The God App

By David Chacko

When Greg Louden is called in to investigate a theft of intellectual property at a software firm, he has no idea what is at stake. He can't imagine that lines of code are things people will kill and die for. But after he stumbles upon a brutal murder in the past that links to the present he starts to believe it.

Who invented this program that calculates the future with godlike precision? How can it do what it does?

It won't take Louden long to see that the man who knows what will happen tomorrow can take what he likes from today. If he happens to be a legendary figure on Wall Street with an obscure past, he can have it all—as soon as he eliminates the one man who stands in his way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: foremost
• Release date: Apr 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781936154777

David Chacko

A lot of what a writer does at the desk is the result of research being plugged into what happened every day of his life up to that point. Where he's born doesn't mean a lot except that's part of what he brings to the work. So let's say I was born in a small town in Western Pennsylvania where the coal mines closed thirty years before, then let's say that I found my way to New York and Ohio and New England and Florida and Istanbul with lot of stops along the way. I don't remember much about most of those places except that I was there in all of them and I was thinking. One of the things I was thinking about, because I'm always thinking about it, is the way people and governments lie to themselves and others. Those two thing--the inside and the outside of the truth--might be the same thing, really. That place of seeming contradictions is where I live. And that's where every last bit of The Satan Machine comes from. The lies piled up around the attempted assassination of the pope like few events in the history of man. Most of it had to do with geopolitics, especially those strange days when the world was divided into two competing blocs that were both sure they were right in trying to dominate. So an event that was put through the gigantic meat grinder was one that would be mangled nearly forever. That's what I've been thinking about--the hamburger, so to speak. The results will be told in several blog entries from my website, so you might want to mosey over to www.davidchacko.com. I can guarantee you a good time.

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THE GOD APP

David Chacko

Published by Foremost Press at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 David Chacko

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PART ONE:

THE REACHES

i

Louden passed the office of Cathar Systems twice before he saw the small letters on the door. The patrol car that worked this sector said it had never heard of the company. That might be true. The way Cathar sat at the rear of a small office park, backed against a hillside, made for an invisible profile.

Louden had talked on the phone to the man he meant to see at Cathar, but could not say he was eager to meet him. Howard Moxon, the contact, said he would remain on the premises and be available for questions. He also made it clear that a meeting on Sunday morning was a bad thing, an imposition, even if he had called the meeting.

So Louden was left, once again, facing the biggest question of our time. What are you going to do with the assholes?

He was not expecting a lot, but the man who answered the door was a downward surprise. Six-one, two-fifty, he looked like a football player going to lard. Blue eyes, but not bright. Red hair as a rash is red.

Do I get to guess? he asked.

Great Reach PD, Mister Moxon.

Louden, right?

That’s right, sir.

Come on in, he said, stepping back. Save the world.

Not a problem.

Moxon raised his eyebrows, which were reddish and stunted. He led Louden through a long low room that was hardly lit at all. Were they saving on electricity or overspending on space? The drop ceilings were probably not as close as they seemed, but they were oppressive. Five workstations were scattered in the wide common area. There were seven cubicles (two idle), and three private offices on the left.

They passed into the only office that showed a sign of life. A blue windbreaker lay over the back of a chair that faced three monitors. When Moxon sat in the chair, the light from the fluorescent overheads and the monitors made his freckles accept weird green tones. He was not aware of that or much else. As the Vice President of Software Development at a software boutique that had slightly more employees than a doubles match, he needed those machines on his desk to state his importance.

You know I’m a police volunteer, Howard. That shouldn’t mean anything for the purposes of this interview. My report will be as thorough as any could be. I have access to all the resources of the department.

Makes me feel good, he said. Warm.

Louden didn’t tell him that no one but a volunteer would come out on a nothing case on a Sunday morning; only a football Sunday would be worse.

Can you gave me the facts again, Howard? More detail would help. Just run through the incident from the beginning.

He nodded brusquely, in command mode. The break-in took place very late at night when no one was in the office. Any other night that might not be true, but we can have people working to all hours. So the bandit could have known that. He probably did. Saturday night is where it is for living these days.

I understand, sir.

The breach occurred between three-fifty-five and four-oh-four, said Moxon. It was picked up right away by AKH Security. AKH notified the police immediately, but your people took an hour to respond. The incursion was somewhere between old and ancient by then.

We’re sorry about the delay, sir.

I don’t guess that means you’ll be more efficient next time.

We’ll certainly try, but we could be looking at more cuts in the city budget, and I’m not sure that works for efficiency. It might mean longer response times.

That’s nice and political, said Moxon, being nice and shitty. You must think I’m on the city council.

No, sir, I don’t. But last night was Saturday with a full moon. Peak traffic.

Moxon ran his hand along his belt as if he was reaching for a weapon, which was more than Greg Louden, as a police volunteer, could put his hand to. So your advice is to hire a guard, he said, slapping his hip.

That’s an option, said Louden without returning the sarcasm. It might have been one from the beginning if you needed to secure valuable items. Surveillance cameras on the doors would have been a big help. We could be looking at footage and taking names right now.

Listen, friend, this is the next thing to a strip mall, said Moxon. Inch-and-a-half thick walls and an attic that connects to all the businesses. Our company has eight employees, not counting the officers, in case you think you took a wrong turn for IBM headquarters. Now, I’m pretty sure they have cameras in Armonk. They probably have lasers and disruptors. We just have a silent alarm.

If the alarm is silent, I wonder how the intruder would know he tripped it. We know he had a limited time to do what he wanted.

Mystery Number Two, he said.

Moxon didn’t name the first, and that was not all he had left out. The president of the company was in Miami trying to bring in a deal and could not direct his attention to this place. He could not even be flagged down for a phone interview. All questions were to be referred to Howard.

The intruder was inside this office for about nine minutes, said Louden. Can you tell me how much damage was done?

We don’t know exactly.

I see. What do you know?

Basically, that a lot of damage can be done in six or eight minutes, said Moxon, who kept his hands moving when he shoveled serious shit. You can’t download a hard drive in that time, but if you know what you want you can get it. The intruder went for Workstation Three, where we’re beta testing a special project. We know that because the machine booted up then. But we don’t know what he got.

Louden took a second to process that, but did not get far along before the inconsistencies piled up. I feel like I’m running blind here. Are you telling me the thief went right for the computer that held the beta software for a special project. Louden paused for disbelief. What is this project?

I’m sorry I can’t talk about that.

Louden tried not to let his impatience show. I think you can understand that finding a missing object is hard if we don’t know what we’re looking for. In this case it’s beta software of no description. I suppose we can chat around the hacker sites to see if the bandit is offering your software for sale, but it would help if we knew what to ask for. What kind of work do you do here?

Financial software, mostly.

What kind? asked Louden. Tax? Investment?

More like payroll and investment.

Louden was liking this less and less. What should have been the beginning of an investigation was being stonewalled by the people who had been burglarized. The man who had broken into Cathar Systems was beginning to look like the outlaw Brad Pitt.

So we’re safe in assuming that the software that was probably stolen probably had to do with investments.

Moxon smiled. That wouldn’t be wrong.

Saying it was right would make me feel better.

I understand how you feel, said Moxon. We can say you’re right. We just can’t say more.

Why not?

Moxon leaned forward and lowered his voice as if there were ears everywhere. Because it’s a delicate situation for this firm—very confidential. The client. Us. No one else knows about it. The understanding was that no one ever would.

It doesn’t look like that’s true any longer, said Louden. Word’s gotten around.

Moxon said nothing. That was not a common occurrence, Louden could tell. This was a man who would run his mouth during a thunderstorm. And he would expect you to remember what he said if he was your paycheck.

Louden sometimes wished he were a real cop. Being real was not the only part of this job, but it could be a big part. He had once seen a detective interview a suspect while holding the man’s nuts in his hand. He didn’t squeeze those things. He just let the weight of those jewels have their way.

Let’s say that more than one person knows about this project, said Louden. That’s just for the sake of argument.

We can say that’s true.

Can we say more than five people knew?

No, said Moxon. This particular project was segregated from the work that most of the other people here do. As I said, confidential. We tried to keep it that way by limiting the eyes on it.

Don’t you protect your programs, too?

Everything’s passworded, said Moxon. But that’s not bulletproof. If you know the security protocols, you can work around that.

So we’re back to the same place. Who knows the security well enough to work around it?

Several people.

Inside the company?

Yes.

Are they all employees?

Not more than three people are working on the project now. Less actually.

And you, sir.

Moxon took that to the place where he kept all the things that some day might bite him on the ass. If we’re counting me as a suspect, you can’t do better. If I wanted to sell myself to myself I’d be at the top of your list.

I didn’t mean that. Louden let his pause wander where it would. "But you said three people were working on the project now. That seems to mean there could be other suspects at other times."

I was talking about current employees.

By that you mean not past employees.

Moxon was beginning to see where the argument led and was embarrassed not to have seen it before. That’s right, he said. Exactly right, Louden.

Then why don’t we look at the past closer, sir. Let’s concentrate on ex-employees. It might be better if we focused on the ones who could be seen as disgruntled ex-employees.

Moxon shook his head. I’m not sure we ever had any of those. I mean, serious bad feeling.

Louden waited for the silence to mature. Are you sure about that, sir?

Yes, and probably it doesn’t matter, said Moxon. The minute an employee leaves the firm we disable his password. He can’t get back into our system. Too many of these guys have gone black hat as soon as they hit the door.

And the ones who went black hat were apt to be the smartest. They could have done a lot of things before leaving Cathar Systems. They could have built traps to capture keyboard strokes or track voice or a lot of things that Louden didn’t know about.

So how many disgruntled employees are we talking about?

Only two people left in the past six months, said Moxon. One, a young woman, moved with her boyfriend to Colorado.

When did that happen?

About three weeks ago.

So we’ll rule her out for the moment.

Forever. She likes to watch the Rockies. They don’t really have to do anything. She just wants to be there for the goodnight.

And the other one? The man?

He’s still around, I’m pretty sure.

Then we can get moving on him.

ii

Getting moving meant driving across the city on the Interstate. They called these high-speed, six-lane elevated roads arteries, because they promised to pump lifeblood into the communities that they passed through. But the blood had been pumped out and dry bone left behind.

Great Reach turned into East Reach with no rewind. It looked like a huge mural down there with the palette in gray. No landmarks showed anywhere. No one ever looked at it unless there was a reason—a fire or a riot or business they had to do.

Louden, several stories up and gliding, recognized one high-traffic former churchyard where drugs were traded. Another place—an old brassiere factory—kept the newest Americans in papers and jobs with lawn equipment. A lot of vacant lots were strewn with garbage that made them look even more abandoned. East Reach was so bad that film crews from New York City sometimes drove up 95 for their rubble shots.

Then Wycombe appeared through the windows as the city line became a visible thing. Many of the buildings were alike, even the triple-deckers, but now they looked like parts of neighborhoods and not like survivors.

It was a slow surf, rolling above malls and apartment complexes and the pole advertising lifted above the level of the highway. The second Wycombe exit brought Louden out a block shy of his destination—Cardiff Manor. The manor house was three stories of air-dropped apartment modules—brown, white and blue, done in a Tudor motif that seemed out of place only after some thought.

Louden got lucky when one of the residents, a woman in early retirement, opened the glass door as he approached the building. She held the door open and passed to the parking lot feeling good about herself even though she had just let a stranger into the lobby.

But she might have thought she recognized Louden. He was one of those people you thought you remembered from a place without pain. Five-ten, eyes blue or green and sometimes both, medium brown hair, all the limbs spoken for. That was the deal. No one could tell which part of it created the feeling that made people want to hold open doors for him.

The man who opened the door to 127 looked like the description of The Man Who Had Fled Cathar Systems. He was in his late twenties, early thirties, six-two but not meaty, with dark eyebrows and hair on his head several shades lighter. A bottle blond. One earring and a pair of glasses made of the same silvery stuff. The metal didn’t put him underwater much. He was a nice-looking young man who seemed to want to please.

Caleb Parmentier?

He didn’t seem nervous; not like he was holding or had come down from the trees. Who’s calling?

My name’s Greg Louden. I’m a volunteer with the Great Reach police. I’d like to ask some questions about your previous employer, Cathar Systems.

Parmentier accepted the first part without panic and shrugged at the second. Fuckheads, he said. That’s what I know.

I’d like to talk about that, said Louden. Can I come in?

What if I said no?

You didn’t, said Louden as he put his hand and shoulder to the door and moved into a room that had to make up most of the apartment.

It was a big living space with a kitchen that was an integrated part of the whole and big, too. All the furnishings were modern and striking as well as the generous spaces that separated them. None of these things, even the clear space, had been done cheap. Louden never had an apartment like this even when he was making very good money.

Nice place, said Louden. Well put together.

Parmentier nodded at the room and then at Louden. What’s a police volunteer?

Someone who volunteers to help the police, said Louden. We do a lot of the same things the regulars do, but we’re not paid for it.

Bad deal, he said. But not so bad the other way.

Louden was used to that reaction from citizens, who were usually friendlier and more forthcoming with volunteers than with sworn officers. I like the work, he said. I like it better than what I did for my money for twenty-five years. It’s real, if you know what I mean, Cal. Can I call you Cal?

Better than Kay, he said.

Are you here alone?

Anna’s usually around, but not right now.

Anna Pleshti.

Correct.

I saw the mailbox, said Louden. Pleshti/Parmentier.

That’s heavy sleuthing.

Louden should have known better than to get over on Parmentier. He was smart, and if he decided to talk he would be easier to work. I wanted to know all I could about you before we talked.

Parmentier smiled. OK.

He sat on the leather chair as Louden sat across from him on the leather couch. It was real leather and very soft. There was so much of it and so soft that it was like a better skin.

Tell me, how did Anna feel four months ago when you left Cathar Systems?

I kind of don’t think I told her for the first couple weeks, said Parmentier. Seemed like the thing to do to enjoy it.

She didn’t ask?

Parmentier smiled again. After a while she did. But she’s not vindictive. She might get that way if we were married, but do I want to find out?

No, you don’t, said Louden with so much authority that it surprised him. He had spoken without thinking, but he could feel that it made an bond between them. So how long were you on the bench after you left Cathar?

About six weeks, said Parmentier, who did not go with a count. More downtime would have been nice, but I got into good things with PayRoll. They’re a big company. They do, uh, payroll. And they do it on time. Now ask me who didn’t.

Cathar?

Fly by night is a little airy for what they are, said Parmentier, rolling his hand in a wing. I was promised a raise in December—in the next paycheck—by the head of software.

Howard Moxon.

You met?

We exchanged business cards, said Louden. I don’t know what else to call it.

Then you understand, said Parmentier. Change one letter, you get Moron. That’s what you call your supervisor when he looks you in the face and lies. I guess you misheard me, he says. Don’t you know the job market is tough? A lot of people would give their firstborn for a paycheck like yours. That kind of bullshit.

But you got another job pretty quick.

I was maybe a little lucky.

It sounds like things aren’t all that tough in computers.

Some ways, they are, he said. You don’t want to be unemployed for long before you’re reemployed. You don’t want to be too old, and you don’t want to be too knowledgeable because that means you’re expensive. And probably better at what you do than the people who’re hiring you. They want cheap, and they want it as close to a bot as they can get it.

Is that what Cathar wanted?

More cheap than bot, but yeah, both. They’re the software farm team. They hire people—sometimes good people—but the good ones never stay. They find their way to some other company.

Financial software in Moxon’s terms was a bit different in Parmentier’s terms. It seemed to mean payroll software. Solid. Necessary. But it would have to be amazing to make it worth industrial espionage. Louden was confused, and when he was confused he asked more questions.

Is that what you did at Cathar? Payroll?

A lot of it, said Parmentier. Saying I did got me a new job, so let’s not contradict me.

What about the rest of the people at Cathar?

I’d say seventy percent in payroll.

Seventy leaves thirty. What about the thirty, Cal?

That was mostly one guy—Patrick Chaggath. He handled the projects that Moron gave him.

Were they important?

Everything’s important there, he said. If it’s under the table, it’s more important. It would be called Priority, and it would be given a number that’s never written down.

Is there a lot that goes down under the table?

Probably not, said Parmentier. Quick and dirty doesn’t mean illegal. You can write a program that beats the lottery using Fibonacci numbers. No problem. That’s legitimate.

What about Chaggath? Is he still at Cathar?

I’m pretty sure he’s there, said Parmentier. He tries to leave, they burn down his village in wherever the hell he came from.

Louden made a note to check with INS. Chaggath could be in this country on a visa exception or he could be here on his own. It would be easy to apply pressure to someone who was not completely legal. Moxon-Moron knew that. Now Louden knew it.

Where did Chaggath work in the room?

In the bullpen with the rest of us.

At what workstation?

Three.

The magic number. The code thief came through the door and went right for that workstation. He did not touch anything else apparently. And Workstation Three was where the secret project made its home.

Did you ever work with Chaggath on any projects?

I helped him out a couple of times because he wasn’t much with architecture. I’m good with patterns, and he had no idea they existed. Still, he only had a couple of projects going when I was there. The first was a surveillance system with all the bells and whistles, plus add-ons like a Parcheesi game.

That doesn’t sound serious.

Actually, it was, said Parmentier. The project was a monitoring system for the head man slash ultimate boss of this company. He wanted to know what every last one of his employees was doing every minute of the day, and he had to have instant switching and zoom on all the workstations. He wanted instant tracking capability, too, so he’d know where all their emails went. To a competitor? The government? A girl or boyfriend, which is even worse. The Parcheesi is what he wanted for those awful times when traffic went slack.

I think I know that guy.

Everybody knows that guy, said Parmentier without a smile. Calling him an Alpha male is an insult to the alphabet. You try to get away from that kind—but it’s not so easy nowadays.

What about the second project you worked on, Cal?

That was never-never land—a series of algorithms that came with frost on the window.

I don’t understand.

That’s because I don’t know how to explain it, said Parmentier, using both open hands this time. The software was already compiled when I saw it, and I think when Chaggath got his hands on it, too. I was supposed to supply an algorithm for start dates. Very changeable. So if you punched in 1998 as a start date, you’d get a different set of results than if you punched in 1997. Or 1897. The data was all keyed to that.

What was the data?

Historical prices, he said. Stocks. Commodities. The voice that woofs on the data tells you exactly when it’s the best time to lose your money.

So the purpose of the software was to generate buy and sell signals in the markets.

Correct, he said. But that was already done. What we were trying to do was find the proper starting point. We couldn’t find the endgame without it.

Endgame? Is that a figure of speech?

Maybe not, he said. You have to assume Armageddon is going to happen again in the stock market one of these days. There’s a lot of money to be lost—and made—if that happens. In fact, you can make more when it goes down. It can go down fast, too. Down and fast is pure cream.

For the first time Louden had a whiff of motivation. Big money meant that big chances could be justified. Big risk that brought big reward was usually what they had to have.

So the software was supposed to flash on the end, said Louden. Red light, like that.

You want it, you can have a flashing light in rainbow colors, he said. Sirens, too. A 3-D shepherdess crying wolf in her thong.

Who was the company that Cathar was working for?

Address in Malvern, he said. Post office box if I remember. Does that seem weird to you?

Malvern was twenty miles west toward New York City, and it was where city businesses settled after seeking out intelligent life beyond their borders.

It sounds weird, Cal. It doesn’t sound much like much brick and mortar either.

Frankly, it sounded like vapor, said Parmentier. I remember I thought so even then. Nothing is paying for something, but we’re not sure exactly what that is.

You never talked to the client?

Not once, he said. I was helping out Chaggath, and if there were calls from the client he took them. Of course, Moron would know who they are. Ask him.

I’ll hold off there until I get my cattle prod, said Louden. Moxon won’t give any information beyond the fact that he was robbed. And he’s not sure what they took.

You should ask them how they got the code in the first place, said Parmentier. It was written years ago by Edgar Bullcoming. He wasn’t famous then.

Did he get to be?

Oh, yeah.

You mean like Steve Jobs famous.

No, like Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles.

Louden took a moment to trace the reference. It came back returning only one thing. Robert Kennedy had died in LA.

This man Bullcoming was assassinated?

You must not be from around here, said Parmentier. That was a media event ten or twelve years ago. It was more than just a murder.

I missed it, said Louden, who remembered the late nineties from his home outside DC. I moved here five years ago.

Well, you can Google Bullcoming, he said. They’ll give you the facts, but they won’t tell you that the bull he saw coming was about to run wild. That damned thing would run you down. The only way out was to grab its horns and jump on its back. But the minute you did—

You got thrown to the ground.

And stomped on, said Parmentier. This is a lesson for our time.

iii

Louden had an early dinner with his daughter at an Indian restaurant in Grimsby, a town that should have been called West Reach by the compass. He and his wife had moved to this area to be close to Andrea, it was said. After he took the buyout from CoreNet, Louden had followed his wife’s wishes about the move to New England. When they divorced a year later, he found himself in a place where he had no purpose in life but golf and a daughter he saw once a week.

That was better than once a month. He loved Andrea, their only child, casually and desperately. She understood she was the vessel that carried the life of her tribe, but had rarely reminded him of it since she had left home for college thirty miles from the Reaches. She liked to spend most of their time together asking about the things he was doing that he had never done before.

I know the lawyer who handled the appeal on the Bullcoming murder case, she said. I met her a couple of times, and I could call her a friend if I was pressed.

It would be great if you could put me in touch, he said. I don’t know what I should be looking at, but I’d like to talk to someone outside the department before I talk to anyone inside.

You love the police thing, don’t you, Dad?

I like it, he said. You love the lawyer thing?

I hate it, she said. But it’ll get better. All that matters at that place is if you bring business through the door. When I brought them the president of banner.com, I went gold star. Thanks a lot for that, Dad. They’re starting to look at me and see dollars, and believe me, that’s an improvement.

I’m glad it worked out, said Louden.

I’ll see what I can do to return the favor.

She smiled just enough that he could see her mother in her; her mother as she had been in the early years of their marriage. Louden thought that Andrea did it consciously. She understood that the family could never be sovereign again, but she wanted it in every pause in the conversation and glance at the wine bottle in the cold sleeve.

I don’t know if there’s anything important in this case, he said. But thanks anyway.

No need, she said. I’m just paying back all that tuition.

And it had been a lot. Louden always tried to please Andrea, because thinking of her turning into her mother—as women often did—was a bad dream. He did not think that would happen before he died, and for that he was grateful. He had been happy when his ex-wife moved to New York, though with the easy rail commute that was too close.

Louden had almost given up golf after deciding to help Great Reach deal with its crime and its statistics. The Reaches had serious problems, but some solved themselves. Drug dealers dealt with their rivals without reference to the