by In Churl Yo
“Oh, yeah. They could. They could just as easily make it harder for us to do what we need to or screw us over on a lark. That’s all part of the Kiter Five charm, isn’t it?” asked Milton.
“I can keep them in line.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be boring,” he laughed.
“What wouldn’t be boring?” asked Caleb as he grabbed an empty mug on the counter and poured some coffee into it.
“Neema wants to call in the Kiter Five,” Milton said.
Caleb shot her a look of disbelief, then shuffled over and sat next to his friends. “That’s either the most brilliant or idiotic thing I’ve heard all day. To be fair I just woke up. But after careful consideration, I’ve decided it’s both brilliant and idiotic. I’m in.”
“I’ll take Nox’s military drone and leave shortly,” Neema announced.
Caleb frowned. “Alone? You sure you want to do that?”
“That’s the only way it’ll happen.”
Milton stood up. “Wrong. The only way this is happening is if I’m going with you. I’ve waited a long time to plead my case to the Kiter Five. If there’s going to be any kind of meeting, I’m there. End of story.”
“This all just gets better and better,” said Caleb.
Neema slid her visor over her eyes and began working her cufflink. It was a simple matter for her to compose the coded message, enter the global network and bounce its delivery across several node points until it was impossible to tell where the communication had originated from. When she was satisfied that it was delivered, Neema pulled the visor from her face and looked at the others.
“Done. Now, who’s hungry?”
Several minutes later Caleb emerged from the larder with his arms full of provisions. It took him a moment to catch Neema and Milton’s distracted looks, feel a heavy tension in the room that wasn’t there before.
Something was wrong.
He fought his instinct to drop everything he was carrying and reach for his sidearm. Instead he walked over to the countertop and put the food down. Caleb still slid his hand down and rested it on the butt of his weapon before taking up position next to his friends.
“What’s going on, guys?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” Neema said. “I’m not even sure I saw what I saw.”
“I’m not,” Milton agreed.
Caleb was about to get impatient with them both when Zoah entered the room carrying some of his shirts. She looked at him and smiled. “I hope you don’t mind if I borrow a few of these,” she said.
“Of course not,” Caleb responded.
Milton whispered, “Wait for it…”
“This thing is a tent and smells like dead vermin,” exclaimed Nox as he came from behind Zoah, adjusting one of Caleb’s shirts into his pants.
His hands a blur, Caleb lifted his sidearm and aimed it at the prisoner’s head.
Nox raised his arms in the air. “But the material is soft and feels good next to the skin?” he offered. “How many times are you going to point that thing at me?”
“Somebody better hurry up and tell me why I shouldn’t put a hole in this man right now.”
Zoah placed her hand on Caleb’s arm. “It was me,” she said. “I brought him. He’s going to help us.”
Caleb grinned without moving the pistol or his stance. “Is that right? You’re helping us, Nox?”
The white-haired man produced a smile of his own. “I gave the girl my word.”
“What’s that worth these days?”
“For you? A lot. I’m offering you a safe way into the New Mexico facility. I doubt you’ll find a better offer than that.”
“Please at least hear him out,” Zoah said, throwing him the look she reserved for her father whenever she wanted something impossible.
“Alright, fine,” Caleb relented. “But if we’re doing this, Milton’s going to bind Nox’s hands and feet together until I’m satisfied this man’s no longer a risk to any of us. I want him secured and uncomfortable.”
“Is that necessary?” Nox asked.
Caleb said nothing and kept his weapon steady. A few minutes later, they were all sitting at the dining table facing each other—all eyes on Nox, waiting for him to begin.
“I don’t suppose there’s any coffee left?” he said. When it was clear to him that there would be no coffee, Nox lifted his bound hands from his lap and placed them on the table in front of him to reassure them of his restrained condition and his cooperation. “As I said before, the facility in New Mexico is a fortress—impossible to break into and even more difficult to hack into. If you try, you will fail, and by fail, I mean they will kill you. Horribly. There’s nothing I can do that will change that. Even I can’t get in without prior authorization.”
“Great,” said Caleb. “Should I just take you back to the barn now?”
“The traffic through that base is so regulated, there are no unscheduled, unexpected visitors ever,” Nox continued. “But I think there may be a way to get around that if you’re willing to take a risk.”
“Not through their node point,” said Milton. “I’ve tried every back-alley trick I know plus the one’s Neema has been willing to share with me. There’s just no clean way onto that network—believe it.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Nox said. “You people are so smart.”
“Tell them what you told me,” Zoah prodded.
The man with white hair lifted his head and gazed at the young woman, a million calculations being thrown around his brain in that moment. The math failed him then as his logic already had—despite his better judgment, Nox was going to have to do this. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“Ceres does have the strongest digital security measures in the world, but in its way, it also has the most rigid and predictable systems as well. There’s a flaw we may be able to exploit,” said Nox. “Simply put, Ceres is too large and its CEO too infatuated with control and power for any of its engineers to get too creative with its systems code. Not to say the software is weak, far from it; it’s simply unoriginal across the board.”
“What you’re saying is a generalization,” Neema said. “But I understand your meaning. How does this help us?”
“Ogden didn’t just inherit the company or his father’s God complex, he was also given a digital key that gives him absolute access to any Ceres system, any node point or line of code on the planet. That authorization is practically hardwired into the motherboards.”
“Bullshit,” said Milton. “There’s no way some backdoor key exists in the Ceres network—I’ve been all over so many systems in the last year looking for that exact kind of thing, I would have at least stumbled across the code somewhere.”
“You never found the keyhole because it exists in a quantum state. There’s no code to access until you try to access the code,” explained Nox. “And you can’t access the code unless you’re Theodore Ogden.”
The room went quiet, the group scanning each other’s faces for the truth in what they were hearing.
“I know where this is going, and I’m not a fan,” said Caleb, breaking the silence.
“This is the only way,” Zoah said. “Can’t you see?”
“Oh, I see it,” he responded, “but this is not a better alternative. Either choice is pain, death and destruction, hellfire and damnation.”
“I can mitigate that,” said Nox. “In fact, I can put you in a room with Ogden alone.”
“Let me get this straight: We’re going to Ceres corporate headquarters, one of the most secure facilities on Earth, to kidnap its most protected officer and persuade him to help us break into a fortified secret base in New Mexico so we can uncover proof of a conspiracy threatening the future of all mankind?” asked Caleb. “And you’re going to help us? I see Ogden isn’t the only one with a God complex. How are you able to pull off this miracle, Nox?”
“Well, I may happen to be the Head of Security for the Ceres Corporation,” he answered. “It’s more of a job descr
iption, but we can dispense with the titles. I mean, we’re all equals here, right?”
“We’re dead,” said Milton. “So dead.”
“No. This will work,” Neema said.
Caleb pressed his fingers against the crown of his nose. “You can’t be serious.”
“It will work,” Zoah assured him. “Nox has had several opportunities to capture or even kill us, and he hasn’t. I believe that’s worth something. If you don’t trust him, I get it, but for some reason I feel like he’ll honor his word and keep us safe. All I’m asking is for you to trust me, because my gut hasn’t ever failed me before, and it’s telling me this is the right—the only—path for us take. No one wants to succeed more than I do. I need to know the truth. I need to see my family again. We have to do this now, in this way, and I can’t see any other.”
Neema nodded, then reached across the table and placed her hand on Zoah’s. “I do trust you, so don’t let what I’m about to say be discouraging in the least, but I won’t be going with you.”
“What? Why? I don’t understand,” Zoah replied.
“There’s something I have to do. You have your path, I have mine. If all goes to plan, they’ll cross again, and we’ll see each other soon. Have faith, Zoah. I do.” Neema got up from her seat, hugged her friend and left the room, heading outside to prep the military drone for its long flight.
“You’re going, too,” Zoah said as she watched Milton run his hand through his hair. The group was splitting up again at the worst possible time. She was going to attempt the most dangerous thing she’d ever done in her entire life without her closest, dearest friend? Milton got up and motioned Zoah to the side of the room.
“I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t important to me,” Milton whispered.
“What could possibly be more important than this?”
“The less Nox knows, the better, so don’t say anything... We’re going to meet the Kiter Five.”
“Now? Your timing is terrible.”
“Neema thinks they can help us. I agree. Consider us your backup. If things go wrong, and they probably will, we’ll be Plan B.”
“I thought you said the Kiter Five were volatile and unreliable. What’s Plan C?” Zoah asked.
“I guess we’ll figure that out when the time comes. Hey, it’s like they say, Divide to Conquer, right?” he said, trying to sound positive. “This isn’t goodbye. Not by a long shot.” Milton kissed her and held Zoah in his arms for as long as he could before leaving. On his way to the door, he offered a nod to Caleb, who gave one back.
Zoah sat down at the table and Caleb put his arm around her as she leaned into him for support. It wasn’t how she had imagined things would go today, but she suspected that somehow this was how it was all meant to be.
“Why don’t we get the stealth drone ready to fly?” Caleb suggested. Zoah agreed, happy for the distraction, and the two stood up to head for the barn.
“You know, I could help with that,” Nox offered. “I mean, it is my ship after all, and I am part of the team now, right?”
When the door closed behind them, leaving him in the cabin alone, Nox slumped in his chair with an annoyed look on his face. “You could have at least untied me!” he said aloud to the empty room. “Well, you know what they say: If you can’t trust someone to do it right, do it yourself, and me, I don’t trust anyone...”
Several minutes later, Nox was free.
CHAPTER 18
The schematic displayed on Thomas Lightsea’s visor wasn’t exactly technical nor accurate, as it was hand-drawn and came from an anonymous and only just notorious blog. He immediately recognized he was in trouble the second he popped the control panel off the wall and got lost in the jumble of hardware crammed inside the tiny cavity there.
He always thought he knew just enough to be dangerous, but in this case, it was more like Thomas knew enough for him to be only somewhat threatening or at the very least be annoying to small children and domesticated animals. In short, he was getting nowhere fast.
He didn’t have time for this—more than a month had already passed, and Thomas knew the trail was dead cold and the odds were long. Too long. But unlike his parents, he knew he had to do something. Since Zoah left, everything felt wrong. It wasn’t just that she was gone—Thomas felt sure that somehow reality itself was amiss, and it was unsettling. Worse, he felt like everyone else in the world was in on it and for some reason keeping him in the dark. Well, that was going to change if he had any say about it.
Thomas considered the mechanical mess he had created and sighed. Then he reached in and pulled out a fistful of chips, wires and boards, the resulting interrupted currents contesting this action with a small light flare and wisp of electrical smoke. Two wires dangled in the aftermath, and Thomas licked his fingers to twist the black and white leads together. With the connection made, the airlock door next to him hissed open, and he smiled.
“Thomas?”
The interior lights came on. Thomas closed his eyes, not from the sudden brightness but because he knew he had been busted.
Madeline Lightsea stepped toward her son and recognized what was happening—still she wanted to hear it from him and so repeated her question.
“Thomas?”
“Hi, Mom. Couldn’t sleep?”
“Both of us, it seems,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’d care to explain what’s going on here?”
Her son threw his hands up in frustration. “I can’t wait around not doing anything anymore.”
Madeline sympathized. Last week she had the exact same thought, but Charles talked her through it and assured her Zoah was alive and well. While it took every ounce of strength she had to defy her instincts, she trusted their decision was still the right one. But she would never forgive herself if they had been wrong.
“Zoah is fine,” she told Thomas.
“How can you know that for sure unless she’s standing next to you telling that to you herself? Because Dad says she is? He’s been wrong before.”
“He’s not wrong. Not about this. And your solution is to go after her so I can have both my children out in the world? It’s been hard enough having Zoah gone, but if something were to happen to you too, I’m not sure I could survive that. I refuse.”
“You’re not being fair,” Thomas said.
“Nothing about this is fair. For any of us. You’re smart, Thomas, but still too young to understand why we’ve allowed this to happen. I know it won’t make you feel any better to hear this, but I miss her too.”
Madeline reached out with her arms and embraced her son as he stepped toward her.
“It’s getting harder to pretend everything is normal, not knowing whether she’s safe. Can you promise Zoah’s going to be okay?”
“Hey,” she replied as only a mother could, “I promise.” If she could just believe those words herself, but considering the reality of the world they lived in were any of them truly okay? It was a burden she would carry for Thomas and the rest of their family, but for how long? Madeline took his face into her hands. “Now what are we going to do about this mess you’ve made?”
“Dad always says messes are like guesses—make as many as you want, just be sure you’re prepared for whatever the result is.”
“And the result in this case?” asked Madeline.
“I’m on it,” he said and began picking up various bits of broken technology strung all along the floor around him, wondering whether he could’ve made it outside if he hadn’t been caught.
# # #
“I see the new security measures are working,” Charles Lightsea said a few minutes later without looking up from his spreadsheets.
“They’re working,” Madeline responded. It took a few moments of silence for him to realize something was wrong. Dr. Lightsea dropped his visor and saw his wife sitting at the end of their bed brooding.
“And Thomas?” he asked.
“Hell-bent on finding his sister. He almost convinced me to go with h
im. Did we make a horrible mistake?”
“I don’t think so,” he said and sat next to her. “I don’t. You were right in allowing Zoah to leave. She’ll never have this opportunity again.”
“I’m not so sure anymore. About anything.”
He put his arm around her shoulders. “Well, I have it on good authority she’s being cared for by the people around her, and if you really wanted, we could have her here in less than a day…”
Madeline thought about it. “I know, I know—that little fact is what’s kept me sane these past few days, but my resistance is waning. I kind of want her home now.”
“Say the word.”
“She’d never forgive me if we brought her back too soon,” Madeline reasoned to herself aloud. “I’m being selfish.”
“You’re allowed,” Dr. Lightsea said. “But before you make that call, I have something to tell you that may influence your decision. We have to move.”
“Move? Now? You’re kidding, right?”
“The timetable was accelerated. I’m afraid there’s no choice.”
“But what if something happens? What if Zoah tries to find us and we’re not here?”
“That’s not even a remote possibility. In fact, it’ll be better for all involved if we left Zoah where she was until after the move. It’ll keep things less complicated—less messy.”
“What are you up to, Charles? You’ve always been good at manipulating events, facts, even people, to achieve the result you want—please tell me you’re not using Zoah that way. Or me.”
“I can’t even answer that. It’s ridiculous to suggest it.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you’re being evasive. Either way, I’m not leaving her behind.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Madeline. This move was coming, and we knew about it when we let Zoah leave. It’s not as if we can deviate from the plan.”
“This is our daughter we’re talking about. I’d do whatever it takes to keep her safe, plan or no, and so would you.”
He got up and paced the floor in front of his wife, then took a knee next to her and reached for her hand.