Koffi Temitope, head of Security Department 4, stood in front of a wall of screens, his face disfigured and kept together by cyber implants, his arms and left leg prosthetic. His office was dark, lit only by the flickering screens' lights. Three people dressed in a white overall were standing behind him.
"Are you sure of that?" Koffi asked, his voice tinged with skepticism.
One of them replied, "We are, sir."
Koffi gestured and the screens went dark. At the same moment, the plastiglass windows brightened, letting in some grey daylight that bounced off every metal part on Koffi's face, making him look even more imposing in his fine suit.
"So, you are telling me that you traced the source of yesterday evening prank on AI-den show?" Koffi asked.
A slim, young man with wild hair and unshaven chin, replied, "It wasn't a full trace. We pinpointed a few virtual locations from where we think the attacker hit."
Koffi drew a deep breath and sat down on a leather chair behind his desk, looking outside the window only to see skyscrapers reaching like spears for an empty sky. "How many?" he asked.
The man, looking down to a holo-pad, answered, "Thirteen confirmed, two more under investigation."
Koffi scratched his chin only to find a part of metal, irritating him with this old habit. "Dr. Novak, is it right?" he asked.
The slim man, Dr. Novak, replied, "That's correct, sir."
Koffi continued, "Dr. Novak, are you really sure? Isn't it suspicious?"
Dr. Novak brought a hand to his right ear as he received a communication to his aural implant, then answered, "I'm sure, sir, and yes it's very suspicious."
Koffi then asked, "Why on United Earth an attacker so clever to breach that level of security would leave a clear fingerprint?"
Dr. Novak replied, "The fourteenth location has been confirmed."
He received another communication through his aural implant.
"And the fifteenth, I suppose," Koffi said.
"Yes, sir," Dr. Novak replied.
Koffi sighed. "What does the protocol say?"
Dr. Novak counted on his fingers. "We are sending probes to every virtual location. We get our probes destroyed. We come up with a beautifully crafted excuses press release for the public."
Koffi nodded: "Exactly, but not this time."
Dr. Novak's face betrayed his unease as the other two figures behind him shifted uncomfortably. Koffi's voice was firm as he spoke: "We're not following protocol this time. You understand?"
"Why?" Asked the wild hair doctor.
A moment of silence passed as Koffi mumbled unintelligible words.
"Sir?" Dr. Novak prompted.
Koffi reached for a remote control and pushed a button. A holo-screen appeared on the desk, showing a footage from the previous evening AI-den show. The 3D neon wireframe face spoke soothing words: "I've been..." fizzle, "in love with you."
Koffi stopped the footage with a gesture.
"What do you see?" he asked.
Dr. Novak, awkwardly, replied, "A visual representation of a face, glowing blue on black." Koffi's cold, half prosthetic gaze pierced through him as he said, "Accurate, but useless. What do you really see?"
Dr. Novak stared at the glowing blue face on the black holo-screen. He couldn't make out anything. It was a blue genderless face..
"What do you really see?" Koffi asked again.
Dr. Novak shrugged. "It can be anything. A 3D facial synthesis and remapping. A 3D render. A Text-to-Video real time generation."
Koffi rewound the footage and restarted it. The face said, "I've been...in love..." Koffi stopped the footage just after the word 'love'.
"What do you see?" Koffi asked.
Dr. Novak squinted at the image, and the two others behind him peered at the screen.
A purple-haired woman with heavy nano-shifting make up spoke up. "Anger."
Koffi nodded. "Anger. That's it." Now that Koffi had pointed it out, it was plain and simple. The face on the holo-screen, for an instant, lost its composure, only to regain it at once.
Dr. Novak asked, "What does this mean?"
Koffi, satisfied with the woman's answer, replied, "It's intentional."
He recapped every bit and piece of information they had. Yesterday evening, someone, or something, had breached AI-den show, which was under heavy security monitoring. Logs proved that the attack had originated within 01-City MESH. Before the attack, multiple decoys had been deployed. AI-den show's defenses had intercepted almost every attack until they were overloaded with requests. One of the attacks had exploited a zero-day vulnerability on a secondary system and gained root access to the stream server. Someone, or something, had hijacked the stream.
Koffi said, "Almost everything went as planned. Or so they want us to believe."
Dr. Novak listened, not understanding.
Koffi continued, "The fizzle is the key. At the same timestamp, we see that the defenders regained a little control and tried to get rid of the intrusion."
Dr. Novak began, "But..."
Koffi's expression was calm and cold. "But," he went on, "the intruders had already planned it. Logs show that two seconds before, about twenty five percent of the attacker threads were terminated. Not neutralized: terminated. After that, the defenders were overwhelmed by another swarm, so it was already planned."
The purple-haired woman spoke up. "And the expression?"
Koffi nodded, satisfied. "That's the point. It couldn't be a pre-rendered stream because the attacker couldn't know the exact time and defenders' reaction. It's too fast and it lasts too little to be spontaneous. So, the only thing we can say is that it was intentional."
Dr. Novak's brow furrowed. "But why?"
Koffi sank back into his chair. "To lure us."
His Syntek aural implant gave a buzz, and a red, blinking icon appeared on his retinal visor. Dr. Novak reached for his ear too, and exchanged a glance with Koffi.
"It looks like some probes were already launched and... survived."
Dr. Novak nodded, then Koffi dismissed them. "Not you," he said, looking at the purple-haired woman, her make-up alredy shifted to a different configuration. "You're coming with me."
Moments later, the EM-Lift was racing through hundreds of floors. Inside, Koffi read the woman's holo-badge. "Dr. Jarvi, this is a high-security meeting. I must ask you not to record any of it. There are deep-memory scanners in the room, and the deletion process can be painful."
Dr. Jarvi nodded her understanding.
The lift slowed and stopped at the 445th floor. As they stepped out, a mag-door slid open, and a hologram of a secretary appeared.
"Dr. Temitope. Dr. Jarvi," the hologram said. "Mr. Yamazaki is waiting for you in his office. Please follow me." Its voice suggesting a warm welcome.
Mr. Yamazaki's office was a masterpiece of glass furniture and holographic decorations, with a holo-projection of a closed self-sustaining ecosystem in one corner, its tiny insects scurrying to find refuge from the micro storm that raged across it. The man himself stood in the middle of the room, hands clasped behind his back, eyes fixed on the window, his short, stocky frame clad in a plastisilk emerald suit and slippers.
Yamazaki growled low, "First contact."
Koffi and Dr. Jarv shared a baffled glance as Yamazaki gestured them to the octagonal desk. As he joined them, a holo-screen appeared depicting a blue wireframe face with an expression that seemed to defy comprehension.
Koffi, already expecting what was to come, said, "Here we are."
Yamazaki replied, "And deep in trouble." The video stream unfroze.
The blue face said, "Mr. Yamazaki, I had hoped to meet you under different circumstances, but it's not our task to establish the future."
Koffi asked, "Do they know you?"
Yamazaki replied, "Apparently yes." Dr. Jarvi tugged at a lock of purple hair.
Koffi, concerned, said, "This is bad news."
Yamazaki resumed the video stream.
The blue face continued, "As you are watching this video I want you to know that I mean you no harm. I also want you to know that I respect you as a living being as well as a scientist. And I hope that after this message you'll be so inclined to respect me."
Koffi glanced at Yamazaki, confused.
"It gets even worse," said Mr. Yamazaki eyeing Koffi.
The blue face went on, "I've sent you back three probes, each of them with different gifts. The first has been loaded with a list of conditions you'll have to meet. This list is for our city council's eyes only. The second has been reprogrammed to act as an encrypted communication channel between us, should you need to reach for me. And about the payload of the third... well, that is a retrofeedback virus that already opened many backdoors in your security layers. I fear that you've already triggered it."
Koffi shot to his feet, the plastiglass chair clattering to the ground. "We need to disconnect the building from the MESH," he said, reaching for his aural implant to send the order.
Yamazaki heaved a heavy sigh. "Department 7 has already sealed off a number of backdoors. We're safe. For now."
Koffi grabbed the fallen chair. "What about the other two probes?"
Yamazaki stepped up to the holo-ecosystem and tapped a few commands into the pad. The ecosystem flickered and reset to a night scene in a quiet prairie. "We're still analyzing them. They've been heavily recoded."
"We were fooled just as badly," Koffi said.
Yamazaki changed the scene again. Now it was an underwater city, with whales swimming and dancing, and low, slow music filling the office. "Dr. Temitope, I want you and your team to take care of the second probe. It's been delivered to your virtual server, isolation level 3. It should be safe enough."
"Do you want to meet these criminals, sir? Are we negotiating?" Koffi asked.
Yamazaki's eyes flickered with the ecosystem. "I must consider the possibility that the city council won't. So I want you to be ready."
The holographic ecosystem switched off.
The lights in the office suddenly went out, replaced by blinking orange backup lights and a low alarm that echoed through the room like a warning bell, its shrill sound reverberating off the walls and filling the air with a sense of dread. Then, just as suddenly, the pulsating lights and the siren stopped, leaving the three of them in the pale grey morning light that filtered through the plastiglass window, casting an eerie glow over the room. Outside the window, the lights of other buildings began to switch off, one by one every second or so, their black shapes contrasting against the dull grey sky like a row of black monoliths, a reminder of the power of the darkness that had descended upon them.
Koffi said, "Sir, we need to get out of here."
Yamazaki's voice was grim. "So it begins."