Torchwood_Exodus Code

by Carole E. Barrowman

  She took off her glasses, and squinted at the map. ‘Did you see that?’

  ‘See what?’ said Vlad, his eyes still on his computer screen where he’d called up an imaging model of the Norwegian waters they’d just finished trawling. Pushing his hair from his eyes, he watched his projection image rotate on the screen, the same points of Eva’s map highlighted on his. He froze the map, and finally turned to Eva. ‘Sorry. Say again.’

  Eva rubbed her eyes and put her glasses back on. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said, ‘I thought I saw the lights on the map flash in an odd way.’

  ‘I think you may need some rest,’ said Vlad. ‘We’ve all been working odd hours recently. I can cover if you want to go and lie down.’

  And then it happened again.

  In her peripheral vision, she could see the lights on the southern hemisphere of the map burst into light at the same time, flashing a regular rhythm, which was odd because each light was recording a different deep sea disturbance. There was no possible geological way that each one of those events, thousands of miles apart, were syncing with each other.

  It must be a glitch in their deep-water recorder. Had to be.

  32

  THE STORM WAS sending the ship into barrel rolls, and Cash had hit the lockdown alert for the second time. If that happened a third time, they’d have to strap on their lifejackets, gather the flares and prepare for the worst.

  This time walking skilfully against the ship’s barrel motion, Eva unlocked a ceiling-high storage locker, took out a camera and a tripod and set them up facing the wall map.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Vlad asked, watching Eva keying in a series of commands into her iPad to control the camera’s time-release.

  ‘Not sure, yet,’ she replied, staring again at the pulsing lights on the maps where they’d recorded recent seismic disturbances. ‘Going with a hunch. Trying some low-tech recording.’

  ‘OK…’ said Vlad, curious about Eva’s hunches, but not interested enough to push for an explanation. Instead, he returned to his own screen. ‘Not one of these deep-water crevices has ever recorded eruptions of this magnitude before with the exception of this last one we recorded this morning,’ he said, zooming in on the ocean off the southern coast of Peru.

  Eva was still staring at her wall map, which had red lights flashing in the same places as Vlad was marking on his computer image: one, their most recent, off the coast of South Wales, one close to the southern tip of New Zealand, one north of Scotland and not far from their current position, and now the latest light off the southern coast of Peru.

  ‘The southern coast of Peru,’ added Vlad, ‘has had significant destructive quakes and volcanic eruptions that have been getting worse for decades, especially since the 1920s and 1930s.’

  Eva stared at Peru on the wall map, twisting her hair in concentration while she spoke. ‘I remember when the one in 2007 happened, but the worst quake that area ever had was in 1930.’

  While Vlad was listening to Eva, he initiated a statistical program he’d written. When it was loaded, he dumped their data into it.

  ‘I did one of my first field studies on a high archaeological dig in the Peruvian Andes,’ continued Eva, glad to have the memories take her mind off Vlad. ‘The elders in the local villages still talk about the 1930 eruption. According to their stories, the tremors and eruptions were so powerful that an entire mountain top dropped into the ocean. I can’t remember the name, but—’

  ‘We’ve seen deep-water eruptions and tremors before,’ said Vlad, cutting her off. As much as he appreciated Eva’s geological skills, he was not quite as impressed with her need to over-explain everything. ‘But not like these ones. Look at the way this one in Wales is shifting and spreading.’

  ‘I know. Never this deep and never in these areas.’ Eva slid her glasses up on top of her head and rubbed her eyes.

  ‘Eva, we’re talking trenches running seven, eight miles deep in the ocean that are emitting sonar waves equal to 7 on the Richter scale. Most of Asia and the west coast of the USA should have been hit by a tsunami by now. It’s as if the ocean is not letting that happen. It’s keeping these tremors contained for some reason.’

  Vlad tilted back on his chair, hooking his leg round the table to stop it from sliding against the wall, while keeping his eyes on his computer as it tracked the statistical program running at full speed. No matter how disparate or how unusual these deep-water events, this program would help the Ice Maiden see what was toiling in the darkest depths of the world’s oceans.

  ‘I think we should report these findings,’ said Vlad.

  ‘But what do we have to report?’

  ‘A pattern of deep water eruptions,’ said Vlad, watching Eva stare at the map through the lens of her camera. ‘Isn’t that what we’ve been tasked to monitor?’

  ‘True. It’s definitely a pattern, but what the pattern means? I’ve no clue,’ replied Eva, making no eye contact at all with Vlad. ‘And do we really know what we’ve been tasked to do? I mean we never get a straight answer from Cash, and if Dana knows, Cash has her so… so smitten, she’s not going to tell us anything.’

  Laughing, Vlad glanced over at Eva. ‘Smitten. Really? Is that the word in Vancouver?’

  Eva blushed. Again. ‘You know what I mean. If Dana knows anything she’s not going to share unless Cash gives her permission.’

  ‘That makes her loyal,’ said Vlad. ‘Not… smitten. But I get your point.’

  Eva went back to her computer and began inputting data streams coming from the echogram. ‘Give me a few more days. We can run through all the data with Shelley. Maybe then we’ll have something more substantial to share.’

  ‘I still think we should let Cash know we’ve got something now, no matter how tentative. It may change our course,’ said Vlad.

  ‘But we’ve had so many false alarms recently. I don’t think Cash wants the boss, whoever that is, to see us crying wolf again.’ Eva tore the printout from the machine. ‘I think Cash knows better than any of us what should be reported and what shouldn’t. Let’s let him decide.’

  ‘Which, as you keep pointing out, isn’t saying much,’ said Vlad, sliding back across to his station, retrieving his book that had slid off the table to the floor.

  Vlad was flipping through the pages to find his place when a massive wave battered the ship, tipping the vessel onto its side and then back upright again in a matter of seconds. The force of the roll sent Vlad and his chair flying into the map wall and Eva and her chair crashing against the open door. Vlad’s computer alarm went off at the same time. He scrambled from his upturned chair to check on it.

  Cash came across the passageway from the mess, sticking his head into the room. ‘Everyone OK in here?’

  Vlad stared wide-eyed at his beeping computer. ‘Not really. I think you’d better take a look at this.’

  Helping Eva up off the floor first, Cash joined Vlad at his computer, anchoring one foot against the desk leg and the other against the cusp of the steel wall. The ship’s rocking was getting worse. Vlad’s computer alarm continued to wail.

  ‘Can you turn that bloody noise off?’ said Cash.

  Vlad stopped the alarm, watching in shock as a mass of code rolled across his screen.

  ‘What am I looking at?’ asked Cash.

  Vlad made a few fast keystrokes, glanced at Eva and then looked up at Cash. ‘I think we’re under attack.’

  ‘What do you mean “under attack”?’ asked Cash. ‘We’re miles from anything, in the middle of the North Sea.’

  ‘We’re being cyber-bombed,’ said Vlad.

  ‘We can’t be,’ said Eva, righting her chair, and wheeling it next to Vlad, fear completely overriding her desire. The Ice Maiden dipped into another massive wave. Water thrashed against the room’s two portals, the ship tipping violently on its side again. This time Eva and Vlad crashed against the wall on top of each other.

  ‘But it’s impossible,’ Eva said, shoving Vlad out of her way and strugg
ling back to her computer. Cash had managed to remain standing, his legs bracing him in place. ‘Vlad created an impenetrable system. No way someone’s hacking us.’

  ‘I thought so too,’ said Vlad, back at his terminal, his fingers flying across the keyboard, ‘but someone’s definitely in our system. I know my own code and this isn’t mine.’ He leaned closer. ‘It’s elegant, but it’s not mine.’

  ‘Nothing’s a hundred per cent secure,’ said Cash, not sure what he was staring at, but trusting Vlad enough to believe his assessment. ‘No one in our line of work would expect it ever to be that way.’

  For a moment, Eva wanted to ask if someone would please tell her exactly what was their line of work, what they were really looking for in the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, but she didn’t. Instead, she sat at her desk and started keying almost as fast as Vlad, working her way into the core of the system, trying to catch their hacker before he or she pulled out.

  ‘I’ve faith in the two of you,’ said Cash, turning to leave as the boat dipped and rolled once again. This time they heard a thunderous crash from above as something on the main deck broke loose of its moorings.

  ‘Finn,’ yelled Cash. ‘What the hell was that?’

  A voice from the passageway screamed back. ‘I’m on it, boss!’

  Dana burst in. ‘What’s going on?’

  Hollis came in behind her – the tight space was suddenly packed with bodies.

  ‘Partaay in here?’ asked Hollis.

  ‘We’ve got a mole crawling around in our system,’ said Cash. Turning back to Vlad, he said, ‘You’ll figure it out. Let me know when you do.’

  Cash and Dana were about to leave. Eva grabbed Cash’s arm.

  ‘You don’t understand, Cash. We can’t have a mole. This boat isn’t like your house or your office. It isn’t cabled to the internet or wired to a server somewhere. We have our own satellite uplink.’ She looked over at Vlad, noting the worry that was furrowing his brow. He was chasing code across his screen, the lines scrolling past his eyes at lightning speed.

  Cash and the others simply looked confused. They should be worried, Eva thought. Very worried.

  ‘Think of this boat as a massive computer server,’ she explained. ‘We’re only connected to the rest of the internet when the satellite is up. And Finn locked it down when the storm began.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Dana, after a beat.

  ‘Shit,’ said Cash.

  ‘Well, I must be dumber than a plate of snails,’ said Hollis, ‘cause I still don’t get it.’

  ‘If we’re not connected to the internet,’ said Sam, who’d been listening from the passageway, ‘and we haven’t been since this storm began, then how can an outsider be active inside our system right now?’

  ‘Well,’ said Hollis, ‘maybe he snuck in before the storm.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Vlad. ‘But I’m getting paid a healthy amount of money to make sure that doesn’t happen and I don’t think it did. My traps would have snared it right away. And if it was a Trojan, it wouldn’t be trawling live. It would wait until we were wired up before activating and sending its data.’

  As if on cue, the alarm on his computer began beeping again. Then a beat later, across the passageway, the television clicked on, the crowd at the football game cheering ‘goal’, the commentators screaming. The echogram Eva had been monitoring whirred back and forth angrily and the lights on the ship began to flash.

  Before anyone could react to the crazy electrical surge, another wave smashed against the ship, flipping it almost 180 degrees. Eva screamed and was thrown into Hollis who crashed against the portal. Cash and Vlad tried to brace themselves against each other and the heavy metal desk. Then one of the equipment storage containers popped its moorings and slammed against the opposite wall, knocking a steel shelf loose above Dana’s head. Cash charged her, knocking both of them clear seconds before the shelf stabbed into the chair on which Dana had been kneeling. Cash pulled Dana off the floor, holding her close for a second longer than was necessary.

  Hollis helped Eva back to her seat. Each of them with the exception of Eva had survived more than their share of rough seas, but this was getting pretty bad.

  At that moment, gripping the sides of the door jamb, Finn stuck his head into the room. ‘Cash, everything’s secure on deck. We should be able to ride this out. Byron’s at the wheel.’ He looked at the rest of his shipmates who were pale, shaken and staring back at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Is the satellite still down?’ asked Vlad, ignoring the storm’s violence. Without looking up from his keyboard, despite the broken pieces of equipment that had landed on his desk, he was still chasing their intruder.

  Finn looked from Vlad to Cash. ‘Yes, sir. First thing we did, and we’ve not touched it since. If we need to send a… a signal…’ Finn was far too superstitious to even think about the possibility of distress never mind saying the word aloud, ‘the radios will work from the emergency gen—’

  The lights went out.

  Everything had shut down – the alarms, the lights, the television, and, worst of all, the engines.

  The Ice Maiden was dead in the water.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ demanded Cash, careening off the walls as he and Sam struggled out of the research lab to the passage, which was not wide enough for two men to pass. ‘Finn, with Sam and me.’

  They stood behind him while he unlocked a storage locker under the ladder with keys hooked on his belt. He lifted out two torches and a gun.

  ‘We may have been hit by a rogue wave,’ he said, handing the torches to Finn and Sam. Steadying himself against the sides of the passageway, he snapped a full clip into the gun, adding, ‘But we may have been hit by something else.’

  ‘Doesn’t really matter what hit us,’ said Sam, leading the way to the engine room. ‘If we can’t get the engines back on… in this storm… we’ll all be swimming soon.’

  Sam, Finn and Cash cautiously made their way along the tight passage to the engine room, leaving the rest in the dark lab.

  Eva was shifting containers to get at a box with emergency lights, which she handed to Hollis who took the lights and strung them across the ceiling. While she was attaching the battery pack, a whirring mechanical noise cut into the screaming wind and the thundering waves pounding into the paralysed trawler.

  Eva shifted a steel drawer out of her way. ‘It’s the teletype. How is that working without electricity?’

  The message printed in lower case was an unusual combination of letters and phrases. Eva tore the sheet from the machine when it stopped.

  Bracing himself against the door, Hollis looked over Eva’s shoulder at the sheet. ‘Is that some kind of code?’ he asked.

  ‘No, darlin’,’ Eva said, mimicking Hollis’s Cajun accent. ‘It’s Welsh.’

  Gwen

  33

  TWO DAYS AFTER the supermarket incident, most local media outlets were reporting a wave of violent outbursts by women in cinemas, libraries and shops, particularly in rural and secluded parts of the UK. But as the madness appeared to be spreading among small random clusters of woman and no one else – no men and no children – parts of the national press began speculating that these women might be experiencing a kind of mass female hysteria.

  One local GP from Cornwall was quoted as saying these women were trying to ‘have it all’ and, as a result, they were ‘cracking under the pressure’. He called it ‘Multi-Tasking Madness’, encouraged women to stay at home more, to avoid stress and too much over-stimulation.

  The backlash was immediate. Soon the media was less interested in the newest cases breaking out in the UK and instead focused on the debate over the feminist and political ramifications of the madness.

  Social media muted whatever rising panic was happening among its female followers and responded to the events with black humour and ironic mockery. At the end of day two, the most popular trending topics on Twitter were #realfemmefatales and #nolongerontheverge.

&n
bsp; Jack sat at the kitchen table, a laptop open in front of him, scanning reports from the World Health Organization, the International Organization for Women’s Wellbeing, Doctors Without Borders and as many international news agencies as he could access.

  He scrolled through masses of text, his brain grabbing any repetition of details, slivers of conversations, similarities in descriptions, suggestions and allusions, anything he could discern, no matter how trivial and irrelevant, that might suggest a pattern. Anyone watching him, his body stock still, the occasional shifting of his eyes as lines of text whipped past him, would have thought he was in a trance.

  He wasn’t sure where his eidetic memory had come from but, for as long as he could remember, Jack had been able to store huge amounts of data in patterns and images.

  While he was reading, he noticed that with certain websites, the yellow dots he’d seen earlier in his peripheral vision had returned. He did his best to ignore them, especially when they shifted colour the more quickly he scanned.

  On day three, the ‘masochistic madness’, as a blogger had labelled it, was being reported internationally; the numbers of women experiencing symptoms of violent mental breakdowns were being registered in six or seven secluded regions across the world. From the highlands of Scotland to the island of Rakiura off the southern tip of New Zealand, women living continents apart were committing random acts of violence towards themselves, their families, their neighbours and their communities.

  Thousands of women worldwide had descended into a kind of madness that even the most highly trained psychiatrists and experienced neurologists were having difficulty diagnosing. The only thing the medical community knew with any certainty was that this increase in mental illness involved a breakdown of each woman’s physical senses, a mangling of what she was feeling, seeing, smelling, and even tasting.