Codex

by Adrian Dawson

  Time differences between England and California had meant that Jack’s twelve-hour flight had culminated in a midnight landing, Pacific Time. The airport was much quieter than usual and the sound of their footsteps was accentuated by the open concourse around them.

  “Get what you needed from the meeting?” MaryBeth asked.

  The question made Jack stop dead in his tracks. MaryBeth followed suit. When she turned he was looking directly at her with an uncharacteristically probing stare. In Jack’s mind there was a pause that seemed to last forever. In MaryBeth’s a sense of confusion.

  “John Case...? Virtuality...?” she prompted, dipping her head. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to decipher what she might have said to shock him. “I mean... did he have anything good to show you?”

  Jack sighed, shaking his head at his own misconceptions as if they might now spin from his mind like a catherine wheel. MaryBeth knew nothing of his meeting in the church, he was simply being paranoid. But why? Why did he feel even now that even the few travellers scattered throughout the terminal were staring directly back at him? That everybody knew.

  He took a deep breath. “Yes, yes he did. A new VR suite, quite impressive.” His mind was still on the images; the words, his voice slow and lacking its usual passion. Lara, pulled from the fuselage at thirty-one-thousand feet. Her eyes. Pleading. Beautiful. Gone.

  ...alive when they hit the ground...

  MaryBeth, knowing (and, on the odd occasion, understanding) Jack as she did, pulled her shoulder-length hair to one side and looked straight into his eyes. “Is everything alright, Jack? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  He smiled lamely at her choice of words. There was no way she could know. “I’m fine,” he lied.

  MaryBeth looked expectantly around the foyer. She hated flying and as such was not well versed in the internal layout of LAX. It took a few moments but eventually she found what she wanted and what she felt Jack needed. “There’s a bar up there.” She pointed to the balcony at the furthest end of the check-in desks. “What say we have a drink. I mean, let’s face it, I think you could do with one.” She grabbed his hand and pulled. No argument. “You can tell me all about it.”

  Jack resisted and shook his head. “Really, I’m fine, it’s just...” but he was too late. MaryBeth was already dragging him toward the steps which led up to the balcony. He resigned himself to her better judgement and domineering personality once again.

  * * * * *

  Jack took a seat one row away from the window and left MaryBeth to flirt with the barman for few minutes as the drinks were obtained. When she joined him she was wearing what Leonardo Da Vinci himself would instantly recognise as ‘an enigmatic smile’.

  “Cute for a bar-guy,” she said. Her eyebrows raised in subtle mischief. “English as well. Got that quaint little accent they have.” She quoted, “So whah hah yoo floiying, maam?”

  Jack shook his head in mock despair.

  It was rare that he drank beer these days. He had in his youth, excessively at times, but it had lost a lot of its appeal of late. Either it was the side-effect of an increased standard of living or the cold hard truth that he was getting old. Either way, it made little difference because MaryBeth, as ever, was right. He sure as hell needed one now.

  “So what’s been happening while I’ve been away?” he asked, the last cold drains of his first mouthful sliding gracefully and gratefully down.

  “Well,” MaryBeth replied, thinking, “FireWorX is going okay, but Eric had yet another shutdown this morning.”

  Jack looked surprised. Shocked even. “A-nother one?”

  MaryBeth nodded lamely. This was the third time that the FireWorX system, despite having the latest IntelliGate software installed, had been shut down by a remote outside source. It was undoubtedly a hacker, a prankster, because they never actually harmed the system. All they did was log on, get through Eric’s latest attempts to keep the system safe, and shut it down from the inside. The IntelliGate had been specially upgraded three times now. Three times the remote had broken through. The only clue left was a message added to the main-screen coding. The first one, as Jack recalled, had read; ‘Security is dire, I broke through the wire. If it ain’t tight, I’ll ruin opening night. It’s simple.’

  Protecting the system should have been so very easy, despite the fact that IntelliSoft terminals worldwide would soon be logging on, because it was such an insular mainframe. Due to its unique operating system, IS-OS - UNIX based but still a world away from the conventional - FireWorX could not, supposedly, be accessed via any conventional PC. It required the FireWire system itself and, so far, that had been sold to only eighty-three companies worldwide. Those companies, all extensively vetted and triple-checked, were large corporations and used it only for high-speed data transfer to and from their own internal mainframes. They did not have remote access lines like the IntelliSoft terminals.

  “Has he checked all the users?” Jack asked. Those who had FireWire. He already knew he had.

  “Every last one,” MaryBeth replied. “And they all came up clean. Either our hacker does work for one of the companies and we just can’t trace him, or he’s found a way to break through using the Web and a conventional system. Which is unlikely I would have to say. Either way, Eric’s upped security so tight already that he’s at a loss for what to do next. He rewrote the coding so there were no back doors, not even for him, and they’ve still come through. He says that the only thing he’s know about them for sure is that they’re good.”

  “How good?” Jack asked.

  MaryBeth looked genuinely worried. “Israeli.”

  ‘Israeli’ was a term used throughout the computer industry to refer to a hacker of the highest grade. In 1992 an unknown hacker had managed, over a series of months, to silently access the coding level of many of the world’s major banks and financial houses. They bypassed the most stringent security available and, unknown to the systems managers, planted a dormant virus. Nobody knows if the hacker was, in fact, Israeli, but the virus certainly had its allegiances. At 7am on May 14th 1992, nearly forty percent of the world’s financial computers started to display a flashing message. No matter how many times the machines were rebooted, the message would not go and access to the hard drives was denied.

  Twenty-four hours later, every machine came back on-line.

  May 14th, as the message reminded the panicking managers, was Israeli Independence Day.

  Jack looked uneasy. He could see it now. The global launch, IntelliSoft’s proudest moment, and some smart-assed kid with a UNIX box and a fifty-dollar modem was going to shut the whole thing down.

  “Tell Eric to fine-tooth for dormants now, and again the day before launch. When he’s done the second check I want him to take it totally off-line and plant some coding that gives a one-hour delay on any shutdown instruction. Internal or external. That should cover us for the launch and he can take it out again afterwards.”

  “Is that wise?” MaryBeth asked. “What if there’s a problem just before the launch and we need to reboot the system? We had freak overloads in trials, only this time it won’t shut itself down for an hour.”

  “If there’s a problem in the hour preceding the launch,” Jack said defiantly, “then Eric’s in deeper shit than he can imagine anyway and I think he knows it. Meanwhile, good or bad I’ve got no choice. My face is going to be in front of over a hundred cameras on the day and I don’t want hacker egg on it. Like I say, we’ll simply run with it on the day and take the coding out again later.”

  MaryBeth’s shrug said ‘whatever’. Her face said ‘unconvinced’.

  “So what else?” Jack said, deliberately changing the subject before she could voice whatever fears were currently writing themselves across her face.

  “Well, Boston still has the cabling problem but I’m told that’ll be sorted within a few days at the outside. Press packs have all been sent out as promised... I think that’s about it.” She took a healthy mouthful of bee
r, rolled it around her mouth for a moment and swallowed.

  “So c’mon...” she said quietly. “Enough of the shit.” She leaned close. “What was it that Johnny Flashboy wanted to show you?”

  “An unbelievably clever VR projection suite,” Jack said, gently peeling the label away from his bottle. The condensation that had formed on the glass had diluted the adhesive and made the task remarkably easy. “I’m getting them to construct a duplicate on campus so that Geoff and the guys can have a play. It needs hooking up to one of the spare I.Q. units and in return I’m sending them another spare unit for their own R&D people.”

  MaryBeth looked intrigued. “Sounds good. So... do you want me to get Geoff to pull work away from the other peripherals like speech and vision and concentrate development solely on this VR suite?”

  “Not if you don’t have to,” Jack said, “But if it comes to priorities, I want the VR suite to take top billing for the forseeable future. It’d be real cool to see if we can bring anything to Virtuosity’s party.” Real cool? Did he really just say that. Or was it simply John Case, talking through him in that Cockney twang he had.

  MaryBeth nodded and they both fell silent. As she watched him, she saw his face lose its momentary sparkle. His thoughts, she guessed, were taking him back to another place; another time. She suspected that the place was somewhere in London, and that the time was not too long ago.

  “So come on, spit it out. What the hell happened to paint even more shit on your face while you were out there?” She swigged her beer and looked at him like a mother might look at a deceptive child. “And don’t say ‘I’m fine’ because it’s written all over your face that you’re not.”

  Jack sighed and stared into nowhere for a moment. He would never attempt to play poker with MaryBeth; she read him too well. ‘Like a pamphlet’, she sometimes said, the inflection being that he was not really as deep as he often pertained to be. After a few seconds he removed the file from his laptop bag and placed it somewhat reluctantly on the polished veneer of the table. MaryBeth picked it up with a sceptical expression. As she thumbed through its contents he talked her through the whole story. The meeting with ‘Simon’, the deal the guy had wanted to make and the things he had pored over on the plane. The postcards. The details. The highlighted text.

  Then he told her about the other thing. The possibility.

  That there might... might... be a child.

  It was not what MaryBeth had expected to hear and it showed. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth opened slightly. For a moment she offered no further reaction, though he could tell from her eyes alone that her mind was offering many.

  “What do you mean,” she offered eventually, “...there might be a child?”

  “He tried to convince me that Lara had given birth while she was away.”

  MaryBeth’s eyes closed momentarily, as though she was silently cursing the man for burdening Jack’s already fraught mind with a theory that was quite obviously bullshit. “And you believe him?”

  “I can’t,” Jack said, shaking his head. What he really meant was that his pride would not allow it. Regardless of the differences between himself and his daughter, he was ultimately left with only one clear thought; he refused to believe that Lara could have had a child without him knowing.

  “Presumably he’s offered you no proof?” MaryBeth said. It was a guess, but she had not seen any during her brief glance through the file.

  Jack pursed his lips and shook his head dismissively. “Of course not.” Regardless of Simon’s ‘knowledge’ his feelings were still that only Lara could ever have told him, her father, that she was a mother. In fact, he still believed that news like that would have arrived at the point where Lara was telling him, excitedly, that she was going to be a mother and doing so in person.

  “But you’re still going to check with forensics?” MaryBeth asked. She knew as well as he did that it was a very quick and easy way to dispel any doubts that he might currently be forcing himself to live with. It was also a very cold one.

  She saw an uncharacteristic fear in his eyes. She could tell that he still felt as though he was staring at an awful possibility; possible confirmation of a situation that would forever feel like the ultimate betrayal. She ducked her eyes to catch his, matching his anxiety with equal amounts of concern. “He is bullshitting,” she said quietly.

  She reached across the table and took his hand in hers. There was nothing more she could say. Not yet. Not until they both knew for sure.

  “Are you gonna go to the Feds about this guy?”

  “And tell them what? I have nothing yet, just a creepy freak who, if he’d wanted to harm me physically, could have done it by now and is not asking for money. He’s given me a file and then he’s gone away again. So what the hell do I tell them?” He shook his head. “Nah, I’ll keep Andy informed, let him pass a whisper through and if anything turns into something I don’t like I’ll get him to turn it into a shout.”

  “It’s already something you don’t like,” MaryBeth reminded him.

  Jack shrugged. It meant shut up.

  “Do you want me to get Dave to check out the other details for you?” she offered, dextrously changing the focus. “The ones in the file? It might offer some clues as to what this joker’s playing at.”

  Dave Clearwater. ‘Crow’. IntelliSoft’s resident factfinder, but usually on a purely corporate level. Whenever Jack was interested in the activities of a competitor or a startup, for example, Dave would usually take no more than a few hours searching both the global network, and one or two of his personal ones, to come back with everything he needed to know. Right down to what brand of underwear the CEO had a penchant for wearing and whether or not they matched his or her gender.

  And, of course, who he or she might be diving under the covers with when they took them off, if that was on his list.

  “If you like,” Jack said, although he did not seem to have even comprehended the question. His mind was still elsewhere. He looked so far away that it left MaryBeth wondering whether he had even known that he had just spoken.

  “So why did he give you the file if there’s nothing inside about a child?” she asked, knowing that it made no sense.

  Jack returned from his thoughts, shrugged indifferently and stared into his beer.

  She understood now that what he really wanted to do was forget that he had ever met with the man. He wanted to take a step away from uncertainty; to go back to ignorance. Simon’s statement was obviously still whipping through his mind like a sandstorm and clouding his logic. There might be a child. Might.

  It was hurting. The might of indecision.

  “Well, whilst you check with forensics I’d at least like to let Dave take a look at the postcards,” she said. “Just to see if there is something in them. I mean, we don’t know what significance, if any, they’re supposed to have. Although they can’t have been included in the file for nothing so they might give us some idea what this whacko’s all about.”

  Jack took a long drink, an even longer breath and looked across to the windows. On the brightly-lit tarmac below the view was filled with an ocean of planes loading, unloading and preparing for take-off. He thought of Lara on her way home, innocently looking through the window as she wondered what words her father might use to greet her on her return. He didn’t know himself what he might have said. He’d never had the chance to find out.

  He hated quiet moments. Moments when, like those spent at Elizabeth’s bedside with the cold-hearted monitor still emitting one long unwavering line and tone, he had looked and seen the world still operating around him whilst his was suddenly as dead as the woman he loved. He hadn’t wanted the world to stop, to turn in unison and apologise for continuing to operate, and yet somehow he had felt that it should. He had felt that it owed him something, anything, by way of an apology for the fact that it had created such pain.

  As his gaze moved slowly across the tarmac something caught Jack’s eye, moving slowly out of hi
s line of sight. It took a moment, longer than it should perhaps, but eventually he rose to his feet, transfixed as though sleepwalking, and moved over to the glass. He was looking downward.

  MaryBeth was calling him from behind, asking something of him, but he did not seem to hear. Eventually she joined him at the glass. “Jack, what the hell’s wrong?”

  He was thinking out loud. “Ten inches,” he said cryptically.

  He was watching a baggage handler at work, his tractor pulling trailers laden with containers. The numbers were different, but the design was the same. Exactly the same. As AVC 4119 TA. He stared at them all, the fronts still open to reveal the bags inside.

  MaryBeth looked to the baggage handler. Now he was using the forklift to load the container onto the plane. “I don’t follow?” she said.

  Jack’s face filled with a growing sense of realisation. It seemed to build as though possessing a life of its own. The eyes first, then the mouth. Not happy, by any means. Just aware. “Ten. Inches,” he repeated.

  MaryBeth looked at him with etched concern; as though he might suddenly have lost his mind. “And?” she said.

  “How many cases would you say are in those containers?” he asked, deep thought slowing his words. “On average I mean?”

  MaryBeth followed his eyes and shrugged. “I don’t know. Forty? Fifty perhaps?”

  “Exactly,” he said; a slight smile. A slight nod. To who? To Simon. Jack loved it when he broke a code. “Forty or fifty. And if you wanted to get a bag to the back of the container, near the floor, then it would have to be loaded early, probably within the first ten or fifteen or so?”