Free The Sapporo Outbreak by Brian Craighead

 

    The apartment building was owned by an overseas investor, as part of a large portfolio of West Coast real estate. A small company in downtown Seattle looked after property management. Dodgson's willingness to pay above the market rate and in advance secured the apartment with no questions asked.

    Dodgson could come and go any time of the day or night and go completely unnoticed. No one ever bothered Lewis Dodgson. Hiding in plain sight and moving freely through society's cracks and crevices, he was invisible.

    Arriving on the third floor just as the biting winter wind kicked up a notch, Lewis Dodgson hurriedly entered his apartment and slammed the heavy wooden door behind him. The street lighting below reflected off the thick carpet of white snow outside, bathing the apartment in an eery twilight glow. Without pausing to turn on the lights, Dodgson walked through the apartment and past the gleaming stainless steel of his unused kitchen before slowing to a stop in front of an imposing glass-topped desk.  

    The custom-fitted curved steel and glass of the desk followed the arc of the apartment's bay windows perfectly. Three identical semitransparent glass monitors dominated the space, the left and right screens tilted inward slightly. A slightly tilted glass panel sat under the middle monitor, glowing a faint blue in the dark.  

    In one swift practiced movement, Dodgson wheeled the ergonomic white plastic and leather chair from under the desk, twisted it, sat down and wheeled back to his desk. Without pausing, Dodgson used his left and right forefingers to trace a series of elaborate curves onto the glass tablet, ending each with a series of quick taps. The monitors immediately sprang to life, each displaying a pure white screen with a single black cursor pulsing in the model. In a well practiced routine, Dodgson again used his fingers - this time to trace different shapes onto each monitor.

    A second later, the entire room lit up, filled with the light emanating from three enormous screens. The left and right screens were filled with grids of large and small boxes, each filled with impenetrable code. The middle screen had only two windows. The first contained a complex throbbing 'spiders web' of threads varying in thickness, colour and the speed with which they 'pulsed'. The other window contained a tiled grid of thumbnail pictures, each showing a different comic strip superhero. Most were framed in a glowing green, and two in a glowing red. As Dodgson watched, the two red frames ('Batman' and 'Silver Surfer') changed to green, and the computer's mid-pacific female voice announced "All participants online."

    Dodgson smiled, alternately tapped two fingers on the glass tablet, faced the central monitor and said "Start call."

        The tiled superhero images shimmered, and in no discernible order the frames changed from green to white and began slowly pulsing. A few seconds later, all tiles were slowly pulsing in unison. All attendees were ready. The meeting of the world's most feared and respected hacker group - 'ANONet' was about to begin.

    Later, investigators would pinpoint this as the meeting that started it all. The start of a chain of events that would lead to the greatest peacetime loss of life in human history.
    #
    Over Denver Colorado (Minus 22 Hours)

    Tanaka's personal Gulfstream jet was by any measure, luxurious.

    Capable of carrying 30 people in first class comfort, Tanaka had slashed the capacity, replacing the existing first class leather recliner seats with ten enormous fully reclining white leather seats, facing each other in five rows of two. Completing the effect, the far end of the plane housed Tanaka's master suite complete with oversize shower.

    Santos and Skinner were ushered into the plane by a beautiful young Japanese hostess, and chose to setup base in the first two seats facing each other as they entered the plane. Clearly a veteran, Hill strode to the farthest two seats, plumped down