💾 Archived View for clemat.is › saccophore › library › shorts › defcon › 25 › DEFCON-25-0tt3r-The-De… captured on 2022-06-04 at 01:03:13.
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
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The Denizens By: 0tt3r
Her music went foul, which is why everyone in Denizen’s Arcade
saw it happen. Her music--that beautiful pattern of joystick
slams, button taps, bleeps, blings, and audible verbal tics of
concentration that accompanied Shannon working her magic on her
favorite machine--became dissonant and broken. It drew their
attention and so they all saw her frozen, shaking, hands
jiggling on the controls. They all saw her cursory ponytail
wriggling like a mortally wounded snake, briefly, before she
bent at the waist and drove her face through the thick glass of
the screen.
A week later the console had been removed by efficient men in
utility jumpsuits, the cops had completed their interviews, and
all the denizens of the arcade were in the back corner, slumped
in hard metal chairs around a plastic table piled with greasy
pizza boxes and open, warm soda cans. They heard a familiar
electronic scream and warble through the thin office door on the
back wall and were reminded that they weren’t all at the
table. Chuck was on the computer. “Why?” asked Brandon.
Tom and Dave leaned back in their chairs, blowing out long
sighs. “Stop asking that,” said Dave. “But.. Shannon?
Through the glass?” “She was epileptic, the cops said.”
“She wasn’t epileptic. C’mon. Half the summer? This?”
Brandon flapped his hands in a loose circle and they all looked
around the dark arcade. Strobes of color flashed out of every
screen, flickering against the walls and the sides of the other
consoles in a visual frenzy. The synthesized music and effects
of nine machines running unattended in demo mode blended into a
constant familiar mashup. But all of them could hear the hole
in the music where Shannon’s console should be. “And have
you ever actually seen a seizure?” asked Brandon. “They
freeze, and fall. Maybe they bounce their head off a table and
it hurts. But not.. that..”
The door opened and a tourist walked in. He had on jeans, a tucked in
t-shirt, and thin-lensed glasses. Then the door closed and his details
were lost in the flickering visuals. He put a coin into a platform
gamer. Ten seconds later, he lost his first life. They turned back to
each other. Before they finished sipping their flat sodas the tourist
died again.
“It doesn’t matter why. It happened. She’s gone,” said
Dave. “She’s not gone,” said Tom, “she’s in a
coma.” Dave said nothing. The tourist died again, fished a
coin from his pocket and moved to another machine. It was an
alien shoot ‘em up, right next to the hole where Shannon’s
game was supposed to be. He didn’t survive the first wave.
Chuck came out of the office, watched the tourist play for a
second, and threw himself into the last empty chair with an eye
roll. “Well, we got scooped.” he said, “But it was a
different version, so I got some download creds anyway.”
“How could it be a different version?” Dave asked. “We
were one of the first to get it and we only had it for a
month.” Chuck shrugged. “Dunno. But hashes didn’t match
so they gave me some creds.” “Who beat us?” asked Brandon.
“Who do you think?” “Gino’s. Again,” said Tom. Chuck
nodded. “Don’t they have jobs in New York?” Chuck
shrugged. “I would have beat them. But I lost a week. You
know..” All four denizens of the arcade drank. The tourist
died again and seemed to be content watching the demo mode.
Dave said, “Why did it take so long anyway? Didn’t you pull
it the first night?”
Chuck nodded, “Of course. But it wouldn’t load into the play box
right, and I didn’t want to deliver dead code. Took me a bit to
figure it out.”
“Copy protected?”
“Something. The game bytes were ciphered somehow and get cleaned up
with some sort of bootstrap code. The bootstrap needs a key and it took
me awhile to find it in the ROM.”
Tom leaned forward. “Oh! That sounds fun. Why didn’t you
ask us to help?” Chuck said, “I did have help. Shannon did
it.” The others considered that a moment, then nodded and took
sips. Brandon looked around. The tourist was still staring at
the demo mode. “Hey man, you want some help on that game?
There’s just a couple basic moves to get you past that tricky
first wave.” The man turned and awkwardly pantomimed a “who
me?” kind of look. “No. Thanks.” He walked out, change
jangling in his pocket. Tom looked at Brandon. “Jerk,” he
said. The others barked a tight laugh. Dave asked, “Didn’t
you teach that guy at Gino’s how to pull the code off the
consoles?” Chuck nodded. “Didn’t you say he was kind of
hopeless at it at first?” Chuck shrugged and nodded. “So
how did they beat that protection if it took you three weeks?”
Chuck shrugged and returned to the office. Shortly after that
they heard the shriek and warble of the modem again. Tom got up
and went to the shoot ‘em up the tourist had been playing. He
pulled some pieces of stiff wire out of his pocket, crouched on
his haunches, and began fiddling with the lock on the change
box. Brandon watched for a moment then said, “You know we
actually have the keys for that lock. Or Chuck does at
least.” Tom didn’t look up. “You say that every time.”
“Didn’t Chuck empty the boxes this morning?” Tom said
nothing but a muttered swear word as his hand slipped and banged
off the front of the console. Chuck came out of the office.
“Hey I downloaded the code Gino’s uploaded. You guys want
to see if it’s a different game?” Dave asked, “You wasted
a download on Gino’s version of a game we already have?”
“I said it was for research, maybe they’ll give me a
freebie,” Chuck said. “Tom, seriously, stop doing that. I
swear the keys are starting to jam.” Tom didn’t look up.
“You’ll thank me someday.” Chuck shook his head and headed
back to the office. Dave and Brandon followed, squinting a bit
in the bright light of the office and carefully stepping past a
fat electric plug jammed into the socket by the door and warded
by a wrap of stolen police tape. It was a small space,
cluttered, but big enough for a desk on one side to hold a
computer workstation. The case was off of the CPU, exposing its
innards for all to see. The CRT glowed with a spinning,
checkerboard-patterned ball that bounced off the edges of the
screen. A new, top-end, in-line modem blinked furiously next to
the computer. On the opposite wall was a workbench, also
cluttered. A couple of fishing tackle boxes were stacked in the
corner of the workbench, topped by a clean, well-loved soldering
iron. Next to these tackle boxes was a pile of cables, cords,
and circuit boards sitting on the workbench in a way that
implied they were all working together to achieve a singular
goal. A single, wide, flat cable went from this ordered
electronics entropy into an old console pushed against the wall.
There was no change box, just a piece of cardboard, hinged and
latched with duct tape where the change box should be. The
control panel for the console was also missing so you could see
straight into the machine under the CRT. “Stick and one,”
said Dave. Chuck nodded and bent under the workbench. There
were banging and sliding sounds and Chuck surfaced with a
plywood board that had a joystick and a button mounted on it. A
bunch of plugs and wires dangled from underneath. He held it
next to the console while Dave pulled the wires into the hole
where the control board should be. “All right,” said Dave,
leaning back. Chuck lowered the board over the four mounting
screws and tightened it down with some wing nuts. “I already
loaded it,” he said as he flicked a switch sticking out oddly
from the side of the console. The screen lit up, the hardware
ran through some POST cycles, and the splash screen appeared.
Brandon stepped up before the others could and hit the 1-Player
button. They watched while he played a bit. He was competent,
and quick, but not as good as Shannon was. Or had been. “Uh.
It seems the same to me. I guess. I mean nothing is making me
feel like it is different.” “Me neither,” Dave said,
“Maybe we should load our version up?”
Brandon stepped away from the machine and Chuck shut it off. After some
rapid mouse movement, bursts of staccato typing, and a couple of
connector jiggles, a light on the workbench gear began blinking. It
blinked for a long minute before turning a solid green. Chuck turned
the console back on.
Brandon stepped back up the machine. “Here we go.”
“YES!” shouted Tom as a very satisfying click tremored up
his fingers and the change box fell open before him. He removed
the single quarter the tourist had left behind and held it
aloft. He spun on his heel. “YES!” he shouted again to the
empty arcade. “Oh c’mon”
He heard familiar game music coming from the office. He flung the door
open, held his trophy up, and shouted, “YES!”
“Hey man,” Brandon said over his shoulder, eyeing the
screen and working the controls. Dave and Chuck just kept
watching Brandon play.
“That’s Shannon’s game, isn’t it?” asked Tom.
“Yeah.. CRAP!” said Brandon, jerking the stick sideways,
“we loaded the one from Gino’s and then ours to see if there
was any playable difference, but I haven’t seen any… CRAP!
...thing.” “‘Hey man, you want some help on that game?
There’s just a couple basic moves to get you past that tricky
first wave.’” said Tom in his version of Brandon’s voice.
“Shut uh… nonononoNONONONO!! CRAP!!” Brandon smacked the
keys and stepped back. “I HATE that part!” He turned
around. “Well, did it look different?” Tom looked at Dave
and Chuck, “Guys?” Dave blinked and shook his head, “Sorry
I must have zoned out a bit.” He looked at Chuck.
“Chuck?” Chuck didn’t respond. He was staring through
Brandon’s chest at the console screen behind him. But he
wasn’t staring, exactly. His eyes spasmodically jerked in a
low-res circle. Brandon screamed, “CHUCK!” and smacked his
hands together. Chuck jerked slightly but kept staring through
Brandon’s chest. Tom looked down and kicked the
yellow-wrapped plug near the door. He saw a little spark, heard
an audible snap, and then the whole room went black.
“Crap!” shouted Brandon. There was a grunt. Then a
confusion of thumping noises. Someone stepped on Tom’s foot.
Brandon felt an odd sensation like a windmill spinning past his
face followed by some Newtonian feeling of a large mass falling
away from him. A cacophony of bangs and splintering split the
air of the dark room. Something collapsed in the distinct sound
of stacked, cascaded failure. There was a final, deep,
watermelon thud. “OUCH!” said Chuck. “Chuck!” said
Brandon. Dave pushed open the office door and light from the
compliant-but-not-sufficient emergency lighting in the arcade
leaked into the office. “I’ll get the breaker,” he said.
Brandon crouched next to what he could see of Chuck, careful not
to touch anything. Tom held still. The lights came back on.
Chuck lay in the middle of the office, one hand rubbing his
head. He was covered in precious gear. The workbench had
tilted and dumped tackle boxes, soldering iron, and the console
load box on top of Chuck. It was still a connected grouping of
electronics, but there was a sense they had somehow lost their
singular purpose, perhaps lost their soul. The recycled plywood
desk was split down the middle with jagged, thin daggers of wood
on both sides of the break. The computer’s guts were spilled
across Chuck’s abdomen. The CRT had slid forward. It was the
undeniable source of both the final thud and Chuck’s head
pain. He had been lucky though. The thick power cord to the
back of the monitor had been trapped by the edge of the desk and
kept it from dropping fully onto Chuck’s head. Tom stepped
across the rubble and pushed the CRT back, wedging it into the
corner. “Jesus..” “Here,” said Brandon as he began
picking gear off of Chuck. “Are you okay?” “What the hell
happened?” asked Chuck. Brandon and Tom looked at the
console. It had booted up again and the splash screen was
beckoning them. Dave stepped through the door, glanced at the
screen, and flicked the switch on the console. The screen
blipped white and then faded slowly to black. “Oh,” said
Chuck. It wasn’t “oh” as in, “now I get it”, it was
“oh” as in, “hey, I just discovered I’m hurt.” It was
the kind of “oh” to get your Id all fired up. “Crap!”
said Brandon. Tom reached down to pull Chuck up. “Stop!”
said Dave, “Move out of the way Tom.” Dave crouched next to
Chuck and examined his arm. There was blood dribbling from cuts
on Chuck’s left forearm. Blood was starting to pool in the
crook of his elbow. “They don’t look deep but I do see some
splinters. We need to get you cleaned up.” They started
pushing the the gear off of Chuck with a little less care. Tom
scooped the console loader remnants up. They still had power,
if not purpose. The wrong loose wire slid across the right bare
metal. There was a pop and a thin stream of smoke drifted up
from the boards in Tom’s hands. “Great. I’ve told you
before not to let the smoke out,” said Chuck. Tom shrugged,
pulled the power cable out, dumped the boards in an
unrecognizable heap where the workbench was supposed to be, and
helped Chuck to his feet. They led him out the back door.
At first it was easier to just take refuge in soap, water,
Bactine, tweezers, and bandages. They were tangible, physical
things; they had known uses and effects. They were unlikely to
simply start causing strange things to happen. But once they
were all seated around Chuck’s parents’ kitchen table, in
Chuck’s parents’ clinically-clean kitchen, sipping on iced
soda from heavy glasses, it was time to face the things that
they had seen. There was too much empirical information in
their heads, and too much curiosity to ignore it. “What the
hell,” said Tom. “It just blanked me,” said Chuck.
“The last thing I remember was watching Brandon get past the
boss at level 10. Then I was on the floor in the dark.”
Brandon took a forced gulp and set his glass down like it was
made of porcelain. Brandon’s skin was January pale, as
opposed to his normal mid-July pale. “Your eyes. You were
freaking out.” He didn’t look up. Dave went ahead and said
it, “It’s the game. It has to be the game.” “But
Brandon was playing the game, not Chuck,” said Tom. Dave said
nothing. They all heard a gasp from upstairs. Chuck’s mom
hurtled down the stairs and slid to a stop in the kitchen, a
dirty white towel streaked with blood in her hand. Her wide
eyes took in the boys, sipping on their perspiring soda glasses.
She saw the bandages on Chuck’s arm. “What happened?” she
asked as she jerked his arm up for inspection. “Ow! I fell
at the arcade. It’s okay. Dave cleaned me up.” She glanced
at Dave, her eyebrow precisely arched. “Scouts,” said Dave.
Chuck knew his mom always harbored an un-earned belief in the
skills of the Scouts, mainly because they met at her church and
were always cleaning or improving it in some way or another.
She completed her superficial examination of Dave’s handiwork
and released Chuck. “Well,” she said, “you could have at
least cleaned up after yourself. I thought someone had died.”
She brandished the soiled towel at Chuck. “Sorry mom,” he
said. The doorbell rang. She gave one last shake of the towel
and turned on her heel, “Clean it up!” The boys heard the
front door open, then murmurs of cordial greeting, then
concerned murmurs, then surprised murmurs with an edge of
determined helpfulness. Chuck’s mom returned to the kitchen,
with Shannon’s mom in tow. The boys stood up as one. “Mrs.
Bennett! Is everything okay? Is Shannon ok?” asked Chuck,
“Is she…” Mrs. Bennett was slouched, her limbs seeming to
dangle from their ligaments, unwilling to give up but also
unwilling to do more than absolutely necessary. She did spare a
weak smile for Chuck. “No. Nothing has changed. Thank you
for sending flowers. I put them right next to her.” Brandon
and Dave looked at Chuck. Chuck’s mom’s eyes widened just a
little bit. Chuck examined the top of the table and mumbled
something indistinct. Chuck’s mom cleared her throat,
“Nicole, you mentioned you had something for Chuck.”
“Yes. Chuck, this was on Shannon’s desk. It was addressed
to both you and Shannon.” Mrs. Bennett held out an opened
envelope. “It’s some sort of acceptance letter to go talk
in Las Vegas?”
Chuck paused a moment and then reached out, “Oh. All
right.” “I think Shannon would like it very much for you to
go give that talk for her,” Mrs. Bennett said.
The boys cleaned the bathroom to their standards, which were
very unlikely to meet household standards, and returned to their
now watery drinks in the kitchen. Shannon’s letter was
sitting in the middle of the table, open and unfolded. Brandon
said, “Flowers, huh?” Chuck’s head snapped up and he
looked right into Brandon’s eyes, “Yes. Flowers.” At
that moment, they could hear the decrease in brownian motion as
water molecules condensed on their glasses. Brandon looked at
his glass and said, “That’s nice. She deserves them.”
They all took a sip of soda and listened to the birds singing
outside. Dave asked, “Did you know she had applied to DEF
CON?” Chuck shook his head. “What is DEF CON?” asked
Brandon. “It’s a hacker meetup,” said Dave. “I’ve
heard of it, but I’ve never been.” Tom spun the letter
around. “Well, let’s go find out.” “What?” asked
Chuck. “Look this letter says Shannon’s talk was titled
‘Playing the Game You Want in the Arcade You’ve Got.’
That sounds pretty familiar to me,” Tom said. “Can you
give that talk?” Chuck nodded. “So let’s go do it!”
Dave took the letter. “It says she was going to give a
demo.” “That might be hard,” said Chuck. “Tom fried it
and my CPU is trashed too.” “You can fix them!” said Tom.
“DEF CON is in two days,” said Dave. “In Vegas.”
“Road trip!” said Tom. “My van is ready! Brandon?”
Brandon smiled and displayed the inside of his wallet. There
was a flash of plasticized gold. “Brandon Watkins, Senior,
will be happy to fund this adventure.” “What about my
dad’s arcade?” asked Chuck. “Pfft!” said Tom. Chuck
said nothing. Dave said, “It is possible we can fix the gear
in the back of Tom’s van.” “Or maybe the hackers there can
help,” said Brandon. Chuck said nothing. “Come on Chuck.
What would Shannon do?” Chuck’s eyes and head snapped up
again. They heard a footstep and turned to see Chuck’s mom
standing in the kitchen entrance, one rubber-gloved hand holding
a bag full of red-tinged paper towels, the other rubber-gloved
hand holding a spray bottle of bleach. She looked at Chuck and
said, “She would go.”
Tom’s van was a well-cared-for, vintage conversion van from
the 80s. It had a solid motor, a big windshield, two front
windows, and two nearly useless porthole-looking windows set
high in the back corners of van. It had seating and room to
spare for the denizens of the arcade. What it didn’t have was
a workshop. Those portholes didn’t shed enough light to work
by and there was no way to power Chuck’s Weller iron. Dave
hastily conceived an experiment with chopsticks and pennies to
prove that even though Denzel Washington can make a Navy
technician fix a communications system in a submarine under
attack, there was no way Chuck was going to fix anything in the
back of Tom’s van. Instead they packed every tool and piece
of gear they could conceive of needing, along with the
experimental console, the hopeless console loader, and the
all-but-destroyed CPU, in the back of the van. They opted to
make the 1281-mile trip to Vegas in one day. This would give
them a day and a half to fix everything, make sure it worked,
and practice getting Chuck to talk for 45 minutes straight. It
should be plenty of time, especially since they would get two
whole hours back by the time they finally crossed into Pacific
Time. Tom was at the wheel 18 hours after they left home when
he got his first glimpse of the Luxor’s beacon across the dark
desert night. He waited for nearly another hour before he
reached across and smacked Brandon in the arm. Then he banged
the headliner with his fist. “Hey! Wake up! We made it!”
As they peeled themselves off windows, wiped up drool, stretched
frozen limbs, and groaned like the summoned dead, Tom drove
under a big, lit sign. “Welcome to Vegas! City-Wide
Progressive Video Poker Jackpot! Be Our Next Big Winner!”
Brandon directed them to the hotel, guiding them away from the
crowded main strip to darker roads until they pulled into a
resort. Tom parked in a lane marked, “Check In” and simply
stopped moving. The others crowded up from the back of the van
and stared out the windshield. Milling about in the lights at
the front of the hotel was a mass of people they knew without
ever having met, people they understood without talking to,
people they recognized by an unstated code of clothing, hair,
hygiene, grouping, posture, gesture, gear, and distracted focus
on problems only they could see. It wasn’t that they all
looked the same, or acted the same, or smelled the same. It was
subtly encrypted in each person’s distinct combination of
some, or all, or maybe even none of these aspects. It was a
biological digital signature of the finest pedigree, a signature
the boys in the van knew and trusted. Outside the hotel milled
people they knew were not tourists; these people were denizens
of the arcade, just like them. RAP. A sweating valet knocked
on their window, “You guys checking in?” Tom nodded and
they all piled out. The valet poked his head in the side door
and saw the heaping pile of equipment at the back of the van.
He shook his head and raised his hands in defeat, “No, I’m
not getting stiffed again. You’re on your own. You’ve got
30 minutes.” “Do we even have a room?” asked Tom.
“No,” said Brandon. The others stared at him. Chuck
shrugged. Tom opened the back doors to reveal the full extent
of the amount of gear they brought. They all sort of looked
around aimlessly. It was much easier to load the van when it
was parked two feet from the back door of the arcade than it was
going to be to unload it now. Especially since there was
nowhere to unload it to. “Nice van,” said a big, bearded
guy in a red shirt that said “Goon”. He was nearly as tall
as Tom, and a little more heavy-set. He had a slightly
tattered, patch-covered backpack on. There was a radio stuck to
his shoulder strap with velcro. “Whoa.. That’s a lot of
gear. Where are you taking it?” Brandon scratched his
head, “Our room?” The big guy shook his head, “Doubt it.
No way they let you up the elevator with this stuff. What’s
it for?” Chuck said, “I’m doing a demo.” “You’re a
speaker? What talk?” “Playing the Game You Want in the
Arcade You’ve Got.” A big smile split the guy’s face.
“Aww right! Zeed’s been waiting for this talk! My name is
Thug.” “Chuck” Thug shook his hand. “Nice to meet you
Chuck. Give me a second.” Thug pulled the radio off his
harness and stepped away, barking into the microphone. Before
long a whole crew of hackers had gathered at the back of the van
and began carrying the gear away. “Take it to the Haxor green
room,” said Thug. “Here.” He handed 4 badges on lanyards
to Chuck. Three of them were laminated pictures of a white pile
of pills, with a bright red pill that said “DEF CON” on it.
The fourth was blue, with a tan pill. “That blue one is
yours, Chuck.” Dave followed the first group of hacker-porters
through the crowd and into the hotel. As he walked across the
lobby he caught odd snippets of conversation.
“...did you check the pin out…” “...-ing hate the boss on level
4…” “...the Goon kept me out but I told…” “...yeah, of
course I know who Dark Tan…” “...up, down down, left right…”
At the van, Chuck watched the hackers carefully pulling items
from the pile in the back. Thug walked back up and said,
“Chuck, it looks like your gear needs some work.” Chuck
nodded. Thug waited a beat. “So what do you need to fix
it?” “Time, mostly.” “You look a little rough,” said
Thug, looking at Chuck’s arm. “Could you use some extra
hands?” Chuck shrugged. Thug waited a beat, then looked at
Tom for help. “He needs a guy who can solder and a guy who
can breadboard,” said Tom. “And I need someone to put my
CPU back together. And a network connection,” finished Chuck.
Thug laughed and split his face with his big smile, “Brother,
you’ve come to the right place.”
Thirty-two hours and 36 minutes later Chuck stood behind a
podium in front of a couple hundred silent hackers. He reached
down to the presentation table and flicked a bright metal toggle
switch mounted on a plywood board that was titled towards the
audience. A green light also mounted on the board started to
blink. The audience let their eyes flow down from the light,
across the mounted and colorfully wired load console electronics
boards (version 2.0), onto a shiny ribbon cable, and into the
target console, willing the electrons to avoid the demo demons
and travel without fail. The target console itself was a fully
functional Dig Dug machine. It had mysteriously appeared in the
green room in the wee hours of the previous morning. There had
been a label on the back of the machine that would identify the
owners of the machine, but it had been irreparably defaced.
Everyone who was helping Chuck prepare for his talk had agreed
the presentation would be even more amazing if Chuck actually
pulled and replaced the code from a working console, live on
stage. So, before he had disappeared into the swirl of the CON
at night, Tom had popped the oddly empty change box with little
difficulty and Chuck had prepared it for this moment. The green
light blinked a final time and held a solid green. “And now,
instead of Dig Dug, I can play what I want.” Chuck flicked
the switch on the side of the console and Galaga splashed to
life. The hackers let out a raucous cheer, startling Chuck a
little. He smiled. “I guess that’s it then. Who wants to
play Galaga?” As hackers applauded and surged toward the stage
Chuck gave a little nod to the smiling folks in the first two
rows. They were the team of hackers who not only carried his
gear and fixed it, they had improved it. He didn’t know what
their parents called them, but definitely knew their real names.
They nodded back, or smiled, or had already indicated their
approval by simply continuing to pay attention during Chuck’s
talk. At the end of the first row slumped Tom, bleary red eyes
and a deflated listlessness betraying how he had spent most of
his last 32 hours. Chuck wasn’t sure Tom knew where he was.
Dave and Brandon sat next to him, but as far to one side of
their chairs as possible. Whiskey sweat was no one’s best
friend. Next to them sat a hacker Chuck had not seen before.
He seemed intense and met Chuck’s gaze with a little smile on
his lips. Thug showed up next to Tom, took one look, and
laughed. He smacked Tom on the arm, making Tom’s head bob
rhythmically for a few cycles. The unknown hacker said
something and Thug waved Chuck over. When Chuck got close he
could see Thug’s eyes were rather red-rimmed and glassy too,
but he seemed functional. “Chuck, meet Zeed. Zeed, Chuck,”
said Thug. “Zeed has something he wants to talk to you
about.” Zeed stood. He was shorter than Chuck, and wiry. His
arms had rows of what looked like zeros tattooed down the
narrow, corded muscles of his forearms. Other than that, and
the intense edge to his gaze, he just looked like a guy with a
hat on. He gestured, “I want to show you something.” Chuck
glanced over his shoulder at the hackers still gathered around
his gear. Thug said, “Don’t worry about that stuff.
We’ll put it back in the green room for you.” Then Chuck
glanced down at Tom. Thug said, “Don’t worry about him
either. I took care of him last night and I’ll take care of
him now. This is normal for DEF CON.” Chuck nodded. Zeed
said, “Okay. Let’s go.” He led them through the casino
and up to a bar on a raised balcony where he took a table
against the railing. He ordered four beers and waited until the
waitress left. “You know, Chuck, I’ve been waiting to see
your talk since it was announced this past spring. It was
good.” “Thanks. But I can’t take credit for even being
here. Shannon made this happen.” “I saw that name on the
announcement. Where is he?” “She. She... She’s in the
hospital.” “I’m sorry to hear that,” Zeed took a sip of
his beer. “Is there anything I can do?”
Chuck met Zeed’s eyes. There was no break in Zeed’s intensity, or
his candor. It was a sincere question from a fellow denizen. Zeed was
clearly well connected here at DEF CON. He seemed to command other
hackers' respect. He was probably an immensely resourceful and clever
person and he was honestly placing these skills, no matter what they may
be, in Chuck’s hands. As Chuck realized this he felt true gratitude
fill his chest and apply an uncomfortable pressure behind his eyes. For
the first time, he really understood what the words “thank you”
meant.
Chuck also felt a subtext behind the question. Zeed was willing
to do whatever Chuck needed of him if it would help Shannon.
But, if Shannon’s problems were beyond Zeed’s ability to
help then he would rather spend his time on another problem.
Chuck understood this and was not offended. It had been rare in
Chuck’s life to meet another pragmatic soul like this and he
found it refreshing. He shook his head. Zeed said, “I spend
my time hunting flaws in software, Chuck. Flaws that give an
attacker an unfair advantage over a user. I don’t like things
that aren’t fair. And I want to know if what is happening
down there is fair.” Zeed nodded over the railing to the
casino floor below. Directly below them were rows and rows of
video poker machines. Gamblers sat with buckets of coins on one
side of them and half-finished watery drinks on the other as
they smacked lit buttons on the console in front of them.
“Those are $5 coins they are using down there. Every time one
of them smacks that big green button, the casino earns $5.”
Chuck stared for a moment and watched $100 get transferred to
the casino’s bottom line. He went back to his beer. “I
know. I know. Of course it isn’t fair. If the house
didn’t win more than the gamblers then there wouldn’t be a
house,” said Zeed. “But, I would argue that the gamblers
are paying for a fair risk. They know they aren’t likely to
win, but they hope they have a fair chance. They are paying for
the improbable, but still possible, chance that they win a
life-changing payoff. “But those machines are run by hidden
software written by companies that only stay in business if they
keep their clients happy. What’s the problem with that?”
Dave said, “The clients aren’t the gamblers.” “Yes!
What if there really wasn’t a chance to win that big jackpot?
What if the software actively prevents that big jackpot? What
if it maliciously alters the odds? What if it knowingly breaks
this risk versus reward contract the gamblers are paying for?”
Zeed stopped to sip. “It wouldn’t be fair,” said Brandon.
Zeed pointed at Brandon, “It wouldn’t be fair!” He leaned
back in his chair, “That’s where you come in Chuck.” Dave
said, “You want us to pull the code off one of those machines
so you can examine it for flaws.” Zeed smiled, pointed at Dave
and said, “This guy.” Chuck looked at Zeed, looked at the
video poker machines, and looked back at Zeed. Zeed raised an
eyebrow and tilted his head just a little to the right. Chuck
nodded, “Ok.” Zeed banged the table with his beer. Brandon
smirked. Dave turned to look at the machines. “We can’t
just go down there and open a console,” said Dave. “No no.
Of course not. Those machines are both making money and
protecting money. The casino keeps a very effective circle of
love around the things that do those things. If you go down
there and have drunk Tom attempt to pop a console open, your
time in this town will be over. We have to get it out of their
circle of love.” Zeed looked at each of them pointedly.
Brandon shrugged. Chuck nodded. Dave looked down at the
machines again. “What?” asked Brandon. “The casino
protects things that make money and protect money,” said Dave.
“We just have to make a machine stop making or protecting
money.” Brandon waited. “We have to break one, Brandon,”
said Chuck. “Ohhh,” said Brandon. Zeed said, “The casino
won’t waste precious floor space on a dead machine. It makes
them look bad. Once a broken machine is found, it is excised
like a tumor, emptied like a bladder, and dumped under
shockingly poor security in the hot Vegas sun to be picked up by
the repair contractor.” “How do we break one?” asked
Brandon. Zeed picked up his beer, smiled around the mouth, and
tilted his head to the floor. A stunning blonde in a short
white dress was strutting up the video poker aisle, carrying a
bucket which glittered with metal. She stopped, cocked her hip
to one side, and put an index finger to the corner of her mouth
as she seemed to consider each machine individually. Zeed
suppressed a laugh with a snort. Finally she tossed her hair
and perched on a stool in front of a machine, crossing one long
leg over the other. The first coin went in. A cocktail
waitress stopped to take her order. The denizens looked at
Zeed. He merely nodded back down at the gaming floor. The
cocktail waitress returned with a large glass tumbler. The
woman reached for the drink at the same time the waitress tried
to put it in the drink holder next to the console. The blonde
smacked into the glass, hard, and it spilled over the control
keys. Almost immediately the big green button went dark,
followed by a couple of the other control keys. The woman
sprung off the stool and shrieked, pointing at her white dress.
It was now stained by the drink. The woman began gesticulating
and shouting. Within a minute, a serious man in a dark suit,
white shirt, red tie, and an earpiece showed up and calmed the
woman down. She told her story with big, abrupt hand motions.
He kept his hands clasped respectfully in front of him.
Eventually he reached into his jacket, pulled an envelope out,
and handed the woman a plastic card. Zeed snorted again,
“Nice. She even got comped.” She took the card, grabbed her
bucket of coins, and strutted back down the aisle and was soon
lost in the gaming floor. Zeed’s pocket began to chirp. He
pulled out a small cell phone. “It was beautiful! What did
you get? 200-hundred bucks! Classic! Yeah, I’ll see you
later.” He shut the phone off and said, “And now we wait for
phase two.” Phase two arrived within five minutes. Two guys
in work clothes and belts full of tools showed up with a
heavy-duty hand truck. They made quick work of disconnecting the
video poker machine and carted it away. Zeed stayed seated and
ordered another round of beers. “Sit. Enjoy. We’ll pick
it up later.” Dave asked, “They are just going to hand us
the machine?” “No, they will only hand it over to the repair
contractors,” said Zeed. “That’s why we are going to need
Tom’s van.”
Four hours later, as the CON swirled around the casino, the
denizens were back inside of Tom’s van waiting on a side
street near the hotel. They all had on plain jumpsuits. Tom
was lucid, and angry. “I can’t believe you spray painted my
van!” he shouted. “Oh for god’s sake, stop saying
that,” said Brandon. “My VAN!” “Tom, look at your
hands. You helped,” said Dave. “I didn’t know what I was
doing!” he said, “I was still drunk! How the hell did Zeed
talk all of us into this? I mean, c’mon, we look like we are
going to pull a heist.” “It’s not a heist if we return it
when we are done,” said Brandon. Tom glared at him, “I’m
not sure you are a good source of moral guidance here Brandon
Watkins, ‘Senior’.” Chuck spoke up, “I trust Zeed.”
Tom snorted, “Well Thug introduced us to Zeed and Thug nearly
killed me last night.” Dave asked, “What does that even
mean? Is that supposed to be the start of some kind of
syllogism?” “My VAN!” There was a sharp knock on the
outside of the van. Brandon opened the door to reveal an
attractive brunette woman in dark pants and crisp white shirt,
wearing a strict ponytail, and carrying a clipboard and a cell
phone. “Hello boys,” she said. There was a moment of
silence and then Zeed popped around the edge of the door.
“Gents, this is Slick. You saw her handiwork earlier. Now
she’s going to help us collect.” “Wait a second,” said
Brandon, “you were the blonde?” She winked, “There’s way
more than one kind of hacking, boys.” “Slick this is Chuck,
Brandon, Tom and Dave.” Thug stepped up and loaded a
heavy-duty hand cart into the back of the van. “Good luck!”
“Alright, follow Slick’s lead and let her talk. Try not to
talk at all really,” said Zeed. “That means you too
Chuck.” Chuck shrugged. “We’ll see you in a just a few
minutes. Tom, don’t worry, we’re going to make this
right,” Zeed slammed the side door and gave it two hard
smacks. With Dave at the wheel, they pulled away from the curb
and followed Slick’s directions through streets that
immediately lost all trace of the Vegas facade to become
utilitarian and industrial. The bricks and concrete looked like
they had all been blasted by the sun and scoured by blowing sand
for thousands of years. After just a couple of turns they ended
up outside a locked chain link fence. They could see the video
poker machine just sitting there on the other side of the fence.
Slick got out of the van and pushed a little buzzer cable tied
onto the fence post. She smoothed her hair, looked for the
camera that had to be watching her, and smiled directly into it
with a wave. A heavy steel door banged open and a serious man
in a dark suit, white shirt, red tie, and an earpiece came to
the fence and opened it. “Hi!” said Slick. “I’m from
Game Management. We’re here to pick up,” she consulted her
clipboard, “a video poker machine, possible water damage.”
She indicated the machine sitting against the wall with her pen,
then she brought the pen to her mouth and nibbled on it a little
bit. “Yeah, all right.” said the guard, with barely a
second’s hesitation. Slick nodded over her shoulder to Dave.
By the time they were all out of the van with the hand cart,
Slick had moved right next to the guard and was directing his
attention to the clipboard. “Ok I just need your help to fill
in some these items.” Brandon pushed the hand cart through the
gate with the rest in tow. Chuck was examining the ground as he
walked, which was normal for him. Dave held himself very still
as he moved, which wasn’t. Tom was squinting in the sun and
sweating. “I don’t feel good,” he said. “Then just
supervise,” Brandon said. The job of loading the console and
securing it to the dolly was actually fairly easy. It was the
same basic size and shape as a video game console and they had
plenty of experience moving those around. Brandon and Dave did
most of the work. Chuck held on to the hand cart to make sure
it wouldn’t roll away across the ice-rink-flat concrete lot.
Tom stood off to the side, nodding his head and exuding sweat
patches in strategic places on the jumpsuit. They carted it
back out to the van. “Man, you feeling alright?” asked the
guard, looking at Tom. Slick giggled and tossed her pony tail.
“His first night out in Vegas last night,” she said. The
guard smiled, “Hang in there man, it’ll get better. Unless
it gets worse!” He looked at Slick, who duly giggled and gave
the guy a playful smack on the arm. “Please sign here, and
here, and here,” Slick said, directing the guard’s attention
back to the clipboard. Wrestling the console into the back of
the van was a bit harder and Tom had to help. “Oh god,”
he said as he helped lift it up. “Oh god.” “Shut up,”
hissed Brandon. Then it was done. The hand cart and console
were secure in the back of the van. Tom made it to the
passenger seat and slumped down. Then he immediately sat back
up and rapidly rolled the window down. “Oh god. I need
air.” Dave got back in the driver’s seat and smacked the
door a couple of times. Slick smiled and pulled the top paper
off the clipboard. “Okay, that’s your copy. And here’s
my number if you have any questions.” She hand wrote her
number on the sheet and gave it to the guard. He smiled. Dave
watched the guard watch Slick walk away. She came around the
front of the van, rolled her eyes at Tom melting in the
passenger seat, got in the back and slammed the door. “Ugh,
men,” she murmured. Dave pulled away. “Make a right,”
Slick said. “Oh no,” groaned Tom as they turned the corner.
He sat bolt upright, jammed his head out the window, and
vomited. “Ugh! Men!” Slick repeated.
Slick led them to even smaller and more industrial streets until
they turned down a narrow back alley and parked next to a steel
door set in a pale cinder block wall. “Honk,” she said.
Dave honked the horn. The door opened and Zeed came out of a
rectangle of darkness with a cool blast of air and a smile.
Dave heard some very familiar electronic music mixed with a
particular rhythm of sound effects. Slick got out to meet him.
“So?” Zeed asked. “Perfect. Everything except air stream
over there,” she said. Zeed peered past Dave to examine Tom,
who didn’t look quite finished yet. “Will it be a
problem?” he asked. Slick shook her head, “No. I gave the
guard my number.” There was a warbling sound and Slick’s
phone lit up. She checked the number, feigned confusion, and
answered with a “Hello?” that somehow actually said, “I
know exactly who you are and I’m so happy you called.” She
walked off to take the call. Dave said, “She’s amazing.”
“Yes. Yes she is,” said Zeed. “C’mon, let’s do
this.” They hauled the video poker machine into the arcade.
There was a small back office, just like Chuck’s. It was
cluttered with electronics detritus, just like Chuck’s. It
also had a console load board and a CPU, which actually were
Chuck’s. “You’re up,” said Zeed, smacking Tom on the
arm. He handed Tom a rolled set of lock picking tools. Tom
still didn’t look the right color but he was delighted to see
the organized, clean set of thin metal hooks and tension bars.
He crouched in front of the video poker machine and set to work
on the lock. In a few moments it opened. Tom rocked back and
examined the magical pieces of steel. He looked up at Zeed.
“Nice work. They’re yours,” Zeed said. Tom smiled. Then
he swallowed and the color drained from his face. “Oh god.”
He rushed out of the office and crashed out the back door. Zeed
said, “Chuck, all yours. Dave, can you and Brandon fix the
control buttons?” “Probably,” said Dave. “Fix it?”
asked Brandon. “If we don’t want anyone to remember today,
we need to return a working video poker machine,” said Zeed.
Inside, the poker machine was much the same as any other video
game console. The hardware, firmware, and most of the software
was very similar to what Chuck knew. He applied a few of the
tricks he had learned from the crew at the CON, made a few
inspired on-the-fly adjustments, and pulled the byte stream off
the console. By the time he finished, Dave and Brandon had
cleaned and tested the control panel. Tom had also cleaned
himself up and successfully tested his ability to keep food
down. He was happily experimenting with his new lockpicks on
the security deadbolt on the back door. “All right, I’ve
got it,” Chuck told Zeed. “Let me see,” Zeed said. He
took over Chuck’s CPU, opened a terminal, and unleashed a
symphony, an opus, a performance of command-line mastery and
text-based information absorption unlike anything Chuck had ever
seen. It was nearly impossible to follow. Whenever a terminal
seemed to be working on a response to Zeed’s multi-line,
compound, piped, redirected, and conditional commands, Zeed
would open another shell window and start a different line of
query. Chuck’s focus on this spectacular--opening like a rare
night flower before his very eyes--was nearly complete. Then a
slight audio signal leaked past his amazement and wonder. As
his brain began to interpret it, he realized he had been hearing
it the whole time he had been in the arcade. Apparently his
brain had finally reached a sufficient state of idle to allow
the interrupt to be noticed. It was the music and effects
overlay of Shannon’s game. He wandered out into the arcade
proper and found the console. It was actively being played by a
couple of kids. Chuck found he couldn’t look at the screen.
In fact, he didn’t really want to get close to it at all. His
response to the machine disturbed him. He stood back from the
machine, eyes on the floor, lost in thought. “Chuck!”
shouted Zeed, right next to him. Chuck looked up. “You all
right?” Chuck nodded. “I’ve been talking to you for like
a minute,” Zeed said with a laugh. Chuck shrugged.
“Anyway, you did great. We’ve got it. It’s going to be
awesome!” Chuck smiled with his mouth, but his eyes didn’t
join in. Zeed turned to face him square on, “What’s up?”
Chuck met his gaze, “There is something you can do to help
Shannon after all. But first, I need to show you something.”
Zeed nodded.
Returning the video poker machine was easy. Slick called her
new friend and the gate was open and waiting for them before
they even got there. Tom, recovered and back at the wheel,
backed the van in for a very convenient delivery right to the
back door. In moments the poker machine was out of their hands
and they pulled away, leaving the smitten security guard waving
happily in their rearview mirror. Slick rolled her eyes. Back
at the CON, Thug let them all back into the Haxor green room
where the Dig Dug console was still showing the Galaga splash
screen. Chuck shut it down and set to work. He quickly loaded
Shannon’s game on the console with the version from their
arcade and turned it on. “Zeed, do you know how to play this
game?” he asked. Zeed looked, “I’ve played it.” “The
version I have loaded into this machine has made three of us
freak out,” Chuck said. “Dave zoned out, I had a standing
blackout that only ended when Tom killed the power to the whole
arcade, and Shannon… got hurt. She is still in a coma in the
hospital. “Brandon has also played the game and showed no
effects. I have a theory about this. I think the better a
hacker you are, the more this game effects you. Shannon was…
is the best among our group. She actually came up with the
original methods we used to rip and load the game code. She is
the one who submitted the talk to DEF CON. I’m next on the
natural talent list. Dave is extremely competent, but isn’t
as curious as me. And Brandon..” “Got it,” said Zeed.
“To test my theory I would like you to play this game. I saw
you at work in the arcade. I think you will react quickly to
this game.” “I told you I’ve played this game before,”
said Zeed. “The version I have loaded is verifiably different
than the one you have played. I’ve played the other version
too and been just fine. When I played this version, it ended
with my workshop destroyed and my arm cut open by splintered
plywood.” “You’re freaking me out, Chuck. If what you say
is true, then this is a terrible idea.” “I need you to see
this Zeed. You will think any other method I can come up with
to show you is bullshit. In less than an hour you convinced us
four to rob a casino, however temporary that robbery may have
been, and you know people like Slick, and you got Tom to
literally spray paint his own van. You will not be swayed by
possible bullshit. You have to do this,” said Chuck.
“Why?” Zeed asked. “Because there’s no other way you
will delay your… other project.” Zeed couldn’t stop the
smile sliding onto his lips. “All right. Let’s do it.”
Chuck nodded, “Brandon, you stand here, hand on the power
switch. You saw my eyes before. You see any sign of that in
Zeed, you flip that switch. Tom, you’re by the power cord.
If Brandon messes up, you yank the cord. Zeed.” Chuck
motioned to the console. Zeed looked at Chuck with fists
bunched and the corded muscles of his forearms standing out
under a slight sheen of sweat on his skin. He stepped to the
console and hit the 1-player button. Brandon took his position
as sentry for Zeed’s sanity. Chuck moved to the other side
and kept his gaze fixed on Zeed’s eyes. The music for the
first level streamed out of the console. Zeed beat it handily.
Tom crouched by the power cord, hand resting on the plug. Zeed
nailed the tricky jump, sprint, jump pattern to beat the second
level. His finger drummed lightly on the jump button. Dave
stood behind Zeed, but just watched the back of his head,
refusing to look at the screen. Zeed jiggled the joystick to
get past the chompers on level 3. He jiggled the joystick. He
jiggled the joystick. He jiggled the joystick. “Crap!”
“Oh god!” “KILL IT!” “TOM!” Brandon yanked the
switch down and broke the toggle off. Tom ripped the plug out
of the wall. Dave grabbed Zeed from behind and crushed him to
the ground. “WHAT THE HELL! WHAT THE HELL! WHAT THE
HELL!” Zeed shrieked. He thrashed and swung and punched and
kicked until he broke free from Dave. He leapt to his feet and
grabbed a chair. He slammed it into the console, breaking a
metal leg off. He flung the chair to the side. Tom threw
himself out of the way to avoid it. Zeed grabbed the metal leg
off the floor and began beating the console, growling. Spit
flung from his lips as he swung at the screen. “NO!”
shouted Chuck and tackled him just as the leg crashed into the
glass. The CRT imploded with a deafening bang and flung glass
everywhere in the green room. At that moment the next speaker
was led in by a goon. He stopped and surveyed the destruction.
Dave was sitting on the floor, nursing a bleeding nose. Tom was
trying to extricate himself from the broken chair; he seemed to
have forgotten he could let go of the power cord in his hand.
Brandon was cupping one hand in the other, a trickle of blood
dripping onto the carpet. At the foot of the smoking video game
console, Chuck and Zeed were gingerly attempting to get out of
each other’s embrace without cutting themselves on the blanket
of glass shards that covered and surrounded them. “You know
what,” said the goon, “let’s go wait in Uber Haxor.” He
turned and led the speaker out. They heard a radio crackle,
“Clean up in Haxor green.” Chuck and Zeed managed to stand
up, carefully dusting the bits from their clothes and hair.
“What the hell is in that code, Sphinx?” Zeed asked. Chuck
shrugged.
They all sat around a wedding-sized round table in a darkened
room lit mainly by laptop screens and computer monitors. Other
round tables mushroomed all around them, each overgrown with
cable lichen, lit by blinking fairy lights, and tended by hacker
fauna. Shouts of joy, or exclamations of rage, or displays of
sheer bafflement rung out randomly and sporadically. Every now
and then a particularly loud “YES!” would be followed by a
general increase in the baseline level of activity and noise. A
steady stream of hackers sprinted for the bathrooms, having
waited as long as possible before giving in to their mortal
shell. They ran back to their terminals just as fast. Zeed had
two laptops cranking at top speed, fingers flying as he mumbled
subsonically. Slick sat next to him, occasionally pointing at a
screen. Chuck sat on his other side and just watched. To
Brandon, Chuck’s eyes seemed to be jerking back and forth in a
manner not too different from what the cursed game seemed to
cause. But the intensity in those eyes did not match the
haunting blankness he had seen in Zeed’s eyes as he kept
jiggling, jiggling, jiggling that joystick. Zeed’s hands
stopped. Chuck leaned forward. Slick looked horrified.
“What?” asked Dave. Zeed shook his head and spun the laptop
to show the screen. Tom glanced up from the padlock he was
trying to pick and didn’t bother. Brandon leaned in and then
looked at Dave. Dave pulled the laptop towards him and saw:
(gdb) info functions ^decoded 0x0804676f decoded_initsync
0x08046f67 decoded_sync 0x08046c5a decoded_diverge 0x08044132
decoded_softhook 0x08046d4d decoded_hardhook 0x08043800
decoded_hammer
“I assume these are routines that affect the game output in
some manner?” Dave asked. “There’s hooks into graphics,
sound, and game behavior” said Chuck. “Init is called at
the end of level 2. ‘’Hammer’ is called right past the
chompers.” “What does that mean?” asked Brandon.
“It’s on purpose,” said Dave. “What?” “The effect.
The seizures,” Dave said. “Shannon,” hissed Chuck.
“Shannon,” said Dave. “Someone wrote this code on purpose
to mess with people’s brains. Someone wrote this code on
purpose and hurt Shannon.”. Tom growled, “That’s
horrible. That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Who?”
Zeed pulled his laptop back, “I don’t know but I am going to
find them and end them.” “How?” asked Brandon. “The
function names didn’t read like that at first. That’s what
has been taking me so long. It’s all obfuscated and
packed,” said Zeed. “But that kind of work leaves hints and
traces. There’s all kinds of unique code and weird data in
here. It will lead to someone or something. Just need some
assistance.” His fingers started flying again and he nudged
Slick. She looked, nodded, and grabbed the other laptop. Chuck
watched over Zeed’s shoulder. Dave watched a smile slowly
spread across Chuck’s face. “Genius,” said Chuck. Zeed
tapped the “return” key with a particularly dramatic
flourish. A wave of frenetic energy and noise swept out into
the room. Hackers clustered together and burst apart in
unpredictable patterns that surely would resemble flocking
behavior in hungry raptors, if raptors would only flock. Cell
phones seemed to play some part in this new action; every table
had at least one hacker’s face half-lit by a green glow. A
phalanx of three red-shirted goons showed up and prowled the
tables, looking for something. They made their way through the
mushroom forest and stopped at Zeed’s table. “Oh. You?”
said one. Zeed nodded. The goon shrugged, “Alright.” They
left the way they had come. Slick nudged Zeed and began tapping
at her laptop. Chuck leaned in and grabbed Zeed’s laptop. He
started typing, stopped and looked at Zeed. Zeed gave a little
shrug and leaned back. Chuck went back to work. Dave suddenly
said, “Oh.” Brandon said, “Seriously? ‘Oh?’ What the
hell is going on?” Dave turned in his seat and swept his hand
in an arc to encompass the endless sea of hacker tables.
“Zeed has hijacked the capture the flag competition. He has
declared the author of the code as a high-value flag and these
hunters are trying to capture it for us.” “Not trying.
Done,” said Chuck. Anger seethed around Chuck’s eyes and
pressed lips. Zeed stood up so fast his chair fell over, “Son
of a bitch.” Slick slammed her laptop lid down and stomped
off. Tom looked up, startled. “No,” said Dave. Chuck
nodded. Brandon sighed. “What?” he asked. “Dr. Marcus
Mathis, cognitive neuroscientist at RPI, speaker for the talk:
‘How are Hacker’s Brains Different?’ Haxor track.
Tomorrow. 11 AM,” said Chuck. Tom said, “He’s a
goddamned speaker?! Here!? He comes here to talk about hackers
and...” “He’s experimenting on us,” finished Zeed.
Zeed’s eyes faded into haunting blankness, but the eyes
remained fixed in one place. Last time Brandon had seen those
eyes he reacted with panic and action. This time he sought
invisibility in stillness. He did not want to attract those
eyes to him. Being seen by those eyes meant death. Zeed
reached out with feline grace and slowly closed the lid on his
laptop. He unplugged his power cord and carefully wrapped it
up, securing the loops with velcro straps. He unplugged
Slick’s laptop and stacked it gently on top of his. He
repeated his precise preparation of her power cord.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “it has been a real pleasure. But I
can’t let you join me now.” He looked down at Chuck. Chuck
nodded. Zeed picked up his gear and silently strode off through
the tumult of the capture-the-flag floor. Just before he
disappeared from view, a slim shadow with the hint of a swinging
ponytail joined him. There was a click as the lock in Tom’s
hands sprung open. He dropped it with a thunk. Then he hastily
cleaned up his pick set and jammed it into his pocket. “I’m
going to find Thug.” They watched him go. Brandon said,
“Food?” “Yes,” said Dave. “Chuck?” Chuck said
nothing, he just stared at the table. Dave motioned for Brandon
and they stood. Before leaving the room, Brandon looked back.
Chuck remained where he was. A small group of hackers had
encroached on their mushroom, but Chuck did not seem to notice.
At 10:45 AM the next morning, Dave and Brandon showed up in the
Haxor track and went to the front of the room. It was crowded
but Chuck was already waiting there. First row. First seat.
Three seats open next to him. They sat. Three minutes later
Tom came in from a staff entrance, led by Thug. The smell of
alcohol and dry sweat was palpable. This time Tom had the same
red-rimmed, but functional, eyes that Thug had. Four days
without shaving had given him a little beard. Somewhere Tom had
acquired a ratty backpack that was covered in a variety of
stickers. Thug handshake hugged Tom. “Good luck, brother.
See you next year.” Tom sat. At 10:53 AM a goon led a man
in. Brandon hissed. “It’s the damn tourist,” he said.
Once he said it, the others also recognized the crappy video
game player they had seen in their arcade so very long ago.
They watched him setting up a laptop on the podium, and
connecting it to the AV system, and fiddling about with his
notes, and smiling at the goon who was helping him. At 10:58 AM
Dr. Marcus Mathis looked up and saw the denizens all watching
him. He didn’t recognize them but he could feel their
hostility pushing against his face. His throat went dry but he
was an accomplished speaker. He fished a little bottle of water
out of his bag and took a sip. At 11:00 AM the goon gave Dr.
Mathis the go signal and he started to talk. “Wow! What a
great crowd! This is the most I’ve-” “DENIZENS OF DEF
CON,” boomed an electronically-scrambled voice over the AV
system, “THIS MAN STANDS ACCUSED.” Since they were sitting
in the front row, they could hear Dr. Mathis say, “What the
hell?” His words were not repeated over the loudspeaker. Dr.
Mathis looked at the AV table. They shrugged and made some
tepid pokes at their gear. Dr. Mathis’s first slide
disappeared and a picture of him shaking hands with an Army
general dressed in a fancy uniform took its place. Dr. Mathis
looked down at his laptop and began smacking at the keys. The
voice continued, “Marcus Mathis, PhD, esteemed scientist,
respected faculty at a school long known for producing
outstanding computer science, has been working with the feds to
learn about the hacker mind.” Pictures of Dr. Mathis
lecturing, pictures of him at conferences, and a picture of him
at a party with his arm comfortably around an embarrassed co-ed
flicked across the screen. “At first this investigation was
about understanding the hacker mind in order to improve it. He
sought out ways to encourage and grow the kind of intellectual
curiosity that is the hallmark of a hacker. We’ve always
respected his work. We hoped he would help make more of us, or
even help legitimize us. Today is his 3rd time here at DEF CON,
and his second time speaking. We’ve always welcomed him.” A
picture of a passed-out Dr. Mathis lying on a couch covered in
red plastic cups flashed on the screen. “What’s up Doc?”
was written on his forehead. “But Dr. Mathis has lost his
way. He became less interested in understanding our minds, and
more interested in affecting them.” The screen began
displaying titles of papers: “Roots of Cognitive
Dissonance”, “Visual Stimuli and the Optic Nerve”,
“Third Order Effects of Visual Overload”, “Combinatorial
Sensory Input Therapy: A Study”, “Targeted, Induced,
Cognitive Dissonance” The voice continued to lay its case out
against Dr. Mathis, “These studies attracted attention from
another community.” A picture of Dr. Mathis in a crowd of
somber, suited, white men. “A community that does not approve
of un-sanctioned curiosity.” A picture of Dr. Mathis standing
next to a green CIA road sign. “A community that uses all
resources at its disposal to stop us.” A picture of Dr.
Mathis in front of the J. Edgar Hoover building. The crowd in
Haxor started to rumble. Goons appeared out of thin air all
around the perimeter of Haxor. Dr. Mathis seemed frozen in
front of his laptop. The screen went black. “Then, Dr.
Mathis started applying his techniques. We don’t know if he
was paid. We don’t know if he was pressured. We don’t know
who is helping him. But we do know he did it.” A window of
complicated source code opened on the screen and started to
scroll. Everyone saw the highlighted comments that identified
the author as “Dr. M. Mathis”. Chuck saw the names of the
killer functions they had found in the game binary. The voice
went on, “And we do know what happened.” A picture of
Shannon in her hospital bed appeared on the screen, a simple
arrangement of purple daisies visible on her bedside table. Her
face was swathed in bandages. Chuck, Dave, Brandon, and Tom
shot out of their seats with a chorus of shouts and growls. The
crowd behind them rose in a high-velocity wave that crashed
against the standing-room-only hackers in the back of the room.
A screen of goons slid across the front of the stage, facing the
rage of the crowd. Big goons with beards and heavy, crossed
forearms. Thug stood directly in front of Chuck, stricken but
resolute. “NAY!” boomed the voice over the grinding din,
“Nay! We do not resort to violence. Violence will only hurt
DEF CON. Our noble goons will sacrifice themselves to keep Dr.
Mathis from physical harm. I would not have them waste their
honor on this man. Would you?” Chuck took a step. Not
towards Thug, whose eyes popped open with alarm, but towards the
aisle up the middle of the seating. He turned and faced the
crowd. Quiet. Still. A steady silence radiated out from him,
up the aisle, across the rows, until the standing hackers in the
back fell quiet. He returned to his seat and sat. Dave sat.
Brandon sat. Tom sat. Slowly the audience left their feet and
tempered their rage. Only the goons remained standing, faces
bathed in sweat and radiating relief. The goons and Dr. Mathis,
who hadn’t moved, and who stood quivering in front of his
laptop. The voice continued, softly, “Marcus may have studied
us, but he could not be us. He could never understand how to
move his work laterally. How to make it flexible. How to bend
it to accomplish tasks it was not originally designed for. That
is the house of the hacker. And not an aspect of a simple
asshole.” “But now he knows. Now he is feeling it. Now he,
too, can taste the buzz of his neurons, and sense his thoughts
fragmenting and moving too fast to be caught and considered.
Now he is at your mercy. “I have shown you the evidence and
stated the case. But I will not be judge too. You decide what
happens.” The screen went black and the room fell silent. Dr.
Mathis vibrated in front of his laptop, a little string of drool
escaping his lips. From where they sat the denizens could see
his eyes twitching behind his thin lenses. Brandon saw the
movement and did not feel pity. Dave remembered his lost
moments in the office of the arcade. Chuck squeezed his
still-bandaged arm and remembered the spray of blood and glass
as Shannon’s face hit the console CRT. “Burn him down,”
Chuck said. “Burn him down.” Brandon, Dave and Tom repeated
it. “Burn him down.” The words spread across the room as a
mantra, then a chant, then a shout, then a battle cry: “BURN
HIM DOWN! BURN HIM DOWN!” The presentation screen echoed the
words and the rhythm of the crowd in giant, bold, white letters.
“BURN. HIM. DOWN. BURN. HIM. DOWN.” Then the message
changed and the crowd lost sync as they tried to read it. It
said, “Spilt blood can be healed. Spilt data lasts
forever.” The screen mirrored the doctor’s desktop. A file
explorer window appeared and split in two. On the left side was
the doctor’s folders. The right side looked as though it was
connected to some random IP address. A mouse cursor dragged the
first folder from the left to the right. It was a very dramatic
copy operation. The program had been set up to show quick peeks
into the files it was copying. This folder seemed to be mostly
pictures. At first they seemed like normal photos, but then the
color palette seemed to veer definitively towards “naked
caucasian”. The hackers began to hoot and point. Even the
goons turned around to watch. The cursor dragged the next
folder over and the crowd was treated to a stream of code
snippets. The next folder looked like normal documents, except
every now and then a page would flash up with clear, red
markings on the top and bottom. Folder after folder moved from
left to right and uploaded themselves somewhere in the world.
Laptop after laptop was flipped open around the room as hackers
went to the IP address visible on the right and began
downloading the contents. The room dissolved into audio chaos
as the crowd lost cohesion and dove into the data. Only the
denizens remained calmly in their seats, watching the doctor.
He suddenly gasped and fell to his knees. He pulled himself
back up and weakly pawed at his keyboard. “No, no, no, no,
no,” he said. On the screen, a row of white zeros set on a
black background started in the upper left of the desktop and
grew to the right. Then another row started below the first and
repeated the action, faster. The zeros flew down the screen
until they reached the bottom and then whole screen went black.
The doctor, and his whole line of clandestine research, had been
burnt to the ground.
Tom got in the driver's seat of his ridiculous white van and
slammed the door. They had spent the day saying goodbye to new
friends and attempting to find and pack all of their gear. They
were pretty sure stuff was missing, but they considered it fair
trade for the amount they had learned. “Well, I guess
that’s it.” “How do we return to the arcade after all of
that?” asked Brandon. Dave shook his head, “The hunt
isn’t over. Mattis didn’t run this whole thing on his own.
Who helped? Who funded it? Who helped write the code? We’ve
got plenty of work to do. We’re not going back to an arcade.
It’s our base of operations.” RAP. A valet knocked on
Tom’s window. He rolled the window down, “I know, I know.
We’re leaving.” The valet dropped a fat yellow envelope
onto Tom’s lap. Then she winked and walked away. “What was
that?” asked Brandon. “It was Slick,” said Dave. Tom
dumped the envelope onto the van’s floor. Thick, banded,
bundles of cash fell out and a note fluttered to the ground.
Dave picked the note up and read it aloud, “Fix the van.
Finish the hunt. See you next year.” It was signed with a
big zero. “Holy crap, he did it” said Chuck. As they left
Vegas on that Sunday afternoon, they drove under a freshly
pasted billboard. It said: “Our latest Video Poker jackpot
winners!” Tom and Dave stared up through the windshield at a
giant Zeed and Slick, with giant smiles, dressed in fine evening
wear, and holding a giant check for an absurd amount of money.