Brain Jack

by Brian Falkner

  “Where did you pick this up?” he shouted at the driver, although he was pretty sure he already knew.

  The mall was bustling with shoppers, and it was easy to lose themselves in the thick of the crowd. To his left, Sam noticed a store with a huge three-dimensional model of a neuro-headset displayed in the window. The name of the store was NEURO-TICK, emblazoned on the wall above the store windows. The store’s slogan underneath proclaimed YOUR STORE FOR EVERYTHING NEURO.

  A few yards in front, Vienna was walking with her arm around Dodge and his around hers. Her head was on his shoulder, and his head rested on hers. To a casual viewer, they looked like any boyfriend and girlfriend, with no indication that one of the couple was just a few notches above brain-dead.

  A girl in a white T-shirt walked toward him, wearing a neuro-cap—a baseball cap with a built-in neuro-headset—chatting animatedly to a friend walking next to her. Sam quickly pretended to sneeze, covering his face with his hands until she was gone.

  He increased his pace, moving past Vienna and Dodge and muttering out of the corner of his mouth as he did so, “It’s not just cameras we need to worry about. Keep away from anyone wearing neuro.”

  Vienna said nothing, but he knew she had heard. He stopped and looked in a store window for a moment to let them get back in front.

  A young couple walked past wearing matching neuro-caps. They were smiling at each other, sharing secret thoughts. They did not glance at him; they were too besotted with each other. Sam felt that he had blinked and the whole world had turned neuro. Three months ago, neuro-headsets were a rare sight, but now everybody had them.

  A security guard on a raised walkway was staring straight at him. Was that uniform cap a neuro-headset too? Sam wondered.

  The man looked away. It was not.

  Vienna stopped in her tracks and turned toward Dodge, as if having a conversation with him, although Sam knew that was not possible. Not yet. He moved closer and glanced idly around the mall, paying no attention to them.

  “ATM ahead,” Vienna said. “Wait till someone goes to use it—that’ll block the security camera.”

  “Okay,” Sam said.

  “Where are we heading?” Vienna asked. “Any ideas yet?”

  “I’m not sure,” Sam said. “But I know we have to keep moving.”

  Vienna nodded slightly, to let him know that she had heard. After a moment, a large woman with a child in a stroller and two more in tow walked up to the ATM and inserted a card. Vienna started walking at once with Dodge. Sam counted to three, then followed her. They repeated the procedure at two more ATMs as they made their way toward the large center court of the mall.

  A sign caught his eye in a corridor that led off to the left.

  Sam quickened his step and passed Vienna, whispering as he did so, “Follow me.”

  33 | THE SEARCH

  Tyler shut his eyes and flicked through the images that were neuro-feeding into his brain from Control. “That’s got to be them walking through the parking lot.”

  The three figures were quite unmistakable.

  “Here they are again, at the northwestern end of the lot,” Sergeant Hutchens said from the driver’s seat. “And after that, nothing. Where did they go?”

  “They’re in the mall somewhere. Nowhere else to go.”

  “But the entrance cameras didn’t pick them up,” Hutchens said. “Nor did any of the security cameras in the service areas.”

  “They’re in the mall,” Tyler said again, certain of it. “These kids know every trick in the book. If anyone can fool a security camera, they can. We’re going in. Get mall security to man the exits while we sweep the mall. Bring in the police to maintain a cordon around the entire area.”

  “Mall security,” Agent Amberly said from the rear of the van, handing Tyler a phone. “Duty manager Bruce Gordon.”

  Tyler took the phone. “Gordon, my name is Special Agent Tyler from Homeland Security. Here is the situation. We have three fugitives hiding somewhere in the mall. We’re sending you photos and descriptions. One of them may be semiconscious. I want you to move all your security staff immediately to the exits. Circulate the photos to their cell phones. Also make your team aware that my men will be arriving shortly to begin a search. I want every exit covered, including trade and freight entrances. Make sure they can’t get out. Any questions so far?”

  Tyler looked casually around at the men in the van, relishing the feeling of power. The go-to guy. The man in charge.

  “Okay, Gordon, thank you for your cooperation. We’ll be picking up the feed from your security cameras, but it would help us if you could also watch your monitors closely.”

  He handed the cell back to Amberly. “Okay, let’s move in. Handguns only and keep them in your holsters. The kids are not armed, and we don’t want to panic the public. Hutchens, can you assemble the units into search teams? Standard two-by-four.”

  Tyler stepped out of the van into the long shadows of the low afternoon sun and stretched, rolling his shoulders around to loosen them up as he waited for the teams to assemble.

  It was dark outside. Two hours of searching and nothing. Was it possible that they had slipped through his fingers again? Tyler stood on the mezzanine and looked down over the first-floor shoppers. No. Somewhere in this huge complex, they were hiding. The exits were covered, and the police had an outer cordon around that. There was no way out.

  Hutchens appeared at the top of the escalator and jogged over.

  “Anything?” Tyler asked.

  “Nothing. We’ve been through all the storerooms, warehouses, washrooms, janitors’ closets, everywhere.”

  “They’re here somewhere,” Tyler said. “Bring in a dog team; see if they can pick up the scent. Get something personal from their desks at CDD.”

  He punched a button on his cell phone. “Gordon, it’s Tyler. Anything suspicious?”

  Gordon’s voice sounded a little harassed through the cell phone. “No, sir. I’m closely monitoring every camera in the building myself, and I’ll let you know at once if I see any trace of your three missing agents.”

  “Thanks, Gordon,” Tyler said, and rang off.

  An uneasy feeling settled in his stomach, as if he’d eaten something that disagreed with him, but that wasn’t it. Something troubled him about that call. He drummed his fingers on the polished wood railing of the mezzanine floor, thinking. How had Gordon known the fugitives were CDD agents? He hadn’t mentioned that, had he?

  “We have a positive identification on the girl,” Hutchens said, interrupting his thoughts.

  “Where and when?”

  “An hour or so ago. A store assistant at Walmart remembers her. Paid cash.”

  “What did she buy?”

  “Wigs, fake beards, that kind of thing.”

  Disguises!

  “Send me pictures of the clothes now,” Tyler said, and waited a second or two while Hutchens flashed through images. “Control?”

  “Control here.”

  “Feed me through the central mall cameras, last two hours, ten-second intervals, two per second.”

  “On its way.”

  Tyler shut his eyes and waited for the images to arrive. The center of the mall appeared in his vision, and he watched carefully. There! A young couple: a blond male and a female with long black hair, cuddling each other as they walked through the mall. Behind them a male in a Windbreaker and a woolen hat. That had to be Sam.

  He traced their progress through the mall, then lost them in a crush of shoppers. He tried a different camera angle, without success. And another.

  Where were they?

  He alerted his teams and picked up the phone to call Gordon again.

  34 | THE PHANTOM

  Sam watched Dodge sleep. Even the sound of the ringing phone did not disturb him at all. His face was peaceful. He lay curled in a ball on the floor of the office.

  “Security, Gordon.” The security officer answered the call on speakerphone, as Sam had instruct
ed.

  “Gordon, it’s Tyler again. New information. The fugitives have changed their appearance, using wigs and beards. They have also changed their clothing.” Tyler went on to describe their outfits and appearance. Gordon jotted it all down carefully, all the time staring at the people who were being described.

  “Okay, got that,” Gordon said at last. “Anything else?”

  “No, that’s it for now. Keep us informed.”

  Gordon hung up the phone.

  “Good boy,” Vienna said pleasantly, aiming Gordon’s own gun at him.

  Their CDD security IDs had got them through the door, and Vienna had swiftly relieved Gordon of his sidearm.

  Gordon must have been in his fifties, Sam thought, and looked as though he had been doing this job all his life. His stomach hung heavy over a straining belt, and if his nose reflected the state of his liver, then his liver was in real trouble. His complexion was ruddy, and his uniform wouldn’t recognize an iron. He hadn’t been happy when Vienna had taken his gun, and he looked less happy every minute.

  Dodge stirred and snorted in his sleep. Sam looked at the tattoo on his forehead and hoped that wasn’t too close to the truth. Was Dodge’s brain now just a biohazardous wasteland?

  “Should I wake him up?” Sam asked. “Isn’t it bad for people who have concussions or something to sleep?”

  “Let him sleep,” Vienna said. “That concussion thing is just a myth. Right now his brain is trying to repair itself. Let’s just hope that when he wakes up, he’s okay.”

  “And if he isn’t?”

  She didn’t reply.

  Tyler retraced the steps of the three fugitive CDD agents through the main thoroughfare of the mall, stopping every few paces to close his eyes and compare the neuro-fed images from the security cameras with his surroundings.

  Hutchens, a pace in front, ran interference, cutting a path for him through the crowd. Not that it took much doing: the black combat suits and helmets acted as a natural defoliant, a crowd repellent.

  The dogs had picked up the trail of the fugitives in the rear storeroom of Walmart but had lost it in the heavily trafficked main thoroughfare.

  “Right here,” Tyler said. “This is the last image we have of them. After that they move out of range of the camera, and they don’t appear on the next one.”

  He looked to the left and the right. To the right, a jewelry store with a huge fake diamond rotating slowly in the window joined onto a clothing store for teenagers.

  “We’ve looked everywhere,” Hutchens said. “Storerooms, changing rooms, everywhere. And there are no rear exits.”

  “Come with me,” Tyler said. “I want to pay a visit to our friend Gordon in security.”

  “Where the bleedin’ hell are we?”

  Sam jumped. He had almost nodded off. He spun around to see Dodge sitting up, looking around with suspicion and concern.

  “Dodge! You’re awake!” he said with huge relief in his voice.

  “And the sky is blue, and the Bears are going to win the World Series,” Dodge said. “Is it state-the-bleedin’-obvious day today, or are you just practicing for stupid school?”

  “Tell me your name,” Sam said, peering as deeply as he could into Dodge’s eyes, not sure what he was looking for. He tried to remember the questions they asked on TV shows to see if a person was properly conscious.

  “Fozzie Bear, what’s yours? Ya muppet.”

  “How many fingers am I holding up?” Sam asked, holding up three.

  “I dunno. How many fingers am I holding up?” Dodge replied, holding up just one middle finger. “Now where the bleedin’ hell are we?”

  “Security center at the Great Mall,” Vienna said from her chair at the control panel. The pistol sat on the desk in front of her, right by her hand. It still pointed at the guard.

  “Why?” Dodge asked.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” Sam asked.

  Dodge furrowed his brow. “We were at CDD. Working. On the trail of the phantom. We …” He faltered.

  “Let me fill in the blanks,” Sam said, and spent the next few minutes doing so.

  “Who’s Ursula?” Vienna asked when he had finished. “You mentioned her a couple of times in your sleep.”

  Dodge shook his head and got to his feet. He seemed a little shaky and swayed back and forth, finally holding on to the wall to steady himself.

  “Ursula,” he said vaguely, shaking his head. “I don’t know. But I know who’s doing this. I must have worked out most of it just before I got zapped. Figured out the rest while I was sleeping, I guess.”

  “You know who the phantom is?” Sam asked.

  “There is no phantom,” Dodge said. “There are no hackers or terrorists, apart from those two who got wiped out.”

  “Then who is it?” Sam asked.

  “Who’s doing this?” Vienna asked almost simultaneously.

  “We are,” Dodge said.

  35 | EXIT STRATEGY

  “Lie back down,” Sam said. “I don’t think you’re quite ready to be standing up.”

  “I’m fine,” Dodge said, although he swayed a bit on his feet as he said it.

  “Explain,” Vienna said.

  “It’s us. Not you, me, and Sam here, but just about everyone else. Everyone with a neuro-connection, that is.”

  “I’m still not getting it,” Vienna said, although Sam was starting to.

  Dodge said, “They introduced neuro-connections, what, a year ago? The take-up has been phenomenal. Faster than cell phones. And in the last few months, sales have gone off the charts. There are millions of people neuro-connected all over the world.”

  “So?”

  “So what happens when you join millions of brains together? What do you get?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said.

  “Nobody knows,” Dodge said.

  “Are you suggesting that all these connected brains somehow work together?” Vienna asked.

  “Maybe. Some kind of collective consciousness,” Dodge said.

  “I thought the neuro-firewalls were supposed to isolate us,” Sam said.

  “Did they isolate Swamp Witch?” Dodge asked. There was silence.

  “And it’s more than that,” Dodge said. “The millions of brains are not just connected to each other, but to the Internet itself. This ‘consciousness’ has access to every computer in the world, almost. To every bit and byte of human knowledge. Its eyes are every security cam, every spy satellite, every live neuro-headset.”

  “A meta-system,” Vienna said. “That’s what you’re talking about. But who’s Ursula?”

  “She’s a sim. One of the training instructors from the neuro-headset software,” Sam said. “Haven’t you done your training yet?”

  “Only just got the headset,” Vienna said.

  Sam said, “I think Dodge must have associated her in his mind with this ‘meta-system’. While he was sleeping.”

  “Why attack Swamp Witch?” Vienna asked. “Why attack you?”

  “My best guess,” Dodge said, “is that this meta-system—let’s call it Ursula for now—has a very basic, almost childlike concept of good and bad, of right and wrong. She knew the terrorists were bad, so she erased them, like we would erase a computer virus if we found it on our hard drive. Spam, gaming, the same. It’s bad, so delete it.”

  “And Swamp Witch? Was she bad?” Vienna asked.

  “She was a threat,” Sam said.

  Dodge agreed. “Ursula is only a few months old, remember. Just a child in a dark room with a stick. If she feels fear, she hits out at what scares her.”

  “Even human beings? You said she had a sense of right and wrong,” Vienna said.

  “I’m not sure she understands what human beings are,” Dodge said. “To her, Swamp Witch was just a bug in the code.”

  “And she got debugged,” Sam added.

  “Have you guys had your meds today?” Gordon shook his head, disbelieving.

  “You still here?
” Vienna asked in a surprised tone.

  Gordon rolled his eyes and rattled the handcuff that was fastening him to his desk.

  “So what now?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t know,” Vienna said. “There’s nowhere to run and there’s nowhere to hide. If this meta-system—Ursula—exists, then there’s no escape from her. She has access to the network—”

  “She is the network,” Dodge said. “She …” His voice thickened and trailed off. He shut his eyes and swayed from side to side.

  “Dodge!”

  Dodge’s eyes opened, but they were blank and unseeing, as before. With an effort, they slowly focused, and Sam could see the consciousness returning.

  “Are you so sure that she’s bad?” Vienna asked. “It seems to me that you’re basing a lot of assumptions on what happened to Swamp Witch.”

  Dodge shook his head. “Today she erased someone she saw as a threat. Yesterday it was spammers and phishers. The day before, she targeted gaming sites. Who’s to say that tomorrow it won’t be based on race or religion? Or height. Human beings have all kinds of prejudices. How many people does it take to feel strongly about something before their collective consciousness, Ursula, decides that it is bad and gets rid of it?”

  “We have to warn the public,” Sam said. “Tell them not to use their neuro-connections.”

  “That could cause a panic,” Vienna said.

  “The more people who plug in, the more powerful she is,” Sam said. “We’ve got to warn them.”

  “What we have to do,” Vienna said, “is find a way out of here, before they figure out where we are.”

  Dodge fingered the skull hanging from a leather strap around his neck and said, “I think it’s time to open the crypt.”

  36 | THE CRYPT

  “I call it ‘the Plague.’ It’s a crypto-virus,” Dodge whispered. “I think it’s our only chance.”

  They were huddled in a far corner of the room, out of earshot of Gordon.

  “A crypto-virus?” asked Sam.