"What would then?" Alex asked. "What would cause a drone to suddenly decide to open fire on a number of allied targets?"
"Was it determined with precision that the drone acted independently?"
"Well, not sure yet, but if it was human error, that's on someone else's agenda to figure out. I am only interested in the case in which it was the drone to blame. What would make a drone go rogue?"
"Anomalous behavior like that has to be founded on technical abilities already built into the equipment. The drone had to have had the capabilities to fly itself independently, search for targets, lock on targets, and launch a missile. Then repeat all these steps, until all targets are wiped out. You can't expect this set of complex computations to occur, if the drone wasn't designed to do them in the first place."
"So you're inclined to think it was pilot error? The ground control crew somehow mistook the Canadian convoy for an enemy target?"
"I think that is the most likely explanation. Any other possible explanation would require a module, probably bigger than any other module installed on these drones, and a software component to teach the drone to do things on its own."
"The self-guidance module," Alex thought out loud.
"There is a self-guidance module?" Josh's interest was sparked again, and his eyes focused on Alex.
"Yes, there is. It's not fully functional yet. It's currently being tested, and I'm not even sure the Kandahar drone had it installed."
"That narrows it down. If the Kandahar drone had it installed, then I'd look into whether it was working or not. There should be system logs in the module's memory, and such software should also generate activity logs. If, on the other hand, this software and module were not installed on the drone, it only leaves the ground crew to be at fault for this."
Note to self, Alex thought, we need to find out if the Kandahar drone had the self-guidance software active. We need to access the activity logs.
"Josh, this was really helpful, and I appreciate it," Alex said, starting to collect the circuit-board pieces from the table. "There's one more thing I noticed when I was visiting the plant. One of the drones, ground powered for testing, scanned the area, and locked target on me. What type of malfunction could make that happen? Could the faulty boards be to blame for such an incident?"
"I seriously doubt it. I'm not familiar with the architecture of the target acquisition module, but thinking logically, the drone must see you as a target to be locking onto you. Either the drone is doing an incredibly poor job at recognizing targets to begin with, or there's some other error contributing to this, although I can't think of any other scenario. As an afterthought, if the drones do such a crappy job telling real targets from plant visitors, maybe that explains the Kandahar incident."
"Maybe. But what I'm hearing you say is that, either way, the drone had to have had the self-guidance module installed and operative to be able to do that, right? And no ground control authorizing the launches?"
"Absolutely. This drone, the one that locked on you, does it have the self-guidance module installed?"
"I'm not sure… How would I find out?"
"Huh?" The technician seemed confused by her question.
"That is, if I cannot really ask anyone," Alex clarified.
"Oh, I get it," Josh said, the new understanding of the situation making him frown. "Do you have access to the drone?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Well, I cannot be sure, because I haven't seen this particular drone and its insides, but you'd look for a larger module, I would think an encased one, with connectivity compatible with a computer — serial port, USB, Bluetooth. If you're lucky, the module is clearly labeled."
"I'd seriously doubt that."
"Yeah, me too. The module should have the answers you're looking for, both for the capabilities to generate the Kandahar incident on its own and for targeting you. If you find the module, see if you can access it. Sometimes, these modules come with an individual configuration screen and controls. How else would you be able to configure it, to tell it what to do?"
"Remotely, I would think, more than by doing it directly from under the hood. You should be able to change instructions and configuration while the drone is in flight, right?"
"Yeah, I guess that's right. But I still think it's worth looking for it, at least figure out if this is what's going on with that targeting system locking on you."
She sat up. "Thank you so much."
"You're welcome. And good luck with all this," Josh said, watching her leave.
…79
Louie had been working steady for more than thirty hours, running on stale coffee, cafeteria donuts, and adrenaline. An entire night of efforts had finally made him successful in cracking the codes needed to delete the images of Alex and her car from the drone system library of images. He had to do this offline though, to prevent the appearance of what he humorously called the black, unmarked cars arriving in the middle of the night. Even if he was doing this from inside the NanoLance building, he had attempted, repeatedly, to break the codes of the drone control system. This type of attack triggered the hard-coded security systems that the company had in place, running on each computer. No doubt about that. As he had removed the network connectivity before he started his work, this computer was yet to communicate the attack to the network and trigger the widespread alarm.
Of course, there was little he could do without connecting it back to the network. So far, he was only able to achieve the deletion of Alex's images from the library. It had only taken him fifteen hours to crack that encryption. Unacceptable. Nevertheless, this wasn't over yet. He had to connect the computer to the network and save the changes to the mainframe. And that would trigger the security alarms… He would have three, maybe four minutes until someone walked through the door to get him.
He took a sharp, deep breath, and inserted the network cable into its wall plug. The network was quickly acquired, and the computer displayed a connected status message. He clicked on the "save" button to make sure the deletion of images would be permanent and reflected on the main self-guidance server.
The screen returned an error message; not what Louie had hoped for.
Unknown Error: Code 054578. If this error persists, please contact your system administrator.
"Shit! Oh, no, no, no, no," Louie said, slamming a desperate fist against the desk. He re-entered the command to save and got the same error message. And again. Not many options were left. He pulled the computer's power cord out of the wall plug, grabbed his jacket and coffee mug, and stormed out the door. Maybe there was another way to fix this.
…80
The drive back from Santa Ana put Alex at the plant right about the end of the shift. She walked in, unnoticed, while most employees were getting ready to wrap up their day. She waited until most of them were gone, at the 4:30PM end-of-day rush hour.