Fifteen miles south of Egilsstaðir, Sindri pulls over, his grin suddenly a happy thing compared with the bleak landscape outside the window.

“This the place.”

Right. Looks no different from half an hour before, but to exit the engagement I return the smile and congratulate the father-to-be. A chatterbox, Sindri’s probably told me more than he should. I mean, married men going on about their sisters-in-law? That’s just odd.

I hop out of the truck and, watching it turn a corner, fish a compass from my jacket pocket and a map from my knapsack. Then south. Start walking. Be a good hour before the birch and snow thin out.

Blending in — it’s what hackers do. First rules, almost. Meeting street stares in Nairobi but never in Fukuoka; broadcasting it in LA but pitching down in Leipzig — something like that, but in a system. And behind a desk. No good if you can see me. For the attack, bring little: use whatever’s at hand. Live off the land, strike from the blindspots — from a system’s memory, say. If they ever catch on, I’m well in the past.

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Active recon is a whole different set-up, of course, and staying invisible calls for different conditions.

One: no talking.

That’s not a problem. The only other person who’s been in and out of Skýborg wouldn’t datum when I hit her up. Least I think it’s a her. Could be that calling ID handle √^}° a ‘guerilla hat’ — all effect, no elegance — backfired, and I shouldn’t’ve pitched it as Us vs Them. But with less than a week between Skýborg getting decommissioned and the job coming in there wasn’t more time to nose around. Never got to the ransomware business, either.

Large black squares breach the snow after the trees clear out, all nine laid flat in the space of a football field. American. Tall stick figures cross the white and that’s my signal to play it cool. Trust the conditions. The C-Skin makes it easier — had it on since Reykjavík — and crossing the perimeter I go from blue-eyed, square-jawed Icelandic youth to ebony anthropoid, complete with pulsing orb in the forehead. Instant authentication.

Security for a decommissioned cloud data centre, that’s odd, right?

DC² in leet — or (DC)², if you’re an A-hat — Skýborg’s underground, and even from here it looks like those traceroutes were not a glitch. Place is up and active. What’s not active is this reindeer half buried in the snow, legs up, hole in its side. Poor guy got too close to security. The irony in that is that Sindri would’ve had a better chance of spotting my black hair through the nano-refraction.

Two: just walk.

My gear’s untraceable — I’m an A-hat at heart — and the only thing brought over is a foothold I left in the system, an hour of making the deal. By now everyone’s stuffing cred on the network so maybe someone’s found it … they haven’t. The rotors retract. I’m in. In cybersec, an unknown vulnerability is called a Zero-Day threat, something everyone worries about but never expects to walk through the front door. I take the stairs, just for laughs.

Think: you put your eggs in one place then pay someone else to hold the key. Asking for it, really.

Can’t blame these guys for wanting a bigger cut. Which, oddly, isn’t what they’re asking for. Not exactly. Either more than a little green, or it’s a joke. I mean, €12.49 to unfreeze the data? But in Nepalese currency? Or have you sit while they calculate the ransom value of π. My client’s in the clear — so far. Small fry, just wants the data stored here to disappear.

Speaking of here, it’s warm. Spidey sense going off at my level. Admin left in a hurry and dumped — dumped — some of the servers. But these are … moving? Ah, right. Wow. Server-drones. Didn’t think they were real. Mobilized. Security and storage. So not the normal stint of malware then. More like aware.

Three: don’t think.

Which is something I’m still working on, haha. Thought-scanners can’t catch me while my THINKbox partitions the internal dialogue, or else I’d be a pulsing white spot. And reindeer. Speaking of spots … there’s my server. It’s easy once you’re in. Use the management console to turn on the identifier lights. Now: crowbar time.

Among hats, that’s a SEDkey. Does two things: secure erases the data then degausses the whole thing. Irreversible. Looks just like a key, too. Elegant enough for you, √^}°?

All these other drones are probably wondering why I’m getting so close. Anyway, key in and …

Oopala.