The Codex File (2012)

by Miles Etherton

  “Evening Bob,” Simon said, resting his elbows on the counter in front of the reception. “It’s quiet in here tonight.”

  The security guard, a man in his late 50s and who was reading the sports pages of one of the day’s newspapers, smiled and nodded.

  “Yeah. Nothing much going on tonight. The Film Society was in here earlier but they cleared out about half an hour ago.”

  Simon nodded, discretely casting a glance at the screen behind the security guard which was showing a CCTV feed of the campus perimeter. The security guard currently had his back to the screen.

  “I’m just heading up to see Ben with a couple of friends.”

  He cocked his head in the direction of Michael and Brown who were still reading the notice board. The security guard briefly looked in their direction before nodding his acknowledgement and returning to his newspaper.

  The three men filed past reception and past the cafeteria which was locked up for the night before reaching one of the buildings many staircases. In contrast to the rest of the building which was painted in sombre magnolia the metal staircases were painted a vibrant red.

  Climbing up three levels the men found themselves on one of the landings, laboratories signposted in either direction. Simon turned to his right and slipped through the double doors. To the left a long corridor stretched as far as the eye could see. To the right was the entrance to a laboratory bathed in light.

  The quiet lab was split into row after row of workspaces. Each was interspersed with gas taps for Bunsen burners, specimen trays and an assortment of microscopes. In one of the corners a tall orange canister was propped up against the wall, rubber tubing running out the back of it into a connection in the wall. In large black letters the words ‘Liquid Nitrogen - handle with care’ ran across the canister.

  Leading the way Simon slipped through one of the doors on the left hand side of the lab. A long narrow office intersected another lab running parallel to the one they were standing in. Another door on the right led to a further office.

  Tapping gently on the door Simon waited before it opened. A tall grey-haired man in a white lab coat appeared. He had a slightly scruffy appearance, several days grey stubble and long straggly hair that needed a cut and a comb. Surveying Michael and Brown suspiciously he turned back to Simon.

  “Are these the guys that contacted you?” he said finally as a younger man in his late 20s appeared in the doorway from the parallel lab.

  Simon nodded, turning to face Michael and Brown.

  “These are the guys I told you about. They’re part of our group and can help you. This is Ben and Wally.”

  The two men nodded in acknowledgement. Ben, the younger of the two men, stepped forward to shake their hands. A knowing look crossed his face as he shook Michael’s hand.

  “You’re Michael Robertson aren’t you? I just knew the Horsemen were going to be the guys that had been all over UKCitizensNet. Pleased to meet you.”

  Simon turned to Ben, a look of surprise and slight annoyance on his face.

  “You could have shared this revelation with me before I turned up to the meet them without a fucking clue.”

  Ben looked slightly sheepish and stepped back.

  “Well, it was just a hunch. I could have been wrong. I didn’t want to freak you out before you had a chance to speak to them.”

  Simon frowned, looking at Wally who was still standing in his office doorway.

  “Don’t mind Wally, he doesn’t say much. But he’s kept our kit hidden away since we setup the Ephesus group.”

  Ben had no such difficulties in showing his interest in Michael and Brown.

  “So, are you going to tell us what’s going on then? Where did that amazing bit of code come from?”

  “Let’s go into Wally’s office and I can explain everything,” Michael replied.

  The campus car park was still deserted as the black Volvo estate pulled in next to the Land Rover. Two men dressed in black combat clothing exited the car before walking quietly across the car park to the window of the security office situated in the building’s loading bay. The office was now occupied by a solitary security guard listening to a late night talk show on his pocket radio. Beyond the office a corridor led away to one of the building’s many red painted metal stairwells.

  Reaching the security office the first man tapped on the window. The security guard raised a quizzical eyebrow as he looked up, surprised to see two men at this time of night.

  “Can I help you gents?”

  “Is this the Medical and Sciences Campus for the University?” one of the men asked, betraying a strong Welsh accent.

  The security guard nodded. His hand slid discretely under the desk to where an alarm button was located, linking to the main university security office.

  “Sorry to disturb you. We’re from Safety at Home Security, sellers of home security systems. We’ve had calls from some local residents about some suspicious looking characters in the neighbourhood. We’re just checking it out. Probably nothing, but you can’t be too careful. Have you seen anything suspicious?”

  The man flashed an identification badge across the counter verifying his employment.

  The security guard relaxed a little, moving his hand away from the alarm button.

  “No, it’s been really quiet here. One of the academics from the main campus dropped by about 20 minutes ago with a couple of guys. But apart from that, nothing.”

  “Well, that’s good then,” the man in black said before moving to his left.

  Before the security guard could reply the second man leant in, pulled out a hand-gun with a long silencer attached, and shot him between the eyes. As he fell backwards the first man slipped quickly round the side of the window and into the office. The dead security guard crashed to the floor before the first man dragged the body out of sight and into the empty office behind before pulling the door closed.

  “Close that thing behind you,” he said to his partner, pointing to the metal concertinaed door of the loading bay which was half-open.

  Turning round the second man quickly pulled the metal door shut before following his partner through the corridor and into the stairwell.

  Wally’s office would have been comfortable and easily house all four men if it hadn’t been full of computer equipment. From wall to ceiling servers, routers, hubs and monitors, both used and unused, lined the walls and occupied his desk. There was barely room to stand in the room never mind sit down. In front of the monitor on the desk Wally and Brown stood. Michael and Simon leaned against a rack of servers humming away against one of the walls, lights flashing on and off.

  “Is this kit all used by R.I.G?” Michael asked, looking at a poster of a family of insects on the wall opposite.

  Simon shook his head.

  “No, this is partly some of the kit for the department Wally’s works for here. We’ve just camouflaged our kit amongst theirs. Nobody pays any attention to it and wouldn’t touch it. They wouldn’t dare touch any of Wally’s stuff. He has a bit of a reputation round here.”

  Simon grinned as Wally looked up from his keyboard, scowling before returning to what he was doing. From his pocket Brown produced a 100-gigabyte flash drive, sliding it into the USB port at the front of Wally’s computer.

  “I split the app code into two sections so if we got caught they wouldn’t have all of the code. Half of it’s on this drive. The other is one of R.I.G’s FTP servers.”

  Opening a connection to the FTP servers Wally turned to Brown.

  “Which server did you upload the code to?”

  “RIG37.”

  As Wally typed Simon chewed his fingernails nervously. Smoking wasn’t allowed inside the campus building.

  “We need to have a look at this and do some testing on it before next Monday which is when Michael and Brown will be trying to get inside SemComNet.”

  Ben nodded as Wally brought the two portions of code together in one location on the secure FTP server.

&
nbsp; “We also need to get this out to the other R.I.G groups, explaining what we’ve got and asking for their help. The more of us in possession of this the greater our chance of weakening UKCitizensNet and bringing them down.”

  Simon stopped as Wally’s looked up suddenly from where he typing at the computer.

  “Did you hear that?” Wally asked quietly.

  The four men all shook their heads.

  “I’ve worked in these labs long enough to know all the sounds this building makes. And that was someone carefully opening the doors to 5E.”

  His gaze moved to his office door and the lab off to the right, the opposite lab to where they had entered. Ben, nearest the office door, turned, careful not to knock any of the computer equipment. Peering round the corner into the front office he could see into both labs. At the far end of 5E, just through the door, two men dressed in black combats were silently scanning the room. He knew these weren’t staff or students.

  “Fuck, we’ve got company,” he muttered as he felt panic rising up.

  “We need to go now,” Brown said, seeing the fear on Ben’s face.

  “I need a few more moments to complete this,” Wally said, typing as quickly and quietly as he could.

  “Wally, you need to go now.”

  “Look, you go. Let me finish this. They don’t know me. I’ll get rid of them and join up with you later.”

  Wally wasn’t a man to be argued with as many postgraduate students had discovered from this surly Laboratory Technician. But as Simon looked at him he realised it wasn’t stubbornness burning in his eyes. It was a commitment to their cause to bring UKCitizensNet to task.

  Silently the four men slipped out of Wally’s room into the front office, slipping away into 5W, the lab parallel to 5E.

  As Wally rapidly typed in an attempt to contact the other R.I.G groups he heard the sound of rubber-soled shoes tapping on the front office floor. Looking up two men dressed in black combats appeared in the doorway.

  “Can I help you? The labs aren’t open this time of night.”

  Out of the corner of his eye he could see his connection to the secure R.I.G FTP server was still open. Under no circumstances could he let these men, whoever they were, have access to the R.I.G infrastructure. It would be the beginning of the end for the group.

  The first man, who had shortly cropped ginger hair, looked contemptuously at where Wally sat behind his desk.

  “Where are the others?” he asked.

  “What others? I’m the only one working up here tonight.”

  In the blink of an eye the man pulled his gun which was already fitted with its silencer from beneath his jacket and shot Wally in the right shoulder. His collar bone agonizingly fractured as the blast pushed him back into his chair.

  As he clamped his left hand to the wound he again caught sight of the open server connection on his screen. He knew they were going to kill him. But he wouldn’t let them have the R.I.G in return.

  “Where are they?” the man repeated calmly, his index finger still resting on the hand gun’s trigger.

  Lurching forward Wally hit the ‘Escape’ key on his keyboard, immediately closing the FTP session. But even before he could raise his finger from the keyboard the second bullet fizzed through the side of his head, lodging in his throat. As his blood oozed into his keyboard the two men slipped out of the office and into Lab 5W.

  Michael, Brown, Simon and Ben quickly and noisily descended the metal staircase, dropping to the floor below.

  “This building is a bloody maze,” Michael commented, looking around anxiously.

  “Yeah exactly,” Simon replied. “And that’s in our favour. Whoever those men are won’t know this building as well as we do.”

  The four men looked up as the sound of one of the doors on the stairwell above crashed open. Without a word Simon turned to his right, ducking into yet another long magnolia corridor. Another door later and they were in a further long lab decked out with long rows of workbenches, all fitted with gas taps and sinks. The only light was a small lamp, illuminating a far corner and giving off a dim, eerie glow. Reaching the double doors at the end of the lab Simon caught sight of one of the men reaching the stairwell behind.

  “Ben, take Michael and Brown and head down to Level 3 and through the med labs. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Why? Aren’t you coming with us?”

  “I’ve got an idea. Now go, quickly.”

  As the three men exited the lab Simon ducked down behind the last row of workbenches as one of the men in black pushed his way through the doors at the opposite end. Underneath the workbenches were numerous cupboards, stocked with equipment the students used on a daily basis.

  Opening one of the cupboard doors he rummaged around until he found the longest piece of rubber tubing available. Carefully, he raised himself to his knees so he could peer over the top of the workbench.

  He could hear from the footsteps that the man in black was still at the far end of the lab. And as he peered over he could see he was carefully scoping out each row of workbenches, a gun in hand, making sure no-one was concealed there.

  Simon felt the acidic taste of bile rising up in his throat as he sank back down behind the workbench. The sight of the gun burnt into his mind. His breathing became more rapid and began to perspire. Thoughts of Wally flooded his mind. These clearly weren’t the sort of men who would be easily fooled by someone playing dumb. His pulse raced as he feared what they could have done to Wally.

  Now wasn’t the time for such reflections he decided, hastily shoving the piece of rubber tubing onto the gas tap on the edge of the workbench before turning the tap on. He hoped his plan was going to work otherwise he wouldn’t be getting out of the lab alive.

  Crouching down, the rubber tubing in his left hand, trying not to cough from the gas as it escaped into the air, he waited silently as the footsteps got nearer. He could feel his heart pounding as each step brought the man in black nearer to him.

  As he saw feet appear at the end of the workbenches he quickly flicked the switch on his cigarette lighter. As a flame appeared he pushed it over the end of the rubber tubing instantly lighting the escaping gas and fumes permeating the air around where the man in black stood.

  Simon rolled backwards, covering his face as the man erupted into a human fireball. His arms flayed wildly as he desperately fought the flames as they savagely burnt away his skin and clothing.

  In less the 20 seconds the man had fallen to the floor between two rows of workbenches and lay burning. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air as Simon reached for the fire extinguisher on the wall near where he lay, quickly extinguishing the flames. He didn’t need the whole building going up in smoke as well.

  As the flames died down Simon threw the fire extinguisher at the man’s lifeless body in one final defiant gesture. That’s for Wally he thought before turning and running out of the lab.

  Michael, Brown and Ben had taken Simon’s advice and dropped down to Level 3, heading for the mortuary which was used for anatomical training by the medical students. In the past Michael might have been squeamish about entering such a place. But after what he’d seen in the last two years the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind as they secretly slipped in.

  Not that there was too much to see. A mortuary table sat in the middle of the room. A number of freezer compartments were in the wall behind, able to house up to six cadavers at any one time. Two rows of long shelves were mounted on another wall, stacked with specimen jars exhibiting various human organs, preserved for future use.

  The smell of embalming fluid hung in the air. Clinging to the walls. Michael could feel his stomach lurching a little as he tried not to breathe it in.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea just waiting here,” Brown said finally.

  Michael nodded, fighting the gag reflex rising in him.

  “If those men get to us first we’re buggered. Why aren’t we heading for the car?”

  Ben turned round
angrily, raising his voice higher than was safe in the circumstances.

  “Look, it was you that contacted us about this, and dragged us into this shit. Simon leads our group and we’re waiting. I suggest you get used to it.”

  Before either man could reply they all heard the sound of footsteps in the stairwell beyond the mortuary door. Michael scowled at Ben indicating his outburst could have alerted the men to their presence.

  Silently they all moved to the wall adjacent to the door, ducking down under the shelves in a vain effort to conceal themselves. The door at the far end of the mortuary was too far away for them to escape through without being seen from the stairwell.

  The door to the mortuary swung open. In a flash Ben leapt from his concealed position bringing the approaching figure crashing to the floor in a painful thud. A sense of relief spread through him as he looked into Simon’s face.

  “Get off me,” Simon snapped. “You could have broken my fucking arm.”

  “We thought you were one of them.”

  “Well, there’s only one of them left now,” Simon snapped, rubbing his arm.

  Michael and Brown nodded approvingly, whilst a look of further anxiety spread across Ben’s young face.

  “We need to get out of here now,” Michael said flatly, heading for the door at the far end of the mortuary.

  As the door swung open the four men ran down a further corridor before emerging on another stairwell which opened up onto the loading bay, leading back to the campus car park. Entering the stairwell the sound of heavy footsteps running down the stairs was audible above them. Michael peered up through the red painted staircase. The second of the two men in black was descending the stairs rapidly, his gun clasped in his hand.

  Without needing to spell out the danger they all began to run. Using all his strength Ben pulled back the metal concertinaed door far enough for them to slip through.