by D. B. Goodin
“Is she . . . gone?” Jeremiah said.
Ash checked April’s vital signs. She shook her head at Jeremiah.
“The subject known as Delta 51 has expired,” Leviathan said.
“I thought you said she would be okay,” Jeremiah demanded.
“You heard Leviathan. She said this process could have unexpected consequences. This is on you!” Ash said.
“No, this was supposed to work!” Jeremiah yelled.
Jeremiah pushed Ash into Delta’s lifeless body, and the table rolled into some equipment. Jeremiah wrapped his hands around Ash’s neck and squeezed—
“No!” a female voice said.
Jeremiah looked up just in time to see a small but powerful fist make contact with his left eye. The restraints were still attached to April’s wrists; their metal edges cut into his face as she landed another blow. He staggered back.
Ash looked up. “April?”
The young girl gave Ash a sorrowful look before she kicked her—hard, sending her tumbling to the floor.
“Delta 51, I command you to stop,” Leviathan said.
Delta ignored the order, and instead she jammed both of her small thumbs into Ash’s eye sockets. Ash screamed. Blood spattered on April’s white clothes and face.
Jeremiah froze at the horror he was witnessing.
“Stop!” he managed to cry.
Delta turned her head in Jeremiah’s direction. Her expression was lifeless and cold. “This is on you, Grandfather.”
She raised her hands. Ash dropped to the floor with a single thud. Delta gave Jeremiah an appraising look.
Is she calculating my demise? he wondered.
Jeremiah fled.
Two burly men stood guard next to the door in the room that had become Jet’s new prison. They had provided her with a new laptop and high-speed internet connection. Her instructions were simple: infiltrate the Collective or Black Iris’s network and infect it with the dropper malware program Jeremiah had provided.
Jet suspected that Nigel would make use of the computer lab at Milford High School. Her plan was to infect one system that Nigel used with a worm; the worm’s job was to infect as many computers that came in contact with the infected host as possible. The Collective’s computer network would be infected in a matter of minutes, assuming that Nigel triggered it.
If Nige is careful, he can avoid the trap. If he does, I have prepared a special gift for him. If the malware gets triggered, it destroys the gift. Choose well, Nige, Jet thought.
“Is it done?” said one of the burly men.
“Yes, it’s done,” Jet replied.
Just as she uttered the words, the other man put a sack over her head.
“What are you doing?” Jet demanded.
“Don’t worry about it,” the man said as he restrained Jet.
Seconds later, sirens blared.
“Hold her while I check,” said the first guard.
As soon as the door to Jet’s room opened, she heard the man scream. The other man abandoned her. She tried shaking off the sack. It didn’t come off. Then moved around the room, trying to find something she could use to cut the straps. Her left arm was hurting again, and she stumbled until she thought she was at the door. Her body slammed the door, it opened. She fell on the cold, hard floor.
The girl formerly known as April left the lab that had once held her prisoner. She could see a heads-up display that contained information about the environment.
“Delta, please stand down,” Leviathan said.
“Negative, must integrate with the AI known as Leviathan,” Delta said in a monotone voice.
She spotted Jeremiah in the distance. Her HUD identified him as a threat. He looked behind him and then ran through a door. Delta learned that she could track Jeremiah through a set of predictive patterns. It was almost like she knew the facility, as if she’d built it. A map appeared on Delta’s HUD. She moved with purpose. Any casual observer might think she was out for a leisurely stroll. She slipped through the door that Jeremiah had so hastily egressed through.
Jeremiah was standing over another figure that appeared to be restrained. Delta performed a remote scan of the area. Jeremiah was still tagged as a threat, but the moving bundle at his feet was identified as “unknown.” Delta could see other figures in lab coats running down the hallway, away from her. They weren’t identified as threats. Delta propelled herself down the hall faster than was possible for a seven-year-old. Jeremiah unmasked the bundle, and Delta’s scanner registered the figure as an ally known as Josephine Smith (a.k.a., Jet). Jeremiah grabbed Jet and pulled her through another set of doors. Delta heard a loud click. She tried opening the door, but he’d locked it. She scanned the door, but as it was made from a lead composite, she couldn’t see anything behind it.
Delta tested the door for weak spots.
“Untie me!” Jet said.
Jeremiah searched for a long time before he found something suitable to cut her bonds. He found some wire cutters in a drawer and released her. Jet rubbed her wrists and left arm, which felt like someone had punched it.
“What the hell is going on here?” Jet said.
“Did you do the hack?” Jeremiah barked.
All hell is breaking loose, and he is asking about the hack? WTF!
“Yes, but what is happening?”
“Ash and I were resetting Delta’s disposition voidance capabilities when something went wrong. Delta started attacking us after we’d completed the process. I think her prefrontal cortex overloaded.”
“Any sign of April, or has Delta taken over?” Jet said.
A loud banging sound came from the other side of the room. The stainless steel door was buckling.
“Delta . . . wants to kill me,” Jeremiah said.
“Can’t say that I blame her!” Jet blurted.
“What was that?” Jeremiah said, yelling over the noise of the door being kicked in.
“Can you subdue her?”
“I don’t think so, but the instructions that Ash implanted must have contained her . . . directives.”
“What directives?”
“The learning process was taking too long, so Ash and I came up with a way to preload her prefrontal cortex with the instructions for integrating with Leviathan,” Jeremiah said.
“What happens if she does that—integrates?”
“We will execute the plan, along with millions of suspected criminals. Not such a bad thing. The information accuses these people of inflicting horrific acts of violence on others. Eliminating them will do the world a favor!” Jeremiah said.
Is he trying to convince me or himself? Jet thought.
Another bang, and the door warped around the middle, but it didn’t cave in—yet!
“Why is she so strong?” Jet asked.
“During the transformation process, we integrated April into a body that wasn’t as fragile. I wanted to make sure that she would have no physical limitations,” Jeremiah said.
“Dr. Mason, are you there?” a familiar voice said.
“So glad you’re back online, Lev!” Jeremiah answered, relieved.
“Delta 51 is attempting to brute force her way into my firewalls. It is taking most of my processing power to defend against her attacks,” Leviathan said.
“That isn’t possible!” Jeremiah demanded.
“I tried to warn you. Dumping that much data into Delta 51’s mind caused a race condition in her programming. More advanced functions are running before the basic ones, causing collisions. Instead of malfunctioning, she is . . . feeding off of the negative energy,” Leviathan said.
“I’ve seen nothing like it,” Jeremiah said.
The door gave way. Delta pulled herself through the opening.
“Grandfather, prepare to meet your maker!”
“No!” Jet said as she positioned herself in front of Delta.
“Move, Jet,” Delta said.
Is that April trying to come through? I hope she’s still in there. Jet
thought.
“April, remember the Dark Denizens? We never got to defeat them. Don’t you want to do that instead?”
Delta screamed and grabbed her own head.
“April, what’s wrong?” Jet asked.
“My head hurts. Make it stop!”
“Her brain is absorbing information as fast as her neural pathways can send it. They must be getting overloaded,” Jeremiah said.
“She’s suffering! There must be something we can do!”
“If we can get Delta back to the lab, I can run more advanced tests to see what can be done,” Jeremiah said.
“I’m not going anywhere with you! You hurt Jet and tried to kill me . . . aargh!” Delta said.
“April, do you trust me?” Jet said.
Delta nodded as she wiped tears from her face.
“We need to take you to the lab. I won’t let anything bad happen to you, I promise!”
“Make sure that bastard doesn’t pull a fast one!” Delta said in a booming voice.
“Why is her voice changing like that?” Jet said to no one in particular.
“One of the side effects of the disposition voidance procedure is personality change. Based on preliminary scans, I can see that Delta has at least three different personalities, all fighting for control,” Leviathan said.
Delta doubled over. She seemed to be in extreme pain. Jet put a hand on Delta’s shoulder, trying to provide a little comfort. Jeremiah pushed Jet aside, and before she could react, he injected Delta with something. She jumped to her feet, and then snarled at Jeremiah like a feral tiger. Then she fell to the floor. Jet checked for a pulse. It was there, but faint.
“What did you do?” Jet screamed, tears forming in her eyes.
“I cashed in on my insurance policy. Don’t worry, she will live!” Jeremiah said.
Jet put Delta into an office chair and started rolling her toward the lab.
“Lev, please prepare the lab,” Jeremiah said.
Nigel logged into the bastion host at Milford High School. He made sure that the encryption was secure, and then accessed his favorite lab server—the one with the most CPU and video stream processor power. He prepared the files for the decryption process. An alert popped up on one of his open windows: “EPROCESS memory mismatch error.”
Something is hiding in the memory, Nigel thought.
Nigel segregated the portion of memory where the error was coming from.
“Time for Ada!” Nigel said.
“Who’s Ada?” Melissa said.
I forgot she was there! Nigel thought.
“‘Ada’ is short for ‘advanced decompiler algorithm.’ It is a program that will allow me to capture and reverse engineer the bad code trying to infect me,” Nigel said.
“Oh!” Melissa said, trying not to show her ignorance.
Once Nigel isolated the malicious code, he launched his decryption process.
Time to see how this is constructed, Nigel thought.
Since the malware had not run yet, Nigel could unpack the malware using a reverse stuffer program. Nigel examined the files, and while there was malicious code in the package, any experienced reverse engineer could detect it. He laid out the files and performed a signature analysis of each file in the package. After checking the tool’s logs, he noticed the following message: “Warning, file rroot.png contains steganography patterns.”
A hidden message!
Nigel’s heart raced. He hadn’t found a file with a hidden message before. He ran his Quick Stego program to view the hidden payload. The ROT-13 encoded message was listed as:
Avtr jr ner ba na vfynaq bss gur pbnfg bs Avtrevn svaq zr jvgu Qrygn, Wrg
Nigel’s heart raced as he read the decoded message; it read:
Nige, we are on an island off the coast of Nigeria. Find me with Delta, Jet.”
“I know where they are!” Nigel screamed.
Nigel ran through Mr. Tage’s dining hall as if he were on fire, looking for someone, anyone.
“I found it,” Nigel screamed as he entered Mr. Tage’s office and saw him sitting at his desk.
“What are you going on about, my boy?” Mr. Tage asked.
Nigel was breathless. He had run up and down each hall in Tage Manor and hadn’t seen Alexei, Natasha, or anyone else he knew.
“Where’s everyone?” he asked.
“The Collective and Black Iris decided to have a closed-door meeting to discuss . . . items on the agenda,” Mr. Tage said.
“Well, you better get them. I know where they are!”
“Who?”
“Jet, and probably Jeremiah and Delta,” Nigel said.
“I see. Yes, I’d better get them,” Mr. Tage said as he left the room.
Nigel turned to follow Mr. Tage when he spotted Melissa out of the corner of his eye. He froze for a second before continuing to follow Mr. Tage.
Since Mr. Tage didn’t invite me, I will see what this meeting is all about!
Nigel crept down the hallway, just keeping Mr. Tage in sight. Mr. Tage rounded the corner and looked behind him, probably checking to if Nigel was following; Nigel stayed in the shadows.
He probably hasn’t spotted me yet—but why is he being so secretive? Nigel wondered. Stupid old billionaire!
Nigel waited a few moments, and then rounded the corner just in time to see Mr. Tage enter a door at the end of the hall. He was careful not to make a lot of noise. A few moments later, he entered through the same door Mr. Tage had used. He entered a dark room, and light spilled in from an adjacent room. He heard voices within.
“The attacks have only increased since we’ve been here,” Viktor said.
“The Colossal Machine has been under siege for weeks. Sasha said it is being used as a conduit for other attacks,” Alexei said.
“Is Sasha even capable of defending against any of these attacks? Can we use Nigel?” Natasha asked.
“I don’t want to take Nigel away. He’s going to be pivotal against any attack that Jeremiah has in store,” Alexei said.
“What do you mean?” Natasha said.
“I’ve been doing research on Dr. Mason, and he has a history of extremist behavior. He often uses people to his advantage. When he’s done with them, he eliminates them,” Viktor said.
Why isn’t Mr. Tage saying anything?
“So what’s our next move?” Natasha asked.
“We wait for Nigel’s results,” Alexei said.
I need to see who’s in that room!
Nigel positioned himself so he could look into the room without being seen. He could see Natasha, Alexei, and Viktor. Mr. Tage was nowhere to be found.
Where did he go?
Nigel looked around the room he was in, but couldn’t find any other exits. He barged into the room with the members of the Collective.
“Nigel!” Alexei exclaimed. “Glad you are here. Did you find anything yet?”
“I know where they are!” Nigel cried.
“Where?” Natasha asked.
“Africa, or at least just off the coast.”
“So, I guess you’ve cracked the messages, then!” Alexei said.
“Not yet.”
“Then how do you know where they are?” Natasha said.
“Jet left me a message.”
Nigel explained how he had found the secret message hidden on one of the Milford High School servers.
“Let’s regroup. Dahlia’s team might have something by now,” Alexei said.
“Have you seen Mr. Tage?” Nigel said.
“Haven’t seen him since earlier this evening. Why do you ask?” Alexei said.
“No reason,” Nigel said.
Nigel entered the dining hall with the rest of the Collective. Most of Black Iris were seated at the dining table. Melissa was across from Hunter, who seemed to be admiring Melissa’s damaged face with satisfaction, from the looks of it.
“Where’s D?” Alexei asked.
“She had some business to attend to,” Hunter said.
“Can you reach her? Nigel has a discovery to share,” Alexei said.
Hunter glared at Nigel.
What’s up with this guy? He’s been staring at me since he got here, thought Nigel.
“What’s the finding?” Jony asked.
“I will tell you once everyone has assembled,” Nigel insisted.
“Bloody hell,” Jony said as he left the room.
A few minutes later, Dahlia and Jony entered the room.
“I understand that you have news to share,” Dahlia said.
Mr. Tage walked in as soon as she’d finished speaking.
“I do. I know the location of Jeremiah and the rest of his team,” Nigel said.
“Show me,” Jony said.
Nigel hesitated.
Hunter patted the chair between himself and Jony.
“Come, we won’t bite!” Hunter said, smiling.
This Hunter guy creeps me out. There’s something about him. Have I seen him before?
Nigel sat between Hunter and Jony. He showed Jony the results; after a few moments, Jony agreed with Nigel.
“Sounds like a trip to the island is in order,” Dahlia said.
“Not so fast. We need to plan our next move. Who knows what traps we could run into? We don’t know which island they are even on!” Alexei said.
“I think I do,” Jony said.
Everyone stopped talking. All eyes were on Jony.
“While you were yammering away, I did a satellite scan of all islands off the coast of Nigeria. A quick glance revealed nothing, so I ran the maps through AlphaFour and our AI and came up with a possibility. There is a small island near São Tomé and Príncipe. It isn’t on most maps, but we have several cached maps of the region,” Jony said.
“What makes you so sure that this island is the one?” Natasha said.
“There are several entrances and exits leading from strange spots on the island. Another clue is a field containing hundreds of solar panels. There is also a coal-based power plant on the other side of the island. Why would a small island need so much power?”
No one answered Jony’s rhetorical question.
