CyberStorm by Matthew Mather Read Free Book Online

start.”
    “The scanning devices just stopped working. We’ve been waiting for technical support for an hour, but nothing,” she replied. In a hushed voice she added, “My cousin on the Upper East Side texted me and said that their store was out as well.”
    The angry customer, a large Hispanic man, grabbed my arm. “I just want to get out of here, bro. Can’t you take cash?”
    I held up my hands. “Not my call to make.”
    He looked straight at me. I expected to see anger, but he looked scared.
    “Screw this. I’ve been waiting an hour.” He threw a few twenties onto the counter in front us. “Just keep the change, man.”
    Grabbing his bags of food, he began pushing his way through the crowd. People around him were watching, and a few of them began to wind forwards to leave money at the counter. Several more just started leaving out the door, taking whatever they were holding without paying.
    “What’s going on?” I muttered aloud. It wasn’t like New Yorkers to start stealing.
    “It’s the news, sir, the Chinese,” replied the cashier.
    “What news?”
    “That aircraft carrier thing,” was all she could add, but by that point I was already pushing my way toward the door, suddenly and irrationally fearful for Luke.
     

2:45 p . m .
     
     
    “WHY DIDN’T YOU tell me before?”
    I was pacing back and forth in front of the huge flat-panel TV that dominated one wall of Chuck’s apartment.
    “I figured you’d just think it was me being paranoid,” replied Chuck. Blurry images of a smoking aircraft carrier filled the screen behind me.
    I’d returned to the Borodins’ in a rush and knocked loudly on their door. While walking the few blocks up from Whole Foods I’d searched the news on my smartphone. It’d taken forever to respond.
    There’d been an incident in the South China Sea. A Chinese warplane had crashed. The Chinese were claiming it was an attack by the Americans, but the American forces were denying anything to do with it, saying it was an accident. The governor of Shanxi Province, in northern China, was all over the news claiming it was an act of war.
    Luke was fine when I arrived, but his fever had gotten worse. He was sweating profusely, and Irena explained to me that he’d been crying most of time I’d been gone. I’d left him at the Borodins’, letting him rest, and gone over to Chuck’s.
    “You didn’t think that this was maybe something important to share?” I asked incredulously.
    “Not at the time I didn’t.”
    CNN was on again in the background . “Sources in the Pentagon deny any responsibility for the crashed Chinese warplane, saying that it was the result of the inexperience of Chinese forces in operating at-sea carrier operations—”
    “You haven’t had any food deliveries to your restaurants in a week and you didn’t think I might be interested?”
    “—Poison Trojan has now infected DNS servers worldwide. The Chinese are denying responsibility, but the bigger issue now is the Scramble virus that has infected logistics systems—”
    “I didn’t think it was relevant,” replied Chuck. “We have computer problems all the time.”
    The virus that had shut down FedEx and UPS had shifted gears to infect almost every other commercial shipping software, grinding the world’s supply chain to a halt.
    “I’ve been reading the hacker message boards,” added Chuck helpfully. “They’re saying that UPS and FedEx are proprietary systems, and that the speed of the virus means it must have hundreds of unique ‘zero-days’ in it.”
    “What’s a ‘zero-day’?” asked Susie.
    She was sitting on the couch next to Chuck, holding tightly onto Ellarose, whose head bobbled up and down as she watched me pacing in circles like a caged tiger. Susie was a real Southern Belle, a brunette with long, silky hair, sun-kissed freckles, and a slim figure, but her pretty brown eyes were now filled with concern.
    “It’s a new virus, right?” Chuck ventured, looking