Chasing a Familiar Shadow

by Aman Gupta

  Vik had released the missile only a second earlier, and it hit the object on the other side a few seconds later. But Vik and Emma couldn’t know that, as their drone crashed on the ground after turning into a huge ball of fire.

  “What just happened?” asked Emma, as the screen showed the message ‘Connection Lost’.

  “Someone just shot the drone down,” said Vik.

  “Who?” asked Emma.

  “You were right. You did find Atlantis,” said Vik. “Only it’s Sierra. And it can hide in plain sight.”

  “How?” asked Emma.

  “It’s more advanced than I thought,” said Vik. “We have to wait for the other drones to show up before we could post a challenge. But I can’t drop missiles on it anymore. What if it destroys the building where Katie’s being kept?”

  Vik routed the second drone up in the sky. It didn’t have any weapons to play with. Vik moved the drone closer to Sierra, to keep an eye on the ground. They were looking at the radars and the live footages simultaneously.

  “Should I call Kate and tell her to come with the remaining trucks?” asked Emma.

  “No, this is just foreplay,” said Vik. “Today is just about testing their systems for weaknesses. We need to save as much firepower as we can. We can’t go there with rifles and machine guns now. We’ll get blown to death.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” said Emma. “By the way, how exactly are we planning to beat them?”

  “I thought I already had exposed them,” said Vik. “Guess they are stronger than I thought.”

  “Exposed them? How?” asked Emma.

  “It’s a little difficult to explain. I exposed their private network to all the clusters in the space. I hoped to entice an interested third party looking for me,” said Vik. “But maybe I’ve been out of the game for a long time, and they aren’t looking for me anymore.”

  “Who?” asked Emma.

  Her phone rang. Vik breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t ready to tell Emma about Josh yet. Emma walked away to attend the phone call and came back a minute later.

  “Everything alright?” asked Vik.

  “Yeah, it’s my mom. She wanted to talk,” said Emma.

  After a brief pause, she said, “She has lost the sense of time, in general.”

  “As long as she hasn’t lost the memory of her daughter, you’re blessed than the most people in the world,” said Vik.

  Emma smiled when she heard him say that.

  They spent the next hour looking at the barren land. There was no blip on the radar. One of the drones had already reached, while the other one was also nearly there.

  “You know in chess; the first two moves decides how the opponent perceives you. It’s where the mind games are won,” said Vik. “Someone told me that if you let your opponent win both of those moves, there’s no way to defeat them no matter how hard you try. The goal is not to lose the game in the first two moves.”

  “We lost our first move,” said Emma.

  “I know. Here’s our second,” said Vik.

  He assumed the control of the third drone and blasted the missile at the helicopter parked at the aerodrome. They saw on their screens as the helicopter got blown to pieces, and so did the parts of the north-west corner of the main compound in the aerodrome where the helicopter was parked.

  He routed the drone towards Sierra to monitor the response. Their eyes were glued to the screen.

  “Your move,” said Vik.

  Chapter 35: Advantage

  Marie had spent the last few days in her home in Tower – B of Sierra. All rescued employees that worked in Sierra – B had been given temporary accommodation in Tower – A, B, and D. A day after Sierra had gone dark, rescue operations were carried out, and most of the employees working in Sierra – B were evacuated. There were 7 elevators in Sierra – B to facilitate the movement of employees. Each of them was routed to a standalone backup generator. Sierra – A and Sierra – B still didn’t have any permanent artificial source of light illuminating its floors and walls. The rescue operation took 42 hours to complete. They didn’t go down to Level 5B or lower. After the first roll call took place, Alessia was informed that at least 33 people were missing. They were assumed to be on Level 5B when the blackout occurred and were officially marked as missing-in-action or MIA.

  The rescue operations were tricky and dangerous for the security forces, but Clay had assured Victor that his men were capable of handling it. They went down the elevators heavily armed with guns and bulletproof vests. Even though the elevators could support 20 people at a time, only 5 were asked to step out of the darkness. The soldiers flashed their lights mounted on the top of their rifles, pointing it at the abyss in front of their eyes. The instructions were simple – only five people had to come forward at a time, else the floor would be skipped. They could hear the employees call out each other’s names so that only those people went forward towards the elevators. Occasionally, the atmosphere would turn gloomy when five names would be called, but only four or sometimes none would answer.

  The soldiers could see dried tears, messed up hair and dark circles on the employee’s face when they would step inside the elevator, and stand behind the soldiers. Levels 1, 2, 3, and 4 were easy, as there weren’t any apparent threats to life. Level 5A was the toughest to handle. General Horath was against going at Level 5A. He valued the lives of his men more than the researchers and engineers stuck there. His concerns weren’t unfounded. Level 5A and 5B were connected via a staircase, although the doors to which were securely locked from both sides. They could only be opened by authorized personnel using their biometrics. In case of a known breach at Level 5B, Level 5A was to be considered a hostile territory as per Sierra’s standard guidelines.

  He even tried to convince Victor and Clay to let the people at 5A fend for themselves till the enemy above the ground still loomed largely. However, Alessia was sympathetic towards the families of researchers stranded at 5A. Marie supported Alessia too. She had crossed paths with people working in 5A and enjoyed a cordial rapport with them.

  When the elevators stopped at various access points at 5A, the air readings visible on the odor detector worn by the soldiers on their wrists, were abysmal. The readings showed an unusual presence of unknown particulates in the air. The soldiers were forced to wear their masks when they could smell iron in the air.

  The researchers often disagreed on who should be rescued first. Clash of egos wasn’t unexpected, but things got serious when they started attacking each other. All of them were holed inside Lab – X, and Lab – Y and locked themselves inside after hearing screams and noises from 5B. There were hundreds of offices and labs in total on Level 5A. Lab – X and Lab – Y, separated by a semi-transparent glass wall, were the biggest among them. The researchers were sitting on the floor, hiding behind the semi-transparent glass that partially obstructed the inside view of the labs from fellow personnel walking in the corridor. The top half of the glass walls could be turned completely opaque using the Frost Panels installed on top edge, though it was useless when they lost their electricity. Few of their colleagues had even gone to inspect if the door to the staircase was still intact, while some had gone to manually turn on the Frost Panels in the maintenance room near Lab –M, but they never returned. The smell of blood iron in the air contributed to the traumatizing environment. Sometimes, the people hiding in the labs would hear footsteps in the corridor. They would cover their ears and cower down in fear, hoping for the noise to pass. The last two days had been dreadful. No one was allowed to cry, as the intelligent humankind enforced the mob rule couple of hours into the lockdown.

  When the soldiers announced their presence, everyone got up at the same time and started queuing at the door. Although all seven elevators came down to level 5A, only three were used by the personnel as they were closest to Lab – X and Lab – Y. The other elevators were at least a mile away. A total of 612 researchers and engineers were rescued that day and night, although they couldn�
�t tell the difference. Most of them hadn’t seen the sun in over a year.

  *********************************************************

  Alessia was staring at the red button in her hand, sitting alone in her office on the 34th floor in Tech One. The situation had improved a lot in the last few days. The engineers had worked day and night to bring power to most of the buildings in Sierra – A. Yolk and Datacenters were still offline, as the secondary power line wasn’t functional. General Horath had spent his time lobbying against Alessia due to her inaction of bringing Yolk online. The dome was exposed to external threats. With both self-defense and attack wings of Yolk offline, Sierra was a sitting duck in case of a powerful external threat. The drones had been taken offline by General Horath even though the ground forces could manually operate some of them. Clay and his deputy, Maia, had been rallying the ground force, almost 400 in number, and using them for surveillance in nearby areas as well as arranging mock drills.

  The landline communication had been restored earlier in the day, while mobile communication was working at 25% strength, thanks to a remote cell tower installed a few miles past Sierra. Everyone in Sierra was to cease the use of laptops, desktops, and all handheld electronic devices till further intimation.

  Alessia received a call on her landline around 3 PM. It was Sylvia who had called on Victor’s behalf. Alessia put down the phone and took a deep breath before getting up from her chair. She looked at her new office one last time, before closing the door. In her mind, she knew Victor would ask for the Red Button, and Alessia would be forced to surrender her control.

  Alessia got out of the elevator and down the corridor towards Victor’s office. Sylvia was already standing at the door, trying to hide her smile. She stopped Alessia as she was about to open the door.

  “Victor shouldn’t have hired a kid for the job,” chided Sylvia.

  “This kid is about to burst some bubbles,” said Alessia.

  Alessia opened the door and walked inside Victor’s office. She saw General Horath, Jason and Marie were already sitting on the couch, while Victor was staring outside the glass window.

  Alessia stood next to the table, waiting for Victor to turn back and face her. She faked a cough after an awkward silence of twenty seconds.

  “You can sit,” said Victor.

  Alessia sat on the chair while Sylvia sat next to Marie on the couch.

  “Should we wait for Clay?” asked Horath. “Where is he anyway? I haven’t seen him for ages.”

  “I have sent Clay for some private work,” said Victor. “Till then, Maia is the interim commander of the ground forces.”

  “I see,” said Horath.

  “Where are we?” asked Victor.

  “A lot better than we were a week ago,” said Alessia.

  “Yolk is offline. Every day it is offline, we are exposed to our enemies,” said Horath.

  “And who are they, exactly? Our enemies?” asked Alessia. “I hear you mention them to everyone, but I haven’t seen anyone the entire time I’ve been here. A lot longer than any of you, if I may add. In case you haven’t noticed, the world isn’t the same anymore. People are more concerned about getting their next meal and breathing irradiated air than looking at a military facility in the middle of nowhere. Let’s just assume that we have powerful enemies that wish to stop us. It’s hard to explain such an outrageous attack unless a couple of kids in their mom’s basement took down Jason’s firewalls with their laptops. So, why haven’t they attacked us? Why don’t I hear the sound of hundred kilos of napalm being dropped on us, obliterating Sierra where it stands? We’ve been offline long enough for any jet or drone to reach us from any part of the world, twice. They know they have us cornered. Yet here we are, still breathing each other’s air.”

  Victor turned around when Alessia finished talking.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to rant,” said Alessia.

  “You got a point,” said Victor.

  “Thank you,” said Alessia. “Sir, I..”

  “We’re bring Sierra back online tonight,” said Victor. “Just thought you should know.”

  Alessia looked around, biting her tongue.

  “You look disappointed,” said Victor.

  “Disappointed? No. Surprised? A little,” said Alessia. “Why today?”

  “How is tomorrow going to be any different?” said Horath.

  “What about the warheads?” asked Alessia.

  “They’ll be disarmed manually before we bring the system back online,” said Victor. “Jason has found a solution.”

  “That’s the first I’m hearing about it,” said Alessia. “What’s the solution?”

  “Jason,” said Victor.

  “Right. I think we made a mistake shutting down the attack. So, we’re going to let them finish what they started. We’re going to bring the servers back online,” said Jason. “We’ll disarm Yolk, so essentially, they’ll be firing blanks.”

  “What’s that going to do? Delete all the traces of your incompetence?” asked Alessia.

  “Excuse me, are you accusing me of something?” asked Jason.

  “I analyzed the petabytes of data that we managed to download off our servers,” said Alessia. “I know who is to be blamed for the attack.”

  “Who?” asked Victor.

  “I’ve shortlisted it down to three names – Jason, Beth, and Marie,” said Alessia.

  They all stood up, shouting at Alessia.

  “Silence!” shouted Victor.

  The room went quiet. Marie, Sylvia, and Jason sat back on the couch.

  “That’s a serious accusation to make,” said Victor. “I was told that the data was encrypted.”

  “I decrypted it,” said Alessia. “They told us the key. Everyone in Sierra knows what the decryption key is.”

  “What’s the key?” asked Marie.

  “Take a guess,” said Alessia.

  They all deliberated for a minute. Alessia smiled while they were talking amongst themselves.

  “The message they displayed on our screens,” said Victor.

  “Yes,” said Alessia. “It was the second password I tried.”

  “What was the first password you tried? Where’s my daddy?” joked Jason.

  “No. It was – Dear God, please don’t tell Victor about Sylvia and me,” said Alessia.

  “How dare you!” said Sylvia.

  “Relax, Sylvia. I already know,” said Victor.

  Sylvia’s fake outrage was destroyed within a second.

  “So, like I was saying, I analyzed the logs. Fifty one people had accessed files outside our network. Only ten of those had access to the systems which have been assigned the static IPs in the given range,” explained Alessia.

  “And how did you narrow it down to these three?” asked Horath.

  “EZ – 145,” said Alessia. “There is no mutual correlation between those 10 people. So, I started analyzing their past logs individually, while looking for small groups which could be correlated. Marie, Beth, and Jason had all downloaded files stored in our London base regarding EZ – 145, prior to accessing files outside our network, within 48 hours of each other.”

  “That’s a bit thin, don’t you think?” said Sylvia.

  “I thought so too. So, I analyzed the traffic. 7 of them had downloaded a large stream of bytes when they had accessed the network outside our cluster. Only 3 of them accessed other networks, without actually downloading anything,” said Alessia. “Care to guess which three names again popped up?”

  “Marie, Jason, and Beth?” said Horath.

  Alessia tapped on her nose.

  Victor looked directly at Jason and Marie. Neither of them wanted to be the one who looked up first.

  “Get Beth here,” said Victor. “Immediately.”

  “Okay,” said Sylvia.

  She went outside to call Beth on her landline. She came back after a few seconds and informed Victor that Beth wasn’t answering her phone.

  “I’ll take care of
it,” said Horath. He got up and dialed his base’s landline using Victor’s phone.

  “Get Beth from the IT tower,” said Horath. “Victor’s office.”

  He put down the phone and told them that his men were heading to her office. A dreadful silence that lasted a minute, ensued. Sylvia had gotten up from the couch, essentially leaving Jason and Marie alone. Victor wanted to wait for Beth before he began asking questions.

  A minute later, the phone rang. General Horath picked it up.

  “Uh..huh..okay,” said General Horath on a call that lasted thirty seconds.

  It was the longest thirty seconds that Marie and Jason had to wait.

  “There’s some bad news,” said Horath. “Beth jumped from her office window when my men tried to break into her office. She’s dead.”

  “Sounds like she knew we had found out it was her,” said Sylvia.

  “That’s a shame,” said Victor.

  Marie and Jason took a huge sigh of relief when they heard it. Marie looked at General Horath and nodded, which Alessia noticed. Horath nodded back.

  “So, if there isn’t anything else, I suggest we should regroup again at 8 PM,” said Jason.

  “Sir, I would still advise caution,” said Alessia.

  “Alessia, we’re going ahead with or without you. Do you want to let go of the red button?” said Victor.

  “I’m not running away. I’m still in charge of the entire operation. I’m just putting my dissent on record,” said Alessia. “That I had an alternate strategy.”

  “Fine, let’s hear it,” said Victor.

  “Give me another day,” said Alessia. “I hadn’t told you, but I had already authorized the migration of our network to a new cluster.”

  “How’s that going to help? They are already in the system,” said Jason. “Are you stupid?”

  “Whoever attacked us is looking for Jay. We just have to pose as Jay,” said Alessia. “Whoever or whatever that is.”