No. A resounding no. This entire escapade had turned out to be one giant mistake. And worse, a possibly fatal mistake. The money isn’t worth my life. The bank’s reputation certainly isn’t either. Note to self….avoid risky projects in the future. No matter how much damn money was wafted under his very nose.
“Okay,” he said finally, knowing that he had to trust Clyde. He’d already wasted precious seconds just thinking it through. It had to be now or never. “Just tell me what to do.”
“You need to—”
As Clyde began speaking, his voice was suddenly cracking again. Another noise was competing for the attention from the screen. Jason listened carefully, and he heard faint footsteps. He looked around. No one…
“Is he here?” Jason whispered, whipping his head towards Clyde.
“What? There’s some interference in our connection. No, there’s no one that I can see…wait…” The footsteps grew closer, ricocheting off the darkness around Jason as Clyde paused.
“What is it? Clyde?” Jason was pretty sure that the feet and body attached to the footsteps didn’t exactly want to give him a warm and fuzzy greeting. And he was standing practically in the middle of nowhere, with the screen as a beam, lighting the way for anyone who wanted to follow.
“Shit!” Clyde’s voice was barely above the tone of a hissing snake. “He’s figured it out!”
“Figured out what? That the files aren’t there?”
“No, he’s got the location of the files storing the bank codes. He’s tampering with the simulation, overriding it to try to shut you down completely.”
As terrifying as Clyde’s words were, not all of them made sense to Jason. He could guess the reason why the man might need his brain and computer powered down; it’d be easier to access information when the intruder wasn’t worried about having to fend off the body’s natural defenses to put up a mental wall.
However, the whole point of the files being stored in someone’s head was that they could be whisked away at the first sign of tampering or danger. This definitely qualified as both. If Clyde was correct in assuming that the man had been able to find the highly guarded bank codes…“Shouldn’t that mean the data files are being transferred as we speak?” Jason tried to clarify.
“That’s only if the chip is tampered with directly. Like if someone were to directly hack into the hardware or connection to the chip to try to extricate information. He’s not doing that. He’s tapped into your mind like it’s the computer, and he’s using your PSE as the connection to it. I’d alert them myself but I don’t have the time to try to do that and hold the connection between us right now. Jason, listen to me carefully—I need you to go west until you’ve run thirty two rows. That’ll take you to row 62. The numbers on the towers aren’t marked very clearly, so just keep count. It might make it harder for him to track you. I’ll transfer the screen to that location.”
“What about the footsteps? Can you tell me where he is?” That seemed like kind of a key piece of information.
The steps were getting louder, the predator quickly beginning the hunt to take down his prey; there was danger practically dripping in every stride taken by his pursuer.
“I don’t have that information yet, but I’m working on it. I can only do so much at one time with a limited internet connection,” Clyde told him apologetically. “Just remember what I told you, mark off thirty two rows as you’re running west. You should be able to see me there when you reach the right one.” The screen flickered briefly and then disappeared.
Jason felt his heart quicken. His only companion, the only real link to the world where his body continued to lie, had just disappeared. He’d been given instructions to find him again, to be able to hold on to the thin thread of hope that Clyde had extended to him, but could he do it?
He realized he wasn’t entirely sure which way west was. There wasn’t exactly a compass or globe just hanging around on the walls of the room that seemed to go on forever, not to mention the ceiling was so high above his head it looked as though it might have been open to the inky black sky.
Clyde had said the numbers weren’t marked clearly. That meant Jason had to waste precious time, even as the shoe falls seemed to be ready to turn the corner at any moment, to sink down into a crouch at the base of the nearest tower to look for some kind of indicator.
He scanned the nearest tower for a row number, looking closely as high up as his eyesight would let him, and then all the way down to the ground. He even took to feeling the base of the small structure, until finally his hands found an indented number.
Boots were driving into the hard floor headed towards him, he had no doubts.
23. Jason darted towards the next row and began searching in the same spot for the number. 24. That meant he was headed in the right direction. He tried to think of some way to cover the number before he ran, but he realized it wouldn’t do him any good. What point was there in obscuring one tower number when there were hundreds of others that the intruder could find to point him in the right direction? He nixed the idea of doing anything other than using their information for his own purposes and getting out of there as fast as he could.
He ran west, too busy counting rows in his head at first to realize the slamming of his shoes to the ground was loudly giving away his position to anyone who bothered enough to stop and listen. The same way that he had known his hunter was stalking towards him by the sound, he would be forewarning him also of where he was running. Adrenaline coursed through his body, giving him the energy jolt he needed to sprint towards row 62, but he had to contain it enough to think straight.
Think light, he told himself. You’re a shadow. You don’t make footsteps. He carried himself as quickly as he dared, making as little noise as he possibly could. It wasn’t entirely silent, but it wasn’t as loud as when he’d first taken off on his mad dash through this place of insanity.
33. 34. 35. He hoped he was keeping track of the numbers in his head correctly; he didn’t dare take the important moments needed to stop and look closely for the number marking the row. He had bought himself some precious time. He could no longer hear footsteps behind him, though he wasn’t sure if his labored breathing and pounding heart were simply masking the intruder’s sounds, but he wasn’t about to lose his lead. It might be the only thing that stood between his escape and his death.
42. 43. 44. His heart thudded painfully in his chest as he continued to dash passed the rows of electronic towers.
56. 57. 58. What was so important on row 62? Why had Clyde specifically asked Jason to meet him in that particular location?
His shoes squeaked as he stopped cold at 62, his muscles on the verge of cramping from exertion. He could hear the static again coming from a screen nearby, a sound that he wouldn’t have once thought of as comforting, but certainly fit the bill now. Following it down the row, he arrived at a screen with Clyde’s face again.
“Well done. Are you still being followed?”
Jason listened for footsteps. “I think so. But they aren’t nearly as close as before. ”
“Good, we have some time then.”
“What are we doing here?”
“We’re going to try and wake you up.”
Finally! Jason thought. He was ready to wake up from this virtual reality and never go back under.
“Do you see the tower numbered 1243?” Clyde asked. Jason eyed the towers and located 1243 adjacent to the tower with Clyde’s screen. “Yes, I can see it.”
“Great. I need you to tap the screen and enter your identification details.” Jason did as requested, watching as the tower came alive with a translucent monitor, facial recognition and a passcode request. The bright lights sent shooting pains through his head, which made the walls around the whole place feel like they were quaking. After his face was scanned and confirmed, the passcode screen remained on the page, the cursor blinking periodically.
“It’s asking for a passcode,” Jason said uncertainly.
&nbs
p; “Good. Enter your passcode from work.”
That didn’t sound right. “From work? You mean my security clearance code?”
“Yes, you have to punch it into the control console.”
A nauseating feeling crawled its way into Jason’s stomach; a gut instinct was telling him something was wrong. He punched in the code.
ACCESS GRANTED
The footsteps grew closer again.
“Now what?” he asked Clyde.
“Select the encrypted files and transmit them to station Alpha 9. You should see the option to do so on the screen.”
Jason saw the option—but couldn’t bring himself to press it. The knot in his stomach remained. Sweat dotted his forehead. He didn’t understand fully what he was being asked to do, but he knew that whenever they had briefed him about storing all of the codes inside his head, he never had to manually transfer any information.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” he said, the overwhelming urge to voice his concerns winning out. “What is this?”
“Don’t worry. It’s only a simulation of the encrypted files within your chip. This will make it look as though the files were transferred.”
“Will he actually believe it?” Jason asked skeptically.
“Only one way to find out.”
Jason nodded, but didn’t feel convinced. Something seemed off. Very off. The footsteps grew louder again. He stood still, despite the warnings shouted from Clyde. A vicious sense of recklessness that some might have mistaken for heroism over took him. He wanted, no, needed to see what he’d been running from. The man that trapped him here, in a dark place in his own mind. He needed to be able to look at him and face the fear that he had been running from.
He wondered if he would appear in human form within the simulation, or if he had chosen a different, more intimidating appearance, since he was the one in control of the simulations now.
The footsteps grew louder. Closer. The intruder was flat out running now. Running towards Jason as though he sensed he was waiting for him.
“What the fuck are you doing, Jason?” Clyde’s voice chimed through the tower.
“I want to see his face.”
“Are you crazy? He will kill you!”
“I doubt it. I have something he wants.”
“Just simulate the transfer, Jason. You’re risking your life.”
Jason said nothing as the footsteps drew closer. He still saw no one, but continued waiting…instead of increasing his fear, the ongoing footsteps seemed to just irritate him.
Taking in a deep breath, he then yelled into the sea of holographic towers. “Show your face, then! If you want me, I’m right here!” A pair of running boots continued to hit the ground towards him.
“Complete the simulation now. There’s still time.” Clyde’s voice held something other than concern.
“I don’t think there’s anyone here,” Jason said, his voice low, “I think he’s screwing with me.” He turned back to Clyde. The image on the screen was still popping with static, the pixels unclear enough to focus on anything but the most basic of Clyde’s features. Opening a control window beside it, one he wasn’t sure that he had known about, or that he had fully registered was there before, Jason attempted to repair it, not understanding his own reasoning, simply following his instinct.
“What are you doing?”
Jason didn’t answer but continued working on the screen. A clearer image was forming before him, the static swiftly disappearing as Jason, who had only the barest interactions with computers, was somehow repairing it, something that Clyde should have easily been able to do.
“Jason? What are you doing? Answer me.”
Jason ignored him, and increased the clarity of the screen with a few clearly marked buttons on the control panel. A sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach made him feel like he was weighted down with an extra hundred pounds.
“Are you clearing up my image? Don’t. Stop. He’ll find out I’m talking to you. Any clearer communication might risk—”
“I told you, I don’t think he is here. He would have found me by now. The footsteps aren’t real. He’s on the outside, trying to induce panic, force me to make rash decisions. We need a different strategy.”
As Clyde’s resolution increased, so did his background, and Jason’s fears were confirmed.
“Where…where did you say you were again?” Jason whispered. His jaw went slack with shock as he examined Clyde’s surroundings. It didn’t take him long to realize Clyde was in Jason’s room…with Jason’s body sitting at the desk, head slumped forward as though he were sleeping, where he last began his virtual simulation.
“There’s no intruder, is there?” Jason’s mouth tasted salty with his fear as his dry mouth and lips tried to form the words of betrayal.
Clyde sighed, his face hardening. “You had to go and make this difficult, didn’t you?”
Jason shook his head and took a few steps back, putting up his hands like he was subconsciously asking for mercy.
“Why are you doing this? How can you do this to me?”
“Look, we can make this as easy or as difficult as you want. Just do as I say and there won’t be any accidents.”
“Accidents?” The blood in his veins seemed to chill with Clyde’s insinuation. “I thought we were friends, Clyde. Are you threatening me for money that’s not even mine?”
“Sometimes desperate things have to be done,” his friend-turned-enemy said through gritted teeth.
“And what’s got you so desperate?” Jason continued fiddling with the nobs on the bottom of the screen as he kept Clyde talking. He hadn’t had a plan or strategy of his own before, because he hadn’t known where he needed to go or what he needed to do.
Revealing his plot to Jason to give up the access codes had also done something that he was sure Clyde hadn’t intended to do: give Jason the keys back to his own head. Now that he knew where the central tower was, and a decent idea of how to work it, he could do something about all of this without the help of his “friend”.
“It’s none of your damn business,” Clyde leered, not bothering to hide where he was anymore, Clyde adjusted the screen, making it follow him as he walked to stand directly above Jason’s head. His hand hovered at a holster on his hip.
“Really? A gun?” Jason pretended to scoff as his hands worked frantically, keying in codes, granting himself access as sole system administrator again. The last step was how to kick Clyde out of his head so that he could fully wake up. “A bit old school, don’t you think? Why don’t you just challenge me to a show down in the street near the old saloon? We’ll tie our horses up and make sure the ladies are all inside before anything goes down.” His sarcasm came out harsher, he supposed because he was trying too hard to mask his fear.
Clyde’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe it’s not the most hi-tech way to kill you, but I’m pretty sure dead is dead, my friend. You want to try that attitude again, and risk a bullet being put through the back of your skull, or are you just going to hand over the—what are you doing?”
His eyes finally glanced down at what else Jason had been doing.
“What I should have done from the minute your slimy, sneaky little tendrils wormed their way into my head.” Jason slammed his fist down on the enter key, erasing all evidence of Clyde’s existence in his head.
A weight lifted off of his shoulders as the chip in his head, registering that something unusual was happening, finally, unburdened him with the information of the important bank and access codes, spiriting them away to some other unknown host. He’d had the tools for his success if he just would have made his own choices.
“Power screen on,” he repeated for the final time that day, confident that this time it would work. His home screen appeared in front of him, a sense of relief sweeping over him.
“Allow no one else but my user identification to access any information on PSE. Log out and shut down PSE. Immediately.”
There was no rising from the
darkness, no change of body motion the way that some people said they experienced when waking from a PSE virtual reality. One moment he was in his head, the next, he was lifting that very head off the desk. The only evidence that he’d been sitting there, motionless, for hours, was the awful cramp in his neck from slumping over. It was nothing compared to the state of his would-be assassin.
Clyde was raking his fingers across the front of his skull, every stroke closer to drawing blood. The gun sat on his hip, forgotten, as the grown man rocked back and forth. Just to be safe, Jason approached him with a wary eye, not sure if it was some kind of act meant to lure him in before being overpowered.
The gun slid out of the holster easily and Jason held it at an angle from his body. He’d touched bows and arrows in some of his virtual reality PSE experiences, had even held a light sword or two, but in all his wildest dreams, he’d never wanted to pick up a weapon like this. It felt heavy, cold and menacing in his hand, as though it knew it had been mere inches from taking his life.
It’s not the weapon itself, but the person wielding it who makes it deadly, he reminded himself, taking a deep breath. Man up and carry it, or else you risk Clyde getting a hold of it again.
Clyde’s face shifted from mean to lost, and back again, a man fighting to get out of the shell his body had become.
“What, what did you do to me?” Clyde whispered. Jason almost felt sorry for him, except for the fact that he’d intended to kill him for money.
“You should think about the consequences before you go poking around in someone’s head,” Jason said angrily. “I erased your presence and any data files you were using while you were connected to me. I don’t know how much is gone. Some motor function, obviously, as well as some memories, I’d bet…speaking of memories. Why did you need that money so badly?”
Clyde shook his head. “All gone. All gone.”
Jason didn’t know if he meant all of his things were gone, or all the memories were gone, but he didn’t want to be the one to push the issue.
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