That was the most Steven got out of Jerry, and would get no more for several years. He wondered about it, but pushed it aside, and the friendship continued. They completed junior high, and went on to high school. There, they did well in their studies, particularly in computers. After they graduated, they spent two years in a state college in computer science degrees. When they left, they both received jobs at a research laboratory which used many computers, including some very powerful supercomputers. Steven and Jerry helped other programers make highly detailed programs on these machines.
In Russia, Anton was released at age seventeen, and spent less than a year with his uncle in a cool relationship. Anton wanted a job that would give him access to Russian computers, but the science organization kept out suspect people like him, so Anton had to find another job. Military officers were sometimes assigned computer duty, and they weren't so choosy about one's ideological record, so Anton went into military school to become an officer in the Strategic Rocket Forces, the branch of the Russian military that controlled most of its nuclear missles and its satellite network. After two years, he graduated.
Anton was assigned to an ICBM base in Asian Russia. It had two dozen missle silos, which were connected by an underground network of tunnels. Each silo had a small control room, which was electronically connected to the base's control center. That in turn was constant phone-line link with the strategic area missle base center, which was wired to Moscow. This system truly reflected the Russian axiom, "All power to the center."
Inside the base, control of the personnel was rather lax. Men could go from room to room with few restrictions. In the control center, men often went there in their free time and would play video games on unused computer terminals. Anton was surprised by the easiness of movement, then he saw why the men were not vigorously controlled inside the base.
The security fences around the complex formed a barrier that was virtually inpenetrable. At the checkpoint, where men and vehicles entered and exited, the guards would search very thoroughly. Men not assigned to the base were seldom allowed in, and those that were found themselves watched and controlled under the strictest conditions.
As for the base personnel, a man could not leave the base without a pass from the commander and a special transmitter strapped to his ankle, which radioed exactly where he was. He was constantly watched to see whom he would meet up with. When he returned, he and whatever he brought with him was searched to the finest detail. The person was also subjected to intense interrogation.
Then there were the restrictions built into the computer system. It was designed to be a closed system, giving orders from above and receiving messages from below. The base's control center could not contact computers outside the system. Even the computer system at Moscow was shielded from direct contact from Western computers. Finally, the missle targeting codes were not in the base but tightly locked away in the Kremlin. It was a system designed to keep out any rouge information, and looked inpenatrable.
There was, however, one vulnerability. Russia's weather satelites were open to any communication, and were controlled by the same computer system as the missles. Western hackers could, and did, gain temporary control of them, but they were unable to go further down. Russia kept the access codes in the base's control centers, and made sure they would not leave the base. A Western hacker and a Russian technician would have to work together to access each other, but the system allowed for no such contact.
That is, until Anton showed up.
After a few weeks of looking the base over and getting the 'feel' of the base's computers, he decided to start to carry his plan into action. Jerry went to Steven to tell him something.
Steven was home watching the news on television when Jerry went up to him and spoke, "Hey, Steven?"
"Oh, hi there." Steven answered, "Take a look at this. Dissent in Russia has been steadily growing, and there's some real friction with China over its demand for part of Siberia that was taken from it in Czarist times."
"I'm not really interested in the news. Remember when I told you that I would tell you my problem when it was time, and about why I got into computers?"
Steven wasn't paying too much attention to Jerry, being engrossed with the news, "What is it?"
"I told you my mind doesn't always stay in this body."
Steven gave Jerry a funny look, "Oh yeah, right; so what do you do, float around like a ghost?"
"No, remember how I used to sound Russian?"
"Yes."
"And I sometimes fall unconscious without warning?"
"Yes."
"I have a second body, in Russia."
The first thoughts in Steven's brain were of ridicule. Then he realized what had been going on, the "epilepsy", the accents, his unusual criticism of Russia in his early years, "I, I shouldn't believe it," Steven hesitated briefly, "yet I do."
Feelings now started to boil in Jerry's mind, and his voice gradually showed it, "All my life, twenty long years, have I lived in this state. It's a miracle I didn't go mad, yet I made the first few years. I lived a double life, one of freedom, the other of confinement, one of rights, the other of restrictions! I went on that uneasy path for what seemed like forever, then at fourteen it went from Purgatory to Hell! My only crime was trying to live in two societies, YET FOR THAT, MY PARENTS DIED!
Steven stood bewildered as Jerry fell on the floor sobbing, "F- feelings, I h- have sup- pressed, for six bitter years."
"I, I never knew, I never realized. Why didn't you tell me?"
Jerry got up, "When I found out their fate, what I had lived for was destroyed, so I went around in a half-dead existance. Finally, you showed me how I could avenge them; I have been working to that goal."
"So you were going to break into their missle system. What are you going to do, have Russia nuke itself?"
"Not quite. Have you ever heard of the chaos factor?"
"Can't say that I have."
"A nuclear explosion in space would create such a strong magnetic field, it would stop all machines and electricity for thousands of square miles. Just one over Moscow, and the whole of European Russia will be knocked out."
"You're going to do that?"
"We are going to do that. I need your help. The system can be accessed through the weather satellites."
"I tried that once as a lark, didn't work."
"You need a man on the inside. Let's talk about the plan."