Zero Sum

by Jan Thompson

  “Not through my implants.”

  “Why not?”

  “The implants are kill switches.”

  Kill switches.

  The same word that Reyes had used in their last conversation.

  “We don’t know that yet,” Stella countered. “Raj tells me it will be weeks before they figure it all out.”

  Then why had Reyes made it sound like he had been certain?

  Are these implants really kill switches?

  Stella kicked down the footrest and stood up. “When you feel better, let Raj know. He has two teams in place—one to hack into your head and the other to hack into MedusaNet.”

  “I’m not sure if we should do it at the same time.”

  “We don’t have time to do anything. Kessler informed me that we now believe the possible attacks on cities are going to be homegrown. Travel restrictions basically prevent any importation of outsourced evil,” Stella said. “Which city? When? Those are real problems.”

  “I guess they’re bigger than my headache,” Cayson offered.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  “Seriously, I hope we make it through.” Cayson coughed. “I want you to know I’m not usually suicidal.”

  “It only takes one time,” Stella said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault that those implants are in your head. Frankly, I’m surprised VenomLabs couldn’t extract them already, considering they invented the prototypes. I think a surgical robot could cut the coils around those blood vessels.”

  “Not easily,” Cayson said. “It would’ve been easier for me to…”

  “Don’t go there, Cayson.”

  “I couldn’t even kill myself.”

  “Matthew 10:30 says, ‘But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.’ God gives and takes lives, not us.” Stella bristled. “You’re still alive because you have a job to do.”

  “Molyneux’s successor.”

  “We still don’t know her name. We’re thinking it could be her other daughter.”

  Cayson nodded. “I’ll be curious to know who this understudy is.”

  “We’re still shutting down the network, regardless of who’s in charge. MedusaNet had caused troubles on both sides of the Atlantic with its liberal use of private VPNs. Organizing terrorist attacks or mass protests had never been easier.”

  “Easy for you to say, Stella. I’m stuck, you know. To shut down MedusaNet we have to get close to it. If we go near it, we die. If we don’t, we also die.”

  “I don’t want to be stuck with Icarus the rest of my life. It would be like that movie, Groundhog Day. Imagine an Icarus replay every day.”

  “You meant redux? Icarus redux?” Stella asked.

  “No. Replay.”

  Faintly, Cayson heard audio. “Did you say something?”

  Stella shook her head. “I do need to get back to work.”

  “Babysitting a bunch of hackers?” As Cayson said it, he was listening to Icarus whispering in his ear.

  Replay ready. Listen?

  Cayson waved to Stella as she left him alone in the room.

  Following the same pattern, Cayson replied to his implants. “Icarus, yes.”

  Dr. Osman Reyes’s voice and his own filled his ears.

  When the replay reached the two words again, Cayson froze.

  Kill switches.

  Reyes had mentioned kill switches while VenomLabs and Rhinotec were still investigating what those enhanced and heavily modified implants were supposed to do.

  To call them kill switches would be premature and inconclusive.

  Does Reyes know something no one else knows?

  Nine

  “Wow. You’ve been through a lot.” Byron Moss, the counseling pastor from Cayson’s church, sat back in the chair he had pulled up against the hospital bed.

  “That’s just the gist of it.” Cayson looked across the railing of his bed, toward his friend and confidant. “It’s money, isn’t it? Makes me do things.”

  “Money is amoral and apolitical. The Bible says that it’s the love of money that traps people.” Byron opened his Bible, as he often did.

  Cayson waited.

  “I Timothy 6:10 says, ‘For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.’ Don’t confuse loving, wanting, pursuing money with the object of money itself.”

  Cayson nodded.

  Five million dollars said it was his love of money that had indirectly caused the death of three people in a week.

  Byron should know of what he spoke. While he might be a humble Bible teacher and a patient counselor at Midtown Chapel, his family history in the Bahamas was not born in humble circumstances.

  They were well-to-do, and yet Byron and his wife lived in a modest house while giving away a lot of money to church ministries and charities, such as scholarships for Bible college students.

  Cayson wondered how much money it would take to sway Byron, if at all.

  As for Cayson, he could say that it took very little to push him this way or that.

  Five million dollars had done it. It hadn’t been much if he added up the payroll taxes, annual taxes, overhead, capital, employee salaries. Why, there’d be pittance left.

  Then again, if he had known that the Virtual Private Network, and in fact, the entire company, would then be sold to a terrorist organization, Cayson wouldn’t have taken the money.

  Too late now.

  Three people were dead.

  “It took us three months to construct the network because the British company wanted the VPN to be strong enough to withstand FSB hackers,” Cayson said. “That should’ve been a flag, but I didn’t see it at that time.”

  “I’m not sure if you should drop entity names or tell me that much detail,” Byron said.

  “A dead man’s confessions, padre. Give me that.”

  “All right. Go ahead.”

  When Cayson finished with all the lurid repercussions of having a past project come back to haunt him, Byron suggested they pray. It was a short prayer because they were running out of time.

  Cayson wished he hadn’t been that talkative, but Byron was the only one he could confide in—other than God Himself.

  When Stella had suggested that Cayson talk to a counselor about his pilgrimage to Trolltunga the week before, the first person who had come to his mind was Byron. He had moved to Atlanta after his marriage, and finished his master’s in counseling from Midtown Chapel Bible College, a ministry of their own church.

  “Sometimes we make decisions in a fog,” Byron said. “Pray that God will clear the fog and show you the path to walk on.”

  “I see now that decisions really do affect the rest of my life.”

  “Having said that, we also know that God has much mercy for our mega messes.”

  Cayson nodded. “In other words, God’s mercy cleans up our messes.”

  “Speaking for myself, I am a person in need of constant forgiveness,” Byron said. “May I never be arrogant about my own deficits.”

  “Me neither.”

  “You know, recovery is as important—if not more important—than discovery.”

  Cayson chuckled. “You going to write a devotional?”

  “I could.”

  “Put all these nuggets in. I’ll buy a copy.”

  “Whew. For a moment there, I thought you might want a free book.”

  “I could, but then nothing is free. Either I pay for the book or you do,” Cayson said. “Even my salvation in Christ is not free. Jesus paid it all.”

  “Amen.”

  Ten

  I’m so dependent on technology that I forget I am but dust.

  Monitoring the activity log for the hackers was not something Stella had expected to do. All around her, people were chattering away and hammering on those poor old keyboards.

  Stella stayed in the machine room all day long w
ith the hackers whom Raj Subramaniam had brought from Rhinotec, several hackers from DARPA, and still more from VenomLabs. Thanks to some sort of agreement that had been made prior to Stella’s arrival at the VenomLabs complex, Raj was in charge of the lot.

  It turned out that Raj’s company was a contractor at VenomLabs, though they had arrived after those supersoldier implants had been stolen from a US Army laboratory in Maryland.

  Remembering what Kessler had told her made Stella pay more attention at VenomLabs.

  Trust no one. Not even me.

  In the last two days, she had submitted multiple requests for background checks on everyone at VenomLabs, from Osman Reyes down to the night-shift janitors, from front-desk receptionists to back-room hackers.

  No one had been spared.

  Hailing from Madrid, Osman Reyes had a Canadian mother who still lived in Toronto. His graduate and postgraduate work had been dubious, but he had won enough awards to cover up any glitches in his curriculum vitae.

  Still…

  At four o’clock in the afternoon, Stella looked up from her scrolling screen to find Cayson Yang staring down at her. He looked a bit pale, but there were bright lights in his eyes.

  “How was the meeting with your pastor?” Stella asked.

  “One of the pastors from church. We had a good discussion.”

  “Glad to hear that you’re on the mend. Any headaches lately?”

  “No. But I’m still not sure if I’m ready to be hacked.” Cayson sat down on a nearby chair.

  “You’re afraid these hackers could kill you.”

  “Not intentionally, but by accident. And being dead isn’t as much a worry as being alive with a stroke or a preventable ailment.”

  “You would trust God for that, right? Our lives are in God’s hands.”

  “Indeed. He’s the only safe place,” Cayson said.

  Eleven

  The pulses in his head made Cayson cover his ears, as if that would help. It did not.

  The pulses increased until he heard a voice in his ear.

  Stop!

  Cayson couldn’t believe it.

  Icarus, is that you?

  No response.

  Well, I suppose we’re not there yet. No wordless human-machine interface at this time.

  “Icarus, report.” Cayson kept his voice down to almost a whisper.

  Surprised that he had eased this quickly into managing his implant, and suddenly protective of the app inside his head, Cayson wondered if there was a way to protect Icarus from external interference.

  He spun around in his chair and faced Leland on the other side of her workstation. “Was that you?”

  Leland looked up. “Me what?”

  “Did you try to hack into my implants while I wasn’t aware?”

  “If you weren’t aware, why are you talking about it?” his cousin asked.

  “Someone just tried to hack into—wait. I’m not sure anymore.” Cayson turned toward Raj. “Is everything secure? Any third-party hacking going on?”

  Raj checked. “Not that we know of. Besides, we tried accessing your implants this morning. It failed, remember?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So until we have new algorithms, we probably won’t try again. Besides, you’re in a safe place here, so we’re not worried about your head exploding like a pumpkin all over the place.”

  “Yikes, Raj. Remind me not to go to work for a man with a morbid sense of humor.”

  “How did you know something was happening in your head?” Raj sipped his coffee.

  “I heard a voice say stop.” Now that he mentioned it, it sounded foolish.

  “That gives new meaning to a voice in your head,” Leland said. “Are you sure someone was trying to access Icarus? What if it’s just you getting too close to MedusaNet, thereby triggering something in your implants?”

  Raj came over to stare at Cayson’s workstation. “How far did you go?”

  Cayson had nothing to hide. He pointed to a window. “I’m almost at the DMZ.”

  “And you only worked on this for a few hours?”

  “He’s fast like that,” Leland said.

  Cayson didn’t respond. He had a bit of help.

  Still, he wondered if they are really safe.

  “Someone outside could have been trying to access my implants,” Cayson suggested.

  “You keep thinking there’s a third party,” Leland said.

  “I don’t know—”

  Boom!

  The building shook.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  The walls cracked, and pieces of them fell off.

  As if by instinct, Cayson crawled under his steel workstation.

  Above him, the ceiling caved in on top of the hackers.

  In the chaos of painful screams, all the lights went out.

  Twelve

  “Leland!” In the pitch-black darkness, Cayson tried to get oriented.

  Leland is that way, isn’t she?

  Cayson started walking. The ground was uneven. He stubbed a toe on something that felt heavy and concrete. “Leland!”

  “I wish I had a flashlight.” On a whim he said, “Icarus, flashlight.”

  And there was light.

  Stunned, Cayson froze in his steps.

  The faint glow from his head grew brighter, casting a pale-green light on the rubble on the floor.

  Cayson told himself he’d look in the mirror later. For now, he had to make sure Leland was alive.

  Being five years older, Cayson felt responsible for her well-being.

  “Leland!” Cayson called out again. “Lord Jesus, where is my cousin?”

  “H-here!” Leland raised a hand out from under her table. She was wincing. “My foot is under the rubble.”

  They had both thought of the same thing: take cover.

  Only problem was that Leland had not been fast enough.

  Cayson prayed that she had not crushed her foot. He carried concrete rubble away from the table and the bent ergonomic chair.

  “Can you move your foot?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I shouldn’t have worn sandals.”

  It was too dark to see if Leland’s foot was bleeding. It all looked green to Cayson.

  Icarus was a night light.

  “Eeeek! Cayson, you’re glowing green!” Leland’s voice was shrill.

  “Technically, he’s only glowing in five spots,” Raj said.

  “Cayson! Leland! Raj!” Stella’s voice came through a hole in the wall where the door once had been. Bright flashlight penetrated the dusty clouds floating in the room.

  Moans and groans were heard all around.

  There were many people who needed help. But first, Cayson had to get Leland to safety. Then he’d come back to assist the others.

  Raj yelled back to Stella. They both made their way to Cayson and Leland.

  Leland was wincing and limping out of the rubble.

  “Get Cayson out of here,” Leland said through gritted teeth.

  Cayson reached for her arm. “We’re all going.”

  “No. I think my foot is broken—or sprained badly.” Leland held her breath, but tears began to flow. “Agent Evans, please get my cousin out of here. It’s him they want.”

  “This could be an earthquake,” Stella said.

  “Metro Atlanta is on a bedrock. Earthquakes are very rare,” Raj said. “I’m thinking we got bombed or something crashed on our building.”

  Stella shrugged. “I’ve called 911. The firefighters and paramedics should be here soon.”

  “Leave now, Cayson,” Leland said as Cayson and Stella escorted her out of the destroyed machine room. “If they’re after you, you’re not safe in this chaos.”

  “I can’t leave you, cuz.”

  “I can’t go with you. My foot is hurting something fierce. I need to wait for the paramedics.”

  “I’ll stay with her,” Raj said.

  “I don’t know…” Cayson looked at Raj and then back at his cousin.


  “I’ll be fine. We’ll sort this out and we’ll regroup.”

  Cayson wanted to ask her how she thought they were going to get back together. But Leland answered before he could pop the question.

  “Old MacDonald,” she said.

  Cayson let go of his cousin.

  Old MacDonald.

  He hadn’t expected that they would need his help so soon. To find him, Cayson would have to go to a certain place in the woods of North Georgia and wait.

  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to do it. “I don’t know where he is.”

  “Where the deer roam.”

  No way.

  I can’t believe Old MacDonald hasn’t left Georgia.

  “Go.” Leland made eye contact with her cousin. “Now.”

  Cayson nodded, but his legs didn’t go.

  “We’ll get your mom to safety.”

  “My cats?”

  “Yes, your cats too.”

  “And my plants?”

  “I’ll water them.” Leland cringed and reached for her foot. “Go before we all die.”

  Cayson nodded again. More often than not, he trusted Leland’s judgment. If she said they needed Old MacDonald, then she knew something Cayson didn’t.

  “Since there’s no electricity, the safe cage is gone,” Leland continued. “Molyneux can find you now.”

  “Molyneux’s successor,” Cayson corrected her.

  “Which could be anybody, really.”

  “How are we going to defeat an unseen enemy?” Even before Cayson thought about his own question, a name came to him in a quiet whisper in his head.

  Mole Rat.

  Thirteen

  Midnight without electricity in Marietta was as dark as pitch tonight.

  With Cayson’s implants turned off so as to not attract too much attention, they had to rely fully on Stella’s flashlight to find her vehicle in the parking lot.

  When they reached the car, Stella found herself staring at a jam-packed parking lot filled with vehicles trying to get out of there. In the distance, car headlights showed her that the gate was locked.

  Without any electronics, there was no way the gate was going to open, unless someone rammed it.