by Aman Gupta
“Sir, I would strongly advise that we open up Yolk as soon as possible,” said Horath.
“Fine,” said Victor. “Let’s do both. Alessia, you have until 10:00 PM tonight.”
Alessia nodded. She knew her response didn’t matter.
Jason, Sylvia, and Horath left immediately. Marie and Alessia walked out last.
“It worked out well for you,” said Alessia.
Marie stopped and asked, “What?”
“Beth conveniently killing herself, so that you could walk away scot-free,” said Alessia.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Marie.
“I lied. There weren’t three people. It was just you,” said Alessia.
“Why are you telling me this?” asked Marie.
“So that you know that you aren’t the smartest anymore. A stranger lured you into his home, showing you a candy,” said Alessia. “If I were you, I would steer clear of them.”
“Thanks for the tip,” said Marie.
“Here’s another one – whatever deal you have with Horath, isn’t worth anything if made without Victor’s knowledge,” said Alessia.
“That’s always been your weakness, Alessia. You lack imagination,” said Marie.
Marie winked and walked towards the elevators. Alessia took the stairs.
*****************************************************
It was 9:59 PM. Victor was sitting in his office, smoking a cigar. General Horath, Sylvia, Alessia, and Jason were waiting patiently for the next minute to pass. Victor was looking at the Central Park outside his window, a huge circular park in the middle of Sierra. Everyone civilian in Sierra could fit in Central Park. The civilians were looking out the window in their apartments. Alessia had initiated a curfew for two hours. Markets, Industries, and food joints had been closed. The people were looking up at the dome, which was about to disappear in the next few minutes, a majestic sight to experience. General Horath was on a call with his team at Yolk, while Alessia was on a call with the power station. Central Park was wide enough to spit out Moon 3.0 from underneath, after spitting in two. Central Park was created after Moon 2.0 had failed, to hide the launch site that pops out from Level – 4 in Sierra – B, like a small circle inside a hexagon.
“Turn it on,” said Victor.
Alessia relayed the message to the team waiting at the power station and told Tilly to turn on Sierra. Within a minute, Sierra – A and Sierra – B came online. The streets were lit again, the computers started working, and all buildings turned bright in the night, except one. Yolk was still dark, and the dome was still visible. General Horath was stunned.
“What the hell is happening?” yelled Horath on the radio.
“It’s me,” said Alessia. “I made a small adjustment in the plan.”
“What adjustment? You have no right,” said Horath.
“As long as I hold this red button, I control everything,” said Alessia.
“Time for games is over, Alessia,” said Victor. “Let it go. You had your chance. You have made your move, now be patient for the enemy to bite.”
“I’m the only one not playing games,” said Alessia. “Unlike General Horath and Marie, I care about what happens to Sierra.”
“How dare you!” shouted Horath.
Two guards entered the room. Jason and Sylvia were surprised.
“Guards, take him away,” said Alessia.
“I’m their leader,” said Horath. “It’s a bit ambitious, thinking my men would arrest their leader.”
“No, I am,” said Maia as she came inside the room.
She snapped her fingers. Two soldiers approached Horath and grabbed him.
“Victor, say something,” said Horath.
“Horath killed Beth,” said Alessia. “And I have proof.”
“What proof?” asked Victor.
“Beth was talking to her daughter through her computer’s webcam,” said Alessia. “A few seconds later, Horath’s men pushed Beth off the balcony. I have the video to prove it.”
“Why?” asked Victor.
“To cover up Marie’s involvement. She was the one who sabotaged our operation. She and General Horath are planning something,” said Alessia.
“She’s lying, Victor,” said Horath. “She’s trying to deceive you. She was the..”
“Where’s Marie?” asked Victor, looking at Sylvia.
“Oh no!” said Jason, who was glued to his laptop the entire time.
“What happened?” said Alessia as everyone in the room looked at Jason.
“There’s a bigger problem here,” said Jason as he looked back at them.
“What do you mean?” asked Victor.
Jason got up and turned on the hologram projector in Victor’s room. The blue hologram started turning red, hundreds of pixels at a time. Jason walked through the hologram and looked outside the window. Victor felt Jason was being disrespectful. Jason simply didn’t want to miss the sight.
“Care to explain?” said Alessia.
“Look for yourself,” said Jason as he pointed his fingers towards one of the datacenters far away.
A couple of seconds later, the second floor exploded, and the building caught fire within a minute. Alessia looked in shock, putting her hands over her mouth. Victor sat back on his chair, jolted.
“We use a proprietary compound to create nano-transistors to speed up our servers’ performance. The downside of that compound is that it is highly unstable in hot conditions, even inflammable, if the temperature breaches 100 degrees. Someone modified the cooling function of the entire center and overpowered the servers with recursive but redundant functions. They caught fire in the absence of the cooling equipment. It wouldn’t have made a difference other than destroying a few servers, but the batteries bolted at the end of each row continuously recharge to compensate for tremendous power requirements. The surge in power released hydrogen gas within the recharging batteries. It was supposed to transfer through the rods to the storage containers safely, but the momentum due to explosions probably damaged the racks, breaking the connection with the rods. Hydrogen from several batteries reacted with the oxygen being flushed into the chamber. The batteries exploded soon after,” said Jason. “It’s how Locus was destroyed, back in Atlantis, I assume, based on the reports I saw.”
“Which one is it?” said Maia.
“It’s Datacenter – A1. A2 and A3 use quantum servers, and have a different structural design,” said Alessia.
“Yes,” said Jason.
“There’s one other issue,” said Alessia. “The gas pipelines. They run through that building.”
Alessia ran towards the radio device on her seat and called for the utility building.
“Get the gas pipelines shut down now!” yelled Victor as he stood up.
Sylvia scrambled for her phone.
Maia ordered the guards to issue a red alert. They let go of General Horath, and immediately ran out of the room.
Jason was working on his computer, trying to connect to the Utility Server. His connections attempts were being denied.
“What is happening? I thought they weren’t in the Utility servers. How the hell did they shut down the cooling function?” shouted Victor.
“I’m not sure,” said Jason.
“What do you mean you’re not sure?” said Victor.
“We don’t access those servers. There’s no way they got it through the IT department,” said Jason. “Unless they didn’t breach our network through our department.”
“Oh my god,” said Alessia.
Alessia was looking outside as she saw three more buildings explode in front of her eyes. Victor was terrified. He felt he was about to lose everything. He had put everything he had in Sierra. Losing Tango and Atlantis had already hit his interests extremely hard. Losing Sierra would take him back a decade.
Horath was sitting on the couch. Victor turned to him and yelled, “Why the hell are you sitting here? Do something!”
�
��The fire department is on its way,” said Sylvia. “They are trying to activate the sprinklers, but their attempts are being blocked.”
“Do something, Jason!” said Victor.
“I’m trying,” said Jason.
“Why don’t we shut down the system?” said Maia.
“We need it to contain the fire and stop it from spreading. They just turned the game on our stupid head,” said Victor.
Alessia sat on Victor’s chair and started accessing his computer. Victor turned to Alessia.
“What are you doing?” asked Victor.
“Working,” said Alessia.
Victor picked up his phone and called his contact at the Utility Building.
“Pick up the phone, you idiot!” yelled Victor.
A few seconds later, the guy on the other end answered his landline in the middle of the chaos. Hundreds of workers were leaving the building amidst the chaos, heading over to the manual valves spread throughout the city.
“We’re trying to contain it, sir,” said the guy, when Victor yelled at him. “My men are headed to the residence complexes now.”
“I don’t care about the residential complexes and the people in it. Stop it from going to Sierra – B, and the Industry Circuit,” said Victor. “They are the priority.”
“But sir?” said the guy.
“Do it now!” yelled Victor as he slammed the phone.
“Maia!” said Alessia.
“What?” asked Maia as she ran up to Alessia.
Alessia whispered something in Maia’s ears. Maia looked at Alessia and headed straight out the door.
“What was that?” asked Victor.
“The gas lines weren’t supposed to be activated,” said Alessia. “Someone inside Sierra activated them.”
“Who?” asked Victor.
“I don’t have time to figure that out,” said Alessia. “I have sent Maia to track down someone.”
“You have ten minutes to stop this thing before it turns half of Sierra into a massive inferno,” said Victor. “If that happens, I’ll kill every one of you after skinning you alive.”
General Horath approached Victor. “It’s Marie.”
“Marie?” asked Victor.
“She’s the one who’s behind it,” said Horath. “She pulled me in her plan of some hostile takeover. She also talked about leaving a backdoor open to access the Utility Servers.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Victor. “Why are you telling me this knowing I’ll kill you right where you stand.”
“Unlike her, I know what it’s like to have the death of thousands of innocent people on your conscience,” said Horath. “I made a vow that I will not be a part of it again.”
“Track her down,” said Victor. “Bring me her head.”
Alessia was listening to the conversation.
“Maia is already headed that way,” said Alessia.
Victor’s landline started ringing. Alessia picked it up and put it on speaker. Victor turned off the speaker and picked up the handset.
“Maia, it’s Victor,” said Victor.
“It’s Maia. Marie is hiding somewhere in R-18,” said Maia. “Everyone else has left. I saw her going to the 8th floor. My men are searching the building.”
“Get your men out of that building,” said Victor.
“I don’t understand,” said Maia.
“Alessia, how long would it take to open Yolk?” asked Victor.
“30 seconds,” said Alessia.
“Maia, you have one minute,” said Victor, before disconnecting the phone. “Alessia, activate Yolk. General, take it forward.”
“Understood, sir,” said Horath as he got on the phone with his team.
Alessia waited for a couple of seconds, before calling the power station and telling them to activate the power on the secondary line.
Maia immediately radioed her team. “Code – XR1. I repeat Code - XR1.”
“Yolk is online,” said Alessia, after thirty seconds. The dome is activated.
“Get a drone to R – 18,” said Victor.
Horath called his team and relayed the coordinates after getting them from Alessia.
Jason jumped up in excitement. “It’s done.”
“What’s done?” said Victor.
“I reset the Utility servers. It’s now running an all-system check in every building,” said Jason. “The pipelines are shutting down.”
A second later, a sprinkler in Victor’s room went off. Victor wiped the water off his face staring at Jason, who looked down into his laptop.
“It’s stopped,” said Alessia. “The hack.”
“What do you mean, it’s stopped?” asked Victor as he looked at the screen.
“I can’t find them anywhere,” said Alessia. “They left after deleting all their traces.”
“Just like that?” said Sylvia.
“Yeah,” said Alessia. “Strange.”
“Sir, UAV has reached R – 17,” said Horath.
“Bring up the visuals, Jason,” said Victor.
“Just a second,” said Jason as he accessed the UAV through Yolk’s servers.
The hologram changed to show the UAV’s primary camera.
“There’s someone on the roof,” said Jason.
The UAV panned and zoomed in on the person waving their hands on the roof.
“It’s Marie,” said Sylvia.
“General, arm the missile,” said Victor.
“Sir, we need her,” said Sylvia. “She’s close to delivering Moon 3.0. We need to give her a chance to explain her side.”
Victor thought about it while Horath kept his team on hold.
“No, she might try it again. We need to take her down,” said Alessia.
“Call Maia,” said Victor, after a pause. “Bring Marie to me.”
Sylvia breathed a sigh of relief. Alessia fumed.
Horath stepped away for a conversation. A minute later, he yelled, “What?!”
“What happened?” asked Victor.
“Send a drone right away,” said Horath, on the phone.
He looked at Victor and said, “Our radars detected a drone above Sierra.”
“They can’t see us, can they?” asked Jason.
“Looks like it’s been there for quite a while. We don’t know if they saw Sierra before the dome was activated as Yolk was offline,” said Horath.
Jason talked to the guy on Horath’s phone, who relayed the credentials to access the drone’s live footage. He brought it up on Victor’s computer.
“There,” said Alessia, as she pointed at the dot on the screen.
Horath immediately went to Alessia. Victor and Jason also stood next to her.
“What is that?” asked Jason.
“A drone,” said Horath. “It’s armed.”
“Take it down,” said Victor. “Before it damages the dome.”
Horath grabbed his phone from Jason’s hand. “Authorization 3R4. Activate launcher GR143.”
“Confirmed,” said the guy on the phone.
“Fire at will,” said Horath.
A minute later, a missile from the ground hit the drone, but a second later, Victor lost the view.
“What happened?” asked Victor.
“It fired the missile, aiming at our drone,” said Horath. “The target is down.”
“Get this mess sorted immediately,” said Victor.
Horath received a call from his team leader. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” replied the guy.
“Disengage for now,” said Horath.
“What?” asked Victor.
“There’s another one,” said Horath. “But it’s not armed. It can’t see us. Perhaps we shouldn’t expose ourselves.”
“You’re right,” said Victor. “Keep tracking it.”
“Okay,” said Horath.
Horath left the room and headed towards Yolk.
Alessia and Jason left, too, while Sylvia stayed behind. Victor sat on his chair and breathed a huge s
igh of relief.
“I’m too old for this,” said Victor.
“I thought you handled it well,” said Sylvia.
“I did. But still, I feel old,” said Victor. “Today, I was helpless. I had to rely on other’s competence to survive. I don’t like that.”
“Still, we’re safe,” said Sylvia. “Josh left us alone.”
“Yeah, curious thing, isn’t it? Question is why?” said Victor.
His phone rang a minute later. He picked it up and told Sylvia to head out for a moment. Sylvia went outside.
“Is she safe?” asked Victor.
“Yeah,” said Clay. “She’s still at the cliff compound. I left her with my men, who I trust. Do you need us to move her?”
“No, it’s a secure place,” said Victor. “Things are getting tricky here at Sierra.”
“Yeah, Maia called me a few minutes ago,” said Clay. “Sir, she wanted me to tell you something.”
“I think I know what she wanted to tell you. I’ll handle it. Did you find anything?” asked Victor. “About Anton.”
“No, we’re still searching at Atlantis. There’s no trace of him or his team,” said Clay.
“Keep me posted,” said Victor.
Ten minutes later, Maia showed up with Marie in cuffs. She sat Marie down on the seat opposite to Victor, as Victor looked at Marie. Marie was shaking in her boots, trembling with fear.
“Why did you do it, Marie?” said Victor as softly as he could.
“I..I..,” said Marie.
Victor took a deep breath and opened his top drawer. He took out a steak knife, wrapped in a cloth. Marie would see the red stains popping out of the white cloth. Victor began wiping the knife, shining its edges. She had heard stories about Victor’s skills with a knife. How the subject would rather beg to be burnt alive instead of facing Victor armed with a knife.
“I didn’t do it,” said Marie as she broke down in tears.
“Didn’t do what?” said Victor.
“I didn’t betray you. I was set up,” said Marie.
“Set up?” said Victor. “I have heard that one before.”
“I made a mistake. I accessed someone’s system outside our network,” said Marie. “Alessia knows about it.”
“I was talking about your plan with General Horath,” said Victor.
