Prequel: Pasadena

My fingers tightened on the wheel and my shoulders hunched in frustration as the traffic crept slowly forward through the dark orange haze. With the wind from the north, the smoke from the fires in the Angeles National Forest choked the air. One of the benefits of living in Altadena, in addition to not being the only black face in the neighborhood, was the commute on surface streets rather than SoCal freeways. It usually took just 10 minutes to get to work. Traffic this morning though was slow, due to the unusual darkness and eerie hue caused by atmospheric smoke particles filtering out the blue wavelengths from the morning sunlight. As entrancing as the effect had been when I first experienced it while at Berkeley during the fires in 2020, the thrill had worn off with repetition. The traffic started to ease after I entered the park and, relaxing slightly, I turned north and soon was pulling into the Jet Propulsion Laboratory parking lot. The lot still half empty I was able to park near the entrance. Checking the fit of my N95 mask, left over from the pandemic, I got out of the Audi and quickly shut the door behind me. Through the fall of fine grey ash I headed into the building.

The double sets of entrance doors were designed to keep the air-conditioning in, not smoke out, but still they helped. My low heels clicking on the floor tiles, I passed through the row of whirring air cleaners lined up inside the doors. According to the foyer clock I wasn’t yet late for the Section Heads meeting. Dropping my handbag in my office and grabbing my laptop, I swung through the kitchen for coffee and then to the Director’s conference room. Phillips from Robotics arrived just ahead of me and, smiling, held the door for me. Quickly counting the faces on the monitors around the room of those connecting in remotely, it seemed we were the last two to arrive.

The Director's gaze turned on me as I sat. “Agwuegbo. Glad you were able to make it in. How is Analytics dealing with the terrible air quality?”

With a quick swallow of hot coffee, I gathered my thoughts. “Satellite and Mars telemetry is coming in clearly. Satellite-based sensor data quality is good, except for localized degredation of datasets such as Surface Water Ocean Topography. Local airborne-based sensor projects such as PRISM are effectively shut down. As its only November 1st we haven’t had snowfall in the Sierras yet, but given current conditions getting meaningful data from Airborne Snow Observatory would be impossible and would need to depend just on ground station data.”

Seemingly at least temporarily satisfied with that report, the Director’s gaze snapped to my left and Media was in the hot seat. “Shelton. I have a call with the Administrator in 60 minutes. She will want to know how the ECOSTRESS mision is helping first responders react to these fires. What can I tell her?”

Shelton from Media’s response shall remain unknown as just then, one at a time, the faces on the monitors around the room winked out, replaced by the image of an orange flower. A Marigold, I thought. Garcia from Propulsion, sitting next to me, crossed himself with a murmured “Día de los Muertos” which reminded me that today was the start of that Mexican holiday. I saw the Director's gaze casting about, lacking a focal point. Through the glass walls of the conference room I watched a commotion arise in the operations center. Soon one of the IT guys hustled in and leaning over, whispered to the Director. I couldn’t make out all of what he said, but did hear “malware”. The Director stood and adjourning the meeting, strode out of the conference room. Temporarily at a loss, I drank more coffee and took out my phone.

Over the course of the next hour a few things became clear. The flower was indeed a Marigold, and "Marigold" was a serious new ransomware attack. It was spreading like wildfire through computers across the country, but was also affecting industrial networks, HVAC controls and embedded systems of all kinds. Slumped in my chair, I scrolled through news stories. LAX had stopped all departures. Production had halted at Ford's Chicago assembly plant. According to a post on Nextdoor even the refrigerator and freezer cases at the local Whole Foods on E. Foothill had suddenly shut down. Adrift on a flood of data, it was too much for me to process. Then my phone pinged, a text from Peter. “Aisha, this looks serious. Please get out of there while you can.” I sat up straight as data snapped into information. I was sitting in the middle of LA County. Population about 10 million. Everything computerized was shutting down. No one seemed to to have a clue how to stop it. Information compelling action I rose from my chair.

5 minutes later I had let my section know it was OK for them to work remotely and that personally I was getting out of town, and was in the Audi pulling onto the 210. On the way to stay with Peter out at Edwards Air Force Base, 150 km to the northeast on the fringes of the Mojave Desert, until things got back to normal.