He loved the applications Leo’s device would offer; he was not after e-Frond for monetary reasons, but leverage was a necessity for his vision. His empire was cutting edge and this invention big. He hated waiting for results, so he called his personal detail for an update on status.
“Give me an update please, who’s in play…Hello!” No reply came. “I asked for status, this is Mr. Sullivan!”
“Sorry, sir,” an out of breath voice said over his com. “I am here. Do you want in-house or all in total?”
“Grounds total, you know the drill. Last twenty-four hours, with specifics about our guest. So, what’s your excuse for not being on comms?”
“We were finishing our sweep from the alarm that sounded. An intruder was detected via facial scan. No full breach, no contact was made due to the subject’s identity. By the way, the total was five in the house, including yourself and the guest. Zero unsecured entry attempts besides our guest, notables were face scan departure early morning, and position three-face scan fifteen minutes ago. All notables were our guest-slash intruder, he was busy today.”
Sullivan laughed. “Intruder, hardly, he belongs here as much as we do, perhaps even more so. I am aware of his curiosity of a few moments ago. I appreciate you following zero contact protocol with our guest. However, simply locking the front door would have prevented this. I would think my detail in a location such as this could handle that.”
“Sir, our data shows the door was secured till a bio scan deactivated the entry.”
“That’s impossible but I’ll look into it.”
Mr. Sullivan ended the transmission and switched over to another line. “Fox One, what’s your status?”
“Fox One is in house, here at Sullivan residence. What do you need?”
“Well the usual I suppose. Anything odd? Something feels off.”
The Phantom replied, “Well, sir, as far as the perimeter, no. Data center activity nominal, although the library access was left open today for a while. And, something I think you’ll find interesting… Just after the window was closed there was an inbound and an outbound email exchange.”
“With whom?” Sullivan asked.
“None other than Krueger himself. I’ll tell you what, I don’t like that smart mouthed punk one bit, sir. Do we need to pay him a visit?”
“I value you Fox One, and that’s why I’m going to pretend I never heard that. For reasons I can’t explain to you, Leo, is the key to my…our future. I realize you’re reacting on instinct, training, masculine pride perhaps, but hear this, anyone laying a finger on our dear boy Leo, will find themselves in a coffin.”
“Ten-four sir. My apologies. But if he was so crucial and important why wasn’t I briefed? Why the sudden change of heart? To me he sounded like a pawn. I need this information in the future.”
“I sense some hesitancy due to my lack of transparency Fox One. All you need to know is that he is very much needed. I had to be certain he was ready, that Leo is to be our future. You’re a forward thinker Fox One. That’s why I like you. You’re the man, for lack of better words.”
“Well that’s quite a compliment. Let’s not forget the Russian Proverb though: Don’t dig someone else’s grave, for you may fall in yourself.”
He heard delighted laughter over the speaker from Mr. Sullivan.
“Ha, how delightfully true that statement is. That is twistedly spot on for us all in this case. Lest we not forget Heraclitus the non-apparent connection is more powerful than the apparent one.”
“Hmm, I don’t follow, sir.”
“You will soon Fox One, you will soon enough. Send me the email data to decrypt. Oh, and by the way, thanks for responding so promptly. Carry on, Fox One”
* * *
Mrs. Sullivan’s face contorted in anger as she sat at her desk. Little did Fox One know that as of this morning all his comms transmissions were being fed to her. Evelyn’s paranoia and cautiously nervous attitude had developed like Mr. Sullivan.
Now Fox One’s betrayal of sorts was being fed to her. She had mixed feelings about it. He was her detail, but, after all, she had her own secret agenda away from Mr. Sullivan’s eyes. Or so she thought.
If Mr. Sullivan could not trust her, she would see to it that her location was fully protected. The data center was not for Mr. Sullivan to control. She had plans for it too.
Chapter 23
Leo wound his way through the maze. He tried to find the sculpture he saw earlier but couldn’t. He exited the maze, relieved to be back at his cottage. He thought he might watch a movie, but he wanted to see what was in his find from the hike earlier.
When he arrived at his steps, he saw the door unlocked and unlatched. The wind had apparently blown it open and along with the wind chime sounding in the breeze, the door banged against the doorframe. Leo immediately looked for Willy as the cat loved to escape even if the door was open for only a minute.
He searched the porch frantically before noticing Willy dead center in the doorframe several steps back, crouched in a defensive stance, his ears pinned back to the sides of his head.
Leo turned around to see what Willy might have been reacting to and saw nothing. He stood looking for a few more moments and all he saw was a flicker of the maze lamps. Leo chalked it up to the squirrel.
He shut the door, locked it, and made sure it latched this time. He took his backpack to the couch and unzipped the bag. He pulled out the geode and examined it. He did not want to cut it open, afraid he would sever some of the crystals.
Cracking the outer layer might loosen some from their matrix, but at least the inner core would be intact. He held it over the metal hinge on the coffee table, tapped it with some force, giving off a hollow thud. It did not crack.
He raised it again and hit it with quite a bit of force, this time followed by a resounding crack.
He looked the surface over for the fissure he made. He located it and followed it with his fingers. Leo applied pressure on either side of the crack while pulling away from it to see if it would split open like an egg, not implode into pieces.
With a sound of ceramic pieces scraping against each other, the object cracked open revealing a beautiful array of smoky quartz and brilliantly colored blue beryl specimens.
The crystals were amazing as well as gemmy and could be sold for a decent amount. He became excited to show these in class and he already had an idea of what he would do with his find after his class presentation. He would give part to Sarafina, a piece to Annabelle and keep one solid half himself.
A troubling thought came to him as he set the sparkly specimen on the table. His e-Frond drawing and notes were on the tablet. He did not know what was going to happen tomorrow. The Sullivan’s might require him to return the tablet or scan the hard drive. He needed to get his e-Frond work off the device completely, so either of them would not see it or use it. And more importantly, New Wave would be furious if his newest creation was handed over to a possible competitor.
He handprint verified the tablet and immediately tried to hack into it to get his schematics and notes. The tablet soon displayed his files and he searched his backpack for his thumb drive. He plugged in his drive but before dragging the files over, he noticed something that caught his attention.
The last access date and time was 10 minutes ago. Becoming paranoid, he immediately looked around the room. He gathered his thoughts and remembered that only he could access the tablet, it only recognized his palm.
That meant no one was lurking in his home while he was at the mansion. It begged the question, who had accessed it? The device had to have been accessed remotely, it had to be one of the Sullivan’s. He felt angry and used, and more importantly concerned that this could jeopardize his New Wave partnership.
“Damn it.”
He extracted the files onto the thumb drive and backed them up on his cloud drive, then deleted the files off the tablet. With anger visible on his face and with contempt in his heart, he wiped the disk space on the t
ablet clean. Now the tablet was rudimentary, and all customization gone, he felt a pang of vindictiveness, but felt entitled given the seriousness of the invasion.
He dismissed the feeling from his mind for the time being. Mrs. Sullivan would get an ear full tomorrow about it though.
Willy hopped up on the sofa beside him. His eyelids became heavy and he fought them from closing. Several hours later, Leo woke to the sound of his own screams reverberating in the room.
“Get the hell away from me,” he yelled, thrashing his hands at his head.
He startled awake, stunned that the Blue-ray player read 3:00 a.m. The room was bathed in blue light. He blinked his eyes to clear them, but the room remained bathed in blue and he realized he had fallen asleep before he turned off the TV.
Leo slowly rose from the couch, disappointed that his odd dream, that awakened him, did not finish playing out in his mind. His series of nightmares, the past few nights, were terrifying, creepy, and frightening but they all had a common thread.
They all seemed like a crazy story playing a little bit at a time, each night teasing him to want to know more. He knew the dreams were ninety-nine percent nonsense but something about them captivated his curiosity. His father was mixed into his last dream and the thought of him upset him, as well as made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
Chapter 24
Leo opened his eyes to Willy standing on his chest, staring at him, meowing for his breakfast. Leo’s mental clock was off from his night on the couch. He felt it was still early, perhaps due to there being minimal light in the room. He was about to shoo Willy away when he glanced at the clock. It read 8:20. Dammit. Shocked at the time he got up and rushed to the bathroom, glancing at the window on his way, a cloudy day lay ahead of him.
Leo completed his morning routine, only quicker than normal, all the while Willy was crying and tripping him while he hurried, weaving throughout his legs. He grabbed his iPhone and headed down stairs, Willy’s cries growing louder, longer and increasingly dire.
“All right, all right, geez fur ball, you’re not gonna starve.”
He poured him a fresh scoop of food and patted his head. Willy chowed down on his fresh meal, finally silent. Leo unlocked his iPhone and texted Sarafina, Hey I’m ready now, are you up? Do you still want to go with me?
He picked up the tablet from the couch. It was quite warm to the touch and he almost dropped it. He found it odd that he had yet to plug it in and it had a full charge. Leo lifted his bag, grabbed the umbrella and opened the front door; the damp moist air filled his lungs, and he was ready for the day.
He locked up, making sure the door latched this time, and on his way through the maze, his iPhone beeped a text from Sarafina.
Of course, I want to go, duh. ?? I’ll be ready in a jiffy.
See u soon, on my way
He loved going through the maze everyday arriving at his secret parking spot, it made him feel like a secret agent, almost. He got into his Corvette and remembered this was his second day as a millionaire.
He loaded up his auto loan web page on his iPhone and signed in. He looked at his $67,080.52 balance to be paid that normally would have made him uneasy. He touched the calculate payoff amount and with slight hesitancy his finger selected pay. The iPhone took a moment and then loaded a successful payment screen with a confirmation code. The screen read, Thank you for your payment, $60,350.78, your current balance is $0.00.
He felt proud and invigorated to have the car paid off. He fired up his newly paid-off Vette and when he reached black top on the other side of the bridge, Leo pressed on the gas pedal and muttered, “Drive it like I own it.”
He arrived at Sarafina’s in no time, parked at the curb and waited for her. Leo was excited Sarafina was joining but leery about the meeting with Mrs. Sullivan. He grabbed the tablet off the passenger seat, turned it on and authenticated himself. The tablet was still quite warm, and to his surprise, it booted up into the customized system he had wiped out last night.
“How in the hell did the system restore itself?”
Then it dawned on him. He looked at the upload and download log. It showed cloud activity, which meant the system is always being monitored and the device updates automatically when any change to the system was made. His worst fear confirmed, his files had returned, which meant the Sullivan’s had these files retrievable at any time.
“Those slippery son’s—”
“Who’s slippery?” Sarafina said sliding into the passenger seat.
Leo chuckled. “Sorry about that. I am in quite a predicament here, though.”
“Is that so? Leo in hot water? Do tell.”
Silence filled the car as Leo contemplated how to possibly access their cloud and remove it.
“Hello, Mr. Millionaire, Leo!”
“Sorry, I was just thinking about something.”
“Well spill it already,” she exclaimed in a happy tone.
“I had some important invention ideas on the tablet and I think the Sullivan’s may have uploaded them to their cloud servers.”
“Dang, they are slippery. We’ll get it all straightened out today. Hopefully.”
“Well yeah I sure hope so. I have a feeling it won’t be so easy though.”
They headed out of town, the rain had yet to fall but the clouds looked threatening. They were making great time as they conversed and laughed along the way. The scenery passed by much quicker now that he had someone in the car with him.
Sarafina stared out the window and admired the beautiful scenery. Her eyes weren’t always on the road and Leo caught her looking at him driving a couple of times. Leo was a horrible judge at determining if someone was showing interest or flirting. He took her stares as ones of admiration rather than flirtation. She seemed to really look up to him.
Leo thought about the meeting he was headed to and realized Sarafina should know more about his last visit.
“So, Sarafina,” he said, “I should have told you this before I invited you along, but there are a few things I should tell you about this Sullivan residence.”
She turned her attention from the scenery to Leo “Okay, go ahead you have me a little freaked now.”
“I was sweating bullets last time, almost quite literally. Their security at this place is nothing short of intense. They know you’re there before you’ve arrived and even then, they are super cautious.”
“Of course, they know you’re coming, you called ahead right?”
“Yeah, I called ahead, but I mean security knows regardless because they have scanners that detect you entering their forest.”
“What the hell Leo…Really?!”
“Yes, and security. The guard had a machine gun and a serious lack of social skills.”
Sarafina laughed. “Well great! What did you get me in to?”
“I’m sorry I forgot to fill you in. You can always stay in the car and wait.”
“To be honest I probably should.”
“Okay, that sucks but I understand.”
“I’m only kidding of course I’m going with you. This is sounding more interesting by the minute. I should have worn my boots with spurs for this showdown.”
“Awesome you’re gonna be my extra set of eyes and ears. And maybe the Phantom won’t be as likely to give me a hard time with you present.”
“The Phantom?” she asked.
“Yeah, the crazy security guy. I call him the Phantom because he blends in with the trees. He isn’t seen till he wants to be.”
Small towns gave way to large plots of farmland and Leo knew they were close. Just shy of a sprinkle the rain turned to a mist so heavy it was essentially fog.
Leo turned on his fog lights to make sure he had a bearing on the road and slowed his speed. The fog had become dangerously thick and Leo was alarmed as he was still traveling at a considerable pace.
He braked hard, but too late, the road disappeared. He felt his tires run onto the soft shoulder and caught a glimpse of a gravel edg
e.
He jammed on the brakes as the front tires caught air and they went over the dip from asphalt to dirt. “Hold on, Sara.”
The front end contacted the muddy road with a rush of the front shocks, but the back slammed down hard. The car bottomed out with a scrape and sent Leo and Sarafina airborne in their seats, then back down just as hard.
He looked to see if Sarafina was okay and saw her holding onto the pull up handle, with exhilaration on her face.
“Waaaahooooo! Yeah! You sure know how to show a cowgirl a good time Leo.”
He could not help but smile at her.
“Leo you should get a truck if you’re gonna go all Baja on me.”
He came to a stop on the road and checked his GPS.
“Ha! What do you know? This is the road. Onward we go, no turning back. I mean it, literally, this road is narrow.”
The fog thickened even more as he put the car in gear and crawled forward. The tires felt sloshy and he could tell clay-like mud stuck to his treads, growing thicker with every rotation of his tires. He hoped he reached the forest before the muddy tires lost all traction and would just start to spin. Sarafina stuck her head out the window and guided him based on the road she could see along the car.
“Hey how are we looking?”
Sara called out, “A little to the ri—”
Leo looked over to see what cut off Sara mid-sentence a large clod of mud over part of her forehead and eye socket. She had a disapproving, irritated look on her face. Despite this, Leo broke into laughter.
“Unbelievable. I’m gonna hurt you,” she said in a non-serious almost chuckling tone. She peeled off the mud in one solid piece and discarded it out the window just before they entered the forest’s edge.
Dawn of Tomorrow Page 10
