Cyber Monday

Captain Frederick Olson is an intimidating man. Standing over six feet tall, he sported a gruff face and a fierce, paralyzing gaze. Even the lowliest thug would think twice about crossing him. Before I was born, he served his country valiantly in the bloody Firasian Civil War, garnering an astonishing amount of medals for acts of heroism a critic would ridicule as unbelievable if they were adapted to the big screen. As he rose through the ranks of the Ustasian military with lightning speed, he slowly backed out of the public eye. Currently, he’s the head of intelligence in the Ustasian Military. Olson is a man I truly respected, at least at one point.

“John!” a female voice rang out on the other end of the phone. “I can’t believe you were so disrespectful earlier! And to your own mother!”

“I didn’t realize you had this on speakerphone… Dad,” I said.

“Don’t ignore me, John!” she interjected.

And that was the second handler in charge of the mission, Nagisa Hawthorne. She’s pretty mysterious herself. She claims to have always lived in Ustasia, but word around the office is she grew up in the West, working for one of the big governments, maybe more than one at a time. On the surface, she might have seemed docile and demure, with her short stature of roughly five foot six complimenting her short hair and reserved posture, but if you stepped out of line and broke any of the rules of professional behavior — rules that only she ever seemed to know—she’d bring you down with a look that would scare off a grizzly bear, and give you a lecture from Hell. That’s why everyone in Ustasian Intelligence, besides Olson, ever the perfect professional, calls her Naggy. Of course, if she hears you call her that, she’ll nag you even more about how that’s completely out of line with how you should address a commanding officer. If you ask me, that’s simply more proof that the name is self-descriptive, a real self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

“I sure do. We wanted to have a family discussion, after all,” said Olson.

“And John, please try to mind your manners more in the future. It reflects poorly both on you and especially on us. What will that do to your academic career in Miklagardia? So please, will you at least try to be more considerate going forward?” asked Nagisa.

“Maybe. Probably not,” I replied.

“John Caesarea! You’re in for a thrashing!”

I had to stifle a laugh. That wasn’t even my real name, just an alias they had chosen for the mission. It’s hard to take such a scolding to heart when you’re not even the one who’s being directly addressed.

You might think I’m fairly brave for being able to talk back to superior officers so casually, but it wasn’t out of courage. Moreso exhaustion and a lack of self-restraint. To really understand what I mean, I’d have to take you back sometime last year.

There is a Western holiday called Thanksgiving. Chances are, you’ve heard of it, but in case you haven’t, here’s a quick rundown: days of Thanksgiving were historically held as religious observances to commemorate successful harvests and other special acts of Divine Providence. Over time, more secular practices emerged, and now, in some countries, national holidays are held for everyone to observe, while many other Western countries do so unofficially. On Thanksgiving, while the leaves change color, scattering on the ground and marking the days becoming shorter and shorter. Traditionally, we do many things. Parades are held. Religious services are attended. Drives are done for charity. Sports games are watched. Family and friends gather around a table, sharing a nice meal, giving thanks for their blessings and all the other good things in life, and spending time enjoying each others’ company. Nice wholesome stuff like that.

But that’s not what really matters! What really matters is all the shopping done afterwards. The very next day, Black Friday, is the busiest shopping day of the year in most Western countries, even the ones that don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. It’s the rush right before Christmas when there’s highly promoted sales and the highest discounts imaginable. But even more important is Cyber Monday, the online shopping equivalent to Black Friday, held on—you guessed it—the very next Monday. If you know what you’re doing, you can snag all kinds of goodies, most notably electronics, at amazing rates. I’ve gotten a lot of the tools I tinker with from discount Cyber Monday flash sales in the past. So I, like many other consumers, was eagerly waiting to see what would go on sale.

That’s where the trouble began.

Right as the sales went live, the websites and apps for the major online retailers slowed down, which was understandable, if a little frustrating. The servers might have had a hard time keeping up with servicing all of the incoming traffic. But a little later, they all simply went offline. No one could access them. Later reports told us that something had shut down the servers.

It was a little disappointing, but nothing too devastating. Maybe it was an internal error. Maybe it was a DDOS attack from some disgruntled hackers. Maybe, someone joked, it was corporate espionage from outlet retailers to get people to shop in-person. Whatever it was, no one thought too much about the situation. That was, until a few hours later, when the same events reoccurred on a wider scale in the West.

It was chaos, like a sudden blackout. For a short while—only for a few minutes—all kinds of devices that connected to the Internet, from private electronics like smart TVs and computers to commerce applications in online banking and credit card transactions to government machines, were compromised and forcibly shut down. Even machines on the Internet of things, from thermostats to factory machines to public infrastructure like traffic lights were affected. Terabytes of data were compromised and most likely stolen. Miraculously, no one was hurt, but the damage done was psychological. Our world was connected digitally together more closely than any civilization or even village in the past, but we had a layer of security, an invisible barrier that separated the outsider from the insider, the authorized from the unauthorized, the civilian from the criminal. A layer of security that had been shattered in just a few minutes.

Officially, the government labelled this event a mass electronic shutdown. Colloquially, the people called this the Cyber Monday attacks. For a while, no one understood what had happened. An official investigation conducted in its aftermath discovered that these systems were compromised from the inside. That was an unpleasant finding. Someone, most likely some organization, had managed to bypass all the security in place and gain direct access, but how was that even possible?

We didn’t know how at the time, but further tracebacks conducted by a Western nation found the locations of the original devices behind the attacks resided in Miklagardia. Originally, this was an internal report, only circulated among the members of the government, but as the media usually does, they somehow got their hands on it and published it for the whole world to see. Strangely enough, there wasn’t the mass panic that was feared, but a widespread confusion. Practically no one had any idea what Miklagardia was, or where it was on a map. And so there was a boom of interest in Miklagardia. Historians, political scientists, artists, and even chefs who had some knowledge on Miklagardian culture were thrust into the limelight. Before, the country had only been in the purview of academics and pundits arguing how its rapid economic growth supported their own theories. Now, it seemed like the whole world was watching Miklagardia with bated breath. However, I wasn’t one of them.

“Wait, John, even though that’s not your name,” I hear you protesting, “how on earth does this relate to you being rude to your superiors?” To that, all will be answered in good time, so hold on a bit longer.

Now, even though I had no interest in Miklagardia, I was unfortunately roped into the whole mess. I worked with the Ustasian military for a while through my university days. I wasn’t an army nut myself — in fact, I was quite opposed to militarism —but they paid the bills, and I got job experience for my resume. I was in charge of updating and maintaining our systems. It was a simple but enjoyable gig, and I definitely learned a lot in my time there. Then one day, I saw Nagisa and Olson walk into my working area. I had no idea who Nagisa was at the time, but everyone knew Olson, so if he was here, something important was happening.

Immediately, I stood up and gave them a salute.

“At ease,” Nagisa said.

Olson approached me and handed some documents. I immediately recognized it as a paper I had written for a research project earlier in the year.

“We read your paper on artificial intelligence learning models. You’re a pretty smart kid,” Olson said with a smile. I can still remember the astonishment I felt at that moment. A famous war hero came up to me out of the blue and complimented me. It was unbelievable.

Nagisa spoke up, “You recently put in a request for a sponsorship for a graduate program at the national university. Is that correct?” I nodded.

Olson laughed before following up, “Well, how about we do you one better? We can get you a research fellow scholarship to cover tuition and room and board, plus a sizable stipend. You’ll get to study abroad and help your country at the same time. What do you say?”

“Seriously? That’d be great!” I exclaimed. I didn’t care much about my country, but getting to study abroad on the government’s dime was a dream come true. In retrospect, I should have known that it was too good to be true, but I got too wrapped up in the moment to notice the scheming gleams in their eyes.