“You can stop right there,” Eileen interrupts. She pauses to fire four shots. “There’s no way a student could get access to any timestamps. Those stamps are part of the audit trail, and they’re locked down tight. They have to be. They’re a fundamental part of our security, and if anyone interfered with them, it could leave a whole bunch of systems wide open. Our network could be compromised and we’d never know about it.”
Stewart takes his time, firing on a couple of airborne bots before he replies. “So who could access the time stamps?”
Eileen doesn’t answer, and in that moment, the advancing bots abruptly grind to a halt as if someone has thrown a switch.
Stewart turns around. Eileen is standing immobile, her gun held across her body, and she’s staring hard at Stewart, her eyes glinting coldly in the yellow light of the battlefield.
Stewart returns her gaze. He’s onto something here. Eileen knows more than she’s saying, and this is the moment to press her, to get her to open up. He lets the silence hang in the air for a moment then says, “I asked you a simple question, Eileen. If it’s not a student, then who could it be? Who could’ve altered those timestamps?”
Eileen raises her rifle, pointing it at Stewart’s chest. And without taking her eyes from his, she says just two words, “I could.”
CHAPTER 13
SANJAY WALKS STEADILY THROUGH THE JUNGLE, heading east and following a rough path that meanders randomly between the trees. She moves carefully, looking from side to side, aware of every dripping leaf, every distant bird call. She stops and turns around slowly, checking her six, then she runs through a check of her target indicators, but there’s nothing to see; she’s the only player for at least a mile in every direction. She lets out a sigh. She’s been trailing through the damned jungle for over an hour, and she’s achieved nothing. There’s no sign of any player calling themselves Scarlett, and no one she can pump for information. But the jungle is vast and there could be dozens of players just outside the range of her detectors, so there’s still a chance she might find a clue that will lead her to Scarlett, so long as she just keeps walking.
“To hell with this,” she mutters. “There has to be a better way.” She can’t search the whole damned jungle, but what else can she do?
“Marcus,” she whispers. “He’s the weakest link.” When she left Marcus’s avatar trapped in her scenario, she assumed it would be relatively easy to find out where he was logged in at Northridge. After all, he must’ve lied when he claimed to be off the campus; he was connected to Northridge’s system and that fact placed him firmly inside the perimeter fence. If she could only find him in real life, she’d have total power over him, and he’d tell her anything she wanted to know. But she’s already checked all the accessible game gear and VR chairs at Northridge, so Marcus must’ve found a damned good hiding place because he’s not using any connection point that she can see. Too bad I couldn’t check everywhere, she thinks. Marcus could be in one of the secure areas, like maybe one of the cybersecurity labs, but it’s unlikely; if she can’t get into the labs, then neither could he. Where are you, Marcus?
For a moment, she sees Marcus’s frightened face, but she pushes the image from her mind and starts walking again. He’ll be OK, she tells herself. I’ll let him sweat a little before I go back and check on him. In the meantime, she has to do something. And since Marcus is too well-hidden in real life, her next best bet is to find some trace of this person who calls themselves Scarlett. “There must be a clue somewhere,” she murmurs. She stops and looks up into the dense leaf canopy, watching the delicate mosaic of light and leaf shifting in the breeze. And it helps her to get her mind straight—helps her to breathe. “Where would they meet?” she murmurs. “It would have to be somewhere private, somewhere they wouldn’t be spotted.” She lowers her gaze and scans the endless ranks of trees stretching out in every direction. How would two people even find each other in this place? They might have shared a set of co-ordinates before each meeting, but that would be risky; it would leave a trail for others to follow, even if the coordinates were encrypted. So how else could they be sure of seeing each other? A landmark, Sanjay thinks. They must’ve used a landmark.
Sanjay pulls the map into her UI and scrolls across it as fast as she can, backward and forward, up and down, pausing to zoom in on anything that could be a significant feature in the landscape. There isn’t much to go on—a fallen boulder, a clearing, a bend in the river—but she tags each one for reference. “If only I had AGILE now,” she mutters, and the thought makes her smile. When she finally beats Marcus and his scheming partner and gets her hands on AGILE, she’ll be able to find anyone in any scenario. Friends and foes alike, she’ll hear every word that’s being said, and even better, she’ll be able to listen to their thoughts and hear their plans. She’ll be unstoppable.
“Soon,” she whispers. “Very soon.” She focuses her attention on the map, zooming in closer and scrolling rapidly across it once again. Hopeless, she thinks. At this resolution, I’ll be here all day. And that won’t do. It won’t do at all. She may have exaggerated the debilitating effects of the code she injected into Marcus, but she wasn’t lying when she warned him about dehydration and the effect on his breathing. He should be OK for a few hours, but any longer and he could be in serious trouble. It’s his own damned fault, she thinks. He should’ve played ball. And she’s so distracted by her grudge against Marcus that she almost misses the very thing she’s been looking for.
“What was that?”
She scrolls back across the map, taking it gently. There. A paler area standing out against the verdant vegetation. She zooms in, closer and closer. “What the hell?” The pale shape resolves into a broad clearing: a rough semi-circle carved from the forest. And at its center, there’s some kind of structure. A building. She zooms in as close as she can. “It’s hexagonal,” she whispers. “That has to be it.” Hurriedly, she tags the building and checks out its position. “Oh, man!” The damned clearing is miles away. It’ll take her hours to walk that far through the jungle, and it’s on the other side of the river, so she’ll have to make a huge detour to use the rope bridge. And there’s no guarantee that she’s right about the building being Scarlett’s secret meeting place; it’s just a hunch.
“Oh, what’s the use?” she moans. She lashes out in frustration, kicking the trunk of the nearest tree, then she turns around and heads back the way she came, back toward the entry point. With her mission settings today, she can log off anywhere, but since the system tracks everything she does, it’s better to leave a false trail. Once she’s out of the scenario, she’ll cover her tracks by altering the timestamps as usual, but she can’t be too careful. Marcus was genuinely scared of Scarlett; whatever hold she has over him, it’s surely a strong one.
And maybe that’s something she can use to her advantage. After all, she still has Marcus, and there’s no need to let him go just yet. Maybe Scarlett will come looking for him. And after a while, everyone will realize Marcus is missing and all hell will break loose. The search for Marcus might flush Scarlett into the open; she’ll be nervous, fearing discovery, and she might be forced into making a mistake. “Or she might just cut and run,” Sanjay mutters. “If I was her, I’d get the hell out.” But so what? If Scarlett disappears, it needn’t matter. Sure, the AGILE mod will probably vanish along with Scarlett, and that’s a damned shame, but it isn’t the end of the world. As long as Marcus is out of action, his place on the Beta Program will be up for grabs. Sanjay runs her fingers across her lips. Yes. It could work. She already proved herself in her last mission, so even without AGILE, she’s certain to get Marcus’s place on the program. Sorry, Marcus, she thinks, you’ll have to stay put. “It’s too bad,” she murmurs. “But it looks like I don’t need you after all.”
Sanjay sniffs. There’ll be some fallout if she leaves Marcus to rot, but she’ll deal with that later. Right now, she has someone to see.
CHAPTER 14
HANK LETS THE
WAVE OF DIZZINESS wash over him. A mesmerizing whirl of soft colors twist and dance in front of his eyes as the room melts away, but before he can even turn his head, his UI flashes up, the brightly lit panels sliding into place. He runs his eyes over the displays and they respond to his gaze, shifting, expanding, and becoming sharper as he absorbs the data. This is fantastic, he thinks. Already, the UI feels familiar, as if it was made for him. The purpose of each panel is immediately clear, and as he finishes studying each one, it slides away to one side or the other, remaining just inside his peripheral vision. Health status? He only has to think the words and the correct panel glides into place:
HEALTH: ALL SYSTEMS OPTIMAL
TRAINING MODE - HEALTH FAILSAFE IN OPERATION
That’ll disappoint Georgie, he thinks. She’s the kind of player who needs to have some skin in the game. I’ll see her in a second, he thinks. And for some reason, his heart skips a beat. Dumbass! he tells himself. Don’t go making a fool of yourself over some girl you just met. He takes a breath and pays attention to his UI while the mission briefing scrolls across his field of vision. A map shows a waypoint he has to reach; that’s his primary objective, and it’s straightforward enough. It’s a non-combat mission designed to test situational awareness and adaptability, and stealth is the order of the day. The secondary objective is to remain undetected by enemy patrols.
Hank calls up the weapons menu and selects a standard rifle and ammo. It’s either that or a heavy machine gun. You’ve got to be kidding me, he thinks. He runs through his gear, checking the settings on the weapon and its scope, and he hardly notices as the light changes around him. He looks up, and his breath catches in his throat.
The jungle. Tall trees tower up into the air, obscuring the sky behind a lush green canopy. Delicate beams of light filter through the foliage, and as the branches overhead creak and shift in the breeze, the light plays across the abundant undergrowth, catching the glimmering wings of fluttering insects. Tangles of vines and creepers snake around the tree trunks and dangle in midair like a cats’ cradle of sinuous rope. And the rich, cloying scents of damp earth and sweet decay fill Hank’s nostrils.
Hank turns slowly, gazing up toward the tree tops, although the dense shroud of the leaf canopy is impossibly far away. A mosquito zeroes in on him, and he watches it land on the back of his hand. His bare skin tickles, and he brushes the mosquito away, thinking, I felt it! I felt the goddamned mosquito! The depth of detail in this virtual environment is incredible, and the neural sync must be way more sophisticated than anything he’s ever experienced. Now I get why they call it integration, he thinks. It’s almost too real to be true.
“Hank! What do you think of this?” Georgie’s hoarse whisper is loud in his earpiece and Hank spins around and drops into a half crouch, his weapon ready in his hands.
Georgie is only a few yards away, leaning against the thick trunk of an enormous tree. She too is holding her rifle ready, and she’s on the alert, turning her head to scan her surroundings.
Hank checks his voice channel is open. “It’s cool,” he whispers. “Have you seen anyone else?”
“Not yet, but those other players must be in here somewhere. Do you think they’re heading to the same waypoint?”
“Probably. Sondra said it’s a simple demo, so I guess we’ll catch up to the other guys soon enough.”
Georgie nods then checks over her shoulder, and Hank takes the opportunity to check her out. Georgie’s avatar is true to life, but her camouflage combat gear is sleek and made to fit; it accentuates her slim waist and her lithe figure in a way that holds Hank’s attention.
“You finished gawping?”
Hank looks up with a start, and Georgie stares at him, one eyebrow raised.
“I just realized,” Hank mumbles, “in the game, you’re not wearing your headset. I mean, neither of us are.”
“It wasn’t my head you were looking at.”
Hank clears his throat. “No. I was thinking about the gear, that’s all.” He glances down at his own clothes, taking in the smooth fabric that flexes when he moves. It’s the lightest, most comfortable combat gear he’s ever worn, and it looks good too. “This is all pretty cool, yeah?”
Georgie looks Hank up and down. “Well, I have to admit, the outfit makes you look reasonably presentable.” She flashes Hank a grin and he finds himself standing a little taller. “Of course,” she adds, “that’s one big reminder that this is virtual reality.”
“Thanks a lot,” Hank says. “That’s the last time I try to pay you a compliment.”
“Good. That’s the way I like it. Now, I say we head out and travel west, then look for a route leading south.”
Hank checks his UI and calls up the mission map. “Our objective is southwest from here. Why don’t we just head straight for it?”
“Zoom in,” Georgie says. “Switch on the detailed terrain.”
“OK.” Hank pulls up the detailed view and understands Georgie’s intentions. “You think the jungle is too dense if we head straight for the target.”
“You got it. It must be part of the test. If we go that way we’ll be hacking our way through the jungle every step of the way. But if you look carefully, you’ll see a rough path that cuts through the worst of it, and so long as we keep a check on our maps we should finish up pretty close to the waypoint.”
“Fair enough,” Hank says. “You can take point. And we’d better keep a lookout for the other players as well.”
“And the enemy patrols,” Georgie reminds him. “I’m trying to make a good impression here.” She checks her rifle. “You ready?”
Hank nods and Georgie moves out, keeping her rifle held across her body. She moves purposefully and with precision, picking her way among the trees with the minimum of wasted effort. Hank follows close behind, looking from side to side as they move.
The jungle is quiet, with only the gentle drone of the endlessly buzzing insects and the distant croaks and throaty murmurs of unseen, scuttling creatures. As Hank and Georgie wade through the knee-deep undergrowth, its damp fronds and curling stems whisper against their legs and snag at their clothes. But they keep walking, placing their feet carefully, watching the shadows. And Hank finds himself smiling. This is good. This is really good: the weight of the rifle in his hands, the tension in the air, the anticipation building in his gut like a cobra coiling as it prepares to strike. And it’s good to have Georgie along too. It reminds him of the time he fought alongside Stewart, though he’d believed the guy was called Jamie at the time. There’s that same sense of unspoken trust, the same confidence that comes from pursuing shared goals. “Pretty cool, huh?” he asks, but Georgie stops walking and holds her hand up, her fingers formed into a fist, and Hank freezes in his tracks.
“Check your targeting display,” Georgie whispers. “I’m picking up a group 130 yards ahead and 20 yards south of our intended route.”
Hank selects his targeting screen and stares in disbelief. The targets are there: four blue markers heading southwest and making slow progress. I can’t believe I missed them, he thinks. I must be losing it. But he pushes his doubts aside and says, “Four targets confirmed. Looks like they’re heading to the same waypoint as us.”
There’s a rush of noise in his earpiece as Georgie lets out a hiss of frustration. “They’re not targets, Hank. This is a non-combat mission, remember? If they are the enemy, we need to avoid them, but they might just be the other players.”
“It doesn’t matter either way,” Hank says. “They’re headed deep into the jungle. The way they’re going we probably won’t see them, and I doubt they’ll be able to see us. We can stick to our route and pass them by.”
Georgie turns to face him. “I don’t know. If they are enemy units, they could be getting into position to spring an ambush on anyone heading to the waypoint. If they’re snipers, we’ll be easy targets if we stick to the path. Are you prepared to take that risk?”
“What’s the alternative? If we get close enoug
h to eyeball them and they’ve found a good position, they could easily see us first. I say we steer clear of them—cut away from the path and go through the jungle if we have to.”
Georgie’s lips curl in an impish grin. “You don’t think we can do it? You don’t think we can creep right up to those guys and check them out?”
“I didn’t say that,” Hank says. “I thought you wanted to play this by the book. I thought you wanted to make a good impression.”
“Exactly. And we won’t do that by turning tail at the first sign of opposition.”
Hank shakes his head slowly, but Georgie doesn’t give him a chance to object. “There were four occupied chairs when we logged in, and there are four people out there now. So the chances are that we’ve picked up the trail of the other players.”
“That doesn’t prove a thing. There could be four people in the enemy patrol. And what if that woman, Sondra, lied to us? What if this isn’t a recon mission at all, and she spun us a line just to see what we’d do?”
“What if? Is that the best you can come up with?” Georgie tuts under her breath. “Listen, Hank, I can move over this terrain without making a sound, and I know you can too—I’ve been keeping an eye on you, and for someone who claims not to play the game, you’re pretty damned good.”
Hank holds up a hand. “I never said I haven’t played. I just don’t play anymore. It’s not the same thing.”
“I’m not buying that. I’ve played a lot, and I’ve played against pretty much every kind of player. I know a pro when I see one.”
“I’m not…” Hank breaks off and looks away, staring into the middle distance. What’s the use? He looks Georgie in the eye. “All right. You can have your fun. We’ll use the path to get close, and then we’ll skirt around and flank them. If they’re enemy units we’ll have to retreat fast, but if they’re just the other players, maybe we could help them out—show them a better route to the waypoint.”
The Trust (The Downlode Heroes Book 2) Page 12