The Deadman

In the very far future there are forces that are considered the wizards of their time. He wasn’t that high in the ranking, if anything, he was nothing compared to the Cyberspace Devils that he had known in that other life. Monsters that roam the Cyberspace Domain, flying across networks that have been forcibly interconnected.

They would call this era of cyberspace the golden era where there were no malicious sentient AI and net plagues that could destroy an entire telecommunications network. Cyberspace Domains are these interdependent networks of information technology  structures composed of local data. The internet, telcom networks, computer systems, alongside embedded processors and controllers.

Back when he was being trained he was required the skills on how to make use of links and nodes located in physical domains to perform logical functions that create effects in cyberspace that would affect physical instruments, both wired and network.

Due to the nature of this skill. He was required and trained in engineering and in matters of cyberspace that were localized compared to the global communications of this world that are multinational and are shared resources that didn’t care about enemies and adversaries as much as they would in the future.

The networks, communications systems, computers, cellular phone systems, social media websites, and technical infrastructures are all part of this cyberspace domain.

He was trained to handle the physical, logical, and cyber-persona layers of the Cyberspace Domain.

Visiting the data center required interfacing with the hardware and to access the logical layer through accounts that are managed by users – the cyber-persona that has access to the logical layers where most of the data is.

Cyberspace Infiltrators, Hackers, and especially, Gearheads like him who dabble in mechanical or technological aspects were required, drilled to know how to make use of them.

He didn’t have any advantage. Brute force can only take him so far and unlike before. He wasn’t dealing with cultists selling organs or gangbangers that needed little planning to neutralize. He also didn’t have the full military support and the backup of a drone swarm so he had to make do with finding network components, interface with the hardware and devices.

It was like moving an arm if he wants to find entities that are not tied to nodes, paths, or individuals. Kato had already confirmed in the data center that they are hosting their centers in  a centralized location. To gain access to these locations needed more subterfuge, planning, and execution of said plans.

So he had logically concluded that if just gaining physical access isn’t enough, then he found things that would allow him access. The thing about people was that they have multiple cyber-personals or accounts. They also separate their work and personal emails more often and use them in different names on forums, websites, and socials. Finding them, tracking them, gaining physical address, and then mining them off their information was the only he could do with for now.

Like the guy he’s after now. Ernel Baldwin had different usernames and emails. Identifying those usernames, and combing through his emails was the only way to go.

Of course, he had tried going through the EMS. But the electromagnetic spectrum was polluted and as congested as the cyberspace that he might as well just focus on a target that had credentials.

Tapping to the radio frequency spectrums. Then scanning through the area where he might find a hint. Although not visible, tapping to equipment in the local center, at least the data he found, revealed radioactive sources underneath the Island, and he could tell from the readings that they were korium.

Wisteria itself was an awful place where the cyberspace and EMS capabilities had been congested  and he was already encountering challenges resulting from all kinds of spectrums that make operating.

But one thing that stood out the most was the frequency of these korium ore that can be detected below. There are a lot of unmanned aircrafts that are the micro sizes in the city and evading them have been a pain in the ass.

And in a contested and congested environment like this he needed to operate like a Gearhead that has a gun pointed on his head. Kato was rather glad that he didn’t have to deal with net plagues, sentient digital viruses, and AI’s while trying to worm his way in. He wasn’t a peer threat to them, but he was still somewhat confident that his days being beaten down by the Rigger who taught him his skills weren’t going to easily lose to these people that haven’t dealt with a net-plague yet.

So while he tries to find the best place to mine this Ernel Baldwin. He had his bots looking for further vulnerabilities in their networks and systems.

Thanks to the documentation of their proprietary software and hardware, he got an idea on how their framework would go and how it would improve down in the future. Although he was mostly in the field while doing this, and then fighting. He had days where he just helped on developing applications and software to be used. He had spent hours upon hours staring down an IDEA, scratching his head, reading documentations, understanding them, and applying what he understood.

Of course, having an understanding of their network capabilities means that he could find a way to tap into their security more than the surface level.

From antivirus software, firewalls, anti-spam software, communications security, data encryption, password protection, physical and technical barriers. Even to how they monitor and train their security.

Denying, degrading, disrupting, and manipulation was a key to gaining access. Honestly, he was poorly equipped and if it wasn’t for his access to the local data center, making use of their servers and processors computing power. He wouldn’t have anything other than grumble.

Although the people in the data center were quite overworked. Kato was glad that he had tested the waters first. This city’s Cyberspace Security was quite competent, seeing that their Defense information Networks were holding up despite him congesting their traffic through meaconing.

Using the embassy’s hardware is going to risk people, and he’d rather not think about that. Kato had the idea to file false reports about flooding, terrorists, and all kinds of trouble to ensue panic.

But that would just alert the security forces and get the attention of the authorities. And he had seen little kids and their families. He was going to take care of it, but even now, he couldn’t bear the idea of involving kids in the affairs of adults.

He had seen children, not even past ten die. He wasn’t a saint enough to let them kill him either because he had cursed how many times he had to pull the trigger.

Children being involved in these affairs leaves a bad taste. He’d rather avoid choosing a plan that would involve hurting families. Nonetheless, there was a certain urgency that he needed. He had been observing Ernel Baldwin for the past few hours, taking notes, making timestamps, and then finally deciding which place he should start.

Ernel Baldwin was on the top. It was obvious he’ll be having  security attached to him so Kato had to tune in to his all-sense to find them and then marked them, allowing him to keep track of their movements.

There are two places where a man is very vulnerable. His bedroom and his workstation where he could have some leisure time.

Getting inside his home was easy. He found Ernel Baldwin asleep and overworked that applying a drug on him that would keep asleep seems like a mercy to him.

Most of the surveillance was nothing to him. Although the world was sufficiently advanced, it wasn’t enough to trouble him. From masking his appearance digitally, and then with the use of his glass cloaking embedded on his deck. He was able to find Ernel Baldwin’s work computer and started mining them. He logged in to these emails, and was able to spot the canary traps that were present on the emails.

In Ernel Baldwin’s case, he was represented with three periods found at the end of his email. He had them copied with the formatting on it. The rest of his files were reports on security issues, troublesome personnel, and violated guidelines that made life quite tiresome for Ernel Baldwin.

The Island was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Heatwaves, low pressure areas, and typhoons were common as rain. It said in the reports, at least fourteen times.

Wisteria had a lot of entry points for water to pass through and from the looks of it. Erwin Baldwin had been receiving reports from engineers and mechanics who were requesting environmental suits to handle the water-cooled machine underneath the island.

His reports also suggested that they are carrying the gathered k-ore supply, which he assumes to be the korium, to power this thing.

Their head of safety was even preparing bunkers for the test run which made Kato even more curious about what they were trying to do that it needed a bunker.

But the machine itself was not underneath. The test they were trying to do was going to be on an island that is part of Wisteria, but is occupied by military forces.

Entry to the island is prohibited. It was a no-fly zone that is unreachable unless you rode the designated rail system that would take you to that island. It was a well-camouflaged island that seems to be only known to those who have higher access.

He needed the info so he duplicated Ernel Baldwin’s drive, compressed it, and then went back to his computer. It was the oldest trick in the book. All he had to do was open the command prompt and enter two commands that  would write random data to his hard drive, overwriting file systems and partitions. It overwrote the SDA devices with zeroes. He basically created ten million chunks on his drive to induce a hard drive crash artificially on structures that were meant for recovery.

It was a very old method that his friend told him to clean a drive before copying data to mitigate cross contaminations, just in case the drive were full of viruses that would zero the systems that it was installed on to. But most of the time, he was using it to Nuke start of disk structures.

“DD-zero is still highly effective as ever,” Kato mutters as cleanses the drive of any data.

He added a few tricks as well. So when Ernel Baldwin boots up his computer, all he’d see was a blue screen. With his drive copied, he made scans of his access cards and keys. He also took the liberty of scanning his face, eyes, and thumbprints to duplicate his biometrics.

He could use his illusions to conjure his face. But it would also be best if he had a photorealistic render of his Ernel Baldwin’s face. How the bastard moves and talks can be solved through watching some of the footage he got from his socials and a voice modulator that can generate his voice.  His intonation, accent, and what words he’d used would be quite a problem, but he can at least fake it to an extent.

Kato stops to look at the sky. He taps his foot twice on the paving, and then shoves his hands inside his coat pockets.

“I guess a Gearhead remains a gearhead huh.”

It felt natural doing this.

And yet there was a sense of tiredness that enveloped him for a moment. He gathered strength somewhere else, a place that he couldn’t reach and perhaps his own interest had led him to believe that if there was some asshat trying to turn the skies here burning orange. He might as well try to help those who can do something about it.

“Strato better leave me alone after this. Jesus, no wonder I wanted to retire back then.”

Kato mutters, his legs taking him back to the direction of the embassy where he plans to unload what he got and ask for assistance.