The Oracle Year(67)

“What did you mean when you said ‘Not really,’ Miko?” Hamza said.

“Huh?” Miko said.

“At the door. I said it was just a blackout, and you said not really.”

Miko tilted her head, puzzled.

“You didn’t hear?”

“Hear what? I’ve been walking for the last hour.”

“Turn on the radio. I was listening to it until you guys showed up.”

Hamza flipped the switch on a battery-powered radio on the coffee table. Immediately, a news station came on through faint static. Hamza walked into the kitchen and came out a moment later with two coffee mugs, handing one to Will.

They listened, as the radio announcer described the scope of the blackout.

Will looked at Miko.

“This is . . .”

“I know,” Miko said. “It’s not just here. Power’s out all over the world.”

Silence.

“Do you think the Site did it?” Miko asked.

Will didn’t answer.

The radio announcer solemnly proclaimed that he would continue to broadcast updates as he received them, as long as he had gasoline for the generator powering the station’s transmitter. He then proceeded to describe disasters occurring all around the world as power and computer systems failed.

“Look at that!” Hamza said. He had turned to look out through his apartment’s large windows across the East River, toward the dark shadows of Brooklyn and Queens. Will and Miko turned to follow his gaze. A finger of flame rose up from the darkness, spreading out into a cloud as it grew.

“What is it?” Miko asked.

“Tanker truck, maybe,” Will said. “Propane or something.”

As the light from the initial explosion faded into a dull glow, new blossoms of flame appeared to replace it, rising up all across the darkness beyond the river.





T?r?kul




The lights of the city of Uth radiated in the deep night, reflections off the stillness of the Aral Sea creating a sort of mirror city in the water, shimmering and inconstant.

Six men sat cross-legged around a fire on a hilltop overlooking the city, sharing skewers of shashlik, passing the spits of fire-blackened mutton between them. Skins of kumis circulated as well, some of the first of the spring, as the mares produced milk for the new foals.

One set of lights in the city of Uth shone from a higher perch than the rest. A Byzantine cross, projecting from the exact center of the dome atop what had once been a mosque, built five centuries before. But for more than two decades, the cross. An insult, blazing out across the plain.

One of the men, the leader of this group, turned his gaze toward the city, looking at the defiled mosque, then back at his men. He said nothing. There was nothing to be said.

Another man tossed his skewer into the dirt, scowling at his chief. The leader held the other man’s gaze for a few moments, then reached over and picked up the discarded skewer from the ground. He dusted off the worst of the dirt and took a bite, washing it down with a long swig from his skin.

The chief considered. He thought about the power he held—the men he could gather to his cause on a word, and more importantly, the Sword of God hidden away in its canyon. He thought about what it would mean to pull his army together, and what it would mean if he lost. Timing. As with so many things, it was all in the timing.

Without warning, the cross atop the mosque in Uth winked out, along with all the other electric lights in the city. If not for the firelight still twinkling here and there between the buildings, it would have been easy to assume the city had been wiped off the face of the earth.

The chief and his band got to their feet. Brownouts were nothing strange in Uth, but normally only a portion of the city would go dark at a time. This suggested a larger failure. And perhaps, an opportunity.

The mirror city off the coast was gone, swallowed up into the black water.

The chief watched the dark city for a moment, then lifted his head and shouted up at the stars, crying war.





Chapter 26




Staffman’s hands ached, a tendons-deep pain that ran halfway up his forearms. He wanted nothing more than to stop typing, to soak his hands in hot water, and pour half a bottle of ibuprofen down his throat. But each time he pulled his fingers off the keys, his botnet shut down another portion of the worldwide power grid. Each failure meant that many fewer computers available to work on breaking into the Oracle’s systems, and that much longer he’d have to keep his agonized fingers moving to try to keep the virus contained.

He flicked his eyes to the right, to the screen with the progress bar. Ninety-nine percent and counting.

It had taken nearly four hours to chew through the Oracle’s security. Despite Staffman’s efforts, the world map on his monitor was more than half black, with the rest an angry red, dull like the coals of a fire that had almost burned itself out. The entire American East Coast was dark, as was all of South America, Australia, and parts of Africa. He’d managed to maintain a good deal of Asia, the United States, and Europe, with their heavy concentrations of computing power. Losing Africa was frustrating, but survivable—San Francisco alone held more processors than that entire continent.

The Coach sat to Staffman’s left. Neither had spoken much in the last little while. For the first few hours of watching Staffman work, she had offered what assistance she could—getting him a glass of water (although the ten seconds he’d taken to drink it had put the lights out in Brazil), or reminding him of all the freedom he’d enjoy with the money he’d earn by finding the Oracle’s name. But after a while, she just sat back to watch the battle.