She gave him a tense smile and planted a kiss on his cheek.
“Showtime,” she said. Paul pressed the button and activated the transmitter.
Alyssa ripped open the door and rushed out. She tore down the hallway, counting off the seconds in her head, and slid to her knees in front of the server room door.
Three…
She pressed the digital lockpick against the ID scanning panel and started the decoding sequence program on the phone. The display flickered through the number combinations.
Six…
Seven…
Eight…
Now would be good!
The LED light above the panel flashed from red to green, and the door lock clicked open. Alyssa threw her weight against it and flew inside, slamming the door shut behind her with her foot.
That was close.
Brushed aluminum tiles beneath her covered the space wall to wall. Alyssa gave a small shiver at the ten-degree temperature drop and the cool metal against her palms as she propped herself up. Bright overhead lights and polished walls surrounded a ten-foot-tall black tower that loomed before her, perched on a knee-high, circular base in the center of the room. A desk with a three-monitor terminal stood against the far wall.
The soft hum of fans and burble of water was interrupted by a low whistle in her earpiece as the connection was re-established and Clay soaked in the camera feed.
“Alyssa, meet the D-wave quantum computer. Five thousand qubit of mint processing power. You’re looking at one of three in the world. Brill idea to use the ocean as a cooling reservoir, by the way. With that much heat energy coming off—”
“Clay,” she interrupted him. “Whenever you’re done geeking out—let’s do this.” She gained her feet and moved to the platform, ready to step up.
“Stop!” Clay called out.
Alyssa froze.
“Give me a closer look of that platform.”
Alyssa complied.
“Well, clutch your pearls,” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“This beast is sitting on a gyroscopic stabilizer. You have to disable it first before getting up there.”
“The what now?”
“The platform it’s sitting on is self-stabilizing,” Clay explained. “It keeps the tower perfectly upright regardless of the orientation of the ship to keep all the digital bits-and-bobs from swinging about in the waves.”
Of course, why wouldn’t it have a gyroscopic stabilizer…?
She moved to a panel next to the platform and pointed the camera at it.
“I think this might be the control for it,” she said, reading the display. She followed the menus.
“Disengage auto-level?”
“Tickety-boo,” Clay said. “What do you need me for?”
“Don’t leave quite yet.” She pressed the icon, and the platform locked in place with a metallic clang.
“Go to the other side,” Clay instructed, “and look for an access door.”
Alyssa circled the tower and swung open a tall metal panel. Inside the cylinder, dozens of flat computer modules, lights blinking, were stacked like pancakes, connected with neatly crimped cables.
“Now what?” Alyssa asked.
“See the top module on the left? Pull it out.”
“Pull it out? Isn’t it going to mess—?”
“This machine is designed with failover redundancy in case of individual component failure or abnormal termination. If any module goes offline, the other ones take over while it runs a self-diagnostic. You just need to get it back online before the diagnostic completes, and it will be reintegrated into the core framework.”
Alyssa didn’t understand much of what Clay said, but she took confidence from his vocabulary. Still, she held her breath as she unfastened the metal clips and pulled out the top module. She tensed when the lights on it dimmed.
“You’re doing great,” Clay said. “Now, this is it. Just like I showed you, find an active network port with a cable and plug the remote gateway into the port and then the cable into the gateway.”
“Network port,” Alyssa recalled. “Like one of those old-style phone plugs, just wider, right?”
“We’ll make a computer geek out of you yet.”
“Don’t count on it.” She craned her neck behind the flat box and pointed to a plug with a blinking green light over it.
“That’s the one!” Clay confirmed.
She took the remote gateway out of her pocket, unplugged the cable from the network port on the module, and hooked up the device. She slipped the cable into the free port on the gateway.
“Okay, Clay, it’s all hooked up!”
“Bees knees,” he said. “Now slide it back in.”
Alyssa pushed the metal box back in. After a few seconds, the lights on the front flickered, going through a sequence, then continued blinking in synch with the other modules.
“I see the signal!” Clay said. “Establishing remote connection now. Okay, let’s see how good these chaps really are. I should be able to—”
The door to the room opened. Alyssa froze.
“Somebody just walked in!” she whispered. Her gaze shot around the room. She spotted an access hatch in the floor behind her.
Too far!
The door closed and footsteps approached. She squeezed her body inside the tower and hunkered down among the hardware and cables, then pulled the panel shut behind her.
She watched through the slats in the metal as a bulky, shaggy-haired man advanced on her hiding place.
Alyssa’s line went silent.
“Alyssa!” Paul called out.
No answer.
“Clay!”
“I’m here,” Clay said, his voice tense. “The interference from the computer is blocking her signal.”
Paul glanced at the thermometer. Almost down to thirty-five.
“We’re running out of time!” He willed the silver column to stop moving down.
“Then you have to buy her more,” Clay said.
Paul’s mind raced. Desperate times call for… He popped the lid and brought the bottle to his mouth. This is going to be a bit tricky. He carefully tilted it up and waited for the grain-sized transmitter to touch his mouth, then used his tongue to guide it between his gums and cheek.
Claudia Tibaldi stepped into the surveillance office. The two guards spun their chairs around. They stood when they recognized her.
“Dr. Tibaldi,” the older one said. “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to see a picture of one our crew members.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“A young woman, blonde. Glasses. I have not seen her here before.”
The guard typed into the computer and a moment later several headshots appeared on the monitor. Claudia Tibaldi picked out the girl she saw. “That one. What do we know about her?”
“Just a moment, ma’am.” The guard’s fingers tapped on the keyboard. “Her references are impeccable. It appears that both she and the young man who arrived with her today received recommendations from the highest level.”
Claudia Tibaldi skin prickled. “Who did she arrive with?”
The guard pulled up another image. Claudia Tibaldi stepped closer, her heart thudding in her throat as sudden realization rose.
“Where are they now?” she yelled.
The guard reeled back, surprised at the outburst. “They’re…” He looked at the younger guard for support, to no avail. “They’re in—uh—a maintenance closet on deck eight,” he finally muttered.
“What?”
“They looked like a couple of kids, just looking for a place to have some fun.”
“Idiots!” she yelled. “Get down there now! And send backup!”
The older guard pushed his partner to the door. “Go!” he bellowed. “I’ll call for backup.”
The young man stormed out of the room with Claudia Tibaldi on his heels.
Alyssa evened out her breathing, kee
ping it shallow and silent as she watched the man continue past her hiding place. He set a tall silver travel mug on the desk and squeezed into a chair before the monitors, slipped in his earbuds, and began typing.
She held her breath as she gently pushed open the panel and slid out, tiptoeing to the door.
“Paul,” she whispered. “The cameras.”
“Go!” Paul whispered back.
She snuck out, pulling the door closed behind her. Alyssa exhaled and turned—and stared into the eyes of a young man in a guard uniform, his chest heaving with deep breaths.
He drew his pistol. “Don’t move! Keep your hands where I can see them!”
Alyssa’s pulse hammered in her ears as she stared at the weapon. She spotted the door behind the guard opening. Paul! He put a finger to his lips as he stalked toward the young man.
“I’m sorry… Please, this is all a big misunderstanding,” Alyssa said, her eyes locked on the guard’s. “I… I arrived today and was just exploring the ship.”
“Save it!” the guard barked. His face was a mask, a bead of sweat forming on his temple.
“Hey!” Paul’s voice rang out behind him. He spun.
Alyssa’s hands shot up and reached for the gun. At the same time, Paul rammed into him from the other side, and all three of them tangled to the floor. The guard grunted as he crashed onto his back, his right hand smashing into the hard metal. The pistol slipped from his fingers and slid away.
Paul rolled off him and dove for the weapon as Alyssa pinned him down for the second it took Paul to reach the gun. She groaned as the guard wrestled his hand from her grip and snatched a handful of hair, yanking her head back. She screamed an instant before she heard Paul’s voice.
“Stop!”
The guard froze when he spotted Paul’s cutting gaze over the muzzle of the pistol. He released her hair, and Alyssa rolled off him, trying to ignore the searing pain in her scalp. She gained her feet and moved beside Paul.
“Stay calm and everything will be fine,” she said, trying to sound much braver than she felt. “We don’t want to hurt you.”
The guard eyed her, anger hardening his young face, but he remained motionless and silent.
She glanced at Paul. His face was twisted in agony.
“Paul! What’s wrong?” she asked, concerned.
“I swallowed your transmitter,” he said, grimacing.
“Wha—?”
The door at the far end of the corridor burst open, revealing the Italian woman and a guard holding an automatic rifle.
Paul shoved Alyssa ahead of him, away from the pair. They stopped in their tracks when the door at the far end of the hallway flew open, revealing another armed man.
At the same moment, the door to the server room opened up. The shaggy-haired man stepped halfway through it.
“What’s all this—?” His jaw dropped when he saw Alyssa and the pistol in Paul’s hand. Before he had a chance to react, Alyssa yanked him into the hallway and squeezed through the half-open door, pulling Paul with her. She slammed the door shut behind them.
“Lock the door!” she yelled to Paul.
“What? How?” Paul stammered.
“I don’t know! Shoot the control panel or something!”
Paul stared at Alyssa for a second then pointed the pistol at the control panel and squeezed the trigger three times.
The gunshots thundered as the metal walls in the room amplified and reflected the cracks. The three rounds impacted the panel, bursting glass and sending sparks flying. The display on the panel went dark—then the door popped open.
Paul threw himself against it, slamming it shut. He fired a look at Alyssa.
She cringed. “It always worked in the movies!”
“Alyssa, Paul!” Clay’s voice rang in her headset. “What’s going on?”
“Later, Clay!” Alyssa glanced to the ten-foot tower and at the gyroscopic stabilizer. She rushed to the control panel and flew through the menus.
Manual override. She pressed it.
Calibrate maximum pitch. She crossed her fingers and pressed one of the arrows. The far side of the platform began to rise, tilting the server at the door.
She ran behind the tower, tugging Paul with her.
“What—?” Paul started.
“We’ll use it to block the door!” She put her shoulder against the tower and pushed. Comprehension dawned on Paul’s face. He threw his body against the tower.
A pained moan echoed through her earbuds. “No! You can’t—”
“It’s either this or us!” she called out, straining. Beside her, Paul’s face twisted. “Come on!” The pitch of Alyssa’s voice rose with the edge of the platform.
The upward movement stopped.
“No!” she cried out.
“It’s too heavy!” Paul called out between strained breaths.
“Come on Paul!” she yelled, her arms and voice trembling with the effort.
Paul turned and squatted. He dug his heels into the platform and latched onto the bottom edge of the tower, shoving his back against it. A feral grunt escaped him.
The tower budged and sluggishly lifted off the floor.
“This is a really bad—” Clay shouted.
“Not now, Clay!” Alyssa cried.
“But the server controls the uplink!”
“Shut up!” they both howled in unison.
“Listen to me,” Clay continued, “if the server goes offline, we’re going to lose the—”
With a screech of metal, the server slid down the platform and toppled, wedging itself against the door and sending sparks flying. Clay’s voice was replaced by static.
“Clay?” Paul called out. “Clay!” He flicked a glance at Alyssa. “Now what?”
Alyssa allowed herself a moment of triumph, then panic, then forced them both down. They had to get out of there. She rushed to the hatch in the floor and lifted the handle. The seals released with a whoosh, and she pulled up the hatch, revealing a ladder.
Alyssa poked her head into the space below. The deck was barely high enough to stand up and filled with various mechanical components, ducts, and conduits.
She popped back up. “Looks like a maintenance deck.”
“Where does it lead?” Paul asked.
“Away!” Alyssa stepped onto the ladder.
Paul didn’t follow her.
“Come on!” she urged.
“They can track me,” he said. “You have zero chance of making it off the ship with me.”
“What are you talking about? We’ll cut it out, just like we did mine.”
He pointed to his stomach. “What about this one?”
“Paul…” she reached for him.
He squeezed her hand then put the pistol in it. “It will do you more good.”
Alyssa clung to the ladder, frozen. A heavy thud rattled the door. Then another.
“Go!” Paul yelled. “They’ll be here soon, one way or another!”
“No,” she protested. Her eyes darted around the room, to the man’s workstation. She spotted the stainless steel mug on the desk. She dashed up and popped the lid.
Soda! With lots of ice!
She shoved the mug in Paul’s face. “Drink it—all of it!”
“What?”
“The tracker has to be kept at body temperature, right? Clay said if the temperature drops below that it gets permanently deactivated. If you drink it fast, the cold liquid in your stomach may cool off the tracker long enough to deactivate it!”
Paul stared at her. “This might actually work,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re a genius!” He lifted the mug and swallowed great gulps of the cold drink.
Alyssa moved to the busted control panel and picked up one of the glass shards. Paul swallowed the last mouthful, grimacing.
“You okay?” she asked.
He stood stock still for a second, his face knotted, then erupted with a savage burp. His expression laxed.
“My throat and stomach feel lik
e icicles. And I’m never drinking Cherry Coke again.”
“Good!” She held up the shard. “Ready?”
He clenched his jaw and nodded. Alyssa tried to ignore the racket from the corridor and keep her hand steady as she pressed the shard against his forearm, cutting into skin. Paul inhaled sharply.
Alyssa winced. “Sorry,” she whispered, forcing herself to push the shard even deeper. She pulled it back out and squeezed the incision together. The silver capsule appeared on the skin. Paul lifted it from his forearm and threw it across the room.
Alyssa swung onto the ladder and slid down. Paul followed, securing the hatch over his head. He jumped down the last few rungs.
A wide space stretched before them, as large as a parking garage, save for the ceiling, which was low enough for her to touch without fully extending her arm. Smooth panel flooring lay underfoot, overhead ran rows of fluorescent lights and an open lattice of pipes and utility conduits. Support beams stood at even intervals, giving the place an eerie, grid-like appearance.
Alyssa sensed the weight of Paul’s gaze on her, waiting for her assessment.
Static crackled in Alyssa’s ear.
“…lyssa… Paul? Do… copy?”
“Clay?” Paul’s face lit up with relief. “Clay, we’re here,” he said. “Can you hear me?”
The static in her headset grew quieter, replaced by Clay’s voice.
“Thank God! Are you both okay?”
“How did you—?” Alyssa asked, perplexed. “I thought…”
“I managed to set up a secondary uplink just before you made a dog’s dinner of that quantum rig. I had to reroute the connection through…” he paused. “Never mind. What’s your status?”
“Could be better,” Paul said. “We’re on some sort of a maintenance floor.” He looked around. “We need to get off this boat.”
Clay draw in a sharp breath. “Okay… no faffing about. Good news is we’ve still got the uplink. Let me see if I can get to the ship’s schematics.”
A few moments later Clay whistled. “Yeah, baby. Ship’s schematics… and security cameras.” He paused. “And this will come in handy,” he cackled, “their tracking system.”
“So, you can see where they are?” Alyssa asked.
“Hoof it!” Clay called out without warning. “Straight ahead, another access hatch in the floor. Get in there, now!”
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