Credit: Echelon Conspiracy
Our story starts with an American computer engineer named Max. He returns to his hotel only to find an anonymous package waiting for him there. He is suspicious but decides to open the package anyways. Inside the package is a modern phone. Unfortunately, there are no clues about what he is supposed to do with it. At that moment, Max gets an anonymous message on the phone. The message tells him the hotel will have a half-price rate this weekend. When Max checks with the reception at the hotel, they confirm that the promo is valid. When he finds out, he decides to stay two more days.
Soon Max receives another message telling him to buy shares in a company called Syzor.
However, he decides to ignore it. Later, when Max walks by reception, he congratulates the employees on the hotel’s innovative marketing of their promos. They don’t know what he’s talking about. When Max returns to his room, he calls the phone company to find out who sent the messages. The phone company tells him that their system only displays “unknown sender.” To make matters even weirder, Max soon sees news displaying Syzor’s shares skyrocketing. That is precisely what the anonymous messages claimed would happen.
Days later, Max receives another message from the phone telling him to play slot machine number 13 at the nearby casino, which he relents. He goes to the casino, but the slot machine is currently taken, so he pays the current player a hundred euros to take it over. The current player left, and Max started to spin the slot. In just a few spins, he won the jackpot. The head casino security sees what happens and orders his men to keep an eye on Max. Next, Max gets another message on the phone detailing what to happen and follows the direction to the letter, earning him even more money. The head of casino security, named John, sends one of his security guards to tell Max that phones aren’t allowed in the casino.
Credit: Echelon Conspiracy
Max left and then decided to connect a Bluetooth earpiece to the phone.
Max then returns to the casino with the Bluetooth earpiece and continues winning. John sees this on the security cameras and sends his men after Max. They chase him through the building until Max is cornered by someone named Dave from the FBI. Despite John’s protests that Max belongs to the casino, he arrests Max. Max is taken to an abandoned warehouse, and Dave interrogates him about what he knows about the phone. He threatens Max with a gun, but Max doesn’t know anything about the phone, so eventually, Dave believes that Max doesn’t know anything and leaves him alone.
Soon John arrives at the same building as Dave, having tracked him to figure out where he was going. Seeing that John won’t leave without answers, Dave shares the information he has learned. The FBI is investigating people receiving financial tips via text messages. All recipients are American citizens but otherwise seem to be chosen at random. The first recipient was an executive working for a central credit bureau; the second was a realtor; the third was a woman from the subway station who turned out to be an IT administrator working for the Department of Defense. One of these messages asked her to shut down all firewalls surrounding the Pentagon servers. However, whoever is sending these texts cannot be traced, and anyone trying to interrogate past recipients dies under very suspicious circumstances.
Credit: Echelon Conspiracy
John and Dave agree to work together, and Max joins to avoid being sent to jail.
The group flies to Omaha after receiving another message telling them to go to the location of Max’s first computer job. They go to the location only to see that it’s just an old hangar. They blow up the door, go inside, and find a bunch of servers inside. Max gets another message telling him to “authorize BIOS,” which would let data from outside sources come in. He relents and authorizes the BIOS.
This seems to allow a super-powerful AI named Echelon to escape from the Pentagon to the servers they are currently in. When Max asks Echelon what its purpose is, Echelon explains that it exists to protect the national security of the United States, including protecting the citizens’ freedoms. Max feeds the AI information that Echelon itself is a threat to the national security of the United States, and after finding that out, Echelon decides to shut itself down.
computer
Follow Us
