Chase glared at the man. “I can get the functional drones out. And I can get the plane in. Getting you on the plane and in the sky would be difficult.”
Windsong swung her ponytail over her shoulder and laughed. “Difficult never stopped me before.”
19
Chase waited until midnight to attempt the ridiculous. He’d like to go to bed and forget all about hiding with a bunch of odd believers. Except that he’d kissed the girl he’d been missing for months. He’d never forget that.
The evening hadn’t allowed him that talk with Amos. With all the commotion, he and Mel decided to wait on telling the leader of Blue Sky Field that he was dying.
Now he had to work his magic on a WR drone manufacturing plant. Messing with the orders of a few low-level authorities was easy. Moving large groups of people from one location to another, right under the watching eyes of the Feds, hadn’t even been a challenge. But flying an army of drones away from their base seemed impossible.
While Windsong slept in Mel’s room, Chase scoured military bases across the eastern countryside. He knew how to destroy a drone in an emergency situation. But taking out hundreds would be, at least to Amos, an act of terrorism.
Many of the little air machines were half assembled in the plant. Chase found 327 S-drones and simpler formatted surveillance drones ready to fly and taking up space on the single airstrip. He smiled at the coincidence. The code the exoself used to protect Chase was 32-7. The very code that had crashed the S-drones in Atlanta.
But the drones were not threatening him or anybody else, at least not at the moment. The code he needed right now was the same one he’d used to get Molly and the others out of the detention center. Somehow the code for safe travel held the greatest potential for subverting the WR. He sparked the thirty-first processor and pulled eight lines of code.
“Come on, exoself, show me how to get these drones moving.”
The exoself surged, and Chase found his way into systems of fourteen military bases between Quebec and Florida. He wriggled his way in through secured programs until he was in position to order new drones for each facility. An overriding order from the head committee of the WR overseeing distribution was interwoven through multiple systems, just as it would be if it were the real thing. The reason for the sudden increase in the demand for drones? He programmed the order: To hunt down Chase Sterling.
He filtered the requisitions to the various locations. He’d send the machines out as close to the east coast as he could. If anything went wrong, he’d plunge them into the Atlantic. Amos might not like it, but if the Feds caught on, the best way to hide the trail back to Chase was to rid the world of a few hundred drones. He could wipe out information in the base computers easily enough, but the embedded database built into each drone could recover an irregularity in the code that could identify the source of the bogus orders.
He overworked the exoself, if that were possible, and set up the purchase requests to come in hours apart. The drones would fly out in groups of twenty-two to twenty-four, beginning at dusk and continuing through the night. Security personnel would be at the plant after dark. Chase found the schedule for the week and gave them all the same night off, but made sure the schedule showed someone would be there. No one would suspect the facility was being left unguarded.
Chase moved to one of the 3D computers and pulled up the schematics. He dropped the plans onto the flat board and pulled it up so that he could note locations of cameras and motion detectors. They’d all be rendered useless by the time the sun went down the following day.
A sound behind him made Chase spin around. “Mel, what are you doing up?”
She yawned and dropped to a chair in front of the 3D display. “Your friend is a restless sleeper. Keeps mumbling about getting her wings back.”
“She won’t be here long. I’ve got the plant ready to ship out its fleet. Now I’ve got to get that plane ready to fly forty miles north and land in the middle of nowhere for no good reason.”
“Why don’t you just have it sent to the plant to pick up some drones? It’s big enough to hold five or six, isn’t it?”
“Genius.” He bent to kiss her cheek. “How does it feel to be smarter than a man with a computer in his brain?” He changed the orders for two of the bases, taking three drones off one and two off the other. Then he ordered the confiscated plane sent to the plant to pick up five drones to deliver to an EU base outside of London. He pulled up a chair and sat beside Mel.
“Windsong’s plane just got put into service for the WR. Its first mission is to pick up five drones at the plant and deliver them to the EU. I’m moving the funds from one WR account to another to cover the purchase. That’s not stealing.”
“I didn’t say it was.” Mel covered Chase’s hand with hers and squeezed his fingers. “Did you know that when you’re doing this stuff with the exoself, your fingers, and sometimes your feet, get fidgety?”
“It’s weird to program a computer at a random location just by using what’s inside me. Sometimes I want to punch a keypad. I guess that’s why my fingers get restless. I hadn’t noticed that my feet want to get in the action too.”
“You’re amazing, boss.” She lifted his hand and kissed it.
“It’s too simple.” Chase leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t believe this will play out like I planned it. It can’t be that easy.”
“It’s not over yet. You’ve still got to get the girl onto her plane.”
Chase opened his eyes. “I’ll have to take her myself.”
“What? Come on, you know you can’t do that.”
“She has no other way to get inside the plant and get on that plane.” Chase swiped his hand over the 3D image, closing the program.
“Stay on the VPad with her. Can’t you monitor everything and tell her what she needs to know without being there?” Mel hurried to an adjacent work station.
“And what if they track her VPad?” Chase asked. “What if she loses it? We might as well hand her over to the Feds.”
Mel faced him, her arms crossed. “You are not getting on that plane.”
He smiled. “Yes ma’am.” He drew close enough to breathe in the hint of lilac in her hair. “I told you before—I’m not going anywhere.” He took her in his arms. “Except I’m going as far as that airstrip.”
“Chase, what if word of this gets out? What if we really do have a mole?”
“If anyone in this compound connected to an outside computer or VPad, I’d know it. And no one has been allowed to go up. Not since Molly and the others came down. Well, no one except Switchblade. He met Windsong at the door. But—”
“He’s not a mole,” Mel said.
Chase nodded. “That’s what I was going to say.”
A soft voice spoke behind them. “Oh, Miss Melody, don’t let anybody see you hugging like that. You know what will happen.”
Chase let go and faced the intruder.
The teenage girl smiled. “On second thought, go ahead and get caught. We could use a party to liven things up down here.”
Chase placed his hands on his hips and tilted his head at Mel. “OK, tell me what she means by that.”
Mel put her arm around the girl. “Never mind, boss. Erin, what are you doing in here at this time of night?”
“I was on my way to the kitchen and I heard voices.
“Honey, you know you can’t be snacking. We’ve got to stick to the rations.”
“Oh, I wasn’t going for food or anything. Just…” The kid sounded as guilty as Chase felt when he concocted a lie.
But why the remorse? His lies protected these people. He stepped to the other side of the girl and directed her toward the hallway leading to the dorms. “Admit it—you’re hungry. I’ve got something for you.”
Mel followed. “You can’t spoil these kids. We only have so much.”
“Come on, Miss Melody. I’ve got something for yo
u too.”
They walked to Chase’s room. He went in first, moving through the darkness to pull something out from under his mattress.
Mel flipped on the lamp. “What have you got in here?”
“I had this in my flight pack when I got here and I put it away for a special occasion.” Chase pulled out a wrapped chocolate bar. “I thought about turning it over to the rations coordinator, but it’s not enough to make any difference.”
Mel took the candy and smiled. “So you kept it for yourself, huh?”
“No. I saved it for you. Just hadn’t decided when to give it to you.” He grabbed the bar and snapped it in two. “And now you have to share it.” He handed half to Erin and smiled.
The girl hesitated.
“What’s wrong?” Chase asked. “You don’t like chocolate?”
“It just doesn’t seem fair.” She sat on the end of the bed and lowered the treat to her lap.
Chase knelt before her. “Tell you what, you eat this, don’t tell anyone about it, and I’ll see if I can get us some more. I have connections, you know.” He took the candy, pulled off the torn wrapper, and held it up.
“Go ahead,” Mel told her, and she peeled the paper off her half. “I’ll eat mine if you eat yours.”
Erin smiled and bit off a chunk. She chewed and swallowed, her face gleaming. “It’s been a long time since I tasted chocolate. Thank you, Mr. Sterling. I mean, Mr. Redding.”
“Call me Chase,” he said.
“Mr. Chase.” She smiled and took another bite.
Mel closed the door as she bit into the candy.
“What about the rule?” Chase asked. “If it involves illegal snacking, it’s OK to shut the door?”
“I don’t want the light to bother anybody. Besides, we’re not alone.” She took another bite and smiled. “And we sure don’t want this heavenly scent drifting through the compound. Might start a riot.”
Erin giggled as Chase lifted off his knees and leaned against the wall. He folded his arms and watched as Mel joined the girl on the edge of the bed. This was what he’d imagined of the underground. Good company. Loving people. No emergency to deal with. Kerstin hadn’t popped into the exoself all day. Maybe that problem, at least, was over. He smiled with relief.
Then the light went out.
“What’s going on?” the girl asked.
“Don’t worry,” Chase said. “Maybe the bulb burned out. Old technology in this place. These bulbs don’t last forever.” He opened the door and found a switch in the hall. Nothing. “Well, it seems we have an issue with our power source. Both of you stay put, and I’ll go to the command center and make sure the systems there are still functional.”
“Chase, if our computers are down then we’ve got a serious problem,” Mel said.
“Yeah. It’s a good thing you put one in my brain. Stay here. I’ll be back.”
20
Making his way through the tunnel to the command center, Chase prompted the exoself to check the power reserve supplying electricity. Or at the moment, not supplying it. Did the systems up top catch on that the reserve was being filtered to an unknown location? The exoself searched the company outside Herouxville that gave the town its solar and hydro-electric energy. The panels seemed in proper working order. No red flags in the system.
The command center glimmered with read-outs at a few stations. Chase didn’t need to read the code. About three hours of operation remained before power depletion shut down every computer.
He rushed to the closet where he’d seen a resident requesting a laserlight. No choice but to break the lock. Grabbing a couple of the little lights, he hurried back to his room.
“Mel, come with me to the command center.” He handed a light to Erin. “Here, sweetie, go to your room and stay there.”
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“We’ll figure it out. Everything will be fine.”
The girl headed down the hall, and Chase and Mel went the opposite direction, back toward the command center.
“Should we wake up Amos?” Mel asked.
“Let’s just figure out how to fix this.” Chase grabbed her arm and hurried her along. “I’ve got full connection to the branches of the underground, and the WR is an open book. As long as I have the exoself we can still function. But it’ll be awful if you all have to live in darkness.”
“How did they figure out the reserve was getting sucked up?” Mel asked. “Do you think they can pinpoint our location?”
“No indication that the energy supply company has found a breach in their systems, or that they even know they’ve lost some of the reserve. It replenishes faster than we can use it.”
“Then why the power outage?” Mel dropped in front of a computer in the dark room and began searching for an answer.
“Whole town’s gone dark,” Chase told her. “The local police just reported it.”
“But we’re not on the power grid, so why are we included in the blackout?”
The exoself searched deeper. Intel gave no reason for the blackout, or how it had managed to work its way to the underground. No storm damage. No accident reports.
Lots of drone activity.
“Crap.”
“What is it, Chase?”
“Fourteen minutes ago, every drone connected to its charger. Even the ones still on the assembly line.”
“So what? They drained the town’s energy? That’s not possible.”
“No, they didn’t drain anything. But something drained them. They wouldn’t disconnect. So the system shut off their power source. And the town’s power went out too.”
“The reservoirs shut down too?”
“Yep. I told you it couldn’t be that easy. Putting in all those orders at once kicked the system at the plant into overdrive. I confused computer operations.”
“Well, we’ll just have to set it straight.” She typed faster. “Can you cancel the orders? Put the drones back to sleep?”
“Yes, but that’ll mean taking a more human approach to reuniting Windsong with her plane.”
“Maybe she needs to resign herself to the idea of staying put.” Mel crossed her arms. “Then you won’t have to go off with that woman. You could end up in all sorts of trouble.”
Chase didn’t cancel the orders for the drones to deliver themselves to various bases, but he did power them down. Too bad he hadn’t given personnel this night off, as well as the following night. They must be scrambling, trying to figure out how every drone in the place came to life without a programmer. They hadn’t even been trained on how to cut power to the equipment they guarded. So they called the energy company and declared an emergency, which led to shutting down the entire grid.
No wonder it’d been so easy to put in the orders. The plant was in the hands of amateurs. Not to mention the incompetents in charge of the energy supply.
“Human beings are inept,” he said with a grin. “Anybody with half a brain could have handled this without turning off the whole grid. No wonder the government wants to make us over. Of course, the government is full of half-brained humans as well.”
“When you’re through insulting the human race, check the code I just put in the energy company’s system.”
The exoself ran the intel and approved.
“Good, that’ll work. The power should be coming back on in town, but the plant will remain dark until the clumsy workers there are sure the drones are through stirring.”
“You know, boss, human beings designed the transhuman prototype. And they were no dummies.”
“Are you standing up for the geeks at the Helgen?”
“That depends. Are you saying the rest of us aren’t good enough to keep up with your computer brain? I helped program it, you know.” Mel’s voice got louder. “Maybe you could make yourself a designer brain now, but you couldn’t have a year ago.”
What did he say to get her mad?
“I was just kidding. There are a lot of dumb people in the world. That�
�s all. I didn’t mean you, Mel. You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever known.”
“Until you met yourself.” She pointed the laserlight at his face. “Why don’t we have power yet?”
“The reserves are on lock-down. It happens during an outage. The system thinks it lost its source, so it’s hanging on to what it has.”
“Did you just learn all that from the exoself?”
Chase crossed his arms. “Yes, I did. I pick up on the obvious a little faster than most—”
“Most what? Regular humans?”
“I was going to say faster than most computers. I caught a trail into the energy company and read their policy. It’s a closed system, but I got in.”
“Well, good for you. How long until our lights come back on?”
Before he could answer, the computers preparing to shut down flashed a repletion code. The room filled with sound and light. Chase found the nearest light switch and pulled it up. “They’re on.” He pushed the bar down. “Let’s get some sleep. It’s gonna be a long day preparing to move the drones and getting Windsong to her plane.”
“I though you canceled the orders on the drones.”
“No. You told me to, but I didn’t,” Chase said. “Everything is on schedule. Just the way I planned it.”
“And the drones aren’t going to light up again before they’re supposed to?”
“It was glitch in the system—that’s what they think at the plant. The programmers will have the whole day to make sure the drones don’t ever turn themselves on again. And when they’ve all gone home and the sun goes down, I’ll turn them on anyway and fly them out of there.”
“Like you said, it seems too simple.”
“I made it simple. It’ll work.”
“Yeah. Goodnight then.” Mel headed to the dorm.
“Goodnight.” Chase sat at a station and stared at the coded screen. Did he and Mel just have a fight? They’d had plenty over the years. Most of them involved him screwing something up and Mel fixing it. Now things were different. Weren’t they? In the short time he’d been here he’d hurt her feelings more than once. Now he’d ticked her off—he wasn’t sure how.
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