and started to say something derisive, but was cut off by Claudia's response.
"That's not as unusual as it may sound, Peter; and it brings me to the only other thing we know about this cyberattack at the present time. It's almost certain that the ZPD database was breached using a hacking tool developed by the NSA, an application known as EternalZoo. On the screen, behind her a logo appeared; a white infinity sign on a blue field, with the name underneath in Kaiti text.
Erin couldn't help but be a little bit impressed. Those ZNN techs were right on the ball. Conor, on the other paw, seemed thoroughly bored, perhaps even a little nettled.
But then the young doe-bunny felt her heart skip a beat, although she hadn't the slightest inkling as to why. Never mind; on the laptop screen the pair of ZNN anchormammals were bidding farewell to Claudia Nizhang and preparing to go to a commercial break.
Oh-kay-y-y and now back to her regularly scheduled program.
"How is it that you know Councilmember Nizhang, Conor?" She straightened up, curling her fists against her hips, "And don't say 'the same as everyone else', because I heard what you said about her...AND I saw the way you looked when she showed up onscreen just now."
He turned to face her again, narrowing his eyes and cupping one paw on top of the other. "Okay...how about if I say this? That's something else I'm not going to tell you. And don't ask me who Kieran is either; we don't talk about him OR Bruno."
If there'd been something handy within reach, she would have thrown it at him. Dangit, he'd known what she was going to ask next. Snarky, smart-mouth, little so-and-so silver fox!
"Fine, I'll just figure it out for myself," she sniffed.
Conor instantly fell back in his chair, laughing so hard he seemed to have hurt himself, once again clutching his side.
"Really? How you gonna do that, Snowdrop? Crystal ball? Tarot cards? Oh wait I know; a magic mirror, right?
"Laugh while you can Charcoal-Boy," Erin went back to her own chair and let herself fall into it, folding her arms and thrusting her chin upwards at the ceiling. "Okay, I can't figure out who that Kieran animal is...but Claudia Nizhang's a different story." She began to stroke at her muzzle with a finger. "Let's see...you called her a cybercop just now. That means you know her from back when she was a police detective. That was before she came to Zootopia—so it must have been before YOU came to Zootopia, too. And that means you likely came here from the same city as her." She tilted her head and cocked an ear. "How'm I doing so far?"
She must have been doing nicely, because Conor's only response was wide eyes and a wide-open mouth.
Good!
"Nowwww," the young doe-bunny continued with her musings, "What city did she say she was from again? Ahhh, dangit, I can't remember...but it should be easy as heck to—Oh, my God!"
All at once her speculations halted in their tracks. And then she was pointing past the young silver fox with a quivering finger—zeroing in on his laptop. There it was on the taskbar, the thing that had made her heart miss a beat a moment ago, the thing she'd barely noticed at the time. But it sure as heck was getting her attention now...and it was making her heart do backflips.
The icon next to the one for Zoogle Chrome was a blue square set with a white infinity symbol. The text was too small for her to read, but no matter; she knew what it said—and what that thing was.
"Th-That's the icon I saw on TV just now," Erin's finger was shaking like a dead branch in a gale. "That's the Eternal Zoo symbol!" She got up, backing away from the young silver fox as if he was diseased. "You have the EternalZoo app on your computer!"
"Erin..." Conor's face was 3 parts patience to 2 parts exasperation, and 1part exhaustion.
"You LIED to me...you liar!" her finger was aiming at him now, and this time it was rock-steady.
"Erin, listen to me..."
"Did you carry out that cyberattack? You did, didn't you?" The first creeping tendrils of hysteria were beginning to envelop her.
That got his attention for sure.
"NO!" he almost shouted, rising from his chair, "I just told you I..."
But she had already turned to flee. She managed exactly two steps before she felt him seize her by the wrist again, this time from the underside. And then she was being spun in a circle, her arm whipping up, sideways and then down again. The next thing she knew it was being twisted up behind her back.
"I will not cry!" she told herself—and then did anyway.
"Owwww, let me GO!"
Conor did; at the same time whirling her around and shoving her back in her chair again.
"Okay," His face was only an inch away from hers, "I tried to talk reasonable, but you didn't wanna listen—so now siddown and shuddup; it's story time!"
Erin rubbed at her wrist, sniffling. Ohhh, just wait until she got out of here; she was SO going to turn him in, just like she'd said...
He clapped his paws in her face. "Pay attention Snowdrop, class is in session! Now...you think coz I got the EternalZoo app on my laptop that I'm the punk who ran that cyberattack on the ZPD last night; is that about the size of it?"
"Y-Yes," she answered, pressing herself into the back of the chair as if attempting to will herself through to the other side.
Conor's lip curled upwards, exposing his fangs.
"Ehhhh, wrong, rabbit! That's like assuming a guy's been street racing, just coz he's got a fast car." He flopped back in his own chair, eyeing her moodily, "Would have expected better than that from you."
It took several hard swallows of air before she was able to find her voice again.
"Wh-What are you talking about?"
He crossed his good leg over the one with the knee-brace.
"What I mean is that Councilmammal Nizhang only told part of the story about EternalZoo. Yeah, it was developed by the NSA, but no, it's not some super-secret hacking tool possessed by only a special few; matter of fact, it's been all over the dark web for more than five years now."
"What?" In spite of her fears, Erin's ears were up and her nose was twitching. "Are you serious, Conor?"
The corners of his mouth turned in opposite directions, "To quote The Raven, 'nevermore.' It all started back when this hacker group called the Shadow Barkers penetrated the NSA database and made off with a whole bunch of apps and web tools."
Erin was almost agog now. "You're kidding; someone hacked the National Security Agency?" To her, it sounded like the digital equivalent of trying to rob Fort Knoxen.
"Yep, and it's not as hard as you might think." Conor's nod was both dour and knowing. "Remember that guy Edward Snowden? He stole all those files he took using a $100 buck tool-app called Webcrawler."
"Mmm, okay," yes she had heard the name Snowden before. "But...I'm guessing that EternalZoo was one of those things the Shadow Barkers stole from the NSA?"
"Yes, it was," Conor rubbed at his nose. His anger had finally dissipated, but Erin knew that it would take very little to bring it back again. She continued to watch him carefully. "And what they did was put it up for sale on the Dark Web. Didn't work out so good; they couldn't find any takers."
"What?" Sweet cheez n' cracker, did this silver fox kid NEVER run out of surprises. "I would have thought something like would have every hacker from here to Podunk going 'shut up and take my money!'"
"So did the Shadow Barkers." Now the young fox was actually smiling again. "But like a lot of hackers I know of, these guys were online smart, real-world stupid; there were three things they hadn't thought of." He held up a trio of fingers, ticking them off, one by one. "First of all, they couldn't have picked a worse time to try and sell their pirate booty. This was right after a whole bunch of Dark Web contraband sites got taken down in a sting operation—so everyone was cooling it to begin with. That made for an even tougher sale if you were somebody no one had ever heard of, which—second of all—the Shadow Barkers were back then. And last, but not least; no one had ever gotten that deep into the NSA database before, so everyone was naturally skeptical that a gang of unknowns had been able to pull it off. It's one thing to swipe a few data files from one of their contractors, like Eddie Snowden did. But going directly into the NSA mainframe and ripping off an actual program—especially one that's highly classified—now THERE'S something you don't see every day, Chauncey. But then guess what they did next?"
"Oh, I don't know," Erin flipped a paw in the air. "Let me guess...they just gave it away for free, right?" It was meant sarcastically, but Conor fell back in his chair, looking stunned.
"Wha...how'd you ever...?"
And then it was her turn to be bowled over.
"What, you mean they DID?"
"Yep," Conor nodded and pursed his lips, "'Free, to good home, adorable NSA hacking tool.' And yeah, it blew me away too, the first time I heard about it. But that was actually a smart move by the Shadow Barkers. After that, they NEVER had trouble finding buyers...and they had plenty more goodies to sell where EternalZoo came from. Oh, and by the way, they've never been caught."
Erin started to answer, but he had already raised a paw.
"The point is, bunny-girl, that EternalZoo is not exactly a rare item—and even if it was, it's been around for nearly five years now. That's back in the dinosaur age in software years. About the only thing it's good for these days is hacking into city government computers...like, for example, the ZPD database."
"You make it sound like..." Erin groped for the proper words, "like hacking into the ZPD computer was...I mean is a piece of cake."
"It is," Conor shrugged, "comparatively speaking. And it's the same thing, just about anywhere else you'd care to name. Check out the budget of almost any big city and you'll find cybersecurity all the way down, near the bottom. A couple of years ago, when Atlambta got hit by a ransomware attack, they called in some guys from Microsloth to come and help out. When the Gates guys got a look at their security set-up they just about split a gut. 'It's a miracle this didn't happen years ago,' one of 'em said."
"I see," Erin's answer was a study in slow caution. She was fascinated but also aghast. The ZPD's computers...no, Zootopia's computers were THAT vulnerable? No wonder the fox kid in the other chair had been able to pull off that jailbreak so easily. It was enough to give her the willy-shivers. "So...who do you think really hit the ZPD with that cyberattack?"
She expected a shrug and a declaration of ignorance—and once again she was proven wrong. Conor's shoulders hunched and his muzzle dipped downwards at the floor.
"Kinda obvious isn't it?" He sounded almost as if he'd started to develop laryngitis, "Hadda be some of my 'loyal followers'."
Erin groaned inwardly. What was that line by Kris Kristotterson...a 'walking contradiction?' It described this silver fox kid to a 'T'. One minute, ready to rip her a new one for daring to think he might have been behind that cyberattack; the next minute beating himself up over it anyway.
"Oh come on, Conor...you really think some kids were behind it?"
He regarded her sourly, "I'M a kid, remember, Snowdrop? And a second ago, you thought I did it!"
Oops, touché; she winced as if she'd stuck her paw on a blackberry thorn. Luckily, he was already moving on. "And heck yeah, it could have been some kids. Ever heard of the LEPUS$ Group? That's Lepus with two S's and the second one's a dollar sign."
"No," Erin admitted, feeling her foot begin to thump. Was he needling her? That name practically screamed that at least some of the members were bunnies.
Perhaps they were, but he didn't belabor the point. "Big international hacking group, they've penetrated some of the toughest databases out there; Microsloth. Oryxcle, even Dapple; and you know who's the head of that outfit? This hedgehog kid outta Oxfurshire, England, lives at home with his mum and dad—16 stinkin' years old!" He spoke with a mixture of wariness and contempt. "And he's just one example; you follow what I'm bringing out?"
Erin did, although she almost wished she didn't. Maybe Conor was right to feel guilty after all. He had known there were kids like the LEPUS$ group out there, and yet he'd never stopped to consider what acts they might commit in his name.
"I get you." She said, and then sensing the approach of yet another uneasy silence, she decided to nip it in the bud. "So...what do we do next?"
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Author's Note:
For the record, much of this episode is grounded in fact. The Wells Furgo (Wells Fargo) Banking Scandal and the subsequent fine happened pretty much as described above. Likewise, the Buxnet (Stuxnet) cyberattack is matter of record. EternalZoo (EternalBlue) is an actual thing, and its history is also more of less as depicted in the above chapter. The Shadow Barkers (The Shadow Brokers) is real groups of hackers as is the LEPUS$ Group (The LEXUS$ Group) and their suspected leader IS a 16-year-old living at home with his folks.
The concluding episode to this chapter will be published later this week.