A little while later, they stepped on to the platform. Solid wood canopies covered the waiting passengers, protecting them from the non-existent rain on the cloud-free day. The station even had the original green signage. No fear of there being CCTV cameras in a place like this.
Charlie looked concerned as they waited for the train.
‘What’s wrong?’ Jack asked her.
‘Do you think it’s safe to call the others?’
‘I guess so.’ Jack just didn’t think it was wise to go anywhere near the bunker, not until they worked out what was happening.
Charlie pulled a phone from her pocket, dialled, and put it on speakerphone.
‘Hey, what’s going on with you guys?’ It was Obi.
‘We’re with someone,’ Charlie said.
Noble leant over and spoke into the phone. ‘Hello, Obi.’
‘Noble,’ Obi exclaimed, ‘what –’
‘Hi, Noble,’ came another voice through the speaker.
‘Slink. How are you?’
‘Get off,’ Obi said. There was a rustle and Jack imagined him grabbing the phone back from Slink. ‘Where are you?’
Jack glanced around to make sure no one was listening. ‘We’ll tell you about it when we get back. Will you be OK for a day or so? Do you need any money?’
‘Slink and Wren are cooking,’ Obi said. He lowered his voice. ‘They’re not as good as Charlie.’
‘I’m sure you’ll survive,’ Jack said. ‘Obi, I need you to stay off the net, understood?’
‘Sure.’ He didn’t sound convincing.
‘I mean it. People are looking for us.’
‘Obi,’ Charlie said, ‘promise me you’ll stay offline.’
Obi sighed. ‘OK, I will.’
A man in a suit walked past and looked askance at the three of them.
‘Speak soon,’ Jack said, pressing the End-call button.
The man stopped a little way down the platform and unfolded a newspaper.
‘You’re paranoid,’ Charlie whispered in Jack’s ear as she slipped the phone back into her pocket.
Jack kept his eyes on the man. ‘No, just careful.’
• • •
A modern train pulled into the station, not a steam engine that would’ve fitted better with their surroundings.
Jack, Charlie and Noble got on board and found an empty table to sit at.
Noble held out his hand to Charlie. ‘May I borrow that phone?’
Charlie handed it to him.
Noble typed a quick text message. He paused for a few seconds and stared up at the ceiling. ‘Ah, yes.’ He entered a phone number and hit Send. Noble kept the phone in his hand and looked out of the window as the train pulled away from the station.
Jack watched the trees and houses glide past. They seemed artificial to him, like a cartoon background rolling past the windows. The train was stationary – it was the world that was moving.
‘Where are we going?’ Charlie asked Noble.
‘Chesterfield.’
‘Chesterfield? How far is that?’
Noble turned back from the window, set down the phone and rested his hands on the table. ‘A couple of hours.’
Charlie let out a small groan. ‘You gonna tell us why we’re going to Chesterfield?’
Jack wanted to know the answer to that too.
Noble glanced around the carriage, seeming to making sure no one else was listening. They were alone but he kept his voice low. ‘When Jack couldn’t find the virus, I realised you were going about it the wrong way.’
Jack frowned. ‘What other way is there to find it?’
‘Exactly that – you were trying to find the virus.’
Jack glanced at Charlie, then back to Noble. ‘I don’t get it.’
‘Why not let it come to us?’ Noble lowered his voice even further. ‘When the virus moved from Proteus, what happened?’
‘It messed with the bunker’s computers,’ Jack said.
‘It was looking for processing power.’
Jack stared at him for a moment, then his eyes widened. ‘Ah, man, I get it now.’ Finally, it made sense. ‘I’ve been stupid.’
Charlie folded her arms. ‘Explain.’
Noble said, ‘The virus was obviously designed to use all the resources Proteus had to stop it from working. The more power it finds, the more disruption it causes.’
Charlie frowned. ‘It hunts for power?’
‘In this case, processor power. CPU. Gigahertz.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Charlie said. ‘We took that from it.’ She looked at Jack. ‘We gave the virus a way out.’
‘And,’ Jack said, ‘the bunker computers weren’t enough for it. The virus went hunting for more power. A place to cause more disruption.’
Noble nodded. ‘I think once it’s exhausted a set of computer resources, it moves on. It’s unlikely to go to the same place twice.’
‘So,’ Jack said, ‘when we capture the virus, we’re going to have to force it back into Proteus.’
Charlie looked thoughtful. ‘But why haven’t we seen anything on the news?’
‘Because it’s not done anything that’s news-worthy yet,’ Noble said. ‘It’s just one virus. It doesn’t copy itself. Doesn’t spread. Besides, the internet itself is like a highway, so it can hunt for its next meal. It will graze on smaller systems on the way. Perhaps we’ll hear about them.’ Noble sat back.
‘So,’ Jack said, ‘what’s in Chesterfield?’
‘A supercomputer.’
Jack couldn’t help but smile. He glanced at Charlie. She was looking a little confused. ‘The virus is hunting for power, right?’ She nodded. ‘We’ll use the supercomputer in Chesterfield to attract and trap it.’
Noble glanced out of the window at the houses as they sped past. ‘The virus will come to us.’
Charlie’s eyes widened. ‘You’re saying we use a supercomputer as bait?’
Noble looked between Jack and Charlie. ‘Do you remember Alex Brooke?’
They’d met Alex through Noble. He was ten years older than them and a whizz-kid. Jack had learnt a lot about computer hardware from Alex.
Charlie’s face lit up with amusement. ‘I’d forgotten about him. He was always so nervous.’
‘Yes. Well,’ Noble cleared his throat, ‘there’s something I never told you about Alex.’
Jack’s eyebrows rose. ‘What?’
‘Once, I managed to convince him to get me some work with a website-hosting company he was employed at.’
Jack nodded. ‘I remember.’
‘I had three weeks there. I helped strengthen their security.’ Noble interlaced his fingers and rested them on the table. ‘Alex was brilliant, but he had a major problem.’
‘What was that?’ Jack said.
‘Illegal music.’
Charlie cocked an eyebrow. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Alex had several external hard drives hidden in his desk drawers. I noticed the cables running to his computer. Once, when he’d gone to the toilet, I checked what applications he had open, and found he was hosting an illegal music download site.’
‘At work?’ Jack said, incredulous. ‘How dumb can you get?’
‘I guess he thought the speed of the connections they had there were at least ten times faster than any at home.’ Noble glanced out of the window. ‘From what I could tell, Alex was quite the entrepreneur, and making a fair amount of money from his exploits.’
‘Did you grass him up?’ Charlie asked.
‘I didn’t even let on that I knew.’
‘Why not?’
‘I still had another week of work to go. Without Alex, I would lose the time. I wasn’t about to jeopardise that. I needed the extra cash and –’ Noble stopped himself.
‘And what?’ Jack said.
Noble sighed. ‘And I needed time to make sure the backdoor to their servers was adequately hidden.’
‘You were hacking them?’
A smile twitched at the corn
er of Noble’s mouth.
Jack and Charlie laughed.
‘So,’ Jack said, ‘what happened to Alex?’
‘His supervisor hated him,’ Noble said. ‘Jealous, as far as I could tell. One day, I went to the supervisor’s office to drop off a report, and I saw him looking through the connection logs. He’d obviously discovered what Alex had been doing. Sure enough, about an hour later, Alex was called to see the boss.’
‘Ah, man,’ Charlie said, ‘he got rumbled.’
‘No, he didn’t,’ Noble said.
Jack smiled. ‘What did you do?’
‘I took the hard drives from the drawers and hid them in my bag. Then I got into the internet logs and deleted all the records.’
Charlie snorted and shook her head.
‘The supervisor looked pretty stupid, I can tell you. Alex got to keep his job after all. Not to mention, stay out of prison.’ Noble looked out of the window a moment, then back to Jack and Charlie. ‘I told Alex he owed me.’
‘Too right, he owed you,’ Charlie said. ‘What happened then?’
‘Nothing. I did my last week and left. Alex stayed at the company for another six months before he moved away.’
‘To Chesterfield,’ Jack said.
‘Yes,’ Noble said, looking between the two of them. ‘Have either of you heard of Nostradamus?’
‘The astrologer guy?’ Charlie said. ‘The one who made all those predictions about the end of the world – “we’re all doomed” stuff?’
Jack shook his head. ‘Not the man.’ He looked at Noble. ‘You mean the computer, don’t you?’
Noble nodded. ‘It’s used for weather forecasting and climate prediction. Alex is the head techie and it’s his job to keep Nostradamus running smoothly.’
‘Wow,’ Charlie said, her eyebrows raising. ‘Alex did good.’
‘Yes, he did. That’s why I made sure he stayed in touch, just in case I ever needed him.’
‘Like now,’ Charlie said.
Noble winked. ‘Like now. Alex routinely shuts down Nostradamus for a few hours to run diagnostics.’
A sly grin swept across Charlie’s face. ‘And he’s going to let us play with it?’
The phone beeped. Noble held it up and looked at the text message. ‘Yes. But he doesn’t seem very happy about it.’
• • •
A couple of hours later, they arrived at Chesterfield and climbed into a waiting taxi.
‘How’s Alex going to get us in?’ Jack asked Noble in a hushed voice.
‘He runs the diagnostics test by himself.’
Charlie frowned at that. ‘How come? Doesn’t it take a team of people to look after a supercomputer?’
‘Not the tests. Besides, he’s got a lot of respect for what he does. He’s a genius.’
Charlie snorted. ‘Can’t be that clever.’
‘Hardware,’ Noble reminded her.
‘So,’ Jack said, ‘how’s he gonna get us in?’
Noble leant back in the seat and closed his eyes. ‘That’s his problem to solve.’
Jack looked at Charlie. That bad feeling was creeping over him again.
• • •
Ten minutes later, the taxi drew up in front of a large industrial brick warehouse topped with a corrugated roof.
The building had no windows and only contained a solitary tinted-glass door facing the car park.
Jack, Charlie and Noble stepped out, and the taxi drove away. They looked around for a few moments. Apart from a car, the place was deserted and quiet.
‘Wait here a minute,’ Noble said, pointing to a camera above the front door. He walked up and rang the bell.
Jack glanced around. Even though it was a Sunday, it still seemed too quiet.
Noble rang the bell again.
Still no one answered.
He turned back to Jack and Charlie, and shrugged.
Suddenly, the door opened.
Alex was skinny, with light brown, side-parted hair. He wore glasses with thick lenses, and looked as pale as the white lab coat he wore. He squinted in the light. ‘What are they doing here?’
Charlie waved. ‘Hi, Alex.’
‘You said nothing about,’ Alex glanced at Noble, ‘anyone coming with you.’
‘We’ll be careful,’ Noble said.
Alex hesitated, then let out a breath and stepped aside.
‘Thank you,’ Noble said, walking into the building.
Jack and Charlie pulled their hoods up, hiding their faces from the security camera, and followed them inside.
The reception area was small and sparse, with only a single chair and a plant.
Alex locked the front door and strode through an archway to their left.
Jack, Charlie and Noble followed him into a narrow hallway, passing by the occasional closed door. Towards the end of the corridor, Alex entered a small room.
Inside, several computer monitors sat on a desk, and above one screen a plaque read, Nostradamus.
High on the wall was a CCTV monitor with images covering the front and rear of the building.
Alex sat down and gestured the others to do the same. ‘How are you?’ he asked Noble, with a furtive glance at Jack and Charlie. He was obviously wondering if Noble had told them anything.
‘Good, thank you,’ Noble replied.
‘I’m not happy about this, you know?’
Charlie lowered her hood and smiled in a sweet way. ‘You owe him one, Alex.’
Alex’s face dropped and he shot Noble a look.
‘I assure you, we’ll be as quick as we can,’ Noble said.
Alex looked at his watch. ‘The maintenance run’s scheduled to start in ten minutes. You’ll then have three hours.’ He spun round in his chair and gestured for Noble to sit at the desk.
‘Jack?’ Noble said.
Jack placed a chair in front of the main monitor and sat down.
‘Wait a minute,’ Alex said. ‘You didn’t say anything about –’
Noble held up a hand. ‘You know Jack is the best.’
Jack took a few minutes to check what he had to work with, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a USB pen drive.
‘What are you doing with that?’
Jack ignored him, slid the drive into an empty port, opened a dialog box and began to type.
Alex stood and looked nervously over Jack’s shoulder, watching what he was programming. ‘Can I ask what it is you’re doing?’
‘Nope.’
It took Jack just under five minutes, as he’d predicted, to complete the program and check it for errors.
He’d designed a signal that would be irresistible to the virus, broadcasting Nostradamus’s power across the internet.
Well, at least he hoped that’s what would happen.
‘That better not have any bugs in it,’ Alex said, when Jack had finished.
‘No,’ Jack said, ‘but hopefully it will catch one.’
Alex’s eyes went wide. ‘What? Are you joking?’ He looked at Noble.
Noble put a finger to his lips.
Charlie said under her breath, ‘Haven’t you got some music to copy?’
Alex took a step back and blushed. His red cheeks stood in stark contrast against his pale complexion and white overcoat.
Jack checked the program one more time. It had to be perfect. Satisfied it was as good as he could get it, he opened a network port, hit the Enter key and the program started. The code scrolled down the screen and flashed red, sending a ‘Come get me’ signal out across the internet. Jack only prayed it wouldn’t attract the wrong thing.
He leant back in the chair and stared at the screen. ‘Now we wait.’
The trap was set.
• • •
Minutes passed like hours. There was nothing in the room to draw either attention or imagination. The walls were plain grey.
No pictures.
No windows.
Jack closed his eyes and tipped his head back. He was so tired. He hadn’t
had any proper sleep in days.
• • •
Charlie shouted, ‘Jack.’
He opened one eye and he looked at her. ‘What?’
She pointed at the screen. ‘We’ve got it. We’ve got it.’
Jack shook himself awake and looked at his watch – he’d been asleep for just over two and a half hours. He looked at the main dialog box. A large block of letters flashed green and a series of code was downloading to the server’s hard drives.
The virus was back.
Jack turned to face Noble, a big grin on his face.
Noble returned his smile.
Alex stared at the monitor with a look of confusion. ‘What are you downloading?’
The speed of the connection was amazing. The virus downloaded so fast it was already moving into the system and using processor power.
As soon as the code stopped flowing, Jack blocked the network port, severing the virus’s link to the internet, and preventing its escape. ‘You’re not getting away so easily.’
Now Jack could take his time and see what they had. He brought up the box containing the virus’s program.
Alex frowned at the strange code. ‘What is that?’
‘I think it’s best you don’t know,’ Noble said.
‘Wait,’ Alex said, squinting at the code. His eyes suddenly went wide. ‘That is some kind of virus.’ He wheeled on Jack. ‘You downloaded a virus to Nostradamus?’
‘Relax,’ Jack said. ‘It’s not your usual type of virus.’
Alex’s eyes hardened. ‘That makes it sound worse.’
Noble rested a hand on his shoulder.
Another computer terminal beeped.
Alex shrugged Noble off and sat in front of it. He shook the mouse and the screen sprang to life. ‘You have to stop it,’ he said after a moment.
‘Why?’ Noble said.
Alex pointed at the screen. ‘It’s stressing the core processors.’
Jack looked back at the virus. It was amazing, the way it targeted the CPUs to cripple a system. With this, it was obvious why Proteus wouldn’t work – it didn’t stand a chance.
It was at that exact moment that Jack noticed something – the virus had mutated. It was seeking power not to just cripple systems, but to . . . Jack swallowed. The virus was feeding. Growing. It was mesmerising, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the pulsating code.
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