Pickman’s Virtual Model
My brother began hacking because he believed there was more to the universe than we currently knew. Or, more accurately, were allowed to know.
He didn’t subscribe to the idea that the world was secretly run by a consortium of elitist illuminati in cahoots with the reptilian overlords who lived underground, but he strongly suspected that there was some knowledge that governments deemed unsuitable for public knowledge. On many occasions, Howard had told me that the line ‘not wanting to cause public panic’ was just a ruse to keep information suppressed.
‘Aliens,’ he answered when I’d asked him what type of secrets he suspected were being kept from us. ‘Sasquatch. Chupacabra. The Loch Ness monster.’
‘You think there’s a conspiracy to hide the existence of Nessie?’ I joked.
‘Possibly,’ he answered seriously. ‘Think about it, Phillip. If the British government discovered and studied whatever giant aquatic creature lives there, they’d be one step closer to adapting it to a sea-going weapon.’
‘Nesszilla?’
Howard creased up at the thought. ‘Okay,’ he laughed, ‘so Nessie was a bad example. But can you honestly say you wouldn’t put it past the US Army to want to recruit and train an army of Bigfoot? No matter how ridiculous it may sound, it sure gives an incentive to keep any discovery of such a creature under wraps.’
‘And you think you can hack into some evidence of this?’
’Absolutely. When a cryptozoologist creature is found, the first people the government are going to call are the leading professors in nature and biology. Now, those experts will probably be bound by NDAs but somewhere there will be an electronic trail. Emails between the brainiacs, conference calls with the top brass. Somewhere, there will be a hackable conversation which would bring it all to light.
‘And I’m going to find it.’
*
When I saw him the following week, Howard was animated in his excitement.
‘You’ve found something?’ I asked, incredulous.
‘I’ve found nothing,’ he said with glee.
I shrugged, lost for words in my confusion.
‘I’ve found nothing,’ he repeated, ‘where there should be something.’
‘I... I don’t follow.’
‘You know how the internet works?’
‘I’m familiar with Google and Amazon, if that helps.’
Howard pulled a face at me.
‘They’re the face of the web,’ he said. ‘Do you know how it works behind the screen?’
I had a rudimentary understanding of binary and I knew that every computer has an IP address, though I had no idea what that was. As the internet was essential birthed in the USA, I assumed it involved a zip code rather than a post code.
I guessed Howard could tell the limits of my computing knowledge from my blank expression when he said, ‘Please don’t tell me you actually think the cloud is in the sky?’
‘No,’ I retorted. In truth, I’ve never given any thought to where it is.
‘All the big IT companies have banks of servers.’
‘Yeah, we’ve got one at work. I know because I keep getting the “unable to connect to server” error.’
‘Yes, most companies have servers,’ Howard relented, ‘it’s what allows all the individual nodes – computers – to communicate. But the big IT companies have masses of them. Like, roomfuls. Maybe even entire floors made up of servers.’
‘And they connect to the cloud?’
‘No.’ He rolled his eyes at my ignorance. ‘Suppose you created webpage and saved it internally on your laptop’s hard drive.’
I nodded. I recognised the words, at least.
‘Well, even if I could normally remotely access your laptop, I wouldn’t be able to open the file if your laptop is switched off. But if you saved it to a server then, even when your laptop is off, people can still visit your webpage.’
‘So these floors of servers are the cloud?’
‘Yes. Every company that has a website, from big businesses to the local caff, all store their content on servers somewhere. All the servers connect to one another to create a globally interconnected network.’
‘The inter net,’ I said. Howard has a circuitous way of teaching me things, but I do learn from him. ‘But that’s something. And it’s been around for decades. You haven’t found it.’
‘I’m just getting to that bit. All these servers store all the webpages that exist. Everything from the lyrics of Tom’s Diner to the history of Polish cooking. Which means the servers are pretty full.’
‘Okay,’ I said, but it more of a question because I still wasn’t following him.
‘Well, I’ve written an algorithm to determine the free space of any targeted server, or bank of servers. This is Telehouse North.’ He waved at one of his two screens.
An outline of a cube rotated slowly, blinking rapidly as it refreshed in real time. Much of the shape was solid, except for a fraction of one corner. Beneath the picture was the legend: ‘Capacity: 98%.’
‘The overall polygon represents the total capacity of the servers. The shaded volume displays the used content which leaves the hollow volume as free space.’
He tapped a few buttons on his keyboard and the image was replaced with another. At least, I think it was; the only difference I noticed between the two was the lower capacity of 97%.
‘Colocation,’ Howard announced. More buttons, another near-identical image. ‘HostDime.’
‘I don’t know what I’m looking at or what you’re saying,’ I admitted.
‘I’m just showing you the normal working parameters of these corporate data centres. Floors of servers,’ he added when he saw he’d lost me with his technospeak. ‘This is the good one: the Ministry of Defence.’
He turned to look at me before tapping the last button.
This time I definitely saw a difference in the image. Although the size of the cube remained the same, less than half of it was filled in.
‘So, the MOD has a lot more free space. I don’t understand.’
Howard tapped the screen to bring my attention to the capacity: 100%.
*
Assuring me that his algorithm was working correctly, Howard explained that the MOD servers were completely full. The empty part of the display represented inaccessible data.
‘That’s not surprising,’ I reasoned. ‘I’m sure the Ministry of Defence has lots of data they don’t want the public to access. Names of spies, weapon blueprints, contingency plans for keeping the Prime Minister safe. The list is endless.’
‘You still don’t understand,’ Howard said, rolling his eyes again. ‘None of this is available to the public. It took me days to even discover this data centre. What’s hidden in these servers is inaccessible from everyone, even the MOD themselves. Which leads me to the question: why would they devote half of their storage space to something they cannot retrieve?’
*
I didn’t see Howard for the next three weeks, until he video-called me in the middle of the night. Unshaven and with unkempt hair, he looked dreadful.
I rubbed sleep from my bleary eyes and croaked a hello.
‘Phillip, I think I’ve found an in.’ Howard’s voice was strained, either from tiredness or excitement. ‘Something to do with the name Crowly and the date 12th October 1875. I’ve got no idea what they mean, but they’ve combined to open a path to the hidden files. I’m opening it now. You gotta come an-’
His voice was lost under a sharp ‘Kuh’ sound which fill his room. It was followed by a long ‘too’ which seemed to be issued by a hundred different voices. The noise raised the hairs on my neck and chased the last vestiges of sleep from me.
Our connection was lost just after the chilling voices began uttering ‘loo.’
*
Howard didn’t answer when I called him back. Something about the nature of those sounds put me on edge. Worried about my brother, I quickly dressed and rushed to his home.
Using my spare key to let myself in, I walked carefully through the darkness to Howard’s study. The house was silent. I was equally glad that those terrible voices had stopped and concerned that I couldn’t hear my brother tapping away on his keyboard.
At the door to his room, I paused. A primordial fear told me to leave, to run. I swallowed several times, summoning the courage to open the door. What if Howard needed me?
Regretting it even as I was doing it, I stepped into the study. The air was redolent with a metallic tang, something familiar yet unnameable. The only light came from the two screens by the PC. Even from this distance, over the high-backed office chair, I recognised the half-filled cube of the MOD servers.
My legs trembled as I approached the desk. I reached for the back of the chair and moved it aside. My hand came away sticky with blood and I then recognised the scent in the air. I had initially thought Howard was not in the room; now I realised he was everywhere in the room.
As my mind reeled at this shocking revelation, my eyes turned to the screen and I read the caption under the 3D model: ‘Capacity 47%.’
Howard had been successful in accessing the hidden parts of the MOD’s servers and had paid the ultimate price for doing so. Whatever had been secreted away, whatever had reduced Howard to a liquified mess, was now free from its prison. As it was no longer physically present in the room, I can only assume that it has returned to the internet.
Though it is anybody’s guess where it will next strike.