“Her name is Rebecca Stile and she works for the UK branch of Sirius Dynamics. I think that’s why she was hanging around near our servers; she was thinking of Sirius and must have subconsciously followed my markers here without realizing what she was doing. I have her home address and phone number and email…” I reeled them off before the memory could fade while Spider recorded the information on his laptop, his fingers flying.
I went on, “Sam discovered her at the same time as the rest of us, but he didn’t add her to the official list so the other Knights never knew about her. He gave her all the same tests while she was growing up, and when she turned eighteen he offered her a dream job as his personal assistant. In exchange for complete confidentiality, keeping her hair dyed any colour but red for the rest of her life, and relocating to Britain, he would give her lifetime employment with the UK branch of Sirius Dynamics with raises and an indexed pension, an apartment of her own, and glamorous European holidays a couple of times a year. She’s been working for Sirius UK ever since.”
A moment of silence floated on the line, and I imagined Stemp’s incisive mind coming to the same conclusion I’d already reached.
“She was Kraus’s insurance policy in case he lost control of Sirius Dynamics,” Stemp deduced. “He kept Rebecca Stile secret from the rest of the Knights so he could access classified information for his own purposes without their knowledge.”
“Yeah, I think so.” I let out a breath of pure fatigue. “She doesn’t know anything about it; but that scenario fits. Up to now I’ve thought Nora was lying about getting Sam to move away with her, because he was so obsessed with getting me into his program that I just couldn’t see him giving up. But if he had a fallback plan…”
“Rebecca Stile could have been it,” Stemp agreed. “If so, Kraus’s delay in leaving Canada makes sense. He had to wait until she was legally an adult so he could offer her the job.”
“Right.” Bitterness twisted my heart. “So he got everything he wanted. He got my mom and a new life in the UK, and he got Rebecca so he could continue his so-called research. And he got me in the end, too. That fucking bastard.”
“There will be time for anger later,” Stemp said. “Right now our priority is shutting down Rebecca Stile. How did she get into the network? And how can we contain her if she has the same abilities as you?”
“We can’t,” I said, weariness dragging at my bones. “But I think I’ve bought us some time.”
“How?”
“Her cushy lifetime job kept her from developing any useful skills beyond basic clerical work. She doesn’t know much about computers, and she hasn’t a clue what just happened to her or where she is. She thinks she nodded off at her desk and she’s having a horrible nightmare. So I…” I hesitated, guilt twisting my guts all over again. “I added a thought to her mind. A… certainty. She knows, or thinks she knows, that if she stays exactly where she is and ignores everything around her, she’ll wake up soon and everything will go back to normal.”
“Risky,” Stemp objected.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “But I don’t think she’s going to pop out of the network and blab.”
“Why not?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and suppressed a shudder. “She’s been bouncing around the internet since about four o’clock PM yesterday, London time. She got an email from Nora asking for some financial files and even though it was Sunday over there, she went to the office. The last normal thing she remembers was looking in one of Sam’s desk drawers for the USB thumb drive that contained the financial archives. She found a thumb drive and plugged it in…”
“I bet it was one of the brainwave-driven network generators, wasn’t it?” Spider interjected eagerly. “And if her network key was anywhere nearby and her mind wandered for a few minutes, she would have slipped into the network without realizing it, just like you did the first time, right?”
“Right,” I agreed without opening my eyes. “And she’s been floating around in the internet for over eighteen hours.” I held my voice absolutely flat, hoping to hide the nausea churning in my stomach. “Her body will have lost bladder and bowel control after that long. And it’s nearly ten-thirty in the morning over there. Somebody will have found her by now and rushed her to the hospital, where they’ll discover she’s in a coma with no brain activity. As long as they tube-feed her body, she’ll survive…”
I swallowed rising bile. “…but if somebody doesn’t take her network key and the network generator to the hospital and go into virtual reality to guide her out, she’ll be trapped in the internet forever.”
Chapter 16
“Ohmigod.” Spider’s voice came out strangled. “Ohmigod! That’s horrible! We have to get Rebecca out of the internet!”
“No.” Stemp’s tone was coolly analytical. “We do not. Well done, Kelly. She may be privy to a great deal of damaging information at the moment, but as long as she is ignoring it and incapable of communicating it to anyone…”
“We can’t just leave her there!” Spider burst out. “That’s sick! I won’t stand by and-”
“You will,” Stemp interrupted. “Because you are currently incapable of altering the situation.”
I opened my eyes in time to see furious spots of red blaze into Spider’s pale cheeks. “You…” he began.
I clamped a hand on his wrist, making him sputter into silence. I wasn’t sure whether he would actually yell obscenities at Stemp, but now wasn’t the time to find out.
“We’ll have to get her out,” I said firmly. “Because until she’s out, we can’t go in. We can’t risk Tammy encountering her, and if I’m exhausted I can’t deal with another collision, either. And as for the idea that she can’t communicate…” I shrugged, feeling the ache of tension in my shoulders. “…if she realizes where she is and what’s happening, she could send emails or create data files on any server in the world. So the sooner we get her out, the better. I just hope the memory I implanted will keep her calm until then.”
And keep her from realizing that she was living my worst nightmare. I shuddered.
“If her physical body died, that would solve the problem, would it not?” Stemp’s clinical tone sent a shiver of nausea through my guts.
If he issued a kill order, Rebecca Stile would be dead within hours; maybe less. And he’d do it, too. I knew it with absolute certainty.
“I wouldn’t want to count on it,” I said hurriedly. “When my physical body was comatose it didn’t matter a bit to my consciousness in the internet. I came out of the network when my physical body was tranked unconscious; but I knew what was happening and I wanted to come out. What if her body died but her consciousness didn’t know it had been separated? And if her consciousness stayed in the internet, we’d have no way to ever get her out. She could exist in there forever, learning more and getting crazier and more dangerous all the time.”
My voice quivered at the end of the sentence. I had only been trying to prevent Stemp from killing Rebecca in cold blood; but now that I’d thought it through, her destructive potential was horrifying. Not to mention the possibility of her eternal captivity.
“So we have to get her out,” I finished, my pulse thumping. “The sooner the better.”
Spider’s fists clenched. “We have to do it now while we can still find her! Even if she stays right where she is, the IP addresses will shift and the route you used to find her will be gone.”
My heart plummeted. “Shit, I didn’t think of that. What if she’s already lost? Tammy or I could run into her anytime. I can handle it if I’m rested, but when I’m wiped out like this…” I trailed off, too tired to even finish the sentence. “And Tammy wouldn’t have a clue,” I went on. “She’d give away every scrap of classified data she knows without even realizing it…”
I considered the possibilities for a moment, but my worn-out brain rebelled. I shot Spider a questioning look. “Maybe Tammy’s mind would be shielded because she goes in with Brock controlling her the way the ori
ginal Knights did…?”
“I doubt it,” Spider said. “I think the Knights purposely designed the system so the mages would do a complete memory-sync every time they met. Brock might be able to override it with his control chip, but we’ve never attempted it…”
“That is an unacceptable risk,” Stemp snapped. “Webb, I thought you had developed a way to allow Kelly and Ms. Mellor to coexist inside the network if they collided. Can’t we do the same in this situation?”
“No.” Spider knotted his bony fingers together but they trembled anyway. “It was never really a solution; only a workaround. The problem is that mages are, um…”
He hesitated, obviously searching for an explanation that would make sense to non-techies. He blew out a breath and dove in. “Okay, so you know about bandwidth, right? How any given connection can only handle a certain rate of data transfer?”
“Yes,” Stemp replied. “And the bandwidth varies with the type of connection. Sirius’s optical-fibre backbone allows us maximum bandwidth.”
“Right,” Spider agreed. “And that’s what makes the mages so unique. When they’re in the internet they’re like… super-compressed data bursts. Their consciousness squishes billions of megabytes of data into a crazy-efficient format so they can travel through connections that normally wouldn’t handle even a tiny fraction of that bandwidth.”
Enlightenment dawned, and I fell back in my chair. “So that’s why it’s such a data storm whenever I meet another mage. I’m just happily floating along in the regular data flow; and then all of a sudden, wham, I’m completely overwhelmed.”
“Yes,” Spider agreed. “So my workaround is to throttle Tammy’s data connection down to practically nothing whenever I know you’re both in the network.” He sighed. “And that’s why it won’t work with Rebecca, or with any other external mage. I can’t throttle a signal that doesn’t originate here.” His voice rose with urgency. “But we have to go and find Rebecca right now, or we’ll lose her…” He gulped. “Omigod, what if the hospital takes her off life support because she’s brain-dead? What if Rebecca’s body dies but her ghost lives on forever in the internet?”
Stemp’s reply was as dispassionate as always. “Unavoidable. You have done all you can do tonight. Kelly is, by her own admission, exhausted and unable to risk another contact. File a report containing all of Rebecca Stile’s pertinent data, before her memories fade from Kelly’s mind. Then both of you go home and sleep. When Kelly is rested, you may attempt to find Ms. Stile…” His tone sharpened. “…but you are not to re-enter the network under any circumstances without my explicit permission. I will notify Brock that the covert decryption program is on hold and that he and Ms. Mellor are to stay out of the network until further notice.”
“But at least let me check to see whether she’s been admitted to a hospital,” Spider begged. “I could-”
“No,” Stemp said, his voice hard as iron. “I will assign one of the on-duty analysts to check hospital records. You are to file your report, return Kelly’s network access key immediately to the secured area, leave the building, go to your respective homes, and go to sleep. Both of you. That’s an order. Understood?”
Spider and I exchanged a helpless glance.
“Understood.” Spider’s and my acquiescence came out on a groan and a sigh, respectively.
“Good night.” Stemp hung up.
My eyes fell shut and I let out a long sigh. When I dragged my eyelids open again, Spider was watching me with an expression of fearful anticipation.
“So…” He glanced over his shoulder at the open door as if afraid to be overheard. “Are we going to…”
“Disobey a direct order?” I finished. “No. Not this time, anyway.” Defeated, I hauled myself out of the desk chair and trudged over to fall onto the couch, burying my head in my hands. “Stemp’s right,” I said to the floor. “I couldn’t handle another collision right now. And if I go back to where I left her and she’s still there, we’ll collide for sure and I’ll end up giving away classified information that could kill a lot of innocent people. I feel sick about leaving her in there, but there’s nothing more we can do tonight.”
“Oh…” Spider’s voice trailed off into a minor key.
I didn’t want to see the hope dying in his eyes, so I kept my face in my hands.
“Well, that’s a relief,” he said.
“What?” My head popped up.
He was watching me with a bittersweet smile. “I hate that we can’t do anything right now; but I’m glad you’re not going to risk your life trying.” He poised his fingers over his laptop keyboard. “Tell me, as best you can, where in the internet you met Rebecca. An IP address, some kind of recognizable data; anything. And tell me everything that might be important about Rebecca Stile.”
It didn’t take long. My mind was crowded with her memories, but most of them were irrelevant. I sighed and fell back on the sofa. “I wish she’d known more about what was going on with the UK branch of Sirius Dynamics. And especially whether Nora knew about what Sam was doing. All those happy memories of vacations with Nora and Sam are completely fucking useless.”
I tried not to sound bitter, but Rebecca’s memory of calling Nora ‘my second mom’ made my stomach ache. Especially since Nora had never told Rebecca about me, her real daughter.
Not one word.
Spider closed his laptop, rose, and stretched before coming over and reaching down to help haul me off the sofa. “Come on, let’s call it a day. Or a night.” He grimaced. “Or, heck; a morning, I guess. At least we can still get a few hours of sleep.”
“That sounds like heaven…” I trailed off as a thought struck me. “Oh. Actually, never mind. You go on home. I’m going to sleep here in my office.”
“But…” Spider’s brows drew together. “Wait, you’re not sending me away so you can try to save Rebecca without getting me in trouble, are you?”
“No, I’m not that noble.” I gave him a grimace. “Or that stupid. It’s just that I don’t have my car tonight. Things got complicated earlier and John ended up bringing me in. Which reminds me, have you heard from him?”
“No. Should I have?”
“No; no news is good news. Daniel got sick and John wasn’t sure how serious it was, so he took him to the hospital. I told him to call you if anything went wrong, so that must mean it’s only a normal childhood bug.”
Spider’s frown deepened. “I hope Daniel’s okay. But you don’t need to sleep here. I’ll drive you home.”
“No, that’s okay, it’s the middle of the night…” I began.
“And that’s why you need to go home and sleep in your own bed,” he said firmly. “Come on. I’ll take your network key down to the secured area on the way out, and then I’ll drive you home.”
I surrendered. “Thanks, you really are the best!”
Crossing the parking lot toward his tiny Smart Fortwo a few minutes later, I shot a worried look up at the fat snowflakes floating down from the dark sky.
“I don’t think you’d better try driving on the highway.” I shuffled my feet through the fluffy accumulation. “There’s a good four inches of new snow here and my road wasn’t great to start with. Your little tires aren’t designed for this.”
Spider frowned. “I hate to admit it, but you’re right. I’ll be lucky to make it into my own driveway. But that’s okay, you can stay at our place.” His expression brightened. “And you don’t even have to sleep on the couch! You’ll get a room all to yourself because we just finished cleaning all our crap out of the spare room for-” He stopped speaking abruptly. “…um…”
Even in the pallid streetlights I could see the flush rising on his cheeks. He avoided my gaze with a theatrical glance at the sky. “Wow, look at the size of those snowflakes! They’re as big as golf balls!”
“Never mind, I’ll stay here,” I said. “I don’t want to put you out.”
“No, it’s fine! Of course it’s fine,” he insisted. “We’ve got to
ns of room and it’s no trouble at all…”
“Spider.” I halted him with a hand on his parka sleeve. “You can’t lie to me. I know you’re uncomfortable about having me stay with you, it’s written all over your face. I’m perfectly fine in my office; you don’t need to-”
“We’ve cleaned out the spare room to make a nursery!” he blurted. “We’re having a baby!” A grin split his face and he clutched my sleeve, his eyes sparkling. “Linda’s eight weeks pregnant and we aren’t telling anybody until she’s past the first trimester, but it’s been killing me not to say anything ’cause I’m so excited!” A laugh bubbled out of him as he bounced on the balls of his feet, shaking my arm in jubilant emphasis. “We’re having a baby, Aydan! How totally awesome is that?”
Spider’s joy ignited a wide grin of my own despite my exhaustion, and I threw my arms around him. “That’s wonderful! Congratulations! I’m so happy for you!”
“I’m so happy I think I’m going to burst!” He pulled back, sobering. “But you can’t tell anybody. Not a soul, okay? And especially not my mom or Lola. We don’t want to…” He hesitated, his eyes darkening with worry. “I mean… the first trimester is big, you know? If anything’s going to happen…” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Oh, God, I hope nothing happens…” He reopened his eyes to gaze down at me. “It would be awful if… if Linda miscarried. But it would be so much worse if our families were looking forward to having a new baby and then we had to tell them…” He trailed off. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you, either.”
“It’s okay, don’t apologize.” I squeezed his mittened hand. “I’m thrilled for you; but I promise I’m not one of those baby-crazy women. If anything bad happened…” I squeezed his hand harder. “…and it won’t, everything’s going to be just fine… I would only be sad for you and Linda; I wouldn’t be disappointed for myself.”
He slumped with relief, smiling again. “Okay. Thanks.” He turned back toward the car. “Come on, let’s get home before the snow gets so deep we have to walk.”
Friends In Spy Places Page 13