Evram had been a whiz kid in school. He could do anything he wanted with a piece of electronics or a computer. He hadn't needed to be taught; his teachers had lavished enough praise upon him that he came to expect it. But when he failed the psychology requirement in college, something snapped. The professor who failed him was found mindlessly talking to himself in his home. He was placed in a mental hospital. Evram had disappeared by that time.
Evram found living in Earth orbit, under a false name, to be an acceptable compromise to prison on Earth. He was pretty much able to continue his work with computers, and finding customers was just as easy. Digital money supported his living arrangements, and he didn't really care to be around people anyway.
His latest customer obviously had a lot of money. Every time Evram did another little computer job, he charged more than before. The customer didn't complain. The next job should be even more lucrative than before, and Evram would almost be ready to retire. He wasn't sure where he would retire, but it would be bigger than the little rental module he now occupied.
Evram was preparing to continue targeting the same Mars settlement as before. His benefactor, located somewhere on Earth, left it up to Evram to decide what the incidents would be. As long as it was dramatic and had the possibility of being deadly, the customer was satisfied.
For this job, Evram had contacted a subcontractor knowledgeable in Mars settlements, particularly life support systems. The link was voice-only and protected by Evram's own cryptographic algorithm; even so, the voices were disguised.
“Yes,” said the sub-contractor. “It's the old, too much of a good thing. Too much oxygen can lead to nausea, confusion, unconsciousness, and even death. That is why the most expensive and important system on a spacecraft or in a Mars settlement is the oxygen carbon-dioxide recycling unit.”
“But there must be alarms that guard system parameters?” asked Evram.
“Yes, certainly, I will include the many system guards that might possibly be used. Of course, if you could tell me the system model number, we could be more specific.”
“I'm afraid that information is not available at this point, although it might be in the future.”
“Okay, so I'll put something together that will give you the basic components that all these systems must have, and then I'll list all the possible different enhancements you might run into, including system alarms.”
“Very good, send the package as soon as possible, please.”
“Right,” said the sub. “Good doing business with you.”
Evram didn't believe he would need such a wealth of information, but since his customer hadn't placed a limit on his “expenses,” he might as well get the complete package.
Evram may have been the first to use one of the new Em AIs to hack a system. But such was the largess of his customer that he could afford it. He had specially trained the Em so that it was capable of doing whatever Evram needed. In this case, the Em would respond to any blocking from the compromised network and would cover all traces of Evram's exploits.
Evram had previously broken into the computer networks on Mars using a brute force method, but the next incident would be initiated in a somewhat more elegant manner. His customer had agreed to have a relay station placed on the Martian moon Phobos. A tremendous expense, but absolutely essential to getting the job done in secret.
Evram had programmed two digital avatars to represent himself and his Em, and he would be uploading them to the relay station on Phobos. From there, the time delay to Mars would be nothing compared to working with the average one-way twenty-four-minute delay that Evram had to deal with during the first incident. With the avatars so close to the surface of Mars, they would be able to deal with any surprises in real-time. To Evram's knowledge, this would be the first time such a hack was tried, but he had every confidence he could pull it off.
As Evram thought about that first incident, he remembered how surprised he was that he had been able to use a Martian government office net, but when he thought more about it, it seemed apropos. Government IT was the slackest in the solar system. From the government office, Evram piggy-backed to the private network his customer wanted targeted.
The private settlement's net proved to be a lot tougher to break. Evram was delighted. He thought it a fitting target for his skills. After days of trying, he found his way in by spoofing a government emergency warning service. Evram thought that was funny; a system supposed to protect the colonists used to break into their network.
Evram had arranged the first incident as a test run. Now, with the help of his avatars, he would arrange another incident that would be more damaging and dangerous for the colonists.
The avatars had been uploaded and were poking around in the colonist's system until they found what they were looking for. The O2/CO2 exchange unit. With the model number relayed back to Evram, he could use it and the information provided by the sub to plan the next incident.
Evram was happy; his avatars were working as expected. He cheerfully informed his customer that he would soon trigger another incident. He didn't think about the victims as people, just targets.
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