Chapter 40: The Purge

HENRY HAD TAMPERED with online content before. He didn’t tell anyone about it, but he kept the tools secreted away just in case he needed them. There had been the process of locating information on Tom Reynolds, distributing it to authorities, wiping out his bank accounts, and then removing every trace that he’d ever had anything to do with it, which included wiping email from an ISP.

When Kaitlyn tried to blackmail him into marrying her, he tracked down where the pressure was really coming from, rewrote her trust, and wiped all evidence that he’d ever been there.

Locating and purging video content was a different matter. It would attract too much attention to remove it. But video content wasn’t that difficult to corrupt. He just had to find it first.

Henry’s search AI had been in use and development for five years. The company had released a version of it and he handed it over to the team to create a network version, but one of the things about having a personal AI working on your searches was that it learned and expanded its base as it grew. Henry could also set degrees of separation parameters. If he discovered a computer with the content he wanted destroyed on it, he could also search any device connected to that computer. Henry set and refined search parameters repeatedly until he had discovered well over 300 videos on various servers and private computers.

When he first tested the counterattack software, he’d set the attack to simply change the file extension of a key file. That blanked the computer screen, but it was a simple fix to just reset the file extension. That was too simple for this job.

When he’d run the counterattack on the Chinese hackers, he couldn’t risk them coming right back and getting to him again. He’d used a two-fold attack, installing a viral reverse optimization that scrambled the hard drive and letting that propagate to all the computers between the second and sixth degree. The 0, 1, 2 degree computers were completely wiped of all their content and system. That was too much for what he wanted to do with the video files.

He wanted people to attempt to launch the videos and get an error that the file was unplayable and probably corrupt. He didn’t want to affect anything else on the computer. And he wanted any backup of the file that was uploaded or installed to automatically corrupt itself. So, the AI virus needed to be self-propagating.

For video content, scrambling the clock would make the file play poorly, but would not make it impossible to see. He wanted no trace of Chastity posing nude or being fucked. That would require randomizing the video signal itself. He would introduce unrelated code into the file and blocks of data from it. The best part of this was that if anyone compared two of the corrupt files, they would find they were corrupted in different ways.

He made sure Chastity backed up any images she wanted to keep and disconnected her computer from the internet. Then he also ran searches for her images on ‘professional’ sites and ‘industry’ social media sites. When he was certain that he had as much of her content located as he could find, he checked with her to be sure this was what she wanted.

“All I want to keep is my real identity and my money,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned you can erase any other trace that I existed.”

“Honey, are you sure?” Lisa asked. “Henry, can you even distinguish that kind of information that she would need and what she wouldn’t? How about medical records?”

“I don’t want to risk erasing you completely, Chas. We need to stick to content that is offensive to you. I’m ready to pull the trigger if you say to,” Henry said.

“Do it,” she said firmly.

Henry launched the corruption program and it began the process.

“Devices that are off line won’t be affected until they connect,” he said. “And it will take longer to locate files on cell phones. I’m not 100% sure that the search has located things residing on cell phones, though I’ve got a lot of confidence in it. It doesn’t make a difference what operating system the device is running. This is going after a specific file type and we’re going to get them all.”

Henry turned from his computer in his chair. He saw Chastity stripping off all her clothes and standing before him and Lisa.

“Take me,” she said. “However you want me. Whatever you want to do to me. Take me and use me. I’m free!”

“No!” Henry said, even as Lisa was reaching for her girlfriend. “What I just did might be illegal. Some might say it was immoral or unethical. But I did it because my friend was hurting. I did what directly affected her. And we never have sex just because someone thinks they’re owed or because it’s convenient. That was a promise I made to Lisa and I’ll make it to you as well. Even if it means we can no longer be lovers, I’m nullifying the transaction. I love you and I care for you without expectation from you, now and forever.”