STASIS: Part 3: Restart

by E. W. Osborne

  In the first real show of emotion, the stranger standing in his house let out an irritated groan. “Is this not happening then?” His head rolled around on his shoulders to look to Harriet. “I swear he did this on purpose, running us around like this.”

  She shrugged again, this time with the other shoulder.

  Alex heard himself speak. “I’ll swap with you still. It’s fine. I was just surprised, is all.”

  Julian’s irritation melted away, replaced with a sparkling smile. “Wonderful!” He jumped for Harriet’s bag, speaking as he dug through the contents. “So, the Seeds. Do you know how to directly access them?”

  “No, sorry. That’s a little above my pay grade, I’m afraid.”

  “Ah, well. That’s okay.” He handed Alex two white envelopes, loosely taped closed. “I wanted to play a prank on a friend before all this was over.”

  As he looked into Julian’s strangely empty eyes, he got the distinct feeling he was lying. He did his best to match the smile and play along. “Right, yeah.”

  Julian pulled the envelopes back and checked them, handing him one at a time. “You’re meant to look at this one first. He said something about you not trusting us right away.”

  Alex took both packages, one heavy with an obvious external drive, the other feeling almost empty. He popped open the lighter one and found a simple slip of paper with a web address scrawled inside. The handwriting was strange, like a righty trying to write with their left hand.

  He typed the seemingly random sequence of numbers and letters into the address bar. It churned for a second then up popped a black background with multicolored lines of code. He leaned in, squinting to read the small text. Instantly, he realized why he wanted it done in order. This was proof without danger. It was The Gardener’s way of verifying he was handing over an actual fix, knowing Alex would never plug a foreign drive right into his computer.

  “Your dad did this?” Alex asked, his eyes flying across the screen.

  Julian leaned close behind him. “I guess.”

  “He’s better than I’ll ever be…”

  Alex lost himself in the code. It was like reading a language he could understand, but had never seen used in such a way. Each individual element made sense, but it never would’ve occurred to him to use them in that order. He wasn’t sure how long he sat mesmerized, but soon Julian overtly coughed.

  “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head clear. The smiles the pair wore were noticeably strained now, but he cared less now.

  “Say… are you sure about that individual Seed thing? You positive you can’t help me out?” Julian tried to sound casual, but Alex could hear how badly he wanted it.

  “Honestly mate, there’s not a lot I can do. Maybe with this stuff,” he nodded to the monitor, pulled back to the code.

  “And you could point it anywhere?”

  “Theoretically,” he shrugged. “If the Gardener is your dad, why not just ask him?”

  Julian’s friendly yet stoic expression didn’t change a bit. It was difficult, but Alex didn’t shy away from his intense gaze. “Twenty thousand pounds.”

  “Wha—what? Twenty thousand for what?”

  His laugh was about as authentic as his girlfriend’s chest. “A retainer, of course. For your future services.” With a few swipes on his cuff, he strode forward and tapped it with Alex’s. “There we go. All set.”

  “I can’t promise anything…” Alex stammered. He blinked at his cuff. This stranger had just deposited more money into his account than he earned in months, like it was nothing, like it was pocket change.

  “No worries. I’m sure we’ll work something out. But… we really should be getting on our way. London is a couple hours and…”

  “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

  “If we could just get the…”

  “Right, yeah.” He was all out of sorts, stumbling and unable to keep up.

  Alex spun back to his desk, shifting the envelopes away from his own drives. His hand hovered over the black one. Even then, he didn’t truly know if he should give it over. The code sample he’d just studied was the real deal, but there was something about the two he didn’t trust. In the end, he grabbed the gray one and handed it over.

  Julian noticed his hesitation. “You sure this is the right one?”

  “Yeah, definitely,” he replied, grunting as he stood. This was the make-or-break moment. He was either going to bumble the whole thing or sell it. “The other one is for my porn.”

  If their demeanor hadn’t already convinced him, their reaction to this comment did. They both laughed heartily, as if it were the best joke they’d heard in weeks. They moved quickly but politely to the door.

  “Well, in either case, I’m sure my father will enjoy it.” Julian reached his hand out once more, grasped it, and looked him straight in the eye. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”

  “Yes, a pleasure,” Harriet purred. She stood on her toes to give him a kiss on both cheeks.

  Before he could say anything, they were half-way down his drive. Julian opened the door for Harriet, gave him a quick wave, and rolled off into the distance.

  Alex stood in the doorway, staring at the heavy drive in his hand, trying to figure out what just happened. It felt like he’d pushed the first domino but couldn’t tell which direction it was going to tip.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  En-route to London, UK

  Julian kept telling himself he was making too much of a silly comment, but it gnawed at him. It vibrated wrong, off pitch.

  He’s better than I’ll ever be.

  “What do you think he meant?” Julian asked out of the blue as if he and Harriet had already been speaking.

  She looked up, annoyed he was pulling her from whatever stupid game she was playing on her tablet. “What?”

  If it didn’t promise to ruin their entire trip back and start another world war, he would’ve slapped her petulant face. He was constantly amazed by how quickly and drastically his opinions of her changed.

  “What he said about Dad.”

  She scrunched up her nose. “What are you on about? He didn’t say anything about Dad.”

  Julian clenched his jaw to keep from snapping. “Yes, he did. Perhaps not by name, but when he was talking about how good he was with—”

  Harriet rolled her eyes and flicked a clump of hair over her shoulder. “That, yeah. I think he was just trying to stroke your ego or something.”

  “No, there was more to it than that.”

  She set her tablet to the side and gave him a snooty smile. “You might be smart with a lot of things, but when it comes to people, you kinda suck.”

  “Is that right,” he replied, emphasizing his point with a dull look.

  “It’s just a fact, brother dearest. People like that always look up to people like us. They can’t help it. It’s like…” She rolled her wrist, searching for the right word. Julian let her struggle, not even interested enough in her feeble attempt to sound smart to help her out. “It’s a social construct.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She tilted her chin down, looking at him with an incredulous gaze. “You saw him. You saw how he lived. It’s like he’s a different species. ”

  Julian didn’t have the energy to deal with her. He shook his head and turned as far away from her as he physically could. “Forget it.”

  The entire journey home, he tried to forget about the exchange, but a deeper part of his brain simply wouldn’t let it go. It was as if a portion of the bigger picture was obscured. And he loathed not being able to see everything.

  It was a combination of clever and petulance that took him to the Project Stasis website. If he had to be his father’s errand boy, he didn’t have to do it silently. After a few clicks and a run through a hex code translator, he refreshed the new site and admired his work.

  “What are you smiling at?” Harriet asked, obviously bothered by not being involved.

  “Nothing. Inside joke.”

&nb
sp; Let’s hope Dad finds a sense of humor somewhere.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Undisclosed location, Upstate NY

  Christopher walked on the balls of his feet to the kitchen, silently creeping in the dead of night. After carefully fetching a cold bottle of beer from the fridge, he made his way through the sliding glass door to the deck outside. As he slid the door shut, he thought twice, and double-backed for the shotgun Jamie had pointed out.

  He wasn’t keeping watch, exactly, but he figured if he couldn’t sleep, he might as well have protection nearby. Just in case.

  The night was muggy and thick, but clear. He sat in one of the deck chairs, settled the gun across his lap, and sunk in. The shadows of flitting bats blinked against the night sky, bright from the nearly full moon.

  He took a deep breath, held it until his lungs screamed, and let it slowly flow from between his lips. The past few weeks, it felt like he couldn’t breathe deep enough, like his lungs wouldn’t completely inflate. He found himself constantly fighting for deeper, more satisfying breaths and ending up dizzied.

  It was the fourth night in a row he’d slipped from bed, tired of staring at the ceiling listening to Kristine snore beside him. The days were long and exhausting, but the moment his head hit the pillow, he was wide awake and thinking. Better that than live through some artificial dream world.

  Stressed.

  Christopher sunk back into the chair and rested his head on the padded cushion. He knew he had had a privileged life. He never really wanted for anything. When he rejected his family’s wealth and name, it was still there, floating on the periphery, just within reach. He might’ve played the poor man, but nothing was ever truly difficult for him. He was a good looking guy, smart, charming… He had an easy life.

  Gratitude.

  It took a crisis of human survival proportions to shake his protected, perfect world. They were safe, for now. Jamie’s house was probably one of the best places he could’ve hoped to take Kristine to hide out. Tucked in the thick of the forest with the best security money could buy, there was no way he would’ve been able to provide this for her.

  Anger.

  At the same time, he couldn’t deny he envied Jamie for what he had. Not that he’d be interested in trading places with him right then and there, but it was a good life. The amount of trust and responsibility that was given to him… and he still felt like a kid. Sure, he had his own growing family, but there was only one Steele their dad trusted enough to reach out to…

  Loss.

  Hope.

  His father was alive. And somehow, that was exactly what he needed. Just as the world was starting to fall apart, he learned the one man he looked up to most in the world was still around to help fix it. Which brought him right back to feeling stressed and inadequate and a host of other emotions he didn’t have words for.

  He took a long pull from the neck of the bottle and stared at the sky. Rather than fight these thoughts, he tried letting them flow. An unadulterated stream of stress and anxiety, bouncing from one problem to the next.

  It’s like I’m just waiting for it all to fall apart. I’ve never had so many things matter to me, it’s as if I’m waiting for the universe to notice and take them all away.

  Jamie’s been so much more open now that I have the Seed, which, I keep forgetting, I need to disable the next chance I get. Not like I’m alone at all anymore.

  I should be the one taking care of Kristine, not him. It makes me feel so young and stupid and useless…

  Dad…

  Over and over, like a song stuck on a repeat, he cycled through this litany of self-loathing, fear, and pain until sleep became too hard to resist.

  Christopher jumped at a hand on his shoulder. He flailed and kicked out, nearly knocking the shotgun to the deck.

  “Whoa! Easy there, big boy,” Jamie grinned. “I thought I’d get you up before the missus sees you.”

  He blinked around, still trying to remember how he’d managed to fall asleep out on the uncomfortable deck chair. He accepted the hot cup of coffee his brother extended. Jamie sat beside him, plucking the gun off his lap and resting it between them as he moved.

  “We have a bit of work to do today.”

  Christopher nodded, still groggy. His brother wasn’t exactly the first face he wanted to see in the morning. Fresh emotions from the night before bubbled to the surface, difficult to contain in his drowsy state.

  Thankfully, he took the hint. The two sat in a comfortable silence, listening to the birds happily chirp away without a care in the world.

  When Christopher was half of a cup into his coffee, he snorted quietly. “How long do you think it’ll be before we run out of coffee?”

  Jamie frowned. “We have plenty in there.”

  He leveled a hard, almost accusing look at his brother. “I mean, in the world.”

  Jamie took another sip and shook his head. “It’ll never get to that. If you have enough money, that is,” he laughed, unknowingly jabbing at a sensitive spot. “What? What’s that face for? It’s true for all kinds of luxuries. When was the last time you had caviar?”

  “It’s not just coffee I’m afraid of. Food, clean water, fuel…”

  Jamie held the cup to his lips as if imagining that kind of reality for the first time. “That’s not going to happen.”

  His arrogance stroked another raw nerve. “And how, King of the World, are you so sure of that?”

  His brother either ignored or missed Christopher’s tone and replied with a wink. He tipped the rest of the coffee back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Christopher slammed his foot down and crossed his other leg over with a huff. “You are going to have to tell me what’s going on at some point, you know that right?”

  Jamie turned in the chair, glancing into the house to make sure the room remained empty. Christopher’s chest tightened in anticipation. He wanted the truth, but more than anything, he wanted to be blissfully unaware in bed with Kristine.

  He gave the dark stubble on his cheek a scratch and turned in the chair to face him. “What do you want to know?”

  He sputtered with where to start. “Christ Jay, I don’t know. Let’s start with Dad being alive for one. How you’ve managed to keep that from all of us for so long.”

  “I already told you, I only just found out a couple months ago. He came out of hiding when we first started having problems.”

  It didn’t sound like a lie, which made some things better, other things worse. “So he faked his death? All those years?”

  Jamie smiled as if proud and amazed. “Apparently. I haven’t outright asked why, but I’m sure he had his reasons.”

  “Real nice thing to do to your kids,” he muttered into the last of his coffee.

  “He was never a family man. You know that,” he said, as if that were enough of an excuse.

  He ran his thumb along the rounded lip of the mug, chewing on his next question. “So, he’s helping you with the… fighting the attacks?”

  “Precisely.”

  Christopher knew he had to walk a careful line. While Kristine wasn’t running any more pieces on the Seed or the attacks, he was still aware that Jamie might be reluctant to reveal sensitive things to him.

  “Do you know who’s doing this? I’m guessing the government is involved, helping out somehow.”

  Jamie’s mouth curled in a tightly controlled smile. “The government is very involved, yes. I guess you could say your implant has granted you a special security clearance.”

  It was Christopher’s turn to look around and make sure Kristine was still in bed. “I don’t understand…”

  “Fingerprints, IDs, they can all be forged. What can’t be faked is an active implant in someone’s head. Encoded with your own personal biology, there’s no way of mimicking or duplicating.” He leaned closer, the wooden chair creaking under his weight. “You have any fun with it yet?”

  He knew he was fishing for something dirty to bo
nd over, but he wasn’t in the mood to bond. “To be honest, I’m a little afraid to. I spent my whole life without it. Now that I have it, I don’t think I want to give into the temptation.”

  His brother looked at him as if realizing he were a different kind of man he couldn’t relate to. Instead of chiding him for it, he let it drop. It was a small gesture, but it was the first time in their relationship he’d looked at him as an equal, an autonomous person capable of making his own decisions.

  Desperate to change the subject, Christopher quickly filled the gap of conversation. “You said we had a lot of work to do today?”

  “Mmmhmm, exciting stuff. I really am glad to have you by my side through all this. I know Dad is, too.”

  “What do we have to do?”

  Jamie’s eyes sparkled. “Global restart.”

  His mouth fell open at the very idea. “The entire network?”

  “We think we found the exploit the hackers have been using. Our tech guys have been working around the clock to patch it up, but the only way we can make sure it’s all repaired is to reset it quickly.”

  “Like a computer…”

  “Exactly!”

  His hand floated to the back of his neck where, just hidden under his shaggy hair, was a healing scab. “Will people feel it?”

  “Not a thing. We’ve done it once before, but we actually announced it beforehand if you remember. Caused a real uproar. And with the current climate the way it is,” he rolled his eyes. “We’ve decided it’s better to do it secretly.”

  Christopher couldn’t shake the feeling he’d somehow morphed into another person’s life. All this secrecy, cloak and dagger stuff… it wasn’t him. Yet here he was, stuck right in the middle of it. “I feel the need to reiterate, yet again, I pretty much failed high school math and science. I’m probably more in the way than a help.”