The Snow Swept Trilogy
Page 60
In the end, the walls had crumbled and she began to figure out how to sort through the data, about 22 terabytes at first glance. To do so manually was virtually impossible, and she no longer had the computer program she'd written to sort through data, as she had destroyed that in her apartment before she ran.
After a few minutes, she decided that there must be some user interface to allow for searching the data, something that would make the data usable to the organization. To identify the search program amidst the mass of data would be implausible, and she knew that. Instead, she used the ISP she'd identified before to gain access to the computer that had been used to monitor the reporter's computer. The computer listed only three users, each identified with a series of letters and numbers. In order to login to the user interface using one of the usernames, she would have to guess the password, which, considering the anonymous nature of the usernames, would take a very long time. So she bypassed the users, choosing instead to log on as an administrator to the computer.
Every computer had backdoors to allow administrators access to the programs and data in the off chance one of the users was locked out of the computer or needed technical support.
It took nearly two hours before she was able to break into the computer's interface as an administrator, and by that time she was getting hungry and tired. It wasn't unusual for her to go full days and nights without sleep, but the added stress of running for her life and playing this deadly game of chess was taking its toll. Heather was reaching that point where her overall effectiveness would begin to decrease at a much higher rate, to the point where she would be useless on the computer and not much help as backup to the players. She needed a break, some food and a quick nap.
Heather checked the status of the Lit Dragons via GPS and saw that they would pass through Chicago within the hour. She considered meeting up with the drivers, Ryan in particular, but decided against it. A meeting with them, no mater how short, would only slow them down. If they were going to catch up with Mae's convoy, they would need to move fast.
She would let them drive, and in the meantime, she would take a nap. It was a testament to just how tired she was, that she had to think about where she would eat and sleep. She almost slapped her forehead when she realized where she was.
Heather began to pack her stuff when she thought about running a quick search from the administrator interface on Il Contionum's computers. Just a quick search, and she'd hang it up for a few hours. After all, she'd been working to establish her ability to search the data—why not have a peek?
She scooted closer to her screen and typed:
MAE EDWARDS
The search came up empty, and she sat staring at the screen for several seconds before remembering the emails she’d read in the reporter’s apartment. The emails had referred to experiments that were conducted on a “subject.”
Heather sat back and chewed on a fingernail for several seconds, thinking about various key words she could use to search. She remembered the books in the reporter’s apartment and typed:
PSYCHOKINESIS or (w/3 ABILITY) or PK or TELEKINESIS
“PK ABILITY” or (w/p/w/250 “subject”)
Almost instantly, a number of documents and emails opened in the search browser. She read down the list and began to mentally sort through the documents, coming to an email chain she thought might be most relevant. She clicked on the file link and the email chain appeared:
________________________________________
To:
Of course. Many of the "godmen" claimed macro-PK abilities and demonstrated apparently miraculous phenomena in public. Again the issue is trickery. When controls are put in place, the phenomena decrease. We are still looking into possible links with this group of people, who seem to be the most vocal about said power.
The subject, today, lifted a table and chairs several feet from the ground. This is the first recorded example of subject’s movement of objects with substantial mass. The phenomena was produced during a state of extreme agitation after having been removed from the stasis tank only moments before. Of course, the music was playing. Subject reacted violently to news that she was not allowed to see her parents as scheduled.
Subject appears to be unaware of how much time is passing while in stasis. Subject was in stasis for a period of 64 days, but was under the impression that the normal period of 3 days had passed.
Due to increasing political activity in the area, recommend transfer to site in South Florida, with facility in metropolitan area. Please advise.
NW
________________________________________
To:
Further research reveals additional references to various cases around the world, all of which seem to have been debunked at sometime or another.
We found one case, however, that seems to have more of a relation to what we're dealing with, a 19-year-old girl in the 60s who was said to have telekinetic powers. She had the ability to move objects with her mind, and sometimes while not even in the same room. Difference is that our subject has no control over her ability. Seems to be brought on by stress or emotional excitement. It's a key difference though, because any sort of fakery would likely have been discovered if she'd claimed control.
Looking more into your idea of the godmen in India. The difference between them and the cases we've read about is that the godmen don't seem to be looking for attention and acclaim for the abilities (not without exceptions of course). Will continue looking as we study the subject.
Hired new physicist who is looking at different theories on a quantum level. He's stumped, but is interested in the interaction the music plays. As you know, the song we use is the same that her parents would play to her as a child. Parents reported that even as an infant, there was an increase of kinetic movement when music was played nearby.
________________________________________
Heather continued to read through the emails, jotting down notes as she read, and feeling more lightheaded with every passing second. The emails, some of which she’d seen printed in the reporter’s apartment, discussed a form of psychokinesis, which explained why the reporter had been doing further research into the phenomena.
But what did it mean?
The emails kept referring to a “subject,” and she assumed it was someone who allegedly possessed some kind of psychokinetic ability. Which meant that someone within the organization was conducting paranormal experiments on this subject? After reading through the emails, she’d decided that n.whaler must have been the person conducting the experiments on the subject—the person in direct contact with the subject. But who was the subject? Naturally, her mind settled on the girl who seemed to be at the center of this mess—Mae Edwards.
The idea of someone who possessed the ability to control objects with her mind was beyond reach, and putting a name to the person who supposedly had this power somehow made it more real and pushed the notion further from the realm of reality in her mind. Heather had trained her mind in concrete reality, in data that was real, that she could read and analyze. Even though the data was indecipherable to most, it was still real. The patterns, sequences, and information was real. But psychokinetic power? How was that even possible? Her mind screamed as it attempted to wrap around the idea. It was one thing to read about mysterious occurrences in books, things that had happened to people a long time ago and in different locales, but someone here and now with this power? Maybe, she supposed, it was just wishful thinking, or even a hoax. Some passing experiment that would fizzle when it was realized that psychokinetic abilities were impossible.
Had to be impossible.
But it seemed that the ability had to be more than a passing experiment, as a great deal of time and money had been devoted to the project, and to what end? Even if there was someone with this ability, why would a se
cret organization like Il Contionum, with seemingly endless resources, devote so much effort to uncovering the secrets to this power?
The examples of psycho and telekinesis that she’d read about in the books the reporter had been researching discussed only small objects being manipulated or lifted into the air for short periods of times. There were other examples of metal and other hard objects being warped and manipulated, like bending spoons. But again, why would Il Contionum be interested in such parlor tricks? And why go to such great lengths to keep it a secret, or to recover their “subject”? They had killed to keep this all a secret, but that didn’t make sense with what she knew of the secret. Why kill for something that most people would think was a hoax? A conspiracy theory hashed out by crackpots?
Heather thought about the reporter, and the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end. She froze and reread the first email, her eyes drawn to the South Florida reference. They had moved the “subject” to a new location in South Florida, Miami maybe, and then came the event that had set this whole thing in motion. The reporter—Paul was his name, she thought, Paul, Paul, Paul, can’t forget his name—had investigated a disaster in Miami in which a building was destroyed. An alleged accident. But Paul had not bought that story like the other members of the media, and instead had insisted that it was an attack. That the building had been destroyed and that it was not an accident. Paul had been labeled a crackpot conspiracy theorist ranting and raving about a bomb that wasn’t a bomb. About an explosion that was somehow spontaneous.
A bomb without a bomb.
Or maybe the subject—Mae Edwards—had been the bomb. Or not the bomb, but rather the source of the explosion that had destroyed the building.
With what though? Her mind? Her supposed psychokinetic abilities?
Was that even possible, she wondered? How did you go from bending spoons and making a pencil float a few inches above a table’s surface, to decimating an entire building? It was beyond her mind’s comprehension, but that theory would explain Il Contionum’s obsession with Mae. But to what end?
Heather sighed heavily and rubbed at her eyes. It was almost too much to take in—too much for her mind to even consider. It was the stuff of fairy tales and science fiction movies, not real life. She lifted her cup to her lips and drained the last drop of tea into her mouth. She took a breath, considering whether to stay a few more minutes, or to take a break and get some rest. The fatigue was coming at her like the incessant ocean tides, and soon it would swallow her up.
Just a few more minutes, she thought. Another cup of tea and a few more minutes of reading.
She stood and walked through the bustling café, suddenly aware of her surroundings and noticing just how focused she became while working. As she had breached Il Contionum’s networks and while reading through the hacked documents, she had forgotten where she was, her entire focus on the information and the questions posed.
The edges of her vision were blurry and she felt too light to be walking. She needed sleep. She needed to ingest something more than chamomile tea.
A few more minutes, she promised herself, and then she’d go to bed and sleep.
Just a few more minutes.
Heather was facing the counter and ordering her tea when the SWAT van pulled up to the curb outside the hotel. But even if she’d been facing the front of the lobby, she may have been too tired and worn to have noticed the figures in black surrounding the building and covering the exits. She may not have even noticed the same soldiers from whom she’d recently escaped.
Just a few more minutes, and I’ll stop, she thought as she paid for her tea and returned to her table.
Chapter Thirty-Three
"We've got her," a technician at the command center said, and recited the address to Sergeant Jay Sorenson. The Sergeant ended the call, his grin not unlike that of a shark, and relayed their destination to the driver of the SWAT van. The driver made a sharp turn toward the place where the hacker girl was hiding. The Sergeant glanced behind and saw that the two police cars trailing the van made the turn as well.
You can run, the Sergeant thought, and you can hide, but you'll be dead within the hour even so. The thought made him feel almost giddy. Very soon, this operation would be complete, and he looked forward to his return to his home and family.
The Sergeant and his crew had arrived in Chicago several hours before, knowing that the hacker girl was there and in hiding. Morales would have handled the girl had she not gotten wise to the fact that she was being followed and altered her strategy. Morales had lost her trail and was needed elsewhere, so they had called the Sergeant to finish the job he'd started at her apartment.
And he was happy to finish the job. She'd made a fool of him and his men, killed one of them, and she would pay dearly.
The Sergeant watched out the window as they passed through Chicago, seeing snow piled high on the sidewalks and against the buildings. What few people were out in the cold walked quickly and with purpose. They kept their heads bowed against the wind, their shoulders hunched, and they trudged forward, without hesitation. Flecks of dirty snow fell from the sky that was gun metal grey. It was a dreary place, the city in the dead of winter, depressing even, and he couldn't wait to get home to where the sky had a little more color and the temperature rose to bearable heights.
When they neared the hotel where the hacker was located, he instructed the driver to stop, and he gave his orders over the radio. It was a daytime operation, and they'd been forced to cooperate with Chicago PD. His men had changed from their anonymous fatigues and wore SWAT gear and uniforms that matched what the city's finest wore. The cops here were told that a dangerous cyberterrorist was in the hotel and had remotely gained control of powerful weapons, and that she was in the midst of launching an attack on multiple cities around the country. The local police chomped at the opportunity to take down a high profile terrorist, and they were itching for action.
The Sergeant pointed at Reed and Bloom, both of whom were still reeling from the girl's evasion and were angry.
"You two, on my three and nine, hang tight and close," said the Sergeant. "We take her into custody, no shooting in the public place."
"We need to kill her on sight, sir," Bloom snarled. "Shoot her dead."
"Lieutenant, you will follow orders. We don't need another public scene."
"Sir, with all due respect," Reed said, the underlying tone in her voice dark and wavering with masked fury, "she needs to go down fast. If she gets away, we might be dealing with something a whole lot more public than taking down a known terrorist in a public place."
The Sergeant considered this, remembering how she'd slipped from their fingers at the apartment complex. How she'd pushed one of his men from the roof to his death below. How she'd escaped at every turn, making her way all the way to Chicago and even avoiding Morales. She was flighty and anxious, necessary traits to evade capture and death while being hunted. But now, she was in a safe place.
Or at least she thought she was in a safe place. Her guard was down, and her sense of security would be her weakness. She wouldn't be expecting them, so she would not be prepared to run. Not to mention, he had the entire Chicago PD on pins and needles, waiting to take this girl down.
"We take her in," the Sergeant said slowly, "and once we are away from the public eye, we say she had an accident."
"We say she tries to escape," Bloom said slowly, a horrible grin on his lips at thought of the bullet he'd put into the base of her skull. He imagined her body crumbling like a marionette whose strings were cut.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Back in her seat, a steaming cup of tea on the table next to her computer, Heather opened her phone and dialed Ryan’s number. She checked their position on I-80 and saw that they’d made a good deal of progress in the last several hours. Already, they’d passed the point at which I-80 was closed due to inclement weather.
She hoped that she hadn’t sent them on a wild goose chase through the
frozen wastelands of the Midwestern states. She hoped that her hunch was right, that the roads had been closed to protect the convoy.
He picked up after the first ring.
“Heather, are you okay?” he asked, worried.
“Yeah, just checking in.”
“We’re still driving,” Ryan said. “Still no sign of them.”
“You’ll let me know?” she asked.
“Of course. You sound tired.”
Heather sighed, maybe a little loudly. Ryan laughed and said, “You need to get some sleep. We’ll be okay. I’ll call if anything happens.”
“You get some rest too,” Heather said.
“I will. See you, Heather.”
“Bye,” she said softly, relieved that they were all still okay. She ended the call and continued to scroll through the documents she’d pulled, settling on a zipped folder that contained archived notes which referenced “n.whaler” in the description. She opened it, and read.
harrison.archive.232359(seq.x)))x [ordo ab chao]
n.whaler.archive.234089(seq.n) [{{corrupted 080-89 file}}…until music was played. Observed objects lift from the table. Table mounted to floor. No other perceptible change in the room. Objects maintained suspension several inches from table’s surface until particular song ended. Harrison indicated that the phenomena occurred only during Nocturne No. 6; J. Fields.
Cause/Effect still uncertain. Whether song could cause such severe physical phenomena is doubtful. Multiple songs tested, even within Field’s other Nocturnes, and with various arrangements of No. 6, but only one seems to effectuate the phenomena.]
n.whaler.archive.234089(seq.n) Test subject remains despondent during observation. She rarely eats. When she speaks, it is to ask for her parents. No phenomena noted.