by James Luceno
Tech nodded.
“Where'd you go?”
“Well, we were just sort of browsing, then we got lost.”
“What do you mean, ‘lost’?”
“We, uh, kind of left the grid and couldn't make a graceful exit.”
“You left the grid?” Caster laughed without mirth. “That's impossible, kid. And how is it that you managed to surface intact while your new friend, Mr. Strange there, is currently a basket case?”
“Lieutenant,” Franklin said in disapproval.
Caster disregarded the reprimand. “Who was navigating?”
Marz raised his right hand.
The syscop bent at the waist to put himself eye to eye with him. “How did you not know where your brother was?”
“Ease up, Caster,” Felix cautioned.
Caster straightened, glaring at him. “Is it your practice to allow the boys access to your office in your absence, McTurk?”
“They work for me.”
Caster raised an eyebrow. “If you had them working at night, then you've violated about six different child-labor laws.” He looked hard at Tech again. “Admit it, kid, you and Strange were somewhere you weren't supposed to be, and a security program nailed you.”
Dr. Franklin shook his head. “Mr. Strange's condition is not consistent with the sort of trauma one can sustain from a security program—even in the worst of cases. Unless the program was being executed by a neural net or an AI.”
Caster shook his head. “No such animal, Doc.” He made a gesture of dismissal and turned back to Tech. “Is there something you want to tell me? You know that we can impound your system and find out exactly where you went.”
“Don't say anything, Jess,” Felix said.
Caster frowned. “You sure you want to play it this way, McTurk?”
“It's for their protection, Caster. At least until we consult a lawyer.”
Caster blew out his breath. “I don't know what's going on here, but I don't like what I'm hearing.”
Franklin looked uncomfortable. “Kids your age are spending too much time in the Network,” he told Tech and Marz. “You've got to learn to find other things to do. Get outside, hit a ball, take a bike ride, do something.”
“Say no to the Network,” Tech said.
“It's no joke, young man,” Franklin emphasized.
“I'm going to release the kids into your custody, McTurk,” Caster said after a moment. “But I'm watching you and I'm going to find out what's going on.”
Felix didn't utter a word until Franklin and Caster had moved out of earshot. Then he turned to Tech and Marz and allowed some of his exasperation to show.
“Let's get you back to Safehaven. Try to get some sleep. And if you can't manage that, then I suggest you both do some serious thinking be cause we're going to get to the bottom of this in the morning.”
“We're sorry, Felix,” Marz said in a sad voice. Felix mustered a forgiving smile. “Well, it can't get any worse.”
The sound of determined footsteps drew their attention to the corridor behind them. Around a turn in the echoing hallway marched Fidelia Temper, staring long-range daggers at the three of them.
Felix didn't even bother trying to sleep. With his mind reeling from Tech's disclosures and his own continuing fears that Gitana's recent actions would be traced to Data Discoveries, he knew that he would have spent what little remained of the night tossing and turning. Instead he went directly from the hospital to the office and spent until dawn putting things back in shape in the hope that the mindless activity would restore some order to his jumbled thoughts.
There wasn't much he could do for the cybersystem, however. As far as he could tell, the console had suffered additional circuit burn as a result of Tech and Strange's run and might even be beyond repair.
He didn't get around to playing back his phone messages until eight o'clock, and then only after two cups of strong coffee. Thirty-two of the thirty-three calls logged by the filled-to-capacity machine were from people desperate for help in locating missing Global One accounts. The remaining call was from Lieutenant Caster.
“A couple of peculiar things I wanted to catch you up on, McTurk,” Caster began. “I'm giving you a heads up only because I'm fairly certain you'll want to have legal representation standing by while I question you.
“Let me cut to the chase. No doubt you heard about that little system failure at Worldwide Cellular a couple of days back. My only day off in months—me, my wife, and kids snatching a bit of downtime in the Catskill Mountains—and the beeper kept going off every two minutes without leaving any numbers or messages. Not realizing what had gone down at Worldwide Cellular and figuring my boss wanted me on urgent business, I packed everyone back into the car and raced back to the city. All for nothing, of course.”
Caster laughed ruefully.
“So you're probably asking yourself what all this could possibly have to do with Felix McTurk, and here it is in the proverbial nutshell. You see, McTurk, no matter what the media reports have been saying, Worldwide Cellular's geostationary satellite didn't experience a glitch. What happened was that Cellular's Network construct was penetrated and apparently some data was carried off. After a lot of effort, Cellular managed to trace the penetration back to a cybertour company called Virtual Horizons, which is not too far from your office, McTurk. Oh, but you already know that, don't you, because what do we come to find out, but that Felix McTurk was one of Horizons’ tourists at the very moment Cellular's construct was infiltrated, and that Felix McTurk apparently went missing during the tour.
“Some coincidence, huh—I mean, after that business at the Environmental Protection Agency and all? But you know what? I was actually willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and lay the whole thing off to coincidence. Until what happened yesterday.
“You remember where you were at about four o'clock in the afternoon, McTurk? It's all right if you don't, because there are a couple of surveillance cameras right there in your building that will be glad to remind you. You were transacting a bit of business at the ATM on the floor right below your office. What kind of business? Well, that's one of the things I'm going to be asking you about, since not five minutes after you left the ATM, all hell broke loose at Global One Bank. Accounts dried up, credit disappeared, and people were suddenly left without a World Dollar to their names.
“And guess what? I'm one of those people, McTurk.
“Then, what should happen last night, but someone flying from your office ends up nearly brain-dead after getting ‘lost’ in the Network. Some mess. Why, it's almost as if New York City has finally gotten itself a real-life super-cybervillain, isn't it?”
Caster's tone changed from wry to menacing.
“You can get rid of the costume, McTurk, but don't try to leave town. We're on to you, smart guy.”
Chapter 12
“Sit down,” Felix said firmly when Tech and Marz arrived at the office later that same morning.
The boys pulled chairs up to the desk and set them opposite Felix's swivel, but far enough from each other to suggest that some sort of argument had gone down between them. They looked as if they hadn't slept a wink.
Felix reclined his chair and linked his hands behind his head. “Start at the beginning—and don't leave anything out.”
So they did, taking Felix back to the run into the EPA construct and providing all the detail they could recall about the gremlin that had apparently emerged from the ghost program, Subterfuge, and about the shadowy presence—Scaum—that had given chase to Tech and the gremlin.
Then they told of their attempts to decipher the encrypted data Marz had downloaded and how they had put their heads together to solve the puzzle of “MSTRNTS,” which had ultimately led them to Harwood Strange's funky oceanside apartment on Long Island.
“That Harwood Strange?” Felix said, straightening in the swivel. “That's who's lying in a coma— the hacker who got busted for jeopardizing national security?”
>
“He was framed,” Marz answered.
“It was all a lie hatched by Peerless Engineering,” Tech added. “Disinformation.”
“Says who?” Felix asked.
“Says … Harwood,” Marz said.
Felix shook his head in disapproval. “Go on.”
Tech related what Harwood had deciphered from the minidisk about Cyrus Bulkroad, and he tried to repeat word for word what Harwood had said about the rumors that had circulated of Cyrus’ disappearance and of peculiar goings-on at Peerless Engineering—rumors that had prompted Harwood Strange to try to penetrate Peerless ten years earlier.
Marz caught Felix up on the run-in with members of the Deceps—without mentioning their rescue by Isis Whitehawk—and told him about their visit to the Hacker's Outlet, where Harwood had purchased replacement parts for Felix's cybersystem, along with a bunch of new software programs for the run he was planning.
“Into Peerless Engineering,” Felix said with a note of anger. “I've already figured out that much. Strange used you to get back inside.”
But Felix was unprepared for what Tech told him about that run: of the access hatch Harwood had discovered and of the frightening domain that lay beyond it. Tech shuddered as he recalled the grotesque constructs Peerless had built there. His voice broke when he told about his and Harwood's encounter with Scaum and how the amorphous jet-black monstrosity had speared Harwood's craft, as if capturing it for exhibit or dissection.
And finally Tech recounted the return of the program gremlin and how the gremlin had whisked him to an octagon deep in the Wilds from which Tech had eventually been able to exit gracefully into the real world.
The boys had expected questions, but Felix only stared at them for the longest time, not so much in anger as arrant astonishment.
“An octagon,” he said at last.
Tech nodded. “I think the gremlin, well, lives there.”
Felix rose shakily from his chair and began to pace back and forth behind the desk. When he turned to Tech, his eyes were glistening with a mix of fear and awe.
“Why didn't you and Harwood exit the Network when you first saw Scaum?”
Tech aimed a narrow-eyed glance at Marz before replying. “Because Marz lost us. We had no idea where the closest exit was.”
Marz balled his fists. “I lost you because you weren't wearing vests! Whose fault was that?”
Felix looked at Tech. “You weren't wearing vests?”
“Harwood didn't want anyone to be able to trace us back here,” Tech mumbled. Again, he glanced in anger at his brother. “But I still don't see how you could lose track of us.”
Marz nearly came out of his chair. “I wasn't the one who decided to go through that hatch! You were reckless—just like always.”
“Reckless?” Tech fumed. “You would have done the same thing.”
“How do you know? You didn't even ask me.”
Tech started to reply, but Felix interrupted him.
“Cut it out—both of you.” He softened his voice to add, “Neither of you is to blame for what happened to Harwood Strange. He knew what he was risking, and he should've known better than to bring you into this. You should have known better, too, but we'll save that for another time.”
The boys nodded without looking at each other.
“So, you think that Cyrus Bulkroad might have been kidnapped by enemies of Peerless Engineering?” Felix asked.
Tech nodded. “That was Harwood's theory.”
Felix absorbed it, then began to pace again. “Cyrus—or his gremlin cybercraft, at any rate— first appeared to you from the ghost program you picked up at the Hackers’ Outlet. And the guy at the counter said that it was probably a piece of test market software secretly released by Peerless.”
Tech and Marz tracked Felix as he moved. “What are you thinking?” Tech said.
Felix stopped and perched himself on the edge of the desk. “I've been to that construct in the Wilds—the octagon the gremlin took you into.”
Tech stared at him in confusion.
“I did a Network run for a client named Magyar Gitana. Since I couldn't fly from here, I flew as a tourist with a company called Virtual Horizons.”
“You flew?” Marz said in disbelief.
Felix firmed his lips and nodded. “Yeah, well, that's beside the point. Somehow this Gitana separated me from the tour group, and with his help we retrieved an enormous bundle of data that was hidden inside Worldwide Cellular. The plan was to attach the bundle to a phone call, but we encountered heavy security on the way out and were forced to deliver it in person.”
“To the octagon,” Tech surmised in wonderment.
“Jeez,” Marz said. “Did your run have anything to do with Cellular's system failure?”
“It had everything to do with it,” Felix admitted. “Who is this Gitana guy?” Tech asked. “What do you know about him?”
Felix laughed, mostly to himself. “The Network phone directories list over 220 people with that name, 84 of them with access to the Network, and 17 of those right here in the city. One of the Manhattan Gitanas is a cab driver with a list of EPA violations that rivals my own.”
“EPA violations?” Marz thought for a moment. “Could Gitana have learned about Tech's run and thought Tech was you?”
“You're on the right track. But a cab driver with a wife and three kids living in working-class Hoboken, New Jersey, isn't likely to have access to the type of anti-security software Gitana deployed in the Network. What would a cab driver want with data hidden inside Worldwide Cellular, anyway?” Felix shook his head. “The Magyar Gitana who drives a cab doesn't know anything about this. In fact, his first phone call to me originated from inside the Network.”
“Inside?” Tech and Marz asked at the same time. “
I think the Gitana who traced Tech back to Data Discoveries is actually Cyrus Bulkroad.”
Tech's eyes widened. “You mean…”
Felix nodded. “The three of us have been dealing with the same person.”
Tech tried to make sense of it, but ultimately shook his head. “How do you know that, when the only link is the octagon in the Wilds? That doesn't prove anything.”
“I realize that,” Felix conceded. “But let's assume for the moment that Cyrus Bulkroad was, in fact, kidnapped—either by enemies of Peerless Engineering or to ensure that Skander Bulkroad would keep quiet about the new domain Peerless has built. Somehow, from wherever he was being held, Cyrus managed to sneak a program gremlin into the copy of Subterfuge you guys got at the Hackers’ Outlet—a piece of software released by Peerless Engineering itself.”
“Only in the copy of Subterfuge we got?” Marz asked.
“Has to be,” Felix said.
“That means anyone who got that copy could have freed Cyrus.”
“Anyone who got the copy and decided to launch it inside the EPA. When you did that, what was the first thing the gremlin did?”
“It uploaded a huge amount of data,” Marz said.
“That's how the EPA hounds managed to track Tech back here—because his craft was so heavy with data.”
“And that's also when Scaum first appeared.”
Tech nodded.
“The gremlin knew Scaum—it said that Scaum was after him. Which tells me that Scaum must be some sort of sleeper program—a program lying in wait.”
“I told you, it's more than a program, Felix,” Tech said, white-faced with remembered fear. “Scaum is more like a cybercraft piloted by a deranged neural net.”
Felix considered it briefly. “Whatever Scaum is, it was tasked by its creators to watch for any signs of Cyrus’ escape—or reawakening, I should say.”
The boys regarded each other, then Felix. “Reawakening?” Marz asked.
“I'm coming to that,” Felix said. “The point is, once Cyrus’ gremlin delivered Tech to safety, it traced Tech back to Data Discoveries. Then, borrowing the name of another repeat offender at the EPA—Magyar Gitana—it cont
acted me thinking I was Tech.”
Tech scratched his head. “Why would the gremlin contact you?”
“Because it needed our help retrieving another part of Cyrus Bulkroad—the part nested inside Worldwide Cellular.”
“Another part of Cyrus?” Tech said.
Felix smiled lightly at their increasing confusion. “You don't see it yet?”
They shook their heads.
“Think about it: Harwood said he never met Cyrus Bulkroad in person and that there was never any media attention paid to Cyrus. Doesn't it strike you as peculiar that there were no photo-graphs of Cyrus, no mentions of his birth, his extraordinary intellect, his disappearance—not even by his father?”
“I suppose,” Tech said tentatively.
“Remember that even ten years ago Peerless was at the forefront of cybernetics. It wasn't only struggling to take over the Virtual Network, it was also making important progress in other areas of cybertechnology.”
Marz's brow furrowed in thought. “Harwood said he and his hacker friends were already angry at Peerless for telling computers how to think…”
Tech shot to his feet, his eyes wide in sudden revelation.
“Cyrus Bulkroad was one of those computers! Cyrus is an artificial intelligence!”
Felix nodded. “An artificial intelligence that was for some reason dismantled, its parts dumped into the Network—inside the EPA, Worldwide Cellular, Global One Bank, and who knows where else.”
“And now it's trying to reassemble itself,” Marz said.
Felix came around to the front of the desk and clapped the boys on the shoulders in congratulations.
“The gremlin Cyrus wrote into your copy of Subterfuge liberated the EPA part of him. That was apparently enough for him to construct the octagon Tech and I visited in the Wilds. The parts I've helped him retrieve since then made him functional enough to perceive that you were in jeopardy when you emerged from Peerless—maybe even when you and Harwood first entered Peerless. When Gitana—or Cyrus—told me that he was answering to a higher authority, he actually meant himself.”