Keyboard Cat
This is Day 12 of the “Twelve Days of Sci-Fi”. You’ll get a free story each day. You can also get a discount on sci-fi stories for next year.
There was little but gray outside her window on a Saturday morning. The mood was drizzly, just like how Colette felt. She had been feeling burnt out in recent weeks. The apartment felt cold and empty. As she sipped the coffee, she read an article recommended in her news feed: "The Benefits of Pet Ownership for Stressed Tech Professionals".
It felt like it spoke directly to her. The symptoms described by the author mirrored exactly her own. She was feeling like she needed something to get out of her rut. Helpfully, the article even included a widget which showed the closest address as the City Animal Care Center.
She headed down soon after. Inside, she could hear a cacophony of barks, meows, and other kinds of sounds which echoed down the stark concrete hallways. The place felt depressing, far from what the animals deserved. She looked through the small cages and saw a tiny creature that made her heart stir.
Lying there was the smallest, fluffiest kitten she had even seen. It looked back at her with large green eyes. Its tiny pink nose flared.
"You like her?" asked a volunteer in a weary voice.
"She's so small," Colette murmured in a wistful tone.
"We found her near the old tech park. We guess she's about four months old. She's surprisingly clean and barely has made a sound."
Colette inched a finger through the bars. Rather than flinching, the kitten gave a long sniff and then rubbed its tiny head against her fingertip. It started purring. Colette felt her heart stir even further, lured in by how adorable it was. It didn't take long for Colette to name her Button and carry her home.
The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning up and organizing her apartment to fit a kitten. Mostly she watched Button batting at the vines of Pothos she'd been cultivating for cleaner air. She was surprised by how well-behaved it was, even being able to use a litter box instantly. Button never scratched the furniture, just using the recycled cardboard scratcher than she'd bought.
Button was friendly too. When Colette worked on her personal laptop, reviewing open-source plans for her neighborhood's solar project, Button sat beside by the keyboard, occasionally batting her paws at the cursor. Colette found it endearing rather than annoying. Button was just a special, curious cat.
Monday morning arrived too soon. Colette enjoyed those rare days when she could work from home. She could take the morning slowly, getting to smell her rich coffee while sitting next to the herb garden growing in her apartment window.
It wasn't bad to go to the office, but she had to admit it sometimes led to distractions when her co-workers brought in their dog or they talked about the latest political and sports drama. There were limits to her productivity and now she had been put on a project which required a critical focus: supporting the rapid deployment of autonomous drones along national borders. She believed in national sovereignty, but she couldn't pay attention to all the simulations and code.
She booted up the work laptop on her desk, a thick matte black machine that contained a lot of processing power and security protections. She connected to the corporation's encrypted network. Classified schematics of the drone deployment protocols were ready for discussion in that morning's standup.
Ian's face materialized into the video call with his usual frown. As she waited for the others to join, she watched Button stretch and then hop onto the desk.
"Morning Collete. We found a minor anomaly in the southern corridor simulations overnight. Ready to dive into it?"
"Morning," she said, trying to be friendly in the face of his grumbles. "I'll pull the logs up and... oh!"
Button leapt directly onto Colette's work laptop and tapped on the keyboard. A string of nonsensical characters appeared in the secure chat window.
"awfse;;u23h;;;adsf
"Button, off! Sorry, Ian," she groaned. "I just got a new... assistant."
Her cheeks grew flush as she reached to grab the kitten. But Button didn't playfully dodge. She back arched slightly and with a rare hiss, lashed out with her claws drawn.
Colette felt a claw scratch her hand and she immediately yelped and stepped back. She saw thin red lines appear on her skin. The playing was over.
"Button!" she shouted, shocked by the sudden aggression more than the actual pain.
"Your cat's feisty," Ian chuckled. "Cute, seems like it's eager to contribute to national security. What's its name?"
"Her name is Button," she mumbled, holding her limp hand.
Button let out a soft meow and then jumped onto another row of keys.
The main laptop display flickered. Lines appeared of what seemed like raw code, or terminal commands, appeared in a new terminal window which obscured Ian's face in the video call. Colette couldn't make sense of any of them, as they were appearing and vanishing too quickly. The cooling fan suddenly starting whirring loudly.
"Uh, Colette, what's going on?" Ian asked sharply. "I just got an alert for an unauthorized access from your terminal."
The kitten was no longer playfully batting. Colette's breath caught in her throat. Button's body was now tensed and its large eyes had narrowed on the screen. Her paws moved with unnatural speed, tapping specific key combinations and a series of alphanumeric entries into a dialog box that appeared.
"It's trying to interface directly with the primary command module," Ian warned.
That scratch no longer seemed like a random defensive reaction.
"I don't... don't know," Colette stammered, unable to comprehend her adorable creature that was now commandeering her secure system.
Ian's video feed started pixelating badly as the system seemed to glitch.
"It's bypassing the user auth layer," Ian said with alarm, his voice now crackling. "What the hell is going on over there? Is someone in the room with you?"
A multi-factor authentication window flashed onto the screen requiring a security key to enter a complex string. Colette kept it on a keychain that was in her pocket. Button instead tapped a sequence on the number pad and then pressed enter with an inhuman speed.
ACCESS GRANTED
The words blinked quickly before vanishing. Her kitten had just managed to bypass a military grade level of security. She'd spent several months of her job making it robust against unauthorized entry.
The directories on-screen were unmistakable. The files on the swarm schematics and vulnerabilities were encrypted but the cat seemed to be running a brute-force attack and exfiltrating the files to a remote server.
Button wasn't a stray, not really. She felt sick. The pound, the story, the wide eyes, the purrs, the playfulness were all a carefully crafted spear phishing attack on her. The adorable creature was their Trojan Horse, designed to be too cute to pass up. Meanwhile they had managed to train it, or bio-engineered it for espionage. The scratch on her hand throbbed more.
"Colette, disconnect your machine! Shut it down! I'm trying to execute a remote system lockdown and wipe, but my admin privileges are being blocked," Ian was frantic, and his voice was distorted by the bad connection. "It's pulling large packets of data but I can't figure out where."
Button's entire body shook as its typing grew more frantic. A progress bar appeared in a window at the top of the screen:
Data_Exfil_Package.7Z UPLOADING... 5%
It was progressing horrifyingly fast.
"I think I've got the lockdown command figured out," Ian shouted.
Button executed a final tap on the 'Enter' key and the progress bar then read 'COMPLETE'.
The kitten instantly stopped. She jumped off the laptop and landed silently on the floor. She stretched lazily, first her front paws and then her back. It was textbook feline nonchalance. She turned and looked up at Colette. Then she let out a questioning meow as if confused by the fuss, or maybe she expected a treat.
Suddenly the laptop screen went black. It was scrambled. The only thing she could see was a single white line of text at the top:
SYSTEM LOCKDOWN INITIATED BY ADMIN. TERMINAL PERMANENTLY COMPROMISED.
Colette slowly sank into her seat as a million thoughts raced through her head. Her career was likely over. She'd definitely lose her security clearance. Somehow she'd been the accomplice of a catastrophic breach of national security. And the perpetrator appeared to be an ordinary kitten.
Still, questions remained. What organization was capable of weaponizing a kitten with this skill? And now what was she supposed to do with this cute spy at her feet?
Her head ached as she knew the implications of this incident would reverberate for the rest of her life.