Antivirus (The Horde Series Book 1)

by Michael Koogler

  “Something we considered as well.”

  “So you think it’s possible that he’s in a dormant state?”

  “I think it’s definitely a possibility,” Kat said. “He may have seen a threat in this Horde virus that we couldn’t see and he shut himself down to avoid it.”

  “Can he wake back up?”

  “He always has in the past,” Kat replied. “After the first time, and a little bit of worry on everyone’s part, it was easy for him. We’ve tested it a number of times.”

  “So why hasn’t he come back this time?”

  “I don’t know,” Kat shook her head. “But I promise you, we’ll find him, Jen.”

  “How?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Kat said carefully, looking directly into her friend’s eyes. “We’re kicking around an idea, but it’s going to take a little bit of time to get it ready. And I won’t lie to you. It could be dangerous.”

  Before she could explain further, there was a knock at the door and both women turned to see an ashen Drew Jackson standing in the doorway.

  “What is it, Drew?” Kat asked, immediately noticing his drained appearance. The man had been deep into crisis management since the accident and it was wearing on him. His face now told her that something new had developed.

  Drew cleared his throat and looked plaintively at Jen, before turning to look at Kat again. “Perhaps we should speak outside.”

  Kat shook her head. “No,” she countered, swallowing her own fear. “Jen has as much right to know what’s going on as anybody. Now tell me what happened.”

  Drew looked back and forth to each woman before clearing his throat again, definitely uncomfortable with what he was about to share. “It’s the prototype,” he finally stammered.

  “What about it?” Kat demanded.

  “It’s gone.”

  “What?”

  “It’s gone, Kat,” he repeated. “When I told Rivers to unpack it and begin setting it up for emergency use, it wasn’t in the case. He thought you might have it.”

  “Why would I have it, Drew? It’s been locked up in storage since Systemtech started showing interest in us.”

  “Kat, what’s going on?” Jen interrupted. “What’s this about?”

  “It’s a wireless prototype unit of the hub,” she explained quickly, shaking her head in a mixture of alarm and disgust.

  “Another one?”

  “In a sense, yes,” she answered. “But it’s wireless and portable. However, we haven’t worked out the bugs and there’s a lot of questions about its safety. In limited testing by Jon, we know that it works, but we don’t know enough about it to use it without a lot more careful thought. When Systemtech started nosing around, we suspended work on it to fine-tune the main system so we could get ready for the demonstration.”

  “So what does that mean for Jon?”

  “Nothing concrete,” Kat answered truthfully. “The idea was for someone else to use the prototype to try and locate Jon. And I stress that it is just an idea right now.”

  “But why not use the regular hub?”

  Kat was silent for a few moments before answering. “We don’t dare use it, Jen,” she finally said softly. “The main hub is attuned to Jon right now and there is no telling what would happen if we put a different person in the chair. If we use it, there may be a chance we could never get Jon back, even if we did find him. Not to mention, there would be risks to someone else using the hub until the machine was cleared of Jon’s settings.”

  “So we were going to use the prototype to go and search for him,” Drew put in, still from his place at the door.

  “We were thinking about using it,” Kat corrected, shooting Drew a nasty look. “There’s no guarantees that we would be successful and, we’re scared to death that we’ll end up losing someone else out there.”

  “That’s just it, Jen,” Drew added. “Jon is the only one who has been truly out in cyberspace, and the accident happened the very first time he went long. Even on the closed test beds, Perry’s the only other one who has been a driver and he only did it one time. We just don’t know how dangerous it would be to put someone else out there when they’re not prepared for it. And with the prototype, that level of unknown goes off the charts.”

  “But the prototype could do it?” Jen pressed.

  “In theory, yes,” Kat replied. “But it’s a real shot in the dark.”

  “So, why would someone steal it?” Jen asked, looking at both of them.

  Neither had the answer and Kat could only shake her head. “I don’t know, Jen,” she said, putting her arm around her friend’s shoulder. “I really don’t know.”

  Chapter 6

  Channel 9, 6:00 News, Video Capture: “On the technology front tonight, our top story has much of the technological world more than a little worried, while many high-tech security firms have been left scrambling. The reason? That’s right. Another virus. But this one isn’t just any virus, according to experts. This one is being hailed as perhaps one of the most destructive yet. Let’s take you to our own expert, Leslie O’Neil. Leslie?”

  “Thanks, Nick.”

  “So what are we looking at here?”

  “Quite frankly, it’s a tough call, Nick. They’re dubbing this particular worm the Horde virus and, as yet, they know very little about it.”

  “Can you tell us anything?”

  “Only that it’s a real threat, and leading anti-virus software creator, Systemtech, has upgraded its damage potential to catastrophic.”

  “Another Stuxnet?”

  “No, this one is different. Stuxnet went after critical infrastructure—power stations, grids, and the like. This one does not. It does resemble Stuxnet in sheer size, but the complexity of it is off the charts compared to Stuxnet.”

  “Explain.”

  “That’s the hard part, Nick. The coding is so complex, Systemtech engineers have been working non-stop for the past two months and still haven’t come close to cracking its real purpose, let alone what makes it tick.”

  “Any theories?”

  “More than you can count, and none of them likely correct. Only two things are certain at this time. In the first place, its sheer size is positively frightening. “

  “What’s the other?”

  “It’s an eater, Nick.”

  “Say again?”

  “It absorbs code. It attacks a program, breaks it down, and adds parts of it to its own.”

  “Sounds like the Borg.”

  “Star Trek isn’t real. This is. As the Horde virus progresses, it grows larger and more dangerous.”

  “And it can’t be stopped?”

  “We’d have to know its true purpose to stop it. Unfortunately, as it grows, that purpose gets buried deeper and deeper in its coding mass. Already, Systemtech believes that it’s too big to discern its primary function.”

  “What does that mean to us?”

  “We’re a computer-driven society, Nick, with technical boundaries and limitations that are broken all the time by brilliant men and women around the world. Imagine what would happen should something we created begin to outpace our own ingenuity.”

  “Are you talking about A.I?”

  “Artificial Intelligence has been a real goal, as well as a real threat, for years, but no one has ever perfected it. Under the right circumstances and, in the right hands, it could be an enormous boon to the world. However, I shudder to think what would happen if it was birthed in a computer virus.”

  “Turn that off,” Kat snapped a little too angrily as she walked into the central room where David Rivers was hunched over the hub, feverishly working on trying to discover what had gone wrong with their presentation.

  “Sorry, boss,” he said sheepishly, reaching over and tapping off the video stream that was running on his tablet. “Just listening to sound bites on this worm, thinking maybe I could get a lead on what to look for.”

  “It’s pretty new, David. First officia
l word on it wasn’t more than two weeks ago.”

  “Yeah, that was about when that video came out.”

  “Are you finding anything with the hub?” she asked, exhaustion heavy in her voice. She walked around the machine and placed her hand on the cool metal, as if she might somehow be able to sense Jon’s presence inside.

  Rivers looked up, his eyes hollow. “Nothing,” he said with a sigh. “Two days going over these machines with a microscope. He’s not in here, Kat. I swear he’s not here.”

  “What about Perry?”

  He shrugged and went back to his work. “What about him?”

  “Has he had any luck?”

  “What are you talking about, Kat?” Rivers snapped irritably.

  “Do you mean you haven’t seen him?”

  “No,” the tech retorted, turning back to look at her. “Why?”

  Kat stared hard at Rivers. “He was supposed to be here last night and take over for you for a few hours,” she snapped. “Are you saying he didn’t show?”

  “Nope,” he answered. “I was here until nearly 3:00 in the morning and then went home on my own to catch a few hours of sleep. Come to think of it,” he went on, scratching his stubble-covered chin, “I did see him around midnight for a bit. He said he came in to go over some figures, but that was it.”

  “So he never came in here to take over on diagnostics?”

  Rivers shook his head no.

  “Damn it,” Kat exclaimed angrily as she hurried out of the room, ignoring Rivers’ trailing questions.

  Five seconds later, she was bursting through another door and into Drew Jackson’s office. “When did the prototype go missing, Drew?” she blurted out as the CEO was hanging up the phone.

  “What?”

  “The prototype,” she repeated quickly. “When did it disappear?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “It was supposedly packed up in storage for a couple week’s now.”

  “Ever since we got the call from Systemtech,” she nodded.

  “Yeah, that would be about right. We only discovered it missing this morning. Why?”

  “It’s Perry,” she stated flatly.

  “Perry?”

  “He has it. I know he does,” she went on. “Only a few of us have the security code for the storage room and he’s one of them. We need to get over to his house right away, Drew. If he’s using that prototype without supervision, there’s no telling what might happen.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m very serious,” Kat countered. “He’s driven once before, so he knows the tech.”

  “But why would you blame him for the missing prototype? I mean, this is Perry we’re talking about, Kat. He may be a grumpy pain-in-the-ass at times, but he’s been with us for years. This isn’t like him at all.”

  “Look, he was supposed to relieve Rivers last night and he never did. Rivers said he came in around midnight for a few minutes, but left. He has it, Drew. I know he does.”

  “You better be wrong,” Drew said in growing anger as he quickly stood up. “What happened to Jon was bad enough. We can’t afford any more blows to this deal, Kat.”

  “I’m more interested in not losing any more lives, Drew,” she said flatly, an angry scowl on her face.

  “Ease up a little,” he soothed, waving a hand in the air to calm her down. “I don’t want to lose anyone else, either. But we don’t know that Jon is dead and Systemtech is still very interested in the product.”

  “Systemtech?” she repeated, somewhat confused at his statement. “How do you know that?”

  He indicated the phone. “That was Monroe who just called. He said they are prepared to table an offer, but they won’t do it until we close the investigation into Jon’s death.”

  “Disappearance,” she corrected angrily.

  “Disappearance,” he agreed. “Regardless, they still feel that, despite what happened, we are still a viable acquisition,” Drew finished, ignoring her mounting anger.

  “That’s mighty big of them,” she said sarcastically. “But right now, I want to find Jon. That’s all the matters, Drew. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about Systemtech or their offer at the moment.”

  “Of course,” he agreed. “And we’ll find him. Now, tell me what you know about Perry. What make you think he has the prototype?”

  “I’ll tell you on the way,” she fumed as she turned and headed back out of his office. Drew followed close behind.

  Twenty minutes later, Kat pulled her Honda Accord to the curb in front of Perry Edward’s house, right behind a waiting ambulance. There was a patrol car in the driveway and two more official-looking black sedans parked on the other side of the street. She turned and flashed her boss a worried look before both of them quickly got out. They had taken two steps onto the lawn when a uniformed police officer emerged from the house and looked hard at both of them.

  “Can I help you?” he asked sternly.

  “Drew Jackson,” Kat’s boss said smoothly, stepping forward. “President of FutureTek Enterprises here in Helena.”

  “What is your purpose for coming here, Mister Jackson?”

  “We came to check on Perry Edwards,” Drew answered worriedly. “He works for me. Is everything all right here?”

  The police officer stepped off the porch to stand before them. “Can I see some ID, Mister Jackson?” he asked, his tone all business.

  Jackson reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew his wallet, flipping it open and offering it to the police officer. “Driver’s license and business card,” he said and then motioned to Kat. “This is my lead program designer, Kathryn Hale. Perry didn’t come into work today and we were concerned about him.”

  “So you drove out here to check on him? The both of you?”

  “Yes,” Drew answered, looking sideways at Kat, then back to the officer. “Why? What happened?”

  “What made you think something was wrong in the first place, Mr. Jackson?” the officer went on, ignoring the question.

  “We’re dealing with a bit of a crisis, officer,” Jackson replied with a sigh. “It’s a long story.”

  “Try me.”

  “Well,” he began, “we’ve been working with a very new and relatively untested technology and we fear the Perry might have brought home a prototype model we have had locked up in storage. When he didn’t show up for work today, we thought it best to come out to his home and check up on him.”

  The officer was silent for several moments, before nodding his head. “That’s all I needed to hear,” he said finally. “Come with me, please.”

  He walked back into the house, followed closely by Jackson and Hale, who exchanged worried glances as they did. As they walked through the entryway, Kat caught a quick glimpse of Perry’s wife, Danielle, hunched over and crying at the kitchen table, flanked by a police officer and two other men in dark suits.

  “What’s going on here?” Kat asked the officer as he led them down the hallway and through a bedroom doorway.

  “You tell me,” he answered, stopping and indicating the room.

  Kat looked in and immediately shuddered, stifling the anguished cry that nearly erupted from her throat. The room was filled with computer and electronic equipment, books, design guides, and stacks and stacks of papers, much of it from FutureTek’s archives. A quick glance around and she knew immediately what had happened. Perry Edwards himself was sitting in his office chair, his head lolled back to the side, his eyes open but unseeing and his skin a pasty blue. The prototype was still hooked up to him and two separate computer monitors in front of him told the rest of the story.

  “How much?” she asked in a horrified whisper, staring at one monitor and not wanting to believe what she was seeing.

  “Solid nine figures,” came a voice from behind them, and she turned around to see one of the suited men looking at her, his features not at all unkind. He was middle-aged with salt and pepper hair and smooth features. He looked friendly enough, but there w
as a definite air of control about him—the air of someone who knew their job and did it well. “Deposited into a series of Cayman Island accounts about four hours ago.”

  “Oh, this cannot be happening,” Kat said desperately. “This has to be some kind of a mistake.”

  “Unfortunately, there’s no mistake,” the man said, pointing to the account listings on the right hand monitor. “My question is, what was Mister Edwards selling to an enemy of the state that was worth half a billion dollars?”

  “This is outrageous!” Drew suddenly stormed, his own face a mask of shock and betrayal. “Perry? A traitor? Who was he selling our technology to?”

  “Let’s just say that it isn’t someone we would want to be selling high-tech gizmos to,” the man said and then stuck out his hand. “Rick Alders. Homeland Security.” The CEO of FutureTek accepted his handshake.

  “Can you tell us what’s going on here?” Jackson asked, his voice wavering but holding his ground.

  “Well, Mister Jackson, that’s what we’re trying to ascertain,” Alders replied easily. “Would you mind telling me what your boy was trying to sell?”

  “It’s a prototype,” he explained, placing a hand firmly on Kat’s arm to keep her quiet. “It’s a wireless version of a technology that allows the user a unique perspective on dealing with computing issues such as viruses and software failures. That’s all we can tell you about it right now.”

  “Must be some tech,” Alders said, “if it’s strong enough to kill someone and worth that much money to another country.”

  “That’s just the thing,” he continued. “It shouldn’t kill anyone, but it’s also a prototype and untested in the field.”

  “But worth a lot of money?”

  “You could say that,” he answered. “We just demo’d the product for a major corporation two days ago. Rumored acquisition price would have been pretty substantial.”

  “Making everyone a lot of money.”

  Both Drew and Kat nodded.

  “But a lot of money wasn’t good enough for Mister Edwards here, it would appear,” Alders added.