Free Decoy by Simon Mockler Page A

watch who blundered in. See who they tried to sell it to. Of course, we didn’t imagine they’d be quite so brutal,” he added as an afterthought.
    The brandies arrived, along with two luke-warm coffees. Jack picked up the bell glass, swirled the contents round and breathed in the aroma. Sir Clive’s story was beginning to hurt his head. He downed the double measure in one swift swallow.
    â€œTwo questions, Mr. Clive,” Jack said. He’d never been a particularly patient person and wasn’t sure how much more of the night he wanted to spend listening to the man, he had better things to be doing, comforting Amanda for one. He looked Sir Clive square in the eye.
    â€œWhat does the device do, and what do you want with me?”

16

    Sir Clive pulled a clear plastic container from his jacket pocket and dropped it casually on the table. There it was. Transparent pinkish outer skin, tiny circuits inside. Exactly as Jack remembered. He couldn’t help but shudder.
    â€œYou ask what the device does. Well,” Sir Clive rubbed his chin, “Hard to put into words. Try and think of this as a nuclear bomb. For the Internet.” Jack frowned, picking up the perspex container, getting a closer look at it.
    â€œWe’ve developed 10 micro computers, circuits grown within organic matter, you were one of the hosts. The idea was to create a cell-based structure capable of out-sequencing the most powerful computers. The largest networks. A series of devices that, if used together, could generate so much code, so much malicious data they’d corrupt even the most powerful, heavily-protected network on the planet.” He paused, making sure he had Jack’s full attention. “A black hole blasted in the virtual world, IT systems collapsing under the weight of their own data, sucking in billions and billions of gigabytes of information in the process, whole technology infrastructures, whole countries. Imagine it Jack, Banking systems destroyed. No proof of how much money anyone has, how much money any business has, who owns what. Satellite control centres knocked off balance, armies unable to communicate, weapons systems useless.”
    Jack was listening carefully, noting Sir Clive’s deliberate choice of words, try and think of this as a nuclear bomb . . . imagine it, Jack . It was easy enough to assume the worst looking at the device, it was so alien, so unpleasant. But did that mean it really had those capabilities? Would MI6 really be prepared to let something as powerful as he was suggesting fall into the hands of a terrorist, a rogue state?
    Nothing in his teaching at Cambridge had prepared him for something like this, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. He knew the government still managed to siphon off the best minds, the best researchers to plug away at outwardly incomprehensible ideas in their laboratories at GCHQ.
    Sir Clive opened the perspex container, picked up the device carefully, holding it to the light, looking at it speculatively.
    â€œLooks convincing, doesn’t it?” He said. “The world might have gone high-tech but human psychology remains the same. People still believe what they want to believe, whatever suits their cause.” The device slipped out of his hands and splashed into his coffee cup. He fished it out and gave it a quick wipe with a serviette.
    â€œWe’ve got hundreds of these things in our lab and none of them do anything. Well, nothing like what I’ve just described. They tick over and look impressive, a neat combination of animatronics and micro-circuits. And sure, they mix organic matter and cell technology, but not in a very complex way. They even emit low level electro-magnetic waves, which is why it reacted so badly to the x-ray your friends organised.” He sat back in his chair, waving the device in front of him as he spoke.
    â€œThe point of these things isn’t what they do, it’s who they