Mike, self appointed coffee czar, wheeled a repurposed kitchen cutting board into Sean’s office and dispensed coffee into paper cups.
It was essential that when they disabled ELOPe by turning off computers, communication equipments, and power supplies, they do so as quickly as possible, simultaneously around the world. The problem was that if ELOPe could detect that it was being attacked, it would logically take some action to defend itself, or propagate to other computers. It would take seconds or less for ELOPe to propagate to other computers or alert copies of itself that it was under attack. If ELOPe was attacked and disabled in one location, but managed to alert copies of itself running on servers elsewhere before they were disable, then it would have even more time to take action. Seconds and minutes were an eternity for a computer which could take thousands of actions each second.
Sean and a few others used encrypted messages to synchronize the activities of the Avogadro employees at all sixty-eight land based Avogadro sites. On confirmation that everyone around the world was ready, Sean announced “Here we go folks” in a loud voice, and hit the virtual equivalent of the red launch button, signaling the teams around the world to commence action. A few bytes sent from Sean’s computer to a public website server had the effect of turning the web page background from white to red. This simple, language neutral signal would coordinate everyone’s activities.
Hundreds of people, using similarly cleaned and encrypted computers or smartphones monitored the purpose-built website, waiting for the color change.
In Boise, Idaho, Pete Wong sat in a rats nest of power cables in the main power supply room of the Boise data center. After arriving, he had made a quick stop at a hardware store and an electronics store, then drove to the data center site. He had spent the last four days routing around backup power systems, ensuring that the sole source of power to the entire site came through the four inch diameter cable next to him. On the other side of the power supply room, emergency battery supply systems and generators sat powered down and disconnected, a single computer mimicking them, so that they appeared alive. Pete had wanted to do something important, to be noticed by Sean Leonov, and now here he was.
Pete tried to ignore the throbbing coming from his right hand, which was wrapped in tape and bandages, the result of smashing his fingers with a sixteen inch wrench two days before, trying to disconnect a massive power conduit. Pete wiped grease from his face again as he anxiously watched the tiny screen of the kid’s toy laptop he had picked up at the electronics store. The toy laptop ran some proprietary operating system that the Emergency Team was fairly sure ELOPe wouldn’t contaminate. Buzz Lightyear incongruously smiled at him from the plastic frame. A long cable ran from the laptop, out a ventilation shaft, where it terminated at the prepaid smartphone he’d bought from a vending machine, still nestled in its packaging to protect it from the snow on the ground.
The website flashed red, and Pete instantly threw his weight on the massive power cutoff switch, repeating a move he had practiced a few dozen times before he connected the switch. With a horrendous, deadening, thump Pete felt the entire site shut down around him. Hundreds of thousands of power supplies stopped humming, CPU, power and ventilation fans whirled down to a halt, and hard drives clicked and clattered until suddenly everything was silent. Pete was the first to react by nearly a third of a second.
In the Shinagawa ward of Tokyo, Japan, Nanako Takeuchi hunched over to peer into the power supply tunnel. Fifteen floors up, Avogadro occupied the top half of the high rise tower supplied by this power conduit. Yesterday morning, David Ryan had arrived from America with a signed letter from Rebecca Smith, and ripped Nanako out of her carefully created routine. Now David waited in the power backup room. Unable to reroute power supply cables because of the building’s configuration, Nanako and David had to act simultaneously to kill the main power feed and backup systems. Nanako nervously peered again into the power supply tunnel, then sat back again on her haunches. The American spoke terrible Japanese. She hated him for doing this to her life.
Nanako saw the website flash red. She looked at the switch in her hand, and her thoughts flashed to her career at Avogadro. Then to an earlier time: her mother supporting their family when they were young. Her sister working so that Nanako could go to college. She remembered the look on her mom’s face when Nanako had told her about being hired by Avogadro, and her sister’s happiness that finally she could go to school, with Nanako’s support. She watched her thumb move slowly, inexorably towards the button. Seconds had passed since the screen flashed red. The tiny click of the button sounded, and a second later a roar of heated air flew out the end of the power supply tunnel as the explosive charge inside the tunnel disintegrated thousands of power and data cables. Forty-three seconds after Boise went offline, Tokyo was the last land-based data center to shutdown.
Dust filled the maintenance room lit by the dim glow of battery-backed emergency lighting. Ripping the hearing protection from her head, Nanako stumbled for the stairs. David would meet her in the subway, and they would head together for the airport. It would be a long time before she would go to Japan again.
While the attack on the land based data centers and offices could be carried out by Avogadro employees, the floating data centers required more specialized expertise. As the employees carried out the Emergency Team’s plans, private military contractors, the polite name for mercenaries this century, sprang into action at eighteen ocean locations around the world.
At ODC #4, off the coast of California, divers had spent the early morning hours approaching the floating platform, one of the original designs. They swam slowly, conserving their energy, towing heavy explosive packages. The submarine robots ignored them, since their recognition algorithms were programmed to respond only to boats. The deck tank robots ignored the divers in the water, since the deck robots were programmed only to respond to people onboard and boats in the immediate proximity. It had taken a dozen Avogadro employees, armed with paper copies of the specifications of the military-spec robots to find this chink in the robots recognition algorithms.
Drew Battel, ex-Navy Seal, swam to a point forty meters from the barge and rested, neutrally buoyant, thanks to small flotation packs. Pulling small, waterproof binoculars from his waist, he visually identified communications pod number three, his designated target. On his left, a similarly clad mercenary gave him a thumbs up that he had identified his own target, power supply cabinet number one. Drew returned the sign. On his right, the slimmer profile of one of the female members of the team also gave him a thumbs up that she had identified the power backup unit. Relieved that he could focus on his own primary target and wouldn’t have to cover either of his secondary targets, Drew swam closer until he was thirty meters from the platform. He pulled a speargun from his floating pack, and waited for the signal. Four miles distant, the communications lead for the mission monitored the location of each member of the team from their boat. When everyone was in position, he used a secure satellite channel to communicate back to headquarters.
When the red flash came, the communication lead had his shortwave mic in hand, and fingered the trigger. “Go, go, go,” he shouted into the mic.