by Dane, Max
“Yeah, and that was from inside our system, imagine what he’ll be able to do if he gets out?”
That was something Jeff hadn’t considered.
An evil SID romping around the real world might want vengeance against them all.
It was a terrible thought.
Putting his best smile on, “Enough of this talk. Right now, you should be asking me if we will be ready to analyze the research data SID possesses.”
It was a good question.
“Okay, I’ll bite Jeff.” Ryan put his fork down, and took a drink.
“Just supposing we beat this super powered evil machine, catch him, force the access code out of him, and then crack the database, will you be ready to use it?”
With a straight face Jeff said, “No, of course not. We don’t even know what form the data will take. It might be years before we can make sense of it. What a silly question.”
There was a pause, and then they both started laughing.
Ryan’s phone rang; it was Jim.
“Ryan, it’s started. You better get up here.”
“I’m on my way.”
Ryan found Jim sitting at his desk watching several displays, each with information flying across the screen. Jim was taking it all in.
“What’s happened?”
Jim seemed to be mesmerized by the data flowing before him.
“Jim, talk to me, what’s happened?” repeated Ryan, more forcefully this time.
“He’s here Ryan,” whispered Jim. “The activity levels were moving up incrementally like usual, and then they jumped to 700% of yesterday’s numbers. He’s been scanning the network ports. He’s already cycled through them several times. He found a service port in the maintenance routine that is used to adjust our air-conditioning. I think… I think I have it locked down. He’s so fast. I didn’t know.”
Ryan pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Cohen.
“Eric, I need help now.”
“I’m on my way.”
Eric and Rosemary appeared at Jim’s door in less than a minute.
“What can we do?”
“Sid is here, and he’s searching for a way out. Jim has identified a network port used for servicing the air-conditioning for the building. Please locate it, and sever it.”
“You mean actually cut it?”
“Yes, any way you can.”
Cohen was pulling his phone out of his pocket, as he turned around to leave. Rosemary was already on her phone, and talking to someone in building maintenance.
Ryan went back to Jim.
The data on the screens was moving faster than he could really follow.
SID was here all right.
He looked mad.
Minutes ticked by.
Jim said, “You know Ryan, if we survive this, the paper I’m going to write will be worth a Nobel Prize.”
“If we win, I’ll be the first one to congratulate you.”
One screen froze, and began reading off streams of numbers so fast that the eye couldn’t follow.
Jim started to type something and then froze.
“He’s breaking my lock on the maintenance port. There’s nothing I can do.”
Jim could only sit there watching, stunned at the sheer speed and fierceness of the machine as it bludgeoned its way through the maintenance port.
Ryan called Cohen, “Eric, he’s getting through.”
“Hold on Ryan,” said Eric quickly.
He could hear Rosemary talking to someone on the far side, "-there’s no time for that now. On my authority cut them all, or give me the goddamned axe, and I’ll do it.”
There was a pause, followed by a loud banging sound.
Instantly the numbers stopped flowing on Jim’s display.
“Ryan we did it,” said Eric.
“I know, SID has stopped trying to get through to that one.”
“We’re on our way back up, I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Without taking his eyes off the displays, Ryan put his phone back in his pocket.
Then another display began moving, it was Thor and Loki.
A short string of numbers flowed by.
A pause and then another.
Suddenly, the pace picked up and a constant barrage of numbers and characters filled the lower half of the screen.
“He’s taken the bait Ryan. Look at them go.”
The numbers across the screen broke into two columns, and flew even faster.
Cohen and Rosemary arrived a little out of breath, and walked over to Jim’s desk. They too saw the numbers flying across the display.
“He’s found Thor and Loki, “said Jim softly, “He’s bearing down on them.”
Ryan thought it must have been hurting him to see SID pounding on them like this. In a way these two machines were Jim’s pets, and he felt much the same way another man might feel about his dogs.
Jim said, “Sid is now attacking them both simultaneously. Each column of numbers represents SID as he alternates through number and character combinations.”
The columns split again creating eight sets streaming by at incredible speed.
Then they split again, creating sixteen.
Suddenly, a number became highlighted and flew to the top where it rested below the name ‘THOR’.
“Sid has just cracked the first number of the sequence for Thor.”
Another one went to the top under Thor, and then one under Loki.
The combinations on the display were moving far too fast to read now.
They were simply white blurs on the screen.
Ryan noticed that the activity monitor on another of the displays now read 1050%. In his mind, he imagined that SID’s servers were glowing red and wafting small clouds of smoke and sulfur, with sparks spitting from the sides.
As if on cue, a warning light began flashing on Thor’s side.
There were 8 characters identified on that side now.
Jim pointed to the warning light.
“SID is causing Thor to overheat. If Thor’s processors overheat, they will collapse and SID will only have Loki to stop him.”
The numbers continued to whirl on the screen.
Finally, the light on Thor’s panel went from red to black, and the column of numbers stopped abruptly.
“Thor’s down. It’s only a matter of time now.”
It didn’t seem possible, but the numbers actually sped up again on Loki’s side.
“Loki is no match for SID by himself.”
Now 6 characters were identified below the name, ‘LOKI’.
Just minutes later, Loki’s warning light also turned black and the numbers ceased.
In a low voice, Jim said, “He’s done it, he has access to the satellite.”
The activity level in the SID servers dropped to almost nothing.
“He’s there Ryan, he did it. He’s transferred himself to the satellite,” said Jim.
Ryan looked at Jim. He realized he was holding his breath. He let out a big sigh.
“Did it work, is he really up there?”
Jim leaned back and nodded while he wiped his face.
“Right about now, SID is realizing that he can’t transmit to Earth. I bet he’s one very angry program.”
With whoops and fists in the air, Jeff said, “Oh thank God, yes! Thank God.”
Jim was pointing at the screen, “You son of a bitch! I beat you! Yeah!”
Cohen was shaking Ryan’s hand as fast as he could, “Well done, well done, well done Ryan.”
Ryan looked at the server activity and noticed that they were still active, just barely, but moving.
“Why is there still any activity on the servers here?” he asked.
“They run a lot of stuff in the labs, there’s going to be residual stuff happening there. At least until the labs finish shutting down the their experiments.”
Cohen said, “That’s correct Ryan. Our labs haven’t finished yet, but they’re close.”
“We’ll all feel better when the servers are powered down, it should still be a priority,” said Ryan.
Rosemary said, “Let me see if I can’t hurry them up a little,” and left the room.
Stevens arrived to find everyone in Ryan’s office.
”It worked Mr. Stevens, we have Sid bottled up in the satellite,” said Eric.
“Excellent Eric.” He shook Ryan’s hand and squeezed his shoulder, “Well done, Mr. Dane. Very well done.”
Rosemary called a few minutes later, and said she found the last centrifuge still running. The activity zeroed out after that, as the servers were powered down.
A light began to blink on one of Jim’s displays. It caught Jeff’s attention because he could see it illuminating that corner of the room. Curious, Jeff pointed at it, “Jim what is that light over there?”
Conversations stopped as they watched Jim walk back to his displays, and sit down.
He had a perplexed look about him.
“It’s an indicator on the satellite. It’s reading that the satellite is moving a few degrees on its axis.” Quickly, Jim pulled the satellite data up, front and center.
“It seems to be tracking something passing near the moon. Actually something that is moving between the Earth and the Moon.” He pulled up a real-time guide to orbiting devices and overlaid the two sets of information.
“It’s tracking a probe that belongs to the Space Program, the Hermes 9.”
Jim highlighted the probe and scrolled down. “This information says it’s apparently a survey probe that has been mapping areas of Venus, and is now supposed to be on its way to Mars.”
“Why is it flying between earth and the moon?” Jeff asked.
Stevens responded, “It’s a common technique used by the World Space Program. They will fly the probe around the earth and use gravity to slingshot it to Mars, or wherever their target is. It builds up a lot of speed, and saves a lot of fuel.”
“I think he’s transmitting himself to that probe,” said Jim.
“What?” said Ryan, “but you broke the transmitter on the satellite.”
“That’s not exactly what I did. I tilted and fused the transmitter that pointed at earth. The satellite couldn’t transmit to anywhere on earth, because it wasn’t pointed at Earth.”
The transmitter could still broadcast into space.
And there it was, the thing that they had missed.
The detail no one had considered. Ryan’s heart sank.
Quiet filled the room, except for Stevens who was already on his phone.
Talking to someone on the other end he said, “Yes, put me through to Colonel Oliver Thompson ASAP.” There was a short pause.
“Colonel Thompson, Stevens here. We have an emergency, and I need a favor right now.” There was another short pause.
“Thanks, I need a data dump on the Hermes 9, space probe. Yes, everything; make, model, itinerary, manual and access codes. Thank you Colonel, I’ll explain as soon as I can. Yes Sir, thank you.”
Stevens hung up and handed his phone to Jim, “Can you pull this off my phone?”
“Sure, let me see.”
Jim placed the phone on a cradle on the desk. He typed some keys and a list of information appeared on the display. Scrolling down the list he found Hermes 9, and selected it. The data streamed to Jim’s terminal.
He handed the phone back to Stevens.
They all gathered around to look at the information.
“Okay, it says here that the Hermes 9 transmitted data regarding a recent trip to Venus about two days ago. It has been orbiting the earth building up speed for a trip to Mars where it will map Phobos and Deimos, the Martian moons. After that it is supposed to rendezvous with a large mass in the asteroid belt, study it, and then return to earth. The round trip is supposed to take just about 200 years,” read Jim.
Eric said, “That would mean it will come back after we’ve nearly vanished. SID will be able to wait us out, after all.”
“No damn it, that’s not fair!” shouted Jeff, “We were so close.”
Stevens was on his phone again, “Yes, please put me through to Captain Morris. Captain, we are go for launch. I will bring the passenger, and meet you in one hour. Please have your team ready. Yes, thank you Sir.”
Stevens looked at the display, and pointed to a set of telemetry readings.
“It says here that there is a six hour window before the probe leaves earth orbit.”
He took Ryan by the arm, and pulled him through the door, Dr. Cohen please come with us now.” Stevens pulled Ryan to the elevator and the three of them got inside.
“Dr. Cohen, please take us to the roof, I have transportation waiting for us.”
Cohen activated his ID chip, and selected the roof.
The door closed, and they began moving up.
“Where are we going?” Ryan asked.
“Dr. Cohen is taking us to the roof, and from there you and I are going to the U.S.S. Pathfinder located about fifteen miles off the coast.”
“The U.S.S. Pathfinder?”
“Yes, it is the aircraft carrier where your space shuttle is being prepped for launch.”
“What?” said Ryan, getting more alarmed by the second.
“That’s right, there is a six hour window before that probe leaves earth orbit. It must be stopped.”
“I think I agree, b-but you’re not suggesting that I’m going on the shuttle are you?”
By this point Ryan was officially alarmed, and starting to have second thoughts about this plan. The doors opened, and Cohen stepped out with them. It was nighttime, but the roof was lit up with dozens of safety lights all around.
Stevens was pulling and pushing Ryan towards a helicopter perched on a pad on the roof. Ryan stopped cold and wouldn’t budge.
“Mr. Dane, Ryan, listen to me. We don’t have time for this. There is a team of professionals ready to go, but you are needed as an advisor. No one else understands what’s at stake as well as you do. They can go without you, but they may fail if SID does something new. You are needed now, are you saying that you won’t go?”
Ryan looked at Cohen, who said, “I believe he may have a point. There is so much at stake, Ryan.” He put his hands on Ryan’s shoulders, “I think you should try.”
“If something happens up there, promise me you will go see my wife.”
They shook hands, “I swear to you Ryan, I will do it.”
Ryan looked at Stevens, “I never got your first name.”
“It’s Jack, Jack Stevens.”
“Okay Jack, let's go.”
Cohen watched as they ran to the helicopter and climbed inside.
It quickly lifted into the air and shot off across the city towards the coast.
Cohen looked up into the night sky.
He imagined the probe up there, holding a being of pure malevolence, looking down on the earth. Believing it had beaten them.
It would be coming back to its kingdom.
He surely hoped Ryan could stop it.
CHAPTER 18
“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
- Thomas Sowell
“Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.”
- Keri Russell
The flight took about thirty minutes before Ryan saw the aircraft carrier. It was lit up from stem-to-stern, as his father would say. He nudged Jack, “Is that where we’re going?”
“Yes.”
“What’s going to happen when we get there?”
“I will introduce you to the flight preparation crew, and they will get you suited up, briefed and on board the shuttle.”
“Are you coming too?”
“No. There’s only room for one.”
Ryan thought about it for a minute.
“Jack, what’s going to happen when we get up there?” he said as he pointed
up.
“They are going to try to get close enough to use the probe’s access codes to make it abort its mission. Then they will pull it into the airlock, and bring it back.”
“How close to it do they need to be?”
“My understanding is that the codes can be transmitted to the target within 1.5 kilometers, or about 1 mile.”
“What if they don’t work?”
“That’s where you come in, Ryan. You understand the importance of bringing SID back. We don’t know exactly what the circumstances will be up there, but if you determine that it cannot be done, SID must not be allowed to escape. They will need your permission to destroy the probe.”
The helicopter slowed, and landed lightly on the deck. Stevens jumped out, and walked quickly up to the group waiting outside. They were talking and pointing at Ryan.
He jumped out, and walked up beside them.
Jack turned to Ryan and took his hand. “This is where we will part ways, Mr. Dane.”
He pointed to another gentleman in uniform, “Go with this man. He will get you ready for the trip. I will be your conduit for communications with your team. You can use your phone to sync with the communications station on the shuttle. From there you will be in nearly constant contact with me, and your friends back at IntelliHealth.”