Chapter 37 #2
Taylor asked, “What is that doing here?”
Klasky said, “Dixon wanted it brought here earlier for testing. I helped her move it from the Vault. It was never activated.”
Brodie and Taylor got up and approached the window.
The bot was secured to the table with metal restraints around its wrists, across its torso, and on its left ankle.
Its right leg had been removed and was sitting on a nearby table.
A thick red cable attached to a port on the top of its head ran to a computer console in the corner of the room.
Brodie noticed that the slot for its hardware key was empty. He also noticed the numeral 4 etched on its chest. Lou Gehrig?
Taylor asked, “What kind of testing was she doing?”
Klasky shook his head. “She wouldn’t tell me, but I’m sure she wanted to look for that rogue software she said she found.”
Right. Or, as Brodie had already theorized, Dixon was the one who had installed the rogue software and was covering her ass with the illusion of due diligence.
Klasky stared at the bot through the window. “Ames used to complain to me about her. That she didn’t trust the rest of the team, he thought maybe it was an anti-military thing, pretentiousness or whatever. But maybe there’s something else going on. Some other reasons for her lack of candor.”
Brodie looked at Major Klasky. The man’s hazel eyes were bloodshot, and he had bags beneath them. He must not have been getting much sleep. Well, he had plenty to worry about.
Taylor asked, “Why did she remove its leg?”
“Lieutenant Lehner did that after Dixon called him in for some sort of mechanical repair. These units can get pretty banged up out in the desert.”
Brodie stared at Lou’s gleaming face beneath the overhead light. “Where’s the key?”
“We left it in the Vault.”
Taylor was eyeing the console in the corner of the room, and the red cable running to Lou’s head. She asked, “What is the chain of custody on the software running the D-17s? I mean, who installed it, and when?”
Major Klasky nodded. “That’s a good question.
My understanding is that the code has been passed back and forth between DEVCOM and DARPA in a secure fashion during development.
For security reasons, Synotec has no access to the source code, and whenever the software needed to be installed on a unit while in development at their facility, an individual from DEVCOM or DARPA had to physically go to the Synotec lab in Nevada to do that installation.
” He added, “Once the software is installed, it’s encrypted.
Meaning it cannot simply be pulled off a bot and read by anyone who does not have the decryption key. ”
Brodie looked at the man. “Do you have a technical background, Major?”
Klasky laughed. “No, Mr. Brodie. Far from it. But like I said, I’m the op sec guy, and I make it my business to know precisely the kind of thing you asked about. Chain of custody, levels of access. I need to know who knows what, and who’s not supposed to know what.”
Taylor followed up: “When and where was the software installed on the D-17 units at Camp Hayden?”
“It was installed here, on base, before the beginning of operations.”
“By whom?” asked Brodie.
Klasky thought a moment, then smiled. “Well now, after all I just said, you’ve caught me with my pants down. I don’t know. The science team arrived before I did, so I guess you ought to ask one of them.”
The two agents returned to the laptop. Brodie opened it and inserted the thumb drive. A disk volume icon appeared on the desktop, labeled Untitled.
Brodie said to Klasky, “We’ve got it from here, Major.”
Klasky replied, “A password is required to open any file from an external volume.”
“Give us the password.”
“I can’t do that, Mr. Brodie.”
“Fine.” He gestured to the computer, then Klasky leaned over, typed in a password, and opened the volume.
Two files appeared. One was an untitled .
txt file, and the other an untitled .zip file.
Klasky opened the .txt file and input his password again.
A long window of text popped up, which looked like gibberish, at least to Scott Brodie.
Then he spotted legible words and phrases amid the gibberish: “target,” “pattern,” “bias for input solutions,” “maximum number of iterations.” And then he saw a phrase at the top of the text: “Praetorian Neural Network Algorithm.”
Brodie looked at Klasky, who was staring at the screen.
The man asked, “Where did you get this?”
“I can’t divulge that. Do you know what it is?”
“Well, I can read. Looks like the Praetorian source code that Caroline was looking for.”
Brodie added, “Or something made to look like the source code.”
Taylor asked, “Can we assume you don’t know by looking at this if it’s encrypted?”
“That would be a correct assumption. But my guess would be that it’s not since there are legible words. You ought to get Captain Spencer in here.”
“We will not be doing that,” said Brodie. “And you must not tell anyone what you’ve seen here.”
Major Klasky looked at him with his close-set eyes. He didn’t look happy—a field-grade officer with an ego getting pushed around by mere warrant officers. Then he gave a rubbery, gap-toothed smile and raised his hand with the middle three fingers extended. “Scout’s honor.”
Taylor said, “Please open the other file.”
Klasky asked, “Was this drive from Roger?”
Brodie said, “Please open the other file, Major.”
Klasky opened the .zip file and input his password again. It loaded another window, that one containing an untitled video file. Klasky opened the file.
A video player opened showing one wall of the Vault, and thirty D-17s in their storage bays. Standing close to the camera and staring into it was a dark-haired man in his mid-thirties wearing a button-down shirt. It was Roger Ames.
Brodie said, “Major, we need to review this in private.”
Klasky stood there, staring at the image of the dead man. “I… I would like to see this.”
Taylor said, “Maybe you can, but not without us reviewing it first.”
Klasky was silent, gazing at the screen. He almost seemed like he was in a trance.
Brodie said, “Major.”
The man snapped out of it, then looked at Brodie and nodded slowly. He leaned over, typed something, then said, “I’m going to take a stroll.” He patted his walkie. “Give a holler when you’re done so I can lock up.”
Brodie nodded. “Thank you for your assistance.”
Klasky headed for the door and left.
Brodie and Taylor sat in silence for a moment. Then Taylor said, “This might be everything, Scott.”
“It might be. Let’s see.”
Taylor was looking at something else on the screen. “What’s that?”
She pointed to a small white window on the desktop labeled Terminal. Within the window was the text:
python eyesopen.py
Suddenly they heard a long clanging sound. The two agents shared a look.
The sound grew louder and became more rapid, metal banging against metal.
They both shot up from their chairs and looked toward the room with the glass window.
Number 4—Lou—was writhing up and down on the table, struggling against its restraints. It broke its right arm free, reached up, and ripped the data cable from its head.
Then it turned and looked at them.