What's that? It has to be a camera. As paranoid as this guy seems to be, he'd have surveillance out here, somewhere.
Garrett attempted to hack into the transmission, trying every method he knew to do.
Come on, come on. I have to get through.
He could almost feel each second slipping away, getting closer to the moment when Tobias would return…when he would have to act, or lose his chance entirely.
When he had about four minutes to spare, Garrett broke the signal. He opened the feed on his screen and found that there was an extensive network of video cameras all around the property.
"Superb," Garrett muttered.
In less than three minutes, Tobias would return and start the backup on his computer. Gabriel had to enter the house as soon as Tobias got into the shower, finish his tasks, and exit the house, all in under fifteen minutes.
Sweat started to break out on his forehead as he worked. He didn't have enough time to work out a more elegant solution. Garrett would have to record a short clip of the video feed and play it back on the cameras to cover his entry. He only had time to record about a minute of exposure, but it would have to suffice. Since it was such a short clip, he would have to loop it to cover the entire time he was inside. Garrett added a timer to the loop, so that the real video would resume playing twenty-five minutes later.
He finished his work with thirty seconds to spare. As he packed his things back into his bag, he heard the faint sound of footsteps approaching in the distance. He tentatively peered out of the bushes and saw Tobias returning from his morning jog. He crossed in front of the house and Garrett could no longer see him. He heard a soft jingling, followed by a sharp click, and knew that Tobias had entered his house. A few of the lights came on and the beams cast eerie shadows on his lawn.
6:28am. Two minutes to go…
Each second seemed like an eternity. Garrett retrieved the lock pick from his bag, ready to use it. He had such a small window of opportunity; the sense of urgency hung heavily over him.
Finally, it was time. He ran as quietly as he could to the back door and started to work on the lock. He inserted the tension rod and the pick into the lock. In his haste, he almost dropped the pick gun twice; his hands shook badly with the stress. Two minutes ticked by before he was able to open the lock. After it clicked open, Garrett slipped his tools gratefully back into his bag and slowly turned the handle.
As the back door swung open into the kitchen, the entry alarm let out a quick series of beeps. Garrett froze in place, heart pounding in his chest. In the distance, he heard the hum of water running. Fortunately for Garrett, it appeared that his bathroom was located at the front of the house and Tobias was unable to hear the brief door chime. Next to the door, he saw a control panel for the alarm system. He deftly entered the code that Nick had given him, and was rewarded by a green light.
Garrett slipped around the corner and found himself in the living room. There was an open door on the opposite side of the room, and an adjacent hallway, leading to the rest of the house. He heard some kind of opera music coming from the hall, and he suppressed a shudder. It seemed out of place and unnerving in the otherwise silent house.
This guy is a freak… Really, Mozart?
Through the opposite doorway, he saw computer equipment and went in that direction.
Bingo.
Tobias' office was as meticulous as the rest of his house. Even the massive network of cables that ran from his equipment was neatly gathered into cable organizers. Garrett couldn't help but be amazed at the man's attention to detail. He noticed that all of the furniture and décor was composed of geometric shapes: rigid and predictable. It made everything seem cold and unwelcoming, not that Garrett could feel welcome after breaking into the man's house.
The computer system was overwhelming. Tobias had monitors all over his desk and mounted on the wall. Each one indicated the status of some activity he was monitoring. On the central screen, Garrett saw that his main backup was fifteen percent complete. On the corner of another, he saw an icon indicating that Tobias was connected to the EngineerCorp mainframe.
The chair in front of the desk was horribly uncomfortable, its stiff back forcing Garrett to sit rigidly straight.
Apparently, this guy's wonderful personality found its way into his furniture, too.
He pulled out his computer and connected it to Tobias' machine. Taking advantage of the connection, he opened a terminal and found his way into the security directory. Entering the information he was able to get from the Memory Keeper, he searched as quickly as he could to find the location of the terminal in Alice's cell.
Garrett wiped the perspiration from his forehead. Minutes ticked by and his apprehension grew. Finally, through a stroke of dumb luck, he connected to Alice's terminal. He uploaded the pre-recorded message he made, including a short delay, into the intercom system and then sent the command to open her cell door.
Gazing at his watch, he saw that he had five minutes left. He quickly closed the connection to the terminal and started uploading the super-virus. Because the automated backup was already running from Tobias' computer, the upload of his virus was taking longer than expected.
I have to stop that backup or I'm going to run out of time.
Garrett agonized over what course of action to take. He had to do something, and fast.
He scanned Tobias' computer trying to find the program that was running the backup. When the window finally came up, a password prompt came up on the center of the screen.
"You have to be kidding!" Garrett hissed under his breath.
There was no way he would have time to hack into the file to stop Tobias' backup before he would be done with his shower. Garrett stared at the screen, heart pounding. He quickly improvised and decided to change the priority of the data traffic. He set the backup to the lowest priority and his transfer to the highest. Both programs would still run, but his upload would have more bandwidth than the backup.
The progress bar edged across the screen.
Three more minutes.
Just when he thought he could not wait another moment, the virus completed its upload. Garrett typed faster than he even knew he could. He opened a terminal into the mainframe and ran the downloaded virus on the EngineerCorp network. There was no going back now.
There was one minute left. He ripped his cables out and shoved his equipment back into his bag as he heard the faint squeak of the water shutting off. Garrett fled the room.
He reached the back door just as he heard footsteps coming from the hall. Garrett froze. He didn't want to open the door because Tobias would surely hear it at this distance. He didn't want to be caught standing in his kitchen, either. Seconds ticked by like hours.
Then, he breathed a sigh of relief as the footsteps went off in the direction of the office. A few moments later he heard a loud oath.
"What the…?" There was a short pause and then a horrible scream that he heard over the crescendo of opera music. "The mainframe! It's eating the mainframe!!"
Garrett didn't stop to see what happened next. He quietly crept out the back door and ran faster than he ever had in his entire life.
Chapter 21
Alice wasn't sure exactly what she was waiting for anymore. Part of her irrationally hoped that the right situation would present itself to her, when she would know beyond a doubt that it time to stage her escape.
One of the main reasons she hesitated was because of the size of EngineerCorp's security force. Even if she shut down their system, she couldn't get rid of all the guards and Special Forces that Eric had at his disposal.
As much as I'd like to believe it, I'm not invincible.
Until everything was set for her escape, Alice decided to have a little fun with her powers. It was mid-afternoon, and she was busy working in her lab. She had grown proficient enough to control almost any electronic device at will.
Perhaps I can have a little fun. I need to have some real practice anyway…
Let's see if I can destroy the transmitter in my glasses. If I do this right, they'll never know it was me.
Alice knew enough about the electronics inside of her frames to know that sending a certain, impossible command would cause the transmitter to overheat, burning it up in the process. She smiled mischievously and began to carry out her plan.
She raised her hand to the frames, appearing to be merely rubbing her forehead. She closed her eyes and opened her mind to connect to the device. Once she established the connection, she sent out the command and waited.
After a few moments, on the right side of her glasses grew warm and she felt the connection abruptly sever. She could no longer sense any activity coming from the frames.
Let's see how they like that!
Alice couldn't help but be impressed.
The way she had chosen to carry it out, they would be unable to tell what happened to the transmitter. It would appear that it had some sort of power surge and failed. It only occurred to her after the fact that they might sedate her again in order to repair them, but it was too late to go back now.
She waited for half an hour, pretending to be testing some equipment. If she had been expecting someone to bust down the door, she was sorely disappointed. The rest of the afternoon came and went in silence. Soon, the door to the lab opened and her escort was there, ready to take her back to her cell. She slowly followed them, not overly eager to return to her meager living quarters.
Her dinner arrived on schedule. She was about to sit down to eat it, when she dropped her fork.
What if this is drugged? It has to be.
It wouldn't kill her to miss one meal, even if she was hungry. She broke her dinner up into tiny pieces and flushed them down the toilet, then poured the drink down the sink. It wasn't the most fulfilling meal she'd ever had, but she was more interested in proving her theory.
So, how does this work? If I was drugged, I should be sleeping right now. I guess I should maintain the illusion, just in case.
Alice laid down on her bed, closing her eyes even though she didn't feel the least bit tired.
Her mind occupied itself by solving complex equations, tossing around calculations, and dreaming of theories. She had just begun to fade into a real sleep, when she heard the door to her room open. She resisted the urge to throw open her eyelids and investigate, but instead tried her best to breath slowly and evenly, like someone who was sleeping.
She heard some men talking in the doorway.
"So, we're supposed to take her glasses to the lab again?"
"Yeah, apparently they had some sort of malfunction today."
"She won't wake up?"
"Nah, they gave her enough drugs to be out till noon tomorrow. I'd like to see her try something now!"
"You say that now…you heard what they did to the guy that let her escape last time?"
"Oh, him? I'd never let that happen."
"I guess we won't have to find out for now."
Then it was quiet again, and Alice heard them approach her. One of them delicately removed her glasses from her bedside table while the other man picked up her food tray.
"She looks so…young." The man closest to her observed.
"She's in here for a reason. Leave it at that."
She heard the receding footsteps, and the sound of the door shutting. Alice listened tensely to ensure that she was alone again. Then she opened her eyes and looked around at the blurry room.
Well, that was pointless.
Alice wasn't sure what would happen when she destroyed the transmitter, but she had at least hoped they would find some reason to remove her from her cell, increasing her chances of escaping. Now, she was left locked in her room and unable to see more than two feet in front of her face.
She didn't want to attempt to escape while the men were in her room, even though they never expected her to be conscious. There were technicians waiting for them to bring the glasses. If she had done anything to them, their absence would have been detected almost instantly.
No, she would wait until she had a better opportunity. Alice also couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that her next escape attempt would be her last. The thought of being trapped in EngineerCorp's underground forever was not a fate she could accept.
The men said she should be unconscious until noon the next day. If that were the case, then perhaps she would have the opportunity when they came to bring her glasses back, which they would assuredly do before noon. She would definitely need them back before she could do anything useful.
There wasn't much point for her to sit there awake all night. Alice sighed and decided to do her best to get some rest. She would need it for what lay ahead.
***
Great. What now?
They notified Eric immediately when the transmitter stopped working. He had gone down to the lab personally to speak with the head of the team.
"You're telling me the transmitter just burned up? For no apparent reason?" he asked the lead tech, annoyed.
"Sir, we will need to see the glasses to understand exactly what happened. But for now, it seems like it experienced some kind of power surge and overloaded the circuit."
The ruddy technician pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. Eric would probably fire him after this situation was cleared up, even if he was the lead designer of the transmitter. It was unacceptable that he hadn't taken power surges into account, but that was another matter.
"I will have the glasses brought into the lab tonight and you can examine them then. This will not happen again. Understood?"
"Yes, sir. I will get the lab ready."
The tech scurried off before Eric could reply, anxious to get away from his oppressive demeanor.
The transmitter just experienced a "power surge?" What could have caused that? Did Alice have something to do with it?
Perhaps the surveillance team will have more answers.
Eric briskly left the lab and walked down the hall to where the other team was stationed.
He barged into the office, full of monitors all focused on Alice and the area where she worked. The men nearest to the door jumped when Eric entered, but the rest of the men tried more successfully not to look startled.
He walked up to the center monitor, focused on Alice absently flipping through files on the desk in front of her.
"Can we help you, sir?"
"Has she done anything strange today? Any kind of suspicious activity at all?"
"No. Mostly she's just been sitting there, as you see her right now. Earlier, she seemed to be testing some equipment, but nothing extensive."
Eric was staring at the computer, eyes boring into Alice's image. He reached up to massage his temples, trying to think of an explanation for what could have happened. A man approached him quietly from his left and stood near him. He appeared to be about to speak, but hesitated. Eric turned his gaze on him, irritated.
"What is it?" he snapped.
"It's just that…you looked a lot like her just now. She was sitting there, staring at the computer earlier, rubbing her head just like that. I thought it was…interesting. She doesn't normally do that…" His voice trailed off at the end.
"What are you talking about?"
He responded, but hesitantly. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I just sit here all day in front of these screens and sometimes it gets kind of… tedious, so I start to notice random things to pass the time. It seemed pretty interesting at the time."
The man attempted to laugh, but snorted instead.
Eric looked at him distastefully and responded, "Just show me the footage."
"Right over here, sir."
He led Eric to one of the side computers and offered him his chair while he scanned through the footage. When he found the segment he was searching for, he turned the screen to Eric and played the footage.
She was sitting at a desk, staring ahead. Eric zoomed in on her face and watched attentively. At the first part of the video, she seemed restless and
bored. Then all at once, it seemed as if some inspiration passed briefly through her mind, as her face lit up for the smallest of moments. It was so fleeting that he would not have noticed if he hadn't been watching so closely.
After that, she made a big show of being tired and tense, moving her hand up to the side of her head as if to gently massage it all away. Her hand was to the camera, and Eric noticed it was her right hand.
"I wonder…"
Her hand paused briefly over her head, and he saw the corner of her mouth turn up ever so slightly. He stopped the footage, rewound it, and watched again. Then he paused it on the moment when her hand froze.
Gazing at the timestamp in the corner, he saw that it was 3:12 that afternoon.
"Send me a copy of all footage immediately."
"Yes, sir."
Eric abruptly stood up and left the room. He stopped back by the lab in charge of monitoring the brain scan transmissions and asked them to send him all of their data as well.
He had a theory, but he needed to analyze the information before he would be sure. Eric went immediately to the elevator and back up to his office.
Once he was seated behind his desk, he pulled up the data from both teams. He compared the footage and verified what he already suspected. The transmission from her glasses stopped the moment she froze her hand on the video footage.
It's no coincidence. Of that, I am sure.
It seemed that Alice began acting more and more peculiar since the incident where she cut her head on the desk. Eric knew she didn't have a concussion; medical equipment had verified that much. He knew there was no brain damage either. Still, she had been acting notably stranger since then.
He went through the videos until he found one where he could see most of her body reaching under the desk. Eric couldn't make out her face, but he could see her hand, tentatively reaching out to get the pen she dropped. At the moment where her hand came into contact with the wires, she jerked it back as if she had been shocked. That explained why she bumped her head, but it didn't explain why she jerked her hand back.
Mind Trace Page 27