Virtual Sabotage

by Julie Hyzy

  Absentmindedly, he scrolled through his notifications of missed calls. Tate. Tate again. Tate a third time, less than an hour ago. For God’s sake, what was up now? He’d left three increasingly insistent messages, all imploring Werner to call back right away. No matter what time it was.

  Werner lamented ever hiring the man. Celia had convinced him that Tate was no more than a compliant wannabe who would do anything to advance himself. Short on smarts but long on suggestibility, Tate with his unquestioning obedience seemed like a perfect choice to help him flush out the dissident faction.

  To be fair, that job should have gone to Patrick. But Werner had been unwilling to tap into his brother’s talents. Deep down, he’d suspected Patrick was working with the opposition. So deep down, he hadn’t admitted that fact to himself until this moment.

  The waitress silently slipped his check onto the table.

  There was no choice. He had to talk with Patrick tonight. Before it was too late for both of them. The hell with worrying if he’d wake his brother and family at this hour. Werner looked out over the empty diner tables. Harsh light, tinny music, nothing but reflection from the blackness of the window. Bleak. If he didn’t reach his brother now, while he could summon the strength to make things right, he’d lose his nerve when the sun came up.

  Sighing, Werner prepared to stand. When his phone rang, he sat back down, pulling his phone out of his pocket, desperate to see Patrick’s name on the screen.

  Tate.

  Werner debated letting the call go to voice mail, but Tate would simply keep calling. May as well get this over with.

  “About time you answered,” Tate said. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “It’s late. What’s so important?”

  “Are you at the office?” Tate asked.

  “Get to the point.”

  “I got news. The kind that has to be delivered face-to-face.”

  “In the morning, then,” Werner said. “My office.”

  “No can do. You’re gonna want to see me now. Trust me.”

  Werner didn’t trust him, but he was tired of playing Tate’s games. He provided his location, then added, “If you can be here in ten minutes, fine. But that’s all you get.”

  When the waitress returned to fill Werner’s coffee cup again, he handed her the bill and two twenties. “Keep the change,” he said. “A man will be joining me here shortly. Please don’t give him a menu or take an order. Just ignore him. I don’t want to prolong this visit.”

  She tucked the two twenties behind the pens in her apron pocket. “You got it.”

  ◊

  Tate was right about one thing. He hadn’t been very far. He swung into the booth across from Werner, his canny grin taking up almost as much space as the rest of him.

  “You know how you told me to stay out of trouble?”

  Werner ran a hand across the top of his head. More games.

  “Remember?” Tate asked.

  Werner glared at him “I believe I also told you to get out.”

  Tate gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Well, I’m back.”

  “What is it, then?” Werner asked. “Make it quick. I have a lot to do tonight.”

  “Newsflash, it’s morning.”

  Werner couldn’t hide his impatience. “Get on with it.”

  “Geez,” Tate said with exaggerated outrage. “What’s got into you?”

  As Werner drew a sharp breath, Tate waved the air with his hands. “Never mind. Believe me when I tell you I’ve got a cure for whatever’s bugging you. Kind of a good-news / better-news situation.”

  “Fine.” Werner folded his hands atop the table. “Dazzle me.”

  Tate scowled. “You’re weird this morning.”

  Before Werner could respond, Tate jumped in. “All right, you remember I told you about that girl I’ve been pumping for information—the one from AdventureSome?”

  “What about her?”

  “She almost found us out.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Settle down. Everything’s okay.” Tate grinned. “You know how we had to use the remote technology to access Charles Russell’s program? And you know how the system glitches up a bit when you first get in?”

  “What about it?”

  “Don’t know how she did it, but that girl almost traced the glitch back to us.”

  Werner leaned forward. “Explain.”

  “She was able to isolate the interference. Told me she planned to work on tracing it the next day—today—this morning. When she got back to AdventureSome.”

  “That’s your good news?” Werner asked. “And when they complete the trace? Then what?”

  “Don’t worry.” Tate sat back, thrusting his jaw forward. “That’s where the better news comes in.”

  “Spit it out already.”

  “I made the problem go away.” Tate pantomimed taking a shot while simultaneously popping his lips. “Permanently.”

  Werner flexed both hands, fisted them, then flexed and fisted again. He lowered his voice. “You killed her?”

  Tate shrugged. “Had to. She was this close.” He held his thumb and index finger a millimeter apart. “But she was the only one working on it. Didn’t have a chance to talk with anybody else yet.”

  Werner stared away.

  “Don’t I at least get an attaboy?” Tate asked.

  “You’re telling me that you killed yet another person?”

  “She would have uncovered the whole Sub Rosa initiative, believe me. Only a matter of time.”

  Werner sat up. “What do you know about Sub Rosa?”

  “More than you think I do.” Tate pointed both thumbs at his chest. “Remember when I went out to DC? I learned a few things.”

  Werner ran a hand across his brow. “You’ve killed three people.”

  “Not bad for a week’s work.” Tate chuckled. “And I’m not finished yet.”

  “Oh, yes you are.”

  “Say what?”

  “Did we get any valuable information from Charles Russell before he died? No. Did you get anything from Kenna Ward? No. Now you’ve killed another person from AdventureSome and you think the authorities will chalk it up to sad coincidence?”

  “Let ’em investigate. By the time they put the pieces together, Sub Rosa will be up and running.” Tate scratched his shoulder. “And we’ll have everything we need to stop those dissidents once and for all. Smooth sailing ahead.”

  Werner rubbed his face. This was all spiraling out of control. Exactly like Patrick had predicted. Werner drew out his cell phone and glanced at its display. Still no reply, no messages. Had Patrick given up on him? Was that why he wouldn’t respond?

  “Tate?” Werner said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re fired.”

  “You can’t do that. Not after all I’ve done for you.”

  “I just did,” Werner said. “Now go away and stay there.”

  Tate raised his hands in bewilderment. “What the hell is going on today anyway?”

  “Go,” Werner said. “I have work to do.” He pulled up his cell phone and dialed his brother’s number.

  Tate didn’t budge. He had the strangest look on his face.

  “I told you to leave,” Werner said as his call connected, once again, directly to Patrick’s voice mail.

  “Not happening,” Tate said. “I’m too valuable. You can’t expect me to walk away when—”

  “Shut up,” Werner said as Patrick’s greeting ended and the standard beep sounded in his ear. “Patrick, it’s Werner again. It’s imperative you contact me as soon as you get this. The minute you get this. Understand?” He hung up.

  Tate’s face slowly rolled into a smirk. He pointed to the device in Werner’s hand. “You trying to reach Patrick Danaher?” he
asked.

  Werner drew in a breath. “Leave, before I throw you out myself.”

  “Like you could.” Tate said with a laugh. “But that’s not what’s funny. You trying to reach Danaher? Yeah, good luck with that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s just say he’s going to be tied up for a while.”

  Werner didn’t like where this conversation was going. “Cut the games, Tate. What’s going on?”

  “Oh, so now you’re interested in what I have to say, is that it? Once baby brother’s well-being is on the line.”

  Tate’s words roared like a bat to the head.

  “What did you say? You’re talking nonsense.”

  Tate leaned across the table. “How stupid do you think I am, Trutenko? Danaher has been undermining you every minute of every day. Yet somehow you’re blind to it? I couldn’t figure out why you never busted his chops the way you do mine. So I did some extracurricular investigating to see what dirt he had on you. Never pinned you two as brothers, though.”

  “You don’t know—”

  “I know enough.” Clicking his tongue, he pantomimed shooting again, this time with both hands. “Should’ve seen Celia’s face when she found out.”

  “Celia?”

  “She didn’t even believe me at first. I had to show her stuff I found before she took action.” Tate shook his head. “Tsk, tsk. She’s very disappointed in you, Werner.”

  He started to ask how Tate had uncovered their secret, but it didn’t matter. What mattered now was that Celia knew of their blood relationship and she would consider Werner’s omission an act of betrayal.

  “He was gunning for you. Your brother, I mean,” Tate said. “That much will probably save your ass with Celia. And here’s the best news of the evening: We’re taking care of that little loose end.”

  Werner felt slow and dumb. “Taking care?”

  “We got Danaher where we want him,” Tate said with a grin. “As long as he gives up the dissidents, we won’t need to hurt him. Much.”

  FORTY-NINE

  Are you sure about this?” Stewart asked for the fourth time.

  Kenna bit back her frustration. She couldn’t snap at him. After all, she’d roused Stewart from home with very little in terms of explanation. He knew the basics, but there wasn’t time to answer all his questions. Fortunately, he’d accepted everything she’d told him on her word alone, even including Maya’s and Aaron’s presence here.

  Despite all the curveballs she’d thrown him tonight, Stewart remained steadfast. His bright blue eyes were rimmed red, pouched with pockets of swollen sorrow. He stared, silently begging for answers she didn’t have.

  As they worked together, Kenna was transported back to those precious few moments before going in to try to rescue Charlie. Those confident minutes when she was certain she’d get him out. She could never have imagined the defeat she’d experienced. The weight of failure clenched her heart.

  “I’m sure,” she finally answered.

  Stewart completed the last step and reached for her headgear. “Come back to us, Kenna.”

  Kenna swallowed the bile that rose up at the back of her throat and pushed up a smile. “No problem,” she said. She looked over to the capsule next to hers, where Aaron assisted getting Jason set up. “I’ve got a partner this time.”

  “I don’t like it,” Stewart said.

  “Trust me.”

  “I do,” he said. “But this new remote technology?” He glanced at the gizmo that Maya had rigged into the system. Stewart lowered his voice. “You’re placing trust in people you don’t know. Fanatics who broke into your home. And if that contraption works the way they claim, I may not be able to monitor you at all.”

  Kenna eyed the mechanism again. She had no idea if it would perform the way Maya and Aaron promised. But she had to believe. Her fate and Jason’s rested in that interface device’s virtual hands.

  Back at Kenna’s apartment, Maya had explained as much as she could. Patrick Danaher had been escorted from his home several hours earlier. It had taken concerted effort on the part of all dissident team members, but they’d managed to discover that he’d been taken to Virtu-Tech headquarters to undergo interrogation. Celia intended to break Patrick, using threats to his brother—Werner Trutenko—as leverage.

  “They’ll conduct his interrogation within VR,” Maya had asserted. “How else to crush a person without leaving any physical evidence?”

  Everything in Vanessa’s notes seemed to confirm the dissidents’ claims. An unknown person or entity had logged into Charlie’s reality from outside AdventureSome. Remote access was no longer simply a fanciful possibility. If this gadget behaved as Maya promised, Kenna and Jason would be able to transport themselves into any VR running anywhere. And tonight they knew their target: Virtu-Tech’s VR chambers. Maya had expertly run two simulations based on data Vanessa had uncovered. She pronounced the system good to go.

  A thousand thoughts ran through Kenna’s mind. She opened her mouth to speak, to try to make Stewart understand, but time was her enemy right now. Patrick’s, too.

  “Trust me,” she said again.

  Stewart closed his eyes for a long moment, then lowered the headgear over Kenna’s eyes.

  FIFTY

  Jason?” Kenna called.

  Surrounded by nothing, she sorted through her disorientation. Programs always began with a grayish cloud, vapors that dissipated within seconds of entry. But this time, the dense fog remained.

  As Maya had explained the experimental device, she’d apologized for not being able to provide more detailed instruction. Apparently Aaron and a colleague had tried out the hacking unit, but without envoy implants—necessary to fully control one’s own VR—the best they could accomplish was observing remote scenarios as though through thick glass. Neither was capable of gaining full access to the scenario. That was why they needed Kenna.

  And Kenna needed Jason.

  How she could have come to trust him so quickly, she didn’t understand. Right now, however, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was linking up with him inside and then finding Patrick. Once they reached him, the dissidents could move forward with their plans to cripple Virtu-Tech’s empire.

  A tall order.

  “Jason?” she called again.

  The vapors around her glimmered, sparkling rainbows everywhere. It wasn’t an artsy aberration, it was the program itself reaching out through the infinite electrons, searching for a place to land. She had no inkling how long it would take Maya to establish the link with Virtu-Tech.

  Kenna heard her name and turned, realizing almost immediately that there hadn’t been any real sound. She’d heard Jason’s voice in her mind.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  He took a long time to respond. “Look down at your feet,” he said. She did.

  They weren’t there.

  Kenna tried touching her chest, her legs, her face. But her hands, or what she thought were her hands, came up empty. “Why isn’t the program giving us visuals yet?”

  “I think we are the program.”

  Kenna stared down at where her body should be, unable to wrap her mind around what she didn’t see. The twinkles of rainbow glitter began to take on a sinister air. This was like being caught in a searing snowstorm, blinded by unyielding light.

  “Hang on.”

  Jason speaking to her from within her own brain was both reassuring and invasive. She waited while he paused an interminable length of time.

  “Okay, try this,” he said. “I’m…” He swore. “I’m having some…luck…Shit. Damn.”

  This was the opposite of claustrophobia. Kenna wanted to break out of this boundless space and reclaim her finite existence. In this vast state of nonbeing, she felt crushed by expansiveness.

  Jason’s voice whispered in he
r mind again. “Concentrate,” he said. “It’s starting to work. Concentrate on yourself. I’m starting to see…”

  He broke off again.

  Kenna closed her eyes and almost laughed at the ridiculous endeavor. Though her body felt as though it complied with her conscious and autonomic actions, she could discern no physical reaction. Eyes open or closed, there remained only this blanket of sparkling white.

  “It’s working,” Jason said. “Start with your hands.”

  Kenna did. She raised her hands in front of her face, or at least where it felt her face should be.

  “I’m trying,” she said, seeing nothing.

  No. Not nothing.

  A shadow at first. Then, as Kenna’s mind struggled to re-create what her hands looked like, how they narrowed at the wrist attached to tanned arms, the appendages began to materialize. Jason spoke again, but she ignored him as her upper body re-created itself. She moved down, staring at where her feet should be. As they came into focus, she exclaimed her satisfaction.

  “Kenna?” Jason asked.

  “All here.”

  “Okay, now try concentrating on me,” he said. “And I’ll do the same for you.”

  She focused on Jason’s appearance, his quirks—forming his image in her mind.

  A hand rested on her shoulder. She spun.

  “Nice to see you again,” Jason said.

  Elated, she grabbed Jason’s upper arm. Immediately embarrassed, she jerked her hand back.

  “Now what?” she asked, twisting to take in their surroundings. Blank white nothingness as far as the eye could see.

  “You have that control they gave us?”

  “I hope so,” she said, reaching into her back pocket. She came up with the VR equivalent of the device the dissidents had provided them. “Good old Stewart,” she said, hefting it and examining its keypad. “The gear came through perfectly. Now let’s see if Maya can get it to work.”