From the memorandum of Prof Thompson

31 May

What a strange and terrible day Jeff and I have just experienced. It should have been a celebration of the successful vote for a World Government, instead it turned into the biggest technological debacle I have ever seen.

At about 10 A.M. Lisa came in to see me. She was overwrought and wouldn’t get to the point of her meeting with me. I encouraged her to talk, thinking she would come around to it and eventually she did. Telling me that she was pregnant and would need time off from December to at least March to care for her new-born. She kept telling me how sorry she was to let me down by falling pregnant when Jeff and I had shown her so much kindness and consideration by re-training her as a data analyst. I told her she didn’t need to worry and that she could take the maternity leave she needed, which would be more than three months and come back to her job and her on-going training. She burst into tears at my words and I was relieved that Jeff came into my office just then and took over the job of calming her down. For half an hour or more he spoke to her and eventually she became quite quiet and went back to her desk, where I saw her sitting at her computer, gazing, unseeingly into space.

At about 11.30 A.M. I got up to go to the toilet. On my way past the IT help desk, I saw a couple of clusters of confused looking employees gathered around it. All of them were carrying laptops. On my way back to my office, a few minutes later, I saw that even more people were standing around waiting for assistance from the single IT administrator on-duty. I went over to find out what was happening.

All of the employees’ laptops were displaying a strange message in large black letters: “Sorry, your files are all encrypted.” While I was considering the implications of this message, all of the laptops spontaneously restarted.

I heard an unusual murmur of noise from the main open-plan office where the programmers sat and, rushing over to ask what the problem was. From the doorway I watched in horror as a wave of laptop and desktop screens turned black and silent. Attempts to restart them failed, with the screens returning immediately to the same blackness. The computers and laptops were all irreversibly locked. Every employee’s desk phone and company mobile phone was also dead.

I immediately rushed back into my own office and disconnected my own PC from the network, shouting at Jeff in the adjacent office to disconnect too. Due to the sensitive nature of our work, Jeff and I have specialised cybersecurity, but I wasn’t going to take any chances that the penetration tool embedded in this destructive piece of malware could hack into our machines.

Jeff came rushing into my office, “What’s going on?”

“The networks under attack by some sort of cyber weapon. I suspect it’s an automated network worm. Thank God we have backups of our work on external hard drives. Our computers should be fine anyway, the worm won’t have had time to hack their complex security software before we switched them off.”

My private phone began to ring and I noticed that my company mobile phone had gone dead. I answered it and had a short discussion with the caller. “That was Duarte Teixeira, the Chief IT administrator from the World Government’s building. He is being inundated by calls and messages from people all over London, telling him of similar situations in other World Government organisations. He said that the networks for all of the Free Zone developments have been infected. It’s also spread to all of the hospitals involved in inserting the World Government microchips. He says this appears to be a targeted attack on specific areas of the World Government administration, but we can’t rely on that and need to shut down the whole network.”

“What does he want us to do?”

“Get on the phone and call all government organisations linked to the World Government network and tell them to unplug their networks without hesitation, even if it means shutting down their entire operation. If they wait too long, their infrastructure will be lost.”

Jeff and I finished with the calls at around 3P.M. We made dozens of phone calls, locally and internationally, and in many cases, the infrastructure was saved. In many other cases, the calls had taken too long and it was already too late by the time we reached the relevant people.

Duarte appeared to have been correct in his assessment that this had been a targeted attack. Every World Government office and organization relating to the Free Zone developments, the insertion of microchips and other related benefits and services in the United Kingdom had been infected to some extent, as well as certain operations in France, Germany, Italy, the United States and Australia. It was obvious that the infection had targeted the UK.

We walked out of my office and into the general office area. Lisa was still there but all the other employees, rendered completely idle without a functioning computers, servers, routers and desk phones, had left and gone home.

“Why are you still here, Lisa?” Jeff asked.

“I wanted to wait and see if you needed me to do anything. Fortunately, the electric buses and the tube were not affected by the cyber-attack, so I can still get home.”

“Jeff and I have been asked to go to the World Government offices in Reading tomorrow to lead the IT team that will assist with the launch of Bella here in the UK now instead of February next year. Fortunately, the system is ready to launch. The delay was purely to give the World Government time to get the Free Zone developments up and running before Bella’s implementation and the resultant disruptive employment changes to the world economy. As a result of this cyber-attack, a decision has been made to launch Bella, with its sophisticated cybersecurity, in the United Kingdom now. It will be rolled out over the next seven months to all the federation countries.”

“How long do they expect the launch of Bella to take in the UK?”

“We’ve only been given ten days to get it up and running. The infected organisations, Free Zone developments and hospitals will have to operate manually as best they can during that period. It is a nightmare.”

“Do you need me to do anything for you over the next few days?”

Dr Thompson thought for a moment. “If you don’t mind coming with us to Reading, you could help us wipe the hard drive of all the laptops that were infected by the worm. It would be a good learning experience for you.”

I could feel the huge smile on my face. “I would love to come with you, Dr Thompson. Thank you for asking me.”

This is an extract from my new dystopian novel Russian Roulette, anyone? for Stevie Turner’s short story competition. You can participate here: https://steviet3.wordpress.com/2019/07/31/share-your-short-story-august-2019/

From the handwritten notes of Lisa Robinson

15 May

The nausea is on-going and I vomit most early mornings. Fortunately, the actual vomiting does pass and I am able to manage it during the working day.

I managed to get an appointment with a gynaecologist at the local hospital for 8A.M this morning. His rooms were neat and clean and the couches were his patients waited for their appointments were comfortable and covered with a soft material in a soothing dark green.

When I finally saw the doctor after a three hour wait he said that everything is fine with both the baby and me. Hearing the baby’s strong heartbeat was exiting and I almost regretted not asking David to come with me, but he would have hated the wait and would have made an embarrassing scene about it.

I haven’t decided what I am going to do about my relationship with David anyway, so my desire to have him share in my excitement is a bit silly. After the evening when I told him about my pregnancy and our resultant altercation, he had made a huge effort to pull himself together. He laid off the booze and spent time updating his CV and sending it out to perspective employers. He even pounded the streets and managed to ferret out a few day and half-day jobs doing menial tasks like packing fruit in the supermarket. It isn’t much, but the money does help.

He hasn’t, however, given up his meetings with the Modern Luddites. I know this is true because of his furtive behaviour when he receives the odd phone call. He squirrels himself away in our bedroom with the door closed and speaks in hushed tones for lengthily periods. I’ve seen him smiling a strange, bitter smile when he receives text messages on his mobile phone and I know he’s lying to me when he claims to be meeting the boys for drinks at the local pub once a week. David doesn’t have the money to meet his friends at the pub and I know he would never take charity. He’s too proud for that.

I can’t trust him anymore. Can’t trust him to do right by me and the baby I’m expecting. I think I fell out of love with him that night in our apartment when he had tried to force me into agreeing to have an abortion. I don’t want an abortion. I don’t want to terminate the life of the baby growing inside me. I also didn’t want to give him or her away to one of the wealthy and spoiled wives of the big corporate earners. I want to keep the baby.

What to do about David is not an easy decision for me to make. Raising a baby on my own while having to work full time seems like an astronomical undertaking, but I am not sure I can count on much support from David regardless of whether I chose to divorce him or not. I am worried his association with the Modern Luddites is going to cause problems for me down the line with my work and bosses. What to do? I wish I could know for sure what the best choice is for me and my unborn child.

At the end of the appointment I told the doctor that I was feeling nauseas and ill. He wouldn’t give me any traditional medications for the nausea, but he did recommend some natural remedies like eating ginger, taking slow and deep breaths and scratching the skin of a lemon to release its essential oils into the air. He said he only prescribes traditional medications when a patient is experiencing abnormal levels of vomiting and it is affecting her health. “The anti-nausea medications have their own negative side effects, including drowsiness. The nausea should pass when you are approximately fourteen weeks pregnant,” he said. He also confirmed that I am nine weeks pregnant so only five more weeks to go until it should subside. It feels like a life time.

After my appointment, I made another for my check-up at sixteen weeks. His secretary, Mrs Kowalczyk, told me that they will do blood tests at that appointment to test for foetal abnormalities like Down syndrome, trisomy 18 syndrome, and spina bifida. She also gave me a small container that I must wee in, next time I come, so that she can test my urine for protein. “Protein in your urine can be an indicator of preeclampsia or high blood pressure,” she said.

“I suggest you go to the pharmacy and buy a pregnancy multivitamin which contains folic acid, she said, her kind smile lighting up her lined face, framed by cropped, white hair. “It helps prevent birth defects of the baby’s brain and spinal cord.” I smiled at her to convey that I appreciated her suggestion. I am pleased to have the support following David decidedly negative reaction to the news of my unplanned pregnancy.

I bought the multivitamin pills from the pharmacy at the hospital. It cost a little more than it would have if I’d waited and purchased them from the bulk discount pharmacy, but I just don’t have the energy, or the enthusiasm, to go to the shopping mall after work today. I am already behind with my work because of the appointment with Dr Robinski and I don’t want to have to leave early on top of only arriving at 12P.M today. By the end of the working day my nausea returns with a vengeance and I feel horribly sick and tired so having to stop on my way home is not an enticing prospect.

Now that the pregnancy has been confirmed by the doctor, I need to start making appropriate plans for caring for the baby after my maternity leave. I will only get four months fully paid leave and I can’t afford to take a salary reduction, so my options are limited.  I am worried about how I am going to manage after the baby is born in early December. Even with the child grant, I are going to struggle financially if David is not working and can’t contribute anything to his or her care. I’m going to have to find someone to look after the baby while I am at work and that is expensive. I know that David won’t do it, even if I decide to stay with him and try to make our marriage work. We also will have to move again as our current apartment does not allow pets or children. The thought of all the packing is exhausting to me.

I also have to go and have a microchip inserted into my hand if I want to make use of the new Free Zone 1 hospital for the baby’s birth. Dr Robinski said that he has already been allocated rooms there and that his patients will follow him and have access to its state-of-the-art equipment. His words were a huge relief to me.

David is anti the microchips as he says the World Government will use them to control the masses. He is going to put up a fight about my getting one, but I don’t care. I am going to get my microchip inserted as soon as possible. The lady at the pharmacy also said that I can also use it to get any pregnancy related medications from the hospital going forward. If I’d known that I would have had it done before I went to the hospital today.

This post is for Linda G Hill’s SoCS post, Astronomical. You can join in here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/08/02/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-3-19/