Cyberpunk

repeatedly probing his routers. It didn’t match a worm’s signature, either. He followed the traceroute and discovered that the attack had originated in the same building as him, a system in a cage one floor below.
    He had procedures for this. He portscanned his attacker and found that port 1337 was open—1337 was “leet” or “elite” in hacker number/letter substitution code. That was the kind of port that a worm left open to slither in and out of. He Googled known sploits that left a listener on port 1337, narrowed this down based on the fingerprinted operating system of the compromised server, and then he had it.
    It was an ancient worm, one that every box should have been patched against years before. No mind. He had the client for it, and he used it to create a root account for himself on the box, which he then logged into, and took a look around.
    There was one other user logged in, “scaredy,” and he checked the process monitor and saw that scaredy had spawned all the hundreds of processes that were probing him and plenty of other boxen.
    He opened a chat:
    > Stop probing my server
    He expected bluster, guilt, denial. He was surprised.
    > Are you in the Front Street data center?
    > Yes
    > Christ I thought I was the last one alive. I’m on the fourth floor. I think there’s a bioweapon attack outside. I don’t want to leave the clean room.
    Felix whooshed out a breath.
    > You were probing me to get me to trace back to you?
    > Yeah
    > That was smart
    Clever bastard.
    > I’m on the sixth floor, I’ve got one more with me.
    > What do you know?
    Felix pasted in the IRC log and waited while the other guy digested it. Van stood up and paced. His eyes were glazed over.
    “Van? Pal?”
    “I have to pee,” he said.
    “No opening the door,” Felix said. “I saw an empty Mountain Dew bottle in the trash there.”
    “Right,” Van said. He walked like a zombie to the trash can and pulled out the empty magnum. He turned his back.
    > I’m Felix
    > Will
    Felix’s stomach did a slow somersault as he thought about 2.0.
    “Felix, I think I need to go outside,” Van said. He was moving toward the airlock door. Felix dropped his keyboard and struggled to his feet and ran headlong to Van, tackling him before he reached the door.
    “Van,” he said, looking into his friend’s glazed, unfocused eyes. “Look at me, Van.”
    “I need to go,” Van said. “I need to get home and feed the cats.”
    “There’s something out there, something fast acting and lethal. Maybe it will blow away with the wind. Maybe it’s already gone. But we’re going to sit here until we know for sure or until we have no choice. Sit down, Van. Sit.”
    “I’m cold, Felix.”
    It was freezing. Felix’s arms were broken out in gooseflesh and his feet felt like blocks of ice.
    “Sit against the servers, by the vents. Get the exhaust heat.” He found a rack and nestled up against it.
    > Are you there?
    > Still here—sorting out some logistics
    > How long until we can go out?
    > I have no idea
    No one typed anything for quite some time then.
    Felix had to use the Mountain Dew bottle twice. Then Van used it again. Felix tried calling Kelly again. The Metro Police site was down.
    Finally, he slid back against the servers and wrapped his arms around his knees and wept like a baby.
    After a minute, Van came over and sat beside him, with his arm around Felix’s shoulder.
    “They’re dead, Van,” Felix said. “Kelly and my s—son. My family is gone.”
    “You don’t know for sure,” Van said.
    “I’m sure enough,” Felix said. “Christ, it’s all over, isn’t it?”
    “We’ll gut it out a few more hours and then head out. Things should be getting back to normal soon. The fire department will fix it. They’ll mobilize the army. It’ll be okay.”
    Felix’s ribs hurt. He hadn’t cried since—Since 2.0 was born. He hugged his knees harder.
    Then the doors opened.
    The two sysadmins who entered were wild-eyed. One had a tee that said TALK NERDY TO ME and the other one was wearing an Electronic Frontiers Canada shirt.
    “Come on,” TALK NERDY said. “We’re all getting together on the top floor. Take the stairs.”
    Felix found he was holding his breath.
    “If there’s a bioagent in the building, we’re all infected,” TALK NERDY said. “Just go, we’ll meet you there.”
    “There’s one on the sixth floor,” Felix said, as he climbed to his feet.
    “Will, yeah, we got him. He’s up there.”
    TALK