Spy, Spy Away

by Diane Henders

  “Then it’s too dangerous,” I snapped.

  Spider shook his head, opening his mouth, but I overrode him. “I’m not going to do it. You’re our only hope and I’m not going to take a chance on losing you somewhere in the network. I’ll go back now and get the tablet plugged in and then come and get you.” I turned to Germain. “Tell me what to do.”

  Despite Spider’s protests, everyone ganged up to overrule him, and a few moments later Germain had shown me what to do using his simulation.

  “Back in a flash,” I promised, and dove back into the network.

  The return trip was a little easier since the internet connections hadn’t had as much time to shift. I stepped back into my physical body again, spitting violent profanity and clutching my skull.

  Kane had barely begun massaging my temples when I pulled away to drag myself to my feet and stumble toward the cockpit.

  “We have a plan,” I threw over my shoulder as Kane hurried behind me. “I just need to plug the tablet into the plane’s control system, and then I can go back and bring Spider through the network to hack into it.”

  He stopped my hand as I reached to connect the cable. “That won’t override the autopilot, will it?”

  I froze. “I… don’t think so.” I eyed the plug fearfully. “Carl would have said something if it was going to… wouldn’t he? He said the autopilot had to be manually overridden.”

  “But what if there’s something on the tablet that overrides it?”

  My hand began to tremble and I scowled at it, willing it to steady. “Carl would have warned us if there was.” I drew a deep breath. “But maybe you should sit in the co-pilot’s seat just in case. If the autopilot turns off, you should be able to just hold all the pedals and levers and stuff right where they are and we’ll keep on flying. Right?”

  “Right,” Kane said grimly, and slid into the seat, poising his hands and feet. “Do it.”

  Chapter 46

  I clenched my teeth and plugged the cable into the cockpit computer module.

  Nothing happened.

  Kane and I both sagged with relief.

  “Okay,” I croaked, and sat abruptly on the floor when my knees gave out. I shuffled backward on my butt to prop myself against the bulkhead behind me, pretending I’d meant to do that. “I’m going to get Spider now,” I said. “I’ll have to use his network key, so don’t worry when I pass out.”

  “Thanks for the warning, but I’ll worry anyway.” He slid out of the seat to kneel beside me. “Good luck.”

  His arms closed around me, and I stepped back into the network before I could cling to him.

  The trip back wasn’t any easier. I found the Sirius servers more quickly this time, but my frazzled consciousness couldn’t breach them. Time and again I threw myself into the violent turbulence only to be repulsed and terrifyingly scrambled.

  At last, I huddled at the edge of maelstrom, my non-existent heart galloping beneath breaths that would have been sobs if I’d had a body. I hugged my data bits closer as if to coalesce into a black hole of despair.

  So close.

  So damn close.

  Everybody at Sirius poised to help. Kane holding steady with lion-hearted courage on a doomed airplane.

  And me, useless me, crouched in defeated and terrified limbo.

  My incompetence would kill Kane. I couldn’t go back and face him.

  But I couldn’t hide like a coward in the network, waiting for my existence to wink out while he plummeted to his death accompanied only by my unresponsive body.

  Sudden deep anger flooded me. I hadn’t signed on for this shit. I hadn’t asked to be responsible for someone else’s life. Or someone else’s death. I hadn’t volunteered to be beaten and tortured and terrified, and I sure as hell hadn’t volunteered to be some repulsive cyber-mole, grubbing around in the sordid tunnels of the internet and never seeing the light of day.

  And there was no damn way I was going to let the peaceful life I’d planned and worked for be torn away, defiled and discarded by a bunch of criminal assholes. No, goddammit, those fuckers weren’t getting my life!

  And they weren’t getting Kane’s either.

  My boiling consciousness whirled into a nuclear warhead of white-hot rage and punched through the servers as if they were tissue paper.

  My imagery was unfortunate.

  I tumbled into thunderous noise and chaos, jerking into a ball until the din faded and no more debris fell from the sky. Then I slowly uncurled and dragged myself to my feet in the wreckage of the virtual file room.

  “Shit!” I snapped a terrified glance around the rubble. “Spider! Carl! Jack!”

  “What the fuck, Kelly!” Dermott rose from a heap of debris, spitting dust and ire.

  “I’m okay,” Spider quavered, emerging from under the remains of his desk.

  “Me, too,” Germain seconded, rolling off Jack from where he had apparently thrown himself to protect her with his body. “Jack, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine…”

  I hadn’t thought she could get paler, but I’d been wrong. Her skin was nearly transparent.

  “Fix this shit!” Dermott snapped.

  “I’m sorry…” I stared helplessly at the destruction.

  “It’s okay,” Spider said hurriedly. “I’ll just roll back the sim.” A moment later, the desks and computers miraculously restored themselves, and my jelly-like legs gave way entirely.

  “What the fuck, Kelly?” Dermott repeated.

  “I’m sorry.” I looked up at him from my seat on the floor. “If I leave from this network, I can get back in just fine, but when I’m coming in from outside, it’s really hard. I couldn’t get through. And then I… kind of… um, overdid it.”

  He scowled. “No shit.”

  “Are you all right?” Jack tottered over to kneel beside me. “You look terrible.”

  I didn’t bother to return the compliment. “I’m fine. Let’s go, Spider.” I hesitated. “If you’re still okay with it…”

  “Of course I am.” He didn’t look as certain as he sounded. “Just carry me along like you did before. When we get there, though, I might need to control you. And don’t forget, we’ll have to come back here when I’m done.”

  I bolstered my courage with the smouldering remains of my anger. “Okay, let’s go. Take my hand…”

  We slipped into the network, and cold dread seized me.

  My markers had shifted again.

  Questing back along my path, I clung to the best semblance of certainty I could muster. I didn’t think Spider would intentionally read my mind, but if he did by accident, I didn’t want to share the fear that gnawed at me.

  Just find the next marker.

  And the next.

  And the next.

  At last, a thin stream of camel searches trickled across my path, and I blessed Kane’s homing beacon.

  Then we were rushing through the long, dark tunnel into space and back. At the end of the tunnel, the network generator’s portal looked like the gates of heaven to me. Now, let Spider do his work…

  Seized by sudden immobility, I fought panic.

  This was good. This was right. Spider was doing what he needed to do.

  Stay calm.

  A tornado of claustrophobic terror battered me. Trapped! Imprisoned in endless limbo…

  I clung to control.

  Stay calm.

  Calm…

  I lost track of time while I concentrated all my will on remaining still and pliant under Spider’s control.

  At last the terrifying sensation lifted and we rocketed back toward Sirius, the data tunnels gloriously easy to navigate under Spider’s guiding presence. The passage through Sirius’s servers was barely a blip, and a moment later we stood in the virtual file room again.

  Spider dropped my hand and blinked back into visibility. I followed his lead and stood panting and shaking, struggling to regain my composure while he hurried to his desk and dropped into the chair, his fi
ngers flying across the keyboard.

  “I’m in,” he said a few minutes later. “Patching you into the system now…” He looked up. “Carl? Have you got it?”

  A slow smile spread over Germain’s face. “Got it. Looks like a direct interface.”

  “So…” My voice trembled, and I cleared my throat. “So what does that really mean?”

  Germain sobered. “Well, it means I can control the aircraft through its computer interface. IFR only, of course…”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I can only use the instruments, I can’t actually see where I’m going.”

  I swallowed. “That can’t be good.”

  He gave me a reassuring smile. “It’s not as scary as it sounds. Most commercial flights are IFR.”

  “But… can you land it like that?”

  His smiled slipped. “Technically, yes.”

  “Wait, hang on a sec,” Spider mumbled, tapping busily at his keyboard. “How about…” A few more keystrokes. “…this?”

  He turned his monitor toward us.

  Germain frowned. “What…? That looks like the ceiling of the cockpit.”

  “It is.” Spider grinned. “I just hacked into the webcam on the tablet. When Aydan gets back into her body, she can point the tablet out the front windshield so you can see forward.”

  Germain relaxed. “Nice. That will help. Okay, Aydan, here’s the deal.” He glanced at his watch. “In exactly one hour from now, I’m going to disengage the autopilot and begin a descent…” He paused. “Hey, Webb, can you do two-way communication on that thing so I can talk to them in the cockpit as well?”

  “I can…” Spider’s brow furrowed. “But I’d rather not. I want all available bandwidth to your control systems. If our internet connection is compromised…” He pressed his lips shut, but I got the picture.

  Germain blew out a breath. “Okay. In an hour I’ll start the descent, so don’t be afraid when the engine noise changes and you start to go down. If you can point the webcam to the front, that’ll help, but I want one of you in the co-pilot’s seat just in case I need you to do something. I’ll communicate with you via the tablet if that’s the case.”

  “I’ve set it up so the tablet will display what the webcam is seeing,” Spider put in. “Just point the tablet forward so you can see on the tablet what you want Carl to see here.”

  I nodded, afraid to trust my voice.

  “I’m going to be communicating with the tower as if I’m the pilot,” Germain continued. “A few minutes out of the airport, I’m going to report smoke in the cabin. That will give us priority landing sequence and alert them that they might have an emergency situation on their hands. It’ll give them a chance to scramble the emergency equipment and clear the runway.”

  Dermott spoke for the first time. “That can also be our excuse for the bodies. I’ll arrange for a coverup with the autopsy reports anyway, but if you can safely generate some smoke before you leave the plane, do it. It’ll make the coverup easier if the emergency response team finds some smoke. Take the weapon with you when you abandon the aircraft. I don’t think you’ll get searched if it’s an emergency landing, but even if you do, you should be able to just carry it out. Nobody will suspect it’s a weapon.”

  “One more thing.” Germain hesitated. “There’s a chinook blowing into Calgary right now, so it’ll probably be a bumpy ride. Don’t be scared; it’s just normal turbulence.”

  “Great.” My voice came out in a croak. “Fabulous.”

  Silence fell.

  “Everybody clear?” Dermott asked. “Kelly?”

  I drew a deep breath. “I think so. But, Spider, you’re saying I can’t come back through the network again?”

  “Not unless you absolutely have to. I don’t want to take a chance on disrupting Carl’s control of the plane.”

  Another deep breath. “So we won’t have any way to communicate with you from here on in.”

  “No, you can talk to the webcam,” he said. “It’ll be running the whole time anyway, so we’ll see and hear everything that’s going on in the cockpit. It’s just that I don’t want any extra communication unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “Oh, good.” I eased out a sigh and hesitated. “Well… thanks, you guys. If anything happens, I just want you to know-”

  “We’ll see you in a few hours,” Germain interrupted firmly.

  I shoved a smile onto my face. “Sounds good. See you later.”

  “Good luck, Aydan.” Spider hurried over to hug me, and Jack did the same, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.

  “Good luck.” Her voice trembled.

  “Thanks.” My own voice wavered on the edge of control.

  “Get the hell out of here, Kelly, you’re using up the bandwidth,” Dermott growled. I straightened, and he gave me a hard look. “Get your ass back here in one piece.”

  I nodded and vanished before my face could betray me.

  Chapter 47

  Alone again in the data tunnels, I crept back the way I’d come, retrieving my markers and concentrating on the route. Most of the connections Spider and I had used in our headlong flight were still available, and I made my way back to the network generator’s portal with relative ease, guided home by Kane’s steady searches.

  “…Aydan… come on, Aydan…”

  I dragged a leaden arm up to restrain the hand that was gently patting my cheek. When I opened my eyes, Kane’s face whirled sickeningly above me and I clamped my eyes shut again.

  “’M’okay,” I mumbled. “Just… a minute…”

  Safely back. Thank God.

  Well, as safe as one can be in a plane with dead pilots.

  I drew a deep breath and pried my eyes open again. As soon as the spinning stopped, I struggled to my feet. “It worked. We’re connected, and they can see and hear us through the tablet. Now we just have to point the tablet forward so Carl can see where he’s flying.”

  Kane eased out a breath. “So he’s flying the plane now?”

  “Not yet. We’re still on autopilot. He’ll start our descent in…” I consulted my watch. “Just under an hour.”

  Kane leaned over the pilot’s seat, where the tablet lay. “And they can see us through this thing?” He picked it up and tilted it so his own face appeared on the screen. “Hey, Germain, thanks for the lift. See you in a few hours.” He grinned at his reflection before laying the tablet back on the seat. “Okay, how can we set this thing up?”

  I studied the tablet for a few moments. “I’m afraid to prop it up right in front of the window. That’s not what he’d normally see from the pilot’s seat anyway…” I frowned. “Is there a first-aid kit on board?”

  Kane’s brows snapped together. “Why, are you hurt?”

  “No, but I bet there’s medical tape in the kit.”

  “Good thinking.”

  In short order, we had secured the tablet to the headrest of the pilot’s seat and wedged a couple of rolled-up bandages behind it to tilt it in the proper direction.

  Kane stood back to survey our handiwork, hands on hips. “So that’s it? That’s all we need to do?”

  “Until we start the descent in about three-quarters of an hour. Then you get to sit in the co-pilot’s seat.”

  “Why me?”

  I tugged him away from the cockpit, acutely aware that the team could hear everything we said. “Because you’re James Bond and I’m just a bookkeeper. Come on, let’s go get a drink.”

  In the sitting room, I offered Kane the brandy bottle, but he shook his head. “No, thanks. I don’t drink and fly.”

  “Funny guy.” I put it back on the counter and popped open a beer instead. “Lucky I don’t have to do anything. I can just sit here and get snockered.”

  The beer wasn’t as enjoyable as I’d hoped. We sat in silence, avoiding each other’s eyes while I sipped without enthusiasm. Stress wound up in my shoulders.

  After a few minutes I set my bottle aside. “We can’t
just sit here doing nothing.”

  Kane twitched his shoulders irritably. “All I’ve done is sit here doing nothing for the last hour and half. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.”

  The walls of the cabin seemed to close in and I sprang up, unable to stay still.

  Trapped in a hurtling cylinder of impending death. Absolutely powerless.

  My pulse bounded into a rapid rhythm. Yana’s dead eyes seemed to watch me cynically while I paced in tight circles. Her troubles were over. Bitch.

  “Aydan.” Kane rose to lay his hands on my shoulders, stopping my increasingly agitated pacing. “Why don’t you sit down and finish your beer?”

  “Because if we actually get onto the ground in one piece, I need to be sober to drive my car.” I reached for yoga breathing.

  Stay calm. In. Out. Ocean waves.

  Like water sloshing back and forth inside a bottle, trapped…

  “Aydan, are you all right?”

  I gritted my teeth. “I’m okay. I’m just…” I glanced up at him and looked away hurriedly. “I was fine while I was doing something, but now I’m… claustrophobic…”

  Saying it out loud made it worse. My breathing quickened, went shallow.

  “Aydan!” The urgency in Kane’s voice jerked my attention back to him. His hands tightened on my shoulders. “Aydan, I really need you to stay calm. Can you do that for me? Please? I hate this, too. I hate having to sit here and depend on somebody else to save me.” He hesitated. “If you lose it, I… it’ll make it even harder.”

  “I won’t lose it.” I spoke through my teeth. “But I really need to run… or hit something…” My fists clenched at the thought. “God, I wish I knew martial arts so I could spar with you like Carl does. Blow off some steam.”

  Kane sounded as though he was holding onto his patience by a thin thread. “Aydan, less than an hour ago I saw you kill a man with your bare hands-”

  “Don’t start with me! Just don’t start!” I jerked loose from his grip.

  He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, giving me a dangerous grin. “Come on. Take a shot.”