Interface: A Techno Thriller

by Tony Batton

  "Not voluntarily."

  "The truth is, we don't really know." Tom rubbed his temples. "Look, work has been going well and I really don't want to jeopardise it. Whatever happened to me, I got home safe. Let's not forget that."

  "If the people who did this were so benevolent, why didn't they take you to a hospital?"

  "We don't know they didn't. Maybe I just can't remember."

  Jo glanced towards the back of the room, then made a gesture to someone. She put her glass down between them. "Remember that I love you, Tom. And I wouldn't have done this unless it was in your best interests."

  "Done what?" Behind him he heard someone clearing their throat.

  "Hello, Tom," Kate said. "I know you won't be pleased with me, but I'm worried about you. So I reached out to Jo."

  "So you not only invaded my privacy, but you've been sharing your tall tales? Unbelievable," he said furiously, pushing himself to his feet.

  "Too right," Jo said. "I can't believe you didn't tell me yourself what Kate saw!"

  "What she claims she saw."

  "We have a new theory, Tom," Kate said, "about why they took you. I think you've been experimented on. You were abducted so a procedure could be performed on you."

  "What are you talking about?" He rubbed the back of his neck agitatedly. "That's just ridiculous. What procedure?"

  "That's what we're trying to discover." Kate looked at Jo. "I found out that CERUS effectively owns the Angstrom Clinic."

  Tom leaned back in his chair. "You're saying they're responsible?" He looked at Jo. "You really dragged me here to listen to this rubbish?"

  Jo scowled at him. "She is trying to help you, you big idiot."

  Tom stared at Kate. "There's an argument that I might not be able to trust CERUS, but I know I can't trust you."

  "Then let's take trust out of the equation. You said you wanted facts. So let's establish them." She locked her fingers together. "Let's get you looked at somewhere completely separate from CERUS."

  "There's nothing wrong with me. I feel fine." Tom turned to Jo. "You know she's a reporter, yes? She's just doing this to get a story on CERUS out of me once I feel I owe her."

  "I don't think she is, Tom," Jo said. "I think she wants to help you." She paused. "And I think you should take her up on her kind offer and stop being so rude."

  Tom gritted his teeth and spoke carefully. "I'm pretty confident I'm going to live to regret this, but if you can set it up, I'll do it. And then you can leave me alone," he said to Kate, "and you can shut up with the conspiracy theories," he added to Jo.

  Kate grinned, checking her watch. "We were hoping you'd say that. Let's go, shall we? They'll be ready for us by the time we arrive."

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THE HARLEY STREET CONSULTING ROOMS were located a short cab-ride from the wine bar. Tom, Jo and Kate were ushered in a side door.

  A grey-haired, well-tanned man shook their hands, but didn't look happy about it.

  "I don't know what I was thinking when I agreed to do this off the books, but I guess you're here now, so let's get it over with."

  They followed him down into a basement area. There were various warning signs about high voltages and magnets.

  The doctor cast an eye over his shoulder as he gestured Jo and Kate into a room to the left while he led Tom into the one on the right. "You know the drill with MRIs?"

  Tom nodded, removing his watch. "That's it. No other metal on me – or in me - that I know of. And I'd probably know since the other clinic ran one of these too."

  "Then I expect it will be a formality. From there we'll move to blood tests."

  "I'm sure this is all a complete waste of time," Tom said. "Not my idea." He glared over at Kate and Jo, who waved merrily from behind the glass in the next room.

  The doctor's face showed the flicker of a smile. "I'll get everything done as quickly as I can."

  ◇ ◇ ◇

  Five minutes later, Tom was lying uncomfortably inside the giant superconductor magnet, waiting for the scan to commence.

  "OK, starting her up," the doctor said, his voice conveyed over internal speakers from the room on the left where he'd joined Jo and Kate. "Just shout out if you feel any discomfort." The huge machine began to reverberate with a loud and steady banging. But even with that noise, the sound of Tom's scream was deafening.

  The doctor slammed his hand on the emergency cut-off switch. "What's wrong?"

  Tom scrambled out of the scanner, clutching the back of his head.

  Jo opened the door from the viewing room and ran over to him. "What happened?"

  Tom gasped. "The most incredible pain, a second after the scanner started up."

  "Does it still hurt?" asked the doctor, hurrying in.

  "It stopped the moment you killed the power."

  "What would cause that?" Kate asked.

  "It could only be something magnetic," said the doctor.

  "And it's not like he's had a head injury and has any metal in his head," said Jo, with a laugh.

  But Kate shook her head. "Not that he knows of."

  Tom turned to the doctor. "Did you get anything before it was turned off?"

  "I don't know. It takes some time to clarify the scan."

  "Can we have a look?" Kate asked.

  The doctor turned to a console and tapped on some keys. A fuzzy image appeared on a large monitor. "That's the initial scan of Tom's head."

  "What's that bright spot?"

  "I don't know. Might be a glitch."

  "Or something metallic?"

  "It's possible – especially given Tom's reaction to the machine."

  "And if it is, where is that?"

  "The base of the skull."

  Tom's eyes opened wide. "There is no way this could have been missed." A dark expression crossed his face and he strode from the room, the door banging closed behind him.

  "Where's he going?" asked the doctor. "I need to check him over."

  "I expect he just wants some space," Jo said anxiously.

  Kate shook her head. "I think Tom knows where he needs to go to get some answers."

  "What do you mean?" Jo asked.

  "If I were placing a bet," said Kate, "I'd say he's going to the clinic."

  "Should we call the police?"

  "And tell them what exactly? They'd either laugh at us or delay us for hours, by which time Tom could be in a lot of trouble."

  "Then what do we do?"

  "We follow him. He might need our help."

  THIRTY-NINE

  A WOMAN DRESSED IN AN expensive suit, her blonde shoulder-length hair elegantly groomed, stood drumming her fingers on the CERUS front desk. She flashed gleaming teeth at the guard on duty. "Daniella Lawrence. I have a meeting with Professor Stefan Heidn."

  He typed her name into the system and it confirmed. "Would you please smile at that camera?"

  The woman did as requested and was almost immediately handed an ID card with her picture on it, along with a printed guide to the building.

  "Now, if you would just go through there," the guard said, gesturing to a personal security door on the right of the lobby. Her purse and laptop bag were scanned quickly and efficiently. All approved, the guard pointed her to a lift. She smiled, picked up her belongings and stepped in when the doors pinged open.

  Only when they shut did Dominique Lentz adjust the blonde wig, which was itching furiously. On another day she might find quiet amusement in the disguise, but there was nothing amusing about what she was attempting to do. She had to know what Armstrong had uncovered. And in a company that guarded its secrets so jealously, the only place to look was the very heart.

  She stepped from the lift on Level 40 and was directed to a waiting area. She sat in one corner and flipped open her laptop. It was drab and grey, but its internal mechanics were far from ordinary. She quickly picked up the public visitors' network, and the private company network, with its light encryption. As she scanned more rigorously, she saw there appeared to
be nothing else. Puzzled for a moment, she realised that Marron had gone old school. The best way to prevent a wireless hack was not to run a wireless system. She would need a hard wire. Reaching back into her bag, she removed what looked like a power pack and plugged it into a nearby wall socket.

  Now she could see what she had been looking for: the private security net. To anything with less than a supercomputer's muscle, it was probably unbreakable. Certainly Lentz and her laptop should stand no chance. Except that Lentz had a trick or two up her sleeve.

  Her laptop carried an additional battery: a high-voltage capacitor designed to produce a brief spike of power – enough to overload the network and force it to reboot. She glanced around then entered the activation code. There was a soft hum as the pack discharged, then nothing more.

  But all around, her screen told her, the network was crashing.

  It was a crude form of attack and, of itself, achieved little. But as the network performed automatic disaster recovery and restarted, there was a brief window of opportunity when, unless specifically protected against, one could covertly piggyback on the reboot routines, sneaking in just before the barriers came down again. The system wouldn't fall for it twice, but once was all she would need. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, generating the necessary script, then she quickly uploaded it. There was a soft tone from the computer.

  She was in.

  Lentz's eyes flicked around the room. She wondered how long before Professor Heidn mentioned that he did not recall scheduling a meeting. Or maybe he'd turn up to greet her, assuming he had simply forgotten to put an appointment in his diary. She had to work quickly. She initiated a search of the company's primary research databases, but soon realised it was a pyrrhic victory. There was too much data and it wasn't indexed for searching: after several minutes, she still had nothing; if she stayed much longer discovery was inevitable. She was about to switch off when an auto-routine flagged that it had discovered files relevant to one of the search terms she'd used – Tantalus. The files included updated notes on 'Subjects One to Four': they were already at 'Phase One' of the 'testing stage'. Were they really repeating the mistakes of the past? She skimmed the files and found her answer.

  Nanotechnology.

  They were combining an old concept with a new solution.

  She began to download the data, but saw immediately that there was a problem: the project files were many terabytes in size. Even if her laptop had been able to hold them, the network would have taken many hours to serve them up. The key elements, the most important folders, might be much smaller, but she had no way of identifying them.

  This wasn't going to work. She would have to find another way.

  But at least she had a starting point.

  Smoothly, she closed her laptop and stowed it in her bag. She had to get away from this place before they realised what was going on. Walking to the small reception desk, she smiled at the man sitting behind it.

  "Please pass on my apologies to Professor Heidn but I've been called back to my office."

  The man looked at her, puzzled, but nodded, and then she was back in the lift, gliding towards the ground floor. Lentz forced herself to stroll nonchalantly past the security guard at the front gate. Several cameras would be on her, but they could have no recent image in their database and, with her disguise, it was very unlikely that they would recognise her.

  A moment later, she was out and quickly vanished into the evening crowd.

  FORTY

  IT WAS DARK AS TOM stepped out of the taxi and glared up at the gates of the Angstrom Clinic, distractedly rubbing the back of his head.

  "You sure you want me to leave you here, mate?" called the taxi driver. "It doesn't look very open."

  "They'll see me," Tom said. He walked up to the gates and pressed the buzzer. An automated message played, telling him the clinic was closed to visitors. Cursing, he pulled out his phone: there were five missed calls from Kate and eight from Jo, plus various texts, all since he had left them. He ignored the messages and dialled Chatsworth's number.

  To his surprise, the doctor answered. "Tom? Is everything OK?"

  Tom took a deep breath. "I'm not feeling at all good. I was about to head to casualty, but I thought I'd see what you'd recommend first."

  "You were right to call. I'm working late at the Clinic. Where are you? I can come to you now." Chatsworth's tone was worried.

  "Actually I'm right outside. I wasn't far away so I came straight here. I didn't really think about the time."

  There was a pause. "I'll get security to let you in."

  An elderly security guard, who muttered something about missing a key moment in his favourite TV show, met Tom at the gates, then drove him up to the clinic in a small electric car. A few minutes later, Tom was being shown into an office.

  Chatsworth got up to greet him, concern in his expression. "Tom, I thought you were on the mend. What's happened?"

  "Actually, I have some questions," Tom said, taking a seat.

  "I thought you said you were unwell. If it was just questions then--"

  "What I want to know," he paused, "is what have you done to me?"

  Chatsworth frowned. "We've discussed the programme of tests before, but I'm happy to run through it all again once we've discussed your current symptoms--"

  "That's not what I meant."

  "I don't follow."

  Tom took a deep breath. "I had an MRI this evening."

  Chatsworth swallowed visibly. "Why would you do that?"

  "You said you performed an MRI on me."

  "That is correct, but--"

  "And now we both know that to be a lie. There's something in my head. Something metallic. The MRI had to be shut off: I was in excruciating pain."

  Chatsworth cleared his throat. "That's impossible."

  "I think you put that something there during the weekend I don't remember."

  "Before you were admitted as a patient?" Chatsworth shook his head. "Perhaps you had a head injury when you were young? Perhaps some sort of metal plate was inserted?"

  "But that would be on my medical records, so you would know. And of course it would have been detected the moment you did the MRI. Which I think we can agree you did not do."

  Chatsworth seemed to hesitate. "Tom, you need to understand that I'm the face of the clinic, but I was not involved in your care 100% of the time. There were occasions during the tests that I left you in the care of qualified colleagues. This is all quite normal: we have a number of patients and we rotate our doctors to best suit our patients' individual needs. I believed an MRI was conducted, but it is possible it was not. Probably an error in the paperwork."

  "But didn't you notice there was no MRI report? Or are you saying someone faked the results?"

  Chatsworth blinked rapidly. "First thing tomorrow, I'll instigate a full investigation into it all. I know this is upsetting, but there really is no call for paranoia. Mistakes do happen."

  Tom sucked in his lip. Perhaps this was plausible, but it felt wrong. "I know about CERUS."

  Chatsworth went pale.

  "I know they fund the clinic. If you don't want to talk to me, then I'm going to the police. One way or another I'm getting some answers."

  Chatsworth's eyes flared and he shook his head. "I guess it's time you did know a few things." He walked over to his desk. "You should probably see this." He pulled out something and pointed it at Tom.

  A hand gun.

  Chatsworth shook his head. "I'm sorry." And he pulled the trigger.

  Tom's heart leapt, but there was no bang, only a soft click and a stinging in his chest. Looking down, he saw a dart sticking out. Then everything blurred to black.

  ◇ ◇ ◇

  Chatsworth moved to Tom's slumped form, checking his pulse. Then he hurried over to his computer and, hands shaking, connected a secure call, flagging it code-red. Marron responded almost immediately.

  "Subject Zero is here," said Chatsworth.

  "You said you
'd discharged him."

  "He claimed to be feeling unwell, but it was a ruse to get into the building," said the doctor. "He knows. Somehow he knows about CERUS. That we lied to him. He said he was going to the police. He said he had an MRI scan today. And it showed something metallic in his head."

  Marron growled. "Where is Faraday now?"

  "He's... sedated. I used the tranq gun."

  There was another pause. A much longer one. "I'm sending someone over to tidy this up. They'll take Tom to a secure location. We'll work things out from there."

  Chatsworth forced himself to breath more slowly. "I appreciate that."

  "My resource will be with you in thirty minutes. Make arrangements for her to get in unnoticed."

  FORTY-ONE

  MARRON SAT IN HIS CONTROL room: the Faraday situation was one he would prefer to take care of personally, but the metrics on his screen were showing something wrong with his building and he was the only person who could investigate. He picked up one of his secure phones and called a familiar number.

  "Yes?" answered a quiet voice.

  Marron smiled. "Alex, I have a task for you. I need you at the clinic. Chatsworth is threatening to screw up the whole thing. He has Subject Zero with him, drugged. The doctor's finished his work with Subjects One to Four. And Zero didn't prove viable. We need to sanitise."

  A pause. "I understand."

  Marron frowned. "From your hesitation, do you disagree?"

  "I thought Zero had other... relevance."

  "Only to a point. There isn't time to manage him."

  "Then I'll see it done. I should be there in twenty minutes."

  "Update me when it's complete." Marron closed the call, turning back to his screen and the problem he was trying to unravel.

  Two hours ago there had been a fault in the building network: an overload that had caused a local re-boot. That such a fault could arise was not unexpected, but why it had arisen should be immediately apparent: there should be some identifiable triggering event. And there was nothing that seemed to fit the bill. Could the fault have been generated deliberately to create a distraction, to mask something else? If so, Marron couldn't see what the 'something else' might be. All the security systems, all the firewalls, seemed to be intact. No data tunnel of any form had been opened from outside the building.