Cyber Dawn (A Ben Raine Novel)

by Adams, M. L.

  Hacker, has a tattoo, commits felonies on the weekend.

  Nice and sweet, huh?

  She looked up and caught me staring. Silently, she mouthed, “What?”

  I smiled back. Ted handed me the two mugs of coffee, and I started toward the couch. Suddenly, the room started to spin.

  The last thing I heard was the sound of porcelain smashing on the floor.

  23

  When I woke, I was lying on the floor of the coffee shop. Wet liquid seeped into my shirt and jeans. I was completely disoriented. My headache was back, now combined with a bout of vertigo. My vision alternated between sharp and blurry.

  A hand gently squeezed my shoulder. Through the haze, I turned my head expecting to see Sarah. Only the girl in front of me had green eyes. Not brown.

  “Oh good, you’re awake,” said Katherine Nickel.

  Am I dreaming?

  “How long was I out?” I asked.

  “About a minute,” said another voice.

  I turned my head and this time saw Sarah, kneeling next to me on the floor. Like Katherine, she wore a worried look on her face.

  I tried to sit up, but the instant vertigo ended that idea quickly. “Whoa, something’s not right,” I said.

  I lay back down on one elbow and forced a round of bile back into my stomach. The last thing I needed to do was throw up in front of two cute girls. Or on them.

  “Ben, what happened?” Sarah asked.

  When I didn’t respond right away, she said, “Ben? Say something.”

  “I’m okay,” I said, not entirely sure it was true. “Just give me a second.”

  I looked back and forth between Sarah and Katherine, and then around the room. Slowly, memories flooded in.

  Coffee shop . . .

  Akira . . .

  Megan . . .

  Hacking my system . . .

  Copied files . . .

  I glanced at Sarah, recalling what she’d been doing just before I collapsed. My eyes fell to her hands. In one she clutched her mobile phone. In the other, the white plastic card with CyberLife’s emergency number printed on it.

  “Don’t,” I whispered.

  After a moment, she nodded slowly.

  In the background, I heard a voice ask if I was okay. Behind the counter was Ted, peering over and staring down at me. I also noticed, for the first time since arriving at the coffee shop, a strange blue neon sign mounted on the front of the counter.

  It read:

  Startup sequence activated

  Odd sign for a coffee shop, I thought to myself. And how did I not notice that thing earlier?

  “I think so,” Sarah replied to Ted. “Just give us a second.”

  I took in two deep breaths and started to feel better. My nausea calmed and the room slowed to half-speed. I sat up again. Both girls reached out to help.

  I took Sarah’s hand.

  She smiled.

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  Sarah slipped the phone and the card into her pocket.

  “What happened?” Another female voice asked.

  It was then I noticed three girls standing behind Katherine. They all wore the same Endo Valley Eagles cheerleader sweater. I was about to ask what they were doing in the coffee shop when the blue neon sign again focused into view. This time, it appeared across the girls’ bodies. Suddenly my vision sharpened and the words changed.

  Retinal calibration complete

  What the hell?

  I rapidly shook my head, then turned back to Sarah. Now the text displayed across her face. I waved my hand in front of my eyes. She looked at me strangely, but I barely noticed.

  My hand was behind the text.

  Suddenly, the words disappeared, replaced by various symbols and digital readouts that appeared all over my field of vision. I snapped my eyes closed and open several times.

  The images remained.

  It took me a moment to realize what I was seeing. After years of watching science fiction movies and playing video games, I knew what it was.

  A heads-up display, or HUD for short.

  “Ben?” Sarah asked.

  My hand still rested on her knee. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Katherine staring at it with an angry glare on her face.

  “I’m okay,” I repeated.

  “You don’t look okay,” Katherine and Sarah said in unison.

  “You look like you’re all spaced out or something,” Katherine said.

  “He’s not spaced out,” Sarah snapped.

  Are they fighting? Over me?

  My frown turned into a grin.

  Awesome.

  “What’s so funny?” Sarah asked.

  I turned to face her. “Oh, nothing,” I said. “I’m just feeling better, that’s all.”

  She smiled. “Good.”

  “That’s great,” Katherine said. She reached out and touched my forearm. I looked down at her hand and then flicked my eyes back at Sarah. If looks could kill, Katherine—and maybe me, too—would be dead.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, Ben?” Sarah repeated.

  “He’s fine,” Katherine said before I could answer.

  “I didn’t ask you,” Sarah fired back.

  I groaned. “You two are giving me a headache,” I said. “I’m okay. Really.”

  Ted walked over with a broom and a handful of towels. I bent down and started to pick up pieces of the broken coffee mugs. “Sorry,” I said.

  “No problem,” he replied. “Happens all the time.”

  I used the momentary distraction to glance around my peripheral vision. I was still having trouble adjusting my focus between the HUD and the real world around me.

  I wish I could turn this thing off, I thought.

  The HUD disappeared.

  And turn it back on.

  It reappeared.

  “Looks like you two could use some refills,” said Katherine.

  “No thanks,” Sarah said.

  “Sure,” I replied at the same time.

  “Great!” Katherine exclaimed.

  Sarah rolled her eyes. I shrugged as she turned and walked back to the couch.

  I turned the HUD off again and helped Ted pick up the remaining pieces. When we finished, I stood and joined Sarah.

  “She’s annoying,” Sarah muttered as I sat down next to her.

  “Really, right now?”

  She half-smiled, and said, “Sorry.”

  A moment later, she added, “But she is.”

  I laughed.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I have a HUD.”

  “A what?” Sarah whispered.

  “A HUD. Heads-up display. Like you see in video games.”

  Sarah froze, eyes wide. After a few moments, she said, “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  She quickly turned to her laptop and started typing.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer. I tried to follow along on the screen, but she was too fast. About all I knew was that she was still connected to my system.

  “It’s my fault,” she said a few moments later.

  “Your fault what?”

  “I think I activated it.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Activated it? The HUD?”

  With a nod, Sarah explained. “While you were getting coffee, I was looking through those unencrypted text files I mentioned earlier. I opened one to see what was in it, but instead . . . I must have activated the program.”

  “It’s okay, Sarah.”

  “I’m sorry. Rookie mistake.”

  Katherine walked up with two cups of coffee in her hands. “Here you go,” she said.

  Sarah muttered her thanks.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “So, we lost the game tonight,” Katherine said with a frown. “Pretty sure we missed our star wide receiver.”

  I choked on my coffee. After a day and half with Sarah, I’d for
gotten all about football. But it explained why Katherine and her friends were in their cheerleader outfits. Friday night was game night.

  “Um, thanks,” I said. “Sorry we lost.”

  She shrugged. “We’re still in first place.”

  I looked over her shoulder at her three friends. They stood near the door and looked annoyed. Sarah noticed, too.

  “I think your friends are ready to leave,” she said.

  Katherine glanced over her shoulder and then back at me. She ignored Sarah.

  “So, Ben, I was hoping I could make it up to you about last week. Maybe we could get together tomorrow night? My parents are out of town . . . I could make you dinner at my house?”

  I swallowed slowly. “Um, yeah, maybe.”

  “Okay great,” she replied quickly. “It’s a date. Call me tomorrow!”

  Without waiting for a reply, she spun around and walked back to her friends and out the front door. I exhaled and looked over at Sarah, who stared intently at her laptop screen. I thought I detected the faintest of smiles.

  After a few moments of silence, she said, “Maybe?”

  I shrugged and lightly pushed her on the shoulder. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Probably the first time she’s ever heard that.”

  “Just playing hard to get,” I said, grinning from ear to ear.

  Sarah laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  I was about to counter, when a new message appeared on my HUD.

  New System Alerts Available

  I stared at it, not sure what to do. My HUD was still hidden. Turn on display, I thought.

  My vision again filled with various icons and readouts. The alert message disappeared, replaced by lines of text that looked similar to the log Sarah showed me earlier. I read the alerts in order.

  Infiltrator Mk-5 launch script initiated. 19:15:13

  Infiltrator Mk-5 system check complete. 19:15:18

  System compatibility confirmed. 19:15:30

  Infiltrator Mk-5 start initiated. 19:15:31

  Infiltrator Mk-5 startup complete. 19:14:35

  Retinal calibration started. 19:15:42

  Retinal calibration complete. 19:16:20

  “There’s something in the log about retinal calibration,” I said to Sarah.

  “You can see a log?” she asked.

  “Yeah. It’s like the one you showed me earlier.”

  Without taking her eyes off the screen, she said, “That’s probably why you had vertigo and then recovered so quickly. It must have taken your system a minute to calibrate the overlay with your vision.”

  “So what is it then?” I asked.

  Sarah slowly shook her head. “It’s some sort of upgrade I guess. Like you said, a HUD or visual overlay. Megan must have installed it, but never turned it on.”

  I swallowed hard. Another flash of text caught my attention.

  Contacting update server CL001-457 @ 10.1.1.42. 19:26:32

  “Sarah?” I asked.

  “One second,” she said, holding a finger up. “I think I found something.”

  “What’s 10.1.1.42?” I asked.

  She paused and faced me. “That’s an IP address. Every phone, computer or other device that connects to a network needs one.”

  I stared blankly.

  “Think of it as a digital address,” she added.

  I reread the list of system alerts.

  “Why?” Sarah asked.

  “It’s in the log.”

  Another message appeared:

  System update sent to CL001-457 @ 10.1.1.42 19.26.51

  “Okay, here it is,” Sarah said. “According to my IP checker, CyberLife owns that address. But I guess that’s not a big surprise.”

  “Then we may have a problem,” I said.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I think I just called CyberLife.”

  24

  “This thing is sweet,” Sarah said for the tenth time.

  And for at least the tenth time, I regretted letting her drive my Jeep. It was not helping my vertigo. “Great,” I replied. “Can you slow down a little? I’m going to throw up.”

  “Can’t,” she said. “We have to clear that CyberLife server log before somebody notices the entry. If we don’t, you’re screwed.”

  “How are we going to do that?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer. But she did accelerate.

  Two minutes later, we pulled into the Starbucks parking lot near our school.

  “Sarah, why are we . . .”

  Without answering, she climbed out and ran around to my side of the Jeep. She pulled the passenger door open and half-yanked me out. Before I could ask what was going on, she grabbed my hand and ran across the street to the sidewalk in front of our school. I wouldn’t normally mind holding her hand, but she was walking so fast, I felt more like a dog on a leash than a couple taking a stroll together.

  We jogged down the sidewalk until we reached the start of a bike path that wound its way around the school and headed back toward the downtown area. Off to our left was the river that flowed around the back of our school. To the right was the actual school, its lights seeping through the trees.

  I thought maybe Sarah lived nearby and was using the path to cut through to her neighborhood. Instead, she suddenly slowed and ducked off the path and into the woods behind our school. She stopped behind a large cottonwood tree and pulled me down to her side.

  “Sarah?”

  “Shhh,” she said.

  “Um, what are we doing? Don’t we need to figure out this CyberLife thing?”

  “That’s what I am doing,” she whispered. “Now stop talking before Oscar hears you.”

  Oscar? Who in the heck is Oscar?

  Sarah put her finger to her lips and glanced at the school. “Shhh,” she repeated.

  I followed her gaze and spotted a man in a security guard uniform rounding the back corner of the building. In his hand was a giant metal flashlight and I could hear the occasional squawk from a radio.

  “Stay down,” Sarah whispered.

  I crouched behind her and my eyes alternated between the back of her head and the approaching guard. For an instant, I debated calling him for help. Sarah had, at the moment, seemingly lost her mind.

  A minute later, when the guard’s footsteps faded around the far corner, she turned to me, and asked, “Ready?”

  I grabbed her arm. “Ready for what?”

  “I told you, we’re going to my office.”

  I opened my mouth to verbalize my earlier question—have you gone crazy? But before I could get the words out, Sarah ran in a low crouch to the back of the school. Against my better judgment, I followed.

  We stopped at a locked metal door. Sarah pulled a white plastic key card from her bag. She waved it across a sensor pad and the door clicked open.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  I glanced down the side of the building where the guard had been a minute before. Don’t worry about it? I thought, again debating if I should call for help. Instead, I took a deep breath and stepped through the door behind her.

  We crouched just inside the dark entryway and remained motionless for several moments. In the distance I could make out a dimly lit security light on the wall near the ceiling.

  “Sarah, are you sure this is a good idea?” I whispered.

  “It’s fine. I do this all the time.”

  Before I could ask the next obvious question—um, what?—she took off down the hall. I watched her disappear into the darkness.

  Well, I’ve already committed several felonies tonight, I reassured myself. Why not another?

  I ran and caught up to her. In sharp contrast to the typical weekday, the school was empty and dead silent. Completely devoid of the energy I had soaked up the day after Megan died.

  After running through the school, we turned down the hallway that led to the library’s main entrance. At the double doors, I peered through the window. The only visible light came from a row of c
omputer displays with their swirling lines and bouncing bubble screensavers.

  “I take it your office is that desk on the second floor?” I asked.

  “You got it,” she replied.

  We worked our way past the empty checkout counter, tables and chairs, and climbed the staircase. Dark clouds filled the sky above and the moonlight barely made its way through the glass ceiling and into the atrium. Sarah, clearly adept at navigating the second floor maze in the dark, led the way.

  Two minutes later we were in her office.

  “Okay, what now?” I asked as we each took a chair at the small desk.

  “Pray that Megan’s creds still work,” she said.

  Sarah opened her laptop and started typing rapidly.

  “If they don’t?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Other than the sound of clicking keys, the alcove was silent. After a minute passed, Sarah leaned back and sighed loudly.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Megan’s credentials aren’t working. They must have shut them down after . . . she died.”

  “So, you have no idea how to get in?”

  She glared at me. “It’s not like hacking into your parents’ email account. CyberLife has a team—the best in the business I might add—of full-time network security techs who do nothing but try to thwart hackers. The only reason I got in so easily last time was because of Megan’s username and password. Without those . . .”

  Her voice trailed off.

  I started to think of a story to tell Dr. Merrick. I would leave Sarah out of it, of course. Just tell him that Megan gave me the password before she died. Honestly Dr. Merrick, I was just bored one day, so I logged in and started messing around. You know me, I love computers!

  “It’s okay, Sarah,” I said. “I can handle CyberLife.”

  She rested her elbows on the desk and sighed. “I’m sorry, Ben.”

  Her laptop screen displayed the CyberLife logo and fields for a username and password. For what was possibly the first time ever, I wished I knew more about computers. I felt useless.

  I flipped my HUD back on to check for new messages. Maybe something from CyberLife. The log was empty, but suddenly a box-shaped outline slid down from the corner of my peripheral vision and focused on Sarah’s laptop. It flashed briefly and then displayed a detailed list of information, including what I assumed to be the brand and various technical specs. Under the box, a message read: