“Maximos,” he uttered aloud with clenched teeth. “That snake will have the whole world wrapped in chains with his virus. We can’t let him get away with his plan!”
“His virus?” Faaiza questioned.
“The Rigula,” James explained in a tone of regret. “He created the virus and its cure. He’s been using them to control nations. When they do what he wants, he promises them the cure. When they try and refuse, he leaves them to the fate of virus. Thousands have died. More will follow. We must stop him!”
Faaiza’s olive hand thrust down again in front of him. “I’m with you on that,” Faaiza spoke firmly. “Why don’t we step into my office?”
James looked at the hand, at the determined face offering it, and felt a sudden wave of strength flowing through him. He grasped on and pulled himself up.
Chapter 104
The Lair was in shambles; but Faaiza confidently moved around, checking the damage of monitors and towers. In the end, she was able to pull together two workstations using display monitors with the fewest cracks and scuffed up towers whose components remained undamaged underneath their thick metal casings. While the computers were booting up, James set up a cracked TV and stared at the unbelievable news coverage of their world in chaos. Nations had invoked martial law and were in the beginning stages of implementing emergency protocols: citizens with “priority careers” would be resuming their work immediately—namely workers involved with the production of energy and food, as well as medical personal, emergency relief responders, and construction workers. Monetary values across the board were being frozen to avoid emergency inflation or exploitation; citizens around the globe were to stay in their homes until things could be more properly assessed. But as images of rioting and panicking in capital cities around the world flashed upon the screen, James had a feeling it would be a while before any semblance of control would be re-established.
“Okay, what’s the plan?” Faaiza asked. The computers were ready to go.
James replied, “The key to everything is proof. I can tell everything I know about Maximos’ schemes, but if we don’t have proof, no one will listen. I had plenty of proof on my laptop, of his manipulations…And, we have to find a way to neutralize the threat of the virus. Get people out from under his control.”
As he was thinking, Faaiza was doing a preliminary search on the web. “Hey, look at this.”
She pointed to one of her displays which showed a page of the GED public website. “It says Maximos is still hosting the International Peace Summit next week. He ‘admonishes’ national leaders to attend, as a significant announcement will be made concerning our first step in this new, unprecedented, and unfamiliar age.’”
“Significant announcement?” A vindictive spark lit in James’ eye. “I think I’ve just had an idea.” He pounced on his keyboard, typed his commands, and grinned triumphantly, as the GED logo came up on his screen.
“That’s GED’s private network,” Faaiza stated cautiously.
“Yes,” acknowledged James.
“Do you know how to use that thing?” Even though Sarah had at one point mentioned to Faaiza a little about James’ history with computers, she was skeptical about how much this “old guy” might really know.
James eyed her, sizing her up. “Do you?”
In answer, Faaiza typed several fast commands and James’ screen suddenly went blank. She had blacked him out.
“Not bad,” James commented appreciatively. “You should be able to keep up. Okay, here’s my plan. First, we’ll go into the network and snag as much dirt as we can as quickly as we can. Then, we’ll have to concentrate on getting out of here before we begin the next phase.”
“Out of this warehouse? It seems like a good setup.”
“No, out of London. Out of the country. We need to be someplace safe when we execute my idea, where Maximos won’t be able to find us. We’ll need to discard our current cell phones, travel under false names and…” His eyes suddenly zoomed in on his hand. Faaiza’s gaze followed, then looked into his face questioningly. “You’ve been chipped?”
“It’s a microbit, actually. It was part of a…where are you going?”
Faaiza had jumped from her seat and jogged several yards to a back wall where she fumbled around in a few dusty boxes before pulling out a thick, metal cylinder as long as James’ palm. She motioned him over and bade him to hold out his hand as she held up the ring.
“High powered magnet,” she stated. “We’ve kept a few around in case we ever needed to mess up our hard drives.” She placed the magnet on the back of his hand. It took only a second before they heard a faint pop, and James winced in spite of himself; he could already feel a strange sensation trickling throughout his body as it adjusted to the lack of electronic influence within his cells.
He nodded a ‘thanks’ to Faaiza. Now, they couldn’t be tracked.
“All major airports are being shut down, except for shipping necessary supplies and medical personal,” Faaiza stated as her planning mode went into full gear. “I can make us some I.D.s with fake names and get those names on a travel roster. Where do you want to go?”
James looked around him at the empty warehouse, fighting against the feelings of loss. There was nothing left here - no comfort, no security, no peace, no family. Only one place in the world might still hold any meaning. “Home,” he answered. “I want to go home to my country.”
“Then, let’s get started”.” Faaiza went to her station and began tapping feverishly on the keys. James’ screen lit up again with the GED icon. He sat down and immediately began feeling out the internal network security, sizing up the defenses before making his attempt. He needed documents for proof, and he knew just where to find some…He was going to hack into his own computer at GED headquarters.
The consistent tapping became a mantra in the silence, driving the fugitives on toward their goal. With the I.D.s set up and printed fairly quickly, Faaiza had joined James in assessing the GED firewalls.
“Artificial intelligence,” she said after 20 minutes of observing codes of the network. “See how the codes keep changing?”
“So, it will be like breaking through a wall of moving water instead of solid brick,” James said, keeping his voice even. “We won’t be fast enough to get ahead of the manipulations.” He felt a sudden wave of disappointment. He had known hacking into the network would be difficult; but he hadn’t counted on it being impossible. They pondered the problem in silence.
“What if…?” he ventured after a moment. “What if we could disguise our electronic presence? Could you create an exterior code that looks like the artificial intelligence code that we could go in under?”
Faaiza pictured what he was saying in her mind. “Possibly. But these codes are always changing. Our disguise would have to, too. I wouldn’t be able to keep it up and find and download the files we’re looking for.”
“Leave that to me,” James answered with a grin. “You just get us in; I’ll grab the goods.”
Chapter 105
High in the international headquarters of the renowned, and lately somewhat notorious, Global Economic Dynamics company, Gerald Packard, Head of I.T. and Network Security, was staring past the tens of computer screens that made up his work station into that empty space where thoughts often gather. As a rule, he didn’t put any stock in phenomena which could not be proved scientifically or mathematically; yet he had always suspected that other forms of life had to exist somewhere. The universe was just too big, and mathematically speaking, it was almost impossible that earth could be the only planet to sustain life. And now…they were here. The aliens had come! He had been right all along; but for some reason, he couldn’t grasp onto feelings of elation in his intellectual victory. Instead, thoughts of fear, confusion and uncertainty had gripped his mind. Their world, the human way of life, had come to a sudden end, and there was no precedent for knowing what this alternate future would bring. Were these disappeared people harvested in hostilit
y, or perhaps chosen to be receivers of enlightenment? Surely, if that had been the case, Gerald should have gone. Not only was he a believer in extra-terrestrials, but also a very intelligent person who definitely would have deserved to be the first among mankind to be bestowed with hidden knowledge of the universe. It just didn’t make any sense. In his frustration, he banged a fat fist onto one of his tables. The computer screen next to it beeped as a “caution” sign popped up on the screen.
“What’s this?” he muttered to himself darkly as he clicked on the prompt.
A log suddenly appeared, several pages long, which automatically scrolled itself to the bottom. He read the last two entries:
Mode, James: Network__Exc3219/login2034:DENIED
Mode, James: Network__Exc3219/login2035:DENIED
“Hmm.” Gerald picked up the phone and dialed the extension for James’ office, which sat at the end of the room. He stood up and looked that direction, still holding the receiver. There was no light coming from the office, and no one was answering the phone.
“Okay,” he said as he sat down again and cracked his knuckles. “Let’s see who’s there.” He turned toward a new screen, wiped it blank, and began a cacophony of tapping on his keyboard. It took him two minutes to locate an anomaly in the code surrounding James Mode’s network space.
-Having trouble?
He typed with undeniable glee; he loved playing cat and mouse. For a minute, there was no answer, then finally,
-I seem to have forgotten my password. Can you help?
Gerald snorted porcinely.
-James, is that you? I’m sorry, I can’t help. You know full well that you’ve been locked out of the system. How’d you get past my A.I. anyway?
-Magic.
Gerald frowned. He knew he should be calling up Cyndi right now, but somehow that just didn’t seem good enough. He wanted to teach James a lesson— wipe that smile off his certainly smirking face before turning him over. He moved his mouse to another screen and began typing quickly; he had a store of computer viruses he’d been working on and suddenly felt inclined to try one out.
-How could you do this, James? he stalled.
Just when we were getting to know each other, you decided to move away. You know, when I get a call from Cyndi asking me to lock someone's account, it's for one of three reasons: Fired, quit, or reassigned. Now, knowing you and your performance conduct lately, I’d bet that you’ve been reassigned to a new location and already forgot your new password, is that about right?
The tech guffawed merrily at his own cleverness, as he moved back to the screen of viruses, chose one, and began typing the instructions to send it into the network anomaly. He had chosen a nasty one which he was rather proud of. Three-fold, the virus could steal all the information of the system he sent it, too, jump wirelessly to any other device in the vicinity and embed itself in it, and, upon Gerald’s command, cause a permanent electrical and networking shutdown in any device it lies in—such as a phone, car, airplane, submarine, skyscraper. While he was clacking away, another sharp beep pulled his attention to the first screen and he gazed stupefied at the new warning:
Mode, James: Network__Exc3219/folder748av3/DOWNLOAD…10%
“What?!” Gerald slapped his hand to his forehead. Somehow James had bypassed the password entry. This guy was good, and that made Gerald angry. No one could beat his system. No one. Pushing the fun and games aside, Gerald turned all his attention to uploading the virus. We’ll see how clever that weasel is when he gets this package. 13% uploaded. Gerald grimaced and shouted at the computer to hurry up.
Buzz buzz. Buzz buzz. The tech put his phone on speaker, not willing to keep his hands off the weapons of his warfare.
“Packard here.”
“Gerald, it’s Cyndi. Where are we with that back door into the Israeli cyber defense system? They’ve thrown an electronic net over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and we have no idea what they’re doing. We’re too late in this game to be able to afford any rogue moves. I need to know what they’re—”
“Yeah, I’ll look into it and get the data to you pronto.” VIRUS UPLOAD…50%. FOLDER DOWNLOAD…52%.
“Look into it? Gerald, you were already supposed to have this back door in place. Can you patch me into the system or not?”
“Yeah, just give me a sec to finish something up.” VIRUS UPLOAD…62%. FOLDER DOWNLOAD…62%. “Got him.”
“Got what? Packard, are you even listening to me?”
Gerald hit the speaker button on the phone again, minimizing Cyndi’s harsh, brass voice from the loud speaker at the bottom of the phone into a tiny squeak from the top of it. “She’ll thank me later,” he spoke under his breath. “Almost there….”
VIRUS UPLOAD…90%. FOLDER DOWNLOAD…91%
Packard took to his keyboard in a flurry to try and block James’ progress; he only needed to be one second faster.
VIRUS UPLOAD…95%. FOLDER DOWNLOAD…95%. VIRUS UPLOAD…97%. FOLDER DOWNLOAD…96%.
“I’ve got you now,” Gerald said in a menacing, sing-songy tone. “Download 98%. Virus, 99%—Goodbye, James…What the?!”
Without warning, the room exploded with a flash of violet light followed by an intense rumble which seemed to rock the very building. Gerald covered his head as the power went out, and several computer screens smashed to the floor around him. Then a flash of strange, subdued light caught his eye, and the tech stared in horror as the walls were suddenly covered in crackling beams of purple electricity that darted upward and seemed to melt through the ceiling above him.
“Aliens!” he cried in alarm, as he fled from his station toward the emergency exit sign over the stairway. “It’s another attack!” Holding one arm above his head and using the other to shoo away any invaders about to descend on him, Gerald started down the stairs as fast as his thick legs would carry him. He had made it down 10 floors before his adrenaline rush rescinded and his body demanded reprieve. Slumped on the landing with his arms wrapped around his legs like a frightened child, Gerald Packard, Head of I.T. and Network Security for GED waited in trembling fear for the fate he had convinced himself was coming.
Chapter 106
“Whoa, what’s going on!” Faaiza shouted as she gripped the table against the shaking warehouse.
“Earthquake!” James dove under the table and motioned for the girl to follow. “Get under here, quick!”
Light fixtures and bits of rubble smashed down onto the surface above them. Faaiza reached up to snag a portable hard drive and got nicked by some falling debris. James offered her a kerchief from his front jacket pocket; no sooner had she wrapped the cut than the shaking had stopped. They waited in silence for another minute for any aftershocks, but everything remained still.
“Come on.” James crawled out then helped Faaiza up. They looked around at the damaged building. The ceiling was intact, but dust pervaded the air and caused the pair to immediately start coughing. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he urged.
“What about the computers? What about our files! Was the download complete?”
“I couldn’t tell…”
Faaiza quickly found the computer James had been on and reattached the pulled-out power cord; a small green light on the cover lit up. “Power still works. I’m going to boot it up.”
“Faaiza, we have to clear out of here. Look, I’ll check the download while you gather your things, deal?” She hesitated for a moment before agreeing, then, whisked away to her quarters. James paced back and forth in front of the display impatiently as each second seemed to take five minutes to pass. Finally, the boot up was finished, and he checked the status of the download.
“What does it say?” Faaiza had returned with a rucksack over her shoulder and an empty duffel bag in her hand.
“Failed.” James sighed and buried his chin within the steeple of his hands. “We didn’t get it.”
Faaiza’s shoulders slumped. Her backpack fell to the floor, and she shuffled toward an empty, dust-covered chair with a l
ook of bewildered disappointment on her face. Their plan was ruined. How were they ever going to expose Maximos and his evil plots now?
“Nope,” chided James as he quickly jumped up from his own seat and covered his mouth against a heaving cough. “We’re not staying here to mope. We can think of something else.” He snatched up the fallen bag and pointed at the duffle still in her hand. “You gonna pack that, or should I?”
“You’re right,” Faaiza said, coming to herself and setting her jaw in determination; they had only been set back, not beaten. Swiftly, she flew about the room scooping up laptops, cables, cords, external hard drives, their newly made fake I.D.s and whatever else she thought they might need. Then, she packed them all in to the duffle, using some of the clothes from her backpack to pad the already scuffed-up equipment. With a curt nod she declared all was ready, and James took the duffle as they briskly headed toward an exit—their heads bent low and their faces covered against the chalky dust rising thickly into the air with each step. Suddenly, a small metallic ring caught their ears as a piece of metal went skidding across the floor in front of them; its stark interruption in the all too silent room caused them both to start.
“Sorry,” James murmured apologetically. “Must’ve kicked it.”
As they walked past the object which had involuntarily disturbed them, Faaiza reached down to examine it.
“Looks like a harmonica,” noted James as he adjusted the strap of the heavy duffle bag on his shoulder. Faaiza brushed at the small rectangular bar before finally blowing away the clinging dust; the motion caused her eyes to water, or so James thought.
“This belonged to Kaz,” she spoke softly after a moment. “He was a guy here; one of my friends. He was rather timid, but I think Tolu got him to laugh a few times.” She held it out, and James took the piece.
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