by Blou Bryant
“Seven. That’s a lot.”
She grinned at this. “No, I’ve got eighteen, and that’s not a lot. I have a bunch more planned, right now some of my jewelry acts as an interface.” She rattled her necklace. “This is my Wi-Fi. Everything’s connected. I’m not only hot, I’m a walking hot spot,” she deadpanned.
“So, you’re always connected? Doesn’t it get confusing?”
“Nah. Still, each implant took a while to learn to use. Eyes and ears are easy, the brain isn’t used to this, so I have to train myself to understand what I’m receiving, and teach myself how to send messages back.”
Her link to and affinity with the wired world troubled him, but, not knowing how to enunciate his feelings, he kept quiet.
***
The next morning, Wyatt found Patterson alone in Parks Park, playing chess with himself.
“Seymour?”
“Said something about a crazy deadline and a dictator.”
“That’s me.” Good to hear, thought Wyatt.
Patterson took a swig of the coffee and grimaced. “Who made it this morning?”
Wyatt tasted his own, it was strong, just how he liked it. He shrugged. “So, we’re off to work again tonight, can you hook me up with some tools?”
“What do you need?”
Wyatt had gone to bed late and fallen asleep even later, thinking through their approach to the data center. “It will be fluid, but I think we go with a roof entrance again.”
“How many inside?”
“Probably two or three… I need something to neutralize threats, preferably silent, with no permanent damage.”
“You don’t know how you’re getting in or how many people you face?”
Not replying, Wyatt studied the board. “Blacks going to win this one.”
“You can’t go in blind.”
“We are.”
Patterson leaned back, and the picnic table leaned with him. He crossed his hands over his belly and stared at Wyatt. “Wait a week. I’ve got guys I know. They can scout it out.”
“No, it’s tonight.” I’m not arguing with you.
“What’s with the need for speed?”
“Tell me what you have for me.”
Taking another drink of his coffee, and not grimacing this time, Patterson shook his head. “What’s going on?” He kept his face blank.
Someone’s told him that there are things wrong with me. “People got killed two days ago. Is that enough going on for us to take action?”
Patterson didn’t reply, studying Wyatt’s face closely. After a minute of silence on both sides, he leaned forward and moved one of the white pieces.
Wyatt looked at the move, a pawn on the king side, it was a waste of time, it’d be lost in three moves, or irrelevant in four.
Frustrated at his friend, Wyatt leaned over and moved the black queen to put Patterson in check. This would all be so much easier if they did what was needed. Everyone wants to talk, wants explanations, wants to know my damned feelings.
“I hear you’ve had some trouble,” replied Patterson, studying the board. It wasn’t yet eight in the morning, but he pulled a flask out of his pocket and poured a dark liquid into his coffee cup. Tasting it, he smiled and nodded. “That’s better.” He moved his bishop down table, protecting his king and threatening Wyatt’s queen.
“Yes, murders. Attacks on the Zone,” said Wyatt, moving his rook to check again. It’d be over soon. “When we’re done, can I get whatever you’ve got?”
“How are you doing?” Patterson asked, and moved his king into a cluster of pawns, out of check.
Wyatt immediately took the bishop with his queen. A couple more moves and it’d be checkmate. “I’m good.”
With a grunt, Patterson ignored the threat to his king and moved his own queen to Wyatt’s side of the board. “Check.”
Turning his attention to the other side of the board, Wyatt saw the threat… but too late. He moved his king ahead one space.
Patterson picked up his rook and moved it as expected. “Check. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
Wyatt looked back up the board, where all his pieces were two moves away from a mate of their own. Instead, without a choice, he moved his king again, steadying his hand to stop himself from throwing it to the ground. “Everybody’s worried, but they don’t need to be.”
“Uh-huh,” said Patterson, leaning back again, resting his coffee on his belly.
They sat in silence for a couple minutes as Wyatt considered how to make the man give him the tools he needed.
“You’re not good, not today,” Patterson finally said, and moved his queen.
The little pawn he’d mocked three moves back blocked Wyatt’s only other escape. It was the first time he’d lost, and all because he hadn’t seen the full board.
Two, ten, a hundred arguments, insults and complaints leapt to Wyatt’s lips. Breathing deeply, he counted to five. That didn’t help, so he counted down from five, and then up again, measuring his breath. “What do you have?”
“Mate,” said Patterson.
“I’m not an idiot, I can see it.”
With a long sigh, the older man conceded the argument, if not the match. “I’ve got guns, they shoot capsules that’ll knock out your targets. Nobody dies….”
Chapter 14
It was well after dark when Rocky pulled the little Honda they’d borrowed down a dirt road a mile back of the data center. The day hadn’t passed quickly enough for Wyatt. First Sandra and then Trix and finally Hannah had tried to talk him out of his plan. Each had attempted, in her own way, to broach his health and their worries about him.
Calmly—and with difficulty—he’d responded to each of their concerns and refused their suggestions. Perhaps they could keep him out of the other plans, but they weren’t going to lock him in a room and he wasn’t going to wait for whatever the virus had in store for him. As long as he was still able, he’d do what was needed to safeguard his friends and get revenge on his enemies.
His arm ached through the day, the pain reminding him that the virus might be mutating. The scientist—Esaf—who had first identified that it was in him had said that if it mutated in him, it would spiral without control, breaking him piece by piece as his body transformed. Sitting and waiting all day, he’d had little else to think about.
Teri had spent time with him, and that had been better than the other intrusions. There was something about her small, round face and dotted eyes that calmed him. He’d shared with her that Rocky was looking for someone to help him with the virus, and she’d only nodded knowingly. She’d not talked much through the afternoon. The two had contented themselves with watching Star Trek—Voyager, natch—on the tablet computer he’d hung onto.
The day passed too slowly for his liking, but it finally ended and just after midnight, the group hit the road.
They searched for a half hour for a place where Emm could connect, but the only other buildings were houses, and the closest was a mile away. After some discussion, he decided that it’d be safer and easier to shut the place down directly. Emm worried that she might not have the right software loaded, that the grid would be trouble, but he pushed on.
Rocky stayed behind with the car. He wasn’t usually with the group when they planted viruses. Discretion and stealth weren’t his thing. Tonight, he was the driver. Wyatt suspected he was also there to keep an eye on him, just in case.
The group trudged through the forest, able to see by moonlight that wove its way through the naked branches of the trees that surrounded them. The leaves that had once filled the canopy overhead were now underfoot and they couldn’t avoid the noise that resulted from their passage. Every step made Wyatt want to cringe, to yell at the others to keep silent, but his own footsteps were as bad, or worse.
Ari and Ira ran ahead to focus on their usual task of scouting the building and finding an easy access point. This left him alone with Emm. In silence—such as was possible—the two picked th
eir way through the forest with occasional references to a compass. It was only a mile, but it took almost an hour before they made the building out. No lights shone from it through the forest. It announced its presence through its blackness, a large hulking nothing beyond the trees.
As they reached the edge of the woods, Wyatt motioned downwards and the two knelt in the wet leaves, waiting for their friends to return. Wyatt flipped his night vision glasses down, but the building remained a dark mass that told him nothing. “Can you sense anything?”
Emm had flipped her own down and turned them back up. It only took a couple seconds for her to shake her head and say, “The building must be shielded or something. I’ve got nothing.”
“Nothing?” he whispered back.
“It’s black, no wireless, no electronic signature. Companies do that now, to prevent theft.”
“That?” he asked. She often talked as if he knew more than he did. When it came to computers, electronics and systems… nothing was close to what he knew. It should have bothered him, most things did. He often felt as if he wasn’t knowledgeable or capable enough, but with computers, and around her, not knowing was quite natural and reasonable.
“Shield buildings prevent electronic leakage to stop hackers from taking data.”
“So… there’s no wireless.”
She gave him a small slap to the side. “There isn’t anything. No electronics visible from outside.”
No big deal. Everything took place inside anyhow.
“I thought this was just a data center,” she said.
“It is.” Google said so.
“Yeah, well, it’s an awfully secure one then. We’re going to have trouble.”
“What?” he asked, interrupted by two small crouched figures moving towards them.
It was Ari and Ira.
“It’s…”
“… not happening.”
“Not through the roof.”
“How can there be no entry?” Wyatt asked out loud, frustrated.
“Just one small hatch.”
“So, crack it.”
“It’s locked…” said Ari.
“So, pick it.”
“… from the inside,” said Ira.
“We rappel up and Emm can link up, open it for us.”
Ari sighed. “No electronics. We think it’s a metal lock… it’s not a computer thing.”
Wyatt was disappointed, but remained undaunted. “Fine, we go through a window.” He stood and picked up his pack, and beckoned for the others to follow him. As they slunk towards the closest wall, he kept an eye out for patrols.
“There’s nobody,” whispered Ira, or perhaps Ari, from behind.
That didn’t seem right. A building that housed information for hundreds of companies and routed most of the data running through Chicago shouldn’t be… just sitting there. Still, they reached the side without incident, and Emm was right, he couldn’t see any recording or monitoring devices.
The first-floor windows were blacked out, but that wouldn’t pose a problem. With a hand against the glass, Wyatt tried to look in, but couldn’t see a thing. Didn’t matter. Taking out a small hammer, he whispered, “Keep an eye.”
Crack the window. One.
Climb through, get Emm to disable the alarm. Two.
Plant the virus. Three.
He pulled his arm back, turned his head away and smashed the hammer down on the window. It made a ‘ping’ sound as it hit the glass and bounced back at him, grazing his skull. Wyatt fell to the ground.
“What the…?” he said and stood back up. One look at the window said they weren’t getting in that way. There wasn’t even a scratch on it.
With a deep breath, he stepped back and studied the building. Three floors, black windows up and down. The twins said they weren’t able to get in through the roof, and he believed them, although he didn’t want to. His arm still reverberating from the hammer blow, Wyatt took another breath.
“We should go,” said Ari.
Ira agreed. “Spend more time scouting.”
His arm ached, exasperating the pain from the bullet wound. Wyatt was reminded that he was mortal, and the virus was working within him. “No, we’re here now,” he said, and walked towards the front.
“Where are we going?” asked Emm, hurrying to follow him.
“The front door,” he said, realizing that was an awful plan.
“Are you nuts?”
“We’re going in.”
“Wyatt,” she cried out, not even trying to keep her voice down. He heard the worry in it, the desperation but knew she’d follow, as long as he didn’t hesitate. He turned at the corner and walked alongside the parking lot, not bothering to hide, not worrying about being seen. That’s what the front door was, the one you walked through without hesitation.
Within himself, he worried, he wondered, but the sound of the others behind him, and the ache in his arm, pushed him ahead. Arriving at the front, he pulled on the first of the two double doors. It didn’t move. He pulled on the second and it was locked as well.
A voice came from a hidden speaker. “We’re closed. Business hours are from eight to four.”
Wyatt turned to Emm and pointed at the keycard reader. She jogged past him and placed a hand on it, her eyes closed. It took seconds at most, and there was a satisfying ‘click’ as the door unlocked. Taking one of Patterson’s knock-out guns from his backpack, he pulled the door open and stepped through.
The front entrance was nondescript for a building housing the collected knowledge of millions, the messages they sent their friends and family. Through the building passed their hopes, their dreams, their secrets.
Wyatt took three steps into the facility, and not breaking stride, shot two surprised looking guards in the head. The little gun made ‘poof’ sounds as air forced out the pellets, each of which exploded on contact with their targets. The two fell to the ground within moments.
A shout to the left and Wyatt turned, aiming the gun, but didn’t need to bother as Ari streaked past. The guard didn’t manage to raise his arms in self-defense before she had hit him in the chest and throat. As he pulled his arms in to protect his core, she rounded him and, with a surgically placed blow to the back of the head, knocked him out.
“Tie them up, and make sure the door is locked,” he said and turned back to the black desk that centered the room. Emm was already behind it, seated. Her eyes were closed and her head was down. Ari had the one guard already turned over and Ira immediately started tying up the other two. It had taken only twenty seconds. We should do this every time. Saves weeks of work.
A broad staircase snaked from each end of the room, leading to a landing on the second floor. Wyatt pointed to the twins and then to the second floor. “Watch up there. I got Emm.”
Maneuvering around the desk, he pulled an ear piece from one of the guards and, after cleaning it off, put it in his own ear. Silence, at least for now, that was good. The four monitors flipped between scenes of the inside of the building. At one point, the third one showed the server room, but it moved on and he learned nothing other than that office planners had no imagination. He’d have to wait for Emm to finish interfacing.
This didn’t take long, and less than a minute passed before she opened her eyes and pointed to an elevator, whose doors opened as if on cue. “Top floor,” she said.
“Security’s off?”
“No,” she said.
He pointed at the computer. “Then…”
“Then nothing, I can’t deactivate it from here.”
“So, what were you doing for the last few minutes?”
She regarded him with exasperation. “I found a map,” she replied, got up and ran to the elevator. “Let’s go.”
Ari and Ira flipped over the balcony and landed easily. Jogging forward, they joined Wyatt and Emm.
Wyatt pushed the button for three and the group waited for the door to close. After three seconds passed, Emm pushed the button twice.
/> “That doesn’t do anything, you know,” he said.
“Sure they do, it makes me feel better,” she replied and kept a finger on the number. “And when you’ve got my implants, it does something.” The door closed in front of them and the elevator carried them to the third floor. “Those are the only guards in the building.”
“This’ll be easy.” As they slowly—too slowly—passed the second floor, he inserted another clip of knock-out pellets into his weapon, just in case. For all that Rocky had trained him to not use weapons, he could get used to these.
“No, it won’t. The elevator was on an open system, but the server room is locked down hard. All I did was get us a bit closer.”
He trusted her and wasn’t worried. “They didn’t get any alarms off?”
“Nothing that I noticed, but the system’s still active.”
The doors opened and Emm led the small group through a wide and open space that was more akin to a bar or games room than an office. Wide round tables with plug in stations were set up along the windows, with couches and a pool table filling out the space. As they hurried through, he saw a small kitchenette with a popcorn machine, a fridge with a transparent door and lunch tables piled with bowls of fresh fruit.
“I gotta get a job here,” said Ari. “Betchya they got great meds here too, nothing street, only the best legal stuff.”
“Smart and rich. Hate ‘em,” replied Ira, but she was smiling. A windsurfer grinned down at her from a motivational poster and she happily gave it the finger.
Wyatt was less interested in décor than security. “No keypads and only three guards,” he wondered out loud.
Emm turned and looked back at him as she marched them towards the server farm. “Electronic security.”
“What’s that mean?” he asked as they approached a long opaque glass wall in the dim light cast by the few overheads left on at the late hour.
She didn’t answer, she didn’t have to. “Non-authorized access,” said a husky female voice over the intercom. “Please return to reception for registration, or prominently display your identity badges.”
Wyatt turned, searching the room for cameras but couldn’t see any. “We’re not…”
