The Siren Project

by Renneberg, Stephen

  “Well, if they actually froze to death . . .” Mitch said thoughtfully.

  “I can’t make it cold enough to kill anyone.” He concentrated on the screen for several minutes, then sat up straight. “This could be useful!”

  Mitch and Christa leaned forward to see what he’d found. The screen showed another list of menus with a single word heading.

  “Diagnostics?” Mitch read aloud.

  Mouse typed in some more instructions, then the screen disappeared to be replaced by more rapidly scrolling instructions as his worm burrowed deeper. A moment later the scrolling text vanished and a new screen appeared. “Here we go! It’s the remote diagnostics dial up. If something goes wrong with the system, the air conditioning company can dial up and run the diagnostics program remotely, from their head office.” Mouse looked pleased, but Mitch and Christa still seemed confused. “They dial up, get access to the main network, then once in, they get a channel into this dumb box. So, this thing is hard wired to the main network, which is good. Now I've just got to find the wire.” He sent some more commands to his worm and waited. “It’s digging. This could take a while.”

  More than twenty minutes passed while they sat waiting in bored silence, then Mouse made a fist. “Yes! There you are.” He typed quickly, then watched text flash up as his worm tested the security. “Okay, there’s a whole bunch of shit in there I can’t even scratch. Looks like multiple fire walls, high grade encryption, and a few jailers.”

  “Jailers?” Christa asked.

  “Little programs watching for me to break in. If they catch me, they put me in jail.” He laughed. “Oh well, that’s what I call them.”

  “Is there anything you can crack?” Mitch asked.

  Mouse bit his lip and watched a list of scrambled letters and words appear, with a few English words among them. “I can’t even identify what these things are.” He scrolled through page after page of unintelligible characters. “Here’s something,” he muttered, then typed some instructions. “This one’s got a cheap cipher. Can’t be anything too confidential, but we’ll see.” Mouse launched a program, adding, “I’m copying everything as we go, so I can study it back at the trailer.”

  Mitch turned to Christa. “If Knightly doesn’t give us Peter, we may have to think of something else. We’re not going in there unless Mouse can unlock the door for us.”

  Christa looked doubtful. Her second call to Knightly had met yet another deferral. “Peter is the most closely guarded piece of machinery I know of. Gus understands we need help, but handing over Peter is going too far, he won’t do it.”

  “Woot!” Mouse declared.

  Christa looked bemused. “Woot?”

  Mitch smiled. “It’s a cyber thing.”

  “I’m in.” Mouse sat up and started typing rapidly. “This is some kind of archive. These files are all old, and by the looks of them, not classified.” He studied the contents of a couple of files. “Invoices, a construction contract, lots of memos between several engineering companies and the Newton Institute’s Board of Governors.” Concentration showed on his face, then realization dawned on him. “I know what this is. They’re documents related to the reconstruction of the Institute’s interior. Take a look at this.”

  Mouse leaned back so they could see the screen. A dark page appeared with rectangular yellow lines drawn carefully on it.

  “Architectural plans of the renovated building?” Mitch guessed.

  “And very different to the ones I lifted from county records.”

  Christa pointed to where six squares stood in a line on one side, each square connected to the Institute by a pair of parallel lines. “Those are the six outbuildings, aren’t they? But what are those lines, connecting them to the main building.”

  “Enlarge that,” Mitch ordered.

  Mouse zoomed in on the indicated area.

  “It’s marking the paths to the main building?” Mouse suggested.

  “I don’t think so,” Christa said. “Those thin lines, there and there, mark the path.”

  “I know what they are!” Mitch declared. “But I don’t understand what they’re doing there.”

  They stared at Mitch curiously. He took one more long hard look at the screen, then answered simply.

  “Underground train tracks.”

  * * * *

  “From the cross sectional view,” Mouse said, holding up a paper printout of the Institute’s blueprint. “Each tunnel is about three feet wide by two feet high.”

  They were gathered around the small table inside the mobile home, pouring over the plans Mouse had been studying since the night before.

  “It’s big enough,” Mitch agreed thoughtfully, “But we still don’t know what it's used for.”

  “Whatever it is, it transports something from here, to here,” Gunter said, tracing a line with his finger from a large square inside one of the six outbuildings to a similar large square deep inside the main building. “These squares must be the entrance points.”

  “We haven’t seen anyone walk out to those buildings,” Christa said. “Maybe it has a remote controlled loading system.”

  “At both ends,” Mitch said. “Which worries me. Could whatever it transports be too hot for us? Maybe radioactive?”

  “They could be injecting isotopes into the patient's bloodstream,” Gunter said, “And tracking the isotope's movement through the body.”

  “Or a radioactive fuel?” Mouse suggested as he reached for a doughnut from the stack sitting on a plate on the stove top.

  “Nein. What kind of fuel? They could not operate a nuclear reactor in there.”

  “We'll take a Geiger counter along, just in case,” Mitch said. “What about the cameras?”

  “The cameras are housed,” Gunter said. “So I cannot see the models. From the length of the housing, assuming minimum camera body dimensions, the focal length of the lens is approximately forty millimeters for low distortion, wide angle coverage.” Gunter placed another printout of the Institute’s architectural drawing on the table. “The camera locations and fields of view are marked here.” He pointed to a dozen camera positions around the main building, with triangular lines emanating from the cameras. “This building on the northern end is covered only by a single camera. The others all have overlapping coverage.”

  “Unless you’ve guessed the wrong lens size,” Mouse said.

  “If the lens is twenty two millimeters, the field of view of each camera will mean an overlap by this other camera here,” Gunter explained. “Based on standard military surveillance systems, there is a thirty percent chance of the wider angle lens.”

  “Oh man,” Mouse moaned. “They’re shitty odds!”

  “If you could control the security systems,” Gunter snapped, “The lens size would not be an issue.”

  “What’s the coverage on the door?” Mitch asked.

  Gunter picked up a ruler and pencil, then drew a line from the camera through the corner of the building and beyond. “As you can see, the door is masked by the corner of the wall, but there is only a few inches. This is not sufficient to open the door and enter the building without being seen. However, this side street here meets the road almost behind the outbuilding, with these trees here providing cover. We should park the van there, and approach the outbuilding across the road here. We would not be seen crossing the road to the Institute, providing this camera is disabled.”

  Mitch nodded thoughtfully. “First option, Mouse controls the camera from the inside. If that’s impossible, Gunter disables it from the outside.” Mitch used Gunter’s pencil and ruler to draw a line from the camera, through the other corner of the building to the fence. He then circled the area of the fence that was masked from the camera by the outbuilding. “That’s our insertion point.”

  “Providing we can disable the security systems,” Mouse added.

  Mitch nodded, then turned to Christa. “Let’s try Knightly again.”

  It took Mouse only a minute to set up the t
elephone call to Knightly, running the call through the speaker system so they could all hear.

  “We need it tonight,” Mitch said firmly.

  “The Executive has refused,” Knightly replied. “They won't release it to you under any circumstances. I made the best case I could, but they consider the risks are too high.”

  “Gus, without Peter, we can't succeed.”

  “I’ve briefed them thoroughly,” Knightly said, frustrated. “They believe that if Peter fell into our enemy’s hands, our last real advantage would be lost. I can’t argue with them on that, because it’s true.”

  Mitch leaned closer to the microphone on the telephone hand set. “Listen Knightly, any aces we have, we should play now. It’s no point keeping Peter up your sleeve until we’re all dead. What good is it then? They’ll have it anyway.”

  “I understand, Mitchell. I'm sympathetic to your argument, but the use of Peter is strictly controlled. Not even I can overrule the Executive.”

  “He’s sympathetic to our argument,” Mouse scoffed. “Not freaking sympathetic enough!”

  “When did you plan to move?” Knightly asked.

  “Tonight,” Mitch said.

  “You'll have to try without Peter.”

  Mitch exchanged doubtful looks with the others. “I hope you have a back-up plan, because after tonight, none of us may be here to take any more of your half baked orders.”

  “So you'll go ahead, even without Peter?”

  “That’s what you’re paying us for.”

  “Very well.” Knightly paused, then added, “I wish I could do more. Good luck,” he said, then hung up.

  Mitch turned to Mouse with a determined look. “You’ve got twelve hours. Build me a worm that can crack their system.”

  Mouse shook his head in disbelief. “It can’t be done, not in twelve hours.” He sat down at his computer, and nodded at the three inch high rubber Klingon standing on the table beside his keyboard. “I hate to tell you this, Worf, but I wish you were Data.” He started sifting through the recordings he'd made of the Institute’s data streams, searching for a pattern he could turn into a key to disarm the security barrier locking them out.

  “What if he can’t do it?” Christa asked.

  Mitch gave Gunter a knowing look. “Then we’ll shoot our way in.”

  * * * *

  Christa sat alone in the early evening, on one of the folding chairs they'd set up under the mobile home’s canvas awning. Mitch watched her sipping a coffee from the door, rehearsing in his mind what he had to say.

  Without turning, she said, “Why don’t you just tell me what’s on your mind?”

  Mitch, suppressing his surprise at her knowing he was there, stepped down to the concrete slab the collapsible chairs and table stood on. “So I guess we can add eyes in the back of your head to your list of hidden talents?”

  Christa cast a sideways glance at him. “Something like that.” She continued watching the other caravans parked around them, listening to the sounds of the trailer park drifting through the night, as he settled into the chair beside her.

  “Or do you just read minds?”

  “You make it sound like a circus trick,” she said, then more soberly, “To read a thought, it must be projected, which is something beyond most people. Mostly, I sense mental and emotional intensity, and rely on my intuition a lot.”

  “Women’s intuition? Doesn’t sound very scientific.”

  “Intuition, isn’t ‘women’s intuition’. It’s direct understanding, and it’s not limited to women. It's an understanding that flashes into my mind, interpreting what I’m sensing, giving me instantaneous knowledge.” She shrugged at the futility of trying to explain it.

  “What’s your intuition telling you now?”

  She let her thoughts reach out to him, subtly. “My intuition tells me you’re thinking of . . . me?”

  Mitch nodded slowly. “Yes, I am.”

  She concentrated harder, trying to understand the complex mystery that hid behind another human being’s mask to the world. “You’re confused in some way.” She looked puzzled. “I irritate you sometimes, but you also . . .” She hesitated, wondering if her intuition deceived her.

  “Christa, I don’t want you coming with us tomorrow.”

  Her face showed surprise. “I guess my intuition isn’t perfect. That wasn’t what I was expecting you to say.”

  “I’ve seen how those devices affect you. I don’t want you getting too close to them. I don’t want that implant in your head going off by accident.”

  “Is this a new caring sensitive John Mitchell, or just another way to get rid of me?”

  “Neither. If you’re so valuable, it would be wasteful for you to die tomorrow, because of that implant. I don’t want to risk it.”

  “Wasteful? I’m touched by the depth of your feelings. Most people think someone’s death is a tragedy, but in my case, death is nothing more than wasteful.” She laughed.

  “Call it what you like, Princess. There is no reason for you to go with us, and a damn good reason for you to stay here.”

  “I have to go with you,” she said simply, as if that resolved the situation.

  “No.”

  “You’ll need me to identify who’s conditioned in there, and while I don’t cope well with those energy fields, we can use that to our advantage. I can tell you where those fields are, and if they’re functioning. It can help you find the equipment much faster than if you had to search the entire building. And besides, if we do have to shoot our way in, you know I’m a better shot than you.” She grinned, daring him to argue.

  “Think about it, Christa. If one of those conditioning machines is on and a beam, or whatever the hell it is, hits you, it could set that thing in your head off. That’s a stupid way to die.”

  “Don’t overwhelm me with sensitivity. Now you’re worried about whether my death is stupid or not. Stupid and wasteful.” She smiled. “Anyway, it’s not that simple. They would have to actually change my brain pattern. A random energy beam won’t do that. You saw the chimp in the video, it’s more complicated than that.”

  “You’re not going.”

  “You can’t stop me.” She stood up with her empty coffee cup. “Do you want a cup? I seem to remember getting you coffee was part of my job description.”

  “No.”

  She started for the screen door, but sensing his turmoil, she hesitated. “Mitch.”

  He looked up.

  “Relax. It’ll be okay,” she said, and went inside.

  Chapter 10

  Gunter parked the van in the side street that led toward the Newton Institute shortly after midnight, staying far enough back that the trees on the corner hid their presence. He pulled on his night vision goggles and began his watch of the Institute’s lights through the trees.

  “We are in position,” he reported over the radio.

  Mouse activated the signal snooper waiting dormant on the Institute’s air conditioning cable, then transmitted the program he'd developed to sniff the Institute’s security system. Mitch and Christa waited without speaking, while Mouse studied the feedback from his program. Thirty minutes passed, and the expression on his face became increasingly anxious. Finally he shook his head.

  “Can’t do it. I need more time, more information.”

  “You’re sure? There’s no chance it can find a way in?” Mitch asked.

  Mouse stared at the screen, then sighed. “Nope, this mother’s locked tighter than Fort Knox.”

  “Looks like we do it the hard way. Gunter, you’re up. Assemble the HK.”

  Gunter peeled off his night vision goggles, then opened the long metal box perched on the passenger seat. He took the pieces from the box, then in near darkness, rapidly assembled the very expensive Heckler and Koch marksman rifle. “Ready.”

  Mitch extinguished the tiny light in the rear of the van, then they quietly climbed out. Mitch and Mouse carrying heavy backpacks, Christa carrying Mouse’s electroni
c equipment, and Gunter carrying another heavy backpack and the tripod mounted sniper rifle. Gunter led them through the trees, pausing often to ensure there was no sign of activity inside the Institute's grounds. Twenty feet from the road, with a dozen trees in front, he went to ground with the rifle. Mitch motioned for the others to take cover behind the trees and wait.

  Gunter sighted carefully, adjusting the setting on the scope, then whispered into the wire mike near his mouth. “Taking the shot.” A soft whisper carried through the trees as the silenced rifle fired, then his voice sounded in their ears again. “Shot is good.”

  No one moved, not daring to look. Gunter himself remained completely motionless, watching the Institute through the rifle’s scope. Several minutes passed, then Gunter spoke again.

  “One guard coming out, rear door left.”

  The guard looked toward the six outbuildings, then his gaze traveled across the grounds to the fence. Satisfied the grounds were deserted, he walked toward the faulty camera, staring up at its position near the roof. The metal housing was intact, showing no sign of the bullet that had been fired with pin point accuracy into the lens, destroying the camera’s internals. From the ground, in the dark, with the camera aimed out toward the fence, the guard couldn't see the shattered glass of the lens. He raised a walkie-talkie to his lips, confirming it was probably an electrical fault, then lit a cigarette and watched the grounds for a while.

  “Guard is standing there,” Gunter said after a few minutes. “I have a clear shot. He has made his report. It will be a while before he is missed.”

  “No,” Mitch said. “We wait.”

  The guard strolled to outbuilding six, flicked the cigarette away and turned to face the building.

  “What’s he doing?” Mitch asked.

  Gunter studied the guard through the scope. “Pissing.”

  Mouse whispered over the radio, “You mean, he’s pissing on the building we’re about to break into?”

  “Ya,” Gunter said, keeping the guard's head in his telescopic sight.