by David Archer
“Understood, sir,” Rob said, and Sam went into his room.
He had called Indie when he made the decision to go to San Francisco, and while she hadn’t been happy about it, she had understood. He took out his phone and dialed her once he was inside his room, and she answered almost immediately.
“Hey,” she said. “Everything going okay?”
“Maybe better than okay,” Sam said. “I thought you’d like to know that Beauregard was right again.”
“What? Oh, what Mom said the other day? Who is the time lady, then?”
Sam chuckled. “Apparently, Beauregard got a name, but he somehow connected it to your mother’s TV habits. The woman’s name is—I’m not kidding, by the way—Doctor Hu, spelled H-U.”
Indie was silent for a few seconds, and then burst out laughing. “Doctor Who?” she asked. “Oh, now, that’s funny. Time Lord, so Time Lady; I guess it makes sense, in a really weird kind of way.”
“Yeah, well, to me it just confirms what we already believe,” Sam said. “Beauregard is nothing but a figment of your mother’s imagination, which would explain why he’s using a metaphor that would naturally occur to her.”
“It’s still funny. What else is happening out there?”
“Not much until morning, I hope. Denny is going to try to get into our suspect company’s building tonight and see if he can find any evidence to back up our suspicions. As long as he comes through it okay, everything is good. Dr. Hu is going to work with us in the morning, too. She’s supposed to text someone to come and pick her up, and we’re going to be ready to grab them when they show up, see if we can make them talk.”
“Oh, Sam,” Indie said, “just remember the other thing Beauregard told you, that this might be your most dangerous case ever.”
“Babe, don’t worry. I’ll be careful, and I’ve got a whole squad of super-soldiers with me. We just have to find a way to stop whoever is behind this from getting that chip into his head.”
They talked for a few more minutes and pledged their love, and then Sam let her go.
*
Denny Cortlandt sat on the hood of his car and watched through the binoculars as the relief security guards arrived. They parked in the company lot like any other employees, and he saw them go inside the front, glass-walled office area where they seemed to be standing around and talking with the guards they were relieving.
That was his cue. He set the binoculars down. His infrared goggles were hanging around his neck, but there was still plenty of sunlight coming over the horizon as he picked up the gas-launched grapple-and-lift and jogged quietly across the intervening field. The chain-link fence that surrounded the property was twelve feet high, but Denny had already ascertained that it had no sensors attached to it, so it took him only a minute to cut a slot big enough to squeeze through.
He had also spotted the exterior security cameras, but they were obviously lacking in maintenance. One of them was pointing upward, probably twisted after a windstorm, and another was facing the blank wall of the building. All of them were high on the wall, which was about thirty feet tall, but these two made it easy for him to get right up to the building without being seen.
He put his back against the wall and looked carefully in both directions. The security guards would have finished talking by this time, he was sure, but he was counting on them working through the inside of the building before checking outside. If he was wrong, it would mean he was probably going to be caught, and that would be terribly embarrassing.
He saw and heard nothing but the lowering sun and the whisper of wind through the bushes around the perimeter of the grounds. The other buildings in the industrial area were far enough away that he didn’t worry about what their cameras or employees might see, but he did look toward South McDowell Boulevard to make sure no cars would be coming past in the next ninety seconds.
It was clear, so he took four steps back and aimed the launcher up the side of the building. The steel grapple was covered in rubber to muffle any noise when it hit, and he hoped fervently that none of the guards would be on the top floor. There would still be a thump when it landed, but at least there wouldn’t be a loud clang.
He pressed the trigger and the grapple shot out. From where he stood, he barely heard it land, but when he tugged on the line, he could tell that it had gotten a good grip on something. He hooked the butt of the launcher to the carabiner on his belt and pushed the button to activate the built-in winch.
Unlike the way they worked in movies, the lifting winch was slow. Denny had to walk up the side of the building as it pulled, making it go a bit faster than if he merely hung on it, but it still took about sixty seconds for him to make it over the top. He sprawled on the roof for a moment, waiting to see if anyone was going to come bursting out of the door beside the helipad, but there was no sign of any activity.
He took out his phone and activated the drone, which was sitting under a bush near his car. He carefully guided it out and then into the air, veering to the south for a moment before bringing it toward the building. From almost eight hundred feet up, he focused the camera on the front offices and zoomed it in as far as it would go.
The security guards, all of them from both shifts, were standing around still, talking and apparently laughing about something. That was good, because it meant they’d be busy for at least another minute, if only in saying goodbye. He brought the drone in and landed it on the roof, then got up and padded quickly to the door that led into the building.
It had an old, almost antique, security system. A set of contacts would come apart when the door was open, breaking a connection and alerting the security desk that the door had been breached. Denny grinned as he took out a pair of small safety pins that were connected by a thirty-inch wire and pushed the points through each of the wires that went into the contacts. The circuit would remain closed as long as the safety pins were in place.
From his pocket, Denny took his codepicker, a small device that had an attached wire that ended in a mini-USB tip. Key card locks are normally programmed from a central computer, but they can also be programmed individually, through a mini-USB port that’s usually found on the bottom of the lock. He plugged in the wire, turned on the codepicker, and the light on the lock turned green.
He turned the knob, holding his breath against the possibility that there was another security system he couldn't see, but it opened without incident. He stepped inside quickly and pulled it shut behind him, then put on the infrared goggles and powered them on. The dark stairway suddenly became a bright world in shades of green, and he walked down the stairs slowly and quietly.
At the bottom, a steel door blocked his path. He stopped and took another device from his left pants pocket, a small disk with a pair of earbuds attached. He placed the earbuds into his ears, then held the disk against the door for several seconds.
The extremely sensitive microphone did not detect any sound on the other side of the door, so he took off the goggles and hid them under the stairs, then turned the doorknob slowly. There was only the slightest click as the latch disengaged, and he pushed the door open an inch.
There was no one in sight as far as he could see, so he opened the door wider and stepped into a hallway. He walked toward the rear of the building first, checking each room he came to but finding only what appeared to be simple workstations, and then went toward the front. It took him almost fifteen minutes to clear the top floor, and then he found the fire stairs that led to the second floor.
There was no alarm on the door, so he opened it slowly and stepped into the stairwell. They were concrete over steel, so he didn’t worry about creaking as he hurried down to the second floor exit. He used the sound detector again to check for activity on the other side of the fire door and heard nothing, so he opened it, stepped into another hallway, and began checking each door that led off it.
The first door he came to was locked, which was interesting. It also used a key card, but it did not show any signs o
f an alarm system, so he took out the codepicker again and plugged its cord into the programming slot. A second later, the light turned green and he turned the knob and entered to find an office.
There were no windows, so he turned on the lights and looked quickly around. No cameras were visible, so he took a chance and went to the desk, which was large and obviously expensive. The drawers were unlocked, but none of them revealed anything of interest, so he looked at the file cabinets that were on a side wall.
These were locked, but with simple pin-and-tumbler locks. A set of picks in skilled hands had them open in less than a minute, and he began sorting through the files inside.
There were a lot of them, and far more than he could go through in a hurry. He checked under every heading he could think of (brain, brain chip, BCI, rule the world, etc.) but found nothing he considered important. He locked the cabinets again and turned to the computer on the desk. It was on, but when he touched the mouse, it asked for a password.
Denny wasn't the kind of burglar who would spend hours trying to hack into a computer, but he was the kind who had access to the tools necessary to copy the hard drive in spite of the password. From another pocket, he took a USB drive and plugged it into the proper port, then turned the computer off and back on.
A minute later, the monitor displayed a single line: COPY HD Y/N. Denny hit the Y key and a status bar appeared. In less than three minutes, the entire contents of the hard drive were copied onto the HyperX Predator 1 TB flash drive. Denny unplugged it, then turned the computer off and back on once again, which returned it to the password screen.
He turned out the lights and listened for any sign of security, then stepped out and locked the door behind him. He moved to the next door and found it unlocked, but it led only to a storage room for office supplies.
The next one, however, was very interesting. There was a workbench along the back wall, and it held a couple of large 3D printers. A computer beside each one showed a 3D representation of what was scheduled to be printed, and Denny felt his heart begin to race when he saw that one of them had a chip that looked somewhat like the one that was stolen on its monitor.
He plugged in another flash drive, and the same line appeared. He told it to copy the hard drive of this machine, as well, then began looking around the room. There were a couple of workstations with piles of paper scattered everywhere, and he carefully dug through them, looking for anything that might connect to C-Link.
And he found it. Several of the papers had the C-Link logo at the top of the page, and one of them was entitled “BCI Integration With Subject Cranial Tissues.” There was also a series of letters and numbers: RTI-446-BCI11658-5.
Denny photographed the documents and then retrieved the flash drive. He looked around to consider whether there was anything else he needed to look at, and that’s when he heard the sound of the elevator opening down the hall.
He cut the lights in the room instantly, then crawled under the workstation and pulled a box of paper in front of himself. He could see over it, but the light under the workstation should be dim enough to keep anyone from noticing him.
On the other hand, if he were to be caught, all of the data he had retrieved would be worthless. He had photographed the papers with his phone, and he quickly sent the images to Sam, along with a note not to reply.
He had just hit the send button when the door opened.
26
Sam heard the tone that said he had received a text message and reached for his phone on the nightstand. It was from Denny Cortlandt, and he opened it to find a message that said, “DO NOT REPLY,” and several images downloading. It took a minute for them to come in, but then his eyes went wide as he saw the CerebroLink logo on the top of the page in the first image. He blew the picture up on his phone, which required him to move it around to read the text on the page, but there was no doubt in his mind that he was looking at one of the pages describing how to install the C-Link BCI chip into a human brain.
He quickly checked the other images and saw that all but one were more of the same. The last one showed a table with what looked like large 3D printers, and Sam got the feeling that Denny had hit pay dirt. The only problem was the ominous order not to reply. Could it mean Denny had been caught? Unfortunately, Sam couldn't risk trying to ask the question.
He forwarded the images to Ron and then to the rest of his team, and his phone rang a moment later.
“Looks like your hunch was right,” Ron said. “Fa Ling has at least some of the stolen material, and I’m guessing the equipment I see in these pictures is for making new chips.”
“Looks like it to me,” Sam replied. “I’m pretty sure those are some high tech 3D printers, probably special ones for making prototype chip designs. From what I've read, that would mean they have to be able to lay extremely tiny amounts of both conductive and non-conductive materials, but I’m sure it can be done.”
“Yeah. The bad part is, these pictures aren’t enough to let us get a warrant, and we can’t even admit how we got them. I’m hoping Denny can find the actual chip and bring it out. Then we could at least make it clear to Fa Ling that we can expose them as frauds. That should hurt their stock prices, and that’s the most terrifying thing in the world to a multi-national CEO.”
“I’m a bit more worried about Denny getting out, himself. When he sent me these pictures, he told me not to reply. That makes me wonder if he’s in a precarious position.”
“I’m checking 911 calls in Petaluma, and there’s nothing at the moment. I’ll assign somebody to keep an eye on it and let you know if anything comes up.”
There was a tap on Sam’s door. “All right,” he said. “I think some of the team is here, anyway. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Later, gator,” Ron said. The call ended and Sam got up to open the door.
Steve Beck stood there, with Jade and Summer right behind him. “Those pictures look promising,” Steve said. “I’m guessing they were from Denny?”
Sam stood aside to let them enter, and they all sat on the second bed. “Yeah, but he told me not to reply, so I’m a little concerned. I know the guy can probably handle himself, but I’d hate for anything bad to happen to him.”
“He’s no fool,” Summer said. “He uses a fake ID and fingerprints when he does this type of work, so he won’t put up a fight unless he absolutely has to. Better to be arrested and let us make bail.”
Sam grinned. “Yeah, he told me about that,” he said. “Not sure I understand the fingerprints thing, but whatever works.”
“Something he got from MI6,” Jade said. “He’s got like ten sets. It looks like somebody peeled the skin off the palm and fingers of a corpse and added adhesive. He just lays his hand on it and then smooths it out. It covers up his own palm and fingerprints completely, but it’s undetectable unless you know what you’re looking for. If I had to do infiltrations like he does, I’d want some of my own.”
“Amazing what some of these spy agencies can do,” Sam said. “Of course, I can remember Ron and Jeff coming up with some pretty wild ideas.”
“So, what’s next?” Steve asked. “Do we just wait to hear from Denny?”
Sam nodded. “For now, yes. If we haven’t heard from him by morning, we go with Doctor Hu. She will send the text message that says she’s ready, and we’ll be the ones to meet the people who come to get her. I want to take them without trouble if possible, and try to get answers out of them.”
“And if they put up a fight?” Jade asked.
“We take them anyway,” Sam said. “We don’t know for certain that Daphne is the only doctor they have hired. I don’t know what Fei’s connections to Fa Ling could be, but we can’t afford to let that kind of megalomaniac get his hands on this much power.”
There was another tap on the door, and Sam opened it cautiously. Walter Rawlins stood there, and the intense, worried look on his face made Sam step aside without a word and let him in.
“Walter?” Steve asked. “Wha
t’s the matter, buddy?”
“I've been reading the file about the chip,” Walter said. “I was right, I was right, there’s things it can do that they aren’t telling us about.”
“Have you figured out what kind of things?” Sam asked.
Walter nodded. “Lots of things,” he said. “It’s not just a chip; it’s a microcomputer. C-Link found a way to make a microprocessor that can run on the electrical energy of the brain. It has built-in Bluetooth, so it can access the internet from anywhere, through the special satellite cell phone they make for it. Massive memory storage, and programs that can read your memories and correlate them. Copy memories from your brain to a computer, play your memories like a video, it can even access memories of someone else who has the same chip, and communicate just with thoughts. It also has direct Wi-Fi, so it can connect it directly to any computer within range. Anything that has a Wi-Fi connection built into it.”
“Geez,” Sam said. “I’d say they were holding an awful lot back, but I imagine these are things DARPA wouldn’t want anyone to know about. That would probably explain why they didn’t tell us.”
“Still more,” Walter said. “There’s another chip, like this one but a little simpler. It doesn’t have to do as much, it only has one purpose.”
The other four all looked at one another. “What kind of purpose, Walter?” Sam asked. “Can you tell us?”
“Yes. The other chip doesn’t just talk to the brain, it controls it.”
Sam’s eyes shot open. “Controls it? What do you mean?”
“Remember they said they discovered the brain’s code? That code can do more than just plug information in. It can actually be used to force thoughts and actions. This chip was originally designed to be used on a clone of a person, so that a recorded personality can control the brain and body of the clone completely, but it doesn’t have to be a clone. If you had this chip, you could literally rent out your body to someone else who was anywhere in the world, and they could take over and be you for a period of time. C-Link is planning to eventually incorporate both chips into one, so you could trade bodies with other people who had them.”