by Jan Thompson
Rhinotec was well known as one of the best computer security companies this side of the world. Then again, the CEO himself had been the one saying that all the time, and Cayson knew he couldn’t believe everything he heard.
“It’s impossible,” he concluded.
“Time to pray then,” Stella said quietly. “You’re a Christian. You know that nothing is impossible with God. If He wants you to live, you’ll live.”
“What if He wants me to die?” Cayson asked.
“Then you’ll die. But it’s not up to you, is it? Jesus is the One with the keys to life and death.”
Cayson pointed a finger at her. “You’re going to be fired for using religion on me.”
“I’m on my way out, Cayson. This is my last project.”
Before Cayson could speak, a flash of blinding light bolted through his eyes. It was so sudden, so violent, that he screamed and fell back.
“Now!”
Stella’s voice came through the lightning in his mind.
Next thing Cayson knew, something pressed against his neck.
Whatever it was, it flipped off the bright light in his head. He was surrounded by complete darkness.
The world went still.
Five
Cayson woke up on a hospital bed in a room that smelled like toothpaste, for some reason. His senses were a bit messed up, to say the least, as he began to crave apples.
He blinked at the lights above.
This can’t be heaven if it smells like toothpaste.
Or can it?
Somewhere, faintly, a familiar voice floated his way. It sounded almost like his mother’s voice.
Mom. Dad. Are they safe?
He made a mental note to ask—
What is her name?
Inaudible voices—male and female—ebbed and flowed in the room that began to look like a morgue. It still smelled like toothpaste.
He remembered his first computer repair job. Uncle Bobby down the street from his parents’ home had owned a funeral parlor. He had an old 8088, and the floppy disk drive was jammed.
I kid you not!
Cayson tried to remember how long ago it was. He had been…how old? At this moment, he couldn’t remember anything past yesterday. Even there, all he could recall was passing out by the lake from the pain.
Pain.
He felt no pain.
“Did someone give me a lot of painkillers?” Cayson muttered.
His headache was gone. For now? Forever?
He blinked.
Yep. No headache.
Quiet whispers reached his ears as he saw movements around him. They looked like ribbons of colors, kind of like when he looked at time-lapsed videos of city streets and highways.
“Try again.” Another familiar voice. Male, this time.
“Checking the other nodes,” the woman said.
Her reply seemed to come from above, like the ceiling or somewhere high up there. Cayson wasn’t sure.
“Keep him awake,” someone said.
“Is he going to be okay?” the female voice said again.
Ah, Leland. Cousin Leland.
Why was she here? What did they want from her?
Leave her alone. She has nothing to do with this!
Leland would’ve been in Project Pericarp had she not been called away, borrowed by the CIA to solve some pressing issues in Rome, and then borrowed again during her week off to help some private investigator on an egg hunt.
Puzzle eggs.
Puzzle…
That’s it—
A piercing pain behind his left earlobe short-circuited his stream of thoughts. He couldn’t hear himself scream.
He tried to raise his arms.
They were restrained.
Before he could protest his right to freedom according to Uncle Bobby’s interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, the voices stopped talking, his pain went away, and he faded into a dream of stopping by the roadside to watch a funeral procession…
Six
“There are so many layers around these nodes.” Leland Yang-Joule pointed to the wall-mounted screen showing Cayson’s brain in three dimensions.
Around her were VenomLabs cybernetics specialists, and Rhinotec hackers. The hands-on CEO of Rhinotec was also there. Raj Subramaniam had made it clear more than once that he wanted to buy Binary Systems and make the company a part of his growing company with “endless streams of work coming your way.”
Sitting in the back, Stella listened to the flurry of discussions.
“He must’ve been out a long time for them to implant these things,” Stella finally said as she stared at the image of Cayson Yang’s brain. He was practically bionic.
Except all these cybernetic implants were probably killing him.
And the others before him.
“Kelvin is still missing,” Leland said to Stella, as if the latter could do something about it.
You know, like save the world and all that.
I can do that. Piece of cake.
“If you’re referring to Kelvin Gallagher, Agent Kessler is looking for him,” Stella said.
“Technically, he works for a subsidiary of Binary Systems.”
“I know. Yottaflops.”
Leland nodded. “Cayson and Kelvin went to a data storage convention, but that was the last time Kelvin showed up for work.”
Stella studied Leland. What was the hacker trying to say? She waited.
“I came on the scene when Binary Systems incorporated. Kelvin and Cayson went back a long way, way beyond Project Pericarp.”
Stella figured Cayson must’ve told Leland a lot more than he should have. “What are you saying?”
“You know that Kelvin wasn’t involved in Project Pericarp. Or do you know something we don’t?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying, to be honest, but if he has implants in his head—just like Cayson has—he might need help,” Leland explained. “Just trying to be helpful.”
“And we might have one more piece of the puzzle,” Stella said, just before her phone buzzed.
She had to take the call.
The hackers started chatting again, and Stella excused herself to find a quiet place to answer the call from the special agent in charge, who had returned to DC for a special NCIJTF meeting at the Pentagon.
Her phone to one ear, Stella barely reached the otherwise empty break room when she swayed. She leaned against the doorframe. “What? I thought he was recovering from the gunshot wounds.”
“Me too,” Jake Kessler said. “We’re investigating.”
“Of course.” Stella’s forehead rested on her palm. “Ben Quesnay. Wow. His wife has multiple sclerosis. Four little kids. I can’t believe this is happening.”
“We’re setting up a fund for her and their children.”
“That’s the least we can do.” Stella wondered how much she could contribute.
Single and unattached, she had very little expenses. Living on the road, chasing shadows, meant she had no mortgage payments to worry about. Once she arrived at the job site, all expenses were paid.
Her cryptology degree had helped in her job as a cyber special agent.
Somewhat.
She knew what the computer experts were talking about. Still, there were days when she didn’t believe a word they said to her.
And she couldn’t trust a thing the hackers did.
Unlike FBI Special Agent Ben Quesnay, who seemed to think that the entire Project Pericarp was connected to Russia’s ФСБ—or FSB in its romanized form.
Stella wasn’t sure she shared his suspicion.
Project Pericarp had begun in the NSA, crossed over to the CIA, ricocheted through the FBI, and then returned to the NSA like a boomerang.
It had been over…
Or has it?
Clearly elements of it had remained, like these various virtual networks that were spreading like cancer throughout the known Internet universe.
Well, the F
ederal Security Service of the Russian Federation were no doubt interested in Molyneux’s underground network, but there had been no reason to think they were involved in helping maintain MedusaNet, which clearly had been owned by a British company before it had been sold to Molyneux.
And now we’ll never know.
Seven
“Icarus.” VenomLabs chief scientist, Dr. Osman Reyes, walked around Cayson’s bed, letting the other cybernetic researchers fill the room.
Cayson studied them, looking for familiar faces, but found none.
Where’s Stella Evans? Leland?
Cayson assumed that either they knew what Reyes was about to tell him about Icarus, or they didn’t need to know.
“Ah. So my implant has a name.” Cayson drew a deep breath and crossed his legs. After sleeping here for several days, he had begun to like his bed and the nice one hundred percent cotton pajamas they’d been bribing him with.
“Implants. Plural,” Reyes corrected him. “I didn’t think anyone would survive with three, but you have five.”
“Five implants?” Cayson tried not to move his head, in case doing so might dislodge something.
I don’t know what it would dislodge—my brain?
“They form a helmet around your head and send you low-level electrical shock now and then.”
No wonder I keep getting headaches. Kept.
“What did you do to make the headaches go away?” Cayson asked.
“They’re not gone. We put some mini braces around your implants to lessen the stress on your brain.”
“Oh, thank you, Doctor. I can always use less stress.” Cayson looked at the others.
They said nothing to him. They stared at him, then jotted things on their tablets.
They might be doodling, for all he knew.
Reyes stopped at the foot of the bed. “We created Icarus for DARPA to test exoskeletons for supersoldiers.”
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency had been researching strange and scary things since the late fifties. Cayson wasn’t sure whether to feel honored to be in yet another DARPA project or feel insulted that he had become a lab rat doomed to die.
“Two years ago, two soldiers were abducted in the middle of a live test,” Reyes explained. “They were killed and dumped, but we never recovered our exoskeletons and their controller implants.”
“And now they replicated those implants and put them in my team?” Cayson had always tried to be helpful. Maybe the good doctor could summarize all this and he could go home.
“Well, yes, but who knows how many of these next-generation implants they have mass-produced and implanted on people.”
“Meaning?” Now Cayson felt uncomfortable, like his bed was getting warmer.
“Meaning something is going on, and we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
I could have told you that, Doctor.
“My guess is it would have taken at least ten hours to implant them. But you said you don’t remember any of it.”
Cayson shook his head. “I remember falling asleep on the flight home from London. When I picked up my suitcases at baggage claim, I found that my entire team felt sick—headaches, nausea, aches and pains—like we were coming down with something.”
Since they had gotten over all that a couple of weeks later, it had not dawned on Cayson that it had been anything other than a travel bug.
And then at the conference, Aspasia had shown up. What had she done to him?
Something was going to happen soon.
But what?
“As long as you stay here, they will not be able to access your brain,” Reyes said. “This is your safe cube.”
“Safe cage, you mean?” Cayson chuckled.
“Whatever you want to call it.”
“Why can’t you just surgically remove my implants?” Cayson asked.
“I guess you were asleep when we discussed this with your cousin.” Reyes pointed to one of the cybernetics engineers.
The man cleared his throat. “Those third-generation implants have coiled around your blood vessels. If we try to remove even one, you could get a stroke or aneurism if we break a major vessel in your brain.”
“And it’s inoperable.” Cayson hoped what he said wasn’t true.
“If we can make them non-functional, they would be benign, just as they had been for months until someone showed up at the convention and activated them.”
“So that’s what that jab was for.” Cayson remembered now. That day at the data storage convention, Aspasia had shown up, splashed his face with water, caused him to stumble and go down.
And then she had injected something into his head.
Something to activate his helmet?
“But they’ll be in my head the rest of my life.”
Everyone nodded at Cayson’s realization.
“What happens when we’ve shut down their network? I can’t stay in this cage forever,” Cayson said.
They had no answer.
“Can I go home safely? Will they try to find me in five years?”
Reyes smiled. “You just focus on hacking into the MedusaNet. We will focus on hacking into your head. If we can destroy the implants without killing you, we’ll try.”
“I appreciate your honesty.” Maybe. “When can I get to work?”
“One more day. Raj and your cousin can’t wait for you to get to the machine room. Apparently there are things that only you can do.”
“Yeah. Like making a life-changing mistake.”
“Technically, you created the MedusaNet for a British company. What they did after the completion of the work was entirely outside your control.”
Reyes spread out his hands. “In the same way, we created Icarus for DARPA. When it was stolen, what the enemies did with it was beyond our control.”
“But they sent it back to us, like a boomerang.”
“That too.” Reyes sighed. “Once they turned our state-of-the-art cyborg implants into kill switches, it becomes our problem again.”
“Multiplied.”
“Unfortunately.”
Unfortunately it would take a tremendous amount of resources to fix the problem of enhanced cybernetic implants now used on unsuspecting American citizens, implants capable of turning heads into fireballs.
“So many laws have been broken,” Cayson said. “I didn’t ask for these implants. It was against my consent. I would never have voluntarily subjected myself—or my team—to this.”
Reyes nodded.
Something he isn’t saying.
“I don’t envy you, Dr. Reyes.” Cayson stretched his legs. “I don’t envy you at all.”
Eight
“How are you doing?” Stella stood by Cayson’s hospital bed, her arms folded.
“Feeling more like my old self again,” Cayson said.
Leland walked in. She must have heard his remark. “Lazy and doing nothing, as per usual?”
“Wish I could do that,” Stella said.
Cayson moaned. “Feel free to take my implants.”
His cousin waved her hand in an arc in front of his face. “When you blink, are you taking our photos?”
“Like this?” Cayson blinked furiously.
Leland and Stella both covered their faces.
Cayson laughed.
Someone called Leland’s name. Raj peeked in at the door. “Machine room. Pronto.”
“On my way in a sec.” To Cayson, she said, “Be ready, cuz. We’re going to hack into your head tonight.”
Cayson groaned. His cousin was a better hacker than he could ever be, but even the best could fail. If they failed, his life was on the line.
No wonder Stella had made him sign those stacks of forms from the government.
If you help us, you will die.
If you don’t help us, we will all die.
Either way, Cayson felt that he was the only person who was doomed.
In the end, Molyneux’s successor won.
“Have you found ou
t who this understudy is? The one taking over MedusaNet?” Cayson gently tapped the edge of his bed.
Stella responded by sitting down on the recliner on the other side of the bedside table. She leaned back and closed her eyes.
“Tired?” Cayson asked.
“Yeah. But I’ll get up in a minute.” Stella stretched her arms over her head. “I came to tell you that your parents are safe. The GBI has a few safe houses all over the state.”
Cayson had not had any encounters with the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, but he was glad that both the federal and local authorities were helping his family.
My tax dollars at work. “How about my dogs and cats?”
“All accounted for.”
“Thank you.”
“And your neighbor says he’ll check on your carnivorous plants, in case they need more water. He says he’ll send you the bill later.”
“And he will.” Cayson interlocked his fingers over his chest. “I wish… I wish we had gone for our annual physicals more regularly so that these implants could’ve been discovered sooner before we’re all killed.”
“You’re not dead yet.”
“My colleagues, friends, employees are.”
Vivek Rao.
Danika Svoboda.
Jamal Cruze.
There had been seven of them in the Project Pericarp operation. Those three, plus Dmitri, Ulysses, and Cayson.
Kelvin hadn’t been invited.
But Kelvin was currently missing.
Is everything connected?
Cayson prayed that God would protect Kelvin, wherever he was.
“Maybe it’s time to start over,” Stella suggested.
Cayson nodded. “Lotsa flops the last several years for Yottaflops. Wish I never chose that name. Binary Systems, Inc., sounds more benign.”
Benign.
The same word that Dr. Reyes had used this morning when he had come to see his only patient in the entire VenomLabs complex.
Well, to be sure, Reyes was a cybernetics scientist and not a medical doctor per se.
And Cayson felt safe here for now because Reyes had told him he was.
“Can they read your thoughts?” Stella pointed to her own head.