Hacking the Naked Princess

by Andy Kaiser

Chapter 0x17

I jumped up and tried to touch the ceiling.  Blind in this pitch black room, my grasping, flailing arms failed to touch anything, and I landed awkwardly.  I began to feel around the room, trying to use my hands for eyes.  There was a door, wood and not metal at least, but it was thick and heavy.

Featureless painted walls gave a dry rasp as I slid my hands over them.  While I couldn't escape via the ceiling, I might be able to just physically break out if the walls were thin enough.  I pulled back, took a deep breath and channeled every Kung fu movie I ever watched.  I slammed the flat of my palm into the wall's cheap building materials.

After spending the next few minutes realizing I'd just sprained my wrist, I also realized I wasn't going to be able to break through this wall.

I walked slowly through the dark room, bumping my feet against piles of seemingly random collections of hardware and books and papers.  I lowered both hands and let my fingertips brush against them as I passed by each pile.  It was dry in here - my fingers stabbed with pain as static electricity crackled and stung.

I would have to escape through the door.  Having walked around and feeling my way through most of the room, I stood in what I thought was the center and tried to visualize what I'd felt around me.

This dry and dusty place was a graveyard of IT parts.  Old, heavy, ancient things, with sharp points, embedded electronics, parts galore, all of which could be used as tools.

Being an Information Technology Private Investigator is like being "a doctor."  There's a lot implied and a lot of complexity, and you need to talk to someone in detail to properly describe it.  Regardless of what I was, there was one thing I knew: This IT PI was trapped in a dark, locked room, and the tools of my trade were everywhere.  I just needed to find the right ones.

The wall had almost broken my hand, my wrist was still throbbing, but I'd just passed something that made me feel much better.  My fingers trailed over a waist-height box, a cold metal chassis so thick it could stop bullets, a front-panel display with a small LED and a sprinkling of familiar buttons, and of course the smell... the smell of power.

I couldn't see in this room, but this technological monster had to be an AS/400 mainframe.  Based on 1970s design trends, the world was planning for nuclear war and this technology showed it.  If enterprise mainframe servers had a martial arts face-off, the IBM AS/400 would be the sumo wrestler, crushing all in its way.

I ran my finger over the thick textured metal and jumped as I got a static shock.  This time I actually saw a pinprick of light as the spark blinked in and out of existence.

It really was too dry in here.  Good thing all this equipment was dead already.

...Or was it?

Realization struck like a Mortal Kombat fatality.  I had another option.  It was elegant, smart, and I would free myself using power from the past.

I reached around, blindly grabbing at machines, knocking over piles of paper and printed manuals, stumbling back and forth in my search.  My fingers slid over a box of heavy plastic and a smooth curved screen.

Gotcha.

I knew I'd be able to get out of here.  I had everything I needed.  I was Prometheus with technological fire.

Grabbing a handful of papers from a shelf I'd just knocked to the floor, I twisted them into a tight column.

Then I picked up the heavy box of a monitor - an old beast, maybe 40 pounds of plastic, metal, and cathode ray tube - the heavy glass funnel that made up the display.  They didn't make 'em like that anymore, and that was a good thing.  VGA's time was long gone.

I heaved the monitor and placed it next to the AS/400.

Then, making sure I was safely out of the way, I pulled on the top edge of the AS/400, feeling the huge machine slowly tip to the side, and my IBM-sponsored sumo wrestler smashed into the smaller monitor.

As I hoped, I heard the plastic case of the monitor crack and I didn't hear any glass shatter.  I pulled apart the broken case, wincing as jagged plastic tore at my skin.

Inside the monitor, I knew from very dangerous experience, was the CRT, the actual screen of the projector.  Attached to the back of the CRT was a large capacitor.  The capacitor, I hoped, had stored energy, left over from however many months or years this monitor had been here.

This monitor was old enough that hopefully there were no bleeder resistors to remove excess power.  It was an early generation and should have a big old capacitor, charged full of electric anger that had been waiting to release for a very, very long time.

I had to be careful or I could kill myself.  Another fun and dangerous thing about ancient technology: No safety standards.

Pulling away shards of brittle plastic, I exposed the back of the CRT.  Mounted in the upper half of the sloping back of the CRT, I knew there was a rubber plunger-looking thing.  Underneath that plunger was a capacitor, and I wanted to use that to start a fire and light a torch.

I'd then use the light from my torch to really examine the room and figure out what other options I had at my disposal.  Worst case, I hoped to at least get a big spark, along with a flash-impression of the room.

My thoughts turned to the other side of the door, planning how I'd make my escape.  I had to still be at RedAction headquarters.  Since the lights were out, P@nic's botnet attack must still be running.  I was a little confused as to why I wasn't hearing any noise, but that's probably because I'd been thrown in a basement room or somewhere away from the action.

After I got out, I'd just sneak through the RedAction hallways, dodging Oober's mom, and the massive security guard, and anyone else who knew my face.  I'd find a safe spot and then would help P@nic take out RedAction.  Easy.

In the back of my head I had a small voice piping up, saying that maybe this wasn't the best idea, and maybe I should try another option before chancing electrocution.  I ignored that voice as I giggled nervously, tracing the familiar rubber seal with one hand.  Then, holding my breath over my rapidly increasing heartbeat, I shoved a wad of paper underneath the seal.

RedAction kidnapped me and threw me in a room with tools.  You bet I was gonna use them.

There was an electric snap and I screamed at the sudden spasm that froze my arm in a rictus of pain.  My arm dropped away as a fizzling noise faded and disappeared.  I smelled smoke.  I fell back to the floor, suddenly choking on foul-smelling fumes.

My arm felt like it had been run over.  I tried testing it carefully, then stopped as a faint crackling sounded in front of me.  Fear rose as my vision returned.  Flames were licking around the shattered corpse of the monitor.  I got to my feet, stepped back and stared.

Wire shielding was melting, dripping, and feeding the burn.  The plastic shards of the monitor chassis were catching on fire.

I suddenly realized that not only was this place dangerously dry, it was filled with hordes of flammable equipment.

In the center of the room, the monitor transformed into a pillar of crackling flame.

My dreams of being a technological Prometheus were as stupid as the Y2K bug.  I'd picked the wrong Greek god.  Icarus was more my style.

Black smoke vomited from the column of flame, an oily black that mushroomed onto the ceiling, growing and pressing down on me in a hazy lethal blanket.

The room, now that I could see it, was a mess, a forgotten storage room with paper and books scattered everywhere with tons of old hardware.  Soon, more would burn and I had no way of putting it out.  I'd probably suffocate in this room that was feeling smaller by the second.  I had to get out.

Next to the flaming monitor, I saw my last chance, my one hope, my savior in the form of IBM's commitment to awesome: the AS/400.

Making sure to lift with my back and not with my legs, I gasped in spine-popping pain as I heaved up the huge metal box.  Stumbling drunkenly and trying to keep my balance, I took tiny careful steps to rotate and face the door.  Barely able to stay vertical, my eyes were watering both from effort and the smoke that was quickly filling my vision.

My stomach dropped as I heard the flames begin to literally roar.  The ceiling was on fire.

I tipped the AS/400 towards the room's only exit.  Tottering in my trembling arms, the mainframe tipped and began to fall.  I followed the inertia, shoving the AS/400 forward, aiming for the door which I could now barely see through a darkening haze.

I screamed as I drove the metal edge of the server into the center of the heavy wooden barrier.  The door shuddered and collapsed against the might of my highest-tech battering ram.

Splinters and shards of wood tore my face, arms and chest as I fell through the broken door.  Black smoke poured out from the ruined entrance above me.

Choking, I slowly got to my feet and squinted up at the sun...

The sun?  Well, that wasn't right.  I turned and looked at the room I'd just left.

It wasn't a room, it was a building.  I was standing outside on a cracked concrete sidewalk.

The small office building was tiny, brown, built quick and cheap, and it was burning from the inside.  Fire alarms failed to ring and sprinklers failed to spray as smoke poured from the door I'd just left.

I'd just taken a step back when the roof exploded into flame, then collapsed.  Fire and black smoke caught in a sudden wind and danced high into the sky.

This wasn't RedAction.  This was somebody's office just off a highway I didn't recognize in the middle of nowhere, and I'd just burned it down.