Interface: A Techno Thriller

by Tony Batton

  "He's not going to be happy."

  "He rarely is."

  ONE HUNDRED FIVE

  TOM FORCED HIMSELF TO BREATHE slowly. Lentz had collected some equipment from the Level 75 laboratory and they now stood in Marron's office, next to the entrance to his secret control room.

  Reems stood aside, arms folded, as Commander Jonas attempted to open the door. "It's locked," he said, as he pulled on the concealed handle.

  Lentz held up a scanning device. "It's just a question of determining the right wireless frequency."

  "CCTV footage shows him entering but not leaving," Jonas said. "Our best guess is that Marron is still inside."

  "I very much doubt it," Tom said, walking up and pulling on the handle, blinking as he did it. "As I keep telling you, Marron thought the building was going to blow up. He wasn't going to hang around."

  "Try it again," Lentz said.

  Tom twisted and pulled. The door hissed and swung out.

  The room looked as if someone had left it in a hurry. Items of equipment were strewn across the floor. Tom walked over to one of the computer terminals. "This is Marron's command centre. It's a completely separate system to the main building."

  "So this is where he watched the Tower, playing God?" Reems asked.

  "He was playing a lot of people," Tom said. "And he liked to play a long game. He's been playing me since I was a child."

  Reems raised an eyebrow. "I'm very much looking forward to debriefing you, Mr Faraday."

  Lentz moved next to him. "I'll get connected," she said, giving Tom a tight look.

  "Use the port here," he replied.

  Lentz flipped open her modified laptop. "Are you sure you know what you're doing, Tom?" She ran a long cable into the port he had indicated and started typing rapidly.

  "There's no alternative. You, of all people, realise that."

  "We're on the clock here, people," Reems said.

  "When you're ready, Dominique." Tom closed his eyes. The computer screen went off.

  Lentz cleared her throat. "Here we go. Although this may be a bit hit or miss."

  The screen flickered back on and the login box appeared.

  "Anyone have any ideas?" asked Tom, opening his eyes.

  Jonas shook his head. "We'll have to bring in specialists. It could take some time, but--"

  "Never mind," said Lentz. "I'm in." The password screen faded and the display filled with a number of data windows.

  "What's she doing?" Reems asked.

  Jonas looked at the screen. "Parsing the data." He squinted. "It's moving too fast to read."

  The screens scrolled faster and faster.

  "Now that's interesting," Tom said. A floor plan popped up and then zoomed in on Floor 90. A pink light lit up in one corner.

  "It's in Bern's office," Reems said. "What is it?"

  Lentz shrugged. "I didn't say I'd get answers immediately."

  "Look at the north wall of this room," Tom said, crossing to it and pressing against a panel. There was a soft alarm, a hiss and a panel swung inwards.

  "What on earth?" Reems asked, walking over to look for herself.

  "I'd be careful," Tom said. "It's a long way down."

  Reems peered into the cavity then reflexively pulled back.

  "I think," Lentz said, "that is an emergency escape route."

  Reems reached her hand out and touched the metal track. "It's vibrating?"

  "Wait," Jonas said suddenly, "Lentz isn't just streaming this. She's deleting it!" He lurched forward and snapped Lentz's laptop shut, yanking the network cable from it.

  "What are you are doing?" cried Lentz.

  Reems turned to Jonas. "Just get her out of here."

  But Jonas wasn't listening. "That didn't stop it," he said. "Look. I can see dialogue boxes appearing and vanishing."

  Files continued flickering across the screen.

  "What's being deleted?" Reems shouted.

  "It looks like building data. Corporate accounts. Project files."

  Reems turned red. "Stop it right--"

  A fire alarm sounded: not the type of alarm fitted in houses and offices. This one was a mind-numbing beast of an alarm, designed to terrify occupants into leaving as soon as humanly possible.

  Jonas looked up sharply. "Fire suppression systems have been triggered. Halon gas: we get out or we die. Everybody move!"

  ◇ ◇ ◇

  In seconds, they had scrambled back into Marron's office, the heavy door slamming behind them. From inside came the terrible white-noise hiss of the gas.

  "What set it off?" asked Reems as they stumbled to a halt.

  "Something she tampered with maybe?" suggested Jonas. He looked around. "Where is Faraday?"

  Reems spun around. She went to run back in, but Jonas' strong arms caught her. "You have to wait ten minutes for it to disperse. It's too late for him."

  Reems shrugged him off and turned on Lentz. "I don't know what just happened, but I'm pretty sure that was all planned." She narrowed her eyes. "You were never the one deleting the files, were you? That was Tom, using the interface."

  Lentz shrugged. "It's a theory. Good luck proving it."

  "What is he up to?" Reems swore. "We have a chance to seize breakthrough technology and you..." She nodded to Jonas. "Get her out of my sight." Reems' phone chimed and she glanced at it then at Lentz. "I have a message from Tom. He says we should look in the safe in Bern's office." She paused, her brow creasing. "He says you're the only one who can open it and," her expression turned thunderous, "I'd better keep you closely involved if I want to see inside."

  "Is that right?" said Lentz, not hiding a smile. "Then I suggest we go have a look."

  ONE HUNDRED SIX

  TOM WATCHED THE OTHERS RUN from the command centre. He waited until they were all outside then activated the pressurised air-con system. It sounded convincing enough to pass as the halon gas.

  He closed the outer doors to the room then shut his eyes and extended his senses. The building was operating smoothly: power, lighting, air conditioning. He reduced the security systems to the lowest possible level. No sense in obstructing the good work of the rescuers.

  He flicked his attention back to the vast volumes of data he had been deleting, stripping the CERUS servers of the data that would allow someone else to do all this again. The experiment had to stop here. In amongst the scientific data, he found several files implicating various team members in things that had happened – and things that had not. Marron clearly liked to keep a hold over people. But there was nothing on William Bern. There was even a file with Tom's mother's name on it, but it was empty. What was that about?

  Tom's eyelids fluttered as he continued processing. The chip in his head was gone now, the nanites spread throughout his system, distributing their heat so he barely noticed. There was nothing to distract him. Nothing to slow him down. And, as his perception shifted, he started to see things he could never have seen before.

  There was an anomaly.

  He forced himself to slow, drawing back to consider. It was a ripple in the pattern of CERUS' financial records. There was something there. He focused his thoughts, throwing his mind at the numbers, sifting and filtering. The pattern clarified.

  Money had been diverted from certain accounts. At first glance, it looked like it had been done randomly. But, when he followed the chain, he saw it was, in fact, a thing of beauty. CERUS had not been failing: someone had been gutting it. There was a plan behind all the other plans: something only a computer could have seen, if properly instructed.

  Or me, thought Tom. Because he was both human and computer now.

  But was he the best of both, or the worst?

  The vibrating of the track in the cavity reached a peak and the metal cradle appeared in the gap. But he couldn't go yet. First, he had to understand what had been happening at CERUS and he finally had the key. There was video-footage from cameras even Marron did not seem to know about. Marron had appeared to hold all the cards,
but there was someone behind even his shoulder and now Tom knew who it was.

  He sucked in his breath and rescanned the files. And then he found it, buried in two different places, but linked by context.

  Of course it was ridiculous, impossible, unbelievable. And yet he knew it was true: only Tom Faraday could have been chosen for this role, because only he was a fit.

  So many questions filled his mind that he was almost overwhelmed. So much betrayal and injustice that he could not voice.

  Not here. Not now.

  But finally he knew who he had to talk to. And where to find his quarry. Tom glanced around the room, his eyes locking on a cabinet on the wall marked with biohazard symbols. It was electronically locked, but a quick instruction popped the door open. Inside was a case containing three syringes. He looked at the barcode labels and the interface provided a translation.

  Truth nano.

  Tom gritted his teeth. This was what they had used on Kate. Filled with rage, he went to throw the syringes across the room, but something made him stop. Perhaps he could find a better use for them. So he slipped the syringes into his jacket pocket. Then, with a shake of his head, he climbed into the cradle, strapped himself in and sent the instruction to start the mechanism again.

  The cage dropped out of sight.

  ◇ ◇ ◇

  The fact that the submersible cruiser had no control panel presented no challenge to Tom. After quickly donning a wetsuit from the open box beside the end of the cage-track, he slid the submersible out of the tunnel and into the murky waters of the Thames. As he completed his final system scan of the Tower, idly realising he was very hungry, he noticed that the building's security network had been accessed off-site. Someone had used a camera on an adjacent building to look at the exterior of the Tower.

  Tom smiled. He didn't need to run further analysis to know who that was. Within seconds, he had location data accurate to within fifty metres. He referenced the location on a map and smiled. In the middle of the sea, fifty metres would be more than good enough.

  Just two minutes into his journey, he realised that the submersible was too slow. Quickly, he searched the surrounding area for something faster. It didn't take him long to find exactly what he needed.

  ONE HUNDRED SEVEN

  LENTZ AND REEMS ENTERED BERN'S penthouse office, leaving two soldiers waiting next to the lifts. The women ignored the view and marched through the door into his private bathroom. On one wall hung an unmemorable watercolour.

  "It's always behind a painting," Lentz said, as she carefully lifted the watercolour off its hook and revealed a small wall safe. Quickly she started typing in a long sequence of digits

  Reems glared at her. "You have the combination of William Bern's safe?"

  "Tom gave me the code." There was a beep.

  "And the finger print scan?" Reems asked, as Lentz pressed her thumb to the scanner.

  "I'm told I've been added to the approved list."

  "Or you were always on it. You do realise how suspicious this looks?"

  The safe clicked and swung open. Lentz reached in and withdrew a few items of jewellery, a copy of a document entitled 'Last Will and Testament', the keys to a car and a stack of documents labelled 'CERUS: Highly Confidential'. At the bottom was a dusty pink folder tied with red ribbon. It was stamped 'CLASSIFIED'.

  Reems reached forward and snatched it from her. "I believe your security clearance was revoked a long time ago. If any of it is shareable, I'll let you know." Reems turned and walked back into the main office. "I have what I need. Now get her out of--"

  George Croft stood facing her, holding an automatic pistol. "Hands skyward," he said. "Both of you."

  Reems' jaw tightened as she lifted her arms. "Where's my security detail?"

  "I told them Marron had been sighted on Level 60. They'll be a few minutes, I imagine."

  "How did you even get here? I thought I had you locked up?"

  "I had a field toolkit with me. Broke my way out." He shrugged. "Sloppy of you not to have searched me."

  "How did you know to come here, to this office?"

  There was a loud cough and Kate walked in. "He just showed his Service ID and said you'd asked him to fetch me. I guess you were so busy keeping his incarceration secret you forgot to deactivate his credentials. This story keeps on getting better. I don't think I'm ever going to have to work again."

  "That can be arranged very easily," Reems said.

  "I'm going to include a section on wasting tax payer resources." Kate turned to Lentz. "Do you know how she got here? By helicopter. She brought five of them."

  Reems sighed. "It's a security measure to travel with decoy targets – given we just lost a helicopter to hostile fire, I would think that was obvious. So just what do you think you're doing, George?"

  "You've been acting erratically since I became interested in CERUS, but it was only when you locked me up that I realised you'd been compromised."

  Reems walked over to Bern's desk, sitting on the edge. "Hindering you doesn't mean I've been compromised, George. There are some people you need to speak to."

  "I'm not keeping this internal. I'm taking you to Scotland Yard."

  Reems shook her head. "You can't do that." She sighed and held up the pink folder. "Why don't we have a look through what I'm sure is in here and then we'll discuss it again?"

  Croft waved his gun towards Reems. "You're just stalling."

  "I don't think she is," Lentz said. "Only one thing makes sense. The file contains the records of the original Tantalus. Information that now exists nowhere else. I bet Bern wanted to keep them to hand in case they ever became useful. And I bet that's because they include signed authorisation from the person who originally approved the human testing. It's his trump card: leverage."

  Reems nodded at Lentz. "You always had a sharp mind." She picked up the file and held it out. "But it's more complicated than that."

  Lentz marched over and snatched the file, flicking it open. Her eyes narrowed as she turned the pages then she stopped. "You? I don't believe it."

  "What?" Kate said. "Reems approved the testing?"

  "Presuming," Lentz said, "that this signature is genuine. You were the MI5 liaison at the time. But, Stephanie, how can this be?"

  "Do you want to read the rest of the file, or shall I just tell you what it says?" She looked around the room and pointed at Bern's whisky decanter. "And I don't know about you, but I could use a drink."

  ◇ ◇ ◇

  Reems sipped from the whisky tumbler, running her free hand through her hair. "Tantalus was always a government project. A specific commission."

  Lentz shook her head. "I would have known. I was in charge."

  "I know you like to think that, but you were just a component in the machine."

  "But why would the government need CERUS?" Kate asked.

  "We needed each other. CERUS needed the government to blow away the red tape and provide funding: the government needed CERUS to provide resources, specific expertise and, most importantly, plausible deniability."

  "Because the public wouldn't like you messing with people's heads, regardless of the potential benefits," Kate said. "So you closed them down when the human trials went so catastrophically wrong."

  "Yes," Reems sighed, "but it wasn't Bern who forced the trials to take place early. It was us. Despite all our precautions, word had got out. We couldn't keep the project under wraps any more. It was either run a test or flush it. It was a mistake. Too many shortcuts. The test subjects died." She closed her eyes. "If it had just been that, we might have been able to come clean: admit our mistakes and deal with the fall out. But you know it went further."

  "Child testing," Lentz said, turning away.

  "Why would Bern keep the records?" Kate asked. "Wouldn't they implicate him?"

  "Much less than they implicate us," said Reems. "I tried to clean house, but he kept data hidden, ready to use against us. We managed to cancel all nano projects, but he's played
his hand well - there have been many initiatives that he forced past us in recent years."

  "But why would you accept it?" Croft asked. "Why not arrest him?"

  "Because," Kate said, "I'm assuming the government wanted what CERUS has been developing."

  Reems nodded. "He knew it was a card he had to play carefully. It was an ongoing negotiation: part of a long game I couldn't share with you," she told Croft.

  "I was just doing my job, but Bern was playing us all along."

  Reems shrugged. "We were trying to play him back. But then he went and got himself killed. We're still trying to work out where that has left us."

  Kate drained the whisky glass she was holding. "I still don't buy it. The part about experimenting on a child should have taken any deal off the table."

  Reems nodded again. "There's one more thing in the file. The details of who those children were."

  "Children?"

  "Yes. There was Tom, of course, but there were also two others."

  ONE HUNDRED EIGHT

  "SO," LENTZ SAID, "WHOSE IDEA was it to experiment on the children? You're not saying it was yours?"

  Reems puffed out her cheeks. "No, but we were aware of the initiative."

  "You knew about it?" Kate said. "Even with everything else, I was presuming that was on CERUS."

  "It's not quite how it seems. For the children it wasn't a speculative experiment. It was a treatment of last resort. We were trying to save them. All three had a rare brain condition. We hoped to do something about it through the chip."

  "But you still programmed it to create the base for the interface?"

  "We agreed it would only be used in ways related to the condition, but it was a way of proving the concept and so making it worthwhile to CERUS at the same time as potentially saving their lives. I thought you would understand, Dominique."