The Hidden Truth: A Science Fiction Techno-Thriller Read online

  “Us?” He looked amused. Then he turned more thoughtful. “We could systematically compare texts in the Tolliver Library to the online scanned versions.”

  “That would take a long time. I spent the better part of an hour reviewing a hundred pages in one book,” I pointed out. “If we both worked full time, we might manage a half dozen books in a day. We need to narrow down the search.”

  “Only books in the public domain are going to be available for free online, because of copyright issues.” Amit launched into another diatribe. “Did you know that the duration of a copyright used to be the same as the term for a patent? About twenty years. But, authors and publishers and now media companies kept lobbying Congress to the point where it can be nearly a century before anything gets into the public domain. It’s the Mickey Mouse rule of copyright. Mickey Mouse will never go into public domain, because they keep changing the rules every time it gets close. Since Disney created Mickey in 1928, only works created before 1923 are in the public domain.”

  “That’s a five year difference,” I pointed out to him.

  “Yeah,” he countered, “they built in a margin of error in case they have any trouble getting the term extended – and by remarkable coincidence the margin is just long enough that they will have at least one chance to elect a pliable President.”

  “So we only look at books older than 1923,” I got us back on track. “That’s still an awful lot of books.”

  “I wonder if we could automate the process?” Amit speculated. “What if we scanned the Tolliver Library books page by page and let a computer compare our scans to Omnitia archived scans?”

  I did a quick mental calculation. A couple dozen books per individual shelf, so maybe a hundred books per stack, and a thousand or so per row. There must be dozens of shelves. Maybe as many as fifty to a hundred thousand books. I couldn’t think of a way to estimate the pre-1923 fraction of books, but it still had to be huge. “Even if we could compare one book per minute, it would still take us years.” I started to search for “book scanners.”

  “Stop!” Amit shoved my hands off the keyboard. “You think maybe Omnitia is messing with your books and you want to trust them with your search?”

  Now he definitely had a point.

  “Look. You remember how we set up the wireless network at the hotel?” He began.

  “Sure.”

  Amit’s father installed a wireless network throughout the hotel for the guests to use. I picked up some extra money after school my sophomore year helping Amit and his father run Ethernet cable and set up wireless nodes. Amit and I had impressed his father by figuring out we could get better coverage installing the wireless access points inside rooms, instead of along the hallways as the instructions from the corporate IT team had suggested.

  “Every once in a while, we’ll get Sheriff Gunn or some Tennessee state troopers out here because we have a guest downloading or sharing kiddie porn. They trace it back to the IP address of the hotel. Then they give my dad the MAC address of the guest’s computer and ask my dad to identify which guest used that MAC address to log into the hotel network. We tell them which door the troopers need to knock on.”

  “What’s that got to do with Omnitia?”

  “The cops could only do that if they were watching everything. I wrote up a screening application for the hotel so my dad monitors all the Internet traffic from the hotel. Unfortunately, he went back and reset the filters. He decided he didn’t like the game and pick-up artist websites I was visiting. And he caught me looking at porn and chewed me out. I could have hard-coded a work-around in the app, but then he’d be wondering why I was giving him a new executable. So I figured out how to anonymize my Internet traffic. I use Tor – The Onion Router.” He explained. “Tor routes all your Internet traffic through a network of relays to conceal where it came from and where it’s going. It’s too slow for video, but I can download pictures just fine. But, my point is if Omnitia is hiding something and you start looking for it, they’re going to trace it right back to you and your computer. Look – you’re even logged into your OmniMail account. They know exactly who downloaded that old book, for instance.” I must have looked worried, because he added, “Don’t worry. There’s too much going on the Internet for anyone to pay attention to one search and one download. But if you make a pattern of these kinds of searches, and if it truly is something they’re actively hiding, they’re going to notice, eventually.”

  “You think I should use this Tor when I do any online searching regarding this mystery?”

  “That’s a start, but it’s not good enough. If you actually attract interest, they can link you anyway to your computer and any non-anonymized Internet usage. I think we need to be careful and take every precaution. Let’s think about how to protect us.”

  We brainstormed for a bit. The solution we came up with seemed robust. We knew a pawnshop in Knoxville that recycled computers from Oak Ridge and other businesses around Knoxville. Between us, we’d chip in to buy a couple of used laptops and pay cash so they couldn’t easily be traced to us.

  Amit would figure out how to get online without a trace and install Tor. We’d use the first machine for preliminary research. I’d look into building a book scanner and Amit would research and download the software to take the scans, perform character recognition, and compare the scans of the physical books to the versions downloaded from Omnitia. Then, we’d disable the Ethernet connection on the first machine.

  Amit would use the second laptop to search Omnitia for the online book scans. He’d download the specific ones I wanted and a bunch of other ones besides just to confuse the trail. Then, he’d burn them to a CD and transfer them to the first laptop. He called it “air gapping.” The first computer was air gapped from the Internet so no one could possibly plant computer malware to spy on what we were doing and report it back over the Internet. The computer that searched for information on book scanning and performed comparisons between our scans and Omnitia’s scans was a completely different computer than the one that downloaded the specific Omnitia scans we’d use. That way no one could make a connection between the fact that someone was scanning physical books and comparing them to particular scans of books online.

  We’d only communicate about the project in person. Amit insisted that calls and texts were monitored and the location data could be used to trace us. I thought he was being paranoid again, but it made an interesting game to follow all the procedures he insisted upon.

  By the time I had to go home for dinner, we had our plan. I would take the lead on identifying our target list of books: ones older than 1923 so they would be in the public domain and likely available online. That was easy. They were already organized by subject thanks to the Dewey Decimal system, so I planned to start at Franklin’s Electric Waves and Heaviside’s Electromagnetic Theory, and work out from there. I’d compile a list and pass it on to Amit. I’d also take the lead on getting us to Knoxville to buy the computers. Meanwhile, Amit said he wanted to work out the details of how to get online without a trace. We agreed to meet back at Kudzu Joe’s the next morning to compare notes and see where we stood. I was eager to go home and see what was up with Dad and his secretive project with Uncle Rob.

  Chapter 3: The Preparation

  Dad was home when I got there. Mom said he’d gotten back around noon, showered, and went to sleep. When I pressed her for information about what was going on, she acknowledged she didn’t know either. Dad told her he’d explain over dinner. “It will be ready in a few minutes, so why don’t you wake up your father and ask him to come down to the table?”

  Mom had dinner ready by the time Dad came to the table. Dad said Grace, and we ate. “I’m sorry to worry you both running off like I did last night,” he began. “But there was no time to explain. When I heard the sheriff had been asking about the activity, I knew I had to head up to Rob’s and help him finish up our project, before the sheriff decided to stop by and poke around in person.”


  “What’s this project?” I could refrain from asking no longer.

  “I’m helping Uncle Rob with his barn,” Dad said matter-of-factly. “We got his slab poured and we’ll be starting on the construction next month. Rob’s invited us all up to his place for a bonfire and barbecue to celebrate the Fourth. We’ll bring the guns, and do some shooting, too. You’ll get a chance to see it all then.”

  I wasn’t buying it. Dad and Rob wouldn’t be worried about the sheriff seeing a barn under construction. Dad read the skepticism on my face. I was going to have to learn to do a better job hiding it.

  “Yes, there is more to it than that. And no, I’m afraid I can’t go into details just yet. But I do need to be able to trust you to keep your suspicions to yourself. You can’t tell anyone there’s anything out of the ordinary at Uncle Rob’s. Not a hint. Not to your friend Amit or anyone else.” He looked at me. “Get it?”

  “Got it,” I replied.

  “Good. So how are your studies coming along?”

  I explained what I’d found out about the difference between the physical version of Franklin’s Electric Waves and the online version.

  “I thought you were supposed to be studying science, not concocting conspiracy theories,” Dad said dryly. He looked at the photocopy I made and acknowledged that I had correctly recalled the bouncing electric waves language. He compared the copy from the Tolliver Library book to the printout of the Omnitia scan. Dad allowed it was curious that two apparently identical editions of the book differed in the footnote and index. “But minor tweaks like that happen all the time in publishing. The publisher sells out of a first printing and makes minor corrections for a second printing. Given that bouncing electric waves make no sense, the mention was probably deleted from subsequent printings including the one that was scanned online. The discrepancy in the index is hardly proof of a deliberate omission. Accidents and omissions happen all the time. I’d believe some poor student overlooked a reference in an index he was compiling for his professor, before I’d believe some deliberate deletion.”

  “Isn’t it possible,” I asked, “that Heaviside did write something about bouncing waves? His book is full of discussion on electromagnetic waves, even though I couldn’t follow much of it.”

  “The idea doesn’t make any sense,” Dad insisted. “Sure, waves bounce off objects. That’s why cell phone coverage can be spotty – find a location where the radio waves happen to bounce and interfere the wrong way and you can lose the signal and drop the call. But bounce off each other? No.” Dad looked thoughtful. “If Heaviside ever did describe anything like waves bouncing off each other, Jim Burleson might know something about it. He’s a real Heaviside fanboy and likes digging into EM history. I can ask him about it when I see him again.”

  I told Dad about Maxwell, Hertz, and FitzGerald all dying in their prime.

  “I knew about Maxwell and Hertz,” he said. “I wasn’t aware FitzGerald died so young. While those deaths might be a statistical anomaly, I think part of it is selection bias. Plenty of other scientists participated in the discovery or extended upon Maxwell’s ideas in one way or another. Off the top of my head, I believe Faraday and Kelvin lived to ripe old ages. I’m not sure about Lodge, Larmor, and Lorentz. I’m probably overlooking other. The only reason you included FitzGerald was the Heaviside dedication, and the only reason Heaviside dedicated his book to FitzGerald was because of his premature death. So I think you’re just back to just two – Maxwell and Hertz – not three.” He smiled. “You have a coincidence, not enemy action.

  “Besides,” he added. “How does your hypothetical enemy kill someone with cancer? No one had the least clue how cancer worked back then. If an assassin wanted to kill someone and make it look like natural causes, they’d have probably used poison and no one would have been the wiser.”

  I also told Dad about my plan to work with Amit looking for other discrepancies between old physics books in the Tolliver Library and the versions available online.

  “I don’t think your project with Amit will turn up much of interest. But I think Amit is right about Omnitia. Developing the skill to use the Internet anonymously is worthwhile and I’ll count that as billable study time. The book scanner sounds useful, also. If it works out, I may ask you to scan our books as well.” Dad paused in thought again. “In fact, I need to go to Knoxville to help Jim Burleson on the auto plant job. If you have Friday off, I could take you and Amit along to speak with him about Heaviside. I’d also like to get set up with an untraceable laptop myself, if Amit wouldn’t mind configuring it for me. And I think you and Amit might like to work with me handling the IT side of one of my jobs.”

  * * *

  “That’d be great!” Amit said the next morning at Kudzu Joe’s. “I’m sure my folks won’t mind if I go with you and your dad to Knoxville. And I’ll be happy to configure Tor for your Dad, too.” I couldn’t tell him anything else about Dad’s project because Dad hadn’t shared the details with me, but Amit was eager for another chance to exercise his IT skills.

  Amit had apparently spent most of the previous evening scheming about online access. “The problem with Tor is that someone who’s determined to track you down can eventually figure out your IP address. They send you some kind of exploit that pings their server outside the secure Tor channel and they’ve got you. So you have to find a way to get online through an IP address that can’t be traced backed to you.”

  “So we only connect through public places like the Wi-Fi at Kudzu Joe’s,” I offered.

  “OK,” Amit acknowledged, “but what happens when someone starts asking Joe who hangs out here in the mornings? You and I would be on a very short list of suspects. The trick is to use public Wi-Fi, but not in a way that can be linked back to you.”

  “So we sit down the street from Joe’s in our car, only it’s probably a good idea to avoid using the Wi-Fi at any place that can be directly associated with us,” I suggested.

  “Exactly,” Amit said. “They call it ‘wardriving.’ You drive around looking for open Wi-Fi connections or ones with old routers and weak encryption. We find a few prospects and we mix it up, never using any particular connection more than a few times.”

  “Someone’s going to get suspicious if we park in front of their house and surf the web for an hour,” I pointed out.

  “We need a high gain antenna for our Wi-Fi to extend the range,” Amit explained. You can make one from a Pringles can. Your dad’s an amateur radio operator, right? Think he’d help?”

  “A Pringles can?” That sounded improbable. But Amit actually seemed serious. “I’ll ask him,” I agreed. “He’ll at least help me figure it out. He’s been trying to get me to take the exam to become a ham radio operator.”

  “What we actually need, though,” Amit continued, “is a good, busy, public place where we can get online using the Wi-Fi at another nearby busy public place. One of the truck stops along the interstate, for instance.”

  “What about your hotel?” I asked. “You have up to a hundred different guests at a time. That’s a lot of anonymity.”

  “All our guests have to log on to the Wi-Fi, and then we log their traffic, remember? Sure I could spoof the login of a real guest but if I make a habit of doing it and anyone started digging, they’d know someone at the hotel was up to something.”

  “Hotels are great for anonymity. Can you get information for guests at a different Berkshire hotel? Like in Oak Ridge or Knoxville? There’s one not far from my dad’s office.”

  “I should have thought of that,” Amit said ruefully. “I do have a login on the corporate network. The problem is they log queries. If anything is traced back to a bunch of random guests, they’ll quickly discover that what they had in common was that I’d looked them up. They do that all the time when someone tries to skim guests’ credit card numbers, for instance.”

  Clearly, avoiding the scrutiny of Big Brother while online was no easy task.

  “On the other hand,” Amit beg
an. I could see a dawning realization on his face. “The only reason my dad’s hotel is so well buttoned-down is because I worked through all the network security details for him. I’ll bet a lot of other hotels never changed the default settings on their routers, or their network admin passwords, or their management systems passwords. And I know all the default passwords.”

  “So you think you can get logged on to get their guest information?”

  “I think I won’t even need to, because I can convince most any Berkshire Hotel network gateway to let all our traffic through and then forget about it.” Amit was getting smug again. “I’ll have to work through the details.”

  After class, I swung by the library to compile an initial list of books for Amit to download, and I bought a half dozen cans of Pringles on the way home. Dad agreed to help build some antennas, but he exacted a payment from me. For years, he’d been trying to get me to take the ham radio exam and get licensed. He insisted both Amit and I take the license test at the Knoxville Hamfest that Saturday. I called Amit to give him a heads up and he agreed. Dad got to work assembling the antennas, and I started cramming for the test. The technical side was easy. The only real challenge was learning all the frequency bands, operating modes, and the rules and regulations. I took some practice tests and passed, although it was close. I’d have to study some more to guarantee success.

  * * *

  The next morning, Dad drove Amit and me to Knoxville. Our first stop was the big auto plant outside town where Dad had been working. He showed his ID to the guard at the gate and drove back to an area where there were half a dozen trailers set up in a parking lot surrounded by pickup trucks and contractors’ vans. We walked into one of the trailers. A lady got up from her computer.

  “Good morning, sir!” she said brightly to my Dad as she stood up. “You’re here to see the boss?”