Lethal Velocity

by Lincoln Child

  The man glanced over his shoulder, down the corridor of the Hub. It rose up into the darkness overhead, tall and narrow as a giant’s chimney, its walls covered in a complex filigree of wires and cable. Slowly, thoughtfully, he raised one hand to his head, pulling the headphones away from his ears. He could hear the distant tick of machinery, the whir of the sanitation bot’s propulsion assembly, rumbling in some far quadrant.

  Behind him, the soundproofing on the inner wall began to tremble again.

  Placing the keyboard to one side, he glanced toward a radio that stood beside the monitors. It had a large amber blinker fitted to its upper edge, alerting him to incoming transmissions if the headphones were on. He picked up the radio, punched in the descrambling code, raised it to his lips.

  “Cracker Jack to Prime Factor,” he said. “Cracker Jack to Prime Factor, do you copy?”

  There was a brief hiss. Then the cultivated voice of John Doe sounded over the speaker, clear despite the digital encryption. “Cracker Jack, your signal is five by five. What’s your status?”

  “Except for the passives, another ten minutes and everything will be complete.”

  “Then why the report?”

  “I’ve been going over the keystroke logs of the terminals we’re shadowing. All seem normal except for the Metanet’s master computer. Somebody has been spending quite a lot of time on it the last hour, digging around.”

  “With any results?”

  “Of course not. But whoever it is seems to know his business.”

  “Let me guess. B Level, right?”

  “Right.”

  “It would appear we missed our target. Very well, I shall arrange a visit. Out.”

  The radio fell silent. A moment later, with a fearsome shrieking noise, the cars of the Scream Machine hurtled past the far side of the inner wall. The floor of the Hub shook. Cracker Jack cringed involuntarily. Then he snapped off the radio, placing it where its amber blinker would be clearly visible. As the clatter of the coaster faded and silence once again settled over the Hub, the man replaced the headphones, dragged the keyboard back onto his lap, popped another rectangle of gum into his mouth, and began to type.

  “WHAT THE HELL is that thing doing now?”

  It took Andrew Warne several seconds to realize the question was directed at him. Unwillingly, he pulled his gaze away from the monitor. Poole—who was sitting on a nearby table, arms propped on two stacks of printouts—stared back with his usual look of mild inquiry.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said, what’s that thing doing now?” Poole nodded at Wingnut.

  The robot was making its way around the room with ungainly, back-and-forth movements. It would approach an object, back away, then approach it again. Now and then it would move its head assembly forward, directing a thin spray of colorless liquid onto a bench or chair leg.

  “He’s marking his territory,” Warne said, turning back to the monitor.

  “What?”

  Warne sighed. “It’s his behavior programming. He’s spent enough time in this place to consider it part of his world model. He figures he’s likely to be here again, so it’s worth the effort to plot out a topological map. Now that he’s optimized his routes through the room, he’s marking them with ultraviolet ink. Actually, I’m surprised the poor thing has any ink left.”

  “Well, can you tell him to stop? He’s distracting me.”

  “Distracting you?” Terri asked. “From what?” She was sitting beside Warne, a large printout balanced on her knees.

  “From my homework.”

  “Homework.”

  “Yup. I’m trying to figure out exactly how many laws these guys have broken already.”

  Terri turned over a page of the printout.

  “So far, I’m up to thirty-nine.”

  Terri looked up.

  Poole began ticking items off on his fingers. “First, there’s burglary in the third degree. Knowingly and unlawfully entering a building or premises with intent of committing a crime. Then there’s criminal possession of a dangerous weapon in the first degree. That’s possession of an explosive substance, with the unlawful intent of using said substance against a person or property. Next comes criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree—”

  “I get the picture,” Terri said, rolling her eyes. “What kind of homework is this?”

  “Written tests for TEA.”

  “TEA?”

  “Treasury enforcement agent.”

  “Well, it sounds to me like you’d ace it.”

  Poole shrugged. “Passed every time.”

  “Passed? As in, past tense?”

  “Three times. Also the written and oral exams for the Secret Service, the ATF, and the DEA.”

  “So why aren’t you a federal agent by now?”

  “Not sure. I think maybe it has something to do with the polygraph tests.”

  Warne tuned them out. He was staring at the columns of hexadecimal numbers crawling up his screen.

  He had accessed Terri’s kernel-mode debugger and was attempting to crack the hacker’s hidden code. But it was like threading a needle while wearing gloves. All he had to work with was raw assembly language: no symbolic names, no source-code comments. He leaned forward, raising an inquiring hand to the bandage on his temple. He wondered what Georgia was doing right now; whether she was still asleep, what she’d think if she woke up and found he wasn’t there. She’d put on a brave front after what happened. Still, he should be with her, not sitting in a lab, messing around with this jigsaw puzzle. The intrusion was far more complex and subtle than he’d ever imagined. He’d been crazy to think he could make a difference. Besides, the crisis might already be over: for all he knew, the mysterious John Doe had gotten what he wanted and was at this very moment riding off into the sunset.

  Terri’s voice intruded on his thoughts. “Anything?”

  He dropped his hand from the bandage. “The bastard optimized his code. It’s as if he, or she, is making it as hard as possible.”

  “A reasonable assumption,” she said, impish grin returning.

  “I’ve been able to reconstruct lines here and there, but not enough to have any clear sense of what’s going on.” He pointed at the screen. “This routine seems to add unauthorized instructions to the daily download.” He paused. “But there seems to be something else. Something beyond just the Metanet hack.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know exactly. It looks like data’s being secretly channeled out into the main Utopia network. I’m trying to get a handle on it now.”

  He returned to the keyboard, set another breakpoint, then stepped through a few dozen lines of assembly language instructions. The persons responsible for this had done more than infect the Metanet: by causing its malfunction, they had jeopardized his own credibility. Not unless they’re even better coders than they are terrorists…He realized he’d been wrong about this hacker. Whoever had done this was highly skilled.

  He glanced at Terri. “It’s definitely transmitting something to a port on the Utopia Intranet.”

  Terri put the printout aside and came up behind him, looked at the screen. “How?”

  “They’ve hidden a piece of hardware somewhere in the system. They’re probably using it to sneak information past the Utopia firewall.”

  “Can you pinpoint it? Find its physical location on the network?”

  The subtle scent of her perfume drifted toward him. She was bending close now, a few strands of her jet-colored hair brushing across his cheek. With an effort, he kept his mind on the problem. “I’m trying, but the code is just too well protected. We’ll have to try a different tack. Do you have access to a packet sniffer? Or, better yet, a protocol analyzer?”

  Terri frowned. “Sure, up in Network Administration. Why?”

  “If these guys have attached a router to the network, we should be able to scan for it. I’ve found enough crumbs here to give us a head start. Maybe we can track down which TC
P/IP port it’s listening on.”

  Terri’s frown deepened. “No way.”

  “Each type of router has its own unique handwriting. The one they’re using might not match the rest of Utopia’s hardware. And even if it did, we could check for packet leakage. Or send out a tracer ping, see which node doesn’t send back the right kind of response.”

  Terri shook her head. “Inay. Where’d you learn how to do that?”

  “Misspent youth. Hanging around the MIT computer lab when I should have been cruising for babes.”

  She looked down at him dubiously. “Will it work?”

  “Yes or no, we’d know in ten minutes. It beats sitting here, banging our heads against this code.”

  The phone rang, startlingly loud. Terri reached for it. “Applied Robotics. Yes. Yes, he’s here. Okay, sure, I’ll tell him.”

  “It’s Sarah Boatwright,” she said as she hung up. “She wants to see you in the VIP suite. Right now.”

  Poole, who had been silent through this exchange, spoke up. “Where?”

  “The VIP suite. I’ll take you.”

  Warne stood, wondering what could have drawn Sarah away from Medical.

  “Okay,” he said. “But first, let’s spend a few minutes with that packet sniffer. We’ll stop by Network Administration, see if we can track down that unauthorized router. Then we’ll head on to the VIP suite.”

  They left the office, Poole cursing extravagantly as Wingnut, interrupted while marking territory, shot past him in frantic eagerness to catch up to Warne. Terri locked the door behind them and began leading the way down the corridor.

  “How far is Network Administration?” Warne asked.

  “It’s on the way, actually. It’s just around the corner, near the—”

  Terri’s voice was abruptly drowned out by the squealing of tires. Wingnut had caught sight of an electric cart turning into the corridor ahead of them, and had taken off in frantic pursuit.

  “What’s he doing?” Terri asked.

  “It’s like I told you. He likes to chase things. Wingnut!” Warne yelled, breaking into a trot. “No chase! No chase!” He jogged around a corner and out of sight, Terri and Poole at his heels.

  —

  THE SOUND OF Warne’s calls quickly fell away. For several minutes, the hallway outside Applied Robotics remained quiet. An occasional Utopia crew member went past, hurrying from one Underground location to another. Then a costumed figure appeared at the end of the hallway. He was clearly Gaslight cast: Inverness cape, wool suit, heavy wooden cane, buttoned black shoes. Almond-shaped eyes moved from door to door, reading the labels as he moved down the corridor.

  Outside the door to Terri’s office, the man stopped. He looked, quite casually, in both directions. Then, keeping out of view of the door’s window, he put his hand to the knob. Turned it slowly and quietly. Found it locked.

  He remained—hand on the door—for some time, listening for sounds from within. At last, he let his hand drop away from the knob. Then he walked away, without particular hurry, disappearing in the direction from which he had come.

  THE VIP HOSPITALITY center looked more like an Italian palazzo than the concierge suite Warne had been expecting. Intricately carved alabaster columns rose toward a high ceiling, painted a blue and white trompe l’oeil sky. Between the columns, baroque fountains burbled. The walls were decorated with large landscape oils in heavy gold frames. A dignified-looking string quartet played chamber music in a distant corner.

  A knot of half a dozen security specialists stood inside the entrance. Warne gave his name to the closest one, who—after an uneasy glance at Wingnut—nodded and motioned for them to follow. Warne made his way down the long, broad space, shoes ringing against the pink Carrara marble, Terri following. Poole came last, head swiveling around curiously above the turtleneck.

  The room ended in a wide set of double doors, which led into a narrower, carpeted corridor. The security officer escorted Warne through. Doors, most of them closed, lined both walls. From behind one of the closest, Warne could hear a woman’s voice, very British and very stern, raised in indignant protest. “We’ve been here an hour,” the voice was saying. “An hour, mind you! We’re guests, not prisoners. My husband’s a peer. You can’t…”

  The voice faded away behind him. Then the security officer stopped at one of the doors, knocked, waited for it to open. A man’s face appeared on the far side and nodded to the security officer, who turned and walked back down the corridor.

  “What took you?” the man at the door said. “We were getting worried.” Warne recognized the stocky features, deep sunburn, and pale thin hair of Bob Allocco, the security chief.

  “We made a detour on the way,” Warne said, stepping in behind Allocco. The room was small, but tastefully appointed. As elsewhere in the Utopia Underground, the artificial light was a close approximation of daylight to compensate for the lack of windows. A large-screen TV stood in the near corner, tuned to one of the Park’s closed-circuit channels. Warne’s gaze traveled around the rest of the room, stopping when it reached Sarah Boatwright. She was kneeling beside a chair, speaking intently to a seated man, his back to the door. Seeing Warne, she stopped talking and stood up, her mouth set in a narrow line. A look he had never seen before was on her face.

  “What is it?” he asked, moving toward her quickly. “Where’s Georgia?”

  “You’re safe. Thank God. It’s okay, Dr. Finch is watching Georgia personally. He says she’ll be asleep another hour, at least.” She paused, glanced at Allocco.

  “What is it?” Warne asked again.

  “Drew. Do you remember meeting a Norman Pepper this morning?”

  “Pepper,” Warne murmured. The name was familiar. “Pepper…Sure. The orchid specialist. I rode in on the monorail with him.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Dead?” Warne asked in surprise. “How?” Heart attack, probably, he thought. Fifty pounds overweight, not used to all the excitement. What a tragedy! The guy seemed so happy to be here. And he said he had kids, how awful to…

  “He was beaten to death.”

  “What?” A chill suddenly enveloped him. He looked mutely at Sarah.

  “With a heavy, blunt instrument.” Allocco’s gravelly voice filled the small room. He nodded toward the chair. “This poor guy found him. Went into the External Specialists’ Lounge hoping to find a cup of cocoa. Found Pepper instead.”

  The man in the chair turned around. He was bald, slightly built, with a tiny toothbrush mustache beneath and a thick pair of round spectacles above his nose. He looked even paler than Sarah. Still in shock, it took Warne a minute to recognize the man: Smythe, the external consultant, fireworks or something.

  “Jesus,” Warne murmured. He could see Pepper in his mind, rhapsodizing about the Park, rubbing his hands together with almost staged eagerness.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “That’s what we wondered,” Allocco said. He moved away from Smythe, and the others followed. “At first. He wasn’t robbed, his wallet was still in his jacket pocket. But it was so soaked with blood we had a hard time getting a readable ID. So we took the imagetag from his lapel and scanned it instead.”

  The room fell silent.

  “And?” Warne said.

  Allocco’s gaze shifted to Sarah. Warne turned toward her with mute inquiry.

  “He was wearing your tag,” she said.

  The chill gave way to a sudden gust of fear. Warne swallowed.

  “My tag?” he asked in a dry, stupid voice. “How could that be?” But even as he spoke, he remembered: in the monorail, Pepper had knocked the small white envelopes to the floor, reached for them, handed his back…

  “Our tags were switched on the way in,” he said. “They must have been. That tag I lost in the Waterdark ride—my tag—it must have been Pepper’s.”

  Sarah took a step toward him. “I know,” she said. “This is a terrible, terrible thing.”

  A terrible thing…In this moment of
extremity, Warne could not get the image of Norman Pepper out of his mind. That could have been me. That should have been me…

  “What are you going to do about it?” Poole asked.

  “The only thing we can do. Leave the body where it is, seal off the suite. Alert the police.” Sarah exchanged glances with Allocco. “As soon as we can.”

  There was a knock on the door. Allocco opened it, and a young woman in a white blazer entered, bearing an oversize cup of tea, which she handed to Sarah. She murmured her thanks, turned and offered it to Smythe, who declined with a quick little shake of his head.

  “Of course, you realize you’ll need to stay here for the duration,” Allocco said, turning toward Warne. “Or in the hospital with your daughter, if you’d rather. We’ve secured both areas.”

  Warne, still thinking about Pepper, was slow to absorb this. “I’m sorry?” he asked.

  “We already knew they were looking for you. Now we know they want you dead.”

  The fear made his limbs feel heavy and sluggish. “But why? Why me? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense.” It was Terri who spoke up, and all eyes turned toward her. She flushed slightly, as if surprised to hear her own voice. Then she took a breath, stuck out her chin. “It proves you’re right. About the Metanet, I mean, and that Trojan horse.”

  “I don’t follow,” Allocco said.

  “Dr. Warne wasn’t supposed to arrive until next week. These guys, whoever they are, couldn’t have planned for such a contingency. And they wouldn’t be trying to kill him now unless they knew he could hurt them.”

  “Makes sense,” Poole said. He had moved to the coffee machine and was pouring himself a cup.

  Allocco glared at him, then muttered something under his breath.

  “I suppose that’s right,” Warne said slowly. Then he turned toward Sarah. “I can’t stay here. There’s something I have to do.”