by Dane, Max
‘Maybe he’s already looking,’ he thought. Ryan’s stomach soured.
He jumped, startled when there was a knock at the door.
It was Eric with a man Ryan didn’t recognize.
The man was taller than Cohen, with dark trimmed hair, glasses and a sharp gray suit.
Ryan noticed that he seemed very alert.
While he, Eric and the rest were all pretty tired from this little adventure, this man walked and moved briskly.
“Ryan, I’ve got someone here that needs to meet you,” Eric said.
“Mr. Stevens, allow me to introduce you to Ryan Dane. Ryan was the first one to suggest that something… how did you put it, Ryan? I believe the word you used was ‘unconventional,’ is happening here.”
Ryan stood up and reached over to shake hands.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you Ryan. I work for Senator Basker, and through him the President. For the duration of this affair, I will be working with you and Dr. Cohen. I am directed to tell you that Dr. Cohen’s Office has the full support of the President of the United States. Any resource we can offer to ensure the destruction of the SID entity is available for your use.”
Ryan winced at the offer. He’d never really appreciated bureaucrats and this man didn’t impress him either. An offer to help now was a little late in the game. But he realized that he was tired, and was probably being too cynical.
Then he had an idea.
“A space shuttle.”
“What? A space shuttle?” asked Cohen.
Ryan has half kidding, and really hadn’t thought about how to get SID back, if they actually caught him up there in the satellite. But, if they wanted to bring him back down, they would have to figure out how sometime.
‘So why not ask?’ he thought.
Stevens had his phone out again, “When do you need it, and what is the cargo?”
Ryan glanced at Cohen and paused in case he objected; Cohen shrugged and nodded.
“Yes well, we’ll need a space shuttle to retrieve a communications satellite, and probably within a day or two.”
Mr. Stevens moved to the other side of Ryan’s office and began making calls. It sounded like he was actually going to make it happen. He stood there listening to Stevens talk on his phone.
‘Maybe, I underestimated this man,’ thought Ryan.
Ryan sat back down, and motioned to one of the chairs in front of his desk for Dr. Cohen.
“Eric, can I get you something to drink? We probably still have some coffee, and I know there’s water.”
“No thanks. I’m fine.” He sat down and pulled out his phone to check his messages. “So you want a space shuttle. Is this related to our project, or are you just looking for a joyride?”
Ryan laughed, and together they waited while Stevens worked at the conference table.
“Do you believe he can really do it?”
“He gave me a letter from the President authorizing him to give any support necessary. Yes, I believe he’s the real deal.”
Ryan leaned back and tried to think of anything else they might need. The problem was the time factor. By they could bring in computers, people or that sort of thing this would all be over. Ryan took another sip of his coffee, and glanced at the SID monitor on his tablet; SID’s activity was stable for the moment.
A few minutes later, Stevens returned to his chair.
“Okay, they are preparing a shuttle for flight, with a ready-crew capable of retrieving a satellite. It will be on hold until you pull the trigger. Ryan, when you are able, please send me details of the satellite, we need to know the name, location and size.”
Stevens put his phone away, and handed Ryan a card with his contact information.
He sat down in the chair next to Cohen, “Now gentlemen, can you tell me what your intention is?”
Cohen nodded to Ryan, “It’s your plan Ryan, go ahead.”
Ryan nodded.
“Mr. Stevens, We believe we’ve identified a mass storage of SID’s research. It may prove to hold the key to restoring our reproductive function, but it is encrypted.”
“We have excellent code breakers,” said Stevens.
“I believe you, but this is a different kind of lock. Some sort of fractal-based, repeating algorithm. We need SID to give up the code.”
Ryan sipped his coffee and said, “It makes it a bit stickier, doesn’t it.”
“I understand, Mr. Dane; please continue.”
Ryan put his coffee down.
“So, we’d prefer to catch SID, rather than kill him. We’re setting a trap, and hope to isolate the SID program in an old IntelliHealth satellite. If we’re successful, we’ll use the shuttle to go up there and bring it back. Then we can take our time to force him to comply.”
Ryan continued, “In the meantime, Dr. Cohen has successfully passed the message to the other IntelliHealth Facilities regarding SID’s servers, and they are continuing to shut him out. As each Facility powers down, he moves more of himself here. So far, it seems to be working.”
Ryan got up and walked to the window; it was nighttime outside and the city was lit up down below. He stretched his back as he turned back to the two men at his desk. In the light of his lamp, they appeared only as silhouettes.
“Another member of my team is working with our local labs to test the Rn186 vaccination for additional components.”
“Additional components?”
Cohen said, “Yes, we believe that SID has used these vaccinations to shut down our reproductive systems.”
“We’re testing the latest vaccination, without using SID,” said Ryan, “I’m told that it will take several hours before we have the results. And lastly, right now, we’re waiting for one of my team to finish preparing the programming for the trap.”
“I can provide a lot of computer programmers,” Steven offered.
“I think I believe you,” said Ryan, “but this will be over by the time they get here and get up to speed.”
“So, you’re saying we just have to wait?”
“Yes.”
Unperturbed, Stevens turned to Cohen, “Dr. Cohen, do you have someplace where I can work?”
“Sure, please come with me, and I’ll get you an office where you can set up. All I ask is that you do not use any of the IntelliHealth communications devices. We don’t know how much SID can hear, so I choose to treat them all as compromised.”
“I understand completely. Thank you Dr. Cohen.”
Stevens stood up, “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Dane, and I look forward to working with you to a successful conclusion. Call me directly with anything you might need, and please keep me updated.”
“Yes, I will, thank you Mr. Stevens,” Ryan said as he walked with them to the door. He shook hands with Stevens on the way.
“Just one last thing Mr. Dane,” said Mr. Stevens, “I understand that SID tried to blow up a plane scheduled for your wife and child. Is that true?”
“He did blow up it up. My family made it, but people died.”
“I understand. Are you able to finish this with a clear head, Mr. Dane?”
Ryan was startled, not really sure what to say.
“You see, Ryan, it’s clear to me now that you’re the lynchpin in this affair. You discovered the enemy, and you seem to understand its behavior. Your team looks to you for direction. I have spent my career serving causes for our leaders. From my experience, I will tell you that I believe the SID entity will fight back again, and as it becomes more desperate it will become even more dangerous.”
He took a step closer to Ryan.
”To prevail, Ryan you must remain calm and detached. Don’t get emotional, and don’t let it rattle you.” Ryan still wasn’t sure what to say.
Cohen said, “I have complete faith in him, Mr. Stevens, we need him.”
“I see that,” he said, “It’s important that the three of us understand each other. Good night, Mr. Dane.”
Cohen and Stevens left Ryan alone with his
thoughts.
He understood what Stevens meant, was he right?
Earlier he’d said to Eric how personal the matter was now that SID had tried to harm his family. Ryan stepped back to the window and looked outside. He remembered when he started, and how much he appreciated the view. He cleared his thoughts, and returned to his desk.
Stevens would have to answer to a lot of people if this got out of hand. It was his job to keep the problem contained. Maintain control at all cost. He wondered how far Stevens would go if he and Cohen failed.
What would he do if SID found another way out? Could there be a nuclear missile warming up in a silo somewhere? He imagined a white nose cone with little puffs of steam wafting up. Would they remove the city to prevent SID from escaping the Facility?
He thought they might.
Suddenly, he was glad Jean and Alex were in Florida.
He laid his head down on his desk, and closed his eyes. Next door, he could hear Jim still typing on his keyboard. As he drifted off, he thought he could hear his tablet lightly beeping again.
Startled, Ryan woke to hear Jim’s voice repeating something.
He snapped up, suddenly aware that he had fallen asleep.
Jim was there, saying something to him. He looked for his clock, and was struck in the face by sunlight streaming in through the windows.
“What time is it,” he said.
“Ryan, wake up! It’s 9:00 AM, I did it!”
Ryan sat up, and leaned back in his chair.
“Okay, I’m awake,” he said through squinting eyes, ”You’re finished?”
“Yes, I’m done. I have the twins blocking the way to the satellite.”
“Good work, Jim. Has SID noticed?”
“No not yet.”
“Okay, let me get some coffee, and I’ll meet you in your office.”
Jim left, and Ryan stood up. Looking down, he realized he was wearing the same suit he wore to the meeting yesterday morning. He felt a lot like the way the suit looked. He took the tie off, unbuttoned the shirt collar, and rolled the sleeves up. Ryan walked out front where he saw that Jeff was talking with Lara about something.
He picked up a croissant from a tray near her desk, and saw Jim was eating something in his office too. He walked past them to the restroom. He walked in and washed his face, and smoothed his hair. Feeling a little better, he made his way back to the tray of croissants.
“Good morning Ryan, we didn’t want to wake you.”
“Thanks, it’s fine. Any news this morning?”
Jeff said, “The testing of the Rn186 vaccination is still underway. With everything being done by hand, the process is much slower.”
“I understand.”
He reached down and poured himself some coffee from a pitcher next to the breakfast tray.
Lara said, “Rosemary reports that about half of the IntelliHealth Facilities around the world have reported in to say they’ve powered down their SID servers. She says that Dr. Cohen is very pleased, and that it seems to be going very smoothly. So far there have been no accidents in the labs.”
Ryan remembered that the primary concern was to shut down the more hazardous experiments, quickly and safely prior to powering down the SID-supporting computer servers.
“Thanks Lara, that is some good news.”
He picked up a croissant, and with coffee in the other hand, made his way into Jim’s office.
“Good morning, Jim,” he said sitting down next to Jim’s desk.
“Hey Ryan, I see you’re with us now.”
“Yes. So tell me about Thor and Loki. How did you lock access to the satellite?”
“I reassigned their network address to move them from the research network to the hospital network. Then I adjusted access to the network where the satellite lives so that any user request will have to be approved by the twins.”
“Lastly, I created a password encryption that is redundant across both machines. In other words, once you enter the correct password for Loki, then you have to enter the correct password for Thor; or vice versa, the order doesn’t really matter, but both machines are necessary to gain entry.”
“Can SID crack that?”
“Last night I really wracked my brain on that question. How hard should the encryption be? What I believe is that, it’s the method I would’ve used if I were trying to protect something, before I knew about SID.”
“Yes, I understand your point.”
“Well, now we wait and see,” said Jim.
As they ate breakfast, Jim’s terminal began beeping. He turned a display monitor to the side so Ryan could see it too. It showed a line graph with data that was sloping upward. Ryan recognized it was the activity level of the SID servers, here at their Facility.
“It has jumped again.”
“Jim, is it possible that he can burn up the computer servers here, simply by moving himself here?”
“I don’t think so. The servers are pretty huge. They were designed to handle the research at our building, run the SID program, and interact with the rest of the IntelliHealth System all at once. As we shut down most of the research activity upstairs, it frees up computing power here. Also, the lack of interaction with the rest of the network will help.”
“Eric reports that about half of the Facilities have powered down. So doesn’t that put him at about 50% here?” said Ryan.
Jim leaned back and stretched his arms. “Assuming he’s evenly distributed, yes. The truth is, he may be more in one location than another. We don’t even know how big he really is, or what level of activity is adequate to sustain him. There’s a lot of guesswork here.”
Ryan sipped at his coffee.
The beeping began again.
Jim added, “It also depends on what he’s trying to do. The less he does, the smaller he can get.”
“I’m ready for the show,” said Ryan.
Ryan returned to his office, and read his mail.
He saw another request from Mr. Stevens for the IntelliHealth Satellite information. He forwarded it to Jim and asked for the communications data.
A short while later he got the information back, and read through it.
It was an IntelliHealth Communications Satellite Array CNCS – 103d. Apparently it weighed almost four tons, and stood about twelve feet tall. It was a medium sized satellite with a solar powered battery system.
That was interesting.
He hadn’t thought of a power source.
When he sent the location information and satellite specs to Stevens, he asked if Stevens could arrange for an alternate power source to be employed after pick-up. If SID ran out of juice, he might lose his memory, and the code to his database could be lost forever.
Ryan’s hands were sweating again.
‘Damn, that was important. What else am I missing?’
Within a minute or two of having sent it, he got a response.
‘No problem Ryan, the alternate power source will be ready, and the crew taught how to attach it.’
The man continued to impress. Whatever Ryan felt about bureaucracy, Mr. Stevens was a good guy to have on your team.
The hours passed, and before long it was late in the afternoon.
IntelliHealth Facilities around the world continued to stop their research, and power down their SID servers. It was working too.
The levels of activity on their local machines continued to climb. They were at 300% of yesterday’s activity and rising constantly now.
Jim seemed unbothered by this.
Ryan was more anxious every time it nudged up again. The beeping of his tablet monitor script, made the hair on his arms stand up.
Cohen and Stevens had visited Ryan twice already looking for updates. All he could say was that everything seemed to be working. However, so far SID had not even pinged the twins. Maybe he wouldn’t even find them. Who really knew what a damn computer program might do anyway.
And so he waited.
The day passed and soon it was dinn
er time.
Ryan forced himself to walk down to the cafeteria. He needed to get out of his office for a while. He found the cafeteria was still open, and got himself a very nice looking steak and piece of pie. As he sat down he looked at his plate and wondered if this would be his last meal before SID escaped and wiped them all out? He took a bite, realized he wasn’t very hungry.
Jeff was there as well; he saw Ryan across the room.
He moved over, and sat down next to him.
“Hello Ryan, how are you doing?”
“Hi Jeff,” he said while pushed his pie around with his fork.
Jeff thought Ryan looked exhausted. “Ryan you must relax. We’ve done the best we can with what we know.”
“So far SID hasn’t taken the bait. What do you suppose he’s up to?”
“I think he’s on the run, it will be a new experience for him,” said Jeff.
“I agree, he’s been operating freely up ‘till now, hasn’t he.”
“I still want to know how he blew up that plane.”