He waved to Hailey as he walked out the door, determined to do something about it. If the company wouldn’t do it, he would find his own way of getting those features in his car.
Chapter 4
Damian let his chair fall back with a crash. All that effort and money just for broken pieces of code, which he would have to stitch together again. They had been debugged alright, but it would still take hundreds of hours to put it all together again. He ground his teeth thinking about the time it would take. It would be slow going because he wanted to avoid bugs in the final program. It had been okay to hand off pieces of it to barely competent coders for debugging, but it would be too risky to give out the entire program to anyone.
He opened his eyes and turned toward one of the screens on the desk, resigning himself to a few more hours of drudgery. But there was no harm in trawling through the forum one more time. Maybe he would finally find a programmer who was skilled enough to do what he needed and willing to help. As he scrolled through the forum, a post caught his eye.
How can I enable the driverless mode in my B-M1…
Damian tipped the chair back on two legs and sighed. With such stupid forum posts, he doubted if any half decent programmer still hung out here. He knew he couldn’t complete this project on his own, but he detested having to share it with anyone either. He loved bringing his algorithm to life. It was like creating something from nothing. He hated debugging the code he wrote with equal intensity. He had tried doing it himself, but it always ended with him throwing the console at the wall in frustration.
It had been different last year. He used to write code all day long and hand off the debugging to the interns. But even thinking about that now was enough to cause the bitterness to creep back in.
He caught himself still staring at the forum post. It was the most ridiculous thing he had read in a while. Intrigued by the sheer absurdity of using an overground vehicle as means of transport in an underground city, Damian tapped on the link for details. It should at least make for an entertaining read. Anything to delay the drudgery of debugging.
kyle301: I bought a Volte B-M1 about 3 months ago, but the company has released an updated version recently that they say is not compatible with my model. Among other features, it has the option of switching to a driverless mode.
I am not sure I believe them though. I don’t think it should be that hard to link the NAV system to my car’s controller, right? What do you guys think, can it be done?
Damian just couldn’t understand why anyone would use a car in Waylain. Just to be sure that he understood the problem correctly, he searched for Volte B-M1. A rich man’s toy, he thought to himself, as the ad for a sleek red car popped up on screen. But it was the million price tag that astounded him. The lengths these assholes will go to flaunt their wealth, he thought, shaking his head in disgust.
Suddenly, it struck him that to be able to afford such a thing, the person would have to be a Class 1, and if he was, what was he doing on the forum? It piqued his curiosity.
He turned to the screen on his left to dig out the back door access program for the government database. He had written it a couple of years ago when he had been planning to leak the confidential records just to see what sort of chaos he could cause. But he had abandoned that plan when he realized it wouldn’t change anything. The lemmings would still look up to a select few to lead. Power would concentrate around them, money would flow, and corruption would fester, again. History proved that society has always been stuck in a looping pattern.
The beep drew his attention back to the screen. He smiled sardonically. His program still worked. Those idiots had never bothered upgrading their security structure. Fucking morons, he thought to himself as he dug into the forum database to find kyle301’s details and ran a search through the government records.
The records showed that he was a senior data analyst at Exel Corp., which didn’t make any sense. No data analyst would be able to afford such a needless luxury unless he came from a rich family. That would explain a lot of things. However, a search revealed that Kyle’s oldest records only went back 11 years. Intrigued, Damian pulled up the oldest record which showed Kyle as having emigrated from the Barden SubHab and tagged as Class 4.
Surprising, he thought. This guy doesn’t seem like the other lemmings. Making his way from Barden to Waylain, moving up from Class 4 to 2 in just 11 years, and even able to afford a shameless display of wealth. It seemed he knew how to make his way in the world.
Damian shook his head at the absurdity of it all. The desire to climb to the top was innately human. The people in Waylain were proof of that. Even though the city had been founded on the principle of equality and dignity, or so the propaganda would have you believe, you only had to know where one lived to find out how much money they had. The government — scumbags that they were — would deny any such segregation. Yet the records he was looking at were proof of their hypocrisy. The assholes had tagged themselves and the rich, important people as class 1. But his neighborhood teemed with class 4 or 5, depending on how much they contributed to fattening the purses of the rich and the powerful.
A few lines of code were all it would take to make these records public. But the seed of a new idea had taken root in his brain. There might be a way to achieve his ends without resorting to mindless chaos.
Damian turned back to the screen where kyle301’s forum post was still open and started typing a private message.
Hey kyle301, I had to look up what a Volte B-M1 is, and I’m impressed. That is a very nice car, indeed.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to afford one, but if I do, I would definitely expect all the bells and whistles. I can’t be sure without looking at the controller and the software, but enabling the driverless mode shouldn’t be too hard. I mean, driverless cars existed decades ago, so I don’t understand why Volte would give you lame excuses.
It would make sense for the company to handle this kind of thing, but I can take a look at it if you want. You would be risking warranty because we could end up interfering with the proprietary software. But the biggest risk of all would be actually testing it on the surface strips. One mistake in our hacked up software, and it could result in disaster.
It sounds like a very interesting challenge, but it’s your car and your money on the line. Let me know if you are interested, and we can talk about it in more detail.
He stared at the message he had typed, trying to find anything that might sound off to the recipient. A few minutes later he realized he had been sitting with clenched fists, the cursor blinking at the end of the last line. With great effort, he managed to hit the send button.
He had rolled the dice without knowing how they would land. The payoff was worth the gamble, but he would have to tread carefully. One wrong step could shatter this sliver of a chance, especially if his message had the intended effect.
He was dishing food onto his plate when he heard raised voices behind him. He turned around to see a man arguing with the cafeteria manager, something about ID scanning errors. That struck him as odd. The ID scanners had always worked flawlessly. Even the man’s ID he was currently impersonating, by means of his illegal sub-dermal implant, had worked perfectly when he entered the cafeteria. Suddenly, a gap opened up in the gathering crowd and he caught a glimpse of the face of the man who was complaining. He almost dropped his plate in shock.
It seemed a near-impossible coincidence that the very man whose ID he was impersonating had turned up at the same cafeteria within minutes of him. He had specifically chosen a place far away from where either of them lived.
He dumped his plate on the nearest table and forced himself to calmly walk out of the cafeteria. Once outside, he dropped the act and ran to the darkest corner he could find and pulled out his mobile. His fingers tapped away furiously as he broke into the cafeteria’s database. He had to erase any trace of having been there. The small mobile screen and his trembling fingers made the task harder than it was. It see
med to take ages before he was finally done. His heart was threatening to burst out of his chest, and he was afraid that he would see law enforcement personnel closing in around him at any moment. Damian waited there, crouching in the darkness, just to check if he had set off any alarms. When nothing happened even after several minutes, he decided to make his way to Yuri’s. He was suddenly very hungry.
The door slid open. causing him to jump back in alarm. A hulking monster of a man stared down at him suspiciously. He nodded to the man guarding the door and stepped past him into the dim interior. A sudden blast of cold air made him shiver and wish for his jacket. He wouldn’t be here for long anyway, so he started walking toward a corner table. There was a leftover meal on the table, but at least the walls would protect him from the air-conditioning. He gestured to the woman serving drinks and pointed to the table before sitting down with his back to the wall.
He took out his mobile to check for any messages, but his inbox was still empty. He started tapping the table in irritation. Did I say something that spooked him out? Did my message make him realize how risky the whole thing is? Should I send another message?
Damian was still staring at the mobile when felt someone move beside him. He almost jumped but calmed down again as he saw the woman clear off the leftovers and slide a plate in front of him. Calm the fuck down, man; What’s wrong with you, he chided himself.
He grimaced as he shoveled a spoonful of the mush from his plate into his mouth. Fucking synthetics. Nearly a year of eating it, and he still had not gotten used to the dry texture and slightly raw taste. The food was especially bad today, though. The cook had tried to flavor it by dunking it in curry; stale curry. Disgusting didn’t even begin to describe it. He forced himself to eat another spoon before gulping down some water. It was not as if he would risk visiting a cafeteria again.
He realized he was scratching the scar at the back of his hand, where the sub-dermal implant had gone in. Suddenly, the mobile notification light lit up. He dropped his spoon and grabbed the mobile.
kyle301: Sorry, couldn’t reply earlier. I had some things going on.
I’m glad that you pointed out the risks of what I was proposing. I realize it’s dangerous, but you did say that it can be done if we went slowly, right?
As exciting as it is thinking about experimenting with my car, I’m afraid of ruining it completely. Do you think it would be possible to do a risk evaluation or something?
Damian leaned back against the wall. It was still too early to know for sure, but it seemed the gamble had paid off. He at least had some control over where things were going now. He started typing his reply.
dk712: No worries, I know how life gets in the way sometimes.
I must say I’m impressed. I don’t know many people who’d be willing to take a risk and experiment with their Volte. I respect that you don’t accept whatever is fed to you and want to do things your own way.
But you are right. It wouldn’t be a good idea to screw up the car. I guess checking your car’s control software should be enough to reveal if this thing will work. Is there an app or something that came with the car? That should be enough to see what’s going on beneath the surface.
Even just exploring the possibility of it sounds exciting. Let me know if you want to go ahead with this.
Damian looked up at the sound of the door opening and saw a short, stocky man walk in. The light glinted off his bald pate as he sat down at the bar. Damian shook his head in mild disgust, another victim eager for the escape afforded by alcohol. He turned back to his mobile to send the message.
Now that he had offered his help, he decided that he might as well get started on it. It would definitely be more interesting than going back to his apartment to continue the endless debugging. Suspecting that Volte would have kept the controller details under wraps, he dug into the forums to see if they would turn up any nuggets. After a few minutes of digging, all he could find were hints that the controller was not Exel tech. That would explain why Volte had not been able to enable the driverless mode yet. They probably had not been able to make it work with Exel’s NAV system, which they would have to use to navigate Waylain’s surface strips. But if he could find out where the controller was made, he would know exactly where to look for the solution.
Damian looked up as he felt someone’s gaze on him. Seeing the bald man walking toward him, he slid his right hand into his pocket and thumbed off the safety on the stun gun. If he used it, he’d be in deep shit. Especially after what had happened at the cafeteria. Maybe he was being paranoid, the man could be walking up to any of the empty tables, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
The bald man put his bottle on the table before stepping over the bench to sit across him. Up close, the man seemed more dangerous than he first appeared. Damian pulled the stun gun out slowly, hoping the man wouldn’t notice.
“I’ve been told you can find people who don’t want to be found,” he said in a surprisingly soft voice, but all the more threatening for it.
He is here for business, Damian thought, relaxing his grip. He nodded for the man to go on.
“A man who owes me some dues has gone missing. I would appreciate it if you could find him.”
“If he’s still in Waylain, yes. If he has left, I can tell you when he left and where he is headed.” Damian was surprised by how even his own voice sounded.
The bald man smiled and nodded. “Details and the payment are with Yuri,” he said pointing toward the bar.
“Three days.”
The bald man’s smile turned sinister. “That’s good enough for me,” he said getting up from the table. “See you here in three days.”
Damian nodded, trying to keep his nervousness bottled up. He watched the bald man leave, before he slipped the stun gun back into his pocket. He couldn’t have refused to help the bald man. That was not how it worked. Besides, he needed the money to see his vision through to the end. But he felt a little sorry for the unfortunate fellow who was trying to hide. I guess all great causes demand sacrifice.
Chapter 5
Kyle couldn’t help but smile as he got out of the car. The last few weeks working from his apartment had been tough. He had not even ventured out except for the occasional visit to Hailey’s. The self-enforced isolation had taken a toll. He could have sworn he looked paler and weaker each morning he saw his reflection in the mirror.
But Andrew had finally delivered. He had gotten him a meeting with the VP to talk about his work situation. Kyle had decided to come clean about his struggle over the past couple of weeks and his unwillingness to continue in this lousy project. Andrew had warned that it might be career suicide, but he couldn’t stand the thought of working alone from his apartment for even one more day. He would be more than happy to trade his promotion for going back to his old position.
His mobile beeped as he walked toward the elevator. He smiled as he dug it out from his pocket, knowing who it would be.
A: Where are you, Kyle?
K: So eager to see me, huh? I am on my way down
A: Oh, good. I was afraid you were going to miss it
K: Miss what? The meeting? Are you kidding me, there’s no way in hell I’d be late for this one
A: Well, then it’s good that you’re here early. It starts in 10 mins, so you better rush to the conference room. Level 11, Room 12
K: Wait, what? Now? Wasn’t it supposed to be at 12?
A: Yes, now. Just got the message a few minutes ago. You’d better hurry
K: Are you there already? I thought I could swing by…
A: No, you’ll have to do this on your own
K: What? I thought you were going to back me up and let the VP know that you want me back in your team
A: Trust me, I would like nothing better. But the message they sent was quite clear. The VP wants to meet you alone
K: What the hell is going on? Dude, I don’t like this
A: Me neither. But he’s running the show, and there�
��s nothing we can do about it
K: Well, if that’s how he wants it, I’ll tell him exactly what I think of all of this
A: Relax! Keep your cool and don’t mess it up. Remember, you were offered this position exclusively, and you accepted. No one made you do it. You’ve got to be level-headed about this, about why you want to come back to my team
K: Are you serious? After all the shit I’ve had to deal with, you want me to be cool?
A: Kyle, don’t get yourself fired. As much as I’d like to see you back on the team, I’d hate it even more if you lost your job. Don’t make this harder than it already is
K: Okay, okay. I will say what I came here to say, but politely. I sure as hell hope you have a backup plan if this doesn’t work
A: Don’t worry, you won’t need a backup plan. It’ll work. You’re getting late, so hurry. I’ll talk to you after the meeting, okay?
K: Yeah, sure
Kyle slipped his mobile back into his pocket. He wasn’t smiling anymore. Something shitty was going on. The way things were being handled in the project had been enough to piss him off, but this had been the last straw. He made the decision to speak his mind and end this one way or another, despite what Andrew said.
The elevator came to a stop at level 11. Kyle took a deep breath and stepped out. A well-lit corridor stretched from the elevator to the far end. It seemed completely deserted. He started walking down the corridor, glancing at the doors on both sides. They looked like they were made of a dark wood. Kyle trailed his fingers on the door and felt the fine grain of the wood. But he knew it wasn’t real wood, just a very good synthetic copy of the real thing. He wondered what lies he would have to sit through before they decided to tell him the truth. If they decided to tell him the truth at all.
He stopped before the door embossed with the number 12. Surprisingly, he wasn’t nervous. He knew what he was here to do and nothing could deter him. Kyle took a deep breath, pushed the door open and walked in.
The Tellurian Threat: A Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Thriller (The Tellurian Archives Book 1) Page 3
