Sally Singletary's Curiosity (The Sally Singletary Book 1)

by J. M. Cataffo

  Jake’s eyes were still on the bloody girl. “Let’s hope it’s enough.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE EMERGENCY WAITING ROOM was cold, the seats uncomfortable. Sally propped her elbows on her knees, supporting her with her hands. She’d never felt more exhausted in her life. The sight of Stephanie’s bloody body was forever burned into her memory.

  The hospital had asked so many questions, but she couldn’t have told the truth if she had wanted to. If she’d mentioned shape-shifting creatures, or Idric’s magic, they’d have thrown her into a psychiatric ward! Guilt hung over her head like a looming cloud.

  This was her fault. If she hadn’t let them all come up to her mother’s apartment, Stephanie would be okay. Sally longed to take back all the mean things she’d ever said to her roommate.

  The real hero was Idric. At least he was able to do something useful. Sally felt as useful as wet toilet paper for all the good she did.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jake stand and realized the doctor who had taken Stephanie had returned with a grave look on his face. Or was that how doctors always looked?

  “Stephanie is stable,” he said.

  A wave of relief washed through Sally.

  He continued, “She’s resting under some heavy anesthetics and is being prepped for surgery.”

  “Surgery?” Sally asked, alarmed.

  “I’m afraid I can’t share the details with you since you’re not family. The important thing is she’s alive and has a good chance of pulling through. Had you not stopped the bleeding as quickly as you had, she’d never have made it.” The man gave her a sympathetic look.

  Stephanie had been as white as a sheet by the time they had arrived at the hospital. It was a wonder they’d made it at all.

  “You kids should go home and get some rest. I can’t believe that none of the rest of you were hurt. By the look of those wounds, the dog that attacked her should be put to sleep for good.” A flash of anger crossed the man’s face. It was the only thing Sally could think of to tell him when they’d arrived. He then nodded and left them alone in the waiting area.

  “Sally,” Jake said gently. “I know this is probably the last thing you want to think about right now, but if we don’t get this server back up and running, the Hi-Li is going to crash. Those school computers can’t handle the load.”

  Sally couldn’t speak. Her tongue felt as if it had become stuck to the roof of her mouth. She simply nodded and followed the group as they made their way back out to the van. There wasn’t anything more they could do for Stephanie at that point, and what was worse, after everything they’d been through, she still had no clue what had happened to her mother.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THE GROUP WAS MOSTLY SILENT as they traveled, with the exception of Jake, who navigated for Lani. Sally stared out at the passing buildings. Yasif sat in the back, brooding. Idric sat next to him, snacking on a Twizzler he must have had stashed in his pocket. His gaze darted from one person to the next, but he said nothing. It was well after midnight, and the streets were empty and glistening wet. Rain drifted down, visible in the glow of the streetlights, not as hard as earlier, but still enough to deter most of the late-night stragglers.

  “Where exactly are we taking the server?” Yasif asked after a time, clearly still skeptical of their plan.

  Jake explained. “It’s an old telephone switching station that my dad’s company bought out to run their servers in. Basically, it’s a central hub for all of his company’s equipment in the city. It connects with all the routers and switches I’ve worked on over the years. I can tie the Hi-Li server into my dad’s network and give it access to pretty much anything you want, short of top secret government computers.”

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Yasif threw at him.

  Jake glanced up. “What do you mean?”

  “After everything we’ve been through, you’re actually enjoying this!” There was anger in Yasif’s voice.

  “I just…” Jake began. “I don’t… I mean, I don’t enjoy what’s happened, but it’s better than sitting around doing nothing.”

  Sally still couldn’t bring herself to say anything, even though she wanted to yell at Yasif for his behavior—how could he treat Jake this way when the guy only wanted to help? They were all exhausted, sure, but this wasn’t the time to be at each other’s throats.

  “I figured you’d rather be getting stoned or hammered or something,” Yasif replied.

  A hurt look flashed across Jake’s face. “No…actually, I’m glad I’m not.”

  Yasif said nothing further, but Sally could tell he wished he had more to say. He kept glaring angrily at Jake for the rest of the trip.

  They moved into the older parts of the city. Given that it was so late at night, Sally became nervous at the idea of being in these neighborhoods—this part of town wasn’t exactly known for its safety rating. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  Jake reassured her. “It’ll be okay. I’ve been here loads of times at night.”

  “Well, as long as Jake thinks it’s okay!” Yasif crossed his arms.

  Sally cast a glance, but he wasn’t looking.

  Lani stopped the van just outside of what looked like an abandoned three-story building dotted with tiny windows. They grabbed what they could to shield themselves from the weather and then followed Jake to the entrance. As the door creaked open, Yasif shook the backpack, trying to get as much of the water off it before they moved inside.

  “Good thing this is waterproof.”

  Jake flipped a switch and lights flickered to life. Racks upon racks of old dust-covered switches once used to route telephone lines filled the space. He led them toward a smaller room where newer equipment lined the walls. “Over here.” He pointed to a counter.

  Yasif pulled out the server and set it gently on top. Jake grabbed a computer monitor from a nearby closet and carried it over. Within minutes they had the server connected.

  “Cross your fingers,” Jake said, turning it on.

  “Why?” Yasif asked.

  Anxiety rose within Sally, realizing they hadn’t told Yasif about unplugging the box. “Um, Yaz. Look, it’s all my fault, okay? I told him to unplug the server before it could shut down. There was a—”

  “You what?” Yasif glared at her, sheer disbelief in his eyes.

  Sally tried to justify their actions. “There was an intrusion! We didn’t have a choice.”

  “And what if it damaged the drive? It could destroy the AI! You know I can’t reprogram it! You may have just cost us the whole site!” Yasif’s face was red with anger.

  “I know.” She held her hands up.

  Jake tried to help. “We didn’t have a choice.”

  “You stay out of this!” Yasif pointed a finger at him angrily. “She knows better.”

  Sally crossed her arms. “If we hadn’t, those government guys could have broken into our files!”

  “There’s nothing on that box more important than the AI. Don’t you understand what a big deal that is?”

  “I guess I don’t. You guys never did share much about it with me. All you did was show me how to use it.”

  “That’s because you wouldn’t have understood.” Yasif examined the monitor as the computer went through its startup routine.

  Sally wasn’t sure how to react. Yasif was definitely not himself. Sure, they’d had spats in the past, but never like this; he’d become completely irrational and belligerent. She was exhausted, her patience beginning to wane.

  “It looks like everything is okay,” Jake commented as the terminal interface came up.

  “Let me run through the code.” Yasif pushed him aside.

  Sally felt her last bit of composure sift away. “Okay, I’ve had enough!”

  Lani put her arm around Idric and led him from the room. “I think it’s time for us to do a little exploring. What do you think?”

  Idric nodded and they left the small room.r />
  Sally continued. “I don’t know what your problem is, but I’ve had enough! We’ve been through so much already without you making it worse with your attitude!”

  “My attitude?” Yasif shot back. “What about yours! You just assume you’re the leader of this little group, telling us all what to do. Well, I have news for you. I’m ready to take some responsibility of my own.”

  “You think I’m the leader?” Sally rebutted.

  “You’ve always been the leader, the one in charge!” Yasif exclaimed. “Always the one telling me what to do.”

  She backed down a bit. “I’ve never looked at it that way.”

  “Well, I have. And I have to say that I did it for the wrong reasons…” He choked on his words.

  “What do you mean you did it for the wrong reasons?” Sally fought against the anger and frustration. “For what reasons did you think you were doing this?”

  His face turned red, but he didn’t respond.

  “You’ve had just as much control over the Hi-Li as I’ve had!” She crossed her arms. “If not more!”

  “Control?” he shot back. “What kind of control have I had? You’ve never put an article of mine up that you haven’t changed.”

  “That’s not true!” she interrupted. “I may have added a few facts here and there, but I’ve never changed your stories. And I’ve never interfered with any of your decisions on the hardware for the server.”

  “That’s ‘cause you don’t know anything about hardware.” Yasif pointed a finger at her.

  “Only as much as you know about writing!” She regretted the comment immediately. She could see the hurt in his eyes. She uncrossed her arms. “Yaz, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  A tear formed in his eye and he quickly wiped it away. He couldn’t be that upset about what she had said, could he? “Yaz, are you—” Sally was interrupted.

  “Uh, guys?” Jake said. “I’m sorry to interrupt what I’m sure is going to be a heart-to-heart conversation, but I think you should see this.”

  Yasif gave him an angry look but went over to examine the screen.

  Sally followed, still watching Yasif out of the corner of her eye. On the screen was a bunch of letters and symbols that made no sense. “What exactly are we looking at?”

  “That’s just it.” Jake still stared at the screen. “I’m not really sure what it is, but it’s huge. This must have been something Daniel was working on but never finished.”

  “That skinny bastard!” Yasif had the first smile she’d seen from him all day. “I can’t believe this!”

  “What?” Sally asked.

  “This is AI code.” Yasif pointed, a bit of disbelief in his tone. Sally stared at the characters on the screen, but it may as well have been written in Egyptian hieroglyphs. “Daniel must have been working to improve the Hi-Li’s AI. This is really advanced stuff! I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “It’s not finished, though. Look.” Jake pointed at a gap in the code. “It looks like he was working on how the AI accesses ports on the computer—”

  “—to access outside sources of information directly.” Yasif finished his sentence. “He wanted the AI to be able to scour the Internet for information related to stories all on its own. Can you imagine the potential?”

  “Actually, no,” Sally said.

  “Right now, the AI can only parse through incoming information, sources we give it. Whether it’s social feeds or blogs we monitor. The AI only accepts information coming in. Daniel was working on a way to make it so the AI could actively seek information on its own.”

  She gave Yasif a confused shrug.

  Yasif continued, his hands animating his explanation. “Say, for instance, we have a story about the disappearance. The AI would be able to scour the Internet for other stories about disappearances that are relevant. It could piece together things we’d never even think of on our own.”

  “Virtually turning this thing into your own intelligent web surfer,” Jake added.

  Yasif nodded in agreement. “But there’s more. It wouldn’t only find information. The AI is intelligent enough to be able to recognize how relevant something is based on the parameters of user responses and our posts. It will be able to find and sort anything according to our needs.”

  She sighed, still not completely understanding, but at least the two were getting along for the moment. Sally stared at the screen, hoping the code would somehow make sense. “What happens if we activate this?”

  “Nothing without the proper configurations,” Jake explained. “But really, that’s not hard. A few lines of code should do it. Daniel already has everything else in place. I’m really not sure why he didn’t activate it.”

  Yasif considered a moment. “He might have been waiting for my approval. He wouldn’t have activated it without running it by me. But then he went missing.”

  “Disappeared,” Sally corrected, putting a hand on her hip. “And it looks to me like you had some control over the Hi-Li?”

  Yasif threw her an angry glance.

  She ignored it. “How long would it take to get this thing going?”

  “Give me an hour or so and I can have it looking for information in places you’ve never dreamed of.” Jake smiled.

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” Sally raised an eyebrow.

  “Remember those servers I told you about?”

  Sally nodded.

  “Well, with this code and those backdoor connections, basically your computer just became a self-sufficient source of finding any piece of information you could possibly want.” Jake looked proud of himself as if it had been him who’d written the code.

  Boys, Sally thought. “So if I need to know about, say, corruption in the government?”

  “It would pull in news reports, blog posts, social network feeds, even personal emails related to the people involved as long as their company’s email servers are connected to one in the network.” He let the words hang there for a moment.

  “Holy crap!” Yasif replied. “You’re talking corporate theft!”

  “No, now hold on just a minute.” Jake held up a finger. “It only has access to the servers I’ve put up with my dad. That will get you in to most corporate systems, local governments, things like that. I don’t have access to everything, and we can limit the searches to whatever we want.”

  “But it is possible?” Sally asked, wheels already spinning in her mind.

  Yasif gave a look of surprise.

  “I’m just asking.”

  “It’s possible. I mean, I can’t get you into the Pentagon or anything, but there are other things I can do,” Jake explained.

  “What are we really talking about here?” Yasif asked.

  Sally reassured. “Yaz, I’m not saying we use this to dig for information whenever we want. But imagine the possibilities, especially with everything we’ve just been through. What if these government guys who showed up know something? This could help us find out.”

  Yasif considered a moment.

  Jake continued for her. “It may not be much, but imagine when this thing goes live and starts pulling pertinent information from around the globe about relevant news. Just with your headmistress alone, it can find any instance of something like that happening anywhere in the world. It would take bits and pieces from all over the Internet and make sense of them—sort of like a tessellation of information.” Jake smiled to himself.

  “Probably all crazies with fantasy and conspiracy sites,” Yasif suggested.

  “That’s just it! This Daniel guy really knows his stuff. This code has all kinds of behavioral algorithms and analytical capabilities that I’ve never seen. The AI already knows how to parse and filter the data. All it needs now is some new parameters and it will weed out the crazies for you.”

  “Okay, so assuming this does all these wonderful things, how will we access it? Where will we post it?” Sally asked. “I mean, the screens at school are great, but we’re not
just talking about school news here.”

  “You’re right.” Yasif rubbed his chin. “I think it’s time we took this thing to the next level.”

  Sally raised an eyebrow.

  “Let’s make the site live. Let everyone see it. Open it up to news feeds and sources outside the school.”

  “It can already do that,” Sally reminded him.

  Yasif continued, “Only as much as we’ve let it. Outsiders still have to request access to the school’s domain in order to link their feeds. I’m saying, we open it up to all feeds. Let it loose on whatever it can get its digital fingers on.”

  “I thought you didn’t like the idea of it scouring the Internet.” Sally smiled.

  “As long as we’re not doing anything incredibly illegal…I suppose.”

  “If we do this, it won’t be the Hi-Li anymore,” Sally pointed out. She couldn’t help a twinge of sadness. She’d practically built the Hi-Li from the ground up. It was hard to let something like that go.

  “So? We call it something new,” Yasif said. “We can redirect traffic from the original Hi-Li site for people who use it now.”

  Sally gave it some thought. “What would we call it then?”

  “Why not just The Investigator?” Jake offered.

  Yasif turned. “That’s lame!”

  “What was that word you used a moment ago?” Lani asked. Sally hadn’t noticed her and Idric by the door.

  “Tessellation?” Jake said.

  “It could be called The Tessellator,” Lani suggested, motioning with her hand.

  Yasif raised a finger. “TESSA for short?”

  “Sounds a bit odd for a news site, don’t you think?” Idric joined in.

  “I dunno,” Jake replied with a nod. “It gives it a bit of personality.”

  “It would certainly separate it from the all the other news websites.” Lani rolled her eyes. “They’re all so impersonal.”

  “And biased,” Yasif threw in.

  Lani laughed.

  “If we give the site a bit of personality to match the name, I think it would certainly make an impression. Okay then. TESSA it is. Let’s just hope she can help us unravel some of this craziness!”