Internet Hate Machine

By Nick Troy

Tomorrow will see a great battle fought on the web. Sudden deaths – maybe that strange gadget has something to do with them? Digital zombies and ghosts coming out into city streets. The rich and powerful ones challenged by an enemy who can be anywhere ...and anyone.

A young girl whose job is wish fulfillment, a sociophobic nerd and a human watchdog are swept into a whirlwind of the real and virtual worlds mingled together. Will they survive and find out what is REALLY going on?

This is a “hard” science fiction novel based on what is actually developed, prototyped and tested right now. Read to know how the augmented reality technologies like Google Glass will change the world!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Troy
• Release date: Aug 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301644728

Nick Troy

Nick Troy is a Russian-speaking Ukrainian writer, author of several novels in the genres of cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic fiction and fantasy. Born October 29, 1983 in Donetsk, Ukraine, he was given the name of Nikolay Borodin. But later he discovered the existence of a living writer with just the same name and hence took the pen name of Nick Troy. Before becoming a professional writer, he studied History and Religion, majored in Journalism, went in for drawing, wrote several songs for rock groups and spent some time leading a historical rubric in a local newspaper. Published his first book, a post-apocalyptic novel "Head in the Noose", in 2011. That was when he chose a full-time career in writing. The next two books, a cyberpunk series of "Neironet" and "Neironet 2: Offline Mode", were also bought by publishers, while his fantasy novel "Kill a Hero' was self-published on the web. A winner of the “Russia For Immortals” writing contest, held in 2011 by the “Russia 2045” movement. Nick Troy's "Internet Hate Machine" is the first book in a series of three techno-thrillers dealing with the incipient competition between the real world and the virtual one in the nearest future which, according to the author, would see the beginning of the information singularity. The rights for this book in Russia were purchased by “AST-Astrel,” one of the country’s largest publishers, and a gaming company “Ravelin” is going to make a computer game adaptation of it.

Book preview

START

Moscow, August 29

Alexei never thought he could run that fast. Or rather he’d been unsuspecting he could run at all.

Stop, damn!

His heart gave a chick’s quiver, icy cold clawing at his back. He dared no look over the shoulder; the chasers were close.

Alexei leaped over the playground’s low fence, agile like a fallow deer, though the day before he’d groan even at standing up from the computer chair. All but falling on the loose sand, he kept his feet by miracle. Run! Run as fast as he could, away from the fight he feared in his gut, from those street predators whose empty eyes he’d suddenly caught.

Streets were almost empty. To his ill luck, it was the middle of a working day, keeping everyone across the August sun-melted Moscow in their offices. No hope for him.

Run across the parking lot, zigzagging among the cars that stand in three rows, on the grass too, then along the house, to the loud slapping of sandals.

The open front door of an apartment block was a blessing of heavens. His gut feeling jerked him by collar and dragged there. Panting, Alexei burst into the dry coolness of the stairwell. Keeping pace, climbed onto the fourth floor. There he pressed against the dirty wall, his body creeping down it like a splash of gruel, his mouth wide open and gasping for air.

As he tried to recover breath, his fingers, trembling with fear, whisked into his postal bag. USB cables. Palmbook with amplifying antenna. A box of cookies that had been crushed into crumbs. Some more thrash, but no… no… His heart shrunk to the size of a walnut.

Where’s it?! Alexei yelled silently.

When finally his fingers closed around the sacred box, he almost burst into tears. There it was! He’d not lost it!

The next moment Alexei recognized the strange noise from below as footsteps. He listened with disbelief: yes, it were footsteps! Them. Again.

That changed the convulsing flow of his thoughts, dissolving those common for him when under pressure (How could that happen? Why me?! Got myself in!). With an icy-cold taste of lead on his tongue, a realization came: the block was strange, no one to ask for help. It was his end. They ran him down.

Ran down!

Terribly exhausting, this idea hit him under knees. But Alexei ran on. He did not hear the chasers anymore; just his own lungs wheezing in a spasm. Forcing his way through the shroud before his eyes, he jumped from one stair to another. His head went swimming, with either lack of oxygen or the stories whizzing by.

Between the ninth and the tenth floor, Alexei stopped. Held his breath, took a convulsive grip on the shaggy rail. The air smelled of chlorine. For a few moments he could only hear his own heartbeat until the slapping sound of hurried footsteps came from below.

In spite of cutting fear, he bent over the rail, blinking away tears and sweat, and…ran with his whole self upon the other man’s gaze.

Up there!

Alexei shrunk back. Those below hooted like jackals. A panic shriek tore his throat from inside, came out as a groan. Wailing, Alexei dashed to the next floor.

He ran onto the sixteenth (and last) floor completely dazed. He was about to rush for the warts of doorbells when his eye was caught by the gaping roof exit. The door was open; his fatal luck again.

Alexei darted onto the roof like an actor at the tragic finale moment. His sandals crunched on the gravel glittering with deposits of unburned kerosene from the engines of low-flying planes.

It took him ten seconds sharp to run around the roof perimeter and realize his dead end. No superstructures, no other way down. Just the wind and satellite antennae.

A crunch behind. Slowly, Alexei turned round.

Three overmuscular hunks. Three living tutorials on building your body with anabolic steroids. Their plain angular faces grinned happily. The fourth one, their leader in posh fine threads, seemed to take no part in the chase. He must have stayed in the car, waiting his loyal sidekicks back idly.

Alexei stepped back as the thugs approached him, forming a semicircle.

Where you? one smiled mockingly. "We won’t hurt you, Vasya¹, ‘fraid not. Don’t be a damn chick!"

His pal gave a neigh and echoed, Don’t piss!

The roof parapet hit Alexei softly on the small of his back. Icy fear clutched his stomach as he glanced down; everything was so terribly small there below.

Calm down, you!

For a moment he almost believed it, but then his palm instinctively found the broad case within his bag.

Lemme see, the thug asked when Alexei took out a pair of black plastic glasses. They looked like 3D glasses, but with very heavy temples. We won’t break ‘em, really.

No, they won’t, Alexei realized with a feeling of doom. They’ll just bash me up and take the gadget. And then…

The decision came suddenly. Cold, desperate, and heart-stopping.

Hey! the hunk yelled. Stop! Stop, damn!

Allowing the chasers no time, Alexei jumped on the parapet. A sudden gust of wind nearly pushed him back but Alexei kept his feet and put the glasses on to mitigate his fear.

Everything vanished when his finger pressed a small button on their side; the roof, the urban vultures, and all the trouble. He saw the secret world again, and his confidence was back at once. He was doing the right thing; this secret should never come out. It must remain a secret. Despite all costs.

From far away, a jeer came, You nuts?! Stop, shit!

But Alexei already looked away. And took a small step.

For a moment he had no weight. Then the rushing wind came from below.

PART I. Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter 1. The Snail’s Law

Korolyov, October 1

The walls are papered up to the middle only, to the wooden equator carved with runic patterns. Straight from beneath it, strange plants are climbing up to the ceiling against the concrete backdrop skillfully painted with merry flower fairies dancing in the energy streams of happiness. This painted landscape is braided with natural ivy; the pictorial stems beautifully entwining with real ones, the props supporting them almost invisible. A complete illusion of standing in the thickets.

Above, under the very ceiling, are three expensive air conditioners. Magic waterfalls are dropping in the lights of violet, pink and golden LEDs hidden in the ivy. They moisten the air, and their very sight is pacifying and curing your soul. A multitude of suns above, colored the brightest and most unusual, could equally well belong to a LSD trip or some fairy world in the endless universe. The mercurial scatters of stars and planets are swinging in their rings.

Dalia stepped softly on the gravel path, fingering the plants. The path seemed to be taking her into a wonderful garden. The thickets were about to reveal the secret world, full of serenity and peace, for her to touch its deepest mysteries, to stroke the rabbits’ soft hair, to snuggle up to a hundred-year-old oak, its bark warm and fragrant, to hear a unicorn’s gentle sniff. Not that she was likely to meet the unicorn, anyway. They say he only comes to virgins.

Responding to her move, the music system switched on. To the sounds of Somebody to Love by Jefferson Airplane, the girl stopped in the midst of the room with her eyelids down, the tender sunrays caressing her naked body. There, outside the broad window, the world was greedily absorbing the last warmth of autumn, but here inside it was cozy and comfortable in any season.

Dalia had envisioned this room long before buying this apartment and shortly after getting her first job. Everyone must have their own secret garden, her yoga instructor used to say. Not simply his or her own room but something special to serve like a snail’s shell. A place to work and recreate gladly in. Wu Wei, the concept of non-interference and world contemplation. Or, to put it differently, the endless moment of peace. The only perfect way to separate your life into yin and yang, into active interaction and passive contemplation in which you see things impartially.

Now Dalia knew what the instructor meant. She is nineteen. She has a splendid job with a very good salary. She is a strong vegan, a fan of yoga and Apple and, most importantly, a happy owner of the two-bedroom apartment with one of its rooms concealing this miracle. Affording this secret garden took her six months’ savings and sharing the apartment for a while with her younger sister who did the painting part of the garden design yet the result was worth it. Dalia did not mind her friends being astonished at her leaving the Moscow apartment she’d inherited from parents for her own place in Korolyov, a small town near Moscow.

Somewhere in another world, her mobile phone rang.

Dalia took the last deep breath, feeling the pleasant touch of fresh air at the root of her tongue, and exited the room. The world seemed to change as the door shut softly behind her. She really felt like a snail just out of her cozy protective shell.

The phone kept ringing. After a short search, she retrieved it from the pocket of the jeans she’d worn the day before. Hi.

The voice on the line asked half-affirmatively, Dalia Vernikova?

Yes.

There’s an order for you. Will you take it?

Sure.

Good. I’ll email the details to your corporate box.

I’ll be waiting, Dalia replied, but the other speaker had already hung up.

With the ‘outer world’ reminding her of work, she now felt uneasy walking around naked, even in her own apartment. Outside my secret garden, Dalia thought with a smirk, I need a different shell. Clothes would suit.

Dalia slipped into a dressing gown and, switching on her ultrabook on the table, went to make herself some tea.

Her kitchen was reigned by irreproachable order and neatness, though Asya, Dalia’s sister, considered her apartment to be too empty. They always argued over it. Dalia, in turn, was badly uncomfortable at her sister’s place with its permanent artistic mess, garments and bedclothes heaping on chairs, all rooms having dirty tableware, dirty coffee cups being used as ashtrays—and lots, lots of vases and statuettes and pictures (some yet unfinished) and pebbles and seashells and souvenir charms, not to mention the all-dominating soft toys. A mixture of art museum and flea market, Dalia would call it, but no place to live in.

It’s cozy, Asya would parry venomously. Better live in a museum than in that furniture exhibition of yours.

That’s minimalist style, Dalia would reply calmly. A home should have much open space so you breathe air, not dust.

"That’s pedantic style! You even got all household appliances from one company."

They could argue endlessly. Asya was too stubborn for either of them to convince another. Still, Asya might have been right about one thing; Dalia’s apartment could actually look empty to other people. Much glass and space and very little furniture. Everything, except in her secret garden, was either black or white.

Filling the electric kettle with water running through the Swiss filter, Dalia put it on. To brighten up her wait, she drew the beads of earphones from pockets and switched the random playback on her iPod. All sounds at once were drowned by a romantic ballade by Melnitsa².

While the kettle was boiling, Dalia watched the tiny robot cleaner pick the invisible specks efficiently from the floor tiles. At her feet the robot stopped for a moment and wheeled round with displeasure. Its photosensitive plastics lid showed a mad smiley; the program’s normal reaction to any unexpected obstacle.

She poured the green tea over with boiling water and came back to the room. The macbook revived obediently. Dalia opened the browser.

Her inbox had hundred and forty new messages, mostly newsletters of the professional forums where she registered for work. She skimmed through the emails, deleting spam, then printed the two letters from her manager. One contained the contact details of her new client, just as promised, while another had a text file named ‘Updates’. Blue Djinn was sending those out regularly; no respectable company can remain static. This time her company featured a special offer; a hundred percent discount and a restaurant gift card to everyone ordering wish fulfillment for the third time. The restaurant was unknown to Dalia. Memorizing the message, Dalia got back to the first letter.

Hardly any details at all. By the client’s last name, a frequent occurrence on Russia’s political news, she could tell the wish would likely be a difficult one. She recalled a famous politician’s son ordering real mermaids for his father half a year before. No hang-ups, he said. Dalia wasted a week explaining to him that Blue Djinn did not deal in sex trade, no matter how much money was offered. A scandal would have surely broken if not for her boss’s last name, just as big as the client’s. And Dalia invented a way to make that client happy all the same. His father never discovered that the three mermaids cleaving water in the wake of his yacht were actually a team of professional swimmers.

She had been working non-stop since then. Her boss described her as a flawless professional.

Finishing her tea, Dalia put the cup into the dishwasher and went to dress.

Chapter 2. Neo_Dolphin

Moscow, October 1

His fingers got numb with working the keyboard almost non-stop for two days and nights. Danil eyed his palms with surprise, guessing of the best way to remove the weariness. He was about to get his first-aid kit, but then had a second thought and entered the web again. Summoned his blog page called Zombie Apocalypse Survivor’s Notes, clicked to start a new entry. Giggling, he wrote:

O Great Internet! It is you whom humans will owe their permanent evolution to! The next generation of babies will be born with their fingers already adapted for typing, as crooked, thick and strong as those of nose-picking apes.

Once he published it, the friends’ comments came in a downpour.

That’s all. I can get some rest now.

The tune from his favorite anime series halted automatically when the incoming call message cropped up in the display corner. The number was strange.

Thinking a moment, Danil clicked to accept. The computer speakers delivered a cheerful voice, Neo_Dolphin?

Wincing, Danil said into the mike pea through gritted teeth, Decent people say hello and name themselves before asking any questions. That’s the basics of etiquette.

The other end of the line lapsed into astonished silence. Danil hemmed. Not every person can quickly overcome a shock at Levitan’s³ renowned voice speaking to them via Skype.

At last the interlocutor realized he’d been fooled by a simple voice synthesizer. The voice came gloomy from the speakers. Why hide your voice? ‘Cause you tell your real name, don’t you?

Stop being a smart aleck, Danil parried. Who are you?

You don’t know me, but I wanted to meet you so long. The fame of Neo_Dolphin is resounding through all the internets.

At this poorly hidden flattery Danil’s fingers itched to disconnect. All those fans and imitators were a pain in his neck. Despite his dynamic IP address, at least every two weeks there came another one craving to meet him. Some were totally inadequate; probably schoolkids too fond of Lurk⁴. Using popular memes as every other word while having no idea of their genesis, pumping him about personal life, seeking to nip off a bit of his fame. I count to three, he said with annoyance. One.

Er, maybe I put it wrong or—

Two.

Hey, hang on!

Three, Danil announced with dark joy. His finger touched the hang-up button. I’m off!

Internet Hate Machine!

The connection has been interrupted, his virtual pager informed. The call duration is…

Danil sat still for a while, pondering on whether he’d actually heard it, whether the caller could really mean…

A moment later, Danil dialed the number.

* * *

The sudden representative of the Internet Hate Machine named himself Wildman. When his email dropped in, Danil was finishing his powder joy—two bags of three-in-one instant coffee in Mickey D’s paper cup.

After the call, Danil spent an hour and a half trying to identify the caller’s personality. In his mind, he created folders and shifted the data from sub catalogues there, recollecting any rumors, any leavings to sate his curiosity. However, the information was extremely scarce.

Wildman was a mystery. No results returned by any queries.

Danil did hear of the global community of the Internet Hate Machine. He did not think the whole of that talk was true; the bush telegraph would always be exaggerating. But even if they had actually did only the tenth part of it, they ought not to be taken lightly. Serious guys.

As he drank the instant coffee, his eyes watered. Danil barely suppressed the urge to browse the medical handbook for the meaning of this symptom. He stood, looking around the room with dim eyes.

The wallpaper hung down in rags, baring the concrete that had clumsy drawings in black marker pen and stickers of hi-tech firms. The only window was coated in black automotive paint.

The room had two desks. On the first one, the Dell powerbook was pressing the ancient Macintosh away, while the second was completely hidden under the heaps of computer spares, toolkits, wire harnesses and used disposable dishes.

The single halogen lamp under the ceiling enforced the impression of his place being a deep cellar, not a studio apartment on the fourteenth floor in the central district of Moscow. However, it was just what he wished; a complete sensation that the apocalypse had come. It comforted him, making him believe the world had no more loathsome humans as he remained the very last human in here, in this hi-tech concrete-and-silicon bunker.

Danil approached the shelf with multi-colored Lego details, stealing a glance of admiration at the superhero figure collection, the Darth Vader mask and the brown paper bag with eyeholes, then buried himself in the allergy medicine tins. Measured the volume of eye drops, hastily recalling the annotation, instilled and winked. That cheered him up at once. He also spilled a handful of ascorbic pills into his palm, just in case; they could do no harm anyway.

Back at his desk, he felt a strange warmth arise in his chest, straightening his back and squaring his shoulders. It was his resounding fame as the best web detective that introduced him to the Internet Hate Machine. Such professional reputation is worth a lot.

Finally Danil made up his mind. Clicked on the sealed envelope. Wildman’s email only read two sentences:

August 29. Alexei Toromyshev.

* * *

Danil always saved his most cynical smirk for the movies set in the present-day world whose protagonists lost their memory and could not identify themselves for months. He knew best of all that getting lost nowadays is hardly possible. The most you can do is fake it.

Almost each today’s person older than ten is leaving lots of traces on the World Wide Web. Accounts on Facebook, Twitter and other social media; no less than two electronic mailboxes; registrations in Steam, online games and forums; virtual purses; online shops and torrent trackers; photos retrieved by search engines, including those deleted but still found in cash. Not to mention such governmental labels as passport and TIN.

Getting lost is not possible. No. Not today. The web has become a powerful weapon for those who know. Danil heard that intelligence services have special teams of psychologists and criminalists whose job is to create accurate personality profiles from these online traces. He believed those rumors were true. It was the sort of thing he did too. A top-class professional in the web search of anything, be it people or events, he was. He knew how to extract truth from self-praising posts and online snobbery. Unlike normal people, Danil knew the web was full of personality shells that could tell much of their masters. Each shell was hidden and could only be revealed by intuition when reviewing the whole set of actions being taken from the target’s account; which links he or she opened, which sites visited, what downloaded, what kind of music preferred to listen, what that person posted and how often he or she misspelled. This was how the true personality became visible—and helpful to predict this user’s subsequent actions.

But most humans won’t look deeper than the surface. They are happy with the semblance of anonymity they have on the web.

No way to keep anonymity in the money-ruled world, he said.

Yes, it was exactly what he said when connecting once more with those from the Internet Hate Machine. This name sounded really clumsy when translated into Russian⁵. In a florid, literary fashion it could be put as the instrument of requiting everyone according to their doings.

Can you get the information? Wildman asked brusquely. Is it within your grasp?

Danil glanced at the updated amount of money in his virtual purse and grumbled into the mike pea, No way to keep anonymity in the money-ruled world. I need twenty-four hours.

Wildman disconnected without saying goodbye.

For a couple of minutes Danil considered his first steps, building the logical working schedule in his mind. Pensively, he took the inhaler from the drawer but forgot it at once as his usual fire of hunting excitement kindled inside.

Those like him were known as geeks on the web, but he would rather think of himself as otaku, a devotee of the information space and urbanistic religion. The religion he’d invented. Fast food with its rustling wrappers and satiating ingredients, vitaminized drinks, sterile bathrooms, the inert way of life and the sound of web connection in the ferroconcrete cell of his apartment—those were his supreme values. His eyes slid over the window covered in black auto paint, his lips curving in a satisfied smile. How could he omit blocking and barricading the door into that mad mundane world, full of allergenic bacteria and bloody larvae of human society?

Chapter 3. The Relic

Moscow, October 1

Voloshin hated being summoned to the Master’s home. If the Master called him, things were bad. Regular tasks were assigned to Problem Remover through bodyguards or agents.

He could do nothing but come. He had to work off his bread, his daily comforts and the dozens of visa stamps in his passport. So he drove to the city center, cursing the traffic jams of the evening Moscow.

The security guards at the luxurious entrance could have made perfect Life Guards of Her Majesty. They searched Voloshin thoroughly, interrogated him and took all his devices away. Only upon a confirmation by the apartment’s master did they allow him to the elevator, and even after that they kept watching him.

Bulldogs, Voloshin thought with contempt.

As the summoned elevator made its way down, Voloshin looked at himself in the wall mirror, just to while away the time. In this world of exceptional quality, his absolutely ordinary appearance looked unbearably drab. His haircut was bad as against those of the locals and his complexion was wrong, not to mention his suit. Only his eyes were up to par. When I look in your eyes, the Master once told him with surprise, I see a bullet reaching me.

Voloshin let out a pale smirk. Touched the mirror surface as if to wipe off an occasional speck.