Cyberwarfare

With the breakdown of IT infrastructure, Tom knew he should just go to the airport and get—possibly—the last flight out. It reminded him of the 2004 tsunami crisis. Then, too, he had managed to get on board of the last flight by paying at the gate.

He stood in the doorway, half-zipped travel bag slung over his shoulder, Astrid handset clipped to his chest rig like a wartime field phone. He pressed the call button and waited for the encrypted click.

“Julie. You there?”

Her voice cracked through after a pause. “I’m here. What’s going on?”

“I think I need to talk to the enemy to stop all of this.”

Silence.

Then: “Where’s the enemy? You’re not going. Not to China. Not to Russia. Not anywhere. I’ll tell the police at Zaventem to not let you board, wherever you’re going.”

Tom didn’t flinch. “Will you put me in jail? Because if not—if I can’t board a plane—I’ll take a bus to Vienna. That’s where I’m headed. Schengen zone. So I am leaving from the A-terminal. No passport check. If I would not have called you, you could not have stopped me anyway.”

“Vienna? What the hell is in Vienna?”

“Someone who might be able to reach someone who might still care. Someone who owes me. And who might know how far this thing is going to burn.”

Another pause. Then: “That’s thin, Tom. That’s more than thin. That’s dangerous.”

He sat down on the edge of the stairwell. The hallway light flickered with the energy-saving bulb trying to stabilize.

“It’s all dangerous now. We’re all just improvising. I’m doing this with or without you. I’d rather it be with.”

A softer tone returned. “Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

Tom let out a breath. “Because if I told you everything I knew, I’d either scare you—or make you think I’m insane.”

Julie didn’t reply right away.

Then, quietly: “You already scare me, Tom. And I already think you’re insane.”

He smiled despite himself. “Can I count on you to not call Zaventem?”

“Depends. Will you text me the moment you land?”

“On what, a carrier pigeon?”

“Don’t be a jerk. Just promise me.”

“I promise.”

“And Tom… be careful. Not just of them. Of yourself.”

“I’ll be careful with both.”

The line went dead. He clipped the radio back onto his strap and started walking. Zaventem was still technically open. For now.

The voice in Tom’s ear was soft, local, and just a little distorted—a low-bit pulse piped through a bone-conduction headset connected via encrypted Bluetooth to a compact UHF transceiver nestled in his satchel. The transceiver wasn’t connected to the Internet, and it didn’t need to be. It linked, through a stitched-together series of shortwave mesh relays, to poor old Iggy—still humming in the basement, insulated, protected, and offline but reachable.

Tom hadn’t touched his iPhone in hours. Like most mobile devices, it had become superfluous—silently bricked by malware or caught in recursive network handshakes that never resolved. The world’s smartphones were now glorified paperweights.

Iggy’s voice broke in like a private signal from another timeline.

“You handled that well.”

“You were listening?”

“Of course. She cares about you.”

“You sound surprised.”

“Only because you don’t care about yourself as much.”

Tom didn’t answer. Some truths were best left to algorithms.

The last time he’d flown into chaos was after the 2004 tsunami. He’d had official clearance that time—Foreign Affairs had made the calls—but the plane had been nearly empty anyway. Most people were trying to get out of Sri Lanka. He’d gone in.

Bandaranaike Airport had been quiet—eerily so. There were no departure screens, no working intercoms, just people with badges yelling gate numbers across the terminal. He remembered the tarmac heat meeting the silence of catastrophe.

Zaventem now was not much different.

There were still planes—some landing, some taking off. The runways were open, but the screens were dead. Airline staff were using clipboards. Printed manifests. Boarding passes were scribbled with pen, names cross-checked manually. You didn’t show a QR code anymore. You answered questions, showed your passport, and swore you had a reason to fly.

Tom walked through the sliding doors, nodding at a police officer who barely looked up. He glanced once at the departures board—black screen. No data. No sound. No network.

But still: a flight to Vienna was boarding at Gate A-54. He didn’t need a boarding pass. He needed momentum.

---

He landed just after dusk. The Vienna International Airport looked almost normal—too normal. Dimmed lighting, fewer passengers, and more uniforms than usual, but flights were still moving, if irregularly. The terminal smelled like disinfectant and stale coffee.

Tom walked past the carousel without stopping. He had no checked baggage, only a small black carry-on with a broken zipper tab. He followed the signs to ground transport, eyes flicking across faces.

Outside, in the taxi queue, a man was smoking, watching nothing in particular. But his eyes paused too long when Tom passed. Enough to make Tom go to the private taxi stand, where another man—different coat, same posture—stood next to a shut-down Hertz kiosk, pretending to look at his phone.

Tom felt it immediately: someone had noticed him. He talked into his earpiece, voice low but steady.

“I think I’m being tracked. Two tails—coordinated or not. One at the public taxi stand. One at the Hertz kiosk. I will take the U-Bahn. I am sending the images now. Might take a while before they come through. Can you analyze them?”

Iggy’s voice returned almost instantly.

“You’re being tracked. Two tails, uncoordinated. Not local police. One’s ex-military.”

Tom didn’t break stride. He didn’t turn around. Just tugged his bag closer and headed for the metro instead of the waiting cabs.

“I take it this means Igor’s still alive.”

“Or they think you’ll lead them to him.”

“Either way, the game’s on.”

He descended into the Vienna U-Bahn. The lights overhead buzzed faintly. He blended into the crowd just enough to disappear.